A large group of French people and their supporters gathered in Balboa Park Monday to share grief, tears and a round of the France's national anthem, "La Marseillaise."

About 100 people watched as candles were lit and the French flag was raised above the House of France, a sign of solidarity with the city that suffered horrific terrorist attacks last week.

In a series of suicide bombings and shootings in Paris, terrorists linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) killed 129 people.

“Those people, they're fighting because they hate life, and we have to fight because we love it,” said one speaker, a French native, at the San Diego gathering.

Many in the group expressed their love for France and their great sadness upon hearing what happened.

“I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago, and I spent eight days walking through the areas where those horrible events took place, so I was deeply touched and affected by this,” said another man, who is a dual U.S.-French citizen.

Despite the sorrow, those from France said they were grateful for the show of support from across the world.

"I have received a lot of people calling me -- I'm talking about American people who have been always the great friends of French people -- and I was really touched by that very much,” said Andre Bordes, the French honorary consul in San Diego.

He said the large turnout in Balboa Park also touched him and his countrymen.

Americans present at the event echoed the call for solidarity.

“Just know that we are with you. We love you, France. We have been allies for a long long time, you and the U.S.," one American said. "Whatever it is that we can do to help, we're here to help you guys out."

As for how the government should react, there is mixed reaction. Some said the answer is to secure France’s borders. Others want a stronger show of military force against ISIS targets in the Middle East.
 

The first severe winter storm of the season is bringing heavy snow, with parts of Kansas, Nebraska and much of northeastern Colorado — including Denver — under a blizzard watch, NBC News reported.

Denver, Vail and Colorado Springs may have as much as 12 inches of new snow by Tuesday morning, according to The Weather Channel.

"Well into the day and evening on Tuesday, we'll have snowfall across eastern Colorado and western Kansas, as well as Nebraska," said Danielle Banks, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "Some spots could pick up more than 2 feet."

The storm is expected to move east, and could cause flooding later in the week along the Gulf Coast, as severe thunderstorms move across the South, NBC News reported.

Donald Trump laid out a new plan for Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks, NBC News reported.

The Republican presidential candidate addressed a crowd of nearly 10,000 people at the Knoxville Convention Center, saying he would build a safe zone for refugees who, he said, want to go home after the crisis is over anyway.

"In Syria, take a big swatch of land, which believe me, you get for the right price, okay? You take a big swatch and you don't destroy all of Europe."

Trump said the migrants would be happier because they won’t have to learn the languages where they would move and because they wouldn’t have to get used to new climates or weather patterns.

San Diego Sheriff’s Deputies arrested a man for burglary in Lakeside Monday morning after employees found him drinking tea in the kitchen area.

Employees at the Lakeside River Park Conservancy at the 12000 block of Industry Road discovered their office had been broken into Sunday morning around 8 a.m.

Security footage showed a man walking around the office, eating the food and tampering with the alarm system.

According to officials Joshua Parnell, 27, broke into the office, scattered food on tables and stole a laptop. He also dismantled the alarm system from the wall.

When deputies asked Parnell, identified in the security footage, what he was doing at the office again on Monday he said he had climbed in through the window and offered to clean up when he was done.

He was arrested without incident. The Conservancy estimated the damage at around $600.

There was no word on whether the laptop was returned.

The investigation is ongoing.
 

ISIS is using a 24-hour Jihadi Help Desk to help spread its message, recruit followers and launch more attacks on foreign soil, NBC News reports.

The help desk manned by a half-dozen senior operatives was established to help would-be jihadists use encryption and other secure communications to avoid detection by law enforcement and other agencies, counterterrorism analysts affiliated with the U.S. Army tell NBC News.

The new development has ramped up over the past year, according to law enforcement and intel officials. It allows a far wider web of militants to network with one another and plot attacks.

Authorities are now homing in on the terror group's growing cyber capabilities after attacks in Paris, Egypt and elsewhere for which ISIS has claimed credit, according to NBC News.

