The Los Angeles Fire Department did not inform the city’s
Department of Water and Power until mid-February that more than
1,000 fire hydrants needed repairs, despite being aware of the
issues months before. According to city records and officials,
the Fire Department discovered the damage to the hydrants
during inspections in the months before the Jan. 7 Palisades
fire, which destroyed thousands of homes. … The lapse in
sharing inspection records came to light Feb. 12, when KCBS-TV
reported that the LAFD had compiled a list of 1,350 fire
hydrants requiring repairs.
Lead pipes were banned in the United States in 1986. But dozens
of Inland Empire school districts still had lead showing up in
their drinking water in the past decade. California published
its final report on lead in school drinking water in 2020. At
that time, 18 of the Inland Empire’s four dozen districts and
other education agencies had lead in campus drinking fountains
or sinks, according to the State Water Resources Control
Board’s last listing. … After testing, all these districts
fixed the problems by replacing pipes, shutting off drinking
fountains and adding filters to sinks. Still, many Inland
students in recent years likely drank water with lead levels
higher than the recommended standard.
Perched atop craggy bluffs in a beachside city north of San
Diego, a railroad line offers passengers a sweeping view of the
Pacific Coast. But the ground beneath it is crumbling. No one
denies the problem, but a fight over how to solve it highlights
a broader challenge, and a worrisome reality, for California
residents: how to adapt to climate change that threatens
coastal living, a way of life that has long defined the state’s
identity, from its economy to its culture.
Advanced Industrial Services, Inc. agreed to pay $29,736 after
a driver for the company dumped 150 gallons of
petroleum-contaminated wastewater into Grimes Canyon Creek near
Fillmore. The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office
announced the settlement Friday after the case was investigated
by both the DA’s office and California Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The company was also ordered to comply with permanent
injunctive terms prohibiting the unlawful disposal of petroleum
products, the DA’s office said in a news release.
The Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District will take
advantage of lower rates to pre-purchase Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California imported water. The EVMWD board
voted 5-0 February 13 to execute a purchase agreement with the
Western Municipal Water District for 3,835 acre-feet (one
acre-foot is approximately 325,850 gallons) of MWD supply.
EVMWD is not a direct MWD member but purchases MWD imported
water from Western. The recent wet water years (a water year is
from July 1 through June 30) have allowed for higher MWD
storage levels, but the decreased demand for water has reduced
MWD revenue.
Admiring the beautiful view of the ocean, Shelly Moore looks
beyond the surface, having trained her eyes to see the problems
hidden below. On her quick walk outside, she notices the
glass and plastic bottles peeking from under the ocean along
the Long Beach marina. It’s a reminder of the 11 million metric
tons of plastic the California Ocean Protection Council
estimates enter global oceans every year. Although as the
executive director of the Moore Institue for Plastic Pollution,
she said the effort to change that starts at home. … That is
exactly what she and her team at the Moore Institute for
Plastic Pollution Research are doing, taking a rather
microscopic view of the problem.
The San Diego County Water Authority is notifying residents in
three cities that their water service could be impacted and to
expect nighttime work this week during work on San Diego’s
First Aqueduct. Work has been ongoing to extend the life of the
historic First Aqueduct, and the San Diego County Water
Authority announced the project has reached the halfway point.
However, as crews transition to Phase Two of the project,
construction will take place around the clock for 10 days from
Feb. 23 to March 4.
Nearly 4 million people are served drinking water from
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, making it
one of the largest water utilities in the U.S. With the release
of the 2025 update of EWG’s Tap Water Database, we took a
closer look at this expansive system for the millions of
Angelenos served by it, comparing it to the nation as a whole.
In addition to information about L.A. drinking water quality,
the Tap Water Database provides details about chemical and
radioactive contaminants in the water of nearly 50,000
community systems nationwide. … Test results through 2024
showed 24 contaminants found in the L.A. system, with nine at
levels above EWG’s health-based limits.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has
launched an interactive Water Quality Restoration Dashboard to
provide essential updates and information for residents
affected by the “Do Not Drink” notice in effect in most
portions of Pacific Palisades and adjacent LADWP service areas.
