aquifer groundwater
Puerto Ricans pump drinking water from hazardous-waste: report.
Some Puerto Rico residents are turning to a hazardous waste site for drinking water as the island continues to reel from Hurricane Maria.
Puerto Ricans pump drinking water from hazardous-waste: report
BY MAX GREENWOOD - 10/14/17 08:54 PM EDT
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© Getty Images
Some Puerto Rico residents are turning to a hazardous waste site for drinking water as the island continues to reel from Hurricane Maria.
More than three weeks after Hurricane Maria tore across the island, many residents – U.S. citizens – remain without access to clean drinking water. As of Saturday evening, service had been restored to about 64 percent of the island.
But according to a CNN report, some residents are seeking water from potentially risky sources. That includes the Dorado Groundwater Contamination Site, an area designated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a so-called Superfund site.
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Superfund sites are areas considered so badly contaminated that they are subject to special federal oversight and cleanup efforts. The Dorado site was added to the list in 2016.
On Friday, according to CNN, workers from Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (AAA), the Puerto Rican water utility, pumped water from a well at the Dorado site, and distributed it to storm-stricken residents.
According to the EPA, groundwater at the Dorado site is "contaminated with organic based solvents, primarily tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), which are commonly used in commercial and industrial operations such as dry cleaning and metal degreasing.
Exposure to PCE and TCE carry the risk of health problems, including liver damage and an increased risk of cancer, according to the EPA.
Whether the specific well that workers are pumping from contains the chemicals is unknown. CNN reported that the EPA is testing the site over the weekend.
Luis Melendez, sub-director for environmental compliance at AAA, said that the water utility was not aware that they were drawing water from a Superfund site until CNN notified them. But he said that the well has been opened on an emergency basis, and that the water was safe to drink.
CNN also noted that the EPA had found the site to be within federal limits for PCE and chloroform in 2015.
TAGS ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY PUERTO RICO HURRICANE MARIA
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For Algeria's struggling herders, "drought stops everything."
Less rain and higher temperatures means herders in Algeria are increasingly struggling to make ends meet.
By Yasmin Bendaas
CHEMORA, Algeria, Oct 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Squinting under a relentless sun, Houssin Ghodbane watches his son tend a flock of 120 of their sheep. Heads bowed, the sheep slowly search for sparse vegetation poking through the parched, crunchy soil.
Fifty-year-old Ghodbane, his tanned face etched with deep lines, has been herding sheep for 20 years, having inherited the job and land from his father. But in this dry region, worsening cycles of drought are posing new challenges to an old profession.
According to a report Algeria developed as part of its contribution to the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change action, average annual rainfall in the country has fallen by more than 30 percent in recent decades.
The country is also facing higher temperatures. Summer heat has soared in Batna province, in northeast Algeria, climbing from a maximum temperature of about 100 degrees Fahrenheit in 1990 to more than 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41 degrees Celsius) in 2017.
For Ghodbane, that means his land now lacks enough fodder for his flock in drier seasons so he must purchase extra feed, at added expense.
In addition to selling his sheep for meat, he used to earn profits by selling animals to other herders expanding their flocks.
Those sales have stopped, as worsening heat and drought make herding less viable – and Ghodbane has had to limit the size of his own flock due to the increasing costs of caring for them.
"Drought stops everything," he said.
The solution to his falling income is simple. "Rain. That's it," he said.
LESS WATER, MORE HEAT
Algeria is not a big emitter of climate-changing gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. But warming driven by emissions from around the world is having big impacts here, including more extreme weather conditions.
"You don't have to be a source of emissions to be affected," noted Adel Hanna, a climate modeling expert at the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "That's why we call it a global effect."
Hanna, who is from Egypt, said that the two biggest climate worries for North Africa – water scarcity and higher temperatures – are feeding off each other, with limited rainfall rapidly evaporating from the soil in higher temperatures.
"The net effect is the loss of water resources," Hanna said – something that affects all forms of agriculture, including grazing for livestock.
For Ghodbane, drought has meant that he needs to water the wheat and barley he also grows using an irrigation system – something that takes time and money. He said he is becoming more heavily dependent on well water as rainfall disappears.
Around the region, herders are searching for water by digging new and deeper wells to reach aquifers. Some share water with neighboring landowners by taking turns using a common well.
"But by no means will this replace the need for better policy or support from government, and actually the global community, in addressing issues related to climate change," Hanna said.
Algeria's government has tried to help herders, including by providing limited subsidies to offset some of their increasing costs for water and feed. But for small-scale herders in Algeria's eastern Aurès mountains, such help may not be enough to offset quickening environmental change.
"NOTHING ELSE"
Ghodbane, who was born on the land he now farms, says the seasons are changing, with longer summers interfering with the spring and fall rains that are crucial to strong harvests and herding years.
Despite the changing climate, however, he remains committed to his work.
"This is the future of our region," he said. "There is nothing else in farming country."
His son, Abdel Hak, disagrees.
He started helping his father herd sheep during the summers between school sessions when he was 10 years old. After graduating from high school, he followed in his father's footsteps and has worked on the farm full time for the past five years, herding animals from six in the morning to eight in the evening.
"It teaches you patience and to be responsible," Abdel Hak said. But he wouldn't recommend the job. "It's very hard," he said.
Now in his early 20s, he would like to go back to school. He wants to be a pilot.
(Reporting by Yasmin Bendaas; editing by Laurie Goering :; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit https://news.trust.org/climate)
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These food and beverage companies are leading on conservation.
There is a growing awareness about water risk for businesses in the food and beverage industry.
There is a growing awareness about water risk for businesses in the food and beverage industry. A new report from Ceres shows which companies are leading and lagging, writes Ceres’ Kirsten James.
WRITTEN BY
Kirsten James
PUBLISHED ON
Oct. 12, 2017
READ TIME
Approx. 4 minutes
Worker shoveling a crop field in Fresno County, San Joaquin Valley, California. The state suffered millions in economic losses during the five-year drought. A new report highlights which food and beverage companies are working to assess and manage the water risk in their businesses.Citizens of the Planet/Education Images/UIG via Getty Images
After a punishing five-year drought in California that damaged harvests, caused job losses among farm workers and sent food manufacturers scrambling for commodities, many companies learned firsthand just how much of a business risk water scarcity can be.