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Tuesday published a defiant message on its front cover to those behind the Paris massacre that killed 129.

The weekly magazine, which was the target of a deadly terrorist attack in January that left 12 journalists and cartoonists dead, released its first issue since Friday's deadly attacks.

It pictured a man drinking next to the slogan: "They have weapons. F*** them. We have the champagne!"

The cartoon echoed the comments of Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Joann Star, who wrote after Friday's evening's attacks that Paris "about life" rather than religion. "Our faith goes to music! Kisses! Life! Champagne and joy!"

 A tense preview of Tuesday’s showdown over San Diego's skyrocketing water rates played out Monday in the lobby at City Hall.

There were dueling news conferences featuring charts filled with graphs and dollar signs – but no talk of compromise.

The steep rate increases alone are sparking outrage in an era of sacrifice and rationing.

But what's really setting off folks in the South Bay is the idea of paying more for recycled water than customers in San Diego.

The city's backers say, that goes with the deal South Bay’s water stewards made.

"No one likes to see costs rise, none of us do -- especially when we see our lawns going brown,” said Kris Michell, president of the Downtown San Diego Partnership. “But it's a given. There is no other responsible alternative."

San Diego city officials and business leaders warned of severe consequences without water rate increases that'll cost the single-family household an extra 10 percent, or $6.44 a month for starters, reaching 40 percent over a five-year period.

A lot of the money is needed for the city's "Pure Water" recycling program that would provide a third of its drinking water in within 20 years.

But South Bay residents and their water district say the so-called "unitary" rate structure they'll be getting for "purple-pipe", recycled water is disproportionately high.

"That's $7.2 million leaving the hands of folks in the south,” said Jason Wells, CEO of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce. “San Ysidro's got a median income of $46,000 a year going up to the north, which has incomes two to three times that amount."

Added Andrea Skorepa, president of Casa Familiar: "It is patently unfair for the city of San Diego to expect those of us in the South Bay to pay and subsidize those who are in the north county."

Behind all this is an undercurrent of politics and clashing economic priorities going back more than a decade, when South Bay's Otay Water District and two agencies in the north county signed contracts with San Diego's Public Utilities Department.

"They were not forced to go into this agreement; they voluntarily entered into this agreement,” said Lani Lutar, representing the Endangered Habitats League. “Now they want an 'out' when their contract terms has not ended -- because they made inaccurate assumptions. That is not, frankly, the problem of the San Diego City Council."

The council is scheduled to take up the issue at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Critics of the rate hike measure are leaning on the council's four Republican members to vote against it.

But they'd have to answer to the business community, which is solidly in favor of it.

A 16-year-old girl from Washington, D.C., disappeared almost a week ago while hiking on a school trip to Tennessee, family members said.

Ava Zechiel was hiking in Cherokee National Forest in northeast Tennessee when she became separated from other students from her boarding school around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to her father, Howard Zechiel. 

Johnson County police, with help from the FBI, have searched for Zechiel by land and air, NBC affiliate WCYB in Bristol, Virginia, reported. Volunteer search crews also have helped.

"It's every parent's worst nightmare," Howard Zechiel, told the television station. "You see these stories on the news, but you see also the throngs of people that come out to help. We're relieved to see that's happened here and hopeful that one of them will find our girl."

Zechiel stands 5-foot-3, weighs about 200 pounds and has brown hair, officials told WCYB. She was last seen wearing an orange vest, a green fleece and brown hiking pants. She was not carrying a cell phone, her father said. 

The terrain in the national forest is rugged and dangerous in parts, an investigator told NBC affiliate WBIR in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Zechiel is a student at Freedom Mountain Academy, a wilderness-oriented boarding school for teenagers, the TV stations reported.

Gelson's Markets will purchase six Haggen stores in Southern California, including two in San Diego, Gelson’s President & CEO Rob McDougall announced Monday.

