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The San Diego County Water Authority is forecasting adequate supplies and expecting continued conservation efforts as California begins the 2018 water year on Sunday. “Thanks to remarkably wet conditions last winter, the 2018 water year will begin with improved supply conditions at the water authority’s two imported water sources – the Colorado River and the Sierra Nevada,” the authority said in a statement. In addition, the region can count on the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, and is prepared with high storage levels in many local reservoirs.

The California Supreme Court denied a petition by the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) September 27 to review an appellate court ruling in a case over rates set by the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, according to the SDCWA website. For years, San Diego water officials argued the region’s major supplier of water, the Metropolitan Water District overcharged to deliver water to San Diego from the Colorado River. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court declined to take up the case, leaving a lower court ruling siding with Metropolitan in place, according to the San Diego Voice.

During California’s severe five-year drought, groundwater levels fell to record lows and people in farming communities from Tulare County to Paso Robles saw their wells go dry.  Now researchers have analyzed records for about 2 million wells across 17 western states from Texas to Oregon, and they estimate that one out of every 30 wells was dry between 2013 and 2015.  The researchers also found dry wells were concentrated in farming areas such as California’s Central Valley and the High Plains. In some areas, they estimated that up to one-fifth of wells were dry.

On Monday, one time antagonists of a 50-year battle in the courts over right rights, who eventually became friends and allies, celebrated the San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement. They included representatives of the Rincon, Pala, Pauma, San Pasqual and La Jolla tribes, the City of Escondido, Vista Irrigation District and the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority, whose chairman is Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon tribe.