Desalination plant would help preserve San Diego county’s farming heritage

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2007 at 8:01 am

In an opinion article written by Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, he urges approval for the Carlsbad desalination plant, currently being considered by the State Lands Commission. He notes that farmers are impacted by the 30% cutback in agricultural water deliveries, and that water is the scarcest and most expensive variable for a farmer. San Diego county farmers are already using water conservatively, he says, so the future of farming in San Diego depends on developing local sources.

From the article:

Why should San Diegans care about the county agricultural industry? There are more small family farms in San Diego County than anywhere else in the United States. San Diego County is the 12th largest farm economy among all counties in the nation, and is host to more than 6,000 farmers. Our local agriculture industry ranks as the fifth largest industry in San Diego County, producing more than $1.4 billion in crops. When all economic factors are considered, including payroll, purchase of goods and transportation, agriculture has a total value of $5.1 billion to the local economy.

In addition to the value to the economy, the farmers of San Diego County own and maintain vast tracts of open space, plant trees and crops that help improve air quality, provide a sumptuous harvest of locally grown products and help protect the ambience that is San Diego County. For the farm community, water supply is not just a bottom line business issue; it is critical to the preservation of San Diego County’s open space and environment. Unless we secure a reliable water supply, San Diego’s rich agricultural heritage will be changed forever. Farmers unable to afford the skyrocketing cost and overcome the unreliability of imported water supplies will look to sell their land. And as farm water supplies are redirected to supplement urban users, agricultural enterprises will suffer and allow farm land to become more readily available to developers and cities contemplating other land uses that will undoubtedly have traffic, noise and air pollution impacts.

To read the full text of his editorial as posted on the San Diego Union-Tribune website, click here.

Desalination plant review underway at State Lands Commission

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2007 at 6:08 am

From the North County Times:

Roughly 250 people packed into a state hearing Tuesday, many of them arguing that a proposed desalination project in Carlsbad could help protect this drought-stricken region as it confronts a dwindling water supply.

The proposed plant could give the area a guaranteed source of local drinking water and provide a little security for a region that now depends on the distant Colorado River for nearly all of its water, said proponents, who included area water district officials, chamber of commerce leaders and farmers. “I believe the water crisis is the most critical issue facing this region, this state,” said Carlsbad Mayor Bud Lewis, who was accompanied by three of the city’s four council members at Tuesday’s State Lands Commission hearing.

Opponents of the desalination project, including local coastal preservationists and surfers, said they don’t oppose the idea of producing drinking water out of seawater, but they don’t think the design of this plant is best way to do it. “Here we are with the first one (of what may be many such plants) and it’s one of the worst ones,” said Marco Gonzalez, an environmental lawyer who is active in the local Surfrider Foundation.

Last week, Poseidon issued a press release stating that they would make the operation ‘carbon neutral’ through green construction, wetlands restoration projects, and the purchase of carbon credits. From the article:

In particular, commission Chairman John Garamendi, who also is the state’s lieutenant governor, said Poseidon needs to figure out how it will reduce the carbon dioxide generated by the plant.

“If you haven’t figured (it) out, I suggest you get on it quickly,” Garamendi said to the company’s representatives. Peter MacLaggan of Poseidon Resources said the company would do its best, noting that its proposal to be “carbon-neutral” is something that’s pretty new — both for Poseidon and for the industry.

Also not yet determined is what Poseidon will do if the Encina power plant stops using the intake for cooling. Officials at the power plant have submitted plans to gradually upgrade the plant’s equipment with generators that are air-cooled rather than seawater-cooled.

To read the rest of this article from the North County Times, click here.

Imperial County files complaint against All-American canal contractor

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2007 at 5:56 am

From the Imperial Valley Press Online:

Imperial County has filed an official complaint through the state Superior Court against a construction company for what the county claims are equipment and air violations in the construction of the All-American Canal lining project.

On Tuesday, the county confirmed that a complaint had been filed against Phoenix-based Ames Construction. The complaint does not legally halt construction on the project. “They’re operating internal combustion engines — pumps, generators — and they don’t feel they need to have district permits that we require,” said Imperial County Air Pollution Control District Officer Steve Birdsall. “We disagree.

“We’re trying to protect our air quality,” Birdsall said. “We’re treating them no differently than we’re treating anyone else.”

To read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press Online, click here.

SoCal resident moves to New England to escape water wars, but finds them anyway

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2007 at 5:53 am

From the Boston Globe:

It sounds strange, but I moved here for the water. Already in the early 1980s, The Wall Street Journal was reporting that the West would be running out of water, with the mighty Colorado River overtaxed, and the water table declining beneath the arid lands of Nevada and Arizona. That was about the same time that the late Marc Reisner started researching “Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water,” which was published in 1986.

I knew I had to get out of Southern California, and New England seemed like just the place. I didn’t care about the climate; I looked at the upper Northeast as the aqua-Arabia of the future, overflowing with the one resource people would need to make it through the 21st century: water.

Oops.

A while back, I bumped into Federal Reserve Bank economist Robert Tannenwald, co-author of a very disturbing report on New England’s water resources. Nowadays, as I see pictures on the evening news of a half-full Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, or read about water crises in Georgia and elsewhere, I remember Tannenwald’s words about potentially “severe water shortages” in New England. His message: It can happen here. In fact, it is.

Taps running dry, subdivisions stealing each other’s water - click here to find out how water wars are done in New England in this column from the Boston Globe.

Delta pumps trap over 250,000 threadfin shad

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2007 at 5:46 am

From the California Progress Report:

The massive federal pumps that export water from the California Delta to agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley entrained (trapped) over 370,000 threadfin shad, a major forage species on the Delta, in one week.

On one day, October 16, Bureau of Reclamation biologists observed 250,000 shad in collection buckets in the pumping facilities. After collecting the buckets, the federal workers put the fish into a tanker truck and released them into the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. “We were able to salvage most of the fish and get them back into the Delta,” observed Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, dismissing an earlier media report that some of the fish had to be buried.

McCracken said the large number of shad being taken in one week occurred when large schools of shad moved into the area of the Delta pumps, resulting in the entrainment of the introduced species. “We feel that we do successfully return most of the entrained fish to the Delta alive,” said Ron Silva of the U.S Bureau of Reclamation. “However, we haven’t assessed the survival rate of the threadfin shad because it is not a listed species like delta smelt, king salmon, steelhead or green sturgeon. In our salvage operations, we focus on the listed species, with the exception of one species, striped bass.”

To read the full text of this article from the California Progress Report, click here.

Salton Sea clean-up this Saturday: more volunteers needed

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 31, 2007 at 5:42 am

From Riverside’s Press-Enterprise:

It’s a big job and can be a bit smelly. But so far, about 200 people are signed up for Saturday’s dead-fish cleanup. More people are needed.