Gelson's Market, a Southern California supermarket, will soon take over and revamp six stores across Southern California. One store is located in Ladera Ranch in Orange County, one in Rancho Mirage in Riverside County on Bob Hope Drive, one in Ventura County, one in Los Angeles County and two in San Diego County. The two in San Diego are located at 2707 Via De La Valle in the Del Mar neighborhood and 730 Turquoise Street in San Diego. 

“We’re excited to become part of the San Diego community, a process that may take time in order to customize stores for each neighborhood,” said McDougall in a statement. “Our goal is to retain as many local Haggen workers as possible while also giving opportunities to existing Gelson’s employees, as well as others who wish to join the Gelson’s family.”

McDougall said the company plans to relaunch the stories it has acquired as early as next year under its own brand, and those stores will reopen with initial improvements like product selection and merchandising.

Later on in 2016, the stores will be redesigned and may undergo some construction. Pharmacies will stay open during construction. 

Gelson's was picked as a Stalking Horse bidder in mid-October and the company says it anticipates closing on the stores later in 2015. 

Earlier this year, Haggen bought 146 Albertsons and Safeway stores, expanding from 18 stores in Oregon and Washington into new markets in California, Nevada and Arizona.

The stores soon struggled and Haggen ultimately filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid dismal sales before announcing it was departing from California altogether.

It’s still too soon to tell what will happen to each of the locations and it's not clear all of the locations will remain grocery stores.

“This is a great land grab for these companies to offer something different than a traditional supermarket,” said San Diego State University marketing professor Miro Copic.

It will take at least 60 to 90 days before Haggen is transformed into another grocery store.

In the meantime, shoppers will buy up what’s left of Haggen’s inventory.

Gelson's will also open two new stores in Rancho Mission Viejo and Manhattan Beach. The company currently operates 18 full-service grocery stores in the region. 

Originally, 25 Haggen stores in San Diego County were up for grabs and now 19 remain. Albertsons, which coincidentally sold some storefronts to Haggen, is bidding for locations in Camino Del Sur, El Cajon, La Mesa, Rancho Bernardo and San Marcos. Smart & Final is bidding on 13 other stores.

Here's a full list of bidders in San Diego County:

• Albertsons for 1608 Broadway St. in El Cajon
• Albertsons for 5630 Lake Murray Blvd. in La Mesa
• Albertsons for 12475 Rancho Bernardo Road in Rancho Bernardo
• Albertsons for 7895 Highland Village Place in San Diego
• Albertsons for 671 Rancho Santa Fe in San Marcos
• Gelsons for 7660 El Camino Real in Carlsbad
• Carnival Supermarket Inc. for 505 Telegraph Canyon Road in Chula Vista
• RJS Investment Group for 14837 Pomerado Road in Poway
• 99 Ranch Market for 5950 Balboa Ave. in San Diego
• Bristol Farms for 422 Washington St. in San Diego
• Vestar California (strip mall owner) for 14340 Penasquitos Drive in San Diego

Smart & Final bids:

• 360 East H St. Chula Vista
• 13439 Camino Canada El Cajon
• 1636 W. 25th St. San Diego
• 955 Carlsbad Village Drive Carlsbad
• 2800 Fletcher Parkway El Cajon
• 3681 Avocado Avenue La Mesa
• 10740 Westview Parkway San Diego
• 150 B Ave. Coronado
• 10633 Tierra Santa Blvd. San Diego
• 350 W. San Ysidro Blvd. San Ysidro
• 2235 University Ave. San Diego

The Kremlin announced Tuesday that traces of explosives have been found in the debris in the Metrojet passenger jet that crashed when it took off from Egypt last month, according to NBC News.

Egyptian authorities also told NBC News two employees at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport were detained and being questioned in connection to the bombing.

Alexander Bortnikov, the chief of the country's FSB domestic security agency, said that a bomb equivalent to 2.2 pounds of TNT exploded on board the aircraft, according to the Kremlin.

A $50 million reward has been offered by Russia's domestic security agency for information on who brought down the jet, NBC News reported.

