EPA And Lawmakers Call Lack of Clean Drinking Water Unacceptable

By Amy Quinton

The EPA and lawmakers say California needs to do more to provide communities with safe drinking water.

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(Sacramento, CA)
Thursday, June 06, 2013

Map of Proposed Clean Drinking Water Projects
The Environmental Protection Agency says California is violating the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The EPA says the state’s Department of Public Health has failed to spend nearly a half billion dollars in federal money to provide safe drinking water.
It’s estimated the state will have to spend 40 billion dollars over the next two decades to fix the problem.

Some lawmakers are outraged by what they see as a bureaucratic nightmare within the Department of Public Health.

SPRINGFIELD STRUGGLES TO PAY
Marta Saldibar, her husband and son have lived in the tiny community of Springfield in the Salinas Valley for six years.

In that time, she’s paid her monthly water bill. Then she’s paid close to $100 a month for bottled water.

Her well water, like that of her neighbors, has a nitrate contamination level six times higher than what is safe to drink.

“I just think it’s unfair that because we live in a poor neighborhood we have to wait all this time to get the water that we should have,” says Saldibar. Read more

FBI has examined water agency with Calderon ties

By Patrick McGreevy

June 4, 2013, 7:45 p.m.

SACRAMENTO -- Officials at the FBI would not say why they raided the offices of Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Montebello) and the Latino Legislative Caucus at the Capitol on Tuesday, but prior to the raid they interviewed at least one official in Los Angeles about contracts at an agency with links to Calderon and one of his brothers.

A company official who bid on work at the Central Basin Municipal Water District in Los Angeles County said Tuesday that he had been interviewed twice by FBI agents since March about the agency's contracting practices. Central Basin has paid up to $140,000 a year on a consultant contract with Tom Calderon, the senator’s brother and a former state lawmaker himself.

In addition, Ron Calderon has authored legislation on behalf of Central Basin in the past.

 

IN DEPTH: Calderon targeted by FBI

Michael J. Franchek, a vice president at EcoGreen Services, said Tuesday that the FBI agents wanted to hear about his complaints and allegations that favoritism has been involved in contract awards, including the one that went to Tom Calderon.

Franchek said he talked to the agents about a federal stimulus grant to Central Basin. The water agency officials held competitive bidding and chose a firm called Water2Save to work on the project.

 

The Los Angeles Times has reported that Tom Calderon also has a consulting contract with Water2Save.

“Our conversation went to Tom Calderon’s relationship with Central Basin,” Franchek said, adding that he voiced concern that Sen. Ron Calderon’s influential status in the Legislature might have affected contracting decisions.

 

ALSO:

Federal probe rocks California Capitol

Latino Caucus office also raided by FBI

Calderon hasn't done anything wrong, his lawyer sayshttp://www.latimes.com/news/local/political/la-me-pc-california-fbi-investigation-20130604,0,7720439.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedly

Delta project price tag rises – with the controversy

By Chris "Maven" Austin | 05/30/13 12:00 AM PST

The price tag is up to nearly $25 billion, but the benefits are up, too, says the Brown administration as the state inches forward to launch an unprecedented project to move more northern California water south through a pair of tunnels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

On Wednesday, the administration pegged the cost at $24.7 billion, about a billion dollars more than previously estimated. But the administration also said there would be $5 billion worth of benefits over the next five decades, reflecting a more reliable water supply, improved water quality and other improvements.

The revised cost figures came in the release of a final round of paper work surrounding the proposal which, if built, would be the costliest state public works project ever and about four times the $6.3 billion price tag of the new Bay Bridge. Read more

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Agency Fails To Recoup Tax Money Spent on Toxic Cleanup

The California Department of Toxic Substances Control spent $100 million of taxpayer's money over 26 years to clean contaminated property but failed to collect reimbursements from liable polluters. The department also identified a separate $40 million wrapped up in legal matters and another $45 million for which bills were sent but reimbursements were never collected.

Lisa Tucker of Consumer Watchdog, who wrote an investigative report characterizing the agency as troubled, pro-business and weak in enforcement, said the disclosure of $100 million in neglected reimbursement deserves a "full-scale independent financial audit." Read more: http://www.californiahealthline.org/articles/2013/5/30/agency-fails-to-recoup-tax-money-spent-on-toxic-cleanup.aspx#ixzz2UqfnWhya
     "California Agency Failed To Collect $100 Million for Cleanup of Contaminated Sites" (Sanders, Sacramento Bee, 5/30).

Farmers' lawsuit over ag waiver thrown out

Decision could accelerate new regulations on runoff

By Alex Breitler

Record Staff Writer

May 26, 2013 12:00 AM

A judge's decision could speed new rules regulating polluted runoff from farms, rules that growers say will be costly and burdensome.

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Timothy M. Frawley last week sided with state water quality officials, finding the environmental reports they prepared supporting the new rules were adequate.

Frawley also ruled that temporary rules already in place fail to protect water quality. But he said they can remain until the permanent regulations are written.

His decision is the latest legal twist in what's known as the "ag waiver."

Under the federal Clean Water Act, farmers are not required to get permits to cover the polluted irrigation water that drains off their fields into rivers and streams.

