With recent wet weather San Diego has been experiencing, you may wonder what effect it could have on our region’s water supply. Jeff Stephenson from the San Diego County Water Authority stopped by to give more of an outlook on San Diego’s water.
The proposed raising of Shasta Dam represents just more of the same shenanigans in California’s long water history. As with most dam projects, it will cause more harm than whatever positives might accrue from such an action. California already has 1,300 (named) dams. More water storage projects will not solve the basic fact that the state’s finite amount of water is incapable of meeting all of the demands. This deficit has been created primarily by the transformation of a semi-arid area— the Central Valley — by an infusion of water from northern California.
As rain continues in the county, the San Diego International Airport is doing its part to prevent pollution of the ocean and bay. When heavy rain comes, much of it runs off into bodies of water, adding to pollution problems. The airport recently installed one of the region’s largest storm water capture systems. The new system captures rain that falls on the Terminal 2 Parking Plaza, so that it can be recycled and put to good use. The water is diverted to the Central Utility Plant, where it is used in place of potable water in the airport’s cooling systems.
As we launch into the new year there is good news about one of our state’s most persistent problems – water. For as long as most of us can remember, water users have retreated into their corners, demanding their share of water, with all water-users suffering in the stalemate. Status-quo policy hasn’t helped struggling fish populations, farms, or urban users, including residents of Santa Clara Valley and the East Bay.
Massive waves crushed the Imperial Beach shoreline at dawn Friday, flooding sections of Seacoast Drive all the way to the Tijuana River Estuary. Many residents boarded up windows and put out sandbags in preparation for the 15-foot waves that covered the entire beach during high tide, inundating streets and garages. However, the city would’ve been caught off guard had it not been for an experimental warning system launched just months ago by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
For decades, the New River has flowed north across the U.S.-Mexico border carrying toxic pollution and the stench of sewage. Now lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento are pursuing new legislation and funding to combat the pollution problems. Rep. Juan Vargas introduced a bill in Congress last week that would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to create a program focused on helping to coordinate funding for the restoration and protection of the New River.
With four straight days of rain, the Los Angeles River has come alive. Thanks to Measure W, which was passed by voters last November, projects will be funded and infrastructure will be built to capture, treat and recycle all this rain water. “We lose trillions of gallons of water out to the ocean every year, and if we were able to capture it, we could supply about half of our water needs locally,” said Jill Sourial with The Nature Conservancy.
With a decarbonizing electricity business and the West perennially coping with drought, pumped-storage projects would seem to be the ideal win-win solution. Carbon-free electricity is generated by water from an upper reservoir falling on a turbine. Water is then pumped from the lower reservoir back to the upper reservoir chiefly using renewable power to be used again and again. Federal legislation signed in October may provide a boost to pumped storage projects under development by lengthening the duration of preliminary permits issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The new law, named the Water Resources Development Act, extended the duration of a FERC preliminary permit for pumped-storage projects to four years.
A simple web search will pull up nearly a million articles, videos and photos featuring Frank Gehrke. He’s no fashion icon like Kim Kardashian or a dogged politician like Gov. Jerry Brown. But he has broken a lot of news. Sometimes, it’s bad news, like California suffering yet another year of drought. That’s a realization he alluded to in 2014, when he measured the snowpack near Lake Tahoe.
Cecilia Bernal came looking for a career. Essie Mae Horne was focused on occupational advancement. Michaela Maddox-Gomez wanted to explore her options before she graduates from Mt. Carmel High School. Bernal, Horne and Maddox-Gomez were among the approximately 250 people packing the Center for Water Studies 2nd annual Women in Water – Exploring Career Pathways symposium on Jan. 17 at Cuyamaca College. The event included nearly two dozen speakers, a half-dozen panel discussions, inspirational messages from water and wastewater industry administrators, a day’s worth of networking opportunities and a bevy of information tables.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
