Chula Vista, Calif. – Sweetwater Authority received a rebate of $205,891 from the San Diego County Water Authority. The funds are a result of the SDCWA litigation against the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The money is from attorneys’ fees paid by MWD to the SDCWA. In total, the Authority has received $2,151,194 from the SDCWA rate case distribution.
As a worsening drought forces millions of Californians to face mandatory water restrictions, one corner of Southern California has largely shielded itself from supply-related woes: San Diego County.
For Western water planners, the path it took to get there serves either as a blueprint or a cautionary tale.
Over the past three decades, San Diego County diversified its water supply, ramped up conservation and invested in big-ticket water infrastructure including the Western hemisphere’s largest desalination plant, which removes salt and impurities from ocean water. As a result, the water agency that serves 24 water utilities including the city of San Diego says it can avoid cuts until at least 2045, even during dry periods.
Any WaterSmart landscape makeover starts with observing and recording your property as it exists today. Think of it as a bird’s eye view or satellite map showing your property’s boundaries and physical features. This becomes the basis of all your planning. You need a few basic tools to draw your own plot plan.
Before starting your water-saving landscape makeover, there are significant decisions to make, including plant and irrigation choices. First, determine what type of landscape will meet your needs and maximize your water-saving potential.
Eliminating turf is the main target for saving water. Grass requires more water to keep it green than most other plants. In fact, turf needs four times the amount of rain our region gets annually.
The Helix Water District Board of Directors honored East County student artists for their winning “Water Is Life” posters in an online awards ceremony during its May 2022 board meeting.
Southern California students in kindergarten through eighth grade are invited to participate in their regional water agency’s Student Poster Art Contest to increase awareness about water conservation.
Lake Mead, the lifeblood of the West, is at an all-time low.
And just this week, officials said it will fall by one-third of its current level by the end of 2023.
Inch by inch, the lake is falling. We’re seeing incredible images of sunken boats now visible.
The city of San Diego pursued its massive wastewater-to-drinking water recycling program, in part, because the federal government said it had to. Millions of gallons of undertreated sewage enters the Pacific Ocean through the city’s aging Point Loma treatment plant on the regular; Pure Water is the region’s first step toward a solution.
But now, a bloc of eastern San Diego County water agencies is building their own recycling project because, they say, the cost of buying imported water from the drought-ravaged Colorado River is unsustainable.
To some, it defies common sense. California is once again in the middle of a punishing drought with state leaders telling people to take shorter showers and do fewer loads of laundry to conserve water. Yet at the same time, many of the same elected officials, pledging to solve the housing crisis, are pushing for the construction of millions of new homes.
“It’s the first question I’d always get,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, who until last year ran the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the agency that delivers the water ultimately used by half the state’s population.
Long before the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency and ordered outdoor watering limited to one day a week, Sarah Lariviere, an avid gardener, was thinking about ways to conserve water.
During the pandemic, the young adult author found inspiration on the long walks that she and her husband took in their Burbank neighborhood. It wasn’t the endless series of lush green lawns that moved her, however, but the occasional drought tolerant landscape that would materialize, sandwiched between the turf.
Starting Wednesday, June 1, new restrictions go into effect for millions of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers, including limiting outdoor watering.
The effects of the water conservation ordinance will vary a bit depending on what kind of sprinkler system you have.
If you have a standard sprinkler system, each cycle is limited to a maximum of eight minutes on your approved watering days.
Sweetwater Authority Logo 2019