Environmental and Policy Focus
Courthouse News Service - Aug 18
A widely publicized new rule clarifying the definition of ’waters of the United States’ under the Clean Water Act produced dueling lawsuits challenging the validity of the rule. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the American Exploration & Mining Association (AEMA) both filed lawsuits against EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on August 14 in a federal court in Washington D.C. The AEMA claims the rule goes too far, whereas NRDC alleges that it does not go far enough.
Los Angeles Times - Aug 18
The task of removing lead-contaminated soil from thousands of homes near a closed Vernon battery recycling plant would be the largest cleanup of its kind in California and rank among the biggest conducted nationwide, say environmental officials and experts in toxic remediation. The California Department of Toxic Substances Control announced last week that soil testing shows decades of air pollution from the Exide Technologies facility deposited toxic dust across a wider area of southeast L.A. County than previously estimated, possibly impacting as many as 10,000 homes. Community groups that rallied for the plant’s closure are now urging state officials to quickly dedicate additional funds to expand soil testing and clean more homes. Over the last year, contaminated soil has been removed and replaced at 146 of the homes closest to the facility in Maywood and Boyle Heights, with Exide footing the bill.
The Guardian - Aug 14
Regulators in California’s north coast region have passed the country’s first rules governing the water-related impact of marijuana cultivation. The new regulations will force pot growers to be responsible for any contamination of water or land degradation. The new rules will require pot growers with more than 2,000 square feet of land used for marijuana cultivation to register with the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, or with a third-party non-governmental agency or organization that has been approved by that agency.
Reuters - Aug 18
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed new standards to cut greenhouse gas emissions and smog-forming pollutants from oil and gas facilities, as part of the Obama Administration's broader strategy to reduce methane emissions in the energy sector over 10 years. The proposal is an expansion of standards issued in 2012 and is expected to reduce the equivalent of 7.7 million to 9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2025 at new and modified facilities, according to the EPA. The release of the proposed standards came about two weeks after the EPA unveiled a sweeping rule that aims to cut national carbon emissions from the electric power generating sector to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Huffington Post - Aug 18
A new bill proposed in the California Assembly would require all produce irrigated with hydraulic fracturing wastewater to come with warning labels. The bill, which Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D) introduced on Monday, would require such produce to be accompanied with a warning that reads: "Produced using recycled or treated oil-field wastewater." Government officials, environmentalists, and the petroleum industry remain intensely divided on the safety of hydraulic fracturing. Debates over hydraulic fracturing largely revolve around whether the practice contaminates nearby groundwater, but an increase in the practice by farmers of irrigating their crops with treated, previously injected water purchased from oil companies has aroused new concern.
OC Register - Aug 18
State contractors have readied plans to acquire as many as 300 farms in the California delta by eminent domain to make room for a pair of massive, still-unapproved water tunnels proposed by Governor Brown, according to documents obtained by opponents of the tunnels. Farmers whose parcels were listed and mapped in the 160-page property-acquisition plan expressed dismay at the advanced planning for the project, which would build 30-mile-long tunnels in the delta formed by the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. Officials involved in the project defended such advance planning of the tunnels. “Planning for right-of-way needs, that is the key part of your normal planning process,” said Roger Patterson, assistant general manager for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, one of the water agencies that would receive water supplies through the twin tunnels.
