Environmental and Policy Focus
Sacramento Bee - Sep 23
Shell Oil Co. has agreed to settle charges that it submitted claims to the State Water Resources Control Board's (SWRCB) Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund for reimbursement of cleanup costs that were also paid by insurance companies or through other sources. Under the settlement, Shell permanently forfeits its claims for reimbursement at 100 sites, and agrees to pay $20 million in penalties. Officials with the SWRCB had challenged Shell’s claims starting in 2007. Then, in 2010, a whistleblower sued Shell in Sacramento Superior Court, charging that the company had been seeking reimbursement for costs that already were covered by other sources, thereby disqualifying them from reimbursement from the Fund. Even with the 100 claims that have been disallowed, Shell still has about 900 claims pending with the state cleanup fund, a SWRCB official said.
The Almanac - Sep 28
Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Barry Goode has ruled against the City of Atherton and other plaintiffs that had tried to stop progress on Caltrain's electrification project by claiming the project's environmental report was flawed. The lawsuit, filed in February 2015, involved claims that the electrification project and the state's high-speed-rail project, which is funding the electrification project, are so closely tied together that any environmental impact report for the electrification project had to consider possible impacts of both projects on the San Francisco Peninsula. Judge Goode held that the high-speed rail and the electrification projects are separate projects.
Los Angeles Times - Sep 28
Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Barry Goode has ruled against the City of Atherton and other plaintiffs that had tried to stop progress on Caltrain's electrification project by claiming the project's environmental report was flawed. The lawsuit, filed in February 2015, involved claims that the electrification project and the state's high-speed-rail project, which is funding the electrification project, are so closely tied together that any environmental impact report for the electrification project had to consider possible impacts of both projects on the San Francisco Peninsula. Judge Goode held that the high-speed rail and the electrification projects are separate projects.
Sacramento Bee - Sep 25
Two years after Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill designed to limit groundwater pumping in California, new wells are going in faster and deeper than ever. Farmers dug about 2,500 wells in the San Joaquin Valley last year alone, the highest number on record. That was five times the annual average for the previous 30 years. Regulation under the new groundwater law won't begin until 2020. One reason for the increase in wells is farmers with older, shallower wells are afraid of losing water to neighbors who are digging deeper wells, so they invest hundreds of thousands of dollars to drill their own new wells.
