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Groundwater Sustainability Assessments: A Review of the Department of Water Resources’ Determinations on Groundwater Sustainability Plans in Critically Overdrafted Basins

Groundwater Leadership Forum (GLF) | August 31st, 2022

Summary

Of the 46 GSPs submitted in January 2020, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) determined eight GSPs to be adequate and 34 GSPs to be incomplete. In this paper we eval

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Groundwater/Aquifer Remediation (Resource Management Strategy)

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | July 29th, 2016

Summary

Portions of aquifers in many groundwater basins in California have degraded water quality that does not support beneficial use of groundwater. In some areas, groundwater

Portions of aquifers in many groundwater basins in California have degraded water quality that does not support beneficial use of groundwater. In some areas, groundwater quality is degraded by constituents that occur naturally (e.g., arsenic). In many urban and rural areas, groundwater quality degradation has resulted from a wide range of human (anthropogenic) activities. Groundwater remediation is necessary to improve the quality of degraded groundwater for beneficial use. Drinking water supply is the beneficial use that typically requires remediation when groundwater quality is degraded. Contaminants in groundwater can come from a many sources, naturally occurring and anthropogenic. Examples of naturally occurring contaminants include heavy metals and radioactive constituents, as well as high concentrations of various salts from specific geologic formations or conditions. Climate change that results in altered precipitation, snowfall patterns, and rising sea levels may exacerbate salt water intrusion and flooding of low-lying infrastructure and urban facilities. These phenomena will add new challenges to protection of groundwater from contamination. In addition, groundwater can be contaminated by anthropogenic sources with organic, inorganic, and radioactive constituents from point and non-point sources. These anthropogenic sources include industrial sites, mining operations, leaking fuel tanks and pipelines, manufactured gas plants, landfills, impoundments, dairies, septic systems, and urban and agricultural activities. The contaminant having the most widespread and adverse impact on drinking water wells is arsenic, followed by nitrates, naturally occurring radioactivity, industrial/commercial solvents, and pesticides. Groundwater remediation removes constituents, hereafter called contaminants, which affect beneficial use of groundwater. Groundwater remediation systems can employ passive or active methods to remove contaminants. Passive groundwater remediation allows contaminants to degrade biologically or chemically or disperse in situ over time. Active groundwater remediation involves either treating contaminated groundwater while it is still in the aquifer (in situ) or extracting contaminated groundwater from the aquifer and treating it outside of the aquifer (ex situ). Active in situ methods generally involve injecting chemicals into the contaminant plume to obtain a chemical or biological removal of the contaminant. Ex situ methods for treating contaminated groundwater can involve physical, chemical, and/or biological processes.

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Guide for Developing Onsite Water Systems to Support Regional Water Resilience

Pacific Institute | January 26th, 2023

Summary

Across the United States, urban communities face growing water challenges, from water scarcity to flooding, pollution, aging water infrastructure, and more. These challen

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Guideline levels for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water: the role of scientific uncertainty, risk assessment decisions, and social factors

Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (Springer) | January 8th, 2019

Summary

Communities across the U.S. are discovering drinking water contaminated by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and determining appropriate actions. Ther

Communities across the U.S. are discovering drinking water contaminated by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and determining appropriate actions. There are currently no federal PFAS drinking water standards despite widespread drinking water contamination, ubiquitous population-level exposure, and toxicological and epidemiological evidence of adverse health effects. Absent federal PFAS standards, multiple U.S. states have developed their own healthbased water guideline levels to guide decisions about contaminated site cleanup and drinking water surveillance and treatment. We examined perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) water guideline levels developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state agencies to protect people drinking the water, and summarized how and why these levels differ. We referenced documents and tables released in June 2018 by the Interstate Technology and Regulatory Council (ITRC) to identify states that have drinking water and groundwater guideline levels for PFOA and/or PFOS that differ from EPA’s health advisories (HAs). We also gathered assessment documents from state websites and contacted state environmental and health agencies to identify and confirm current guidelines. Seven states have developed their own water guideline levels for PFOA and/or PFOS ranging from 13 to 1000 ng/L, compared to EPA’s HA of 70 ng/L for both compounds individually or combined. We find that the development of PFAS guideline levels via exposure and hazard assessment decisions is influenced by multiple scientific, technical, and social factors, including managing scientific uncertainty, technical decisions and capacity, and social, political, and economic influences from involved stakeholders. Assessments by multiple states and academic scientists suggest that EPA’s HA is not sufficiently protective. The ability of states to develop their own guideline levels and standards provides diverse risk assessment approaches as models for other state and federal regulators, while a sufficiently protective, scientifically sound, and enforceable federal standard would provide more consistent protection.

