Official: Yuba River algae blooms worst in 20 years
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 11, 2008 at 6:19 amFrom the Union:
Warm temperatures combined with a low water year have encouraged an unwelcome green visitor to infest popular swim holes on the South Yuba River.
Algae blooms are a normal occurrence in rivers and lakes during the summer months and typically do not pose health risks to humans. Some years are worse than others. “It’s showing up everywhere. We saw similar kinds of stuff in the ‘80s,” said John Hiscox of the California Department of Fish and Game.
Swimmers in the Bridgeport area this time of year will see more than the usual amounts of bright green hair-like slime attached to rocks and floating in the shallows.
Though unpleasant, people shouldn’t be concerned. “The Yuba is a healthy system,” said Jen Hemmert, a watershed monitoring specialist for the South Yuba River Citizens League. “The algae is not going to be something harmful to recreate in or consume.
“It should naturally be in the water. It’s a food source for fish and macroinvertebrate,” he added.
Read more from The Union by clicking here.
Study shows urbanization reconfigures surface hydrology; construction of artificial lakes and canal systems along with extensive groundwater pumping have had “unintended impacts on nutrient cycling”
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 10, 2008 at 6:05 amFrom Science Daily:
Amidst the semi-arid stretches of Phoenix, a visitor might blink twice at the sight of a sailboat cutting across the horizon. Tempe Town Lake, on the northern edge of Arizona State University (ASU), is just one of a multitude of lakes, small ponds, canals and dams combining flood control, water delivery, recreational opportunities and aesthetics, and altering perception of water availability and economics in the area.
What are the consequences of such human-made tinkering with land cover and hydrology on surrounding native ecosystems and biodiversity? This question forms the backdrop for a case study proffered by an ASU research team and published in the journal BioScience, which found that one of the most profound impacts of urbanization is the “reconfiguration of surface hydrology.”
Lead author John Roach, now with Simbiotic Software in Missoula, Mont., ASU professors Nancy Grimm and J. Ramon Arrowsmith and other former graduate students mapped water resources and connectivity and tracked land-use change in the Indian Bend Watershed (IBW). The researchers, associated with the Central Arizona-Phoenix Long Term Ecological Research project (CAP-LTER) and the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) in Urban Ecology funded by the National Science Foundation, found that construction of artificial lakes and canal systems along with extensive groundwater pumping have had “unintended impacts on nutrient cycling.”
Read more from Science Daily by clicking here.
Presidio’s creeks will spring back to life
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 9, 2008 at 8:37 amFrom the San Francisco Chronicle:
A hummingbird hovered over a rivulet of water burbling out of a hillside in the Presidio then dipped its beak in a quiet little tributary called El Polin Spring, which is unknown to the vast majority of residents in the noisy urban jungle that surrounds it. But it is the focus of one of the most ambitious and innovative ecological restoration projects in San Francisco history.
The gurgling spring that attracts hummingbirds and other wildlife is at the heart of the Presidio’s 270-acre Tennessee Hollow Watershed, which has three freshwater creeks. “Right now we are standing next to the headwaters of the central tributary,” said Allison Stone, the senior environmental planner for the Presidio Trust, which has a 20-year plan to restore the entire watershed to the way it was before the U.S. Army channeled the creek into pipes and then covered it with dirt and debris. “This spring has the highest abundance and diversity of migratory birds in the area.”
The spring now disappears under the asphalt El Polin Loop Road, briefly re-emerges in a meadow on the other side and then disappears into an underground pipe. In fact, more than half of the creek system is in underground pipes or lined channels.
Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle by clicking here.
