Mexico is facing a growing water shortage, leading to unpredictable, often lengthy water shut-offs in Tijuana.
Meanwhile, millions of gallons of wastewater are dumped from Tijuana into the Pacific Ocean each day. In the future, that water could be recycled, putting a significant dent in the country’s water supply issue.
Amy Harris’ backyard has a stunning view of Black Mountain in Rancho Peñasquitos. She and her husband mountain bike on the trails.
“I’ve been mountain biking since I was a teenager. I’ve been living here 26 years,” said Harris. This year, they’ve noticed water where it normally would not be flowing.
The Colorado River’s biggest single user – farmers in Imperial Valley – made another agreement with the federal government to cut their take of the overused, threatened river for the next two years, with help from San Diego.
The Imperial Irrigation District’s board announced this week it’d pay farmers to skip some harvests in the coming two years in order to keep around 700,000 acre feet of water (an acre-foot is two California households’ annual water use) in the river’s biggest reservoir, Lake Mead.
Carlsbad Aquafarm is leaving Agua Hedionda Lagoon for other environmental enterprises after the property owner, NRG Energy, discontinued the lease on the site.
“We have other things,” owner Tom Grimm said Tuesday. “We are pivoting our business model to living shoreline projects … such as using oyster shells to create reefs and nesting areas.”
A waterfall has been flowing in the backyard of Ron White’s home on Wescott Court in Rancho Peñasquitos just below Black Mountain for the past year.
“The big rains happened, and by this time last year in August, we thought it would go away, and it did not,” said White.
Valley Center Municipal Water District rates will see an overall rate increase of 16.1 % effective January 1, 2025 from its wholesale supplier, the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA), which supplies 100% of VCMWD’s water. When combined with a lower 5% increase for locally controlled operations costs, the net impact for most customers will be 14.9%.
Last year the overall rate of increase was 9%. “This one is a little bit larger than we have seen in the past,” VCMWD Gen. Mgr Gary Arant told The Roadrunner. “Though in the mid-90s rates went up over 30% in some years. It is certainly not unprecedented in the history of rate increases.”
A Caithness man now living in the United States was hailed as a hero by the people of Calgary for helping fix a major water crisis in the city.
Martin Coghill originally hails from Stemster Mains and now lives with his family in California where he is the operations and maintenance manager for asset management at the San Diego County Water Authority.
The San Diego County Water Authority will supply the Mexican state of Baja California with 200 liters of water per second to support Tijuana residents during the summer. This water will be delivered through an international pipeline connecting San Diego, California, to Tijuana.
“There is a greater demand when it gets hot,” said Carlos Alberto Machado Parra, director for Baja’s Public Service and Planning Commission (CESPT) in Tijuana, according to Border Report. “We always maintain this binational connection so we can supply neighborhoods that may be short on supply. “
In 2011, Conner Everts, one of California’s venerable water conservation advocates, wrote that ocean desalination is dead in California. His essay is posted below.
At about that time, the San Diego County Water Authority, the County’s water wholesaler, signed a 30-year take-or-pay contract with Poseidon Water to build the $1 billion Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad [ocean] Desalination Plant, described hagiographically on the official website.