The food and beverage industry is particularly dependent on water – indeed, agriculture uses 70 percent of the Earth’s freshwater supplies. In California, whose farms produce more than half of the nation’s fruits and vegetables, that use stretches to 80 percent.
Consequently, water scarcity is one of the biggest risks facing the $5 trillion food and beverage industry, causing spikes in operating and procurement costs and influencing reputations. And it’s likely to get worse as climate change brings more droughts and continues to intensify storms, which means more floods.
The good news is that the food and beverage industry is starting to realize this, and some major corporations have taken significant steps in recent years to better manage and conserve water and reuse it where possible.
After all, water shortages in California resulted in a $2.7 billion hit to the economy in one year alone at the height of the drought and job losses of 21,000.
The sobering news is that despite their growing awareness of water risk, most companies are not doing nearly enough to match the magnitude of potential problems.
Those are the findings of a recently released Ceres analysis of the 42 largest food and beverage companies, “Feeding Ourselves Thirsty: Tracking Food Company Progress Toward a Water-Smart Future.” My colleagues assessed companies on how they are responding to water risks across four categories of water management: governance and strategy, direct operations, manufacturing supply chain and agricultural supply chain.
They found mixed progress. “Feeding Ourselves Thirsty” data indicates that companies in the packaged food business generally did the most to manage water risk and protect watersheds for the future, followed by beverage companies, while meat and agricultural products companies did less. And yet individually, companies vary widely on how well they do, even within one sector.
It’s gratifying to see in the data, though, that progress is being made in California.
General Mills, Coca-Cola Company, Molson-Coors Brewing Co. and Campbell Soup Company were all cited for working with agricultural supply chains, such as their work in California’s San Joaquin Valley. These companies are involved in a groundwater recharge project with Valley farmers, in which farmers allow floodwater to be captured and stay on their fields to recharge the groundwater underneath.
Campbell’s Soup Co., which relies on California for tomatoes and carrots, has engaged with tomato growers in its agriculture supply chain to help them conserve water. Campbell’s asked tomato growers to consider replacing sprinkler irrigation with drip irrigation. The majority have done so, and the switch proved to be beneficial in many ways: Tomato growers not only reduced water consumption by 20 percent per acre, but also increased yield, improving efficiency by some 40 percent, according to Dan Sonke, Campbell’s director of sustainable agriculture.
General Mills, which turns to California for nuts, dairy and tomatoes among other commodities and has manufacturing operations here, managed to improve its water efficiency by 20 percent in its direct operations between 2006 and 2015. It is working to improve watershed health in five key water-strained regions around the world including California’s Central Valley.
PepsiCo also achieved a 20 percent improvement in water-use efficiency – across global operations, and four years ahead of schedule. It reduced water use in its own operations like its California Frito-Lay manufacturing operations, as well as its agricultural and manufacturing supply chains. PepsiCo also works to replenish watersheds where it has operations, including broad swathes of Latin America.
Coca-Cola Company, which has 53 plants in California, saved 280 million gallons of water at those facilities by implementing water reclamation and waterless processing technologies. It also got high marks in the “Feeding Ourselves Thirsty” analysis for governance because it makes water risk management a board responsibility, and for its watershed work. Like its main competitor, it too replenishes water to watersheds and communities near its operations.
I’m happy to say that General Mills, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola are Connect the Drops members.
Molson-Coors cut its water use per barrel of beer produced to half the industry average in its Irwindale, California, brewery and now is trying to produce the same water efficiency in all its breweries. Its management set a goal to reduce overall water use intensity by 20 percent by 2020. Molson-Coors is also one of 12 companies that links executive compensation to water management.
As such experiences show, prioritizing water in a state that promotes – and needs – water conservation is a savvy business move that also saves money. In fact, smart water management has become an imperative for food companies as climate change, water scarcity and pollution accelerate around the world, the “Feeding Ourselves Thirsty” researchers say.
Yet there are companies doing very little about water risk. Monster Beverage, based in Corona, California, scored 0 in the “Feeding Ourselves Thirsty” analysis. Although the company website describes water conservation efforts generally, Monster does not discuss water risk in its publicly filed reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and there is no evidence that it includes water risk as part of corporate governance for top executives or its board to consider.
Kraft Heinz, which has many plants in Southern California, scored 9 points out of 100. It does little to conserve water and assess risk in its own operations and even less in its supply chains.
As a generality, the food and beverage sector has made progress in setting water goals in direct operations and assessing progress there. The vast majority of companies have informed shareholders about potential water risks to their operations.
But the industry hasn’t made enough progress in elevating water risk to the board level, integrating water risk into procurement processes, managing wastewater to reduce water use and collaborating with stakeholders – including other companies – to protect and restore watersheds. These could make the difference between having enough usable water in the future or not.
In California, we went from an epic drought that cost the economy $2.7 billion at its height to torrential rains and floods that cost $1 billion in infrastructure damage. Water risk is very real here. We applaud what companies have done so far, but encourage them to do much more.
The views expressed in this article belong to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Water Deeply.
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Why Southern Nevada is fighting to build a 250-mile water pipeline.
Decades after it was first proposed, Southern Nevada Water Authority is still pushing for a pipeline to send rural groundwater to the Las Vegas area. But others are questioning whether the project is really needed.
Why Southern Nevada Is Fighting to Build a 250-Mile Water Pipeline
Decades after it was first proposed, Southern Nevada Water Authority is still pushing for a pipeline to send rural groundwater to the Las Vegas area. But others are questioning whether the project is really needed.
WRITTEN BY
Daniel Rothberg
PUBLISHED ON
Oct. 12, 2017
READ TIME
Approx. 7 minutes
A 'bathtub ring' in 2016 surrounds Lake Mead near Hoover Dam, which impounds the Colorado River at the Arizona-Nevada border. The white ring shows the effects of a drought which has caused the level of the lake to drop to an historic low.Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images
IN 2015, ALBUQUERQUE delivered as much water as it had in 1983, despite its population growing by 70 percent. In 2016, Tucson delivered as much water as it had in 1984, despite a 67 percent increase in customer hook-ups. The trend is the same for Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, said longtime water policy researcher Gary Woodard, who rattled off these statistics in a recent phone interview. Southwestern cities boomed during these decades, yet water demand fell far below projections. Efficiency and conservation worked better than water managers could have hoped.
