Free Republic

The Pacific El Niño is back with a vengeance — and with it, the hope that California can climb out of its devastating, four-year-long drought. After a relentlessly dry, hot February, powerful rainstorms in early March have dropped billions of gallons of water into California’s depleted reservoirs. Lake Shasta, the state’s largest and most critical reservoir, has risen 28 feet in the last month and now sits at 77 percent capacity — and 101 percent of average for March — according to the San Jose Mercury News. Meanwhile, Lake Oroville, the state’s second-largest reservoir, was at 69 percent capacity —...

A series of storms pushed California’s biggest reservoir past its historical average for mid-March this weekend and put the second largest one on track for doing the same by Monday afternoon, officials said. Together the Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville reservoirs have the capacity to hold more than 8 million acre feet of water and after a wet weekend in Northern California, they were 79% and 70% full, respectively ... According to the National Weather Service, it rained nearly a foot in El Dorado County and more than nine inches in Shasta County between Friday and Monday mornings. Since March...

Obama administration officials called the Gold King Mine disaster in Colorado an “accident,” but an analysis of government documents and public statements makes clear the disaster was anything but accidental. The Environmental Protection Agency intentionally opened up the abandoned mine, which unleashed 3 million gallons of toxic waste into nearby rivers that residents of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and the Navajo Nation depend upon for drinking water. Agency administrator Gina McCarthy even called the mine spill an “unfortunate accident” in an Aug. 11, 2015, speech on the matter, but EPA officials have since been more cautious in describing the event....

Officials in Beverly Hills say they tried it all: educational campaigns, usage restrictions and written notices for people suspected of wasting water. Despite those efforts, the community missed its savings target every month since June, when a statewide 25% reduction in urban water consumption became mandatory amid the punishing drought. As a result, state regulators fined the city, saying publicly that its water wasters "should be ashamed." About four months ago, city officials got tough. Beverly Hills sent letters to dozens of customers in November warning them of high water use and urging them to cut back. The city also...

Burton never burdened their taxpayers for the switch over to PVC pipe, and in fact is saving local taxpayers $651,000 by switching over to water delivered by lead-free PVC pipes Purposely held back from the good residents of Flint, Michigan by Democratic Party politicians landing like crows to carrion on their city before Tuesday’s Michigan primary seeking to turn public anger to Democrat votes, this little gem: it’s not the water that’s the problem, but the archaic, rusted, lead-letting iron pipes carrying water into Flint homes that is. Nor did any rumpled-coat Detective Columbo have to go all the way...

DOHA: Monsson Group, leading company in renewable energy, yesterday announced its entry into the Qatari market with its Reverse Osmosis water desalination powered by renewable energy. The project is located in a farm owned by Ali Hussain Ali Al Sada and it is arguably the first fully automated and remotely controlled plant, with low energy consumption and without operating personnel. This new desalination plant is the answer to the rising energy demands coupled with diminishing fossil fuel reserves. It is the first of many such farms in Qatar for which Monsson will provide solutions. Using renewable energy technologies, Monsson is...

The Environmental Protection Agency is spending nearly $300,000 to develop technology that will track the energy and water use of office buildings, with a colored light bulb system that will send "visual messages" to employees when they are using too much.

Increasing water scarcity is driving innovations in water production technologies, according to analysis by Frost & Sullivan that finds accelerated movement towards wastewater reuse and advanced water recycling technologies. Innovations in Water Production and Its Impact on Key Sectors finds that advancements in technologies, chemicals and processes are addressing the three most difficult challenges in water production. These are: â—¾the removal of nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus compounds in open body water sources â—¾sustainable desalination â—¾the removal of emerging chemical compounds from drinking water The report says the water production space as a whole is shifting toward renewable energy-based solutions to...

Caving into the demands of the open borders movement and pro-immigrant Spanish media, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will refrain from enforcing immigration laws in areas of Flint, Michigan affected by a water crisis. The water amnesty is the latest of many reprieves issued by the Obama administration to help illegal immigrants nationwide. Judicial Watch has reported on many of them, including recent hurricane, earthquake, Ebola and "severe weather" amnesties. This one involves the widely reported water situation in Flint, which is located about 66 miles northwest of Detroit. Last year researchers discovered that the city's drinking water was...

A Minnesota photographer captured a dramatic show on Lake Superior last week as massive sheets of ice met the shoreline and shattered. Dawn M. LaPointe shared the hypnotic video on Feb. 13 2016, on the Radiant Spirit Gallery Facebook page. In her post, LaPointe says she filmed the shattering ice near Duluth, Minn., for two hours in frigid conditions, ranging from minus-8 degrees to 3 degrees. That's minus-20 degrees to minus-8 degrees with windchill.

