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California water regulators on Tuesday approved rules, long in the making, that will allow local water agencies to recycle wastewater directly into tap water after extra cleaning. The unanimous decision by the State Water Resources Control Board will open a new option for water supplies across the drought-prone state. ... The presence of contaminants that are not already known — the arrival several years ago of the coronavirus was a recent example — is one of several areas that will be closely watched. (Galbraith, 12/19)

According to a study released in Nature Communications last week, researchers discovered dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium in samples of ash left behind by the Kincade and Hennessey fires in 2019 and 2020. Workers in the manufacturing industry who've been exposed to elevated levels of hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6, have higher rates of lung cancer, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. (Hernandez, 12/19)

A potentially dangerous device that uses radiation went missing last week, but was found Monday and returned to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works. The agency had issued a $1,000 reward over the weekend for information that could lead to the recovery of the device, which could cause radiation poisoning if damaged or mishandled. (Childs, 12/19)

The U.S. government will not be forced to turn over a draft of a study on cancer incidence at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to attorneys representing people allegedly harmed by tainted water on the base, a federal judge in North Carolina said on Tuesday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Jones Jr denied a motion to compel production of the study filed by the plaintiffs’ leadership team in the litigation, which includes more than 1,400 lawsuits and more than 130,000 administrative claims filed with the government. (Jones, 12/19)

Legislation passed in 2022 expanded benefits for former troops sickened by burn pits, Agent Orange and contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, but others still wait. (Kime, 12/19)

A coalition of public interest, environmental health, and farmworker advocacy groups are hailing a decision by a federal appeals court that struck down the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) approval of the medically important antibiotic streptomycin for use on citrus crops. The ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the EPA's amended registration of streptomycin for use as a pesticide against citrus diseases, saying that it did not satisfy the requirements of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA). It also sent the amended registration back to the agency so that it could address the defects. (Dall, 12/19)