Boating, fishing and hiking will be allowed again at Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet starting Friday, July 27 — more than a month after it closed because of an algal bloom outbreak. Water quality tests confirmed the potential health effects of a large bloom of blue-green algae had diminished, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California said in a Wednesday, July 25, news release.
A majority of the 11 San Diego Unified schools flagged in 2017 and 2018 for unsafe levels of lead in the water were explicitly promised new or improved plumbing twice in the last decade under previous local facility bond tax measures, but haven’t yet received it, district records show. Safe drinking water has become a centerpiece of the pitch for a new $3.5 billion school facility bond by San Diego Unified School District officials, who say the new tax money would ensure old pipes and lead solders contaminating water with lead would be fixed or removed.
Your polyester shirt may soon come with a warning label. Lawmakers in California and New York have proposed state bills this year to raise awareness of a problem few consumers may have heard of — synthetic fabrics shedding microfibers into the water system. Reminiscent of the plastic microbeads that were banned from cosmetics, garments made with polymer-based cloth can release as many as 1,900 microfibers per wash that eventually end up in waterways, one study shows. But research is still at the early stages, and few are in agreement about what the best response is.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
