3D printing has opened up new possibilities across multiple
fields, from food production to housing. Now, its use in
designing the next generation of sustainable technologies could
be a game-changer. Microbial electrochemical systems have
broad applications for green tech, including wastewater
treatment, energy generation, and chemical synthesis, as a
report by SciTechDaily explained. These devices leverage
microorganisms to transfer electrons, and MES can both degrade
pollutants and generate electricity, making them a
future-forward tool for sustainable design. Among the
advantages of using 3D printing for MES is the ability to
rapidly prototype and customize reactor designs, as the report
detailed. This gives researchers the flexibility to optimize
fluid dynamics and mass transfer within the reactors, helping
improve performance.
Depleted groundwater threatens communities, agriculture, and
ecosystems in California’s Central Valley, which produces much
of the nation’s fruit, vegetables, and nuts. But the same acres
where farmers have long cultivated thirsty crops might be
critical for refilling aquifers, Stanford scientists have
found. In a paper published April 17 in Earth and Space
Science, the researchers used electromagnetic geophysical data
to identify areas across the Central Valley where water
released on the surface could rapidly flow into aquifers to
“recharge” groundwater. “We were hoping to see a
relatively big portion of agricultural land that’s suitable for
recharge, and that’s what we’re seeing,” said lead study author
Seogi Kang, who worked on the research as a postdoctoral
scholar in geophysics in the Stanford Doerr School of
Sustainability and is now an assistant professor at the
University of Manitoba.
… Property owners in Bakersfield are reacting after
being notified of a proposed increase in sewer rates. Residents
and businesses are voicing concerns, claiming the proposed
rates will add to their financial burden. “What a bad time,
were they even thinking?” That’s what Bakersfield resident
Linda Goncalves said came to her mind after receiving one of
the 106,000 sent notices to property owners in Bakersfield,
letting them know about a proposed increase to sewer rates. If
approved, the rates for a single residential home will shoot up
from 239 dollars a year to 950 dollars a year, an increase of
almost 300 percent. ”Staff determined that increase was
needed,” stated Public Information Officer with the City of
Bakersfield Joe Conroy. “These costs for maintenance and
keeping up the system is actually increasing much faster than
we expected.”
One of the rarest species on Earth, the Devils
Hole pupfish, came close to extinction in recent months,
thanks to an earthquake 500 miles from their deep desert cave.
Now, worried scientists and divers are taking unprecedented
steps to save the 38 remaining fish. … A few years
ago, a mat was laid on the rock shelf of Devil’s Hole to
collect pupfish eggs. Those eggs were then transferred to a
replica of the cave built in nearby Ash Meadows Fish
Conservation Facility. The fake Devil’s Hole contained the same
92-degree water and spawning shelf. There, in captivity, a
backup colony of pupfish was bred. Nineteen of those captive
fish were carefully brought into the cave in recent weeks.
It may feel like it rained a lot last year – and it did – but
not enough to satisfy L.A. County’s critical shortage of
rainfall, officials say. A news release issued Tuesday by Water
for L.A. County indicates that the county captured nearly 12
billion gallons of stormwater over the past several months.
Tuesday was the last official day of the storm season, which
begins on Oct. 15 every year. But the 11.9 billion gallons
of stormwater received are still not enough. … A “stark
contrast” provided by officials was the fact that the 2023-24
storm season brought 21.2 billion gallons of stormwater to the
region, which was enough to meet the water needs of 2.9 million
people for an entire year, officials explained. The drop in
rainfall highlights L.A. County’s water management challenges
that are exacerbated by persistent drought conditions; thus,
local legislators are looking to improve the system that
supplies water to more than 9.7 million residents
countywide.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a swath of bills on water
issues this week, calling them “political cover” for what she
says is the Legislature’s inaction on water security. Hobbs
vetoed seven bills in total, all sponsored by Rep. Gail Griffin
(R-Hereford), who has a history of blocking Hobbs’ and
Democrats’ policy proposals. The bills would have made multiple
policy changes, like modifying definitions of terms and giving
voters an option for removing groundwater protections in parts
of the state under Active Management Areas. Hobbs wrote in a
veto letter that all the bills Griffin sent her either weaken
water protections or make “pointless trivial statutory changes”
that Hobbs argued demean Arizonans who want real groundwater
management.
