State authorities are set to vote next week on regulations for turning sewage into drinking water across California. The State Water Resources Control Board’s “toilet to tap” resolution would create, as a means of protecting public health, uniform recycling criteria for the direct reuse of treated wastewater as potable water, according to the agency.
Saying the targets to cut water use in cities and towns will be costly and difficult to achieve, water agencies throughout California have raised concerns about an ambitious state proposal that would require more water conservation statewide beginning in 2025.
Several speakers pleaded with the State Water Resources Control Board on Wednesday to rethink proposed regulations intended to reduce Californians’ water use in the face of climate change.
“Making Conservation a California Way of Life” is a series of proposed regulations that stems from two laws passed in 2018. Those laws require the state water board to implement efficiency standards and performance levels for local agencies’ water use.
Los Angeles saw its eighth wettest season in 145 years last winter. The torrential downpours did more than fill aquifers, shrink water waste complaints and ease drought concerns—they also led to the biggest cutbacks in regional residential water use in four years.
The average customer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power used 59.5 gallons per day from Jan. 1–May 31, according to publicly available water use and conservation data from the California State Water Resources Control Board.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been urging Californians to conserve water after another dry winter. And according to preliminary data from California State Water Resources Board, Californians cut their water use in May by 5% from the previous May.
Erik Ekdahl, deputy director of the water board’s Division of Water Rights, said a board meeting Tuesday that the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada Mountains is gone for the season and the area will not see significant precipitation any time soon.
As California increasingly slips into extreme drought and calls intensify to reduce water use, the state’s water savings in 2022 remain bleak.
The average Californian used 83 gallons of water per day in April, compared with 73 in April 2020. That’s far from the 15 percent decrease that Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for as our reservoirs and the snowpack dwindle. (This underperformance has persisted since January.)
Chula Vista, Calif. – On June 8, the Governing Board (Board) of Sweetwater Authority (Authority) voted to implement additional drought measures to encourage additional water conservation. A full list of the demand reduction levels can be found on the Authority’s website at www.sweetwater.org/drought.
On May 24, 2022, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) adopted a new regulation to guide the state in reducing water demand and to improve conservation.
The Senate Rules Committee last week unanimously approved Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reappointment of Joaquin Esquivel as chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. Esquivel fielded questions from senators covering a range of contentious issues the administration has been grappling with across two presidential administration and an extreme drought.
California could be facing a dry summer after two dry winters, but there shouldn’t be a huge impact on local supplies.
California water officials have already cut in half the amount of water they expect to deliver from the state water project.
That could be a major cut for central valley farmers and other water users that rely heavily on the Sacramento Delta for their water.
The Poseidon desalination plant proposed for Huntington Beach could be facing rough waters ahead, as several regulatory officials on Friday expressed concerns over the controversial plan..
During a Regional Water Quality Control Board workshop held online, three of the agency’s six board members persistently pressed local officials about the need, consumer cost and environmental harm of the $1 billion project.
The board is tentatively scheduled to a vote July 31 on one of two permits still needed by Poseidon Water before it can negotiate a final contract and begin construction on a project that that company has been pursuing for two decades. The proposal needs four votes from the regional board before it can go before the Coastal Commission for its last permit.
The Orange County Water District, the prospective purchaser of the water, has been attracted to the desalination project because it’s drought-proof and would protect its service area of 2.5 million residents from shortages of imported water. Currently, about 23% of the district’s water is imported.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
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