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Official For Compton Water District Is Suspended After Reports Of Fake Supporters At Town Hall

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Adam Elemahrek, Ruben Vives, and Angel Jennings

The general manager of a small public agency under fire for delivering brown, smelly water to parts of Compton and Willowbrook has been placed on administrative leave effective immediately, the water district board’s attorney announced Thursday night. Maria Rachelle Garza’s suspension comes days after The Times reported allegations that the embattled Sativa Los Angeles County Water District hired people to pose as supporters and attend a local congresswoman’s town hall regarding complaints of dirty water.

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OPINION: A Vote For Three Californias Is A Vote For Endless Water Wars

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Barton H. Thompson, Matt Kline and Heather Welles

Californians will vote this fall on a radical proposal to split the state into three: Northern California, Southern California and just plain California. The plan obviously raises a myriad of policy issues. But anyone inclined to vote for the initiative should be particularly concerned with the implications for the state’s most critical resource: water.

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OPINION: California, The World’s Fifth-Largest Economy, Has A Third World Drinking Water Problem

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

Even in times of drought, California’s natural and human-made arteries run with the nation’s cleanest, most accessible water. So fundamental is the stuff to the state’s identity and to its residents’ daily lives that California law recognizes a human right to “safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes.”

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OPINION: Earth’s Dismal Water Future, Mapped

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Jay Famiglietti

Satellite data and images are provocative, even disturbing. They confront us with a global view that can be at once breathtaking, like a piece of art, and yet, in this era of rapidly changing climate, they paint a picture of the demise of the environment. How and if we will respond to what we see is uncertain. That uncertainty lies at the root of our perilous future.

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Texts Reveal Political Maneuvering Ahead Of MWD’s Delta Tunnels Vote

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Bettina Boxall

The days leading up to a key funding vote on the delta tunnels project were marked by intense politicking and head-counting by board members at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The behind-the-scenes campaign to get the board to approve nearly $11 billion in financing for the water delivery project is spelled out in a series of texts and emails that Metropolitan released Thursday in response to a Public Records Act request filed by two groups that challenged the April 10 approval.

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O.C. Water District Delays Vote On Huntington Beach Desalination Project’s Rate Plan

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Priscella Vega Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

The Orange County Water District delayed voting Wednesday on updated terms for buying water from the proposed Huntington Beach ocean desalination plant. Board members wanted more time to review the rate plan and gather additional community feedback on an updated rate sheet, which was made public Friday with the meeting agenda. Several community members, environmental activists and water district representatives raised concerns. The 10-member board voted unanimously to reconsider the proposal July 18. If approved, the non-binding, updated term sheet would shorten the length of the contract between the water district and Poseidon Water from 50 years to 30 or 35 years.

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An Erratic Water Supply Strains ‘Old Country’ Crops, Friendships Cultivated Over Decades On A Patch Of Soil In San Pedro

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Joe Mozingo

The old Italian men pass their mornings near the top of the hill, tending thick grapevines and rows of fava beans, smoking crumbling Toscano cigars, staying out of the house. If you try to call Francesco “Frank” Mitrano at home, his wife will brusquely tell you that he’s at “the farm.” The farm is a patch of soil by the 110 Freeway, where he harvests enough tomatoes from his crop to make spaghetti sauce for his family’s weekly Sunday dinner. “Twenty-one people,” he exclaims.

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California Will Have Water Consumption Limits For The First Time After ‘Landmark’ Legislation Passed

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Alejandra Reyes-Velarde

For the first time in the state’s history, California is setting permanent water-consumption goals to prepare for future droughts and climate change, with a local elected official involved in the historic move. Assemblywoman Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) introduced Assembly Bill 1668, one of the bills signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown Thursday. Her district also includes Burbank. Brown also signed Assembly Bill 606 by Robert Herzberg (D-Van Nuys). The laws will go into effect in January. “A lot of us have taken water for granted, but it’s not something we can take for granted in Southern California,” Friedman said.

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OPINION: The State Knew Disaster Awaited The Salton Sea In 2018 And Didn’t Do Enough. That Has To Change

/in , /by /Los Angeles Times

The Salton Sea is a natural wonder in deep trouble. And for the past 10-plus years, state officials have known this problem would grow worse if action was not taken by 2018. So while the Imperial Irrigation District honored its legal commitment to pour water into the shrinking Salton Sea until 2018, the state has backed away from its responsibility for funding for remediation. Now the water has stopped and more and more of the sea’s toxin-laden shoreline is being exposed.

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A Washington Bomb Set To Go Off In California’s Delta Tunnels Water War

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Jacques Leslie

A congressman set off a legislative bomb in California’s water wars last week. Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) inserted a rider into an Interior Department appropriations bill that would exempt from all judicial review the intensely contested Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta twin tunnels project. Passage of the rider — it’s scheduled for a House committee vote Tuesday — would mean that the water diversion scheme wouldn’t have to follow federal or state law. The project, known formally as California WaterFix, would bury two 35-mile-long, 40-foot-diameter tunnels beneath the delta.

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