The plane crash killed all 224 people on board, most of them Russian tourists.

Authorities have identified a convicted human smuggler accused of throwing a softball-sized rock at a U.S. Border Patrol agent and hitting him in the face Sunday. 

The incident unfolded around 7 p.m. Sunday near Jacumba when suspect Martel Valencia-Cortez, 39, was allegedly trying to smuggle 14 people across the border, according to Border Patrol agents. Authorities said Valencia-Cortez, a Mexican national, has been involved in a series of smuggling incidents over nearly 20 years.

As the group crossed the border on foot Sunday, trekking through wet, sub-40 degree weather in the remote terrain on Carries Mountain, they encountered Border Patrol agents, authorities said.

Valencia-Cortez fled toward higher ground as agents chased him, according to Border Patrol. When agents closed the gap, they said, Valencia-Cortez allegedly turned around and hurled a softball-sized rock at them. 

The rock hit an agent in the face, and in response, the agent fired multiple rounds from his government-issued handgun. He was later treated for a facial injury. 

Agents said Valencia-Cortez fled on foot to Mexico. They do not believe he was shot. Authorities apprehended the 14 people allegedly being smuggled into the country. 

Imperial County Sheriff’s Department, Customs and Border Protection Office of Internal Affairs, and the U.S. Border Patrol are investigating the incident. 

Officials have issued a federal arrest warrant for Valencia-Cortez, who is described as 5-foot-11 and 205 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. Authorities said he has a tattoo on his right shoulder.

Agents said Valencia-Cortez has been involved in numerous human smuggling incidents dating back to 1997. He was involved in at least one manhunt as a result, NBC7 previously reported. Court records describe Valencia-Cortez as a "known foot guide, load vehicle driver and alien smuggling facilitator." He has more than 35 prior apprehensions by Border Patrol agents and was convicted of human smuggling in Mexico.

Agents said Valencia-Cortez has been known to carry a firearm during smuggling attempts and consider him to be armed and dangerous. In the past, agents said, he has been known to resort to violence and evade arrests. He was released from federal custody in September after serving a three-year sentence for alien smuggling. 

One Los Altos Hills resident woke up Sunday morning to see that his surveillance camera had captured what appeared to be a Mama mountain lion and her cubs roaming through his backyard.

The resident, who asked not to be identified to respect his privacy, shared his video from Saturday night showing the majestic beasts walking casually in the dark near his trees near the Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve. The man said that while it’s not usual to see big cats in the area, it’s very rare to see a mother and her cubs together in a residential neighborhood.
 

Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center announced plans Monday to build a $239 million hospital called Ocean View Tower in South County.

The 170,000-square-foot hospital will add 138 private patient rooms, six operating rooms, and advanced health care technology, programs and services, according to a news release.

The cost of the project is being funded through a combination of philanthropic donations to Sharp HealthCare Foundation, bonds, cash reserves and the Medi-Cal Hospital Fee Program. The Ocean View Tower at Sharp Chula Vista is Sharp HealthCare’s largest single investment to date.

Sharp Chula Vista selected Hensel Phelps, AVRP Studios and Smith Group JJR as the design-build team to lead the expansion project. Groundbreaking is expected in late 2016 with a grand opening anticipated in fall 2019.

“As the South County region continues to grow, we’ve made a promise to grow with it to ensure
community members have access to high-quality medical care close to home,” said Dan Gross, executive vice president of Hospital Operations at Sharp HealthCare.

French President Francois Hollande will travel to Washington and Moscow later this month to discuss ways of increasing international cooperation to smash the Islamic State group and settle the Syrian crisis.

A statement from Hollande's office says he will meet President Barack Obama on Nov. 24 and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Nov. 26.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for the Paris attacks that killed 129 people and injured 352. 

As many people gear up for the busy holiday traveling season, experts are warning travelers to guard their boarding passes, which could be targets for identity thieves to steal your frequent flier miles or even your return flight.

