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Santa Barbara County Supervisors Poised To Declare End Of Drought-Caused Emergency

/in , /by /Santa Ynez Valley News (Solvang, Calif.)by Mike Hodgson

Full and rising reservoirs from this winter’s storms have the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors poised to terminate the drought-caused emergency declaration, although South Coast purveyors are worried a water shortage will persist for an extended time, according to a county staff report. Office of Emergency Management Director Rob Lewin noted that despite the recent abundance of precipitation, it could take years of above-normal or at least normal rainfall before the county’s severely depleted groundwater basins are recharged.

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Water War In California: Two Agencies Fight Over Colorado River Drought Plan With A Crucial Deadline Looming

/in , /by /CNBCby Jeff Daniels

California remains a holdout on a drought emergency plan for the Colorado River that is due next Tuesday by all seven river states. Holding up the plan has been a fight between two powerful water agencies in Southern California. The drought contingency plan is designed to produce voluntary cuts that would keep the river and Lake Mead from reaching critically low levels. If the plan doesn’t get finalized, the federal government could step in and force mandatory cutbacks instead of voluntary ones for a river that serves 40 million people and some 5 million acres of farmland.

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Pipeline Rehab Project Coming To La Jolla Shores And La Jolla Heights

/in , /by /La Jolla Lightby Ashley Mackin-Solomon

By the beginning of May, areas of La Jolla Shores and La Jolla Heights will undergo a pipeline replacement project — in piecemeal segments — to replace or rehabilitate more than seven collective miles of underground sewer lines. Arterial streets east of La Jolla Shores Drive, portions of Torrey Pines Road, some of La Jolla Scenic Drive North, and other smaller streets are slated for work.

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Garcetti’s Hyperion Hyperbole

/in , /by /CityWatch Los Angelesby Jack Humphreville

On February 21, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that the City of Los Angeles, the Department of Water and Power, and the Bureau of Sanitation would embark on an $8 billion plan to recycle 100% of its wastewater by 2035.  This ambitious sixteen-year plan will involve recycling over 200 million gallons a day of wastewater into around 195,000 acre feet of potable water a year. This new source of water represents about one-third of the City’s annual consumption.  It will allow to City to reduce its dependence on expensive water from the Southern California Metropolitan Water District that is pumped in from the Bay Delta in Northern California via the energy intensive California Aqueduct.

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Salton Sea Management Effort Lags As Water Continues To Recede

/in , /by /KPBSby Erik Anderson

Imperial Valley officials are reportedly close to finishing an important habitat restoration project at the Salton Sea. The remake of Red Hill Bay was supposed to be a model for a management plan around the shrinking lake, but the effort is two years overdue and still months away from completion. The Salton Sea needs a management plan because water is evaporating faster than it’s being replaced, and that’s leaving large swaths of lakebed exposed to the elements. “You got the Salton Sea probably a mile out there. Along the shoreline. You see the playa here,” said Bruce Wilcox, California Resources Agency Assistant Secretary of Salton Sea Policy.

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Historic Pipeline Project Boosts Long-Term Water Reliability

/in , /by /Water News Network

San Diego County Water Authority crews successfully completed the first of three coordinated shutdowns of the First Aqueduct in early March to launch a major renovation of dozens of structures on two pipelines, including the historic Pipeline 1 that first delivered imported water to the region in 1947. The series of shutdowns was carefully planned for nearly four years to minimize impacts on the community and retail water agencies during retrofits of Pipelines 1 and 2, which comprise the First Aqueduct.

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OPINION: Poseidon Is A Bad Deal For Orange County

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Steve Bone

Why is Poseidon trying to hide the real costs of its water boondoggle? Because it doesn’t make any sense for ratepayers. The privately owned Poseidon water project would depend on a massive public handout of $400 million. On top of that subsidy, Poseidon would charge ratepayers significantly more for its water than any of the alternative water supply projects recently evaluated by the independent Metropolitan Water District of Orange County (MWDOC). Poseidon is a bad deal for ratepayers.

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Edison CEO talks Wildfires, Climate Change And The Utility’s Vanishing Monopoly

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Sammy Roth

These days, Pedro Pizarro spends a lot of time fighting fires. Pizarro is president and chief executive of Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison, which provides electricity to 15 million people. Unlike Pacific Gas & Electric — which could face tens of billions of dollars in liabilities from fires linked to its infrastructure — Pizarro’s company has stayed out of bankruptcy court despite facing similar wildfire-related risks.

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OPINION: Enjoying The Results Of Rainfall

/in , /by /Santa Maria Times

We hope readers had an opportunity to check out the time-lapse video on our website of Cachuma Lake responding to recent heavy rains, and slowly filling up. It is breathtaking to watch. Although heavy winter rains can be a major pain, we also must acknowledge their overall benefit of bringing something we desperately need — water. It’s easy to overlook the recent years of severe drought conditions when it’s pouring outside, but drought is one of the facts of life in California, and will likely continue to be in all of our lifetimes.

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MWD Vote Moves Colorado River Drought Plan Forward

/in , , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Bettina Boxall

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on Tuesday sealed California’s participation in a landmark Colorado River drought management plan, agreeing to shoulder more of the state’s future delivery cuts to prevent Lake Mead from falling to dangerously low levels. With California signed on, the plan can move to Congress, which must approve the multi-state agreement before it takes effect. The MWD board took the step over the objections of the Imperial Irrigation District, which holds senior rights to the biggest allocation of river water on the entire length of the Colorado.

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