Clean Water Act

 

NWPR & WOTUS

 

Corps Requiring New WOTUS Determinations For Pending 404 Permits. According to InsideEPA, “The Army Corps of Engineers is withdrawing Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdictional determinations made under the Trump-era definition of waters of the United States (WOTUS) for new or pending dredge-and-fill permitting decisions after a federal court vacated it last year, creating uncertainty for many permit applicants. ‘This departure from normal policy will have implications for many who secured [determinations] in reliance on previous practice and the provisions of the [Trump-era definition],’ says Ann Navaro, a former Corps attorney who is now a partner with the Bracewell law firm. While the Corps will not revisit permit decisions that relied on a so-called approved jurisdictional determination (AJD) made under the narrow Trump-era definition, known as Navigable Waters Protection Rule (NWPR), the Corps is requiring pending permit applications to rely on new determinations using the current, pre-Obama WOTUS definition, according to a Jan. 5 announcement. ‘As a general matter, the agencies’ actions are governed by the definition of ‘waters of the United States’ that is in effect at the time the Corps completes an AJD, not by the date of the request for an AJD,’ the Corps says.” [InsideEPA, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

Water Pollution

 

PFAS

 

PFAS Water Pollution Pilot Project Opens In Tucson. According to Arizona Public Media, “The Central Tucson PFAS pilot Project is officially up and running. The site is designed to remove PFAS pollution from groundwater north of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. It will help protect Tucson’s central wellfield, a vital part of the area’s long-term drinking water supply. The PFAS pilot project is meant to clean municipal water well so they can be used again. Tucson-operated drinking water wells near Davis-Monthan Air Force base contain P-FAS which are pollutants found in what was at one time common firefighting foam. The wells are not used by Tucson Water due to the contaminants but other parts of the aquifer they touch serves as the primary water source for more than 65-thousand people is also the critical alternative to declining Colorado River water for more than 600-thousand people going forward. At a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the PFAS project, Mayor Regina Romero called it a good start, but there is still much more work to do. She said climate change is only exacerbating water shortages in southern Arizona. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality provided more than $3 million to fund the project. The U.S. Air Force will reimburse part of those costs under an agreement reached in the fall of 2021” [Arizona Public Media, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

Plastic Pollution

 

Americans Want Less Plastic In National Parks, Survey Finds. According to Politico, “An overwhelming majority of Americans want to see the National Park Service end the sale and distribution of single-use plastic at parks, a poll by environmental group Oceana Inc. found. The poll, released Thursday, found 82 percent of American voters want to reduce the amount of plastic trash in national parks. ‘These polling results indicate that Americans, whether Republican or Democrat, want our parks to be unmarred by the pollution caused by single-use plastic,’ said Christy Leavitt, Oceana’s plastics campaign director. ‘The National Park Service was created to preserve these natural and historic spaces, and in order to truly uphold that purpose, it needs to ban the sale and distribution of single-use plastic items, many of which will end up polluting our environment for centuries to come despite being used for only a moment.’ Each year the National Park Service deals with 70 million pounds of waste. In October, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) introduced the ‘Reducing Waste in National Parks Act,’ which gives NPS 180 days to create guidelines for a program to reduce single-use plastic, which would be implemented by regional directors in their respective parks. Products like plastic beverage bottles, plastic bags, plastic food ware and plastic foam items would be covered by the legislation.” [Politico, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

Water Infrastructure

 

Environmental Justice Woes Spring From Lead Pipe Replacement. According to Politico, “A first-of-its-kind study offers fresh evidence that the widely used practice of removing only certain parts of lead service lines disproportionately plagues low-income, minority neighborhoods with drinking water contamination. The findings are fueling calls for EPA to ensure billions of infrastructure dollars being doled out to utilities across the nation through state revolving funds are spent equitably and comply with long-standing federal civil rights laws. ‘We think EPA needs to crack down and make sure states are affirmatively stopping the discrimination that can happen with these SRF monies,’ said Tom Neltner, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. EPA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. At issue is a peer-reviewed report, published in the online open source academic journal Sustainability, which found residents living in low-income Washington neighborhoods between 2009 and 2018 were less likely than their wealthier, white neighbors to pay for replacing full lead service lines. A private resident would have had to cough up more than $2,000 at the time to get the portion of their lead service line removed.” [Politico, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

