A cartoon by Dan Piraro pic.twitter.com/vD8UFCN5Y1
— Irena Buzarewicz (@IrenaBuzarewicz) May 25, 2024
Category: Water Pollution
2024 #COleg: #Colorado’s new wetlands protections lead the nation 1 year after EPA rules were struck by Supreme Court — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
One year after the U.S. Supreme Court removed federal regulations protecting wetlands and streams from development pressures in its Sackett v. the EPA decision, Colorado is the first state in the nation to pass legislation replacing those regulations, according to a new national report.
The report, by the Clean Water For All coalition and Lawyers for Good Government, shows that eight other states have taken action to restore some level of protection or are trying; five launched failed attempts to impose further cutbacks; and one state, Indiana, rolled back protections further. Thirty-five states have taken no action.
Environmentalists say the spotty response is a clear indication that Congress must intervene to create consistent, clearly defined protections that work for all states, and which protect rivers and wetlands that cross state boundaries.
“Different states are struggling to see how to respond to it,” said Kristine Oblock, senior campaign manager for the Clean Water for All coalition. “And the state-by-state solutions are not going to be enough to protect our waters. … Our goal is to restore federal protections.”
The problem is particularly acute in Colorado and other Western states, where vast numbers of streams are temporary, or ephemeral, flowing only after major rainstorms and during spring runoff season, when the mountain snow melts. The Sackett decision said, in part, that only streams that flow year-round are subject to federal oversight. It also said that only wetlands that had a surface connection to continually flowing water bodies qualified for protection. Many wetlands in Colorado have a subsurface connection to streams, rather than one that can be observed above ground.
The Sackett decision came after decades of federal court battles over murky definitions about which waterways fall under the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction, which wetlands must be regulated, and what kinds of dredge-and-fill work in waterways should be permitted. There also were long-running disputes over what authority the act had over activities on farms and Western irrigation ditches, and what activities industry and wastewater treatment plants must seek permits for.
Finding a clear, bipartisan solution that Congress might embrace isn’t likely to be easy. “It’s only been a year, so a lot of different entities are still working out the path forward,” said Jonathan Wood, vice president of law and policy at Montana-based Property and Environment Research Center, or PERC, a conservative think tank that filed a brief supporting the Sacketts, in last year’s Supreme Court case. The Sacketts are private landowners.
“It’s possible that Congress could act,” Wood said. “I think there is an appetite for it but it seems unlikely. And if the suggestion is to just go back to how it was applied pre-Sackett, I don’t see a path forward for that.”
Polls in Colorado and nationwide show majority support among Democrats, Republicans and independents for restoring protections.
Colorado lawmakers were able to win bipartisan backing for their bill after weeks of intense negotiations. Whether the same thing could occur at the national level is a big question.
“Bipartisan is easier at the state level because you aren’t trying to regulate different hydrologies across the country. Any time you’re trying to establish a rule that applies to New England and the West, it is difficult,” Wood said. That Colorado lawmakers were able to agree on regulatory exemptions for agriculture, developers, some cities and other industries also likely helped propel the measure to passage, Wood said.
And there are other options besides Congress. PERC’s mission is to find free market solutions to environmental problems. Wood said PERC would like to see incentives for private landowners to protect wetlands, something Indiana lawmakers approved this year, even after removing other protections. PERC would also like to see industry held accountable for paying the costs of restoring the wetlands that have already been lost.
“Wetlands reduce pollution from someone else, so why not make the polluters pay,” Wood said. “These kinds of opportunities all provide a path forward that is less conflict ridden than the Clean Water Act regulations that have applied for the last several decades.”
Still, environmentalists plan to keep their eyes on Congress, said Josh Kuhn, senior water campaign manager for Conservation Colorado.
“It’s clear that there is bipartisan support for this effort from the public and we need them to make their voices heard,” Kuhn said. “Doing so will create the political will to address the threat of deteriorating water quality and the impacts of climate change,” Kuhn said.
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
#NewMexico to receive $18.9M in federal money for ‘forever chemical’ detection — Source New Mexico #PFAS
Click the link to read the article on the Source New Mexico website (Danielle Prokop):
May 24, 2024
Federal grant is authorized in two-year chunks, NM Environment Department aims to pull more than $47M for PFAS detection and clean-up over the next five years.
Big check energy at the Roundhouse.
National and state environmental officials celebrated a $18.9 million federal grant for most of New Mexico’s water systems to use over the next two years to detect “forever chemicals,” in the state’s drinking water.
State officials say they hope to pull down a total of $47.2 million in the next five years in additional rounds of federal grants. The first two years will focus on detection and subsequent phases will address removal of Per-and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS for short) in drinking water.
More than 496 systems serving 231,000 New Mexicans are eligible for the funding, state officials said.
A check of this size will help the state “fund its way” out of pollution, said New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney from the Roundhouse Rotunda.
“These forever chemicals will not be a forever legacy. We will address these chemicals and New Mexico will be the leader in the way we do that,” he said.
What are PFAS?
This class of synthetic chemicals are ubiquitous, present in the blood of most people in the U.S. They are toxic and extremely hard to break down. There are nearly 15,000 types of these chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Their resistance to breaking down in sunlight, water, oil and fire over time makes them useful in fabrics, nonstick cookware, food packaging, in our carpets, clothes and firefighting foam. It also means they build up in our bodies, linked to cancer, heart and liver problems, developmental damage, vaccine resistance and other health issues.
Despite decades of rising concern about the dangers of these chemicals, the EPA only implemented drinking water limits for only the five most-common, releasing the final rule in April 2024.
These drinking water limits for the two most-studied and common chemicals – PFOA and PFOS – is 4 parts per trillion, the lowest limit the EPA believes to be technologically possible. The new rule requires water systems to be compliant by 2029.
The size of the problem will require billions of dollars in spending, with an estimated cost of $1.5 billion to implement the drinking water rules.
And that’s just the low estimate. The U.S. military estimated PFAS clean-up just on military bases and surrounding communities to be at least $31 billion.
New Mexico context
As the nation grapples with the reality of these contaminants’ omnipresence – in rainwater, in our bodies, in animals – New Mexico water systems are already struggling.
In 2021, the environment department found PFAS in at least 15 water systems in New Mexico, according to tests performed with federal assistance.
The most impacted communities are in Curry County and Otero County, according to that data. That’s also where PFAS plumes from firefighting foam infiltrated the groundwater for decades next to military bases. The state tested more than three dozen cities and water systems for 28 compounds. Only five compounds are subject to the proposed limits.
A Clovis dairy had to euthanize more than 3,600 cows after Cannon Air Force base contaminated water sources infiltrated wells on the dairy.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury described hearing about the moment, saying that the disaster made PFAS not just an economic issue, but a personal one for New Mexico.”
“It’s a big day for New Mexico. it’s a big day for families, it’s a big day for ranchers, and it’s a big day in our fight to really tackle the chemical contaminants that affect our communities,” Stansbury said.
Rebecca Roose, acting as the infrastructure czar in the governor’s office said addressing PFAS is part of a larger plan to address water scarcity in the arid state.
“When we talk about our water being polluted and contaminated and not safe, there’s few things we take more seriously than that,” Roose said. “Perhaps right up there with it is protecting the water so that it never becomes polluted, contaminated or unsafe, because there is not a drop of water to spare.”
The federal grant is funded from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which contained at least $9 billion earmarked for addressing PFAS contamination.
This is the first grant of its kind in the region, said Earthea Nance, who oversees EPA Region 6, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico.
Nance said there are no set plans for enforcement for holding PFAS polluters accountable in Region 6, but said that could change with more information.
“I don’t want to say no, because we mean, tomorrow, we could start putting a plan together,” she said.
Nance said the EPA Region 6 office is relying on state officials to help determine how large the enforcement response will be.
“Because we’re giving this money to the state of (New) Mexico, some of that will fall on them in terms of assessing the situation so that we can then figure out how to identify enforcement issues,” Nance said.
How does the program work?
The grant has the unwieldy name; Emerging Contaminants in Small or Disadvantaged Communities Program (EC-SDC). Name aside, it will allow for New Mexico’s environment leaders to spend up to $18.9 million over the next two years.
The program’s first phase will oversee water sampling, creating a statewide database and outreach to water systems, according to environment department officials.
Public water systems with 10,000 or fewer connections, or communities where the median household income falls between $56,828 – $75,770 are eligible to opt in, using this form.
“The great thing about this grant is we will be hiring and controlling a lot of the contract work and actually implementing it, which does take a little bit of a relief off the water systems,” said Kelsey Rader, the deputy division director for Water Protection with the state.
Rader said further federal money, two years from now, would offer more than testing, but also water treatment.
“That’s what’s really special about this grant is that it covers everything from the testing, from the design to the actual remediation, in paying for the necessary upgrades,” she said.
When asked if the $18.9 million is close to addressing the scope of PFAS in New Mexican’s water systems, Rader said the department doesn’t have a date set on when they’ll be able to test every New Mexico system.
“It’s difficult to say when that’s going to happen,” she said.
More work to do
Kenney said the state is still working to address current contamination, noting the environment department recently sent a letter asking for the federal government to commit to clean up water surrounding the Cannon Air Force base, not just beneath it.
A contentious court fight continues on, as the New Mexico Environment Department is still attempting to require the U.S. Air Force to follow state testing and treatment protocols over contamination at Cannon Air Force base. The case has stretched on for years in federal district court and now is in the 10th Circuit Appeals Courts.
The state is currently in mediation with the U.S. Air Force over the litigation and has been for over a year, said Bruce Baizel, the compliance and enforcement director for the environment department. The parties just extended that mediation period through late June.
The $18.9 million for clean-up would go farther, if people’s contact with PFAS in everyday items were reduced, said Kenney.
“In our legislative session, I’d like to see a bill introduced that bans PFAS but for essential uses, like medical devices,” he said. “But if given the choice of having a toxic chemical in your house that then becomes a toxic chemical in your body, I would choose not to have it in my house, or my body.”
To’Hajiilee water line groundbreaking: “an impossible project” — John Fleck (InkStain.net)
Click the link to read the article on the InkStain.net website (John Fleck):
May 15, 2024
With the obligatory shovels in pre-softened dirt, a group of political leaders from the Navajo Nation, New Mexico state and local government, and water agencies this morning (Wed. 5/15/2024) formally inaugurated a new pipeline being built to connect the Navajo community of To’Hajiilee to the 3.5 million gallon reservoir in the picture – clean, piped water to a community that now has one working well and water so bad no one drinks it.
One of the oldtimers who’d been working on it for more than two decades walked up to me and said, “This is an impossible project.”
What he meant was that the project had overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles in the interactions between a welter of government agencies with overlapping jurisdictions and sometimes incompatible responsibilities.
I went to the event wearing two hats – as a member of the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority’s Technical Customer Advisory Committee, and on behalf of the Utton Center, which has a long history of working on Native American water stuff. (I was literally wearing my ABCWUA gimme cap, I don’t have an Utton one.)
To’Hajiilee, 35-ish miles west of Albuquerque, has six water wells. Five have already failed. The sixth is regularly off line. When it’s down, they have to shut down school and the clinic. When it’s working, the water is awful.
The vision statement from the Universal Access to Clean Water For Tribal Communities project is simple: “Every Native American has the right to clean, safe, affordable water in the home ensuring a minimum quality of life.”
In this 1999 book Development as Freedom, the Nobel laureate economist and moral philosopher Amartya Sen explains freedoms as “the capabilities that a person has, that is, the substantive freedoms he or she enjoys to lead the kind of life he or she has reason to value.”
“Rights” are tricky political terrain, because they’re often framed in negative terms – the absence of coercion or interference from others, particularly the state. But Sen’s making an affirmative argument here. It is not enough for the collective to simply get out of the individual’s way. The collective has an affirmative moral obligation to create the conditions under which the individual can flourish – to pursue that which they “have reason to value,” to repeat Sen. That’s sorta what my friends at the Universal Access project are saying with their vision statement.
At the urging of a colleague, I’ve been reading Sen lately in an effort to make sense of the moral underpinnings of the collective choices we face as we cope with the reality of less water. (For those familiar with Sen, know that I am not reading the mathy parts – they’re impenetrable!)
THE PLUMBING – PHYSICAL AND FINANCIAL
The Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility’s 7W reservoir, the tan thing in the picture, sits on high ground midway between Albuquerque and To’Hajiilee, a perfect water source for the community. In eighteen months under the current construction schedule, we’ll have a 7 mile pipe from here to there.
If the tally in my notes is correct (don’t hold me to this, I’m not a real journalist any more), it’s a ~$20 million project, with a mix of federal, state, and Navajo Nation funding.
The actual water in the pipes is the result of a fascinating agreement between the Navajo Nation and the Jicarilla Apache Nation in norther New Mexico. The Navajo Nation will lease Jicarailla water, which will be wheeled down the San Juan River, into the Rio Grande, and then diverted by the Albuquerque Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, treated, and pumped up to 7W.
THE STRUGGLES TO GET THIS DONE
Former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley, speaking at the groundbreaking, told the story of the bare-knuckle politics it took to overcome the intransigence of a landowner that stood in the way of the project – Western Albuquerque Land Holdings. And for sure, O’Malley and the group she worked with deserve a ton of credit for the use of their knuckles at a critical point in the struggle to get the pipeline built.
But more important is the community of To’Hajiilee itself, people like Mark Begay, my colleague on the Albuquerque water utility’s Technical Customer Advisory Committee. For decades, Begay and the other leaders in To’Hajiilee acted on behalf of their community to pursue “that which they had reason to value” – water!
This is about the community’s own collective agency, “the result of collective processes and collective actions in which people’s interactions shape their common destiny.” (Oscar Garza-Vázquez)
It was a joy to share the celebration of their success. I’ll be back in 18 months when they open the taps.
#ClimateChange causing increase in metals concentrations in streams, study finds: Melting permafrost makes ‘phenomenal conduit’ for unlocking new contaminants — @AspenJournalism
Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):
May 21, 2024
Colorado’s mountains are pockmarked with orange tailings piles, adits, tunnels and rusted tramways, the remnants of a historic mining industry often blamed for fouling the state’s waterways.
But a recent study points the finger at a different culprit as the cause of increasing metals concentrations in Colorado’s high mountain streams: climate change. And these findings have implications for local ecosystems and the water supplies of mountain communities.
Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Colorado Boulder analyzed water chemistry data over the past 40 years for 22 stream sites throughout Colorado’s mountains. They found that concentrations of zinc and copper have doubled over the past 30 years, with melting of previously frozen ground being a likely major cause.
“These trends are concerning because, even at low concentrations, dissolved metals can negatively affect downstream ecosystem health and the quality of water resources,” reads the paper, which was published in Water Resources Research in late April.
Tanya Petach, a climate scientist at the Aspen Global Change Institute, worked on the study. She said the trend of increasing metals concentrations is relatively steep and widespread across Colorado’s mountains.
“There’s this theory that those increases in metal concentrations in these streams are really driven by a climate change signal,” Petach said. “We are really used to tying increases in metals to mining activities, but in this case, we’re only seeing a climate response.”
The process that causes metals leaching into streams can be both naturally occurring and caused by mining activities. In both cases, sulfide minerals in rock come in contact with oxygen and water, producing sulfuric acid. The acid can then leach the metals out of the rock and into a stream, a process known as acid rock drainage. As temperatures warm, rock that has long been encased in ice becomes exposed to weathering.
“These high-elevation streams, some of them have mean annual air temperatures right around freezing,” Petach said. “So you go from having permafrost to melting that permafrost. Once you lose the ice, you’ve created a phenomenal conduit for new water and oxygen to come into contact with sulfide minerals that have been blocked for centuries, if not millennia.”
Diane McKnight, an environmental engineering professor at CU Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, has been measuring the pH levels of the upper Snake River in Summit County for decades. On a recent trip with students, a stream that usually had a pH level of about 4 measured 2.75, meaning the acidity had greatly increased.
“I said: Wait, the probe must be wrong, the probe must be broken,” McKnight said. “Guess what, the probe was not broken. … The public should be aware the world is changing and there are surprises.” [ed. emphasis mine]
The study says declining streamflows are also contributing to increasing metals concentrations, but not as much as the increase in acid rock drainage caused by climate change.
Lincoln Creek similarities
These findings on the Snake River and other sites in Colorado are important for the members of a workgroup trying to figure out how to address increasing metals concentrations in Lincoln Creek above Aspen. Although Lincoln Creek wasn’t one of the sites included in the study, the conditions in Lincoln Creek mirror many of the headwaters study sites.
“Lincoln Creek is very intriguing because it matches a similar pattern,” Petach said. “The Lincoln Creek system seems fairly similar to a lot of these other high-elevation headwaters catchments where this occurs.”
Water quality issues in Lincoln Creek have been a concern for years and have been getting worse. A November report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that metals concentrations in Lincoln Creek are high enough to be toxic to fish and aquatic life. The creek above Grizzly Reservoir exceeds state water quality standards for aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, manganese and zinc, and aluminum and copper concentrations were higher than standards set by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) in multiple locations.
The report found that the vast majority of the contamination was coming from a “mineralized tributary” to Lincoln Creek and not from the nearby Ruby Mine, where prospectors in the early 1900s dug for gold, silver and lead.
A workgroup dedicated to Lincoln Creek and composed of officials from state, local and federal agencies, nonprofit environmental groups and others has been meeting often since the EPA report was released. Since the EPA is authorized to address elevated metals concentrations only from human-caused activities like mining, it’s unclear how the contamination would be cleaned up or what agency is responsible for it.
But the workgroup is making headway on the issue, said member Karin Teague, executive director of the nonprofit environmental group Independence Pass Foundation.
“It could be a model for how a community might respond to contamination in its watershed,” Teague said. “We are really getting our arms around the problem, the extent of it, the nature of it, and then, of course, the million-dollar question being: What, if anything, can be done about it?”
Pitkin County Environmental Health Manager Kurt Dahl and Pitkin County Healthy Rivers Administrator Lisa Tasker gave an update on the group’s progress to county commissioners at a work session Tuesday. There are plans for four different water quality projects this summer: the U.S. Forest Service plans to collect water quantity and flow data; Colorado Parks and Wildlife will monitor metals concentrations in Lincoln Creek and the Roaring Fork River; the Roaring Fork Conservancy will take samples below Grizzly Reservoir to look for impacts related to a Grizzly Dam rehabilitation project; and scientists and students from CU’s INSTAAR program will look for rare earth metals in the water, sediment and bugs of Lincoln Creek. Pitkin County has approved grants for three of the four projects so far.
What about the water supply?
Lincoln Creek is one of seven streams in the Roaring Fork basin’s headwaters that feed the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Co.’s Independence Pass transmountain diversion system, which provides drinking water sources for Front Ranges cities, including Colorado Springs, which owns a majority of the system’s water. Grizzly Reservoir, on Lincoln Creek below the contamination source, is used as a collection pool for water collected from the creeks, which is sent through the Twin Lakes Tunnel to the Arkansas River basin and eventually to the Front Range. The Snake River system where McKnight has conducted research flows into Dillon Reservoir, Denver Water’s biggest storage bucket.
The EPA report said that in the case of Lincoln Creek, the dilution, the distance the water travels and the water-treatment process limit the impacts to drinking water. But since the issue is widespread across Colorado’s mountains, communities that get their drinking water from high-elevation streams could be impacted.
“These metal concentrations tend to be diluted when the small tributaries confluence with larger, cleaner streams, so we don’t tend to think of these as being a huge problem for large municipal water supplies,” Petach said. “But the place where it could impact the drinking water supply is in high-elevation mountain communities that are receiving waters from smaller tributaries.”
The city of Aspen gets the majority of its drinking water from Castle Creek, a mountainous tributary of the Roaring Fork River. Aspen’s Utilities Resource Manager Steve Hunter said that source water protection is a key concern for the city.
“After talking with our water treatment staff, they are not seeing a rise in these metals at the treatment plant and all treated water meets or exceeds CDPHE/EPA requirements,” Hunter said in a prepared statement. He added that the city has not done source water sampling for these compounds in either Castle or Maroon Creek watersheds as CDPHE/EPA does not require testing Aspen’s source water for these compounds.
This story ran in the May 22 edition of The Aspen Times, the May 23 edition of the Vail Daily.
#Climate health risks posed by floods, droughts and water quality call for urgent action — European Environment Agency #ActOnClimate
Click the link to read the release on the European Environment Agency website (Cesare Barillà):
May 14, 2024
Climate change is worsening floods, droughts and is reducing water quality, posing an increasing threat to our health, according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) report published today. Fast-tracking implementation and better coordination of efforts by governments, water authorities and healthcare providers are urgently needed to prevent and reduce health impacts.
The EEA report ‘Responding to climate change impacts on human health in Europe: focus on floods, droughts and water quality’ draws attention to the water-related impacts of climate change on health and well-being that are already felt across Europe and include deaths, injuries, outbreaks of infectious diseases and mental health consequences.
Between 1980 and 2022, 5,582 flood-related deaths and 702 wildfire-related deaths were recorded across 32 European countries. Already today, one in eight Europeans lives in areas potentially prone to river floods and around 30% of people in southern Europe face permanent water stress. Climate change will further increase exposure of people to weather extremes with serious health consequences. Senior citizens, children, those in poor health, lower income groups, farmers and emergency service teams are among the groups experiencing greatest health impacts from floods, droughts, wildfires or water- and vector-borne diseases.
With these facts, the report underscores the critical need to urgently implement existing EU legislation, notably various European climate, water and health policies and integrate them further, and roll out the already existing solutions across all sectors and government levels to protect lives, prevent adverse health outcomes and increase wellbeing.
“Protecting human lives and health from the impacts of climate change, including droughts, floods and worsened water quality is of utmost importance and urgency. Existing European climate, water and health policies offer a solid foundation for action, but they need to be implemented more broadly and systematically. To ensure our future well-being all levels of government across many sectors need to put in place effective solutions so that we can prevent and reduce physical and mental health impacts. We support them with knowledge through the activities of the EEA and the European Climate and Health Observatory.” — Leena Ylä-Mononen
Faster rollout of effective solutions
To enhance our preparedness for future climate-related challenges to health from floods, water scarcity and deteriorated water quality, responses are needed in both the health sector and other sectors that have an impact on health, including water management, spatial planning, building design or insurance.
The EEA report seeks to inspire action by showing various examples of practical solutions implemented in the EEA member and collaborating countries.
A precondition for upscaled action is the greater integration of climate change into health policies in Member States and increased resources and competencies for climate change adaptation with a focus on health at subnational levels. Quick wins include raising public awareness about the risks and solutions, while longer-term actions, including infrastructure improvements and nature-based solutions, require systematic planning and investment. The differences in vulnerability of various population groups and the geographical variation of impacts require an equity-based, targeted approach to preventing health impacts for all under the changing climate.
Key risks calling for action
Floods
- Between 1980 and 2022, 5,584 flood-related deaths were recorded in the 32 EEA member countries.
- Currently, around 53 million people (12% of Europe’s population) live in areas potentially prone to river flooding, although often with flood defences in place. This number increased by 935,000 between 2011 and 2021, showing continuous development on floodplains.
- One in nine hospitals in Europe is located in areas potentially prone to river flooding.
Droughts and water scarcity
- Due to demand for water and droughts, regions in Europe are under nearly permanent water stress, and not just in the south.
- Prolonged spells of dry and hot weather facilitate the spread of wildfires, mainly in southern Europe, but increasingly in other regions. Between 1980 and 2022, 702 people lost lives directly through wildfires in the 32 EEA member countries, and many more were affected by wildfire smoke.
Water quality
- Rising air and water temperatures facilitate pathogen growth, increasing the risk of waterborne diseases.
- Heavy rainfall events make it twice as likely to have harmful pathogen concentrations in water bodies due to contaminated run-off and combined sewage overflows.
- In low-lying areas, sea level rise causes intrusion of saline water into groundwater and surface water aquifers, with spillover effects on crops.
- Low flows during dry periods result in higher concentrations of pollutants, requiring costly wastewater treatment. During dry and hot periods, cyanobacterial blooms in nutrient-rich waters can jeopardise water quality.
About the report
The report is published as part of activities of the European Climate and Health Observatory, building on and complementing the Observatory’s work. The report follows from the European Climate Risk Assessment published earlier this year, which highlighted health as one of the at-risk sectors.
‘Time is running out’: Navajo Nation urges Congress to act on Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expansion bill — #Utah News Dispatch
Click the link to read the article on the Utah News Dispatch website (Shondin Silversmith):
May 16, 2024
Kathleen Tsosie remembers seeing her dad come home every evening with his clothes covered in dirt. As a little girl, she never questioned why, and she was often more excited to see if he had any leftover food in his lunchbox.
“We used to go through his lunch and eat whatever he didn’t eat,” Tsosie said, recalling when she was around 4 years old. “And he always had cold water that came back from the mountain.”
Tsosie’s father, grandfather, and uncles all worked as uranium miners on the Navajo Nation near Cove, Arizona, from the 1940s to the 1960s. The dirt Tsosie’s father was caked in when he arrived home came from the mines, and the cold water he brought back was from the nearby springs.
Tsosie grew up in Cove, a remote community located at the foothills of the Chuska mountain range in northeastern Arizona. There are 56 abandoned mines located in the Cove area, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
In the late 1960s, Tsosie said her grandfather started getting sick. She remembers herding sheep with him and how he would often rest under a tree, asking her to push on his chest because it hurt.
Tsosie said she was about 7 years old when her uncles took her grandfather to the hospital. At the time, she didn’t know why he was sick, but later on, she learned he had cancer. Her grandfather died in October 1967.
Over a decade later, Tsosie’s father also started getting sick. She remembers when he came to visit her in Wyoming; she was rubbing his shoulders when she felt a lump. She told him to get it checked out because he complained about how painful it was.
Her father was diagnosed with cancer in 1984 and went through treatments, but died in April 1985.
