In a seesaw of regulatory movements, California’s Central Coast has come no closer to having stricter laws against agricultural contamination of its ground and surface waters.

On Oct. 27, a group of organizations sued both the state and regional water boards for what they say were fumbled opportunities to stop excessive fertilizer use. Petitioners include two communities around Salinas and a troop of water protection groups. The lawsuit boils down to two central complaints.

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Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.