Environmental and Policy Focus
Sacramento Bee - Feb 2 California’s drought regulators agreed Tuesday to extend water conservation mandates through the end of October 2016. The decision came in spite of increasing evidence that El Niño is delivering better-than-average precipitation, including an encouraging measurement of the Sierra Nevada snowpack recorded just hours earlier. The new regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) mean urban Californians will have to reduce their water usage between March and October by about 23.4 percent on average compared with the baseline year of 2013. That represents a slight easing of the existing mandates expiring this month, which required a 25 percent savings as compared to 2013. The new rules make allowances for regional climate differences and give credits to communities that have invested in “drought-resilient” new water supplies. The State Board voted to extend the regulation after hearing hours of dispute and concern from stakeholders on all sides of the issue.
The Guardian - Jan 29 The federal government has agreed to suspend permit approvals for hydraulic fracturing in oil wells situated in federal waters off the California coast until it completes studies aimed at determining whether the practice is safe for the environment, according to settlements filed Friday in lawsuits brought by the Environmental Defense Council (EDC) and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). Separate agreements reached with the EDC and CBD require the Department of the Interior to review whether well stimulation techniques such as acidization or hydraulic fracturing in offshore oil wells threatens water quality and marine life. The agreements, filed in federal district court in Los Angeles, apply to operations off Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. Federal agencies will have to complete the review by the end of May and determine if a more in-depth analysis is necessary. The American Petroleum Institute, which intervened in the cases on the side of the Interior Department, opposed the settlement and issued a statement saying it disagreed that additional environmental review was needed or that a permit moratorium was justified.
OPB - Feb 2 Oregon and California have struck a deal with PacifiCorp and federal regulators on a new plan for removing four aging dams on the Klamath River without congressional approval. Over the last four years, Congress has failed to pass legislation codifying the results of nearly 10 years of negotiations over how to balance the water needs of utilities, farmers, ranchers, and Native American tribes in the Klamath Basin. Under the new agreement announced Tuesday, four key parties to the existing Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement have agreed to pursue dam removal through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) administrative process, avoiding the need for a congressional vote. Those four parties will now work with other parties to the ongoing negotiations to sign an amended settlement agreement, which would then be submitted to FERC. If approved, PacifiCorp would transfer ownership of four Klamath River dams – three in California and one in Oregon – to a non-federal entity that would take responsibility for decommissioning and removing them.
KPCC - Feb 5 On Tuesday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris filed a new lawsuit against Southern California Gas Company in connection with the natural gas leak in Porter Ranch. In the new lawsuit, the Attorney General alleges that the company violated state health and safety laws related to the leak, which has been ongoing since October, and that the leak has resulted in the uncontrolled release of more than 80,000 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere, damaging California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Her lawsuit follows already pending actions by the City and County of Los Angeles and the state Air Resources Board against the gas company. SoCal Gas has stated that it expects to plug the well by the end of February and to shut down the well permanently in order to comply with state regulatory orders.
Fresno Bee - Feb 5 Exxon Mobil Corp. won approval Monday for its plan to use trucks to move more than 17 million gallons of oil stranded in storage tanks after an oil pipeline break last May that released thousands of gallons of oil into the area around Refugio State Beach and created an ocean slick that spread for miles along the coast. The ruptured pipeline, owned by Texas-based Plains All American Pipeline, created the largest coastal oil spill in California in 25 years. The approval came despite concerns from an environmental group that highway safety could be jeopardized. The Santa Barbara County Planning and Development Department endorsed the proposal, which lets the company run up to 30 truck trips a day for as long as six months to move the marooned crude to pumping stations. The County says moving the oil from the tanks west of Santa Barbara would decrease the potential risks posed by long-term storage, given that the pipeline is expected to be inoperable for a prolonged period.
Los Angeles Times - Feb 2 A recent audit of emission reduction measures at the TraPac terminal near Wilmington, operated at the Port of Los Angeles, revealed that the terminal was in compliance with all but three of the 52 measures adopted by the city several years ago. One of the measures with which the terminal had failed to comply was a mandate that massive cargo ships reduce particulate matter emissions by shutting down their diesel engines and plugging into shore-based electricity while docked. Port officials acknowledged last fall that they had failed for years to enforce similar mandates at the China Shipping North America terminal near San Pedro. Between them, TraPac and China Shipping handle about one-third of the ocean cargo containers moving through the Port. Despite emissions reductions in recent years, the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex remains the largest single air pollution source in Southern California, with diesel-fueled cargo ships and trucks among the top contributors.