“When my dad passed away, everybody knew it was from the mine,” Tsosie said. He was just the latest on a long list of Navajo men from her community who worked in the uranium mines and ended up getting sick and passing away.
She recalls how her father used to tell her that, one day, it may happen to him, but she did not want to believe him. Her dad worked in the uranium mines for over 20 years.
The sickness did not stop there. In February of 2007, Tsosie was diagnosed with breast cancer, and she would spend years in treatment and eventually go into remission in December 2007.
But, this year, Tsosie got the news in February that her cancer has returned, and she is now taking the steps toward getting treatment.
Tsosie’s family history with uranium mining and growing up in an area downwind from nuclear testing sites is similar to many Navajo families in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. Her family is among the thousands potentially impacted by radiation from nuclear weapon testing, according to National Cancer Institute research.
Because of that history, Tsosie became an advocate for issues related to downwinders and uranium mine workers from the Navajo Nation, including the continuation of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, provides a program that compensates individuals who become ill because of exposure to radiation from the United States’ development and testing of nuclear weapons.
RECA was initially set to expire in 2022, but President Joe Biden signed a measure extending the program for two more years. Now, it’s set to expire in less than a month.
Tsosie first heard of the program in the 1990s after her mother applied for it because her father was a uranium mine worker. She remembers the day her mother got a compensation check for $100,000 and handed it to her.
“She gave it to me, and she said, ‘This is from your dad,’” Tsosie said, adding that her mother didn’t go into many details at the time, only saying that families with loved ones who died of cancer were getting checks.
Tsosie said she was upset about the check because her father had died, and $100,000 was nothing in comparison.
“I was really mad, and that’s just how the federal government thinks of us as Navajo people,” she explained.
The second time she worked with RECA was for her own case. After her cancer treatments concluded in December 2007, she took some time to heal before determining in March 2008 whether she qualified for RECA. She did qualify and received compensation.
Since RECA was passed in 1990, more than 55,000 claims have been filed. Of those, more than 41,000 claims, or about 75%, have been approved — and roughly $2.6 billion had been paid out as of the end of 2022.
Claims for “downwinders” yield $50,000. For uranium mines and mill workers providing ore to construct nuclear weapons, claimants typically receive $100,000.
Proving that exposure to nuclear waste and radiation causes cancers and other diseases is difficult. However, the federal program doesn’t require claimants to prove causation: They only have to show that they or a relative had a qualifying disease after working or living in certain locations during specific time frames.
In July 2023, the U.S. Senate voted to expand and extend the RECA program, and it was attached as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds the Department of Defense.
It could have extended health care coverage and compensation to more uranium industry workers and “downwinders” exposed to radiation in several new regions — Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico, Idaho, Montana, and Guam — and expanded coverage to new parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
The defense spending bill for 2024 was signed into law on Dec. 22 by Biden, but the RECA expansion was cut from the final bill before it landed on his desk.
When she heard that the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act amendments failed to pass, Tsosie said it really impacted her, and she cried because so many people deserve that funding.
“I know what it feels like. I know what it feels like to suffer,” she said.
Without an extension, RECA is set to expire in June, and the deadline for claims to be postmarked is June 10, 2024, according to the DOJ.
Navajo leaders advocate for RECA
The sunset of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is approaching fast, and leaders from the Navajo Nation are urging Congress to act on the expansion bill that has been waiting for the U.S. House of Representatives to take it up for more than two months.
“Time is running out,” Justin Ahasteen, the executive director of the Navajo Nation Washington Office, said in a press release.
“Every day without these amendments means another day without justice for our people,” he added. “We urge Congress to stand on the right side of history and pass these crucial amendments.”
Republican Sen. Josh Hawley from Missouri introduced S. 3853 – The Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act, which funds RECA past its June sunset date for another six years.
The bill passed through the U.S. Senate with a bipartisan 69-30 vote on March 7. But since being sent to the House on March 11, the bill hasn’t moved.
The RECA expansion bill would include more communities downwind of nuclear test sites in the United States and Guam. It would extend eligibility for uranium workers to include those who worked after 1971. Communities harmed by radioactive waste from the tests could apply for the program, and expansion would also boost compensation payments to account for inflation.
“The Navajo Nation calls for immediate passage of S. 3853,” Ahasteen said in a press release. “This is to ensure that justice is no longer delayed for the Navajo people and other affected communities.”
Ahasteen told the Arizona Mirror in an interview that congressional leaders holding the bill back due to the program’s expense is not a good enough reason not to pass it.
“They keep referencing the cost and saying it’s too expensive,” he said. But, he explained, the RECA expansion is only a sliver of U.S. spending on foreign aid or nuclear development.
And it shouldn’t even be a matter of cost, Ahasteen said, because people have given their lives and their health in the interest of national security.
“The bill has been paid with the lives and the health of the American workers who were exposed unjustly to radiation because the federal government kept it from them and they lied about the dangers,” he said.
From 1945 to 1992, the U.S. conducted a total of 1,030 nuclear tests, according to the Arms Control Association.
Many were conducted at the Nevada Test Site, with 928 nuclear tests conducted at the site between 1951 and 1992, according to the Nevada National Security Site. About 100 of those were atmospheric tests, and the rest were underground detonations.
According to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, atmospheric tests involved unrestrained releases of radioactive materials directly into the environment, causing the largest collective dose of radiation thus far from man-made radiation sources.
Between the 1940s and 1990s, thousands of uranium mines operated in the United States, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Most operated in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, New Mexico and Arizona, typically on federal and tribal lands.
The number of mining locations associated with uranium is around 15,000, according to the EPA, and of those, more than 4,000 have documented uranium production.
Navajo Nation leaders advocated and worked with officials in Washington, D.C., for decades to get the amendments added to the RECA that would benefit more Navajo people who have been impacted by uranium mining, as well as radiation exposure.
Their efforts continue with the current expansion bill: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren, Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley and the Navajo Nation Washington Office team have been working on an advocacy push this week with congressional leaders.
“Our people have borne the cost of America’s nuclear program in their health and well-being,” Nygren said in a written statement. “The amendments we advocate for today are not merely legislative changes; they are affirmations of justice and a commitment to heal the wounds of the past.”
On May 14, Nygren and Curley met with former Navajo uranium miners and members of Congress to urge passage of the amendments before RECA expires in a few weeks.
“As the Navajo Nation, we feel that that’s the best fit for us, especially for our miners,” Curley told the Mirror about her support of the expansion bill.
Curley said she’s spent her time in Washington educating congressional leaders about the Navajo Nation and the impact uranium mining has had on their people.
“A lot of our Navajo fathers, grandparents, and uncles went into these mines without any protection,” she said. “And now, many decades later, we’re dealing with the health effects.”
The legacy of uranium mining has impacted the Navajo Nation for decades, from abandoned mines to contaminated waste disposal.
From 1944 to 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands, according to the EPA, and hundreds of Navajo people worked in the mines, often living and raising families in close proximity to the mines and mills.
Ahasteen said those numbers show exactly how large the uranium operations were on the Navajo Nation and the impact it would have on the Navajo people.
“There are photos on record to show Navajo people being exploited, not given any proper protective equipment, but (the federal government) knew about the dangers of radiation since the ’40s,” Ahasteen said. “They were given a shovel and a hard hat, and they were told: Go to work. You’ll earn lots of money. You’ll have a nice life, and we did that, but it didn’t work so well for us.”
Although the mines are no longer operational across the Navajo Nation, contamination continues, including 523 abandoned uranium mines in addition to homes and water sources with heightened levels of radiation.
The health risks associated with this contamination include the possibility of lung cancer from inhaling radioactive particles, as well as bone cancer and impaired kidney function resulting from exposure to radionuclides in drinking water.
“We want to remind all of the members of Congress that it was because of the Navajo Nation that we are where we are today,” Ahasteen said. “It is because of the uranium workers (that) the United States is the nuclear power that it is today.”
Ahasteen said the Navajo people have demonstrated their patriotism for the U.S. time and time again, but the country continues not to recognize that.
“That’s really what’s appalling,” he added.
As of December 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that 7,704 claims from tribal citizens representing 24 tribal nations had been filed with the RECA program, 5,310 had been granted and more than $362.5 million had been awarded.
Navajo people make up 86% of the claimants, according to the DOJ, and they have received awards totaling more than $297 million.
RECA’s downwind affected area covers land within multiple federally recognized tribal nations, including the Navajo, Hopi and White Mountain Apache.
Ahasteen provided RECA claim numbers for Arizona as of April 2023. A total of 15,603 RECA claims had been submitted in Arizona, 3,052 of which came from the Navajo Nation.
“That accounts for about 20% of all claims in Arizona,” he said.
In New Mexico, he said that there were a total of 7,300 claims, and 2,900 were Navajo.
“That means 40% of all of New Mexico claims are Navajo,” Ahasteen said. “Combined between Arizona and New Mexico, Navajo makes up about a fourth of all RECA claims.”
Ahasteen said it is disappointing that the program is approaching expiration and that the expansion bill still hasn’t moved in the House.
“We are hopeful that when it is brought to the House floor for a vote, Congress will speak, and they will move forward with the amendments because it’s the right thing to do,” he added.
Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com. Follow Arizona Mirror on Facebook and Twitter.
Despite $Billions Spent, Tide of Harmful Farm Pollutants Grows Ever Larger: “Best management practices” are not impeding flow of farm nutrients into nation’s waters — The Circle of Blue
Click the link to read the article on the Circle of Blue website (Keith Schneider):
April 15, 2024
Kindra Arnesen is a 46-year-old commercial fishing boat operator who has spent most of her life among the pelicans and bayous of southern Louisiana, near the juncture where the 2,350-mile-long Mississippi River ends at the Gulf of Mexico.
Clark Porter is a 62-year-old farmer who lives in north-central Iowa where he spends part of his day working as an environmental specialist for the state and the other part raising corn and soybeans on hundreds of acres that his family has owned for over a century.
Though they’ve never met, and live 1,100 miles apart, Arnesen and Porter share a troubling kinship – both of their communities are tied to a deepening water pollution crisis that is fouling the environment and putting public health in peril across multiple US states.
Arnesen’s home lies near an oxygen-depleted expanse of the northern Gulf known as the “dead zone,” where dying algae blooms triggered by contaminants flowing out of the Mississippi River choke off oxygen, suffocating shrimp and other marine life.
Porter’s farm is positioned at the center of the Upper Mississippi River Basin where streams and other surface waters saturated with farm wastes flood into the big river, and contaminated groundwater permeates drinking water wells. Cancer incidence in Iowa is among the nation’s highest, and is rising.
The culprit at the center of it all is a colossal tide of fertilizer and animal manure that runs off fields in Iowa and other farm states to find its way into the Mississippi River. The same agricultural pollution problems are plaguing other iconic US waterways, including Chesapeake Bay and Lake Erie.
US farmers use more fertilizer and spread more manure than in most other countries, accounting for roughly 10 percent of global fertilizer use, behind China and India. But while the nutrients contained in animal manure and fertilizer are known to nourish crop growth, the resulting nitrogen and phosphorous that end up in waterways are known to create severe health problems for people.
A grand government plan to address the problem has cost taxpayers billions of dollars with minimal results so far, and nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in the Mississippi River Basin.
The reasons for the persistent pollution problem are multi-fold, including strong industry opposition to regulations to control the farm contaminants, and a perverse system in which some government programs incentivize farming practices that add to the pollution even as other government programs try to induce farmers to reduce the pollution.
“You’re talking about systemic dysfunction,” said Matt Liebman, professor emeritus of agronomy and sustainable agriculture at Iowa State University.
An “extraordinary task”
The US Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A) has called nutrient pollution “the single greatest challenge to our nation’s water quality,” and acknowledges that much of the nutrient pollution flowing into the northern Gulf originates on agricultural land. For nearly 30 years the agency has led a task force that includes tribal leaders and officials from 12 states working together to try to impede fertilizer and manure from running off cropland at the center of the country.
The task force has set a goal of reducing the five-year average extent of the hypoxic zone in the Gulf to less than 2,000 square miles by 2035. To meet that goal, the task force has been trying to cut total nitrogen and phosphorous loads in the water 20 percent by 2025 and 48 percent by 2035.
Key to the effort are a suite of voluntary conservation practices promoted by the US Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A.) aimed at reducing the pollution, including idling land, not tilling before planting, using cover crops to protect the soil, and building retention ponds and wetlands to collect and absorb nitrogen. Farmers are also encouraged to plant nitrogen-absorbing vegetation in buffer strips along streams. The U.S.D.A. said in 2015 that the conservation programs were making headway, but in 2022 reported that efforts to reduce flows of nitrogen and phosphorus off farmland were showing negligible results.
The E.P.A. did not respond to a request for an interview. The U.S.D.A. said in an email message that In separate reports in 2017 and 2022 agency researchers “documented some promising trends nationally for reducing nutrient losses, such as increases in cover crop use, increased use of advanced technologies such as use of enhanced efficiency fertilizers and use of variable rate fertilizer application technologies, and a slight increase in soil testing. However, the key finding was that there was a national decline in nutrient management over a decade resulting in an increased loss of subsurface nitrogen and soluble phosphorus loss.”
The US has spent more than $30 billion since 1997 on efforts to clean up the Mississippi Basin, but in a 2023 progress report to Congress the E.P.A. said much more work is needed. Reducing nutrient loads is “an extraordinary task,” the E.P.A. report states. “Attempts to intercept, treat, or otherwise address nutrients after they are mobilized on the landscape are complex, difficult, and often costly.”
Last summer, the oxygen-depleted Gulf “hypoxic” zone measured roughly 3,000 square miles, which was smaller than in previous years. But experts said that was mostly due to a deep drought in the Midwest that reduced the river’s flow into the Gulf. In 2021, after a wet spring and summer, the Gulf’s hypoxic zone was close to 6,000 square miles.
And despite government efforts, nutrient loads to the Gulf in 2020 tallied roughly 3.7 billion pounds of nitrogen and 452 million pounds of phosphorous from what the government calls the Mississippi/Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB), the task force said in its report. That was up from total MARB nutrient loads to the Gulf in 2017, which were approximately 3.3 billion pounds of nitrogen and 314 million pounds of phosphorus, according to the 2019 task force progress report.
“More nitrogen is coming off the fields,” said R. Eugene Turner, professor emeritus of oceanography and coastal sciences at Louisiana State University and an expert on the Gulf hypoxic zone. “On average the load and the concentrations of nitrogen in the river are not coming down.”
The primary cause is more nitrogen pouring off the land from the big upper Mississippi River Basin farm states. From 2010 to 2022 the average annual amount of nitrogen leaving farmland in Iowa was 666 million pounds. That was 14 percent more nitrogen than from 1980-1996, according to state data.
In Minnesota, state authorities found nitrogen in major rivers, including the Mississippi increased from 21 percent to 55 percent over the past 20 years, according to a summary report in 2020.
Silvia Secchi, a professor and natural resource economist at the University of Iowa, agreed. Government agencies “tell you they are spending all this money, therefore they must be doing something right. But if you look at water quality data, at what’s really happening, it’s getting worse, not better.
“We have a tremendous amount of nutrients that pollute all the waters here, and end up killing fish and damaging the environment downstream,” Secchi said.
“Like a jigsaw puzzle”
There’s a reason federal and state agencies count so heavily on conservation practices to cure nutrient pollution. In field trials conducted by agricultural universities, and where farmers apply them over a period of years, they really work. The use of cover crops, which are planted not to be harvested but to provide a protective layer over soil, have been found to significantly reduce nutrient runoff. Planting vegetation in drainage ditches, installing sediment retention ponds, and building wetlands are also known to be effective.
Two of the largest conservation programs are the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) and the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), both administered by the US Department of Agriculture (U.S.D.A).
Last year, the U.S.D.A. spent $400 million in CSP and EQIP payments in the six biggest Mississippi River Basin farm states – Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin. It’s a portion of the roughly $2 billion that the federal and state governments annually spend on conservation programs in the Mississippi Basin, according to Michael Happ, a researcher at the Minneapolis-based Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy
But farmers in those six states – the basin’s largest source of nitrogen – applied CSP and EQIP practices to fewer than 3 million acres, according to federal data. That’s less than 3 percent of the 119 million acres of cropland in those states.
Sociologists who study why producers aren’t flocking to be paid to improve soil, conserve water, reduce runoff, and lower expenses, say the biggest impediments are the substantial changes required in how they farm. And their fear of losing productivity and revenue.
As a specialist with the Iowa Department of Agriculture who counsels farmers on best management practices, Porter explains it this way: “It’s perceived risk. Fear and worry about the effects on their drainage and their bottom line, and on yields. It’s a different system of farming than the one they’re using.”
Porter says his Iowa farm is an example of how effective changing farm practices can be in improving water quality. He started planting cover crops in 2011 on 550 acres to reduce erosion, build soil health, and keep excess nitrogen fertilizer in the ground. He constructed buffer zones in low-lying areas to prevent nitrogen from draining into streams. He retired 13 acres and raised a fertilizer-free meadow. The cost has been paid by state and federal grants.
As his diligence and techniques took hold over a decade, the farm’s soil fertility improved and the amount of fertilizer he spread diminished, as did the level of toxic nutrients leaving his land. Samples of water draining from his farm showed nitrogen concentrations of 1 to 2 parts per million, equivalent to natural background levels.
“It’s a little like a jigsaw puzzle,” said Porter. “It’s a systemic solution with multiple layers of best management practices that you fit together based on your topography, your soil types. It’s all available. It can work.”
Porter is trying to convince other farmers in his state to follow in his footsteps. “I’m getting yields that I’m happy with. I’m not spending as much money on the front end,” he said. “I feel better about the effects on my neighbors and people downstream.”
“Not like it is now”
One big reason many farmers have not been eager to embrace changes that lead to cleaner water is simply because they have not had to.
The federal Clean Water Act enacted in 1972 provided the E.P.A and states powerful authority to limit chemicals and contaminants from being discharged into US waterways through a “point source”, defined as pipes and manmade ditches. The law does not consider flows from irrigated croplands or stormwater discharges as point sources.
At the time in the early 1970s, the implications of waiving oversight of farm pollution was not thoroughly evaluated. US agriculture largely consisted of smaller, lower-polluting, mixed crop and livestock farms that grazed animals in manure-absorbing pastures.
But carving farms out of the Clean Water Act’s reach has since proved to be a significant factor in worsening water quality. Had the farm sector been held accountable for its waste, it would have been compelled to keep fertilizer and manure spread on fields out of surface and groundwater. That, in turn, would have kept farms operating at a scale that brought environmental costs in line with revenue.
Another barrier to any meaningful reduction in nutrient pollution is the action by Congress to incentivize farmers to plant corn, a crop that when conventionally grown requires large amounts of nitrogen fertilizer. US farmers grow more corn each year than they can sell, driven by government incentives – a practice that enriches companies selling corn seed and the chemicals used to grow corn – but results in range of harmful environmental injuries, including fouling waterways.
“The scale of the problem dwarfs the level of response, unless you change the design of the dominant crop and livestock production systems,” said ISU’s Liebman.
When it was first identified in the 1950s, what scientists now call the Northern Gulf Hypoxia Zone was seen as a small biological curiosity. But in the 1980s, as researchers gained greater understanding of the peril to marine life, they started mapping the size of the toxic zone, documenting its ominous growth. Congress passed the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act in 1998 to address pollution in US coastal waters by pinpointing sources of nutrient contamination and their environmental consequences, and working to slash the pollution.
Now, more than two decades later, the money and time seems largely wasted, at least to Arnesen, who sees the deadly toll the toxic tide takes on marine life in her work operating a fishing boat.
“I started fishing offshore in the Northern Gulf of Mexico 25 years ago,” she said in an interview. “We caught everything. Not like it is now. Algae blooms cause massive fish kills. We’re seeing it all over the northern Gulf. It’s affecting the overall ecology of the system. It also affects me as a human being. We consume water out of the river. I try not to think about it. It scares me.”
This report was originally published by The New Lede and is part of an ongoing series looking at how agricultural policies are affecting human and environmental health.
2024 #COleg: Colorado’s demand for water is slated to surpass supplies by 2050. Did lawmakers do enough to address the crisis? — The #Denver Post
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
May 18, 2024
Nine major bills aim to reduce water use in cities, replace nixed federal protections of wetlands and minimize the amount of toxic “forever chemicals” leaching into water supplies. Gov. Jared Polis already has signed four of the bills into law, while four more await his signature and one will go to voters…But momentum must continue if Colorado is to avoid looming water shortages, lawmakers and advocates said. Critical conversations about paying farmers and others to use less water and making sure that conserved water is used thoughtfully must turn into policy, they said…
The biggest achievement this year, lawmakers and advocates said, was the passage of House Bill 1379, which fills a gap in wetlands and stream protection created by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year…Among other water-related bills passed this session were two focused on quality: Senate Bill 81, which has been signed into law, bans the sale of some consumer products with intentionally added PFAS chemicals — like cookware and ski wax — beginning in 2026 and another class of products in 2028, in part to reduce how much of the chemicals reach waterways. And Senate Bill 37 (not yet signed into law) orders a study of ways to use “green infrastructure” to improve water quality…Voters will be asked in November to decide a ballot measure referred by House Bill 1436 allowing the state to keep more sports betting tax revenue for state water projects. The measure would remove the cap on the amount of money that goes for those projects…
Several other bills are targeted at conservation in various ways:
- Senate Bill 197 (not yet signed into law), would implement recommendations from the Colorado River Drought Task Force convened last year. That includes making it easier for tribal nations to apply for state water grants and allowing people who hold agricultural water rights to loan them to the state water conservation board to boost flows.
- Senate Bill 5 (signed into law), bans the installation of new non-functional turf and artificial turf on commercial, industrial, government and HOA-owned property beginning in 2026.
- House Bill 1362 (signed into law), allows the installation of graywater systems in new construction statewide. Graywater systems collect water after its first use and reuse it for a variety of purposes, like flushing toilets or watering plants.
- House Bill 1435 (not yet signed), would allocate $56 million to water projects through state agencies, including water supply forecasting and turf replacement. The bill also includes $20 million for the purchase of the Shoshone power plant water rights.
- Senate Bill 148 (signed into law), allows stormwater facilities to harvest and store rain running off hard surfaces like asphalt.
Plan to use cyanide to extract gold from #Leadville mining waste has residents concerned: Proposal has prompted locals to submit hundreds of comments in opposition — The #Denver Post #ArkansasRiver
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
A company in Leadville wants to truck 1.2 million tons of the waste to a mill on the southwestern edge of the high mountain city, use cyanide to extract gold and silver from the rocks, and then return the hills to a more natural state. CJK Milling says its proposed operation would be “one of the largest, most innovative environmental cleanups of abandoned mine waste” in Leadville — and a model for other historic mining areas.
But the company’s proposal has prompted skepticism and alarm in Leadville, with some locals opposing the additional trucks the project would put on roads in the area. Others fear the use of toxic cyanide — up to 600 pounds a day — so close to town and the Arkansas River. They worry about the project’s potential impacts on soil, water and air quality.
The proposal has also raised a broader question: What is the future of mining in a town that once relied on it but has cultivated a new identity as a high-altitude hub for tourism and recreation?
[…]
Company leaders, however, say their project is not a mining operation — and instead is focused on removing the waste piles and returning the land they sit on to its natural state. The project could be an example of profitable, privately funded cleanup of mining waste, said Nick Michael of CJK Milling.
Lincoln Park/Cotter Community Advisory Group encourages well owners to participate in monitoring program — The #CañonCity Daily Record #ArkansasRiver
Click the link to read the article on the Cañon City Daily Record website. Here’s an excerpt:
May 10, 2024
In February 2023, the current Radiation Materials License holder, Colorado Legacy Land (CLL), declared insolvency and stated they could no longer maintain staff to ensure site security or continue regular operations. The Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) took emergency action and contracted with the existing company, Ensero Solutions LLC, to continue with the necessary on-site activities. CDPHE assumed the monitoring program including wells and air monitoring stations because CLL had abandoned these responsibilities.
At the end of February, the CDPHE sent a letter to residents of Lincoln Park who have been part of the well-monitoring program established decades ago to keep track of groundwater contamination associated with the former Cotter Uranium Mill. The agency was asked for permission to access properties and test wells as had been done routinely in the past by either Cotter or CLL.
At the Community Advisory Group (CAG) meeting on April 16, Shiya Wang, CDPHE Radiation Project Manager, announced that of the 38 letters sent to well owners, only 16 responses were received to allow CDPHE representatives to continue the monitoring program. If you, the well-owner, receive a follow-up letter, please take the time to complete your information and get it back to the CDPHE. Any questions can be directed to the agency or the CAG at its Facebook page, “Lincoln Park/Cotter Community Advisory Group”
The reason for monitoring, as stated in the letter, is: “Continuous sampling of environmental media provides valuable data to both the State and to the Lincoln Park Community regarding the migration of hazardous constituents in the environment that have been associated with historical operations at the Site. Residents are encouraged to continue providing access to the sampling location so that this information can continue to assist the State’s, as well as the community’s, understanding of the current conditions in the area.
2024 #COleg: Bipartisan group approves law to fill federal regulatory gap that left #Colorado streams, wetlands at risk — Jerd Smith (Fresh Water News)
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
May 9, 2024
Thousands of acres of Colorado wetlands and miles of streams, left unprotected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year, would be shielded under a hard-won measure that was approved this week by a bipartisan group of state lawmakers.
Environmental advocates say Colorado leads the nation in adopting such regulations, which will replace certain Clean Water Act rules that were wiped out last year in the U.S. Supreme Court case Sackett v. EPA.
“Colorado is the first state to pass legislation on this issue,” said Josh Kuhn, senior water campaign manager for Conservation Colorado. “It had a lot of attention because of the magnitude of the bill. There were dozens and dozens of meetings to try and strike the right balance. We’re really happy with this final piece of legislation.”
