If you’re a Southern California gardener planning to grow food
this summer, it’s time to pay attention to how they grow
veggies in the desert, because July, August and September will
likely be HOT. Yes, I know, it’s been and continues to be a
record-setting wet and chilly spring, but starting in June, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Assn’s National Weather
Service expects most of the country to have higher-than-average
temperatures for the rest of the year.
State water management officials must work more closely with
local agencies to properly prepare California for the effects
of climate change, water scientists say. Golden State
officials said in the newly revised California Water
Plan that as the nation’s most populous state, California
is too diverse and complex for a singular approach to manage a
vast water network. On Monday, they recommended expanding the
work to better manage the state’s precious water resources —
including building better partnerships with communities most at
risk during extreme drought and floods and improving critical
infrastructure for water storage, treatment and distribution
among different regions and watersheds.
It’s the most frustrating part of conservation. To save water,
you rip out your lawn, shorten your shower time, collect
rainwater for the flowers and stop washing the car. Your water
use plummets. And for all that trouble, your water supplier
raises your rates. Why? Because everyone is using so much less
that the agency is losing money. That’s the dynamic in
play with Southern California’s massive wholesaler, the
Metropolitan Water District, despite full reservoirs after two
of history’s wettest winters. … Should water users be
happy about these increases? The answer is a counterintuitive
“yes.” Costs would be higher and water scarcer in the future
without modest hikes now.
Two massive local water purification projects set to begin
construction within the next 18 months have received up to $182
million from water wholesaler Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California. The regional water agency funds are headed
for a $700 million groundwater replenishment project in the San
Fernando Valley and a $364 million water purification project
in the Westlake Village area. Contractors have been selected
for both projects, which are set to begin construction within
the next 18 months. “For decades, investments in local projects
have helped strengthen Southern California’s resiliency by
reducing demands for imported water supplies and decreasing the
burden on our system,” said Nancy Sutley, Metropolitan board’s
vice chair of climate action.
Coronado lifeguards use leak-proof dry suits for open water
rescues. Imperial Beach lifeguards decontaminate in showers
after leaving the ocean. And both have ditched jet skis for the
protection offered by boats. These aren’t new equipment
standards.They are tools the two South County departments have
rolled out independently to protect themselves from daily
exposure to polluted, sewage-tainted waters. No safety
standards exist for lifeguards who come into contact with
contaminated water while trying to save lives.
On May 7, scientists from University of California, Riverside,
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, Colorado State University
Extension, Kansas State University, University of Arizona,
Central Arizona Project, and USDA-Agricultural Research Service
will gather with growers in Palm Desert to discuss how
artificial intelligence can be used in agriculture.
The state Fish and Game Commission recently declared the
Southern California steelhead trout an endangered species. You
think? These native beauties have been endangered for decades.
In March, there was excitement when one steelhead was spotted
in the Santa Ynez River basin in Santa Barbara County. “One
fish where 25,000 used to be,” says Russell Marlow, south coast
project manager for California Trout, a nonprofit activist
organization. … “While I celebrate the ability of one
fish to exist, it’s a giant red flag.” Three adult steelhead
were sighted five years ago in the Santa Clara River that flows
between Santa Clarita and Oxnard, Marlow adds. Only 177
Southern California steelhead have been seen in the last 25
years, he says. Endangered? They’re practically
extinct. -Written by LA Times columnist George Skelton.
The water in Imperial Beach could soon be much cleaner. A
legislative package protecting the Tijuana River Watershed was
passed by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee Wednesday.
The two bills address corporate pollution tainting California’s
water supply. Companies responsible for sewage, garbage and
chemicals that are spilling over from south of the border and
contaminating the waters of San Diego could soon be held
accountable by having to pay fines depending on how much waste
they improperly dump.
With San Diego more than half done with the first phase of its
Pure Water sewage recycling system, city officials say they are
considering major changes to how they will handle the second,
larger phase. … Plans for the second phase, which were
mostly put in place 13 years ago, could change significantly
based on new state regulations and new information about how
much purified water the city is projected to need. … But
the city could abandon a plan to build the phase two
purification plant on a vacant 17-acre site in Mission Valley,
and plans to store purified water from that plant in either
Lake Murray or the San Vicente Reservoir.
Southern California’s rivers and creeks once teemed with large,
silvery fish that arrived from the ocean and swam upstream to
spawn. But today, these fish are seldom seen. Southern
California steelhead trout have been pushed to the brink of
extinction as their river habitats have been altered by
development and fragmented by barriers and dams. Their numbers
have been declining for decades, and last week California’s
Fish and Game Commission voted to list Southern California
steelhead trout as endangered. Conservation advocates said they
hope the designation will accelerate efforts to save the fish
and the aquatic ecosystems on which they depend.
In what may be an illegal tax increase, the board of the
Metropolitan Water District just approved a two-year budget
that doubles the property tax it collects in its six-county
service area. MWD is a water wholesaler with 26 cities and
water retailers as its customers. Through those entities, MWD
supplies water to about 19 million people in Los Angeles,
Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura
counties. The new budget raises the wholesale rates by 8.5% in
2025 and then by 8.5% again in 2026. The rates for treated
water will go up 11% and then 10%. Metropolitan said it has to
raise rates and taxes to cover its operating costs because
they’ve been selling less water, first because of drought, and
then because of rain.
