EnviroPolitics Blog

Maryland will continue to supervise Baltimore’s deeply troubled Back River wastewater treatment plant

The latest monitoring report by the Maryland Department of the Environment showed continuing failures and persisting challenges at the Baltimore facility.

Baltimore City Hall. Credit: Alex Wroblewski/Getty Images

By Aman Azhar, Inside Climate News

Maryland and Baltimore environmental officials have agreed to extend a consent decree that would allow the state to continue overseeing operations at Baltimore’s deeply troubled Back River Wastewater Treatment Plant through the end of the year, the state said on Friday.

The consent decree was negotiated earlier this year after the Maryland Environmental Service (MES) reported in June that “catastrophic failures” at Back River had resulted in sewage discharges above and beyond its permitted limits. The agency had taken over operations at the plant in March.

The extension of the consent decree, aimed at ensuring the plant keeps working within permitted limits for pollution, must still be approved by the City Board of Estimates, which is expected on Oct. 19.

“The amendment extends the earlier agreement until the end of the calendar year, allowing MES to remain onsite through the end of the year and provide additional resources to help maintain and operate the plant,” said Jay Apperson, deputy director of communications for the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE).

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‘Hazard NJ’ podcast’s Episode 5 examines the ‘Orange Fog and Creeping Saltwater’ in a small South Jersey community

Hosted by Jordan Gass-Poore. Produced by NJ Spotlight News.

The National Lead company spent years in the 1970s recycling car batteries at a factory in rural South Jersey, haphazardly draining battery acid onto the ground. The pollution left dangerous heavy metals in the site’s soil and groundwater — a mess that is now on the verge of being cleaned up. But in an area along Delaware Bay, sea level rise is slowly pushing a new potential problem into the ground.

Listen to the full story

About Hazard NJ
New Jersey is home to the largest number of Superfund sites in the country – and while federal cleanup is underway – the bigger threat to them now is climate change. Flooding, fires, and rising sea levels could make life even harder for those who live nearby. Hazard NJ digs through the muck of each contaminated site to give a clearer picture of what the threat is and what it will take to clean it up before it’s too late. Hosted by journalist Jordan Gass-Poore and produced by NJ Spotlight News.

‘Hazard NJ’ podcast’s Episode 5 examines the ‘Orange Fog and Creeping Saltwater’ in a small South Jersey community Read More »

Trump request for intervention by Supreme Court in documents case gets a one-sentence rejection

Former President Donald J. Trump in Minden, Nev., on Saturday.
Credit…Bridget Bennett for The New York Times

By Adam Liptak, The New York Times

Oct. 13, 2022, 3:16 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a request from former President Donald J. Trump to intervene in the litigation over documents seized from his Florida estate.

The court’s order, which was a sentence long, was a stinging rebuke to Mr. Trump. There were no noted dissents, and the court gave no reasons, saying only: “The application to vacate the stay entered by the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on Sept. 21, 2022, presented to Justice Thomas and by him referred to the court is denied.”

Mr. Trump asked the court last week to step into the tangled case, saying that an appeals court had lacked jurisdiction to remove about 100 documents marked as classified from a review of the seized material. The Supreme Court’s action means that the special master in the case, and Mr. Trump’s legal team, will not have access to those documents.

In their filing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers did not ask the Supreme Court to overturn a more important part of the appeals court’s ruling, which allowed the Justice Department to continue using the documents with classification markings in its criminal investigation of Mr. Trump’s handling of government records.

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Oil industry files referendum to overturn historic California drilling protection law

The industry’s ballot push to roll back newly enacted safety zones would delay implementation for nearly two years until voters decide the law’s fate in 2024.

By Liza Gross, Inside Climate News

California Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed more than three dozen bills to protect the climate and vulnerable communities from oil drilling and fossil fuel emissions.

The historic climate package includes Senate Bill 1137, which bans new oil and gas wells within 3,200 feet of homes, schools, and any other place people could be harmed by drilling operations. Democrats’ previous attempts to create health and safety zones around oil and gas operations failed in 2020 and 2021, blocked by just a few members of their own party.

