Rainwater swept an apocalyptic number of cars through the narrow, cobbled streets of Valencia, Spain last week, and I thought of Shelltown.
The way a 4,000-pound car bobs along like a bath toy along a roaring river of flood water are memories Valencia and San Diego now share. The storm of Oct. 29 will be to Valencia what Jan. 22 is to San Diego. But Valencianos don’t have an election this year. San Diegans do.
These two cities flooded for some strikingly similar reasons linked to human-caused climate change. Warmer air on a warming planet holds more water, thus drops more rain. And rainstorms that might typically pass over an area are starting to stall or park over an area and dump its contents all at once.
The Spanish government sent in its military. Thousands of Spaniards traveled to the region to help with the clean-up. And some of the storm’s survivors took turns pelting their king with mud as he toured the damage, furious with a state that appears overwhelmed and unable to meet the needs of its people.
Nobody threw physical objects at San Diego’s proverbial rulers following the Jan. 22 flood. But they did hurl some pretty negative feedback at their local government which claimed to be helping them.
Tuesday is Election Day and the greatest chance voters have to force changes among the politicians that rule them. Mayor Todd Gloria and District 9 City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera are up for re-election. It remains to be seen how southeastern San Diego residents will grade them.
Measure E, which would increase the city of San Diego’s sales tax by 1 percent, is the singular saving grace on the ballot for the city’s under-sized and poorly maintained stormwater infrastructure – largely to blame for the destruction of Jan. 22. The city’s sales tax is currently 7.75 percent.
Depending upon how San Diegans spend, the additional sales tax could generate up to $400 million per year for the city. Then it’s up to the mayor and council members to decide where to spend it.
“If the sales tax passes, we will have significantly more resources to address our stormwater deficit,” Elo-Rivera said at Voice of San Diego’s Politifest in September.
That’s just one of nine council members committed to doing so. Proponents can’t promise where the money will go, but stormwater isn’t even mentioned in the ballot’s language.
The latest report on the Jan. 22 storm shows just that single day of flooding cost the city $16.5 million in emergency response staff hours. Then there’s the cost of emergency repairs: an additional $79 million from two consecutive rainy years, for fiscal year 2025. That’s outside of the standing $1.6 billion infrastructure stormwater deficit. And it doesn’t include how much it will cost the city to rebuild wetlands it tore out of the storm channels in the first place.
Should the tax increase pass, politicians will decide how it gets spent. It’ll be up to citizens and journalists to hold them accountable. There’s plenty of mud to go around.
Around the Kingdom
- Kevin Faulconer, the Republican challenger to San Diego County Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer, advertised his actions on climate as the former mayor of San Diego. But he’s flipped his position on what needs to be done to reduce planet-warming gases in this campaign. (Voice of San Diego)
- I enjoyed meeting those of you who came out to Imperial Beach for Meet the Beat. Thanks for joining me! We hope to do more around South Bay and gather stories on the impact of the Tijuana River sewage crisis.
- Santa Ana winds, strong breezes that blow in from the desert, are slated to pick up this week. These wind systems exacerbate the conditions and spread of wildfire.
- An urban brush fire that broke out along a canyon near Talmadge started near a homeless encampment, reports CBS 8, but fire officials have not determined that to be the cause. The fire burned about 40 acres, triggered evacuations and damage to some homes.
- A Dia de los Muertos altar in Tijuana honored journalists killed in Mexico, featuring broken cameras and a bullet-ridden laptop and firefighter. It was on display at the Centro Estatal de las Artes Tijuana and part of a UNESCO campaign to end impunity for crimes against journalists. Tijuanapress.com journalist Vicente Calderon told KPBS he hopes Mexico’s new president will bring meaningful change as violence against reporters in the country continues.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered the state’s Water REsources Control Board to ease environmental rules and speed-up projects like desalination in the name of providing more water supplies. (Politico)
- Environmentalists pushed back against proposed fuel station in west National City that would add 70 truck trips per day to the area, increasing emissions within a half mile of an elementary school. (inewsource)
- A new U.S. president could shakeup the already dire Tijuana River sewage crisis by replacing the IBWC’s leader. Trump picked a new one. Biden picked his own, and people on both sides of the aisle don’t want to see her go. (Voice of San Diego)
- Bet this San Diego swordfish is bigger than yours. Local angler caught the devil fish — weighing 666 pounds – in October, smashing state records. Unclear whether he had a big enough freezer to store all that meat. (Fox 5)