Sep 3, 2021 California’s re-emerging drought is placing unprecedented strain on the state’s intricate water system, threatening mass agricultural production and basic drinking water in a way experts say is more severe than in years past. Federal officials on Aug. 16 declared a first-ever water shortage from the Colorado River — which supplies drinking and irrigation water […]
Read More
Emily DennyApr. 28, 2021 California water officials have accused Nestlé of draining more water out of southern California’s Strawberry Creek in the San Bernardino National Forest than permitted. The drafted cease-and-desist order, which was sent to the company on Friday, asked Nestlé to stop draining millions of gallons of water out of the forest every […]
Read More
George Plaven, Capital PressFeb 19, 2021 When it comes to critical water infrastructure in the West, U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet says it is about more than dams, pipes and canals. Water security begins in the forest, along streams and rivers that flow through farms and communities, Bennet, D-Colo., said during the Family Farm Alliance annual […]
Read More
When the COVID-19 outbreak swept across the U.S., toilet paper, hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes flew off store shelves. But shopping carts have also been full of something that most Americans get supplied straight to their home: water. Shoppers emptied store shelves of bottled water while stockpiling during the initial months of the pandemic. Even Amazon ran […]
Read More
By Kim Chipman – December 6, 2020. Water joined gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world. Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike are now able to hedge against — or bet on — future water availability in California, the biggest U.S. agriculture market and world’s fifth-largest economy. […]
Read More
Caitrin Chappelle | October 20, 2020 Over-pumping of groundwater has caused domestic wells to go dry in the San Joaquin Valley. Yet many of the first round of plans prepared to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) do not yet propose ways to address this problem. We explored groundwater planning with three members of […]
Read More
Experts are warning that existing water safety rules are not suitable to a world where wildfires destroy more residential areas than in the past. By Max HorberryPublished Oct. 2, 2020Two months after a wildfire burned through Paradise, Calif., in 2018, Kevin Phillips, then a manager for town’s irrigation district, walked from one destroyed home to another.Burned […]
Read MoreBy Dan Ross on June 8, 2020 A federal court trial underway in San Francisco could spell the beginning of the end of water fluoridation in America, potentially affecting drinking water for hundreds of millions of people across the U.S.Although fluoride can occur naturally in water, many water utilities add the chemical with the goal of improving dental health. But an alliance of groups led […]
Read MoreYears of pumping, drought and a thirsty agriculture industry have taken a heavy toll on the water supply – and new plans are leaving vulnerable residents behind by Susie CagleFri 28 Feb 2020 When Carolina Garcia’s well began pumping sand and air instead of water in 2016, she didn’t know where to turn. The Garcias had […]
Read MoreReaders: This is a situation where there is an attempt to continue polluting groundwater and therefore the beaches and ocean where fresh water ends up. You can help by boycotting traveling there and opting to go somewhere else where environmental laws are respected and followed. Or you can send a letter out of outrage using […]
Read MoreAugust 6, 2019 Robert Shibatani Guest blogger By Robert Shibatani Whether you are a water utility manager, elected official, or homeowner, future water availability is a concern. There are several factors fostering that concern and one of them is climate change. In fact, these days, climate change is a rapidly growing global hot topic (no […]
Read MoreFrom Russianriver Keeper (www.russianriverkeeper.org) Our worst fears were realized in the Feb 28th flood event. The largest gravel pit mine, Syar’s Basalt Pit, had a complete levee failure on a section that had failed in previous floods. The image at left shows the breach in center of picture, with river on the left and Syar […]
Read More“Cadiz hopes to pump 16.3 billion gallons of water from the desert each year, equivalent to 50,000 acre-feet. A required environmental assessment, paid for by the company, found that 32,000 acre-feet of water would naturally recharge the aquifer each year, an 18,000-acre-foot annual deficit that Cadiz acknowledges would last for the project’s 50-year life. The assessment […]
Read MoreThe EPA wants to reduce protections for headwater streams. Stand up for clean water today! Whether you fish or just simply understand the value of clean water, there is no law more important than the Clean Water Act. In 2015, the EPA developed a rule that affirmed Clean Water Act protections for “intermittent and ephemeral […]
Read MoreNew York City’s water system moves over a billion gallons a day, nearly all of it unfiltered. A major investment aims to keep it that way. By WINNIE HU New Yorkers like to brag about their tap water. Not only is it safe to swill, but it has even been called the “champagne of drinking water.” […]
