Californians who need help paying their water bills can benefit from a state-administered program.
The Low Income Household Water Assistance Program, which is administered by the state Department of Community Service and Development, is available to both renters and homeowners.
Despite an unusually wet season last year and predictions for a boisterous rainy season this year, California continues to struggle to store enough water to meet the needs of its population and farms. We’ve experienced two particularly grueling droughts in the last decade, with state officials repeatedly blaming climate change for the challenges.
Water bills are about to double over the next five years for over 13,000 Orange County residents after the Trabuco Canyon Water District increased their rates this year.
It was this past January when the roof support of the clearwell water tank at San Juan Capistrano’s Groundwater Recovery Plant gave way, requiring local officials to take it offline.
“Why is that important?” asked Laura Freese, a member of Santa Margarita Water District’s governing board. “Well, this is the way we get our water from the aquifer, our local water, our groundwater, and so we needed to get it back up really fast.”
Santa Margarita, which operates the plant as the town’s water utility agency, spent the next six months and roughly $1.8 million conducting repairs to the reservoir tank that holds about 320,000 gallons of drinking water.
The San Diego County Water Authority will begin aqueduct maintenance next spring, with the $66 million project expected to be complete in summer 2026. The project area will include pipelines that run through Rancho Bernardo and Poway.
The Southern First Aqueduct Facilities Improvement Project will focus on 99 aqueduct support structures in streets, along access roads and within utility easements. There are two 48-inch- and 54-inch-diameter critical regional pipelines involved, officials said.
The plan is for one pipeline to be taken offline at a time, according to engineering manager Brent Fountain, who spoke at the Rancho Bernardo Planning Board’s Oct. 19 meeting. The project is “very proactive” because it will be replacing some of the concrete vault structures and doing other infrastructure work to components, such as air vents and pump wells, before it becomes absolutely necessary, Fountain said.
It was a rough debut. JB Hamby, 26 years old, had rocketed to the innermost circle of state and federal officials charged with saving the Colorado River from collapse. In mid-January, he was elected to chair California’s river board, representing Imperial Irrigation District, by far the biggest recipient of the overused river’s supply.
Federal officials had bluntly threatened to impose mandatory cuts across the region if huge voluntary reductions weren’t made.
But 12 days later, after contentious closed-door talks, he watched in dismay as media outlets across the U.S. published stories about six states releasing a joint plan to save the river, with only his state, California, refusing to sign on.
A solution to help bolster Southern California’s water outlook during future droughts is taking shape in the Mojave Desert. Water transported in canals and pipelines has begun flowing into a series of basins carved into the desert, filling a large underground reservoir that will be available to draw upon in dry times.
San Diego Friday warned residents to be on the lookout for fake “water update” notice at their homes that appear to be from a private company with no association with the city.
Residents contacted by the company are urged not to agree to services and not to provide personal information.
Riverside County and Salton Sea officials held a public event Oct. 19 in North Shore to mark reaching a significant milestone in the development of the future North Lake Pilot Demonstration Project.
The event was held at the North Shore Beach & Yacht Club Community Center, 99-155 Sea View Drive. The yacht club overlooks the project’s future site along Riverside County’s northern shore of the Salton Sea.
A $5 million cleanup project in the Tijuana River Valley will begin in early 2024, with a completion date before the end of March, officials said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 in favor of dredging drainage channels and building a basin for sediment and trash control in the Smuggler’s Gulch and Pilot channels.