Valley of water & wine: changing course along the Napa River
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 3, 2008 at 1:32 pmHere’s an older article that, for some reason, Google dug up and sent to me. It’s about the Napa Valley and efforts to return the Napa River to some semblance of it’s former self. From Bay Nature Magazine (Jan-Mar, 2007 edition):
In a verdant land, it was perhaps the richest valley of all—30 miles long, two miles wide, with deep, alluvial soils. A river wound sinuously through it, supporting a lush forest of cottonwoods, willows, and sycamores. Salmon and steelhead spawned in the upper riffles in their seasons, and in the lower valley, the river emptied into a vast marsh, teeming with waterfowl, tule elk, and shorebirds.
In the uplands, groves of great oaks yielded their annual crops of mast, fattening black-tailed deer and black bears. The oaks—and the mammals, birds, and fish—also sustained the Wappo Indians who lived here. This was their chosen place, and it was a paradise. They called it Napa, which meant “plenty.”
Today, by any modern valuation, the Napa Valley is still a paradise, at least for wine-lovers and gastronomes: Its vintages, restaurants, and spas are world renowned. And for many urbanites, its vistas seem bucolic, “natural” in the most pleasing sense of the word.
But with the coming of Europeans, the Wappos were slaughtered and scattered—and the wild system that maintained them is long gone. The valley is wall-to-wall grapevines now, with vineyards reaching into the high slopes of the bordering Mayacamas and Vaca Mountains. In this unrelenting monocrop, wildlife mostly consists of gophers, jackrabbits, grape-scavenging starlings, and a few raptors.
The engine that carved this famous valley, the Napa River, would be unrecognizable to the Wappos who once harvested its fish. Instead of a broad, meandering stream, it is a constricted sluice, hemmed in by vineyards. Over the decades, the main channel has incised deep gorges, in some places 20 feet below what its mean level was before European-American settlers came to the valley.
Such steep channel incision has silted up the riffles. Fertilizers and pesticides from the vineyards and sewage from the valley’s towns killed spawners, young fish, and eggs. Dams on the river’s main tributaries also reduced spawning habitat. Salmon were largely gone from the river by 1980. The somewhat hardier steelhead persisted, but their population was at best a remnant, generally restricted to the river’s tributaries.
None of this makes the Napa River’s story unique—it is a tale all too familiar in California. Nor is it unusual that people are working to bring this river back to health. River restoration is big business in California, with projects ranging from backyard creeks to massive efforts on the Sacramento and San Joaquin. What is unusual about the Napa River’s restoration is that it is occurring on some of the most expensive nonurban real estate in the world, and that it is driven primarily by the landowners themselves.
Read more from Bay Nature Magazine by clicking here.
CSUN is leading the charge in mapping of the wetlands
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 30, 2008 at 6:47 am
From the Los Angeles Daily News:
PORT HUENEME - Armed with maps and high-tech compasses, the young scientists stared out into the vast tan landscape. Just a century ago, this swath of coastal land was teeming with small creeks and streams, moist soil and dozens of animal species. But today, a large section of Ormond Beach’s wetlands is more dry than wet. Ringed by factories, the wetlands’ dirt hills and dry grass mounds are the final resting place for a graffiti-covered train on a forgotten railroad. “It’s just a remnant of what it used to be,” professor Shawna Dark said to her team of students.
The wetlands’ poor condition only makes Dark, a geography professor at California State University, Northridge, and her students more determined to complete their mission. The group is working on CSUN’s Southern California Wetlands Mapping Project, to produce the Southland’s first comprehensive map of the rapidly disappearing marshy plots of land that Dark says are vital to the region’s ecology.
“Historically, wetlands were seen as wastelands, swamps,” Dark said. “They were associated with malaria and vectors and even the earliest settlers made it their mission to quickly develop over these areas.” The result: Southern California has lost 95 percent of its wetland areas.
Groups such as the California Coastal Commission and the Nature Conservancy, working with the CSUN group, have ramped up efforts to buy plots of wetlands in an effort to conserve and restore these areas over the past few decades.
Rich Handley, a Nature Conservancy land manager in the Los Angeles and Ventura area who is responsible for overseeing the Ormond Beach wetlands, said in this area alone he has discovered colonies of at least seven endangered species.
