National News

Texas Or South Carolina? Which Courtroom Should Host Clean Water Act Legal Fight. “A South Carolina legal attempt to keep the federal government from stripping away its own Clean Water Act regulations might be about to take a turn toward Texas. The U.S. District Court in Charleston on Thursday will hear the federal Environmental Protection Agency's motion to move a case to Texas that was filed by a coalition of Southeast environmental groups and led by the Charleston-based Coastal Conservation League. The outcome of the case could affect pollution protections in rivers, streams and lakes that supply drinking water to more than 2 million South Carolinians and 20 million people in the South.” [Post & Courier, 4/2/18 (=)]

Lake Eerie Has Been Declared Impaired. So What? “As you saw on greatlakesnow.org last week, Ohio’s western Lake Erie has been declared impaired due to toxic algae blooms that have caused problems in the shallowest part of the lake at the warmest times of the year for the past decade.  The move ends years of what many people portrayed as resistance by Ohio Governor John Kasich’s administration. Some people believe the declaration was delayed because state officials were worried the word ‘impaired’ might keep tourists and residents from wanting to recreate and fish in Lake Erie.  Others say it’s because the state didn’t want to have to jump through bureaucratic hoops that might not even yield much help for Lake Erie. Bacteria from an algal bloom in Lake Erie forced the city of Toledo to shut down its drinking water system for several days in 2014.  The bright green algae called microcystis, a genus of cynobacteria, looks like neon pea soup and has made the lake infamous. The move to get ‘impaired’ status came after the Chicago-based Environmental Law and Policy center sued the U.S. EPA in federal court over actions it said prevented the lake from getting on the ‘impaired’ list.” [Great Lakes Now, 4/3/18 (=)]