Recently completed upgrades to water fixtures in nine historic buildings in Balboa Park will save an estimated 2.4 million gallons of water a year. The Balboa Park Cultural Partnership in cooperation with the San Diego County Water Authority and San Diego Gas & Electric installed 365 high-efficiency water fixtures throughout the park. The $166,000 project,  completed last week, will cut water use in restrooms by more than half, and also save energy. In addition, new signage at the popular local and tourist destination promotes water-use efficiency.

 

In recent years, the California State Auditor’s Office has waded into the affairs of several small water districts and water retailers, including districts in Victorville and Hesperia and the city of Downey’s Public Works Department. This is all well and good. The state auditor’s office purview covers a wide range of government bodies, and the obscure ones certainly merit the same sort of oversight.

Michael Grahek trudged through the murk of a historic Los Angeles Department of Water and Power water tunnel, his flashlight sweeping its century-old concrete walls. His light then settled on some a strange outlines in the Sylmar shaft. “Notice the footprints,” said Grahek, LADWP manager of southern aqueduct and Owens Lake Operations and maintenance, pausing inside the arched tunnel. “Somebody stepped in the wet cement almost 100 years ago.”

The San Diego County Water Authority issued a request for interest for the proposed pumped storage project in January that drew 18 respondents. The respondents included five full-service entities offering to finance, design, permit, build, and operate the project, as well as responses from two developers, five off-takers, and six parties interested in building the project, providing equipment for the project, or serving as a consultant for engineering, procurement, and construction services. SDCWA said in a release that the responses confirmed that the project would be a valuable resource helping integrate more variable generation and providing other grid support services.

Wetter weather and continued growth in renewable energy sources resulted in some big changes in electricity generation in California in 2016, according to numbers recently released by the California Energy Commission. Natural gas still accounted for the largest single share of in-state power generation but the amount deployed dropped 10 percent last year. The difference was largely replaced by electricity produced by large hydro facilities — home to reservoirs that started to fill up at the end of 2016 as one of the wettest winters on record began — and production from wind and solar, which each posted double-digit growth.