“California snowy plovers, brown pelicans, northern harriers and Belding’s Savannah sparrows - many of these are species endemic to the wetlands of Southern California,” Handley said. “A lot of times this is referred to as the hidden gem of Oxnard. It’s something we need more people to be aware of.”
Read more from the Daily News by clicking here.
Restoring Watsonville wetlands
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 19, 2008 at 5:46 amFrom the Register Pajoronian:
A group of workers, picks and shovels in hand, was busy Monday in the wetlands of Watsonville, engaged in an epic battle with a host of well-entrenched invaders. The enemies — stands of hearty, invasive weeds — provided little fight. A little digging and pulling typically freed their roots from the ground.
The true battle came in the sheer numbers of the invader plants pampas grass, fennel and about two dozen others have firmly established themselves in many areas of the wetlands. In this, the California Conservation Corps workers had their hands full.
“It’s a huge undertaking, but we’re trying to get the wetlands to go back to their native state,” said Michelle Templeton, wetlands program coordinator for the City of Watsonville.
Replacing the native plants serves several purposes, Templeton said. It offers food and shelter for the hundreds of species of birds and other animals that call the sloughs home. Additionally, the willow, coyote brush and other native plants provide greater water filtration and retention than the invasive species.
Read more from the Register Pajoronian by clicking here.
Middle East experts to assess similarities between environmental conflicts in their region and California
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 12, 2008 at 2:15 amFrom Market Watch:
Can environmental professionals from Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority help solve the epic water battles in California? How similar are the issues of water scarcity and political conflict in the Middle East to those in the Western United States? Can recent examples of successful conflict resolution and cooperation for environmental gains in the Middle East provide valuable lessons for application to California, Utah and Colorado?
A unique symposium coming to Los Angeles Sept. 9 will explore these critically important questions and showcase ground-breaking efforts for trans-boundary environmental cooperation in the Middle East. The seminar is presented by the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and features a keynote address from Dr. Peter Gleick, co-founder and president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security.
“California’s history can and has been written as successive battles over water waged both within the state and with surrounding states and Mexico. Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority are waging similar battles, attempting to resolve their problems of scarcity, drought and allocation in the middle of a politically tense region,” said Clive Lipchin, research director of the Arava Institute. “In many ways, these two regions that are on opposite ends of the planet have very similar problems. Yet, it seems, there are distinct differences in how California and the Middle East attempt to find solutions. Our hope is that our experiences from the Middle East may have relevance to similar issues in the Western United States.”
The symposium is free, but registration is required. The symposium will travel (without Dr. Gleick) to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Sept. 10, the University of Denver on Sept. 11, and the University of Colorado at Boulder on Sept. 12. To find out more, check out the rest of this article from Market Watch by clicking here.
Topanga Creek near Malibu will be allowed to rise again
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 10, 2008 at 6:27 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
These days large swaths of the once-meandering Topanga Creek are dry and full of dirt and look like a Santa Monica Mountains hiking trail. The cause is a 1,000-foot-long berm that rises up to 30 feet high and disrupts the water’s 10-mile path to the ocean.
Beginning in the 1960s, residents fearful that heavy rains would swell the creek and flood their homes gradually began to pile on material to interrupt the water flow. “If they had a contractor buddy who needed to get rid of cement, they’d say, ‘Bring it on here!’ ” said Suzanne Goode, a senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Parks and Recreation.
The creek, along Rodeo Grounds Road, is diverted off to a narrow path that causes it to slow down and dump its sediment. Water then trickles underground during the dry season.
On Monday, however, the parks department will begin a two-month project to remove 19,000 cubic yards — weighing 26,000 tons — of soil, asphalt, concrete and possibly car parts that form the berm so water can run year-round once again.
Dry weeds dot the sides of the berm. Below it lies the dusty creek bed and a rickety bridge that former residents once used to cross the creek.
