Daniel Salzler No. 1293 EnviroInsight.org Six Items February 14, 2025
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HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!
1.Sierra Club (VIRTUAL) Town Hall: Trump’s Attacks On American Families & The LA Wildfires.
Date and Time:: Wed, Feb 12, 2025; 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM (Arizona time)
Wednesday’s Town Hall, featuring Executive Director Ben Jealous, will cover the work that the Sierra Club is doing to stop the Trump Administration’s illegal power grab and provide different ways for you to get involved. We’ll also elevate the efforts of the Angeles Chapter and highlight their work surrounding the LA fires and the disinformation that we are seeing about forest policies on social media.
Join us to hear from Ben Jealous and Angeles Chapter Director Morgan Goodwin as we talk through the crucial next steps to protect our communities, our climate, and our democracy.
Can’t make it? Register and we’ll send you a link to the recording once it is available! Register at: https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?id=701Po00000fpFK2IAM&formcampaignid= 701Po 00000fmaKzIAI&data=b318b006e7b059f6ffe101c1b53c82ec4dcc0de5c333b1e559df0829132a1f738719157f35ef3f8bc422daa14964fb0b&utm_medium=email&utm_source=insider&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_content=February11Insider
2. CLIMAS Fellowship Program
3. Is Lake Mead In Peril? Snowpack Declines In The West, Worrying Some. Water managers aren’t in for the exceptional year they had hoped for, with snowpack across the West underperforming in the latest federal update, released Wednesday.
In the Upper Colorado River Basin, where the majority of the flow into Lake Mead originates, snowpack sits at 85 percent of the historic median — a noticeable decline from January numbers that put it closer to 95 percent. The Spring Mountains in Southern Nevada, important for flows to rural groundwater users, continues to fall short, at zero percent of the median as of Wednesday.
Tom Albright, a UNR professor who serves as Nevada’s deputy state climatologist, said Southern Nevada’s dry streak — more than 200 days of no measurable rain and nearly nonexistent snowfall — is a harbinger of what’s to come throughout the West.
“This is a little bit of a sneak peek of what looks to be in store in the coming decades as a pretty normal thing,” Albright said. “Our area, even independent of climate change, is highly variable from year to year. But these are the conditions that are simply going to become more common.”
Lake Mead’s less-than-rosy future To View, click on this link or copy this link into your browser https://www.msn.com/en-us/video/weather/the-decline-of-the-colorado-river-and-its-impact-on-millions/vi-AA1xSvM4?ocid=BingNewsSerp&cvid= ddf050223f9b4585804e 724d95b657a6&ei=65
Such a problem complicates ongoing negotiations between two divided groups of Colorado River Basin states that are fighting over river allocations and operating guidelines that will stand for the next 20 years.
Before 2026 ends, the seven states must decide who is responsible for taking cuts to their share of the river in times of extreme drought. A lengthy court battle is on the table — a last-resort that could stall a decision for up to two decades, when even less water will be available to divvy up.
“In the meantime, we keep getting these reports about our actual physical conditions that show the water supply is dropping,” said Jennifer Pitt, the Audubon Society’s Colorado River program director. “I fear that without having some kind of consensus agreement between the states, we may end up in an uncertain situation about how to manage this diminishing water supply.”
Lake Mead, the source of about 90 percent of the Las Vegas area’s drinking water, reached an all-time low in 2022 but has since bounced back because of two good snowpack years and record federal funding for water conservation.
Such funding from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act has been a target of the Trump administration, with water projects meant to use unspent money facing an uncertain future.
It’s still too soon in the water year to make any definitive conclusions about the snow season, Pitt said.
“It’s early February, and we still have a good couple of months to go. One can always hope,” she said. “But this is concerning: Reservoirs are already quite low.”
Bone-dry Southwest no help for water woes
The dry conditions felt in Las Vegas and across the Southwest are concerning — especially for rural water users dependent on surface water and groundwater that doesn’t come from the Colorado River.
“The 3-4 week outlooks suggest persistent and potentially worsening snow drought conditions in the southwestern states, resulting from equal chances to above-normal probability of higher temperatures and equal chances to below-normal probability for precipitation,” federal meteorologists wrote in Wednesday’s update.
Fears are there for the Colorado River, too: If soil is dry as snow begins to melt, it will retain water that would have otherwise flowed into Lake Powell. Hotter temperatures also speed up evapotranspiration, or the process by which soil moisture is lost to the atmosphere.
David Simeral, a climatologist who works for the Desert Research Institute and the Western Regional Climate Center, said it would take upward of five wet years in the Colorado River Basin for reservoir levels to stabilize.
“Having a good year here and there helps put a Band-Aid on things,” Simeral said.
With the West trending hotter and drier, water managers will face hard decisions in the near future, he said.
“We fortunately can get these fluctuations with seasons where we can make some pretty good recovery,” Simeral said. “In terms of the larger reservoir situation with Lake Mead and Lake Powell: Those are not issues that can be resolved within a season or two.” Source: Alan Halaly,Las Vegas Review-Journal.