“Everyone assumed that water demand was proportional to population,” said Woodard, a former University of Arizona professor who works for the water resource consultants Montgomery & Associates.
In the 1980s, before increased efficiency and conservation efforts, cities across the West saw an immediate need to secure reliable water resources for future growth. This thinking in part was what drove the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which serves the Las Vegas area, to propose in 1989, a 250-mile pipeline that would pump billions of gallons of rural groundwater to Las Vegas. Farmers, ranchers and local officials near the targeted groundwater basins in rural northern Nevada called it a “water grab.”
The pipeline was never built, and Las Vegas, which gets 90 percent of its drinking water from the Colorado River, never experienced a water shortage. The opposite happened. As population boomed in the early 2000s, Southern Nevada pulled less and less Colorado River water from Lake Mead.
Decades later, Southern Nevada Water Authority is still actively pursuing the pipeline, despite legal challenges from a diverse coalition of ranchers, tribes and environmental groups. In a new round of state engineer hearings last week, opponents are again pushing to limit the scope of the water authority’s groundwater rights.
They believe that the project would undermine the area’s environment. And they often find themselves asking the same question: Las Vegas grew, and its per capita demand decreased without the $15 billion pipeline, first proposed decades ago. So how necessary is it?
The Falling Reservoir
“At some point, it is the only choice,” said Pat Mulroy, a legendary Colorado River deal maker and a forceful advocate for the project as the water authority’s first general manager until 2014.
Most of Southern Nevada’s drinking water comes from Lake Mead, the shrinking manmade reservoir that stores Colorado River water for the southwest. Compared to its neighboring states, Nevada is entitled to only a sliver of the river’s allocation. The Colorado River Compact, a treaty inked long before Las Vegas sprouted resorts, casinos, golf courses and vast master-planned communities, gives Nevada about 2 percent of the water.
This leaves the Southern Nevada Water Authority at a constrained starting point. Where many water agencies have a diversified portfolio – groundwater, Colorado River water, maybe in-state surface water – Southern Nevada is almost entirely reliant on one source, Mulroy argues.
And a changing climate is only expected to place additional stress on the Colorado River, according to recent academic studies. Thanks to higher temperatures, more water is expected to evaporate off the surface of Lake Mead while projections suggest that a shrinking snowpack will decrease supplies – all this, before the backdrop of further population growth not only in Las Vegas, but also across much of the southwest. Under those situations, having one source “is a very risky proposition,” Mulroy said.
But there is still a big economic incentive driving the push to build the pipeline. Las Vegas is projected to grow, and builders might be unwilling to back new developments if they don’t know that there will be a secure supply of water. The project’s backers point out that the state’s economy depends on Southern Nevada, which in turn depends on water. The 2.1 million people who populate Southern Nevada comprise most of Nevada’s population, about 70 percent.
Las Vegas officials see the pipeline as a form of hedging, to prepare for a time when getting 90 percent of its water from Lake Mead might not be sustainable. “When you live in the driest state in the union, you don’t take options off the table,” said John Entsminger, the water authority’s current general manager. “Whether something really is necessary is a question of time.”
Conserving What You Have
Joined by a coalition of farmers, ranchers and local officials, the Center of Biological Diversity has sued over the Southern Nevada pipeline twice, and the organization has had some success in delaying the project. Judges have ordered federal and state officials to consider narrow revisions to environmental impact statements and limiting the water authority’s groundwater rights.
Southern Nevada Water Authority hopes to build a 250-mile water pipeline to send groundwater from rural Nevada, near Great Basin National Park, to the Las Vegas area. (Photo by Visions of America/UIG via Getty Images)
Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Nevada representative, said the project and desert pipelines like it could dry ecosystems critical to sustaining wildlife in the deserts scattered across the southwest.
“These projects propose the wholesale dewatering of entire landscapes,” he said of groundwater pumping. “Before we start having the discussion about whether we sacrifice millions of acres of habitat [to adapt to growth and climate change], we need to reduce our consumption.”
With more efficient homes and conservation programs, most Western cities have reduced their consumption, but researchers and water managers agree that, in many cases, people are still using more water than they need. Since 2002, Las Vegas cut its per capita water consumption by about 40 percent, according to Bronson Mack, a water authority spokesman. In the mid-1990s, Las Vegans were consuming more than 200 gallons per capita, higher than many other cities.
That number is now at about 123 gallons per capita. The drop is not unique to Las Vegas. Most cities in the region have seen their per capita daily consumption drop as a result of efficient appliances, homebuilders placing a new emphasis on sustainability and conservation efforts. The Southern Nevada Water Authority, for its part, runs a cash-for-grass program that pays its customers to replace turf with desert landscaping. It credits the rebate program with saving billions of gallons of water.
Donnelly at the Center for Biological Diversity said such statistics can be misleading.
“They have cut their water consumption a lot, but they are still using water like crazy,” he said.
Las Vegas is lagging behind other cities, he argued. In July, Los Angeles’ average residents’ daily water consumption was at 59 gallons, according to KPCC. And San Francisco residents use about 50 gallons per day, according to its water agency. Howard Watts, a spokesman for the Great Basin Water Network, a coalition opposing the pipeline, said his organization has sparred with the water agency over whether its efforts are stringent enough. He said the agency should consider requiring customers to phase out front lawns or retrofit homes with more efficient appliances.
“They have been really hesitant to force requirement on older homes,” Watts said.
The uncertainty for water managers is how far they can push it.
“For any particular case, it’s different,” said John Fleck, who directs the Water Resources Program at the University of New Mexico. But he added that “conservation has continually outpaced water managers’ projections of what their customer’s conservation would be.”
The incentive for water managers, Fleck said, is to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Politics on the Colorado River
There are also larger forces at play.
