Focus
BLM moves to expand oil and gas drilling in California
San Francisco Chronicle – October 4
The U.S. Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) last Friday opened up 720,000 acres in California between the Bay Area and Fresno to potential drilling. The move gives an immediate go-ahead to 14 drilling leases in San Benito, Monterey, and Fresno counties, mostly projects near existing drilling sites. The action also opens the door for new leases in eight other counties, raising the prospect of oil and gas drilling in the Santa Cruz Mountains, the East Bay hills, and eastern Santa Clara County. New federal land has not been opened up for fossil fuel extraction in the region since at least 2013.
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News
EPA proposes lead pipe rule changes after 20 years
CNN – October 10
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing its first major revision in two decades of federal regulations regulating lead in drinking water. The move comes in the wake of scandals in Flint, Michigan, and other cities that eroded public confidence in tap water safety. The proposed rules would not change the 15 part per billion limit on lead in drinking water. Instead, it would change the requirements that local water systems must meet for testing, require water systems to begin developing plans when they are at risk of reaching that threshold, and notify customers within 24 hours of noncompliant test results.
Lawsuit challenges California food labels required under Proposition 65
The Sacramento Bee – October 7
The California Chamber of Commerce has filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the state from requiring Proposition 65 warnings on food products, including popular products like peanut butter and potato chips, that contain the chemical acrylamide. According to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, exposure to acrylamide, which forms when certain plant-based foods are cooked at high temperatures, may increase the risk of cancer. Under Proposition 65, products that contain cancer-causing chemicals must contain notices of health risks. Acrylamide has been on the list of known carcinogenic chemicals since 1990, but was not a focus for enforcement in food products until recently.
California bans pesticide chlorpyrifos
Associated Press – October 9
A widely used agricultural pesticide that California environmental officials have said has been linked to brain damage in children will be banned after next year under an agreement reached with the manufacturer, state officials announced this Wednesday. Under the deal, all California sales of chlorpyrifos will end on February 6, 2020, and agricultural growers will have until the end of 2020 to exhaust their supplies. The pesticide is used on numerous crops including alfalfa, almonds, citrus, cotton, grapes, and walnuts. According to California Secretary for Environmental Protection Jared Blumenfeld, the state is taking this action because the federal government has allowed chlorpyrifos to remain on the market.
Plaintiffs ask judge to enforce terms of 2017 settlement of San Onofre lawsuit
The San Diego Union-Tribune – October 9
Environmental activists who settled a lawsuit against the California Coastal Commission and Southern California Edison (SCE) after the utility agreed to make “commercially reasonable” efforts to relocate millions of pounds of nuclear waste are now asking a judge to enforce the deal. The Citizens Oversight community group and an individual plaintiff filed a motion in San Diego Superior Court this week asking Judge Timothy Taylor to order SCE to halt the transfer of spent fuel from wet to dry storage at the site of the failed San Onofre nuclear plant north of Oceanside. SCE said it has consistently complied with the agreement and is making the progress required under the settlement terms.
EPA reaches settlements to study indoor air and groundwater contamination in Sunnyvale
NBC Bay Area – October 7
EPA officials announced Monday that NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips Semiconductor), Advanced Micro Devices, and Northrop Grumman Systems have reached a settlement to spend about $4 million to investigate and clean up trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination in indoor air and groundwater underlying and around the Moffett Field area in Sunnyvale. TCE was used in Silicon Valley and elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s as a solvent for etching silicon chips.
Ninth Circuit orders National Marine Fisheries Service to reexamine Army Corps’ harm to native fish
Courthouse News Service – October 3
The National Marine Fisheries Service owes an explanation for why it decided that two dams on the Yuba River do not adversely affect threatened Chinook salmon, steelhead, and green sturgeon, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled last Thursday. The case marks the latest turn in a long-running dispute over the Army Corps of Engineers’ maintenance of the aging Daguerre Point and Englebright dams, both built before the enactment of the federal Endangered Species Act.
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