Odds & ends: Aguanomics weighs in on water & population, more on Cadiz, pictures & historical slideshows, plus conserve water – pee in the shower!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 10, 2009 at 7:53 am

A short odds & ends piece to clear off my desktop:

Aguanomics blogger David Zetland weighs in on water & population: His bottom line? Water has affected population and growth patterns throughout history, but growing environmental consciousness and unstable climate are disrupting these patterns. In the past, politicians directed allocation, engineers built projects, and real estate developers made money. Can these interest groups change their professional habits and institutions from building ahead of demand? Not unless intense outside pressure forces them to consider new ways of thinking, take up economic management tools, and step off our unsustainable path. Read his full report (in pdf form): Aguanomics: Water & Population — Final Draft

More questions about Cadiz project: The Chance of Rain blog continues to question the Cadiz project, this time with an open letter to Governor Schwarenegger, who was quoted in a company press release in June as “applauding the leadership of these Southern California water agencies who are helping address the state’s water supply challenges by exploring a path-breaking, new, sustainable groundwater conservation and storage project.” Blogger/Journalist Emily Green asks the Governor: May the public please know whose efforts you are applauding? Cadiz, Inc has yet to reveal the full list of companies that have allegedly signed letters of intent to remove 150,000 acre feet of Mojave groundwater a year from beneath its table grape farm in San Bernardino County. Read more here: Dear Governor

Meanwhile, Michael Campana of the Water Wired blog weighs in on the Cadiz project and posts some documents related to the project, including one from John G. Bredehoeft, “arguably the greatest living hydrogeologist” writes Campana. At issue: how much recharge in that aquifer? … 1) the annual recharge is more like 5,000 AF, not 50,000 AF the Draft EIR/EIS claims; [and] 2) the annual pumping of native groundwater should be capped at 5,000 AF to make the project sustainable … Read more from Water Wired: The Cadiz Project: Some Documents For Your Reading Pleasure

Interesting historical slideshows & pictures: Check out this slideshow from the LADWP website on William Mulholland & the construction of the Owen’s Valley & Colorado Aqueducts (be patient – it takes some time to download), this slideshow on the history and construction of Shasta Dam from the Bureau of Reclamation, this webpage on the Oroville Dam Train Tunnel disaster, these pictures of the San Francisco Bay salt ponds from Environmental Graffiti, and check out this photostream on flickr from Intake Screens showing the installation of fish screens at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.

And last but not least, this Brazilian ad: Save water by peeing in the shower!

Odds & ends: Drought uncovers ancient city, Lake Shasta, new water treatment plant & groundwater get some blog love, bloggers on the latest PI report, reforming water governance, onerous stormwater regs, plus pictures of salmon migration, 4th of July in the Delta & more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 4, 2009 at 8:21 am

European drought uncovers ancient city: Drought stress on agricultural fields near the edge of Venice lagoon has unveiled the urban infrastructure of the city of Altinum, which dates back to 100 B.C.: The researchers used aerial near-infrared photography which is exquisitely sensitive to vegetation stress to reveal archaeological features such as streets, bridges and buildings underlying the crop fields and a “digital elevation model” to fill in the urban topography. Check it out from the Discovery Channel: A good for something drought

Lake Shasta gets some love …. The League for the Love of Lake Shasta has started a blog at www.keepshastafull.org. They want to remind you to do your part to conserve water and keep Lake Shasta full because “The lake looks amazing when it’s full. And when it’s full at the beginning of the summer recreation season, we all houseboat, wakeboard and fish a little bit happier. So whether you live in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada or even Colorado, do your part wherever you are and love this lake, and all that beautiful water, for all it has to offer. ” Check it out here: http://www.keepshastafull.org/

And how about some love for the new Tesla Water Treatment Facility, perhaps the only water treatment plant with it’s own blog! Think I’m kidding? Where else can you find posts about pipes and excavations … Follow all the action here: Hetch-Hetchy Water System Improvement Program blog

All about groundwater that you didn’t learn in school: Check out this blog dedicated to groundwater: Hydro365. The blog delivers technical information on groundwater, like this post on drilling wells in the Sierra Nevada foothills, or this post on the hardpan in the Central Valley.

Pacific Institute’s approach could lead to more water use than less, says the Aguanomics blog: we need some empirical evidence to help us understand which outcome is more likely to happen. Conveniently, some researchers at my old department at UC Davis have looked into this question, and this [PDF] is what they find: “We consider two voluntary, incentive-based groundwater conservation programs and estimate their effects on groundwater extraction for irrigated agriculture. We find that the programs do not have the intended effect; the subsidization of more efficient irrigation technology induces the production of more water-intensive crops, thus increasing total extraction, and land retirement programs are generally not utilized on irrigated land, thus having little effect on groundwater extraction.” So the Pacific Institute’s proposal to subsidize the use of technology to reduce agricultural water use is more likely to increase use than decrease it. Read more from the Aguanomics blog: Technology Use Up, Water Use Up

There is an alternative to the market-based, capitalistic agricultural economy envisioned by the Pacific Institute, says the On the Public Record blog: We could have a healthy agricultural economy that produced sufficient food for California by capping farming production to something scaled to sustainable practices, buying that food, plus subsidizing farmers for farming the way we want them to. … I no longer want to export California’s environmental quality, its water, sun and salmon, bundled into almonds and apricots. I don’t want to do that even if a market supports it, even if people on the East Coast would like to eat what we grow*. I don’t want to depend on a growth economy when I think we’re approaching the physical limits of our stocks and flows. Read more here from the On the Public Record blog: Of course that would require a functional state government.

New publication on water governance from the International Union for Conservation of Nature: This toolkit will introduce readers to the central role played by policy, law and institutions in designing and implementing good governance for water resources. It will guide users through approaches to reforming water governance, including useful mechanisms for incorporating environmental considerations into water laws and policies. It is intended for use by water professionals, working in water management, who do not have a law background. Check it out here: Rule: reforming water governance

New stormwater regulations will drive up cost of new construction considerably, only making “new homes, factories, schools and hospitals more expensive to build, more difficult to finance, and ultimately less likely to ever happen”, says the Cheat Seeking Missiles blog: If run off is such a problem, why not treat it as sewage and send it to a treatment plant? We tried to get that cost effective and reasonable idea approved by any number of regional boards, but they said they wanted the conveyance systems – be it a creek or a concrete-lined channel – to be “fishable” and “swimable.” We had some fun with that, creating this image of what every Southern Californian would rather do than go to a nearby beach. Up and down the state, Regional Boards are foisting this kind of insanity, pretending its normal human behavior. And they’re getting away with it. Read more from the Cheat Seeking Missiles blog: Crazifornia: Imperial Imperviousness

Pictures of salmon migrations, the Delta & more: Check out Environmental Graffiti’s picture essay of migrating salmon, photographer Adrian Mendoza spends 4th of July in the Delta, here’s more of Adrian’s fabulous aerial shots of the Delta, incredible waterfall cavern pictures, and not water related but cool: mind boggling photo manipulationsand The Big Picture blog does lightning. Enjoy!

Odds and ends: Buy more imported water rather than conserve?, bloggers discuss outdoor irrigation & groundwater recharge, MLPA in Malibu, farmer disputes Spreck’s 86% number, educate yourself and make exploding drinks, plus some great picture galleries!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 21, 2009 at 10:03 am

Great stuff in today’s edition of odds & ends:

Should Pasadena buy water from Northern California instead of enforcing conservation? It would cost close to the same, Blogger Wayne Lusvardi says: The San Diego County Water Authority is about to purchase enough water for 40,000 households for one year from Folsom Dam in Placer County, operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation at a price of $5.5 million, or $275 per acre foot (or $137.50 per household per year). He then points out: To comply with water conservation mandates Pasadena plans to hire six new water enforcement personnel and set up a water court for water wasters to appeal fines at an administrative cost of about $1,000,000. Buying 3,750 acre feet of raw water from Folsom Dam in lieu of a 10% water cutback would only cost about $1 million plus, say, about $375,000 in treatment costs for a total of about $1,375,000, or about $183 per household per year. (Note: This may not include conveyance costs). Read more from the Pasadena SubRosa blog: Would it be better to buy imported water or hike water rates?

Does outside irrigation recharge groundwater aquifers? This question was raised by Wayne Lusvardi of the Pasadena SubRosa blog in a recent “Perspectives” section of the Pasadena Star News: It featured the mainstream conservationist views of Pasadena water expert Tim Brick, the chairman of the mammoth Metropolitan Water District, and then the skeptical minority-report take of Pasadena Sub Rosa blogger Wayne Lusvardi and water engineer David Powell. They argued that cutting back on irrigation of what Wayne in another place terms “traditional” landscaping could have the unintended consequence of failing to recharge the huge underground aquifer known as the Raymond Basin beneath much of the West San Gabriel Valley, from which we get a lot of well water. (Some would say that topiaried hedgerows, massive lawns and begonias are traditional if you live in the Lake District and not the Southwest, but that’s another story.) Our former City Hall reporter John Fleck, now a science writer and the reigning water-policy wonk at the Albuquerque Journal, saw a reference on our editorial page to the failing-to-recharge theory and posted it on his blog, soliciting comments from any experts. You can read what Larry Wilson has to say from the Pasadena Star News: Bloggers divided on watering lawns, and check out the conversation on John Fleck’s Inkstain blog: Groundwater recharge in California

More on the MLPA meeting in Malibu:A fisherman shares his sobering thoughts on the MLPA and why it is needed: The truly sad thing is that we’re incapable of policing ourselves. There wouldn’t be a need for reserves if we could understand what is happening, educate ourselves and act accordingly. But we’ve put a dollar sign on fish and measure our success in tons. Our ego driven, trophy hunger demands taking the largest fish, usually the biggest breeding females. Convincing people to rethink these parameters is the tough sell. Will posting “no fishing” signs in the best fishing spots accomplish this? Doubtful. Will we, once again, make a law abiding public into criminals, crowding the over-burdened courts? Probably.  Many people refuse to believe there is global warming, severely diminished fisheries, global ocean pollution; they just want their calamari, their sashimi, their surf and turf, and their Mcfish sandwiches. Regardless of the cost. Stronger education and alternative aquaculture is the key, but we live in a punitive country that loves to pass laws and punish those that don’t obey. Read more of this forum post from BloodyDecks: Some MLPA in Malibu observations…

Westlands getting 86% of their water?  No way, says Westlands farmer Shawn Coburn, who takes issue with Spreck Rosenkranz’s calculations: Cherry picking data from previous years is disingenuous at best. Spreck did not inform the readers of his article that this data at best is a rough estimate, example 1 transfer water at 172, we will be lucky if we can get the south of the delta transfers done this year which is 80 not 172. Ground water pumping is used in his scenario to prove his point that WWD is at 86%, first no one knows what is going to be pumped, my standing water levels on all of my properties east or west are going down, secondly I find it quite interesting that this “Estimate” does not account for any ground water pumping for Friant, more water is pumped in Friant than has ever been annually pumped in WWD simply based on aquifer constraints and quality. Just this omission of fact should shed some light on the validity of this draft. Read more from the Aguanomics blog: Waterflows II (Shawn for Spreck)

Clean Water Act course available online: Check out the River Network’s Clean Water Act course by clicking here.

Just for fun, Wired gives you instructions on how to mix an exploding drink and Thirsty in Suburbia tells you four corny water jokes.

Picture galleries worth checking out, both water related and not: Here’s the Long Beach Post’s slideshow of the Colorado River Aqueduct, and Scientific American has posted a view of China’s Three Gorges Dam from space. Not water related but interesting nonetheless: Aerial shots of the San Andreas Fault by Environmental Graffitti, Wired’s Oddities of NASA’s Massive Image Archive, and the Big Picture’s Dance Around the World.

Monday afternoon odds and ends: Aerial shots of the rivers, it’s really fish vs. wine, psychotic shower curtains, Moss Beach stroll, new Delta website, is gold dredging good for the salmon? and more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 8, 2009 at 1:32 pm

The latest in an occasional series on what’s going on around the internet…

Aerial shots of some of the rivers in the west, including the Colorado River and Idaho’s Snake River, ending with a multitude of shots of the Delta, whose highly altered landscape makes incredible designs on the earth when viewed from above. Check it out from Environmental Graffiti: America’s Rivers from Above

It’s not fish vs. people, it’s really fish vs. wine, says the Irregular Times blog: The Green Man writes: In California, people aligned with Big Agriculture are complaining that the issue is one of fish vs. people, and the National Marine Fisheries has chosen to side with fish, against people. Is that how it really is? Well, people aren’t drinking that irrigation water. Plants are. Some of those plants provide food crops, and some provide a harvest that’s a bit more recreational. The area is part of the top wine-producing regions in the United States. People drink wine. I like to drink wine myself. But, people like to eat fish too, especially the endangered Chinook salmon populations of which have become so decimated as a result of California’s irrigation projects, the salmon fishing season has been canceled for two years in a row. The salmon contribute strongly to the local economy too. So, this conflict isn’t really about fish vs. people. To be more accurate, it’s about fish vs. wine. Read more from the Irregular Times blog: It’s Fish Vs. Wine, Not Fish Vs. People

Psychotic shower curtains makes sure you don’t waste time in the shower: French designer Elisabeth Buecher has found a way to help remind us that long showers waste water as well as energy used by the water heater. Her concepts for a green shower curtain might seem a little pushy, but the result is a better world for all of us. This represents what Elisabeth describes as “Design for pain and for our own good.” Check it out from Divine Caroline: Pushy shower curtain forces you to be green

Moss Beach Stroll – Highway 1’s best kept secret, says the SF Examiner: A breathtaking beach walk; a scenic cliff-top hike; a chance to see harbor seals up-close-and-personal; and if you keep your eyes peeled, perhaps a whale to two breaching and blowing or, at this time of year, flocks of pelicans heading north. Then there are the rock pools to explore; sand for the kids to dig in if you take them along; and an incidental visit to one of the world’s most famous surfing spots, which just happens to be a marker on the trail. If you’re making the trip this summer, check out this article: California Highway 1 best kept secret: The Moss Beach coastal stroll

New website about the Delta: I have to admit this one mystifies me a little bit. It’s called Delta National Park, although apparently it’s mission is not to advocate for a Delta National Park; instead: The site is intended to be a forum for critical exchange, and is open to others who would like to contribute content, including especially speculative design projects and mapping analysis at any scale. Visitors are encouraged to contribute links to relevant sites, stories, photographs, documents and other material. It’s put together by John Bass, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. There’s already YouTube videos and a photo gallery. Check it out: Delta National Park website

Does gold dredging actually help the salmon? Sure does, says the Gold Rush University in this YouTube clip:

And it cleans mercury from the waterways and is good for the environment, they also say. Disclosure: this group aims to teach you how to dredge for gold yourself.

More pictures: Check out this picture gallery of art made from trash from the Fake Plastic Fish blog, the TreeHugger blog has a gallery of interesting water shots, and photographer Adrian Mendoza goes windsurfing on the Delta.

