California and the U.S. Archives

Opinion: California’s Water Department Must Face The Reality of Climate Change and Diverse Needs

As we enter a new decade, California faces increasing environmental challenges caused by climate change, creating an uncertain future for our water resources. We need bold leadership to address these impacts. It is time for California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) to implement water policy for the state that shores up our precious waterways and diversifies water supplies in the face of these imminent threats.

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Farmers Welcome New Federal Rule on Water Quality

January 29, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Ag Alert (Sacramento) by Christine Souza

Farmers and ranchers expressed support for a new federal rule to protect navigable waters under the Clean Water Act, saying the rule should offer certainty, transparency and a common-sense approach about how the rule would apply on the farm.

California Farm Bureau Federation President Jamie Johansson said last week’s release of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers “promises clear guidelines to help farmers maintain and improve water quality while retaining the flexibility they need to manage their land.”

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Trump’s USDA Chief, Unlike Trump, Backed Water Efficiency

January 29, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /E&E News by Scott Waldman

If President Trump wants to understand the risk of rolling back water efficiency standards that have been in place for almost 30 years, he can turn to a member of his own Cabinet.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has signed off on regulations that treat water-efficient toilets and shower heads as effective tools to save Americans from droughts and other risks.

In 2007, when Perdue was Georgia’s governor, the state was in the grips of a historic and extreme drought, and Atlanta was months away from losing its primary water source (Greenwire, Oct. 17, 2007).

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What’s in Your Water? Researchers Identify New Toxic Byproducts of Disinfecting Drinking Water

January 29, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /PHYS.orgby Johns Hopkins University

Mixing drinking water with chlorine, the United States’ most common method of disinfecting drinking water, creates previously unidentified toxic byproducts, says Carsten Prasse from Johns Hopkins University and his collaborators from the University of California, Berkeley and Switzerland.

“There’s no doubt that chlorine is beneficial; chlorination has saved millions of lives worldwide from diseases such as typhoid and cholera since its arrival in the early 20th century,” says Prasse, an assistant professor of Environmental Health and Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and the paper’s lead author.

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“Building a Resilient Tomorrow” Authors on Climate Change and Resilience

January 29, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Empire KVCR by Benjamin Purper

You may hear the word “sustainability” used a lot when talking about climate change, but what about “resilience?” KVCR’s Benjamin Purper spoke with the authors of the new book “Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption” about what it means to be resilient in the face of climate change.

Authors Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz both served as senior officials in the Obama Administration working on climate change issues. Their new book discusses climate resilience.

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San Joaquin Valley Communities Seeing Unhealthy Levels of Toxins in Water

January 29, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /ABC 30 by Jason Oliveira

Turning on the tap may seem harmless, but communities throughout the San Joaquin Valley are seeing unhealthy levels of toxins turn up in the water.

Kingsburg City Leaders say most residents could not tell anything was wrong with the drinking water, but years of testing showed unregulated chemicals were found.

“It’s not a sight or a taste or a smell thing,’ says Kingsburg City Manager Alex Henderson. “What it is is that we have to test for a number of chemicals and have for a very long time.”

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IID Candidates Talk Water Rights

January 29, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /KYMA (Yuma, Ariz.) by Alexandra Rangel

Division 2 and Division 4 on the Imperial Irrigation Board are two of the toughest races candidates are facing in the county’s primary.

In public forum moderated by Imperial Valley College students, residents wanted to hear how candidates plan to protect the valley’s land and water rights.

Division 2 incumbent, Bruce Kuhn talked about how he has been fighting to protect the valley’s resources from stakeholders in the Coachella district.

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Opinion: California’s Water Department Must Face the Reality of Climate Change and Diverse Needs

January 28, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Sacramento Beeby Bill Dodd

As we enter a new decade, California faces increasing environmental challenges caused by climate change, creating an uncertain future for our water resources. We need bold leadership to address these impacts. It is time for California’s Department of Water Resources to implement water policy for the state that shores up our precious waterways and diversifies water supplies in the face of these imminent threats.

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Atmospheric Rivers That Hit California Getting a Boost From Melting Arctic Ice

January 28, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

The fast-melting ice in the Arctic may be the primary cause of extreme weather across the globe, including some of the most violent, damaging storms to hit the Bay Area and California, a Scripps Institution of Oceanography study has found.

The Scripps paper, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first definitive study of the links between melting polar ice and changing climatic conditions reaching to the tropics, a cause-and-effect relationship that scientists had plenty of evidence for but had never precisely documented to this extent.

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Why Action on ‘Forever Chemicals’ Is Taking So Long

January 28, 2020/in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Mike Lee /Bloomberg Environment (Arlington, Va.)by Tiffany Kary and Adam Taylor

What do you do about lab-made chemicals that are in 99% of people in the U.S. and have been linked to immune system problems and cancer? Whose bonds are so stable that they’re often called “forever chemicals“? Meet PFAS, a class of chemicals that some scientists call the next PCB or DDT. For consumers, they are best known in products like Scotchgard and Teflon.

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