One of the biggest unknowns about coronavirus is how it spreads within a community, especially with asymptomatic carriers and minimal testing capabilities. In a new international effort, the City of Boise in partnership with the lab Biobot, has started sampling the city’s wastewater system to collect data on community levels of COVID-19.
The water rights behind the proposed Lake Powell pipeline are not actually coming from the project’s namesake lake, but rather from the major reservoir upstream on the Green River.
Funding from NASA and the California Department of Water Resources asks Quantum Spatial to provide remote sensing services.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced that it will be providing more than $2.5 million for California water investments through the Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant program. USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Bette Brand noted that the department will be investing $281 million for 106 projects in 36 states and Puerto Rico to improve water and wastewater infrastructure.
The nation’s water utilities, facing more than $27 billion in lost revenue from the pandemic, are ramping up their outreach to Congress as lawmakers prepare to act on infrastructure legislation and additional relief in the face of a historic pandemic.
In addition to a flurry of letters and meetings, advocacy groups and lobbyists with congressional expertise are pushing for provisions in both Water Resources Development Act bills moving through the House and Senate, and the next round of COVID-19 stimulus funds.
In the near term, the bills could be a lifeline for both residents and utilities reeling from the economic fallout of the pandemic.
Over the longer term, some hope the bills could provide a pathway for revamping a highly fractured, aging water system — old lead pipes, vulnerable dams and 1,500 drinking water systems in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, said Robert Powelson, CEO of the National Association of Water Companies.
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.