Odds and ends: FOX, Westlands & the ’shock doctrine’, stupid arguments against desal, Lloyd Carter on the farmworker’s march, Zetland on Sacramento’s pee, hydric deficit calculations, California’s engineering disasters & more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 25, 2009 at 8:13 am

“Meet FOX’s victim of the month, Westlands Water District,” says the FireDogLake blog: One-fourth the size of Connecticut, owned by a few hundred wealthy families and trusts, in hock to us taxpayers for nearly half a billion dollars, and laden with farmers who get triple Federal subsidies (crop, water, electricity). Oh, and, nearly 300,000 acres, much of it public lands, poisoned, so severely with heavy metals that the land will be toxic for millennia. Fox is feeding us the Shock Doctrine, so says the blogger: Where’s the Shock Doctrine come in? Pretending market failure is actually a natural resources “emergency.” Taking up that intentional lie and using it to demand suspension of Federal law, California law, and a century of water rights senior to Westlands’. Creating the mechanism for a handful of very wealthy, very powerful people to take perpetual control over the commons, in the form of publicly owned water from state and Federal projects. Water that just happens to be the part of the commons that we all require, every day, to live. Read more from the Fire Dog Lake blog: Westlands: 300,000 Acres of Hot Water Perfect for a FOX Teabag

Stupid arguments against desalination, says blogger: The Learning Diary of an Israeli Water Engineer explores what the blogger feels are two of the stupidest arguments against desalination. The first one being the concern for corporate control of seawater, a common property of all humanity, and the second one being the ‘disminution’ of fish: This is a favorite “green” argument that I never understood. Say before the Poseidon plant there were two trillion small fishes we call the schmietzsch. Say the schmietzsch likes sea water with 30,000 mg salt/lt and the plant will increase salinity in a 100 meter radius. Some schmietzsch may have to emigrate. The overall number of schmietzsch may decrease to only one trillion and nine hundred billion, but a second species called “saltwater schmietzsch” that looks exactly like the schmietzsch will colonize the newly underpopulated waters. The overall biomass will not suffer or even increase. Diversity will increase. By what law of nature there is a need for a fixed number of schmietzsch to exist? Every living population fluctuates, there are no fixed numbers at all. And the schmietzsch may been a Central European immigrant that arrived in 1945. What are its rights? Why Poseidon has to build an artificial schmietzsch paradise? Read more here: The Stupidest Arguments Against Desalination

Lloyd Carter weighs in on the farmworker’s March for Water, pointing out that the United Farm Workers Union was noticeably not present, a fact not widely reported in the press. Lloyd writes: In my view, the coverage of the march by San Joaquin Valley media outlets was little more than cheerleading for the region’s biggest industry. Not one reporter asked whether or not Comedian Paul Rodriguez is being paid for any of his efforts, nor how much the march cost, or who actually is bankrolling the California Latino Water Coalition although it seems obvious it is the growers and not the poverty-stricken farmworkers. Read more from the Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood blog: “March for water” was not a farmworkers’ march.

Aguanomics chats via email with Claudia Goss of the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District: Claudia defends the SRCSD: First, ammonia from Sacramento’s discharge has not to date been found to be responsible for the decline in Delta fish species. (Unlike water exports which have actually been proven to have caused significant impacts.) You should be aware that SRCSD and its treatment plant meets all of its regulatory and water quality requirements at a high rate of compliance, including attainment of US EPA aquatic life criteria for ammonia in the Sacramento River. However, we have been the first to state that if scientific analysis finds that, under current conditions, SRCSD’s discharge is adversely impacting the Delta environment and that ammonia reduction is the best course of action, we will expect to pay our fair share and address the problem. Secondly, we believe prudent policy and fiscal management dictate the largest Delta impacts be tackled first – namely reduced flow effects and fish losses associated with SWP and CVP project operations – instead of expending significant resources to nibble around the edges of the problem. Otherwise many million more dollars will be spent on “solutions” that will not fix the problem. Zetland responds, saying in part, I would not hide behind the figleaf of compliance with EPA guidelines. It’s easy to obey the law and still do harm and I agree that there is more politics than science in these issues — mostly because politics is a winner-take-all game! Read the full text of the email and response from the Aguanomics blog: Sacramento’s Pee

Calling all math nerds! How to calculate hydric deficit: The Lost in the Landscape blog calculates hydric deficit for San Diego and for some of the other areas of California, and shows you how to calculate your own: how dry am i?

Some of California’s engineering disasters featured on Modern Marvels: Check out this online episode of Modern Marvels on engineering disasters, covering the Baldwin Hills reservoir break in Los Angeles, the Salton Sea, and the Aral Sea, among others. From VideoSift: Modern Marvels – Engineering Disasters

Entertaining video on groundwater, produced by King’s County in Washington:

Honorable mentions for interestingness: Hippies, Hollywood and the Flush Factor from the New York Times, How Many is Too Many from the California Greening blog, Like Clockwork, State Raises Water Deliveries to 40% After Propositions Defeated by the Pasadena SubRosa blog, off-topic but interesting – GOOD Picture Show: Traffic!

Odds and ends: a 1951 solution to moving water, Delta smelt can never be endangered says speaker, invasive species ballads, Led Zeppelin and levees, lithium in drinking water supplies, bloggers on all sorts of subjects, photoblogs galore, & more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 12, 2009 at 2:36 pm

Loads of interesting things for today’s way overdue installment:

We don’t need no stinkin’ peripheral canal to move water around the state if we implement this radical idea … Check out this from a 1951 issue of the magazine Modern Mechanics to move water around from the Modern Mechanics blog: California’s Big Squirt (October, 1951) Hey… no one said anything about moving water over the Delta …! (hat tip to Thirsty in Suburbia)

Delta smelt is ‘threatened’, not ‘endangered’, and it can never be considered endangered, says this speaker at the Fresno County Farm Bureau:

Posts worth reading on a variety of subjects, too many to be summarized and posted, so here’s the short list: Food Grows Where Water Flows by the California Greening blog, Desalinomics 101: ‘No Cost’ Desal Costs A Lot! How your tax dollars built the desalination business by Orange Coast Voice, California: More than Just Economic Problems (Plus Some Potential Solutions) by Seeking Alpha, California Central Valley Water Issues Worth Watching by Beezer Notes, and Wetlands Caused Big Jump In Sea Level Rise by the Cheat Seeking Missiles blog.

Melodies for mussels? It’s music with a message, from the U of Wisconsin Extension Service! Check out the folk song, The Ballad of Aquatic Species; dance along with the rockabilly tune, Clean Boats, Clean Waters, or rock out to One Bait, One Lake. According to the website, The songs have been vetted by natural resource professionals to assure they are scientifically accurate and recommendations are consistent with current laws. Listen to these songs and share with others to promote simple behaviors that can protect the quality of our lakes and rivers for future generations. Check it out here: Preventing the Spread of Aquatic Invasive Species: Music with a Message

Led Zeppelin and a national levee policy ..? Yeah, mama, you got to move when the levee breaks … WaterWired invokes the Led Zeppelin song while posting this article from the National Society of Professional Engineers, calling for a national levee safety policy: Cryin’ and Prayin’ Won’t Do You No Good…When the Levee Breaks, Mama You Got to Move, while Thirsty in Suburbia posts her favorite covers of the song: h2o mp3s: When the Levee Breaks: Covers

Who’da thunk… Lithium in water reduces suicide rates! From BBC News: [Japanese] Researchers examined levels of lithium in drinking water and suicide rates in the prefecture of Oita, which has a population of more than one million. The suicide rate was significantly lower in those areas with the highest levels of the element, they wrote in the British Journal of Psychiatry. More from BBC News: Lithium in water ‘curbs suicide’

Photo essays worth looking at: More fabulous aerial shots of the Delta (taken May 6th) from Adrian Mendoza, Stunning shots of Death Valley and Mono Lake by Tom Mackie, interesting shots of human landscapes from above by the Boston Globe’s Big Picture blog, and bloggers visit the Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge Complex and Slab City.

Odds and ends: FOR blasts the peripheral canal, more on the Public Water Coalition, ag subsidies distort the market, urban runoff that’s not urban, free online course in watershed management, your chance to be the ultimate worldwide water God, plus pictures & more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 23, 2009 at 12:16 pm

There’s so much here in this jam-packed edition of Odds and Ends, I simply cannot list it all in the title!

If you’re for the peripheral canal, you’re for river destruction, says the Friends of the River blog, because a peripheral canal only makes sense in conjunction with more dams. Let’s also be honest about the PC’s potential. It COULD be run well and it could reduce the negative impacts of Delta pumping. The problem is that with water in California the potential for good is often overwhelmed by the political necessities of harmful decisions. If the PC is built, water WILL be shipped south at times that more fresh water is needed in the Delta. It will happen and if you think otherwise, well, I have a great investment opportunity for you with Madoff Investments. From the Friends of the River blog: The Peripheral Canal … Let’s Be Honest

More on the Public Water Coalition: The On the Public Record blog tracks down their position paper and checks it out. What is this coalition about? Every recommendation in the report is a way to protect the power of the already powerful water interests in the state. If you want to know the water buffalo party line, this is it. (Given that, I’m impressed with the extent to which they have conceded that environmental management is necessary. I’m thinking that is Tim Quinn’s influence.) This position paper heavily favors the upper Sacramento Valley water users, which doesn’t surprise me, because it looks as if they were the organizers for this coalition. They are throwing the in-Delta farmers TO THE WOLVES. Advocates for maintaining the Delta in its current state, know that the big dogs have turned on you. More analysis and commentary on the paper from the On The Public Record blog: Introduction, I got mine, II. e. Real Time Operations/Monitoring/Reporting

Subsidies distort the market, says the Environmental Working Group’s Mulch Blog, responding to the recent AP article. These subsidies encourage inefficient water uses by encouraging farmers to grown water-thirsty crops in arid places: The AP reporter made highly conservative assumptions, resulting in a subsidies estimate at the low end of the range calculated by EWG. But even AP’s numbers show that taxpayers have paid huge amounts to double-dippers – and for what? Countless farm communities are facing disaster. So we have to wonder — what if just half of that money had gone towards supporting farmers to implement water conservation practices? More from the Environmental Working Group’s Mulch Blog: Federal Subsidies Worsen California Drought

All ‘urban runoff’ is not necessarily ‘urban’, discovers the LA Creek Freak in a mapping project of local streams.  While mapping streams past and present in the Hollywood Hills, she discovers a stream not dry – and feeding into the local storm drain system.  She ponders how much ‘urban runoff’ is generated from urban sources:  True, we have no shortage of waste from poor water management, and plenty of it is polluted.  But here is interesting evidence that some runoff is from a stream just being a stream – and that it would still be flowing in a stream if we hadn’t rammed a street through it.  Suggestive to me, anyway, that we might want to have a policy for managing this urban runoff a little differently than treating it like wastewater.More from the LA Creek Freak: Urban runoff?

Free online course in watershed management from the U.S. EPA: Complete 15 modules and you can earn a signed certificate. The course requires no registration, admission, or tuition is necessary, is open to everyone worldwide, at any time, and is completely Internet-based. Get more details from the EPA by clicking here.

Your chance to be the ultimate water God – play the World Water Game: You can download this free game from Delft Hydraulics: The WWG is a computer game with a double purpose. One, to be played as a game in the spirit of challenge, tension and fun. Two, to show students and other non-professionals the relationship between four extremely important elements: population growth; water supply (and use); food demand and production; and measures taken and investments made to avoid hunger, and even starvation, situations in the coming century. WWG players become World Water Managers with incalculably more power and responsibility than any single person will ever have in the real world. They have to manage the world’s precious water resources and public funds sensibly and ensure that the 19 World Water Regions remain reasonably self-sufficient in food production. Hat tip to the Sisweb for this one! Delft Hydraulics presents the World Water Game

Pictures and other fun stuff: Is this not a rather obscene water tower? and The Top 10 Water Idioms from the Thirsty in Suburbia blog, Astronauts photograph water flowing to Southern California from the Science Dude, and On Walkabout blog posts about the Hoover dam tour, with plenty of pictures and information. Here’s three new water blogs (AWRA blog) and not this guy again with his Plasma Incubator Reactor Desalination System again (why am I thinking of that Bugs Bunny cartoon with the little Martian guy…?)

And here’s even more: Tim Brick discussing the federal stimulus money on the KCRA News: Capitol Corner: California’s Drought Woes Continue, Westchester Parents notes that the LA City Council skipped Phase II restrictions and jumped to Phase III, and the New Yorker Magazine on the shrinking of Lake Mead.

Odds and ends: bloggers blog about desal, the Delta,and drought, DWR’s drought report to the Governator, how much nature is enough, balance the budget and turn out the lights at the Coliseum yourself, plus all the best water pranks!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on April 5, 2009 at 11:31 am

Lots of interesting things today out there in the blogosphere:

Do we really ‘need’ desal, asks the LA Creek Freak? Depends upon what you think our ‘needs’ are, writes the blogger, responding to the recent High Country News editorial: [My generation] has watched our resource-consumptive lifestyles drain rivers even further afield; in our name (if not strictly our need) the salmon fisheries collapsed. And yet we stand at a crossroads, seeing in the ocean opportunity, and barely draw breath. Now would be a good time to pause, take stock of our actions, and contemplate what “need” really constitutes for us humans. For once again, the voices of reason have insisted that we “need” desal. Enviros who object are resisting technology and refusing to reckon with the “reality” that we need more water. The easy choice is the one to perpetuate our water-wasting life styles through expensive and impactful techonologies so that we don’t have to make the more difficult choice of changing our lifestyles, writes the LA Creek Freak. Check it out: Whiskey’s for drinkin’ … desal ’s for fightin’

WaterWired’s Michael Campana blogs about the California Delta: Inspired by Delta Dawn, no doubt, Michael Campana pens a post about the Delta after attending a lecture by U.C. Davis’ Dr. Jeffrey Mount: I was quite surprised at what we had done to the Delta. We have ‘reclaimed’ 700,000 acres. I knew ’some’ land had been lost since we began farming the Delta but I had no idea it was something like 2.6B cubic meters. That has caused many of the islands in the Delta to be below sea level (in some cases tens of feet), and is the reason why levee protection is such a critical issue (1100 miles of levees). Jeff noted the drivers of change in the system: 1) sea level rise; 2) seismicity; 3) changing inflows; 4) land subsidence; and 5) economics (competing public interests and limited public funds). Read more about WaterWired’s thoughts on the complicated Delta problems: The California Bay-Delta Imbroglio: An Expert’s View

What does drought mean to the typical California urban water user? Not much, says the On The Public Record blog: Because most urban Californians will never experience an interruption of water service, nor rations small enough to threaten their bodily uses of water, what drought really means to most people is that they have to pay attention. What they really want is a few daily experiences (that don’t have to take much actual wet water) and that they don’t have to think about it. In a society as rich as ours, a drought starts the moment casual users have to think about it. The marker of the start of a drought is completely independent of snowpack or precip. For most people, a drought starts when they get a bill insert or see something about it in the news. At that point, the privilege of living in such a wealthy society that you don’t have to fix your broken sprinkler is gone**. That is what drought will mean to most people. From On the Public Record blog: What drought means to most California water users

Speaking of drought, you can check out Lester Snow’s 34 page report to the Governor on the California drought, sent over to the Governator just last week by clicking here.

