Sewage from Tijuana will continue to foul South County beaches unchecked for at least a year before repairs can be made to an aging federal wastewater treatment plant at the U.S.-Mexico border, officials with the binational agency that operates the facility said Wednesday.
As calls to fix the sewage crisis in the South Bay continue to intensify, there were some heated moments inside Wednesday morning’s Regional Water Quality Control Board meeting.
“We continue to be woken up by the smell of chemicals and sewage in the middle of the night,” said Paloma Aguirre, Imperial Beach’s mayor, as she read an emotional letter from one of her constituents to the board.
Outdoor watering accounts for roughly half of total water use in Southern California’s cities and suburbs, and a large portion of that water is sprayed from sprinklers to keep grass green.
Under a bill passed by state legislators this week, California will soon outlaw using drinking water for some of those vast expanses of grass — the purely decorative patches of green that are mowed but never walked on or used for recreation.
California will spend about $300 million to prepare a vast groundwater and farming infrastructure system for the growing impacts of climate change.
California Department of Water Resources announced Tuesday that it has awarded $187 million to 32 groundwater sub-basins, which store water for future use that mainly flows from valuable snowmelt, through the Sustainable Groundwater Management Grant Program.
Reservoirs across the state of California remain elevated as another wet season approaches.
Following the record wet winter, lakes and reservoirs were nearly full to the brim as the melting snowpack made its way into them.
Rep. Scott Peters introduced legislation Tuesday to provide $100 million in annual construction funding to rehabilitate and expand the dilapidated International Wastewater Treatment Plant that is contributing to pollution closing nearby South Bay beaches.
The San Diego City Council approved $9 million Tuesday for short-term repairs to two city dams found to have cracks and other structural problems during state-ordered assessments in 2019.
The repairs will be completed by Orion Construction on the Morena Dam, which is 63 miles east of the city near Campo and the Laguna Mountains, and El Capitan Dam, which is 7 miles east of Lakeside.
A bill requiring a countywide vote before individual water districts can detach from an agency passed the Assembly on Tuesday, but it won’t prevent residents of Fallbrook and Rainbow from voting on Nov. 7.
Assembly Bill 399 passed on a vote of 47 to 8, with 25 members, including Assemblymember Marie Waldron from North County, not voting. It now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom, but if he signs it into law, it won’t take effect until Jan. 1.
A forum was held in Pacific Beach Tuesday evening to discuss a possible water rate hike for the city of San Diego.
As proposed by the city’s Public Utilities Department, water rates will increase 10.2% beginning on Dec. 1, 2023, and up to 8.7% on Jan. 1, 2025.
State lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bill that would require voters across broadwater authorities to allow individual districts to withdraw before they can legally detach from regional agencies.
But the legislation may be too late to prevent two North County water districts from divorcing from the San Diego County Water Authority.