“People do care about the (Salton) Sea,” said Dan Cain, project manager for the Salton Sea Authority. “We’re trying to raise community awareness, because people just want to know how they can help. And we’re providing that opportunity on Saturday.”

The Fish Cleanup Task Force, created by the authority after the massive 2006 fish die-off at Varner Harbor, is spearheading the campaign.

The die-offs at the sea generally occur in the summer when the desert heat robs the lake of oxygen.

Interested cleanup volunteers should call 760-564-4888.

The event will include a continental breakfast beforehand, and lunch afterwards. To read the rest of this article from Riverside’s Press-Enterprise, click here.

California water crisis demands legislative action, says CVWD board of directors

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 10:28 pm

From the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, this commentary written by the Cucamonga Valley Water District’s board of directors:

Recently, a special legislative session was called by the governor in order to address water infrastructure issues. To our chagrin, the Legislature failed to come to a compromise that addressed the looming water crisis in California.

One of the deal-breaking points was the philosophical discussion of whether or not it makes sense to construct new, large above-ground surface water storage projects in California. The surface water storage projects included in the governor’s proposal provided benefits to regions north and south of the Delta with some ancillary benefit to Southern California associated with the capture of storm water run-off and the ability to better manage rising water levels in the Delta.

We understand that any water bond proposal will need to provide benefits to a wide variety of interests in California in order to receive a wide range of support from all voters. As a local water provider we are supportive of bond proposals that provide funding for a variety of different alternatives to generate water supply. More specifically, our region is focused on the need to expand the use of recycled water for landscape and industrial purposes as well as the increase in programs that capture and recharge storm water, recycled water and imported water into local groundwater basins. Funding local supply development projects is cost-effective and ultimately decreases our dependence on imported water supplies that pass through the Delta.

As a region we are moving toward reducing our reliance on imported water; however, we realize that CVWD and other local and regional agencies may always rely, to some extent, on imported water supplies to supplement local water supplies in the future. Therefore, it is important to increase the reliability of our water supply from the Delta by ensuring that any future bond proposal includes funding to develop a conveyance system that diverts flows around the fragile Delta levee system, thereby reducing the vulnerability of California’s water infrastructure.

To read full text of this article from the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, click here.

Forming a vision for the Delta

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 10:18 pm

From the Vacaville Reporter:

A promising vision of the Delta’s future is taking shape, thanks to a panel of experts appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Delta Vision blue ribbon task force is taking a balanced approach, strongly urging protection of the Delta ecosystem as well as ensuring the critical water supplies that the state’s economy relies on. However, to both protect the threatened Delta and still supply enough water for urban and agricultural use, some significant changes in water policy must be made.

No longer can increasing supplies of water be sent to the Central Valley and Southern California, the task force says. In fact, there could be less water pumped southward in the future, but enough if farmers increase conservation efforts.

The panel understands that if the state is to reduce its reliance on the Delta, greater regional self-sufficiency will be needed throughout California. That means more local water projects.

But the task force also recognizes that sufficient and dependable supplies of fresh water cannot be made available without new storage. The panel favors both in-ground aquifers and above-ground reservoirs, which the governor advocates. The purpose of the new reservoirs would be to capture water during the wet months, when there is the least damage to the environment. Then the water must be efficiently moved to areas where it is needed.

The panel believes that improved conveyance must be constructed, such as an aqueduct. However, building an aqueduct alone without new storage capacity would threaten the Delta environment, according to the draft report.

The final report is due to the Governor by January 1st, and then the hard work of developing the implementation plan will begin.

To read the full text of this article from the Vacaville Reporter, click here.

Water Contractors Blame Striped Bass for Decline of Delta Smelt, King Salmon

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 10:13 pm

Here’s an article by Dan Bacher regarding the “Coalition for a Sustainable Delta”, who recently announced intentions to file suit over the striped bass. Click here for link to Aquafornia story regarding this lawsuit.

The state water contractors, under their organization “Coalition for a Sustainable Delta,” are playing hardball. They now want to blame the striped bass for the decline of delta smelt, longfin smelt, king salmon and other fish in the California Delta in order to divert blame from the state and federal export pumps, even though the striped bass successfully coexisted with native species for over 125 years. The following piece is their press release issued on October 25.

The one big scientific fact that this press release completely avoids discussing is that striped bass, king salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, delta smelt and other fish populations were robust and healthy until the state and federal pumping increased in the early 1970’s. Dramatic declines of all of these species took place only after the state and federal federal water projects began exporting northern California water to southern California and subsidized agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. More recently, since 2001 four species of pelagic species - delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad and juvenile striped bass - have declined to record lows with increases of 1,0000,000 additional acre feet of water every year by the state and federal water projects.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration largely agrees with the water contractors’ assessment, having stopped striped bass restoration measures such as a pen rearing project because agency officials claimed the striped bass were eating juvenile salmon and steelhead. Both the administration and water contractors refuse to deal with the real root cause of the decline of all Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta species - the export of huge quantities of water from the estuary and the killing of millions and millions of juvenile fish in the pumping facilities in the South Delta. Read more

Date set for Nevada water hearing on rural pumping plan

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 10:03 pm

From the Houston Chronicle:

Another effort by wealthy Reno businessman and powerbroker Harvey Whittemore to get rural Nevada water for a huge development he’s building about 50 miles north of Las Vegas is scheduled for a 5-day hearing starting March 31.

Whittemore’s Tuffy Ranch Properties LLC filed 54 applications with the state water engineer to change existing underground water rights in Lake Valley from irrigation to domestic use. About 11,000 acre-feet of the water would be for Whittemore’s Coyote Springs project, more than 100 miles to the south.

Tim Wilson, the hearing officer for the state water engineer, Tracy Taylor, set the hearing Tuesday after rejecting requests from some of the critics of the plan for more time to prepare their cases.

The applications have been protested by White Pine County and by the federal Bureau of Land Management. Other critics include Louis Benezet of Pioche and Jo Anne Garrett of Baker, both opponents of efforts to export rural Nevada groundwater.

Benezet said the water transfer plan is one of many efforts to shift groundwater from eastern Nevada south to high-growth areas, and it’s not just someone saying, “I’m going to water this field instead of that field” in the same valley.

The water rights being pursued by Whittemore represent about 20% of what he needs for his 150,000 home, golf-course centered project, to be located 50 miles north of Las Vegas.

To read the full text of this article from the Houston Chronicle, click here.

