The San Diego County Water Authority has helped secure financial aid for low-income water customers in the region to cover overdue residential water and wastewater bills.
The authority is partnering with the Metropolitan Area Advisory Committee on Anti-Poverty of San Diego County (MAAC) and Campesinos Unidos, Inc. for outreach and education to make residents who are struggling aware of the funding.
A new poll of San Diego County residents finds that nearly two-thirds believe they can do more to conserve water during California’s record drought.
The poll commissioned by the San Diego County Water Authority found that 88% feel they have a civic duty to use water efficiently and 66% say they can do “a little more” or “much more” to conserve.
When Brian Olney started in the water industry nearly three decades ago, it seemed nobody paid attention to what he and his colleagues were doing.
“The general consensus was: Water fell from the sky, it shows up in our faucet, no one wants to hear anything from the water agencies,” Olney said. “That has changed dramatically.”
As the Colorado River shrinks, the seven states in the western United States that rely on it for water and power need to cut their use dramatically to keep the biggest reservoirs from getting critically low, according to federal analysts.
But a recent deadline for a plan to conserve an unprecedented amount of water came and went without many specifics from either the states or the federal government on how to achieve the cutbacks.
After 22 straight years of drought, the Colorado River is no stranger to crisis. But even by its standards, the outlook this summer is bleak. The nation’s two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are nearly three-quarters empty. Satellite images show the river’s topography has changed dramatically since 2017, and scenes on the ground are no less shocking: stranded houseboats, dead plants and cracked lake beds.
The pretty, cloudless blue skies over perfectly manicured lawns represent an ugly reality for California’s Las Virgenes Municipal Water District as it grapples with the historic megadrought ravaging the American West.
In an effort to combat the devastating drought conditions hitting California, the Golden State will become the first in the nation to install solar panel canopies over canals.
The $20 million pilot project funded by the state has been dubbed “Project Nexus.” It will consist of an estimated 8,500 feet of solar panels installed over three sections of Turlock Irrigation District (TID) canals in Central California. It is expected to break ground in the fall, and be completed by 2023. The project was first announced back in February.
“You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need,” Rolling Stones (1969, Let It Bleed album)
The ongoing California drought has many lessons for water managers and policy-makers. Perhaps the greatest lesson is how unimportant a drought can be if we manage water well.
Imperial Valley farmers who have senior water rights on the severely depleted Colorado River say emergency water delivery cuts ordered last week by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation do not go far enough to achieve the agency’s goal of conserving water for the river’s future sustainability.
The new restrictions aren’t directed at agriculture in the Imperial Valley. Yet fears mount that farmers, who are already cutting back their water use, could lose critical irrigation supplies if an accord on 2023 water diversions isn’t reached for multiple states and agencies relying on the river.
