Outcome of recent water quality events to shape California development
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 30, 2008 at 7:08 amFrom the California Real Estate Journal:
Development in California could become more difficult depending on the outcome of recent events concerning water-quality regulation.
An ongoing court battle has the potential to reshape storm water regulation entirely. Pending renewal, the statewide construction storm water permit contains proposed provisions that could dramatically raise the cost of construction and even affect feasibility. Pressure to regulate the design of projects through local storm drain permits continues to squeeze the industry.
In August, a trial court handed down a rare victory for the regulated community to several Los Angeles-area cities and the Building Industry Association in the case of City of Arcadia v. State Water Resources Control Board. The court’s ruling would force the Los Angeles Water Board to revise all of its water-quality standards applicable to storm water to make them more reasonable and achievable economically.
Basin Plans, akin to General Plans for water, contain water-quality standards which identify the beneficial uses of waterbodies (i.e., fishing or swimming) and establish the maximum amount of pollutants that can be present in the waterbodies. Water-quality standards provide the base for water-quality regulation. Permits incorporate the standards, and several other regulatory programs are tied to maintaining the standards in local waters.
Revision of the standards, per the court’s order, will affect all businesses, developments and construction projects with permits in L.A. and Ventura counties as well as county citizens through programs applied to public storm drains and other regulatory vehicles. If the Los Angeles Water Board revises the standards to consider the statutory factors, some of the strict limitations placed on flows to local waters (e.g., zero trash even during flood events) could be modified, making permit limits more attainable.
Read more from the California Real Estate Journal by clicking here.
Water quality advances in danger: Farmer sees conflict between food safety and conservation
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 21, 2008 at 5:51 amFrom the Capital Ag Press:
Farmers now have more to balance than their checkbooks. Profit margins aside - it’s safety margins that can spell out a good harvest or doom it for waste. To ensure their crops meet safety standards, some are questioning and even abandoning conservation practices.
According to speakers at the fourth annual Sustainable Ag Expo, strides made in water quality improvements on farms in recent years are in danger of being lost due to food safety concerns.
Since the 2006 E. coli outbreak in spinach that was traced to a San Benito County farm, growers of leafy-green vegetables have come under increased pressure to remove all possible sources of pathogens from their fields.
Conservation practices such as vegetative filter strips, hedgerows and ponding basins, promoted to growers as improving water quality, have been questioned. The practices prevent run-off of sediment, nutrients and pesticides from fields, but buyers of leafy greens and third-party auditors charged with ensuring food safety are asking growers to curtail those practices because they believe them to a source of pathogens that can cause food-borne illness.
“There is the perception of risks to food safety, but there is no good data to back it up,” said Trevor Suslow, a University of California researcher.
Read more from the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.
Newsom, supes tangle over S.F. power plant
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 4, 2008 at 1:19 pmFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
Despite San Francisco’s national reputation for environmental initiatives, a 40-year-old fossil-fuel power plant on the city’s eastern shore continues to spew particulates and chemicals into the air while dumping scalding water into the bay.
And the most immediate opportunity for cleaning up the Potrero power plant south of Mission Bay is likely to become even more remote today. The Board of Supervisors is expected to reject a resolution by Mayor Gavin Newsom, who wants the authority to negotiate an agreement to retrofit the plant with its owner, Mirant Corp.
Newsom’s plan is not popular with some supervisors and residents because it represents a rejection of a decades-long effort - one that Newsom and regulators once supported - to replace the Mirant plant with a city-owned, cleaner one that would still run on fossil fuels.
Critics of Newsom’s proposal say there is no proof that a retrofit will reduce emissions to levels expected of modern power plants, such as for the proposed city generators.
More from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Lisa Lurie keeps a watch on water; Watershed issues are at the forefront
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 3, 2008 at 6:37 amFrom the Salinas Californian:
Explaining she wanted to somehow be involved in balancing human and economic needs with environmental protection, Lisa Lurie attended Duke University in North Carolina to get her master’s degree in Environmental Management with a focus on watershed management. Upon her graduation last year, Lurie became the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary’s agriculture water quality coordinator.
