The City of San Diego’s public utilities team including water treatment plant employees continues to work to provide its customers with high-quality drinking water during the coronavirus pandemic.
This week, crews are installing a carbon fiber lining inside Pipeline 5 in North San Diego County between Fallbrook and Escondido. The work is essential to maintain the 96-inch pipeline that delivers untreated water from Lake Skinner in southwest Riverside County to the Lower Otay Water Treatment Plant in southern San Diego County.
The work began at the end of March when Pipeline 5 was shut down for the installation of two internal steel bulkheads. The bulkheads allow the rest of the pipeline to stay in service while work is performed in an isolated section.
“Ensuring that water supplies continue to be reliable for all of the region’s 3.3 million residents and businesses is our priority,” said Jim Fisher, director of operations and maintenance at the Water Authority. “We are performing this essential repair to one of our largest pipelines to make sure that there are no interruptions in service to our member agencies.”
In an effort to save costs and reduce the impacts of declining untreated water sales, the Ramona Municipal Water District (RMWD) recently approved of implementing a three-phase strategy for converting from an untreated water system to treated, and in some cases, recycled water systems.
Plummeting tax revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer to propose sharp spending cuts in response to a projected $250 million budget gap.
It seems like the thing to do. You use a disinfectant wet wipe, and you toss it in the toilet. Right? That’s actually wrong. It’s an issue causing problems for wastewater treatment systems on the Central and South Coasts. People are using wet wipes in record numbers because of coronavirus. But, they can create problems for your sewer system, and for wastewater treatment facilities.
A heavy week-long storm April 5-10 resulted in flooding and water damage for many homes and businesses. If your property or small business sustained damage from the rain, the County would like your help to estimate rain damages in our region.
Facing objections from water districts throughout Orange County, the agency that sells imported water to those districts has backed off — at least temporarily — on two proposals that critics said overstepped its mission and the appropriate bounds of its authority.
In San Diego County and across California, it’s been an awesome April for precipitation.
The Sierra snow pack, although still much smaller than normal for this point in spring, has partially made up what had been a huge shortfall just a few weeks ago. And just about every place from the desert to the coast has benefited from a substantial soaking.
Last week’s record-breaking storm lifted San Diego County well above normal precipitation for the rainfall season. The city of San Diego has had its wettest spring in decades, and it has already recorded 3 more inches of rain since Oct. 1 than it normally gets in an entire year.
When it rains in Tijuana, it pours sewage. That’s been the reality for decades and recent storms hit the border area hard. It’s a reminder that while energy and attention have been focused on trying to rein in the coronavirus pandemic, other big problems remain.
A 10-person crew is in the midst of a three-week shelter-in-place shift at the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, relieving an initial crew that self-quarantined on site for three weeks to continue producing clean drinking water for county residents amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Starting March 19, the first crew of 10 “mission-critical employees” was stationed at the plant to continue operations, working two 12-hour shifts each day and sleeping in RVs in the plant parking lot, according to Poseidon Water, which manages the plant. Food and other supplies were delivered on a daily basis.
The crew was relieved last Thursday and the current crew will remain at the plant until April 30.
