Lawsuits accusing major chemical companies of polluting U.S. drinking water with toxic PFAS chemicals led to over $11 billion in settlements in 2023, with experts predicting that new federal regulations and a growing awareness of the breadth of PFAS contamination in the U.S. will spur more litigation and settlements in the year ahead.
For the first time in four centuries, it’s good to be a beaver. Long persecuted for their pelts and reviled as pests, the dam-building rodents are today hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the face of drought, filter out pollutants, furnish habitat for endangered species, and fight wildfires. In California, Castor canadensis is so prized that the state recently committed millions to its restoration.
In late November, an Iranian-backed hacking group attacked Israeli-made digital controls commonly used in the water and wastewater industries in the US, affecting multiple organizations across several states.
America’s striking dietary shift in recent decades, toward far more chicken and cheese, has not only contributed to concerns about American health but has taken a major, undocumented toll on underground water supplies.
Torrential rainfall in Ventura County, a swath of coastal California just north of Los Angeles, triggered evacuations, flooded streets and homes and brought intense rainfall rates — nearly an inch of rain in five minutes at one location, officials said. Portions of streets in Oxnard were under water due to the severe, heavy rains spawned by a low-pressure system that soaked the Golden State.
Forever chemicals have shown up in drinking water across the country. Now they are appearing in homeowners’ soaring utility bills.
The land of the Central Valley works hard. Here in the heart of California, in the most productive farming region in the United States, almost every square inch of land has been razed, planted, and shaped to support large-scale agriculture. The valley produces almonds, walnuts, pistachios, olives, cherries, beans, eggs, milk, beef, melons, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and garlic.
If the California State Water Project’s service area was its own nation, it would rank as the eighth largest economy in the world, according to a report from the California Department of Water Resources and Berkeley Research Group.
A plan to build the largest reservoir in California in decades, Sites Reservoir about 70 miles north of Sacramento, is being challenged as ecologically destructive and not worth the cost in a lawsuit filed by environmental groups Wednesday.
Millions of people rely on water from the Colorado River, but there’s just not enough to quench everyone’s thirst. In other words, there’s a big gap between the amount of water in the river, and the amount that people are using.
