Water Pollution

A federal judge Wednesday invalidated a plan that justified boosted water exports from Northern California, ruling that it failed to account for the effects on endangered salmon and steelhead. U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger of Fresno found that a 2004 study by the National Marine Fisheries Service didn't adequately address global warming, the loss of habitat and other factors that could hurt the fish.

Chevron, BP and other major oil companies have agreed to pay $423 million to settle more than 500 lawsuits brought by water suppliers and users in California and 19 other states over groundwater contaminated with the gasoline additive MTBE. In California, 11 plaintiffs would receive more than $78 million plus possible reimbursement for future treatment of nearly 1,100 wells, attorneys said.

California's leaders should ban smoking on beaches, forbid fast-food joints from distributing polystyrene cups and containers and require markets to recycle plastic bags or ban them outright as part of an aggressive campaign to reduce plastic marine debris. These and dozens of other recommendations are included in a report to be released next week by Gov.

For the fifth year in a row, Los Angeles County is home to the dirtiest beaches in the state, with repeat offenders Avalon on Santa Catalina Island and Santa Monica among those with the highest levels of fecal bacteria in ocean water, according to a Natural Resources Defense Council report to be released today. "The problem's not going away," said Michelle Mehta, an attorney with the nonprofit organization's water program.

Donna Martin put on her bathing suit Monday morning and drove her 17-year-old daughter and a neighbor's 4-year-old over to Mother's Beach in Long Beach, psyched to take a dip. A red and yellow warning sign killed the mood: "Beach Closed. Sewage Contaminated Water. Ocean Water May Cause Illness." Martin, 48, a Long Beach native, was disappointed -- but not surprised. "It seems like it's a common occurrence that they close this beach," she said.

With a hearing to determine the fate of a proposed toll road through south Orange County a few weeks away, the agency backing the project issued a report Wednesday arguing that the new road would adequately protect water quality at San Onofre State Beach.

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.

The head of the Tennessee Valley Authority said the utility would pay to test local wells for contamination from a major coal ash spill and would start air quality testing. More than a billion gallons of coal fly ash, a byproduct of burning coal, spilled a week ago when the dike burst on a retention pond at the Kingston Fossil Plant. "This is not a time when TVA holds its head high," said Tom Kilgore, who heads the utility. "I'm here to say we are going to clean it up."

A Bay Area environmental group filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging that Southern California Gas Co. operations near Marina del Rey are polluting a local water table. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, charges that the utility is in violation of Proposition 65, which prohibits discharge or release of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects.

A decade after poisoning a scenic Sierra reservoir in a controversial and failed attempt to exterminate invading northern pike, California wildlife officials proposed Tuesday to again turn Lake Davis into a chemical stew in hopes of finally finishing off the saw-toothed predatory fish. While the last effort to treat the lake caused an uproar in nearby Portola and shut down what had been the tiny city's main source of water, this time the proposal is getting a far more friendly reception.