Officials hope the restoration will give the federally endangered Southern California steelhead trout, a silvery gray-speckled fish 2 to 3 feet long, a chance to make a comeback.
Read the rest of this story from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Using creeks for sewers is costly; Strict water-quality regulations for those using creeks for disposal are aimed at protecting the habitat of native fish
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 9, 2008 at 12:17 pmFrom SanLuisObsipo.com:
The California Men’s Colony prison and the city of San Luis Obispo are in an elite and expensive club. They discharge their wastewater into coastal streams, a fact that adds millions of dollars to the state and city ratepayers.
Effluent from sewers that discharge into creeks must be treated using standards that are very near those required for drinking water. And the standards for some pollutants to which fish are particularly sensitive are many times more stringent than those for drinking water.
“State toxics rules have a whole laundry list of stringent limits for plants that discharge to inland surface waters,” said Roger Briggs, executive officer of the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. “That makes it substantially more expensive to treat and monitor.” Most other sewer plants in the region discharge into the ocean or to evaporation and percolation ponds.
Lompoc in Santa Barbara County and Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County are the only other agencies on the Central Coast that discharge full time to creeks, Briggs said.
San Luis Obispo discharges its wastewater into San Luis Obispo Creek, which flows into the ocean at Avila Beach. It is facing a $42 million upgrade to its treatment plant.
In an effort to shave $10 million to $12 million off that price tag, the city has petitioned the regional water board to remove the creek’s designation as a drinking water source, said David Hix, city wastewater manager. That request is still pending and will likely be decided early next year, Briggs said.
Read more from SanLuisObispo.com by clicking here.
Draining of basin raises danger for endangered birds
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 9, 2008 at 6:48 amFrom the O. C. Register:
Endangered birds nesting in a water storage basin were left high and dry after a water district drained the basin too soon – possibly increasing the danger from coyotes and other ground-based predators. The inadvertent mistake angered local birders, and will likely be investigated by the state Department of Fish and Game.
At least one active nest bearing an unhatched egg was observed on an island within the Burris storage basin in Anaheim, close to the Santa Ana River, when the Orange County Water District began draining water out late last week, a local biologist familiar with the site said Thursday. “I just feel it’s not showing good environmental stewardship,” said Doug Willick, a wildlife biologist who, on his own time, has carefully observed and documented the birds at Burris for 25 years.
Willick said he was reluctant to be critical of the district, which has won numerous awards for its environmental and habitat programs. “That’s what they’re there for – providing us with water – and that’s a very admirable thing,” Willick said. “But on the other hand, they still need to abide by the law.”
Read the full text of this article from the O. C. Register by clicking here.
Sediment behind Marmot Dam clears out faster than experts predicted
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 30, 2008 at 7:10 amFrom the Oregonian:
As dams go, Marmot Dam on the Sandy River was small. Now that it’s gone, its impact is turning out to be enormous.
The removal of the nearly 50-foot-high dam by Portland General Electric in October gave scientists perhaps their best chance to watch as a river digested a vast amount of rocks, sand and gravel collected over many decades in a reservoir. Some had worried that sediment piled behind the dam would suffocate salmon and block tributaries downstream. In fact, the river has since digested the equivalent of about 150 Olympic swimming pools full of sediment — without a hiccup.
“Never has this much sediment been released at once into such an active and hungry river,” said Gordon Grant, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station. He has studied the dam removal and given presentations on the results at conferences from Sacramento to Venice, Italy. He was just invited to give his Marmot Dam talk in China.
“There’s a global interest right now in river restoration,” Grant said. Marmot is certainly one of the best-documented and most spectacular examples of dam removal in the sense that the river was allowed to process the material itself.”
The river has so far removed about half the material backed up behind the dam. It’s difficult to tell that a dam once blocked the popular salmon stream. The river shoves and piles gravel and cuts into the shore the way a healthy river should.
