San Diego County Water Authority General Manager Sandra L. Kerl delivered an inspiring keynote address at the 2023 Women in Water Symposium at Cuyamaca College. The conference was not held at the college in 2021 or 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic. And Kerl’s address focused on the sixth annual conference theme, “Building Resilience In Post-Pandemic Times.”
The power and technology behind the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, which turns seawater into drinking water, is described in this video report from Reporter Trason Bragg.
The Carlsbad Desalination Plant is the largest, most technologically advanced and energy-efficient desalination plant in the nation, and it has produced more than 100 billion gallons of drinking water for San Diego County since operations began in December 2015.
The Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty of San Diego County has financial aid available for low-income water customers in the region to cover residential water and wastewater bills.
There is $2.5 million available for income eligible households through MAAC’s Low-Income Household Water Assistance Program—no past due balance or debt owed is required to qualify.
With an exceptionally rainy season for California, much of the state is free from drought, including most of San Diego County, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
The latest drought monitor map released Thursday shows all but 11% of San Diego County remains in some form of drought, which is the same as last week. But that’s significantly down from 3 months ago when all of San Diego County was in some form of drought.
Nothing says the end of drought like ending water restrictions — and the pesky drought surcharges on utility bills.
On the heels of California’s remarkably wet winter, the Bay Area’s biggest water agencies, including the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and East Bay Municipal Utility District, have either rescinded their drought policies or are about to do so.
Colorado is awash in white this spring, with statewide snowpack topping 140% of average this week, well above the reading a year ago, when it stood at just 97% of normal.
“Conditions in the American West are way better than they were last year at this time,” state climatologist Russ Schumacher said Tuesday at a joint meeting Tuesday of the Water Availability Task Force and the Governor’s Flood Task Force.
Congress on Wednesday approved a resolution to overturn the Biden administration’s protections for the nation’s waterways that Republicans have criticized as a burden on business, advancing a measure that President Joe Biden has promised to veto.
Republicans have targeted the Biden administration’s protections for thousands of small streams, wetlands and other waterways, labeling it an environmental overreach that harms businesses, developers and farmers.
The Bureau of Reclamation March 28, announced an increase in Central Valley Project 2023 water supply allocations. After below average precipitation in February, Reclamation announced a conservative initial water supply allocation for the CVP on Feb. 22. Additional atmospheric river systems have since boosted hydrological conditions and storage volumes, allowing for a more robust water supply allocation.
Since making initial allocations last month, Shasta Reservoir, the cornerstone of the Central Valley Project, has increased from 59% to 81%, and San Luis Reservoir, the largest reservoir south-of-Delta, from 64% to 97%. Record-breaking snowpack conditions currently exist in the Southern Sierra coupled with significant snowpack in the Central Sierra and Northern Sierra/Trinity.
A colossal amount of rain and snow has fallen on California over the past few months from a dozen atmospheric rivers: more than 78 trillion gallons of water and counting.
It’s not the wettest year the Golden State has ever seen, but it is a massive amount of water in a state that has been beset by drought for several years. The number of gallons is according to data from the National Weather Service that was compiled by meteorologist Ryan Maue.
A cold low pressure system spinning off the coast of California sent bands of rain and snow across the state Wednesday, making travel difficult and adding to an epic mountain snowpack.
Forecasters said the storm was not as strong as the systems that pounded the state all winter, but that chains were required for vehicles on highways through the Sierra Nevada. A section of U.S. 395 on the eastern side of the range was closed due to snowfall.
