The Fallbrook Public Utility District’s water storage tank uphill from South Mission Road has received a fresh set of painted numbers the past 40 years, but not everyone knows the story behind the annual makeover.
Twelve talented photographers from South Bay schools won honors for their work creatively showcasing the importance and beauty of water in the Sweetwater Authority annual High School Photo Contest. The winners were selected from 65 students who submitted more than 150 entries in two categories: black and white and color photography.
An “unprecedented” spike in COVID-19 viral load in wastewater collected from San Diego County’s primary wastewater treatment facility was reported Saturday by UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers.
The amount of COVID-19 virus detected in wastewater has predicted the region’s COVID-19 caseload up to three weeks ahead of clinical diagnostic reports, the researchers said. Since people with COVID-19 shed the virus in their stool even before they experience symptoms, wastewater screening acts as an early warning system.
“The wastewater screening results reported on Friday are unlike any the team has seen before,” said Jackie Carr of UC San Diego Health. Both Delta and Omicron variants of the virus were detected in the wastewater.
Four words sum up Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest effort to ease the impact of the drought: too little, too late.
California needs to take far more aggressive action to ensure a reliable source of water for 2022 and beyond. Newsom’s administration is targeting unreasonable waste by urban users, who consume 20% of the state’s water. It’s time for him also to get aggressive with Big Ag, which sucks up the other 80%.
A collaborative of local water districts, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, Triunfo Water & Sanitation District and Calleguas Municipal Water District, are urging significant water use reductions by their customers after the California Department of Water Resources announced a 0% initial allocation from the State Water Project for the upcoming year.
In fields on the Arizona-California border, farmers draw water from the nearby Colorado River to grow alfalfa, irrigating crops as they have for decades.
That could change soon. An investment company has purchased nearly 500 acres of farmland and wants to strip it of its water and send it 200 miles across the desert to a Phoenix suburb, where developers plan to build thousands of new houses.
Guidelines for how cities and local agencies should adapt roads, railways and water systems to accommodate rising seas were unanimously approved Wednesday by the state Coastal Commission.
The 230-page document sets a controversial benchmark by urging communities to prepare for the Pacific Ocean to rise 10 feet by 2100, a projection so far beyond current calculations that climate scientists haven’t yet determined the probability of it occurring.
California is experiencing a devastating water crisis, by some accounts the worst in the last 1,200 years. Drought is hammering the two primary water delivery systems on which millions of Californians rely — the Colorado River and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Most of the state — and especially the south San Joaquin Valley and Kern County — is suffering badly. Extensive planning, and solid investments funded by large coffers, have enabled large portions of Southern California to get through 2021 without rationing. But the experience here in the Central Valley is far different. Thousands of acres fallowed. Jobs lost and hours cut. Multiple cities with water restrictions. Wells running dry. These disparate outcomes are highlighting the current inequalities in drought preparedness and a broken system. There is also the sobering reality that Southern Californians may too be thirsty again soon.
October storms helped this winter’s rainy season get off to a good start across Northern California. But they weren’t enough to erase the two very dry previous years: 80% of California remains in an extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly federal report.
Reservoir levels are very low and groundwater tables are depleted because the past two years had the least rainfall in Northern California of any two-year period since 1976-77.
You turn on the tap and expect clean water. But what exactly is in that water?
Analysts at EWG, a nonprofit environmental group, found a number of chemicals that are known to cause cancer.
“We want people to understand that there are health risks,” says Sydney Evans, an EWG science analyst. “You might not take a drink of your tap water today and get sick tomorrow but down the road there are going to be heightened risks.”
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
