Top lawmakers promised Wednesday to put a bond measure on the 2018 statewide ballot to fund parks and water improvements. “More parks is not just a wish, it’s not just a dream, it’s not just an ideal, it is a real need,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said at a rally outside the Capitol. “We see that all over the state.”
Local and regional officials appear intent on driving a stake through the heart of a plan to build a hydroelectric power system with components in the Santa Ana Mountains, Lakeland Village and Lake Elsinore. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors this week joined the city of Lake Elsinore and the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District in condemning the resurrection of the Vista-based firm Nevada Hydro‘s application for the Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
As yellow jackets and bees darted above, an environmentalist asked those interested in preserving the eastern Mojave to call elected officials in support of a bill that would block a controversial plan to sell groundwater. “This is a way for Californians to say they are not going to allow the Trump Administration to force destructive projects on the state without environmental review,” Chris Clarke, California Desert program manager of the National Parks Conservation Association, told 35 people gathered Tuesday night near the front porch of the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve Ranger Station.
Two of San Diego’s biggest water treatment plants are in North County. Both are having some problems. First, there’s the desalination plant in Carlsbad. It’s the largest facility of its kind in the country that takes ocean water and makes it drinkable. Over the last year, the privately owned Carlsbad plant failed to deliver nearly a fifth of the water the San Diego County Water Authority ordered from it. Why?
When the Carlsbad desalination plant opened in December 2015, regional water officials gushed about how reliable it would be. San Diego could now drink from the endless Pacific Ocean rather than be stuck depending on rain and snowmelt to come from hundreds of miles away. So far, though, the plant has not been as reliable as promised. Over the last year, the privately owned plant failed to deliver nearly a fifth of the water the San Diego County Water Authority ordered from it.
A Flex Alert was issued and Schools across the county had minimum-day schedules Tuesday as the “unrelenting” heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring across San Diego County was expected to peak Tuesday. Record-setting temperatures are forecast in Chula Vista, Ramona and San Diego, with the high temperatures now expected to last into the end of the week, the NWS said. As a public safety measure, an excessive-heat warning for the county’s inland valleys, western foothills and deserts was extended through 10 p.m. Friday after it was initially slated to expire Wednesday.
The heat wave hitting Southern California isn’t going away. The National Weather Service says the Southland will continue to swelter well into next week, bringing triple digit temperatures to inland valleys along with elevated fire danger and the potential for power outages. An excessive-heat warning will be in effect through Friday night, but the heat wave is likely to persist until the following Thursday, according to the weather service. Palmdale, Lancaster and Woodland Hills are facing the brunt of the heat: All three locations are forecast to stay in the triple digits through Labor Day.
Water officials in San Diego County have come out against a proposed state law that would impose a new monthly fee on all residential and commercial water users in California, to pay for programs that provide access to clean and safe drinking water in communities where water sources are contaminated. Opponents of the legislation have called the proposed fee a “water tax,” while supporters said it is “vitally needed” to deal with a state health crisis.
According to a study by the city’s Office of Public Accountability/Ratepayer Advocate, it could be as little as $1.73 per month. But project opponent cite an independent study concluding the cost could be more than $7 a month. The California Water Fix is an $18 billion to $26 billion proposal pending in the state legislature to build giant underground tunnels to route Sacramento River water under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The water would flow into the California Aqueduct for use by farms and homes to the south.
If you wonder why your water bill keeps rising, look no further than the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. More than half of the cost of our water at the San Diego County Water Authority is for paying MWD, whose water rates have doubled over the past decade. That has forced local water providers such as the Water Authority and its 24 member agencies (including the Padre Dam Municipal Water District) to raise their rates significantly.