Western Water

 

Seawater Tempting, Costly Drought Defense For Landlocked Arizona. According to Bloomberg Law, “Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s plan to remove salt from seawater as an antidote to the landlocked state’s intensifying drought overlooks what water lawyers say is the best medicine: using less water. Ducey (R) said this week he is working with Arizona Republican leaders to invest $1 billion over the next three years on a state initiative to build large-scale water augmentation projects. The plan to secure the state’s water supply for the next century includes desalination, an increasingly common global solution to obtain fresh water but one more closely associated with coastal states such as California and countries such as Israel. The state is considering many different options for desalination. It might mean spending billions to remove salt from water in the Sea of Cortez and pipe it across the Mexican border or send it to Mexican farmers as part of a complex international water exchange, Ducey’s top advisers said. The idea has the support of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). ‘The Sea of Cortez isn’t too far away’ and Arizona doesn’t have its own source of saltwater, Kelly told Bloomberg Law. ‘Anything we do would have to be off the California coast or the Gulf of California. It’s a realistic thing.’” [Bloomberg Law, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

AP | Ariz. Governor's Desalination Plant Not Likely To Be A Quick Reality. According to Politico, “Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s announcement this week that he would work with the Legislature to provide $1 billion to ‘secure Arizona’s water future for the next 100 years’ focused entirely on a new desalination plant in Mexico. But a funding plan for the plant that was a key part of Ducey’s final State of the State address isn’t on the table right now. In fact, there’s no clear plan for when such a plant might come to be, two key advisers to the Republican governor said yesterday. ‘What we’re looking at is an investment in a structure that could leverage, in the long-term, big augmentation projects like a desal plant,’ said Katie Ratlief, one of Ducey’s senior advisers. ‘There are shorter, quicker wins. And so really, the vision is diversifying the state’s water portfolio by a massive investment ... that has the capacity to do big, long-term projects and smaller but significant short-term projects.’ Those shorter-term projects could include items already discussed by Republican legislative leaders, such as using technology like drip irrigation to grow crops more efficiently. The pivot from the governor’s focus on desalinization plants comes amid talks with state House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) and state Senate President Karen Fann (R) on a water package that could be a legacy-maker for the governor, who is in his last year in office due to term limits.” [Politico, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

Misc. Waterways

 

L.A. County Files Suit Over Warehouse Fire That Led To Sickening Odor In Dominguez Channel. According to Los Angeles Times, “Los Angeles County filed a lawsuit Thursday accusing property owners and tenants of negligence in connection with a warehouse fire that sent discharge into the Dominguez Channel last year, causing a sickening odor to linger in the Carson area for weeks and displacing thousands of residents. The county, along with its fire protection and flood control districts, said the warehouse’s owners and tenants knew of fire code and hazardous materials violations before the Sept. 30 fire but did nothing to abate them. It is seeking to recover millions of dollars in costs associated with the investigations, cleanup and public relocation effort, as well as injunctions and civil penalties. According to the complaint, the fire and the subsequent discharge of hazardous materials into storm drains and into the channel ‘should never have occurred.’ Months before the fire, the complaint says, the defendants knew hazardous materials illegally stored at the warehouse ‘posed a severe fire risk.’ The warehouse on South Avalon Boulevard in Carson is owned by Prologis Inc. and was leased at the time of the fire by makeup companies Virgin Scent Inc. and Day to Day Imports Inc. Day to Day and Virgin Scent are owned and operated by Akiva Nourollah, Yosef Nourollah, Yehuda Nourollah and Yaakov Nourollah, according to the complaint.” [Los Angeles Times, 1/13/22 (=)]

 

 

Please do not respond to this email.

If you have questions or comments please contact mitch@beehivedc.com