Arizona, California and Nevada are in the late stages of negotiating a drought contingency plan to voluntarily cut the amount of water they take from Lake Mead during shortages. In the past, Colorado River negotiations have played into Southern Nevada’s calculation that it needs to continue pushing for the pipeline. For years, Arizona, which banked a portion of Nevada’s Colorado River water, was “extremely adamant” that Las Vegas find a long-term water source.
“It doesn’t really matter that growth isn’t there,” Mulroy said. “The other states are not going to let Southern Nevada [Water Authority] draw its full allocation out of a reservoir that is crashing to zero.” Falling water levels in Lake Mead have come close to triggering a federal shortage declaration. Under such a designation, the basin states would be required to cut their usage.
Watts, with the Great Basin Water Network, said that underestimates the leverage Nevada has on the river. In 2015, the water authority uncapped a third intake in Lake Mead that would ensure deliveries for Southern Nevada even if the reservoir fell so low that water stopped flowing to California and Arizona.
California and Arizona would want to keep that from happening, Watts said. As a result, their incentive is to conserve the Colorado River and keep more water in Lake Mead. There are ways to mitigate dropping lake elevations: water banking, conservation or investing in desalinization.
“The only new source of water that we’re going to get that is going to have the most minimal amount of conflict is going to be from the ocean,” he said, noting that costs have come down for desalination. And even though Nevada is a long way from the ocean, more desalination could reduce California’s reliance on the Colorado River and leave more water in the lake.
Among water managers along the river, there is an increasing recognition that infrastructure in one state can affect water planning in another state. They are watching the Southern Nevada pipeline project, along with another large infrastructure project in California. Gov. Jerry Brown and Southern California’s wholesale water agency, Metropolitan Water District, is pushing to approve a $17.1 billion plan to build two tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The tunnels, meant to create more reliability in California’s water supply, play into how the state will position itself in the final negotiations of the drought contingency plan. If California can’t rely on water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, it might be less inclined to accept cuts in Lake Mead deliveries.
“In general, projects that increase the water supplies … are good for the potential management of the [Colorado River],” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources. “It would create another water supply for them that they could use in a conjunctive and flexible way that could potentially conserve water and keep water in Lake Mead.”
Groundwater Nevada Southern Nevada Water Authority
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Trump’s global resorts put profit first, environment last, critics say.
Mongabay looked into Trump’s claims that he is an environmentalist, winning “many, many environmental awards.” We were able to locate just two — one a local New York award, and another granted by a golf business association.
Donald Trump’s negative environmental record in Scotland and elsewhere has conservationists concerned in Bali, where Trump firms are developing a major resort and golf facility known as Trump International Hotel & Tower Bali.
Another resort under development, the Trump International Hotel & Tower Lido, a 700-hectare facility including a six-star luxury resort, theme park, country club, spa, villas, condos and 18-hole golf course threatens the nearby Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, one of Java’s last virgin tropical forests.
Mongabay looked into Trump’s claims that he is an environmentalist, winning “many, many environmental awards.” We were able to locate just two — one a local New York award, and another granted by a golf business association. The Trump Organization did not respond to requests to list Mr. Trump’s awards.
Trump’s environmental record as president, and as a businessman, is abysmal, say critics. His attempt to defund the U.S. Energy Star program, they say, is typical of a compulsion to protect his self interest: Energy Star has given poor ratings to nearly all Trump’s hotels, which experts note has possibly impacted his bottom line.
Who doesn’t like a luxury resort and 18-hole golf course set atop a sheer cliff with breathtaking views of the Indian Ocean? Revered Hindu Gods that inhabit the temple nearby, according to the local Balinese concerned over plans to open the Trump International Hotel & Tower Bali. Local environmentalists aren’t keen on the resort either.
The Balinese worry that the Trump development will loom over the centuries-old Tanah Lot, a temple that sits upon a rock off the west coast of the wildly Instagrammed and oft visited Indonesian island.
This particular holy site is one of the most venerated temples of the “Island of Gods.” And while the Balinese are ever welcoming to tourists — important to the island’s economy —their religion, and laws, stipulate that all non-religious buildings not exceed 15 meters, or the height of temples, and more or less the height of a coconut tree.
The Trump tower, resort and golf course, now still in the planning stage, also pose environmental concerns. Suriadi Darmoko — Executive Director of the Indonesian environmental NGO, Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WHALI) Eksekutif Daerah Bali — believes the island does not need more hotel suites and jacuzzis.
A 2010 study by Indonesia’s Culture and Tourism Ministry, he notes, found Bali had a surplus of 9,800 hotel rooms. And according to a report by the HVS consulting firm, the average occupancy of upper luxury hotels in 2013 in Bali achieved only 60 percent.
Darmoko is especially worried about the Trump project’s plans to expand the property around the existing Pan Pacific Nirwana Bali Resort. The amount of “farmland in Bali drops” when land is transferred to “becoming tourist accommodations and supporting facilities” he told Mongabay. “What Bali needs is a tourism accommodation moratorium,” during which the government could “conduct a study to calculate the supporting capacity and supporting ability of the environment in Bali.”
The Trump tower project will be developed by MNC Group, Indonesia’s leading investment firm, and will be managed by the Trump Hotel Collection. As reported by Reuters last February, Herman Bunjamin — the vice president director at PT MNC Land Tbk (MNC Group’s property unit) — has assured the Balinese that the company would follow local government environmental regulations, and respect the Hindu religion.
However, this is not the first time a Trump construction project has experienced a swirl of controversy around its potential environmental impacts. And that worries local Balinese communities and conservationists, even though Trump himself has claimed many times that he is an award-winning environmentalist — a claim we’ll explore in some detail later in this article.
Ever since the 70-year-old billionaire was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States in January 2017, watchdog organizations have paid extra close attention to the past, and ongoing, international environmental record of Trump’s companies, especially considering that Trump has largely retained his ownership interest in his businesses.
Trump: mixing politics, golf and the environment
According to Investopedia, before becoming president, Donald Trump had amassed a net worth of an estimated $3.5 billion. The Trump Organization LLC acts as the primary holding for Trump’s firms, and serves as an umbrella company for his investments in real estate, brands and other businesses, ranging from golf courses to hotels.
Among its key executives are two of his sons: Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, who last March told Forbes he will not talk business with his father in order to prevent the appearance of a conflict of interest, but will only pass financial reports to him. Ivanka Trump, the President’s elder daughter, resigned from her father’s company in January and today works as an unpaid adviser to him in the White House.
