The Carlsbad City Council approved a water-rate increase proposal over three years during its Nov. 3 meeting. The city, which operates the Carlsbad Municipal Water District (CMWD) and handles water, wastewater and recycled water, will hold a public hearing on Jan. 11, 2022, before voting on final approval.
A proposed ballot measure would force the state to dedicate 2% of the general fund to building more water storage for California’s urban areas and farms. The Water Infrastructure Funding Act of 2022 would require the transfer of the funds into a trust account every year until the projects funded by the account have created an additional 5 million acre-feet of additional water supply that can be reliably delivered to Californians every year thereafter.
San Diego County Water Authority Operations and Maintenance staff recently completed a complex relining project on a section of Pipeline 3 in central San Diego, within Mission Trails Regional Park. Pipeline 3 traverses the western portion of the region from the Riverside County border in the north to Lower Otay Reservoir in the south. The proactive Pipeline 3 relining project is part of the asset management program to make preventative repairs to large-scale infrastructure.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 569 represents over 3,600 electricians, power professionals and working families in San Diego and Imperial Counties, and we have long advocated for a future that involves clean energy to help tackle the climate crisis. The need for urgent action on climate change is everywhere. We see it daily as our communities experience record-breaking heat, historic wildfires, dangerous droughts and more. We cannot ignore the increasing public health and economic threats to our state.
The San Diego County Water Authority has begun crafting its 2023 Water Facilities Master Plan Update and will advertise for professional service support in early November following an update last week to the Board of Directors. The plan, updated every 10 years, will lay out strategies to optimize Water Authority facilities to serve the region under a range of future conditions through the 2045 planning horizon.
The City of Oceanside continues to be at the forefront of water management in San Diego county with projects like WaterSmart meters and Pure Water Oceanside that demonstrate the city’s commitment to deliver clean, safe and affordable water.
A recent Voice of San Diego report showed Oceanside has among the lowest water rate increases in the county with an average 13.7% increase from 2017 to 2022. Compare that to the sizeable 38% increase in water rates for Del Mar during the same 5 year time period.
The city and county of San Diego are doing something the United States and most of the world’s most powerful nations have not: committing to net zero carbon emissions by 2035. That’s the same year Gov. Gavin Newsom’s ban on gas-powered automobiles sales in California fully kicks in. The governor also has taken action to prohibit new permits for fracking and greatly restricting where new oil and gas drilling can take place. Those are things the U.S. and many big countries have not done, either.
Nine-thousand trees, mostly willows, are being planted in the 1,000 acre Managed Marsh wildlife habitat in northern Imperial County.
The planting is part of the final construction phase of the Managed Marsh, located off Highway 111 between the city of Calipatria and Niland.
Federal forecasters estimate that the atmospheric river storms that hit parts of northern and central California from October 23-26 dropped 7.6 trillion gallons of rain — which can also be expressed as 7,600,000,000,000.
“That’s enough water for over 244 million people for an entire year,” the National Weather Service’s Western Region Headquarters in Salt Lake City said in a statement.
It’s not March and there was no miracle.
A strong atmospheric river dumped record rain on Northern California last weekend and sent some modest showers to San Diego.
The downpours helped replenish the state’s dwindling reservoirs some, but not enough for Gov. Gavin Newsom to lift the drought emergency he expanded to the entire state last week.
