CDP: Waterways Clips: February 27, 2023
Rift In Idaho GOP Exposed Amid Multistate Water Rule Lawsuit. According to the AP, “Some top officials in Idaho are raising alarms over the Republican attorney general’s decision not to join a 24-state lawsuit against Biden administration waterway protections that opponents say could impact public and private land across the state. Instead, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador’s office says the state will soon be joining another lawsuit filed in Texas, contending it’s a better fit for the state’s interests. Emails obtained via a public records request hint at a potentially deep rift between Idaho’s attorney general and other state GOP leaders, including the governor. Labrador’s decision surprised some officials. In January, Idaho Gov. Brad Little led the multistate coalition of Republican governors — from Virginia to Alaska — urging the president not to implement the new federal water rules until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a ruling on the matter.” [AP, 2/24/23 (=)]
EPA Announces $2.4B For Water Upgrades. According to Politico, “Regulators are preparing a major investment in water infrastructure upgrades as the Biden administration looks to address public health concerns and shore up resilience. EPA announced Friday morning that the agency will be supplying over $2.4 billion from the bipartisan infrastructure law for upgrading water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure nationwide. States, tribes and territories will all be able to receive the money through the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, which helps provide communities with low-cost financing for projects preventing pollution.” [Politico, 2/24/23 (=)]
Residents Of Troy Demand Action Against Lead Pipes. According to Public News Service, “Residents of the east-central New York city of Troy and environmental advocates have devised a plan to remove lead pipes from the city's water system. The Get the Lead Out plan aims to eliminate the estimated 14,000 lead pipes in the city. While this could cost the city over $70 million, the plan suggests using readily available funds to tackle some of the costs. Specifically, residents are demanding a $500,000 grant from the state's Department of Health finally be used for lead service line replacements. The grant was originally awarded to the city in 2018, but the money was never used. Robert Hayes, executive director of the group Environmental Advocates of New York, said the plan can serve as a model for other cities dealing with lead pipes.” [Public News Service, 2/27/23 (=)]
Who Shoulders Mother Nature's Cut Of The Colorado River? According to Politico, “Alongside farmers, ranchers and sprawling urban cities, Mother Nature has long sipped her share of the Colorado River — draining away enough water through evaporation and seepage to support nearly 6 million families each year. But as decades of drought strain major reservoirs in the Mountain West, threatening future water supplies and hydropower, states are divided over who should be picking up nature's tab for the huge amount of water lost on the 1,500-mile-long waterway.” [Politico, 2/24/23 (=)]
Opinion: California And Its Neighbors Are At An Impasse Over The Colorado River. Here’s A Way Forward. According to the Los Angeles Times, “California and the other Colorado River Basin states are at odds over how to halt the precipitous decline of Lake Mead. The impasse reflects a century of failure to take a basic step left undone by the original Colorado River Compact. The seven states in the basin have made dueling proposals for balancing water demand with the available supply. Both require large cuts in water use in all three Lower Basin states: California, Arizona and Nevada. While California’s proposal puts a greater burden on the system’s junior users, primarily the Central Arizona Project, the other states would lean more heavily on California.” [Los Angeles Times, 2/27/23 (-)]
EPA Watchdog Scrutinizes Clean Water Funds. According to Politico, “The watchdog office monitoring EPA is set to probe a key agency water program as regulators prepare to dole out billions from major recent laws. EPA's Office of Inspector General announced this week that it will look into the agency's oversight of its Clean Water State Revolving Funds, a federal-state partnership ensuring that low-income communities can finance water quality projects. Those funds are set for a boost as EPA distributes massive amounts of money from the recent bipartisan infrastructure law and Inflation Reduction Act.” [Politico, 2/24/23 (=)]
Michigan, Texas Officials Complain They Weren’t Warned Of Contaminated Soil, Water Shipments From Ohio Train Wreck. “Michigan and Texas officials are complaining that they were not told in advance about the shipment of contaminated soil and water from East Palestine, Ohio — where a train derailment earlier this month has caused a public health and environmental crisis — to their states. Officials said they had not heard about the plan until after it was already set.” [The Hill, 2/25/23 (=)]
The Fate Of The Okefenokee Swamp Is In Your Hands. According to the New York Times, “I have a dim memory of being taken on a boat ride in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge when I was 4 or 5. I remember tea-dark water lapping at the boat, a white bird on stilt legs and a drifting log that startled me by turning into an alligator. That’s it. Years later, I had to consult my brother to be sure I hadn’t dreamed the whole thing up out of nothing but a word-besotted child’s delight in the swamp’s name. Last fall, in a moving essay for The Bitter Southerner, the writer Janisse Ray called the Okefenokee “a gigantic, ethereal, god-touched swamp in southeast Georgia that’s like no other place on earth.” This is the kind of ecstatic language the refuge inevitably inspires. Some 700,000 people visit it each year, and I have always intended to return. Now I’m worried I won’t ever have the chance.” [New York Times, 2/27/23 (-)]
The Salton Sea, an Accident of History, Faces a New Water Crisis. According to The New York Times, “The drought crisis on the Colorado River looms large in California’s Imperial Valley, which produces much of the nation’s lettuce, broccoli and other crops, and now faces water cuts. But those cuts will also be bad news for the environmental and ecological disaster unfolding just to the north, at the shallow, shimmering and long-suffering Salton Sea. “There’s going to be collateral damage everywhere,” said Frank Ruiz, a program director with California Audubon. To irrigate their fields, the valley’s farmers rely completely on Colorado River water, which arrives by an 80-mile-long canal. And the Salton Sea, the state’s largest lake, relies on water draining from those fields to stay full.” [The New York Times, 2/27/23 (=)]
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