Golf is one of the many businesses that made Trump rich. According to the financial disclosure form published last June by the Office of Government Ethics, Trump’s golf courses alone reported $288 million in income from January 2016 through April 15, 2017.
In recent years the sport has increased wildly in popularity, and today golf is a multi-billion dollar industry: as of year-end 2016 there were golf facilities in 208 of the 245 countries in the world. However, the perfect manicured green color of the globe’s 33,161 courses comes at a high price to the environment.
A study by Kit Wheeler and John Nauright of Georgia Southern University found that golf course construction often consists in “clearing of natural vegetation, deforestation, destruction of natural landscapes and habitats and changes in local topography and hydrology” in order to roughly replicate the barren Scottish Highlands in which the game originated. That unnatural landscaping often leads to erosion and habitat loss, not to mention the fact that the maintenance of a standard 9-hole needs a great deal of synthetic chemicals — many deemed hazardous to wildlife — to keep it lush and green, including fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and fungicides.
The environmental problems associated with golf, the authors note, are particularly acute in Southeast Asia due to the sudden boom of the sport there and due the fact that golf course maintenance in the tropics is far more difficult than in other parts of the world because of the higher levels of rainfall, greater numbers of pests, diseases and weeds.
According to UNEP, golf course maintenance can also deplete freshwater resources — an average course in a tropical country needs 1,500 kilograms (3,307 pounds) of chemicals annually, and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers. This astronomical use of resources is hard to justify in the developing world where competition for water and cropland, amid soaring populations, is intense. The problem is further complicated by weak environmental regulation and enforcement plus corruption, all too typically seen in developing countries.
Today, Trump Golf boasts a portfolio of 17 courses across the globe stretching from the jagged California cliffs to the (previously) barren desert of Dubai. This empire is expanding, and 2018 will see the opening of Trump International Hotel & Tower Lido, a 700-hectare (1,730 acre) development including a six-star luxury resort, theme park, country club, spa, luxury villas, condominiums, and, of course, an 18-hole signature championship golf course.
This new Trump-branded property will be set in the mountains of West Java, around 65 kilometers (40 miles) south of Jakarta and beside the Gunung Gede Pangrango National Park, one of the island’s last virgin tropical forests.
The project has become a major concern to RMI, the Indonesian Institute for Forest and Environment, an NGO whose goal is the promotion of community-based natural resource management and biodiversity conservation in the region.
“[T]here are major concerns from the local villagers on [how much of the] water supply that will still be available to them because the project is estimated to demand [lots] of water for their luxury facilities,” RMI’s Executive Director Mardha Tillah told Mongabay, pointing out that the Trump facility will be built in an important water catchment area.
After “a public discussion that was organized by local youth, the local sub-regency government officials stated that the environmental impact assessment was not complete yet, although some construction had been undergone — e.g. a reservoir,” she said.
The Associated Press reports, that the development is causing concern among Indonesian environmentalists, who fear for the nearby national park and its threatened animals, including the Critically Endangered Javan slow loris (Nycticebus javanicus), the Endangered Javan leaf monkey (Presbytis comata), the Vulnerable Javan leopard (Panthera pardus melas), and Endangered Javan silvery gibbon (Hylobates moloch).
Tillah shares these fears. “I am very much keen on looking at the EIA [Environmental Impact Assessment] document that shows how this resort does not affect any wildlife in this area,” she said.
Considering the President’s abysmal environmental record and his anti-environmental pro-business views, it is hard not to imagine that this anti-regulatory philosophy permeates Trump’s companies. During the election, Donald Trump stated that, “[W]e’ll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy businesses.”
Both Trump’s Balinese and Javan projects will be developed in partnership with MNC Group, who is also building the new Bogor-Sukabumi toll road, scheduled for completion at the end of 2017 which will provide direct access to Lido Lakes, reducing the drive time from Jakarta.
The highway, like tropical pavement around the world, is transforming the pastoral region. “The toll road has changed the landscape of rural areas of Bogor — paddy fields are replaced by the toll road projects,” said RMI’s Tillah. “If only it was not for this resort project, [the] toll road might not be constructed, because it was neglected due to lack of investors for more than a decade.”
“On the other hand,” she added, “improvement in [regional] train service and an increase of [operating] frequency [could] already [have served as an alternative] solution for [moving] people.”
ABC revealed that Donald Trump personally lobbied for the road with senior Indonesian politicians in September 2015 at Trump Tower in New York, when he was both in negotiations over the Lido development and running for the presidency. According to ABC, the meeting was not authorized by the Indonesian Government, and was held with the direct assistance of Trump business partner Hary Tanoesoedibjo, President Commissioner and Founder of the MNC Group.
Tanoesoedibjo, a media mogul who created his own Indonesian political party in 2015, attended Trump’s inauguration last January. As the Nikkei Asian Review pointed out, he is the subject of a police investigation for allegations of intimidation and corruption, which he claims are politically motivated.
The Scottish saga
One of the best places to view the ongoing relationship between Trump’s businesses and the environment is in Scotland; the fact that golf originated there has done little to make that association run more smoothly.
For more than a decade, Trump’s golf course on the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, has been at the center of a heated dispute between those who support and oppose it. Trump International Golf Course Scotland won planning permission in 2008, but conservationists objected to the project because it would radically transform large parts of one of the country’s rarest coastal dune habitats.
“The construction of Trump International Links has had an irreversible and unjustified impact on a fragile dune system, in particular a large area of the internationally important Foveran Links Site of Special Scientific Interest [SSSI],” Bruce Wilson, Senior Policy Officer of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, told Mongabay.
“Unfortunately this planning application was approved by the Scottish Government despite evidence that it was easily possible to build two world class courses on the Menie Estate without destroying the SSSI,” he added.
Trump has also been involved in a long-running row with the Scottish government over the impact of windfarms on his golf course.
Before his White House campaign, he sent letters to the then first minister of Scotland Alex Salmond to urge him to withdraw his support for windfarm development. In this series of messages, obtained by the Huffington Post thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, Trump labeled windfarms as “monsters,” suggested without evidence that “wind power doesn’t work,” and told Salmond “your economy will become a third world wasteland that investors will avoid,” if the green energy alternative was embraced by Scotland.
