The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Monday finalized tougher methane reporting standards that could increase the number of oil and gas companies that must pay fees for excess methane emissions. The reporting rule is part of a broader EPA plan—directed by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022—to combat methane emissions. In December, the agency issued a final rule for stricter methane control from oil and gas operations by minimizing the routine flaring of natural gas and the size and frequency of natural gas leaks.
A federal judge on Monday ruled that a California dam harms endangered salmon when it conducts flood control operations. Coyote Valley Dam, operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, protects the city of Ukiah from flooding from Lake Mendocino. In 2022, a fisheries biologist sued the Corps claiming the dam’s flood control operations kick up sediment in the water, increasing turbidity and harming endangered Central California coast steelhead, coho, and Chinook salmon. U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley wrote in her 18-page opinion that it was beyond dispute that the dam’s operations harm the fish. The Court has not yet issued a remedy, however, holding a requested injunction in abeyance to allow the Corps to produce a new biological opinion and obtain an incidental take permit in support of continued dam operations.
According to a study released on Monday, deep sea fish off the Palos Verdes Peninsula and beyond are contaminated with the insecticide DDT and related chemicals. The findings reported in the study, conducted by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and San Diego State University and funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), suggest a potential source of DDT to the food web from deep ocean sediments. DDT has been banned for many years, but the now-defunct Montrose Chemical Corporation was dumping DDT-contaminated waste into the Pacific Ocean legally for decades.
After massive downpours flooded California’s rivers and packed mountains with snow, the state reported on Monday the first increase in groundwater supplies in four years. According to the California Department of Water Resources, the state saw 4.1 million acre-feet of managed groundwater recharge in the water year ending in September, and an 8.7 million acre-feet increase in groundwater storage. California water officials noted that some areas where land had been sinking saw a rebound as users pumped less groundwater since more surface water was available following the rains, and some farmers have seen a recovery in their wells. But water officials still said it will take five rainy years like last year to boost groundwater storage to levels needed after years of overpumping.
After yearslong disputes with the city of San Diego over crumbling stormwater infrastructure in their neighborhoods, hundreds of people whose homes and businesses were damaged by flash floods in January are now suing the city. The $100 million mass tort lawsuit filed on Monday in San Diego County Superior Court, which has nearly 300 plaintiffs, contends that city leaders have known for years that Chollas Creek and stormwater infrastructure around it are in urgent need of attention but the city failed to take necessary action to avoid flooding. A city report from earlier this year found that stormwater needs had grown to more than $2.2 billion over the next five years — a figure higher than the city’s entire proposed annual budget.
Valley Transportation Authority officials expect an infrastructure project to extend Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) through Downtown San José and into Santa Clara using a boring machine to start digging around 2026. Between tunneling and other excavation work, officials said the project will remove roughly 3.5 million cubic yards of dirt from the ground. Environmentalists working to restore historic marshlands in the San Francisco Bay intend to take a portion of that dirt and place it into former salt production ponds in the South Bay. Experts said the material will help accelerate the conversion of those ponds back into tidal marshes.
The “world’s largest” plant designed to draw planet-heating pollution out of the atmosphere like a giant vacuum began operating in Iceland on Wednesday. “Mammoth” is the second commercial direct air capture (DAC) plant opened by Swiss company Climeworks in that country. DAC technology is designed to suck in air and strip out the carbon using chemicals. The carbon can then be injected deep beneath the ground, reused, or transformed into solid products. Climeworks’ future plans include potential DAC plants in Kenya and the United States.
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