4. Delayed RCRA, TRI Regulations Now Take Effect 3/21. US EPA has delayed the effective date for two recently published Final Rules—a rule to revise or “correct” several RCRA requirements for hazardous waste generators and a rule adding 9 PFAS to TRI reporting list under EPCRA—until March 21, 2025.
Delayed: RCRA Corrections—Generator Improvements, Hazardous Waste Pharmaceuticals, and 2018 Definition of Solid Waste Rules
A Final Rule to revise and clarify several RCRA requirements for hazardous waste generators now takes effect on March 21, 2025. The Final Rule affects four specific requirements in 40 CFR Part 262:
- Limits for small quantity generators (SQGs) accumulating acute hazardous waste.
- Exclusions under RCRA for managing samples used in treatability studies.
- “Closure” of units at a large quantity generator (LQG) site.
- Some hazardous waste pharmaceuticals (HWP) shipped on the manifest.
EPA included these revisions in a RCRA rule in 2023, but withdrew them after industry stakeholders responded with legitimate questions and concerns. Those comments led EPA to revise and clarify some of the withdrawn provisions before republishing them recently.
Delayed: Statutory Addition of PFAS to the TRI Reporting List
EPA has delayed the effective date until March 21, 2025 for the Final Rule adding 9 PFAS to the TRI reporting list, beginning in Reporting Year 2025. That means the first TRI submissions covering these nine substances will be due July 1, 2026.
Without further action, EPA’s delay of the effective date will not affect the reporting requirement taking effect for 2026 submissions. Facilities that are already tracking any of these nine chemicals for reporting purposes should, it seems, continue to do so unless told otherwise.
Adding PFAS to the TRI list is something EPA is required by law to do, namely the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
As of February 2025, the TRI reporting regulations list about two hundred PFAS by name (40 CFR 372.65(d)). In 2023, EPA designated PFAS a “chemical of special concern” under EPCRA. Chemicals of special concern are subject to lower reporting thresholds than other listed substances (40 CFR 372.28). Source: Lion Technology Inc.
5. The WRRC Is Now Accepting Proposals For This Year’s Federal WRRA104(b) And 104(g) Grants.
Applications ust be submitted through the Arizona Water Resources Research Center (WRRC).
104(b) Small Research Grants : the water resources research act WRRA section 104(b) programs provide small grants for research projects on water related issues in Arizona. Proposals featuring student work are encourage. The typical.(b) award is $10,000 for the September 1 through August 31 project year.. with help from topic expert, the WRRC reviews proposals and includes those selected and its annual submission to the US geological survey(USGS), which administers the one(b) program. The deadline to submit a 104.(b) proposal is 5 p.m.MST on March 17, 2025.
One(g) National Competitive Grants: the(g) program supports research that is regional or national in scope, and the call for proposals includes a track for research, specifically focused on Per and Polyfluoroalkayl substances (PFAS) and water resources. Applicant submitting 104.(g) proposals may request up to $310,000 in federal funds for ) Grant requires that proposal be submitted through the state water resources. Research Institute (WRRI) authorized by the WRRA.; the WRRC is Arizona’s designated WRRI. Application applications for 10(g) grants will be accepted until 5 p.m. MST on April 25, 2025*
Frequently in research personnel at any of Arizona’s three state universities may submit proposals to either or both program. Guidelines for both programs require that there be a one-to-one match of non-federal to federal dollars.. proposal instructions can be found at the links below.
- The deadlines listed above, are subject to change as the funding availability and dates from USGS have not been released.
For more information on the Water Resources Research Act Program go to: https://water.usgs.gov/wrri/index.php
6. Celebrating Past President’s Day. Presidents’ Day, in the United States, holiday (third Monday in February- 2/17/25) popularly recognized as honouring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The day is sometimes understood as a celebration of the birthdays and lives of all U.S. presidents.
The origin of Presidents’ Day lies in the 1880s, when the birthday of Washington—commander of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and the first president of the United States—was first celebrated as a federal holiday. In 1968 Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Bill, which moved a number of federal holidays to Mondays. The change was designed to schedule certain holidays so that workers had a number of long weekends throughout the year, but it has been opposed by those who believe that those holidays should be celebrated on the dates they actually commemorate. During debate on the bill, it was proposed that Washington’s Birthday be renamed Presidents’ Day to honour the birthdays of both Washington (February 22) and Lincoln (February 12); although Lincoln’s birthday was celebrated in many states, it was never an official federal holiday. Following much discussion, Congress rejected the name change. After the bill went into effect in 1971, however, Presidents’ Day became the commonly accepted name, due in part to retailers’ use of that name to promote sales and the holiday’s proximity to Lincoln’s birthday. Presidents’ Day is usually marked by public ceremonies in Washington, D.C., and throughout the country.
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