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OPINION: All Too Rare: Public Agency Quickly Improves Transparency After Being Called Out

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune

When government agencies face sharp criticism for their decisions, it’s rare for them to immediately admit error. But that’s just what the Sweetwater Authority has done. On Friday, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board posted an editorial criticizing the water agency for no longer requiring that minutes be kept at meetings of two important committees where key decisions are made. We wrote that Sweetwater, which serves 190,000 people in National City, Bonita and parts of Chula Vista, should be more transparent, not less. We suggested Josie Calderon-Scott, the only board member who seemed worried about this decision, should record committee meetings and post the audio online.

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Cuyama Passes Pay-To-Pump Groundwater Sustainability Structure

/in , /by /Santa Maria Sunby Kasey Bubnash

Cuyama landowners will soon have to pay to pump groundwater, a decision that some say will place the burden of Cuyama’s dwindling water supply largely on farmers’ shoulders.

At a board of directors meeting on July 10, the Cuyama Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency voted to approve a pay-to-pump funding structure, in which landowners are charged extraction fees each time they pump water from Cuyama’s groundwater basin. The pumping fees will fund the sustainability agency’s continued efforts to implement a groundwater sustainability plan as ordered by the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, a state law that requires critically overdrafted basins to submit plans for groundwater sustainability by Jan. 31, 2020.

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Don’t Say Retreat When Talking About Sea Rise In California

/in , /by /San Diego Readerby Sheila Pell,

Who knew back in 1977, when the Coastal Act was passed, that the sea would rise so quickly? Now, cities and the agency formed to protect the coastline, must deal with it – and with each other.

A workshop on July 12 brought together the League of Cities, California State Association of Counties, local government officials, and the California Coastal Commission. Sea level rise was a key topic, along with one of the most controversial tools in the arsenal.

“The big elephant in the room is managed retreat,” said Imperial Beach councilmember Ed Spriggs, who helped develop the workshop agenda, and whose low-lying community is one of the most vulnerable in California to sea rise.

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San Diego Spending $3.6M To Monitor Local Underwater Kelp Forests

/in , /by /The San Diego-Union Tribune by David Garrick

San Diego has agreed to spend $3.6 million studying the region’s kelp forests, a key part of the local ecosystem that scientists say could disappear as climate change spikes ocean temperatures.

The money will cover a five-year research partnership with the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, which has agreed to conduct 450 dives per year at 21 local areas with kelp forests or extensive kelp beds.

 

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Transfers Of Canisters Filled With Nuclear Waste Resume At San Onofre

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribune by Rob Nikolewski

Almost one year after a 50-ton canister filled with nuclear waste got wedged inside a storage cavity and was left suspended on a metal flange about 18 feet from the ground, the operator of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, also known as SONGS, announced Monday the resumption of transfer operations at the now-shuttered plant. The restart comes two months after the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission gave Southern California Edison, or SCE, the green light to continue moving the canisters from wet storage pools at SONGS to a newly constructed dry storage facility on the plant’s premises.

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Report: SD County Faces Dramatic Spike In Heat Without Climate-Change Action

/in , , /by /KPBS

Absent significant global action to address climate change, San Diego County — and other regions across the country — will see dramatic spikes in annual extreme-heat days by the end of the century, according to a report released Tuesday by a scientific advocacy group.

The report by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that has long pushed for worldwide efforts to combat climate change, offers detailed predictions of anticipated temperature increases in areas across the United States under various scenarios, including varying degrees of political action by international leaders

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Cabazon, Twenty-Nine Palms Tribes Create Air Quality Monitoring Station In Indio

/in , , /by /Desert Sunby Risa Johnson

The Cabazon and Twenty-Nine Palms tribes have joined together to create an air-quality monitoring station in Indio to keep residents better informed about their health. Air quality is a concern in the Coachella Valley, where high levels of smog from Los Angeles hovers and toxic dust rises from the nearby Salton Sea as the water recedes.

For the tribes, that (the Salton Sea) was the driving factor to start looking at developing an air-quality monitoring program,” said Shawn Muir, environmental coordinator for the Twenty-Nine Palms Tribal EPA.

The Salton Sea is about 20 minutes by car from Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians tribal land.

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IID Votes To Lower Conserved Water Payments To Farmers

/in , , /by /The Desert Reviewby Betty Miller Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

After nearly two hours of contentious debate, the Imperial Irrigation District board voted unanimously July 9 on a hybrid plan to lower payments made to farmers for their on-farm conservation program.

The purpose for conserving water was not necessarily the drought conditions of the past two decades, but the 2003 QSA in which the San Diego County Water Authority received transferred water from the Valley via Metropolitan Water District (MWD), first through fallowing then as growers geared up, to conserved on-farm water.

 

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SDRVC Climate Change, San Diego, and You

/in , , /by /San Dieguto River Valley Conservatory Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

What are the likely effects of global climate change (GCC) around the world, across the United States, and within the San Diego region? Is where you live in any danger? Is there evidence that GCC is already affecting the San Diego region? What steps should we be taking? Professor Emeritus Phil Pryde first started teaching about greenhouse gas effects at SDSU in the 1980’s and has followed the topic ever since. This will be an illustrated, objective look at what we know and don’t know about global climate change and its possible effects locally.

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Agency Approves Rate Increase In Coming Year

/in , /by /The Alpine Sun (Alpine, Calif.)by Joe Naiman Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The San Diego County Water Authority approved a water rate increase for calendar year 2020 purchases by SDCWA member agencies. The new rates approved by the water authority board June 27 will increase the cost per acre-foot on a countywide basis from $1,617 to $1,686 for treated water and from $1,341 to $1,406 for untreated supply. The increases equate to 4.3 percent for treated water and 4.8 percent for untreated water. The new rates also include an 18.3 percent increase in the Infrastructure Access Charge which is used for SDCWA fixed expenditures incurred even when water use is reduced. The water authority’s member agencies have the option of absorbing the rate increases or passing on the additional cost to customers.

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