Mayor Todd Gloria has signed for the first installment of a $733 million federal loan to fund repairs to San Diego’s aging storm drainage system and protect coastal wetlands.
Gloria was joined by official from the Environmental Protection Agency at a signing ceremony Tuesday at Torrey Pines State Reserve overlooking the Los Peñasquitos Watershed, which will be protected by the stormwater project.
The Board of Supervisors directed the chief administrative officer Wednesday to update the county’s water and drought-management strategies, including sustainability efforts, and deliver a final report within the next year.
The overhaul, proposed by board Vice Chairwoman Nora Vargas, will incorporate the entire region, including local municipalities, Imperial County and bi-national cities.
In the parched Colorado River basin, water managers are turning over every stone looking for ways to keep the taps flowing. Now, they’re finding more water in some unusual places – shower drains and toilet flushes.
At a sprawling sewage treatment plant in Carson, California, the occasional breeze delivers a pungent whiff of a reminder of how used water becomes “reused.” Here, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is planting the seeds for a massive new facility, where a multi-billion-dollar installation could help recycle wastewater and keep drinking supply flowing for the agency’s 19 million customers.
Solvang City Council members Monday requested a construction moratorium in the face of drought conditions. The issue will be placed on their agenda for the Oct. 10 meeting for public input and council action.
“You’ve heard already here, and if you’ve been listening to the planning commission you’ve probably been getting e-mails, that maybe we should consider a construction moratorium until we get out of this drought. We are forcing everybody to take rather large cutbacks in water, and then you want to add in a hotel or apartments or whatever else,” Council Member Mark Infanti said.
Years of hot, dry conditions and population growth across the Southwest have brought painful reductions in Colorado River water flow allocations to Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico. Based on a 1920s multi-state pact, the Department of the Interior sounds an alarm when the river’s reservoirs fall to extremely low levels, leaving states with no choice but to severely cut their water use, limiting consumption by agriculture, industry and citizens.
Under the blazing afternoon sun, Joe Bernal navigates a shiny-green John Deere tractor onto a dirt road a few miles north of downtown Fruita. Bernal is headed to cut hay in a field a few hundred feet down the road. On his way, he points out the land his family has acquired over the years. His grandparents had 150 acres over there. His parents bought this land here. His great grandparents, who showed up in 1925, lived in a house right there.
Most Californians are feeling the effects of the drought. But in areas of the state where people rely on groundwater, such as the San Joaquin Valley, the pain of this drought is especially severe. Wells are going dry and there’s intense competition to find and pull more water from underground.
In a blistering third year of drought, Californians have been asked to limit their indoor water usage to 55 gallons (208 litres) per person per day. It takes about 30 gallons to fill a bathtub, so forget about a deep Jacuzzi experience.
Yet in the gated communities of Calabasas and Hidden Hills – exclusive enclaves in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu – lush lawns and filled swimming pools and koi ponds make it clear that some are ignoring the rules.
We are so technologically advanced, that we can send messages to people thousands of miles away in mere seconds; we have access to a world of knowledge with a few computer keystrokes, cars can drive themselves and phones are mini computers that we carry in our pockets.
Despite all the strides the human race has made to make life more convenient, we still struggle with things like drought, climate change and water shortages.
A California utility is set to test out whether covering canals with solar panels can save water by preventing evaporation, among other benefits.
Project Nexus is being run on a small stretch of canals operated by the Turlock Irrigation District in central California. The idea is based on an academic paper, which suggested doing this could also generate solar energy on land that wouldn’t have to be disturbed.
