Residents are lobbying San Diego officials to spare from the budget ax libraries, clean-water efforts, arts funding and other programs that were proposed to be cut to close a $300 million budget gap created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Electricity generated by renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro has exceeded coal-fired power in the United States for a record 40 straight days, according to a report based on U.S. government data released on Monday.
Unless steps are taken to check global warming, up to 3 billion people will find themselves in areas too warm for human comfort, a new study finds.
The State Water Resources Control Board has executed an agreement to provide approximately $5 million in grant funds for testing and remediation of lead in drinking water at licensed Child Care Centers in California.
Work to restore a damaged 9-foot diameter water pipeline in Moreno Valley continued Monday, May 4, and outdoor watering restrictions will be lifted for Western Municipal Water District customers starting Tuesday.
A new poll recently released by the Value of Water Campaign shows that 84% of American voters want state and federal leaders to invest in water infrastructure. The near-unanimous support amid the COVID-19 pandemic reveals that voters value water and want elected officials to prioritize investing in infrastructure — specifically, drinking water and wastewater infrastructure.
For the fifth year in a row, the Value of Water Campaign poll surveyed over 1,000 American voters for the annual Value of Water Index. The poll asked voters how the nation should solve infrastructural issues and which priorities it should meet. Support for water infrastructure investment cuts across demographic, political and geographic divisions.
The actual repair work for a San Diego County Water Authority pipeline in Moosa Canyon is now complete, although a shutdown to remove the isolation bulkheads will be needed and the SDCWA pipeline will be shut down May 4-11.
“The carbon fiber repair has been completed, and we’re preparing for a shutdown of Pipeline 5, May 4, to remove the internal steel bulkheads,” Neena Kuzmich, CWA engineering manager, said. “After we remove the bulkheads Pipeline 5 will resume normal operations.”
Expanding and intensifying drought in Northern California portends an early start to the wildfire season, and the National Interagency Fire Center is predicting above-normal potential for large wildfires by midsummer.
Mountain snowpack has been below average across the High Sierra, southern Cascades and the Great Basin, and the agency warns that these areas need to be monitored closely as fuels continue to dry out. The agency also cites a warm, dry pattern in Oregon and central and eastern Washington, and assigns all of these areas a higher-than-average likelihood of wildfires in July.
A coalition of 17 Democratic-leaning states sued the Trump administration on Friday for rolling back Obama-era protections for waterways, arguing the move ignores science on the interconnectivity of water.
President Trump’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule limits federal protections for a number of smaller waterways, which many scientists say risks pesticides and pollution reaching larger ones.
“This rule opens the door to new, and worse industry pollution that endangers our wildlife, it dirties our drinking water and increases the risk of harmful contamination of our nation’s waterways. In short, it risks the health and safety of Americans around the nation,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) said in a call with reporters announcing the suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and asks to vacate the rule entirely.
Temperatures could reach triple digits Monday in the San Diego County deserts, and the mercury will be on the rise all week throughout the region, according to the National Weather Service.
Conditions will be relatively mild west of the deserts Monday, but building high pressure will cause temperatures to rise throughout the county until Friday, forecasters said. By midweek, high temperatures could be 15-20 degrees above average in most areas, forecasters said.
The NWS issued a heat advisory that will be in effect from 10 a.m. Tuesday to 9 p.m. Friday in the western valleys.
An excessive heat watch will also take effect Tuesday morning and last until Friday evening in the county deserts.