Scientists were especially impressed with how rapidly the river scoured the sediment away. Some models predicted the river would need two to five years to carry off half the sediment pile, but it did so in months.
Though some officials had worried that the sediment would linger and represent an obstacle to fish, federally protected coho salmon were swimming upriver the day after the dam crumbled. Salmon spawned in the river as they always have.
“This was a grand experiment that came out just like people hoped it would,” said John Esler, project manager in PGE’s hydropower licensing division.
Read more from The Oregonian by clicking here.
On one stretch of California coast, it’s sand, sea, and man vs. beast
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 29, 2008 at 9:19 pmFrom the Christian Science Monitor:
It’s a sunny summer Tuesday, and in the waters off La Jolla Cove, kayakers paddle toward underwater caves and swimmers dot the surface. At Children’s Pool, a sliver of beach sheltered by a 300-foot-long crescent-shaped wall, the sand is white, the water is a shimmery blue-green, and the smell – well, the smell is terrible.
The air is thick with the stench of seal poop – a scent as sour as the years-long battle for this tiny piece of shoreline. For over a decade, it’s been the pinnipeds vs. the people in a fight for control, with activists on both sides using everything from heckling and restraining orders to lawsuits and a stun gun to draw and redraw their respective lines in the sand.
Seals have been gathering here since the 1990s, gradually making Children’s Pool – created as a place for families and children – a seal rookery, a place for the animals to have babies, rest, and relieve themselves. These days, given the water’s bacteria levels, it’s no longer considered safe for humans to swim.
Until very recently, the city was asking visitors to stay behind a rope barrier that protected seals lounging at the water’s edge. But in 2005, a California Superior Court ordered the city to take down the rope, remove the seals, and clean up the pool. Animal-rights activists appealed the decision, but last month, a US Appeals Court refused to hear their case. The California Supreme Court has also declined to hear it. The city has already begun the permitting process to clear the way for dredging, says Stacey LoMedico, San Diego’s Parks and Recreation director. But that process will probably take years, and in the meantime, the battle rages on.
Read more from the Christian Science Monitor by clicking here.
San Gabriel River becomes deathbed for ducks
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 28, 2008 at 6:44 amFrom the Los Angeles Times:
What had been for the last six months a vibrant stream teeming with migrating waterfowls and shorebirds early last week became a dry San Gabriel River channel where vultures gorged themselves on ducklings that died when the flows dried up.
The discovery prompted calls for an investigation into the deaths of at least 20 cinnamon teal ducklings, 10 mallard ducklings and 20 adult mallards that had sought refuge in a shrinking pool of water in a concrete basin just south of Valley Boulevard in the city of Industry. It also raised questions about the place of nature in an urban water system in which virtually every drop is adjudicated and someone has a claim to.
“The system does not include ducklings as part of the equation,” said D.J. Waldie, spokesman for the city of Lakewood, which borders the river downstream from Industry. “For decades we managed the San Gabriel River as an engineering project, the purpose of which was to manage aquifers and move storm water away from the city,” he said. “But in recent years, more and more people have been raising questions about nature’s place in our lives and in the Southern California landscape, and they need to be answered.”
Andrew Lee, a local chemist who frequently goes bird-watching along the river and discovered the dead birds, would not argue with any of that. “I dropped by there on Tuesday and, wow, the water was gone and everything was dead.”
Lee e-mailed photographs of what he described as “carnage” to other birders and Audubon Society members who, in turn, forwarded them to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works, along with demands for an explanation.
“The county should have better management practices,” Lee said. “If only they could have waited a little longer to let the water recede, maybe the birds would have lived. After all, mid-July is peak breeding season.”
Read more from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
Restoring the wetlands; Bolsa Chica and Mono Lake are evidence that environmental damage can be undone says editorial
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 26, 2008 at 8:00 amFrom the Los Angeles Times, this editorial:
It sometimes appears that the Earth is so damaged by human activity that there is nothing we can do to repair it. When something as seemingly innocent as switching on the lights or starting the car helps push the global climate off-kilter, what hope is there for redemption?