How much nature is enough? Is there a way to build support for leaving some portion of a resource untapped for the sake of other species and, in the end, ourselves? The Dot Earth blog ponders the fate of dolphins and porpoises, and other endangered species in relation to what’s left of the Colorado Delta: The real trouble for these mammals and a host of less charismatic coastal species now results from human activity at greater and greater distances, as dam building and withdrawals of fresh water for growing cities upstream disrupt the brackish ecosystems where a river meets the sea. A classic case is the Colorado, seen in the NASA image above and another view here. After reading Wednesday’s piece, Bice Wilson, a Dot Earth reader, posted a wrenching comment describing his experience visiting the dessicated Colorado delta. Read it here from the New York Times Dot Earth blog: Thirsty Cities, Dolphins and Dead Clams

Check out the Salton Sea if you want to see and smell something different, says blogger: This enormous inland lake lies east of San Diego on the other side of some mountains the make that entire region a desert. The Salton Sea submerged the Salton Sink, which was the lowest point in North America before that, a place of honor now held by Death Valley. When I was a boy, the Sea was still a resort destination in the winter, a place for the Rat Pack glitterati to boat and fish and drink when they tired of nearby Palm Springs. My interest in it was piqued recently when I read about Albert Frey, an architect who designed in the Desert Modern Style, and built the Salton Sea Yacht Club. The post gives a brief history of how the sea came to be. Read more from the Journey to Perplexity blog: Silent Sea, Salton Sea

Think you can do a better job of balancing the budget then our elected legislators? What programs would you cut? What taxes would you raise? You can give it a try yourself here at the California Budget Challenge. If you like what you create, you can even send it off to legislators. Warning: it’s not at easy at it looks! Take the California Budget Challenge.

Flip the switch and turn out lights all over the world in this photo gallery of Earth Hour from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture: Very cool! You can turn off the lights at Beijing’s Water Cube, Rome’s Coliseum, and even the Las Vegas Strip. Check it out from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture: Earth Hour 2009

A gallery of April Fool’s pranks involving water: How did I miss this one, too! (Aqua Blog Maven is shaking head woefully….) Not only classics, like rigging the sink sprayer to spray in the face, but also pranks like gelatin-filled toilet bowls and more. From Thirsty in Suburbia: March 31st: The Annual Day of Readiness

Odds & Ends: Concept maps for the peripheral canal, pricing and population growth, Zetland reviews Exec. Briefing, environmentally friendly boxed water, do DWP’s new rates discriminate against families?, San Diego garden tours, a National Aqueduct?, vegetable gardening the lazy way, pictures of the Hoover Bridge construction, underwater volcanic explosions, and spring in Sacramento, plus more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 26, 2009 at 5:10 pm

Perhaps the lengthiest odds and ends post ever!

Delta maps and posters used in the BDCP scoping process now available online, including “concept-level conveyance maps”. From Delta e-news: The nine maps and 13 informational posters used in DWR’s series of 12 scoping meetings — including tonight’s meeting n Clarksburg — are now available online. The meetings were designed to share the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) environmental review process and to solicit public comment. The meetings allowed the public, agencies, and tribes to review the scope of the Environmental Impact Report and Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS). Meetings this week were held in Brentwood, Stockton and Fairfield; tonight’s meeting in Clarksburg (6 to 10 p.m., Clarksburg Community Church, 52910 Netherlands Ave.) is the final meeting in the series. The concept-level conveyance maps can be found here. The posters include such topics as climate change, land use and recreation. The posters can be found here.

Proper pricing can control population growth in the Southwest, writes Aguanomics blogger David Zetland. Population is NOT something that we can “manage” to an efficient level. (Note how the Chinese one-child policy cut population growth but led — via selective abortion — to a “shortage” of women, a problem that has fed a growing business of kidnapping women from elsewhere.) Population will rise and fall as the cost and benefit of children changes. The “demographic transition” begins (population rising quickly) when babies stop dying, food is cheap, and adults live to 60+ years. The transition ends (population stabilizes) when women can choose how many children to have and bear a cost (i.e., lost work time) for additional children. I’m not sure how the Octomom fits into that, but okay…. Bottom line, says Zetland: I predict (as others have) that the southwestern population will get denser as expensive water leads to smaller lawns and shrink as desert living becomes more expensive. As usual, those predictions may be swamped by other considerations (the same way that New Yorkers are happy to pay high rents in exchange for the “good life”), but I have no doubt that water shortages (or expensive water) will dampen the appeal of the Southwest. Read more from the Aguanomics blog: Water and population

Aguanomic’s David Zetland reviews the Water Education Foundation’s Executive Briefing, where he was a panelist. He’s posted mp3’s of the various speeches and panels, and writes: The most surprising things to me were the absence of discussion on pricing or markets, Lester Snow’s assertion that the Drought Water Bank would handle 500TAF, and the need for a “Delta Conservancy.” (Seems that the Nature Conservancy’s endorsement of the Peripheral Canal is already paying off!) Bottom Line: It was good to get everyone in the same room — even if they did not agree on everything or failed to consider “unconventional” ways to manage our water. Check it out from the Aguanomics blog: Report: Water Education Foundation

Introducing the environmentally-friendly boxed water: Considering that every piece of plastic ever made is still existing here on earth, somewhere, here may be the answer to those who don’t want to give up the portable, disposable beverage: Benjamin Edgar, designer of Boxed Water, has created a product that appeals to consumer consciousness from several angles. The product provides an efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to the conventional product. The trees harvested to produce the boxes come from certified sustainable forests. The efficient box shape means a greater quantity of unites pack into a smaller space. More boxes per truck equals fewer trucks — hence, a reduced carbon footprint. Since most of the impact comes from the bottle itself, maybe it is the answer for some. (Not me, though … I use refillable bottles.) Check it out from the Circle of Blue blog: Water designer turns box thinking inside out

Extensive list of garden tours in San Diego County from the San Diego Union Tribune: There’s a garden to suit every dream of green in this year’s crop of area garden tours. If you’re treating yourself to one or more of the opportunities, find out what the requirements are: Some tours don’t allow heels, others will be held rain or shine, still others might cancel in case of heavy rain with no refund. Always wear sensible shoes, take water and a hat and don’t forget to enjoy. Check it out from the San Diego Union Tribune: Season’s garden tours offer a blooming bonanza

LA DWP’s new rate structure discriminates against families, says the Westchester Parents blog: The unfortunate result of reducing the basic (Tier I) allotment is that it hurts the pocketbook of households with three or more members, particularly those with kids. Single member households and couples will easily stay under the 24 HFC tier level. However, households with children will end up paying more since water rates are not based on the number of people living in the home. If you have three or four children, each taking daily baths, brushing teeth, doing laundry for them, etc. you will obviously use more water, but probably less per capita than a one or two person household. Households with three or more members are the ones who will be penalized, he says, since the tier rates don’t account for the number of people in a household. From the Westchester Parents blog: Does L.A.’s proposed water rate structure discriminate against families?

Stimulus on steriods: One blogger’s idea for a really BIG water project: The nation needs a major building project: a national aqueduct system capable of moving the massive amounts of fresh-water runoff so much of the north and northeastern states must worry about each spring, and transport them to California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and the surprisingly water-poor areas in the Midwest. Letting all of this precious resource simply wash back to the ocean seems such a waste (of course a fair amount MUST be allowed to flow through in order to preserve the natural downstream environment). With proper treatment, we might also be able to use the flood-waters due to massive storms that create misery in many areas every year. How much will this cost to build? A lot. How much to maintain? A lot. How much will it cost if we don’t build it? A lot more. How much will it cost if we wait to build it when energy costs for vehicles, materials, and ore refining rise? A whole lot more. If we don’t, this blogger writes, the whole economics of raising animals is going to have to change. Check it out from the Therefore I Blog blog: Investing in Infrastructure – A National Aqueduct

The White House gets a garden, the Governor’s going to have one, too – how about you? I have a garden every year – my homegrown tomatoes can’t be beat! Having a vegetable garden can be easy if you set it up right… easy, yeah right, you think? Over the past twelve years, I have perfected the lazy gardening way… Check it out in this old post I wrote, posted over at the Valley News: Lazy gardener’s guide to growing veggies in SCV

Waterblogged’s Shaun McKinnon posts these pictures of the Hoover Dam Bridge, currently under construction. Just back from a week away from Waterblogged World Headquarters, thought I’d share pix from a trip north, up near, um, Hoover Dam. I was, uh, researching Colorado River issues. That’s it. Anyway, work is moving ahead slowly (and that’s understating the progress) on the big bypass bridge over the Colorado, a span intended to move traffic off Hoover Dam, especially the big trucks. Due to be completed in 2010, (really?) he likens part of it to Megatron escaping from deep inside Hoover Dam…. Check it out from Waterblogged: Hoover Dam Bridge up in the air

Picture gallery of undersea eruptions: The Boston Globe has a regular feature called “The Big Picture” which always features high resolution photos of various topics. Click here to see a stunning photo gallery of the undersea eruptions from near Tonga.

Spring in Sacramento: Check out the Sacramento Bee’s gallery of spring photos by clicking here.

Honorable mentions: I could do a whole odds and ends post on water pricing, but heck, that’s what Aguanomics is for, like this post: Yes to prices. Other people write about it, too: Here’s the Leakbird Blog: Vieled Water Wonk Wars: Richard Stavins vs David Zetland on water conservation pricing, and this series of posts from the On the Public Record blog: Why it isn’t simple to charge market rates for water. Background., Long digression on the opposition to rate increases., and Why districts are slow to charge market rates for water. Also interesting, this post from LA Creak Freek: Saving salmonids: some technical fixes, and the ubre-cool Trout Underground shows us how wearing bright orange inflatable pants on your head is the future of fly fishing: Sure, Laugh Now, But This is Fly Fishing’s Next Big Thing

Odds and ends: Your lawn an ‘unreasonable use’ of water?, rationing and development in LA, our real crisis not budget but water, Aguanomics water chats in the Imperial Valley, PLF on the priorities of water allocations, the good and bad of desal, update on TCID case, Australia’s toilet tax – “pay as you go”, and beautiful aerial shots of the Delta, plus more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 22, 2009 at 11:03 pm

With my desktop filling up, this post is long overdue…..

Could your thirsty green lawn be determined an ‘unreasonable use’ of water? Quite possibly, says the Pasadena Sub Rosa blog, and we all had better pay attention: An anonymous apparent insider to the backstage dealings of California’s water crisis has alerted this blog to the real possibility that imported water could be shut off soon to Southern California’s cities if the cities have the wrong type of landscaping (i.e., water thirsty home gardens). This shut off scenario could hit Southern California cities out of nowhere much like the world-wide financial meltdown appeared nearly overnight. And like the financial meltdown, it would be wise to listen to those who are furtively trying to give us an early warning signal of this emerging situation. Read all about it from the Pasadean Sub Rosa blog: Imported water to So Cal cities could be shut off soon if they have the wrong landscaping

LA’s rationing plan & penalties especially unfair to the residential class, especially considering Los Angeles city council’s penchant for building more and more housing without regards to infrastructure, says the Westerhcester Parents blog: Imposing penalties on residents is bad policy given that the drought was created by ill-managed housing policies throughtout Southern California and not mother nature alone. The problem is.. our elected officials “build at all opportunities” housing policy. As if there are no other Southern California regions participating in the larger equation. Participants such as the other five counties including Imperial, Orange, Riverside, Orange and San Bernadino counties who all have similar myopic goals to meet California’s populaton projections. This is classic “silo mentality” thinking at the county and city level. Read more from the Westchester Parents blog: Wrecking L.A.’s residential class

Forget the budget – California’s real crisis is water management, says the TreeHugger blog: Last minute negotiations may have solved California’s budget crisis; but, a more protracted problem shadows the future of civilization-as-they-know-it: water reservoirs are drying up; and climate change is likely to worsen the problem. Food prices throughout North American, and even parts of Asia, which import produce from California, will be affected in the short-term. Long-term water shortage prospects point to an either-or scenario: social disorganization on a large scale or, alternatively, to massive, government-funded water project expansions, plus water conservation measures, and dietary changes. Read more from the TreeHugger blog: California’s Real Sustainabilty Problem: Not Budgets, Water Resources Management

Aguanomics travels south for ‘water chats’ in the Imperial Valley: Here’s his photo essay, his chat with Imperial Valley farmer Joe Tagg: Water is too expensive at IID. $17/AF is way more than $6-12/AF that farmers pay elsewhere. and The Imperial Irrigation District does NOT own the water. It belongs to the farmers. Then he chats with IID staffers, writing about it in two posts. In the first post (click here), he writes: I came out of this interview convinced that IID is walking into a shitstorm of its own making: 1. Nobody appeared to know how much revenue IID has made from water exports to urban areas or when or how that revenue would be distributed to farmers who fallowed land. Farmers are angry about that. 2. IID is trying to set quantity (5.25AF/acre) AND price ($17/AF) at the same time. It’s basic economics that you can’t set both without getting a surplus or shortage. 3. IID appears to think that water rights do not belong to the farmers whose land initially attracted those water rights. That’s just silly. In the second post (click here), he tries to explain why he thinks IID is so dysfunctional, pointing to a divergence between voting and economic power: At IID, this means that one-man, one-vote political power does not match the concentration of economic power in farmers who are few in number (about 300) but responsible for 97% of water purchases. The result is that the majority (by vote) makes policies that serve it (e.g., no water trades or reform of water institutions), and the minority (by vote) suffers from a reduction in the value of their assets (irrigated farmland). The answer, he says, is to split the power and water divisions, but there’s no political will within IID to do that. From the Aguanomics blog.

The Pacific Legal Foundation responds to the news that the state and feds knowingly violated rules to protect the smelt in order to protect the salmon: If you’re a farmer in California’s Central Valley, it’s news like this that makes you wonder. On the one hand, you’re told that the amount of water you receive is restricted in part due to required protection for the delta smelt. On the other hand, California water officials are restricting the amount of flow into the delta, making the recovery of the delta smelt species and the needed lifting of water export restrictions that much less likely. In other words, the order of priorities for the allocation of water seems to be 1) salmon, 2) delta fish species, 3) farmers. Read more from the Pacific Legal Foundation: News on Delta interspecies conflict

Desalination – there are both good and bad reasons to pursue it, but eventually it will be necessary in some locales more so than others, says the California Greening blog: The economic costs of dealinization are one of the most promising areas for ventue capital application right now. New membrane products from NanoH2O are many times more efficient than current technologies. New processes such as those being developed by Oasys in New England project a 90% reduction in energy consumption. Industrial permaculture processes could reduce costs even more. Read more from the California Greening blog: Desalination – neither savior or devil

Update on Truckee Carson Irrigation District trial: It has been delayed for at least a year.

Australia considers changing sewage charges based on volume of sewage generated by the household: Says official: “It would encourage people to reduce their sewage output by taking shorter showers,recycling washing machine water or connecting rainwater tanks to internal plumbingto reduce their charges,”Professor Young said. “Some people may go as far as not flushing their toilet as often because the less sewage you produce, the less sewage rate you pay.” And what do they plan to call this new system? “Pay as you go”, of course…. From the Environmental Economics blog: I love when the jokes write themselves

More stunning Delta pictures: I love the patterns the fields and water makes on the earth. Check out this aerial gallery of pictures of the Delta and other places by photographer Adrian Mendoza. And here’s a great photo gallery of Eastern Sierra photos by Kevin McNeal Photography.

Honorable mentions for interestingness: Aguanomics weekend discussion on moving water between watersheds; Our precarious levee system by Romick in Oakley; Torqopia blog on Water in the West; The California water vs Delta smelt war by RBO, Drought in California to suck worse than ever by La Vida Locavore; the Porterville Nerd responds to Jim Gogek’s post about water conservation beginning down on the farm; A sponge brick in the toilet tank – why Pasadena’s rainfall flows to the sea in a drought from the Pasadena Sub Rosa blog, and last but not least, Winter Ascent of the Complete North Ridge of Lone Pine Peak – okay, this isn’t necessarily water related, but it does mention Owens Valley, which is how I found it, but I did get a kick out of Astronaut, Viking and Pirate’s crazy adventure of actually hiking to the top of a mountain in the middle of winter – folks, don’t try this one at home – these guys are seriously nuts!