The Sackett case sharply limited the streams and wetlands that qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act, a decision that water observers said had a particularly broad impact in the West. In Colorado and other Western states, vast numbers of streams are temporary, or ephemeral, flowing only after major rainstorms and during spring runoff season, when the mountain snow melts. The Sackett decision said, in part, that only streams that flow year-round are subject to oversight. It also said that only wetlands that had a surface connection to continually flowing water bodies qualified for protection. Many wetlands in Colorado have a sub-surface connection to streams, rather than one that can be observed above ground.
The legal decision came after decades of federal court battles over murky definitions about which waterways fall under the Clean Water Act’s jurisdiction, which wetlands must be regulated, what kinds of dredge-and-fill work in waterways should be permitted, what authority the act has over activities on farms and Western irrigation ditches, and what activities industry and wastewater treatment plants must seek permits for.
With the passage of House Bill HB24-1379, which passed Monday, Colorado wetlands are once again formally protected, as are ephemeral streams, said Kuhn.
“It also sets the federal regulations as the floor, not the ceiling, so that Colorado can go above and beyond those to ensure we are protecting our resources,” Kuhn said.
House Bill 1379, sponsored by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, Rep. Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, and Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, was one of two proposed bills that sought to address the regulatory gap created by the Sackett decision. Senate Bill 127, sponsored by Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton, was the second.
While Senate Bill 127 ultimately was not approved, a number of exemptions it contained to address concerns of farmers, miners, developers and some cities, were eventually added to House Bill 1379 and Kirkmeyer signed onto the measure as well, becoming a Senate sponsor along with Roberts.
Those exemptions were important to gathering the support of farm and real estate interests, among others, according to John Kolanz, an attorney who represents developers and who served in a state workgroup that helped lay the groundwork for the new regulations.
“There was significant movement from the first draft to the end. Barb’s bill played a big role in that. This is an important program that touches a lot of people, and interests and activities. I think the end result is pretty good,” Kolanz said.
Among the exemptions that were added is a rule that specifically exempts maintenance work on irrigation ditches and canals. Another exempts work that disturbs less than one-tenth of an acre of wetland or 3/100th of an acre of a streambed.
“If you’re a developer … and you’re under those thresholds, you don’t need a permit, you just need to follow best management practices,” said Kuhn, who was among the negotiators who hammered out the details of the final legislation.
In addition, if a pipeline is installed or a ditch is lined, that activity is exempted if it can result in water conservation.
House Bill 1379 also gives regulators the option to add one staff person on the Western Slope to help with program administration in that region, and provides nearly $750,000 in the state 2024-25 fiscal year budget and nearly $250,000 in the next year to get the new regulatory program, housed within the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, up and running.
Senate Bill 127 had proposed housing the program within the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, due to concerns about an existing backlog in the CDPHE’s wastewater discharge program.
With the decision to house the program in CDPHE come requirements that require frequent reporting to lawmakers to ensure that health officials have the resources they need to review and issue permits, Kuhn said.
The Water Quality Control Commission will have until Dec. 31, 2025 to finalize the rules implementing the new law.
The bill is awaiting the governor’s signature.
“In Colorado, where the rivers and streams are the lifeblood of our land, our agriculture, and our communities, the importance of water cannot be overstated,” Kirkmeyer said in a text message. “I believe that House Bill 1379 will be the strongest protection for Colorado streams and wetlands that we have had in the last 50 years.”
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
Report on microplastics published by USGS — NGWA
Click the link to read the release on the NGWA website:
May 6, 2024
The U.S. Geological Survey published a report on May 2 on the critical topic of microplastics in the environment.
The report titled “Integrated Science for the Study of Microplastics in the Environment — A Strategic Science Vision for the U.S. Geological Survey” is available on the USGS website.
The report which covers microplastics and nanoplastics states “a myriad of environmental exposure pathways to humans including ingestion, inhalation, and bodily absorption, are likely to exist.” It adds there is growing evidence that bioaccumulation of microplastics in tissues and organs of humans can potentially lead to nutritional and reproductive effects.
Current science gaps are mentioned. The report says that “understanding if or when environmental exposures pose a health risk is complicated by the diversity of microplastic sizes, morphologies, polymer types, and chemicals added during manufacturing or sorbed from the environment; ongoing challenges in analytical methods used to detect, quantify, and characterize microplastics and associated chemicals in our ecosystems; and the fact that ecotoxicological studies regarding microplastics are still in their infancy.”
It also adds that a better understanding of the sources, pathways, fate, and biological effects of microplastics has become a priority of the federal government as well as some state governments.
One of the most cited Groundwater® papers in recent years is “Microplastic Contamination in Karst Groundwater Systems” by Samuel V. Panno et. al. NGWA members can view the complete paper on Wiley Online Library.
The Environmental Protection Agency rejects plan to pump Moneta oilfield waste into potential drinking water — @WyoFile #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround
Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Angus M. Thuermer Jr.):
April 24, 2024
Federal environmental officials have rejected a request by Aethon Energy to pump Moneta Divide oilfield wastewater into the Madison aquifer, saying the deep reservoir could be used for drinking water, especially by tribal nations on the Wind River Indian Reservation.
The Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in November 2020 approved wastewater disposal into the 15,000-foot deep well, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said last week the state’s decision did not align with federal rules.
Aethon’s plan does not support a finding “that the aquifer cannot now and will not in the future serve as a source of drinking water,” the EPA wrote in a 20-page record of decision. Aethon argued, and the Wyoming commission agreed 4-1, that the underground Madison formation was too deep and remote to be used for drinking water.
The EPA relied on the Safe Drinking Water Act as the authority under which to protect the aquifer. It also cited climate, environmental justice and tribal interests in its decision, pointing to the nearby Wind River Indian Reservation as a community that could use the water.
“The significance of that is the EPA finally didn’t wimp out on us,” said Wes Martel, a member of the Wind River Water Resources Control Board. “We’re just glad they now have some people in place following up on their Indian policy.”
The Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes “foresee increased reliance on groundwater for drinking water purposes and anticipate needing to access deeper aquifers, such as the Madison aquifer, as the climate changes and water resources grow scarcer,” the EPA wrote in a 94-page analysis of tribal interests. The agency cited historic cultural and spiritual ties to the land and water and tribes’ status as sovereign nations in its decision.
“We have to make sure our future generations have a reliable source of clean water,” Martel said. “Our reservation, this is all we have left. We’ve got to do our best to protect it.”
The Powder River Basin Resource Council, along with the Wyoming Outdoor Council and others, has spent years monitoring discharge reports and industry permits and was vital in challenging pollution threats, Martel said.
The EPA understood that science, and the law did not support Aethon’s request, said Shannon Anderson, organizing director and staff attorney with the resource council. “They recognized the value of our groundwater resources and the need to protect those into the future,” she said, hailing the decision.
Vast quantities of water
Aethon must find a way to dispose of produced water — a brine pumped from energy wells to release gas and oil — as it expands the Moneta Divide field by 4,500 wells. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management authorized that expansion in 2020, leaving the question of water disposal to Wyoming, which has authority over surface and underground water quality under overarching federal standards.
Aethon must find a way to dispose of the equivalent of 120 Olympic-sized swimming pools full of produced water a day to expand the field. Aethon and Burlington Resources, a co-producer at Moneta, could generate $182 million a year in federal royalties, $87.5 million a year in Wyoming severance taxes and $106 million annually in County Ad Valorem taxes from the expansion.
But Aethon has violated state permits that allow it to pump some produced water into Alkali and Badwater creeks that flow into Boysen Reservoir, a drinking water source for the town of Thermopolis. Wyoming’s Department of Environmental Quality has notified the Dallas-based investment company of its infraction and has required Aethon to reduce the salinity of surface discharges this year.
The DEQ this year listed the two creeks as “impaired” and unable to sustain aquatic life. Underground injection of wastewater into the Madison was to be a new component of the disposal program.
The EPA cited climate change, drought, increasing temperatures and use of reservation surface water by others as some of the reasons to preserve the Madison aquifer.
“Removing the existing statutory and regulatory protections for a potential source of high-quality drinking water for the rural and overburdened communities in Fremont County and on the WRIR would further exacerbate existing inequities particularly with respect to historic and ongoing adverse and cumulative impacts to water resources and community health,” the EPA wrote.
“Thus, equity and environmental justice considerations, which include Tribal interest considerations, support maintaining the existing [Safe Drinking Water Act] protections that apply to the aquifers consistent with Congressional intent to protect both current and potential future sources of drinking water,” EPA documents state.
Neither Aethon nor a representative of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission responded immediately to a request for comment Wednesday. But WyoFile received this response from Tom Kropatsch, oil and gas supervisor for the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, shortly after publication:
“We do not agree with EPA’s decision on this application. We are still reviewing their decision and the information utilized by EPA in support of their decision. Much of this information was not part of the original application or a part of the record. EPA did not follow the standard procedure of allowing the WOGCC and the applicant to review and respond to the additional information they had available prior to making their final decision. EPA evaluated data that differs in its geographic, geologic, engineering, and other technical information. EPA also inappropriately related the proposed injection location to other areas of the state. Since the data EPA reviewed does not accurately reflect the conditions at the location of the proposed disposal well it is not appropriate to rely on it for a decision on this application. The WOGCC is reviewing EPA’s decision and weighing its options for further action.”
2024 #COleg: Colorado Bill Protects Wetlands & Streams — Getches-Wilkinson Center
Click the link to read the article on the Getches-Wilkinson Center website (Andrew Teegarden):
May 8, 2024
On May 6th, 2024 the Colorado Legislature passed HB24-1379 – a bill designed to protect the wetlands and streams at risk after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett v. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). The passage of the house bill saw overwhelming support from the regulated community, environmentalists, and concerned citizens.
HB24-1379 would not have been passed if not for the hard work and dedication of the bill sponsors; Speaker Julie McCluskie, Senator Dylan Roberts, Representative Karen McCormick, and Senator Barbara Kirkmeyer. These sponsors worked tirelessly to advocate for our state waters by compromising with and listening to stakeholders throughout the session.
Colorado is one of the first states in the country to pass legislation to restore protections to wetlands and streams from development activities. Other states will be able to model the stakeholder engagement process utilized by the bill sponsors to provide protections from unmitigated development.
The Protect Colorado Waters Coalition was the primary driver behind the campaign which helped HB24-1379 cross the finish line. Both Kristine Oblock, Campaign Manager with Clean Water for All and Josh Kuhn, Senior Water Campaign Manager with Conservation Colorado, upheld the coalition and worked behind the scenes to have foundational elements included in the legislation. For example, the coalition was successful in keeping the current definition of state waters. The bill sponsor went a step further to directly include wetlands within that definition to permanently expand the scope of covered waters. As we detailed in previous posts, the more comprehensive definition of state waters removes the need to quibble over jurisdiction and streamlines the permit process for applicants. Additionally, the coalition advocated for the federal 404(b)(1) guidelines to act as the floor rather than the ceiling for environmental review of permit decisions.
We, here at the Getches-Wilkinson Center, are ecstatic to see the coalition’s efforts result in meaningful legislation designed to protect our aquatic ecosystems for generations to come. Our mission is to promote the sustainability of the lands, air, and water in the Western United States and HB24-1379 aligns with that mission. We look forward to the rulemaking process where the Water Quality Control Commission within the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment will promulgate rules to establish how permits are issued, and the requirements applicants must follow.
Environmental Protection Agency Announces Final Rule to Protect Water Quality Where Tribes have Treaty and Reserved Rights
Click the link to read the release on the Environmental Protection Agency website:
May 2, 2024
WASHINGTON – Today, May 2, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a final rule that will help protect water quality where Tribes hold and assert rights to aquatic and aquatic-dependent resources. For the first time, this action establishes a clear and consistent national framework for EPA and states to consider Tribal treaty and reserved rights when establishing Water Quality Standards under the Clean Water Act. In addition, this rule advances the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to uphold the United States’ treaty and federal trust responsibility to federally recognized Tribes. When implemented, this final rule will better protect waters that Tribes depend on for fishing, gathering wild rice, cultural practices, and other uses.
“President Biden is committed to ensuring that all people have access to clean and safe water. Strengthening our regulations to support Tribes and protect precious water resources is essential,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “With this action, EPA is establishing clear rules of the road that will support healthier Tribal communities. We look forward to partnering with Tribes and our state co-regulators to implement Clean Water Act protections consistent with Tribal treaty and reserved rights.”
Historically, EPA has addressed Tribal reserved rights under the Clean Water Act on a case-by-case basis in state-specific actions. This practice fostered uncertainty for Tribes, states, and entities seeking to comply with Clean Water Act requirements. EPA’s final rule provides clarity and transparency by revising the federal water quality standards regulation to better protect Tribal reserved rights under the Clean Water Act. With this action, EPA is ensuring that water quality standards are established taking into consideration Clean Water Act-protected aquatic and aquatic-dependent resources where Tribes hold and assert rights to those resources under federal treaties, statutes, or executive orders. This final regulatory framework will be applied consistently while accounting for local conditions and factors to inform the development of specific water quality standards.
With this action, EPA is honoring the federal trust responsibility and striving to protect Tribal reserved rights related to water resources, consistent with commitments outlined in the agency’s 2021 action plan, Strengthening the Nation-to-Nation Relationship with Tribes to Secure a Sustainable Water Future.
“The Tribal Reserved Rights rule protects the rights of Tribal citizens, accorded by treaties, statutes, and other federal laws, to hunt, fish, and gather food in their usual and accustomed territories—including areas under state jurisdiction,” said National Tribal Water Council Chairman Ken Norton. “When treaties are honored as the highest law of the land, as the Constitution directs, it is a victory for Tribes across the nation.”
“Upholding treaty reserved rights in Ceded Territories is the right thing to do, both for Tribal members and the environment. As stressors such as climate change, pollutants and development harm the environment, it is increasingly important for Tribal members to have the opportunity to exercise their rights in Ceded Territories,” said Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Environmental Director, Brandy Toft. “It is our hope that this rule will assist to preserve the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe’s treaty protected right to harvest resources, such as fish and wild rice for subsistence, for generations to come.”
“In the Anishinaabe (or Ojibwe) language, gibimaaji’igomin nibi means ‘water is life,’” according to Jason Schlender, Executive Administrator of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC). “Anishinaabe people recognize that clean water sustains the more-than-human relatives (natural resources) that they rely on to continue their lifeways. It was these lifeways that our member Tribes were protecting when they reserved the right to hunt, fish, and gather on land that they ceded (or sold) in treaties with the United States. GLIFWC welcomes federal actions that will ensure that water quality is improved and sustained to ensure the continued health of our more-than-human relations.”
“Elwha Tribe is pleased that the federal rule will ensure that Tribes will be heard,” said Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe Vice-Chairman Russell N. Hepfer. “I always advocate for consultation to occur early and often. Water quality is important for our human health and for our resources. More important for our future generations. Elwha Tribes looks forward to consultation with EPA as this rule is implemented.”
The final rule will be effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register. Learn more about EPA’s final Tribal Reserved Rights rule.
Background
Water quality standards define the water quality goals for a waterbody and provide a regulatory basis for many actions under the Clean Water Act, including reporting on water quality conditions and status; developing water quality-based effluent limits in National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permits for point-sources; and setting targets for Total Maximum Daily Loads.
Navajo government asks Biden admin to stop uranium transport across Navajo Nation — KNAU
Click the link to read the article on the KNAU website. Here’s an excerpt:
May 1, 2024
Navajo leaders signed onto legislation Tuesday asking President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to halt uranium transportation on the Navajo Nation ahead of some of the first scheduled trips. The Pinyon Plain Mine near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon began production in December. Mine owner Energy Fuels is expected to transport uranium ore on highways through northern Arizona and the Navajo Nation to a southern Utah mill. The legislation emphasizes the historic impact uranium mining has had on the Navajo people.
“During the Cold War, the demand for uranium surged, prompting extensive mining operations on Navajo lands without adequate environmental safeguards, resulting in lasting devastation to land, water, and public health, including high rates of cancer and other illnesses among Navajo uranium miners and their families.”
Biden-Harris Administration Announces $3 Billion for Lead Pipe Replacement to Advance Safe Drinking Water as Part of Investing in America Agenda
Click the link to read the release on the Environmental Protection Agency website:
May 2, 2024
EPA announces latest round of funding toward President Biden’s commitment to replace every lead pipe in the nation, protecting public health and helping to deliver safe drinking water
WASHINGTON – Today, May 2, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $3 billion from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to help every state and territory identify and replace lead service lines, preventing exposure to lead in drinking water. Lead can cause a range of serious health impacts, including irreversible harm to brain development in children. To protect children and families, President Biden has committed to replacing every lead pipe in the country. Today’s announcement, funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and available through EPA’s successful Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF), takes another major step to advance this work and the Administration’s commitment to environmental justice. This funding builds on the Administration’s Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan and EPA’s Get the Lead Out Initiative.
Working collaboratively, EPA and the State Revolving Funds are advancing the President’s Justice40 Initiative to ensure that 40% of overall benefits from certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution. Lead exposure disproportionately affects communities of color and low-income families. The $9 billion in total funding announced to date through EPA’s Lead Service Line Replacement Drinking Water State Revolving Fund program is expected to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes nationwide, securing clean drinking water for countless families.
“The science is clear, there is no safe level of lead exposure, and the primary source of harmful exposure in drinking water is through lead pipes,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “President Biden understands it is critical to identify and remove lead pipes as quickly as possible, and he has secured significant resources for states and territories to accelerate the permanent removal of dangerous lead pipes once and for all.”
President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests a historic $15 billion to identify and replace lead service lines. The law mandates that 49% of funds provided through the DWSRF General Supplemental Funding and DWSRF Lead Service Line Replacement Funding must be provided as grants and forgivable loans to disadvantaged communities, a crucial investment for communities that have been underinvested in for too long. EPA projects a national total of 9 million lead services lines across the country, based on data collected from the updated 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment. The funding announced today will be provided specifically for lead service line identification and replacement and will help every state and territory fund projects to remove lead pipes and reduce exposure to lead from drinking water.
The Lead Service Line-specific formula used to allot these funds allows states to receive financial assistance commensurate with their need as soon as possible, furthering public health protection nationwide. The formula and allotments are based on need — meaning that states with more projected lead service lines receive proportionally more funding.
Alongside the funding announced today, EPA is also releasing a new memorandum that clarifies how states can use this and other funding to most effectively reduce exposure to lead in drinking water. Additionally, EPA has developed new outreach documents to help water systems educate their customers on drinking water issues, health impacts of lead exposure, service line ownership, and how customers can support the identification of potential lead service lines in their homes.
The Biden-Harris Administration’s ambitious initiative to remove lead pipes has already delivered significant results for families across the nation. Today’s latest funding will ensure more families benefit from these unprecedented resources, and support projects like these:
- West View Water Authority in Pennsylvania has received $8 million through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to replace 750 lead service lines in underserved areas of the community — primarily in Allegheny County. Of that funding, more than $5.4 million is forgivable, reducing the overall financial burden on ratepayers and the community.
- In Tucson, Arizona, the city received $6.95 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds to develop lead service line inventories for their nine public water systems. The city will use this inventory to develop a plan to replace lead service lines in the community and improve drinking water quality for residents — many of whom live in low-income and disadvantaged communities.
- Located in between Chicago and Milwaukee, the community of Kenosha, Wisconsin has been at the forefront of the state’s efforts to remove 5,000 lead service lines in their community. To accelerate lead service line removal, Kenosha is working with EPA’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law-funded Water TA team to help customers self-inventory their service line material and apply for federal funding to remove and replace lead service lines.
- The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, located across western North Carolina, has been selected to received support from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s lead service line replacement funds to conduct service line inventories and prepare preliminary engineering reports for five of the public water systems on their land.
o view more stories about how the unpreceded investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are transforming communities across the country, visit EPA’s Investing in America’s Water Infrastructure Story Map. To read more about some additional projects that are underway, see EPA’s recently released Quarterly Report on Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Funded Clean Water and Drinking Water SRF projects and explore the State Revolving Funds Public Portal.
Today’s allotments are based on EPA’s updated 7th Drinking Water Infrastructure Needs Survey and Assessment (DWINSA) including an assessment of newly submitted information. To date, this is the best available data collected and assessed on service line materials in the United States. Later this summer, EPA will release an addendum to the 7th DWINSA Report to Congress which will include the updated lead service line projections. EPA anticipates initiating data collection, which will include information on lead service lines, for the 8th DWINSA in 2025.
For more information, including state-by-state allotment of 2024 funding, and a breakdown of EPA’s lead Drinking Water State Revolving Fund, please visit EPA’s Drinking Water website.
US military bases teem with #PFAS. There’s still no firm plan to clean them up — Grist
Click the link to read the article on the Grist website (Sachi Kitajima Mulkey):
April 29, 2024
Excessive levels of PFAS have been detected at 80 percent of active and decommissioned military bases.
In 2016, Tony Spaniola received a notice informing him that his family shouldn’t drink water drawn from the well at his lake home in Oscoda, Michigan. Over the course of several decades, the Air Force had showered thousands of gallons of firefighting foam onto the ground at Wurtsmith Air Force Base, which closed in 1993. Those chemicals eventually leached into the soil and began contaminating the groundwater.
Alarmed, Spaniola began looking into the problem. “The more I looked, the worse it got,” he said. Two years ago, his concern prompted him to co-found the Great Lakes PFAS Action network. The coalition of residents and activists is committed to making polluters, like the military and a factory making waterproof shoes, clean up the “forever chemicals” they’ve left behind.
PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of nearly 15,000 fluorinated chemicals used since the 1950s to make clothing and food containers, among other things, oil- and water-repellent. They’re also used in firefighting foam. These chemicals do not break down over time, and have contaminated everything from drinking water to food. Research has linked them to cancer, heart and liver problems, developmental issues, and other ailments.
The U.S. Department of Defense, or DOD, is among the nation’s biggest users of firefighting foam and says 80 percent of active and decommissioned bases require clean up. Some locations, like Wurtsmith, recorded concentrations over 3,000 times higher than what the agency previously considered safe.
Today, the EPA considers it unsafe to be exposed to virtually any amount of PFOA and PFOS, two of the most harmful substances under the PFAS umbrella. Earlier this month, it implemented the nation’s first PFAS drinking water regulations, which included capping exposure to them at the lowest detectable limit. As of April 19, the agency also designated these two compounds “hazardous substances” under the federal Superfund law, making it easier to force polluters to shoulder the costs of cleaning them up.
Meeting these regulations means that almost all of the 715 military sites and surrounding communities under Defense Department investigation for contamination will likely require remediation. Long-standing cleanup efforts at more than 100 PFAS contaminated bases that are already designated Superfund sites, like Wurtsmith, reveal some of the challenges to come.
“The heart of the issue is, how quickly are you going to clean it up, and what actions are you going to take in the interim to make sure people aren’t exposed?” said Spaniola.
In a statement to Grist, the DOD says its plan is to follow a federal clean up law called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, or CERCLA, to investigate contamination and determine near- and long-term clean up actions based on risk. But many advocates, including Spaniola, say the process is too slow and that short-term fixes have been insufficient.
The problem started decades ago. In the 1960s, the Defense Department worked with 3M, one of the largest manufacturers of PFAS chemicals, to develop a foam called AFFF that can extinguish high-temperature fires. The PFAS acts as a surfactant, helping the material spread more quickly. By the 1970s, every military base, Navy ship, civilian airport, and fire station regularly used AFFF.
In the decades that followed, millions of gallons flowed into the environment. According to the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, or EWG, 710 military sites throughout the country and its territories have known or suspected PFAS contamination. Internal studies and memos show that not long after 3M and the US Navy patented the foam in 1966, 3M learned that its PFAS products could harm animal test subjects and accumulated in the body.
In a 2022 Senate committee hearing, residents from Oscodatestified about the health impacts, such as tumors and miscarriages, from the PFAS contamination at Wurtsmith. In 2023, Michigan reached a settlement after suing numerous manufacturers, including 3M and Dupont. Today, thousands of victims across the country are suing the chemical’s manufacturers. While some organizations and communities have tried to hold the military financially responsible for this pollution — farmers in several states recently filed suits in the U.S. District Court in South Carolina to do just that — the DOD says it’s not legally liable.
Congressional pressure on the Pentagon to clean these sites has been growing. In 2020, National Defense Authorization Acts required it to phase out PFAS-laden firefighting foam by October, 2023. Since passing that law, Congress has also ordered the department to publish the findings of drinking and groundwater tests on and around bases.
Results showed nearly 50 sites with extremely high levels of contamination, and hundreds more with levels above what was then the EPA’s health advisory. Following further congressional pressure, the military announced plans to implement interim clean-up measures at three dozen locations, including a water filtering system in Oscoda.
According to a report by the Environmental Working Group, it took an average of nearly three years for the Department of Defense to complete testing at these high-contamination sites. It took just as long to draft stopgap cleanup plans. Today, 14 years after PFAS contamination was discovered at Wurtsmith, the first site to be tested, no site has left the “investigation” phase, and there has yet to be a comprehensive plan to begin permanent remediation on any base.
The Department of Defense says any site found to have PFAS contamination exceeding the Environmental Protection Agency’s previous guideline of 70 parts per trillion will receive immediate remediation, such as bottled waters and filters on faucets. When a site is found to be contaminated, the EPA says, the department has 72 hours to provide residents with alternate sources of water.
After six years spent working with various clean up initiatives, Spaniola says waiting for the military to take action has taken a toll on the people of Oscoda. “The community had a really good relationship with the military,” he said. “I’ve watched that change from a very trusting relationship to a terrible one.”
Dozens of states have mandated additional requirements to treat PFAS in municipal water systems, but such efforts often overlook private well owners. That’s leaving thousands of people at risk, given that in Michigan, where some 1.5 million people drink water from contaminated sources, 25 percent of residents rely on private wells.
Nationwide, the Environmental Working Group found unsafe water in wells near 63 military bases in 29 states. While the DOD has tested private wells, it has not published the total number of wells tested or identified which of them need to be cleaned up.
