San Diego County Water Authority Water Resources Manager Jeff Stephenson talks to ABC 10News about the area’s water supply following the release of the draft 2020 Urban Water Management Plan. The plan was released for public review March 8.
Every time someone turns on the tap in San Diego County, out flows the work of Peter MacLaggan.
MacLaggan was the point man in the construction of the Carlsbad desalination plant, a nearly $1 billion public-private partnership that since 2015 has supplied nearly 10 percent of the potable water consumed in the county.
Desalination relies on the virtually unlimited supply of water in the Pacific Ocean. It provides a safe, reliable source of local water in a region that for many years relied on supplies from hundreds of miles away and was subject to mechanical breakdowns, seasonal shortages and the whims of nature.
Since 1991, San Diego County ratepayers have conserved more than 1 million acre-feet of water, and per capita potable water use in the region decreased nearly 60 percent between fiscal years 1990 and 2019, according to the San Diego County Water Authority.
The findings are part of the Water Authority’s draft 2020 Urban Water Management Plan, which was released Monday for public review.
The report concludes that as a result of conservation and billions of dollars in infrastructure, San Diego should have sufficient water supplies through 2045.
“Thanks to decades of regional investments (and conservation) the draft plan shows that we don’t need to secure more regional supply sources for the foreseeable future,” Water Authority general manager Sandra Kerl said in a statement. “Instead we are focused on helping our member agencies develop local supplies, and looking for other ways we can continue to ensure supply reliability at a reasonable cost.”
As March begins to drag on with little precipitation in the forecast and few weeks left in California’s traditional wet season, we are in another dry year. This is California’s second dry year in a row since the 2012-2016 drought. Statistically, California has the most drought and flood years per average year than anywhere in the US. This statistical fact seems to becoming increasingly extreme, as predicted by many climate change models.
Scientists and boatmen with the United States Geological Survey are preparing for a busy week on the Colorado River as engineers at Glen Canyon Dam prepare to reduce the water flowing out of Lake Powell substantially.
In order to conduct maintenance on the concrete apron downstream of the dam, engineers will be limiting the water that runs through the dam’s turbines starting Monday and continuing through the rest of the week.
California is poised to issue the world’s first guidelines for microplastics in drinking water despite no data on how plentiful they are in the state, no scientific agreement on how to test water for them and little research on their health risks.
The pieces of plastic — smaller than an ant, some so tiny they can be seen only with a microscope — have contaminated wildlife and human bodies through their food, air and water.
Another March storm moved through California on Monday, bringing snow to the Sierra Nevada, rain showers elsewhere and gale conditions offshore.
A mix of winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories stretched the length of the Sierra and southward into mountain ranges of Southern California that were just coated with snow last week.
Caltrans recommended motorists traveling through the Sierra check for chain requirements.
A judge has ordered the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to continue providing historic quantities of irrigation water to lessees of its pasturelands east of Yosemite, despite the agency’s assertion that climate change is making water resources in the Sierra Nevada watershed increasingly unreliable.
For decades, it was a source of drinking water for the San Marcos area. Today, the South Lake Reservoir has new life as a local wildlife habitat.
South Lake was built with an earthen dam and provided drinking water to the Lake San Marcos area, most of downtown San Marcos, and the Coronado Hills area. Updates to potable water treatment had detrimental effects on the lake ecology, so the Vallecitos Water District stopped using the lake as a drinking water source in 1984, although it remained an emergency water supply for another decade.
No matter whether their landscaping is just a few square feet alongside a front porch or estate acreage, thousands of San Diego County residents have learned to embrace sustainability as a central principle for creating and renovating their landscapes. The San Diego County Water Authority offers financial incentives and educational resources to customers in Fallbrook and Rainbow to improve their landscaping.
