Clean Water Act

 

San Francisco Violation Comes After EPA Backed Permit. According to E&E News, “EPA slapped San Francisco with a notice of violation for all three of the city’s wastewater treatment facilities yesterday, the latest shot in a monthlong battle between city, state and federal officials over California’s enforcement of environmental regulations, despite earlier support from the agency. The notice, signed by EPA Region 9 Administrator Michael Stoker, accuses San Francisco of seven categories of violations, including failing to clean sewer pipes, not posting adequate warning to tell the public when wastewater discharges are occurring and noncompliance with record-keeping requirements. But the notice also comes just three weeks after EPA staff expressed support for a new permit for one of San Francisco’s treatment plants, which remains unsigned by the agency. City officials say the notice smells of partisan politics and contains information the city provided EPA during negotiations over the new permit. ‘It seems like this is a very political issue at this point,’ San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Deputy General Manager Michael Carlin said yesterday, just a half-hour after receiving the notice. ‘We feel the long reach of Washington, D.C., out here in San Francisco.’ The city’s attorney, Dennis Herrera, said San Francisco has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to expose ‘what’s really going on here.’ ‘These attacks on San Francisco are a politically-motivated ploy,’ he said in a statement. ‘The Trump administration is ignoring facts and misusing the EPA to attack people it disagrees with.’” [E&E News, 10/3/19 (=)]

 

Feinstein, Harris Ask EPA Watchdog To Investigate Agency's SF Actions. According to Politico, “California Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris today asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general to investigate why the agency cited San Francisco for Clean Water Act violations after President Donald Trump criticized the city’s handling of waste from homeless people. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler had sent Gov. Gavin Newsom an initial letter last Thursday raising concerns about San Francisco’s water system, after Trump’s Sept. 18 claims that homeless people in San Francisco and Los Angeles were responsible for ‘tremendous pollution,’ including used needles. EPA Region 9 Administrator Michael Stoker followed up with a notice of violation yesterday faulting the city’s combined sewer and stormwater system for letting ‘substantial volumes of raw and partially-treated sewage to flow across beaches and into the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.’ Harris and Feinstein, both former San Francisco city officials, said regional EPA staff hadn’t known about Wheeler’s letter in advance and had approved bacteria standards off San Francisco Bay beaches in 2017, undercutting Wheeler’s accusations. ‘We ask you to investigate why EPA abruptly reversed course in Administrator Wheeler’s letter and alleged water quality violations that are contradicted by the agency’s own reasoned findings in recent permit approvals for San Francisco,’ the Democratic senators said in their letter to acting Inspector General Charles Sheehan.” [Politico, 10/3/19 (=)]

 

EPA Lowers Boom On San Francisco For Violations Of Clean Water Act. According to The Daily Signal, “The Environmental Protection Agency issued a notice Wednesday accusing San Francisco of violating the Clean Water Act, a 1970s environmental regulation designed to protect the country’s waterways and tributaries. San Francisco is struggling to maintain its sprawling sewage system, allowing ‘substantial volumes of raw and partially-treated sewage to flow across beaches and into the San Francisco Bay,’ EPA spokeswoman Molly Block told reporters ahead of the notice. California and the administration have traded barbs over the issue recently. ‘There have been instances of sewage flowing in the streets and entering people’s homes,’ Michael Stoker, head of EPA’s Region 9 district, wrote to Harlan Kelly Jr., the general manager of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Data also show high concentrates of zinc and lead threaten the city’s beaches, he added. ‘President Donald Trump criticised the city recently for the violations, telling reports aboard Air Force One on Sept. 19 that ‘we’re going to be giving San Francisco, they’re in total violation, we’re going to be giving them a notice very soon.’ He added that ‘It’s a terrible situation.’ San Francisco has experienced an 18% rise in homelessness since 2015, and the issue is causing the streets to be littered with trash, feces, and used needles. An interactive map created in 2014 called ‘Human Wasteland’ shows a heavy concentration of incidents of human excrement throughout the city. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler seized on the issue, writing a Sept. 26 letter to Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom citing multiple instances of California failing to meet federal water quality standards, noting that the problems are stemming from the state’s homeless population.” [The Daily Signal, 10/3/19 (-)]

