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Michael Smolens: Let’s Make a (Water) Deal!

San Diego County Water Authority opens negotiations to sell some of its surplus to a small district in southern Orange County. It’s another step in a new direction for the agency.

Southern California Water Supplier Offers $500 Rebates for Tree Planting in Turf Replacement Projects

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has introduced a significant incentive to encourage residents and businesses to plant trees, offering up to $500 in rebates. This move is part of an enhancement to their existing turf-replacement program, aimed at reducing water usage and improving urban canopy coverage across the region.

Facing Future of Shortages, Colorado River Users Dream of Making More Water

How does one generate more water in a desert? For Pilar Harris, senior director for corporate social responsibility and government relations at Formula 1, the question arose while she planned for the Las Vegas Grand Prix’s first drag race around the city’s famed Strip.

WaterSmart Makeover: Prize-winning ‘Nana’s Garden’ Is A Vision Focused On Variety

There was a time when Lois and Jeff Scott’s El Cajon front yard was awash in lawn, from the street to just a few feet from the house itself, where a bed grew roses and a large rosemary bush.

Saving Rain Water To Help Southern California

KCAL News reporter Joy Benedict shows how saving rainwater plays a large part in conservation in Southern California.

California’s Proposed Water Conservation Rules Too Stringent And Costly, Analysts Say

California’s legislative advisers on Friday lambasted the state’s ambitious proposal to regulate urban water conservation, calling the measures costly and difficult to achieve, “in many cases without compelling justifications.”

Water Conservation Garden to Run Out of Money Soon; Executive Director Resigns Amid Financial Turmoil

The Water Conservation Garden will run out of money as early as mid-December, the nonprofit organization Friends of The Water Conservation Garden stated at an October 24 meeting of the Water Conservation Garden Joint Powers Authority,  the consortium of public utility and governmental entities that oversees the Friends.

From Flush to Faucet: More Places Look to Turn Sewage Into Tap Water

After an Orange County resident flushes her toilet, the water flows through the Southern California community’s sewer system, meanders its way to the sanitation plant, has its solids removed, is piped to a wastewater recycling facility next door and undergoes three different purification processes until it is clean enough to drink.

Long term drought and dwindling Colorado River supplies have Phoenix urgently pursuing highly treated recycled sewage as a drinking water supply. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Colorado River Shortages Drive Major Advances in Recycled Sewage Water Use

After more than two decades of drought, water utilities serving the largest urban regions in the arid Southwest are embracing a drought-proof source of drinking water long considered a supply of last resort: purified sewage.

Water supplies have tightened to the point that Phoenix and the water supplier for 19 million Southern California residents are racing to adopt an expensive technology called “direct potable reuse” or “advanced purification” to reduce their reliance on imported water from the dwindling Colorado River.

“[Utilities] see that the river is overallocated, and they see that the climate is changing,” said Kathryn Sorensen, former director of Phoenix Water Services Department. “They’re looking at this and understanding that the river supply is highly variable and extremely uncertain in the future.”

The Colorado River that sustains nearly 40 million people and more than 4 million acres of cropland across seven states is shrinking because of climate change and overuse. The river’s flows have declined approximately 20 percent over the past century, and a more than two-decade drought that began at the turn of this century has pushed the system to its limits.

With so much at stake, cities dependent on the river are strengthening water conservation measures and pursuing new sources of water with urgency.

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Feds Are Flooding California’s Water Market

WATER PRICE LINE RISING: Who could forget last May, when Arizona, California and Nevada made a three-year pact to conserve water from the Colorado River? Many thought it couldn’t be done, but with Lake Mead reservoir levels at a historic low, and the federal government poised to wrest control of the process, the states agreed to conserve 10 percent of their water — nearly a billion gallons — between now and 2026.