Odds and ends: Downsize California, says farming group; water conservation should begin on the farm, says blogger; Pasadena and the cultural effects of water conservation, water in XXXXXL Ziploc baggies, A-Roid & aquifers, plus end of the rainbow pics & more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 14, 2009 at 1:00 pm

Lots of great stuff today:

Downsize California! Another scheme to divide California into two states, this time over Proposition 2 – yes, prop 2, not 8: From the Citizens for Saving Farming Industries: It’s time to let the coastal and metropolitan counties have their way. If they can’t appreciate agriculture they should live without it. They should form their own state. The farm community can start the ball rolling by proposing that the 45 interior counties come together as a separate state. Separating California into two states is a mammoth undertaking. Some will tell you it’s impossible. But simply allowing the mass numbers of farm uneducated city dwellers to dictate farm policy is committing agricultural suicide in California. No other region in the world, let alone the United States, has the capability of producing the variety of agriculture commodities as California. We must not allow the shortsightedness of sheer voting numbers to destroy an irreplaceable industry. The truncated state would include the coastal counties from the Bay Area down to Los Angeles County, with the remaining 45 counties, including Orange County and San Diego County remaining with the rest of the state. Apparently, they want to keep Mickey Mouse! (No way, I say!) All this is being led by Bill Maze, a termed-out Republican assemblyman from Visalia, and a few others. Check it out from the San Francisco Chronicle’s Politics blog: Farmer’s plan to split California ships San Francisco out. Also check it out here.

Conservation needs to begin down on the farm and then we’ll talk about those 3 minute showers, says blogger Jim Gogek. Pointing out that agriculture uses about four times as much water as cities, he writes: Don’t get me wrong, California’s rural-based agriculture is very important. The Golden State is the nation’s breadbasket. But California’s urban-based manufacturing is even more important. In 2006, the California gross domestic product for crop and animal production was $15 billion. For manufacturing, it was $172 billion. California needs all of its industries to survive and thrive. Read more from Jim Gogek’s blog: Water conservation in California needs to begin down on the farm

In Pasadena, outdoor water conservation is a cultural and a preservationist issue, says the Pasadena Sub Rosa blog: David Czamanske of the Sierra Club is recently cited in the Pasadena Star News as saying that in Arizona people landscape their yards with rock gardens and cactus and don’t use as much water. But what would be the resulting impact on property values and cultural values if Pasadena implemented such a radical standard? Why would people live in Pasadena instead of, say, Tucson, Arizona? Czamanske and the Sierra Club apparently haven’t a clue as to what it would cost to take out lawns and rose gardens in the front yards of homes in Pasadena and replace them with rocks, cactus and pots. At the heart of the issue is Pasadena’s cultural image, as well as real estate values: And all this begs the question: can the City impose such a water rate restructuring without going through the environmental clearance process? And would preservationists bring a legal challenge as part of the clearance process? Read more from the Pasadena Sub Rosa blog: Is water conservation a preservation & cultural issue in Pasadena?

Bringing water to California in extra-extra-EXTRA-large baggies?  Aguanomics blogger Zetland says someone should put up $1 Million to check it out in this post  on “Spragg Bags” – one man’s idea to bring drinking water to coastal cities by way of large plastic baggies.  The inventor’s key ideas are: Water and people are not always in the same places, getting water to people requires infrastructure, which can be expensive, and the bags can “move water” at low cost, in variable quantities, on short notice. I don’t know, in a region where 18.5 million people live, it just sounds merely like a drop in the bucket to me. But Zetland writes, Some water utility should put up $1 million to test these bags. If When the Delta levees fail, they will be handsomely rewarded for a proactive investigation of alternatives, rather than flogged for a reactive struggle to keep failure from turning into disaster (e.g., Katrina). The post over at Aguanomics includes a link to a You Tube video of the product, suitable for showing to your board of directors …. Persistence and Baggs

The A-Roid Aquifer connection – betcha didn’t know there was one! From Sports Illustrated: Rodríguez’s hope is that this managed interview will put his drug use in “a vault,” he said, so he can move forward. It’s a nice sentiment, not just as it applies to him but also for the entire Steroid Era. We should hope it is true. It’s just not realistic, not when too many questions remain and the truth, like water from an aquifer, is relentless. Well, we may pump an aquifer relentlessly, but I’m not sure it can hold up, so what does that mean for truth? Anyway, the American Water Works Blog says maybe it will lead to a whole new sports journalism hydrologic fusion with phrases like “James was sweating like alfalfa transpiring in the Texas summer sun.” Good humorous post from the American Water Works Association blog: A Roid and Aquifers – a connection?

Pictures galore – Burney Falls, wartime water conservation posters, the end of the rainbow, and Owens Valley: Spreck Rosekranz discusses Burney Falls and subterranean rivers, the Watercrunch blog posts pictures of 5 wartime water conservation posters, the Sciencedude has a gallery of rare end of the rainbow photos set to music (Judy Garland – what else?), and check out this interesting picture collection of the Owens Valley from Atom’s Picture Blog.

Honorable mentions for interestingness: No Answer from Garrick on water shortage from the Leucadia Blog, Rachel Maddow on California Water Security from the Calitics blog – includes the full text of her speech to the recent ACWA convention, Drought: Should we redo state water policy as a partial response? by Tom Graff of the EDF, and the Friends of the River page on the Auburn Dam: If you build it, it will .. rain?

Odds and ends: treasonous behavior and Westlands, climate change conspiracy, Spreck on the drought, tough drought decisions, and an Aquafornia slideshow!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on February 8, 2009 at 2:58 pm

Watch what you say about water on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley – it could be considered treason !!?! From the Badlands Journal: The latest agricultural idea from the irrigated salt flats of the west side of the Valley is to declare the area a National Security Zone, presumably policed by Homeland Security forces. This, the growers seem to believe, would guarantee continuing supplies of water conveyed through the Delta pumps. If they’re successful, criticizing water policy could be considered an act of treason, says the blog. Check it out from the Badlands Journal: Contrasting views on the future of agriculture

Climate change a ‘global conspiracy’? The Water Wired blog has an exchange between two people on this issue. The videos claim it’s all a conspiracy, and the reader sending the links writes: I thought these programs were very good and was relieved that real scientists are collecting real data and FINALLY speaking out against the politicians, United Nations, and Wall Street banker interests in the promotion of the false conclusions about climate change. The response: There’s an awful lot of evidence supporting the climate change hypothesis in widely diverse fields by a lot of very smart, careful, and most importantly, independent and very ethical scientists. Their data come from atmospheric science, paleontology, biology, glaciology, meteorology, all kinds of earth observations and other fields. I find it impossible to believe that there’s a conspiracy of this magnitude to create this scenario. There’s too much agreement between too many disparate fields of studies. Michael Campana adds: Regarding global conspiracies by scientists: anyone who believes this doesn’t know science or scientists. Global conspiracies require the acquiescence of large numbers of people. So you’re going to get a huge number of scientists from disparate fields to toe the line? Uh-huh. Dream on, friend. Go to a meeting of one of the mainstream scientific societies and see what tranpsires. Read the full text of this post, which includes links to the two videos, from the Water Wired blog: Climate Change Conspiracy: Two Videos and an Email Exchange

Worst drought in modern history? Depends on how you define ‘drought’ and ‘modern history’ writes Spreck Rosekranz of the Environmental Defense Fund’s On the Waterfront blog. But while we might have experienced less precipitation in similar periods in the past, we’re asking much more of our water supply now, he says, and this has some proposing new dams or relaxing regulations for environmental flows: At EDF, we remain unconvinced about the cost-effectiveness of new dams until specific proposals are put forward for fair analysis and we steadfastly oppose reducing environmental flows. We believe the path to a sustainable future lies in providing economic incentives to increase efficiency in our cities and on our farms. We may end up with less low-value high water use crops in the Central Valley and less water guzzling landscapes in our arid suburbs, but we will have healthy rivers, thriving agriculture and reliable water supplies in all our cities. Read the full text of Spreck’s blog post from the On the Waterfront blog: Worst drought in modern history?

Tough decisions, possible extinctions ahead, concedes the Calitics blog: Noting the potential smelt vs. salmon decision, and the possible zero water allocation from the CVP, the blogger writes: Perhaps this was a long time in coming, we have totally reshaped the Central Valley and its climate. Yet, it is difficult to understate the importance of the Central Valley to the state and the nation as a whole. This is where a vast percentage of non-grain produce for the nation is grown. 90+% of the world’s almonds are grown here, as well as a great deal of tree fruits and lettuces. If you are eating in California, the American West, and basically the entire nation, you are eating food from the Central Valley. But climate change is here and we’re going to have to adapt or die, he writes, so we’d best face up to it now: The era of green lawns is over. The era of swimming pools in every backyard is over. Certainly we have the ability to make changes for the better, the only question is our own will. Read more from the Calitics blog: Drought forces some tough decisions, possible extinctions

Just for you… a slideshow of some of Aquafornia’s best pictures: Regular readers know that I like to end each odds and ends piece with a picture or video of some sort.  Today, it’s a slideshow of some of my favorite pictures.  Click here to check it out:  Aquafornia’s best pictures (so far …) And if you liked that slideshow, you might also want to check out my California Aqueduct slideshow.

Odds and ends: Salmon vs smelt, bloggers react to drought, Judge Wanger a workaholic, snow to water ratios, another great website for water news, check out the water jet pack, and awesome aerial shots of the Delta & more

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on January 31, 2009 at 8:22 am

Something other than drought news to lead the blog today…. let’s have some fun!

Salmon over smelt: Relaxing the Delta outflow rules to be considered, says Spreck Rosekranz of the EDF’s On the Waterfront blog: The request will be officially made by the Water Operations Management Team (WOMT), comprised of representatives of fishery and water project agencies. They are expected to cite the extremely low storage volumes in principal State Water Project and Central Valley Project reservoirs, and explain that it is essential to conserve cold water in those reservoirs to protect endangered salmon later in the year. It could also mean a little more water for cities and farms. Check it out here from On the Waterfront: Smelt vs. salmon: Agencies to consider proposal to relax Delta outflow rules

Bloggers react to the drought – here’s a sampling: California’s water woes are of our own making, says a realtor from Redding, while the Leakbird blog says it’s both a service crisis and a resource crisis.  California’s turning into a dust bowl, says the Calitics blog, while the Nature Conservancy wonders what it will take to get us to change our water wasting ways, and this blogger, well he’s just pissed.

Judge Wanger shatters the criteria required of Federal court judges, notes the Fresno Bee’s political notebook: As judge on senior status, for instance, Wanger was to have presided over five trials this past year. Wanger’s number: 48. His trial hours were 16 times the expected amount for a judge on senior status, and he closed 25 times the number cases expected of him. Wanger works nights and weekends, as do the other two district judges. Check it out from the Fresno Bee’s Political Notebook: Wanger’s caseload shows Fresno needs for more federal judges

All about snow to water ratios: The CoCoRaHS blog (not a breakfast cereal, mind you) tells you all about it:  The standard that most people learn in a science class is 10 to 1, written was 10:1.  This means every ten inches of snow typically melts to about an inch of water. It is ok to use that standard for classroom purposes, and I think in real life more times than not that comes out to be true for many.  BUT — location, time of the year, temperature, the source of water and the upper air connection to that source of water — all these factors play a big role in what the ratio will actually be. Check it out here: Snow to Water Ratios

Does reading Aquafornia leave you thirsting for more? This website has to be the mother of all water news sites, putting together links from numerous water news sources, including Aquafornia & more. Check it out here: All the top water news Also, check out the newly redesigned Revive the San Joaquin website.

Check out the Water Jet Pack: who doesn’t want a toy like this?

For a less elegant version and a few chuckles, check out this Japanese video: click here.

From the beautiful to the bleak:  Beautiful aerial shots of the Delta taken just days ago from former Modesto Bee photographer Adrian Mendoza.  Check it out here:  Logo en la Cabeza from Amenphoto.  Contrast the Delta to the bleak pictures from the Salton Sea from the Apertura Photography blog:  Salton Sea

Odds and ends: it’s how you operate the canal that matters, working landscapes for forestry and ag, limiting growth by water policy, water lecture series online, the earth as art, and check out the *new* water cycle!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 21, 2008 at 7:45 am

It’s how you operate the peripheral canal that matters, says blogger Jim Gogek: In a post that discusses the peripheral canal and the Sunrise powerlink project, Jim writes: The canal and the power line are merely conduits for resources – water and electricity — that human civilization needs to survive. Whether we use these conduits in an environmentally sound way is up to us — through our State Legislature and regulatory agencies. If we drain away all the water from our rivers or rely only on dirty coal-fired power plants for electrons, we’re doomed. But, if we don’t build vital infrastructure for water and electricity just because we’re afraid of how we might use it, we’re also doomed. Read more from Jim Gogek’s blog: Peripheral Canal and Sunrise Powerlink: It’s up to us how we manage this critical infrastructure

Working Landscapes Adaption papers on forests and agriculture: The On the Public Record blog reviews two papers that were written by government agencies, explaining: This is actually a really exciting new development, having state agencies work on papers together. You wouldn’t think it would be a new innovation, but the Governor has informed the agencies that all of our plans must say the same thing! We are quite excited by the prospect. Check it out from the On the Public Record blog: Working Landscapes Adaptation papers

Ballot initiative approved by voters to limit growth by using water policy will be the source of lots of litigation, predicts the Watering the Desert blog, commenting on a recent ballot measure approved by voters in Washoe County, Nevada (the Reno-Sparks area). The ballot measure was only one sentence long, notes the blog: Stating it in such simple terms will create extensive work for lawyers and planning administrators in that area, working out how it should be implemented. I suspect it was stated simply in order to garner support. It could be interpreted to require something pretty similar to what is required in Arizona under the “Growing Smarter Plus Act”, requiring counties and municipalities of a certain size to include a water resources element in their general plan. Read more from the Watering the Desert blog: Using Water Policy to Manage Growth – Nevada edition

California Colloquium on Water lecture series now available online from the Water Resources Center Archives: There’s an extensive listing of past lectures available to be viewed online from a wide variety of interesting and respected speakers, such as Jeffrey Mount, Peter Moyle, Pat Mulroy, David Kennedy, Environmental reporter Mike Taugher, Thaddeus Bettner of the Westlands Water District, Heather Cooley of the Pacific Institute … the list goes on and on. An amazing resource! Check it out here: California Colloquium on Water – Water Resources Center Archives.

The earth as art: from the USGS via the Sisweb The official description is: “A collection of Landsat 7 scenes created for aesthetic purposes rather than scientific interpretation.” This boring description translates to: beautiful images of earth from space. Many, of course, are of rivers. Check it out here: USGS: Earth as Art

Think you know the water cycle? Well, it’s changed a little… Check out the way the water cycle works nowadays from the Water Wired blog: Postmodern Hydrologic Cycle

Odds and ends: Diversion reductions in historical context, group contests data used in bio-op, how SoCal can deal with no Delta water, remembering the LA River as a river, refrigerated beaches and floating eco-houses, National Georgraphic’s most viewed photo galleries, plus groupies wanted!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 17, 2008 at 9:00 pm

My New Year’s resolution: Use more pictures!

