Focus
Extreme storm could overwhelm Southern California dam and flood thousands
Los Angeles Times – November 6
Federal engineers have found that the Mojave River Dam, protecting the high desert communities of Victorville, Hesperia, Apple Valley, and Barstow, falls short of national safety standards and could erode and collapse in an extreme flood. Officials for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) said Tuesday that they had raised the risk factor for the dam from “low” to “high urgency action” because of “performance concerns” discovered at the 48-year-old structure. With this finding the Mojave River Dam joins a growing inventory of California dams showing signs of severe stress. The Corps is considering strategies to shore up the dam and counter the impacts of extreme weather shifts due to climate change, said Gary Lee, chief safety engineer for the Corps’ Los Angeles District.
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News
Supreme Court hears arguments in pivotal Clean Water Act case
NBC News – November 6
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in an important case involving the question whether the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) requirement for permits authorizing discharges to navigable waters applies to discharges to groundwater that ultimately reaches navigable waters. The case arises from the practice of a municipal wastewater treatment plant in Maui of injecting treated wastewater deep underground. In 2012, Hawaii Wildlife Fund and other plaintiff environmental groups sued the plant operator, Maui County, which had not procured a CWA permit for the injections, arguing that the County violated the CWA permit requirement because the groundwater ultimately made its way into the Pacific Ocean, inarguably a navigable water. Maui County responded that the Act does not apply because the wastewater was discharged only to groundwater, which is not navigable. The plaintiffs prevailed in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the County took the case to the Supreme Court. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had sided with the environmental groups while the case was working its way through the court system, but in the Supreme Court, EPA switched sides and supported the County, and its new position was presented in the Supreme Court by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Court is expected to rule sometime in June.
Army Corps of Engineers defeats lawsuit over San Francisco Bay dredging operation
Courthouse News Service – November 4
The Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) cannot compel the federal government to dredge two vital San Francisco Bay channels more frequently, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled Monday, despite arguments that more dredging may be needed to reduce the risk of a container ship accident or oil spill. BCDC sued the Corps in September 2016, arguing the Corps violated federal law when it decided to dredge the Pinole Shoal and Outer Richmond Harbor channels every other year instead of annually. The Corps, which has a duty to maintain federal navigation channels, says it took that action to reduce the costs of complying with stricter water quality standards imposed by the state.
Federal oil lease auctions in California may resume after BLM finds minimal risks from hydraulic fracturing
The Bakersfield Californian – November 5
In an environmental review released late last week, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued new findings that hydraulic fracturing does not pose undue environmental harm to 1.2 million acres in California. If, as expected, BLM moves forward later this fall with a formal decision that relies on the new findings, oil companies could resume bidding for the right to produce petroleum on federal land in areas such as western Kern County. ForestWatch, which was a plaintiff in the 2016 lawsuit that led to the supplemental review, said it may challenge the BLM’s latest findings in court.
Environmental groups to sue over lack of protections for Humboldt marten
Eureka Times-Standard – November 6
Arcata’s Environmental Protection Information Center and the Center for Biological Diversity announced their intention to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to list the Humboldt marten—a small mammal that lives in Northern California and southern Oregon—under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Humboldt marten was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1996. It is estimated that there are fewer than 400 of the species left in the wild. In 2018, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced a proposed listing of the Humboldt marten under the Endangered Species Act, but the listing was not accomplished, prompting this potential action to compel the listing.
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