The Helix Water District Board of Directors honored East County student artists for their winning “Water Is Life” posters in an online awards ceremony during its May 2022 board meeting.
Southern California students in kindergarten through eighth grade are invited to participate in their regional water agency’s Student Poster Art Contest to increase awareness about water conservation.
Lake Mead, the lifeblood of the West, is at an all-time low.
And just this week, officials said it will fall by one-third of its current level by the end of 2023.
Inch by inch, the lake is falling. We’re seeing incredible images of sunken boats now visible.
The city of San Diego pursued its massive wastewater-to-drinking water recycling program, in part, because the federal government said it had to. Millions of gallons of undertreated sewage enters the Pacific Ocean through the city’s aging Point Loma treatment plant on the regular; Pure Water is the region’s first step toward a solution.
But now, a bloc of eastern San Diego County water agencies is building their own recycling project because, they say, the cost of buying imported water from the drought-ravaged Colorado River is unsustainable.
To some, it defies common sense. California is once again in the middle of a punishing drought with state leaders telling people to take shorter showers and do fewer loads of laundry to conserve water. Yet at the same time, many of the same elected officials, pledging to solve the housing crisis, are pushing for the construction of millions of new homes.
“It’s the first question I’d always get,” said Jeffrey Kightlinger, who until last year ran the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the agency that delivers the water ultimately used by half the state’s population.
Long before the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency and ordered outdoor watering limited to one day a week, Sarah Lariviere, an avid gardener, was thinking about ways to conserve water.
During the pandemic, the young adult author found inspiration on the long walks that she and her husband took in their Burbank neighborhood. It wasn’t the endless series of lush green lawns that moved her, however, but the occasional drought tolerant landscape that would materialize, sandwiched between the turf.
Starting Wednesday, June 1, new restrictions go into effect for millions of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power customers, including limiting outdoor watering.
The effects of the water conservation ordinance will vary a bit depending on what kind of sprinkler system you have.
If you have a standard sprinkler system, each cycle is limited to a maximum of eight minutes on your approved watering days.
For 35 days between March and April of this year, Dante Woolfolk went without any running water in his house in Brooktrails, a small town nestled amid the leafy canopies of Mendocino County in Northern California. A spiraling unpaid water bill had led the local water system to turn off the spigot.
For those 35 days, says Woolfolk, his life was upended. He purchased water to cook, make coffee and clean the house. He believes he “easily” spent $600 on bottled water alone. The 36-year-old’s three children stayed with a nearby friend.
As a third year of drought continues, California officialdom is increasing pressure for more water conservation.
Last week, the state Water Resources Control Board imposed a statewide ban on watering of “non-functional” turf, such as grass around commercial buildings, and directed local water agencies to implement water use restrictions.
“California is facing a drought crisis and every local water agency and Californian needs to step up on conservation efforts,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a supportive statement.
A long-dead proposal to flood a bucolic valley north of Sacramento and create a massive reservoir for thirsty Southern California is finding new life — and opposition — amid the effects of climate change and worsening drought.
First conceived in the 1950s, the Sites Reservoir project was abandoned in the 1980s — the twilight years of America’s big Western dam-building projects.
As San Diegans continue to battle soaring inflation, a proposed hike in water rates could drive the cost of living even higher next year.
Now, one group of homeowners could decide to pay for a big change now, to avoid more increases later. They’re the 192 owners at The Lakes at Carmel Del Mar, a condo complex that has five lakes and winding walkways surrounded by grass.
