Environmental and Policy Focus
Los Angeles Times - Oct 27
Los Angeles County supervisors, frustrated by what they say is a lack of urgency by state officials to clean lead contamination from homes near a shuttered Vernon battery recycler, agreed to spend $2 million to pick up the pace. The measure adopted Tuesday will not directly fund the removal of the toxic lead dust from homes and yards fouled by decades of air pollution from the Exide Technologies plant. Instead, by hiring contractors and consultants, the county will assist the state by performing soil testing at 1,000 homes over the next two months and by dispatching community outreach workers to neighborhoods around the plant. The county will also draft a timeline and strategy to force state regulators, Exide "and other responsible parties to fully fund and undertake this cleanup,” according the motion approved by the five-member board.
The Hill - Oct 28
Five states, led by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and joined by Arkansas, New Mexico, North Dakota and Oklahoma, have sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its newly-released limits on ozone. The new rule, which must be implemented by the states, lowers the national ambient air quality standards for ozone limits from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion. In a statement, Brnovich questioned whether the EPA conducted an appropriate scientific review, and said the new standard would be nearly impossible for Arizona to attain. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that the standards are achievable, and that outside California, which has severe smog issues, only fourteen counties will be out of attainment by 2025.
KPBS - Oct 27
The San Diego County Registrar of Voters confirmed Tuesday that the group Citizens for North County has collected enough signatures to challenge a planned development on strawberry fields near the Agua Hedionda Lagoon in Carlsbad. The group collected more than 6,523 signatures, which represents 10 percent of Carlsbad’s registered voters. In August, the project had come before the City Council as a citizens' initiative, sponsored by developer Caruso Affiliated and signed by 15 percent of Carlsbad's registered voters. At that time, the council unanimously approved the initiative, called the "85/15 Plan," which would preserve 85 percent of the 200-acre lagoon-front property as open space and develop the remaining 15 percent as an upscale outdoor shopping and entertainment center. The successful referendum means the City Council must now decide whether to repeal its approval of the project, or place it on the ballot for a public vote.
Modesto Bee - Oct 28
Water in the Los Angeles aqueduct was flowing from the Owens Valley toward the city again on Wednesday, for the first time in six months, after workers removed a temporary earthen and concrete dam that had diverted runoff to the parched valley. With little mountain runoff due to an historic drought, water managers made the unprecedented decision to try to meet legal obligations to keep the Owens River flowing, control dust from a dry lake bed and irrigate pastures where cattle graze, instead of sending water to the city. The 338-mile aqueduct system typically provides about a third of the city's water, but will only account for about three percent of this year's water because of the drought, said the aqueduct's manager. The flow is being restored now because the irrigation season is over and legal obligations in the Owens Valley have expired for the year.
Fresno Bee - Oct 28
Researchers on Tuesday estimated that groundwater levels could rise 12 percent to 20 percent through intentional flooding of selected farmland between Fresno and Merced counties. The report from the California Water Foundation said the method, using excess river flows during wet winters, also could be used in other counties with concerns about overpumping. It came out a day after the Almond Board of California, based in Modesto, announced a similar research project in San Joaquin Valley nut orchards. Both efforts would direct river water to farms with well-draining soil and crops that would not be harmed by a winter soaking. The report from the Sacramento-based foundation said the recharge would boost not just the groundwater in the study area, but aquifers and rivers that connect with it via seepage.
SFGate - Oct 27
Attempts by rural Nevada counties, mining companies and others to block new U.S. policies intended to protect the greater sage grouse could backfire and ultimately force the reconsideration of a recent decision to keep the bird off the list of endangered species, federal land managers warn. Justice Department lawyers representing three U.S. agencies say it took an unprecedented effort by officials in 11 western states from California to the Dakotas to persuade the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) last month to reverse its 2010 conclusion that protection of the grouse was warranted under the Endangered Species Act. Any injunction blocking implementation of the new policies would "diminish the protections for sage grouse ... undo four years of collaboration and could undermine FWS' finding," U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden wrote. Elko and Eureka counties and others filed the lawsuit on September 23, the day after Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced the listing decision. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association is also suing in federal court in Nevada, and Idaho's governor has signed onto a separate lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