Trump’s resistance didn’t end there. The U.S. president-elect exhorted the leader of UK Independence party (UKIP) Nigel Farage and key associates to lobby against the Scottish windfarms. However, none of this aided Trump’s crusade against the turbines, and in December 2015 he lost a Scottish Supreme Court battle against the installation of an windfarm located several miles offshore of his course.
Last July the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, the country’s principal environmental regulator, also raised formal objections to the Trump company’s proposals for a second 18-hole course in Aberdeenshire. Now the organization will have to revise its plans to make sure its project does not violate sewage pollution, environmental protection and groundwater conservation rules.
A statement by Trump International Golf Links published by the BBC reads in part:
The recent correspondence between Trump International, the local authority and statutory consultants is a normal part of the planning process and the regular ongoing dialogue conducted during the application process. SNH and Sepa always reference a range of policy considerations and factors which is standard practice and nothing out of the ordinary. Our application is making its way through the planning system and this dialogue will continue until it goes before committee for consideration. The Dr Martin Hawtree designed second golf course is located to the south of the Trump estate and does not occupy a Site of Special Scientific Interest therefore is not covered by any environmental designations.
We are extremely confident in our proposal and that this process will reach a satisfactory conclusion acceptable to all parties on our world class development.
What’s good for Trump is good for the U.S. and world…
During his campaign Donald Trump said he wanted to get rid of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “in almost every form.” Now that he is President, Trump appears to be moving toward that goal, and some of his businesses are among the institutions that could benefit from a dramatic roll back in environmental regulations. A look at Trump’s attacks on the U.S. EPA, and the business rationale for those assaults, is enlightening when studying the actions of Trump businesses around the world.
For instance, Trump issued an executive order commanding the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers to review the Obama-era Clean Water Rule, also known as the Waters of the United States rule (WOTUS) — a rule that greatly irks golf course developers.
Last March, Bob Helland, director of congressional and federal affairs of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA), issued a statement that makes clear why his association opposes the Clean Water Rule as written: “Under the rule, golf courses could likely be required to obtain costly federal permits for any land management activities or land use decisions in, over or near these waters, such as pesticide and fertilizer applications and stream bank restorations and the moving of dirt. The impact on golf course management could be dramatic.”
In 2016, the GSCAA praised Trump as “a president who understands the value of the game of golf, both as a golfer and golf course owner,” who “is also familiar with the H-2B Visa program that a number of golf facilities utilize, including one of his own in Florida.” This visa program allows U.S. employers, or agents who meet specific regulatory requirements, to bring foreign nationals to the U.S. to fill temporary nonagricultural jobs. “This could lead to a breakthrough in the red tape that makes using the program so frustrating,” said GSCAA. These statements shine a bright light on the imbalance between the administration’s business, environmental and immigration policies.
World-class hotels form another cornerstone of the Trump financial empire. So when the president proposed cutting all funding to EPA’s very successful 25-year-old Energy Star Program, a program meant to save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions, CNN launched an investigation to see how Trump businesses might benefit from its elimination.
It turns out that the government’s Energy Star for Hotels ranking process provides an assessment of the energy performance of a property relative to its peers, taking into account local climate, weather and business activities at the property. Energy Star claims these ratings can affect the value of a property — the media investigation discovered that Trump’s properties tend to receive low ratings.
According to CNN, “[t]he most recent scores from 2015 reveal that 11 of his 15 skyscrapers in New York, Chicago and San Francisco are less energy efficient than most comparable buildings. On a scale of 1 to 100 for energy efficiency, Manhattan’s old Mayfair Hotel, which Trump converted into condos, rated a 1,” the lowest rating possible.
The House Appropriations Committee rejected the Trump’s administration proposal to eliminate Energy Star, but its spending bill for 2018, which came out in early July, proposed reducing funding by roughly 40 percent, a cut to $31 million.
Critics say that such a deep reduction will be significantly harmful to the environment. “We appreciate that the committee has rejected the administration’s proposal… but a 40 percent cut would be crippling as well,” said the President of the Alliance to Save Energy Kateri Callahan in a press statement.
In 2014, EPA estimated that Energy Star has reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2.5 billion metric tons since 1992, while also providing energy cost savings to consumers, hotels and other industries.
“I have to wonder where this is coming from,” Callahan said, stressing the fact that Energy Star is one of the most popular government programs in U.S. history and has enjoyed broad bipartisan support since it was created under President George H.W. Bush.
Donald Trump, award-winning environmentalist?
Donald Trump has been claiming he is an environmentalist at least since 2011, when he told Fox & Friends that “I’ve received many, many environmental awards”.
“I am a big believer in clean air and clean water. I’m a big believer. I have gotten so many awards for the environment,” Trump said during a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa. “I won many environmental awards, I have actually been called an environmentalist, if you believe it,” he repeated at a rally in Atkinson, New Hampshire.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross echoed that assessment on NBC’s Today show. Trump, he said, “is an environmentalist. I’ve known him for a very long time. He’s very pro-environment.”
Politifact found a grain of truth in Trump’s statements. A decade ago two local groups did award Trump for specific projects. In 2007, he received the Friends of Westchester County Parks’ inaugural Green Space Award for donating 436 acres to the New York state park system, and in the same year his Bedminster New Jersey Trump National Golf Course received the first annual environmental award of the The Metropolitan Golf Association (MGA).
MGA’s press statement reads: “Through the leadership of Donald J. Trump, [director of grounds] Nicoll has implemented an environmental strategy that has resulted in the preservation of a dedicated 45 acre grassland bird habitat on the property, as well as intensive erosion control and stream stabilization management plan. The impacts of golf construction and operations on this land have resulted in a significant environmental net gain from the previous land use. Trump National has made itself readily available to Bedminster Township officials by way of monthly meetings to keep them up to date on the club’s environmental monitoring activities.”
MGA also said that, while planning the construction of an additional course, the club integrated environmental awareness into their golf course maintenance and construction plans by maintaining more stringent standards than those required by state and local regulations.
