A red flag fire weather warning will be in effect from 5 a.m. Thursday until 5 p.m. Friday for all of San Diego County except coastal areas as the region experiences moderate Santa Ana winds that could gust 50 to 60 miles an hour in some mountain passes. The National Weather Service says it also issued the warning because temperatures will be way above seasonal averages and the relative humidity will be very low.
The San Diego County Water Authority has an Integrated Regional Water Management plan and the state’s Department of Water Resources has a grant program for IRWM projects. The latest SDCWA grant applications include one for the Fallbrook Public Utility District’s pilot program which would recharge recycled water in the Santa Margarita River basin. A unanimous Sept. 26 CWA board vote approved grant applications totaling $14,416,156 including $687,500 for the FPUD indirect potable reuse pilot project.
San Diego County’s Local Agency Formation approved a memorandum of understanding with Riverside County’s LAFCO which will delegate entirely to San Diego LAFCO the potential reorganization in which the Fallbrook Public Utility District and the Rainbow Municipal Water District would detach from the San Diego County Water Authority and become part of the Eastern Municipal Water District. The 8-0 LAFCO board vote, Oct. 7, also included direction to LAFCO staff to review the economic impacts not only for FPUD and Rainbow but also to the SDCWA and to the 22 other CWA member agencies.
A new pilot program has been launched by numerous organizations in Southern California to aid residents in selecting more native plants for their homes and gardens to become even more water-efficient. Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California and local water agencies have teamed up with the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) to boost the number and variety of native plants offered at local nurseries.
San Diego Congressional members Scott Peters, Duncan Hunter and Susan Davis have introduced bipartisan federal legislation to simplify permit requirements to operate the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plan, with a goal of providing purified, recycled drinking water for the San Diego region and reducing ocean pollution.
The bill, H.R. 4611, the Ocean Pollution Reduction Act II, was introduced in the House on October 4, 2019.
Imperial County has had enough. That was the message from the county board of supervisors on Tuesday as they voted unanimously to declare a local state of emergency at the Salton Sea.
And that may not be all: In addition to the action on the state’s largest lake, supervisors said they will seek another emergency declaration on the badly polluted New River — which flows into the Salton Sea — in two weeks.
Ensuring water for future generations requires investing and investigating big ideas, according to Sandy Kerl.
Kerl, acting general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, shared some of those ideas today in San Diego, as she delivered the opening remarks at the California-Nevada Section of the American Water Works Association annual fall conference, which runs through Thursday at the Town and Country Hotel Convention Center.
Residents and businesses in Santee and Alpine who are under the auspices of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District will see two rate increases in the coming months.
The rate increases are scheduled for November and January.
In 2017, the district’s Board of Directors approved a comprehensive cost-of-service study, then approved a five-year plan and budget that showed rate hikes scheduled yearly through 2021-22. The district had frozen rates last year for the 2019-20 fiscal year.
For an average Padre Dam water customer in a single-family house in the western part of the district, such as Santee, bills are expected to go up by nearly $3.50 per month, to $115.75 starting on Nov. 1.
This Saturday, October 26, Helix Water District is hosting Helix Water Talks, a behind-the-scene
The free event begins 8:30 a.m. at 1233 Vernon Way in El Cajon with coffee and bagels and includes a 2-hour walking tour of their operations center in El Cajon. Participants will see and learn how the district repairs broken water mains, installs service lines to homes and maintains water meters.