The diversion reductions aren’t as dramatic as they’re being portrayed when viewed in a historical context, says Spreck Rosekranz of the Environmental Defense fund: Amidst the recent (media frenzy ) about Delta water supplies, it seems worth noting that many scientists and environmentalists have been warning for decades that it will not be possible to sustain the valuable and unique Bay-Delta ecosystem if we continue to divert increasing amounts of water from the Delta and the rivers that feed it. It also seems worth noting that the “Wanger” diversion reductions are not so large when considered in a historical context – under the “Wanger” decision State Water Project customers would receive as much exported water as they did only ten years ago. The recent Biological Opinion reductions need to be considered in this same context. His post includes a chart showing actual and projected deliveries. From the Environmental Defense Fund: The Delta Smelt Export Reductions in Context

Meanwhile, the Family Farm Alliance has filed an Information Quality Act Request regarding the new biological opinion, identifying a number of errors in the alliance. The Pacific Legal Foundation has all the details: Family Farm Alliance files Information Quality Act Request re New Delta Smelt Biological Opinion

Is it the end of Delta exports?  If so, David Zetland of the Aguanomics blog has the answer and he’s never one to mince words:  Seems like SoCal will have to get used to having less water (as I suggested in my recent post against the peripheral canal). Two ways to minimize the harm from lower water supplies are to allow (perhaps force, via all-in-auctions) trade among water owners and users at the wholesale level and to raise retail, urban prices high enough to curb demand (conservation pricing). It’s likely that IID/PVID/CVID water will also be reallocated through eminent domain.  Water managers who do less (e.g., calling for conservation, rationing water, asking for more dams, and wringing their hands) should be fired for timid incompetence. From the Aguanomics blog: The End of Delta Exports.

Remembering the Los Angeles River when it was actually a river … The L. A. Creek Freak has a story from a man who remembers when he used to swim on the beach along the now cemented and channelized Los Angeles River: On the beach we found wild native Pacific Pond turtles, Western toads, and not much else in the way of land animals that I remember. All turtles were turned loose. In the river were mergansers (fish eating ducks), other kinds of ducks, and mud hens. All ducks and shore birds flew away when we came down to the beach. Shore birds frightened away included herons, killdeer, sandpipers, egrets, and other species. Small fish were in the river. I should have done some fishing but didn’t. Bullfrogs were croaking (honking) in the deep water area. Who knows what kinds of fish were lurking in the deep water! There are even a few historical pictures. From the L.A. Creek Freak: Standing on a beach, at the LA River

You know you have too much money when…. you can afford to refrigerate your beach! Dubai has decided it’s visitors don’t want to burn their feet (I guess they’re so rich, they don’t buy flip flops like the rest of us…) so they’re going to refrigerate their beach: The beach, to be created by British company Hyder Consulting, will feature a computer-controlled system of coolant-filled pipes under the sand that will help keep temperatures comfortable. According to Soheil Abedian, president of the company that owns the Palazzo Versace, “This is the kind of luxury top people want.” Ludicrousness from the Clean Technica Blog: Dubai to Create World’s First Refrigerated Beach

After global warming, New York artists envision a waterborne nomadic existence aboard the Waterpod Floating House: The Waterpod is a floating eco-habitat designed to sustainably support a community: The Waterpod is a triple-domed island, built from a combination of recycled wood, metal, plastic, fabric and other materials, sitting astride an industrial barge. As well as being a living space, the 80 x 25 feet construction is designed to house community and artistic activity and a range of eco-initiatives, including food grown with purified water from the Hudson River, vertical agriculture and alternative energy. From the Clean Technica blog: Waterpod Floating House Points to a Nomadic Future After Global Warming

Top ten photo galleries viewed in 2008 from National Geographic: Images of the dissection of a giant squid, strange marine animals found off the coast of Antarctica, World Heritage sites, and masterworks of magnification, all from National Geographic:  Top Ten Photo Galleries:  Most Viewed of 2008

Aqua Blog Maven needs some groupies so please join the Aquafornia Twitter! I’ve only got 4 followers right now, and if I get a few more, I’ll become inspired to post news of updates and other interesting things.  And while you’re at it, you’ll want to join Matt Weiser’s Sac Bee Delta twitter, too!  You can find my twitter here:  https://twitter.com/Aquafornia and Matt’s here:  https://twitter.com/sacbee_delta

Odds and ends: New Sacramento Bee Delta webpage, Lester Snow’s Water & Fire presentation, what if the West went dry?, More on the ESA, LA River Improvement Overlay, Owens Valley Syndrome, and the Salton Sea boat races

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 13, 2008 at 8:28 am

Sacramento Bee launches comprehensive Delta webpage; special section coverage in Sunday’s Sacramento Bee: Special coverage in Sunday’s Sacramento Bee will take an in-depth look at the canal and restoration proposals now on the table, and will include a pull-out map of the Delta. Out of the area readers (such as me) can order a copy for $2 by calling 916-650-2847 and requesting a “Delta reprint”. There’s even a twitter, too! Check it all out on the Sacramento Bee’s New Delta webpage. Very cool!

Check out Lester Snow’s presentation to the ACWA on drought & fire: It’s rather apocalyptic … From the Delta e-news: you can view DWR Director Lester Snow’s 84-slide presentation to the 2008 Association of California Water Agencies conference last week in Long Beach. The slides in his presentation Water & Fire: Managing Drought in the Golden State offer a grim view of drying state and federal reservoirs. They illustrate that spring and summer 2008 were the driest spring and summer on record. Check it out here: Water & Fire: Managing Drought in the Golden State

Thinking about the unthinkable: what if the West really went dry? Michael Campana of the Water Wired blog has been asking the question, what would be the resulting social, demographic, national security, and economic implications if the West ran out of water? From the synopsis: Dead Pool, featuring rarely seen historical photographs, explains why America built the dam that made Lake Powell and others like it and then allowed its citizens to become dependent on their benefits, which were always temporary. Writing for a wide audience, Powell shows us exactly why an urgent threat during the first half of the twenty-first century will come not from the rising of the seas but from the falling of the reservoirs. Read more from Water Wired: Dead Pool: Lake Powell, Global Warming, and the Future of Water in the West.

Water issues are more than just fish versus jobs, says Robert Merrill of CSU Fresno in a guest post at the Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood: His post addresses many ‘untruths’ that have been published in recent news articles, including this: Repeatedly castigating the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by pitting human beings and their livelihoods against the ESA, may create a scapegoat, but does not encourage public understanding of why the ESA is important and why Congress passed the law. It is important the public understands that the ESA is part of an attempt to retain biologic diversity at the highest level possible. Keeping biologic diversity high is important because as diversity decreases, ecosystems are more at risk of collapse. Mankind is part of the ecosystem, not separate from it. Read more from Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood: Water issues more than just fish versus jobs, by Robert Merrill, CSU Fresno

More reaction to changes in the Endangered Species Act: The Pacific Legal Foundation has a link to several  newspaper commentaries, and says the negative reaction to the changes is absurd:  Federal agencies have every incentive in the world to consult if agency officials have reason to believe that the proposed project will harm species.  And that is because of the significant civil and criminal penalties attendant upon a “take” of a species.  The only way to avoid that liability is to get an incidental take statement, which can only come from Section 7 consultation.  Who would want to run that kind of risk?  The carping from the other side approaches absurdity. Read more from the Pacific Legal Foundation: More reaction to the new ESA regs

The Los Angeles River Improvement Overlay: Wow! is all I can say. Here’s something that rarely gets any coverage from the Los Angeles Times, but there’s an effort underway to make the Los Angeles River into something more like a river and less like a gigantic storm drain. There’s a meeting on Monday which you can find out more about here, but the L.A. Creek Freak gives all the details of the plan itself – plus a picture of a portion looks like now and what it could look if the proposed plan is approved. Check it all out here from the L.A. Creek Freak: LA City’s Proposed River Zone and River Corporation

More rebuttal to the Pacific Institute’s agricultural conservation report: Four irrigation professionals have written a commentary debating the Pacific Institute’s agricultural conservation report: “.. it is our opinion that certain points in the PacInst paper directly draw incorrect conclusions, or infer incorrect conclusions based on significant errors in the underlying assumptions.” Hat tip to the new On The Public Record blog for this one. Check it out here: Agricultural Water Conservation and Efficiency – A Commentary.

The Owens Valley Syndrome and its effects on western water politics: In a comprehensive book review of the book, The Owens Valley Revisited: A Reassessment of the West’s First Great Water Transfer, the reviewer describes what Libecap (the author) calls the Owens Valley syndrome: Based upon a “sinister portrayal” (p. 14) of the acquisition, a portrayal Libecap rejects, the Owens Valley syndrome also plays a prominent role in how Westerners understand and evaluate contemporary water conflicts. Libecap finds those understandings and evaluations overwhelmingly negative and unfounded. More to the point, they needlessly frustrate the prospects for economically rational reallocations of Western water, a task Libecap and others believe will require a much more extensive system of out-of-basin and rural-to-urban transfers.[1] If the future of the arid West rests on developing the (market) mechanisms for smoothly reallocating greater quantities of water to its large and rapidly growing urban centers, then the Owens Valley syndrome must be confronted and overcome–Libecap’s primary objective in Owens Valley Revisited. Read more of this book review from HNet Online: Owens Valley and Western Water Politics

Salton Sea boat races: That was last weekend, and after a build-up in press coverage before the event, it dropped off the radar, but 14 speed records were set. Check out the pictures from The Salton Sea Chronicles.

Odds and ends: Bloggers focus on Delta pumps & the ESA, a house for fish, south of the border viewpoint, more on groundwater, succulents, and job opportunities

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 8, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Are the Delta pumps the only reason for the decline of the smelt & other species? Yes, says Ann Hayden of the Environmental Defense Fund, responding to this editorial from the San Diego Union Tribune, saying it’s time to enforce the provisions of the Endangered Species Act: State and federal fish agencies have years of scientific data to support their determination of the significant role that water operations has played in contributing to the demise of these species. While their recommended actions are largely responsible for keeping key species from extinction, it is unrealistic to expect (as the editorial does) overstressed species to bounce back over night—it will take years of modified operations and additional restoration activities for populations to rebound. Read more from the EDF blog: Time for Proper Enforcement of the Endangered Species Act in the Delta.

The Pacific Legal Foundation disagrees: there’s no conclusive evidence that it is the Delta pumps, and takes issue with the NRDC’s response to the same editorial. The point of the editorial was to advocate for protecting both humans and fish, says the PLF: Reading his post, one would think the only problem for the delta smelt is the region’s water pumps, and if we just got rid (or at least severely restricted) the pumps, the troubles for the smelt would be over. But, as a 2008 CALFED report indicates, it’s not that simple. Not only is there “no conclusive evidence that export pumping has caused population declines,” but reversing the decline of the delta smelt is “particularly difficult” Read more from the Pacific Legal Foundation: New Sacramento-San Joaquin delta lawsuit.

Vision for salmon restoration: Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Institute for Fisheries Resources, describes his ideal restoration plan for restoring the fisheries: Frankly, I don’t think we need a “Manhattan Project” for salmon or other fish. We know what the problems are. This isn’t nuclear science or building a bomb. What has to be done is develop a plan with priority actions – building a foundation first for recovery and then moving on the next actions. This is different from long lists that folks have put together in the past where only the easiest, and least effective measures, end up being taken. Read more of Zeke’s plan from the Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood blog: Zeke Grader outlines how he would build a “house” to protect fish.

The effects of the All-American Canal & the Drop 2 Reservoir project, as seen from the other side of the border, through the eyes of an Israeli water engineer: With the loss of seepage from the All-American Canal, the groundwater will reverse flow and flow away from Mexicali, He says: The University of Laguna calculates that some 174 wells will go out of business and some 7,000 hectares will go out of cultivation. I think their study is wrong, because the loss of water will be higher because of the flow direction reversal, to about 7% of total resources. Moreover adding the loss of excedents, total loss may be around 10%. Wels will not dry up but salten up, and there will be water scarcity in the valley, increasing generally the overall salinity of the soils. Even now there is not enough water to wash all the salt accumulated in the soil. Check out the The Learning Diary of an Israeli Water Engineer.

GOAT blog on California’s lack of groundwater regulation: The lack of groundwater regulation has allowed irrigation and other interests to exploit groundwater at will. But when a few years ago an entrepreneur announced plans to drill a well and export groundwater to Nevada counties began to step into the void, passing groundwater ordinances. But county regulation has created a chaotic situation and most Northern California counties have yet to put any system in place to regulate groundwater. As a result landowners have been able to drill unregulated wells which appear to be tapping underground streams interconnected with surface flow. This has sometimes had a dramatic effect. Citing the Scott River, the blog notes that in some cases, groundwater pumping is having more of an effect than climate change. Ag interests are opposed to any statewide regulation of groundwater, the blog notes, so don’t look for changes anytime soon. California water conflict heats up from High Country News GOAT blog.

Landscaping with succulents – they’re drought-tolerant and fire-resistant. The Cyber Rain blog recommends Debra Lee Baldwin’s Designing with Succulents book. The author points out the benefits of succulents: During last month’s wildfires, succulents — which by definition store water in plump leaves and stems — apparently stopped a blaze in its tracks.” Succulents are known for retaining water and being highly adaptable to dry and arid environments, and are an excellent option for landscaping and gardening, as they are drought resistant, low maintenance and can live on for very long periods of time. Check out the review from the Cyber Rain blog: Book of the Week: Designing with Succulents.

No shortage of jobs here: The AWRA blog confronts the issue of an aging workforce, and what to do about it: First, our industry has a great story to tell. We have wonderful, fulfilling career opportunities for people of all skill and education levels, but we need to get the message out to children throughout our educational system and to displaced workers, veterans, and others. Second, the industry is hungry for help on best practices. Utilities and companies throughout the country realize that keeping a talented workforce will be as challenging as maintaining an aging infrastructure. Third, addressing workforce issues is more complicated than just recruiting more people. There is an element of recruiting and retention that is important, but we must also address career issues (pay, job requirements), training, and knowledge retention. Some interesting comments posted; check it out here: More than the pipes are aging …

Odds and ends: Peripheral flip-flopping, a different idea for slaking Southern California’s thirst, the water budget myth, a documentary, geocaching, a Mulholland Christmas Carol, and incredible virtual Dutch infrastructure tours online!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 3, 2008 at 9:11 am

Hope your holiday was a good one.  Loads of interesting odds and ends today:

Peripheral canal flip flop: David Zetland of the Aguanomics blog, once a supporter of the peripheral canal, now says end Delta exports: consider how “south of the Delta” people are now dealing with the short-term, de facto ban on exports: They are trading more, changing crop patterns, raising prices, etc. If exports ended permanently, they would do the same things (and more, with more intensity). David notes that ending Delta exports is likely not politically viable, it wouldn’t be the end of the world either, he says. SoCal can manage with its existing supplies — via markets and higher prices, of course. Reconsidering the Peripheral Canal by the Aguanomics Blog.

How would Southern California make up the lost water? “Comdemn” the water rights of the Imperial Valley, sell 1 MAF to Southern California, and give the rest to Mexico, says Zetland: He writes: The ag areas cannot complain of taking because they get fat money. (If we wanted to be cruel, we should buy the water for $170/AF, i.e., the capitalized value of water given the $17/AF price that farmers pay.) Since they get over $7 billion, they can than afford to pay the $5 9 billion [they say] it will cost to clean up the toxic waste they dumped in the Salton Sea. (IID farmers want other people to pay; that’s just wrong.) Interesting reader commentary…. Fixing SoCal from the Aguanomics blog.