Somewhere between the lines, the luggage and the landings, it’s not uncommon to simply toss a boarding pass once you’ve used it.

“You think it’s a piece of paper, I already flew, so what’s the point,” said Matthew Klint, a blogger with upgrd.com. He said if you’re between flights, the boarding pass you trashed is a door for an identity thief to walk through.

“Every airline has a vulnerability,” he said. “All you need is this confirmation number which will appear somewhere on any boarding pass.”

Klint said the flight confirmation number is the key to unlocking any account with a smartphone or laptop. “It works with United, works with Delta, works with American.”

He used confirmation numbers for all three airlines; in each case the six-digit number grants significant access to personal information.

“If you’ve got a return trip, they can cancel it,” Klint said. “If they want to change it, they have access to more of your personal information, telephone numbers, potentially birth dates, frequent flier numbers.”

Click here to see the complete story from KNBC.

The Eiffel Tower was closed once again Tuesday after workers raised security concerns in the wake of the Paris massacre, NBC News reported. 

The closure came a day after the attraction reopened following Friday's terror attacks and was lit in colors of the French flag. 

Despite heightened security, discussions about further safety measures were still taking place with employees, the landmark's operator Societe d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel (SETE) said.

"The main subject of the talks are security measures that must be put in place to ensure that both visitors and staff are safe," a spokeswoman told NBC News.

A San Diego man was scheduled to appear in a downtown courtroom Tuesday to face formal charges in the killing of a brother and sister.

Felipe DeJesus Vega, 39, is accused of shooting and killing Alexis Velarde, 22, and Arline Iribe, 20, in Mountain View on Sunday, Nov. 8.

Family of the victims described Vega was a close family friend. Police said Velarde tried to shield his sister from the gunfire before he died. Both siblings succumbed to their wounds.

Investigators have not yet released any details about a possible motive for the killings.

Vega was the subject of a police manhunt for five days before he was shot in a confrontation with San Diego Police in City Heights Friday.

After a high-speed freeway pursuit, officers said Vega refused to get out of his vehicle. During the pursuit, officers say Vega threw a handgun out of the window of his car.

When the SWAT team arrived, they drove their BearCat armored vehicle into the back of Vega's car.

Tear gas was deployed toward the suspect at least twice, but the standoff continued for more than two hours.

According to the SDPD, Vega exited his car and allegedly reached for his waistband while turning toward officers and emergency negotiators.

There was a struggle between the officers and the suspect that lasted several seconds. SDPD Officer Christopher Luth, an 11-year veteran of the department, fired one round at Vega, striking him in his upper torso.

Vega was handcuffed and loaded into an ambulance which transported him to a local hospital.  No officers were injured in this standoff and shooting, the SDPD said.

One of the last living northern white rhinos is recovering from a surgical procedure that her keepers hope will cure a chronic infection threatening the animal’s health.

Nola is a 41-year-old rhinoceros at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. Her species is critically endangered with just three others living in a preserve in Kenya.

On Friday, Nola underwent a surgical procedure to remove an abscess discovered during a recent ultrasound.

The 4,500-pound rhino has undergone multiple procedures and diagnostic tests over the past few months to find the source of an infection near her right hip.

"We hope this procedure will resolve the infection Nola has had for many months now, and she certainly should feel better in the days to come,” said Dr. Nadine Lamberski, Associate Director of Veterinary Services.

Lamberski said only a local anesthesia and a mild sedative were used so Nola was awake and standing during the procedure.

She will stay in the boma for the next few weeks where she’ll be monitored closely. Her keepers say she is eating and walking normally.

Northern white rhinos are at the brink of extinction due to poaching for their horn, zoo officials said.

The San Diego Zoo Safari Park recently received six southern white rhinos between four and seven years old from private reserves in South Africa. These rhinos will become surrogate mothers for northern white rhino embryos developed by researchers.

Researchers are optimistic within the next 10 to 15 years a northern white rhino could be born from these efforts.

