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California Attorney General Becerra To Army Corps: Directive To Weaken State Oversight Of Water Quality Is Unlawful

/in , , /by /Sierra Sun Times

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra yesterday joined a multistate comment letter objecting to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (Army Corps) directive to weaken states’ oversight of projects impacting water quality. The Army Corps’ directive would drastically shorten timeframes for state water quality certifications under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA). This abbreviated timeframe would prevent states from adequately assessing the water quality impacts of proposed federal projects to ensure states’ water resources are protected.

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OPINION: How Silicon Valley Provides The Blueprint For Cleaning Up Our Drinking Water

/in , , /by /The Washington Postby Jason A. Heppler

In 2016 the Colorado health department announced the presence of cancer-causing chemicals in drinking water in Fountain, Colo., just outside Colorado Springs. Tests by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that nearby military bases had been leaching toxic chemicals, including substances known as PFASs, into drinking water for decades, potentially contributing to higher-than-normal rates of cancer. The Department of Defense has since admitted their responsibility for at least 55 drinking-water site contaminations worldwide, and the EPA has announced new plans to set drinking-water limits for PFASs by the end of the year.

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Snowmelt Causes Seismic Swarm Near California’s Long Valley Caldera

/in , /by /Science Daily ( Rockville, Md.)

The unusual event prompted U.S. Geological Survey researcher Emily Montgomery-Brown and her colleagues to look back through 33 years of seismic and water records for the region. They found that rates of shallow seismicity were about 37 times higher during very wet periods versus dry periods. Although scientists have linked earthquakes to heavy rainfall or heavy runoff before this, the evidence connecting the two has been relatively weak or ambiguous, says Montgomery-Brown. In the Long Valley Caldera case, she says, “we’re seeing phenomenal correlation between the seismicity and the stream discharge, and we are seeing about 37 times the number of earthquakes during the wet season as during the dry season.”

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Salton Sea Pelican Population Declining At Startling Rate

/in , , /by /KESQ-TV (Palm Springs)by Sam Benson Smith

A new report paints a grim future for birds that rely on the Salton Sea habitat. Audubon California-released report uses bird-monitoring data from several different sources to show just how the destruction of the Salton Sea ecological habitat has decimated the populations of both pelicans and cormorants endemic to the area. As the Salton Sea recedes, the body of water’s salinity increases, which kills off its tilapia population. Without tilapia, the birds starve.

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A Look Back At The Specifics Of A Wild, Wet And Snowy Winter In California And The Southwest

/in , /by /Accuweatherby Brian Thompson

Following a pretty dry 2017-18 season, the storms came back with a frenzy this season across the Southwest, helping to propel many places to above-average precipitation. It was a fast transition in California in November from the destructive Camp and Woolsey fires in the first half of the month to storms, flooding and mudslides by the end of the month. December had extended dry periods, and most places ended up with below-average precipitation for the month. As a stormier pattern led to frequent storms and atmospheric river events as 2019 started, the heavy precipitation events caused flooding, mudslides and heavy snow.

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E.P.A. Proposes Weaker Standards On Chemicals Contaminating Drinking Water

/in , , /by /The New York Timesby Eric Lipton and Julie Turkewitz

After pressure from the Defense Department, the Environmental Protection Agency significantly weakened a proposed standard for cleaning up groundwater pollution caused by toxic chemicals that contaminate drinking water consumed by millions of Americans and that have been commonly used at military bases. Standards released by the agency on Thursday eliminated entirely a section that would have addressed how it would respond to what it has described as “immediate threats posed by hazardous waste sites.” Those short-term responses, known as removal actions, can include excavating contaminated soil or building a security fence around a toxic area.

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Cal Am Desal Plant Gets Narrow Planning Commission OK

/in , , /by /Monterey Heraldby Jim Johnson

Citing long-running efforts to secure a new Monterey Peninsula water supply and the state-imposed deadline for reducing unauthorized water usage, the county Planning Commission approved California American Water’s desalination plant north of Marina on Wednesday. By a 6-4 vote, the commission backed a use permit for the proposed 6.4 million gallon per day desal plant. The plant is designed to provide about 40 percent of the Peninsula’s planned new water supply to offset the state’s Carmel River pumping cutback order set to take full effect at the end of 2021, as well as reduce pumping from the Seaside basin. The commission’s approval can be appealed to the Board of Supervisors.

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Disturbing Levels Of Carbon Dioxide Likely To Increase Ocean Acidity Fast, Scientists Say

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Peter Fimrite

Unusually high concentrations of carbon dioxide have been blowing out to sea from Bay Area cities and agricultural areas, raising concerns that the previously unknown infusions could increase ocean acidity faster than climate change experts have predicted, Monterey Bay scientists said this week. The greenhouse gases flowing into the sea could add as much as 25 million tons of carbon dioxide into the ocean every year, roughly 1 percent of the total annual amount from all sources that permeates the sea water, according to calculations by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

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How An ‘Unripe Snowpack’ Will Impact Lake Tahoe This Summer

/in , /by /The San Francisco Gate by Amy Graff

For the third year in a row, Lake Tahoe is expected to fill. This is noteworthy for the sixth-largest lake in the United States that flirted with record-low levels amid a five-year drought that ended in 2017. Even more good news for the West’s water supply: Tahoe’s water level is likely to reach its peak late in the season as a robust snow pack slowly melts through summer, feeding the reservoir and the Truckee River continuously for months to come

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Drilling Down To Defend Against Drought in Atlanta

/in , /by /The Engineering New Recordby Jim Parsons

The 2005-2007 drought that parched the Southeast wasn’t the worst Atlanta has endured since its establishment as a railroad hub in the 1830s. But with a burgeoning population dependent on a single water supply source the Chattahoochee River, fed by Lake Lanier that itself had been crippled by prolonged dry conditions, the drought was bad enough to spur action.

 

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