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Environmentalists to Sue San Bernardino and Colton Over the Killing of Threatened Fish

A coalition of environmental groups Monday announced plans to sue a regional water treatment authority and the cities of San Bernardino and Colton over the repeated stranding and killing of Santa Ana suckers, a fish on the federal threatened species list.

Roughly once a month, a water treatment plant that is jointly owned by the cities halts its outflows, quickly reducing a drought-stricken stretch of the Santa Ana River to a ribbon of dry gravel and stranding thousands of suckers.

Storage may be a game-changer for grid

In a fast-developing industry teeming with technologies that promise to be the next big thing, energy storage appears to be the biggest.

Its supporters not only sing its praises but also tout what they say is its inevitability.

“We’re going to have 10 times as much energy storage on the grid by the end of this decade and that is going to impact every facet of the energy industry,” said Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association, an industry trade group.

MWD Approves New Hoover Dam Hydroelectric Power Contracts

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California was constructing its Colorado River Aqueduct when Hoover Dam was completed in 1935. The 1928 legislation authorizing the construction of what has been called both Hoover Dam and Boulder Dam included hydroelectric power contracts to help fund the cost of the dam. MWD received a power contract which provides energy to pump Colorado River water through MWD’s Colorado River Aqueduct and subsequently constructed a 230 kilovolt transmission system which delivers the Hoover Dam electricity to MWD’s pumping plants along the Colorado River Aqueduct.

 

Poseidon working to streamline permitting for Huntington Beach Desalination Project

Poseidon Water today announced it is working on an agreement with state permitting agencies to streamline the approval process for the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Project. The Coastal Commission originally planned to consider the Project’s Coastal Development Permit on September 9; however, Poseidon and Commission staff agreed to defer consideration of the Project’s CDP in order for an interagency agreement clearly defining the remaining permitting process to be finalized.

 

‘Blob’ may help drought-stricken California

As a series of marine heat waves linked to climate change has thrown ocean ecosystems out of whack from Australia to the coast of California, a cooling trend called La Niña has given scientists hope that water temperatures could come back into balance.

But so far, the cooling weather pattern — predicted to follow as a result of last winter’s El Niño — remains squeezed by warmer ocean temperatures along a narrow stretch of Earth’s equator.

MWD Approves Design and Installation of 1st Stage Diamond Valley Lake Monitoring System

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California approved the design and installation for the first phase of upgrades to the monitoring system at Diamond Valley Lake.The MWD board vote July 12 appropriated $950,000 for the project.  MWD plans to upgrade the monitoring system in three stages. Stage 1 includes procurement and installation of 16 weir level sensors and 15 strong motion accelerographs and the preparation of procurement documents for 19 robotic total stations and for the automated data acquisition system. Diamond Valley Lake was completed in 2000 and has a maximum storage capacity of 810,000 acre-feet (260 billion gallons).

Oceanside Moves Forward With Agritourism Efforts

The City Council gave the go ahead to develop an agritourism vision plan at a workshop on Wednesday. Prior to approval more than a half-dozen farmers voiced their passion for farming and support for agritourism opportunities. Among them was popular singer and songwriter Jason Mraz who grows fruit trees and coffee in Oceanside. “Our family has 300 acres, I want to keep my father’s dream alive,” one Oceanside farmer said. There are 3,700 acres of farmland in the South Morro Hills region. Individual farms range from 25 acres to 450 acres. Crops include avocados, citrus trees, flowers, wine grapes and coffee.

California’s Salton Sea becoming a toxic witches’ brew, Boxer warns

Governments often take actions — or fail to act — in ways that would be treated as crimes if committed by an individual or a company. Take the scandalous U.S. Education Department’s Teach Grant program that defrauds idealistic young teachers.

Or compare the way federal and California agencies treated Volkswagen’s use of emission cheaters with the way they treat their own lack of action to head off a public health and environmental disaster, one that affects millions of Southern California consumers and could be much more harmful than the emissions from a few hundred thousand cars.

 

‘Climate change is water change’ — why the Colorado River system is headed for major trouble

There’s good news and bad news for the drought-stricken Colorado River system, according to projections just released in a new federal report from the Bureau of Reclamation, manager of dams, powerplants and canals.

The report predicts that Lake Mead — the river system’s largest reservoir, supplying water to millions of people in Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico — will narrowly escape a shortage declaration next year. But a shortage is looking imminent in 2018, and water experts are growing ever more worried about the river system’s future.

OPINION: Signs the West is better with water conservation

There are strong signs that we’re settling into a new culture when it comes to water use.

Coachella Valley Water District reports that its customers used 28.6 percent less water in July when compared to July 2013, the state’s comparison year. That reduction is more than 5 percentage points better than that seen in June and above the district’s cumulative average of 25.6 percent for the past 14 months. Meanwhile, Desert Water Agency – our region’s second largest after CVWD – reported a 22 percent usage cut in July, smaller than the 33 percent reduction in June but still near the agency’s cumulative water-savings of 27 percent since last summer.