However, critics note, if Donald Trump is an environmentalist, he is not an orthodox one. In his tweets, he has referred to global warming as “a canard,” something “mythical,” “based on faulty science and manipulated data,” “nonexistent” or “created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” and also as “a total, and very expensive, hoax,” not to mention “bullshit.”
Nor does he show his environmentalism in the associates with which he surrounds himself. When choosing someone to lead his transition team for the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump picked climate science denier Myron Ebell, who believes the environmental movement is “the greatest threat to freedom and prosperity in the modern world.” His EPA head is the former Oklahoma attorney Scott Pruitt, a climate change skeptic whose LinkedIn profile says he is “a leading advocate against the EPA’s activist agenda.” Pruitt in the past sued EPA 14 times to block clean air and water safeguards, and recently denied that carbon dioxide causes global warming.
However, big business can save big bucks by being environmentally friendly, and that is something that did not go unnoticed at Trump’s environmental award-winning New Jersey golf courses. The Wall Street Journal reported that both of them qualify as a farmland because they are not only sports fields, but also home to activities associated to farming such as hay production and woodcutting. The Bedminster golf course is even home to a small goat herd that grazes overgrown grass. It is not clear exactly how much the tax breaks save Trump, but the Journal estimates the courses pay less than $1,000 in annual taxes instead of the $80,000 that would be standard for such properties.
Still, experts note, anyone saying that Donald Trump always puts profit and his assets ahead of the environment would be wrong. In truth, Trump’s policies could do serious harm to his businesses. As Buzz Feed News notes, Trump’s withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement likely means continuing rising sea levels and more extreme storms, which both threaten his low-lying properties, including the Trump National Doral in the Miami suburbs, a luxury golf resort that could end up submerged. Indeed, had Hurricane Irma tracked east of Florida instead of west, as originally expected, it’s likely the storm, supercharged by some of the warmest Caribbean waters on record, would have made a direct hit on Mar-A-Lago, the so-called Winter White House.
Conflict of interest?
The U.S. Congress has exempted the president and vice president from conflict-of-interest laws Title 18 Section 208 of the U.S. code. This decision was based on the premise that the presidency wields so much power that virtually any possible executive action might pose a potential conflict of interest (COI).
Last November, during his first news conference since his election, Trump declared: “I have a no-conflict situation because I’m president, which is — I didn’t know about that until about three months ago, but it’s a nice thing to have, but I don’t want to take advantage of something.”
Many watchdog organizations have been less complacent than Congress and the President concerning COIs — including those involving presidential power, the Trump companies, and the environment. These NGOs are watching to see if Trump international and domestic business deals have political implications, or if any policies promoted by his administration seem designed to benefit Trump businesses.
The President’s just proposed tax reforms are a case in point — watchdog groups, the media and financial experts began looking for COIs and policy points benefiting Trump’s tax bracket and his businesses within hours of the announcement of the merest sketch of a tax reform plan.
“Presidents have historically understood that there can be a conflict of interest even if the law doesn’t technically apply, and they have followed the same standards that apply to other federal employees,” Clark Pettig, American Oversight’s Communications Director, told Mongabay.
American Oversight (AO) is a watchdog organization that is investigating numerous COIs across the Trump administration. For instance, it sued EPA to force the release of communications between regulators and industry groups, and to uncover the role investor Carl Icahn has played in setting policy. AO has also launched a broad investigation of the administration’s payments to Trump-owned businesses, and has submitted FOIA requests for documents related to the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.
Pettig believes Trump clearly has a conflict of interest as he serves as President while also owning and profiting from a global business empire.
“Rather than “draining the swamp,” the Trump administration has brought unprecedented conflicts of interests to Washington,” he said. “From rolling back environmental regulations that could impact his golf courses, to using diplomatic events to promote his own resorts, President Trump seems determined to use his power to enrich himself and his business empire,” Pettig said.
Laura Friedenbach, Deputy Communications Director of Every Voice, a Washington-based watchdog organization whose aim is to reduce the influence of money in politics, is concerned as well. “When a public official is making decisions on behalf of the American people and also has a large personal stake in the outcome, it presents a conflict of interest,” she told Mongabay.
“The conflicts of interest facing President Trump and his cabinet raise real questions about where the Trump administration’s priorities lie,” Friedenbach said. “Are they doing what’s best for the American people, or are they letting their own interests and the interests of their business partners get in the way?”
“If President Trump and his cabinet are more concerned with boosting profits for companies they have a stake in, and personal ties with, including fossil fuel companies, then the result will be slowing down progress on combatting the effects of climate change,” she declared.
The Trump Organization, Trump Hotels, Trump Golf, and MNC Land did not reply to Mongabay’s multiple requests to comment for this article; nor did they answer questions sent to them concerning their projects’ environmental impacts, Energy Star ratings, Trump’s environmental awards, and steps to reduce project carbon footprint.
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The EPA acts more like a friend and less like a regulator of utilities.
The EPA needs to listen to public concerns. It may learn something.
The premise underlying nearly a half century of U.S. environmental law is that no one has a right to poison the air and water that all Americans consume. Under Scott Pruitt’s direction, the Environmental Protection Agency seems just fine with increasing Americans’ exposure to industrial toxins as long as it fulfills President Donald Trump’s promise to revive the nation’s moribund coal industry.
The EPA proposes to loosen pollution restrictions on coal-burning utilities, including those in Missouri, that produce a contaminant known as coal ash. The EPA says coal ash is one of the largest industrial waste streams generated in the United States. It is produced primarily by coal-fired power plants and contains a cancer-causing, toxic mix of arsenic, mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals.
Coal-burning utilities produce an estimated 110 million tons of coal ash annually, storing it in giant pits. One former EPA top official has described the storage pits as “ticking time bombs.”
Guidelines for the EPA’s proposed changes, issued Aug. 15, included requirements for states seeking to deviate from federal coal ash rules to come up with specifically designed policies. Watchdog groups say the standards are too loose, too utility-friendly and will permit states to weaken regulatory enforcement below federal standards.
In his plan to pare back regulatory oversight, Pruitt suggested that protecting public health is not his primary concern. “As part of EPA’s ongoing commitment to cooperative federalism, we continue to consult with our state partners to find the best management strategy for the safe disposal of coal ash in each of their states,” he said.
