North San Diego County fire agencies teamed up in November with the Vallecitos Water District for confined space training drills. The drills, held over a two-week period, prepare firefighting professionals to respond to emergencies in facilities such as wastewater treatment plants and maintain their confined space certification.
EL CENTRO — If Imperial County Superior Court Judge L. Brooks Anderholt rules that Imperial Irrigation District violated a previous ruling by agreeing to provide an extra 500 acre-feet of water to the Heber Geothermal plant, that decision could cost the district $3.6 million and then some.
POWAY — A piece of rope “inexplicably” became lodged in a valve separating a 10-million gallon reservoir from a storm drain in late November, causing a nearly week-long, costly boil-water advisory in Poway, a report prepared by the city for the state concludes.
Officials say it is unknown how the sizable piece of rope got stuck in the valve, which was supposed to remain closed but instead became stuck open, thereby allowing muddy water to enter the city’s reservoir — called a clearwell — near Lake Poway during a storm.
Three California state agencies today released a draft water resilience portfolio intended to help the state manage more extreme droughts and floods, aging infrastructure, declining fish populations and other challenges.
The California Natural Resources Agency, California Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Food and Agriculture developed the draft to fulfill Governor Gavin Newsom’s April 29, 2019 executive order calling for a portfolio of actions to ensure the state’s long-term water resilience and ecosystem health.
“The portfolio approach to water supply reliability is a significant advance in how our most precious resource is managed statewide, in line with our long-term strategy in San Diego County,” said Sandra L. Kerl, general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority. “As we review the details of the new plan, we will continue collaborating with the state agencies and other partners to turn this vision into a reality that benefits our region.”
A longtime water conservation advocate says Arizona and the other Lower Colorado River Basin states need to cut their water use more and faster.
Sustainable Waters president Brian Richter says Arizona, California, and Nevada need to slash total water use by 18% from their 2000-2018 average to bring Lakes Mead and Powell into a long-term state of balance, the Arizona Daily Star reports. He says the decrease would push the river’s falling reservoirs into sustainability.
It started with last month’s heavy rains that brought an unprecedented volume of debris tumbling down Tijuana’s Matadero Canyon: old mattresses, used furniture, discarded construction material. That led to a clogged storm drain by the border fence, authorities said, and the flooding of a nearby sewage pump station.
The resulting pool of trash and sewage-contaminated water has now been raising fears in San Diego.
The five-member Padre Dam Municipal Water District Board has approved a 4 percent salary increase for its General Manager and CEO Allen Carlisle.
Carlisle, who started with the district in February 2011, saw his annual salary rise to $258,554, effective Dec. 29. The approved new rate is just over $124 hourly. With benefits, Carlisle will earn nearly $368,000 to oversee Padre Dam’s water, wastewater and recycled water, as well as recreation services at Santee Lakes.
Several weeks ago, the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors approved a resolution committing the district to doing two things on the Colorado River in the year ahead:
First, that IID will engage with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the broader river community to negotiate a successor agreement to the 2007 Interim Guidelines, which end in 2025. Second, that the district will do nothing to harm the Salton Sea.
Until recently, any time Long Beach firefighters practiced using their high-powered hoses, the water they sprayed ended up in the drain.
In any given year, that added up to millions of gallons that washed away during training exercises.
“The old way of doing training was either doing it dry or, if you really wanted to do training while flowing water, that water went directly into the gutter and was completely wasted,” Long Beach Fire Engineer Mike Shrout said.
That changed in 2018 when the Long Beach Fire Department acquired something called a Direct Recycling Apparatus Firefighter Training & Sustainability Unit, or DRAFTS Unit, for short.
Just five years ago, the boat launch at Diamond Valley Lake barely met the water’s edge. Today, the same area is under water thanks to recent rain and snow.
It’s a turnaround that has the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California cautiously optimistic.
