These days, the house where Donna and John Winters planned to retire in the Southern California desert reflects in a stagnant pool of blood red water, their dream home becoming something of a nightmare.
The Valley Center Municipal Water District this week announced the winners of the North County Water Agencies 29th Annual Water Awareness Poster Contest. The contest promotes water conservation education.
This has been is a popular event over the decades to many children in the community, open to all fourth-grade students. This year’s theme was “Love Water, Save Water.”
For years, pairs of grebes would zoom across the water at Lake Hodges in a dazzling mating dance, and then build their nests on mats of dried brush suspended above the waterline.
Yes, it’s been pretty dry so far this winter, but there is no need to worry. The major winter storm that roared through Southern California Monday proved we can erase a month’s worth of rain deficit in one day. I recently explained how the climate where we live — the Mediterranean Climate — sees the majority of its annual rainfall in the winter months. In fact, a whopping 80% of Southern California’s annual rain and snow falls from December through March.
President Donald Trump on Sunday signed a roughly $900 billion stimulus package meant to tackle both COVID-19 relief as well as federal spending. Tucked in the 5,593-page-long law, courtesy of Southern California Democrats, are provisions that hold the potential to unlock millions of dollars of new federal spending to address the Salton Sea.
The bill notably modifies the Water Resources Development Act by authorizing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to expedite a study on the feasibility of constructing a perimeter lake around the Salton Sea. It’s one of the large-scale plans floated to address the lake’s woes, and this move could speed up the process.
The law also includes more than $150 million for the Army Corps to carry out such studies on water issues at the Salton Sea and elsewhere.
Bonsall resident Andy Vanderlaan will chair the 2021 meetings of San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation Commission, and he was also reappointed for another four-year term on the LAFCO board.
One 8-0 LAFCO vote Dec. 7 reappointed Vanderlaan as LAFCO’s public member. A separate 8-0 vote elected Vanderlaan as the LAFCO board chair for 2021 while electing County Supervisor Jim Desmond as the vice-chair for the 2021 meetings.
The public member’s term actually expires in April 2021. LAFCO had the option of reappointing Vanderlaan or seeking additional applicants. The reappointment of Vanderlaan was contingent upon his willingness to serve a seventh term. “I’m inclined to do that,” he said.
Earlier this year, the San Diego County Water Authority approved an ordinance adopting a Permanent Special Agricultural Water Rate and setting the eligibility criteria. On Dec. 7, the Fallbrook Public Utility District board voted 5-0 to update FPUD’s Administrative Code to incorporate the PSAWR.
“It will become a permanent SAWR program with eligibility changes,” Ken Endter, board president of FPUD, said.
Calgon Carbon Corporation was awarded the Fallbrook Public Utility District contract to provide granular activated carbon treatment system equipment. FPUD’s board voted 5-0, Dec. 7, to award Calgon Carbon a contract for $1,260,493. A separate 5-0 vote that day approved a change order to the construction contract with Filanc Alberici JV to install pipelines associated with the granular activated carbon treatment system.
The Water News Network top stories of 2020 reflect the San Diego region’s interest in water conservation, the environment and efforts to diversify water supply sources. But the year was dominated by the coronavirus pandemic, which impacted water infrastructure and operations.
A Monday storm that dumped much-needed rain and snow across San Diego County was expected to peter out overnight into Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service in San Diego.
Monday’s storm brought the county’s first significant traces of precipitation since the first week of November, when a North Pacific storm dropped several inches of snow in the mountains and some rain off to the west.
