Environmental and Policy Focus
Sacramento Bee - Apr 11 Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) signed a contract this week to purchase five agricultural Delta islands from Delta Wetlands Properties for $175 million. If completed, the purchase will give the agency a vital asset in the ongoing skirmishes over California’s water as the state struggles to emerge from a four-year drought. The Delta is the estuary through which the State Water Project and the federal government’s Central Valley Project pump billions of gallons of Sacramento Valley water each year to the farmlands of the San Joaquin Valley and the urban residents of southern California. Critics, including some Delta landowners and northern California governmental officials, have voiced concerns about the deal on account of MWD’s strong support for California WaterFix, the state’s controversial $15.5 billion plan to re-engineer the Delta’s plumbing system by building a pair of underground tunnels designed to improve water flow to southern California. These critics are also concerned that MWD might use at least one of the islands to store excavation spoils generated and construction equipment used in the WaterFix project. (See next article.)
San Jose Mercury News - Apr 15 Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties and several environmental groups sued Metropolitan Water District (MWD) in San Joaquin County Superior Court this week, challenging MWD’s pending purchase of five Delta islands and tracts along or near the route of the state's $15.5 billion proposed twin water tunnels project. The plaintiffs allege that MWD erred in claiming that its $175 million purchase is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, which would require an analysis of the acquisition's potential effect on the environment. While MWD said the acquisition is intended to restore wildlife habitat and protect the environment in other ways, the plaintiffs contend that the purchase really is designed to help the state build the controversial California WaterFix project.
Reuters - Apr 13 Soil testing at 500 homes surrounding the now-shuttered Exide Technologies battery recycling plant near Los Angeles found all but a handful of dwellings with lead contamination at levels requiring cleanup, public health officials reported on Tuesday. The finding, presented to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, adds to previous sampling by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) that identified more than 200 other homes near the Exide plant with lead-tainted soil in need of removal. The state and county ultimately plan to test soil at some 10,000 properties in communities surrounding the plant, which Georgia-based Exide agreed last March to close permanently to avoid criminal prosecution for illegal storage of hazardous waste. DTSC estimates that up to 2500 homes could eventually require cleanup. Exide, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013, has agreed to pay $50 million toward the cost of the cleanup, one of the biggest such efforts ever undertaken in the state.
ABC News - Apr 12 The Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, DC on Tuesday over long-sought emissions standards for airliners and cargo planes. The groups allege the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has unreasonably delayed for years in enforcing limits under the Clean Air Act on aircraft greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. According to the plaintiffs, aviation accounts for about 5 percent of global carbon emissions, with U.S.-owned airliners emitting about 30 percent of all aircraft emissions worldwide, and without stricter limits aircraft emissions may triple by 2050. Pursuant to a prior federal court ruling requiring it to address aircraft emissions under the Clean Air Act, EPA set 2018 as the earliest possible date for it to issue its final regulations, which the environmental groups claim is not fast enough.
Modesto Bee - Apr 12 Water demand from farms and cities has sapped the San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced rivers, according to an annual report released Tuesday by American Rivers, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental organization. "Dams, levees, and excessive water diversions have hurt river habitat and opportunities for recreation and community access," the report says. In response to the listing, the Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts noted their efforts to enhance the Tuolumne River fish habitat, arguing that factors other than water volume, such as predation by non-native fish and pollution, contribute to the river conditions. American Rivers called on the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) to boost flows to the rivers. The SWRCB already had proposed an increased flow to 35 percent of natural conditions from February through June of each year, something water users say would mean lost food production and jobs. The SWRCB is expected to announce a revised proposal this year for the February-to-June flows on all four rivers. The aim is to improve fish numbers and water quality on those rivers and downstream in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Morningstar - Apr 15 The US Environmental Protection Agency today submitted an updated cost analysis in defense of the first-ever federal regulations requiring power plants to cut mercury emissions and other toxic air pollutants. The agency's move was prompted by a Supreme Court ruling last year that said the agency hadn't taken into account the costs to industry, as it was required to do, before deciding to regulate this source. In its analysis, the EPA listed three figures it said supported the case for regulating mercury emissions from power plants, asserted that utilities' compliance costs would be a small fraction of their overall sales and their capital expenditures, and argued that the costs would not result in undue price increases for their customers.