Californians’ apparently unquenchable thirst has dried up lakes and rivers. Owens Lake turned to dust; Mono Lake’s level dropped so low that islands once safe for birds to breed on became a peninsula prowled by coyotes. The once-mighty Colorado River reaches the sea, when it does, as a rivulet. Northern California’s delta system is close to collapse. Most of our natural coastal estuaries are gone.
It seems, often, that it’s too late, that we should begin telling stories to our children and grandchildren of what used to be.
So it’s refreshing — and instructive — to read about the rebirth of wetlands like those feared lost forever in Huntington Beach. In fact, the Bolsa Chica wetlands are back, as reported last Sunday by Times staff writer Susannah Rosenblatt. A fight over the beach property ended with a scaled-down development less than a tenth the size of the one originally planned. And a dried-out oil field is once again a tidal basin linked to the ocean.
The editorial also references the success of Mono Lake, and ends with this:
The visionaries who built Los Angeles and created that unquenchable thirst were not evil. Neither was William Mulholland, the genius who figured out how to tap the Eastern Sierra to supply a growing city. Nor were those who drained coastal wetlands for development before they understood the environmental havoc their actions would cause. But today, when we know the consequences — and have amassed the understanding and the societal wealth to effect repairs — it falls to us to act. When those actions succeed on the scale of a lake or a small stretch of coastline, it gives hope that they can succeed for the oceans and the atmosphere. It’s an exhortation to Californians — indeed, all human societies — to rescue their environment from the brink, and a promise that, having done so, they can still live an abundant life in a healthy world.
Read the full text of this editorial from the Los Angeles Times by clicking here.
New report says providing water for fish is the surest way to create water supply reliability for California farms and cities
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 24, 2008 at 6:14 amFrom Yuba.Net:
California’s salmon are teetering on the edge of extinction and the salmon fishing industry is facing economic devastation, but a report released today establishes a framework to help address this crisis. The report concludes that providing a more reliable water supply for the San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary could help save fish, including salmon, while also helping to ensure adequate water for farms, cities, and the 25 million Californians who rely on the Bay-Delta’s water.
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) report is titled “Finding the Balance: A Vision for Water Supply and Environmental Reliability in California.” The report outlines steps that state and federal leaders must take to end a vicious cycle of water shortages and environmental near-disasters, and instead create a stable and reliable water supply. That, in turn, should help guarantee environmental reliability - a condition where all necessary ecological, political and economic systems are in place to ensure the Bay Delta and its fisheries are self-sustaining into the future.
“Our water supplies will remain vulnerable as long as we allow the environment to remain at the brink of disaster,” said Laura Harnish, EDF’s Regional Director in San Francisco and an author of the report. “For decades, water users have sought to pump additional water out of our Central Valley streams, then species have declined, and ultimately the courts are forced to step in to prevent an environmental catastrophe. This paper outlines a way to break our endless, self-defeating water cycle and improve both water supply and environmental reliability for California’s future.”
Read more from Yuba.Net by clicking here. Read the full text of the report by clicking here.
One of the great moral and political issue of our time in California —water, fish, and the environment
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 21, 2008 at 6:10 amFrom the California Progress Report:
Having grown up in Southern California in what is technically called a “semi-arid region,” watched folks watering what otherwise would be desert, and fished as a kid and younger adult, it is difficult to get out mind the worsening news about the potential—some would say looming—extinction of fish species including salmon, smelt, and steelhead trout. Something is seriously amiss as salmon fishing has been shut down for the West Coast of the United States.
There are many different facets to the interrelated issues of water usage in California—political, scientific, philosophical, and economic—just to mention a few. As I was about to finish law school in the 1970’s, a wise uncle advised me to practice in the area of water law and predicted that legal fights over this issue would intensify as the years rolled on. Although I never became a “water lawyer,” this advice keeps coming back to mind as I read the news and the reports about water and fish.
