Posts

California Commission Votes To Eliminate Sativa Water District Over Brown Water Issues

/in , /by /ABC7 (Los Angeles)by Carlos Granda

Compton and Willowbrook residents wanted to make sure their message was heard loud and clear during a hearing. “We should have clean water here,” one resident said. Inside where a meeting was being held, residents told their stories. For months they have complained of brown, murky and smelly water coming out of their taps. “It’s very heartbreaking to see that we get dirty water. But it’s more heartbreaking to get no response from Sativa,” resident Martha Barajas said. There are allegations the district has been mismanaged and it operated without enough oversight.

Full Story

Agency That Delivered Brown, Smelly Water To Customers Should Be Dissolved, Board Rules

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Angel Jennings and Ruben Vives

Residents of working-class neighborhoods in Compton and Willowbrook have long fought an uphill battle against their local water district, which over the years has been accused of mismanagement, nepotism, bad service and, most recently, sending brown, smelly water through their taps. Still, Sativa Los Angeles County Water District managed to stay in business. But on Wednesday, residents won a decisive victory when county authorities voted unanimously to dissolve the troubled agency. The action by L.A. County’s Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, kicks off a lengthy and rare process to get rid of a water district.

Full Story

Man-Made Fabrics Have State Lawmakers Vying For Warning Tags

/in , /by /Bloomberg Business (New York City, N.Y.)by Lindsey Rupp

Your polyester shirt may soon come with a warning label. Lawmakers in California and New York have proposed state bills this year to raise awareness of a problem few consumers may have heard of — synthetic fabrics shedding microfibers into the water system. Reminiscent of the plastic microbeads that were banned from cosmetics, garments made with polymer-based cloth can release as many as 1,900 microfibers per wash that eventually end up in waterways, one study shows. But research is still at the early stages, and few are in agreement about what the best response is.

Full Story

Another Danger From Overpumping Groundwater: Arsenic

/in , /by /KQED (San Francisco)by Amel Ahmed

Sinking land caused by intensive groundwater pumping in the San Joaquin Valley is releasing trapped arsenic — a known carcinogen — into aquifers that supply irrigation and drinking water for a million people, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Arsenic, a naturally occurring chemical in the Earth’s crust, is undetectable by the human senses and has been linked to a host of diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Researchers at Stanford University say residents should be concerned about arsenic levels in their water supply.

Full Story

Head Of Federal Water Agency Overseeing Efforts To Combat Tijuana Sewage Steps Down

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Joshua Emerson Smith

The top United States official at the international agency charged with overseeing efforts to stem ongoing water pollution in the Tijuana River Valley stepped down on Friday. The departure of Edward Drusina, former commissioner of the U.S. section of the International Boundary and Water Commission, or IBWC, comes as the agency continues to face legal attacks from South Bay cities that routinely shutter beaches due to pollution from south of the border.

Full Story

San Diego Fighting Alone For $400,000 To Cover Water Testing For Lead At Schools

/in , /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby David Garrick

San Diego is the only city in California seeking state reimbursement for testing the toxic lead levels in water at local schools, which has cost the city’s water agency more than $400,000. The city has done tests at 256 schools since early 2017, but must test another 45 schools over the next six weeks. State legislation requires water agencies to test every public school, regardless of whether the agency gets a request, by July 1. Significantly more schools in San Diego County have been tested than in any other county in California since the state requirement began.

Full Story

‘Raw Water’: Californians Paying Big Bucks For Oregon Tap Water

/in , /by /KOIN 6 (Portland, Ore.)by Gabrielle Karol

Unpurified, untreated water is available for sale – for $16 a jug. The so-called “raw water” trend, as initially reported in The New York Times, made it even easier to call Californians crazy. The newspaper reported that the untreated spring water, bottled in glass, was so popular at San Francisco’s Rainbow Grocery that it was often out of stock. The company behind the product – Live Spring Water – says on its website that its “spring water is collected from Opal Spring in Central Oregon.” The website promises that the unfiltered water “goes directly into triple washed and rinsed 2.5 gallon lead free glass jugs.”

Full Story

Pressure Mounts To Solve California’s Toxic Farmland Drainage Problem

/in , /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Matt Weiser

Many Americans know the name Kesterson as the California site where thousands of birds and fish were discovered with gruesome deformities in 1983, a result of exposure to selenium-poisoned farm runoff. Thirty-five years later, it is one of the oldest unresolved water problems in the state. Selenium, a naturally occurring element, is essential to people and animals alike in small doses. But selenium continues pouring off many San Joaquin Valley farms in larger quantities, which can be toxic.

Full Story

Three-Eyed Fish And Two-Headed Turtles? The Stench Of This River Spanning U.S.-Mexico Border Is Legendary

/in , /by /Los Angeles Timesby Brittny Majia

The river is so foul that rumors swirl about two-headed turtles and three-eyed fish. If you fall in, locals joke, you might sprout a third arm. So go the stories about the New River, whose putrid green water runs like a primordial stew from Mexico’s sprawling city of Mexicali through California’s Imperial Valley. The river, with skull-and-crossbone signs warning about the danger it poses, reminds Calexico resident Carlos Fernandez of a scene in “The Simpsons Movie” where Homer Simpson disposes of pig feces by dumping them into a lake.

Full Story