“For those who are on well water, it’s a real problem until there’s a bit of recognition for some sort of responsibility for the contamination,” said Daniel Jones, associate director of the Michigan State University Center for PFAS Research. He is advising cleanup efforts near Grayling, Michigan. “It sort of comes down to who has pockets deep enough to pay for the things that need to be done.”
The EPA’s recent decision to designate PFOA and PFOS “hazardous substances” under the federal Superfund law is unlikely to provide quick financial assistance to communities, even though the agency has made $9 billion available for private well owners and small public water systems to address contamination. Whether that support reaches private well owners is up to individual states, which can work with regional EPA offices to draft project plans before applying for grants to secure funding.
The agency has established a five-year window for water systems to test for PFAS and install filtering equipment before compliance with the newly tightened levels will be enforced. While EPA says the new PFOA and PFOS regulations do not immediately trigger an investigation or qualify them as Superfund sites on the National Priorities List, decisions for each site will be on a case-by-case basis.
“It is a tremendous win for public health, it is tremendously important and cannot cannot come soon enough, particularly for military communities who have been exposed for decades,” said Melanie Benesh, vice president of governmental affairs at the Environmental Working Group. Benesh hopes that the new rules help push the Defense Department to move more quickly.
New EPA rules will force fossil fuel power plants to cut pollution
by Robert Zullo, Utah News Dispatch
April 25, 2024
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday released a sweeping set of rules aimed at cutting air, water and land pollution from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Environmental and clean energy groups celebrated the announcement as long overdue, particularly for coal-burning power plants, which have saddled hundreds of communities across the country with dirty air and hundreds of millions of tons of toxic coal ash waste. The ash has leached a host of toxins – including arsenic, mercury, lead, cadmium, radium and other pollutants – into ground and surface water.
“Today is the culmination of years of advocacy for common-sense safeguards that will have a direct impact on communities long forced to suffer in the shadow of the dirtiest power plants in the country,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club, one of the nation’s oldest and largest environmental organizations. “It is also a major step forward in our movement’s fight to decarbonize the electric sector and help avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”
But some electric industry and pro-coal organizations blasted the rules as a threat to jobs and electric reliability at a time when power demands are surging. They also criticized the rule’s reliance on largely unproven carbon capture technologies.
America’s Power, a trade organization for the nation’s fleet of about 400 coal power plants across 42 states, called the number of new rules “unprecedented,” singling out the new emissions standards that will force existing coal plants to cut their carbon emissions by 90% by the 2032 if they intend to keep running past 2039. Michelle Bloodworth, the group’s president and CEO, called the rule “an extreme and unlawful overreach that endangers America’s supply of dependable and affordable electricity.”
The Pennsylvania Coal Alliance, a nonprofit organization representing Pennsylvania coal mining companies, called the new rule “a haphazard and dangerous threat to our grid’s electricity supply, national security and our economy,” in a news release.
‘This forces that’
Many experts expect the regulations to be litigated, particularly the carbon rule, since the last time the EPA tried to restrict carbon emissions from power plants, a group of states led by West Virginia mounted a successful legal challenge that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Julie McNamara, deputy policy director with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the agency took great pains to conform the rule to the legal constraints outlined by the court.
“This rule is specifically responsive to that Supreme Court decision,” she said. “Which doesn’t mean that it won’t go to the courts but this is so carefully hewn to that decision that it should be robust.”
The four rules EPA released Thursday mainly target coal-fired power plants.
“By developing these standards in a clear, transparent, inclusive manner, EPA is cutting pollution while ensuring that power companies can make smart investments and continue to deliver reliable electricity for all Americans,” EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan said.
In some ways, they attach a framework to a sea change in electric generation that is already well under way, McNamara said.
Coal accounted for just 16% of U.S. electric generation in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 1990, by comparison, it comprised more than 54% of power generation. However, some states are more reliant on coal power than others.
In 2021, the most coal-dependent states were West Virginia, Missouri, Wyoming and Kentucky, per a 2022 report by the EIA.
“This rulemaking adds structure to that transition,” McNamara said. “For those who have chosen not to assess the future use of their coal plants, this forces that.”
The same EIA report found that Ohio and Pennsylvania had the largest declines in coal-fired capacity over the past two decades. Both states shifted from coal to natural gas as their largest source of electricity over that period.
Heather O’Neill, president and CEO of the clean energy trade group Advanced Energy United, said the new regulations are a chance for utilities to embrace cheaper, cleaner and more reliable options for the electric grid.
“Instead of looking to build new gas plants or prolong the life of old coal plants, utilities should be taking advantage of the cheaper, cleaner, and more trusty tools in the toolbox,” she said.
The carbon rule
In 2009, the EPA concluded that greenhouse gas emissions “endanger our nation’s public health and welfare,” the agency wrote, adding that since that time, “the evidence of the harms posed by GHG emissions has only grown and Americans experience the destructive and worsening effects of climate change every day.”
The new carbon emissions regulation will apply to existing coal plants and new natural gas plants. Coal plants that plan to operate beyond 2039 will have to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032. New gas plants are split into three categories based on their capacity factor, a measure of how much electricity is generated over a period of time relative to the maximum amount it could have produced.
The plants that run the most (more than 40% capacity factor) will have to capture 90% of their carbon emissions by 2032. Existing gas plants will be regulated under a forthcoming rule that “more comprehensively addresses GHG emissions from this portion of the fleet,” the agency said.
Michelle Solomon, a senior policy analyst for Energy Innovation, an energy and climate policy think tank, predicts that most coal plants will close rather than install the costly technology to capture carbon emissions.
“Climate goals aside, the public health impacts of the rules in securing the retirement of coal fired power plants is so important,” she said. Coal power in the U.S. has been increasingly pressured by cheaper gas and renewable generation and mounting environmental restrictions, but some grid operators have still been caught flat-footed by the pace of coal plant closures.
“I think the role of this rule, to provide that certainty about where we’re going, is so crucial to get the entities that have control over the rate of the transition to start to take action here,” she said. But the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s CEO, Jim Matheson, called the rules “unlawful, unrealistic and unachievable” noting that it relies on technology “that is not ready for prime time.”
And Todd Snitchler, president and CEO of the Electric Power Supply Association, a trade group for competitive power suppliers, called the rule “a painful example of aspirational policy outpacing physical and operational realities” because of its reliance on unproven carbon capture and hydrogen blending technologies to cut emissions.
A beefed up Mercury and Air Toxic Standards rule
The EPA called the revision to the Mercury and Air Toxic Standards “the most significant update since MATS was first issued in February 2012.” It predicted the rule would cut emissions of mercury and other air pollutants like nickel, arsenic, lead, soot, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and others. It cuts the mercury limit by 70% for power plants fired by lignite coal, which is the lowest grade of coal and one of the dirtiest to burn for power generation.
For all coal plants, the emissions limit for toxic metals is reduced by 67%. The EPA says the rule will result in major cuts in releases of mercury and other hazardous metals, fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. The agency projects “$300 million in health benefits,” including reducing risks of heart attacks, cancer and developmental delays in children and $130 million in climate benefits.
Stronger wastewater discharge limits for power plants
Coal fired power plants use huge volumes of water, and when the wastewater is returned to lakes, rivers and streams it can be laden with mercury, arsenic and other metals as well as bromide, chloride and other pollution and contaminate drinking water and harm aquatic life.
The new rule is projected to cut about 670 million pounds of pollutants discharged in wastewater from coal plants per year. Plants that will cease coal combustion over the next decade can abide by less stringent rules.
“Power plants for far too long have been able to get away with treating our waterways like an open sewer,” said Thomas Cmar, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, during a briefing on the new rules earlier this week.
Closing a coal ash loophole
Coal ash, what’s left after coal has been burned for power generation, is one the nation’s largest waste streams. The 2015 EPA Coal Combustion Residuals rule were the first federal regulations for coal ash. But that rule left about half of the ash sitting at power plant sites and other locations – much of it in unlined disposal pits – unregulated because it did not apply to so-called “legacy impoundments” that were not being used to accept new ash.
“We’re going to see a long-awaited crackdown on coal ash pollution from America’s coal plants, and it’ll be a huge win for America’s health and water resources,” said Lisa Evans, a senior attorney with Earthjustice. “They are all likely leaking toxic chemicals like arsenic into groundwater and most contain levels of radioactivity that can be dangerous to human health.”
Groundwater monitoring data shows that the vast majority of ash ponds at coal plants are contaminating groundwater, said Abel Russ, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. Butunder the old rule, Russ said, facilities could dodge cleanup requirements by blaming contamination on older ash dumps not covered by the regulation.
“This is a huge loophole,” Russ said. “You can’t restore groundwater quality if you’re only addressing half of the coal ash sources on site.”
However, several attorneys on the Earthjustice briefing said the new rules, which will require monitoring at clean up and hundreds of more ash sites, will only be as good as the enforcement.
“It’s meaningful only if these utilities obey the law. Unfortunately to date, many of them have not,” said Frank Holleman, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com. Follow Utah News Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
The Environmental Protection Agency, South Adams County Water and Sanitation District to break ground on drinking water treatment enhancements for #PFAS chemicals on April 25, 2024
From email from the EPA:
DENVER (April 23, 2024) — On Thursday, April 25, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Administrator KC Becker will join U.S. Senator Michael Bennet on a visit to the South Adams County Water and Sanitation District (SACWSD) to break ground on a water treatment system that will allow SACWSD to deliver high-quality drinking water that meets all state and federal regulations, including EPA regulations for to treat PFAS chemical contamination by 2029.
WHO:
· U.S. Senator Michael Bennet
· EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker
· South Adams County Water and Sanitation District Board President Heidi McNeely
· South Adams County Water and Sanitation District Manager Abel Moreno
Additional representatives from South Adams County Water and Sanitation District will be in attendance, along with other key project partners from:
· Brown & Caldwell, engineering consultant
· PCL Construction, construction manager
· United States Environmental Protection Agency
· Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment
WHAT:
EPA and partners will break ground on the Klein Enhancement Project. The project, a partnership with Brown & Caldwell Engineering and PCL Construction, will construct an ion-exchange water treatment system that will allow SACWSD to deliver high-quality drinking water that meets all state and federal regulations, including EPA regulations required to treat for PFAS chemical contamination. SACWSD was recently awarded nearly $61 million in federal funding to complete the construction. The project is expected to be completed in late 2026.
Tours of existing treatment facilities and the enhancement project site will be available after speakers’ remarks.
WHEN: 2 p.m., Thursday, April 25, 2024
WHERE: 7400 Quebec Street, Commerce City, Colorado
Polluters must pay to clean up areas contaminated with PFOA, PFOS — SourceNM.com #PFAS
Click the link to read the article on the SourceNM.com website (Lisa Sorg):
April 22, 2024
Industries that discharge toxic PFOA and PFOS compounds into the environment will now be held legally and financially responsible for the contamination, according to a final rule issued by the EPA last week.
The Department of Defense is also subject to the new requirements.
PFOA and PFOS are now classified as hazardous substances under Superfund law, which authorizes the EPA to use its enforcement powers to require polluters pay for and clean up the contamination. The designation also mandates new reporting requirements for facilities that release the compounds into the environment.
These facilities include 3M, DuPont and its spinoff company, Chemours.
“Designating these chemicals under our Superfund authority will allow EPA to address more contaminated sites, take earlier action, and expedite cleanups, all while ensuring polluters pay for the costs to clean up pollution threatening the health of communities,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said.
The EPA announced the new rule a week after setting legally enforceable drinking water standards for five types of the toxic compounds, as well as a mixture. PFOA and PFOS are among those compounds with maximum contamination limits of 4 parts per trillion.
Exposure to PFOA, PFOS and other similar compounds has been linked to multiple health problems, including thyroid and liver disorders, reproductive and fetal development problems, immune system deficiencies, high cholesterol, and kidney, testicular and other cancers.
There are several exemptions to the rule — entities that receive, often unknowingly, these compounds from industrial sources: community water systems and publicly owned treatment works, municipal storm sewer systems, publicly owned/operated municipal solid waste landfills, publicly owned airports and local fire departments, and farms where biosolids are applied to the land.
When Regan announced the new drinking water standards, public utilities clamored for ways to pass the treatment costs to polluters. PFOA and PFOS, as well as other types of the toxic compounds, can’t be removed through traditional treatment methods. The upgrades can run in the tens of millions of dollars. The $1 billion in federal funding to help utilities meet the drinking water standards is not enough, given the widespread contamination.
“Communities across the Southeast and the country have been shouldering the costs of PFAS contamination for far too long,” said Kelly Moser, senior attorney and leader of the Water Program at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “Today’s designations will help put the burden of addressing PFAS pollution back on the polluter. Now states and municipalities must use the tools they have to stop ongoing toxic PFAS pollution before more contaminated Superfund sites are created.”
Under the new rule, entities are required to immediately report releases of PFOA and PFOS that meet or exceed the reportable quantity of one pound within a 24-hour period to the National Response Center, as well as state, tribal and local emergency responders.
“After decades of industry using and disposing PFOA and PFOS, EPA can now accelerate cleanups of the most contaminated sites,” said Earthjustice Legislative Counsel Christine Santillana, in a prepared statement. “It’s highly encouraging to see EPA initiate this designation and gives hope to impacted communities that their health will be better protected.”
The final rule also means that federal entities that transfer or sell their property must provide notice about the storage, release, or disposal of PFOA or PFOS on the property and guarantee that contamination has been cleaned up or, if needed, that additional cleanup will occur in the future. It will also lead the Department of Transportation to list and regulate these substances as hazardous materials, according to the EPA.
Under federal law, hazardous materials can be transported only with a special permit, accompanied by a shipping manifest. Transportation documents for most hazardous substances are public through the EPA’s e-Manifest database; it will now be easier to track the transport of PFOA and PFOS.
This designation of the two chemicals will also ensure that hundreds of Department of Defense installations with PFOA and PFOS contamination are finally cleaned up.
This could affect the Tarheel Army Missile Plant in Burlington, where PFOA and PFOS were found in the groundwater and soil last year. Although the military has already transferred that property to private owners, the Department of Defense is responsible for cleaning up contamination below the ground — now including PFOA and PFOS.
“Nearly 500 military installations are contaminated with PFAS, but the DOD has failed to make PFAS cleanup a priority – and our service members and defense communities are paying the price,” said Jared Hayes, a senior policy analyst at the Environmental Working Group.
The national Sierra Club had submitted public comments last year, asking the EPA to crack down on industrial dischargers.
“We’re grateful that the EPA continues to find ways to fight what can only be described as an uphill battle against PFAS contamination,” said Erin Carey, acting director of the North Carolina chapter of the Sierra Club. “Right now, the regulation of these dangerous chemicals is far too narrow to be fully protective. With more than ten thousand of these compounds in production, we must move toward regulation of PFAS as a class, rather than this ‘whack-a-mole’ method of regulating individual compounds. Broader and more ambitious action will be required of this agency, of industry and of our elected leaders to meaningfully tackle the terrifying and widespread threat of ‘forever chemicals’ in our bodies and our environment.”
NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Rob Schofield for questions: info@ncnewsline.com. Follow NC Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.
Drinking water for 268,000 Coloradans exceeds new limits on “forever chemicals.” How will providers find millions to fix the water? — The #Denver Post #PFAS
Click the link to read the article on The Denver Post website (Noelle Phillips and Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
April 21, 2024
The 27 water systems identified by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment as exceeding the new standards range in size from Thornton, which serves about 155,000 customers, to Dawn of Hope Ranch, a religious retreat in Teller County that serves 55 people. Some of the larger utilities on the state’s list already are planning to build multimillion-dollar filtration systems, but experts say the smaller water providers will be among the last to fall into compliance. While grant money is available, experts note it’s likely water customers will pay some of the costs via higher rates.
The federal regulations announced 10 days ago require drinking water providers to lower the concentration of forever chemicals below the new limit by 2029. The chemicals — perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS — have been used for decades to make waterproof, nonstick or stain-resistant products and are linked to a wide range of health problems, including cancer and reduced fertility…
In Colorado, state water regulators have a good idea which water systems have PFAS in their drinking water supplies, said Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who is an expert in PFAS contamination. Fifty-six other water providers in the state have found PFAS in their water but in concentrations below the EPA’s limit, including Aurora, Frisco and Gunnison…
The federal government set aside more than $10 billion to help communities test and treat drinking water for PFAS. That money is intended for rural or disproportionately impacted communities. That’s not nearly enough, Zobell said…Unless there is a leap in PFAS-removal technology in the next three years, many providers will have to raise rates or find money elsewhere, Zobell said. Moody, with the American Water Works Association, said the financial burden has been a primary concern among water providers…There are just a handful of companies in the United States that build and install the filtration systems, Moody said. They will go after the larger contracts, leaving the smallest, more rural water companies in the back of the line because those contracts will be less profitable.
Removing PFAS from public water will cost billions and take time – here are ways to filter out some harmful ‘forever chemicals’ at home
Kyle Doudrick, University of Notre Dame
Chemists invented PFAS in the 1930s to make life easier: Nonstick pans, waterproof clothing, grease-resistant food packaging and stain-resistant carpet were all made possible by PFAS. But in recent years, the growing number of health risks found to be connected to these chemicals has become increasingly alarming.
PFAS – perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances – are now either suspected or known to contribute to thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, liver damage and cancer, among other health issues.
They can be found in the blood of most Americans and in many drinking water systems, which is why the Environmental Protection Agency in April 2024 finalized the first enforceable federal limits for six types of PFAS in drinking water systems. The limits – between 4 and 10 parts per trillion for PFOS, PFOA, PFHxS, PFNA and GenX – are less than a drop of water in a thousand Olympic-sized swimming pools, which speaks to the chemicals’ toxicity. The sixth type, PFBS, is regulated as a mixture using what’s known as a hazard index.
Meeting these new limits won’t be easy or cheap. And there’s another problem: While PFAS can be filtered out of water, these “forever chemicals” are hard to destroy.
My team at the University of Notre Dame works on solving problems involving contaminants in water systems, including PFAS. We explore new technologies to remove PFAS from drinking water and to handle the PFAS waste. Here’s a glimpse of the magnitude of the challenge and ways you can reduce PFAS in your own drinking water:
Removing PFAS will cost billions per year
Every five years, the EPA is required to choose 30 unregulated contaminants to monitor in public drinking water systems. Right now, 29 of those 30 contaminants are PFAS. The tests provide a sense of just how widespread PFAS are in water systems and where.
The EPA has taken over 22,500 samples from about 3,800 of the 154,000 public drinking water systems in the U.S. In 22% of those water systems, its testing found at least one of the six newly regulated PFAS, and about 16% of the systems exceeded the new standards. East Coast states had the largest percentage of systems with PFAS levels exceeding the new standards in EPA tests conducted so far.
Under the new EPA rules, public water systems have until 2027 to complete monitoring for PFAS and provide publicly available data. If they find PFAS at concentrations that exceed the new limits, then they must install a treatment system by 2029.
How much that will cost public water systems, and ultimately their customers, is still a big unknown, but it won’t be cheap.
The EPA estimated the cost to the nation’s public drinking water systems to comply with the news rules at about US$1.5 billion per year. But other estimates suggest the total costs of testing and cleaning up PFAS contamination will be much higher. The American Water Works Association put the cost at over $3.8 billion per year for PFOS and PFOA alone.
There are more than 5,000 chemicals that are considered PFAS, yet only a few have been studied for their toxicity, and even fewer tested for in drinking water. The United States Geological Survey estimates that nearly half of all tap water is contaminated with PFAS.
Some money for testing and cleanup will come from the federal government. Other funds will come from 3M and DuPont, the leading makers of PFAS. 3M agreed in a settlement to pay between $10.5 billion to $12.5 billion to help reimburse public water systems for some of their PFAS testing and treatment. But public water systems will still bear additional costs, and those costs will be passed on to residents.
Next problem: Disposing of ‘forever chemicals’
Another big question is how to dispose of the captured PFAS once they have been filtered out.
Landfills are being considered, but that just pushes the problem to the next generation. PFAS are known as “forever chemicals” for a reason – they are incredibly resilient and don’t break down naturally, so they are hard to destroy.
Studies have shown that PFAS can be broken down with energy-intensive technologies. But this comes with steep costs. Incinerators must reach over 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 Celsius) to destroy PFAS, and the possibility of creating potentially harmful byproducts is not yet well understood. Other suggested techniques, such as supercritical water oxidation or plasma reactors, have the same drawbacks.
So who is responsible for managing PFAS waste? Ultimately the responsibility will likely fall on public drinking water systems, but the EPA has no waste regulations for PFAS.
Steps to protect your home from PFAS
Your first instinct might be to use bottled water to try to avoid PFAS exposures, but a recent study found that even bottled water can contain these chemicals. And bottled water is regulated by a different federal agency, the Food and Drug Administration, which has no standards for PFAS.
Your best option is to rely on the same technologies that treatment facilities will be using:
- Activated carbon is similar to charcoal. Like a sponge, it will capture the PFAS, removing it from the water. This is the same technology in refrigerator filters and in some water pitcher filters, like Brita or PUR. Note that many refrigerator manufacture’s filters are not certified for PFAS, so don’t assume they will remove PFAS to safe levels.
- Ion exchange resin is the same technology found in many home water softeners. Like activated carbon, it captures PFAS from the water, and you can find this technology in many pitcher filter products. If you opt for a whole house treatment system, which a plumber can attach where the water enters the house, ion exchange resin is probably the best choice. But it is expensive.
- Reverse osmosis is a membrane technology that only allows water and select compounds to pass through the membrane, while PFAS are blocked. This is commonly installed at the kitchen sink and has been found to be very effective at removing most PFAS in water. It is not practical for whole house treatment, but it is likely to remove a lot of other contaminants as well.
If you have a private well instead of a public drinking water system, that doesn’t mean you’re safe from PFAS exposure. Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources estimates that 71% of shallow private wells in that state have some level of PFAS contamination. Using a certified laboratory to test well water for PFAS can run $300-$600 per sample, a cost barrier that will leave many private well owners in the dark.
For all the treatment options, make sure the device you choose is certified for PFAS by a reputable testing agency, and follow the recommended schedule for maintenance and filter replacement. Unfortunately, there is currently no safe way to dispose of the filters, so they go in the trash. No treatment option is perfect, and none is likely to remove all PFAS down to safe levels, but some treatment is better than none.
Kyle Doudrick, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
America’s Most Endangered Rivers of 2024 — @AmericanRivers
Ten rivers. Ten solutions. Ten opportunities to protect the rivers on which all life depends. America’s Most Endangered Rivers® of 2024 shines a spotlight on threats to clean water, and how pollution impacts to our health and our communities.
#1: Rivers of New Mexico New Mexico is the state hardest hit by a recent Supreme Court ruling that slashed protections for streams, threatening drinking water sources and livelihoods across the state.
#2: Big Sunflower and Yazoo Rivers A massive pumping project would impact thousands of acres of wetlands vital to wildlife and the Mississippi Delta ecosystem.
#3: Duck River The drinking water source for 250,000 people and one of the richest rivers for biodiversity is threatened by excessive water withdrawals.
#4: Santa Cruz River This symbol of restoration and resilience is threatened by climate change and water scarcity.
#5: Little Pee Dee River A major highway project is putting clean water and wildlife habitat at risk.
#6: Farmington River A hydropower dam is threatening fisheries and harming water quality in this important drinking water source.
#7: Trinity River This important tributary to the Klamath River is at risk from excessive water withdrawals, threatening both salmon and people.
#8: Kobuk River Road development and mining threaten clean water, wildlife, and Iñupiat culture.
#9: Tijuana River Pollution is choking the river, causing sickness, forcing beach closures, and endangering local economies.
#10: Blackwater River A proposed highway project would be a disaster for water quality and fish and wildlife habitat.
‘Forever chemicals’ found in Sleepy Bear well water system: City water shows undetectable amount of PFAS — Steamboat Pilot & Today
Click the link to read the article on the Steamboat Pilot & Today website (Suzie Romig). Here’s an excerpt:
April 14, 2024
Children age five and younger, and women who are pregnant, planning to become pregnant or breastfeeding, are more susceptible to health impacts from commonly called “forever chemicals,” which have been found so far in unhealthy levels in one neighborhood water system in Routt County…Sleepy Bear mobile home park, located along U.S. Highway 40 on the western edge of Steamboat Springs, has recorded PFAS levels in the neighborhood water system that are higher than health advisory and national drinking water standards. The mobile home park is not part of the city water system and uses a well water system, according to the local park manager…
“Most people living in the United States have some amount of these chemicals in their blood,” according to the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment. “People in communities that have been contaminated by PFAS — through water or other sources — are more likely to have health impacts.”
[…]
Consumer drinking water testing for Sleepy Bear showed 9.2 parts per trillion of PFOA, which is more than double the newly released legally enforceable standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA limits PFOA and PFOS drinking water standards to four parts per trillion. The CDPHE, which issues water system permits in the state, advised Sleepy Bear residents to “consider taking action to reduce your exposure.” Since the EPA previously issued a health advisory in June 2022, Sleepy Bear voluntarily participated in a proactive testing program for PFAS water sampling in June 2023. Sleepy Bear contracted water operator Ron Krueger, owner of Crystal Clear Water Treatment in Lakewood, said Thursday he is awaiting direction from the CDPHE for next steps…
Mount Werner Water & Sanitation District General Manager Frank Alfone said the district has been conducting voluntary PFAS testing that will continue throughout 2025. The most recent testing in February showed no detectable levels of PFAS in the city drinking water supply.
2024 #COleg: #Colorado Wetlands: Lawmakers clash as they seek state protections — Colorado Politics
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Politics website (Marianne Goodland). Here’s an excerpt:
April 13, 2024
This month, lawmakers looked at the dueling approaches contained in two measures seeking to implement a way for the state to manage “dredge and fill discharge” permits tied to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision [Sackett vs. EPA] that redefined how a body of water can be protected under the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Waters of the United States” rule…Supporters of the first bill, which gives the task to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, insist it’s the proper venue because it already experience dealing with permitting and water quality issues. Supporters of the second measure, which hands the responsibility to the Colorado Department of Natural Resources, maintain that the Department of Natural Resources is better equipped, since it already deals with related disciplines, such as water resource management, water rights law and land management.
