What was supposed to be a quick fix has turned into nearly a year of frustration for Escondido residents. Harding Street has been partially closed since January for aqueduct repairs, leaving drivers to navigate detours and congestion.
“It used to be two-way traffic,” said longtime resident Adrian Tejada. “My concern isn’t only for residents, it closes off shopping areas, so there’s only one way to come in.”
The Imperial Irrigation District recently held two workshops to update the public on the status of the negotiations on how Colorado River water will be distributed after the current guidelines expire at the end of next year.
The mood of the meeting reminded me of similar hearings back in 2003 when the IID was under heavy pressure to sign the Quantification Settlement Agreement, a basket of contracts that established new rules about water sharing in California. Most prominently, the QSA implemented the ongoing water transfers of nearly 500,000 acre-feet of water to the San Diego Water County Authority, MWD, and Coachella. The mood of those 2003 meetings was gloomy. And so it is now.
When it comes to water, honesty matters as much as infrastructure. On Tuesday, the San Diego City Council narrowly approved a two-year water rate increase — 14.7 percent next year and 14.5 percent the following year — rejecting staff’s push for a four-year plan. The Council’s message was clear: They want answers and accountability, not finger-pointing.
City staff continue to blame the San Diego County Water Authority for rate hikes, citing higher wholesale costs and claiming the Water Authority “has too much water.” Yet when a councilmember asked what the city’s rate increase would be if the Water Authority raised rates by 0 percent, staff offered only double talk. That moment crystallized a larger issue — a troubling lack of transparency about the city’s own cost drivers, from deferred maintenance and energy costs to the growing expense of building the Pure Water program.
If you’ve been feeling like it’s a little warmer than usual this time of year, you’re not wrong. Experts from the National Weather Service say this heat isn’t going away anytime soon. Meteorologist with NWS Adam Roser says Santa Ana winds are playing a big role in the warmer weather many in the valleys are feeling right now.
“We do have some Santa Ana winds today, which helps warm up the valleys a lot, so that’s why you’re kind of feeling it pretty warm,” said Roser.
What if San Diego blanketed land, reservoirs and buildings its Public Utilities Department owned with solar and used the money it made off that power to subsidize skyrocketing water rates for poorer people?
That’s the idea San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera pitched during an uncomfortable series of debates over raising water rates on San Diegans by 63 percent over the next four years. The Public Utilities department owns 42,550 acres of land – about the size of Washington D.C. It could, in theory, lease that land out to solar developers and help bring down water rates, fix dams or otherwise prop-up a city department key to ensuring water is treated and distributed to 1.4 million people.
The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant has completed a $286 million upgrade to its seawater intake and discharge system, a state-mandated project designed to protect marine life while maintaining the facility’s water production capacity, the San Diego County Water Authority announced Tuesday, Oct. 28.
The work was finished on schedule and $29 million under budget, according to a Water Authority news release.
In September, the San Diego City Council gave the mayor a month to find ratepayers savings on water rates. Tuesday’s the councilmembers’ second attempt to pass a 63 percent water and 31 percent wastewater increase over four years.
Nothing has changed in the proposal.
A sharply divided and visibly frustrated San Diego City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday to raise water rates 31% over the next two years and increase sewer rates 31% over the next four years.
The council did not soften any of the proposed rate increases, which have been declared necessary by two outside consultants, city staff and the city’s independent budget analyst.
The San Diego City Council will again consider a steep increase of water and wastewater rates Tuesday, following a decision last month to punt the discussion in hopes of friendlier numbers.
In city documents ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, those changes did not appear to come about. The proposal before the council is to increase water rates by 63% through 2029 and wastewater rates by 31% in the same period.
San Diego County Water Authority officials expect wholesale water rates to soar by as much as 150% over the next decade, driven in part by the agency’s struggles to sell some of its supply — struggles it expects to get worse because of San Diego’s billion-dollar Pure Water project.
A grim reality of high water costs might persist for residents and businesses in much of the region if the authority doesn’t find new buyers for its water, according to a draft of the water authority’s long-term financial plan presented to water officials on Thursday.
