Sonia Herbert of Bombay Beach wants people to know that California’s Salton Sea isn’t all dystopian sunbaked abandoned homes, poverty, ominous toxic dust and decaying nostalgia. It’s also a place where people live and find beauty around the mirage-like lake in the desert.
As millions of newcomers have flocked to the Las Vegas Valley over the past 50 years, every level of government in the nation’s driest state has worked to ensure that water shortages don’t stop the growth.
Since 1999, southern Nevada has ripped out thousands of acres of turf from lawns, sports fields and roadway medians under the West’s most ambitious grass-removal program. These efforts helped halve the amount of water each resident consumed and freed up enough for Clark County to add nearly 1 million people.
Carbon dioxide levels measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked at 424 parts per million (ppm) in May, continuing a steady climb further into territory not seen for millions of years, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego announced today, June 5, 2023.
A county commission will meet again in August to decide whether to allow two North County communities to switch water providers.
“We cannot afford to buy items, such as water, at the super-high rates for our farm to be sustainable,” said Kendall Farms CEO Jason Kendall, during Monday’s meeting at the County Administration Center.
The San Diego County Local Agency Formation Commission is considering a proposal to allow the Fallbrook Public Utility District and the Rainbow Municipal Water District to switch water service to Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County and cut ties with the San Diego County Water Authority.
Lake Mead’s water levels have risen slightly as the record snowpack in the southwest continues to melt.
As of June 5, the Colorado River reservoir in Nevada stood at 1,054.42 feet.
The lake has risen sharply since the end of April when the Bureau of Reclamation released a vast amount of water from Lake Powell. The water ran through the Grand Canyon and eventually into Lake Mead, replenishing sandbars and beaches.
For the first time in this drought-stricken century, a new price for water in the West has been set – and it’s 25 times higher than what farmers have paid for the last 75 years.
Arizona, Nevada and California recently agreed to reduce their water consumption from the Colorado River by 13% through 2026. The federal government will pay their irrigation districts, Native American tribes and cities $521 for each acre-foot of water they don’t use.
The Vallecitos Water District Board of Directors has voted to rescind mandatory drought restrictions Monday, loosening conservation measures for North County residents.
Effective June 10, the water district will be moving from “Level 2 – Drought Alert” to “Level 1 – Drought Watch,” district officials announced Monday.
In downtown San Francisco, in a cavernous garage that was once a Honda dealership, a gleaming white-and-blue appliance about the size of a commercial refrigerator is being prepared for transport to a hotel in Los Angeles.
There, this unit, called a OneWater System, will be installed in the basement, where its collection of pipes will take in much of the hotel’s graywater — from sinks, showers, and laundry. The system will clean the water with membrane filtration, ultraviolet light, and chlorine, and then send it back upstairs to be used again for nonpotable uses.
San Diego has suffered long enough from the impacts of trans-border sewage flow, and sanitation efforts must move forward, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-California, said Monday during a visit to a border wastewater treatment plant.
The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission treatment plant sits on the border between Mexico and the United States in San Diego.
“For far too long, toxic waste and raw sewage have flowed across the border into Southern California, bringing health hazards and environmental threats into our own backyards,” Padilla said. “This pollution continues to contaminate Southern California’s air and water, depriving communities of outdoor recreation and economic opportunities.”
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