Flood & furrow irrigation is not necessarily wasteful, blogger says

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 9:56 pm

From the From The Archives blog, a technical discussion on irrigation practices, spurred by the blog post from the Political Animal blog, questioning agricultural water use.

From the Political Animal Blog (which is actually a link from another blog):

As [Jon] Gertner notes in passing, it’s farming, and not residential areas, that consumes the vast majority of water in the [Southwest] (90 percent of Colorado’s water goes toward agriculture). You’d think, then, that inefficient agriculture practices would get most of the scrutiny here. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, most irrigated farmland in the area — in California, Colorado, and Wyoming — is watered via flood irrigation, the least efficient method out there. Basically, farmers dig a bunch of trenches and dump water in them. In the short run, it’s cheap and easy; in the long run, it tends to waste water and deplete topsoil.

Not so fast, says the From the Archives blog. After a technical discussion on how, if managed correctly, furrow irrigation can be efficient, the blog has this to say:

So where do you see flood and furrow irrigation? You see it where water is so cheap that you don’t need to do careful applications. You also see it where the grower is constrained by the irrigation district. Some districts deliver water on rotation. They don’t keep all their lateral canals full all the time; you take your water when your canal is full, once every three weeks. If your district is on rotation, you have to use flood irrigation. You can’t put down enough water to last you for three weeks through some pansy little sprinklers***. You also see flood and furrow in modern irrigation districts, where the grower chose the method. Maybe the grower prefers labor costs to capital costs. Maybe the grower is experienced with furrow and wants to stay with his expertise.

My whole point is that flood and furrow irrigation are not themselves proof of wasting water. If you’re in a real old-school atmosphere, where the growers are contemptuous of water management, yeah, furrows are a strong signal of waste. But in a district where the manager and growers are alert to the modern ways of conservation, furrow and flood irrigation can be very good.

To read the full text of the Political Animal blog, click here. Or click here to read the Aquafornia post on this issue from earlier today. Click here to read the full article from the From the Archives blog on flood and furrow irrigation.

Colorado trying to figure out what to do in event of a Colorado River shortage

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 9:47 pm

From the Summit Daily News, Summit County, Colorado:

Colorado is in the early stages of considering a set of rules for allocating water in the event of a Colorado River shortage. Under a 1922 compact, upstream states — including Colorado — are obligated to send a set amount of water downstream to thirsty California and Arizona.

Under drought conditions, there may not be enough water to satisfy those downstream rights. That could mean curtailing existing uses in the state, said Eric Kuhn, director of the Colorado River Water Conservation District (CRWCD). Essentially, if the lower basin states call for their allocated water, there won’t be enough to go around for Colorado, said County Commissioner Tom Long, who also serves on the river district board.“It won’t be pretty,” Long said.

“If you’ve got Denver sitting down there, and there’s curtailment because of a call, the East slope diverters will all be up in arms looking for water,” he added, careful not to single out just Denver Water.

Based on those concerns, the CRWCD board recently passed a motion that cautions the state about proceeding with any new rules without first studying how much water can be safely developed. “It is premature and distracting for the State Engineer’s Office to promulgate rules and regulations to administer water rights in the event curtailment is necessary under the 1922 and 1948 Colorado River compacts … The state’s policy priorities should be to avoid a compact curtailment and to work with water users to develop a plan to mitigate the adverse impacts of a curtailment,” the motion reads in part.

“With each new use, we’re adding a burden to existing uses,” said Kuhn. “When do we stop?”

To read the full text of this article from the Summit Daily News, click here.

The Associated Press issues a correction to its water shortage story

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 9:44 pm

The Associated Press issued this correction to its story a few days ago about pending water shortages in 36 states. When I saw this come up on the newswire, I figured they probably overstated something in the article. I was a bit surprised by this: Did you think Florida’s 2.4 trillion gallons was a lot? or too little? no frame of reference? Read on:

In an Oct. 26 story about diminishing water supplies nationwide, The Associated Press, relying on information from the state of Florida, gave an incomplete accounting of the state’s annual water usage. State water officials said Floridians use about 2.4 trillion gallons of water a year. But after the story was published, the officials acknowledged that the annual figure was freshwater usage only. They also acknowledged that Florida uses an uncounted amount of treated and desalinated saltwater each year for consumption and for tasks such as cooling power plants.

So it’s actually a lot more than 2.4 trillion gallons!

Uh, thanks for the clarification.

David Nahai chosen to head up the DWP; proposes rate increases

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 2:12 pm

LADWP general manager Ron Deaton has announced that he will be retiring from his position in December. Here’s the news from a different angle.

From the Owens Valley Committee website:

Mayor Villaraigosa has chosen H. David Nahai, who served as a Board of Water and Power commissioner for two years, to become the new general manager. His appointment is subject to Los Angeles City Council approval.

Nahai has visited the Owens Valley several times to consider local water policy issues during his service as a DWP commissioner, and has garnered a reputation locally for detailed knowledge of the issues and for a patient–but wary–ear for residents’ comments and questions.

He has gained a reputation for pithy and humorous observations as well, such as his rewording of William Mulholland’s 1913 speech regarding the diversion of the Owens River.

“There it is,” Nahai said at the Owens River rewatering ceremony in 2006. “Take it back.”

To read the full article and visit the Owens Valley Committee website, click here.

The Los Angeles Times article adds this:

The City Council still must vote to confirm Nahai, who spent two years as a Villaraigosa appointee on the five-member, volunteer Board of Water and Power Commissioners, which oversees the DWP.

As he stood next to the mayor, Nahai vowed to put the utility at the forefront in the development of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind. “I see the bright promise of greening this utility . . . and having Los Angeles become the center, and the leader, for renewable energy,” he said.

Nahai said he would assemble a DWP management team to specifically focus on renewable energy. And he promised to develop a “water contingency plan” within 30 days to help the utility respond to the statewide drought. That plan will offer ways to impose higher rates on the biggest water users to encourage conservation, he said.

“I believe we have to start to plan for a long dry spell,” he said.

To read the full text of the article from the LA Times, click here.

Those rate increases would be substantial, according to this editorial from the Los Angeles Times:

… the DWP is seeking significant — and perhaps continuing — rate hikes for both water and power. The department wants a 2.9% increase in electricity rates Jan. 1, followed a mere six months later with an increase of the same size, then an additional 2.7% on July 1, 2009. For water, it is asking for a 3.1% increase July 1, then another 3.1% on July 1, 2009.

The Los Angeles Times has an editorial generally supporting Nahai and the proposed rate increases, but feels more oversight is necessary:

Under the circumstances, the rate increases the department has proposed are measured, and they are warranted. The City Council should approve them.

