Relying on the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to block recently adopted executive branch regulations, Congress on Wednesday approved a resolution to overturn the Biden administration’s planned protections for the nation’s waterways. The vote is the latest development in a long-running dispute over the definition of “waters of the United States” or “WOTUS,” which establishes the breadth of the Clean Water Act’s protections. Environmentalists and the Biden administration have pushed to broaden the definition and protect more waterways from pollution, while critics have argued that the Biden administration’s definition is too broad, interferes with private property rights, and damages the economy. Four Democratic senators joined Republican senators to pass the resolution. The White House has indicated that President Joe Biden is likely to veto it.
Representatives of the waste industry asked Congress on Monday to intervene in an update to the Superfund law by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that they say could have damaging effects on their ability to safely manage PFAS-containing materials, and could cost them millions. At issue is EPA’s proposed rule to designate two PFAS compounds as “hazardous substances” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), thereby triggering broad cleanup liability. During the briefing, landfill operators and others — who consider themselves “passive receivers” of PFAS-containing material — say they support efforts to address PFAS contamination, but want to make sure that CERCLA liability is focused on industries that are responsible for creating the pollution.
Camp Pendleton leaders on Monday sent a public notice to thousands of service members and civilians who live and work on the base’s north end, alerting them that recent testing revealed their drinking water contained a higher-than-desired level of PFAS, a class of potentially carcinogenic chemicals that have been found in much of Southern California’s groundwater supply. The state only set requirements to test for the chemicals in the last few years and has lowered the threshold for when their detection needs to be reported to the public by water agencies. Base officials believe their water supply was likely impacted by groundwater that seeped in from inland Orange County.
California’s Third District Court of Appeal last Thursday upheld the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s (OEHHA) standards for limiting the presence of the chemical perchlorate in the state’s drinking water. In the appeal brought by the California Manufacturers and Technology Association (CMTA), Judge Andrea Hoch ruled that the agency established its goal “at the level at which no known or anticipated adverse effects on health occur, with an adequate margin of safety.” The ruling confirms OEHHA’s guidelines for determining acceptable levels of perchlorate in water levels far more restrictive than those proposed by the CMTA.
On March 20, OC Coastkeeper filed a lawsuit in federal district court against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over Newport Beach’s confined aquatic disposal (CAD) site. In the action, OC Coastkeeper contends that the project is in violation of the Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Administrative Procedure Act. The CAD site, to be placed in Newport Harbor, is intended to contain dredged material, including contaminated sediments, that has been deemed unsafe for ocean disposal.
Governor Gavin Newsom ended some of the state's water restrictions last Friday after a wet winter has replenished the state's reservoirs and eased fears of a shortage after three years of severe drought. Newsom was careful not to declare the drought to be over, noting water shortages remain in the Klamath River basin along the California-Oregon line and in densely populated Southern California, which relies heavily on the struggling Colorado River system to supply millions of people.
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