On the eastern flank of metropolitan Las Vegas, out past a water park advertising “the world’s largest man-made wave” and a nascent development called Cadence, a red-dirt parking lot teases public access to the system that enabled the past three decades of growth in southern Nevada. Called the Las Vegas Wash, it amounts to a channel that funnels the area’s recycled water back to its aquatic lifeline: Lake Mead.
Record water flow this year has propelled the Kings River region closer to groundwater sustainability.
After multiple years of drought, the Kings River ended the 2023 water year with a record breaking 4.5 million acre-feet of runoff.
As a beginner fisherman, Robert Allstead says he took up the sport partly because many around him kept telling him about their amazing fish stories.
“I didn’t have any to tell,” Allstead said. “I’ve got a couple now.”
Water bills are about to double over the next five years for over 13,000 Orange County residents after the Trabuco Canyon Water District increased their rates this year.
It was this past January when the roof support of the clearwell water tank at San Juan Capistrano’s Groundwater Recovery Plant gave way, requiring local officials to take it offline.
“Why is that important?” asked Laura Freese, a member of Santa Margarita Water District’s governing board. “Well, this is the way we get our water from the aquifer, our local water, our groundwater, and so we needed to get it back up really fast.”
Santa Margarita, which operates the plant as the town’s water utility agency, spent the next six months and roughly $1.8 million conducting repairs to the reservoir tank that holds about 320,000 gallons of drinking water.
The San Diego County Water Authority will begin aqueduct maintenance next spring, with the $66 million project expected to be complete in summer 2026. The project area will include pipelines that run through Rancho Bernardo and Poway.
The Southern First Aqueduct Facilities Improvement Project will focus on 99 aqueduct support structures in streets, along access roads and within utility easements. There are two 48-inch- and 54-inch-diameter critical regional pipelines involved, officials said.
The plan is for one pipeline to be taken offline at a time, according to engineering manager Brent Fountain, who spoke at the Rancho Bernardo Planning Board’s Oct. 19 meeting. The project is “very proactive” because it will be replacing some of the concrete vault structures and doing other infrastructure work to components, such as air vents and pump wells, before it becomes absolutely necessary, Fountain said.
In the early 1990s, San Diego was dying on the vine, starved of water in a series of years long droughts.
The county, which relied almost entirely on imported water, had to cut back on 30% of its usage and was at risk of losing 50%.
At the last minute, a miracle saved San Diego — rain and snow in the desert replenished aquifers, saving the city from intense cutbacks.
But the water didn’t extinguish the passion of San Diegans, who after finding themselves in this situation, rallied together to find a way to become more self-sufficient, Jeremy Crutchfield, the water-resources manager at the San Diego County Water Authority, told Insider.
It was a rough debut. JB Hamby, 26 years old, had rocketed to the innermost circle of state and federal officials charged with saving the Colorado River from collapse. In mid-January, he was elected to chair California’s river board, representing Imperial Irrigation District, by far the biggest recipient of the overused river’s supply.
Federal officials had bluntly threatened to impose mandatory cuts across the region if huge voluntary reductions weren’t made.
But 12 days later, after contentious closed-door talks, he watched in dismay as media outlets across the U.S. published stories about six states releasing a joint plan to save the river, with only his state, California, refusing to sign on.
A solution to help bolster Southern California’s water outlook during future droughts is taking shape in the Mojave Desert. Water transported in canals and pipelines has begun flowing into a series of basins carved into the desert, filling a large underground reservoir that will be available to draw upon in dry times.
San Diego Friday warned residents to be on the lookout for fake “water update” notice at their homes that appear to be from a private company with no association with the city.
Residents contacted by the company are urged not to agree to services and not to provide personal information.