However, they're now required to join coalitions and pay a per-acre fee to help fund water quality testing and educational outreach.

The permanent rules could add burdens, such as more frequent reporting and a requirement that farmers monitor groundwater quality.

The ag waiver has been attacked from multiple fronts, with farmers saying it is burdensome, and environmentalists saying it doesn't go far enough. To read more

Monsanto GMO’s sprout seeds of unity among the world’s people

By: Patrick Porgans, Planetary Solutionaries

Monsanto genetically engineered organisms (GMOs) seeds sprout unity amongst people of all nations and denominations. Globally, media sources estimated two-million protestors emerged onto the streets in major cities throughout the world, during the U.S. celebrated Memorial Day weekend.

Participants contend that this massive demonstration is Blowback resulting from a front-end loaded piece of legislation -- the so-called Monsanto Protection Act – approved by U.S. lawmakers earlier this year and signed into law days later by U.S. President Barack Obama; despite strong opposition from both the agriculturalists, consumers and environmentalists.

In March, the U.S. Congress passed the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2013, which contained a provision that has put St. Louis, Missouri-based Monsanto in the cross hairs of people from all walks of life, concerned about the safety and future of their food supply.

Critics contend that the Act contains language that threaten to contaminate the food supply; language they claim was intentionally buried in Section 735 that gives a green light to Monsanto and other biotech companies that experiment with genetically-engineered, genetically-modified crops, allowing them to market laboratory produced products even if legal action is taken against them.

“The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE [genetically engineered] crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards… Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks.”

Protesters across the spectrum are espousing one common message -- stop Monsanto from contaminating the earth’s life-support food producing system from the potential adverse ecological impacts of GMOs.

Monsanto representatives paint a different picture asserting that GMOs is a better way to feed a growing population with its “patented” blend of chemicals and treated seeds, which it claims will be safer, produce greater yields, use less chemical and be more sustainable.

Critics are quick to point out that this is the same Monsanto that manufactured such toxic chemicals as DDT, PCBs, and Agent Orange; it claimed were safe decades ago. However, history has shown Monsanto’s assurances of safety were blatantly false as all of those chemicals have been found to be extremely toxic. And, although they have been seriously restricted or banned, these cancer causing toxic chemicals are still showing up in the ecosystem, and scientific reports show that they will continue to persist into the distance future.

Even government insiders acknowledge that the Monsanto Protection Act is a pre-emptive gag order that attempts to limit or restrict judicial and administrative intervention; essentially, placing the public and the consumer in a defensive position and allows Monsanto to continue doing business as usual.

Last week, Senator Merkley of Oregon announced that he’s is introducing an amendment to repeal the Monsanto Act. In a press release, the Senator called the provision “…an outrageous example of a special interest loophole.”

Whatever the case, it appears Monsanto’s actions have released the Genie out-of-the bottle, and the battle over who will prevail and what types of food the consumer will eat is now on the table. Read more at www.planetarysolutionaries.org

Dry weather improves water quality along California beaches

Introduction by Patrick Porgans, Solutionist

Heal the Bay’s 23^rd annual report card indicates a reduction in fecal contamination at the majority of state’s beaches and attributes the improvement primarily to the dry winter and lack of spring runoff, along with some changes in the way municipalities are treating storm water runoff. During years with high rainfall flooding contributes to increased discharges of untreated fecal bacteria, which ultimately flows into the ocean and pollutes the beaches.

The report is based on water sampling for fecal bacteria pollution conducted by health agencies and dischargers along the West Coast. Beaches were graded on an A-F scale, based on samples collected from April 2012 to March 2013. The higher the grade, the lower the risk of swimmers getting ill with the stomach flu, skin rashes, ear and upper respiratory infections and other ailments.

Heal the Bay analysts assigned A-to-F letter grades to 89 beaches in the county for three reporting periods in the 2012-2013 report, based on levels of weekly bacterial pollution. Some 84% of beaches received A or B grades for the summer period (April-October 2012), a 2% percent gain from last year's report. That figure also marks an increase of nearly 10% from two years ago.

"No day at the beach should make you sick," according Heal the Bay's spokesperson Kirsten James. Read The Beach Report Card

Nearly 70 percent of SoCal beaches received A or B grades, besting a five-year average by 14 percent

By Samantha Tata May 23, 2013

Swimmers and surfers in Southern California enjoyed cleaner beach water this year, likely due to one of the driest winters on record in the region, according to Santa Monica-based Heal the Bay’s 2012-13 study released Wednesday.

The advocacy group’s report card graded Golden State beach water quality during the summer dry weather period (April 2012 – October 2012), and during the winter dry weather (November 2012 – March 2013).

Heal the Bay is officially unveiled it's latest report card Thursday, about two weeks after the Environmental Protection Agency proposed cutting federal funding for this kind of water testing.

Beach water quality in LA County bested its own five-year average by 24 percent, to receive 57 percent A or B grades. The report notes this is likely due to the fact that this past winter was one of Southern California’s driest on record, meaning less dirty runoff water made its way to the ocean.

But despite the improvement, LA County is still home to four of the 10 dirtiest beaches in the Golden State. Among those “beach bummers” is Avalon in Catalina Island, which has held the unsavory position at No. 1 for four of the past five years. Read more