Water resources are being challenged to meet domestic, agricultural, and industrial needs. To complement finite surface water supplies that are being stressed by changes in precipitation and increased demand, groundwater is increasingly being used. Sustaining groundwater use requires considering both water quantity and quality. A unique challenge for groundwater use, as compared with surface water, is the presence of naturally occurring contaminants within aquifer sediments, which can enter the water supply….
News
This page features excerpts from news about environmental justice advocacy in the San Joaquin Valley and links to their original sources. Use the features on the right to sort by topic, news source, date, key word or author. You may also subscribe to receive the news by e-mail or through an rss reader. Please note that links to original sources may expire over time.
Earlier last month, construction crews began the first of four phases of the Lamont Pedestrian Improvement Project, an Active Transportation Program funded through Cal-Trans, with the purpose to build sidewalks, crosswalks, and curb ramps to improve walking and biking throughout lamont. Currently, the project is in its first phase: demolition and removing of old and damaged sidewalks…
Sinking land caused by intensive groundwater pumping in the San Joaquin Valley is releasing trapped arsenic — a known carcinogen — into aquifers that supply irrigation and drinking water for a million people, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications…
California Gov. Jerry Brown is prodding lawmakers to add a sizable tax on citizens drinking water in a bid to fix a beleaguered water system some citizens believe is poisoning poor people in rural areas. The tax on drinking water, if passed, would be the first in California’s history. The money would go toward addressing drinking water tainted with arsenic and other contaminants in the San Joaquin Valley. Urban water agencies are trying to kill the bill, arguing the issue is confined to California’s rural areas…
Governor Jerry Brown has appointed Quentin Foster, Director for California Climate at Environmental Defense Fund, to the Independent Emissions Market Advisory Committee serving the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA)…
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the following appointments…
Last July, California Gov. Jerry Brown announced a “Climate Action Summit” meeting to be held in San Francisco in September 2018, with the direct goal of supporting the Paris climate agreement recently abandoned by President Trump. “No nation or state is doing what they should be doing,” Brown said at the time. “You can’t do too much to sound the alarm because so far the response is not adequate to the challenge…”
Gasping for air in an asthma attack. Heart problems, cancer, stroke. These are the consequences of fossil fuels for millions of people in California’s most polluted communities, where 92 percent of residents are people of color. While Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised budget proposal touts efforts to reduce California’s carbon footprint, it was silent on solving the persistent problem of air pollution…
There are 3,015 independent water systems serving communities in California. As of May, 269 of these suppliers were out of compliance with state drinking water standards.Of those 269 water systems, 141 are found in five counties of the San Joaquin Valley: Stanislaus, Madera, Fresno, Tulare and Kern. However, 38 of California’s 58 counties have at least one water supplier in violation of state water standards…
An estimated 360,000 Californians are served by water systems with unsafe drinking water, according to a McClatchy analysis of data compiled by the State Water Resources Control Board. In many communities, people drink, shower, cook and wash dishes with water containing excessive amounts of pollutants, including arsenic, nitrates and uranium…