Focus
Local News Matters – April 27
The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board has fined a sanitation district in eastern Contra Costa County a record $5.6 million for a sewage spill in Suisun Bay, the largest administrative civil liability penalty ever issued by this regional board. The board approved the settlement with Delta Diablo Sanitation District, which allegedly discharged more than 23 million gallons of untreated wastewater into marshland connected with the bay in 2024. Factors included in calculating the penalty included the volume of the spill, the discharger’s response and corrective actions, and the potential effect on water quality, the board said.
News
KRON4 – April 28
The Valero Refining Company has been fined $3.25 million over “multiple incidents and ongoing compliance issues” at its refinery in Solano County, the Bay Area Air District (BAAD) announced this Tuesday. “Valero has since made required improvements to equipment and updates to monitoring and operational practices to support ongoing compliance,” BAAD stated in a news release. The fine comes as Valero is in the process of idling operations at the Benicia refinery.
The Sacramento Bee – April 30
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this Wednesday fined Sacramento County for failing to capture carcinogenic pollutants, including benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and vinyl chloride, from Kiefer Landfill in violation of the Clean Air Act. According to EPA, the violations occurred in 2023 during construction work at the landfill. The agency has also fined Altamont Landfill in Alameda County for Clean Air Act violations after it illegally released more than 340,000 pounds of treated landfill gas from storage tanks.
Business Insurance – April 24
A unit of American International Group (AIG) must face renewed claims that it owes potentially unlimited coverage for environmental cleanup costs at a San Bernardino County airport, after a federal appeals court ruled that its policies did not cap liability for property damage. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling returns the case to the Central District of California, where the number of occurrences and total payout remains to be determined. The dispute stems from contamination at Chino Airport, owned by San Bernardino County. Earlier tenants at the airport produced napalm and bombs for the Vietnam War and melted down World War II planes into ingots, leaving industrial waste, which resulted in a clean-up order. The county sought coverage under three successive umbrella policies it had purchased between 1966 and 1975, each with a $9 million per-occurrence limit.
Smart Cities Dive – April 24
A coalition of 10 states, including California, as well as the District of Columbia; Harris County, Texas; and New York City sued EPA last Friday for failing to implement a 2024 Clean Air Act rule strengthening National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter, also known as the soot standard. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that EPA’s failure to issue air quality designations undermines cities’ and states’ ability to use the Clean Air Act’s tools to reduce fine particulate pollution.
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