In any case, policymakers agree that Colorado residents, industries and the wetlands needs certainty…Alex Funk with the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership told a legislative committee last August that almost 90% of fish and wildlife in Colorado rely on the state’s wetlands at some point during their lifecycle. House Speaker McCluskie told the House agriculture committee on April 8 that since Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency held that only permanent streams and rivers are protected under the federal Clean Water Act, those with a continuous surface connection to another permanent water body. That puts Colorado waters at risk, she said. Pitkin County Commissioner Greg Poschman also noted that the state’s headwaters are made up of small streams that do not have year-round flow because they are under snowpack half the year — suggesting Sackett would put those waters at risk.
PFAS ‘forever chemicals’: Why EPA set federal drinking water limits for these health-harming contaminants
The more scientists learn about the health risks of PFAS, found in everything from nonstick cookware to carpets to ski wax, the more concerning these “forever chemicals” become.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now believes there is no safe level for two common PFAS – PFOA and PFOS – in drinking water, and it acknowledges that very low concentrations of other PFAS present human health risks. The agency issued the first legally enforceable national drinking water standards for five common types of PFAS chemicals, as well as PFAS mixtures, on April 10, 2024.
I study PFAS as an environmental health scientist. Here’s a quick look at the risks these chemicals pose and efforts to regulate them.
What exactly are PFAS?
PFAS stands for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. This is a large group of human-made chemicals – currently estimated to be nearly 15,000 individual chemical compounds – that are used widely in consumer products and industry. They can make products resistant to water, grease and stains and protect against fire.
Waterproof outdoor apparel and cosmetics, stain-resistant upholstery and carpets, food packaging that is designed to prevent liquid or grease from leaking through, and certain firefighting equipment often contain PFAS.
In fact, studies have found that most products labeled stain- or water-resistant contain PFAS, and another study found that this is even true among products labeled as “nontoxic” or “green.” PFAS are also found in unexpected places such as high-performance ski and snowboard waxes, floor waxes and medical devices.
At first glance, PFAS sound pretty useful, so you might be wondering what’s the big deal?
The short answer is that PFAS are harmful to human health and the environment.
Some of the very same chemical properties that make PFAS attractive in products also mean these chemicals will persist in the environment for generations. Because of the widespread use of PFAS, these chemicals are now present in water, soil and living organisms and can be found across almost every part of the planet, including Arctic glaciers, marine mammals, remote communities living on subsistence diets and in 98% of the American public.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates common types of PFAS are now in at least 45% of the country’s tap water. PFAS maker 3M, facing lawsuits, announced a settlement worth at least US$10.3 billion in June 2023, with public water systems to pay for PFAS testing and treatment.
What are the health risks from PFAS exposure?
Once people are exposed to PFAS, the chemicals remain in their bodies for a long time – months to years, depending on the specific compound – and they can accumulate over time.
Research consistently demonstrates that PFAS are associated with a variety of adverse health effects. A review by a panel of experts looking at research on PFAS toxicity concluded with a high degree of certainty that PFAS contribute to thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, liver damage, and kidney and testicular cancer.
Further, they concluded with a high degree of certainty that PFAS also affect babies exposed in utero by increasing their likelihood of being born at a lower birth weight and responding less effectively to vaccines, while impairing women’s mammary gland development, which may adversely affect a mom’s ability to breastfeed.
The review also found evidence that PFAS may contribute to a number of other disorders, though further research is needed to confirm existing findings: inflammatory bowel disease, reduced fertility, breast cancer, and an increased likelihood of miscarriage and developing high blood pressure and preeclampsia during pregnancy. Additionally, current research suggests that babies exposed prenatally are at higher risk of experiencing obesity, early-onset puberty and reduced fertility later in life.
Collectively, this is a formidable list of diseases and disorders.
Who’s regulating PFAS?
PFAS chemicals have been around since the late 1930s, when a DuPont scientist created one by accident during a lab experiment. DuPont called it Teflon, which eventually became a household name for its use on nonstick pans.
Decades later, in 1998, Scotchgard maker 3M notified the Environmental Protection Agency that a PFAS chemical was showing up in human blood samples. At the time, 3M said low levels of the manufactured chemical had been detected in people’s blood as early as the 1970s.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has a toxicological profile for PFAS. And the EPA had issued advisories and health-based guidelines. But despite the lengthy list of serious health risks linked to PFAS and a tremendous amount of federal investment in PFAS-related research in recent years, PFAS hadn’t been regulated at the federal level in the United States until now.
The new drinking water standards set limits for five individual PFAS – PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS and HFPO-DA – as well as mixtures of these chemicals. The standards are part of the EPA’s road map for PFAS regulations.
The EPA has also proposed listing nine PFAS as hazardous substances under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, a move that worries utilities and businesses that use PFAS-containing products or processes because of the expense of cleanup.
While waiting for federal action, states have taken their own steps to protect residents against the risk of PFAS exposure.
At least 28 states have laws targeting PFAS in various uses, such as in food packaging and carpets. About a dozen have drinking water standards for PFAS. But relying on state laws creates a patchwork of regulations, which places burdens on businesses and consumers to navigate regulatory nuances across state lines.
How can you reduce your PFAS exposure?
Based on current scientific understanding, most people are exposed to PFAS primarily through their diet, though drinking water and airborne exposures may be significant among some people, especially if they live near known PFAS-related industries or contamination.
The best ways to protect yourself and your family from risks associated with PFAS are to educate yourself about potential sources of exposure.
Products labeled as water- or stain-resistant have a good chance of containing PFAS. When possible, check the ingredients on products you buy and watch for chemical names containing “fluor-.” Specific trade names, such as Teflon and Gore-Tex, are also likely to contain PFAS.
Check whether there are sources of contamination near you, such as in drinking water or PFAS-related industries in the area. Strategies for monitoring and reporting PFAS contamination vary by location and PFAS source, so the absence of readily available information does not necessarily mean the region is free of PFAS problems.
For additional information about PFAS, check out the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, EPA and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention websites, or contact your state or local public health department.
If you believe you have been exposed to PFAS and are concerned about your health, contact your health care provider. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have published guidance on PFAS exposure, testing and clinical follow-up, which includes information to help health care professionals understand monitoring and clinical implications of PFAS exposure.
This is an update to an article originally published June 21, 2022.
Kathryn Crawford, Assistant Professor of Environmental Health, Middlebury
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Biden-Harris Administration Finalizes First-Ever National Drinking Water Standard to Protect 100M People from #PFAS Pollution
Click the link to read the article on the Environmental Protection Agency website:
As part of the Administration’s commitment to combating PFAS pollution, EPA announces $1B investment through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to address PFAS in drinking water
April 10, 2024
WASHINGTON – Today, April 10, the Biden-Harris Administration issued the first-ever national, legally enforceable drinking water standard to protect communities from exposure to harmful per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as ‘forever chemicals.’ Exposure to PFAS has been linked to deadly cancers, impacts to the liver and heart, and immune and developmental damage to infants and children. This final rule represents the most significant step to protect public health under EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap. The final rule will reduce PFAS exposure for approximately 100 million people, prevent thousands of deaths, and reduce tens of thousands of serious illnesses. Today’s announcement complements President Biden’s government-wide action plan to combat PFAS pollution.
Through President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, EPA is also making unprecedented funding available to help ensure that all people have clean and safe water. In addition to today’s final rule, EPA is announcing nearly $1 billion in newly available funding through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help states and territories implement PFAS testing and treatment at public water systems and to help owners of private wells address PFAS contamination. This is part of a $9 billion investment through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help communities with drinking water impacted by PFAS and other emerging contaminants – the largest-ever investment in tackling PFAS pollution. An additional $12 billion is available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for general drinking water improvements, including addressing emerging contaminants like PFAS.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan will join White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory to announce the final standard today at an event in Fayetteville, North Carolina. In 2017, area residents learned that the Cape Fear River, the drinking water source for 1 million people in the region, had been heavily contaminated with PFAS pollution from a nearby manufacturing facility. Today’s announcements will help protect communities like Fayetteville from further devastating impacts of PFAS.
“Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “That is why President Biden has made tackling PFAS a top priority, investing historic resources to address these harmful chemicals and protect communities nationwide. Our PFAS Strategic Roadmap marshals the full breadth of EPA’s authority and resources to protect people from these harmful forever chemicals. Today, I am proud to finalize this critical piece of our Roadmap, and in doing so, save thousands of lives and help ensure our children grow up healthier.”
“President Biden believes that everyone deserves access to clean, safe drinking water, and he is delivering on that promise,” said Brenda Mallory, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “The first national drinking water standards for PFAS marks a significant step towards delivering on the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to advancing environmental justice, protecting communities, and securing clean water for people across the country.”
“Under President Biden’s leadership, we are taking a whole-of-government approach to tackle PFAS pollution and ensure that all Americans have access to clean, safe drinking water. Today’s announcement by EPA complements these efforts and will help keep our communities safe from these toxic ‘forever chemicals,’” said Deputy Assistant to the President for the Cancer Moonshot, Dr. Danielle Carnival. “Coupled with the additional $1 billion investment from President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to help communities address PFAS pollution, the reductions in exposure to toxic substances delivered by EPA’s standards will further the Biden Cancer Moonshot goal of reducing the cancer death rate by at least half by 2047 and preventing more than four million cancer deaths — and stopping cancer before it starts by protecting communities from known risks associated with exposure to PFAS and other contaminants, including kidney and testicular cancers, and more.”
EPA is taking a signature step to protect public health by establishing legally enforceable levels for several PFAS known to occur individually and as mixtures in drinking water. This rule sets limits for five individual PFAS: PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS, and HFPO-DA (also known as “GenX Chemicals”). The rule also sets a limit for mixtures of any two or more of four PFAS: PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and “GenX chemicals.” By reducing exposure to PFAS, this final rule will prevent thousands of premature deaths, tens of thousands of serious illnesses, including certain cancers and liver and heart impacts in adults, and immune and developmental impacts to infants and children.
This final rule advances President Biden’s commitment to ending cancer as we know it as part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot, to ensuring that all Americans have access to clean, safe, drinking water, and to furthering the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to environmental justice by protecting communities that are most exposed to toxic chemicals.
EPA estimates that between about 6% and 10% of the 66,000 public drinking water systems subject to this rule may have to take action to reduce PFAS to meet these new standards. All public water systems have three years to complete their initial monitoring for these chemicals. They must inform the public of the level of PFAS measured in their drinking water. Where PFAS is found at levels that exceed these standards, systems must implement solutions to reduce PFAS in their drinking water within five years.
The new limits in this rule are achievable using a range of available technologies and approaches including granular activated carbon, reverse osmosis, and ion exchange systems. For example, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, serving Wilmington, NC – one of the communities most heavily impacted by PFAS contamination – has effectively deployed a granular activated carbon system to remove PFAS regulated by this rule. Drinking water systems will have flexibility to determine the best solution for their community.
EPA will be working closely with state co-regulators in supporting water systems and local officials to implement this rule. In the coming weeks, EPA will host a series of webinars to provide information to the public, communities, and water utilities about the final PFAS drinking water regulation. To learn more about the webinars, please visit EPA’s PFAS drinking water regulation webpage. EPA has also published a toolkit of communications resources to help drinking water systems and community leaders educate the public about PFAS, where they come from, their health risks, how to reduce exposure, and about this rule.
“We are thankful that Administrator Regan and the Biden Administration are taking this action to protect drinking water in North Carolina and across the country,” said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. “We asked for this because we know science-based standards for PFAS and other compounds are desperately needed.”
“For decades, the American people have been exposed to the family of incredibly toxic ‘forever chemicals’ known as PFAS with no protection from their government. Those chemicals now contaminate virtually all Americans from birth. That’s because for generations, PFAS chemicals slid off of every federal environmental law like a fried egg off a Teflon pan — until Joe Biden came along,” said Environmental Working Group President and Co-Founder Ken Cook. “We commend EPA Administrator Michael Regan for his tireless leadership to make this decision a reality, and CEQ Chair Brenda Mallory for making sure PFAS is tackled with the ‘whole of government’ approach President Biden promised. There is much work yet to be done to end PFAS pollution. The fact that the EPA has adopted the very strong policy announced today should give everyone confidence that the Biden administration will stay the course and keep the president’s promises, until the American people are protected, at long last, from the scourge of PFAS pollution.”
“We learned about GenX and other PFAS in our tap water six years ago. I raised my children on this water and watched loved ones suffer from rare or recurrent cancers. No one should ever worry if their tap water will make them sick or give them cancer. I’m grateful the Biden EPA heard our pleas and kept its promise to the American people. We will keep fighting until all exposures to PFAS end and the chemical companies responsible for business-related human rights abuses are held fully accountable,” said Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear.
More details about funding to address PFAS in Drinking Water
Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, EPA is making an unprecedented $21 billion available to strengthen our nation’s drinking water systems, including by addressing PFAS contamination. Of that, $9 billion is specifically for tackling PFAS and emerging contaminants. The financing programs delivering this funding are part of President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative, which set the goal that 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
Additionally, EPA has a nationwide Water Technical Assistance program to help small, rural, and disadvantaged communities access federal resources by working directly with water systems to identify challenges like PFAS; develop plans; build technical, managerial, and financial capacity; and apply for water infrastructure funding. Learn more about EPA’s Water Technical Assistance programs.
More details about the final PFAS drinking water standards:
- For PFOA and PFOS, EPA is setting a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal, a non-enforceable health-based goal, at zero. This reflects the latest science showing that there is no level of exposure to these contaminants without risk of health impacts, including certain cancers.
- EPA is setting enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels at 4.0 parts per trillion for PFOA and PFOS, individually. This standard will reduce exposure from these PFAS in our drinking water to the lowest levels that are feasible for effective implementation.
- For PFNA, PFHxS, and “GenX Chemicals,” EPA is setting the MCLGs and MCLs at 10 parts per trillion.
- Because PFAS can often be found together in mixtures, and research shows these mixtures may have combined health impacts, EPA is also setting a limit for any mixture of two or more of the following PFAS: PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and “GenX Chemicals.”
EPA is issuing this rule after reviewing extensive research and science on how PFAS affects public health, while engaging with the water sector and with state regulators to ensure effective implementation. EPA also considered 120,000 comments on the proposed rule from a wide variety of stakeholders.
Background:
PFAS, also known as ‘forever chemicals,’ are prevalent in the environment. PFAS are a category of chemicals used since the 1940s to repel oil and water and resist heat, which makes them useful in everyday products such as nonstick cookware, stain resistant clothing, and firefighting foam. The science is clear that exposure to certain PFAS over a long period of time can cause cancer and other illnesses. In addition, PFAS exposure during critical life stages such as pregnancy or early childhood can also result in adverse health impacts.
Across the country, PFAS contamination is impacting millions of people’s health and wellbeing. People can be exposed to PFAS through drinking water or food contaminated with PFAS, by coming into contact with products that contain PFAS, or through workplace exposures in certain industries.
Since EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan announced the PFAS Strategic Roadmap in October 2021, EPA has taken action – within the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-of-government approach – by advancing science and following the law to safeguard public health, protect the environment, and hold polluters accountable. The actions described in the PFAS Strategic Roadmap each represent important and meaningful steps to protect communities from PFAS contamination. Cumulatively, these actions will build upon one another and lead to more enduring and protective solutions. In December 2023, the EPA released its second annual report on PFAS progress. The report highlights significant accomplishments achieved under the EPA’s PFAS Strategic Roadmap.
2024 #COleg: New wetlands, stream oversight proposal surfaces at the #Colorado Capitol — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
March 27, 2024
Colorado lawmakers will consider a fresh proposal to grant the state authority to oversee streams and wetlands left unprotected by a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year.
House Bill 24-1379, sponsored by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon, Rep. Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, and Sen. Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, would allow the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) to oversee a wide array of industrial players, including home and road builders and mining companies, and determine what steps are necessary to minimize any damage to streams and wetlands caused by their activities.
In May, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Sackett vs. EPA that sharply limits the streams and wetlands that qualify for protection under the Clean Water Act, a decision that water observers said had a particularly broad impact in the West. In Colorado and other Western states, vast numbers of streams are temporary, flowing only after major rainstorms and during spring runoff season, when the mountain snow melts.
In addition, hundreds of Colorado wetlands lack an obvious surface connection to streams, in part because so many of the state’s streams don’t flow year-round.
“As a state we don’t want to let a good crisis go to waste,” McCluskie said in a briefing last week, referring to the Sackett decision and the regulatory gap that was created. “Our water is part of the romance and tradition of being a Coloradan. Protecting those waterways could not be more important. But we recognize there needs to be clarity and certainty for our industry partners. And we have tried to be very considerate of differing viewpoints.”
At issue is how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency now defines so-called Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, which determines which waterways and wetlands are protected under the federal Clean Water Act. The definition has been heavily litigated in the nation’s lower courts since the 1980s and has changed dramatically under different presidential administrations.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided in May that the WOTUS definition that included wetlands adjacent to streams was too broad.
In its ruling, the court said only those wetlands with a direct surface connection to a stream or permanent body of water, for instance, should be protected.
The court’s decision in the WOTUS case means it will be up to Colorado and other states to decide whether and how to handle that regulation — including permitting — and enforcement.
Colorado enacted temporary emergency protections last year to give the state time to create a new program.
And last month, Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, of Brighton, introduced Senate Bill 24-127, also designed to fill the regulatory gap. The Kirkmeyer measure, which has broad industry support, is scheduled for its first hearing April 4, but it’s likely to meet stiff resistance in the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.
Among the key differences between the two measures is that Kirkmeyer’s proposal states that any new rules can’t be more restrictive than those in place prior to the Sackett decision, while McCluskie’s says protections should be “at least as protective” as those in place at that time, according to Jarrett Freedman, spokesman for the House Democrats.
Another difference is that Kirkmeyer’s bill would place the new oversight program within the Colorado Department of Natural Resources instead of the CDPHE. Kirkmeyer said a huge permitting backlog at CDPHE shows the agency would be unable to handle dredge-and-fill permitting required under her proposal.
McCluskie, however, believes the new program would be better housed within the state health department and that new funding would alleviate permitting delays.
The first hearing on the House Bill 24-1379 has not been scheduled, Freedman said.
A broad array of environmental groups has come out in favor of McCluskie’s measure.
“Wetlands are nature’s kidneys, they filter natural pollutants, they help reduce the severity of wildfires,” said Josh Kuhn, senior water campaign manager at Conservation Colorado who spoke on behalf of the Protect Colorado Waters Coalition.
“But the Sackett decision left many of those wetlands unprotected … and we have also lost protections for seasonal streams. If pollution is dumped into streams when snow melts and runs off, that pollution gets washed into the larger rivers. … If there is mining or development activity and they are dumping fill, or dirt, into dry streambeds, when there is water moving through those streambeds it is going to take those pollutants with it and pollute our water supply,” he said.
Farm, homebuilding and mining interests have been closely watching the bill, which includes extensive exemptions for agriculture for such things as irrigation ditch repair, and on-farm water management activities. It also includes some exemptions for mining operations.
But there is still concern about the regulatory burden the new program will place on those industries and the time it will take to write new regulations and launch the program.
House Bill 24-1379 stipulates that rules be written by May 31, 2025.
“The rulemakings that they are contemplating are going to be complicated and detailed, and it’s going to be a lot to accomplish in a short period of time,” said John Kolanz, a northern Colorado attorney who often represents developers and who is tracking the bill. “It seems like a tall task.”
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
2024 #COleg: Western Slope lawmakers introduce rival bill to protect #Colorado wetlands — Summit Daily
Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website (Elliot Wenzler). Here’s an excerpt:
March 22, 2024
House Bill 1379 is only one of the approaches being considered by the Colorado legislature this session. Senate Bill 127, introduced in February by Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, R-Brighton, proposes that the permitting system should instead be managed by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources.
“They do the floodplain planning, the water planning, they’re responsible for the streams and rivers, that’s not the health department,” she said.
Kirkmeyer argues that the permitting shouldn’t be under CDPHE because the department already has a huge backlog for its other permit programs. The two bills have several other key differences, including how they define which waters should be protected and how stringent the permitting process is for different industries, such as mining. Agricultural activities would be largely exempt under both bills. Senate Bill 172 has a more narrow approach to which state waters should be protected, largely consistent with the Sackett decision. House Bill 1379 would go somewhat beyond the scope of what was protected before that ruling…
House Bill 1379 was assigned to the House Agriculture, Water and Natural Resources Committee. Senate Bill 172 is set to be heard by the Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee April 4.
EPA officials pledge to clean up old uranium mines at the first Navajo Superfund site — AZCentral.com
Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Arlyssa D. Becenti). Here’s an excerpt:
March 23, 2024
Representatives from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency met with Cove community members last week to discuss the agency’s decision to place the Lukachukai Mountains Mining District on the National Priorities List. Although the meeting was intended to be informational, tribal, Navajo EPA and community leaders expressed their uncertainty about whether the federal government will actually start addressing the cleanup of the abandoned uranium mines that landed the site on the EPA list, also known as the Superfund program. The mining district encompasses Navajo Nation communities of Cove, Round Rock and Lukachukai in the far northeastern corner of Arizona.
“We are looking at what happened in the past and how the federal government could have prevented a lot of this contamination,” said Council Delegate Amber Kanazbah Crotty, “could’ve prevented our community from getting sick. What I don’t want them (children) to have to deal with is another three or four decades before actual action happens.”
[…]
Phil Harrison remembers when his childhood community of Cove was alive with family gatherings, ceremonies, rodeos, farming and ranching, but after decades of uranium contamination, those days are a thing of the past…Harrison’s father was a miner in the uranium mines of Cove, which was where uranium was first discovered on the Navajo Nation. Uranium production in the northern and western Carrizo Mountains of the Navajo Nation began in 1948, peaked in 1955 and 1956 and declined to zero again by 1967.
2024 #COleg: #Colorado Battles Another ‘Terrible’ U.S. Supreme Court Decision With Wetlands Protection Bill — Colorado Times Recorder
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Times Recorder website (David O. Williams):
March 21, 2024
Outrage over the Trump-packed U.S. Supreme Court rolling back federal reproductive rights has in some ways overshadowed the now 6-3 conservative majority’s relentless assault on environmental regulations that for decades protected Colorado’s clean air and water.
Former president and current GOP candidate Donald Trump’s recently installed SCOTUS (he appointed three of the six staunch conservatives in his last term), has consistently ruled against federal environmental regulation – from carbon-spewing power plants to downwind air pollution. And it’s likely to rule against President Joe Biden’s new vehicle emissions limits.
Last year’s Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision – in which an Idaho couple simply didn’t want to have to apply for a federal wetlands dredging permit — largely flew under the national outrage radar, but it stripped away Clean Water Act protections for fully two-thirds of Colorado’s wetlands and streams, according to an amicus brief filed in support of those federal protections by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.
Now Colorado lawmakers are trying to step into that regulatory void with Wednesday’s filing of the Regulate Dredge and Fill Activities in State Waters bill (HB24-1379). If passed, it would require a rulemaking process by the Colorado Department of Health and Environment’s Water Quality and Control Division to permit dredge and fill activities on both public and private land.
“There’s no mistake that [the Sackett] decision came right after Trump appointed three new justices to the Supreme Court, where there’s a conservative majority who could issue an industry-favorable ruling on this issue,” Conservation Colorado Senior Water Campaign Manager Josh Kuhn said in a phone interview.
“It’s unfortunate that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of industry but now it does create an opportunity for Colorado to create regulatory certainty, and it’s imperative that we get this done the right way,” Kuhn added. “The Supreme Court’s decision ignores the science of groundwater. What it did is it said if you are standing in a wetland, and you don’t see surface water connecting that wetland to another covered [by EPA regulation] water body, it is no longer protected.”
Anyone who’s hiked Colorado’s backcountry knows there are all sorts of water bodies that are disconnected from rivers, streams and lakes, fed by springs and often only existing on the surface when it’s been raining or following a decent snow year. In fact, the Colorado Wetland Information Center identifies 15 different types of wetland ecological systems in Colorado.
Those wetlands and ephemeral (not continually flowing) streams provide critical habitat for Colorado’s dwindling wildlife, guard against increasingly devastating wildfires fueled by manmade climate change and filter pollutants from vital sources of drinking water.
“Colorado has already lost half of our wetlands since statehood, and they are super-important for ecosystem services, where they mitigate floods, decrease the severity of wildfire, help retain water like sponges and release that water to provide base flows in drier parts of the year, providing critical wildlife habitat for about 80% of wildlife,” Kuhn said.
Now, thanks to the right-leaning SCOTUS – including Colorado’s own Neil Gorsuch – 60% of those waterbodies are currently unprotected by the Clean Water Act’s 404 permit process administered successfully for five decades by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Now the state of Colorado must attempt to fill that role.
“Water is a precious resource and is critical to our economy and way of life,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wrote in a press release Wednesday. “I am committed to protecting Colorado’s water today and building a more water-efficient, sustainable, and resilient future. Today, we further our commitment to protect Colorado’s water for the next generation of Coloradans.”
The Polis-backed bill is sponsored in the Colorado Senate by Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, and in the Colorado House by state Rep. Karen McCormick, D-Longmont, and Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, D-Dillon.
A competing bill (SB24-127) was introduced last month by Republican state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer. That proposal, dubbed the Regulate Dredged & Fill Material State Waters bill, has the backing of the Colorado Association of Homebuilders – a development trade organization that did not return a call seeking comment on the Dem-backed bill.
