Tag Archive for: Water Supply

Pure Water San Diego is anticipated to provide 50% of the City of San Diego's water supply by 2035. Photo: Courtesy City of San Diego Water Reuse Progress

Water Reuse Projects Highlight Sustainable Building Week

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Three potable water reuse or recycling projects under development in the San Diego region were highlighted this week during the San Diego Green Building Council’s inaugural “Sustainable Building Week San Diego.”

The Sustainable Building Week programs focused on sustainable practices and creating collaboration and networks among San Diego professionals involved with environmental stewardship and green building.

The panel discussion, “Potable Reuse: New Local Sources of High-Quality Drinking Water for San Diego County,” updated the development status and future benefits of three projects: Pure Water Oceanside, Pure Water San Diego, and the East County Advanced Water Purification program. Attendees learned how the technology works and how it reduces reliance on imported water, while increasing local supply.

Multiple benefits to the environment

Panelists provided the latest updates on Pure Water San Diego, Pure Water Oceanside, and the East County Advanced Water Project. Photo: Water Authority

Panelists provided the latest updates on Pure Water San Diego, Pure Water Oceanside, and the East County Advanced Water Purification program. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority

“Potable reuse has multiple benefits, including sustainability and drought resilience,” said Lesley Dobalian, principal water resources specialist for the San Diego County Water Authority and the panel moderator.

Pure Water Oceanside

“Water supplies are subject to lots of vulnerabilities, including rising costs, energy consumption, natural disasters, and eco-system and environmental issues,” said Cari Dale, City of Oceanside water utilities director. “Pure Water Oceanside replicates and accelerates Nature’s natural recycling process.”

The City of Oceanside is working toward creating 50% of its water supply locally, including Pure Water Oceanside, by 2030.

Cari Dale, Water Utilities Director, City of Oceanside, explained to the viewers how the process works. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority

East County AWP

Kyle Swanson, director of advanced water purification with the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, said the East County Advanced Water Purification project would recycle 15 million gallons of annual wastewater discharge into a resource. Currently, wastewater from East County travels 20 miles to be discharged into the San Diego metropolitan wastewater treatment system and eventually into the Pacific Ocean.

“Redistribution of this water would meet 30% of the demand for potable water in East County,” said Swanson. “It is sustainable, uninterruptable, and competitive in costs.”

The East County AWP will produce 30% of the region’s water supply. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority

Pure Water San Diego

Pure Water San Diego is the $5 billion project designed to generate 83 million gallons of water per day by 2035, nearly one-half of San Diego’s water demand based on the new 2021 urban water management plan.

“That’s pretty exciting, half our water supply is from this project,” said John Stufflebean, assistant director, City of San Diego Water Utilities Department.

Phase 1 will produce 30 million gallons of water per day by 2025; Phase 2 will deliver the remaining supply.

Potable reuse will provide a new source of safe, high quality drinking water in San Diego County. This local supply is sustainable, drought resilient, and benefits the environment. It will also help prepare the region for future droughts and a changing climate.

Drought: Why Water Supply Diversity is Critical

/in , , /by /Water News Networkby Ed Joyce Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

Drought is back in California. Federal and state agencies are warning of potential water shortages in the months ahead. Because of investments made by the San Diego County Water Authority, its member agencies and the region’s water ratepayers, San Diego County is safe from the threat of multi-year droughts.

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Opinion: Failure to Prepare Deepens the Pain from Dry Years

/in , /by /AgAlertby Danny Merkley and Chris Scheuring

It’s that time of year, when we find out it’s that kind of year. We appear at the doorstep of a “critically dry year,” and most reservoir levels are significantly below average. Those conditions bring painfully to mind the awful drought years of 2014 and 2015, and threaten water supplies for California farms and cities, and for the protected fish species that must also get by in these lean years. For direct diverters, the State Water Resources Control Board recently sent letters to 40,000 water right holders of record, asking them to start planning for potential water supply shortages later this year, and identifying actions water users can take to increase drought resilience.

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Ag Community Welcomes More Environmentally Friendly Farming But Says It’ll Take Money

/in , /by /Bakersfield Californianby John Cox

California’s agricultural community made clear in a series of public meetings last month that growers, dairies and ranchers stand ready to expand forward-thinking environmental practices — but that such activities don’t necessarily make financial sense without some form of government support.

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Opinion: Drought Hits California — and Newsom

/in , /by /CALmattersby Dan Walters

By any standard, California is experiencing one of its periodic droughts after two successive years of below-normal precipitation.

“We are now facing the reality that it will be a second dry year for California and that is having a significant impact on our water supply,” state water resources director Karla Nemeth said in late March as the state reduced projected deliveries of water to 5% of requested demand.

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Western U.S. May Be Entering its Most Severe Drought in Modern History

/in , , /by /CBS Newsby Jeff Berardelli

Extreme drought across the Western U.S. has become as reliable as a summer afternoon thunderstorm in Florida. And news headlines about drought in the West can seem a bit like a broken record, with some scientists saying the region is on the precipice of permanent drought.

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Tensions Rise in Water Battle Along Oregon-California Line

/in , /by /AP Newsby GIllian Flaccus

One of the worst droughts in memory in a massive agricultural region straddling the California-Oregon border could mean steep cuts to irrigation water for hundreds of farmers this summer to sustain endangered fish species critical to local tribes. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees water allocations in the federally owned Klamath Project, is expected to announce this week how the season’s water will be divvied up after delaying the decision a month.

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The Massive 5-Million-Gallon Water Tank You Will Never See

/in , , /by /NBC7 San Diegoby Joe Little Quoted: San Diego County Water Authority

San Diego hiking enthusiasts might have to share part of their favorite trail with a cement mixer for the next year. The San Diego County Water Authority is building a massive 5-million-gallon concrete water storage tank, called a flow regulatory structure. You will never see it once it’s completed.

One of the hiking trails in the northwest corner of Mission Trails Regional Park is closed and there are trail detours on other parts.

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Southern California Water Price Jumps 48% in 3 Weeks as Rainy Season Disappoints

/in , /by /Forbesby Sal Gilbertie

The winter precipitation season generally ends with the month of March, and it looks like California will head into summer with lower water supplies than last year after a second consecutive winter of below normal rain and snowpack. The state’s Department of Water Resources has wasted no time in sounding alarm bells; officials have already announced 50 percent cutbacks from December 2020’s projected water allotments to State Water Project allocations for the 2021 water year. California residents were warned “to plan for the impacts of limited water supplies this summer for agriculture as well as urban and rural water users.”

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In the West, Signs in the Snow Warn That a 20-Year Drought Will Persist and Intensify

/in , , /by /Inside Climate Newsby Bob Berwyn and Judy Fahys

Lack of monsoon rainfall last summer and spotty snowfall this winter combined to worsen the Western drought dramatically in the past year, and spring snowmelt won’t bring much relief. Critical April 1 measurements of snow accumulations from mountain ranges across the region show that most streams and rivers will once again flow well below average levels this year, stressing ecosystems and farms and depleting key reservoirs that are already at dangerously low levels.

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