The Vallecitos Water District received three awards from the California Water Environment Association on January 29. The Meadowlark Water Reclamation Facility was named the 2021 Tertiary Recycled Water Plant of the Year, Matt Wiese received the “Operator of the Year” award and the District also received the Community Engagement and Outreach award for Best Use of Social Media.
The second manual snow survey for the current water year demonstrated the impact that dry conditions in January have had on California’s snowpack. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted the survey at Phillips Station earlier in the week. While the measurements were relatively strong, there is still concern for the rest of the season as statewide water storage levels sit at about 76 percent of average.
A few hundred miles away from Las Vegas, what’s happening at a prototype wastewater purification plant in Southern California may increase our water supply here.
“We are designing the project to ultimately connect to what will likely be two of our water drinking facilities,” says Deven Upadhyay, the Chief Operating Officer and Assistant General Manager at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, that region’s equivalent to our Southern Nevada Water Authority. The Metropolitan Water District is the wholesale water provider to 26 California member agencies that service 19 million people.
Winter whiplash has hit California and the West. Doused in epic snow and rain in December, the region has just experienced one of the driest Januaries on record in many locations, and there are no storms in sight for at least the first half of February.
The weeks-long dry spell, in the midst of what should be the wettest two months of the year, is dashing hopes of meaningful drought recovery this winter. Water-year surpluses are sliding into deficits, and fire danger is on the rise in California. The reversal may soon emerge in drought maps.
California is aiming to supply 100% of its electric retail sales with renewable and zero-carbon resources by 2045, a target that — along with the electrification of transportation and other sectors — is driving the need for rapid development of renewable resources and energy storage over the next couple of decades.
This build-out will also necessitate significant transmission additions to connect out-of-state energy, as well as other generation pockets, CAISO noted in the draft outlook. The system operator has a 10-year transmission planning process; however, given that transmission requires long lead times thanks to permitting processes and right-of-way acquisitions, it concluded that a longer-term blueprint is essential.
A new poll shows an overwhelming majority of Utah residents are concerned about the drought and a mostly dry January isn’t doing much to ease those worries.
The Deseret News/Hinckley Institute of Politics survey tapped 815 registered voters from Jan. 20 to Jan. 28, finding 82% of respondents are concerned over current drought conditions in Utah in contrast to 17% who said they are not worried. Another 1% said they didn’t know.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.43 percentage points.
The three major U.S. rating agencies reported strong credit ratings and credit quality for the San Diego County Water Authority kicking off 2022. Newly released analysis by Fitch Ratings, S&P Global, and Moody’s allow the Water Authority to optimize its debt portfolio and minimize the cost of financing vital water reliability projects.
“Dry January” usually means abstinence from alcohol following the excesses of the holiday season, but this year it took on another meaning as well.
While December storms brought more than double the normal level of precipitation, January saw Arizona and other Western states return to drought conditions.
According to a Jan. 21 report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the overall area of the West in drought has increased from 77% to 88%. Despite this general increase, the percentage of areas experiencing exceptional drought dropped from 22% to 3%.
The San Diego County Water Authority and city of San Diego have decided to move forward with environmental review of a pumped-storage electricity generating plant at the San Vicente Reservoir in East County.
The project entails creating a new, smaller reservoir above the giant city-owned lake, a tunnel between the two, and underground pump turbines. Water would be pumped to the upper reservoir when there is excess power on the grid, then drawn down to generate electricity when needed.
A 20-year fight over the Poseidon Water company’s contested Huntington Beach desalination proposal will enter its last lap on March 17, the day the California Coastal Commission is set to hear it in what could be the project’s final regulatory hurdle.
Official word on the hearing date came to Voice of OC in a concise Tuesday night email from commission spokesperson Noaki Schwartz:
“Hearing will be March 17.”