Attorney General Bill Schuette wants to withdraw as legal counsel for seven former or current Michigan Department of Environmental Quality officials concerning legal matters surrounding the Flint water crisis. Schuette, on Thursday, filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to withdraw as legal representative of the officials, including former MDEQ Director Dan Wyant. The motion would separate the legal representation of Gov. Rick Snyder and the MDEQ (as a government agency) from that of individuals who have been named in a lawsuit filed concerning the crisis. Wyant resigned on Dec. 29. Six other...

ination to the Supreme Court made by President Barack Obama, the White House is surely gearing up for a strategic nomination and epic battle for the future of the highest court in the country. Obama needs to move forward quickly with a transformative nominee who stands a chance of success on Capitol Hill. Diane Humetewa, U.S. District Judge for the District of Arizona is perhaps the most likely person to advance through Senate confirmation during Obama's final year in office. Nominating her would transform the federal judiciary, bring Native Americans into the highest echelons of political society, and actually stand...

The head of the New Mexico Environment Department blasted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday during a legislative committee meeting in the New Mexico Legislature, saying federal officials are downplaying the long-term effects of the Gold King Mine spill. ... Environment Secretary Ryan Flynn told members of the House agriculture committee that the agency has been pressuring communities to get behind a proposal that calls for monitoring water quality for only a year. Flynn also argued that the proposal would look at whether the water is safe for recreation rather than digging deeper into recurring spikes in the readings...

On Aug. 5, 2015, contractors for the Environmental Protection Agency accidentally released 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater into Cement Creek, a tributary of the Animas River. Six months later, questions about the effects of spring runoff, Superfund status and remediation remain unanswered.N.M. official blasts EPA over Gold King spill‘When storm events occurred, the sediment was remobilized’ Where the Animas goes The Gold King Mine blowout on Aug. 5, 2015 sent 3 million gallons of wastewater into the Animas River, which flows into the San Juan River. The San Juan flows into the Colorado River. The Colorado River is dammed,...

I just finished watching a clip of Hillary's New Hampshire concession speech. She mentioned the terrible condition of Flint, Michigan's water supply. She was outraged, I tell you. So, seeing how the Clinton Foundation is a charity, wouln't it be great if the Foundation donated, say, $150 million to Flint? That would go a long way to solving the problem.

California, Oregon and the federal government are working on a way around congressional barriers to the removal of hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The states, the U.S. Interior Department and the owner of the dams, PacifiCorp, announced Tuesday that they have agreed in principle to pursue removal through the federal dam relicensing process. The move comes after a complex deal to decommission four hydroelectric dams and restore portions of the historic salmon river fell apart when Congress failed to act on a crucial piece of the pact by a Dec. 31 deadline. Republican members of Congress and local elected...

Hillary Clinton has made every effort to make Flint her own. The water crisis afflicting this predominantly black Michigan city - ignored by Washington politicians for years - has become another battlefield in a progressive war between Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Race, class and the environment matter again in an issues-based, neck-and-neck race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Looking past Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire, where Sanders is tipped to win, and toward the March primary states where she will be counting on African American support, Clinton made a symbolic campaign stop here on Sunday. "I feel blessed to be...

The farm fields in Jefferson County are quiet this time of year, the irrigation ditches dry, the crops dormant and the tractors, combines and balers parked in barns until spring. Even so, farmers are busy calculating their costs for the spring planting season, and this year they're factoring in a little bit of fear.

Last August, an accident at a federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleanup project at the long-abandoned Gold King mine in Silverton, Colorado, resulted in a gusher of heavy metal-laden water into the Animas River. Not only did EPA project mismanagement cause the spill, but also its response after the accident was wholly inadequate. Apparently, it didn't notify nearby residents for 24 hours, and it failed to alert officials downstream quickly that the toxic water was coming. Any private firm that had done this would doubtless have been fined or otherwise penalized--by EPA. A recent water quality crisis in Flint, Michigan...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said on Tuesday it was joining a criminal investigation of lead-contaminated drinking water in Flint, Michigan, exploring whether laws were broken in a crisis that has captured international attention. Federal prosecutors in Michigan were working with an investigative team that included the FBI, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General and the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit said. An FBI spokeswoman said the agency was determining whether federal laws were broken, but declined further comment.