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Assembly Member Garcia Hosts State Hearing To Ensure The Successful Implementation Of The Salton Sea Management Plan

/in , /by /Imperial Valley News

Tuesday morning, Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia (D-Coachella), Chairman of the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife will host a Salton Sea Oversight Hearing in order to ensure the successful implementation of the Salton Sea Management Plan. “In our efforts to mitigate the Salton Sea, it is paramount to bridge together the perspectives of local stakeholders with state agencies so that we can move forward with a game plan to guarantee the successful implementation of the Salton Sea Management Plan,” stated Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia.

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OPINION: Recharging Groundwater Reserves, Not Building New Reservoirs, Is Key To California’s Water Future

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

To the editor: Your editorial, “California is dammed enough already,” raises some important points about improving our water future. The state faces a chronic problem that will only get worse with climate change: depleted groundwater supplies. Groundwater is the lifeline communities and farmers turn to in drought. The good news is there’s an untapped solution under our feet called groundwater recharge, which is much cheaper than building new surface reservoirs, has few environmental hurdles and can be implemented relatively quickly. There’s also three times more water storage capacity underground than in all of California’s surface reservoirs combined.

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‘Fairy Garden’ Makeover For Drought-Ravaged Yard

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Chris Ross Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The front yard of the Point Loma home owned by Nina Ronstadt and Ken Klestinec once had a lush lawn and a cottage garden. But years of drought and limits on water use killed most of the plants. What was left, said Ronstadt via email, was “dried-up lawn and ugly dead landscaping.” She wanted to replace it with a meadow of drought-tolerant ground covers and a curving path, “but our 10-year-old daughter asked, ‘Where will I have a tea party?’ and ‘Where will our dog Cleo play ball?’” So, a circular patio area was added to the plan.

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Ruling Slams SDG&E’s Plan For A New Gas Pipeline

/in , /by /Voice Of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

California utility regulators seem to have little appetite for San Diego Gas & Electric’s $640 million plan to build a new natural gas pipeline across the county. A draft decision released Wednesday shows how regulators have begun analyzing major new projects through the lens of climate change. In that context, a California Public Utilities Commission judge said SDG&E’s plan makes no sense. The state is trying to reduce the use of natural gas, which is a major contributor to climate change.

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The City’s Two Paths To Clean Power

/in , /by /Voice Of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

One way or another, the city is about to rearrange a bunch of electrons. Right now, much of San Diego’s electricity comes from local power plants that burn natural gas to create electricity. City officials want to ditch that power and replace it with green energy to meet their goal of using only clean power by 2035. Don’t expect to see windmills or solar farms popping up all over the city just yet, though. So far, it’s unclear where all the new power will come from.

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Rain Light But It Was Most In San Diego In 6 Weeks

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Robert Krier

The scattered showers that slickened roads across San Diego County Wednesday morning, though light as expected, brought the most rain the region has seen since mid March. Next up is a drying and warming trend. Temperatures, well below normal Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday should be near normal for early May. By Saturday, building high pressure should raise the highs to around 90 degrees in the inland valleys, the mid 70s at the coast and over 100 in the desert.

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Three-Eyed Fish And Two-Headed Turtles? The Stench Of This River Spanning U.S.-Mexico Border Is Legendary

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Brittny Majia

The river is so foul that rumors swirl about two-headed turtles and three-eyed fish. If you fall in, locals joke, you might sprout a third arm. So go the stories about the New River, whose putrid green water runs like a primordial stew from Mexico’s sprawling city of Mexicali through California’s Imperial Valley. The river, with skull-and-crossbone signs warning about the danger it poses, reminds Calexico resident Carlos Fernandez of a scene in “The Simpsons Movie” where Homer Simpson disposes of pig feces by dumping them into a lake.

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Rain Helps In Short Term, But Fire Risk Remains High

/in , /by /San Diego Union-Tribuneby Robert Krier

Rain this week, coming after an exceptionally dry winter and April, should give a boost to backyard gardeners and provide a brief reprieve from what has become an almost omnipresent wildfire danger in the San Diego County.

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Here Are Poseidon’s Final Steps To Building A Desalination Plant

/in , /by /The Orange County Registerby Martin Wisckol

Twenty years and $50 million into the process, officials with desalination plant purveyor Poseidon are optimistic they will get their final two permits — possibly by year’s end. Here are the key steps ahead for the plant in Huntington Beach: Term sheet. This non-binding working agreement lays the groundwork for an eventual contract for Poseidon to sell its water to the Orange County Water District. The district is currently updating its 2015 term sheet and may have a draft to present to the OCWD board in June. Federal financing. A Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan would reduce the cost of loans.

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OPINION: California Is Dammed Enough Already

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

Environmental consequences aside, it would seem to make a certain amount of sense to dam a river in order to store and distribute water where and when it is most needed. But what if there’s no river? Or more to the point, what if every river that can be dammed already has been dammed, and the water in those rivers has already been tapped? The value of new, giant dams is extremely limited and costly without new giant rivers to fill them, and California has no such new rivers.

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