Los Angeles water wasters could be fined up to $40,000 per month under new regulations created in response to a crushing drought that’s poised to stretch into a fifth year.
Mayor Eric Garcetti signed the new regulations into law Wednesday. They allow the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to fine homeowners between $1,000 and $40,000 for what Garcetti described in a statement as “unreasonable use.”
As regulators mull softening the state’s drought restrictions amid outcry from some Northern California water districts, water wasters in Los Angeles will soon face stiffer fines and water audits under a plan approved this week by Mayor Eric Garcetti.
Under the city’s amended water conservation plan, which will take effect Tuesday, the Department of Water and Power will be able to fine residents between $1,000 and $40,000 a month for what it deems “unreasonable use” of water when the city is in an elevated phase of its emergency drought plan.
The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant has been honored with a Global Water Award as the Desalination Plant of the Year for 2016 by Global Water Intelligence, publisher of periodicals for the international water industry.
The award, announced this week at the Global Water Summit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, goes to “the desalination plant, commissioned during 2015, that represents the most impressive technical or ecologically sustainable achievement in the industry.”
A major water resources bill introduced Tuesday in the Senate would allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to partner with local governments and other agencies – not just California officials – on projects to address the problems of the shrinking Salton Sea.
The bill also would require the Army Corps of Engineers to present plans for completing projects that involve restoring ecosystems such as those at the Salton Sea, and that are aimed at tackling threats to public health.
Six months ago, regulators with California’s State Water Resources Control Board made an example of four local agencies by slapping them with $61,000 fines for failing to comply with mandatory drought rules requiring reductions in water use.
Now two of those agencies, the Coachella Valley Water District and the Indio Water Authority, have reached deals with the state that will allow them to use the money locally to promote water conservation.
Scientists are increasingly focused on shifting warm Pacific waters as a possible cause for Southern California’s lack of predicted winter rain.
The season’s El Niño weather phenomenon, characterized by historically warm waters along the equatorial Pacific, was similar to those that triggered record rainfall in Southern California in 1983 and 1998. Thus, many scientists and weather forecasters reasonably predicted an unusually wet winter for greater Los Angeles. Some even warned that a “Godzilla El Niño” would inundate us with heavy weather. They were wrong.
The warning was stern and unequivocal: The days of unkempt, browning lawns in the gated community of Blackhawk were officially over. “We believe that allowing the drought to negatively impact the landscaping at any Blackhawk home does a disservice to property values throughout the community,” the homeowners association announced. “We believe there is no longer any reason that all landscaping in the community cannot flourish as it once did.”
Starting on June 1, any of Blackhawk’s 2,000 homeowners who fail to maintain green lawns or install drought-tolerant landscaping will now risk fines or litigation.
Water is once again flowing into Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet for the first time in three years, which will allow boat launches to resume on Southern California’s largest reservoir in mid-May, just in time for Memorial Day weekend fishing.
Metropolitan Water District has been sending significant amounts of water into the drinking water reservoir since late March, district officials announced Tuesday, April 26. The lake has been about one-third full after the district has been drawing water out during California’s continued drought.
San Diego is continuing to beat the state’s aggregate savings target for the region, reducing potable water use by 21 percent from June 2015 through March 2016, according to the San Diego County Water Authority.
Starting in March, the region’s aggregate cumulative target is 13 percent — down from 20 percent during the initial phase of the state mandates due to credits for drought-resilient water supplies from the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. The plant produces up to 56,000 acre-feet per year, enough to serve roughly 400,000 residents.
Gov. Jerry Brown’s two very pricey legacy projects took hits in the Legislature last week. They were light jabs, and he didn’t even flinch.
But the fact that some fellow Democrats had the temerity to challenge the popular governor was a sign of growing legislative — and public — skepticism about these highly controversial pet projects. One legislative committee advanced a bill that would force the Brown administration to be more open and candid about the $64-billion, zigzagging bullet train.