Work has been underway on a recycled water treatment project in
Santee for about two years. In another two years, some East
County residents will get their drinking water from the East
County Advanced Water Purification program. It’s a massive
billion-dollar recycled water treatment plant north of Santee
Lakes that, at its peak, has 250 construction workers working
on it. Kyle Swanson, the CEO and general manager at the Padre
Dam Municipal Water District, says the project will meet about
30% of drinking water demands in East County alone. Right now,
most East County residents get their water from Northern
California and the Colorado River, according to Swanson.
… California has some of the tightest toxic regulations and
strictest air pollution rules for smelters in the country. But
some residents of the suburban neighborhoods around Ecobat
don’t trust the system to protect them. … Uncertainty,
both about the safety of Ecobat’s operation going forward and
the legacy of lead it has left behind, weighs heavily on them.
… Early on, environmental officials flagged reasons for
concern about the lead smelter. State and federal regulators
issued an order and a consent decree in 1987 because of the
facility’s releases of hazardous waste into soil and water. An
assessment from that time found “high potential for air
releases of particulates concerning lead.”
The troubled Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic received a new
violation last week from a state water agency for pumping
untreated leachate water from the landfill into local waterways
that empty into the Santa Clara River. A violation letter dated
April 9 was sent to the landfill operators by the Los Angeles
Regional Water Quality Control Board, raising concerns that the
landfill’s wastewater may reach groundwater sources fed by the
river and used for drinking water.
The Metropolitan Water District plans to spend up to $250
million on four non-traditional water projects that, combined,
could supply up to 100,000 Southern California households over
the next few years. Wastewater recycling, rainwater reclamation
and transforming ocean water into drinking water are some of
the technologies that could get money in the coming wave of
funding from MWD. The Los Angeles-based wholesaler, which helps
transfer water from Northern California and the Colorado River
to 26 retail water districts in the Los Angeles region, has
spent about $700 million on smaller, non-traditional water
projects since launching its Local Resources Program in 1990.
The amounts announced Monday, April 15, represent some of MWD’s
biggest investments in water innovation to date.
Rebuilding beaches after hurricanes is costing U.S. taxpayers
billions of dollars more than expected as the Army Corps of
Engineers pumps mountains of sand onto storm-obliterated
shorelines. Congress approved more than $770 million since 2018
for emergency beach “nourishment” projects after five
megastorms struck Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. Those
costs shattered government expectations about the price of
preventing beaches from disappearing through decades-old
programs that in many cases were created before the dangerous
effects of climate change were fully understood. Four of those
storms — Michael, Maria, Irma and Ian — were among the most
powerful to make landfall in the United States, raising
questions about the rising costs of pumping, dumping and
spreading sand onto beaches that are increasingly jeopardized
by the effects of climbing temperatures.
California’s Death Valley, the driest place in North America,
has hosted an ephemeral lake since late 2023. A NASA-led
analysis recently calculated water depths in the temporary lake
over several weeks in February and March 2024, demonstrating
the capabilities of the U.S.-French Surface Water and Ocean
Topography (SWOT) satellite, which launched in December 2022.
The analysis found that water depths in the lake ranged from
about 3 feet (1 meter) to less than 1.5 feet (0.5 meters) over
the course of about 6 weeks. This period included a series of
storms that swept across California, bringing record amounts of
rainfall.
As part of a $250 million commitment to support four water
supply projects in Southern California, Los Angeles will
receive $139 million over 25 years for its Groundwater
Replenishment Project in the San Fernando Valley, officials
announced on Monday, April 15. Earlier this month, the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Board of
Directors approved separate agreements with water agencies,
including the city of Los Angeles, as part of its Local
Resources Program. The Metropolitan Water District is a
state-established wholesaler that provides water for 19 million
people in six counties. The Local Resources Program aims to
provide economic incentives for water developed and produced
from groundwater clean-up, water recycling and seawater
desalination throughout the agency’s six-county service area.
A new lawsuit filed by public drinking water systems in
California against manufacturers of toxic “forever chemicals”
is among the first to cite new Biden administration regulations
that set strict limits for the chemicals in drinking water. The
Orange County Water District and more than a dozen other
California water utilities filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles
federal court on Friday against seven manufacturers of per- and
polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, including Dynax America
Corp. and Arkema Inc. The lawsuit accuses the manufacturers of
negligence and of creating a nuisance by contaminating water
with PFAS, and seeks money to remediate that contamination.
The International Boundary and Water Commission is again being
sued over water-quality permit violations that have led to
rampant sewage polluting San Diego County’s southernmost
shoreline. The San Diego Coastkeeper and Coastal Environmental
Rights Foundation on Thursday filed a lawsuit in federal court
against the U.S. arm of the IBWC and its contractor Veolia
Water North America-West, alleging violations of the Clean
Water Act.