Ground water and the water budget myth: Water Wired’s Michael Campana has a post on how water budgets don’t work for determining groundwater development: What most people don’t realize is that once you start the development (i.e., pumping), the water budget, usually calculated under steady-state conditions, becomes invalid. Why? Because you have imposed a new stress on the system – pumping – and that means that the water budget has changed. But most water managers don’t realize this, and blithely assume a steady-state budget when transient conditions actually apply. Good brainy stuff from the Water Wired blog: Ground Water: The Water Budget Myth.

Steinberg taps Fran Pavley to head Senate Natural Resources Committee, disappointing Lois Wolk. From the Sacramento Bee’s Swarm.

View a KQED Quest Documentary on California Water from the Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood blog by clicking here.

Geocaching at the San Francis Dam site from the Electronic Breadcrumbs blog: Last week, Chaosmanor and I went up into San Francisquito Canyon to do some geocaching. One of the caches we looked for was the earthcache, St. Francis Dam Failure, Saugus California. Obviously, the earthcache has you examine some of the things that led to the failure of the St. Francis Dam, back in March 1928 over 80 years ago. Great pictures and interesting information: St. Francis Dam.

“Mulholland, a Christmas Carol” is reviewed by Julia Stein of the California Writer blog: The play delightfully satirizes water politics and corruption in the song “Land Grab” with Harrison Gray Otis, builder of the Los Angeles Times newspaper; Moses Sherman, developer of the city’s first electric car system; and rest of the cast singing and dancing out how Los Angeles got all of Owen’s Valley Water leading to a twenty years water war. Now playing through December 21st at the Sacred Fools Theater. Read the review and find out more: Mulholland a Christmas Carol – a holiday play.

Wow! Virtual Tours of the Netherlands Infrastructure: The site, an initiative of the Deltaworks Online Foundation, is one of the biggest and most complete online resources of information about the deltaworks and water management in the Netherlands. Check out the virtual tours of the amazingly complex infrastructure being implemented in the Netherlands. Aerial shots and close up views all with just a mouse click.  It’s water infrastructure on steriods! Deltawerken Online. (Hat tip to the Sisweb!)

Odds and ends: the peripheral canal, hugging a Delta smelt, Tim Brick’s blog and incredible wildfire pictures

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 26, 2008 at 8:28 am

Really quick odds and ends this morning as I am on the road to Reno for the holiday:

Who Steinberg picks for key positions could determine fate of the peripheral canal, says the Sacramento Bee’s Swarm blog: Pavley? Wolk? Hancock? Check it out from The Swarm by clicking here.

Say it isn’t so, Sunne: Jon Mendelson of the Tracy Press says Sunne hasn’t learned the lesson: The underlying factor to the state’s water crunch — namely, that too many people and farms exist in an unsustainable fashion in places where water doesn’t naturally occur in abundance — will not be addressed by a Peripheral Canal. he writes. From the Second Thoughts blog – click here.

It’s hard to hug a Delta smelt, says a letter posted at the Madera Tribune’s Red Line blog: Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, it is said. It appears as though the state government is doing just that. The world’s economy is the most important problem and we can’t fix it as a whole, but we can help it locally. The state plan to cut water deliveries 15 percent, (not down 15 percent but down to 15 percent) of the amount requested annually. This just shows me that the state is either uninformed or unconcerned about the economy and agribusiness, and how they interrelate to each other. Read more from the Red Line blog by clicking here.

Check out Tim Brick’s blog over at the Obama-Biden website (guess there’s no question about Mr. Brick’s political alliance) by clicking here.

Check out the most incredible California wildfire pictures from the Boston Globe by clicking here.

Happy Thanksgiving from Aquafornia! Aquafornia will continue to be updated over the holiday weekend, so all you water news junkies can get your fill …. If you’re traveling this weekend, travel safe! Rumor is the CHP is out in full force, so take care.

Weekend highlights: peripheral canal, federal water rights, groundwater management, rising sea levels, water and growth policies, and Owens Lake dust mitigation making news

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 24, 2008 at 7:33 am

For those of you who didn’t check in over the weekend, here are some weekend highlights:

Support for new aqueduct comes from unexpected source – an article about how Sunne McPeak’s position on the peripheral canal has changed over the years.

What if water rules change? Water users who rely on federal projects to deliver water may think they know what their rights are, but they could be wrong.

Critics blast report on state regulation of groundwater use: San Joaquin farmers & water interests are not happy with the Legislative Analyst Office’s report which recommends statewide management and monitoring of California’s groundwater.

The Rising Tide in California: It’s not the extra few feet of water that make sea level rise so dangerous; It’s the extra few feet during a storm during El Niño during high tide, say researchers at the Scripps Institute.

Water policies channeling resources in wrong directions: should we be building dense developments in Los Angeles and other urban areas with little or no groundwater, instead of areas such as San Bernardino, which has groundwater resources?

Inyo County Board of Supervisors hears Great Basin’s side of the Owens Lake saga – The Inyo Register gives some great details on the ongoing dust mitigation effort by DWP at the dry Owens Lake bed.

Check out the latest issue of DWR’s Weather and Climate News by clicking here.

Bloggers react to dam deal, naked DWR, Delta exports, sustainable camping, Maldive’s options, and California’s mysterious “North Fork Polygon”

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 21, 2008 at 8:06 am

Lots to post today:

Bloggers weigh in on the dam deal: and under closer scrutiny, no one seems to be impressed. The Red, Green & Blue blog wrote “Bush wanted the deal to remove the dams, yet his administration has always backed farmers in the dispute over water rights, such as when irrigation was shut off to under the Endangered Species Act in 2001. Even after the Klamath dams’ removal deal was announced on November 13, 2008, Bush released a statement saying, “Together, we have produced an agreement that will greatly reduce the risk of future shutdowns of the irrigation system.“ The GOAT blog wrote “The linked dam and water deals are likely the last attempt by the Bush Administration to lock in its vision of how to end conflict over water in the Klamath River Basin. That vision would return those who get water from the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Project to the head of the line for Klamath water in exchange for a promise of dam removal in the future. It has been effective in splitting the coalition of tribes, environmental, river and fishing groups which previously stood together for restoration of the Klamath River and recovery of Klamath Salmon.” John Soares of the Northern California Hiking Trails blog is not sure either, and Tom Chandler of the Trout Underground says too much bad enviro news this week, so he’s headed out to the river to fish for BWO’s (whatever they are) …

Naked DWR? From the always interesting Aguanomics blog: Blogger David  Zetland decries the absence of a mention of increasing prices as a response to climate change in DWR’s latest report in his post DWR has no clothes (Les, cover up please!), and a commentor suspects that something is ‘going on behind the scenes’…..

Delta exports only account for 15% of statewide water use, says Spreck Rosekranz of the Environmental Defense Fund. He writes “were the remainder more uniformly distributed, the urgency of maintaining those exports would be greatly diminished.” From the On the Waterfront blog, Delta Exports and Statewide Water Supply in California.

Go camping in sustainable style with the $129,000 Verdier Solar-Powered Camper! The RV is based on the classic VW camper style, and has a hybrid engine, solar panels, an on-board computer, a projector, 6 speaker surround sound, and a roll-down screen. But wait! That’s not all! It also comes with built-in trash containers, composting and recycling, and a refrigerator/freezer. Check it out from the Clean Technica blog by clicking here.

Maldivian citizens looking for new homeland on higher ground: The Economist looks at the options for the 370,000 citizens who face their homeland going under. Since the richer greenhouse-gas burning countries got them into this, isn’t it reasonable to think that maybe they’ll just be offered citizenship elsewhere? “Reasonable, but wrong. Australia’s government has already turned down a request to offer citizenship to the 12,000 people of Tuvalu, another small, drowning island; so a few hundred thousand Maldivians knocking on rich-country doors seem likely to get even shorter shrift. Anyway, they may not want to be absorbed into a larger nation. They might prefer to stay together to maintain their community spirit and traditions of folk-dancing and imprisoning political dissidents. So a solution as radical as Mr Nasheed’s may be the only answer.” Dark humor from the Economist: O give me a home…

The most interesting not-really-water related link to Aquafornia comes from the blog Rural Mysteries, which talks about the “North Fork Polygon” – a sort of Bermuda Triangle in Northern California. The website explains: “The “North Fork Polygon” is an irregular, non-triangle-shaped area encompassed by the northern California foothill communities of Colfax, Applegate, Foresthill, Iowa Hill, Weimar, Auburn, and Meadow Vista (aka the C.A.F.I.W.A.M. area). For some reason, all these mysteries are located within a few miles of the North Fork of the American River. This Web site documents the investigation of unsolved mysteries and local legends that occur in and around the “North Fork Polygon”. Oooooo, go check it out (if you dare) at www.ruralmysteries.com.

Odds and ends: water transfers, reflections on a trip down the Central Valley, redefining rivers, Australia and desalination, a naughty octopus, and more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 15, 2008 at 7:40 am

Here’s the latest interesting stuff out there on the ‘net:

How water transfers work in California: David Zetland of the Aguanomics blog asked the State Water Resources Control Board for some details about water transfers and posts their response here.

Aguanomics reader travels the San Joaquin Valley from top to bottom: He writes: the real conclusion is that there are two different Valleys and the demarcation is as sharp as if Winston Churchill sat down with a ruler and a pen and a map of Persia. Everything north of Sacramento, e.g. the Delta, is rich and prosperous. The fields are neatly harrowed for spring planting. The hedgerows are neat and clean. The houses and barns are painted and well maintained. The cars, trucks, tractors, etc. are relatively new and well maintained. South of Sacramento everything is simply shabby. That is where all of the fallowed land and the deserted orchards are located. Read more of this post from the Aguanomics blog by clicking here.

Living on Earth, a radio show on public radio, reported on the possible revisions to the Clean Water Act this week: Two years ago, the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling on America’s rivers that limited the reach of the Clean Water Act. The ruling has many repercussions, especially in the arid Southwest. Living on Earth’s Ingrid Lobet reports. .. you can read a transcript, listen online or download an mp3 by clicking here.

Is Australia’s push for desalination making their problems worse? The Grist says yes in this article about droughts, desalination and feedback in the land down under – click here.

Pictures, pictures: Here’s a picture of salt evaporation ponds in the Central Valley from Lloyd Carter’s Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood blog, the 12 most astonishing hot springs in the world from Life in the Fast Lane, and drought tolerant landscapes from the O.C. Register.

Bad octopus, bad bad octopus! Whats an aquarium to do with a misbehaving octopus? An octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by short-circuiting a lamp. From Radio Wammo off the wireless – click here.

Honorable mentions for interestingness: Everything you wanted to know about eutrophication, Mariposa County’s water history, and the latest issue of the Santa Clara River Watershed Times.

Odds and ends: bloggers react to water allocation, but forget about Oregon says the USGS, some eco innovations, why isn’t groundwater in CA regulated, and more!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2008 at 5:25 am

My cup simply runneth over with interesting odds and ends today….

Housing meets its ultimate adversary – water, says the Westchester Parents blog, who points out that this is a disaster that city leaders themselves have created: Our city leaders need to now come to grips with the problem and recognize that their policies have contributed significantly to the problem. Regardless of desktop projections that the city will need ten’s of thousands of new housing units, the reality is that there are not enough water resources to fulfill that fantasy. Ignoring the practical limits of supply, cities have built-out so significantly that they have finally reached the point where consumption exceeds supplies. It’s a fantasy, he says, that we can build enough homes to accommodate the expected increase in population forecasted for Southern California. From the Westchester Parents blog – click here.

Meanwhile, Spreck Rosekranz of the Environmental Defense Fund says the allocation figure released by DWR is meaningless, as it will be revised later anyway after we see what precipitation actually occurs. So why are they really doing it? The reason for issuing a forecast earlier than ever before appears to be that it is simply one more opportunity to advocate for new dams and a peripheral canal. Lester Snow, DWR’s Director of the Department of Water Resources is clear on that point, stating that the initial allocation “… further dramatizes the urgent need for additional investments in water storage and conveyance infrastructure to assure an adequate and reliable water supply…”. From Spreck Rosekranz of the Environmental Defense Fund’s On the Waterfront blog – click here.

Don’t look north to that groundwater in Oregon, says the USGS, as it’s already spoken for: Water Wired has a response from the USGS taking an issue with the recent article in the Oregonian that implied that there was a vast, unused amount of groundwater that could be available for use or for export: the concept of a “secret stockpile” of water that “someone, someday may want to use” is not only incorrect, but troubling because it implies that ground water in the Cascade Range is not already being used. In reality, ground water from the Cascades supplies much of the flow to major streams on both sides of the range, and, consequently, is already being relied upon by communities, irrigators, and important aquatic ecosystems. More from the USGS via the Water Wired blog by clicking here.

Water your lawn With your *ahem* waste? No, I’m not talking about a “Women & Sitters Only” policy for your bathroom: Biokube, a Danish company, is bringing the BioKube Venus to America. The Venus is a septic tank advanced enough that it can make your waste water clean enough for use in agriculture (i.e. watering your lanw.) The device would produce more than the 15,000 gallons used by most households. The excess would just be released into groundwater like current septic systems. But, I suppose you’d want to limit the amount of frolicking in the sprinklers your kids were doing. The product will debut right here in California. More from the Eco-Geek blog by clicking here.

First solar thermal plant in 20 years launches in Bakersfield: Only serving 3500 homes homes right now, this plant could serve as a gateway to a much larger plant in the future. Here’s how it works: Unlike solar photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into electricity, this plant will focus sunlight on tubes that contains water. The light heats the water, creating steam, thus turning turbines. This is important because steam storage will allow the plant to run after sunset. From the Clean Technica blog – click here.

GOAT blog asks why California does not regulate groundwater (only CA & TX don’t, by the way) and says “the environmental establishment has become much too cozy with the purveyors of environmental destruction”. Why? … in the wine country north of San Francisco stream flow is decreasing at an alarming rate. Groundwater pumping is implicated along with illegal surface diversions and the rapidly expanding wine industry is known to be the main culprit. Yet the environmental and fishing group Trout Unlimited recently accepted over a million dollars in state funding to “form partnerships” with the wine industry. Trout Unlimited is unlikely to support limits on groundwater pumping which would surely be seen as a threat to its new wine industry partners. Also, the blog discusses how irrigators and some farmers in the Klamath region have been selling groundwater at unsustainble rates. Check it out from High Country News’ GOAT blog by clicking here.

San Francisco’s Proposition R to rename the sewage plant in honor of George Bush just oozes respect, says the Golden Gate Xpress: “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” he [the chairman of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco] wrote in his proponent’s argument. “President Bush has left us with a gigantic mess, and this facility symbolizes the city’s deft ability to clean up its share of the financial and diplomatic mess left in the administration’s wake…we think President Bush deserves immediate recognition for his eight years of public service.” Before you dismiss it as silly, the Xpress wants you to remember the wooden dummy named Brendan O’Smarty. From the Golden Gate Xpress – click here.

For all of you storm water and urban runoff people, bookmark this new blog from the Los Angeles Stormwater Quality Partnership: Stormwater Trends.

