East Bay Municipal Utility District directors voted 5-1 on Tuesday to approve a water rate increase totaling nearly 13 percent over the next two years. The board’s vote means that the water agency’s 1.4 million customers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties will face a 6.5 percent rate hike on July 1 and another 6.25 percent hike on July 1, 2020. The rate hikes follow an increase of nearly 20 percent over the past two years.
An on-again, off-again effort by state regulators to better protect the Russian River and its tributaries against failing septic systems, livestock waste and other potential sources of bacterial contamination is in its final stages, with hopes that an action plan for the entire watershed will be approved this August and go into effect next year. The move, controversial and closely watched in years past, could impose stricter regulations and mandatory septic system upgrades on thousands of landowners with properties near the river or its connected waterways.
A report released today showed improvement in 2018 for the majority of 15 indicators used to measure San Diego County’s quality of life. The Equinox Project Quality of Life Dashboard measures and benchmarks several environmental and economic trends throughout the region. The analysis highlighted the San Diego County Water Authority for developing water solutions for San Diego and the Southwest using a “portfolio approach.” One of the initiatives under that approach includes efforts to store water in Lake Mead on the Colorado River, which would benefit both San Diego County residents and many other river users.
Last week, representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, International Boundary and Water Commission, and other federal offices gathered in Coronado to address one of the most pressing environmental issues in our region — solutions to the Tijuana sewage problem and the resulting contamination that regularly inundates San Diego County beaches. Since early 2018, the city of Coronado has played a significant role in advocating for funding for water quality improvement projects in the border zone, including Tijuana and points south.
In the state Capitol, the response to California’s chronic housing shortage this year has been hugely disappointing. A bold proposal to make it easier to put up new apartment buildings and condos near mass transit and in single-family neighborhoods was abruptly killed last month by Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. State lawmakers continue to focus on subsidized “affordable housing” projects despite the years of evidence that this approach does little or nothing to bring down the high cost of housing in the Golden State.
The Helix Water District governing board last week approved an operating budget of nearly $91 million for the 2019-20 fiscal year that begins July 1. The budget includes $11.5 million in capital improvements to keep the water moving through Helix’s 700-plus miles of pipeline, valves, hydrants and meters, and safely stored in tanks at the district’s various plants around East County. Total costs, including capital expenses and water purchases, will go up by about $1.2 million compared to 2018-19.
A respected annual quality of life report for San Diego released Wednesday showed improvements in six areas, but declines in four. The biggest issues in this year’s Quality of Life Dashboard were housing affordability and traffic congestion, though slight increases in water use and landfill waste were also noted. “Commuters in 2018 spent more than eight hours extra on the freeways, nearly an hour more than in 2016,” according to the report.
Lake Hodges is home to a lot of wildlife including Grebes – the black and white birds that can be seen year-round, but some say their nests are being destroyed over something that’s completely preventable. Brian Caldwell, a nearby resident and operator of Lake Hodges Photo Tours, visits the area often. Over the past couple of years, he has noticed an alarming trend.
An attempt to restore the population of endangered Southern California steelhead trout living in the Santa Ynez River is being opposed by some jurisdictions that rely on the river and Cachuma Lake for their water supply. The number of trout, which travel to and from the ocean throughout their lifecycle, in the river began declining after the construction of Bradbury Dam on Cachuma Lake in 1953. Prior to construction, there were about 20,000 adult fish living in the Santa Ynez River, but with the dam limiting their ability to travel to and from the ocean, the population dropped to 100 adult fish by 1991, according to the State Water Resources Control Board.
In Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first State of the State address, he urged every Californian to muster the political will to address a problem he called “a moral disgrace and … a medical emergency.” He was talking about California’s water. An estimated 1 million people across the state have unhealthy water pouring from their taps, with regions like the San Joaquin Valley especially impacted. Governor Newsom’s so-called “water tax” would have taxed residential water customers and certain agricultural industries to fund solutions to this problem for low-income communities. That plan didn’t make it through budget negotiations. The same budget talks produced a different solution: to spend $130 million a year from California’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund on the water infrastructure problem.
