Clean Water Act

Conservation groups on Monday sued Los Angeles County and the city of Malibu to force them to clean up the slurry of fecal bacteria, copper, lead, cyanide and other pollutants being washed down storm drains, creeks and rivers into coastal waters. The two lawsuits, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, are test cases aimed at enforcing compliance with Clean Water Act rules first adopted 17 years ago.

Over the years, the Los Angeles River has been redrawn, clad in concrete, tainted with chemicals, invaded by countless Hollywood car chases, dismissed as a glorified storm drain. Now comes the latest slap. The city's river can't even float enough boats to qualify as a full-fledged navigable waterway, according to the Army Corps of Engineers. River advocates are outraged. "They're just wrong. That's the simple version of it.

Four major home builders, including Los Angeles-based KB Home, have agreed to pay $4.3 million in fines to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act involving hundreds of construction sites nationwide, the U.S. Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday. The four separate settlements are the result of a federal investigation into storm-water management and compliance efforts between 2001 and 2004, according to the companies named in the complaints.

Over the course of almost 40 years, the Clean Water Act -- which compels landowners to secure permits from the Environmental Protection Agency before dredging or discharging pollutants into "waters of the United States" -- has become the cornerstone of our water-quality law, helping states and local governments make development decisions that keep the country's watersheds healthy.

The Environmental Protection Agency is obliged by the Clean Water Act to protect the nation's waterways, beaches and drinking water from pollution caused by real estate development and should set standards for limiting construction runoff by the end of next year, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday. The ruling from the U.S.

Heather Wylie's kayaking trip down a stretch of the Los Angeles River one Saturday in July was more than a little weekend urban adventure. Wylie, a project manager in the Ventura field office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, joined local environmentalists to make a point: You can float a boat down the concrete-lined river channel, even if what you're paddling through is mostly street runoff and treated water from sewage plants. Wylie's bosses were not happy.

Akayak trip I took this summer may cost me my job. I am a civilian biologist working for the Army Corps of Engineers. On my personal time, I joined a trip down the Los Angeles River to protest actions by my own agency to undermine the Clean Water Act. My superiors scoured the Internet for proof and found two photos of me on a blog. Claiming that my "participation undermined [its] authority," the corps has proposed suspending me for 30 days, a punishment one step below termination.

Most of the water in the Chicago River is treated sewage loaded with bacteria, but officials contend they shouldn't be forced to clean up the waterway unless a newly commissioned study finds that people are getting sick from the murky flow. Under pressure from Democratic Mayor Richard M. Daley and others to turn the stagnant canals into civic amenities, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District asked researchers to survey people who dip a canoe or kayak into the river during the next year.

sandia pueblo, n.m. -- The Rio Grande used to be more than just a shallow sliver cutting its way through sand bars on this pueblo's western edge, and the dry stream beds that descend from the mountains on the eastern front once channeled summer runoff strong enough to move granite boulders. "I mean, you could hear those boulders come tumbling down. We would get up in the middle of the night just to watch them come through," Sandia Pueblo Gov. Victor Montoya said.

A LOT OF FOLKS ARE IN A TIZZY about Tuesday's Supreme Court session. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. will hear his first oral arguments. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. will hear his first environmental cases. The Bush administration, hardly known for its enthusiastic enforcement of federal environmental laws, will argue vehemently in favor of one of the most comprehensive environmental laws on the books, the Clean Water Act.