Pictures, pictures, pictures! Here’s a great article about Mono Lake, the most unique & bizarre lakes from around the world – and there’s a lot of them, Imperial Valley officials and their secret twins, and a the BBC has a slideshow of Prix Pictet winners featuring amatuer & professional photos of water.

Odds and ends: Cascades water farm, doomed California, Las Vegas’s toxic & illegal water, how much is Trinity County’s water worth, and snails that walk on water

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 22, 2008 at 4:00 pm

“Water and power have made our arid land flourish, may we keep faith with the pioneers who brought us these gifts” says the writing on this wall in downtown Los Angeles….

Water Wired weighs in on the Cascades groundwater: Referring to it as the “Cascades Water Farm”, Michael Campana of the Water Wired blog has a post about Monday’s article on the groundwater in Oregon, writing we do need to study these systems so that we can determine their transient responses to stresses and simulate the systems with fracture-flow models. We also need to distinguish between the amount of water stored in the systems and the amount that can be recovered; the two are not equal. More from the Water Wired blog by clicking here.

Is California Doomed because of gay marriage? This blogger reponds to a letter in the Fresno Bee that blamed California’s drought and wildfires on gay marriage, writing  The Drought has been going on since 2006. Was God punishing us for things we hadn’t done yet? What’s the real problem, according to this blogger? California is a friggin desert, not that you’d know because Californians insist on having lawns greener than those in Wisconsin. We ought to be growing cactus and other low water using plants. [and] This arid wasteland has over 30 million people, to name a few. Check out this post on the Fourth Dimensional Blog by clicking here.

Las Vegas’s water is toxic and illegal! From the Las Vegas CityLife blogs, this blogger responds to a recent report on bottled water, which included the news that bottled water from Wal-Mart tested high for contaminants, writing: where’s Wal-Mart getting at least some of that tasty beverage to pour into its bottles? The Las Vegas Valley Water District. So, you know that old joke about bottled water companies just putting tap water into fancy bottles with pictures of islands and glaciers and dolphins in sunglasses fanning themselves under palm trees? In this case, it’s true. Until Las Vegas’s water quality improves, he’s sticking with the horchata. Check it out from the Las Vegas City Life blog by clicking here.

How much money is Trinity County’s water worth? If Trinity County were to get an extremely conservative whole sale price of $133 per acre foot, as based on the California’s Environmental Water Account Plan for 2007- 2008 (actual open market price for June 2008 is $500 – $1000 per acre-foot dependent on extraction, transport, treatment and other costs), the county would collect over $111 Million in revenues. Additionally, if the county were able to produce its own power from these waters there would be an additional $150 million in revenues, based on $0.12 per kWh (statewide average charge for all sectors by PG&E). All that power and water is now going to the Westlands Water District by way of the Central Valley Project, and the water district’s in much better shape than Trinity County, says this commentary. Read all about it in the CSPA News blog by clicking here.

Snails that walk on water? “How the snails were dragging themselves across a surface that they could not even grip was absolutely perplexing to us,” said lead author Eric Lauga, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Find out how they do it in this article from National Geographic by clicking here.

Odds and ends: How many hamburgers does a reservoir hold, track wildfires online, eco-insanity, what’s in the riverbed that didn’t make the news, realtor tours SWP, plus online groundwater resources for free!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 17, 2008 at 7:52 am

Happy Friday to all!

How many hamburgers does a reservoir hold? Kelly Zito of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Village Green blog asks himself after a visit to the dwindling mud puddle that is now the San Luis Reservoir: The reservoir also has a visitor center, where helpful rangers answer questions, point our landmarks and give out fact sheets. One pamphlet that I’d picked up popped into my mind the other day while I was eating a hamburger and contemplating California’s drought (Yes, I think about these things during my off hours…). Essentially, the sheet highlights the fact that everything we eat can be boiled down (harhar) and measured by the amount of water needed to produce it. It’s the carbon footprint idea, using water instead. According to this handout, it took nearly 700 gallons… …of water to grow the ingredients and produce the hamburger I was enjoying so much. At 13% full, Zito calculates the San Luis Reservoir holds about 121 million hamburgers! More from the Village Green blog by clicking here.

Track wildfires online – not water-related (forgive me!) but I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time! The O.C. Register’s Sciencedude informs: A small Redding company has created an online “wildfire viewer” that allows the public to see the changing perimeter of large brush fires in Orange County and the rest of Southern California. I could have used something like this when wildfire swept very close to our neighborhood last year. Check it out and bookmark that site, and I hope you won’t need to use it in the upcoming fire season. Click here for Sciencedude article.

Government eco-insanity intensifies, environmentalists out of control, says Laer of the Cheat Seeking Missiles blog, responding to a recent Capital Ag Press article about how a ruling in New York could affect irrigation systems out west. While Clean Water legislation in the 1970’s brought pollution and big polluters under control, he writes: What’s not under control are environmentalists intent on using these laws to bring down our nation, so they came up with the idea of calling water a pollutant. If New York City buys water from upstate New York and puts it into its pipe, these guys want New York to have to consider that water a pollutant and get a discharge permit. It’s literally costing New York millions of dollars, and the irrigation systems of the west could be next, says the Capital Ag Press article. More from the Cheat Seaking Missiles blog by clicking here.

Watch out for that linty white stuff in the riverbed, warns Santa Clarita blogger who attended the River Rally event – an event to pick up trash in the riverbed held on the same day as the Coastal Cleanup Day: A friend and I got to the River Rally early, and we were part of the advance guard moving north through the wash. I started picking up pieces of white, linty paper when my friend yelled “That’s used toilet paper!” Unfortunately, I hadn’t noticed the used part before picking it up. Now the good news was that I was wearing gloves. The bad news is they were basically loosely-woven garden gloves, not exactly ideal for handling…y’know. Other cleaners also went on to encounter the discarded toilet paper. Two high school girls showed remarkable ingenuity when confronted with this challenge. Like in a documentary about primitive man, they improvised tools from sticks, spearing the toilet paper with a sharp branch before putting it in the trash bag. I was duly impressed. Find out more of what else he found in the riverbed in this blog post from I Heart SCV by clicking here.

Realtor follows the water on a recent Metropolitan Water District tour: In a series of three posts rich with pictures, realtor Gene Wunderlich toured the State Water Project with the MWD. Stops included the Edmonston Pumping Plant, Lake Oroville, and the Delta. Check it out from the Southwest California Homes blog: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3. You can also check out Aquafornia’s desk chair tour of the California Aqueduct by clicking here.

Free Water Geek Groundwater literature online! The USGS has put out a new circular on groundwater, titled Ground-Water Availability in the United States, and Water-Wired blog alerts you to the fact that a textbook, Unsaturated Zone Hydrology for Scientists and Engineers, is also available online at no cost!

Odds and ends: Dam discussion, cows and water, Economist debate closes, Yale Environment 360, wine on tap, and the real cause of droughts!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 12, 2008 at 7:34 am

Forgive the non-water related picture, but I just had to share Aqua Spouse’s incredible dragonfly picture!

An interesting post on the effectiveness of dams in the new emerging California climate. One of my favorite bloggers returns to the blogosphere with an interesting discussion on the proposed dams and how they might be operated in the face of climate change. This post discusses the projected changes to California’s hydrology and how those changes would affect reservoir operations; the new dams might even have environmental benefits. However this blogger remains undecided about whether we should build them: So, do we hate these dams? Should enviros fight them forever? Well, we don’t love them for the old-school reason. They won’t produce new water. The big cities in the south have realized this; they aren’t offering to pay or even lobbying for new dams. Both dams would destroy a beautiful valley. They’ll be expensive. On the other hand, they’ll have downstream environmental benefits in ways that old dams never provided. We have more of a need to catch floods, because that’s what we’re going to get in the new hydrology. They may give us a way to keep more of the ag we have now, if that is the goal. There’s a lot more to this post, so go check it out at the Rhubarb Pie blog. If you enjoyed that post, check out this one on how our infrastructure is optimized for the old climatology, and how we are moving from the Age of Abundance into the Age of Management.

Cows are guzzling the West’s Water: the Wuerthner on the Environment blog, written by ecologist and writer George Wuerthner, has an extremely long post on the effects of irrigation on the ecosystem in the west, starting with the cow: When people think of California and water, they often imagine sprawling cities dotted liberally with swimming pools and watered lawns; legions of vain auto owners washing their SUVs, sports cars, and minivans; and endless acres of verdant golf courses – all sucking down rivers both near and far. This image is partly correct – rivers are going dry. But the major reason is not direct consumption by humans – urbanites running sprinklers on their front yards and the like. In California, the major user of water is agriculture, and within agriculture, the thirstiest commodity is the cow. Check out this post at Wuerthner on the Environment blog.

Results are in on the Economist debate: After a torrent of incisive statements and comments over the past two weeks, our debate has now reached a close—and we have a winner. You have voted against the proposition by 59% to 41%. Vandana Shiva prevails. This house does not believe that “water, as a scarce resource, should be priced according to its market value”. Check out the results from the Water Wired blog. Not surprisingly to those who know him, Aguanomics blog writer David Zetland does not agree, saying “We will suffer from “supply-demand imbalances” for as long as water prices fail to reflect its scarcity value“. He gives his thoughts here.

Aguanomics blog reviews the site Yale Environment 360: David Zetland says the posts are “relevant, thorough and accurate”. He reviews and summarizes three of them. From the Aguanomics blog.

Sparkling white wine on tap in Italy: At the heart of the town’s famous Sagra dell’Uva, or Grape Festival, is the moment when sparkling white wine flows from the fountains in the main square. But this year locals and tourists had to make do with water, as bad plumbing meant the wine supply was switched by mistake to local homes. Oops! From the BBC News.

The real cause of drought, in case you didn’t know it, is Daylight Savings Time! Six months of DST is too much for the environment to cope with, (seriously!) says this letter writer in this humorous post, also from the Aguanomics blog.

Odds and ends: Praise for DWP & Nahai, a stream for Griffith Park?, DWR podcasts, salinity management guide, for whom the toll roads, international perspectives on water, and that gotta-go event, the World Toilet Summit & Expo!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 27, 2008 at 1:42 pm

Long overdue, more odds and ends!

LA Creek Freak attends DWP Forum on Sustainable Water Supplies, says he is encouraged by the plan and by the leadership of David Nahai: One of the mayor’s very best environmental moves was to hire him to run the DWP. David Nahai is up-front, clear, principled and generous. He continually emphasized that water solutions would be based in partnership and collaboration – with an array of city departments, other governmental agencies, neighborhood councils, community groups, and an engaged public. He frequently voiced praise of (and deferred credit to) the work being done by his staff. He uttered the most stark (for a public official) assessment of the damage caused by L.A.’s thirst for imported water, saying that, in the Owens Valley “we left in our wake an environmental calamity.” Find out more about the forum by clicking here.

Restoration of a running stream through Griffith Park? It’s possible, according to an official who is quoted in the Griffith Park Interrupted Blog: At this time we are having a geotechnical consultant perform an engineering feasability study to intercept the groundwater from hydrogeological formations upstream of the landfill and restortation of a running stream through Griffith Park below the landfill. This may be an opportunity to restablish a water resource through the park and reduce the formation of leachate within the landfill. Find out more from the Griffith Park Interrupted Blog by clicking here.

Check out podcasts from DWR: They are short audio podcasts that answers informative and entertaining questions on a variety of subjects from the many experts in the department on a variety of subjects including carbon capture farming, how much does an acre-foot of water cost, and how water is pumped over the Tehachapi’s. Click here for the DWR Podcast webpage.

Salinity Management Guide, updated for 2009, now available online: The guide is intended for landscape designers, park managers and anyone else using recycled water for landscape irrigation, and is the only database of its kind that provides information on the effects of water quality on plants, soils and water application systems. Check it out by clicking here.

First person accounts of the San Onofre Toll Road hearing: For whom the toll roads, posted on IndyBay: a humorous account of the hearing experience, and Tollway Hearing Theater: Catcalls, dollar-wavers and thumb war amid scores of steadfast speakers, by the Laguna Press Independent.

16 unusual international perspectives on water gives you a look at how this resource is viewed around the world in pictures and text from Eco-Worldly. Click here to check it out.

Not to be missed! The World Toilet Summit & Expo: The premier gotta-go event is coming to Macau November 4 through the 6th. Find out more from Water Wired here.

Odds and ends: Water bank a no-brainer says one blog, build more dams says another, water & growth in the West, and can you answer the great hydrogeologic question of our era!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 7, 2008 at 8:03 am

Slow news day…  good day for odds and ends!

Snow bank is a no-brainer, says Spreck Rosekranz in a post on EDF’s On the Waterfront blog, who wonders why this program only happens in drought years: The distribution of water throughout California is based on a historically derived water rights system that does not well serve today’s economic, social or environmental needs. While a State-run water bank may be most useful and active in a drought, it would provide incentives in all years to make long-term investments in conservation that are necessary to support our growing state’s economy while protecting our environment. Read more from Spreck Rosekranz’s post by clicking here.

Even better than the water bank would be to complete two other projects in Northern California, says the Parkway blog: Along with the obvious solution for our area, the building of Auburn Dam (which would double our storage capacity), supported by groups—including us—like the Auburn Dam Council, there is another that would solve the water problems for the larger region and that is the raising of Shasta Dam to its originally engineered height of 200 feet higher than it now is, tripling its water supply. Read more from the Parkway blog by clicking here.

Water, land and growth in the Western U.S. – a commentary: From Water Wired, a link to a commentary in Planning & Environmental Law. Water Wired quotes from the summary: We conclude that the current growth management debate continues to accept growth as inevitable and seeks only to accommodate it through conservation, reallocation of agricultural supplies, and possibly denser urban development. Nonetheless, the exit of the federal government from subsidizing regional development, along with state inaction, is forcing urban areas to begin linking land use and water resources planning for the first time. Western cities may not stop growing, but growth accommodation will be more difficult and more expensive than it has been in the past. Read more from this Water Wired post by clicking here.

OK, now for the really serious stuff:  The great hydrogeologic question of our era!  Groundwater – one word or two? Yes, believe it or not, Water Wired’s Michael Campana pens an entire blog entry on the subject.  He writes: One advantage to using one word: there is no ambiguity about hyphenation when it is used as an adjective. Is it “ground-water hydrology” or “ground water hydrology”? Again, be consistent. But don’t ever write “surface and groundwater” when you mean “surface water and groundwater”. However, “surface and ground water” is okay, as is “surface water and ground water”. Ah, English! Got that?  Read more from the Water Wired blog by clicking here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Labor Day odds and ends: Poseidon and privatization, ‘brown’ western politics, Delta in distress, and predictions for the epic budget battle ahead

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on September 1, 2008 at 7:55 am

Poseidon: An ‘investor’s dream’ but raises other issues, says this blogger: ” … once built and once we depend on this new water supply, these plants become virtual monopolies with guaranteed survival. Induced by this profit potential, corporations will agitate for more access, less regulation, larger plants. Peering into the crystal ball can you see the day when Poseidon’s Carlsbad plant and the 50 million gallons of water it provides would be turned off? Shut down? Can you imagine the day when we no longer need the water? I can’t. So Poseidon is now a risk free investment with a guaranteed return; an investor’s dream. But by allowing our water supply to become privatized, we will pay in many ways, says this blogger. From the O.B. Rag blog: The Poseidon Adventure Begins.

