As Shawntrel McCoy closes out his 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he’ll be spending his last six months pursuing his passion for environmental science in the SkillBridge Program at the San Diego County Water Authority. The program is helping military veterans transition to career-track training opportunities, including work in the water and wastewater industry.
California has awarded the wholesaler San Diego County Water Authority $3 million to help financially strapped households install high-efficiency toilets and upgrade irrigation systems, state officials announced last week.
The money comes from the Department of Water Resources as part of $46 million in grants doled out across six counties in the state. Projects include recycling efforts, flood risk and groundwater management, pipeline construction and turf rebates.
What happens after you flush your toilet? For 2.6 million county residents, the answer to that question can be found at a 110-acre plant in Fountain Valley operated by the Orange County Sanitation District.
The industrial site, along with a similar setup in Huntington Beach, is where approximately 185 million gallons of sewage is treated in a complex process that essentially digests biologic material into its basic components.
Call it water whiplash: As California recovers from one of its wettest months in recent history, the Colorado River is still dwindling toward dangerous lows.
As a result, Southern Californians aren’t sure whether to expect shortage or surplus in the year ahead. Though the state is snow-capped and soggy from a series of atmospheric river storms, the region remains under a drought emergency declaration from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The San Diego County Water Authority was awarded $3.3 million Thursday by the state’s Department of Water Resources for installation of high-efficiency toilets and smart irrigation controllers.
The funding is part of $46 million in grants the department awarded nine projects in six counties. The Urban Community Drought Relief Grant program is intended to “address drought impacts in California’s communities while furthering water conservation,” a statement from the agency reads.
According to the state, the San Diego County projects are expected to provide 1,323 acre-feet in water savings per year and transform up to 333,420 acres to more water-efficient landscapes.
The failure of California and six other Western states to meet a Jan. 31 deadline for deciding how to divvy up the dwindling water supplied by the Colorado River clears the way for one of the biggest fights over natural resources in U.S. history — and already the Golden State is being cast as the villain in some national coverage for being the sole holdout to a deal agreed to by Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Utah. Due to a regional “megadrought” now in its third decade and the accelerating climate emergency, the Biden administration last year called for creation of a plan that cuts annual water use by at least 15 percent.
If you thought San Diego County was off to a particularly wet start to the new year, you’re absolutely right. The National Weather Service said with January, the region experienced its wettest month since February 2005.
Winter storms brought measurable rain to the county last month, bringing a rain total of 5.14 inches, according to the agency. The average January rainfall in San Diego is 1.98 inches, to give you a better idea of how wet conditions have been.
The Department of Water Resources said Wednesday the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada has reached 205% of normal thanks to a series of storms, though dry weather between now and April could still threaten water supplies.
The snowpack received a significant boost from one of the wettest three-week periods on record in California, following the driest three-year period on record.
Responding to an Associated Press (AP) article titled “California lone holdout in consensus for Colorado River cuts,” Imperial Irrigation District Division 2 Director and Chairman of the Colorado River Board of Directors J.B. Hamby said the six-state consensus is inconsistent with the “Law of the River.”
The AP article appeared in the Tuesday, January 31 edition of the Imperial Valley Press, where the article accused California of not joining a plan created by the other six Colorado Basin States to see more than 2-million-acre feet of water cut from most the lower basin.
Another multi-day storm soaked San Diego County to start this week. Thankfully, this one didn’t bring surging tides and destructive winds along with it — but it did bring snow.
That means instead of counting toppled trees and calculating damage to city infrastructure, we can just focus on how much water fell from the sky.
