Environmental group sues City of L.A. over port's stormwater treatment system

CBS News – July 23

An environmental advocacy organization on July 23 filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles over the Port of L.A.'s stormwater treatment system. At issue is a 53-acre portion of the port on Terminal Island where stormwater is collected and directed to a wastewater treatment facility. The lawsuit claims that the facility has violated Clean Water Act requirements over 2,000 times since 2019, leading to ocean water pollution. In a statement responding to the lawsuit, the Port says it is working to address the issue.

News

Southern California gets $500 million from the EPA to fight pollution

Los Angeles Times – July 22

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded the South Coast Air Quality Management District nearly $500 million in federal funding to electrify the region’s bustling goods movement systems, the largest grant the federal agency has ever awarded to combat air pollution. By transitioning away from diesel-powered engines, the incentives will reduce carbon emissions by more than 12 million metric tons and avoid burning more than 1 billion gallons of fuel from 2025 to 2050, according to estimates.

San Francisco tells Supreme Court it's not responsible for ocean water quality

San Francisco Chronicle – July 23

In a case that could limit the authority of federal and state agencies to regulate water pollution, San Francisco argued to the U.S. Supreme Court in a July 19 filing that it is responsible only for the pollutants its sewage-treatment plants discharge into the ocean, and not for the quality of the receiving waters themselves. The court agreed in May to hear San Francisco's appeal of a ruling that said the city was failing to protect swimmers and bathers from discharges of sewage into the Pacific Ocean. The Supreme Court ruling, due by June 2025, will determine whether local governments can be penalized for pollution near their shores, or whether, as the city contends, the law requires them only to limit contaminants to levels set in advance, like specific discharges per million parts of water.

Desalination plant proposed for San Francisco Bay

The Mercury News – July 24

Saying it needs to evaluate all options for new sources of drinking water, Silicon Valley's largest water district is studying a plan to build the first seawater desalination plant along the shores of San Francisco Bay. The Santa Clara Valley Water District has approved spending $1.7 million to fund an engineering feasibility study over the next 12 months for a project near the bay's shoreline in Palo Alto, Mountain View, or San Jose. The salty brine left over would be blended with treated wastewater from one of the South Bay's sewage treatment plants to reduce its salinity and be released back into the bay.

States ask Supreme Court to pause new EPA rules limiting planet-warming pollutants

CNN – July 23

Over 20 Republican state attorneys general asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to temporarily block EPA from enforcing new rules that aim to curb emissions from power plants while their legal challenge to the rules plays out in federal courts. EPA's new rules would compel existing coal and new natural gas power plants to either cut or capture 90% of their climate pollution by 2032. The filing by the attorneys general comes days after a federal appeals court in Washington, DC rejected a similar emergency request from the officials and industry groups.

EPA takes next step toward banning chemical spilled in East Palestine, Ohio crash

The Hill – July 24

The U.S. EPA on Wednesday proposed designating one of the toxic substances spilled by a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as a high-priority chemical under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the next step toward a full ban. EPA announced it will explore the "high priority" designation for vinyl chloride and four other chemicals, all hazardous substances used in the production of plastics. The other substances include acetaldehyde, acrylonitrile, benzenamine, and 4,4'-methylene bis(2-chloroaniline) (MBOCA). If the designations are finalized, EPA will then conduct a risk evaluation and may eventually ban or impose restrictions on the manufacturing, process, and use of these chemicals.