“Now that [definition of] Waters of the U.S. is much more limited than it was, the things that [SCOTUS] said are not ‘Waters of the U.S.’ are ephemeral streams, disconnected wetlands and fens,” Eagle County Commissioner Kathy Chandler-Henry said in a phone interview. “So on the Western Slope, the mountains, nearly all of our streams are not year-round streams. They flow when there’s water. So if those are not protected anymore by the feds, then are they going to be protected by the state or not? That’s the question that’s going be answered in these two competing legislative bills.”
Chandler-Henry is currently the Eagle County representative for and president of both the Colorado River District and the Water Quality and Quantity (QQ) program of the Northwest Colorado Council of Governments. She said both groups are likely to weigh in on the new bill at some point.
Conservation Colorado’s Kuhn said the Kirkmeyer bill “basically draws a political line. It says that if waters are outside of 1,500 feet from the historical floodplain, they would be unprotected.”
That would make state regulation of dredge and fill more expensive, he argues, because the state would then have to physically survey and determine whether bodies of water outside of that boundary should be regulated. State regulation will primarily be paid for by permit fees and possibly some federal grants. Colorado is out front nationally on this contentious issue.
“The Kirkmeyer bill houses the program in the Department of Natural Resources, and so that would also drive up the costs because you’d have to create a new division, and you’d also have to create a new commission and staff for that commission, whereas that expertise already exists within the [CDPHE’s] Water Quality Control Division and the Water Quality Control Commission.”
Kuhn thinks Colorado’s agriculture industry should support HB24-1379.
“We’re actually hopeful that ag will not be opposing this legislation because in the existing 404 program there are longstanding exemptions and exclusions,” Kuhn said. “One of those exemptions is for certain types of agricultural activity. That would be copied and pasted into legislation and that should appease concerns from the ag community.”
And Kuhn added that while the new law will mostly focus on development aimed at dredging and filling bodies of water on private land, there’s a concern about protections for wetlands on Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land facing development.
“The [SCOTUS] ruling does apply to both public and private land, but the majority of the development pressure is on private land,” Kuhn said. “That doesn’t mean if there was a mining claim on Forest Service land and they wanted to build a road or something – [in the past] they would have had to secure a 404 permit — but if those waters weren’t jurisdictional today, they could just go out and destroy it without a permit.”
Mark Eddy, representing the Protect Colorado Waters Coalition, cited AG Weiser’s contention that responsible industry should not fear reasonable regulation.
“That’s the way we look at this is it’s reasonable, it’s transparent, everybody knows what the rules are, and it protects a valuable resource,” Eddy said. “It is not saying you can never touch these places; it’s that there’s a process in place to determine which ones you can touch, and then, when you do have to develop them, what kind of mitigation needs to occur.”
Tom Caldwell, co-owner and head brewer at Big Trout Brewing Company in Winter Park, said in a press release that his company needs clean, cold water to craft award-winning beer.
“Our town depends on clean water for a multitude of tourist activities that bring people from all over the world,” Caldwell said. “We need to protect our waterways and wetlands. House Speaker Julie McCluskie and Senator Dylan Roberts’ bill is a needed remedy to a terrible decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Click the link to read “State lawmakers propose plan after half of Colorado’s waters lost federal protections: Bill would create state program to regulate dredging and filling waterways” on The Denver Post website (Elise Schmelzer). Here’s an excerpt:
March 21, 2024
Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday night introduced a bill that requires the state to create a permitting process for people who want to fill in, dredge or pave over waterways. Colorado has had no method to regulate these dredge-and-fill activities since the May court decision removed federal protection for more than half of Colorado’s waters…House Bill 1379 would require the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment to develop a permitting process by May 1, 2025. That process would need to minimize harm to the environment when people want to dig up or fill in waterways while building housing developments, roads or utilities. The permitting process would mirror the federal process that no longer applies to wetlands and seasonal streams…
Both wetlands and seasonal streams serve critical roles in the state’s environment, conservation advocates said. Seasonal streams deliver snowmelt to larger streams during runoff season. Wetlands act like a sponge in the ecosystem — they absorb floodwaters, serve as critical animal habitat and act as a buffer to wildfire…Half of Colorado’s wetlands have disappeared or been destroyed since the late 1800s, according to the Colorado Wetland Information Center…“
Wetlands, headwater streams, and washes are profoundly connected like capillaries of the circulatory system to larger waters downstream,” Abby Burk, senior manager of the Western Rivers Program at Audubon Rockies, said in a news release. She called the waterways “essential for birds and vital natural systems,” which support the resilience of water supplies in Colorado’s drying climate.
Click the link to read “Democratic leaders introduce bill to protect Colorado wetlands” on the Colorado Politics website (Marianne Goodland). Here’s an excerpt:
March 21, 2024
Nearly a million acres of wetlands in Colorado could gain state protection that lost federal oversight when the U.S. Supreme Court decided last year wetlands that lacked direct connection to bodies of water didn’t require Environmental Protection Agency preservations…Last summer, lawmakers heard from municipal and state officials that Colorado needed to develop its own protections for those wetlands…
Alex Funk, director of water resources and senior counsel for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said in August that almost 90% of fish and wildlife in Colorado rely on the state’s wetlands at some point during their lifecycle. That includes species such as the Gunnison sage grouse, greenback cutthroat trout, and migratory birds. These ecosystems are also crucial to the state’s economy, Funk said. They provide other benefits, such as filtering pollutants from drinking water or regulating sedimentation that may otherwise clog up infrastructure and reservoirs…
The bill would apply to about 60% of Colorado’s wetlands and is intended to cover those wetlands that are not already federally protected. The permitting framework in HB 1379 “is based on well-established approaches already used by the Army Corps of Engineers and will provide clarity on when a permit is needed. Normal farming and ranching activities, such as plowing, farm road construction, and erosion control practices would not require a permit,” the statement said. Until Sackett, the Army Corps’ permitting program protected Colorado waters from pollution caused by dredge and fill activities.
“Dredge and fill activities involve digging up or placing dirt and other fill material into wetlands or surface waters as part of construction projects,” the statement explained.
Does your #Colorado town have #PFAS in its water? There’s help for that — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
March 20, 2024
Nearly $86 million in federal funding to help small Colorado communities with the daunting task of removing so-called “forever chemicals” from their drinking water systems will begin flowing this spring, but whether it will go far enough to do all the cleanup work remains unclear.
Small Colorado communities are scrambling to find ways to remove the toxic PFAS compounds that wash into water from such things as Teflon, firefighting foam and waterproof cosmetics.
Thanks to the infusion of federal money this year, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is offering what are known as small and disadvantaged community grants to help with cleanup costs.
Around the country, the EPA is racing to help communities that have historically been left out of national funding initiatives, according to Betsy Southerland, a scientist with the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit that advises communities nationwide on the scientific and technical issues inherent in treating water quality problems.
“This is a massive effort,” Southerland said, likening it to the nation’s $15 billion-plus effort under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to identify and remove aging lead pipes from drinking water delivery systems.
Hundreds of communities in Colorado, large and small, are monitoring for PFAS, and some are planning costly new treatment plants to address the issue.
Greeley, which is eligible for the new grant program, has yet to detect PFAS contaminants in its treated water because much of its current water supply flows down from the headwaters of the Upper Colorado River and is relatively clean. But the fast-growing city is also planning to develop new groundwater supplies and is therefore planning a new treatment plant capable of addressing any future contamination should it occur, according to Michaela Jackson, Greeley’s water quality and regulatory compliance manager.
Colorado lawmakers are also working on new legislation to address the widespread contamination.
Still, word of the Emerging Contaminants in Small and Disadvantaged Communities Grant Program, as it is known, has been slow to spread, Colorado public health officials said, in part because the problem is still being understood and remedies are still being studied.
“Emerging contaminant funding is relatively new. Many communities are still determining if they have a project they may need to request funding for,” state health department spokesman John Michael said in an email.
Just four communities have applied to date: South Adams Water and Sanitation District in Commerce City; City of La Junta; Louviers Water and Sanitation District in Douglas County; and the Wigwam Mutual Water Company in Fountain.
Each year for the next five years, the state will offer two rounds of grants, with millions of dollars committed. Communities interested in applying can explore the program here. The next grant cycle opens in July, according to Michael.
This year, perhaps as soon as this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to finalize the first PFAS drinking water treatment standard, which will require utilities to remove the contaminant at levels above 4 parts per trillion.
Prior to this, the federal oversight of the contaminants was advisory, meaning utilities were not technically required to remove it, according to state health officials. The advisory rule was set at 70 parts per trillion.
Still, most water providers have been testing and monitoring for the compounds for several years, and where contamination that exceeds federal advisory guidelines has been found, many have instituted efforts to filter the toxins out and bring in new sources of cleaner water to dilute any remaining contamination.
But for small communities lacking such resources, the costs and stakes are high.
Searching for millions of dollars more
The South Adams and Water Sanitation District, which serves Commerce City and unincorporated parts of Adams County, has been hard-hit by PFAS contamination in its groundwater wells. Where the toxins have come from isn’t entirely known, but could include firefighting foam used nearby at a firefighting academy owned by the City of Denver.
When PFAS was first detected in 2018, the Adams County district had to shut down its most contaminated wells, build an expensive system of filters, and buy water from Denver to dilute its water sources enough so that PFAS could no longer be detected.
It also built a cutting-edge testing lab, so that it can know within 24 hours whether its extensive treatment system is working and respond immediately if it is not.
But that isn’t enough. This year it will begin building a new $80 million treatment plant, $30 million of which will come from the new state grant program. It has also been approved for a special $30 million loan from the Colorado Water and Power Development Authority. It is still pursuing additional funding to minimize the amount it will have to seek from its customers to help cover the costs, according to Abel Moreno, the district’s manager.
“It’s absolutely critical that we find another source of funding because we don’t believe the contamination was caused by our rate payers, and we do not believe they should be asked to pay for it,” Moreno said.
And it’s not just initial construction costs for treatment systems that will need funding. Operating the systems and disposing of contaminated treatment equipment can cost millions of dollars as well, according to the American Water Works Association, which has been critical of the pending federal standard because it believes it will cost utilities and ratepayers too much money. It has advocated a lower treatment standard, of 10 parts per trillion.
The 4 parts per trillion standard will require “more than $40 billion of capital investment plus significant investment for operation and maintenance,” said Chris Moody, regulatory technical manager at the association, in an email. “The annual impact to communities and ratepayers is expected to exceed $3.8 billion, increasing household water rates by as much as $3,500 annually.”
But utilities such as the South Adams Water and Sanitation District believe there is no choice but to power ahead with the PFAS cleanup.
Decades of living near industrial producers and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Superfund Site, and historic concern over the safety of its drinking water, have created a deep distrust among residents. Moreno says the district is working to rebuild faith in its water system.
“It is a priority of mine to change the trajectory of the district’s water image so the people we serve in this community have confidence in the work we’re doing and the water we are producing,” he said.
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
Creeks tainted by produced water unable to sustain aquatic life, regulators say — @WyoFile #KeepItInTheGround #ActOnClimate
Click the link to read the article on the WyoFile website (Angus M. Thuermer Jr.):
March 20, 2024
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality acknowledges years of built-up pollution from Moneta Divide field but has no plan to remove black sludge 6 feet deep
Two creeks tainted by decades of dumping from Moneta Divide oilfield drillers are officially “impaired” and unable to sustain aquatic life, state regulators say in a new report.
Parts of Alkali and Badwater creeks in Fremont County are polluted to the point they don’t meet standards for drinking, consumption of resident fish or sustaining aquatic life, a report by the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality states. The agency listed 40.8 miles of the creeks as impaired in a biannual report required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Parts of the creeks are polluted by oilfield discharges, including hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and chloride. The industrial activity is responsible for low levels of oxygen in the water, turbidity and a black sludge that critics say is up to 6 feet deep.
Arsenic also is present, but state monitoring couldn’t determine its origin.
The report catalogs pollution downstream of discharge points where produced water — effluent from natural gas and oil production — flows from the 327,645-acre energy field operated mainly by Aethon Energy Operating in Fremont and Natrona counties.
The “impaired” listings are a good thing that set the table for action, said Jill Morrison, who works on the pollution issue for the conservation group Powder River Basin Resource Council. But the listing comes only after years of badgering an agency that now should look to clean up the creeks.
“What we are saying is ‘thank you’ for stepping up to address these issues,” Morrison said. “We wish it was done sooner. You’ve got enforcement power; what steps are you taking to make Aethon clean this up?”
Environmental stewards
The DEQ issued a revised permit to the private Dallas company in 2020 allowing it to discharge oilfield waste into Alkali Creek, which flows into Badwater Creek and the Boysen Reservoir, a source of drinking water for the town of Thermopolis. The permit calls for monitoring and testing, among other things.
About a year ago, however, the DEQ sent the company a letter of violation for “reoccurring exceedances” of water quality standards for sulfide, barium, radium and temperature. That’s a violation of the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act, state rules and regulations, and the permit itself.
The April 28 letter states that the DEQ hopes to resolve the violation through “conference and conciliation.” DEQ wants Aethon “to show good faith efforts toward resolving the problem and to prevent the need for more formal enforcement action by this office.”
The alleged kid-glove treatment rankles Powder River’s Morrison. “They trade, back and forth, nice conversations and nothing happens,” she said.
DEQ asked Aethon for a response within 30 days. WyoFile requested on March 6 that the agency provide a copy of Aethon’s response but had not received it by publication time. Aethon typically does not respond to media questions regarding regulatory enforcement and did not answer a recent request for comment.
The 2020 permit also requires Aethon to dramatically reduce the amount of chloride — salty water — it pumps onto the landscape. DEQ said the company is preparing to meet a late-summer deadline for that standard.
“Aethon continues to diligently work toward resuming treatment of effluent using the Neptune reverse osmosis treatment plant,” DEQ said in an email, “in accordance with the established chloride compliance schedule.”
Aethon’s website says the company has a “commitment to protect the environment and our people [and] operate responsibly.” The company is a “steward of the environment,” the website states.
Black sludge
The DEQ’s “impaired” listing addresses surface water in the two creeks through what’s known as a draft Integrated 305 (b) report. It is open for comments through March 25.
But there’s another issue that rankles critics, including the Wyoming Outdoor Council and the Powder River group — black sludge.
DEQ surveys of the creeks revealed “bottom deposits” containing mineral deposits, iron sulfides and dissolved solids, all contributing to low oxygen levels that kill aquatic life. After a phone conference with DEQ in February, Powder River’s Morrison said she learned that the bottom deposit of black sludge extends for about three miles and is from 6 inches to 6 feet deep.
A retired University of Wyoming professor who worked with the Powder River group analyzing Aethon’s permit called the sediments “totally loaded.” Harold Bergman said “that contaminated sediment will be leaching out contaminants into Boysen Reservoir for decades to come.”
He and Joe Meyer, a retired chemist who also worked with the conservation group, wrote that DEQ’s Aethon permit did not require enough testing for deleterious substances, did not consider what impact the mix of substances together has on aquatic life, and allowed as much as five times the proper amount of dissolved solids to flow out of the oilfield.
“You would not have that black gunk sediment if it weren’t for the Aethon discharge,” Meyer said.
A report of monitoring between 2019-’22 shows that aluminum exceeded discharge standards up to 17% of the time. Other than that, there’s still a question of what else is in the sludge.
“We don’t know about individual organic chemicals,” Meyer said. Reports only mention “the gross measures of organic compounds,” he said.
“That doesn’t tell us about individual chemicals,” Meyer said. How much, if any, BTEX chemicals — Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene and Xylenes that are harmful to humans — are in the sludge “we have no way of knowing.”
He stopped short of accusing DEQ of avoiding the question. For now, “they just wanted to get an overview analysis,” he said.
DEQ said it has a plan for the sludge. “DEQ’s Water Quality Division is monitoring any sediment flow in lower Badwater Creek to determine if there are any sediments that may mobilize towards Boysen Lake,” an agency official said in an email.
For Morrison, “the big question is what DEQ is going to require Aethon to do to clean up this mess,” she wrote in an email. Meyer and Bergman say simply dredging up the sludge is likely too dangerous because such an operation would dislodge substances and send them downstream. A more complex plan would be needed, they said.
Morrison criticized what she sees as the DEQ’s priorities. “They’re not putting the health and safety of these streams’ water quality, fish and downstream water users above the interests and profits of Aethon.”
How do you sustainably filter stormwater to irrigate crops?: #Colorado State University Spur Water TAP lab aims to find out
Click the link to read the release on the Colorado State University website (Allison Sylte):
March 7, 2024
Late last year, a seemingly nondescript black shipping container made its way down National Western Drive and through the garage doors of the Colorado State University Spur campus’s Hydro building, capping off a 1,400-mile journey from Atlanta and the beginning of an effort to experiment with a more sustainable water treatment technology.
“Getting it into this building wasn’t easy,” said Todd Shollenberger, the manager of Spur’s Water Technology Acceleration Platform (TAP) Lab, who helped guide a forklift carrying the unwieldy container over sloped concrete into the facility. “But now that it’s here, it will unlock some of the endless possibilities for this space.”
What’s known as the Minus Water Treatment System is one of the newest technologies inside Water TAP. This shipping container houses a membrane-based ultrafiltration unit that can remove contaminants from stormwater without using more common treatment methods like chemicals or the energy required with ultraviolet light.
Sybil Sharvelle, the technical director of Water TAP and a professor in CSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said the Spur campus’s location in the heart of Denver offers a unique opportunity to test this technology.
“We obtain our stormwater from a roughly 20-acre area that’s heavily industrial and commercial, introducing a litany of contaminants,” she said. “This means that we really get to challenge the system, especially because the quality of stormwater can be highly variable and hard to predict.”
That’s where collaboration comes in. The Minus system came to CSU from Georgia Tech, and scientists from the two institutions will work together to develop a machine learning model to make its process more efficient.
“This project represents one of the first efforts of using a membrane filtration system for stormwater reuse, which is an essential strategy of enhancing the resiliency of our water supply in the context of climate change,” said Tiezheng Tong, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Chemical Engineering who is involved in the project. “It also innovatively applies machine learning to process control, providing a novel avenue to increase the efficiency and reduce the cost of the entire system.”
The goal is that this treated water will be the necessary quality to be used to irrigate edible crops for livestock or human consumption.
“I think this is a really unique problem to try to solve, and since stormwater is often just wasted, it can have applications on a much larger scale,” Sharvelle said. “This really enables the lab to go to the next level.”
One lab, six sources of water
In addition to stormwater, the scientists at the Water TAP Lab can draw on five other sources:
- Greywater.
- Roof runoff.
- Wastewater.
- Water from the nearby South Platte River.
- Water trucked in from a variety of different sources, encompassing everything
- from hydrofracking waste to agricultural runoff.
This water is stored in tanks scattered throughout the lab, and can be pumped through a variety of different treatment systems, including 10 constructed wetlands that incorporate plants for potential filtration.
Sharvelle said the ultimate goal is to figure out more efficient ways to use local water sources and potentially reduce the demand on finite resources like the Colorado River.
“The whole purpose of the lab is to enable the testing of technology to move development and policy forward,” she said.
The Minus system is just one example of the technologies that will make their way through Water TAP in the coming years, and in addition to offering a real-world example of new filtration solutions to businesses, down the line, Sharvelle hopes it can also make the Spur campus itself more efficient in its water usage.
“The hope is that the water treated by the Minus system can be used to irrigate the plants on the green roof at Terra,” Sharvelle said. “The CSU Spur campus offers us endless opportunities to collaborate and test what we do in the real world.”
How volunteer ‘Streamkeepers’ influence water policy across the West — Water Education Foundation
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Foundation website (Nick Cahill):
February 29, 2024
When residents of the Yuba River watershed northeast of Sacramento saw a stretch of the emerald-green river suddenly turn an alarming reddish-brown on a recent winter day, they knew immediately who to call.
Though water quality concerns are the purview of federal, state and county environmental agencies, they alerted the local South Yuba River Citizens League, confident its volunteers could get to the scene quicker and investigate the discoloration faster than any regulator.
Sure enough, the group found the likely culprit within hours. One of its trained river monitors took samples at the site near the Gold Rush-era town of Nevada City, ran a series of tests, then compared the results with those from samples volunteers had routinely collected for more than 20 years – from the same section of river and the same time of year.
“Our baseline data allows us to look back on how the river has behaved at certain points in time, and lets us quickly identify anomalies,” said Aaron Zettler-Mann, the league’s executive director, who develops stream-sampling tools for volunteers as part of his post-doctorate research in geography. “We worked backward and determined it was probably just a small landslide.”
The league is among dozens of volunteer organizations that monitor the health of their local waterways and native fish populations across California and the West.
As new threats emerge, the community stream stewards bring their data and observations to the attention of environmental enforcement agencies. Colorado takes the relationship a step further by formally partnering with streamkeepers and using their data to inform decision-making.
Often referred to as “streamkeepers,” the grassroots groups are meticulous chroniclers of river conditions – the Yuba league alone records water temperature, pH, dissolved oxygen and turbidity at 37 sites across 40 river miles – and are often the first to detect problematic trends.
Information from streamkeeper groups has influenced California policymakers in setting minimum stream flow requirements for native fish, establishing water quality standards for treated wastewater disposed in streams and designating stretches of rivers “wild and scenic” to keep them free of dams and diversions.
“These groups get the data from the ground level and make it real,” said Felicia Marcus, former chair of California’s State Water Resources Control Board, which polices water quality. “Their stories can be really important and powerful in the public policy arena.”
Versatile Volunteers
Some larger groups like Los Angeles Waterkeeper have fundraising and public relations staff and are linked to larger networks while many of the smaller, more grassroots organizations like the Friends of the Shasta River monitor waterways in more remote areas.
Native American tribes are no less active in protecting their watersheds. Several tribes are the driving force behind the ongoing removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. At Clear Lake, just north of Napa Valley’s wineries, the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Elem Indian Colony are taking the lead on spotting toxic algal blooms that harm fish and taint water supplies.
Streamkeeper groups share similar core goals: reduce pollution, monitor stream conditions and gather data that can help officials make informed water policy decisions.
Mostly comprised of trained volunteers, the groups lead river clean-ups, survey locations for habitat restoration, conduct routine water quality testing and educate the public on the importance of healthy watersheds. Retired biologists, ecologists, conservationists and former employees of natural resource agencies are common in the ranks of volunteers as are riverside property owners.
Andrew Rypel, director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis and former member of a streamkeeper group in Alabama, cast these volunteers as the “ultimate transdisciplinary water professional.”
“They tend to know something about science, ecology, agriculture, the people who live along the waterbody and the economics of the situation,” he said. “They’re in the middle of everything.”
Punching Above Their Weight
Some California streamkeepers wield their local knowledge to spur regulatory changes.
One of the preeminent streamkeeper success stories comes from Putah Creek, an 85-mile-long stream that winds through parts of Northern California’s wine country before draining into the Sacramento River.
In 1990, the volunteer-led Putah Creek Council sued the Solano Irrigation District and Solano County Water Agency to release more water from a dam to sustain chinook salmon and other native fish species downstream. The city of Davis and UC Davis later joined the council as plaintiffs.
After a protracted legal fight, a state judge ordered a new flow schedule for the creek that requires the water agency to provide more water when certain species are spawning or migrating out to the ocean. As part of a settlement over the lawsuit, the water agency agreed to create a permanent streamkeeper position on staff.
Having a dedicated, long-term funding source for the streamkeeper position has been key to the creek’s recovery, said Max Stevenson, who assumed the full-time job in December 2021. He added that some of his most important work is done off-stream, engaging with interest groups.
“Long-term relationship building is the key,” Stevenson said. “All the users – landowners, regulatory agencies, the public and cities – they have to get along.”
The lower Putah Creek, which commonly ran dry during drought and was a haven for illegal dumping, has seen a resurgence in its salmon and steelhead trout populations thanks to consistent flows and habitat restoration, according to UC Davis researchers.
A similar effort is underway in the San Joaquin Valley, where local streamkeeper groups are among those pressing the city of Bakersfield to keep more water in the lower Kern River for fish. A state judge has ordered the parties to come up with a plan that ensures “public trust flows” to benefit fish while the case is pending.
Los Angeles Waterkeeper has routinely filed lawsuits over the past 30 years, forcing the state and local governments to curb sewage spills and reduce the flow of toxic urban runoff into streams and along the Pacific coast.
“While no one likes to go to court, a lawsuit is often the only way to get polluters and regulators to do the right thing,” said Kelly Shannon McNeill, the Los Angeles group’s associate director.
Streamkeepers are also known for rallying against new dams.
The Yuba league was hatched in the 1980s primarily to fight proposals for more dams on the river. It swayed local politicians to fight against the projects and — after nearly 20 years of lobbying — state lawmakers gave the Yuba wild and scenic status, permanently banning new dams and diversions on nearly 40 river miles. The group now has about 3,500 members.
Since then, stretches of several other rivers have been added to the state’s wild and scenic list, most recently a portion of the Mokelumne River in 2018.
Near the California-Oregon border, Friends of the Shasta River has had recent success in protecting salmon and other native species on a key Klamath River tributary.
The group formed in 2019 out of frustration over the lack of streamflow protections for a river that historically produced about 50 percent of the chinook salmon in the Klamath River basin. The group, comprised of local scientists, retired natural resource professionals and riverside property owners, documents water conditions and promotes the river’s values in rural Siskiyou County.
“The Shasta River is tiny, more of a creek running through a desert, but arguably for its size it was probably the most productive salmon-bearing stream on the face of the earth,” said David Webb, a Friends of the Shasta River board member.
The Shasta streamkeepers, the Karuk Tribe and other salmon activists filed petitions that prompted the state water board to temporarily limit water diversions during the last three years on the Shasta and nearby Scott River. Regulators are currently gathering scientific data and considering whether to adopt permanent minimum flow requirements to ensure the rivers don’t run dry during critical periods for native fish.
“We’ve waited long enough; we need permanent instream flows so that public trust resources are protected,” Webb said.
A River Turns Orange
For more than three decades, Colorado has relied on a virtual army of volunteers to track the health of the state’s more than 150 rivers.
