San Diego County Water Authority is seeking proposals for a potential 500MW joint pumped storage project at San Vicente Reservoir with the City of San Diego. The potential project is expected to not only increase renewables penetration, but can also lessen pressure on water rates throughout the region by using existing infrastructure. The project would consist of closed-loop interconnection and pumping system between the existing reservoir and a new smaller reservoir located uphill. With a potential to produce 500MW of renewable energy, water from the downhill can be pumped uphill during off-peak times.

The federal government is poised to invest as much as $492 million to get Pure Water, the city of San Diego’s effort to turn sewage into drinking water, off the ground. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to announce that San Diego is one of a dozen applicants chosen to participate in a low-interest loan program under the Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act. The invitation, which comes after initial vetting by the EPA, doesn’t guarantee funding but signals a very high likelihood of acceptance. Invited applicants from past years routinely obtained the funding amounts they sought.

Lead water testing this spring in the San Diego Unified School District was a very public process. The district told parents and students, invited the media to broadcast initial testing and posted results on its website. But, before that public process began, the district wanted to see where it stood. So, it conducted some preliminary water quality sampling, finding dangerous levels of lead contamination in at least one elementary school. The district did not tell parents

Two years ago, the amount of water in the massive Diamond Valley Lake was … well, not so massive. Able to hold 810,000 acre-feet of water, an extended drought had dropped storage at the reservoir near Hemet to 299,638 acre-feet in March 2016 — and it was that high due to conservation efforts. The water level dropped so low, private fishing boats were banned for 13 months. Even after extending the marina’s long boat ramp, it ended at dirt, not water. Islands and rock piles began popping out of the lake’s surface.

A third school in the San Diego Unified School District has higher than recommended amounts of lead in the school’s drinking water, according to the most recent testing results reviewed by NBC 7 Investigates.  Tuesday, test results for the Montezuma Child Development Center show one water sample had 53 parts per billion of lead in it.  The EPA requires action to be taken if the amount of lead in the water is greater than 15 parts per billion.  The sample was taken from the school’s Room 1 outdoor drinking fountain last month.