“I was intrigued by this job because it is housed within a marine resource protection organization, but the position is in close collaboration with and funded by agriculture,” she said.
Lurie acts as the coordinator of the Agriculture Water Quality Alliance (AWQA), which is a collaborative effort to adopt conservation practices that improve land management in watersheds that drain to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. A lot of material that comes across her desk she has to share with AWQA members as well as individuals in the ag community.
“We recognize now that growers are caught between a rock and a hard place,” Lurie said. “On one hand, they are being asked or required to take actions or implement processes that protect water quality. On the other hand, they are facing pressures from their auditors and buyers to implement processes for food-safety programs. At times these two things can be in conflict.”
Read more from the Salinas Californian by clicking here.
Floating to save the L.A. River: Army Corps biologist facing possible dismissal defends her actions
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2008 at 5:28 amFrom the Los Angeles Times, a commentary by Heather Wylie, the Army Corps biologist who took part in a kayak trip down the LA River to protest possible revisions in the Clean Water Act and to prove the river is “navigable in fact”. She defends her actions and explains why she felt compelled to participate:
A kayak trip I took this summer may cost me my job. I am a civilian biologist working for the Army Corps of Engineers. On my personal time, I joined a trip down the Los Angeles River to protest actions by my own agency to undermine the Clean Water Act.
My superiors scoured the Internet for proof and found two photos of me on a blog. Claiming that my “participation undermined [its] authority,” the corps has proposed suspending me for 30 days, a punishment one step below termination. More than two months after advocating this penalty, it has yet to make a decision.
In July, a dozen kayakers took a three-day journey down the 52-mile L.A. River; I joined them for 20 miles. The purpose of our regatta was to show that the entire river is “navigable-in-fact” — a classification that is crucial to preventing the rollback of Clean Water Act protections throughout the watershed — and to highlight similar threats facing waterways across the nation.
More than 30 years after its enactment, the Clean Water Act is now in legal turmoil. A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Rapanos vs. United States, first muddied the waters. The court held that to continue to regulate pollution under the Clean Water Act, the government has to prove there is a “significant nexus” between the wetlands in question and “navigable-in-fact” waters.
The term “navigable-in-fact” comes from 140 years’ worth of court rulings. Waterways that have or can generate interstate or foreign commerce through boating (including seasonal, hazardous or solely recreational use) are navigable-in-fact and thus subject to the provisions of the Clean Water Act. So our kayak trip was meant to underscore that the L.A. River — and all the streams that feed into it — deserve protection under that law.
Read more of this commentary in the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Markets for water quality: EPA tries using incentives and markets to address growing water quality challenges
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2008 at 6:17 amFrom the Property & Environment Research Center:
In the late 1990s, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began encouraging the use of market forces to improve water quality in rivers, streams, and coastal waters. The EPA realized that the command-and-control, point-source regulations prescribed by the Clean Water Act were not working.
In some cases, every point source such as discharge from a pipe at an industrial facility was operating within the limits of EPA-sanctioned permits, but the river was still polluted. Uncontrolled nonpoint-source discharge such as excess fertilizers and insecticides from farming was generally the culprit, but agriculture was outside the EPA’s regulatory authority. In other cases, the activities of large numbers of publicly owned treatment works were not under the control of one coordinating authority.
To the EPA’s credit, the agency has encouraged experimentation with incentives and markets to address growing water quality challenges. Three different approaches in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and North Carolina serve as examples.
Read more from the Property & Environment Research Center by clicking here.
Hat tip to the Parkway Blog for this one.
Santa Clarita local ordinance would ban the use of water softeners:
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 22, 2008 at 3:59 pmFrom Water Technology Online, a local ordinance on the ballot is causing controversy in Aquafornia’s home base of Santa Clarita:
The Pacific Water Quality Association (PWQA), the Water Quality Association (WQA) and their allies will be gathering data in coming weeks to show California lawmakers that banning water softeners would have unintended downsides such as increasing consumption of energy, water, soaps and detergents.
