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.
Scientists and boatmen with the United States Geological Survey are preparing for a busy week on the Colorado River as engineers at Glen Canyon Dam prepare to reduce the water flowing out of Lake Powell substantially.
In order to conduct maintenance on the concrete apron downstream of the dam, engineers will be limiting the water that runs through the dam’s turbines starting Monday and continuing through the rest of the week.
A recent report from Colorado River experts says it’s time for radical new management strategies to safeguard the Southwest’s water supplies. It’s meant to inform discussions on how to renegotiate certain parts of the Law of the River that will expire in 2026. KNAU’s Melissa Sevigny spoke about the report with Jack Schmidt, director of the Center for Colorado River Studies at Utah State University.
Opponents of a proposed desalination facility along the Huntington Beach coastline are aghast that Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken steps to help end a years-long regulatory logjam. Although an environmentalist, the governor clearly recognizes the importance of developing new water sources to meet California’s needs. Privately funded facilities plants that turn saltwater into drinking water aren’t the only solution to California’s water shortages, but they are one solution. For instance, a similar plant in Carlsbad has the capacity to meet 9 percent of San Diego County’s water needs.
California is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots – home to more unique species of plants and animals than any other state in the U.S. This biodiversity makes up the beautiful land and seascapes of the world’s fifth-largest economy and sustains our health, cultures and quality of life.
Yet it is disappearing at alarming rates. Today’s environmental, economic and social challenges – climate change, wildfires, habitat loss and the millions of Californians facing pandemic-related unemployment – threaten our Golden State’s resilience like never before.
The state’s Ocean Protection Council has awarded $1.3 million to preserving and safeguarding estuary habitat at Elkhorn Slough, which boasts the second-largest tidal salt marsh in California. The wetland, once degraded by farming activities such as diking, is at risk of impacts from climate change — particularly rising sea levels.
Reports of Tijuana sewage leaking over the border into the San Diego region stretch back at least to the 1930s. The fundamental issue hasn’t changed all that much over time. Plumbing still isn’t keeping pace with population growth. Water officials in Baja California have frequently pointed out that sewage collection in Tijuana far exceeds that in many parts of Mexico.
San Francisco is challenging the EPA over conditions imposed in a permit that allows the city to send discharge from its combined sewer system into the Pacific Ocean, according to a petition for review in the Ninth Circuit. The city’s filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit comes after the Environmental Protection Agency refused to review three conditions in the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System Permit. The EPA approved the permit in December 2019.
