Plans to dredge Agua Hedionda Lagoon and place the sand on Carlsbad beaches suffered a setback this week after residents raised concerns about pollutants. The city’s Planning Commission delayed approval of a permit needed for the project, scheduled to start in January, until more information can be gathered about the quality of the sand to be dredged.
Three agencies are urging California’s top water regulators to approve an agreement that would commit the state to following through on its pledges at the Salton Sea, even as state funding for the shrinking lake remains an open question. The State Water Resources Control Board met Thursday to hear comments on the proposed agreement, which sets targets for state agencies tasked with building thousands of acres of ponds, wetlands and other dust-control projects around the lake over the next 10 years.
A tax on water users that would take from ratepayers such as those in Valley Center to help subsidize water rates in poorer water districts, is on hold, but only until January, when it could be taken up again. State Senate Bill 623 — the water tax measure — is not moving ahead in 2017 after significant concerns were expressed by stakeholders statewide, including many groups from San Diego County. The Assembly Appropriations Committee decided against moving the proposed bill to the floor in late August, effectively pushing the issue into 2018.
The Imperial Irrigation District appeared before the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento Thursday during a public workshop seeking input on the Salton Sea Management Program and a Draft Stipulated Order. According to a press release sent to us by IID, the Draft Order is based on information that was presented to the State Water Board in a petition filed by IID in November 2014, subsequent State Water Board workshops on the Salton Sea, information and documents related to the Salton Sea and the Quantification Settlement Agreement as well as information contained in the Salton Sea Action Plan and Salton Sea Management Program that have been proposed by the Brown Administration.
The first of two open houses is scheduled Tuesday on a major pipeline project that could impact residents and businesses in La Mesa and Spring Valley. The $28.6 million project will reline 4.3 miles of pipeline from Lake Murray to the Sweetwater Reservoir, according to the San Diego County Water Authority. Early stages of the work, scheduled to begin later this month, could affect busy Baltimore Drive and Spring Street. The Water Authority said the project could take until summer next year to complete.
This year, urban water use has settled into a pattern: Californians are consuming more water than in 2015 and 2016, when mandatory measures were in place to cut down on use during a five-year drought. At the same time, water use has remained below the levels reported in 2013 and 2014, cheering water regulators who hope to make conservation a habit. July 2017 numbers were released Wednesday by the State Water Resources Control Board, and they fit this pattern for the fifth month running.
For decades, water seeped below the spillway of the nation’s tallest dam unnoticed by operators, slowly eroding critical infrastructure until the spillway crumbled during heavy storm releases this past February, investigators said Tuesday. According to independent experts investigating the Oroville Dam’s spillway failure – which forced nearly 200,000 people to evacuate beneath the 770-foot dam – human error played a key role in the near-disaster.
Just weeks before key votes on a multibillion-dollar state water project, two major questions remain: How much water will the project actually deliver? How much will that water actually cost? If those sound like the only two things you’d really want to be sure about before investing billions of dollars in a new water project – well, they are.The project, known as WaterFix, is designed to ensure that water keeps coming south through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta, a series of waterways and wetlands fed by snow melting in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
With less than four months left until a critical deadline when the Salton Sea will begin to shrink rapidly, residents and activists are pressing for California officials to secure funding and act quickly to avert a costly disaster. Some people who live around the lake are driving to Sacramento for a Thursday meeting of the State Water Resources Control Board, which is considering an agreement between several agencies that would commit state officials to following through with pledges of building thousands of acres of ponds, wetlands and other dust-control projects around the lake over the next 10 years.
We respectfully disagree with your Aug. 24 editorial, “Water Board: Vote ‘No’ on Billion-dollar Delta Tunnels project,” which was based on erroneous rhetoric and incorrect information. We depend on water imported from Northern California through the Delta for about 30 percent of the supplies we use in the Southland. But that system is aging and less reliable than it should be. We need an updated, modernized and cost-effective water system, and we need it to protect the Delta environment. Scientists tell us California WaterFix, with its new intakes, twin tunnels, and environmental safeguards will help achieve those goals.