Meanwhile, the PWQA is urging its members to help oppose, financially through a political action committee or otherwise, a local proposition being decided on the November ballot in the Los Angeles County community of Santa Clarita. Since 2003 Santa Clarita has banned installation of new softeners and has had a voluntary softener-removal program, but if approved by voters, the new law would mandate residential softener removals there.
Some water districts in California and elsewhere have sought recently to reduce salinity in wastewater, and the need to treat it, by restricting the installation or use of water softeners or by seeking their voluntary removal. However, according to PWQA spokesmen, the Santa Clarita proposal, if passed, would create the first mandatory removal ordinance.
“This is huge,” PWQA’s Tracy Strahl told the group at its recent conference in Anaheim. “This is the first time ever that somebody will be forced to remove an appliance from their home.”
If this measure does not pass, the residents of Santa Clarita will face steep rate hikes in their sewer bills as the city’s two treatment plants will have to be upgraded to reduce chloride discharges to acceptable standards. More from Water Technology Online by clicking here.
Santa Cruz’s Measure E widely eyed as possible water-pollution funding strategy
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 22, 2008 at 5:44 amFrom the San Jose Mercury News:
Santa Cruz’s stormwater tax on the Nov. 4 ballot is drawing interest well beyond city limits. Policymakers across the county, and likely elsewhere, are watching to see if the proposed parcel tax, known as Measure E, proves to be a successful way of raising the cash needed to keep pollution from washing from streets and subdivisions into the bay.
Like Santa Cruz, cities and counties up and down the coast face a quickly approaching deadline to finalize their strategies for controlling stormwater runoff. In all of these areas, though, money remains an obstacle to creating a workable plan, or at least one the state will approve.
“Our financing of this is not clear at this point,” said county Supervisor Neal Coonerty, who is working this week to submit a joint stormwater plan for Santa Cruz County and the city of Capitola. “We’re going to take a closer look at how Measure E does in the city of Santa Cruz. That’s one of several possibilities for us.”
Stormwater runoff, which carries oil, pesticides and other wastes from developed areas into local waterways, can be limited by any number of measures, from upgrading storm drains to public education. But some can be quite expensive.
The county, as well as Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley and Watsonville, have until Friday to report their stormwater plans to the California Regional Water Quality Control Board. Although financial details are not part of the report, county leaders are wary of overcommitting to costly pollution controls.
“Considering that we’re looking at a number of years of reduced funding, we’re sitting here and looking at what other programs we can cut to make this happen,” Coonerty said. “Honestly, I don’t think this should be put off, but the state should pay for it. It’s a huge financial burden for the local jurisdictions.”
Read more from the San Jose Mercury News by clicking here.
EPA faulted on waterway pollution from sprawl
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 16, 2008 at 6:01 amFrom the Associated Press:
The Environmental Protection Agency is failing to stem the pollution washing into waterways from cities and suburbs, the National Academy of Sciences reported Wednesday. The report’s authors urged “radical changes” in how the federal government regulates stormwater runoff so that all waters are clean enough for fishing and swimming.
“The take-home message is the program as it has been implemented in the last 18 to 20 years has largely been a failure,” said Xavier Swamikannu, one of the authors and the head of Los Angeles’ stormwater program for the California Environmental Protection Agency.
Stormwater runoff is the toxic brew of oil, fertilizers and trash picked up by rain and snowmelt as the water flows over parking lots, roofs and subdivisions.
The report said responsibility for managing stormwater must shift from developers to local governments, and permits should be issued on the boundaries of a watershed, rather than state borders. Such a change probably would require a new law and take between five years to 10 years, the report said.
While urban areas cover only 3 percent of the U.S., it is estimated that their runoff is the primary source of pollution in 13 percent of rivers, 18 percent of lakes and 32 percent of estuaries.
Read more on this story from the Associated Press by clicking here.
Court ruling may threaten water transfers; Irrigation canals, ditches may come under Clean Water Act requirements
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 11, 2008 at 8:09 amFrom the Capital Ag Press:
A court ruling that forces New York City to have a pollution discharge permit for drinking water the city pipes in from elsewhere may threaten irrigation systems in the West.
