A seventy-year-old stalwart is getting a much-needed makeover. The San Diego County Water Authority is working to upgrade the historic First Aqueduct to deliver safe and reliable water supplies for the region.
SAN DIEGO – Dry vegetation and strong winds elevated critical fire weather conditions across Southern California on Wednesday keeping the blaze-weary region on high alert as firefighters gained a foothold on several infernos and prepared for rain this weekend. Red flag warnings were in effect until Thursday night for parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Diego counties due to low humidity and an expected uptick in Santa Ana winds, according to the National Weather Service.
The Ramona Municipal Water District was notified it will receive a $227,000 grant to address cybersecurity issues and also recently completed a major overhaul of one of its two water reclamation plants, officials announced. The water district learned Christmas Eve that the state Office of Emergency Services had selected its cybersecurity proposal for funding through the 2021 State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act, officials said.
As wildfires rage in Los Angeles County and gusty Santa Anas sweep the region, residents near Lake Hodges say the scene is all too familiar.
“We’re all a little bit on edge as you can tell. The winds you’re feeling today are very similar to the winds that brought the fire down from Ramona and brought it through Lake Hodges,” said Robert Dudley, a resident near the lake.
The Santa Ana winds that led San Diego Gas & Electric to shut off power to more than 5,900 customers on Tuesday are now reaching their peak and come amid dangerously low relative humidity across critically dry San Diego County, the National Weather Service says.
San Diego County is experiencing the driest start to the water year in recorded history, according to meteorologists, but some climatologists are hopeful that a La Niña could mean rain on the horizon.
The meteorological water year — the “rainy season” — starts on Oct. 1 and, so far, San Diego County has only received a little over a tenth of an inch of rain, leaving a rain deficit of almost four inches.
The Ramona Municipal Water District has announced that the community’s water system does not contain lead after an inventory of service lines.
The water district reviewed the service lines to determine the material of those lines and fittings in response to federal regulations aimed at protecting communities from lead exposure, the agency announced Dec. 20.
When the call reporting a brush fire in Otay Mesa came out Thursday, fire agencies pounced. Not just San Diego Fire-Rescue, but Chula Vista, National City and Coronado. Officials quickly brought in air resources, hand crews and differing types of fire rigs.
To Victoria Hilton, 76, who lives in the Heavenly Oaks Mobile Home Park in the mountain community of Guatay in East San Diego County, the power shutoffs felt like an eternity.
She lost power for two days. She used battery-powered lamps to read at night and bathed in tepid water because her water heater couldn’t operate.
As San Diego enters the driest start to the water year since record keeping began in 1860, the San Diego County Water Authority has the reliable water supplies needed by the region for 2025 and beyond.
“We’ve been preparing for over three decades to have reliable water supplies, whether we’re in a drought or whether we have a wet year,” Water Authority Senior Water Resource Specialist Efren Lopez told CBS 8. “We have a lot of emergency storage in case there’s a disruption to our system.”
With coverage from CBS, KPBS and KUSI/Fox 5, the Water Authority has been informing and updating the public at every available opportunity.
The City of San Diego recorded only 0.14 inches of rain since Oct. 1, when typically it would have received between three and four inches.
While the lack of rain negatively impacts San Diego County’s flora and fauna — including increasing fire risk during the Santa Ana windstorms — the San Diego region doesn’t depend on local rainfall to supply the water that powers our economy and sustains our quality of life. Instead, the region uses a combination of desalinated seawater, conserved water from the Colorado River, recycled water, and runoff from the Sierra.
“San Diegans don’t need to worry about any water restrictions or any conservation mandates — we have plenty of water,” Lopez said.
Meanwhile, Northern California has been relatively wet. That means the state’s six major reservoirs are at 121% of their historical average levels at the beginning of 2025, slightly better than the same time last year. Additionally, the statewide snowpack is 115% of its historical average.
Precipitation over the next few months will be key to determining the state’s overall water supply for 2025. Regardless, the San Diego region has sufficient water for the foreseeable future.
