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Thousands Will Live Here One Day (as Long as They Can Find Water)

/in , /by /The New York Timesby Keith Schneider

Surrounded by miles of creosote and ocotillo in the Sonoran Desert, state officials and business leaders gathered in October against the backdrop of the ragged peaks of the White Tank Mountains to applaud a plan to turn 37,000 acres of arid land west of Phoenix into the largest planned community ever proposed in Arizona. The development, Teravalis, is expected to have 100,000 homes and 55 million square feet of commercial space. But to make it happen, the project’s developer, the Howard Hughes Corporation, will need to gain access to enough water for its projected 300,000 residents and 450,000 workers.

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2022: So. Much. Water. News!

/in , , /by /SJV Waterby Lois Henry

Here we are nearing the end of another year. And the SJV Water team has been taking stock, reflecting and pondering the accumulation of news and events that made up 2022. (Really, we’re taking some much needed time off and I’m, personally,  “checkin’ the snow pack” –  code for skiing – and needed to stockpile some content. SHHH!)

 

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Water News Network Top Stories of 2022

/in , , /by /Water News Networkby Ed Joyce Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

The Water News Network top stories of 2022 were drought-related and features about technology and college scholarships also engaged readers.

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How Tracking Atmospheric Rivers Could Transform California’s Reservoir Levels During Drought

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Jack Lee

Atmospheric rivers can wreak havoc on the West Coast. These “rivers in the sky” stream enormous amounts of moisture from the tropics to western North America — double the flow of the Amazon River, on average. This moisture can produce downpours that cause widespread flood damage. From 1978 to 2017, this damage amounted to $1.1 billion per year according to a 2022 study. But atmospheric rivers are also crucial for life in California.

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Nevada Calls on Utah and Upper Colorado Basin States to Slash Water Use by 500,000 Acre-Feet

/in , , /by /The Salt Lake Tribuneby Brian Maffly

Nevada water managers have submitted a plan for cutting diversions by 500,000 acre-feet in a last-ditch effort to shore up flows on the Colorado River before low water levels cause critical problems at Glen Canyon and Hoover dams. But the Silver State’s plan targets cuts in Utah and the river’s other Upper Basin states, not in Nevada, whose leaders contend it already is doing what it can to reduce reliance on the depleted river system that provides water to 40 million in the West.

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Opinion: No More Band-Aids: How to Make the Colorado River Sustainable for the Long Term

/in , , /by /The Arizona Republicby Margaret Garcia and Elizabeth Koebele

The Colorado River Basin is in the midst of a sustainability crisis. Climate change and severe drought, coupled with historic overallocation of the river, have caused water users to rapidly drain the system’s major reservoirs to their lowest levels since construction.

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As Desalination Gains Traction in Parts of California, Santa Cruz Weighs Future of Its Water Supply

/in , , /by /Lookout Santa Cruzby Christopher Neely

When it comes to the view of desalination as a tool to drought-proof local water systems in California, 2022 has been a roller-coaster year. In May, the California Coastal Commission, a 12-member appointed board responsible for overseeing the state’s 1,100 miles of coastline, rejected on environmental grounds a $1.4 billion desalination facility proposed for Huntington Beach.

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Three Ways Imperial Beach’s New Mayor Plans to Tackle the Tijuana Sewage Crisis

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune, Los Angeles Timesby Joshua Emerson Smith

Paloma Aguirre has fought to clean up the sewage-plagued waters of Imperial Beach for the better part of the last two decades — first as an activist and most recently as the city’s first elected woman of Mexican descent. The city’s newly minted mayor says her highest priority next year will be working with officials in Baja California to stem the pollution that routinely spills over the border and floats up the coastline.

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First of Two Storms Could Drop Half-Inch of Rain in San Diego by Early Wednesday

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Gary Robbins

The first of two Pacific storms will push into San Diego County on Tuesday night and likely drop a half-inch or more of rain at and near the coast and slightly more in the foothills and mountains by early Wednesday, says the National Weather Service. The rain represents the tail of a much larger system that is soaking the Bay Area and is expected to bring heavy snow to the Sierra Nevada, benefiting many of the state’s reservoirs.

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What We Learned This Year: San Diego’s Beaches Are Dirtier Than We Knew

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby MacKenzie Elmer

San Diego’s southernmost beaches are blighted by sewage that spills into the cross-border Tijuana River and flows to the ocean. Before 2022, the best available coastal water testing technology took so long to furnish results that public health officials couldn’t surmise how safe the water was until days after visitors swam in it.

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