The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday announced final plans to redefine and thus shrink the waterways that must be protected under the law, a move likely to be swiftly challenged legally by environmentalists.
The final plans to repeal the 2015 Obama-era Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule would stymie the federal government’s capacity to regulate pollutants in wetlands and tributaries that feed into large rivers.
Senate Bill 513, authored by Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Sanger), is headed towards Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk for approval. The bill, which received bi-partisan support, will provide relief for families without reliable access to water by delivering a temporary alternative source of water supply.
“Today, water shortage in the southern Central Valley continue to impact thousands of families who face limited access to clean drinking water,” stated Sen. Hurtado
The latest salvo is California’s long-running water wars, SB307, has the potential to emerge as one of the most important pieces of water regulation in recent years. Although its target was narrow — it was designed to undercut the capacity of Cadiz, Inc. to pump annually upwards of 16 billion gallons of groundwater in eastern San Bernardino County and sell it to ever-thirsty Southern California — the legislation may prove to be far-reaching in its consequences.
The Trump administration plans to revoke an Obama-era regulation that provided federal protection to many U.S. wetlands and streams, according to two Environmental Protection Agency officials with knowledge of the plan.
The rule defined which waterways are subject to federal regulation. The administration plans to replace it with its own version, according to the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the decision and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
A California State University, Monterey Bay professor will receive a substantial grant from the Defense Department to find methods to harness fog.
The $266,589 gift will fund research on ways to use mesh-based devices to collect water circulating in fog, according to CSUMB. The DoD is interested in the study to collect usable water for drinking or irrigation, which may be useful for military personnel in remote foggy regions.
It started out as a bold effort by the California Legislature to prevent the Trump administration from rolling back protections for the environment and labor.
The bill, proposed by one of the state’s most powerful Democrats, would attempt to negate every environmental regulation proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration for the duration of his term or terms. It has a clause that would expire the day he leaves office in 2025 if he wins a second term.
In a new effort to balance California’s water needs, Gov. Gavin Newsom has directed state agencies to prepare a water plan known as the California Water Resilience Portfolio that includes “a comprehensive strategy to build a climate-resilient water system.” The portfolio features a broad approach that addresses safe drinking water, flood risks, depleted groundwater aquifers, water supply uncertainty for agriculture, and native fish populations faced with extinction.
Why do farmers pump the water under their land (which California law clearly states belongs to them) in the first place? Unfortunately, you’ll rarely read the answer to this question in the press, but it is the most important part of the story.
Farmers pump groundwater because for more than 25 years, an innumerable myriad of Endangered Species Act-related laws, mandates, opinions, rulings and settlements have resulted in less and less surface water allocations for agriculture — even though all of these directives have failed to produce a rebound of endangered fish. When food producers receive the 0% and 5% water allocations like we saw in 2014, 2015, and 2016, they have no choice but to exercise their lawful property rights and to use water under their land.
Can California’s water woes be solved?
Some think that all it takes is money, which is exactly what the California Legislature may ask voters in 2020 for in the name of clean drinking water.
In the last several years Californians bought the arguments made by farmers, environmentalists and pretty much everyone else who was promised access to the cookie jar. Farmers were told they’d get more water storage to augment their annual allocation of irrigation water, which continue to shrink because of bad public policy. While not said overtly, the implications were “give us more money and we’ll get you back up to a full irrigation allotment.”
The research carried out by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and commissioned by UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) found that untreated raw water contained on average 4.9 microplastics per litre while water that has gone through a treatment process contained only 0.00011 microplastics per litre.
While the study has shown that current treatment processes are effective at removing microplastics from drinking water and treated wastewater, the water industry has now called on government and business to do more to prevent plastic entering the water environment and the sewer network in the first place.
