After four years of work, the Advanced Water Treatment Operator certification program is now complete and launched by the California-Nevada Section of the American Water Works Association and the California Water Environment Association. The exam for the highest-grade level, known as AWT5, launched on July 15th, completing the planned roll-out of exams on-budget and on a fast-tracked schedule.
A California appellate court on Wednesday denied Imperial Valley farmer Michael Abatti’s request for a rehearing in his long-running legal fight with the Imperial Irrigation District over control of Colorado River water. The decision could likely spell the end to his legal challenges.
On July 15, President Trump’s Council on Environmental Quality issued its long-dreaded “final rule,” a comprehensive weakening of the National Environmental Protection Act. NEPA is not only the nation’s most important federal protection against projects that threaten our environment and climate, it is also a cornerstone of our efforts to promote environmental justice, ensuring that projects assess and mitigate the disproportionate adverse impacts that minority and low-income communities often suffer.
A defunct Obama-era water rule isn’t poised to spring back to life in Ohio or Tennessee, after the Sixth Circuit on Wednesday sided with critics of the regulation in an unusual appeal.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot, and remanded the case to the district court. The appeals panel also vacated the district court’s order denying the states’ motion for a preliminary injunction against the 2015 Clean Water Rule, saying the mootness of the case precluded the panel from reviewing the merits of that order.
Following reports of large parties that violate health orders aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced Wednesday that he will authorize the city to shut off water and power services to residents who hold such gatherings.
Through three governors, California has set a path to tear down four aging dams on the Klamath River astride the Oregon border. It would be the biggest such removal project in the nation, done in the name of fish preservation, clean water flows and political consensus.
A California company that produces Crystal Geyser bottled water was sentenced Wednesday to three years of probation and ordered to pay $5 million in fines for illegally storing and transporting hazardous waste, federal prosecutors said.
The Santa Barbara City Council voted 7-0 on Tuesday to accept a $10 million grant — with the understanding that it will run the plant at full capacity for at least 36 out of the next 40 years. Some environmentalists objected to the council’s decision, citing environmental concerns.
As Poseidon Water pursues the final government approvals needed to build one of the country’s biggest seawater desalination plants, the company still cannot definitively say who will buy the 50 million gallons a day of drinking water it wants to produce on the Orange County coast.
PILCHUCK RIVER, near Granite Falls, Snohomish County — Washington’s dam-busting summer is still rolling, with two more dams coming down on the Pilchuck River, opening 37 miles of habitat to salmon for the first time in more than a century.
The $2 million dam removal project is a collaboration between the City of Snohomish and Tulalip Tribes, and will benefit multiple species of salmon, including threatened chinook salmon, crucial food for endangered southern resident killer whales.
It’s the state’s second dam teardown project in two months. In July, the city of Bellingham blew up its Nooksack Diversion Dam on the Middle Fork of the Nooksack River, opening 16 miles of habitat for salmon, including chinook.