Before 1989, conditions on most of the state’s 770,000 miles of river weren’t monitored. Important water decisions were made without reliable data. To better inform decision-makers, the state created a program that enlists streamkeepers, teachers and students to gather water quality data.
Today, the River Watch program managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the nonprofit River Science has about 100 volunteer groups that monitor hundreds of streams. Revenue from the state lottery helps pay for the program.
Megan McConville, who manages the program for the state, says the thousands of volunteers serve as eyes and ears for Colorado’s streams, spotting trends unseen by environmental regulators.
“These students, these volunteers, they know their rivers better than I ever will,” McConville said. “What I love about this program is that I can call a volunteer and ask them ‘Hey, could you expand your monitoring to include two more locations? We want to figure out whether a culvert is introducing zinc into a waterway.’”
Streamkeepers came in particularly handy in 2015 when 3 million gallons of orange sludge spilled from an abandoned mine and tainted the Animas River, a Colorado River tributary. The state used the volunteers’ baseline data to track its progress on the river cleanup.
‘They Can Have Your Flank’
While streamkeepers have had legal fights with water suppliers and regulators, partnerships between them are becoming more common in California.
Both the South Yuba River Citizens League and the Yuba Water Agency are working with a broader coalition to restore 275,000 acres of forest in the river’s upper Sierra watershed. They are also cooperating on habitat restoration projects and a proposal to create a channel that will allow threatened green sturgeon to get around a dam on the Yuba.
Willie Whittlesey, Yuba Water Agency general manager, credited the 2008 Yuba Accord for fostering ongoing partnerships on the Yuba.
“This is a new way of doing things,” Whittlesey said of the series of agreements among the agency, environmental groups, farmers and hydroelectric producers.
Meanwhile, in California’s capital city, streamkeepers are becoming effective advocates. Marcus, the former head of the state water board, said grassroots groups have figured out creative ways to draw attention to problems in ways that regulators can’t.
She credited groups, such as those that brought jars of tainted drinking water to public hearings and press conferences, for winning legislative support for more water board staff and resources to regulate rural drinking water systems.
“They can have your flank,” said Marcus, who in 1985 co-founded the grassroots Heal the Bay group to fight pollution in Santa Monica Bay and elsewhere along Southern California’s coast. “Sometimes they highlight a problem and then the agency can get the resources needed to address it.”
Streamkeepers can also aid regulators by carefully reviewing pending orders and rules. During her stint as state water board chair, Marcus said the California Coastkeeper Alliance was particularly adept at articulating the pros and cons of draft documents and then working with the regulator on useful changes. “It makes it easier for you as a regulator,” she said.
Joaquin Esquivel, the current board chair, said volunteer groups have been submitting critical water quality data to the board’s citizen monitoring program for years. The program helps streamkeepers choose monitoring techniques, perform quality control and find funding sources.
“Their concern is genuine,” Esquivel said. “Collecting and bringing in data helps us see that a watershed or stream is impaired.”
Back on the south Yuba, Zettler-Mann and his group have started monitoring the watershed for signs of emerging threats, including long-lived synthetic compounds known as PFAS and a rubber preservative in tires that federal regulators are examining for potential harm to salmon.
UC Davis’ Rypel, a professor of coldwater fish ecology who advocates “a streamkeeper for every stream,” said having passionate volunteers filling data gaps and looking out for emerging threats to streams like the Yuba and Putah can inspire neighboring watersheds to do the same.
“Of all the different management things I’ve seen tried,” he said, ”the streamkeeper thing might be the one that’s worked best.”
Reach writer Nick Cahill at ncahill@watereducation.org
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A newly published study from the U.S. Geological Survey explains how salinity in the Upper #ColoradoRiver Basin has changed over the past few decades and shows how #climate, irrigation and flow of groundwater contribute to salinity in the watershed #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the release on the USGS website (Alexandra (Allie) Weill and Olivia Miller):
February 8, 2024
A newly published study from the U.S. Geological Survey explains how salinity in the Upper Colorado River Basin has changed over the past few decades and shows how climate, irrigation and flow of groundwater contribute to salinity in the watershed. The study correlates overall salinity declines in the river basin since the 1980s with a transition from wet to dry conditions.
High salinity can limit water available for agriculture, drinking water, aquatic life and infrastructure, with significant impacts to the economy and human health. Salt occurs naturally in water, but salt loads are influenced by irrigated agriculture, geology, land cover, land-use practices and precipitation. Salinity can exacerbate corrosion of lead pipes and increase lead levels in drinking water and mobilize other metals or pollutants as well. High salinity levels in the Colorado River reduce agricultural yield, damage infrastructure and are estimated to cause $348 million per year in damage to infrastructure and crop production.
“This study shows us how irrigation and climate work together to influence salts going into streams,” said USGS hydrologist Olivia Miller, lead author on the study. “Future climate change in the Southwest, combined with changes in irrigation, may affect stream water quality, but we don’t yet understand how these interactions will play out, so our next step is developing a model to test scenarios of future climate change.”
Wet periods have higher salinity loads because increased runoff from rain and melting snow and increased groundwater movement bring more salts into rivers. In contrast, drier periods have lower salinity loads. Irrigation also plays an important role, contributing salts to the river more efficiently than any other source.
“Salt loading to the Upper Colorado River and tributaries is a significant economic and environmental concern which limits the utility of the Colorado River and creates economic damages to downstream water users,” said Don A. Barnett, Executive Director, Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Forum.
For the new study, USGS scientists created a dynamic model that simulates the flow of water and salts throughout the whole Upper Colorado Basin between 1986 and 2017, allowing them to estimate salinity in the river and identify its sources for every year over that time.
The study confirmed previous findings that salts come primarily from groundwater (66-82%), with smaller portions attributed to runoff and springs. The salts in groundwater may initially come from infiltration of irrigation water, but once dissolved in groundwater, tracing the source is difficult. Groundwater is stored for long periods underground, meaning that there can be a time lag between when the salts enter the groundwater and when they end up in the river. As a result, while salinity management efforts focused on surface runoff processes may produce small results in the short term, larger impacts may take longer to work through the groundwater system.
“The Upper Colorado River Basin States are taking actions to reduce salinity in the Colorado River for the benefit of the 40 million people who use the River’s water,” said Paul Kehmeier, Salinity Program Coordinator, Colorado Department of Agriculture. “This study helps clarify that the sources of salt vary over time and it will help inform managers on strategies to continue improving the quality of water in the Basin.”
The study was published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
Click here for more science from the USGS Utah Water Science Center.
Presentation details Lincoln Creek contamination but solutions unclear: #ClimateChange may be increasing leaching-metals pollution of #LincolnCreek — @AspenJournalism
Click the link to read the article on the Aspen Journalism website (Heather Sackett):
February 5, 2024
Presenters at a public meeting Thursday [February 1, 2024] about contamination on Lincoln Creek hosted by agencies that oversee water quality offered a lot of information, but few solutions yet to the problem.
The meeting, held at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Basalt, featured the results of water quality sampling and presentations from a panel of experts from agencies including Environmental Protection Agency, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, the U.S. Forest Service, Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, the U.S. Geological Survey, environmental group Trout Unlimited and Pitkin County Environmental Health.
“We have a lot of questions,” said Kurt Dahl, Pitkin County environmental health manager. “Is (the contamination) going to continue to increase? What does it mean for the Roaring Fork? For my office? For human health? … There’s also this question around mitigation. I think we want to get our arms around, is this a possibility? What does this look like? What are the costs? Can we afford it?”
A report released in November by the EPA based on water-quality samples from 2022 found that Lincoln Creek in the four miles between the Ruby Mine and Grizzly Reservoir exceeds state water quality standards for aquatic life for aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, lead, manganese and zinc. Aluminum and copper concentrations were especially high.
Water quality issues on Lincoln Creek have been a concern for years, with the creek above the reservoir often running a yellowish color, and Grizzly Reservoir often a bright turquoise. In September 2022, Lincoln Creek below the reservoir turned a milky-green color, and white and yellow sediment settled on the streambed, prompting water quality testing in the fall of 2022 and the EPA report. These conditions in 2022 could be seen downstream at the confluence with the Roaring Fork River, sparking concern for local residents and organizations.
And the problem has gotten worse in recent years. The high concentrations of aluminum and copper are toxic to fish, and Lincoln Creek and Grizzly Reservoir experienced a fish die-off in 2021. In fall of 2023, there was a fish kill downstream in the Roaring Fork in the North Star Nature Preserve, which experts say was probably due to a combination of high metals concentrations and too-warm water.
The EPA report also found that the main source of contamination is not drainage from the Ruby Mine, but is naturally occurring from a “mineralized tributary” just downstream from the mine.
During the Q&A portion of the meeting, attendees asked whether the Ruby Mine, where turn-of-the-20th-century prospectors dug for gold and silver, could really be the source of contamination. Mindi May, water quality program director with CPW, said she initially shared the audience’s skepticism that the mine wasn’t the main source of contamination, but after visiting the site she agrees with geologists’ findings that it’s naturally occurring.
“You could just see the water from the mineralized trib just seeping out of the ground,” she said. “So at this point I am convinced … that the mineralized trib and the Ruby are separate and that the mineralized trib is natural and that it really is the problem.”
The fact that the contamination of the creek is naturally occurring creates a question about who’s responsible for cleaning it up. The EPA is authorized to address elevated metals concentrations only from human-caused sources, not contamination from natural sources.
Primarily an ecological problem
Panelists addressed the potential human health impacts from the contaminated water in the creek and at Grizzly Reservoir, a popular spot for summer camping, hiking and fishing. The U.S. Forest Service manages the seven-site Portal Campground near the reservoir.
Mike Carney, a toxicologist with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency is primarily concerned with arsenic and lead, which have health risks but aren’t the main contaminants in Lincoln Creek. He said there’s not much risk associated with someone’s skin coming into contact with the copper and aluminum-laden water. As for drinking the water, backpacking filters are unlikely to filter out all the contamination and gastrointestinal distress could result. But would-be guzzlers of the orange-tinted water would probably be turned off by the taste.
“At those concentrations, that water would likely not be palatable because it would taste very bad,” Carney said. “This is primarily an ecological problem here.”
Carney said they did not find worrisome concentrations of metals accumulating in the tissue of fish sampled from Grizzly Reservoir. CPW restocks the fish every summer so they may not spend enough time living in the reservoir to build up metals concentrations before they die or are caught and eaten by anglers.
Lincoln Creek feeds into the Twin Lakes Reservoir and Canal Company’s transmountain diversion system, in which Grizzly Reservoir is used as a collection pool before sending water through the Twin Lakes Tunnel to the Arkansas River basin, where it is used primarily in Front Range cities, including for drinking water. Colorado Springs Utilities owns the majority of the water in the Twin Lakes system.
The November EPA report said the substantial mixing, the distance that the water travels to the Front Range and the water-treatment process limit the impacts to Colorado Springs’ drinking water.
Twin Lakes is planning to drain Grizzly Reservoir this summer so it can do a rehabilitation project, including installing a membrane over the steel face of the dam, replacing the gates that control the flow of water into the Twin Lakes Tunnel and repairing the outlet works that release water down Lincoln Creek.
Repairs to fix damage after a log got caught in the outlet works in 2015 resulted in the release of a slug of contaminated water and sediment from the reservoir that quickly boosted flows in the Roaring Fork near Aspen and turned it yellow, alarming residents. Twin Lakes board president Alan Ward said that wouldn’t happen with this summer’s planned draw-down.
“The company was very embarrassed by that, we do not want that to happen again,” he said. “We talked with our contractor about a drawdown plan and we need to make sure that as we get to those sediments, that we’re moving slowly and have a lot of sediment control in place so that we’re not putting that in the creek.”
Leaching metals and climate change
When water and oxygen come into contact with pyrite-rich rock, it reacts to form sulfuric acid and causes the leaching of metals from the rock. One take-away from Thursday’s presentations is that this type of metals contamination of Colorado waterways is increasing with climate change.
Thomas Chapin, a research chemist with USGS, said drought and climate change have reduced the volume of streamflows, meaning metals concentrations will be higher even if the overall amount of metal leaching stays the same. But melting ice and ground that was once frozen also allow water and oxygen to come into contact with rock that used to be inaccessible to the leaching process.
“The combination of the decrease in flow coming down, so less dilution, and the lowering of the water table and exposing more material to acid rock drainage, it’s a double whammy,” Chapin said.
Pitkin County isn’t the only place in Colorado where increasing metals concentrations is negatively impacting water quality. Chapin said a recent study looking at the Snake River, a tributary of the Blue River in Summit County, found a 100% to 400% increase in the amount of zinc concentrations over 30 years.
“We saw similar data with Lincoln Creek,” he said. “Those September values have gone up quite a bit.”
The recently released Climate Change in Colorado report found that temperatures have warmed more in fall than other seasons.
Dahl wrapped up the meeting, which ran 30 minutes past its scheduled time of 6 to 7:30 p.m., by saying that local water quality experts are talking about next steps and plan to hold another public meeting this spring.
“We recognize that there was a lot of information here without a lot of opportunity to ask questions,” he said. “We’ve already agreed that we need to have another public meeting.”
This story ran in the Feb. 3 edition of The Aspen Times.
2024 #COleg: #Colorado lawmakers approve resolution backing efforts to restore #GrandLake’s clarity — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
Colorado lawmakers OK’d a measure this week backing efforts to restore Grand Lake, the state’s deepest natural lake once known for its clear waters.
Advocates hope the resolution will help fuel statewide support for the complicated work involved in restoring the lake and give them leverage with the federal government to secure funding for a new fix.
The resolution is largely symbolic and doesn’t come with any money, but it adds to the growing coalition of water interests on the Western Slope and Front Range backing the effort.
After more than a year of work, Mike Cassio, president of the Three Lakes Watershed Association, said he is hopeful the resolution will create a new path forward after years of bureaucratic stalemate. The association advocates on behalf of Grand Lake, Shadow Mountain and Lake Granby.
“It’s been a long process, but this resolution puts the state legislators in support of what we are trying to do and we will be able to take that to our congressional representatives,” Cassio said.
The measure was carried by Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Democrat from Frisco, and House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Democrat from Dillon.
“I’m really encouraged with all the work that has been done in the past few months and I think it will hopefully lead to more progress,” Roberts said.
Owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and operated by Northern Water, what’s known as the Colorado-Big Thompson Project gathers water from streams and rivers in Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand County, and stores it in Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Reservoir. From there it is eventually moved into Grand Lake and delivered via the Adams Tunnel under the Continental Divide to Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir, just west of Berthoud and Fort Collins, respectively.
On the Front Range, the water serves more than 1 million people and thousands of acres of irrigated farmlands. But during the pumping process on the Western Slope, algae and sediment are carried into Grand Lake, clouding its formerly clear waters and causing algae blooms and weed growth, and harming recreation.
Advocates have long been frustrated at the failure to find a permanent fix to the lake’s clarity issues, whether it’s through a major redesign of the giant federal system or operational changes.
The Bureau of Reclamation, Northern Water, Grand County and other agencies and local groups have been working since 2008 to find a way to keep the lake clearer, and Northern Water and others have experimented with different pumping patterns and other techniques to reduce disturbances to the lake’s waters.
Now an even broader coalition has come together, Cassio said, led by Grand County commissioners and Northern Water’s board of directors.
“Northern Water is fully committed to the continued and collaborative exploration of options to improve clarity in Grand Lake and water quality in the three lakes,” said Esther Vincent, Northern Water’s director of environmental services.
Last year, a technical working group reconvened, and is now studying new fixes that may be possible, including taking steps to reduce algae growth and introduce aeration in Shadow Mountain, a shallow artificial reservoir whose warm temperatures, weeds and sediment loads do the most damage to Grand Lake, Cassio said.
Though much more work lies ahead, the work at the legislature is critical, he said.
“This resolution is one piece of the puzzle,” Cassio said. “We’re at the finish line and everybody is coming together. It’s a wonderful thing.”
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis — Center for #Climate Integrity #KeepItInTheGround #ActOnClimate
Click the link to read the report on the Center for Climate Integrity website (Hat tip to H2ORadio). Here’s the introduction:
Plastic pollution is one of the most serious environmental crises facing the world today. Between 1950 and 2015, over 90% of plastics were landfilled, incinerated, or leaked into the environment. Plastic waste is ubiquitous—from our rivers, lakes, and oceans to roadways and coastlines. It is in “the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the water we drink.” One study estimates that humans ingest up to five grams or the equivalent of one credit card worth of plastic per week. Some of the largest oil and gas companies are among the 20 petrochemical companies responsible for more than half of all single-use plastics generated globally. ExxonMobil, for example, is the world’s top producer of single-use plastic polymers.
Underpinning this plastic waste crisis is a decades-long campaign of fraud and deception about the recyclability of plastics. Despite their long-standing knowledge that recycling plastic is neither technically nor economically viable, petrochemical companies—independently and through their industry trade associations and front groups—have engaged in fraudulent marketing and public education campaigns designed to mislead the public about the viability of plastic recycling as a solution to plastic waste. These efforts have effectively protected and expanded plastic markets, while stalling legislative or regulatory action that would meaningfully address plastic waste and pollution. Fossil fuel and other petrochemical companies have used the false promise of plastic recycling to exponentially increase virgin plastic production over the last six decades, creating and perpetuating the global plastic waste crisis and imposing significant costs on communities that are left to pay for the consequences.
Big Oil and the plastics industry—which includes petrochemical companies, their trade associations, and the front groups that represent their interests—should be held accountable for their campaign of deception much like the producers of tobacco, opioids, and toxic chemicals that engaged in similar schemes. This report lays the foundation for such a claim.
• Part II provides an overview of the well-established technical and economic limitations of plastic recycling.
• Part III describes how—in response to repeated waves of public backlash against plastic waste and subsequent threats of regulation—the plastics industry has “sold” plastic recycling to the American public to sell plastic.
• Part IV outlines the evidence of the plastics industry’s fraudulent and deceptive campaigns, which are more fully detailed in Appendix C.
Petrochemical companies and the plastics industry should be held liable for their coordinated campaign of deception and the resulting harms that communities are now facing. True accountability will put an end to the industry’s fraud of plastic recycling and open the door to real solutions to the plastic waste crisis that are currently out of reach.
Reclamation awards $20.9 million to six salinity control projects in #Colorado and #Utah
Click the link to read the release on the USBR website:
February 12, 2024
The Bureau of Reclamation today awarded $20.9 million to fund six salinity control projects in Colorado and Utah through its Basinwide and Basin States Salinity Control Programs. These projects will reduce the amount of salt in the Colorado River and its associated impacts in the basin.
This funding will prevent approximately 11,661 tons of salt each year from entering the Colorado River. Quantified economic damages due to salinity in Colorado River water is currently about $332 million per year in the United States. It is estimated that damages would increase to $631 million per year without the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program.
“These awards will make improvements to off-farm irrigation systems like ditches and laterals in the Upper Basin States and prevent economic damages to downstream users by improving Colorado River water quality,” said Clarence Fullard, program manager for Reclamation’s Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program. “When the projects are complete, they will benefit crop production and decrease water treatment costs and damage to water supply infrastructure in Lower Basin States.”
These projects were selected through a competitive process, open to the public. Reclamation solicits, selects and awards grants through Notice of Funding Opportunity announcements to projects sponsored by non-federal entities that control salt loading in the Upper Colorado River Basin. One of the primary selection criteria is the lowest cost per ton of salt controlled. Reclamation will distribute the $17.5 million over the next 4 years to the state of Colorado and $3.4 million to the state of Utah.
To learn more, visit the Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program at http://www.usbr.gov/uc/progact/salinity.
Mining Monitor: Uranium buzz, buzz, buzz — Jonathan P. Thompson (@Land_Desk) #ActOnClimate
Click the link to read the article on The Land Desk website (Jonathan P. Thompson):
January 26, 2024
⛏️Mining Monitor ⛏️
The uranium-mining buzz is reaching a fevered pitch lately as uranium prices climb above $100 per pound, the highest since October 2007. I already reported on Energy Fuels’ intent to begin or resume production at its Pinyon Plain and La Sal complex mines. But nearly every day another press release lands in my inbox touting a big find or big plans somewhere on the Colorado Plateau.
Let’s start with the headline that irks me the most: “Churchrock could pump out 31 million lb of US uranium over three decades, Laramide PEA shows.” On its surface, this one looks like just another attempt to drive up share prices. And it probably is. But it’s the location and the name that gets to me: The project is just a couple of miles from the 1979 Church Rock disaster, when a uranium mill tailings dam failed, sending 94 million gallons of acidic liquid raffinate and 1,100 tons of uranium mill tailings rushing down the Puerco River and across the “checkerboard” area of the Navajo Nation. The slug of material, containing an estimated 1.36 tons of uranium and 46 trillion picocuries of gross-alpha activity, continued past Gallup and down the Puerco for another 50 miles or more, seeping into the sandy earth and the aquifer as it went, and leaving behind stagnant and poisonous pools from which livestock drank.
It seems like an appropriate site for a memorial, warning about the potential dangers of mining and energy development. But a new mine? I’m afraid so. For years, Hydro Resources worked to build an in-situ recovery operation there (and at another site closer to Crownpoint). ISR is a form of mining in which a solution is pumped underground to dissolve the uranium ore and then it’s pumped back out and processed. As one might expect, area residents, the Navajo Nation, and environmental advocates pushed back on the proposal.
Last year Laramide bought the project from Hydro Resources and is now looking to jumpstart it. I doubt it will come without a fight. In other mining news:
It seems like an appropriate site for a memorial, warning about the potential dangers of mining and energy development. But a new mine? I’m afraid so. For years, Hydro Resources worked to build an in-situ recovery operation there (and at another site closer to Crownpoint). ISR is a form of mining in which a solution is pumped underground to dissolve the uranium ore and then it’s pumped back out and processed. As one might expect, area residents, the Navajo Nation, and environmental advocates pushed back on the proposal.
Last year Laramide bought the project from Hydro Resources and is now looking to jumpstart it. I doubt it will come without a fight. In other mining news:
- Laramide is busy these days: They also recently announced the U.S. Forest Service has restarted the environmental review and permitting process for the company’s proposed La Jara Mesa project north of Grants, New Mexico. During the uranium industry’s last “renaissance” (lasting from 2007 to 2011), Laramide looked to open an underground mine on Cibola National Forest land. They made it as far as a draft environmental impact statement, released in 2012, before low uranium prices stalled the project.
- Nexus Uranium says it will begin exploratory drilling on its Wray Mesa claims near La Sal, Utah, on the northern edge of the Lisbon Valley.
- Anfield’s subsidiary, Highbury Resources, acquired another 12 Department of Energy uranium leases from Gold Eagle Mining in the Uravan Mineral Belt in western Colorado. The tracts are near Slickrock, on Monogram Mesa south of the Paradox Valley, and near Uravan. Anfield also says it plans to reopen the Shootaring uranium mill near Ticaboo, Utah, although it appears to have made little progress in that regard.
- Thor Energy says it has found high-grade uranium at its Wedding Bell and Radium Mountain projects on a mesa just east of the Dolores River in western Colorado.
- Kraken Energy got the Bureau of Land Management’s go-ahead to drill on Harts Point, right along the northeast border of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. This is the second time the company (or its partners Atomic Minerals and Recoupment Exploration) have purportedly received a drilling permit for the slickrock peninsula adjacent to the Indian Creek climbing area. The first time the company failed to come up with a reclamation bond and the permit was cancelled.
- Australia-based Okapi Resources is set to begin exploratory drilling near Cañon City, Colorado, raising concerns among the locals.
- And, perhaps the only big buzz in the lithium space right now (lithium prices are in the dumps): American Battery Metals is pushing its Lisbon Valley lithium project. Well, that is to say they are looking to get exploratory drilling permitted.
- Explore the above projects and more on the Land Desk Mining Monitor Map.
Forest Service withdraws key permit for controversial #Utah oil-train project opposed by Coloradans — #Colorado Newsline #ActOnClimate #KeepItInTheGround
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Newsline website (Chase Woodruff):
January 18, 2024
A controversial Utah oil-train proposal opposed by Colorado communities and environmentalists was dealt another blow this week when the U.S. Forest Service withdrew a key permit for the project.
In an announcement published Wednesday, Ashley National Forest Supervisor Susan Eickhoff blocked the issuance of a permit to the Uinta Basin Railway to construct 12 miles of railroad track through a protected area of the national forest in northeast Utah. The stretch of track in question is part of the proposed railway’s 88-mile connection between the oil fields of eastern Utah’s Uinta Basin and the existing national rail network.
The project has drawn fierce opposition from Coloradans. A federal “downline analysis” estimated that 90% of the resulting oil-train traffic — as many as five fully loaded, two-mile-long trains of crude oil tankers per day — would be routed through environmentally sensitive and densely populated areas in Colorado, en route to oil refineries on the Gulf Coast. The oil trains would more than quadruple the amount of hazardous materials being shipped by rail through many Colorado counties.
Colorado’s Eagle County and five environmental groups sued to overturn the Uinta Basin Railway’s approval, and in August 2023 a panel of federal judges ruled that the approval process contained “numerous” and “significant” violations of the National Environmental Policy Act. The ruling vacated portions of the project’s environmental impact statement and ordered the federal Surface Transportation Board to redo its analysis of key environmental risks.
Because the Forest Service’s decision in August 2022 to grant a right-of-way permit to the project was based on that flawed analysis, the agency has withdrawn its decision pending further proceedings at the STB.
CREDIT: COURTESY IMAGE
“If the deficiencies are addressed and resubmitted for consideration, the Forest Service may issue a new decision,” Eickhoff wrote in a Jan. 17 letter.
“This is wonderful news for the roadless forest in Utah’s Indian Canyon and the wildlife who call it home,” said Ted Zukoski, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that sued to block the project. “It’s a victory for the Colorado River and nearby communities that would be threatened by oil train accidents and spills, and for residents of the Gulf Coast, where billions of gallons of oil would be refined. If the oil train’s backers attempt to revive this dangerous scheme, we’ll be there to fight it again.”