The ruling specifically relates to water transfers, something that happens literally thousands of times a year in Idaho and the West, says Scott Campbell, Boise attorney and chairman of the Water Quality Task Force for the National Water Resources Association.
Irrigation canals and ditches are specifically exempt from regulation under the Clean Water Act, but that may change if the court ruling stands, Campbell said.
Campbell spoke twice during a two-day workshop here Oct. 1-2. The event was Practical Paths to Water Use in the 21st Century, presented by the Idaho Council on Industry and the Environment.
“That ruling is literally costing New York City millions of dollars,” Campbell said. “There are a lot of other states with massive water transfer systems, such as Colorado, which pipes water from the West Slope of the Rockies to its eastern plains. That water moves through pipes and lakes. If the state is required to have a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit, we’re talking billions and billions of dollars. In some instances, there’s no way the water could be treated.”
California could find itself in a similar situation, given a massive water transfer system there that conveys water from the northern to the southern part of the state, he said.
Read more from the Capital Ag Press by clicking here.
UC Davis fined for Putah Creek pollution
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 26, 2008 at 6:19 amFrom the Sacramento Bee:
State officials on Thursday fined UC Davis $78,000 for pumping too much pollution into Putah Creek from its campus sewage treatment plant.
The fine is one of numerous penalties announced recently by the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, which is clearing dozens of backlogged violations from its books. On Thursday the agency also announced a $33,000 penalty against the Calaveras County city of San Andreas and a state prison facility in San Joaquin County – both for similar sewage treatment problems.
In the UC Davis case, the campus sewage treatment plant violated numerous pollution limits from Jan. 1, 2001, to March 31, 2008. Treated wastewater from the campus is discharged into Putah Creek. But on numerous occasions over that period, the effluent included too much aluminum, chlorine, copper, cyanide and coliform. Limits were also violated for salinity, sediment and acidity.
Campus officials noted that some of the spills happened during storm events, and they have corrected these violations. The campus also increased it’s wastewater treatment facilities. Board officials agreed:
Ken Landau, a water board spokesman, said many of the backlogged penalties date to 2000, when a change in state law required minimum penalties to be assessed for certain pollution violations. The state’s nine regional water boards did not keep pace with the numerous fines that accumulated under the mandate, and only recently began to clear the backlog.
In most cases, Landau said, water quality regulators worked with violators for years to adopt new methods and technology to prevent additional violations. “They weren’t necessarily ignored,” he said. “We just had not processed the penalties.”
Read more from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.
CSPA sues City of Stockton over waste water treatment plant
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 23, 2008 at 3:01 pmFrom IndyBay:
After numerous, letters and meetings with the City of Stockton regarding Stockton’s waste water treatment plant, all without a proper response or effort to adequately correct deficiencies, CSPA has filed suit under the Clean Water Act. The CWA provides for civil penalties of up to $27,000 for each violation occurring from 4 November 1999 to 15 March 2004 and up to $32,500 for each violation occurring since 15 March 2004.
“Stockton’s wastewater control system is a public health and environmental hazard,” said CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings. “The City’s failure to provide adequate facilities and acceptable levels of maintenance for wastewater control indicates an outrageous and egregious disregard for the health of Stockton’s residents and poses a clear threat to the integrity and survival of the Delta’s fish and wildlife resources,” Jennings observed, adding that, “the spills and effluent violations evidence incredibly poor environmental management.”
Several years ago, Stockton privatized its wastewater collection and treatment system by transferring the system to OCI/Thames. Citizens vigorously opposed the effort and subsequent litigation voided the deal and the city recent resumed control. Since June of 2003, Stockton’s 900 miles of sanitary sewers have experienced almost 1,500 overflows/spills of raw sewage.
For example, in 2005, there were 335 spills or 37.2 per 100 miles of pipe. In 2006, there were 371 spills or 41.2 per 100/miles. In 2008, there were already 95 spills by 7 April. A well-run collection system experiences 0 to 3 spills per 100 miles per year and California’s median spill rate is about 4 spills per 100 miles.
