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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.

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.

The San Diego County Water Authority is expecting to save approximately $100,000 per year with commercial-scale batteries installed at the agency’s solar-powered Twin Oaks Valley Water Treatment Plant near San Marcos. The energy storage system is designed to reduce operational costs at the facility by storing low-cost energy for use during high-demand periods when energy prices increase. The batteries were installed at no charge to the agency as part of an agreement with Santa Clara-based ENGIE Storage, formerly known as Green Charge.

Now that real estate developer McKellar McGowan has backed out of redeveloping the 4.76-acre former PB Reservoir site on Los Altos Road in Pacific Beach, what’s to become of it? “There are a number of [other] parties interested in the property,” said Arian Collins, the City’s supervising public information officer. “Negotiations are continuing. We expect that they will wrap up in the next few weeks.” The former developer’s plans to transform the recently demolished reservoir site into 21 single-family homes met with stiff neighborhood opposition.