Water Pollution

Los Angeles County got a reprieve in an ongoing dispute over who is responsible for pollution from storm water when the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a ruling won by environmentalists. However, the court's 9-0 decision did not deal with the larger question of how to regulate storm water and urban runoff flowing into the region's waterways. Gary Hildebrand, assistant deputy director of the county's Department of Public Works, said the court's decision "validates the approach the flood control district has been taking to deal with water management.

Faced by widespread public opposition, the Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday sent a proposed parcel fee to combat storm water pollution back to the drawing board. The proposed fee would be levied on all property owners within the county's flood control district, raising an estimated $290 million a year to help cities and the county deal with widespread water quality issues stemming from polluted storm water and urban runoff and the need to comply with new state regulations.

Government bureaucrats want your water softener. The Culligan Man is fighting back. The company behind the renowned "Hey Culligan Man!" advertising campaign of the 1950s has launched a political and public relations offensive to kill a bill targeting its signature product. That proposal would allow regulators to ban conventional water softeners that discharge salt into municipal sewer lines.

Facing overwhelming opposition to a proposed parcel fee to clean up storm water pollution, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors deferred a vote to place it on the ballot. The proposed fee would be levied on all property owners within the county's flood control district, raising an estimated $290 million a year to help cities and the county deal with widespread water quality issues stemming from polluted storm water and urban runoff - and the resulting threat of fines and litigation.

For years, residents living near Ballona Creek and environmentalists have complained of mysterious sheens of oil and grease in the western Los Angeles County waterway, often blaming industrial dumping, urban runoff or other man-made causes for the pollution. One cause that apparently never crossed their minds: the La Brea Tar Pits. It turns out the tourist attraction and preferred field trip destination of seemingly every grade schooler in the region has sent oily wastewater spilling into the highly polluted creek.

A state appeals court has ruled that Los Angeles and Ventura counties can enforce water-quality standards designed to protect the region's beaches from polluted runoff, regardless of the cost to local governments and contractors. The 4th District Court of Appeal on Monday reversed a 2008 ruling in favor of Arcadia, 20 other Los Angeles County cities and a building industry association, which sought to overturn the storm-water pollution regulations by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board because the agency did not consider their economic effect on construction projects.

A group of residents sued 19 defense contractors as well as manufacturing and oil companies Thursday, alleging that for decades they allowed toxic substances to leak into the drinking water supply beneath Baldwin Park, causing cancer and other health problems. In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, 23 people allege they were affected by contaminated ground water, and 23 others seek damages based on the deaths of nine relatives. Two plaintiffs make both claims.

Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente) will conduct a community meeting on ground-water contamination in the San Gabriel Valley at 7 tonight at La Puente High School Theater, 15615 E. Nelson Ave. Torres said he has invited officials from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and state and regional agencies to report on what they are doing about contaminants in ground water.

Environmental Protection Agency officials said Tuesday that they are looking for additional San Fernando Valley industrial firms that may be responsible for ground water pollution. The EPA will continue to send to Valley firms questionnaires seeking information on current and past chemical use and disposal.

A cattle ranch and its owner were ordered to pay $1 million for water pollution. Masami Ishida, 70, is accused of discharging manure waste water from feedlots and retaining ponds at Masami Cattle Ranch into local creeks. The creeks feed into the Sacramento River. Ishida was also sentenced to six months' home detention as part of one year's probation for violating the federal Clean Water Act, attorney John Vincent said.

Los Angeles County got a reprieve in an ongoing dispute over who is responsible for pollution from storm water when the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday overturned a ruling won by environmentalists. However, the court's 9-0 decision did not deal with the larger question of how to regulate storm water and urban runoff flowing into the region's waterways. Gary Hildebrand, assistant deputy director of the county's Department of Public Works, said the court's decision "validates the approach the flood control district has been taking to deal with water management.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court threw out a water pollution lawsuit against Los Angeles County on Tuesday that had been brought by environmentalists because of storm water runoff that had flowed into the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers after heavy rains. But the 9-0 ruling did not deal with the larger question of regulating storm water runoff, and it left open the possibility that better monitoring in the future would limit this pollution in waters off Southern California.   The case decided Tuesday illustrated the difficulty of monitoring and controlling pollution that results from storm water that runs off city streets into drains and eventually into rivers and the ocean.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court gave a skeptical hearing Tuesday to a Los Angeles lawyer who sought to absolve the county's flood control district of responsibility for polluted storm water that flows into the Pacific Ocean. "Doesn't common sense suggest" the flood control district is responsible? asked Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. "The storm sewer system in Los Angeles hasn't been shut down, right? You don't question that there was an actual discharge [of pollutants]. What is it monitoring if not discharges … for which you're responsible?"

On an unseasonably hot morning this fall, my 11-year-old son and I set off for Hoover Dam, his first time to tour the American engineering wonder that draws nearly 1 million visitors a year. In recent years, I'd visited the dam and adjacent reservoir, Lake Mead, as a journalist who reports on water. But I hadn't been there as a tourist since my own childhood. I looked forward to hearing how the dam's minder, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, would tell such a big story to such a big audience.

Cities in Los Angeles County face spending billions of dollars to clean up the dirty urban runoff that washes pollution into drains and coastal waters under storm water regulations approved Thursday night by the regional water board. Despite more than two decades of regulation, runoff remains the leading cause of water pollution in Southern California, prompting beach closures and bans on eating fish caught in Santa Monica Bay. The runoff - whether from heavy winter rains or sprinkler water spilling down the gutter - is tainted by a host of contaminants from thousands of different places: bacteria from pet waste, copper from auto brake pads, toxics from industrial areas, pesticides and fertilizer from lawns.

A long-running dispute over whether Los Angeles County should be forced to clean up the polluted runoff that is swept into the ocean by two urban rivers will be heard by theU.S. Supreme Court. The high court justices agreed Monday to hear the county's appeal of a lower court decision that sided with environmental groups. A federal appeals court panel ruled last year that the county and its flood control district are responsible for tainted runoff released into the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers, in violation of the Clean Water Act. The Natural Resources Defense Council and Santa Monica Baykeeper sued the county in 2008 in an effort to get the agency to treat or divert tainted water before it reaches the beach.

Hoping to help clean the waters at local beaches, the Laguna Beach City Council this week approved a water pollution control plan for the city. The plan calls for the city to meet with representatives from the county and other agencies to discuss pollution-testing protocol for streams and beaches and to step up a campaign to educate residents about how to avoid polluting local waters, especially Laguna Canyon Creek.

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.

In 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the very first farm bill, formally called the Agricultural Adjustment Act, he told the nation that "an unprecedented condition calls for the trial of new means to rescue agriculture. " That legislation, passed as the country struggled to emerge from the Depression, was visionary in the way it employed agricultural policy to address significant national issues, including rural poverty and hunger. It may not seem obvious while standing in the aisles of a modern grocery store, but the country today faces another food and farming crisis.