Critically, the new law includes safeguards for the millions of Californians who live within the roughly half-mile buffer zone of existing drilling operations, tightening restrictions on everything from disruptive noise and light to the release of toxic gases from wells and storage tanks. In addition, operators must provide regulators with analyses of chemicals in any wastewater transported from existing drilling sites and, by January 2027, implement a plan to rapidly detect and fix leaks of noxious gases and the climate super-pollutant methane at these sites.

But the ink had barely dried on this groundbreaking health and safety law when Nielsen Merksamer, a lobbying firm that represents several major oil and gas companies, filed a referendum to reverse it on behalf of Jerome Reedy, a board member for the California Independent Petroleum Association, an industry lobby group.

Now, the industry and its allies have until Dec. 15 to collect enough signatures (623,212, to be exact) to qualify for the next general election. If they do, implementation of the law—which was supposed to go into effect the first day of January 2023—will be delayed until voters have their say in 2024.

“I am optimistic that the referendum will not be successful,” said state Sen. Lena Gonazalez (D-Long Beach), who authored S.B. 1137. “More than ever before, people believe in a carbon- and fossil-free future. And of course, we will not give up without a fight.”

The referendum has become a standard tactic in California for well-endowed special interests to reverse progressive gains, community organizers say

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The California city of Coalinga could run out of water in two months

*Coalinga, Ca. is running out of water. Washington Post photo by Matt McClain*

By Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post

COALINGA, Calif. – The residents of this sun-scorched city feel California’s endless drought when the dust lifts off the brown hills and flings grit into their living rooms. They see it when they drive past almond trees being ripped from the ground for lack of water and the new blinking sign at the corner of Elm and Cherry warning: “No watering front yard lawns.”

The fire chief noticed it when he tested hydrants in August – a rare occurrence as Coalinga desperately seeks to conserve water – and the first one shot out a foot-long block of compacted dirt. The second one ejected like a can of Axe body spray.

The schools’ superintendent could only think drought on the first day of school when a 4-year-old fell onto unwatered turf, breaking an arm; or when the chain saws dropped three coastal redwoods outside Henry F. Bishop Elementary that had withered and died. Superintendent Lori Villanueva even lost a portion of her own right lung last year from a drought-aggravated illness, valley fever, that’s caused by breathing soil fungus whipped up off the dry ground.

But what lies ahead might be far worse for the 17,000 residents living amid the oil derricks and cattle farms on the western edge of the state’s Central Valley. Coalinga has only one source of water – a shrinking allotment from an aqueduct managed by the federal government – and officials are projecting the city will use up that amount before the end of the year.

That looming threat has left city officials racing between meetings in Sacramento and phone calls to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation seeking to increase their water supply. Some residents have begun stockpiling five-gallon water jugs in their homes, while many expect major spikes in their water bills. If Coalinga can’t find relief, it would be forced to buy additional water on the open market at exorbitant prices that could swamp the city’s budget.

Read the full story here

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Political dysfunction in Trenton has regional officials calling for state takeover of the city’s water treatment plant

*Inside the Trenton City water treatment plant along the Delaware River in downtown Trenton*

Brenda Flanagan reports for NJ Spotlight News

Drawing from the Delaware River, Trenton Water Works treats 28 million gallons of water daily and sends it to the Pennington Reservoir for distribution to more than 200,000 consumers. But water stored in the 150-year-old uncovered reservoir has been plagued by algae and midges. And plans to fix myriad issues at the treatment plant have become mired in Trenton’s municipal political dysfunction.

“Quality water — clean water — should not be part of politics. And unfortunately, that’s what’s happened here in this case,” said Mark Lavenberg, the plant’s director. The political gridlock has stalled repairs. Regional politicians and outside towns that depend on Trenton Water Works for drinking water want the state Department of Environmental Protection to intervene

*Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora blames the city council. The council president blames Gusciora*

View the NJ Spotlight News story here.

Political dysfunction in Trenton has regional officials calling for state takeover of the city’s water treatment plant Read More »