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Santa Fe Irrigation Selects Multi-Tiered Structure For Water Rate Increases

/in , /by /Ranchos Santa Fe Reviewby Karen Billing

The Santa Fe Irrigation District board recommended moving forward with a new five-tier rate structure for its proposed three percent water rate increase. The vote was 4-1 with Director Marlene King opposed.

The Santa Fe Irrigation District (SFID) board is expected to make a final decision on the rates by January 2020 to ensure the financial stability of the district and meet its objectives of equity across customer classes and encouraging conservation.

 

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Supervisors Receive San Diego County Fire 5-year Strategic Plan

/in , /by /County News Centerby Gig Conaughton

San Diego County supervisors received a five-year strategic plan Tuesday to continue improving firefighting and emergency medical services in unincorporated areas, provided by San Diego County Fire, the County Fire Authority-CAL FIRE entity the County has supported with more than $500 million since 2008.

The new plan runs from 2020 through 2025. It focuses on four objectives for the unified fire and emergency medical response Fire Authority that the County created in 2008 to unify and improve the uneven, disconnected administrative support, communications and training of individual rural fire agencies.

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These Trees Survived California’s Drought And That’s Giving Scientists Hope For Climate Change

/in , , /by /KQEDby Lauren Sommer

When California’s historic five-year drought finally relented a few years ago, the tally of dead trees in the Sierra Nevada was higher than almost anyone expected: 129 million. Most are still standing, the dry patches dotting the mountainsides.

But some trees did survive the test of heat and drought. Now, scientists are racing to collect them and other species around the globe in the hope that these “climate survivors” may have a natural advantage, allowing them to cope with a warming world a bit better than others in their species.

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Environment Report: What to Watch as the City’s New Energy Agency Gets Off the Ground

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

Last week, the San Diego City Council took the big plunge and decided, in a 7-2 vote, to start buying and selling energy.

San Diego, along with several neighboring cities, will shortly form a “community choice” energy agency, or CCA. This is something I’ve written a lot about over the past two years, because it represents a major shift in who controls both literal and figurative power in the region.

Right now, energy decisions are made by a private company, San Diego Gas & Electric, which operates under the somewhat watchful eye of the California Public Utilities Commission and, of course, the shareholders of its parent company, Sempra Energy.

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California Mayor Calls Mexican Sewage From Imperial Beach ‘International Tragedy’

/in , /by /News 4

The mayor of Imperial Beach, which abuts Tijuana, Mexico at a point that is visible by a border wall marking the two countries, is fed up with sewage and toxic chemicals flowing into the United States, and he is heading to Washington, D.C., to ask the Trump administration to do something about it.

Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina left for the nation’s capital on Sunday with a congressional delegation. He told Border Report that he has meetings at the White House scheduled on Tuesday with top officials who he hopes will help this situation.

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The Next Big Effort In AI: Keeping L.A.’s Water Flowing Post-Earthquake

/in , , /by /USC Newsby Gary Polakovic

Can artificial intelligence save the L.A. water supply from a big earthquake?

USC researchers have embarked on an innovative project to prove that it can. Using federal funds, experts at the USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS) are working with Los Angeles city officials to find solutions for vulnerable plumbing. The goal is to make surgical improvements to strategic pipelines to keep water flowing after shaking stops.

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Metropolitan Water District To Study Rainfall and Stormwater Runoff

/in , , /by /California Water News Daily

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has launched a new pilot program to provide vital data on the most efficient and cost-effective methods to capture and use rainfall and stormwater runoff. The $5 million pilot program will help fund the construction of new direct-use stormwater capture projects and the installation of monitoring equipment on existing projects.

Information on the costs and volume of water produced by different types of projects will be collected over three years and will inform the possible funding of stormwater capture efforts in the future. The goal is to understand the potential water supply benefits of local stormwater capture projects and how to best use that information.

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California’s Power Supply Is Getting Greener. It’s Still Got Far To Go.

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Mallory Moench

Over the past decade, California has become a globally acclaimed leader on renewable energy. Fueled by aggressive public policies, plummeting solar prices and evolving technology, the state has cut greenhouse gas emissions from its electric power supply in half since their 2008 peak, according to the California Air Resources Board.

“It’s really astounding how carbon dioxide emissions have been cut,” said Anthony Kovscek, chairman of the energy resources engineering department at Stanford University. “It’s been really remarkable how much renewable and solar we’ve been able to put on the grid and balance it.”

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Wifi Wires Will Run Through Water Pipes In Northern Washington Town

/in , /by /KUOW by John Ryan

A normally busy sidewalk on Seattle’s University Way Northeast has been cordoned off for an all-too-common reason: the concrete is being torn up to put in new fiber optic cable.

An hour north, the seaside town of Anacortes has found a way to avoid all that disruption: fiber optics cables in existing water pipes.

Sitting inside Anacortes’ main water pipe is a skinny plastic tube, like a drinking straw inside a glass of water.

“We have inserted a fiber optics cable inside of live water lines all the way from Mount Vernon to Anacortes,” said Fred Buckenmeyer, who runs the city’s public works department. “First in North America.”

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Sweetwater Authority Eyes Sand Mining, Material Dredging Opportunities

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by David Hernandez

The board of the Sweetwater Authority is interested in sand mining and material dredging opportunities in and around the South Bay water agency’s two reservoirs.

The agency, which serves National City, Bonita and parts of Chula Vista, plans to solicit interest from sand mining companies to explore the concept — specifically, whether there are opportunities to leverage the Sweetwater and Loveland reservoirs by extracting materials to not only create a revenue stream but also increase the capacity of the reservoirs.

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