… Customers in the affected areas, which include most of the
90272 Zip Code and portions of the LADWP Service Area
immediately south of 90272, north of San Vicente Blvd. can now
use the dashboard to locate their address on an interactive map
to determine their corresponding water service zone within the
affected area. For added clarity, the dashboard specifies each
zone’s current restoration status while providing preliminary
test results and progress updates for testing in each zone.
Crews have commenced work on replacing the Kern River Canal
Backup Weir, a crucial water infrastructure component for the
city. Demolition of the existing weir began on Thursday,
February 20, 2025, marking the initial phase of the replacement
project. The weir, situated east of the Coffee Road bridge,
plays a vital role in allowing Bakersfield’s water department
to manage floodwaters and divert the Kern River’s flow.
Officials reported that the weir sustained damage in 2019 and
again in 2023, rendering it non-operational.
Utilities in both the Eaton and Palisades fire burn scars have
reported detecting the carcinogen benzene in parts of their
water systems. State regulators have recommended the utilities
issue “do not drink” and “do not boil” notices, which still
permit residents to use the water for showers, handwashing,
laundry and other daily activities. The state said the order
attempts to balance safety with the need for usable water,
while some scientists warned that using the water, even for
purposes other than drinking or cooking, could pose a
risk. … So far, two of Altadena’s three customer-owned
water utilities have detected the carcinogen.
Potentially toxic lithium-ion batteries pried from burned-out
electric vehicles in the Eaton fire and transported to a
temporary hazardous waste collection site in Azusa for
processing has raised concerns about toxic metals leaching into
nearby sources of drinking water. The Main San Gabriel Basin
Watermaster, an agency responsible for the safety of
groundwater supplies for nearly 2 million Los Angeles County
residents, sounded an alarm recently over the crushing of these
batteries on a dirt bank of the San Gabriel River at Lario
Park. … The Watermaster has requested the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, in charge of the Lario
hazardous waste staging site, relocate the battery-crushing
activity from the Lario site or simply move the crushing
activity farther from the river bank to a paved parking lot
area.
Not long after a series of devastating wildfires began ravaging
parts of Los Angeles in early January, people were demanding
answers: What caused it? Why couldn’t it be stopped? Who, or
what, is responsible for why so many lost so much? Those
questions soon found their way into the mirror world that is
social media and the internet, where a wave of disinformation
and misinformation—some of it propagated directly from
President Donald Trump and his surrogates—compounded the
crisis. Much of it concerned the state’s most precious
resource: water.
Projects to turn wastewater into drinkable water are
progressing in San Diego and East County, but their costs have
once again spiked. In East County, a milestone is approaching
as a 24-inch pipeline that will transport water from the
Advanced Water Purification plant under construction in Santee
to the Lake Jennings reservoir in El Cajon is on track to be
completed by the end of the month. … It will convert 15 million
gallons of wastewater a day into enough drinkable water to meet
30% of East County’s demands. Construction of another stretch
of pipeline needed for East County’s and San Diego’s water
treatment projects is beginning soon in Mission Trails Regional
Park. Costs of that project recently saw a significant price
increase for the city of San Diego’s $5 billion Pure Water
sewage recycling system and the $1 billion Advanced Water
Purification program.
A new aquatic invader, the golden mussel, has penetrated California’s ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the West Coast’s largest tidal estuary and the hub of the state’s vast water export system. While state officials say they’re working to keep this latest invasive species in check, they concede it may be a nearly impossible task: The golden mussel is in the Golden State to stay – and it is likely to spread.
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.
Today, Congresswoman Norma Torres and Congressman David Valadao
– members of the House Appropriations Committee – announced the
introduction of the bipartisan Removing Nitrate and Arsenic in
Drinking Water Act. This bill would amend the Safe Drinking
Water Act to provide grants for nitrate and arsenic reduction,
by providing $15 million for FY25 and every fiscal year
thereafter. The bill also directs the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) to take into consideration the needs of
economically disadvantaged populations impacted by drinking
water contamination. The California State Water Resources
Control Board found the Inland Empire to have the highest
levels of contamination of nitrate throughout the state
including 82 sources in San Bernardino, 67 sources in Riverside
County, and 123 sources in Los Angeles County.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
