There are only a few months remaining before cities and towns learn how much water they will have to do without starting on Oct. 1. That’s when the current agreement between seven states and Mexico to share Colorado River expires.
Since the states have been unable to come to a new agreement, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will dictate the terms of a new policy going forward. And it will likely be less water for everyone.
Burnet Wohlford’s family built Escondido’s water supply. More than a century ago, his great-grandfather, Alvin, directed water to the area from the San Luis Rey River along a rock and brush canal. It’s a legacy built into the landscape, the dammed reservoir northeast of town bearing the family’s name.
But all these years later, the water system Wohlford’s family helped build is the very thing making life harder for him.
Carlsbad is almost 400 miles away from Phoenix; however, a plant in the Southern California city that turns ocean water into drinking water could help Arizonans in the future. But it wouldn’t work in the way you’re probably thinking: the new proposal is suggesting a water exchange between the states without having to build expensive pipelines.
The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) recently signed a memorandum of understanding to explore whether a water transfer of this kind is legal and feasible. The SDCWA is proposing desalinated water stays in the San Diego area, then a similar amount from California’s Colorado River Water supply would be available in places like Arizona and Nevada. That is if the states are willing to pay for it.
The San Diego County Water Authority said it will continue efforts to sell water to other regions of the state thanks to robust local supplies. The authority released a draft of its Urban Water Management Plan on Thursday that forecasts ample supply through 2050, even if there are multiple dry years.
“Thanks to the water authority’s water supply investments, San Diego County is well positioned to meet future water demands with reliable supplies,” said Director of Water Resources Jeff Stephenson.
The warm winter has left very little snow in California’s Sierra Nevada, and now an extreme heat wave is accelerating the rapid melt in the mountains.
The Sierra snowpack measures 48% of average for this time of year, according to state data, down from 73% of average in late February.
California’s water supply challenges increasingly pose risks not only to the state’s economy, but to national food production, interstate commerce, international trade, and national economic stability and security. While seawater desalination is a proven technology used worldwide to expand reliable water supplies, large-scale projects along California’s coast have faced significant regulatory barriers at the state level.
In the report, Creating Opportunities to Bring Seawater Desalination to Coastal Federal Lands in California, authors Edward Ring, Director of Water and Energy Policy at California Policy Center, and Tim Paone, Partner at Cox, Castle & Nicholson LLP, outline practical actions the federal government can take using existing authority or targeted legislative action to enable the development of seawater desalination facilities on federal coastal lands in California.
Hot temperatures are set to surge across San Diego County starting Thursday morning, reaching 15–20 degrees above normal, according to the National Weather Service.
On Wednesday, we have warm and sunny weather with highs in the upper 60s to low/mid 70s from the beaches to the valleys. Offshore winds will gust 15–25 mph in the mountain communities.
A February deadline for determining future operating guidelines for the West’s two largest reservoirs came and went with no agreement on the table and clear lines drawn in the sand.
A seven-state resolution to how Lake Mead and Lake Powell will be operated when the interim guidelines expire at the end of this year wasn’t reached by Feb. 14, and the lack of a sound technical or legal plan by the Bureau of Reclamation in favor of political rhetoric may propel the situation into increasingly dire straits.
A National City woman is sharing her story after a nearly $4,000 door-to-door water filter purchase led to a dispute — and a refund — with help from NBC 7 and Telemundo 20 Responds. Olegaria Herrera said a salesperson knocked on her door and described a water filtration system that immediately caught her interest.
“Truth is, I never saw the product,” Herrera said in Spanish. “He described it and how it would work, and it interested me.”
Water levels at a few local reservoirs are a bit low, but the city of San Diego says that’s to save you money.
