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Federal Water Rule Expected to Stay Murky Through Biden Term

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Bobby Magill

A Biden administration won’t be able to untangle the legal and regulatory “mess” under part of the Clean Water Act that determines which streams, wetlands and other waters get federal protection, legal scholars and litigators say.

Any move the Biden administration takes to clarify the definition of Waters of the United States, known as WOTUS, will continue the decades-long “merry-go-round” of administrative rule changes and litigation, said Larry Liebesman, a former Justice Department environmental lawyer who is now a senior adviser at the environmental and water permitting firm of Dawson & Associates.

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Two Companies See a Golden Opportunity in the Tijuana River’s Brown Waters

/in , , /by /Voice of San Diegoby MacKenzie Elmer

We’re letting millions of gallons of sewage-contaminated Tijuana River water go to waste by tossing it to the Pacific Ocean.

That’s the opinion of two competing forces – one from the United States and another from Mexico – that are rethinking the region’s oldest and dirtiest problem, imagining it instead as a moneymaking opportunity.

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FPUD Board, Others Tour Conjunctive Use Project Progress

/in , , /by /Fallbrook Village Newsby Joe Naiman

The Fallbrook Public Utility District held a Nov. 10 tour of the Santa Margarita Conjunctive Use Project.

All five FPUD board members participated in the tour. If a majority of board members are present, an activity must be noticed as a public meeting, and members of the public were also invited to join the tour.

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Major Changes to Poway’s Water System in Works

/in , , /by /Poway News Chieftain (San Diego Union-Tribune)by Emily Sorensen Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The Poway City Council approved several initial steps at Tuesday night’s meeting which could lead to a massive water improvement program for the city. The improvement program, if completed, would be the largest capital improvement program Poway has ever undertaken, said Shadi Sami, principal civil engineer for the city.

The program consists of several parts, but would ultimately replace the city’s existing, decades-old clear well with new storage reservoirs. It would also connect the city with the San Diego Water Authority’s treated water, creating treated water pipelines, a pump station and forebay. Currently, Poway only receives raw water from the SDCWA.

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First Rain of Season Unveils a New Pollution Problem: Masks and Gloves — Pandemic PPE

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander

The Bay Area’s first rain of the season is washing away worries of wildfire and drought. But it’s also bringing a new concern: gobs of face masks flooding San Francisco Bay.

Early season storms typically sweep a slurry of debris from streets and sidewalks into rivers, creeks and bays. This year, the fall flush not only contains the usual gunk, waste experts say, but a whole lot of discarded PPE — or personal protective equipment, the detritus of the pandemic.

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Well Water Throughout California Contaminated with ‘Forever Chemicals’

/in , , /by /CalMattersby Rachel Becker

In the weeks before the coronavirus began tearing through California, the city of Commerce made an expensive decision: It shut down part of its water supply.

Like nearly 150 other public water systems in California, the small city on the outskirts of Los Angeles had detected “forever chemicals” in its well water.

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Zero Delta Smelt Found in Latest Search. New Habitat Hopes to Change That

/in , , /by /GV Wireby Jim Jakobs

An annual search for a tiny endangered and contentious fish in the sprawling California Delta has once again come up empty.

The state’s annual Fall Midwater Trawl Survey found no delta smelt in September’s sampling of the critical waterway. The last time the rare fish turned up in a survey was in October 2017 when just two were found. Hoping to reverse the recent trend, the Westlands Water District and the California Department of Water Resources announced the completion of a Delta habitat restoration project on Wednesday.

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Otay Ranch Resort Village, with 1,938 Homes, Wins County Supervisors’ OK

/in , , /by /Times of San Diegoby City News Service

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors Wednesday voted 4-1 in favor of Otay Ranch Resort Village 13, a mixed-use community to be developed near the city of Chula Vista.

When completed, Otay Ranch Resort Village will feature 1,938 energy-efficient homes, a fire station, sheriff’s station, trails, an elementary school, parks and open space, according to a county staff presentation.

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Agencies Unite to Fight Troublesome Mussels

/in , , /by /E&E Newsby Michael Doyle

The Trump administration today announced a newly strengthened team effort to combat invasive mussels.

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Tesla to Help Power Santa Barbara’s Cater Water Treatment Plant

/in , , /by /Santa Barbara Independentby Nick Welsh

At a time when every other car on the South Coast seems to be a Tesla, it’s fitting that the City of Santa Barbara will soon be relying on a small mountain of Tesla storage batteries to help move water in and out of its Cater Water Treatment Plant high atop San Roque Road to customers as far away as Montecito. With precious little fanfare, Santa Barbara’s City Council authorized a chain of events that will eventually result in the installation of 16 Tesla battery packs — valued at $3 million — at the facility.

All those battery packs combined will create a stylishly designed assembly of white metal boxes bearing Tesla’s distinctive corporate monogram that together will be about 60 feet wide, seven feet high, and five feet deep. On a good day, these batteries will be capable of cranking out 700 kilowatts of electricity, which is roughly 70 percent of the total load needed to move the 37 million gallons of treated H2O that go in and out of Cater each day.

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