San Diego Zoo Global has one of the most successful rhino breeding programs in the world. To date, a total of 94 southern white rhinos, 68 greater one-horned rhinos and 14 black rhinos have been born at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

As the global manhunt intensified for an accomplice linked to the deadly Paris attacks, two men who were allegedly with him hours after the assault were charged with participating in a terrorist activity, Belgian officials said Tuesday, NBC News reported. 

Hamza Attou and Mohammed Amri are accused of picking up 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam from Paris and taking him back into Belgium early Saturday, Belgian prosecutor spokesperson Eric Van Sypt told NBC News.

They were detained after witness testimony and video footage pointed to a black Belgian rental car that stopped for a border check on Saturday morning but was allowed to drive on, Van Sypt said.

Security forces across Europe have been trying to locate Abdeslam, whose brother was among the dead attackers and is described as "dangerous."

German authorities also confirmed Tuesday that three people were arrested near the city of Aachen in connection with the ongoing investigation into the Paris attacks. Abdeslam was not among them.
 

It seems unfair. You’ve fixed your leaks, you’ve shortened your showers and you’ve let your lawn go brown.

But despite conserving as much water as you can, you’ll most likely be paying more for water next year.

Most of the county’s 24 water districts are proposing or have passed water rate hikes, many linked to a 5.4 percent price increase at the districts’ water wholesaler, the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA).

Click the map below to find out if your water provider is expecting a rate hike for water next year, how much it will be and why they say rates are going up.

We will continue to update this map as we receive more responses from local districts.

To understand why the SDCWA is upping its rates, it’s important to note that the drought is leaving districts with more than just a water shortage.

Drought Dries Up Revenues

This April, as California entered its fourth consecutive year of drought, California Gov. Jerry Brown issued an executive order that put the state under unprecedented, mandatory water restrictions. As a whole, California was ordered to save 25 percent of its water starting in June.

As a region, San Diego County has to hit an average of 20 percent savings (though that figure varies by district).

Residents have stepped up and cut back their water usage by an average of 27 percent since June, according to SDCWA Public Affairs Representative Mike Lee. But such a drastic drop in water sales impacts the bottom line for many water districts.

“And that was not planned for in anybody's budget,” said Brent Eidson, the deputy director of San Diego’s Public Utilities Department. “That couldn’t be because you're not allowed to charge more than the cost to deliver service, and when the state made these new rules, it sort of changed the game on us.”

Under California Proposition 218, water districts are only allowed to charge citizens what it costs to deliver the water – with no profit margins.

But as water usage and sales dropped this year, many districts and the SDCWA say they are struggling to meet their operating costs.

“Well there’s an inverse relationship. If revenues go down, water sales go down, then that means we still have to pay for at least our overall infrastructure and operation,” said SDCWA’s Finance Director Lisa Marie Harris. “Those costs never go away. And so then obviously the rates...there’s upward pressure to cause the rates to go up so we can still meet our obligations.”

For the SDCWA, part of those fixed costs is paying off roughly $2 billion in outstanding debt tied to efforts to make the county’s water resources reliable (more on that below). Harris said the agency is always looking for ways to refinance and get rid of larger chunks of debt.

Some of the districts echo the same problem: every year, it takes them the same amount to operate their systems, regardless of sales.

“So it doesn't matter if you sell one drop of water out of a pipeline or millions of gallons out of a pipeline,” Eidson explained. “That pipeline still costs the same amount to replace; the pump stations still cost to maintain and run. You have to be ready to serve your customer the second they turn on the water, and a lot of those successes are independent of how much water you sell.”

Some agencies, like the Helix Water District, said they anticipated the drought and were able to hold operating costs flat this year. But like the SDCWA, they are still paying off investments to improve their water reliability.

Rates for the average Helix customer are going up about 9 percent. Carlos Lugo, Helix Water’s general manager, takes issue with Brown’s mandated conservation standards.

“We feel like it’s a broad-brush approach across the state, and here in San Diego, ratepayers have paid for infrastructure,” he told NBC 7.