But residents must remain vigilant. The Board of Water and Power Commissioners was once made up of civic leaders whose job was to keep a wary eye on City Hall. Today, they are insiders, close to the mayor who appointed them and who is now “asking” them to hire Nahai — their former board president and a man with very little management experience to be running a utility of the complexity of the DWP. We are relieved that Nahai must also face City Council confirmation.

Nahai, for his part, was on the right track when he called Monday for a committee of two Water and Power commissioners to oversee how the increased revenue is spent. But the suggestion doesn’t go far enough. It makes sense that residents even further outside the city structure take that role. Just as citizen oversight panels pick over every penny of bond funds the city spends, a similar panel should oversee DWP spending. The rate hikes would give the agency the money it needs; the panel would ensure it is spent as promised.

To read the full text of the editorial from the Los Angeles Times, click here.

However, Mayor Sam’s Sister City blog takes a different view:

Nahai will take the reins of a bloated, inefficient, and wasteful example of government, sinking fast. First on Nahai’s list of tasks, is selling a “Snake Oil” of a proposal to raise water and electric rates. This, as the Mayor and Nahai will want you believe, is to help the utility upgrade its aging infrastructure. Further, your increased rates would provide the “investment base” to pay for a “Greener and Kinder DWP”. Yet, cynics will opine on who will benefit from these investments.

On the theme of cynics, especially “Valley Cynics”, Los Angeles Times Davis Zahniser has a story on a DWP proposal to restructure rates based upon geographical location. This will surely spark dialog. Especially when people find that the valley will get a cut in their bills. Could this be a “Kilowatt of a Carrot” to help sell the rate hikes ?

Whatever way the DWP “glows and flows” so does the direction of the city. Yet hours to the north, winds spread the toxic dust of past deeds that still await their “day of reckoning”.

To read the full text of Mayor Sam’s Sister City blog, click here.

Groups suing over mothball fleet in Suisun Bay

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 1:40 pm

From the Contra Costa County Times:

Environmentalists on Monday sued to force the federal government to clean up toxic material in its decaying fleet of ships near Benicia and produce a cleanup plan for the U.S. Maritime Administration’s ships here and in Texas and Virginia.

Citing a recent study that showed the ships east of the Benicia Bridge have shed as much as 18 tons of metals into Suisun Bay, the environmental groups said the decaying ships present an entirely unregulated threat to the environment and to human health.

“If a corporation were to float a rusty barrel of hazardous waste out there, that would be against the law,” said Michael Wall, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The federal government has to comply with the same laws.”

Specifically, the lawsuit seeks to force the Maritime Administration to safely dispose of the metals, PCBs, oil, asbestos and other toxic materials on the ships.

It also seeks to force the agency to conduct an environmental impact study of its management plan for the three fleets. Such a study would analyze the environmental effects of maintaining and disposing of the ships and would result in developing management and disposal methods.

“We want them to stop polluting Suisun Bay by addressing the (peeling) paint first and then finding an environmentally responsible way to dispose of the ships, preferably in the Bay Area,” said Saul Bloom of the San Francisco environmental group Arc Ecology, which monitors pollution at federal facilities.

To read the full text of the story from the Contra Costa County Times, click here.

Photo of mothball fleet from Telstar Logistics and flickr.com. Click on the picture to see more of Telstar Logistic’s pictures.

San Diego City Council votes for recycled water; Mayor Sanders promises to veto it

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 1:32 pm

From the San Diego Union-Tribune:

San Diego inched closer to embracing a controversial water recycling program after a City Council vote yesterday, but Mayor Jerry Sanders immediately promised to put a stop to it.

The council voted 5-2 to initiate a pilot program to purify sewage water and deliver it to residents for general use. The action came after the council was briefed on a long-awaited water reuse report. The city already uses treated water for activities such as landscaping. Sanders, however, opposes allowing people to use the water more directly for such things as drinking and bathing. He threatened to veto the vote yesterday by the council.

The city has taken baby steps on water reuse before. A test in 2005 showed that purified water “easily” met drinking water standards. The results have not convinced detractors, who call the proposal “toilet to tap.” Supporters call the plan, which has lingered in San Diego for more than a decade, “reservoir augmentation.”

Proponents say the plan could help to solve the city’s water woes, which include expensive purchases of supplies from outside the region and increased vulnerability to droughts. Opponents say the water could be unsafe to drink and that cleansing it is too expensive.

To read the full text of the article from the San Diego Union-Tribune, click here.

Few salmon coming up the rivers to spawn this year

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 1:27 pm

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

This year’s Central Valley fall salmon run is worrying both fishermen and biologists, who say fewer of the prized chinook are out in the ocean or making it up the rivers to spawn.

By this time, usually tens of thousands more fish are being hooked by fishermen or are swimming through the Golden Gate to the tributaries of San Francisco Bay. Upstream, the fish spawn in the same rivers where they were born, carrying on the generations of silvery king salmon. Yet commercial fishermen who hunt for salmon in the ocean from Monterey to Bodega before the fish start their journey up the rivers report the worst salmon fishing in decades.

Fisheries biologists in Northern California who count the salmon that return up the American, Feather and Sacramento rivers are seeing a big decline in fish for this time of year. Some runs might have as few as 20 to 25 percent of the fish normally expected by this time of year, data show.

The salmon run could just be a little late this year, say state Fish and Game Department officials. On the Klamath and Trinity river systems, biologists say the salmon are about three to four weeks late, but they think the fish will come eventually.

The exact cause of the apparent drop in fall-run salmon is not yet clear, although some experts blame the way the state manages its water supply in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Rushes of fresh water can signal fish to start migrating upstream, but meager flows also can hurt the survival of baby fish that eventually will return as adults. Low levels of krill, tiny marine invertebrates that the fish eat, also could be to blame, experts said.

To read the rest of this article from the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.

Volunteers needed for Fish Clean Up Task Force’s bi-annual clearing of dead fish and trash

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 1:22 pm

From mydesert.com:

Volunteers are needed to help clean up the Salton Sea this Saturday.

The sea’s Fish Clean Up Task Force is sponsoring a bi-annual clearing of dead fish and trash at the state’s largest lake.

The clean-up runs from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. and will meet at the West Shores Senior Center on State Rte. 22.

The group is also looking for donations of tools, rakes, and garbage cans.

Information: 564-4888.

From MyDesert.com: click here.

Poseidon’s desal plant needed to survive a dry future, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 6:34 am

From the North County Times, an editorial in support of Poseidon’s proposed desalination plant, scheduled to be heard in front of the State Lands Commission today:

After years of fits and starts, which included a failed courtship with the San Diego County Water Authority, the plant’s fate now rests with a pair of state agencies, the State Lands Commission \ and the California Coastal Commission . The State Lands Commission manages the leasing of tidelands and submerged lands, while the Coastal Commission has sweeping powers over the state’s coastal region.

