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Orange County Water Board Vacancy Draws ‘Unprecedented’ Interest After Newsom Kills Twin Tunnels Project

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Brooke Staggs

After much speculation about whether Janet Nguyen might run for one of Orange County’s hotly contested congressional seats in 2020, the Republican former state senator has thrown her hat in a surprising ring. And she’s not alone. Nguyen is one of seven people vying to fill a board of directors seat with the Municipal Water District of Orange County. The seat was left vacant after director Wayne Osborne, who was elected to a four-year term in 2016, retired in late April. “I was really heartened to see someone from that level interested in serving on our board,” MWDOC board president Brett Barbre said of Nguyen.

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Late-Season Rains Mask Looming Fire Danger As Lush Plants Turn Dry And Explosive

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Joseph Serna and Hannah Fry

Giant green stems with budding yellow flowers greeted hikers along a narrow path beneath the soaring Santa Monica Mountains on a recent drizzly day. This is where, just seven months ago, the worst fire in Los Angeles County history swept through, destroying more than 1,000 homes and blackening miles of hillsides and canyon. But thanks to one of the wettest seasons in years, rains have transformed the fire zone back to life with great speed. And all those flowering black mustard plants point to a looming disaster once the rains finally end and Southern California shifts to its dry, hot, windy summer and fall.

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Controversial North River Farms Development Postponed Again

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Phil Diehl

Angry residents shouted, cursed and booed the Oceanside City Council after its 3-2 vote Wednesday to again postpone a decision on whether Integral Communities should be allowed to build hundreds of homes, a hotel and retail shops in the city’s last remaining agricultural region. The city’s planning staff and Planning Commission have three times recommended the council deny the North River Farms project, most recently on a 6-0 vote May 6. Each time, the developer has subsequently pulled the project off a City Council agenda to rework it in hopes of getting an approval. “Please do not postpone this,” said resident Jane Marshall before Wednesday’s decision.

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Rain, Hail, Lightning, Thunder: Spring In Southern California Isn’t Supposed To Be Like This

/in , /by /The San Diego Union Tribune

Californians gearing up for a long Memorial Day weekend full of sun were sorely disappointed Wednesday. Rain, wind and lightning battered the state as locals braved cooler temperatures that even delivered hail. The hail may have had some residents questioning the point of living in Southern California if there is hail in late spring. The rain jammed up afternoon commutes, and lightning closed all beaches stretching from Dockweiler State Beach to Malibu for a little under two hours starting about 2:30 p.m.

 

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Huntington Beach Desalination Plant: How It Might Have Been Operating By Now

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Martin Wisckol Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Poseidon Water started pumping drinking water from its Carlsbad desalination plant 3 1/2 years ago, but the location of that first desalination plant might have been in Huntington Beach instead. Plans for Poseidon operations at both locations were launched in 1998, but company officials prioritized the Carlsbad site in 2006, according to company Vice President Scott Maloni. The slower timeline for Huntington Beach resulted in it facing new, stricter regulations and additional delays. The controversial plant still needs two major permits, opponents remain steadfast and a recent water-supply study raised questions about the cost and need for the project.

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Experts Warn 5G Could Disrupt Weather Forecasting

/in , /by /NBC 7 San Diegoby Danielle Radin

San Diego will soon have a 5G wireless network system thanks to major companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Qualcomm working to establish it. With 5G, speeds will be 20 times faster than what is possible on current 4G and LTE systems. “Speed is everything,” said Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “And it is going to fundamentally change how we use the internet.” But experts are concerned the frequencies on the broadband spectrum needed for 5G will interfere with those used for weather forecasting.

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California’s Unusually Wet Spring Is Delaying, Damaging Crops

/in , /by /KTLA 5 (Los Angeles)

California growers are frustrated by an unusually wet spring that has delayed the planting of some crops like rice and damaged others including strawberries and wine grapes. The state’s wet conditions come as much of the West is experiencing weird weather. Colorado and Wyoming got an unusually late dump of snow this week. Meanwhile temperatures in Phoenix have dropped 15 degrees below normal. Large swaths of California have seen two to five times more precipitation than is normal for this point in May, the National Weather Service said. A series of storms soaked much of Colusa County where rice grower Kurt Richter was forced to wait weeks to seed his land.

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Water Wars: Power Struggles Over the Coachella Valley’s Water Supply Have Dominated Recent Headlines. What’s Really Going On?

/in , /by /Coachella Valley Independentby Kevin Fitzgerald

Local news reports as of late have included alarming updates on a spate of disputes that have cropped up involving local water agencies. For example, there’s the outrage expressed by the Desert Hot Springs-area’s Mission Springs Water District over what it refers to as the west valley-area Desert Water Agency’s “seizure” of groundwater management. Or perhaps you saw a headline regarding the Imperial Irrigation District’s concern over the recent legislative action taken by local Assemblymember Chad Mayes (right). His Assembly Bill 854 proposed forcing the IID to expand its board of directors from five to 11 members, with the six new members all coming from Riverside County, whose IID electricity customers pay 60 percent of IID’s power-related revenues.

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May Is Proving To Be A Wet Blanket For California — And More Rain Is On The Way

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Hannah Fry

The calendar shows it’s almost Memorial Day — typically beach weather in Southern California — but gray skies are signaling that unusually chilly temperatures and rain will stick around a bit longer during a month that has already broken precipitation records. The forecast this month has been a doozy in California with rain, hail and snow falling across much of the Golden State two months after the end of winter. Large swaths of the state, including parts of Los Angeles, have seen two to five times more precipitation than is normal for this point in May, according to the National Weather Service.

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Water-Rights Dispute Between Fallbrook, Camp Pendleton Ends After Nearly 70 Years

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby J. Harry Jones

After 68 years of litigation and more than a half-century of settlement talks, a dispute between the water district that serves Fallbrook and Camp Pendleton has officially ended. The agreement settles a lawsuit filed in 1951 and lays out how the Fallbrook Public Utility District and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton will share water rights to the Santa Margarita River. A federal judge last month signed off on what is known as the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project, which will capture locally available water that flows through the river and into the ocean. The settlement, agreed to by both sides in late 2017, creates a local supply that will reduce Fallbrook’s dependence on expensive imported water.

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