 

States Urge High Court To Address ‘Adverse Effects’ Of CWA 401 Decision. According to Inside EPA, “A bipartisan coalition of states is urging the Supreme Court to take up a petition from environmentalists to review an appellate decision limiting states’ ability to review Clean Water Act (CWA) section 401 water quality certification requests, arguing the ruling’s ‘incorrect interpretation . . . threatens to have far-reaching, adverse effects for States.’ In an amicus brief in California Trout, et al. v. Hoopa Valley Tribe, et al., the states say the ruling earlier this year from U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ‘thwarts the Clean Water Act’s protection of state regulation of water pollution,’ ‘misconstrues the plain text of Section 401’ and threatens significant environmental harm from unintentional waiver of state authority. The states note that ‘EPA and federal permitting agencies are using the decision as a legal justification to fundamentally change the way in which decisions on complex federal projects are made.’ The coalition of Democratic- and Republican-led states signing on to the Sept. 27 brief includes Oregon, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.” [Inside EPA, 10/3/19 (=)]

 

Coal Ash

 

‘Parents Like Me Should Not Have The Burden Of Proving That Coal Ash Is Dangerous’. According to The Progressive Pulse, “Susan Wind’s 19-year-old daughter is recovering from thyroid cancer, but Wind still worries constantly about her family’s health. Wind, a former resident of Mooresville, N.C., moved with her family to Florida after her daughter was among the 110 people diagnosed with thyroid cancer in the area within the last five years. ‘We didn’t feel safe,’ she told Policy Watch in an interview on Wednesday. Her daughter is improving, but she still struggles with her health, Wind said. The move to a new state was hard on her kids, and she’s still concerned about her family. ‘I’m worried about all of our health,’ she said. After her daughter’s diagnosis, Wind began to investigate the high rate of thyroid cancer in two zip codes near Lake Norman: 28115 and 28117. She believes the illnesses could be linked to toxins contained in the coal ash found throughout the community. She raised $110,000 for a Duke University Study to investigate what might be causing the cancer.” [The Progressive Pulse, 10/2/19 (+)]

 

Toxic Algae

 

Op-Ed:L It’s Killing Dogs And Cattle. It’s Making People Sick. It’s Spreading Throughout The Country. And Answers Remain Elusive. According to Deseret News, “An epidemic is growing. It’s compromising drinking water in cities, making people sick. It’s killing dogs and cattle, even bats. It’s closing down lakes, resulting in economic losses for those reliant on lakeside recreation. And the reasons for its spread remain elusive. Algae blooms have gripped Utah lakes, and their seasonal spread across the country is on the rise. By the end of August, a record 354 outbreaks had been reported since the beginning of the year, compared to 289 over the same period in 2018, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization that researches water pollution. The onset of fall will give the public a reprieve. But as the nation grapples with changing climate and a longer, warmer season, scientists are working to understand how to control this health threat. An algal bloom occurs when a combination of heat and nutrients creates conditions for algae and cyanobacteria to thrive. The end of summer is particularly bad, and during August algae blooms plagued small towns and cities across the country, from New York City ponds to a lake in Austin, Texas, and the Russian River in California. One study led by an EPA scientist in 2016 found that an increase of phosphorus, one of the nutrients that algal blooms thrive on, was widespread across the United States. The last National Lakes Assessment results released in 2012 found 40% of lakes tested had excess phosphorus.” [Deseret News, 10/3/19 (+)]

 

Drinking Water

 

