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Seed Libraries are Sprouting Across San Diego County

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Caron Golden

Say the word “library,” and your word association is likely “books.” But across the country, including in San Diego, many libraries also lend other important items, including seeds for home gardens.

Many of these “seed libraries“ aren’t actually conventional libraries: They may be a service organized by neighborhoods, schools or other kinds of organizations. The common factor is that they are all a free community resource that offers locals the opportunity to grow everything from fruits and vegetables to flowers and native plants. All they ask is that patrons return the “borrowed” seeds by way of harvesting new seeds from the grown plants.

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VOSD Podcast: The Solution to Pollution is Not Dilution

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Andrea Lopez-Villafaña

The city of San Diego has embarked in a multibillion dollar effort to recycle its wastewater into drinking water. It’s a project years in the making, but officials expect to complete the first phase in 2027.

This week on the podcast, Voice of San Diego’s social media pro Bella Ross recaps what she learned on a recent tour of the new facility. And she gets into why people don’t want to drink the recycled water — but also why they need to get over it.

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Coachella Valley Residents Struggle to Breathe as Polluting Dust Increases

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

Outside her home in Riverside County, near the north shore of the Salton Sea, Sara Renteria is struggling to breathe. She has to speak in short sentences, and pauses often to take a breath.

When she was diagnosed with asthma as an adult about five years ago, Renteria said her doctor gave her a choice: Leave her home in the Coachella Valley or take an array of medications to treat her condition. It was the air, he told her, that worsened her asthma.

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Water Districts Sue City of San Diego Over Lake Hodges Dam Maintenance

/in , /by /CBS8by David Gotfredson

Two local water districts have filed a lawsuit in North County court alleging the city of San Diego failed for years to maintain the Lake Hodges Dam.

The water districts allege they have lost $21 million due to the release of water from Lake Hodges in recent months.

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Dr. Harold Bailey Wins Prestigious Award From Water for People

/in , /by /East County Magazineby Miriam Raftery

Water for People, a global nonprofit, has presented its prestigious Kenneth J. Miller Founder’s Award for outstanding service to La Mesa resident Harold E. Bailey, Ph.D., P.E.  A registered civil engineer and former university instructor, Dr. Bailey has an impressive record of accomplishments for numerous local water-related organizations and agencies spanning more than four decades.

“As a past chair of the San Diego Water for People(link is external) Committee who continues volunteering numerous hours serving on multiple event committees, and who has been a strong and consistent supporter of Water for People for over 15 years,” the organization’s award recommendation letter states, “Harold Bailey exemplifies outstanding service to Water for People’s mission of bringing clean water and sanitation to `everyone, forever’; he is well deserving of the Miller award.”

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Heat Wave, Thunderstorms to Raise the Risk of Wildfires in California

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Summer Lin

Another heat wave and more monsoonal thunderstorms are expected to increase wildfire danger in California over the weekend and into next week.

A high-pressure system is expected to expand over the western United States on Wednesday and get stronger through Friday, according to the National Weather Service. California will be spared the worst of the heat, the weather service predicted, as the system concentrates over the Rocky Mountains.

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State Water Project Supplies Could Fall up to 23% Within 20 Years Due to Climate Change

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Ian James

Climate change threatens to dramatically shrink the amount of water California can deliver over the next 20 years and could reduce supplies available from the State Water Project by up to 23%, according to new projections released Wednesday by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.

The analysis by the California Department of Water Resources examined a range of climate change scenarios and projected that by 2043 the average amount of water transported through the massive network of reservoirs and canals to more than half the state’s population could decline between 13% and 23%.

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OPINION: Californians Will Have to Use Less Water Under State Board’s New Rules

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Kerry Jackson

It’s been said in different ways by a variety of people, but there’s more than just a grain of truth in it: If the federal bureaucracy or a socialist regime were ever put in charge of the Sahara Desert, there would eventually be a shortage of sand. This helps explain why there is such a scarcity of water in California that permanent use restrictions have been, for the first time in the state’s history, set.

On July 3, the California State Water Resources Control Board approved the rules for “Making Conservation a California Way of Life.” Under this framework, retail water suppliers are going to have to figure out how to meet the imposed “water use objective,” which “is 70% or less of the supplier’s average annual water use” in 2024-26 by July 2040.

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OPINION: California Could Lose up to 9 Million Acre-Feet of Water by 2050. Here’s What Can be Done

/in , /by /Aol.by Jake Frederico

California’s water supply is trending poorly. Unless we act now to transform how California manages its water — by passing an important bill that would update our approach — the state will soon lose some of its year-to-year supply.

By 2050, California is expected to lose between 4.6 and 9 million acre-feet of its annual water supply. In other words, by 2050 at the latest, Californians would lose access to a volume of water that is enough to supply 50-90% of all the state’s households — or to irrigate 17-33% of all the state’s farmland. Picture a volume of water as large as two Lake Shastas disappearing from the state’s water bank.

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