Nearly six weeks after a major winter storm led to flooding and
landslide throughout Southern California, some homeowners in
Beverly Glen are still trying to return home. On Caribou Lane,
a landslide knocked a home off its foundation, and the debris
slid into the neighbors’ homes. That debris and mud left Samila
Bahsoon’s home with a lot of damage. … She has
potentially more than $600,000 in damage, and two insurance
companies already denied her claims. … She also
said when the neighbor’s home was knocked off the foundation,
the debris broke her water main. And it led to a massive water
bill. “LADWP sent me a $9,500 water bill, which is 6,500%
more than average for the last 35 years that this house has
been used,” she said.
A restoration project at Talbert Marsh got the go-ahead
Thursday after the state Coastal Commission approved a coastal
permit application submitted by the Huntington Beach Wetlands
Conservancy as part of its consent calendar. The roughly 25
acres of Talbert Marsh stretch between Brookhurst Street to the
Santa Ana River Trail and make up one of four wetlands the
nonprofit owns and maintains. More than 90 bird species have
been observed at the marsh in addition to the adjoining
wetlands, according to the organization. The project along the
southeastern and western shorelines of South Island will
address erosion, which Coastal Commission staff said causes the
disappearance of coastal salt marsh vegetation and depletes
refuge spaces for sensitive bird species that live there.
A dog-killing parasite that was believed to only exist in Texas
and other Gulf Coast states has been discovered as far west as
California for the first time, scientists have warned. Experts
at the University of California Riverside found the
Heterobilharzia americana parasite, a flatworm commonly known
as a liver fluke, in spots along the Colorado River where it
runs through Southern California. According to the university,
the flatworm has never before been seen outside of Texas and
surrounding areas, and other studies have found most infections
occur in Texas and Louisiana, though some have occurred in
North Carolina, Texas, and Kansas.
A new consulting firm is taking over construction management
services for the city’s Lake Wohlford Dam Replacement Project.
The Escondido City Council unanimously approved hiring GEI
Consultants, Inc. for $12.9 million to continue construction
management services for replacing the 129-year-old dam. Lake
Wohlford Dam was first constructed with earth and rock in 1895
to a height of 76 feet. About 30 years later, the dam was
raised to 100 feet using a slurry hydraulic fill process. In
2007, during a routine seismic evaluation of the dam, the
California Division of Safety of Dams determined that the
hydraulic fill section could liquefy and fail in the event of a
greater than 7.5-magnitude earthquake along the Elsinore Fault.
In response, the city lowered the water level of Lake Wohlford
to prevent surpassing the original dam height of 76 feet.
Still water in the Tijuana River Valley reflects the chirping
birds who live there, giving the impression it is as nature
made it — until you see the floating trash and smell the
stagnant, polluted water. For decades, activists tried to clean
up the Tijuana River’s watershed as it flowed from Tijuana into
San Diego’s coastal waters, which are contaminated with both
human and industrial waste. A recent study from the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography found that coastal pollution is
also transferring to the air. “This is nothing short of an
environmental and public health crisis, and it has been made
worse by the fact that California companies are part of the
problem,” said State Senator Steve Padilla Monday, while
announcing SB 1178, a bill to address cross-border pollution.
A new study by Cal State Fullerton researchers shows evidence
of two epic floods that occurred within the past 500 years in
Southern California during the Little Ice Age. Their
research is the first-ever, land-based, flood-event evidence
from 1450 to 1850 — a documented period of above-average
wetness in Southern California, said Matthew E. Kirby,
professor of geological sciences. According to scientists,
floods — not earthquakes — represent California’s single most
significant socioeconomic natural hazard risk.
… Climate models predict that the frequency of
large flood-producing precipitation events will increase in the
21st century due to climate change.
As floodwaters receded from the streets of southeastern San
Diego on Jan. 22, two things began to happen. Several local
nonprofits — not trained in disaster response — set up a victim
assistance center at the Jackie Robinson Family YMCA. At the
same time, county and city officials had a series of extreme
miscommunications that delayed the opening of a government-run
assistance center within city limits for nearly two weeks,
according to letters obtained by Voice of San Diego.
Normally in the wake of a disaster, government officials open
what they call a Local Assistance Center near the disaster
site. These assistance centers connect survivors with
government and non-government resources. A survivor could get
anything from a new driver’s license to food or unemployment
benefits.
A search continues for a woman last seen being carried
downriver in the Angeles National Forest, California sheriff’s
officials said. The 59-year-old woman lost her footing while
crossing a river near the Heaton Flats Trail at 9:51 a.m.
Saturday, March 9, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office said
in a news release. Strong river currents swept her downstream,
deputies said. She had been hiking with friends. … Some
teams have been airlifted to search areas because of the rugged
terrain and swift river currents, deputies said. The sheriff’s
office encouraged hikers to use “extreme caution” when crossing
rivers.
A pair of new state bills are looking to crack down on some of
the polluters fueling the cross-border sewage crisis that has
hobbled access to San Diego County’s southernmost beaches for
decades. Senate Bill 1178 and Senate Bill 1208, introduced on
Monday by State Sen. Steve Padilla, add regulations to water
discharges for large corporations, as well as prevent water
authorities from issuing additional permits for waste releases
into areas in the Tijuana River system.
Almost three months after a January storm and flash floods
killed several people and displaced hundreds of San Diego-area
residents, the state is offering one-time
Disaster CalFresh benefits to help families
recover. To be eligible for disaster food benefits, people
must have lived or worked in storm-impacted areas on Jan. 21,
the day record rainfall swelled creeks and rivers, deluging
neighborhoods. About 600 people sought emergency shelter.
