Water districts across San Diego County are grappling with a dramatic price hike from the San Diego County Water Authority, which is projected to increase water prices by nearly 40% over the next few years.
Olivenhain Municipal Water District board members on Wednesday night voted to approve a budget that will affect 87,000 customers. A spokesperson for the district says they don’t know yet exactly how much this will cost their customers.
Ramona Municipal Water District directors approved water rate increases for customers starting July 1 and will decide whether to continue raising rates each year through fiscal year 2028-29.
The rate increase was approved at the water district’s June 11 meeting by a 4-1 vote with Director Gary Hurst opposed. The new rates for the 2024-25 fiscal year are based on volume of water used, monthly service charges and water pumping costs, according to a staff report.
Efforts to stretch the overused Colorado River appear to be working: The total amount of water used across Nevada, California and Arizona is the lowest it’s been in 40 years.
The reduction is the result of several factors, including a good snowpack year allowing for more use of groundwater, increased conservation efforts and millions of dollars in Inflation Reduction Act funding to incentivize farmers to use less water.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek provides an update on the water main break as the city received pipe pieces from San Diego to speed up repairs.
Two additional pieces of pipe from the San Diego Water Authority arrived last night in order to repair the remaining hotpots in Calgary’s water main feeder.
Today marks two weeks since a water main feeder in Calgary burst resulting in the current water crisis in Calgary and its surrounding communities, like Airdrie. Airdrie remains under a level four outdoor water restriction.
Legal rights to use water — particularly those obtained prior to 1914 — lie at the heart of California’s perpetual wrangling over the allocation of increasingly limited water supplies.
For years state officials have been trying, with limited success, to reduce farmers’ diversions, increase river flows and restore declining numbers of fish, particularly salmon, and other wildlife.
Current and comprehensive news stories from around Calgary and Southern Alberta.
Concrete pipes weighing over 12 thousand pounds. They have a long journey ahead. The San Diego County Water Authority is sending two of the pipes 16 hundred miles north. They are going to Calgary to help with the water crisis.
“This is one of several pieces of pipe we have in our yard that we store in case of emergency. Thankfully we are able to release two of these pipes to Calgary. They need it more than we do,” said Martin Coghill.
Carlsbad’s desalination plant, which provides 10 percent of San Diego County’s drinking water, will get $19.4 million for the construction of its new seawater intakes as part of $142 million in federal grants for water projects throughout the West.
Construction of the new facilities began in January 2023 at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, a spokesperson for the San Diego County Water Authority said Friday. The new intake screens will be placed in operation this fall, and the full project should be finished in early 2025.
Twelve days after a massive water main broke in Calgary, a pair of replacement pipes from San Diego will start a multi-day journey heading north to help crews here repair five sections.
“These are spare pipes that we’ve had in our yard and they are a suitable size for use in Calgary,” Martin Coghill told CTV News.
