Water

2012 California Water Law Symposium: register now

Registration is now open for the 2012 California Water Law Symposium, to be held Saturday, January 21, 2012. The Symposium is a remarkable event, launched in 2005 by a consortium of law students from Bay Area schools. This eighth edition is made possible by the cooperative efforts of students from Berkeley Law (this year’s host), …

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Lisa Jackson Speech

Following up on Holly’s post, here is video of the speech.  (And no, contrary to a rumor in the blogosphere, she didn’t call conservative critics “jack-booted thugs.”  Instead, as you’ll see, she commented that they used this term about EPA.) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcNeR6-EEGc]

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When We Found the Right Words

It’s hard to talk about something if you don’t have the right words to designate it easily.  So it’s interesting to look for the first appearance for some of the key words in the legal literature.  Presumably, this words were in non-legal use a bit earlier, but their first use in law reviews tells us …

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Two tales of environmental ignorance

Citizens in Tokyo have discovered patches of radiation that are comparable to some of the evacuated areas near Chernobyl, radiation that presumably came from the recent nuclear power plant accident. The EPA has recently reported that the number of waterways in California that exceed water quality standards are 170 percent higher today than in 2006. …

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Supreme Court Looking Hard at Litigation Challenge to CARB Marine Fuel Regulations

The U.S. Supreme Court today asked the Solicitor General for his views as to whether the Court should hear and decide a controversial case from California challenging the California Air Resources Board’s authority to regulate ocean shipping.   The specific CARB regulations at issue require marine vessels operating in state waters and ports to use …

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Everything You Wanted to Know About Deepwater Horizon But Were Afraid to Ask

NOAA has put together a very helpful bibliography of peer-reviewed research on the oil spill, Deepwater Horizon: A Preliminary Bibliography of Published Research and Expert Commentary.  It includes peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, technical reports released by scientific agencies and institutions, and editorials published in peer-reviewed journals. The peer-reviewed publications and technical reports in …

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Millenium Development Goals Report 2011

We’re a little late on this, but early last month the United Nations issued its 2011 Millenium Development Goals report, which really should be at the top of the environmental community’s focus.  Usually, the MDGs are thought of simply as concerning poverty and development, but of course these issues deeply concern the environment.  More directly, although not …

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Nevada Re-Discovers the Public Trust Doctrine

The Nevada Supreme Court was the source of a pleasant surprise earlier this month, when it issued a decision formally “adopting” the public trust doctrine as Nevada law. The opinion, Lawrence v. Clark County, involved a proposed transfer of land in and adjacent to the Colorado River near Laughlin, Nevada to Clark County officials. Nevada …

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New UCLA Report Takes on California’s Groundwater Management

It’s still the wild west in California when it comes to groundwater management. California depends heavily on groundwater as a source of water supply, but is one of only two western states–the other being Texas–that allows for the withdrawal of groundwater without a permit or any other means of tracking and regulating users.  Perhaps not surprisingly, …

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California suction dredging moratorium extended

California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law an extension of the existing moratorium on suction dredge gold mining. I confess that the appeal of recreational mining in any form escapes me, and that I don’t even like to vacuum my own living room. So it mystifies me to learn that there are people who …

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