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Just off Palm Canyon Drive in Borrego Springs, a dead honey mesquite tree remains rooted in the hot sand. It’s lifeless but not yet useless — not to the creatures that find shade under its branches or the plants that count on its nutrients.

Over the last year, mesquite has been at the heart of a growing water war in Borrego Springs, a tiny but scenic town deep in the San Diego County desert that for years seemed blessed with a rare combination of blazing sun and a font of available groundwater.

San Diego’s water portfolio has positioned the region to do something rare for a major U.S. city: share its hard-won supply with neighbors still battling drought. Negotiations are underway for Arizona and Nevada to tap part of San Diego County’s Colorado River allocation in return for covering the operating costs of the massive Carlsbad Desalination Plant.

The proposal would leverage years of local investments in desalination, storage and water rights to create a regional safety net — one that could deliver water to roughly half a million people in neighboring states during dry spells while keeping San Diego’s system stable and affordable.

(scroll down) No one is getting rid of the San Diego County Water Authority just yet.

The San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, had planned to look into the possibility in what’s called a municipal service review, or MSR. But on Monday, LAFCO commissioners scrapped that process.

Drought cuts down harvests every year, but new local research may allow farmers to maximize their output even as water becomes more scarce.

A team at the Salk Institute investigating plant aging has charted a new path to drought-tolerant crops. While the broader scientific community is packed with research on human aging, they have found plants approach the process very differently.

The Poway City Council unanimously approved a $441,000 payment to the city of San Diego on Tuesday to resolve a years-long billing dispute and establish an amended water rights agreement with the city.

The payment retroactively replaces water charges made by San Diego to Poway for the calendar years 2017 to 2025, according to a Poway staff report.