Both agencies are expected to examine the plant’s potentially significant impact on the environment, including the release of greenhouse gases.

There’s little doubt that this kind of project will have some negative consequences for marine life. Proponents argue that since the power plant already uses large amounts of seawater for cooling —- water that Poseidon will then desalinate —- the plant’s impacts will be minimal. Studies by both the Water Authority and city of Carlsbad reached a similar conclusion. With the Encina plant’s owners planning to move farther inland, Poseidon may not be able to piggyback on its seawater intake for too long.

Those problems can’t be glossed over, but to help compensate for them, Poseidon has offered to set aside $2.79 million for several coastal restoration projects in coastal North County. The company also plans to make its desalination carbon-neutral through energy efficiency and buying credits that pay for projects that take carbon out of the atmosphere. These exemplary efforts earned the project an endorsement from State Lands Commission staff.

To read the full text of this editorial from the North County Times, click here.

“Let us pay”, says the Grist; the connection between raising rates and conservation

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 6:27 am

From the Grist Blog:

As sources of drinking water slowly exhaust themselves, under pressure from growing demand and lagging supply, one wonders why governments in the region don’t raise water prices to encourage conservation.

Instead, most areas have chosen to ration supplies with top-down orders, which protect consumers from rate increases but force governments to spend time and energy enforcing the rules, and which all too often prove unequal to the task of conservation. It’s hard to believe that strict rationing and intrusive enforcement are more acceptable to citizens of the affected areas than higher rates for water, but when elected officials are involved in policy making, increased consumer rates are a third rail to be touched at great risk.

Much of the country’s critical infrastructure and many of its utilities are either directly controlled or heavily regulated by government institutions. This isn’t surprising. Infrastructure networks are subject to large positive and network externalities, such that purely private markets wouldn’t provide enough of the needed public goods.

Utilities are occasionally private, but are nearly universally heavily regulated. Opening a utility operation, particularly when transmission networks are needed, is an expensive proposition, and with the threat of competition few investors would find such a proposition appealing. Governments can encourage investment by guaranteeing a utility monopoly rights, but governments are then encouraged to regulate and monitor utilities to prevent abuse of that monopoly power.

The end result of these public arrangements is to insulate final consumers from anything resembling a market price on many scarce resources. This tends not to matter when supply runs well ahead of demand — when Lake Lanier is full and Atlanta is half its current size. As populations around the country grow, however, it becomes a serious problem.

To read the rest of this post on the Grist blog, click here.

Residential water use just a ‘drop in the bucket’; what about agricultural use?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 30, 2007 at 6:19 am

From The Plank blog, more reaction to the New York Times Magazine article on water and the west. This time, the author makes an important point not made a lot in the water debate:

Still, what’s missing from this picture? As Gertner notes in passing, it’s farming, and not residential areas, that consumes the vast majority of water in the region (90 percent of Colorado’s water goes toward agriculture). You’d think, then, that inefficient agriculture practices would get most of the scrutiny here. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, most irrigated farmland in the area—in California, Colorado, and Wyoming—is watered via flood irrigation, the least efficient method out there. Basically, farmers dig a bunch of trenches and dump water in them. In the short run, it’s cheap and easy; in the long run, it tends to waste water and deplete topsoil.

Subsidies are part of the problem here: Large farms often qualify for taxpayer- subsidized irrigation water, paying as little as 10 percent of the full cost. That, in turn, discourages conservation: “A 1997 study by researchers at Cornell University suggests that more than 50 percent of irrigation water never reaches crops because of losses during pumping and transport.” The subsidies also encourage farmers to grow water-guzzling crops like alfalfa, a crop that sucks up about 20 percent of California’s water but comprises only a tiny part of the economy (it’s mostly used to feed cows). I’d like to see more on the subject, but this seems like a major place to focus on, no?

To read the full text of the The Plank blog, click here.

I would agree. In California, according to DWR, agriculture uses 80% of the developed water. According to the California Farm Water Coalition, this is actually 43% agriculture, 46% environmental uses. Either way, agriculture uses the majority of the water here in California, so why don’t we hear more about agricultural conservation? Good question.

DWR says this about it:

California’s population growth and greater awareness of environmental water requirements has increased the pressure on California agriculture to use water more efficiently and to make more water available for urban and environmental uses. Decreasing agricultural water use is difficult for several reasons. First, California agricultural water use when considered on a broad regional scale, for the most part, is very efficient. Individual fields and farms in some regions may have low efficiencies, but water that is not used on one farm or field is often used on a nearby farm or field. Secondly, for most crops, production and yield is directly related to crop water use. A decrease in applied water will often directly decrease yield. The key is management strategies that improve water use efficiency without decreasing yield.

There are technologies and management strategies available that conserve water while maintaining yield and production standards. These technologies and management strategies like improved irrigation scheduling and crop specific irrigation management often not only conserve water, but also save energy and decrease growers costs.

The Political Animal Blog from CBS News has this to say:

Reducing agricultural water use by 20% would basically solve all our problems, but it can’t be done because water rights are controlled by an almost impenetrable maze of local water districts, Spanish land grants, English common law, multi-state compacts, acts of Congress, court rulings at every level imaginable, overlapping jurisdictions, and local, state and federal environmental regulations. And that’s not even counting the vast corporate lobbying forces that would be at work even if the legal Gordion knot weren’t.

So it’s hopeless, I guess. But that doesn’t stop me from bitching about it. And it sure doesn’t justify this massive Bush administration giveaway to California agribusiness, which has to be read to be believed.

To read the full text of the Political Animal Blog from CBS News, click here.

jfleck on the Imperial Valley

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2007 at 11:10 pm

Here’s a post from jfleck over at the Inkstain blog, who writes about the Imperial Valley:

An article last week in the Imperial Valley Press outlines the plan to restrict, for “the first time in recent history”, water for farmers served by the massive Imperial Irrigation District:

“Farmers would have 5.13 acre-feet of water available per acre of farmed land, down from the average of six acre-feet currently.”

These are the people who control 3.1 million acre feet per year of Colorado River Water - the largest single chunk of Colorado water on anyone’s table. The Valley was quite literally uninhabitable desert when the IID was formed in 1911. Brawley, in the heart of the Imperial Valley, averages 2.6 inches (66 mm) of rain a year. But with the All America Canal flowing into the valley from the Colorado River, it’s an agricultural paradise. If you’re in the United States, chances are good that the next bit of lettuce you eat comes from there.

But even in the Imperial Valley, there is a growing tension between growing municipal demand and existing agriculture. Imperial County proclaims itself “California’s growth area”. Even they are shifting water from farms to cities.