Sewage spills and overflows are serious health and environmental hazards. Because local business and industry discharge into Stockton sewage system, sewage can contain numerous dangerous chemical solvents, heavy metals like lead and mercury and wastes that can impair immune and reproductive systems of Delta fish and wildlife. Pathogens in untreated sewage can cause a multitude of illnesses in humans. Stockton residents may be exposed to these pathogens when swimming, waterskiing, wading, fishing or boating in local waterways and the Delta, as well as when sewage spills into homes, streets, parks, schools and businesses.
Read more of this story from IndyBay by clicking here.
EPA ordered to set standards for construction site runoff
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 21, 2008 at 3:50 pmFrom Environment News Service:
PASADENA, California, September 21, 2008 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must set standards to control stormwater pollution from the construction of strip malls, subdivisions and other new developments, according to a decision of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The EPA and the National Association of Homebuilders had appealed a district court injunction requiring the standards in a case brought by conservation groups.
In its ruling Thursday, the appeals court upheld the injunction granted in the 2006 case brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Waterkeeper Alliance. The states of New York and Connecticut supported the conservation groups.
The conservationists said the decision will help to ensure that runoff from construction sites will not cause beach closings, waterborne disease, flooding, fish kills and contaminated drinking water supplies. “This decision will go along way towards protecting America’s streams and rivers from the construction and development industry,” said Melanie Shepherdson, staff attorney at NRDC. “The court made it very clear that EPA can’t just shirk its responsibilities to rein in pollution from this industry.”
Read the rest of this article from the Environment News Service by clicking here.
California water quality: the role of agriculture
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 21, 2008 at 7:30 amHere is a report by Hossein Farzin, a professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Davis, and Kelly Grogan, a Ph.D. student in the ARE department at UC Davis. It is published by the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, University of California. I found this on the Sisweb:
While California’s agriculture has been vibrant and growing, the quality of the state’s water bodies has weakened. However, despite the common perception that agricultural production is a principal culprit, our study shows that this is not generally true. It shows that only a very small portion of water pollutants attributed to agricultural production are actually positively correlated with agricultural production while the majority of the pollutants have no relationship, and some of them are even negatively correlated.
Read the four-page article by clicking here.
EPA must limit builders’ water pollution; U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a California suit by the Natural Resources Defense Council
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 19, 2008 at 5:59 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged by the Clean Water Act to protect the nation’s waterways, beaches and drinking water from pollution caused by real estate development and should set standards for limiting construction runoff by the end of next year, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
The ruling from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals requires the EPA to create consistent federal standards to control water pollution, supplanting a patchwork of state and local protections now in place, said Melanie Shepherdson, a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which sued the federal government for shirking its responsibility to protect public waters.
A further appeal is possible, but environmentalists applauded the decision, saying it was likely to spur the EPA to take steps to ensure that development of shopping malls, housing subdivisions and other construction doesn’t lead to beach closures, waterborne diseases, flooding, fish deaths or contaminated drinking water.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
CSPA intervenes to stop toxic discharges from McClellan Air Force Base
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 13, 2008 at 6:19 amBy Dan Bacher:
In strongly worded letter to the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) on September 10 requested status as a “designated party” in the McClellan Air Force Base toxic waste disposal fiasco. CSPA’s status as “designated party” would allow for direct input into the renewal permit process to make sure that toxic waste is not discharged into Central Valley waterways from the decommissioned base.
Magpie Creek flows through McClellan and for decades carried the effluents of the Base’s domestic and industrial waste treatment plants into the Sacramento River through Steellhead Creek above the mouth of the American River. McClellan is located approximately seven miles northeast of Sacramento in Sacramento County and covers 2,952 acres. Operations at the base involved the use, storage, and disposal of hazardous materials, including industrial solvents, caustic cleaners, electroplating chemicals, heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), low-level radioactive wastes, and various fuel oils and lubricants.
Opened in 1935, for the vast majority of its operational lifetime, McClellan was a logistics and maintenance facility for a wide variety of military aircraft, equipment and supplies, primarily under the cognizance of the Air Force Logistics Command and later the Air Force Material Command. Unfortunately, McClellan also became dumping ground for the Air Force’s toxic waste.
