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The San Diego County Water Authority board of directors on Thursday authorized the Water Authority, in conjunction with the city of San Diego, to begin seeking detailed proposals for a potential energy storage facility at San Vicente Reservoir. The project could help ease pressure on power grids by producing locally generated renewable energy on demand, and also lessen upward pressure on water rates by providing a new source of revenue.

Gridley – “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the impact on your lives,” Bill Croyle told a crowd of more than 250 people at the Butte County Fairgrounds. Croyle, the acting director of the Department of Water Resources, answered questions and listened Thursday evening as people stepped up to a microphone and were heard during the first of the water agency’s community meetings about the Oroville Dam spillway disaster and evacuations. Six more meetings are planned through mid-May. The next one is scheduled at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Oroville Municipal Auditorium on Myers Street in Oroville.

California water officials on Thursday approved funding for Paso Robles’ proposed $18 million tertiary sewage treatment plant, the final in a series of major infrastructure projects that will bring about 3,300 acre-feet of water to the city each year. Dick McKinley, Paso Robles’ director of public works, said Thursday that the city plans to award a contract bid next month and break ground on the plant in June or July.

A controversial California irrigation drainage deal designed to resolve one of the West’s trickiest, most expensive and longest-running water problems won approval from a key House of Representatives panel Thursday. But the debate – and uproar over the proposal – is only beginning, and its long-term fate is uncertain. On a mostly party-line 23-16 vote, the House Natural Resources Committee approved the bill to settle the irrigation dispute between the mammoth Westlands Water District and the federal government.