Effluent from Tijuana’s broken sewage system coming ashore in the United States has become a routine part of life on San Diego County’s southern coast. It’s why parts of the Imperial Beach shoreline were closed more than five months a year in each of 2015, 2016 and 2017, and why dozens of Border Patrol agents have been sickened by exposure to the muck.
Traditionally, fire season in Southern California ran from about the beginning of May through the end of November. But not anymore. Last year, for example, the Lilac Fire that swept through large parts of Bonsall, charring about 4,100 acres and destroying 157 structures, was sparked on the morning of Dec. 7. “It really is a year-round season,” said Cal Fire and County Fire Authority Chief Tony Mecham.
California’s super bloom hasn’t materialized the way it did last spring, but that hasn’t stopped Woodland Hills homeowners Ron Gales and Andrea Fields from enjoying a spectacular wildflower bloom of their own. Walking up to the house in springtime, it’s hard to believe the landscape was “an ugly lawn filled with weeds” when they purchased the home in 2009.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two other water districts that agreed to fund the California Waterfix tunnel project announced today the formation of a public agency that will be charged with its design and construction. The MWD, which serves as a major supplier of water to the Los Angeles region, along with the Santa Clara Valley Water District and the Zone 7 Water Agency in the Bay Area, formed the Delta Conveyance Design and Construction Joint Powers Authority, or DCA, which will hold its first meeting on Thursday.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and two other water districts that agreed to fund the California Waterfix tunnel project announced Monday the formation of a public agency that will be charged with its design and construction. The $17 billion project is designed to divert water from the Sacramento River as it enters the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and carry it to existing federal and state pumping stations in the southern part of the delta through one or two 35-mile tunnels.
The top United States official at the international agency charged with overseeing efforts to stem ongoing water pollution in the Tijuana River Valley stepped down on Friday. The departure of Edward Drusina, former commissioner of the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, comes as the agency continues to face legal attacks from South Bay cities that routinely shutter beaches due to pollution from south of the border.
San Diego is the only city in California seeking state reimbursement for testing the toxic lead levels in water at local schools, which has cost the city’s water agency more than $400,000. The city has done tests at 256 schools since early 2017, but must test another 45 schools over the next six weeks. State legislation requires water agencies to test every public school, regardless of whether the agency gets a request, by July 1. Significantly more schools in San Diego County have been tested than in any other county in California since the state requirement began.
Imperial Irrigation District general manager Kevin Kelley threatened to fire the public agency’s energy manager if he didn’t participate in the abrupt dismissal of five longtime IID employees who were ultimately replaced by the private consulting firm ZGlobal Inc., according to sworn testimony made public for the first time this week.
Ring the entry bell to Patrick Anderson and Les Olsen’s Fallbrook, California, garden, and the tall, redheaded Anderson is likely to greet you wearing teal-colored trousers and a melon orange shirt. His colorful persona, both inside and out, is only a hint of what’s to come. Anderson’s tour starts at the streetside garden he designed a few years ago. The gated driveway is flanked with angular planter beds stuccoed dusky sage green. The structure and geometry play off mass plantings with a limited plant palette. Still, each bed is filled with a dramatic combination of succulents and cacti.
When a contaminated aquifer in Orange County made U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s list of top-priority sites for “immediate, intense action,” the local water district was quick to highlight the announcement. But questions of political favoritism are swirling over Pruitt’s decision in December to prioritize cleaning the Orange County North Basin groundwater pollution plume beneath Anaheim and Fullerton using the federal Superfund program. Newly disclosed records show the action occurred soon after a meeting between Pruitt, the Orange County Water District and its lawyers that was arranged by conservative radio and television host Hugh Hewitt.