EPA to fine Cal Waste over water pollution
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 4, 2008 at 7:40 amFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
Federal regulators have charged a recycling company that serves Oakland and San Jose with repeatedly allowing trash, metal and oils to flow into Bay Area gutters and waterways in violation of the Clean Water Act.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it is seeking fines totaling nearly a half million dollars from California Waste Solutions, a firm that handles curbside residential and commercial recycling in most of San Jose and the northwest portion of Oakland. The agency contends dozens of storms over the last five years have pushed debris and chemicals from the company’s three recycling facilities onto Oakland’s waterfront and into Coyote Creek, a tributary to San Francisco Bay that is home to a type of steelhead trout listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The EPA said it has investigated California Waste Solutions over several years, and issued administrative orders aimed at correcting the problems in 2007.
In a statement, California Waste Systems said it places a “high value on compliance with environmental regulations.” What’s more, the 200-employee firm said it has taken significant steps since becoming aware of EPA’s concerns in 2006, including hiring new managers, retaining consultants, retraining employees and implementing new procedures. The company did not respond to requests for an interview.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Los Angeles runoff must meet clean water standards during review
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 2, 2008 at 7:59 amFrom the Environment News Service:
A coalition of 21 cities in Los Angeles County and the Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation has lost its legal bid to prevent the California state and LA regional water boards from applying clean water quality standards to stormwater.
Ruling on a post-trial motion by three environmental groups, an Orange County Superior Court Friday reversed the part of a July 2, 2008 judgment that blocked the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board from enforcing many water quality standards that control stormwater runoff.
The July 2 ruling by Judge Thierry Patrick Colaw suspended the water board’s ability to enforce water quality standards to control stormwater runoff pending further review of standards by the board.
Now, the runoff standards will remain in place while the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board complies with the judge’s order to review them.
Why are these standards important?
Water quality standards play a pivotal rule in pollution control because they serve as legal limits on the amount of pollutants, such as bacteria and toxic chemicals, that can be discharged to local waterways. Contaminated stormwater runoff is Southern California’s worst source of water pollution.
Read more from the Environment News Service by clicking here.
Court restores clean water protections in Southern California; Order blocking government enforcement of water quality standards reversed
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 30, 2008 at 7:11 amFrom the National Resources Defense Council, this press release:
Ruling on a post-trial motion by environmental groups, an Orange County Superior Court yesterday reversed the part of a July 2, 2008 judgment that blocked the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board from enforcing many water quality standards that control Southern California’s worst source of water pollution, storm water runoff.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), on behalf of itself, Heal the Bay, and Santa Monica Baykeeper, intervened in the case earlier this year after Judge Thierry Patrick Colaw ruled the water board did not follow the proper procedure when it applied water quality standards for Los Angeles and Ventura County waterways to control polluted runoff. The July 2 ruling suspended the water board’s ability to enforce many water quality standards to control storm water runoff pending further review of standards by the board. Water quality standards play a pivotal rule in pollution control because they serve as legal limits on the amount of dangerous pollutants, such as bacteria and toxic chemicals, that can be discharged to local waterways.
In post-trial motions and objections filed this summer, NRDC, Heal the Bay, and Baykeeper argued that preventing the water board from enforcing the standards, even temporarily, would be harmful to the environment and public health. In yesterday’s decision, Judge Colaw agreed that halting enforcement or application of the water quality standards pending review by the water boards could have “unintended consequences which cannot be predicted.”
The environmental groups are reviewing aspects of the July 2 judgment left in place by the Court finding that the water board failed to abide by proper procedure when it applied water quality standards to storm water.
Following is a statement by David Beckman, lead counsel and co-director of NRDC’s Water Program:
“Today’s decision means that California can get back to enforcing indispensable clean water standards that protect people from getting sick at local beaches and wildlife from toxicity in local waterways. These standards protect drinking water supplies, people at the beach, and fish in our rivers, so this is great news for everyone in Southern California.”
