The Sweetwater Authority selected 10 elementary school students as the winners of its “Being Water Wise Is…” 2023 Student Art Poster Contest. The annual contest is open to kindergarten through sixth-grade students in the Authority’s service area. The contest encourages students to think about the importance of water in their everyday lives, and how they can help protect and conserve water in their homes and community.
The last time Lake Oroville neared capacity was four years ago, and very quickly it plunged into drought territory and has seen low water levels until this winter. And now that billion-dollar, renovated spillway is back in use as the reservoir is back at 99% of its capacity.
The Feather River is getting a fair amount of extra water flow these days as Lake Oroville has been releasing water over the last week. Oroville is California’s second-largest reservoir, with a capacity of over 3.5 million acre-feet of water, and also just about at capacity is the state’s largest reservoir, Lake Shasta, which has a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet and is at 98%.
Water bills will be rising for nearly a tenth of San Jose’s residents starting July 1 after San Jose councilmembers approved the rate hike on Tuesday — one of the largest increases in the region this year.
Customers under the city-run San Jose Municipal Water System (SJMWS) will see a 14% rise in their bills — about $16 extra per month. SJMWS serves roughly 140,000 residents in North San Jose, Alviso, Evergreen, Edenvale and Coyote Valley.
Officials blame the rising costs on increased prices from third-party water providers, supply and usage issues related to drought conditions and future infrastructure projects. In total, SJMWS expects to receive $8.9 million from the increase.
Councilmembers voted 9-2 for the price increase, with Councilmembers Domingo Candelas and Bien Doan voting against it.
Water usage is expected to remain the same this coming year — and costs are expected to rise in the years ahead. By 2024, water bills could go up by 15%, 11.5% in 2025 and 10% for the next seven years after that.
Sonia Herbert of Bombay Beach wants people to know that California’s Salton Sea isn’t all dystopian sunbaked abandoned homes, poverty, ominous toxic dust and decaying nostalgia. It’s also a place where people live and find beauty around the mirage-like lake in the desert.
As millions of newcomers have flocked to the Las Vegas Valley over the past 50 years, every level of government in the nation’s driest state has worked to ensure that water shortages don’t stop the growth.
Since 1999, southern Nevada has ripped out thousands of acres of turf from lawns, sports fields and roadway medians under the West’s most ambitious grass-removal program. These efforts helped halve the amount of water each resident consumed and freed up enough for Clark County to add nearly 1 million people.
A local government body on Monday delayed the decision on whether two North County water districts can leave the San Diego County Water Authority to buy cheaper water elsewhere.
Fallbrook Public Utility District and Rainbow Municipal Water District want a divorce from the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) because they say the water rate is too high. They want to move to the Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside for its cheaper water. It’s a process called detachment.
In their efforts to break away from the San Diego County Water Authority, two small farming communities have run into a powerful and unexpected foe: The Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
At least, they ran into the man who chairs Metropolitan’s board: Adán Ortega Jr., a water policy consultant and former lobbyist elected in October to lead at Met.
Carbon dioxide levels measured at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Atmospheric Baseline Observatory peaked at 424 parts per million (ppm) in May, continuing a steady climb further into territory not seen for millions of years, scientists from NOAA and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego announced today, June 5, 2023.
A county commission will meet again in August to decide whether to allow two North County communities to switch water providers.
“We cannot afford to buy items, such as water, at the super-high rates for our farm to be sustainable,” said Kendall Farms CEO Jason Kendall, during Monday’s meeting at the County Administration Center.
The San Diego County Local Agency Formation Commission is considering a proposal to allow the Fallbrook Public Utility District and the Rainbow Municipal Water District to switch water service to Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County and cut ties with the San Diego County Water Authority.