To read jfleck’s post on the Inkstain blog, click here.

I think the Imperial Valley is a fascinating story, from it’s inception to today. One of my favorite books,which I recommend to anyone who wants to get to know the Imperial Valley better, is Salt Dreams. The description of how the Salton Sea was created and the efforts to plug the breach and stop the flood is truly fabulous. One of these days, I will write an Aquafornia briefing on the Imperial Valley and the QSA. It’s an interesting and convoluted tale!

New website promoting solar powered desalination - and Aquafornia!

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2007 at 10:59 pm

Here’s a new website I just stumbled upon when going through my web stats - it’s called World View Water and it is promoting solar powered desalination. Here’s what the website says about itself:

The Goal of this project is to perfect a technology and develop a business model to produce drinkable water at prices competitive with existing sources, with favorable environmental impact while substantially increasing the total available amount of potable water.

Nearly two thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered by water over a thousand meters deep, yet it is not “potable” or useful for human consumption or in agriculture, as it contains minerals that are incompatible with human or agricultural uses. As demand increases, costs of distributing, increasingly inadequate supplies and the traditional methods of processing existing water supplies become prohibitively expensive. Droughts are becoming common and devastating while the cost of purifying water is increasingly prohibitive.

This proprietary invention consists of:

1. A novel desalination technique which utilizes solar energy and an adaptation of existing “bubble pack” plastics
2. A method of producing potable water that may be actively and directly marketed or licensed to existing industry
3. Proprietary proprietary invention Characterizations, Development and Deployment

Here’s a little bit about their product:

A significant proportion required materials can be derived from recycled plastic. The cell or bubble with saltwater intake and fresh water output: by allowing the sun to warm a heating chamber within the cell, the saltwater is evaporated (leaving the salt and other impurities in solution) and the water vapor condenses on the cell’s chilling surface as desalinated water. The desalinated and largely purified water then drains from the cell and made available for drinking, cooking, cleaning and irrigation.

The product apparently has been designed and patented, and they are looking for investors, although the sell is so soft, it took me awhile to find it. They evidently have thought out all the different applications for their product, from large-scale municipalities to a unit small enough to go backpacking with - your own personal desal unit!

Oh, and I should mention that they are including Aquafornia news feeds throughout their website - thanks guys! How cool is that?

To visit the World View Water website, click here.

The Great Lakes Water Wars: more on Richardson’s comments

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2007 at 10:37 pm

From the LA Times, here’s the story that’s been bouncing around all over the country since Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson implied that the dry and thirsty southwest should tap the Great Lakes for a drink. Now here’s a story from the Los Angeles Times:

The fires in Southern California, the prolonged drought in the Southeast and the shrinking flow of the Colorado River, which feeds seven Western states, have underscored the importance of water supplies in rapidly developing regions and the determination of a handful of states and provinces to hold on to a resource they see as key to their economic future.

With fresh water supplies dwindling in the West and South, the Great Lakes are the natural-resource equivalent of the fat pension fund, and some politicians are eager to raid it. The lakes contain nearly 20% of the world’s fresh water.

“You’re going to see increasing pressure to gain access to this water supply,” said Aaron Packman, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University.

Eight Great Lakes-area states, from Minnesota to New York, and two Canadian provinces have proposed a regional water compact. It would, among other things, strengthen an existing ban on major water diversions outside the Great Lakes Basin, home to 40 million Americans and Canadians. That proposal still has to work its way through several legislatures, and then it must go to Congress, where the political balance of power has been tilting west and south for decades.

To read the rest of this article from the Los Angeles Times, click here.

Aqua Blog Maven’s rare two cents: OK, people in the Great Lakes states really got upset about this, but I don’t see this happening - ever. Perhaps back in the glory-filled dam-building days, but, realistically, to build an aqueduct from the Great Lakes to the southwest? It would be hideously expensive, would have to run through a bunch of states (think they’ll all agree?) and with evaporation along the way, would there be anything left once it got there?

No, I don’t think they have to worry about us….

IID’s water sharing plan will hit farmers the hardest

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2007 at 10:26 am

From the Imperial Valley Press Online:

The district’s proposed plan to balance the supply and demand in 2008 was unveiled Tuesday, the first time in recent history water usage will be limited. “Doing nothing is not an option,” IID spokesman Kevin Kelley said.

At issue is the district’s proposed plan that has to be in place by January to allocate water among cities, industry and agriculture. The district is struggling to stay within its designated 3.1 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River, part of the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement. The controversial pact was meant to prevent water wars among entities that rely on the Colorado River.

The proposed solution to the water shortage makes water for city and industrial growth a priority, increasing the allowed usage next year. While most residents in the Valley will remain unaffected, farmers would have to make do with less as their water usage would be cut. “Agriculture accounts for 97 percent of total water use in the Valley,” Kelley said.

Farmers would have 5.13 acre-feet of water available per acre of farmed land, down from the average of six acre-feet currently. Farmers who find themselves with more water than they need would be able to sell the water via an internal exchange. IID would only help coordinate the transactions between farmers but would not set the prices.

A last resort supply, which could also be sold privately by the IID, would be available to prevent farmers from price gouging or water hoarding their supply each year. Kelley said the last resort supply would be available to all farmers eligible to receive water from IID and it would “promote market honesty and integrity.”

To read the full text of this story from the Imperial Valley Press Online, click here.

Time to realize the QSA is a done deal, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2007 at 10:23 am

From the Imperial Valley Press Online, an editorial regarding the two lawsuits now moving forward against the controversial QSA:

Last week, two more injunctions against the 75-year water deal were filed in state courts. The Imperial Irrigation District, which is still trying to have the QSA validated by the state, will be opposing the injunctions.

One injunction was filed by Protect Our Water and Environmental Rights, or POWER, a group which used to include IID Director Mike Abatti. Earlier this year Abatti removed himself from the QSA lawsuits. The second is from the Imperial Group. The POWER lawsuit alleges that the IID violated the state’s Environmental Quality Act and that continuing the QSA will harm the Valley’s environment. The Imperial Group says the agreement does not fully address air quality issues caused by a dying Salton Sea.

To anyone who is paying attention, these are not new issues. We understand that some people were skeptical of the QSA from the beginning and continue to be. We also understand that this pact was negotiated and agreed upon by the principal parties long ago. Because of that, these injunctions and lawsuits must stop. These suits do nothing to move the process and the Valley forward. They are simply expensive roadblocks that will continue to slow and even stall a process that should be full underway by now.