Read more from the NRDC by clicking here.
Orange County judge keeps storm-drain runoff standards in place for now
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 29, 2008 at 6:44 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
A judge ruled Thursday that water quality standards designed to protect the region’s beaches from polluted storm-drain runoff will remain in place, at least for the time being.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Thierry Patrick Colaw granted a request from a coalition of environmental groups that sought to keep the standards in place while the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board complied with the judge’s order to review its runoff standards.
This summer, Colaw had ruled in favor of a consortium of local inland cities and a building industry association that had filed a lawsuit — against the state Water Resources Control Board and the local board — seeking to overturn the regulations.
The local board said the ruling, which applied to most cities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, left regulators without a major tool to deal with storm water runoff into the ocean. Builders could not get the necessary permits from the state board because the standards had been frozen. “The court’s decision provides much-needed relief and just in time for our Labor Day celebration,” Francine Diamond, chairwoman of the local board, said Thursday.
David Beckman, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council representing environmentalists, also hailed the ruling. “If you drink water or like to swim in the ocean, today was a very good day,” Beckman said, adding that the environmental groups would still probably appeal the judge’s ruling that the standards be reviewed and modified.
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Aquafornia's Information Desk
Aquafornia Photos on Flickr
Upcoming Events
Check out the upcoming events from the Water Education Foundation.
Recent Posts
- C-WIN, CSPA file suit to end wasteful Delta diversions, protect public trust resources
- Angelenos heed water warnings
- Indian tribes awaiting Klamath Dam removal
- Whitaker-Bermite facility: The perchlorate cleanup plan is a reality, says commentary
- Suppliers seek approval for the “Delta Habitat Conservation and Conveyance Program”
- Salmon-tracking network challenges conventional wisdom
- State panel floats ‘litter tax’ to curb debris along coast
- Delta smelt closer to extinction
- Water settlement knots finally untangling
- Normal rainfall predicted for north state this winter
- Should we recycle urine on Earth, too?
- Who will be Delta’s keeper?
- Increasingly scarce water is the new California gold
- Californians need to worry about food security, says commentary
- Court rejects POWER appeal of All-American Canal case
Aquafornia's Mission
Aquafornia's mission is to educate readers about the complex and often controversial issues surrounding water in California.
Aquafornia is affiliated with the Water Education Foundation, an impartial non-profit organization, whose mission is to create a better understanding of water issues and help resolve water resource problems through educational programs.
Find It
Save / E-mail / Share Aquafornia
E-mail Newsletter
To receive email announcements from the Water Education Foundation, sign up here.
News Article Archives
- Agriculture
- Aquafornia Exclusives
- Biofuels
- Bottled water
- Climate change & water supply
- Commentary
- Conservation
- Delta Issues
- Desalination
- Development & Water
- Drinking Water
- Drought Tolerant Landscaping
- Drought, Weather & Snowpack
- Endangered Species & Wildlife
- Environment & Water
- Events
- General Water Issues
- Grandiose water plans
- Great Green Ideas
- Groundwater
- Indian Water Rights
- Infrastructure
- International Water Issues
- Invasive Species
- Levees
- Monterey Agreements
- National water news
- Oceans and Beaches (all)
- Odds and Ends
- Recycled Water
- Regional Water Issues
- All-American Canal
- Antelope Valley
- Bakersfield
- Bay Area
- Coachella Valley
- Colorado River Basin
- Imperial Irrigation District & Imperial Valley
- Lake Tahoe & the Sierra's
- Las Vegas
- Los Angeles River
- Northern California
- Orange County
- Owens Valley & Mono Lake
- Riverside - San Bernardino
- Sacramento
- Salton Sea
- San Diego
- San Joaquin Valley
- Southern California
- Southwest Water Issues
- Westlands Water District
- Stromwater & Urban Runoff
- Uncategorized
- Water & Energy
- Water & Investing
- Water Agency News (all)
- Water Banking
- Water History
- Water Legislation
- Water Quality
- Water Rights
- Water Storage
- Water Supply
- Water Technologies
- Water Transfers
- Weird & Wacky Water News
