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Dry Lake Bed in Mojave Desert at Center of Water Debate

/in , /by /ABC 7 (Glendale, Calif.)by Leticia Juarez

Cadiz, a water supply company, wants to pump out and sell 50,000 acre-feet of water from an aquifer under the Mojave Desert. Sen. Dianne Feinstein is trying to stop them. “It’s those aquifers that keep the plant life growing which nourish the animals — the bighorn sheep and the desert tortoises,” the California Democrat said at a news conference at the Whitewater Preserve in Riverside County. Feinstein, along with Rep. Raul Ruiz and state Sen. Richard Roth, spoke out against the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery and Storage Project. The project aims to pump the aquifer and pipe water from it across the desert to sell to Southern California cities.

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4 Years After a Corruption Scandal, West Basin Water District Still Wrestling with Ethics

/in , /by /Daily Breeze (Torrance, Calif.)by David Rosenfeld

When Ronald Smith became ensnared in a corruption probe and resigned in disgrace from an obscure South Bay water agency, his board colleagues quickly vowed to impose changes to combat such ethical lapses. The Carson-based West Basin Municipal Water District, which has a $200 million budget and supplies imported water to 17 mostly South Bay cities, performed an audit, overhauled codes of conduct for board members and eliminated individual community outreach funds, the same pot of money that Smith used to steer $20,000 of public funds through a Torrance nonprofit to pay for personal expenses. But that was three years ago.

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OPINION: State Water Grab will Devastate our Community

/in , /by /The Modesto Beeby Dave Long and Jeff Marchini

Are you a mechanic? A food processor? A trucker? Do you work in a bank? Sell insurance? Much more simply, do you drink water in eastern Merced County? Assuming you answered yes to any of these questions, get ready: the State Water Resources Control Board will soon vote to take more than $230 million and about 1,000 jobs from our community. In July, the water board released its newest plan to require that twice as much water remain in the Merced River and flow north into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. After a series of hearings and delays, the board is poised to adopt this doomed-to-fail plan on Nov. 7.

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Flood of Distrust: A Deep Dive into San Diego’s Water Department

/in , /by /NBC San Diegoby Consumer Bob, Tom Jones, Dorian Hargrove, Mark Sackett and Erica Byers

What started as a trickle of billing complaints surged into a flash flood of allegations raised about the city of San Diego’s Water Department. NBC 7 Responds’ investigation into billing errors led to the discovery of faulty water meters and a lack of transparency over the city’s multi-million-dollar smart meter program. Some of the team’s findings have led to the department taking corrective action. “Flood of Distrust” will give you an inside look at the investigative journey from start to finish.

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Delta Caucus Objects to Federal Loan to Support Tunnels Project

/in , /by /Daily Democrat (Woodland, Calif.)

Members of California’s Legislative Delta Caucus, including its co-chairmen, Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, and Assemblymember Jim Frazier, D-Discovery Bay, sent a letter Friday to the Environmental Protection Agency objecting to a $1.6 billion loan for construction of the state’s controversial twin tunnels project on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta known as WaterFix. “This project poses devastating environmental consequences for the state’s most important waterway while threatening the economic vitality of the entire region,” said Dodd, one of nine lawmakers to sign the letter.

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San Diego County Water Authority Seeks to Settle Legal Disputes with Metropolitan

/in , /by /KPBS Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority is offering an olive branch to the region’s largest water wholesaler in an effort to end years of public and legal feuding. Local water officials have fought for decades with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The dispute has often left the two agencies fighting expensive legal battles and publicly insulting each other. Jim Madaffer, chair of the San Diego County Water Authority, said it is time to end the fighting. In a letter sent Thursday, he offered the Metropolitan Water District an agreement to end pending legal actions.

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In Water-Stressed West, an Old Water Efficiency Metric Needs a Reboot

/in , /by /Water Deeplyby Gary Pitzer

People in California and the Southwest are getting stingier with water, a story that’s told by the acre-foot. For years, water use has generally been described in terms of acre-foot per a certain number of households, keying off the image of an acre-foot as a football field a foot deep in water. The longtime rule of thumb: One acre-foot of water would supply the indoor and outdoor needs of two typical urban households for a year.

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The Energy 202: California Says Trump’s Fuel Standards Plan Will ‘Forfeit Our Best Chance to Fight Climate Change’

/in , /by /Washinigton Postby Dino Grandoni

California is coming out swinging in its official response to one of the Trump administration’s most consequential attempts at rolling back regulations to date — to freeze fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks through 2026.

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County Water Authority Proposes Sweeping Legal Settlement with Metropolitan Water District

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Jeff McDonald

San Diego County water officials, who have been mired in legal disputes with their counterparts to the north over billions of dollars in rates and methodology, proposed a sweeping compromise Thursday that, if accepted, could end years of acrimony and expensive litigation.

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Water Authority Offers To End Decade-Old Rate Dispute With Los Angeles

/in , /by /Times of San Diegoby Chris Jennewein

The San Diego County Water Authority offered Thursday to end a decade-long rate dispute with the Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles. Board Chair Jim Madaffer sent a letter to MWD directors outlining a compromise approach to end litigation involving billions of dollars charged to deliver independent water supplies from the Colorado River to San Diego.

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