He and his colleagues believe San Diegans are being “openly penalized” for preparing for drought and cultivating its own sources. The region has 99 percent of the water it needs through the SDCWA without any conservation measures necessary.

Creating water reliability, especially in times of drought, is a big buzz term among the SDCWA. To find out why, we have to jump back to the 1990s.

Another Devastating Drought

It’s been decades – 1946 to be exact – since San Diego County has been able to meet its water needs with just local supplies like groundwater and storm runoff, according to SDCWA’s Mike Lee.

So in the late 1940s the county began importing its water from two sources: the Colorado River and the State Water Project in Northern California.

Transporting San Diego’s water from those sources is the job of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The SDCWA buys water from MWD and then in turn sells those supplies to local districts.

But in the early 1990s, the land was becoming terrifyingly dry in Southern California. Faced with a lack of supply, the MWD cut San Diego’s water allocation 31 percent going into 1991, Lee said. It was horrible news for the SDCWA, which depended on MWD for 95 percent of its supply.

Then, as drought conditions worsened, the agency threatened a cutback of 50 percent. Civic and business leaders in San Diego were outraged.

“And they literally came to the [SDCWA] boardroom, lined up around the block, down the street to say, ‘Don't do this to us. You have to find a better strategy than putting all your eggs in one basket,’” said Lee.

Though the MWD cutbacks remained at 31 percent (thanks to the rains of Miracle March in 1991), Lee said the SDCWA learned its most important lesson: it needed to diversify its water sources.

Diversifying the County’s Water Portfolio

Just as you would diversify your stock portfolio by investing in different industries, the SDCWA began to invest in different imported water supplies. The costs of those efforts are now showing up on your water bills.

The first step was conservation. This year, the water use per capita in San Diego is 39 percent less than it was in 1990, according to the SDCWA, dropping from an average of 235 gallons used by each person a day to 143.

Next, the SDCWA struck an agreement with Southern California farmers who get their water from the Colorado River. Under the Imperial Irrigation District transfer, the SDCWA pays to transport any water saved by those farmers to San Diego.

The agency also paid to reline parts of the All-American and Coachella canals with concrete – another water-saving measure.

In 2015, those measures brought 180,000 acre feet of water to San Diego – or 34 percent of SDCWA’s water needs; one acre foot is about enough to sustain two average households for a year.

The most recent – and most talked about – large investment is the Carlsbad Desalination Plant. Expected to come online any day now, the plant produces 50 million gallons of drinkable water a day, and by 2020, it should make up 8 percent of the county’s water sources.

Lee said each household will pay about $5 more a month for the more expensive but drought-proof supply. The SDCWA invested $1 billion in the desalination plant.

So as the Water Authority borrows money to fund these multi-million dollar projects -- not to mention another $2.8 billion for capital improvements like water treatment, pipeline replacements and emergency water storage – local water districts are seeing the rates they pay go up and are passing must of that cost along to their customers.

“Water rates have increased significantly to help pay for that increased reliability,” Lee said. “But again if you look at today, where we have 99 percent of the water that we need to meet demand versus in 1991 when we were being cut back 31 percent, our reliability is far higher. That's part of what people are paying for.”

In 2016, as MWD also raises its rates, the SDCWA will be charging 6.6 percent more for its untreated water and 5.4 percent more for its treated water.

That plays into an anticipated 17 percent rise in consumer water rates in the city of San Diego.

“That comes down as a significant factor on the city of San Diego,” said Brent Eidson, the deputy director of San Diego’s Public Utilities Department. “Like I said 90 percent of our water that we service is purchased from them, so if they raise their rates, it’s going to have an immediate impact on our budget and our rates.”

Local districts have projects of their own to fund, which also may factor into a water rate hike. For example, the city of San Diego is investing in its Pure Water Program that turns recycled water into drinkable water.

The districts also pay for maintenance costs like replacing water towers, pipelines or dams.