The EPA is well aware of the potential public health dangers and says that improperly built or managed coal ash disposal units have been linked to surface, ground water and air contamination. Major coal ash spills near Kingston, Tenn., in 2009, and Eden, N.C., in 2014, highlighted the need for federal oversight. The spills caused widespread environmental and economic damage.
Regulation of coal ash falls squarely in the federal government’s regulatory domain because contaminated air and water are not restricted to a single state’s boundaries. One state’s loose controls very often mean that neighboring states suffer the consequences.
Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens is considering merging the state’s Clean Water Commission and Air Conservation Commission, which could dilute regulatory enforcement. Only two years ago, the state Department of Natural Resources allowed Ameren Missouri to build a coal ash landfill near its Labadie power plant, in the Missouri River floodplain. Environmentalists and Franklin County residents fought the project for years. DNR ultimately determined that Ameren had to comply with stringent new federal rules governing coal ash disposal.
Watchdog groups say state regulators typically are more lenient. Easing regulations to improve the business climate is a short-sighted policy. The EPA needs to listen to public concerns. It may learn something.
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The Cadiz desert water project is facing a new hurdle.
In a Sept. 20 letter to Cadiz, the State Lands Commission informed the company that its proposed water pipeline crosses a strip of state-owned land and therefore requires a state lease.
state commission is throwing a new hurdle in front of Cadiz Inc.’s plans to turn a remote desert valley into a lucrative water source for Southern California.
In a Sept. 20 letter to Cadiz, the State Lands Commission informed the company that its proposed water pipeline crosses a strip of state-owned land and therefore requires a state lease.
The letter is the latest twist in the long, convoluted history of the politically connected company’s attempts to pump groundwater from its desert holdings 200 miles east of Los Angeles and sell it to Southern California cities.
The state action comes in the wake of moves by President Trump’s administration to clear a major obstacle from Cadiz’s path that was erected by the Obama administration.
Both the state and federal efforts revolve around the company’s plans to construct a 43-mile water pipeline in an existing railroad right-of-way that crosses mostly federal land.
In 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Cadiz couldn’t use the right-of-way because the proposed water infrastructure didn’t further a railroad purpose.
That meant the company would have to obtain U.S. permission to run the pipeline across surrounding public land. Cadiz has long tried to avoid that because it would trigger a lengthy federal environmental review that could add to the restrictions contained in the project’s 2012 approval under state environmental law.
Cadiz, founded by Keith Brackpool, an investor with extensive political connections, fought back.
The company’s high-powered law firm lobbied the Interior Department. Cadiz rounded up support from 18 members of Congress, most of them Republicans from California and the West. In March they wrote Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, asking him to reverse the BLM decision and “create thousands of much needed jobs and a desperately-needed new water supply in California.”
On Sept. 1, Interior’s Office of the Solicitor withdrew the 2011 opinion that underpinned BLM’s denial and replaced it with a much more liberal interpretation of what railroads can allow on their federal rights-of-way.
Now Cadiz is waiting for regional BLM officials to rescind the 2015 decision.
But if BLM does that, conservation groups are likely to sue. And the lands commission could still stand in the way.
The issue of state-owned lands in the Cadiz area arose in 2000, during review of the company’s proposal to partner with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on a previous version of the groundwater project that MWD ultimately voted down.
At that time, Cadiz said the parcel in question was privately owned but the state retained mineral rights, according to the commission.
In the his letter, Brian Bugsch, chief of the commission’s land management division, told Cadiz that when staff recently re-analyzed ownership in the area, it determined that the state owns the tract.
The parcel is a tiny piece of the millions of acres that Congress in 1853 granted to California for the benefit of public education. The state sold most of the so-called schools lands but still owns desert tracts controlled by the commission.
Commission spokeswoman Sheri Pemberton said the state never sold the 200-foot-wide strip because in 1910 California granted a railroad right-of-way over it. Now, the commission says Cadiz needs a state lease to use that portion of the right-of-way for the water pipeline.
“We have high confidence that the project would cross this state land,” she said.
Cadiz spokeswoman Courtney Degener dismissed suggestions that the commission’s position posed a problem.
“We don’t see anything in the state letter that impacts our ability to complete the project,” she said in an email. “The statute of limitations to challenge [the 2012 approval] is long past.”
Whether to issue a lease would be up to the three members of the lands commission, who include Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom and Gov. Jerry Brown both urged the state legislature to pass a bill that could have blocked the Cadiz project by requiring the lands commission to certify that any groundwater transfer from desert basins didn’t harm natural resources on nearby federal or state lands.
That the bill never got out of the Senate Appropriations Committee in the Democrat controlled legislature despite the support of two top Democrats illustrates Cadiz’s political clout.
When Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) went along with shelving the legislation last month, Cadiz paid for robo-calls to Southern California voters, thanking De León and Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), the Appropriations Committee chairman, for stopping the bill.
In June, Cadiz donated $5,000 to a De León campaign fund, according to state records. Cadiz and Brackpool, a long-time friend of former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, have together contributed nearly $85,000 to Villaraigosa’s gubernatorial campaign.
Villaraigosa supports the Cadiz project. His chief rival in next year’s race for governor is Newsom.
In Washington, the new deputy Interior secretary is David Bernhardt, a former partner at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, the lobbying and law firm that over the years has collected millions of dollars in fees, as well as Cadiz stock, representing the company.
Russell Newell, Interior’s deputy director of communications, said Bernhardt recused himself from involvement in the department’s recent, Cadiz-friendly opinion on railroad right-of-ways.
Also in Washington is Cadiz’s staunchest opponent, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). She won federal protections for many of the desert lands surrounding the Cadiz project and has repeatedly voiced concerns about the groundwater project’s impact on the fragile desert ecosystem.
When the Interior Department started to clear the way for Cadiz, she turned to the state. Political observers credit Feinstein — who officiated over Brown’s 2005 wedding — with getting the governor to take the unusual step of weighing in on the legislative proposal.
The bill was placed in the suspense file, which means it could be revived next year.
bettina.boxall@latimes.com
Twitter: @boxall
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