A sharply divided and visibly frustrated San Diego City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday to raise water rates 31% over the next two years and increase sewer rates 31% over the next four years.
The council did not soften any of the proposed rate increases, which have been declared necessary by two outside consultants, city staff and the city’s independent budget analyst.
A Northern California city just launched operations on a technology that could change the future of drought resilience in the region and bring clean drinking water to millions.
The city of Antioch, located in the Bay Area, has launched a $116 million desalination plant that will convert brackish water from the San Joaquin River into fresh, drinkable water, according to the State Water Resources Control Board. Once operational, the facility will produce up to 6 million gallons of clean water per day, enough to cover about 40% of the city’s drinking supply.
The San Diego City Council will again consider a steep increase of water and wastewater rates Tuesday, following a decision last month to punt the discussion in hopes of friendlier numbers.
In city documents ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, those changes did not appear to come about. The proposal before the council is to increase water rates by 63% through 2029 and wastewater rates by 31% in the same period.
Hot conditions and Santa Ana winds will hit Southern California this week, beginning the fall wildfire season in earnest as the region continues to recover from January’s devastating firestorms.
Though no red flag warnings have yet been issued, both the Santa Clarita and San Fernando Valley foothills will have elevated fire risks once the winds arrive, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld.
The Delta Conveyance Project continues to make progress with two key milestones to push the project forward — a certification of consistency submitted to the Delta Stewardship Council and a state appellate court decision allowing pre-construction geotechnical work to continue.
Governor Gavin Newsom has announced two recent key victories to advance the Delta Conveyance Project — a critical infrastructure project to safeguard California’s water supplies amid a hotter, drier future.
San Diego County Water Authority officials expect wholesale water rates to soar by as much as 150% over the next decade, driven in part by the agency’s struggles to sell some of its supply — struggles it expects to get worse because of San Diego’s billion-dollar Pure Water project.
A grim reality of high water costs might persist for residents and businesses in much of the region if the authority doesn’t find new buyers for its water, according to a draft of the water authority’s long-term financial plan presented to water officials on Thursday.
San Diego may shift the second phase of the city’s Pure Water sewage recycling system to a more efficient purification method that could save billions of dollars, preventing steep jumps in local sewer and water bills.
The new method could dramatically change the size, scope and cost of the massive project’s Phase Two, which had been expected to be nearly twice as large as the nearly complete first phase.
We’re on the edge of our seats. Tomorrow the San Diego City Council will decide whether to charge San Diegans more for water over the next four years.
As our MacKenize Elmer reported, not approving the rate increase could wreak havoc on the city’s Public Utilities Department. And while the San Diego County Water Authority’s leader said they won’t turn off the water if the city can’t pay its water bill, not paying up could cost the city a lot in fees.
A controversial proposal to build a 14-mile underground tunnel to transport water from Northern California southward got a boost from the state Court of Appeals, which ruled that preliminary work can begin on the project.
Last year, a judge in Sacramento County agreed with a collection of counties, water districts, environmental groups and native tribes seeking to stop the Delta Conveyance Project. The judge found that preconstruction geotechnical work had to be certified by a state agency before it could begin, and issued a preliminary injunction preventing that work from moving forward.
Residents living near the Alvarado Water Treatment Plant in La Mesa continue to struggle with loud noises that have persisted for months despite mitigation efforts, according to neighbors interviewed about the issue first reported in June.
The noise stems from a filter restoration project at the plant, which is owned by the City of San Diego. The project was originally expected to be completed in September, but a new completion date has been set for the end of November, according to a city spokesperson.