Today, we have published an article from Dan Bacher, one of many from him about water, fish, and the environment that have focused on the delta, damming of rivers, and other details this topic area. He is steadfastly opposed to a peripheral canal and critical of those who recommend it as a solution to the problems we face. Remembering the vote in the 1970’s on the peripheral canal, especially as a northern Californian now, I am also suspicious of the building of a peripheral canal and trusting the powers that be in not willy-nilly diverting increasing amounts of water from the Delta for other “needs,” including those who may have never visited the Delta or know much about it. The economic interests are titanic and the lifestyle issues (how many have become used to a bountiful supply of water in landscaping, farming, and for other uses) evoke strong feelings. To me, protecting fish species is a moral issue—and certainly has a profound practical reach, not only in the fish we eat, but is the canary in the coal mine that is our state.
A friend of mine who was a prominent legislator in the 1970’s when the peripheral canal was on the ballot—and a strong opponent of it—told me about a year ago that he was becoming convinced that a peripheral canal was in fact needed to save the Delta. The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), for which I have a lot of respect, has issued a 184 page report, “Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” that examines our options and recommends the construction of a peripheral canal—but not before discussing the tradeoffs. I recommend to the general reader, at least taking a look at the accessible 6 page issues brief, “Navigating the Delta: Comparing Futures, Choosing Options,” that the PPIC has issued in conjunction with this report.
Read more from the California Progress Report by clicking here.
Mining’s toxic legacy in the California Sierras
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 21, 2008 at 5:58 am
From the California Progress Report:
Throughout the Sierra Nevada we hear a lot about the “49ers” and the “Legacy” of mining. The iconic image of the miner and his pan is emblazoned everywhere. The stories of gold mining are fascinating tales of bravery, ingenuity, gold strikes and busts. As is often the case with history, however, only part of the story is told.
The other side of the coin is as dark and troubling as the glitter of the gold that blinded the miners to the damage they were doing to the land and its people in their pursuit of it. Cultural genocide, environmental destruction, and wide distribution of toxins are included in this dark legacy. The ongoing presence of mercury, arsenic, asbestos and other heavy metals from historic mining threaten healthy life in the Sierra more than a century after the glitter is gone.
The Sierra Fund is a nonprofit organization in Nevada City, CA, working to raise awareness of Mining’s Toxic Legacy throughout the Sierra Nevada.
The first “49ers” mined gold with pick and pan, however it was not long before industrial scale operations were built to rip gold and other minerals out of the ground in search of huge profits. Mining operations rerouted the rivers, washed away mountains, uprooted and decimated the native people through forced march and murder.
Some 26 million pounds of mercury were imported into the Sierra Nevada to use in gold mining and 13 million pounds of it was released to the environment in the process. Mercury can become highly toxic when it is in the food chain, and pollute large amounts of water, contaminate fish and poison the wildlife and humans who consume them. Since mercury affects the brain and nerves, it is especially dangerous for pregnant women and young children.
Read more on this story from the California Progress Report by clicking here.
Trout Underground on California’s water wars, fisheries, and the peripheral canal
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 19, 2008 at 4:32 pmTom Chandler of the Trout Underground blog, has posted an article on California’s water wars, where he aptly discusses the murky politics of our state’s water issues. Tom’s post outlines many of the issues and gives a history into why some groups feel as strong as they do. It all boils down to trust, Tom writes:
… the Peripheral Canal would divert Sacramento River water before it even reaches the California Delta, reasoning that it’s far less environmentally damaging than using massive pumps to remove from the south end of the Delta.
Most experts agree in theory, but the environmental and fisheries communities - groups with little faith in those running the Central Water Project - can’t see past the potential for massive diversions of water around the Delta, which - combined with even limited pumping - would lead to the complete collapse of the ecosystem.
