California’s powerful regional water districts are working alongside Gov. Jerry Brown to take on more responsibility for designing, building and arranging financing for a $15.7-billion twin-tunnel project that would ship water southward from Northern California as they push to finally close the deal on the controversial plan, two officials working closely on the project told the Associated Press.
San Diego County Water Authority directors have met behind closed doors more than three times a week on average since the start of the year, putting the agency on pace to surpass last year’s tally of gatherings that critics say could run afoul of open-meetings laws. U-T Watchdog reviewed payroll records — the only documentation available for the meetings — and found that directors appointed to the 36-member board were paid to attend 55 private meetings through the end of April. That’s 10 more than were held over the same time period in 2016 — a year in which board members held more than 100 meetings out of public view.
California’s Superintendent of schools, Tom Torlakson, visited schools in San Diego Thursday to talk about water quality issues and to congratulate a couple of teachers of the year. NBC 7 Investigates uncovered lead contamination in drinking water at some local schools, and now the topic is top of mind for many. NBC 7’s Liberty Zabala reports.
The long debate over Poseidon Water’s proposed ocean desalination plant in Huntington Beach continued this week as the California State Lands Commission released a draft of a supplemental environmental impact report analyzing planned additions to the facility that are meant to reduce potential harm to marine life and increase the plant’s efficiency. The supplement to a 2010 EIR addresses the possible environmental effects of a screen and diffuser added to the intake and outflow pipes, respectively, that would be used by the $1-billion desalination facility proposed at Newland Street and Pacific Coast Highway.
Southern California Edison’s plan to store 3.6 million pounds of nuclear waste at the shuttered San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station has citizen activist Ray Lutz on edge. “It’s only 100 feet from the seawall to the edge of where the deposit is,” Lutz said. The permit from the California Coastal Commission for the storage is for 20 years. But Lutz contends that the permit is practically permanent because there’s no long-term nuclear waste storage site in the United States. “They don’t know if it will be removed in 2051 or even for many decades after that,” Lutz said.
Solana Beach is on its way to becoming the first jurisdiction in San Diego to move toward an energy alternative to SDG&E, striving for the promise of cheaper electricity rates, greater local control and a higher percentage of renewable energy. In a historic 4-1 vote on Wednesday, May 24, the Solana Beach City Council launched into the exploratory phase of a three-phase plan to shift Solana Beach’s 7,800 energy customers out of SDG&E’s monopoly and into city-run community choice aggregation (CCA).
San Diego has some of the most expensive water in California – and in the country. A typical household in San Diego County pays about $80 a month for water, whereas the national average is less than $40, according to a recent survey by the American Water Works Association. Water in California is more expensive than elsewhere, but San Diego still has among the steepest rates in the state, another recent survey found. The priciest supplies are found in Santa Barbara and other communities along the state’s central coast. By all indications, water prices in San Diego will keep rising.
Samples from five schools show elevated lead levels in drinking water, according to new results released by the San Diego Unified School District. However, the levels do not meet state requirements for action by the district. The results released on Thursday show several samples that are higher than the 5 parts per billion (ppb) used as a minimum for reporting by the City of San Diego Water Department. However, the levels did not reach the 15 ppb necessary to require action by the district under guidelines set in place by the California State Water Resources Control Board.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California supplies water to the San Diego County Water Authority from MWD’s Skinner treatment plant, and the SDCWA will be funding the installation of a low-flow meter at the Skinner treatment plant. An April 27 SDCWA board action authorized the installation of the low-flow meter for Pipeline 4 and also authorized the expenditure of $2,630,000 which will cover design, equipment acquisition and construction. “It gives us a lot of flexibility to manage our flows,” Jim Fisher, the SDCWA director of operations and maintenance, said.
The San Diego County Water Authority is floating a radical idea to upend how 19 million Southern Californians get their water. The agency paid for a poll last month that asked voters whether they would support the state seizing control of water supplies across the region, including much of the water used in San Diego. The $31,000 poll is part of an aggressive $220,000 campaign the Water Authority is waging against another public water agency, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
