Back in 1994, Ace of Base and Boys II Men were chart-topping artists, “The Lion King” was the year’s most popular movie…and the Public Policy Institute of California drew its first breath. A lot has changed in California since then, so we sat down with key PPIC Water Policy Center staff to discuss what’s changed—and what hasn’t—in the California water world since the year the White House launched its first webpage.
Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Chair of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife, announced that he secured several top water infrastructure priorities for California through the unanimous Senate passage of the Thomas R. Carper Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) of 2024. The legislation includes provisions Padilla fought for to address the Tijuana River transboundary sewage crisis, to invest in salmon recovery and habitat restoration around the Sacramento River Basin, and to provide the Army Corps of Civil Engineers with enhanced drought and flood control authorities.
The Senate and House of Representatives have each passed their respective versions of WRDA, which will now be conferenced to produce final legislation.
Imagine it’s a Saturday morning in Santa Monica in the year 2080. You brew your coffee, open your front door and breathe in the hot, dry air of … San Bernardino?
That’s the potential future if climate change continues unabated, according to a new mapping tool from researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. The tool draws direct lines between an area’s projected climate in 60 years and the places that are experiencing that climate today.
In 2011, Conner Everts, one of California’s venerable water conservation advocates, wrote that ocean desalination is dead in California. His essay is posted below.
At about that time, the San Diego County Water Authority, the County’s water wholesaler, signed a 30-year take-or-pay contract with Poseidon Water to build the $1 billion Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad [ocean] Desalination Plant, described hagiographically on the official website.
Say the word “library,” and your word association is likely “books.” But across the country, including in San Diego, many libraries also lend other important items, including seeds for home gardens.
Many of these “seed libraries“ aren’t actually conventional libraries: They may be a service organized by neighborhoods, schools or other kinds of organizations. The common factor is that they are all a free community resource that offers locals the opportunity to grow everything from fruits and vegetables to flowers and native plants. All they ask is that patrons return the “borrowed” seeds by way of harvesting new seeds from the grown plants.
The city of San Diego has embarked in a multibillion dollar effort to recycle its wastewater into drinking water. It’s a project years in the making, but officials expect to complete the first phase in 2027.
This week on the podcast, Voice of San Diego’s social media pro Bella Ross recaps what she learned on a recent tour of the new facility. And she gets into why people don’t want to drink the recycled water — but also why they need to get over it.
Outside her home in Riverside County, near the north shore of the Salton Sea, Sara Renteria is struggling to breathe. She has to speak in short sentences, and pauses often to take a breath.
When she was diagnosed with asthma as an adult about five years ago, Renteria said her doctor gave her a choice: Leave her home in the Coachella Valley or take an array of medications to treat her condition. It was the air, he told her, that worsened her asthma.
Two local water districts have filed a lawsuit in North County court alleging the city of San Diego failed for years to maintain the Lake Hodges Dam.
The water districts allege they have lost $21 million due to the release of water from Lake Hodges in recent months.
Water for People, a global nonprofit, has presented its prestigious Kenneth J. Miller Founder’s Award for outstanding service to La Mesa resident Harold E. Bailey, Ph.D., P.E. A registered civil engineer and former university instructor, Dr. Bailey has an impressive record of accomplishments for numerous local water-related organizations and agencies spanning more than four decades.
Another heat wave and more monsoonal thunderstorms are expected to increase wildfire danger in California over the weekend and into next week.
A high-pressure system is expected to expand over the western United States on Wednesday and get stronger through Friday, according to the National Weather Service. California will be spared the worst of the heat, the weather service predicted, as the system concentrates over the Rocky Mountains.