We also want what is best for the Valley, and that is not continuing to fight this agreement. Does anyone think for a moment that our larger neighbors who will be getting water from us will let this deal die in court? No, they won’t. They will become even more adamant about gaining control over the water. In effect, this is poking a tiger with a stick. If we continue to see this happen, the Imperial Valley will definitely be bitten.

To read the full text of this editorial from the Imperial Valley Press Online, click here.

Poseidon’s proposed desalination plant heads to the State Lands Commission

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 29, 2007 at 6:38 am

Poseidon’s desalination plant is headed to the State Lands Commission tomorrow, the first of two hearings to gain approval for the plant, with the staff recommending approval. From the San Diego-Union Tribune:

Given the past week’s horrific reminder of the ravages of drought, denying the region a water source invulnerable to dry years – or decades – would be folly. Commission staff says Poseidon has met all legal requirements. The commissioners have no reason to court folly. They have this county’s 3 million residents as reason to approve this permit, and the certainty of ever more as reason not to delay approval past their meeting today.

The permit comes, of course, with conditions, chief among them mitigating the loss of ocean life in the desalting process. The loss is minimal, about three pounds a day of very populous fish.

As mitigation, Poseidon proposes, and commission staff supports, a plan that makes Poseidon the steward of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon, preserving and improving its water quality, recreational opportunities, native habitat, and research and commercial value. In addition, Poseidon will restore 37 acres of coastal wetlands, long used for fill or agriculture, to again support native species.

With the use of state-of-the-art equipment, a solar energy system and other measures, all aspects of the Poseidon project will be as “green” as possible, and its net carbon footprint zero.

To read the rest of this editorial from the San Diego Union-Tribune, click here.

The last line really caught my eye - solar power? net carbon footprint of zero? I hadn’t heard this before, so I did a little research, and came up with this press release from Poseidon:

“Poseidon is proud to be the first major California infrastructure project to go carbon neutral. Making this voluntary commitment is just one of the many ways in which we are going the extra mile to ensure the Carlsbad project is consistent with the state’s world-leading environmental ethic,” said Walter J. Winrow, President of Poseidon Resources Corporation. “Everyone must do their part to address global warming trends and Poseidon Resources is determined to design its projects – including the Carlsbad Desalination facility – to be a part of the solution.”

Poseidon is applying rigorous, internationally accepted protocols adopted by the state’s Climate Action Registry to measure the Carlsbad plant’s “carbon footprint” – the amount of carbon dioxide released into the air as a result of the plant’s operations, largely from the power generation sources that will supply electricity to the facility. By producing potable water locally, Poseidon will replace significant amounts of water now pumped into the region from other parts of the state. Nearly 20% of California’s total energy demand is from huge electric pumps used to move water around the state, with corresponding carbon emissions from energy sources needed to power those pumps.

The Carlsbad Desalination Project is one element of a much broader regional strategy the San Diego County Water Authority (Authority) is pursuing to improve the diversity and reliability of the region’s water supply by reducing the dependence on imported water. The implementation of the Authority’s Regional Water Supply Master Plan will result in an overall reduction in the total energy needed to acquire and treat water for the San Diego region – including the proposed desalination project – through the year 2020.

Quantifying the ultimate carbon footprint of the Carlsbad plant, Poseidon will then finalize and implement a detailed Climate Action Plan to neutralize those emissions.

“Poseidon’s voluntary commitment to make its Carlsbad project carbon neutral is exactly the kind of environmental leadership we need from companies doing business in California,” said Irene Stillings from the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE). “I applaud their efforts to advance the state’s goals as embodied in AB32, California’s ground-breaking Global Warming Solutions Act.”

From a portfolio of initiatives, including state-of-the-art efficiency measures, green-building design and solar panels, purchasing renewable energy credits and funding carbon offset projects to reduce carbon emissions from other sources, Poseidon will reduce the plant’s overall energy requirements and eliminate the Carlsbad facility’s carbon footprint. “Our Climate Action Plan will analyze every available and legitimate means of negating the carbon impacts from the Carlsbad facility,” said Mr. Winrow. “We will then select the most cost-effective, verifiable path to getting us where we need to go.”

To read the full text of the press release from Poseidon, click here.

The hearing before the State Lands Commission is scheduled for October 30th, and the hearing before the California Coastal Commission is scheduled for November 15.

We simply cannot afford to ignore California’s water issues: our future economy, environment and quality of life depend it, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 28, 2007 at 7:28 am

From the Ventura County Star, this commentary, written by Tim Quinn of the Association of California Water Agencies:

When the rest of the world thinks of Southern California, it thinks of beaches, of swimming pools, of water. Water has always played a major role in life in the Southland. And with good reason. Without a steady supply of imported water, Southern California wouldn’t exist as we know it today.

Because the entire region depends heavily on this important resource, there is growing concern about how the region’s economy, quality of life and environment will fare in the face of a deepening, statewide water crisis. Experts are warning that California’s water problems are so serious that many parts of the state, including the Southland, may soon be facing water rationing and reduced supplies.

State leaders and environmental authorities agree that California’s statewide water system is in crisis. Yet, despite intense media coverage and focus by the governor and legislators, the public remains unaware of the state’s water problems. That’s why a statewide coalition of 450 public water agencies recently decided to launch a public education program to inform people about critical challenges now confronting the state’s water supply and delivery system. These challenges affect each and every Californian, and we can no longer afford to ignore them.

With nearly 18 million residents, the Southern California region is the second-largest metropolitan area in the nation. Drawn by the area’s economy and culture, people are continuing to move to the area, increasing the demand for water. Local water agencies have been aggressively working to reduce residential and commercial water use through conservation and efficiency programs. While these efforts are critical, they alone are not enough to shield residents from the growing water crisis.

To read the rest of this article from the Ventura County Star, click here.

Monterey Amendments would give away state water resources, says the Planning & Conservation League

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 28, 2007 at 7:21 am

From the California Progress Report:

Despite the recent crisis in the Delta and the Governor’s push for new dams, last week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) proposed to give away the largest water storage facility in the state and to eliminate drought safeguards for urban areas in California.

DWR’s draft decision, revealed in the Monterey Plus Environmental Impact Report (EIR), would require the State to adopt amendments to the State Water Project (SWP) contract, called the “the Monterey Amendments,” negotiated in secret by DWR in 1994. The original behind-closed-doors deal was successfully challenged in a lawsuit by the Planning and Conservation League, the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara, and Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District (Planning and Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 Cal.App.3d). While DWR has been allowed to operate under the Monterey Amendments provisionally since 1995, the PCL lawsuit forced DWR to analyze the impacts of the amendments and to decide whether or not permanently to adopt the Monterey Amendments based on that analysis.

If permanently adopted, the Monterey Amendments would fundamentally change how the State Water Project operates.

