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The Fallbrook Public Utility District board of directors held a special board meeting the evening of Nov. 15 to provide background information regarding proposed water rate increases and to allow customers the opportunity to give their input regarding the rate hikes. FPUD officials were expecting a large turnout and they got it as more than 100 people crammed inside the FPUD board room. A sound system allowed those that weren’t able to get a spot inside the room to hear the meeting while sitting or standing in the courtyard.

Everyone knows the Los Angeles river. Even if it’s not part of your neighborhood, the concrete-lined channel is familiar worldwide, because nothing else in the movies or television better depicts “urban wasteland” than this drain. But soon this stark, 51-mile (82-km) waterway may symbolize something else: tough choices amid water scarcity. California’s historic five-year drought has prompted the Los Angeles region to look at using the river as a water supply – a role it has not served in over a century.

A coalition of non-profits is asking a superior court to reverse a state agency’s decision to greenlight a long-proposed, controversial desalination plant in Huntington Beach. In a lawsuit filed in Sacramento Friday, Nov. 17, the three coastal advocacy groups allege an inadequate environmental review was conducted on the impacts of building a desalination plant and that the State Lands Commission failed to examine the plant’s impacts on the ocean in its entirety.

The update of the Rainbow Water District capacity charges included allowing for smaller meters. The Rainbow board voted 4-0, with Hayden Hamilton absent, July 27, to approve the revisions in the district’s capacity fee ordinance which also changes the wastewater capacity fee variable for single-family homes from number of bedrooms to square footage of the house. Capacity fees are one-time charges to developers who purchase system capacity for water and sewer services. “It’s primarily a buy-in charge,” Rainbow general manager Tom Kennedy said.

Ten years after learning of the need to replace or repair the dam at Lake Wohlford, officials at the city of Escondido are still trying to raise the money. It’s a substantial sum — $45 million to $50 million — and they’re about halfway to it. Completion of the project would enable the city to store about twice as much water as it now can in the man-made reservoir and still prevent flooding from the structure in the event of a big earthquake.