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Dear Readers,
The Water Board staff hope you are having a pleasant summer and keeping cool.
In the spirit of staying cool and safe, the first article is an advisory from Listos California, offering resources on how to remain safe during the hot, fire-prone summer months. The subsequent articles aim to assist you in engaging more effectively with the Water Board and its staff regarding inquiries about your permit or other water quality issues you wish to address. Enjoy your reading.
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As severe heat and wildfires affect people across California, doing small things today can make sure you, your family, friends, neighbors and loved ones are safe and cared for when disaster strikes.
As California undergoes more frequent and severe heat waves and wild fires, ready.ca.gov is a new, one-stop shop for Californians to prepare for emergencies and extreme weather. The new website is part of Listos California, which is a state effort that connects communities with resources before, during and after emergencies. In addition, the Department of Public Health has created a Heat & Summer Safety toolkit to provide resources and communication tools that can be shared.
Please help us share this information, and we wish you all a safe summer.
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The California Environmental Protection Agency’s (CalEPA’s) online environmental complaint system allows Californians to easily report an environmental problem that affects the quality of our air or water, the handling of hazardous or solid waste, or the use of pesticides.
Accessing and reporting a complaint using the CalEPA’s Environmental Complaint System is easy: You can follow the link under “Statewide Campaigns” at the bottom of each Water Board website or navigate directly to the CalEPA’s Environmental Complaint System webpage.
If you become aware on a potential environmental problem, access CalEPA’s Environmental Complaint System webpage and use the complaint form to provide as much information as possible to help investigators identify and address suspected problems. Once you complete the form and click “Submit,” your complaint will be sent to the appropriate state or local agencies, depending on your location and the type of environmental problem you select. CalEPA’s boards and departments work with more than 400 local agencies that enforce environmental laws. This website saves you the trouble of having to find out which agency is the appropriate one.
The Environmental Complaint system will automatically keep you informed about the status of your complaint. If you provide your email address, you will receive one notice when your complaint is received, another notice when the complaint is referred, including which agency is handling the complaint, and a final notice when it is closed. Anonymous complaints where you do not include your email address will still be tracked by agency staff, but you will not be kept informed about your complaint’s status.
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California Government Code Section 11148 requires that each agency that significantly regulates small business designate at least one individual to serve as the small business liaison with the role and responsibility of ombudsperson. The ombudsperson is available to respond to general inquiries regarding State and Regional Water Board Programs, and to provide small business compliance assistance with the State Water Board's rules and regulations. The ombudsperson for the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board is Claudia Villacorta. She can be reached at (707) 576-2069 or by email at Claudia.Villacorta@waterboards.ca.gov.
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CIWQS Facility-At-A-Glance
The California Water Boards created a computer system to track information about places of environmental interest, manage permits and other orders, track inspections, and manage violations and enforcement activities. It's known as the California Integrated Water Quality System, or CIWQS. CIWQS also allows online submittal of information by Permittees within certain programs and makes data available to the public through reports.
One particularly useful public report for tracking regulatory information about a permitted facility is the Facility-At-A-Glance report. This report is located under the Run Reports link in CIWQS under the At-A-Glance heading. Accessing a Facility-At-A-Glance report will allow the user to see general information about the facility including people and organizations associated with the facility, permits and other regulatory measures, violations recorded, inspections conducted, and enforcement actions undertaken. Periodically checking this report will also allow you to verify that our information about you and your facility is correct and up to date.
The CIWQS homepage can be found here: California Integrated Water Quality System Project (CIWQS).
If you are your facility's legally responsible person or a date submitter, you'll first need to register to gain full user access to CIWQS. You can also access many publicly available reports here without registering and signing in.
Note: Some of this content was created with the use of Chat GPT and subsequently revised by Charles Reed.
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