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Environment Report: City Poised To End Its Styrofoam Recycling Program

/in , , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

San Diego looks ready to give up its money-losing plan to recycle plastic-foam food containers and packing material. A few years ago, as other cities were banning the material, commonly called Styrofoam, the San Diego City Council decided it would recycle the stuff instead. It knew then it would likely lose money, at least $90,000 a year. That may have been more palatable a few years ago because the city used to make several million dollars a year by selling other recyclables. City officials — lobbied hard by Dart Container Corporation, a plastics maker — also thought the loss was a small price to pay to make things easier on consumers and restaurant owners who preferred inexpensive, durable and insulating foam.

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Two Agencies Want To Secede From The San Diego County Water Authority

/in , , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Water rates in San Diego are some of the highest in the country. So, two rural San Diego water agencies just came up with a novel way to save money: Buy water from Riverside County instead. Leaders of two water agencies that serve about 50,000 people in and around Fallbrook are fed up with rising costs at the San Diego County Water Authority. Local water agencies from across the region formed the Water Authority in 1944 to import water into the county from rivers hundreds of miles away. But, just in time for the Water Authority’s 75th anniversary, its future as the region’s main water supplier is in question.

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There’s So Much Plastic, It’s Falling From The Sky

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

It is raining plastic, according to federal researchers. A new paper by the U.S. Geological Survey finds that plastic is circulating in the atmosphere and falling from the sky near Denver and in Rocky Mountain National Park. Similar research shows that tiny bits of plastic are being blown across the globe, landing in such remote places as the Pyrenees mountains.

 

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A Little Known Company Is Quietly Making Massive Water Deals

/in , /by /Voice Of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

In 2011, Harvard University and a small private company began buying up rights to the West’s most important water source: the Colorado River. Within a year, they owned nearly 13,000 acres near the small Riverside County farming community of Blythe. Farmers in Blythe and the surrounding Palo Verde Valley are supposed to keep getting water even after nearly everyone else in the Southwestern United States runs dry. That’s thanks to a complex and bizarre system of water rights that California, six other states and Mexico use to share the Colorado.

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Morning Report: Fired Water Department Employee Says She Is A Scapegoat

/in , /by /Voice of San Diego

A former city water department official who was let go during a recent shakeup said she is the victim of retaliation for raising concerns about spending of ratepayer money. Susan LaNier, a former deputy director, was pushed out as part a housecleaning by Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s administration, which has been responding for over a year to problems with the department, problems that first bubbled up when customers began receiving unreasonably high water bills.

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Madaffer Says He’s The New Sheriff In The San Diego Water World

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Jim Madaffer says he’s the new sheriff in town at the San Diego County Water Authority. For anyone who doesn’t follow the intricacies or intrigues of what seems like it should be an agency with a straightforward mission – providing water for San Diego – this may sound like a bit of pabulum. But Madaffer, the colorful former San Diego city councilman who has had numerous other roles on obscure but important agencies, is serious. His first task after he became chairman of the Water Authority board was to clean house.

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Environment Report: What The Super Bloom Says About Backcountry Development

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

People are scrambling to find the so-called “super bloom” flowers in the far reaches of Southern California. People have taken off for the Anza-Borrego Desert or, less exotically, parked along the shoulder of Interstate 15 to photograph themselves serenely sitting in a flower patch by a six-lane highway. Getting out there is a healthy reminder that so much of San Diego County – 4,200 square miles of it – is undeveloped. It’s a bit amazing to stand in the dusty, often barren Anza-Borrego only to look up at the mountains and realize that 90 miles west is the country’s eighth-largest city and the world’s largest ocean.

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Environment Report: What The Super Bloom Says About Backcountry Development

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

People are scrambling to find the so-called “super bloom” flowers in the far reaches of Southern California. People have taken off for the Anza-Borrego Desert or, less exotically, parked along the shoulder of Interstate 15 to photograph themselves serenely sitting in a flower patch by a six-lane highway. Getting out there is a healthy reminder that so much of San Diego County – 4,200 square miles of it – is undeveloped. It’s a bit amazing to stand in the dusty, often barren Anza-Borrego only to look up at the mountains and realize that 90 miles west is the country’s eighth-largest city and the world’s largest ocean.

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A ‘Water Tax’ Is Looking Increasingly Likely

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard

In the past five years, California voters have approved over $10 billion in statewide bonds to fund water projects, some in areas could not otherwise afford to improve their own water systems. Now, faced with perhaps several million Californians who still lack access to safe and affordable water, the Legislature looks increasingly likely to impose a statewide tax to fund more water projects. In a legislative hearing last week, Wade Crowfoot, the new director of the state’s Natural Resources Agency, said Gov. Gavin Newsom wants a solution this year to this “crisis” this year.

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Newsom Backs One Water Tunnel, Curbing Brown Family Legacy

/in , /by /Voice of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Sixty years ago, California voters approved Gov. Pat Brown’s plan for a 700-mile system of dams, water pumps and aqueducts to control flooding in Northern California and send water south to Los Angeles and San Diego. His son, Jerry, spent the better part of four terms as governor trying to expand his father’s work. On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom effectively capped the Browns’ multi-generation effort, known as the State Water Project, the source of about a third of Southern California’s drinking water.

 

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