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Gary Croucher-Board Chair-San Diego County Water Authority-Primary

2021: A Year of Accomplishments for the Water Authority

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Looking back over all that we have accomplished in 2021 makes me thankful for the thousands of hard-working professionals who serve our region by ensuring safe, reliable water supplies each and every day.

I’m especially proud of the team at the San Diego County Water Authority – from my fellow Board members to our dedicated staff to our member agency partners – that works on countless complex issues from pipeline relinings to bond refundings. Everything they do is designed to support the long-term health of our regional water delivery system at an affordable cost, even in the face of ongoing challenges like the pandemic and supply chain issues.

This year yielded ample results from our collective efforts. Over the past 12 months, we:

  • Returned more than $80 million directly to our member agencies from rate case litigation that also prevented hundreds of millions of dollars of additional overcharges that would have ultimately shown up on every water bill in the region.
  • Met the region’s need for water as drought worsened across the West while promoting wise use of our most precious natural resource.
  • Crafted a positive, productive relationship with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to collaboratively work on drought response and other pressing issues for the benefit of the entire state.
  • Earned regional and national recognition for our work on climate adaptation, outreach and education, conservation, engineering, finance, and other efforts.
  • Adopted a hold-the-line budget with a 0% percent increase.
  • Secured $18 million in state funds to launch development of the San Vicente Energy Storage Facility, which could play a major role in preventing blackouts, harnessing the full potential of renewable energy, and generating revenue to offset water system costs.

There’s a lot more to our story that you can read in our FY2021 Annual Report. For now, I’ll wish you a wonderful holiday season and look forward to seeing you in 2022.

Happy holidays!

2021 ARVC Large Park of the Year and Plan-It Green Park of the Year

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Santee, Calif. – Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve has been named Plan-it Green and Large Park of the Year by the National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds (ARVC). This prominent recognition was awarded during the recent 2021 Outdoor Hospitality Conference & Expo (OHCE).

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Could the Sierra Get 100 Inches of Snow by Christmas? Here’s the Mountain Forecast

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kellie Hwang

If You’re Headed Up to Tahoe This Week and Dreaming of a White Christmas, Meteorologists Say You’ll Get Your Wish. But It Might Not Be the Smoothest Trip Through the Sierra Nevada.

The Mountains Are Expected to Get Blanketed With Snow From a Series of Storms That Will Bring Rain to the Bay Area, With Donner Pass Seeing Possibly a Total of 80 to 100 Inches of Snow Tuesday Through Saturday, According to the National Weather Service Office in Sacramento.

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As Water Officials Repair Damage From Subsidence, They Demand Prevention From Groundwater Agencies

/in , , /by /KVPRby Kerry Klein

State water officials have asked local groundwater agencies to better prevent land subsidence. Simultaneously, the state is also working to fix the damage caused by sinking land.

Subsidence is caused by the over-pumping of groundwater. It occurs in many parts of California but is especially pronounced in the San Joaquin Valley during drought years.

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Storms Restore Marin Reservoirs to Above-Average Levels

/in , , /by /Marin Independent Journalby Will Houston

In a stunning turnaround, Marin County water supplies that were once at risk of going dry next year have refilled to above-average levels following a series of unusually early downpours.

Marin water officials are reevaluating some drought restrictions and penalties that were adopted earlier this year, especially with more rain in the forecast this week.

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California Likely to Crack Down on Water Waste With Daily $500 Fines

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

After two years of drought, Gov. Gavin Newsom remains reluctant to put limits on statewide water use. His administration, however, is looking to take a first step.

Next month, the State Water Resources Control Board is expected to adopt temporary prohibitions on outdoor water practices, including hosing down driveways, filling up decorative fountains and watering lawns within 48 hours of rain.

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Rainy Week on Tap for the Bay Area; Sierra Snow to Complicate Holiday Mountain Travel

/in , , /by /The Mercury Newsby Jakob Rodgers

A one-two punch of storm systems is expected to drape the Bay Area in rainy weather for much of the upcoming week while potentially making holiday travel in the Sierra Nevada mountains “very challenging to impossible,” meteorologists say.

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Environmentalists Sound Alarm Over Proposed Water Initiative

/in , , , /by /The Sunby Martin Wisckol

A proposed ballot measure that would dedicate $100 billion to bolster California’s water supply is drawing a sharp rebuke, not only for the amount of spending but also for the dramatic sidesteps it would allow in the environmental review process.

For example, the proposal would make the controversial plan for a Huntington Beach desalination plant eligible for a huge taxpayer subsidy — even though the private, for-profit Poseidon Water company currently intends to pay for the $1.4 billion in construction costs.

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California Snow Drought Ends in Dramatic Fashion, While Other States Still Deal with Shortage

/in , , /by /CNNby Allison Chinchar
Thanks to multiple atmospheric river events, average snowpack in California has gone from 18% to 98% in just two weeks.
“Increases in snowpack of this size are not common, but also not unprecedented,” Julie Kalansky, deputy director of operations for the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes (CW3E), explained.
Kalansky pointed out previous studies have shown a jump on this scale can happen about twice every three years, but usually over the course of an entire winter, not just the month of December. While they don’t have the exact rankings for each month of the year, “most of the storm events in the study we referenced for the above calculation were in the second half of December and later into the season,” Kalansky added.
The sudden change gives California its wettest start to the Water Year in more than 40 years, thanks to several drought-denting rain and snow systems pushing through the area in recent weeks. The Water Year runs from October 1 through September 30 of the following year.
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UCSD Reports ‘Unprecedented’ Spike in COVID Virus in San Diego Wastewater

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby Debbie L. Sklar

An “unprecedented” spike in COVID-19 viral load in wastewater collected from San Diego County’s primary wastewater treatment facility was reported Saturday by UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers.

The amount of COVID-19 virus detected in wastewater has predicted the region’s COVID-19 caseload up to three weeks ahead of clinical diagnostic reports, the researchers said. Since people with COVID-19 shed the virus in their stool even before they experience symptoms, wastewater screening acts as an early warning system.

“The wastewater screening results reported on Friday are unlike any the team has seen before,” said Jackie Carr of UC San Diego Health. Both Delta and Omicron variants of the virus were detected in the wastewater.

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