Toxic Lead, Scared Parents And Simmering Anger: A Month Inside A City Without Clean Water. According to The Washington Post, “In a crisis that contains echoes of the water-system failure in Flint, Newark residents were urged this summer to use bottled water for drinking, cooking and brushing their teeth after officials said city-provided filters may not have been effectively removing lead from the tap water. Starting on Aug. 12, residents cycled through four city-operated water distribution sites and countless other privately operated centers to stock up on free water each week. Public-health experts consider any amount of lead to be dangerous, but the law requires that a city improve its corrosion controls if a certain number of homes test above 15 parts per billion. One water sample in Newark from May 2018 measured 182 parts per billion. Prolonged exposure to lead can cause high blood pressure, kidney damage and stillbirths. Young children who are exposed to lead are particularly likely to experience problems with their brain development and nervous systems. Diaz said he worries about lead’s potential effects on the city’s students, who could face permanent cognitive issues. He said he’s particularly concerned about some researchers’ hypothesis that lead exposure could be linked with a propensity for violence, considering that Newark already deals with a high homicide rate. Lead also can impair academic performance and add to the achievement gap that commonly exists between affluent and impoverished students. ‘How it changed the trajectory of the development of not only individuals, but the City of Newark — We haven’t really felt those ramifications yet, and no one’s really talking about it,’ Diaz said.” [The Washington Post, 10/3/19 (+)]

 

Misc. Waterways

 

La. Hopes To Fight Coastal Erosion By Mimicking Nature. According to E&E News, “Back when the Mississippi River flowed wild, its ever-shifting waters acted as a continent-sized earth mover, picking up sand and dirt from the north, depositing it in the Delta region and eventually creating the land that is now south Louisiana. Thousands of years later, the mighty river is held in check with man-made levees and flood control systems. But Louisiana officials are making plans to tap into the Mississippi’s ancient power to build new land as a way to reverse coastal erosion and ease the threat of rising seas. Engineers hope to remake some eroded marshes by cutting into the levees and siphoning off sediment-rich water that can be channeled into coastal basins. When the sediment settles out of the water, it will slowly accrue into soil. ‘The fundamental problem in coastal Louisiana is that lack of sediment, and so we’re trying to mimic the way Mother Nature would have delivered that sediment to our coast in the past,’ said Bren Haase, who leads the state’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. Some skeptics question whether the idea poses its own environmental risks. But if it works, the project will restore a crucial buffer against storm surges and offer new habitat for migratory birds and fish that rely on wetlands. Salt water is eating away at the coast, accelerated by a network of canals cut for oil and gas development, navigation, and logging. The state estimates it has lost just over 2,000 square miles of land — a tract about the size of Delaware — since 1932. If nothing is done, as much as 4,200 square miles could vanish over the next 50 years depending on sea level.” [E&E News, 10/4/19 (=)]

 

Op-Ed: Hands Off, EPA: Leave Washington’s Water-Quality Standards Alone. According to Seattle Times, “The water-quality protections that Washingtonians fought hard to win are now under attack by the Environmental Protection Agency. Washington’s water-quality standards include what’s called human-health criteria — specified limits on the amounts of toxic chemicals and other compounds in our waterways — to ensure that seafood caught here is safe for everyone to eat, and surface water is safe to drink. These standards were finalized in 2016 and are among the most protective in the nation. Under the Clean Water Act, tribes and states — not the federal government — are responsible for setting water-quality standards. However, the EPA has decided to step in to support the agenda of a small group of industrial polluters to roll back those protections and weaken our human-health criteria. Those industries participated in developing the 2016 standards, which are being implemented now. Nothing has changed since then. Not the science, nor the need to protect our water and our health from toxic chemicals. The only thing that’s changed is the politics in Washington, D.C. The EPA even tried to roll back the rules without consulting the tribes or state. Only after an outcry from our state’s congressional delegation did the EPA agree to a single hearing on Sept. 25 in Seattle.” [Seattle Times, 10/3/19 (+)]

 

 

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