In Arizona’s desert Southwest, water is life. It grows the food that fills grocery stores across the nation — even in the middle of winter.
But today, Arizona farms face unprecedented challenges, and our food security hangs in the balance.
The worst water Colt Smith has seen in 14 years with Utah’s Division of Drinking Water was at a mobile home park, where residents had been drinking it for years before state officials discovered the contamination.
The well water carried cancer-causing arsenic as much as 10 times the federal limit. Smith had to put the rural park under a do-not-drink order that lasted nearly 10 years.
As the sun rises over Kabul’s parched mountains, a family’s daily struggle to find water – and to make it last – is about to begin.
The sound of water tankers rumbling through Raheela’s neighborhood in the Afghan capital prompts the 42-year-old mother of four to rush out to the street to fill her family’s battered buckets and jerrycans. The family’s supply is always running low, she says, and every liter is expensive, stretching nerves and their budgets to breaking point.
The San Diego City Council on Tuesday passed a resolution in support of 10 bills wending their way through the state Capitol in Sacramento that their respective sponsors say will help lower utility bills and “hold investor-owned utilities accountable.”
Resolutions do not have the force of law, but Council President Joe LaCava said he introduced the measure because “it is the most powerful way we have at the moment to actually send a signal from San Diego to Sacramento.”
California legislative staffers and environmental advocates took flight Tuesday to get a rare aerial view of watershed restoration in the Sierra Nevada, a project they say is critical to protecting the state’s water supply.
Much of California’s drinking water begins in places like the Yuba River Watershed, where decades of fire damage and climate change have left ecosystems fragile. From above, the contrast between green recovery zones and fire-scarred forest land was stark.
After years of legal battles over water rates, a new deal has promised more stability, efficiency and reliability for San Diego water ratepayers. In June, the San Diego County Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District announced a settlement to a 15 year legal dispute over fluctuating prices and exchange agreements between the agencies. Water Authority Board Chair Nick Serrano joins our Laura Cavanaugh to dive deeper into this new era of collaboration and to explain why this move is such a game changer for our region.
The San Diego City Council voted 6-3 on Monday to schedule a public hearing on proposed water rate increases that could result in a cumulative hike of over 60% over the next four years. The increases, if approved, would begin in January 2026 and continue through 2029.
According to the Public Utilities Department, the combined monthly water and sewer bill for a single-family home could reach approximately $180. The proposed increases are attributed to several factors, including the cost of importing water, inflation, repairs to aging infrastructure, and investments in future water projects.
Lawmakers are poised to give California’s water districts legal cover from lawsuits as they work to meet strict new state standards for a cancer-causing toxic chemical.
It’s called hexavalent chromium, more commonly known as “chromium-6.” Drinking water with trace amounts of the chemical over long periods has been linked to cancer.
Groundbreaking on one of California’s newest reservoirs could begin by the end of next year, officials announced Friday.
Work on the Sites Reservoir, west of Maxwell in Colusa County, starts when crews begin testing soils and rocks in and around the 14,000 acre site of the proposed lake, said Fritz Durst, chairman of the Sites Project Authority Board of Directors.
For the first time in decades, the San Diego County Water Authority’s representatives on the board of the Metropolitan Water District will not enjoy, or have to deal with, the guidance of Chris Frahm, the former chair of the Water Authority, who became the architect of its legal approach to Metropolitan.
In this week’s Politics Report, Scott Lewis broke the news that Frahm’s contract would not be coming back to the board after a tense exchange at the last board meeting .
