Today, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) urges people to
avoid physical contact with water at Castaic Lake in Los
Angeles County until further notice due to the presence of
blue-green algae. People should also avoid eating fish or
shellfish from the lake. This week’s lab results show an
increase in toxin levels. A danger advisory was put in place
today, and remains in effect for the entire Castaic Lake,
except Castaic Lagoon, until further notice. It is advised for
people and pets to stay out of the water and avoid contact with
algal scum in the water or on shore. Boating is allowed, but
water-contact recreation and sporting activities are not
considered safe due to potential adverse health effects. For
latest conditions and danger advisory information, go
to Harmful Algal Bloom website.
The terrain just outside the town of Ocotillo in California’s
Imperial County is rugged. With volunteers from a humanitarian
group, we recently drove alongside an old railroad track path
tasked with servicing and repairing large barrels of water
meant to keep people lost in the desert alive. … For 24
years, Water Station, an all-volunteer organization, has been
installing large blue barrels containing water in Imperial
County’s deserts to prevent people from dying from
environmental exposure during March to October, the hottest
months of the year. -Written by Pedro Rios, director of the American
Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border program and a
longtime human rights advocate.
Researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture have
created a searchable atlas that compiles regional research and
efforts to deal with water scarcity and drought. The map,
called the Water Adaptation Techniques Atlas, was developed by
the agency’s Southwest and California Climate Hubs and so far
contains 183 case studies from Arizona, California, New Mexico,
Nevada and Utah. … The map offers a range of case studies,
many of them related to agricultural and ranching practices,
crop choice, and irrigation methods. Silber-Coats hopes it can
be a resource for agricultural professionals and advisers, like
cooperative extension workers.
Some states in the arid West are looking to invest more money
in water conservation. Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico
have agreed to re-up a water conservation program designed to
reduce strain on the Colorado River. Those states, which
represent the river’s Upper Basin, will use money from the
Inflation Reduction Act to pay farmers and ranchers to use less
water. The four states are re-implementing the program amid
talks with California, Arizona, Nevada and the federal
government to come up with more permanent water reductions by
2026.
Eleven-year-old Gabriel Coleman and his friends Maarten and
Merel dug through driftwood piled on the shoreline under the
Dumbarton Bridge, doggedly on the hunt for pieces of plastic
and other debris to fill their white trash bags. “With
teamwork-makes-the-dream-work, we’ve been finding big pieces
and small pieces all over,” Gabriel proudly explained. The trio
from Newark was among thousands of volunteers who turned out
Saturday for the 39th annual California Coastal Cleanup at 695
beaches, lakes, creeks and rivers throughout the state —
including dozens of sites across every county in the Bay Area.
Potent winter storms, summer heat, and tropical storm Hilary
have bred a surge of invasive, day-biting Aedes mosquitoes in
California, spawning in some regions the first reported human
cases of West Nile virus in years. The statewide rise has
brought 153 West Nile reports so far, more than double last
year’s, according to the California Department of Public
Health.
Loma Linda University (LLU) researchers found microbial
contamination in common sources of drinking water in the
Eastern Coachella Valley, including soda fountains at fast-food
restaurants. Their findings revealed that 41% of the water
samples researchers collected from these soda fountains
contained total coliforms, an indicator of water contamination.
Molecular analysis of the water samples revealed traces of
genetic material found in bacteria, including Salmonella spp
(Salmonella), Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Escherichia coli (E.
coli). Given these findings, study authors advise soda fountain
owners to regularly clean and flush the dispensers as a way to
prevent water contamination.
California is on the verge of recording a second straight year
of relatively mild wildfire damage, after historic rains put
the state on track to avoid the calamities of recent fire
seasons. … Cal Fire also says the state benefited from a
program that nearly doubled the acreage deprived of fuel by
prescribed burns from a year ago and the addition of 24
aircraft leased during fire season that improved response
times.
Engineers with the city of San Diego say local neighborhoods
are always one rainstorm away from disastrous flooding. They
say it’s because our storm system is decades past its lifetime.
And right now, they say, the city doesn’t have enough money to
set aside to fix problems that keep them up at night. … Many
of the issues we’re experiencing now are connected to the pipe
failures.
The Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority was recently awarded a
$31,852,000 grant from the California Coastal Conservancy that
will fund ongoing restoration efforts. According to wetland
ecology expert Christine Whitcraft of California State
University, Long Beach, restoring coastal wetland ecosystems is
a crucial step in protecting the endangered wildlife that calls
places like Los Cerritos home.
Phillip Cesena transferred to San Franciscquito Canyon in
February 1928 to work as a ranch hand, mucking out stalls and
exercising ranch animals. The 15-year-old had just lost
his father, Leonardo, and wanted to support his mother,
Erolinda, and his 12 brothers and sisters by learning how to
break horses and perform trick riding for Hollywood westerns. A
month later, Cesena’s fate was sealed. The St. Francis Dam
burst, sending 12.6 billion gallons of water 15 stories high
racing through Santa Clarita, Saugus, Saticoy, Piru, Fillmore
and Santa Paula. The water wiped out villages and killed about
450 people before reaching the ocean near Oxnard some 54 miles
away. … Now, one community organizer is leading a push
to build a memorial to remember Cesena and all the others who
perished in what some call the worst civil engineering disaster
in the country’s history.
