The National Weather Service is predicting rain around San Diego County this week, potentially heavy rain on Thursday. People in unincorporated areas can get free sandbags at numerous locations to help them protect their homes, properties and communities. County public works officials said the coming rain was also a good reminder for people to check around their home and land to make sure drainage areas are clear and free of debris.
Last year, farmers who lead the irrigation district in Blythe sued the biggest urban water district in the country to challenge what they called a “water grab.” Now the Palo Verde Irrigation District has dropped that lawsuit, looking to smooth the way toward a possible settlement with the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
A storm system moving toward Southern California will bring a “long period” of steady rain across the region this week and could trigger debris flows in recent burn areas, forecasters said. The storm is expected to drop 2 to 4 inches of rain along the coast and in the valleys in Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, and 4 to 6 inches in the mountains between Tuesday afternoon and Thursday morning, said Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard. South-facing slopes could see up to 8 inches in some areas.
Despite another hot and dry year with less than four inches of rain in the Los Angeles area, we are back to our water-wasting ways. Two years ago, Californians were using 24% less water compared with 2013. This year, we’re hardly conserving at all — just 1%. Clearly, our earlier successes were more behavioral than structural. If lawn removal and new efficient fixtures and appliances had saved all that water, we wouldn’t be seeing this momentous backslide.
An atmospheric river that forecasters are billing as the biggest storm of the season is expected to drench Southern California beginning Tuesday night and will bring with it the potential for mud flows and widespread flooding, the National Weather Service said. The storm, which is fueled by warm, western Pacific waters, will deliver nonstop rain across much of California and provide some relief to areas that have seen a resurgence in drought conditions.
Members of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board gathered in a closed session on Monday afternoon, debating whether to file a lawsuit against the federal government to stem the cross-border flow of sewage, sediment and other contaminants from Tijuana to San Diego. The deliberations followed a lawsuit filed earlier this month by the cities of Imperial Beach, Chula Vista and the Port of San Diego against the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Heavy rain and snow is in the forecast for California this week including local areas that are at risk of mudslides because of recent wildfires. But there is an upside. All that precipitation is chipping away at a snowpack deficit in the Sierra Nevada mountains – the source of one-third of the state’s drinking water supply. December, January and February were unusually hot and dry. But March has been a different story. Since the beginning of the month, the Sierra snowpack has gone from 23 percent to 48 percent of average in terms of its snow to water equivalent.
The San Diego County Water Authority will save approximately $100,000 annually with commercial-scale storage batteries recently installed at the agency’s Twin Oaks Valley Water Treatment Plant near San Marcos. The energy storage system is designed to reduce operational expense at the facility by storing low-cost electricity for use during high-demand periods when energy prices increase. The batteries were installed at no charge as part of an agreement with Santa Clara-based ENGIE Storage. The system charges from either the electric grid at times when rates are low, or from some 4,800 solar panels at the treatment plant.
A century ago, a handful of Indian tribes in North County lost their water as settlers began drying up the San Luis Rey River. For 50 years, the tribes fought to get back their water — water that’s used today by Escondido and Vista. They spent over a decade in lower courts and in 1984 took a fruitless trip to the Supreme Court. Several years of negotiations went nowhere and a 1988 act of Congress intended to settle the matter instead caused more confusion. That led to another decade of negotiations, and then yet another act of Congress in 2016 to clear things up. Another several months passed while the paperwork was completed.
Wet roads greeted San Diegans for the morning commute on Thursday as the second in a series of winter storms dumped rain on many parts of the county. The National Weather Service said the showers will be ending this morning with just a few showers lingering along the coastal mountain slopes this afternoon. Additional rainfall amounts will be light, according to the NWS. The storm responsible for the rainfall has brought cooler weather to the region with slightly below-average temperatures expected through Friday.
