Top Stories
EPA Finally Asks What Fracking Toxins Are Dumped in the Ocean but Isn’t Stopping the Practice
No, the agency isn’t banning fracking or ordering a moratorium while it studies the effects of pumping large amounts of pressurized water, sand and toxic chemicals into the ground to reach oil otherwise inaccessible to drillers. A new regulation published Thursday by the EPA merely requires the oil companies to self-report what they have only recently been discovered doing in sensitive waters where new drilling has been banned since a devastating 1969 oil spill near Santa Barbara. read more
New Hollywood Fault Map Puts Projects and Buildings in a Quake Zone
State geologist Dave Parrish released recently-completed maps of fault lines in the city that seem to place the giant Millennium Hollywood skyscraper project, approved by the city in October, astride one of the dreaded dotted lines that mark an active earthquake fault. If that turns out to be the case, a state law that bans building on faults would be tough to get around. read more
Mendocino County Beats State to Declaration of Drought Emergency
Wells are reportedly drying up and Lake Mendocino, its key source of water, is near an all-time low level. The North Coast set a record for dryness in 2013, with just 7.67 inches of rain in the upper reaches of the Russian River. The Ukiah Daily Journal reported that Willits City Manager Adrienne Moore told the Board of Supervisors before it declared the emergency that her city estimated it had 100 days of water supply. read more
Brown Wants Diversion of Cap-and-Trade Funds from Environment to High-Speed Rail
Brown is said to want nearly one-third of the expected $850 million in revenues from cap and trade redirected to the rail project, which had its funding sources crippled by a federal judge late last year. The market-oriented, pollution-credit-swapping program garnered the reluctant support of environmentalists, many of whom preferred a straight tax on polluters, in exchange for a promise that revenues would be used to mitigate greenhouse gases. read more
Miserable Sierra Snowpack Ties a Record Low Set Way Back in 2012
The 20% average reading matched the lowest reading on record. Based on these measurements, the Department of Water Resources projected that the State Water Project (SWP) will only be able to deliver 5% of the 4 million acre-feet of water requested for calendar year 2014 by 29 public agencies. Those agencies supply water to more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland. read more
State Supreme Court Says Undocumented Immigrant Can Practice Law . . . if He Can Find a Job
The court ruled 7-0 that despite his illegal presence, Garcia can be admitted to the State Bar, but it also said federal laws will restrict where he can be employed and the type of work he can do. For instance, he can’t be an employee of a law firm, corporation or government entity. That covers a lot of ground, although he can provide his legal services for free or outside the country. read more
Frackers Await the Flow of Water from the $26-Billion Delta Project
Water interests want more water and—in case it wasn’t clear before, the BDCP makes it clear now—that includes oil and gas drillers using hydraulic fracturing. In answer to the question “Will water pumped from the Delta be used for fracking in the Central Valley?” the answer from the BDCP was yes. “Fracking presumably would be an ‘industrial’ use of water.” read more
As Probation Population Grows, L.A. County Notes 25% GPS Tracking Failure Rate
In a letter to Sentinel Offender Services, LLC, the department accused the company of failing in five critical areas of service: equipment failed; monitoring was sketchy; cases were prematurely deemed inactive; equipment hookups were slow to happen; and case files lacked basic information. Among those tracked by GPS, according to the Los Angeles Times, are “repeat sex offenders, domestic abusers who had violated restraining orders and violent gang members.” read more
L.A., Santa Monica Building on Fault Lines in Absence of Maps that State Won’t Fund
Times reporters took a stroll along the Hollywood and Santa Monica faults and found 18 projects that had been approved without state mapping during that fallow period, including apartments, condos and an office building. Fourteen were in Los Angeles and four were in Santa Monica. These numbers are dwarfed by the total number, 1,400, of buildings sitting on or near the faults. read more
LAPD to Ring in the New Year with Drug Tests at DUI Checkpoints
Who wants to volunteer for a drug test at DUI checkpoints conducted by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) on New Year’s Eve?
Officers will be handing out free mouth swabs at locations all around the city for the first time and those first-timers who fail the test for marijuana, methamphetamine, cocaine, methadone, Xanax and narcotic analgesics will be eligible to pay around $16,000 in fines, lawyer fees and insurance premium boosts. read more
Real Cost of Proposed Delta Tunnel Plan Is More than Double $25 Billion Price Tag
The San Jose Mercury News reported on Thursday that the Westlands Water District heard a report from its staff and a Citigroup bond consultant last month which said when financing and other costs are factored in, the cost rises as high as $67 billion. That would put it right there with the projected cost of the beleaguered high-speed rail project. read more
Naked Protesters Couldn’t Stop the Willits Freeway Bypass and a Federal Judge Won’t
Many objected to the decision by Caltrans to build a four-lane freeway, arguing that traffic conditions don’t support that much concrete and the extra toll on the environment would be devastating and unnecessary. That wanted a two-lane bypass that wouldn’t force it to drain wetlands and complained when the official environmental review didn’t consider that as an option. read more
California Puts Another Dangerous Plastics Chemical on Prop. 65 List
Six different phthalates have made the Prop. 65 list since DEHP was listed as a carcinogen in 1988. They are a common class of chemicals used in many household products and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. Phthalates enhance softness and flexibility, and help retain product scents.
They have been linked to early puberty in girls, premature births, sperm damage in men and genital defects in boys. read more
Feds Want Stricter Oversight of California Oil Refineries . . . by Oil Companies
"Safety case" is a fan-favorite of industries that want a more streamlined regulatory system, but it has its critics among those who think it doesn’t work and is window-dressing for just letting companies regulate themselves. A critic says, “The problem simply devolves to defining what is ‘acceptable’ and to whom: to the producer of the system who is paying the cost of making it safe or to the potential victim?” read more
State Oversight Office Says Landmark Civil Rights Agency is Crippled
The state Senate Office of Oversight and Outcomes (SOOO) said the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) has been systematically deprived of the resources necessary to investigate the 20,000 new discrimination claims made to it each year. A “secret policy” that lets California’s governor derail any discrimination case pursued against a state or local public agency is just one of the ways the state’s landmark civil rights agency has been crippled over time. read more
Covered California Latino Signups Might be Less Disappointing if the State Had Paper Spanish Applications
Less than 5% of the 109,296 enrollees are enrolling in Spanish. Covered California does not know how many of its participants are Latinos who speak English, but 5% is considerably below the 29% of California Latinos who primarily speak Spanish. Although there have been problems in the various outreach programs, other problems exist. For instance, there is the lack of Spanish paper applications. Still. Ten weeks into Covered California’s launch. read more