In essence, the Peripheral Canal issue could come down to trust - something the state’s water users haven’t exactly earned.
Can We Trust the Water Project?
Enviros - most of whom can’t forget the nightmare of the Trinity River, where a pair of dams - which were “guaranteed” to be operated so as not to damage the Trinity’s robust fishery - immediately began robbing the river of as much as 90% of its water. (The majority of that water was shipped to Westlands Water District - the same politically-connected water district who now want to flood miles of trout streams by raising the Shasta Dam.)
After literally decades of litigation, groups like the Friends of the Trinity got a little water returned to the Trinity River, and the result has been steelhead fishing so good that fishermen can’t find places to park on weekends.
More recently, the water project’s massive pumping from the Delta and apparent disregard for the health of the Delta (and the state’s commercially viable fisheries) has pretty much soured the milk as far as enviros are concerned.
Yet Another Water Grab? Where some see a Peripheral Canal as a solution to the state’s water woes, many environmentalists see yet another water grab, and sadly, history (see above) suggests they might be right.
Read the full text of Tom’s post at the Trout Underground by clicking here.
Commentary: Water scarce or water abundant?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 19, 2008 at 3:03 pmFrom Willits News, a commentary which explains how watersheds, groundwater, surface water and urvan development work together in increasing or diminishing a water supply:
Scientific evidence produced by USGS groundwater studies and a recent detailed watershed analysis by the California Department of Fish and Game presents clear evidence that our watersheds capacity to hold water has been greatly reduced by the accumulation of urban developments, gravel and timber extractions, overgrazing, and reservoir impoundments. These and new developments continue to accumulate and degrade the watershed.
This evidence, in brief, begins in the early 1900s with dewatering of Little Lake and diverting the northern outlet. The lake; a mechanism to absorb floodwaters was the most biodiverse element of our watershed. Relocating, straightening, channelizing, and diverting the six main feeder creeks directly to Outlet Creek, bypassing the lake, increased water flows and prevented full saturation of the valley’s aquifer.
Timber harvesting scared the land and loosened the topsoil. The resulting erosion dumped huge sediment loads into the creeks reducing their capacity rendering them shallow. Shallow water increased flood risks and water temperatures and reduced salmon habitat. Overgrazing impacted the soils further reducing groundwater infiltration and altered plant diversity.
These impacts are neither fully understood nor recognized as having anything to do with water scarcity. Water scarcity is produced by water demands that exceed supplies. Supplies are determined by land use and annual rainfall. Human demands are only part of the equation. If we are to live in a lush, biodiverse environment, then biological requirements will have to be considered.
Read the full text of this commentary from Willits News by clicking here.
How does drinking water get to the Santa Clarita Valley?
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 14, 2008 at 7:01 am
From the Santa Clarita Signal, Aquafornia’s home base, part one of a two-part series:
Snow falls on the rocky crest of Kettle Rock in Northern California, 500 miles from Santa Clarita. In this remote and rugged stretch of the Sierra Nevada, carpeted with coniferous trees and skirted with meadows, few hikers ever make it to the 7,300-foot summit or leave their footprints in the snow pack here. But, this is where our story begins - with a single drop of water, melting from the snow pack atop Kettle Rock.
Our story ends in Santa Clarita Valley, where that same drop of water drips from a tap. “This is your watershed. This is the state’s watershed. This is Santa Clarita’s watershed,” said a man who has devoted his life to holding back the forces of climate change threatening the state’s water supply and the supply of water to Santa Clarita. “This watershed is the watershed of the State Water Project, there is no other source.”
Jim Wilcox is the project manager for the Feather River Coordinated Resource Management team in Plumas County. For more than two decades, he and others on his team have been working steadily, and quietly, in the tranquil meadows of Plumas County, trying to reverse a disastrous trend in the changing profile of this landscape. The meadows are disappearing.
Read the rest of this story from the Santa Clarita Signal by clicking here.
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