The Tijuana River sewage emergency has reached the state level
once again. All 18 mayors in San Diego County have sent another
letter to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking for his help to
address the ongoing sewage and chemical pollutants flowing into
the ocean from the river. … Paloma Aguirre, the mayor of
Imperial Beach, where beaches have been closed now for 650
consecutive days, said that going to the beach is one of the
last free recreational things people can do, and that issue
affects people living beyond the coast.
San Diego water rates will rise nearly 20 percent over the next
two years after a divided City Council approved Tuesday the
first comprehensive rate hike in nearly eight
years. The rate increases, approved by a vote of 5-3,
will come in three parts: A 5 percent hike on Dec. 1, a 5.2
percent increase next July 1 and an 8.75 percent jump in
January 2025. An earlier version of the proposal would have
raised the rates more quickly — by 10.2 percent on Dec. 1 and
8.75 percent in January 2025. When compounded, the
increases total a 19.8 percent jump. For the average
single-family homeowner, that’s an increase of about $12 per
month.
It’s been 20 years since the largest water agencies in Southern
California agreed on a historic deal: San Diego would buy water
from Imperial Valley farmers. More importantly, though, the
deal outlined exactly how much water these agencies could claim
from the Colorado River and reduced the amount of water
California took from the river. It quantified the
water (why it’s called the Quantification Settlement Agreement)
and put a price on water rights for the first
time. … Voice of San Diego and CalMatters will be
gathering top water officials from Southern California, Nevada
and Arizona to discuss the past (the historic 2003 settlement)
and the future (the needed deal for the Colorado River)
at 2023 Politifest, Oct. 7 at University of San
Diego.
A local water district is proposing an ambitious plan to turn
ocean water into drinking water, and while the idea of a “Blue
Water Farm” sounds promising, some environmental groups say
that ocean desalination should be a last resort and that more
can be done to conserve water in affluent communities.
Over the last two years, customers of the Las Virgenes
Municipal Water District (LVMWD) have seen restrictions and
fines over how much water they use. [District communications
manager Mike] McNutt added that the water district is
exploring new ways to keep lawns lush and green in big-money
neighborhoods like Calabasas, Westlake Village and Hidden
Hills. … Officials are hoping that they can bring in
precisely 10 million gallons of fresh water a day to the
district.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has before him about a thousand bills
approved by the California Legislature that now await his fate
but some are far more explosive and politically consequential
than others. These bills in Newsom’s pile could reveal how the
governor is evolving as a leader, and now he has less than a
month to review them. … Here is an obscure bill that
will reveal a lot about how much Newsom listens to his inner
circle or his own common sense. Two water districts in Southern
California want to switch water suppliers and leave the San
Diego County Water Authority, the long-time primary provider
for the region. The county’s Local Agency Formation Commission
said yes, including an exit fee intended to address impacts to
the SDCWA budget.
For decades, water has been siphoned from springs in the San
Bernardino Mountains and piped downhill to be bottled and sold
as Arrowhead 100% Mountain Spring Water. After a years-long
fight over the bottled water operation in the San Bernardino
National Forest, California water regulators ruled Tuesday that
the company must stop taking millions of gallons through its
pipelines. The State Water Resources Control Board voted
unanimously to order the company BlueTriton Brands to “cease
and desist” taking much of the water it has been piping from
tunnels and boreholes in the mountains near San Bernardino.
Environmentalists, who have campaigned for years against
bottling water from the forest, praised the decision.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway
Administration (FHWA) today [9/15] announced the immediate
availability of $4.575 million in “quick release” Emergency
Relief funds for use by the National Park Service, the Forest
Service, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The funds will
offset costs of repair work needed for roads, trails,
parking areas, and other infrastructure as a result of flood
damage caused by Tropical Storm Hilary in Death Valley National
Park and other federal lands in California and Nevada last
month.
A water district best known for supplying the celebrity-studded
enclaves of Calabasas and Hidden Hills could soon become famous
for a very different reason. The Las Virgenes Municipal Water
District recently partnered with California-based OceanWell to
study the feasibility of harvesting drinking water from
desalination pods placed on the ocean floor, several miles off
the coast of California. The pilot project, which will begin in
Las Virgenes’ reservoir near Westlake Village, hopes to
establish the nation’s first-ever “blue water farm.” … The
process could produce as much as 10 million gallons of fresh
water per day — a significant gain for an inland district
almost entirely reliant on imported supplies.
Saying this is “a pivotal moment that calls for resolute
action,” all 18 mayors in San Diego County sent a letter last
week to Gov. Gavin Newsom imploring him to declare a state of
emergency over the decades-long sewage crisis at the
border. … But what exactly would a state of emergency
do? And does the sewage crisis meet the criteria? … When
a state of emergency is declared, a lot of red tape is cut. For
example, it could accelerate and simplify the bidding process
for construction contracts and free up federal money for
personnel, equipment and supplies.
