The San Diego County Water Authority is forecasting adequate supplies and expecting continued conservation efforts as California begins the 2018 water year on Sunday. “Thanks to remarkably wet conditions last winter, the 2018 water year will begin with improved supply conditions at the water authority’s two imported water sources – the Colorado River and the Sierra Nevada,” the authority said in a statement. In addition, the region can count on the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, and is prepared with high storage levels in many local reservoirs.

During California’s severe five-year drought, groundwater levels fell to record lows and people in farming communities from Tulare County to Paso Robles saw their wells go dry.  Now researchers have analyzed records for about 2 million wells across 17 western states from Texas to Oregon, and they estimate that one out of every 30 wells was dry between 2013 and 2015.  The researchers also found dry wells were concentrated in farming areas such as California’s Central Valley and the High Plains. In some areas, they estimated that up to one-fifth of wells were dry.

On Monday, one time antagonists of a 50-year battle in the courts over right rights, who eventually became friends and allies, celebrated the San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement. They included representatives of the Rincon, Pala, Pauma, San Pasqual and La Jolla tribes, the City of Escondido, Vista Irrigation District and the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority, whose chairman is Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon tribe.

Camp Pendleton officials swear that the water consumed by 55,000 Marines and their families is safe, despite a pair of scathing state and federal investigations indicating chronic problems in the treatment systems at the sprawling military base. Water safety inspectors visiting Camp Pendleton over several days in late June uncovered rats rotting on a reservoir gate, a desiccated frog clinging to a reservoir ladder and another rodent carcass floating in treated water.

The California Supreme Court effectively brought to end this week a longstanding, bitter fight between water managers in Los Angeles and San Diego — a ruling that means the loss of billions in potential savings for local ratepayers. The high court declined Wednesday to take up an appeal by the San Diego County Water Authority, leaving in place an appellate ruling that sided largely with the rival Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. San Diego was challenging the costs Metropolitan charged to deliver supplies from the Colorado River.