Kimberly Thorner was seated on the San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors on January 6, 2021, representing the Olivenhain Municipal Water District. Director Thorner serves on the Administrative and Finance, Audit and Engineering and Operations committees.
California water suppliers could face state limits on the concentration of two so-called “forever chemicals” before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets national standards. Maximum contaminant levels for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) are on track to be in place in California in 2023, Darrin Polhemus, deputy director for drinking water programs at the State Water Resources Control Board, said during a board meeting Tuesday about agency priorities for the year.
The mountaintops rumble to life unnaturally each year as snow clouds darken the sky across the West.
Open flames burst from the throats of metal chimneys, mounted on squat towers nestled among the peaks. With a low hiss, puffs of particles belch from their mouths into the air, where the wind catches them and whisks them away.
San Diego is seeking input from the public on a new water plan introduced by Mayor Todd Gloria. Under the 2020 Urban Water Management Plan, the city would develop more than half of the city’s water locally by 2045.
Of concern is potentially migrating dioxins from pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative that was used at the mill site before being banned in the mid-1980s. In response, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control has hired an engineering firm to do a new round of testing at the site.
Pacific Gas and Electric will pay to remove soil possibly tainted by century-old gas plants and investigate groundwater contamination in a San Francisco shoreline area under the terms of a deal announced Monday.
The agreement represents the third and final settlement reached in a lawsuit filed in 2014 over pollution from manufactured gas plants operated by PG&E in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
In earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic, before diagnostic testing was widely available, it was difficult for public health officials to keep track of the infection’s spread or predict where outbreaks were likely to occur. Attempts to get ahead of the coronavirus that causes the disease are still complicated by the fact that people can be infected and spread the virus even without experiencing symptoms themselves.
We’re facing another very dry year, which follows one of the driest on record for Northern California and one of the hottest on record statewide.
The 2012-16 drought caused unprecedented stress to California’s ecosystems and pushed many native species to the brink of extinction, disrupting water management throughout the state. Are we ready to manage our freshwater ecosystems through another drought?
Drought has forced several states to rethink how they use the Colorado River, but Utah is trying to figure out how to get more water out of it. Utah’s plan to build a pipeline from Lake Powell to the St. George area has raised eyebrows from the six other Colorado River Basin states. In September, those states wrote a letter reminding Utah of their history of collaboration. It concluded by saying that the pipeline could result in litigation. Utah’s response was to create a new water board.
As Colorado digs out from the recent blizzard, each heavy shovel full of snow proves the storm brought plenty of moisture. But is it enough to free the state from its drought conditions?
Russ Schumacher, the Colorado state climatologist, said the answer largely depends on location. The brunt of the storm hit east of the Continental Divide, dumping around two feet of snow in the Foothills and Eastern Plains. Meanwhile, preliminary snowfall reports show only a few inches accumulated on the Western Slope.
