You are now in San Diego County category.

The first part of this article, about the current water situation in the state, ran last week. This week, the Metropolitan Water District’s general manager, Jeffrey Kightlinger, defends his agency from accusations made by one of its member agencies, the San Diego County Water Authority.After his remarks on the state of water delivery in California, Kightlinger took up the issues that the San Diego County Water Authority (the “Authority”) has been making, with representatives of both agencies dogging each other’s trails as they speak before different agency boards throughout the Southland.

The California Coastal Commission Wednesday unanimously approved a modified permit for San Diego’s Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant, saving the city nearly $2 billion, according to local officials. “The Coastal Commission’s vote validates that San Diego is a true steward of the environment,” Mayor Kevin Faulconer said. “The commission recognizes our efforts to protect the ocean, efficiently operate city facilities and invest ratepayer dollars into infrastructure that will provide a reliable water source for our city.” Without the modified permit, converting the plant for secondary treatment capabilities would have cost $1.8 billion.

California’s five-year drought was officially declared to be over in April. By many measures, it was the worst drought in the state’s recorded history. And it was brought to an end by one of the wettest single winters ever. As a result, most water agencies across the state have dropped their emergency water conservation rules. And, presumably, life will get back to normal in that interface between people and water. But is the drought really over? And even if it is, should we allow life to return to “normal”?

Padre Dam Municipal Water District received regulatory conceptual approvals for the East County Advanced Water Purification Program from the California State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water. Additionally, the State Water Resources Control Board awarded Padre Dam $116.2 million as part of the Proposition 1 (Prop 1) Water Recycling Funding Program. The conceptual approval will allow the program to use either Lake Jennings and/or and the Santee Groundwater Basin as an environmental buffer in compliance with existing groundwater recharge regulations and draft regulations on surface water augmentation.

At the north end of Santa Monica Beach, there’s a fenced off 2-acre section that looks a bit unkempt. It’s an experiment in “re-wilding,” or restoring the beach to what it looked like before humans altered it. The pilot project, a partnership of The Bay Foundation and Santa Monica, could also help protect the city from sea level rise. The Bay Foundation first staked out the plot in December 2016, but waited until Tuesday to hold the official ribbon cutting, so visitors could see dune plant seedlings emerging from the sand.