The Metropolitan Water District board voted to begin environmental planning work on what would be one of the largest advanced purified wastewater treatment plants in the world.
Metropolitan officials said the approval marks a significant milestone for the Regional Recycled Water Program, a partnership between the MWD and the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts to reuse water currently sent to the ocean.
The EPA under a future Biden administration is expected to quickly move to set regulations on “forever chemicals” in water and other areas, but not to restrict the entire group of thousands of the substances, attorneys said in recent interviews.
The Environmental Protection Agency is already expected to set national drinking water limits for two of these chemicals, perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, said Cynthia AM Stroman, a partner in King & Spalding LLP’s Washington, D.C. office.
Many of the San Diego region’s 4,500 water and wastewater workers are military veterans. The San Diego County Water Authority and its 24 member agencies are recognizing those veteran water industry professionals this week in honor of Veterans Day.
One of those water industry employees with a military background is Sam Pacheco, a field service representative with the Helix Water District. Pacheco served 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps, retiring at the rank of Gunnery Sergeant.
The Integrated Regional Water Management agreement between San Diego County, the city of San Diego and the San Diego County Water Authority was scheduled to expire Dec. 31, but the IRWM will be extended for at least another five years.
The county Board of Supervisors voted 5-0, Wednesday, Oct. 28, to approve a new memorandum of understanding with the city and the County Water Authority. That agreement will cover the period from Jan. 1, 2021, to Dec. 31, 2025.
As the largest wildfire in Colorado history spread beyond 200,000 acres, Mark Kempton began to worry it would incinerate so much of the Fort Collins watershed that the city would be unable to guarantee water to its residents.
When the spring rains come next year, ash and debris will pour down the slopes of the Rocky Mountains and clog the city’s water intake on the Cache la Poudre River, said Kempton, interim director of Fort Collins Utilities, which oversees the water supply for Colorado’s fourth-largest city.
2020 has been a tough year for some of the Colorado River basin’s long-planned, most controversial water projects.
Proposals to divert water in New Mexico, Nevada and Utah have run up against significant legal, financial and political roadblocks this year. But while environmental groups have cheered the setbacks, it’s still unclear whether these projects have truly hit dead ends or are simply waiting in the wings.
A project announced Monday by Sempra Energy and the Salk Institute seeks to advance plant-based carbon capture and sequestration research to help address the looming climate crisis. San Diego-based Sempra donated $2 million to the Salk Institute to help fund the five-year project.
It appears that repair work on the Oroville Dam’s damaged spillways has paid off.
A team of experts released their findings Monday, concluding that no urgent repairs are needed right now on the Oroville Dam. The report goes on to say that the largest earthen dam in America is safe to operate. However, the Oroville Dam is not completely in the clear.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is beginning to draft a set of regulations to protect surface water following the Trump administration’s rollback of the Clean Water Act.
The changes that took effect in June significantly narrow the list of waters that receive federal protection from pollution and contaminants, known as “waters of the U.S.” or the acronym “WOTUS.” And that leaves a big regulatory gap in Arizona, which currently has no surface water protection program.
California’s war with Washington over the environment will soon come to an end.
The legal wrangling that sparked 57 environmental lawsuits against the Trump administration — for loosening policies on everything from automobile pollution to pesticide use and salmon conservation — should turn to consensus and cooperation.
