Staring down a $3 billion — and growing — tab to clean up water sources at military installations across the country that are contaminated with cancer-causing chemicals linked to firefighting foam, the Defense Department is now in discussions with private firms about potential cleanup solutions that might reduce the cost.
The U.K. had its driest May in 124 years and sunniest spring on record, increasing the threat of a summer drought and compounding conditions that have been made worse by climate change.
The country had 9.6 millimeters of rain in May, which is just 16% of the average for the month and the least since 1896, according to early data by the U.K.’s Meteorological Office. It also recorded 573 hours of sunshine during Spring, which is due to end May 31. That makes it the sunniest spring since records began in 1929.
SACRAMENTO — Fewer rebates for electric-car buyers. No new oil and gas industry regulators. Less money to preserve wildlife habitats.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed spending cuts to balance a state budget mauled by the coronavirus pandemic have angered numerous progressive constituencies, but perhaps none more than environmental activists who were suspicious of him even before an estimated $54 billion deficit materialized.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, few industries have been quite as essential to the nation as agriculture.
From pickers crouching for nine hours a day to scoop up strawberries to CEOs making handshake deals to keep their companies afloat, hundreds of thousands of workers are feeding America. But, in many ways, the pandemic is forcing farmers to reevaluate how they do business.
The latest dustup In California’s water wars, as noted in Dan Walters’ commentary, revolves principally around the federal government’s efforts to increase the amount of water supplied to farms and cities by the Central Valley Project, and a breakdown in cooperation between the state and federal government.
The pandemic-induced recession has come at a critical time for water planning in the state. The governor’s administration in January pitched ambitious proposals to help fund the implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and cushion its impacts on farmers and local communities. In the May Revision of the budget proposal, however, all but one funding allocation from an earlier proposition have been withdrawn.
Over the scorching hot Memorial Day weekend, hundreds of people headed to Tiscornia Beach near the confluence of the American and Sacramento rivers, one of the region’s most popular swimming areas. A few days earlier, state scientists had collected water samples with rates of E. coli bacteria that reached the highest limits of the testing equipment. The samples on May 12 and May 21 at Tiscornia Beach were at least seven times higher than state and federal standards for E. coli in a waterway.
Federal courts have delivered a string of rebukes to the Trump administration over what they found were failures to protect the environment and address climate change as it promotes fossil fuel interests and the extraction of natural resources from public lands.
House Democrats will focus this summer on passing essential legislation, including the Water Resources Development Act, a highway reauthorization bill, and appropriations measures, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday.
Before San Francisco office workers start streaming back to downtown high-rises again, property owners and managers need to make sure those buildings are safe. Not just from the threat of coronavirus circulating among cubicles, but from medical problems that can be caused when water in buildings sits stagnant for months.
