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Panel Recommends Changes To Two-Decade-Old EPA Water Affordability Guidelines

/in /by /Circle of Blue (Traverse City, Mich.)by Brett Walton

In a highly anticipated report, a panel chartered by Congress to advise public agencies on effective governance recommends that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency revise how it appraises financial burdens when communities are required to upgrade water and sewer systems. Observers say that the revisions, if the EPA accepts them, could change the agency’s permitting and enforcement of municipalities under the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, the bedrock federal environmental laws that occasionally result in multibillion-dollar modifications of water treatment facilities. That means communities could have more time to complete required projects.

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Increased Homeless Population Along San Diego River Hampers Water Quality

/in /by /KPBS

Volunteer Paul Bareno’s yellow shirt makes him easy to see as he helps clean up a stretch of San Diego riverbed. “We were here, I’m guessing, we were here about two months ago, maybe less. And we got it pretty clean. Yeah we hit the same amount of places regularly,” said Bareno. There is plenty to clean up. There are clothes, food wrappers and at one campsite, long strips of yellow plastic tubing that’s supposed to be a temporary sandbag. None of it is surprising.

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OPINION: Staving Off Ecological Disaster at the Salton Sea

/in /by /The Press-Enterprise (Riverside)

In a mere seven weeks, hundreds of thousands of California residents will face a major deadline affecting the health of their families and their communities. On Dec. 31, water deliveries that have been staving off ecological disaster at the Salton Sea for 15 years will come to a halt, leaving an uncertain future for the entire region. Here’s how we got here: In 2003, California struck a deal to divert a large amount of water from Imperial Valley farms to cities.

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Cracks Found On Oroville Dam’s New Spillway Not A Concern, State Says

/in /by /San Francisco Chronicle

Several small cracks have been discovered on the Oroville Dam’s newly rebuilt concrete spillway, prompting federal regulators to express concern about the $500 million construction project under way at the troubled facility.  But state water officials said Tuesday that the series of millimeter-wide cracks on the surface of the main spillway pose no structural problems for the nation’s tallest dam. Such tiny fissures, officials said, commonly develop after massive amounts of concrete are poured.

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Community Choice Is Politically Possible in San Diego

/in /by /Voice of San Diego

It is now politically possible to poke a giant hole in San Diego Gas & Electric’s longtime monopoly. A majority of the San Diego City Council is open to forming a government-run agency to buy power for city residents – though it is not yet a done deal. In the past, the company has fought off such attempts to weaken its monopoly. Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s administration is going to be coming up with a business plan for such an agency over the next several months.

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Environmental Groups Sue Trump Administration Over California Desert Groundwater Project

/in /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)

Environmental groups are suing the Trump administration over its decision supporting a company’s plan to pump up to 16.3 billion gallons of groundwater each year from a Mojave Desert aquifer and build a pipeline to sell that water to Southern California cities. Conservationists say the plan proposed by Los Angeles-based Cadiz Inc. would threaten natural springs and wildlife in Mojave Trails National Monument, which surrounds Cadiz’s land, 75 miles northeast of Palm Springs. Company officials disagree.

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