Western politics and the Colorado River Compact: … the one political defining characteristic of the western U.S. that I have observed in about eight years of residence (primarily in Colorado, now in Arizona) is that the people this side of the 100th meridian think for themselves, make choices that are best for their wallets and their land, and don’t want the Federal government to interfere in the loose “controls” that the states have established for regulatory and administrative authority. The West is neither red nor blue, and almost certainly not green (though there are LEED-approved pockets here and there). The color of western libertarianism is brown, the color of the parched landscape on which they make their living. And libertarianism is not a political party out here, it’s a lifestyle. The blogger discusses politics, climatology, and the Colorado Compact in this post from Hydro-Logic: Politics and the River. (Note: you will need to scroll down past the references, which are given first for some reason, to read the post.)

The history and background of the Delta: This blogger, a state scientist in Sacramento, has a post on the history of the Delta and the threats it is facing now. An informative post with a lot of references. Check it out from the Chimaera Contemplations blog: Delta in Distress.

Legislative session closes, still no budget, but no one’s going home just yet. No convention parties either, as Perata says the Senate will meet every day until a budget is passed, and Bass has ordered the Assembly to reconvene on Wednesday (Sacramento Bee story). So what’s next? Jerry Roberts at the Santa Barbara Independent makes some ‘whimsical’ predictions for the epic budget battle, including this: Democratic leaders offer new tax plan, “The Peripheral Canal of Money,” asking taxpayers to toss cash once a month into the California Aqueduct, to be pumped upstream through the Delta directly to the Treasurer’s Office in Sacramento. “Throw in $1, $5, $20—whatever you can afford,” says Speaker Karen Bass, “because it’s all for the children.” More predictions by clicking here.

Odds and ends: groundwater links, dam arguments, deconstructing the WaterCube, funny TV ads to save water, and a look inside pumping stations

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 26, 2008 at 8:50 am

Bringing you some of the latest in the blog world….

Waterblogged.info gets serious about groundwater in this comprehensive list of groundwater resources available on the web. Getting serious about groundwater is the way for you to move quickly up the ranks from water wanabee to water wonk, and essential for refining your wretched water table manners, as well. There’s even YouTube videos. Check it all out by clicking here.

Actually, dams are attractive, rebuts the Parkway Blog to this recent column in the Sacramento Bee: … dams are the most attractive way to solve the water problems in the state of California—and specifically addressing the provision of a stable water supply to Southern California with water stored behind those dams in Northern California—it is necessary to build the peripheral canal. Build the Auburn Dam and raise Shasta Dam too, he says. Click here for the Parkway Blog.

Aguanomics blog, however, debates economics of the dam question, saying Pricing is the first answer to dealing with water issues. Efficient use is next, and that doesn’t just mean efficient drip systems; it means being efficient in not growing low value, water intensive crops like cotton with subsidized water. The Bee argues for building new dams now (undoubtedly having Sites and Temperance Flat in mind), but fails to mention that the pending studies on the costs, yields and environmental effects of those dams are not complete. That is like having expensive surgery before the Doc has looked at the X-rays. Check out the always interesting Aguanomics blog by clicking here.

Why was the Water Cube so fast? The watercrunch blog deconstructs why so many world records were broken there in this post.

Kudos to the Denver Water Company for these funny water conservation TV ads posted on YouTube: Drunken Flowers and Stop Running Toilets. Not so sure about this one, though: Shower.

A look inside Metropolitan’s Colorado River Aqueduct pumping stations – a photo hound after my own heart! If you like my photo library, you’ll enjoy this look at the nuts and bolts of the system: Click here for Ron’s Log photo gallery.

News tidbits: Fresno’s Mayor Autry self-sacrifices for water bond, Lance Armstrong the water guzzling champion, red lionfish invade Caribbean, and professional car washes take action

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 16, 2008 at 6:21 am

Fresno Mayor Autry’s mad about the lack of a water bond, so he’s taking matters into his own hands: Yup, folks, he has pledged to not wear a suit and tie until a water bond is passed.  Shocking!  From the Sacramento Bee: “Every meeting until this water deal is done, you’ll see old Bubba in jeans and work shirt,” he said. Self-sacrifice, thy name is Bubba. Yeah, sure, that’ll get some action….

Lance Armstrong, bicycle champion, is also a champion water user, reaching the top of the list of Austin, Texas water users. 38 times the average household use, or 330,000 gallons last month.  Armstrong has a long history of high water use, and the city has ruled out a water leak. New York Times article.

Red lionfish, an adaptable predator, has invaded the Caribbean: The fish are believed to have been released into Florida’s Biscayne Bay in 1992 when Hurricane Andrew shattered a private aquarium and sent six of the fish swimming. The adaptable predators corner fish & crustaceans up to half their size and swallow them in one gulp. “This may very well become the most devastating marine invasion in history,” said Mark A. Hixon, an Oregon State University zoology professor and marine ecology expert who compared lionfish to a plague of locusts. “There is probably no way to stop the invasion completely.” Los Angeles Times article.

Professional car washers, unite! California is a state that likes to be first, and is leading the way with imposing restrictions on car washing. Here’s an article on four lessons learned by car wash owners on how to protect their businesses. “It is my hope that operators will start educating their local water purveyors and municipalities as to the benefits of professional carwashing,” Nix said. “The carwash industry is a solution to the problem of water conservation and water quality.” Professional Carwashing & Detailing article.

New blogs and web resources to check out!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 14, 2008 at 5:40 pm

I’ve added a number of new blogs to the Blogroll recently:

Lloyd G. Carter’s Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood - Lloyd Carter’s been around for 35 years, reporting and writing on California’s water issues. This blog is relatively new, consisting of links to various news articles, as well as archives of his news career as well as current articles, radio commentaries, and random thoughts. http://www.lloydgcarter.com/

Environmental Defense Fund’s On the Waterfront blog features posts by a group of bloggers, including Thomas Graff and Linda Harnish. The blog advocates for A balanced approach to western water policy—protecting California’s ecosystems and providing reliable water supplies for our farms and cities. http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/waterfront/

I didn’t know Aquafornia had a cousin, but apparently so… SanJoaquinValleyfornia bills itself as An Online Chronicle of Policy and Politics in the San Joaquin Valley. The site is very active, posting three times a day – news & political briefing in the morning, mid-day post on Valley issues, as well as an afternoon update. They even post on Saturdays and Sundays, too. (This person, like myself, has too much time on their hands!) A great collection of links. http://www.sanjoaquinvalleyfornia.com/

For those of you concerned about development and water supply, the California Water Impact Network has an 81-page downloadable book called ‘A Community Guide to California’s “Show Me the Water Laws” Including the Urban Water Management Planning Act And Senate Bills 610 & 221. This book is intended to be a layperson’s introduction to California’s water supply system and to the set of laws that govern how local governments must incorporate water supply reliability issues into their planning decisions. Citizens have always played an important role as watchdogs over local decision-making about growth and development. Citizens groups can play an equally important role in protecting their own water supply reliability, by ensuring that land use planners thoroughly consider whether new growth will impact supply reliability for existing residents. Check it out at this California Water Impact Network webpage: http://www.c-win.org/Publications.html

Check out the Water Education Foundation’s redesigned website, where you can download articles, subscribe to Western Water Magazine, and purchase inexpensive booklets on important California water issues.  The non-profit Water Education Foundation’s mission is education, and to that end they offer a variety of variety of publications and videos, three day tours of California’s water infrastructure, as well as programs for school kids.  There’s even a calendar of upcoming water-related seminars and events.   http://www.watereducation.org/

If you haven’t already, you need to check out the Water SISWEB

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 13, 2008 at 8:35 am

I’ve plugged for the Sisweb before, but now an article posted on IndyBay really tells you what makes the Sisweb so cool:

Have you ever had problems finding scientific water resources news, articles, videos, images, papers, etc.? Have you ever found interesting material over the internet that you wanted to share with others? No worries! Now, you can use WaterSISWEB.org. WaterSISWEB allows users to interact by posting interesting links, voting, and commenting.

WaterSISWEB is a place for the water resources professionals to share information. Scientists, researchers, students, and industry professionals can use this free community service to find what is new and popular in the water resources area and share, store, organize, and search the bookmarks of web pages in this area.

The Sisweb is not a blog, but a bookmarking site. What is that, you ask? The article explains how a bookmarking site works:

The format of this bookmarking website is different than a blog. According to Madani “the difference between a blog and a bookmarking site is that a blog has a moderator to decide what is good and what is not. Here the users control the content. If they are interested in something, they post it there, but because the taste of one person may be completely different from the taste of the entire community, other users are given a chance to vote.” WaterSISWEB is not run by the WaterSISWEB team, but by its users. Registered users can post links to water resources content on the web, and other registered users have the opportunity to vote for or against them to appear more or less prominently on WaterSISWEB. These users also have the opportunity to comment on posts, reply to comments, vote for comments, save posted links for later references, and even recommend what they find interesting to others who may not be WaterSISWEB’s members. When a link is first submitted, it appears in the Upcoming (under review) section. It can then be prompted to the Top (front) page through a user-based ranking system. The numbers of positive and negative votes of users on each link determine the rank of that post. WaterSISWEB’s team does not decide which links should become popular. Members’ votes train a filter that determines which posts deserve to be seen by other visitors.

You can read more about the Sisweb by clicking here.

It sounds a bit more complicated than it really is, and it might take some getting used to.  I find it a little easier to follow now that I have added it to my RSS Reader.

So, if you haven’t check it out yet, go ahead, take the plunge! http://www.siswebs.org/water/

Odds and ends: Another desal approval, peripheral canal: yes, no maybe so, millions of dollars of bird balls, and a trip to a landfill

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 10, 2008 at 7:59 am

Another desalination plant approved: Poseidon’s Carlsbad desalination plant was not the only one approved by the Coastal Commission. Approval was granted for a much smaller desalination plant in Monterey to supply the needs of an oceanside development. The plant will produce 25,000 gallons of water per day. Story from the San Jose Mercury News – click here.

Peripheral Canal – Yes! says David Zetland of the Aguanomics blog, who was asked to sit on an a panel discussion. He writes: The case for the PC is all the more powerful because business as usual will NOT continue — either because the pumps will be shut down to protect endangered fish, because rising sea level will bring more salt to the Delta, and/or an earthquake will cause catastrophic levee failure. (Farmers in the west and central Delta are going to be out of business no matter what.) The PC is “better” because it will reduce the chance of a sudden interruption of exports due to levee failure, increase the quality of that water (less salt), and improve the chances of endangered fish (and the Delta ecosystem) recovering. Read more from the Aguanomics blog by clicking here.

Peripheral Canal – No! says Wes Rolley in the Morgan Hill Times: The PPIC places all of our hopes for a reliable water supply on the construction of a peripheral canal routing water around the Delta, changing the nature of that resource forever and doing it in a manner from which it can not recover. …. The PPIC’s report seems incomplete. The data backing up its conclusions was in appendices which will not be made public until later in the summer. I am told that Schwarzenegger pushed to have the report out before it was ready. The story is being scripted. Read more of Wes Rolley’s commentary in the Morgan Hill Times by clicking here.

Peripheral Canal – Maybe! Spreck Rosencranz of the Environmental Defense Blog, On the Waterfront, says the benefits to water users of a peripheral canal are clear. The murky part: Less clear is how a peripheral canal would affect the Delta, either as a natural environment or as a farming and rural community. PPIC asserts that a canal would be better both for resident fish such as Delta smelt and for salmon that spend only part of their lives within the Delta. While PPIC acknowledges that the amount and timing of water withdrawals from the natural environment is critical to fish survival, it sheds little light on how to ensure that these withdrawals allow for the fish to survive. We need to determine if and how a peripheral canal would be operated without destroying the Delta before we start digging, he says. Check it out from the EDF’s On the Waterfront blog by clicking here.

What does a million bucks of bird balls look like? The Griffith Park Interrupted blog gives us a look with a photo essay – click here, the watercrunch blog has a YouTube Video – click here, and the AWWA has an article – but you have to be a member to read it. You can get a summary and read discussion comments, though, by clicking here.

This is not your momma’s landfill, says the LAist: A land fill is very different than the dump that we still picture from days of yore, with the trash unloaded everywhere, rife with vermin. Puente Hills is carefully structured not to impact the environment. On the approach, it’s a terraced green hill, with trees and grass, even flowers. It’s full of wildlife — deer and squirrels and coyotes (though in the landfill itself, between the methane generate and the pulverizing of the trash to compact it, no vermin can survive). The plantings get younger and younger until you reach the crest, and just over the top, it turns into dust. The Puente Hills landfill is the largest landfill in the U.S., at least for now. It uses methane to generate power for the landfill and sells the excess to Southern California Edison. They pull out anything recyclable and send it to China. Take a bus tour with the LAist and check it out by clicking here.

Odds and ends: the cost of desalination, why we squander water, private wells for pools, water dancing, & your opportunity to flood Buckingham Palace

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 7, 2008 at 7:45 am

Interesting posts found out and about on the internet:

How much would it cost if all of California’s water was supplied by desalination: The Daily Kos’s NNadir pencils it out: According to this link California consumes about 8.7 million acre-feet of water per year for urban use (including the tract housing that blankets the state) and about 44 million acre feet per year for agriculture. The energy cost of providing California’s water through desalination could thus range between 0.6 exajoules to a whopping 2.3 exajoules of electricity. Because electricity is generally produced at about 33% of thermal efficiency, we should multiply these numbers by 3 to get the primary energy cost. Thus we range from about 2 exajoules to about 7 exajoules. For comparison purposes, US total energy consumption is about 100 exajoules. He calculates this cost to be $18 billion to $80 billion a year – that is, if the electricity could be generated. Read more from the Daily Kos by clicking here.

Blogger asks the question, why do Americans squander so much water, the most essential thing to life? Answer: “Right now, they have no incentive to use water more wisely – because it’s so cheap. But what’s changing is, locally, municipalities are looking at full-cost pricing to reflect how much it takes their water service providers to actually deliver it, having that reflected in the price of water.” Only then will consumers start to conserve, he says, underscoring the adage that people don’t change their destructive behavior until it hits them in their wallets.” Read more from the Green Right Now blog by clicking here.

Residents in drought-stricken Southeastern U.S. are beating water restrictions by drilling their own wells to water their landscaping or fill their swimming pools apparently without guilt: Referencing this Wall Street Journal story, Michael Campana of Water Wired points out the short-sightedness of their attitudes: The water they pump ultimately would flow to some surface water body, Faux well pix perhaps in the Chattahoochee River basin (for those pumping in the Atlanta area), or perhaps some other stream system far away from Atlanta. But the truth is that these folks are in fact using someone else’s water. By pumping ground water, they are likely reducing the discharge somewhere else. More from the Water Wired blog by clicking here.

“Take me to the river and drop me in the water” … the AWRA Water Blog has a list of water songs, with plenty more added in the comments section. This should be an iMix on iTunes.  Did you know there is even a song about the St. Francis Dam disaster?  Check out the Water Dance Playlist & comments from the AWRA Water Blog by clicking here.

Ever wanted to make important decisions affecting millions of people, while flooding out major cities in the process? You can now play policy God:  FloodSim puts you in control of all flood policy decisions and spending in the UK for 3 years. Whether its deciding how much money to allocate to flood defences, deciding where to build houses, or how best to inform people about the risk of flooding, you are in control. It’s actually a serious game intended to promote citizen awareness of flood issues & government expenditures – check out FloodSim by clicking here.  (Hat tip to the Sisweb!)

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