In a press release, Democratic U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who had urged multiple federal agencies to put a stop to the project, applauded the Forest Service’s move.
“A derailment along the headwaters of the Colorado River could have catastrophic effects for Colorado’s communities, water, and environment,” Bennet said. “I’m glad the Forest Service has taken this important step to protect the Colorado River and the tens of millions of people who depend on it.”
Backers of the railway project include the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition, a group of Utah county governments in the oil-rich Uinta Basin. The coalition’s petition for a rehearing of the case by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit was denied in December, though the ruling could still be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“We’re still looking at options,” Greg Miles, a Duchesne County commissioner and co-chair of the coalition, said during a Jan. 11 public meeting. “We may be making a decision here within the next month.”
CREDIT: AMY HADDEN MARSH/ASPEN JOURNALISM
#Colorado charts new protections for state waters left vulnerable by U.S. Supreme Court ruling: New definition of ‘waters of the United States’ excludes wetlands, small streams — Colorado Newsline #WOTUS
Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Newsline website (Lindsey Toomer):
JANUARY 4, 2024
Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision narrowing the reach of the Clean Water Act, states including Colorado must now pick up the slack to protect water the federal government no longer will.
The new definition of “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, excludes a large number of wetlands that now require state regulation if they are to be protected. Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the clear impact of the 2023 Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency case is that many small streams and wetlands are no longer protected by the Clean Water Act.
Hartl said the sooner Colorado acts to create regulations around wetlands the better, because right now it would be legal if someone wanted to dredge and fill a wetland for development. He said the state should start by simply looking at what used to be protected by the Clean Water Act and create a similar regulation system where people need to apply for a permit and mitigate damage.
“My guess is that the state has a fairly good idea of what areas within the state face the most development pressure at any given time — a wetland high up in the mountains inside a park or wilderness area or state forest or whatever is probably not at as great a threat as something maybe on the outskirts of Boulder or Denver where there’s intense pressure to develop,” Hartl said.
Katherine Jones, a spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, said up to 50% of state waters are at risk of no longer being protected by the Clean Water Act following the Sackett decision. Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment’s Water Quality Control Division said the Sackett ruling “will likely result in all ephemeral and many intermittent waters, which constitute the majority of Colorado’s stream miles, being outside the scope of federal Clean Water Act jurisdiction.”
Polis’ proposed 2024 budget included “a placeholder of $600,000” to serve as an initial investment toward a clean water program, Jones said. CDPHE requested supplemental funding from the Colorado Legislature so it can prepare for development of a program to protect vulnerable waters and has engaged with interested stakeholders since the Trump administration’s efforts to change the Clean Water Act in 2020.
“One of Governor Polis’ top priorities is protecting Colorado’s environment and our precious, clean water resources for the health and safety of Coloradans, as well as industries like agriculture and recreation,” Jones said in a statement.
As the state gets started, Hartl said it could quickly establish an interim standard to maintain the status quo and to prevent anyone from “cynically taking advantage of the situation” as it takes the time to determine the best course of action.
‘Enforcement actions’
The Water Quality Control Division approved an enforcement policy in July so the state can track unpermitted discharges of dredge and fill material into state waters. The new policy encourages entities to notify the state when they plan to dredge and fill in state waters, and it also leaves room for unspecified “enforcement actions” in cases when an entity pursues dredge and fill activity in waters that would have been protected before the Sackett ruling. It does not apply to larger projects that would require significant mitigation and previously would have required a federal 404 permit.
Kelly Hunter Foster, senior attorney for Waterkeeper Alliance, said it’s good how quickly CDPHE took action after the Sackett decision, but that action is not a long-term solution. Creating a permanent system can be complex, she said, as the state must develop a permitting system, standards and mitigation requirements.
“There is a need to figure out what can be added to existing regulations and what statutory changes are necessary in order for the state to step in,” Foster said. “In particular, a permitting program will have to be set up for dredging and filling of wetlands and other waters that lost federal protections, and I think that the state agency needs additional resources to fill the major hole in clean water protections that was left as a result of the Sackett decision.”
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has a Wetland Wildlife Conservation Program that offers funding for projects that will protect wetland habitats, with over $1.1 million available. Joey Livingston, spokesperson for Parks and Wildlife, said the program has been around since 1997.
“The level of federal protection for wetlands has fluctuated over the years, so the importance of voluntary, incentive-based wetland conservation programs (like ours) is highlighted during times like these,” Livingston said of the Sackett decision.
Hartl said the loss of any one wetland won’t have drastic consequences, but more cumulative impacts arise as more and more wetlands are destroyed. In particular, he said wetlands help with flood mitigation as they soak up excess water, and floods have continuously gotten worse the more wetlands are lost. Hartl said it’s well documented how the U.S. has seen evidence of this with wetlands being dredged and filled since colonization, and “the court just ignored it.”
“Wetlands store pollution, they address flooding and runoff, they are very much part of what helps maintain clean water and drinking water as well as healthy ecosystems that support wildlife,” Hartl said. “If you get rid of all of those natural functioning systems and you pour concrete over them, when rain happens and when there is a wet year or floods, this is why oftentimes floods get worse, because we’ve eliminated all the natural ability to slow those floods.”
Thousands of permits designed to protect #Colorado streams are expired — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
Colorado’s health department is years behind in processing special Clean Water Act permits critical to protecting water quality in the state’s streams and rivers.
Right now, just 33% of the active discharge permits on file with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Water Quality Control Division, are current, far below the agency’s 75% goal, according to the agency. Under the federal Clean Water Act, entities that discharge fluids into streams, including wastewater treatment plants and factories, must get approval from water quality regulators to ensure what they’re putting into the waterways does not harm them.
But it is a tough job, as pressure on streams rises due to the warming climate, populations grow, and new toxins, such as PFAS, emerge. PFAS make up a large class of chemicals used in everything from firefighting foam to Teflon. They are known as “forever chemicals” because they last decades in the environment and the human body. The EPA has just begun setting regulatory standards for them. “Colorado could be doing better and it should be doing better,” said John Rumpler, senior attorney and director of clean water at the Boston-based Environment America.
Lagging EPA standards
Permitting backlogs exist across the country, due in part to the EPA’s failure to update the standards the states work to enforce, he said.
“We’re tolerating more pollution in our waterways than the law should abide,” Rumpler said. “Old threats we have succeeded in reducing, but new ones emerge. Now we have PFAS in our waterways, urban runoff and new chemicals. We’re just not keeping up.”
In an email, EPA officials said they’re aware of the issue. “EPA currently is in the process of evaluating permitting data for all states, including backlogs, and will be posting that information on our website by the end of January,” said Rich Mylott, a spokesman for EPA’s Region 8 office in Denver.
Of the more than 10,129 active discharge permits in Colorado, 67% have been continued without a formal review. The state’s Water Quality Control Division has wrestled with the problem for several years as staffing shortages and budget shortfalls grip the agency.
Though holders of expired permits are legally allowed to discharge under the Clean Water Act, the special status means dischargers face major uncertainty about what future requirements may be and how much it will cost to meet them, said Nicole Rowan, director of Colorado’s Water Quality Control Division.
“What is challenging is when permits are backlogged and older, they aren’t current with environmental regulations,” Rowan said.
“And if a facility wants to expand or change something, we can’t do it because it is in that administrative state,” she said.
Those facilities operating with expired permits include Metro Water Recovery in Denver, which processes wastewater for millions of metro area residents. It is Colorado’s largest wastewater treatment plant. The agency declined an interview request, but in a statement said that resolving the backlog would help everyone.
“Like many public agencies, Metro understands that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is resource constrained. … Metro believes that it is in the best interest of all parties for permits to be renewed within a five-year cycle so that they are consistent with the current regulatory framework.”
The City of Aurora is also among those agencies operating with a expired permit, according to spokesman Greg Baker. Aurora’s permit expired in 2017. Baker declined to comment on the impact of the delay.
In response to the problem, state lawmakers agreed earlier this year to add $2.4 million temporarily to the division’s budget.
“What the General Assembly did was a really big step in providing us some stability,” Rowan said.
But funding lasts only until June 2025, at which point the agency must present a formal plan to lawmakers for keeping the permitting system current and adequately funded.
Rowan and others are hopeful the revamp of the system will dramatically improve the state’s ability to monitor and protect water quality. Anyone interested in participating and tracking the state’s process can do so by signing up here. The next meeting is Dec. 18.
Fresh Water News was launched in 2018 as an independent, nonpartisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.
More by Jerd SmithJerd Smith is editor of Fresh Water News. She can be reached at 720-398-6474, via email at jerd@wateredco.org or @jerd_smith.
Romancing the River: What Am I Talking About? — George Sibley (Sibley’s Rivers) #ColoradoRiver #COriver #aridification
Click the link to read the article the Sibley’s Rivers website (George Sibley):
Romancing the River – I am aware, as you are probably aware, that when I title these posts ‘Romancing the River,’ I am talking about the life work of the kinds of people who do not usually think of themselves as ‘romantics,’ or of their water-related work as ‘romancing the river.’
Engineers, lawyers, politicians, managers, career bureaucrats, scientists – they all see themselves as rational beings just doing what must be done to rationalize a random force of nature, to put the river to beneficial use feeding, watering, powering and even entertaining us. That’s ‘romancing the river’? It’s almost an insult to call these serious public servantsromantics, a term which resonates with most people today as not really very serious, just ‘love stories’ – so unserious it’s hardly worth them answering me when I call them romantics (which they don’t); easier for them to just dismiss me as some kind of nut (which they might).
So let me try again to explain myself – and why I believe it is neither criticism nor praise to suggest that the army of engineers, lawyers, politicians, career bureaucrats, scientists who have remade the Colorado River have been ‘romancing the river.’ It is a perspective to get up on the table and think about, as we find ourselves at a kind of still point: trying to figure out how to go forward from a century of river development that has ended uncomfortably close to a systemic collapse. It is hard to see 2022-23 as anything other than that, and we’ve only been temporarily reprieved with a wet winter and Biden’s infrastructure bucks giving us time to figure out how to do better for the future.
My thinking on this started with the book, mentioned here in posts more than a year ago, by Frederick Dellenbaugh, who came right out and said it in his title: The Romance of the Colorado River. Dellenbaugh, remember, first encountered the Colorado River as seventeen-year-old, in a boat with Major John Wesley Powell, on the scientist’s second trip down the canyons of the river in 1871-2.
Major Powell was better prepared and more experienced on that second trip, and actually able to accomplish some scientific work rather than just trying to survive. But for young Dellenbaugh, it was a big eye-opening experience – life-shaping, really: he spent the rest of his life exploring other unknown parts of the still-wild West, and collecting the stories of other adventurers.
He published The Romance of the Colorado River in 1902, thirty years after his formative trip with Powell – and the year the federal Reclamation Service was created as a branch of the U.S. Geological Survey, within 20 years the organization orchestrating the river’s development.
Dellenbaugh pulled no punches in describing his sense of the river and the challenge it represented. After noting in his introduction that ‘in every country, the great rivers have presented attractive pathways for interior exploration—gateways for settlement,’ serving as ‘friends and allies’ – he launches into his impression of the Colorado River:
‘By contrast, it is all the more remarkable to meet with one great river which is none of these helpful things, but which, on the contrary, is a veritable dragon, loud in its dangerous lair, defiant, fierce, opposing utility everywhere, refusing absolutely to be bridled by Commerce, perpetuating a wilderness, prohibiting mankind’s encroachments, and in its immediate tide presenting a formidable host of snarling waters whose angry roar, reverberating wildly league after league between giant rock-walls carved through the bowels of the earth, heralds the impossibility of human conquest and smothers hope.’
There’s Dellenbaugh’s ‘romance of the river’ – an adventure story of rising to meet a challenge, a call to action to overcome obstacles. A veritable dragon refusing to be bridled? Impossible? Prohibiting encroachment? Smothering hope? We would see about that!
And while it’s not a conventional love story, passion is involved, the kind that can turn on a dime between love and hate. We loved the presence of water in a dry land – but the water was fickle at best, destructive at worst. Every farmer trying to irrigate from its two-month flood that turned into a trickle when they most needed it knew that love-hate relationship; it became the century-long (thus far) story of a strong and ornery people testing some new-found technological strength through picking a fight with a strong and ornery protagonist: we would teach the river to stand in and push rather than cutting and running.
Dellenbaugh was not the only one turning it into a romantic adventure. When the Colorado River Compact had been hammered out in 1922, the Commission Chair and Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover announced that ‘the foundation has been laid for a great American conquest.’ In a 1946 report cataloging all the possible developments for the Colorado river’s upper tributaries, the Bureau of Reclamation carried forward Dellenbaugh’s assessment in its subtitle: ‘A Natural Menace Becomes a National Resource.’ These were the official public perceptions guiding our relationship with the Colorado River.
For three-quarters of the century that followed publication of Dellenbaugh’s Romance, America embraced that romantic challenge, answering the call to conquest, taking on those obstacles, not just individually but as a national project, a big last step in the ‘Winning of the West.’ And fueled by the power unleashed by buried carbon fuels, we were ready for the fight; it was the Early Anthropocene, and it was our planet to reform.
Remarkable things were done to the river as a result. The ‘veritable dragon’ has been broken and bridled for commerce and ‘utility everywhere.’ Its breaking and taming for commerce and utility is so massive that it practically requires the satellite view to take it in – the vast new ‘desert delta’ where the waters of the former desert river are spread from Phoenix and Tucson on the east, around through large squared-off green agricultural developments spotted with towns and cities, through the Imperial and Coachella valleys to Los Angeles and San Diego on the west…. And that’s just downriver; upriver are the tunnels through the mountains, taking water from the headwaters into the Platte, Arkansas, Rio Grande Basins, and into the Great Basin itself – how long will it be before Anthropocene math calculates that there might be enough water left in the Green River to move some through the Central Utah Project workings to help recharge the Not-So-Great Salt Lake?
For me, the ‘utility’ that cements the idea that this has been a big romantic adventure is the way we have kept significant reaches of river ‘wild’ enough for industries replicating Dellenbaugh’s formative adventure. Slipping onto the tongue and into the thrashing maw of Lava Falls, it is still easy to imagine a ‘veritable dragon,’ and millions of people from all over the planet come out of the Grand Canyon having relived Dellenbaugh’s romantic adventure.
But at the same time…. We also have to face some things that are less to be celebrated. Which brings me to Mary Austin again, another writer of the southwestern deserts mentioned here before, and her skeptical observation on Arizona’s ‘fabled Hassayampa,’ an intermittent tributary of the Gila River west of Phoenix, ‘of whose waters, if any drink, they can no more see fact as naked fact, but all radiant with the color of romance.’ Phoenicians have been drinking from the Hassayampa for a century now, wrapped up in the romance of the happy golden years in green and sunny places – and the underlying standard American romance of great wealth to be harvested fulfilling such romantic dreams.
But the ‘naked facts’ don’t go away just because we don’t want to see them, and there’s a kind of cosmic irony in the fact that, right where the Hassayampa flows into the Gila (when it’s actually flowing), two big developments, Buckeye and Teravalis, have been shut down at least temporarily on further development because they can’t present evidence of a hundred-year water supply. (See this post last spring.)
The mayor of Buckeye, Eric Orsborn, who also owns a construction business, is not discouraged by this. ‘My view is that we’re still full steam ahead,’ he said in an article in The Guardian. ‘We don’t have to have all that water solved today…. What we need to figure out is what’s that next crazy idea out there’ for bringing in a new water supply. An idea under consideration currently is a desalinization plant down in Mexico on the Gulf of California, and a pipeline to bring the desalted water a couple hundred miles uphill to central Arizona. Crazy, and very expensive – but we’ve been saying in Colorado for decades now, as though it were a mother truth, ‘Water flows uphill toward money.’
But other naked facts have also been dimming the radiance of the Anthropocene conquest of the Colorado River. Water users have been coping for half a century with water quality issues stemming from using water over and over to irrigate alkaline soils. We also didn’t really know – and some states continue to refuse to acknowledge – how much water would be lost to evaporation from big reservoirs, hundreds of miles of open and unlined canals, and flood or furrow irrigation on subtropical desert lands. About a sixth of the river is vaporized annually.
But the biggest, most unforeseen collateral fact diminishing our conquest of the river is the turbulence we’ve wrought in the climate – increasingly an unignorable ‘naked fact.’ All the heavy technology and concrete we’ve invested in controlling the river, as well as all the technology of daily living that depends on burning carbon fuels, not to mention the methane from livestock and human waste – all our gaseous carbon emissions have increased the heat-holding capacity of the atmosphere, which in turn increases the heat energy driving our weather systems. We’ve seen this just this past year: how that changing balance can result in ‘atmospheric rivers’ of vapor forming over the ocean and dumping huge snowpacks when it condenses over the mountains – but then being back on the ‘abnormally dry’ edge of drought within a few months of the day-to-day water-sucking aridification that is the shape of the future.
So we Anthropocenes have conquered the river, bridled the dragon – but as we saw in the previous post here, we lost a full third of the river as the collateral consequences, unforeseen or just ignored, of the conquest. And all responsible prognosticators project that we will lose maybe another sixth of the river by mid-century to our drying out of the planet.
There are a number of ways to look at this. One would be to say, like Eric Orsborn, okay, there have been setbacks, but we can’t stop now; we need to finish the job. And he is far from the only Phoenician saying that. The state has a governor now and a Water Resources Department who know when it’s time to call a halt, but the state also has a Water Infrastructure Finance Authority charged with creating new water supplies for the state. The Mexican desal plant and megamile pipeline is just one idea in WIFA’s portfolio of possibilities; the old unkillable idea of bringing water over from the Missouri or Mississippi Rivers is still on their list.
‘Those are big, audacious ideas, but I don’t think any are off the table,’ WIFA director Chuck Podolak told The Guardian. ‘We’re going to seek the wild ideas and fund the good ones.’ The romance of conquest throbs on; Hoover Dam was a wild idea a century ago, so why stop now?
A water policy analyst at Arizona State University, Kathryn Sorensen, toldThe Guardian that ‘the degree of [Buckeye’s] success will depend on the degree to which people are willing to pay for those more expensive solutions. But it’s absolutely feasible. We pave over rivers, we build sea walls, we drain swamps, we destroy wetlands, we import water supplies where they never would have otherwise gone. Humans always do outlandish things, it’s what we do.”
There is diminishing enthusiasm today, however, for the romance of conquest; dwellers in the megacities are increasingly reluctant to embrace higher water bills in order to finance more growth, more people, more traffic, longer lines everywhere – San Diego is an example today. The same is true for urban/suburban water conservation; there is a romantic appeal to helping one’s city by conserving in an emergency situation, a drought period or a maintenance shutdown; but conservation-in-perpetuity just to make more water available for growth lacks that romantic appeal.
For many of us, the ‘romance of the river’ has probably shifted 180 degrees over the past half century to a belated appreciation for the ‘natural river’: the Colorado River that once flowed to the ocean in a two-month flood and watered a beautiful wild delta, the river that would flow through a resurrected Glen Canyon if the dam were taken down, et cetera. This eco-rec perspective nurtures the belief that the world would be a better place if we would ‘just stop digging’ and leave it to nature to heal itself from our efforts. This idea has the ‘radiant color of romance’ for many of us, but it also has its underlying naked facts – not least of which are nature’s extreme remedies for a swarming species overpopulating its resource base.
I tend to think, myself, that, yes, we can’t stop now with our tinkering and meddling; we are all too deeply into this love-hate relationship with nature. Just as we will continue to thwart nature with vaccines against its leveling pandemics, we will continue to try to keep passable water in the pipes and faucets, on the fields, and in the recreational reaches for an ever-growing population because that is who we are; it’s what we do.
For many of us, the ‘romance of the river’ has probably shifted 180 degrees over the past half century to a belated appreciation for the ‘natural river’: the Colorado River that once flowed to the ocean in a two-month flood and watered a beautiful wild delta, the river that would flow through a resurrected Glen Canyon if the dam were taken down, et cetera. This eco-rec perspective nurtures the belief that the world would be a better place if we would ‘just stop digging’ and leave it to nature to heal itself from our efforts. This idea has the ‘radiant color of romance’ for many of us, but it also has its underlying naked facts – not least of which are nature’s extreme remedies for a swarming species overpopulating its resource base.
I tend to think, myself, that, yes, we can’t stop now with our tinkering and meddling; we are all too deeply into this love-hate relationship with nature. Just as we will continue to thwart nature with vaccines against its leveling pandemics, we will continue to try to keep passable water in the pipes and faucets, on the fields, and in the recreational reaches for an ever-growing population because that is who we are; it’s what we do.
2 Eagle County water entities opt out of #PFAS-related settlements — The #Vail Daily
Click the link to read the article on The Vail Daily website (Zoe Goldstein). Here’s an excerpt:
Board members cited confusing language in the lawsuits, potential for significant future knowledge and regulation developments regarding PFAS
During a special joint meeting on Nov. 30, the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District and the Upper Eagle Regional Water Authority both decided to opt out of accepting settlements resulting from class action lawsuits between thousands of United States public water systems against 3M and a collective of companies including DuPont de Nemours, Inc., The Chemours Company, and Corteva, Inc. Eastern Eagle County’s drinking water entities began sampling for PFAS, the catch-all name for a collection of thousands of so-called “forever chemicals,” five years ago, at the request of the state of Colorado. Three studies have been conducted in the county, with the most recent study in 2023. The 2023 data shows that PFAS has been detected in five out of 11 sources throughout the county, with four detections within the Authority, and one in the District. All five detections were below the maximum contaminant level of four parts per trillion. For reference, one part per trillion is a single drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools…
“The main reason I put this up is to emphasize that this is super limited data. We have three sampling events, and they are snapshots in time. We have no idea about variability, and we have no idea how this data is trending over time,” said Brad Zachman, District director of operations.
2023 South Platte Forum #southplatte23 #SouthPlatteRiver
What a great learning experience yesterday in Greeley at the 2023 South Platte River Forum. The panels were all excellent as were the speakers (even the presentation by Brent Young about crop insurance 😊).
Here’s the link to the forum Tweets.
Grand Lake will get no state help — for now — to restore its once-crystalline water — Fresh Water News
Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Jerd Smith):
November 15, 2023: A state commission that sets water quality standards in Colorado is declining for now to wade into a debate over murky water in Grand Lake.
The Colorado Water Quality Control Commission will instead continue to monitor concerns about the popular tourist destination as federal and state authorities pursue solutions, the commission said at its regularly scheduled meeting Monday.
The lake is considered a prime jewel in Colorado’s scenic landscapes. Located on the western edge of Rocky Mountain National Park, it has been a tourist haven since the late 1800s.
But clarity deteriorated when the federal government began construction on the Colorado-Big Thompson Project, or C-BT, in the late 1930s.
The system gathers water from streams and rivers in Rocky Mountain National Park and Grand County, and stores it in Lake Granby and Shadow Mountain Reservoir.
From there it is eventually pumped up into Grand Lake and delivered under the Continental Divide via the Alva B. Adams Tunnel to Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir on the Front Range to serve more than 1 million residents and hundreds of farms.
The pumping creates turbidity that clouds the lake during the resort area’s prime tourist season in the summer. Before the C-BT was built, the lake was clear to a depth of 9.2 meters, or roughly 30 feet. Now it is far less.
Years of studies and work group sessions have failed to produce a solution.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to re-examine several options to fix the problem, including harvesting weeds and introducing aeration at Shadow Mountain, said Jeff Reiker, who manages the agency’s Eastern Colorado Area office. Reclamation owns the C-BT system, which is operated by Northern Water.
“We don’t have any major structural alternatives that have been identified as viable,” Rieker said. Some ideas considered previously involved things such as building a tunnel that would transport murky water from Shadow Mountain through Grand Lake, preventing the murkier water from mixing with Grand Lake’s.
“However, we are continuing our efforts to see if any structural alternatives need to be reconsidered. We want to focus on what can be done with our existing funding and authorities.”
The situation is complicated because it involves federal and state agencies, and any effort to redesign the massive system would cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Early on locals had hoped the lake would be protected from damage caused by the project. A 1937 federal law, U.S. Senate Document 80, was approved in part to protect Grand Lake’s recreational and scenic values, and a 15-year-old state standard was designed to improve water clarity, setting a goal for clarity of 3.8 meters, or about 12.5 feet.
During the pumping process, algae and sediment from Shadow Mountain are carried into Grand Lake, clouding its formerly clear waters, causing algae blooms and weed growth, and harming recreation.
In 2008, the state water quality commission moved to set a clarity standard, but it has since been replaced with a clarity goal and the aim of achieving “the highest level of clarity attainable.”
Northern Water and others have implemented different management techniques, including changing pumping patterns, to find ways to improve water quality. In some years, Northern has been able to improve clarity, but not to historical levels.
The utility is getting better at managing clarity, meeting the 3.8-meter standard 50% of the time in recent years, up from 27% historically, said Esther Vincent, Northern Water’s manager of environmental services.
“We have made notable progress,” she said.
Grand Lake advocates did not object to the commission’s decision, but urged it to bolster efforts to improve water quality.
Despite the progress, major improvements remain elusive, said Jeff Metzger, a volunteer advocate who has been trying to solve the problem for roughly 30 years.
“There are numerous documents related to efforts to improve Grand Lake clarity,” he said. “And we have seen some improvements. But none of these agreements have moved the needle.”
During the next several months, Reclamation and Northern Water will continue leading efforts to find a fix and the commission could revisit the issue again after 2024.
At the same time, advocates hope to involve Colorado legislators in their efforts to restore the lake and plan to introduce a resolution next year asking lawmakers to endorse their efforts…
Fresh Water News is an independent, nonpartisan news initiative of Water Education Colorado. WEco is funded by multiple donors. Our editorial policy and donor list can be viewed at wateredco.org.