Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Delta Issues Category
Click here to view all posts

Protect a levee, protect the world; A method of buttressing California’s aging levees shows promise for capturing carbon dioxide

Posted by: Maven on December 25, 2008 at 8:53 am

From Miller McCune Magazine:

It’s obvious that carbon is stored in wetlands. But could it be stored at a rate that would merit their inclusion in carbon cap-and-trade programs?

That question has been asked since researchers looking at the safety of levees uncovered a promising way to capture atmospheric carbon. The preliminary answer is a definite … maybe.

Well before Katrina, scientists studying central California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta speculated that restoring wetlands on abandoned farmland would mitigate the hydraulic force on miles of delta levees, which in some places hold back 20 feet of water. Then, Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans drew national attention to concerns about the delta’s aging levees and the potential for another catastrophic failure.

Exacerbating the problem was the likelihood of certain disasters (such as California’s looming “Big One”) allowing saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay, a threat to millions of acres of farmland in the state’s Central Valley as well as freshwater supplies for some 25 million Californians.

As U.S. Geological Survey scientists studied the subsidence of land drained for agricultural uses in the delta, they began to notice surprisingly high rates of carbon captured — or accreted — in their study plots.

Could restoring these freshwater wetlands not only help save the levees, protect farmland and save freshwater supplies but also address global climate change? That was something USGS scientist Robin Miller said people inside and outside her 10-year-old project on Twitchell Island have started asking.

Read more from Miller-McCune Magazine by clicking here.

December 25, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Issues, Levees

Comments

Leave a Reply