NEWS

by Sonia Lemus, freelance for SJV Water
* “Meeting Notes” is a new feature focused on Kern County water districts, paid for by a grant from the James B. McClatchy Foundation. Please consider supporting SJV Water so we can continue this important coverage. Meeting: North Kern Water Storage District board of directors. Date: January 16, 2024 Agenda and board packet: CLICK HERE…
A Tulare County official who’s faced multiple droughts and devastating floods over the past decade appreciated the California Water Commission’s latest “policy paper” on how best to respond to such calamities but she had some advice of her own for the state: Locals need resources – money, equipment, personnel – not just “words on paper.”…
Correction: The nitrate control program is run by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board. An incorrect state agency was listed in the original version of this story. After three years, more of the Central Valley is being folded into the state’s nitrate control program. But program managers and environmental justice advocates say there…
Two bills aimed at protecting small towns mired in debt, drinking water contamination and dropping groundwater levels have become law.  Senate Bill 3, authored by state Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa,) extends water shutoff protections to households in communities with less than 200 water connections. That includes a handful of towns in the San Joaquin Valley…
Most Lamont residents likely had no idea that a mini hoopla held in the middle of town Monday morning next to a newly constructed well was actually a celebration of their children’s and their grandchildren’s futures. “This is generational,” said Lamont Public Utilities District General Manager Scott Taylor. “It allows us to provide clean and…
The two-street town of Tooleville finally saw significant progress in a decades-long quest for clean drinking water this week when the state Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced $7.2 million in funding for an interim connection project. Tooleville will be hooked up to the nearby city of Exeter’s water system, something advocates and Tooleville residents…
Southern California’s reliance on Kern County’s prolific groundwater banks for drought insurance could be jeopardized by a chemical known as 1,2,3-trichloropropane (TCP). The cancer-causing agent has been found in several large groundwater banking operations in Kern and a first look at how much it may cost to clean up is a doozy. Up to $465…
Free water deliveries have started for some San Joaquin Valley residents with nitrate contaminated wells. But advocates worry that nine months into the state’s nitrate control program, outreach has been lacking and not enough wells have been tested. The nitrate control program launched in May of 2021. It offers free water deliveries for residents whose…
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