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San Diego County Water Authority Proposes 3.7 Percent Rate Hike

/in /by /KUSI Quoted: Maureen Stapleton

The San Diego County Water Authority announced Thursday that staff is recommending a 3.7 percent hike in the amount of money local cities and districts pay for water in the 2018 calendar year. The authority said most of the increase was due to the price of imported water from the Metropolitan Water District, the primary wholesaler in California, and Colorado River. The SDCWA takes imported water and collected local rainfall and distributes it to local agencies like the city of San Diego, Helix Water District and the like, which sends the product on to homes and businesses.

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San Diego County Water Authority Proposes 3.7 Percent Rate Hike in 2018

/in /by /NBC San Diegoby Jaspreet Kaur Quoted: Maureen Stapleton

Water rates in San Diego County could increase next year, if a proposed rate hike is approved. The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) is pushing for a 3.7 percent rate hike 2018. On Thursday, SDCWA announced it will recommend increasing rates charged to its member agencies for both treated and untreated water. The hike is party to offset higher rates and charges from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD).

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Rising Sea Levels Could Mean Twice as Much Flood Risk in Los Angeles and Other Coastal Cities

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Amina Khan

The effects of rising oceans on coastal flooding may be even worse than we thought. Scientists have found that a mere 10 to 20 centimeters of sea-level rise — which is expected by 2050 — will more than double the frequency of serious flooding events in many parts of the globe, including along the California coastline.The findings, described in Scientific Reports, highlight the environmental and economic impacts of sea-level rise on coastal areas, and the need to properly predict and prepare for these effects.

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Budget Cuts Threaten to Shut Down Tijuana Estuary

/in /by /CBS 8 San Diegoby Abbie Alford

Federal cuts are threatening to close down the Tijuana Estuary Visitors Center, and supporters are writing letters to local Congress leaders urging them to restore funding to save a vital piece of California’s coast.  In President Trump’s budget, he is proposing to cut $250 million in grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Mr. Trump had previously said “these programs are a lower priority than core functions maintained in the budget such as surveys, charting and fisheries management.”

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Why Big Winter Rains Haven’t Done Much to Fill San Diego Reservoirs

/in /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Quoted: Jim Fisher

Even though it’s rained more than normal across California, most of San Diego’s reservoirs are still not full. About 41 percent of the storage space in these artificial lakes remains empty. Most of this is just the way things are in San Diego. Here, most of the region’s drinking water comes from the Colorado River and the melted snow of Northern California. Only about 5 percent of urban San Diego’s water comes from local rainfall.

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$300 Million of Levee Work Almost Done

/in /by /Appeal-Democrat (Marysville) by Jake Abbott

The Sutter Butte Flood Control Agency is close to finishing the nearly $300 million levee improvement project on the west bank of the Feather River, officials said during the agency’s annual levee meeting Wednesday. The main topic of discussion was the Feather River West Levee Project – a $297 million project to improve and reinforce about 45 miles of levee from the Thermalito Afterbay to south Sutter County. Mike Inamine, executive director of SBFCA, said the agency is expecting to complete repairs to 36 miles of the project over the next few months, which will provide 200-year flood protection from the Thermalito Afterbay to the Star Bend area in Yuba City.

 

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BLOG: Reckoning Ahead For Arizona As Water Imbalance Grows On Colorado River

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

In Arizona, water scarcity is like the background hum of conversation in a popular restaurant: unrelenting. But even in this desert state, the ever-present strain on water supplies could soon be felt more acutely. As soon as 2019, the water level in Lake Mead on the Colorado River could drop below an elevation of 1,075 feet. That will trigger mandatory cutbacks in water diversions from the reservoir under an agreement negotiated between the federal government and three lower-basin states that rely on the river: Arizona, California and Nevada. 

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Report: Extinction Looming for Most of California’s Salmon and Trout

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

According to the report, the most threatened of California’s native salmonids are the southern steelhead, the winter-run Sacramento River Chinook salmon and the Central California coho salmon. The bull trout, last seen in California in the McCloud River in 1975, is already locally extinct. The coastal rainbow trout, the biologists said, may be California’s only native salmonid to survive for the long haul in any abundance.

The scientists wrote that agricultural demands for river water, population growth and alteration of the San Francisco Bay and Delta ecosystem are major factors affecting salmonids’ long-term survival odds.

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Trump’s Pick for a Top Interior Post has Sued the Agency on Behalf of Powerful California Water Interests

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

When President Trump nominated David Bernhardt for the No. 2 spot at the Interior Department, the administration cited his extensive expertise.

What the announcement failed to mention was that much of that experience was lobbying and doing legal work to elude or undermine Interior Department policies and protections.

As a partner in one of the nation’s top-grossing lobbying-law firms, Bernhardt has represented major players in oil, mining and western water – all areas that fall under the purview of Interior agencies that Bernhardt would oversee if confirmed as the department’s deputy secretary.

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$400 Million Northern Colorado Reservoir Gets Final Approval

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Dan Elliot

The federal government gave final approval Wednesday for a $400 million dam and reservoir in northern Colorado where 13 cities and water districts will store water from the other side of the Continental Divide. The Army Corps of Engineers issued a permit for construction of the Chimney Hollow Reservoir in the foothills about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Denver. The corps regulates some of the environmental impacts of big water projects. It is the last approval the reservoir needs, said Brian Werner, a spokesman for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District, which oversees the project .

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