Read MoreGloria B. Post, Jessie A. Gleason, Keith R. Cooper Published: December 20, 2017 Read the article at journals.plos.org Abstract Perfluoroalkyl acids (PFAAs), a group of synthetic organic chemicals with industrial and commercial uses, are of current concern because of increasing awareness of their presence in drinking water and their potential to cause adverse health effects. […]
Read MoreTo All, Here is Environmental Working Group’s (EWG’s) data on tap water in your area. Once you click on the link, you can put your zip code in and will be brought to a page where you can choose your particular water system. If you have contaminants listed above health guidelines, these will be listed. […]
Read MoreTo All, This is a short policy forum piece from Science worth reading to see the arguments fabricated by the Trump administration to overturn the 2015 Waters of the United States rule. This is the rule that addresses the reach of the Clean Water Act. How far does it extend into wetlands, if at all. […]
Read MoreTo All, An important film that gives the little known state of California’s water is Water & Power: A California Heist. Here is a link to see it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6290202/ Larry
Read MoreCelebrating the end of the drought will be short-lived, as state officials stressed that California continue along its course to improve conservation and efficiency to prepare for future droughts. Written by Tara Lohan Published on Apr. 9, 2017 As Northern California inched closer on Friday to breaking the record for the wettest water year in California’s recorded history, Gov. […]
Read MoreOn June 27, 2017, the Trump administration officially proposed to dismantle the Clean Water Rule. This would remove protections of the Clean Water Act for half our nation’s streams, which help provide drinking water to 1 in 3 Americans. The proposal is now officially published in the federal register. Comments must be received on or […]
Read MoreBACKGROUND ON CLEAN WATER RULE The 2015 Clean Water Rule outlined which bodies of water would be automatically protected by the Clean Water Act. Large bodies like lakes and rivers were listed, but the rule also included streams, ponds and other, smaller features that have important effects on these bigger, “navigable” waterways. Thanks to this rule, […]
Read MoreSample Editorial Board Memo To: [INSERT NAME OF PUBLICATION] Date: June 1, 2017 From: [YOUR NAME] [TITLE] [ORGANIZATION] Re: Request for editorial – Repealing the Clean Water Rule puts the drinking water sources for more than 117 million Americans and [NUMBER] of [STATE-IANS] at greater risk of pollution and destruction. The Trump Administration recently began […]
Read MoreGUY KOVNER THE PRESS DEMOCRAT | June 10, 2017 Groundwater: What you need to know For information on the Sonoma County’s Sustainable Groundwater Management program, click here. For a Department of Water Resources tool that will show if your property is in a groundwater basin, click here. Groundwater basins are California’s largest reservoirs, more than 10 times […]
Read MoreJune 05, 2017, 05:00 AM By Anna Schuessler Daily Journal Strategies for decreasing the number of Redwood City’s sanitary sewer overflows, developing an accurate reporting process and creating a plan for notifying residents when overflows occur are among the objectives clarified in a settlement agreement reached last month by city officials and the nonprofit California River Watch. Focused […]
Read MoreWHO: Speakers will include Heather Govern from the National Environmental Law Center and Whitey Markle from the Suwannee/St. Johns Sierra Club Group. WHAT: An educational webinar on how to use the Clean Water Act to file and win a citizen lawsuit! WHEN: Tentative date is Tuesday, 6/27. Time will be confirmed at a later date. […]
Read MoreMarch 28, 2017 By Felice Pace, North Group Water Chair Recently I received a notice announcing that the State Water Resources Control Board has proposed establishing a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 5 parts per trillion (ppt) for the chemical 1,2,3-Trichloropropane (1,2,3-TCP) in drinking water. 1,2,3-TCP is a man-made chemical used as a solvent and […]
Read MoreMarch 7th, 5am Over the last 18 months, California has experienced one of the driest, wettest and wildest rides in its recorded water history. As the 2015-16 water year opened in October 2015, drought had driven the state’s reservoir and groundwater levels to all-time lows. Entire towns were left without water. Reports of lakes turned […]
Read MoreFebruary 07, 2017 | Kate Poole During the last three years of California’s drought, the state and federal agencies charged with protecting fishable, swimmable, and drinkable water quality for all Californians have utterly failed to do their job. The results have been disastrous: more toxic algae blooms are infecting California’s waterways than ever before; at […]
Read MoreJanuary 25, 2017 Briana Mordick California state agencies last week said they’ll put the interests of Big Oil and Gas before the interests of public health. The California Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources’ (DOGGR) and State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) plan will allow oil and gas companies to violate state regulations, miss agreed-upon deadlines, […]
Read More