You are now in San Diego County category.

The non-voting items at the Feb. 27 Fallbrook Public Utility District (FPUD) board meeting included a presentation on the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project. FPUD assistant general manager Jack Bebee provided the presentation on the Conjunctive Use Project which will be the subject of FPUD votes for specific actions over the next several months. “It was just to give some background on the project because we have a new board member,” said Bebee.

 

Governor Jerry Brown ended the drought state of emergency in most of California Friday, garnering praise from San Diego County’s Water Authority. Record-breaking rainfall helped create a dramatic improvement in water supplies. Heavy rains fell across California this winter, including record-breaking precipitation in San Diego County, according to the Water Authority. State agencies also issued a plan to make conservation a  way of life in California. Governor Brown says this will include new legislation to improve planning for severe droughts and establishing long-term water conservation measures.

San Diego’s county and city pension funds are losing ground in their pursuit of a fully funded plan, but 10 other local government pension plans are just as bad or worse off. The Valley Center Municipal Water District, Otay Water District, city of El Cajon’s safety plan, the city of San Marcos and six other local pension plans are only 60 to 70 percent funded. That means the agencies lack 30 to 40 percent of the money ultimately needed to fulfill retirement promises for current and former employees, data from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System shows.

An unusually strong spring storm will add more snow to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where winter storms left behind the most robust snowpack in the last six years.  A brief bout of rainfall, possibly accompanied by strong winds, is expected in the Los Angeles area Saturday with more significant precipitation to the north. The storm could be the most powerful the Sierra Nevada Mountains have seen in April in a decade.

 

San Diego public utility workers began testing water for lead at San Diego Unified schools this week. It’s been widely reported a therapy dog at a school in Southcrest sniffed out the potential lead problem. But a district spokesman says the dog actually led custodians to discover another contaminant — one the city water tests won’t detect. Custodians at Emerson-Bandini Elementary School discovered old PVC pipes were leaching vinyl chloride into the drinking water after the dog refused to drink from its bowl, said spokesman Andrew Sharp.