Half of a $3.2 million fine levied against San Diego for city construction inspectors’ past failure to require efforts to keep construction sediment out of storm drains will go to restoration efforts at Los Peñasquitos, Chollas Creek and San Diego River, according to settlement documents. The water board investigation arose out of a private citizen’s report in May 2015 that a city inspector was allowing a city contractor to let mud run down Trumbull Street in Point Loma — with the mud ending up in a storm drain. The contractor was replacing concrete pavement on the hill above Shelter Island.

San Diego school officials decided Tuesday to shut down any water source showing a lower level of lead in the water than first considered actionable when testing began in April. Water was at tested at 207 schools on district property. Results show 19 percent of the schools have some level of lead in the water. The San Diego Unified School District unanimously approved a water quality plan to lower the acceptable level of lead. Schools are required by the state to fix problems if they discover lead in water at levels greater than 15 parts per billion (ppb).

 

After almost 50 years of vigorously contested litigation (that went all the way to the Supreme Court), settlement negotiations, several successful efforts in Congress and the California Legislature to obtain the essential legislation, and several more decades of negotiations to resolve all the issues presented in the litigation as well as other issues raised belatedly by the United States, the San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement finally became a reality and took effect on May 17, 2017.

Underlying the long-running battles between proponents and opponents of the proposed Poseidon Resources ocean desalination plant is an ideological war between two roughly defined factions: conservationists and free-marketeers. The Orange County Water District(OCWD), which manages theSanta Ana River and the Orange County Groundwater Basin (a collection of aquifers containing 60 million acre-feet of water), is ground-zero in that war. (The OCWD supplies 75 percent of the drinking water for 2.4 million residents of north Orange County).

San Diego Unified School District will test every drinking fountain and kitchen sink on campuses for lead in the water over the next few years, greatly expanding on tests previously conducted by the City of San Diego. School district trustees adopted the testing plan, expected to cost $200,000, at Tuesday night’s meeting. Fixing all the faucets and sinks that are found to have a certain level of lead could cost more than $1 million over the next three to five years.