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Hexavalent Chromium Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment (SRIA)

California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) | May 4th, 2023

Summary

The Division of Drinking Water (DDW) of the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) is responsible for adopting drinking water standards. Primary drinking

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Human Costs of Nitrate-contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley

Pacific Institute | March 1st, 2011

Summary

While most Californians take for granted that safe water is readily available at the turn of a tap, a growing number of communities, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley a

While most Californians take for granted that safe water is readily available at the turn of a tap, a growing number of communities, primarily in the San Joaquin Valley and other agricultural areas of the state, face very real impacts from nitrate contamination of the drinking water sources serving their homes and schools. New research led by the Pacific Institute, The Human Costs of Nitrate-Contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley, finds that nitrate contamination of groundwater has wide-reaching effects on California’s health, economic vitality, and environmental well being, disproportionately affecting low-income households and Spanish-speaking residents. The analysis brings a stark reality check to the fore as the Central Valley Water Board considers a new regulatory program for irrigated lands, the primary source of nitrate contamination in the San Joaquin Valley. There have never been any regulatory requirements on irrigated agriculture to protect groundwater from fertilizers, which are the primary source of nitrate in the valley. Nitrate levels have increased dramatically in drinking water supplies over the last few decades. The new study, The Human Costs of Nitrate-Contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley, a collaboration of the Pacific Institute, Community Water Center, Clean Water Fund, and California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, focuses on the household costs of avoiding nitrate-contaminated drinking water connected to community water systems and the costs to these systems of removing or avoiding nitrates, and it points to key policies and further research needed to better understand and resolve this entrenched challenge. The eight-county San Joaquin Valley has some of the most contaminated aquifers in the nation: 92 drinking water systems in the San Joaquin Valley had a well with nitrate levels above the legal limit from 2005-2008, potentially affecting the water quality of approximately 1.3 million residents. In addition to public water systems, the State Water Board sampled 181 domestic wells in Tulare County in 2006 and found that 40% of those tested had nitrate levels above the legal limit.

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Identification of Bacteria in Groundwater Used for Domestic Supply in the Southeast San Joaquin Valley, California, 2014

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | June 22nd, 2021

Summary

Groundwater is an important source of drinking water in California. Water-borne diseases caused by microbial contamination are a growing concern. The MI test, a membrane

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Identification of Bacteria in Groundwater Used for Domestic Supply in the Southeast San Joaquin Valley, California, 2014

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) | June 22nd, 2021

Summary

Groundwater is an important source of drinking water in California. Water-borne diseases caused by microbial contamination are a growing concern. The MI test, a membrane

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Identifying the location and population served by domestic wells in California

Journal of Hydrology: Regional Studies (Elsevier) | November 17th, 2014

Summary

Study region: California, USA. Study focus: Identification of groundwater use is an important stepin the regional-scale assessment of groundwater quality. In Califo

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Increasingly frequent extreme weather events urge the development of point-of-use water treatment systems

Nature Portfolio (Springer Nature) | August 13th, 2022

Summary

The frequency of extreme weather events, including floods, storms, droughts, extreme temperatures, and wildfires, has intensified globally over recent decades due to clim

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Groundwater Sustainability Assessments: A Review of the Department of Water Resources’ Determinations on Groundwater Sustainability Plans in Critically Overdrafted Basins

Groundwater/Aquifer Remediation (Resource Management Strategy)

Guide for Developing Onsite Water Systems to Support Regional Water Resilience

Guideline levels for PFOA and PFOS in drinking water: the role of scientific uncertainty, risk assessment decisions, and social factors

Hexavalent Chromium Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) Standardized Regulatory Impact Assessment (SRIA)

Human Costs of Nitrate-contaminated Drinking Water in the San Joaquin Valley

Identification of Bacteria in Groundwater Used for Domestic Supply in the Southeast San Joaquin Valley, California, 2014

Identification of Bacteria in Groundwater Used for Domestic Supply in the Southeast San Joaquin Valley, California, 2014

Identifying the location and population served by domestic wells in California

Increasingly frequent extreme weather events urge the development of point-of-use water treatment systems

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