City council is expected to vote on a nearly 20% increase to water rates for San Diego residents.
If approved, this would increase rates 10.2% beginning Dec. 1, 2023, then up to an additional 8.7% beginning Jan. 1, 2025.
Mayor Todd Gloria said this would equate to an approximate $12 increase to the average residents’ monthly bill.
The San Diego County Water Authority offers free WaterSmart classes, with both virtual and in-person options, taught by local landscape design professionals. Classes help participants understand landscape design and maintenance, soil identification and health, turf types and removal tips, plant selection, rainwater catchment, irrigation retrofits and project installation, whether completed as a DIY project or with contractor assistance.
Participants get the knowledge and skills they need to transform their yards into spaces that are water-efficient, sustainable, and beautiful year-round. The workshops are typically offered in spring and in fall clusters, with fall classes scheduled for September through November.
Five topics are available to choose from, including:
Participants who attend all five workshops and meet other program criteria can sign up to receive an in-home visit by a landscape professional who will help them create customized landscape transformation plans, through the Designer at Your Door service. For more information, visit sdcwa.org/your-water/conservation/classes.
“The workshops are designed to help residents create and maintain their own beautiful and water-efficient outdoor spaces,” said Debby Dunn, a water resources specialist for the Water Authority. “Most of our residential water use is outdoors in our landscapes. This is why learning how to create water-efficient spaces is a great way for San Diegans to continue doing their part to use water efficiently.”
For people who prefer to learn at their own pace, the Water Authority offers short, entertaining and educational on-demand videos, with topics that mirror the workshops. To watch the videos go to sdcwa.org/your-water/conservation/classes and click on the videos link.
Low-water plants, improved irrigation technologies, and WaterSmart classes not only save water, but also reduce energy use, protect our natural resources, and create beautiful outdoor living spaces.
Saying this is “a pivotal moment that calls for resolute action,” all 18 mayors in San Diego County sent a letter last week to Gov. Gavin Newsom imploring him to declare a state of emergency over the decades-long sewage crisis at the border.
A county agency is offering San Diegans free water-smart classes taught by landscape professionals, with sessions beginning this month.
The virtual classes start Saturday and continue through Nov. 15.
California is looking to boost water supply and considering new regulations to recycling wastewater straight to your tap. Some refer to it as toilet to tap, however experts in the field say this phrase is anything but accurate.
“It never has been toilet to tap. That has never happened,” said Andrew Salveson, the Carollo Water Reuse Chief Technologist.
San Diego is holding four special elections on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2023. Understanding the “who, what, where when and how” of voting can be daunting. KPBS researched answers to frequently asked voter questions.
Voters will weigh in on four special elections in different parts of the County. Only those who live in the County’s Fourth Supervisorial District, the city of Chula Vista or in Fallbrook and Rainbow’s districts are eligible to vote in the special election.
In the county’s Fourth Supervisorial District voters will decide on who will fill the seat vacated by former Supervisor Nathan Fletcher and make the final choice among the top two vote-getters in the special general election — voting for either Monica Montgomery Steppe, a Democrat, attorney, and San Diego City Council president pro tem or Republican Amy Reichert, founder of ReOpen San Diego.
Voters in the city of Chula Vista will vote to fill the vacant City Attorney seat. This term expires in December 2026. Candidates include Bart Miesfeld, who served as a city attorney for Chula Vista in the past, Dan Smith Diaz, an attorney, and Marco Verdugo, also an attorney with Burke, Williams & Sorensen.
In Fallbrook and Rainbow voters will weigh in on whether the Fallbrook Public Utility District and the Rainbow Municipal Water District should detach from the San Diego County Water Authority and join the Eastern Municipal Water District.
By Alexander Nguyen / Multimedia Producer, North County
San Diego water bills would rise nearly 20% under a rate-increase proposal the City Council is scheduled to consider Tuesday.
The increase, which city officials began studying last fall, would be the first comprehensive rate hike approved by the council in nearly eight years. It would include a 10.2 increase this December and an 8.75% jump in January 2025.
Imperial County’s largest farming family has lost again in its years-long bid to gain control of valuable Colorado River water allocations associated with its land.
The Imperial Irrigation District on Tuesday won a motion to dismiss a case by Mike Abatti and several relatives, close friends and business associates that closely mirrored an ultimately unsuccessful series of cases they had brought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined to hear their petition in 2021.
A wide-ranging bill at the State Capitol aimed at boosting renewable energy sources includes a provision that could help develop a proposed pumped hydroelectric facility at the San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside.
Assembly Bill 1373 aims to make the state a centralized buyer for renewable energy sources such as offshore wind power and geothermal facilities. And in a late addition to the bill, it allows the state’s Department of Water Resources to procure funding for a pumped hydro project that “does not exceed 500 megawatts and has been directly appropriated funding by the state before January 1, 2023.”
The Union-Tribune received confirmation from legislative sources that the provision specifically refers to the San Vicente project.
Sewage from Tijuana will continue to foul South County beaches unchecked for at least a year before repairs can be made to an aging federal wastewater treatment plant at the U.S.-Mexico border, officials with the binational agency that operates the facility said Wednesday.
