The Imperial Irrigation District and farmer Michael Abatti have been locked in a years-long legal battle with as many twists as the river over which it has been fought. The saga might finally come to an end, though, after a California appellate court handed down a ruling on Thursday that found IID is the rightful manager of the portion of the Colorado River guaranteed to the Imperial Valley.
Farmers once again clashed with Mexican military forces Sunday to protest releases of water from a dam to repay a water debt owed to the United States.
Several state legislators have asked the Governor to extend his order prohibiting water shutoffs for nonpayment to even the smallest water utilities.
Right now, the Governor’s April 2 order applies to water utilities serving 200 or more connections.
Nearly half a century after a Gold Rush-era quicksilver mining operation shut down in northern California, mercury continues to flow into a nearby creek, and federal officials blame the mine’s state landmark status for cleanup delays.
Federal regulators on Thursday threw a significant curveball at a coalition that has been planning for years to demolish four massive hydroelectric dams on a river along the Oregon-California border to save salmon populations that have dwindled to almost nothing.
California may see a 54 percent increase in rainfall variability by the end of this century, according to new research from the lab of Assistant Professor Da Yang, a 2019 Packard Fellow and atmospheric scientist with the University of California, Davis. Writing in the journal Nature Climate Change, Yang and his co-authors predict the entire West Coast will experience greater month-to-month fluctuations in extremely dry and wet weather, especially in California. The lead author is Wenyu Zhou, a postdoctoral researcher in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where Yang has a dual appointment.
The study explores the Madden-Julian oscillation (MJO), an atmospheric phenomenon that influences rainfall in the tropics and can trigger everything from cyclones over the Indian Ocean to heatwaves, droughts and flooding in the United States.
Like a lot of the rural West, Yosemite National Park stood as a safe haven from the coronavirus. No park employees or residents tested positive. No visitors reported being sick. The fresh air and open space seemed immune.
Amid the deadly COVID-19 pandemic and nationwide uprisings for racial justice, California’s promise to fulfill the human right to water has never been more clear or urgent.
A year ago this month, the state legislature, led by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia and Senator Bill Monning, passed and Governor Newsom signed the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund (SB 200) into law, the result of years of frontline community organizing and advocacy.
It didn’t grab headlines, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision last month to back away from regulating a rocket fuel ingredient in drinking water points to a dramatic shift in federal oversight. The decision was followed by a proposal to slow the process for reviewing chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and delayed action on hazardous perfluorochemicals, PFAS and PFOA, that have been found in various water systems.
Colorado has its first policy to regulate so-called “forever chemicals.”
The state’s Water Quality Control Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to enact a policy to put new limits on per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFAS. The class of chemicals is a common ingredient in everything from nonstick pans to foam used to smother flames from jet fuel.
A growing body of scientific evidence has linked the chemicals to a range of health problems, including cancer and pregnancy issues. Meanwhile, federal efforts to regulate the chemicals have lagged, leaving states to take action on their own.
