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The state budget Gov. Jerry Brown signed this week includes $80.5 million for restoration of the Salton Sea — more than California has ever allocated for the state’s largest and most troubled lake.

“This is a great step in the right direction. I don’t think anyone, including the state, believes that this is enough to solve the problem, but it certainly starts us on the path of management techniques that can solve the problem,” said Bruce Wilcox, assistant secretary for Salton Sea policy at the California Natural Resources Agency.

A rainy winter in Northern California may have strengthened the state’s water supply, but San Juan Capistrano is keeping conservation tools in place in case Southern California’s drought continues.

The City Council voted 5-0 at its June 21 meeting to keep in place the city’s Stage 2 water alert, which limits lawn watering and irrigation to two days a week, bans all non-essential use of potable water and bans use of automatic sprinklers from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and sets other restrictions.

Thanks in part to winter rain and snow storms, state and local agencies are loosening water-use restrictions in Solana Beach and Del Mar.

But one council member in the latter city called the move premature, prompting his colleagues to hold off on downgrading to a Stage 1 drought level. “I think it’s a mistake to relax our drought restrictions — a big mistake — because the drought’s not over,” Del Mar Councilman Don Mosier said. “The fact is that … two-thirds of the state is still in a drought.

 

 

As wildfires burn in Southern California, a debate is smoldering about what to do with millions of dead and dying trees — which have been ravaged by drought and beetle species up and down the state.

Facing the biggest die-off since recordkeeping on the topic started about four decades ago, state officials have already started to cut down hundreds of thousands of dead trees near houses, roads, power lines and other sensitive areas.

 

Lawn watering restrictions mandated after years of devastating drought will soon be eased in Poway. Instead of being allowed to water only twice a week, for 10 minute intervals per sprinkler station, customers will be allowed to water three times a week starting almost immediately, the Poway City Council decided last week.

Assistant City Manager Tina White said within days papers will be signed allowing city water customers to water on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.