Juana Valle never imagined she’d be scared to drink water from her tap or eat fresh eggs and walnuts when she bought her 5-acre farm in San Juan Bautista three years ago. Escaping city life and growing her own food was a dream come true for the 52-year-old.
Then Valle began to suspect water from her well was making her sick.
Every month, Deacon Perry Owens Sr. estimates he spends at least $100 on bottled water. He doesn’t drink the tap water from his Emerald Hills home.
“It has a smell to it, a stench to it and we have tried every home remedy, and we can’t get rid of it,” he told Team 10.
Ramona Municipal Water District and the city of Poway have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to look at the feasibility of sharing water resources.
Poway has been looking to diversify its water resources for the past 30 years, but the city is at a point where it needs to develop this.
A recent bit of good news from the western United States is a welcome bright spot in the region’s long-running efforts to conserve precious water resources amid a growing population and an expanding agricultural industry.
Water levels in Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, have risen nearly 5 metres in the past two years after a sustained conservation effort in the state of California.
The Newsom administration is refining a contentious set of proposed rules, years in the making, that would reshape how farms and cities draw water from the Central Valley’s Delta and its rivers. Backed by more than $1 billion in state funds, the rules, if adopted, would require water users to help restore rivers and rebuild depleted Chinook salmon runs.
The administration touts its proposed rules as the starting point of a long-term effort to double Central Valley Chinook populations from historical levels, reaching numbers not seen in at least 75 years. But environmental groups have almost unanimously rejected it, saying it promises environmental gains that will never materialize and jeopardizes the existence of California’s iconic salmon and other fish.
Residents and officials in North County are trying to raise the water level of Lake Hodges, but they’re facing their biggest challenge — the state mandate of levels.
California government requires lakes to be no deeper than 280 feet; however, concerned people are asking that the reservoir be raised to 293 feet. As of Friday, the lake had dropped to 273 feet, which is the lowest it’s been in the last 40 years.
By this time of year, Southern California has usually recorded some measurable rainfall. Santa Ana winds, meanwhile, are typically dying down.
But this December, neither is the case.
Roughly 200,000 San Diego County households get their tap water from the Sweetwater Authority. In a recent safety test, however, that water flagged a toxic chemical called PFAS, also known as a forever chemical. The level is not enough for action, but enough to trigger a mandatory state warning.
“We have one data point. There is a lot of things that we are waiting for, a lot of information,” said Paulina Martinez Perez, the chairwoman of the Sweetwater Authority. “The water is safe to drink, and we are ready and prepared to do whatever we need to do in order to continue delivering safe and reliable water to our customers.”
The Vista Irrigation District board of directors elected Patrick Sanchez as its president and Marty Miller as its vice-president for 2025 at its annual organizational meeting.
Sanchez has served on the board of directors since March 2017. This will be the second time he has led the board since being elected. Sanchez represents Division 4, which encompasses the Shadowridge area of Vista.
San Diego could raise water rates by 61% and sewer rates 32% over four years to cover sharply rising costs for workers, imported water, chemicals, energy, construction projects and other priorities.
The increases, which would incrementally kick in between January 2026 and January 2029, are recommended by two new studies analyzing future revenues and expenses for the city’s water and sewer systems.
