The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last Tuesday proposed the first federal limits on certain PFAS compounds in drinking water, a long-awaited protection the agency said will save thousands of lives and prevent serious illnesses, including cancer. The proposal would set strict limits of 4 parts per trillion, the lowest level that can be reliably measured, for two common types of PFAS compounds called PFOA and PFOS. In addition, EPA wants to regulate the combined amount of four other types of PFAS. The public will have a chance to comment, and the agency can make changes before issuing a final rule, expected by the end of the year.
Scientists have found microplastics in snowpacks across the Sierra Nevada, a jarring discovery that may help California regulators better understand how the polluting particles are entering the state’s drinking water supply. Taking advantage of this winter’s heavy snowfall, scientists at the Desert Research Institute in Reno are taking snow samples from across the mountain range to better understand how microplastics get into snowflakes and, ultimately, California’s water supply. Their work is helping inform a statewide microplastics monitoring effort, the first of its kind worldwide, and adds to a growing body of research into microplastics found outside of ocean waters.
In the largest land conservation act of his presidency to date, President Joe Biden on Tuesday established the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in the Mojave Desert along California’s border with Nevada, protecting an area sacred to Native American tribes that is also home to big horn sheep, Joshua tree forests, desert tortoises, and ancient petroglyphs. The 506,000-acre monument is located on federally-owned property mostly overseen by the Bureau of Land Management in Clark County, Nevada. Various recreational and other current uses would not be affected by the monument designation, but new commercial or industrial development within the monument boundaries, including mining operations, solar farms, wind farms, or oil and gas drilling, will be prohibited.
A Carson company that sterilizes medical devices has received 18 citations and been assessed civil penalties totaling $838,800 for failing to protect employees from overexposure to ethylene oxide, state officials announced on Tuesday. A half-dozen of the citations issued to Parter Sterilization Services are for willful and intentional violations, according to the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health. Other medical device sterilization companies in Los Angeles County also have faced enforcement from the South Coast Air Quality Management District for emissions of ethylene oxide above mandated thresholds.
In a legal victory for California farmers last Friday, the Third District Court of Appeal rejected a challenge by environmental groups to adoption by the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) of general waste discharge requirements for growers within the Eastern San Joaquin Watershed. Joining the SWRCB in opposing the challenge were the California Farm Bureau and others involved with the Central Valley’s Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program.
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