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California may be coming out of the drought, but LA’s water system is in dire need of fixing. Angelenos will soon be asked to pay more for their water and they must stay alert to ensure their money is being invested wisely and not wasted on projects for special interests. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is set to make its customers pay higher rates and taxes for a project misleadingly named the “California Water Fix.” This project involves building two massive water tunnels underneath the San Joaquin Delta in Northern California and could cost $25-67 billion.

District officials updated the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) Board Tuesday night on its lead sampling program for campus water. According to Board documents, the City and the school district plan to test all schools on district property for potential lead in drinking water by mid-June. With about 200 schools total to test, the district is about half-way through the process. A slide in a Power Point presentation made to elected officials shows the district has submitted sampling plans to the city for 109 schools. Of that, 72 schools have already been tested.

 

Water will once again start flowing today into the Silver Lake and Ivanhoe reservoirs after having sat dry and empty since 2015. A ceremony marking the return of water to the reservoirs will be held at 5 p.m., where Councilmen David Ryu and Mitch O’Farrell will help open the valve releasing the first water running into the Silver Lake Reservoir Complex, starting at the smaller Ivanhoe Reservoir. Water will then start filling into the Silver Lake Reservoir in approximately two weeks.

 

A slow-moving emergency is lapping at California’s shores — climate-driven sea-level rise that experts now predict could elevate the water in coastal areas up to 10 feet in just 70 years, gobbling up beachfront and overwhelming low-lying cities. The speed with which polar ice is melting and glacier shelves are cracking off indicates to some scientists that once-unthinkable outer-range projections of sea rise may turn out to be too conservative. A knee-buckling new state-commissioned report warns that if nothing changes, California’s coastal waters will rise at a rate 30 to 40 times faster than in the last century.

Although Los Angeles city water customers paid extra for costly imported water during the five-year drought, their water bills will drop very little now that the Department of Water and Power has a plentiful supply of its own, officials said. The DWP surplus does not translate into big savings for individual bill payers because water rates were restructured last year.  The new rates are intended to raise more money for water system improvements.”The money that would have gone to purchased water is now going to infrastructure investment,” said DWP spokeswoman Amanda Parsons.