Riverside County and Salton Sea officials held a public event Oct. 19 in North Shore to mark reaching a significant milestone in the development of the future North Lake Pilot Demonstration Project.
The event was held at the North Shore Beach & Yacht Club Community Center, 99-155 Sea View Drive. The yacht club overlooks the project’s future site along Riverside County’s northern shore of the Salton Sea.
San Diego is accelerating efforts to shore up the city’s aging dams, including moving up construction of the new Lake Hodges Dam from 2031 to 2029 and committing to comprehensively evaluating the eight other city dams by 2028.
Residents in the Ashley Falls neighborhood were surprised last month when all of the landscaping in the water quality project in their community was removed, leaving behind an expensive dirt hole with cut-back weeds. After sounding an alarm to the city, the area’s vegetation will be restored.
After three years of construction, water officials announced on Monday, Oct. 23, the completion of the first stage of a groundwater storage project they say will “significantly increase Southern California’s water supply in the face of a rapidly changing climate.”
Water is hard to come by on the Rocky Boy’s Reservation, and it has been for a long time. The Chippewa Cree tribe members who live on this reservation in north-central Montana get most of their water from a thin underground aquifer that is insufficiently replenished by occasional rainfall, and they’ve been under some form of water restriction for several decades.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority announced that the state will continue to collaborate with Arizona and California on a long-term sustainable plan for the stability of the Colorado River.
According to a media release, the Bureau of Reclamation is moving the process forward to develop new operating guidelines for the Colorado River that will be in effect after 2026. To that end, the Lower Colorado River Basin states— water users in Nevada, Arizona and California—are contributing record volumes of water to Lake Mead.
Escondido City Council approved new water rate increases set to begin Jan. 1 and will increase each year for the next five years.
Residents had been outspoken about the possibility of a nearly 20% increase next year alone.
“It is by far the highest hike proposed over the past 12 years,” Sandra Otteson said.
The halfway point is in the rear view for the Colorado River Drought Task Force. Now it’s crunch time.
Task force members have until December to take their ideas on how to address Colorado’s top water issues and turn them into a written recommendation to the Colorado General Assembly.
Selwyn Sekaquaptewa has been on the hunt for talent for months.
As the general manager of the Hopi Utilities Corporation’s water service, he works with just two other staff members to provide clean and safe drinking water to the Hopi Tribe’s reservation in Northeast Arizona. When the corporation formed in 2017, five of the community’s wells did not meet federal arsenic standards, and it’s looking to expand its operations and upgrade existing infrastructure to continue improving the quality of the water on which the tribe relies.
One week away from the city of Escondido voting on a potential double-digit water rate increase, council members received a presentation about the rate increase already decided on by San Diego County Water Authority.
“The board ultimately chose to go with a smoothing approach for the rate increases with an effective rate increase of 9.5% for calendar year 2024,” said Tish Berge, deputy general manager for SDCWA.
Berge explained the smoothing approach meant projected future increases wouldn’t be as steep. The county water authority cites several similar factors as the city for needing to raise the rate like inflation and maintaining infrastructure, but they also say they’ve lost money as a result of more frequent rainfall.
