A fee on farm fertilizer? That’s among the recommendations from the state water board to pay for widespread contamination of drinking water. Now lawmakers must decide if they will enforce it.
The state needs to come up with $36 million a year to address the San Joaquin Valley drinking water problems in rural areas from nitrates, which scientists say come from fertilizers and animal waste.
The contamination threatens drinking water for 250,000 people from Fresno to Bakersfield, according to a study released last year by the University of California at Davis.
Many people in small towns such as Seville in Tulare County have been drinking bottled water for years as they await a state solution. A Bee series of stories in 2011 highlighted the problems. There has been little progress since then…
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Central Valley regulators have tentatively signed off on the air pollution expected to be generated by the Hydrogen Energy California power and chemical plant proposed near Tupman.
While a full project approval is at least several months away, the preliminary determination of compliance issued last week by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District signals that HECA appears to meet its various requirements.
It means that even though the project’s emissions would exceed otherwise acceptable levels, HECA has mitigated these negative impacts, and its pollution-control equipment is the best available…
Recommendations by the California State Water Resources Control Board could hurt farmers’ bottom lines in the San Joaquin and Salinas valleys, but help improve the quality of drinking water.
The recommendations were submitted to the state Legislature on Wednesday, about two weeks after the board released a report stating that tests showed high to extremely high levels of nitrates in groundwater in parts of Tulare and Kings county areas, and in the Salinas Valley.
In some cases, nitrates occur naturally in groundwater, but it also comes from nitrate fertilizers used in commercial agriculture that seeps down into the water table…
Longtime activist Kevin Hall this week left his position as director of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition to become a labor representative for the California Nurses Association (CNA).
Hall, who has led the coalition since mid-2011, will remain involved with the coalition on its steering committee as well as the Healthy Air & Stable Climate action subcommittee…
Kern County may be sitting on top of the largest oil reserve in the nation. The Monterey Shale holds an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil, but bringing all of that oil to the surface has some people concerned, especially since it might require the controversial process of fracking.
It’s called the Monterey Shale, but a lot of it is right here in Kern County in a tightly packed formation, which means companies will most likely need to frack. That possibility has some concerned for the groundwater and the potential for more earthquakes.
Just outside Shafter, a new oil well is being drilled. It’s one of dozens that has popped up in the area in the last few years…
A new hydrogen energy power plant could have all of the permits to break ground this year in Kern County. That’s the word from SCS Energy, which is backing the project.
But, some local farmers and environmentalists say, not so fast. They believe the plant would create more harm to our air and land than good…
Hazardous waste, treated human sewage and farm chemicals are part of a dumping ground culture surrounding the San Joaquin Valley, but other deadly health risks slip under the radar.
Through a legal loophole, a company with global sales of $4 billion opened its West Coast distribution center in Visalia last year without having to follow a rule that curbs air pollution, much of it generated by traffic.
Critics, who sued over it, argue traffic and diesel truck exhaust from the 500,000-square-foot distribution center will create tons of air pollution. Air pollution kills several hundred people prematurely each year in the Valley…
Greenaction is pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to enhance meaningful public involvement in the District’s permit processing actions…
Two bills sponsored by Assemblyman Luis A. Alejo, D-Salinas that target local and state water quality concerns received unanimous bipartisan support Tuesday in the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee of the state Assembly…
Kettleman City mothers, including mothers of babies lost to birth defects and leukemia, will challenge Chemical Waste Management at tonight’s “Pre-Application” meeting being held by the hazardous waste company as part of the company’s attempt to expand their giant hazardous waste landfill that is plagued with chronic violations that have gone on for decades.