Once again, lower than average winter rainfall has paired with exceptionally hot summer months and set California up for a disastrous wildfire season with the potential to surpass that of the historic 2018 fire season. Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday that fires had burned through more than 1.4 million acres burned so far in 2020. That’s already well ahead of this time in 2019, when Cal Fire reports just shy of 28,060 acres burned.
And the 2020 Survey Says…
Going Back to School or the Office? Maybe Time for a Different Type of Test
PFAS: It’s Not Just In The Water
In response to widespread contamination, the EPA and FDA have released testing methods that identify 29 PFAS compounds in water and 16 PFAS compounds in food. The EPA also released a 2020 update of its PFAS Action Plan that details the guidelines for testing PFAS in drinking water, recommendations for cleaning up contaminated groundwater, and the allocation of around 14.9 million dollars towards researching PFAS in agriculture, waste, and the environment.
Wet Wipes Have More Than One Dirty Secret
The Next Phase in California’s Investigation of PFAS
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are turning up across the Golden State. The State Water Board released preliminary data in March 2020 which suggests around half of the 600 public water supply wells near landfills, military installations, and airports have detections of PFOA, PFOS, or other PFAS.