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A group of San Diego business and civic leaders announced Thursday they have formed a coalition to question a move toward community choice energy, which would allow San Diego’s municipal government to acquire power separately from the local utility. The Clear the Air Coalition includes former Mayor Jerry Sanders, currently president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, Frank Urtasun of Sempra Energy, and Joe Panetta, who leads the life sciences industry trade group Biocom, among others.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that the 60-year-old Whittier Narrows Dam is structurally unsafe and poses a potentially catastrophic risk to the working-class communities along the San Gabriel River floodplain. According to an agency report based on research conducted last year, unusually heavy rains could trigger a premature opening of the dam’s massive spillway.

The city of San Diego is standing by its new water meters despite resident complaints of skyrocketing bills without leaks. “I am absolutely confident that these meters are reading accurately,” said Michael Vogl, the city’s public utilities deputy director, who oversees water billing. Families from Mountain View to Scripps Ranch have contacted 10News to complain of the high bills, some doubling or tripling to more than $1,000. They say they’ve never had bills that high and that they or their plumbers haven’t found a leak. So many have concluded that the city’s water meters are off.

The clock is ticking as the Brown administration presses public water agencies to make a final decision on whether to fund the proposed California “WaterFix” project, a plan to construct two 40-foot diameter, 35-mile long tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Though the $17 billion tunnel project really fixes nothing, some water agencies claim the project is the only viable option to get water to their communities and are poised to pass the huge costs onto their customers.