State Public Utilities Commission officials are seeking input on whether to conduct new hearings on California American Water’s proposed Monterey Peninsula desalination project to address a number of issues, potentially including an updated project demand forecast and desal plant sizing evaluation that could lead to a smaller initial plant that could be more easily expanded as demand grows in the future.
Near the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea, hot steam bubbles up from the earth and gurgles out of mud volcanos, rising into the air. This active geothermal zone runs along the San Andreas Fault, where geologic forces allow the Earth’s natural heat to rise near the surface, creating one of the world’s most powerful geothermal hot spots. The energy reservoir extends beneath the Salton Sea, where underwater vents release steam that rises in boiling circles of bubbles on the lake’s surface.
Monitor, patch, watch and then monitor. This is the fundamental problem with California’s failing water infrastructure. Nearly 200,000 evacuees downstream of Oroville Dam witnessed how this failed government approach can impact their lives. My review of inspection reports shows a pattern of monitoring, delayed action and patchwork maintenance at Oroville Dam, including painting cracks to track their growth. This is not the first time the “monitor” strategy has endangered north state communities. In 1986, a levee failure in Yuba County destroyed nearly 3,000 buildings and killed two people.
While deep mountain snow combined with high temperatures caused California rivers to swell, Colorado officials on Monday downplayed flood risks saying much of the snow already has melted. Statewide snowpack in the major river basins hit 207 percent of the median — 332 percent in the South Platte River Basin and 288 percent in the Colorado River Basin, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service’s latest survey.
At a board meeting Tuesday, District One Supervisor Bill Connelly will present a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The letter is requesting that FERC steps in and prohibits the Department of Water Resources from dropping Lake Oroville to an elevation lower than 800 feet. “I can never predict what DWR will do,” said Connelly on why he isn’t just sending DWR the request. “First they try to drown us, the next they try to drain the lake.” Connelly said he’s out to ensure that doesn’t happen. “We’re requesting that FERC send a strong message,” Connelly explained. “
A civil engineer who formerly worked for the contractor doing the Oroville Dam spillway reconstruction has proposed a dual design spillway so the emergency spillway never has to be used again. Henry Burke’s argument for a different design than what the state Department of Water Resources proposed, centers around the need for high-flow back ups. Burke used to work for the contractor, the Kiewit Corporation, which is based in Omaha. Erin Mellon, communications manager with the Natural Resources Agency, said his concept is being considered in the long term, though not by Nov. 1 this year.
A report from the Public Policy Institute of California says the state’s cities and suburbs responded well to the unprecedented mandate to cut water use by 25 percent during the drought. The PPIC says by some measures, the state’s water conservation requirement was a success. Californians cut water use 24 percent on average while the economy grew. But report authors call the mandate a “blunt instrument” that increased tension between the state and local water agencies. Instead, the report notes the strategy state regulators implemented near the end of the drought was more appropriate.
Private investment in public works isn’t a new idea: In 2014, former President Barack Obama launched an initiative focused on partnerships between public agencies and private companies to boost infrastructure financing and innovation. Now, President Donald Trump is calling for more such collaborations, and even outright privatization, in an attempt to shore up the nation’s aging highways and water systems. Water infrastructure, for both drinking and irrigation, is especially in need of improvement in the arid West.
The San Diego County Water Authority (CWA) approved a contract with Pure Technologies U.S., Inc., to monitor acoustic fiber optic cable in four CWA pipelines The CWA board vote April 27 approved a contract for up to $2,319,814 over five years to monitor the fiber optic cable in Pipeline 3, Pipeline 4, Pipeline 5, and the crossover pipeline.
An Inland Valley utility company is studying how to convert nearly 22,000 property parcels from Fontana to Upland — representing about 80,000 people — from septic tank systems to a sewer system connection for their wastewater. Fontana is ground zero of this challenge with nearly 12,000 parcels, representing about 40,000 people, that are not connected to sewer service. Those parcels are either within Fontana’s city limits or in its broader sphere of influence, officials say.