According to the USDA Fruit and Tree Nuts Outlook (March 2025),
2024 brought historic heat to the United States, marking the
warmest year in the contiguous U.S. since records began in
1895, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental
Information. While 2024 also ranked as the third wettest year
overall, key agricultural states like California and Washington
experienced a dangerous mix of summer dryness and extreme heat,
significantly affecting fruit and tree nut production. … In
California, southern regions were hit especially hard. By
February 2025, the U.S. Drought Monitor reported moderate to
extreme drought across the entire southeast interior of the
state. In Northern California, drought was less severe. The
Sacramento Valley saw a rapid shift from no drought in July
2024 to 100% of land classified as abnormally dry by October.
… The San Joaquin Valley, largely drought-free through the
summer, also saw worsening dryness by fall, with nearly all
land in drought by February 2025—over 60% at moderate to severe
levels.
The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, which serves
as a hub in California and forecasts weather in areas
including Redding, Modesto, Vallejo and the Sierra Nevada,
has been forced to cut down its operations and services due to
“critically reduced staffing,” triggered by Department of
Government Efficiency layoffs. … Several other weather
service offices in California are facing critical staffing
shortages. The Monterey office, which serves the broader Bay
Area region, is currently at a roughly 20% vacancy rate, with
three vacant positions. The Hanford office, which forecasts for
the San Joaquin Valley, Yosemite National Park and the southern
Sierra Nevada, is facing staffing levels as low as 50%.
… It all may have started in 2007 with a failed golf course
deal. That year, Trump toured a failing golf course called
Running Horse in Fresno. “What Trump saw was more than 400
acres of mostly weeds, several huge trenches for sunken
fairways and only two holes with grass,” the Fresno Bee
reported. … Trump made an offer, then pulled out — and by
2014, an almond orchard had taken over the site. Then, in early
2016, Johnny Amaral, a politically connected water authority
executive, organized a roundtable for Trump with 50 farmers to
discuss water issues and a tour of the Central Valley. Amaral
did not return calls from The Fact Checker, but he has
described the session in interviews over the years. Amaral
told the Los Angeles Times that the message to Trump was that
“the Central Valley is not out of water because of the drought,
but because the water is mismanaged.”
Since 2010, California American Water, the investor-owned
utility that provides water to the Monterey Peninsula, has
pursued building a desalination project to bolster the local
water supply and put an end to its illegal overpumping of the
Carmel River. In that time, the volume of documents born out of
that effort – including by those trying to kill the
project – could fill a warehouse. Meanwhile, a cheaper
project – Pure Water Monterey, which recycles
wastewater – has outpaced Cal Am’s efforts, and has
already added enough water to the local portfolio to allow Cal
Am to stop its overpumping, although a cease-and-desist order
from the state remains in effect. … That raises some
obvious questions: Why build a costly desal project if the
water isn’t needed?
The Port of Los Angeles must significantly improve its
management of stormwater and groundwater to ensure that toxic
pollutants stay out of the harbor, according to Wednesday’s
tentative settlement of a lawsuit against the city of Los
Angeles for alleged violations of the federal Clean Water Act.
The lawsuit brought by Los Angeles-based Environment California
in July 2024 alleged that there have been more than 2,000
illegal discharges of pollution in the previous five years at
the port. That pollution stems from bacteria-laden stormwater
and contaminated groundwater that accumulates in a 53-acre area
of the port and is discharged into the harbor, the suit
alleges.
The council overseeing U.S. Pacific coast fisheries issued a
new recommendation Tuesday for “very limited”
recreational salmon fishing through the end of 2025,
according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The decision allows for the first recreational ocean salmon
fishing in California waters since 2022. The recommendation
from the Pacific Fishery Management Council also
included keeping California’s commercial salmon
fisheries closed for the third year in a row.
… Salmon in California waters face ongoing issues from
drought, climate disruption, wildfires, algal blooms, shifting
food sources, habitat destruction and thiamine deficiency,
according to wildlife officials.
If any of the Colorado River management options were used to
manage this year’s sub-par snowpack, Arizona, California and
Nevada would be forced to slash 17% to 43% of their legal
share. Coloradans would be focused on voluntary conservation.
Colorado River officials are debating six options for how to
manage the overstressed river after 2026 with the goal of
reaching a seven-state agreement by May. Under this year’s
water conditions, all of the proposed plans would call for
mandatory cuts in the three Lower Basin states with reductions
ranging from 1.3 million to 3.2 million acre-feet. The basin’s
legal share of the river is 7.5 million acre-feet, although
estimates say its actual use is higher. Under most of the
different management options, Colorado and its sister states in
the Upper Basin would be asked to voluntarily conserve up to
500,000 acre-feet of water.