California’s Department of Social Services said it will provide
30 days of food benefits to families who qualify.
… Los Angeles desperately needs to become more like a
sponge. That will help to capture more stormwater locally when
rain does come and lessen devastating flooding, said Edith de
Guzman, a UCLA water equity and climate adaptation researcher.
… The Rory M. Shaw Wetlands Park Project will
turn a 46-acre landfill formerly used for materials such as
concrete and gravel into an engineered wetland that can boost
local water supply and alleviate local flooding. It’ll also
become a 15-acre park with a lake and walking paths.
… But now, the biggest barrier to completing the project
is funding, said Mark Pestrella, the director of L.A. County
Department of Public Works, which is spearheading the project
(after it’s constructed, the city of L.A. will take over
maintenance). The new goal is to complete it by 2028 or 2029.
Cadiz, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDZI / CDZIP, the “Company”) announced
today that it has completed a financing transaction that
significantly strengthens its financial position and provides
the Company with liquidity to accelerate development of its
water supply projects in Southern California. The financing
includes a new $20 million loan to fund operations and capital
expenses associated with development of the Company’s water
supply projects and extends all debt maturities to 2027.
The State Water Resources Control Board is exploring regulating
nutrients emitted from Southern California wastewater treatment
plants into the ocean. The controversial move is prompted by
concerns that these discharges may accelerate acidification and
oxygen loss in the region’s coastal waters, harming nearshore
marine life. The wastewater treatment industry says this
nutrient regulation is premature. Environmentalists say it’s
overdue. … Wastewater effluent from 23 million
people is piped offshore in Southern California. The resulting
acidity boost could be enough to start dissolving the shells of
crabs and small snails called pteropods, which swim near the
ocean surface and are a favorite food of many fish and whales.
And the resulting oxygen depletion could deprive anchovies,
which many commercial fish eat, of their habitat.
Nearly $20 million in federal community project funds for 14
San Gabriel Valley projects, and $1.67 billion for Southern
California water infrastructure were a step closer to reality
after a House of Representatives vote this week, according to
the Rep. Grace Napolitano’s office. The $19.6 million was money
Napolitano secured in this year’s congressional spending bills,
she said. The 14 projects include: $5,500,000 for the San
Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority’s San Gabriel Basin
Restoration Fund…
With nature providing plenty of water – finally – this year,
and groundwater regulation well underway, water managers,
farmers and others turned their focus to infrastructure at
Thursday’s Water Summit put on by the Water Association of Kern
County. Early in the day’s line up of speakers, Edward Ring,
senior fellow with the California Policy Center, captured the
audience’s attention with an extensive cost-benefit analysis of
the Delta Conveyance project, a tunnel that would take
Sacramento River water beneath the ecologically sensitive
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta 45 miles to be exported south. His
conclusion: the project has a whopping price tag for a
“dribble” of water.
A series of late-season winter storms has filled reservoirs,
boosted snowpack and left forecasters anticipating a late start
to California’s wildfire season. And while the odds are
also tilting toward a milder than normal fire season overall,
that outlook could change by July, said National Interagency
Fire Center meteorologist Jonathan O’Brien. … For now,
Predictive Services is forecasting below-normal large fire
activity in Southern California in May and June, and normal
activity in Northern California.
Facing rising costs and rates, the leaders of San Diego’s water
lifelines are looking to sell some of its most expensive
supply: de-salted ocean water from a massive plant in Carlsbad.
But, at the same time, they’re also trying to make more of
it. Dan Denham, the San Diego County Water Authority’s new
general manager, says he wants to expand seawater desalination
not because he thinks San Diego needs more water, but because
he thinks they can sell it and recoup at least a little of the
massive investment local rate payers have made on the plant.
… “We’re looking to expand the plant as an opportunity for
users, whether that’s in southern California or the lower
Colorado River basin,” Denham said.
The seven U.S. states that draw water from the Colorado
River basin are suggesting new ways to determine how the
increasingly scarce resource is divvied up when the river can’t
provide what it historically promised. The Upper Basin and
the Lower Basin states, as neighbors, don’t agree on the
approach. Under a proposal released Wednesday by Arizona,
California and Nevada, the water level at Lake Mead — one of
the two largest of the Colorado River reservoirs — no longer
would determine the extent of water cuts like it currently
does. The three Lower Basin states also want what they say is a
more equitable way of distributing cuts that would be a 50-50
split between the basins once a threshold is hit.
The Environmental Protection Agency has granted approval to a
North County tribe to administer a water quality standards
program on its reservation. The Rincon Band of Luiseño
Indians has become the 11th tribe to secure the right to uphold
its own water quality standards out of the 148 federally
recognized tribes in the Pacific Southwest region, which is
comprised of Arizona, California and Nevada. The move
means the tribe can operate in a manner akin to a state,
allowing it to implement and manage specific environmental
regulatory functions and the ability to secure grant funding to
support its programs.
For decades, raw sewage from Tijuana, Mexico has, and
continues, to flow across the border into San Diego,
California. This discharge flows into the Tijuana River
Valley, and ultimately to the Pacific Ocean. This
pollution has negatively impacted the Tijuana River Valley and
the Tijuana River Estuary, one of the last remaining estuaries
in California, and the beaches. Unhealthy concentrations
of fecal indicator bacteria has forced the County of San Diego
to close 10 miles of beach access from the US-Mexico Border all
the way to the beaches of Coronado. At the urging of
Congressman Scott Peters, the San Diego State University School
of Public Health issued a white paper which details the public
health risks posed by the transborder flow of sewage.