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Santa Clara Valley Water District Rejects Jerry Brown’s Twin Delta Tunnels Plan

/in /by /The Mercury News‎ (San Jose)

In a landmark vote closely watched across California, Silicon Valley’s largest water agency on Tuesday rejected Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion plan to build two giant tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. By a vote of 7-0, the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s board of directors chose instead to adopt a set of principles endorsing a significantly smaller, less costly project — with just one tunnel. “What magnitude of project makes sense?” asked board member Barbara Keegan. “From our perspective that looks to be something less than originally was envisioned.”

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OPINION: Poseidon desalination plant a super-costly, horrifically polluting bad water solution

/in /by /The Mercury News‎ (San Jose)

In the wake of the drought, California has made tremendous progress on climate-smart water solutions. But even as communities are forging ahead with recapture and reuse projects, we are seeing a gold rush of corporate water projects designed to profit off drought fears. Poseidon’s Orange County desalination plant is a prime example. This Wall Street water company and its lobbyists are using every trick in the book to sell their unnecessary and irresponsible project. That is because the billion-dollar boondoggle can’t stand on its own merits.

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San Diego’s Been Losing a Century-Long Battle Against Poop

/in /by /Voice of San Diego

San Diego’s battle against hepatitis A has focused new attention on a very old, very San Diego problem: feces. It’s a battle the region has repeatedly lost. Excrement from the canyons in Tijuana and from our own toilets and streets has bedeviled the region since western civilization took up roots here. Things had been looking up. Sewage spills are down ten-fold from 20 years ago. Litigious environmental lawyers who once haunted the city had moved on.

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San Diego Borrowing $1.7B for Ambitious Water Recycling Plan

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune

San Diego launched on Tuesday its application for $1.7 billion in low-interest state loans to pay for an ambitious plan to boost the city’s water independence by recycling treated sewage into drinking water. Seeking such loans will soften hikes in sewer and water rates San Diego officials say will be necessary to pay for the Pure Water recycling system, which is expected to be complete by 2035. The loans are expected to carry interest rates of less than 2 percent, compared to about 5 percent for typical sewer and water projects that aren’t eligible for money from the state’s clean water revolving loan fund.

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Governor Signs Bill Requiring Lead Tests In Public Schools

/in /by /KPBS

A bill from a San Diego legislator that requires public schools to test for lead in campus water systems, and notify parents if elevated levels are found, was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown Friday.

Assembly Bill 746, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, stemmed from the discovery of excess lead in drinking water at schools in the San Diego Unified and San Ysidro school districts.

Councilman Seeks Hepatitis Testing In San Diego Surface Water

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby James DeHaven

At least one San Diego leader wants water researchers to start testing city waterways for hepatitis A. Councilman David Alvarez on Thursday penned a letter to the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project requesting that the environmental research group start testing as many as a half-dozen area waterways for the deadly liver infection.

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Trump Administration Green-Lights Company’s Plan To Pipe Water From Mojave Desert To Cities

/in /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Ian James

President Donald Trump’s administration has approved a company’s plan to build a water pipeline to carry billions of gallons from the Mojave Desert to California cities. The federal Bureau of Land Management told Cadiz Inc. in a letter released Monday that the company won’t need a permit to build the pipeline alongside a railroad. The agency rescinded a 2015 decision by President Barack Obama’s administration that had blocked the project.

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As Water Agencies Cast Votes, Future Of Delta Tunnels Remains Unclear

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Alastair Bland

On Oct. 10, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California voted to endorse the Delta tunnels, the $17 billion project that aims to reboot California’s main water supply system. Two days later, the Kern County Water Agency offered its own bid – albeit it a hesitant one – of support. However, even with backing from the nation’s largest municipal water supplier and a major agricultural district, some water policy experts and analysts believe the massive project, dubbed California WaterFix, may still buckle under its own weight.

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Controversial Cadiz Water Pipeline Gets OK From Federal Government

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

In an about-face, the federal government has given Cadiz Inc. the go-ahead to lay a pipeline for its proposed desert water project in an existing railroad right-of-way. The decision by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management follows other Trump administration moves to eliminate a legal hurdle erected in the company’s path when President Obama was in office.

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OPINION: Change Course On Governor’s $17 Billion Delta Tunnels Plan

/in /by /East Bay Times

Tuesday is the day the momentum behind Gov. Jerry Brown’s twin-tunnel plan that threatens the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could change — for the better. The Santa Clara Valley Water District Board will decide whether to commit to raising ratepayer taxes by at least $1 billion to pay for its share of the Big Dud — Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion “WaterFix” plan to build two massive, 35-mile, 40-foot-high tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that won’t add a drop of new water to California’s supply.

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