Alex Jack says he’s not charged enough for the water he uses at his Imperial Valley farm. Because the Colorado River water shared by him and his neighboring farmers who make up the vast agricultural economy in the middle of the desert is so cheap, he says, farmers have little incentive to conserve.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s First Aqueduct will be shut down periodically over the next four months as work begins for maintenance projects to ensure a safe and reliable water supply for the region. A series of three shutdowns on the First Aqueduct is scheduled from December through March, when portions of the aqueduct will be relined, along with other maintenance.
As work begins, the Water Authority and its member agencies are coordinating to minimize impacts to residents and businesses, while servicing pipelines that are more than 65 years old.
Customers of these affected retail agencies during the Dec. 5-14 shutdown should check with their local water utility if they have questions about localized impacts: Fallbrook Public Utility District, Rainbow Municipal Water District, Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District, Vallecitos Water District, Valley Center Municipal Water District, Vista Irrigation District, and the Yuima Municipal Water District.
“Proactively managing our water delivery system in coordination with our member agencies ensures we continue to provide a safe and reliable supply that serves the region’s 3.3 million residents and our $240 billion economy,” said Eva Plajzer, the Water Authority’s director of operations and maintenance. “It requires an extraordinary amount of work each fall and winter during the shutdown season to take care of this critical infrastructure.”
Maintenance work on pipelines is scheduled during low-demand periods to minimize impacts on water service. The other scheduled shutdowns on the First Aqueduct are January 23 to February 1 and February 27 to March 8. The February 27 to March 8 shutdown will also impact the Helix Water District and the cities of San Diego, Poway and Ramona.
It’s been seven years since the Little Hoover Commission — a state watchdog agency — warned of disaster ahead because of deteriorating conditions at the Salton Sea. This intensely salty 300-plus-square-mile lake in Imperial and Riverside counties was created by Colorado River flooding in 1905-1907, which filled up the below-sea-level Salton Trough.
Four years ago, when the San Diego City Council approved paying tens of millions of dollars to relocate utility pipes and other equipment to make room for the ambitious Pure Water project, city officials insisted they would recover the money from San Diego Gas & Electric. That didn’t happen. The city sued San Diego Gas & Electric in 2020, saying that the company violated its franchise agreement by refusing to pay to move its equipment.
One of the Ramona Municipal Water District water tanks is getting a new name to honor Director Jim Robinson, who helped nurture a community park and the fairgrounds. The ID-5 water tank off Old Julian Highway between downtown Ramona and San Diego Country Estates is now known as the “Robinson Tank.”
Southern California’s powerful Imperial Irrigation District voted late Tuesday 3-2 to ink an agreement with federal and state officials that could yield as much as $250 million for Salton Sea restoration projects in exchange for not using another 250,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water. An acre-foot is enough to supply about two households.
Following recent rains, the city of San Diego started releasing water from Lake Hodges this week. The move, mandated by state safety officials, is part of ongoing maintenance at the reservoir’s deteriorating century-old dam. About 250 million gallons of water will flow into the San Dieguito River using valves in the dam, according to city officials.
A cold storm sliding in from the Pacific Northwest will impact San Diego County later in the week and going into the weekend, but forecasters were uncertain Monday whether the precipitation would produce significant rain and snow. According to the National Weather Service, a trough of low pressure will push down from the Gulf of Alaska and reach Southern California Thursday.
The city will release around 250 million gallons of water from Hodges Reservoir into the San Dieguito River over a two-day period starting Monday. The water release, using valves in Hodges Dam, will begin Monday and is intended to reduce the reservoir’s elevation by around two feet to 275 feet, according to the city.
Drought, human-caused climate change, invasive species and a “legacy” of environmental issues are permanently altering California’s landscape and placing some communities and ecosystems at increasing risk, a panel of experts told water officials recently. Invasive species and decades of disruptions from massive land and water developments are partly responsible for a continuous decline in native California species, experts told the California Water Commission on Nov. 16.
