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Tweaks To Senate Bill 1 Leave Critical Calif. Water Questions Unresolved

/in , , /by /The San Joaquin Valley Sun by Alex Tavlian

Despite demands for key changes to Senate Bill 1 – California’s hotly-debated water legislation – from a chorus of Valley Democrats and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California legislative leaders appeared to have ignored those calls.

Senate Bill 1 would tie California’s environmental laws governing water and air quality to Federal standards as they existed on the final day of the Obama administration, Jan. 19, 2017.

Opponents of the bill said the move restricts scientific advancements in analyzing California’s water needs and air quality conditions by relying on outdated science.

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Was That Snow? Northern Sierra Gets Showers While Sacramento Heats Back Up

/in , , /by /The Sacramento Beeby Michael McGough

With some weird weather already in the books this month, Mother Nature may have one last hurrah in store for Northern California before summer officially ends.

A wave of thunderstorms passed over northeast California and near Reno on Tuesday afternoon, with the National Weather Service’s Reno office sharing a photo of what appears to be light snow on the Mt. Rose Highway at an elevation of about 8,500 feet.

 

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Cool Davis: Residential Graywater For Outdoor Irrigation

/in , /by /Davis Enterpriseby Leslie Crenna

Residential graywater offers up a huge potential for our city to offset potable water use. When the next drought rolls around, and it will, we could be sitting pretty with healthy trees and landscapes using less water from the Sierra than we do now.

How could we accomplish this? The answer is graywater, defined in California as the discharge from laundry wash water, showers, and bathroom sinks.

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Los Angeles Says “Yes” To The Cheapest Solar Plus Storage In The USA

/in , /by /pv magazine by John Weaver

Yesterday, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a power purchase agreement (PPA) with 8minute Solar Energy for a solar power plus energy storage facility located in Kern County, California. Now that the LADWP commission has approved the project, it will move to a vote with the Los Angeles City Council before it can be delivered to the Mayor’s desk for a final signature. The project’s guaranteed commercial operation date is December 31, 2023 – about 12 years after it was initially filed in early 2012.

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Legislature Approves Dodd’s Plan For Water Management

/in , /by /Davis Enterprise

The state legislature has approved a proposal from Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, aimed at helping the state manage its water.

“Stream gages provide important information in this era of droughts and flooding, driven in part by climate change,” Dodd said. “This bill is an important step toward managing our water for the long run. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

 

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Chevron Faces New Demands From Regulators As Kern County Oil Releases Continue

/in , /by /KQEDby Ted Goldberg and Dan Brekke

After months of back and forth with Chevron over a series of uncontrolled crude petroleum releases in a Kern County oil field, state regulators are demanding new information about its operations in the spill area.

California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, or DOGGR, issued a formal directive to the San Ramon-based company Tuesday, requiring the firm to provide a wealth of technical data on its petroleum extraction practices in the Cymric oil field.

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‘Blob’ Of Warm Pacific Water Is Back — Could Be Trouble For Marine Life And Weather

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

An ominous warm patch similar to the notorious “blob ” that wreaked havoc along the California coast five years ago has been detected along the West Coast, raising fears among scientists that the fragile ocean ecosystem may be facing another calamity.

A large marine heat wave has warmed the northern Pacific Ocean and is threatening to disrupt sea life from Alaska to Southern California, marine biologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

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Forever Chemicals’ Now Found In State Schools

/in , /by /Boston Globe by David Abel

The water fountains have either been turned off, wrapped in plastic, or fitted with a device to prevent students from using them. Much of the food preparation has moved off campus, and a water jug sits in the kitchen sink, replacing the faucet. The bathrooms are covered with signs that warn students in bold, red letters: “DO NOT DRINK FROM THE SINK.”

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OPINION: In Going After Trump, California Is Going Too Far With Environmental Legislation

/in , /by /CALmatters (Sacramento)by Adam Gray

Senate Bill 1 by Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins would require that California ignore new scientific findings on natural resources and water issued after January 19, 2017, the day before the Trump took office. That’s not an exaggeration. The date is actually listed in the bill 21 different times.

We cannot advance the fight for environmental quality by declaring that all science stopped on a specific date. If it’s dumb for the President to close his eyes to science, it’s dumber for us to follow him down that rabbit hole.

But SB 1 is not just dumb, it’s dangerous

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Water Interests Are fighting California’s Bid To Block Trump’s Environmental Rollbacks

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Phil Willon

California is close to adopting strict Obama-era federal environmental and worker safety rules that the Trump administration is dismantling. But as the legislative session draws to a close, the proposal faces fierce opposition from the state’s largest water agencies.
To shield California from Trump administration policies, lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow state agencies to lock in protections under the federal Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Fair Labor Standards Act and other bulwark environmental and labor laws that were in place before President Trump took office in January 2017.

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