This feature highlights water utility employees in the San Diego region working during the coronavirus pandemic to ensure a safe, reliable and plentiful water supply. The water industry is among the sectors that are classified as essential. Ron Lutge, City of Oceanside Chief Plant Operator, is the Water Utility Hero of the Week.
Across much of the United States, the flood risk is far greater than government estimates show, new calculations suggest, exposing millions of people to a hidden threat — and one that will only grow as climate change worsens.
The San Diego County Water Authority board has trimmed a proposed 2021 rate increase by 30% because of concerns about the pandemic’s impact on the regional economy.
The board also directed staff to look for further opportunities to reduce the 2021 rate increase and provide recommendations by October before the new rates take effect Jan. 1.
The National Rural Water Association, which represents water systems that serve fewer than 10,000 customers, is calling on Congress to extend financial aid to small utilities that are being affected by revenue losses due to the pandemic.
The Trump administration has decided a chemical with a notorious legacy in Nevada will not be regulated in drinking water, but state officials say the reversal of the Obama-era policy shouldn’t result in any decline in drinking water standards across the state.
Water is essential to life. Yet running water is becoming unaffordable across the US, in cities large and small. Water bills weigh heavily on many Americans as utilities hike up prices to pay for environmental clean-ups, infrastructure upgrades and climate emergency defenses to deal with floods and droughts. Federal funding for America’s ageing water system has plummeted, and as a result a growing number of households are unable to afford to pay their bills; millions of homes are being disconnected or put into foreclosure every year.
Following a public hearing, the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors today adopted rate increases for 2021 that are 30% lower than proposed last month following a series of refinements by staff. In addition, the Board directed staff to return in September or October with any further opportunities to reduce the 2021 rate increases, such as a decrease in rates set by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California or the acquisition of federal or state economic stimulus funds.
The Imperial County Air Pollution Control District on Tuesday hit the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Imperial Irrigation District with notices of violation for ongoing pollution at a long-stalled Salton Sea restoration project.
The violations allege that the federal agency and the water district have only made sporadic attempts since 2016 to complete work at the several-hundred-acre Red Hill Bay site, “causing numerous instances of elevated levels of airborne dust.”
Arizona is getting a jump start on what will be a yearslong process to address a dwindling but key water source in the U.S. West.
Several states and Mexico rely on the Colorado River for drinking water and growing crops. But climate change, drought and demand have taken a toll on the river that no longer can deliver what was promised in the 1920s.
Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, California, Utah, Wyoming and Nevada have been operating under a set of guidelines approved in 2007. Those guidelines and an overlapping drought contingency plan will expire in 2026.