The State of California is taking significant steps to combat
the recent discovery of golden mussels in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta. According to officials, this marks the first
occurrence of the invasive species in North America. The
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is leading
the charge, offering $1 million in grants to boating facility
operators. These funds aim to enhance efforts against invasive
mussels in the state’s lakes, reservoirs, and waterways. The
golden mussel, native to East and Southeast Asia, poses a
severe threat to California’s ecosystems and infrastructure.
Sacramento environmental groups are raising concerns about
flood management construction on the American River slated to
reach the Rio Americano High School area next year. The
controversial ongoing work, part of the Sacramento Levee
Upgrades project run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has
come under scrutiny since beginning last year, as the erosion
prevention measures have required the removal of trees and
plants along the river. Up to 600 trees, including 100-year-old
heritage oaks, will be bulldozed, according to the American
River Trees group. However, the Army Corps has said the work is
necessary to prevent potential catastrophic flooding. The work
is designed to update the Army Corps’ standards from planning
for a 50-year flood event to a 200-year event.
The Tijuana River has been plagued with raw sewage and
industrial waste from Tijuana for decades, fouling beaches
along the U.S.-Mexico border with polluted water and sending
foul odors drifting through communities in San Diego County. On
Wednesday, the environmental group American Rivers ranked the
Tijuana River No. 2 on its annual list of the nation’s most
endangered rivers, up from No. 9 on the list last year. The
group said it elevated the river on the list, right behind the
first-ranked Mississippi River, to bring greater attention to
the waterway’s chronic pollution problems and the lack of
action to clean it up. Activists with another group, Surfrider
Foundation, are also circulating a petition calling for
President Trump to declare a national emergency to expedite
efforts to curb the flow of untreated sewage and clean up the
river.
Facing the continued collapse of Chinook salmon, officials
today shut down California’s commercial salmon fishing season
for an unprecedented third year in a row. Under the
decision by an interstate fisheries agency, recreational salmon
fishing will be allowed in California for only brief windows of
time this spring. This will be the first year that any
sportfishing of Chinook has been allowed since 2022. … The
decline of California’s salmon follows decades of deteriorating
conditions in the waterways where the fish spawn each year,
including the Sacramento and Klamath rivers.
… At the beginning of the 20th century, Frederick McKay, a
young dentist in Colorado Springs, noticed that his patients’
teeth showed unsightly browning — now known as fluorosis, a
consequence of exposure to too much fluoride. At the same time,
those patients’ teeth were far more resistant to dental decay
than those of people in nearby towns, whose teeth looked
better. … As for natural contamination of the kind that
Colorado Springs experienced, it’s estimated that more than
100,000 people in the United States get their water from wells
with naturally excessive fluoride levels. You’d think that the
folks calling to end fluoridation would also be unveiling a
comprehensive plan to help people make sure their private water
sources are safe. Yet Kennedy has not done so. Why not? A
better question might be why now? Why the sudden urge to talk
about fluoride? I think the answer may lie somewhere quite far
afield. In Texas, actually. -Written by Zeynep Tufekci, a professor of sociology and
public affairs at Princeton University and a New York Times
Opinion columnist.
Along the U.S.–Mexico border in Arizona, the Cocopah Indian
Tribe is accustomed to change. Over centuries, they have seen
borders drawn that intersect their homeland. They’ve watched
their traditional way of life adapt and survive with each new
generation. The Cocopah are known as “the river people,” a name
given long before the Colorado River was diverted through
modern canals and dams. As the water disappeared, so did sacred
animals that dwelled in the riverside habitat. … To reconnect
to this cultural power source, the Cocopah have partnered with
the National Audubon Society on two significant restoration
projects on the reservation’s North and West sections. Federal
grant funding is helping the Tribe transform more than 400
acres in the Colorado River floodplain.
Inactive ingredients in agricultural, pharmaceutical, and other
common products have typically been excluded from consideration
as potential contaminants in drinking water. However, while
these chemicals are inert in certain products, they can still
pose hazards when combined with other materials during the
drinking water treatment process. A new study from researchers
in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University
in St. Louis reveals how large this impact might be. …
(Graduate student Jean) Brownell discovered that inactive
amines, which are used as stabilizing agents in herbicides to
increase solubility and reduce drift, may be more important
than active agents in herbicides when it comes to forming
disinfection byproducts (DBPs) linked to various health risks,
though the impacts vary by region and time. The results were
published in the April 15 issue of Water Research.
