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.
Aging and undermaintained infrastructure in the United States, combined with changing climate over the coming decades, is setting the stage for more dam disasters like the one that struck Midland, Michigan, last week.
Nowhere has California’s dry winter hit harder than the state’s far north.
In a handful of counties along the rural Oregon border, where late-season rains have done little to sate the parched forests and dusty plains, hundreds of farmers are at risk of having their irrigation water shut off — and watching their crops wither in the field.
The Klamath Project, a U.S. government-operated waterworks that steers runoff from the towering Cascades to more than 200,000 acres of potatoes, alfalfa, wheat, onions and other produce on both sides of the state line, is running low on supplies. The local water agencies served by the project say they may not have water to send to farms beyond next month.
More than 15,000 dams in the US would likely kill people if they failed, and at least 2,300 of them are in poor or unsatisfactory condition, according to recent data from the federal government’s National Inventory of Dams.
Engineers say most dams in the United States, designed decades ago, are unsuited to a warmer world and stronger storms.
Nine states are suing the Environmental Protection Agency for “trying to use the current public health crisis to sweep environmental violations under the rug,” according to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
Citing conservation gains and a third straw to the bottom of Lake Mead, the Southern Nevada Water Authority on Thursday voted to shelve a proposal for a multi-billion pipeline that would have moved water from Northern and Eastern Nevada to Las Vegas.
If you have a small, drinking water system in the Central Valley that’s full of nitrates, and there are plenty, a company has some bugs to sell you. Specifically, a company called Microvi is looking for a demonstration project in the valley to show that its “biological denitrification” process is feasible for small systems.
Democrats on Wednesday blasted the Trump administration’s moves to roll back environmental regulations during the coronavirus crisis, with one senator saying a “pandemic of pollution″ has been released.
Stagnant plumbing systems in emptied commercial buildings could put returning employees at risk of Legionnaires’ and other illnesses.
