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The Colorado River’s First Dam Transformed The Desert Southwest

Jim Cuming is a retired farmer whose grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. Edward Cuming got 160 acres in Arizona’s Yuma Valley from the federal government. Jim Cuming said the land was as undeveloped as a dry riverbed. In order to survive and develop the farm, his grandfather had to make a living. “This Laguna Dam project opened up. So they moved up to the dam and he worked on the dam there as a carpenter,” he said. That means Cuming’s grandfather helped build the dam that made it possible to irrigate his own farmland.

Jerry Brown’s Grand California Water Solution Remains In Jeopardy As He Prepares To Exit

Two tunnels, one or none? The question continues to swirl around plans to perform major surgery on the sickly heart of California’s water system. Confronted with a shortage of funding, state officials announced last month that they would move ahead with the construction of one giant water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta rather than two. But the announcement did little to settle the fate of the project, which Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration considers vital to sustaining water deliveries to one of the country’s richest agricultural regions and the urban sprawl of Southern California.

VIDEO: Imperial Beach, Chula Vista File Lawsuit Over Sewage Spills

NBC 7’s Audra Stafford reports on sewage spills along the U.S.-Mexico border over the last 3 years that are the subject of a new lawsuit filed Friday.

Rain and Mountain Snow Headed for San Diego County

A North Pacific storm system will slowly move over San Diego County Friday with rain and mountain snow possible late in the evening. Most precipitation is expected early Saturday morning into Saturday afternoon with rain likely for much of the county and snow possible above about five thousand feet. As the cold winter storm moves east, a high-pressure system will fill the void, bringing with it warmer weather for the beginning of next week. The windy, wet conditions should arrive by Friday evening and last through Saturday evening, then warmer, drier weather is on tap for early next week.

Editorial: Border Sewage Lawsuit: Port, Cities Had No Choice

The decision of the Port of San Diego and the cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista to sue the U.S. branch of the binational International Boundary and Water Commission for allegedly violating the federal Clean Water Act is a proportionate, necessary response to a grave problem that only seems to get worse, not better. The port and the cities say they can no longer tolerate the commission’s failure to prevent sewage, trash, industrial waste and pesticides from flowing through the Tijuana River and into the Pacific Ocean on the U.S. side of the border.

Biggest Storm Of The Season Moves Into California, Bringing Warnings Of Blizzards And Mudslides

After enduring one of its driest winters on record, California was being hit Friday by a frigid storm moving in from the Gulf of Alaska that triggered blizzard and avalanche warnings in the Sierra Nevada and concerns about more mudslides and flash-flooding in the southern part of the state. “It’s the biggest storm of the season,” said Jim Mathews, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sacramento. “Of course, February was a dud of a month, so March is coming in like a roaring lion.”

South Bay Cities, Port Slap Feds With Clean Water Act Lawsuit For Failure To Contain Sewage From Tijuana

South Bay elected officials said they are filing a lawsuit Friday in the most dramatic attempt in decades to force the federal government to plug up the millions of gallons of sewage and polluted water that routinely stream over the border from Tijuana into the San Diego region. The cities of Imperial Beach and Chula Vista, as well as the Port of San Diego are suing the U.S. side of the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, alleging violations of the Clean Water Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

Water Officials Want Homeowners to Stop Watering Their Lawns Next Week

The Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency is asking homeowners to stop watering their lawns for a week while work is carried out on a pipeline that supplies water to Los Angeles. Beginning March 4-10, water from Castaic Lake will be unavailable for use while repairs are made to a pipeline called the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Foothill Feeder system. The Foothill Feeder Connection which draws on water from Castaic Lake connects two of the agency’s water efficiency projects to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. It is part of the system that delivers water to SCV Water for treatment and distribution for urban use.

NASA Launches Advanced Weather Satellite for Western US

NASA has launched another of the world’s most advanced weather satellites, this time to safeguard the western U.S. An Atlas V (five) rocket blasted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying the GOES-S satellite for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It’s the second satellite in an $11 billion effort that’s already revolutionizing forecasting with fast, crisp images of hurricanes, wildfires and other natural calamities. The first spacecraft in the series has been monitoring the Atlantic and East Coast for the past year. The same first-class service is now coming to the Pacific region.

Mismatched Water Meter Retrofits Causing Soaring Bills

After weeks of questioning San Diego’s water department about water-meter retrofits and being told no retrofits are taking place at residential homes, NBC 7 Responds found one home where a botched smart meter replacement led to a customer being billed thousands of dollars more for water she did not use. After the discovery by NBC 7 Responds, city water officials disclosed five homes where meter replacements were done incorrectly. “Our bill for this last period is $4,831,” Pacific Beach homeowner Laura Ambrose said. Laura said her family usually pays around $200 every two months for 35 to 40 hundred-cubic-feet (HCF) of water. In her June-through-September bill last year, after Laura’s water meter was replaced with a new smart water meter, Laura saw her bill jump to more than $800. The city said she used 85 HCF of water.