While droughts and water supplychallenges have plagued California for decades, climate change will increase the strain on California’s water management system.[1]Seawaterdesalination—the process of removing salt and other minerals from seawater—is often hailed as the solution to the state’s water supply challenges.[2] However, proposals to build seawater desalination plants, which demand enormous quantities of energy, could be a shortsighted fix that will ultimately exacerbate climate change due to corresponding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This article explores seawater desalination and alternative strategies for California to adapt to climate change, and concludes that an effective adaptation approach will require strategies to reduce GHG emissions.
Seawater desalination plant in South Korea. Photo credit to roplant.
Regulating pollution fromstormwater that flows over structures and paved surfaces, collecting waste and sediments and ultimately spilling into rivers and oceans, can be a true “administrative nightmare.”[1] However, on March 10, 2011, the Ninth Circuit clarified that, when stormwater pollution cannot be attributed to any particular polluter, liability under the Clean Water Act (CWA)[2] can nevertheless be imposed upon the entity that controls the discharge of stormwater into watercourses.[3]As such, the court in Natural Resources Defense Council v. County of Los Angeles held the Los Angeles County Flood Control District (District) liable for excess stormwater pollution detected by monitoring stations located in storm-sewer systems channeling stormwater to the Los Angeles River and the San Gabriel River. San Gabriel River. Photo credit to Eazylanish.
“We can’t create water or increase the supply. We can only hold back and redistribute what there is.”[1]
In the last decade, the Deschutes River Basin in CentralOregon has faced growing urbanization, shifting water uses, and increasing ecosystem health concerns. This has led the Oregon Water Resources Department to experiment with a voluntary market-based approach to water management. To meet groundwater demands while maintaining instream flows and upholding prior water allocations, the Oregon Water Resources Department developed the Groundwater Mitigation Program in 2002. A program will be more effective and viable if it is deemed acceptable by its participants. As such, this research focuses on how acceptable the Groundwater Mitigation Program is to its participants.[2] Comparing two hypothetical alternative scenarios to the Groundwater Mitigation Program, I determine acceptability by the following criteria: usability, accountability, enforcement, equity, information dissemination, cost-effectiveness, and utility. The research incorporates a mixed-method approach, conducting interviews and surveys of program participants. Results indicate that although the Groundwater Mitigation Program is more acceptable than the proposed alternatives, a lengthy groundwater permitting process, passive enforcement, and a lack of information nonetheless make the program unfavorable to its participants. Increased awareness could promote acceptance of the Groundwater Mitigation Program, and at the same time, contribute to the effectiveness of the program.
The Deschutes River near Bend, Oregon. Photo credit to MonkeyBoy22.
Confusion over what damages are recoverable as natural resource damages (NRD) under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) and other federal statutes abounds, giving credence to the oft-repeated phrase that “CERCLA is not a model of legislative clarity.”[1] Among other things, confusion appears in discussions among the Department of the Interior, legislators, and courts regarding the recoverability of cultural resource damages as NRD under CERCLA. But the statute and caselaw are clear. As demonstrated here, CERCLA establishes that injuries to cultural resources,[2] no matter how they are described, are not recoverable as NRD.
Mount Rushmore in western South Dakota is an example of a resource with cultural significance. Photo credit to Nell Green Nylen.
Brutal captures and deaths of American wild horses are occurring on the range. This is not a fictional western gone bad but federal policy. The government tries to justify this cruelty with junk science and is sheltered in its actions by procedural barriers and judicial deference. For nearly four decades, federal contractors have been capturing wild horses and burrosacross the western United States under the guise of “management” pursuant to the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act.[1] The horses are often chased down by helicopters, sometimes for miles through rough terrain in the heat of summer, lassoed, and forced to the ground and then into trailers.
Wild horses are driven down a steep slope by a helicopter during the Twin Peaks Roundup, August 15, 2010. Video credit to Humane Observer.
The following articles are student responses and observations of a selected few panels at Berkeley Law’s 2010 Symposium “Empowered Partnerships: Participatory Action Research for Environmental Justice” hosted by the Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice and co-sponsored by Students for Economic and Environmental Justice at UC Berkeley School of Law; the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment; Communities for a Better Environment; Asian Pacific Environmental Network; West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project; ¡PODER! - People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights; California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc.; Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice; The Pacific Institute; Environmental Studies Institute at Santa Clara University; Cal Corps at UC Berkeley; La Raza Law Students Association at UC Berkeley School of Law; Berkeley La Raza Law Journal; Ecology Law Quarterly; Central Valley Air Quality Coalition; California Law Review; California Environmental Justice Alliance; and the Women of Color Collective at UC Berkeley School of Law.
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