To read the rest of this article from Gary Patton of the Planning & Conservation League, as posted on the California Progress Report, click here.

United front needed from San Joaquin County on water issues, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 28, 2007 at 7:18 am

From Stockton’s RecordNet.com, this editorial:

San Joaquin County continues to be the conduit through which the Sierra Nevada snowpack flows to Southern California.

Officials of petty, narrowly focused conservation and irrigation districts still have been are unable to unite behind a single concept or plan. While they bicker and miss opportunities, state officials are formulating a multibillion-dollar ballot initiative to resolve the water shortage. By January, they might reach agreement on a water initiative for the Nov. 7, 2008, election.

Hopefully, legislative leaders, working with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, will devise a practical compromise between two competing proposals. If both proposals are placed on the ballot, neither is likely to be approved. “Common sense must prevail,” says state Sen. Michael Machado, D-Linden. “Both will lose if we don’t find a hybrid.”

Machado, a senior member of the Legislature who’s a knowledgeable, longtime advocate of reforms in water policy, might be a critical broker in any meaningful compromise. He’s trying to help unify those who understand the need for above-ground water storage and those who don’t think it’s necessary. It won’t be easy. It would help if he had uniform support from San Joaquin County officials.

To read the rest of this editorial from Stockton’s RecordNet.com, click here.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch - twice the size of Texas and growing

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 27, 2007 at 9:46 pm

How did I miss this … out there in the Pacific Ocean, there’s a huge patch of garbage which originated on land and migrates it’s way slowly out into the middle of the ocean, where it joins other trash swirling around. From the San Francisco Chronicle article posted on the 19th of this month:

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man’s land between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years. “With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it’s the perfect environment for trapping,” Eriksen said. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm.”

The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle opinion section takes it a little bit further, calling it both impressive and revolting:

Is there anything more impressive than the idea that you can, say, toss away your little Calistoga bottle or your plastic Safeway bag or your meth syringe or old iPod case or cigarette lighter or DVD wrapper here, and it will somehow, through a miraculous combination of time and wind and wastefulness and the flow of nature’s beautiful eternal pulsing rhythms, wend its way 1,000 miles out to sea and then, well, just swirl around, slowly breaking apart and poisoning all life surrounding it and joining with the mountains of other plastic crap spewed out from our friends and enemies and neighboring nations worldwide? Is this not, in its way, profoundly moving? You bet it is.

But oh holy hell, it certainly is impressive. At least 1,500 miles wide (give or take, could be much larger, no one’s quite sure because it’s a bit difficult to measure), 30 meters deep, 80 percent plastic, and 100 percent appalling. Truly, there is nothing else quite like it on Earth.

The editorial also points out the absurd irony of it all:

Let us think upon this stunning phenomenon for a moment. Because, unlike the obvious intimations of death and decay coming at us from the likes of our landfills and our SUVs and cell phones and Dick Cheney’s sidelong sneer, the GPGP might just be one of the greatest examples of ironic poetic justice of our time. Can you see it?

The poetry goes something like this: Plastic bottle is tossed away. Plastic bottle, along with millions just like it, escapes out to sea, drifts and wanders and ultimately joins giant toxic stew of other plastic garbage sitting like a massive island in middle of impartial but increasingly wary ocean.

Time passes. Life churns. Sea birds and other large marine life ingest (and then die from) some of the billions of bits of brightly-colored plastic floating about, as the sun slowly breaks down the rest of the plastic bottle into its fundamental, ultra-toxic polymer molecules. Stew thickens.

And then, the magic happens. Nature’s most efficient organic filters, the sea jellies, absorb those tiny plastic molecules into their bodies. Small fish eat the jellies. Larger fish eat the smaller fish. Slowly, the deadly plastics, which never completely biodegrade, amble their way back up the food chain and back into the stomachs and bloodstreams and ecosystems of larger and larger animals until, voila, there again is your plastic bottle, right there on your dinner plate. Neat!

In short: Your plastic bottle, once full of life-giving water imported all the way from Fiji or France, has come back around to poison you at last. Isn’t irony fun?

To read the full text of this editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle, click here.

New dams are a distraction and won’t help the Delta, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 27, 2007 at 6:32 am

From the Sacramento Bee, this editorial from Spreck Rosekrans, who is a senior analyst for the Land, Water & Wildlife Program at Environmental Defense and a member of the Delta Vision Stakeholder Coordination Group:

The dam debate is a distraction. Our political leaders need to focus on what we must do today, and tomorrow, to save the West Coast’s largest estuary and hub of our water supply system. This once-bountiful system is in deep trouble. Increased diversions of freshwater have contributed to a severe decline in the estuary’s fisheries that goes beyond the near-extinction of Delta smelt. A collapse of the Delta’s fragile and long- neglected levees could devastate the environment and water supply for many Californians, flooding homes and nearby communities.

Much of the rhetorical war Californians see playing out in television advertising and in the Legislature has focused on whether to go forward with taxpayer-funded bonds for three proposed dams: Temperance Flat Reservoir on the San Joaquin River, Sites Reservoir – off-stream but near the Sacramento River – and an expansion of Los Vaqueros Reservoir in Contra Costa County.

The dams proposal does not stand up on its own merit, so the sponsors added it to a bond package that includes worthwhile and important projects.

Many of the more than 1,000 dams built throughout California during the past century have enabled our population and economy to grow, even though many have caused severe environmental harm. However, since the completion of New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River in 1980, large dams have collected the majority of flows from all large streams in the Central Valley. Building additional storage there would yield only limited incremental water supply at exorbitant costs.

To read the full text of this editorial from the Sacramento Bee, click here.

Irritating Irrigation: city and state owned irrigation systems wasting water

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 27, 2007 at 6:27 am

From the Los Angeles Times:

When Long Beach launched tough watering restrictions last month, city officials asked residents to report leaky sprinklers and other wasteful water practices. So far, 428 complaints have been logged, 83 of them targeting leaking sprinkler systems in city parks, street medians and along freeways.

In call after call, citizens asked: Why are public sprinklers spewing water across sidewalks? Why do sprinklers run in parks at times that residents are barred from watering their own lawns? Why do some freeway sprinklers water in the rain?

As drought-conscious Southern California cities urge water conservation during a record dry year, municipal- and state-owned sprinklers can offer an all-too-visible waste that sends millions of gallons of drinking water down the drain or evaporating into thin air.

Cities throughout the region and Caltrans said their errant sprinklers pose an embarrassing quandary. But upgrading public irrigation systems is so expensive that most can only aim for piecemeal improvements. “When people hear a message from the government, telling them to conserve, and they see the government wasting huge amounts of water, it makes people very cynical,” said Matthew Lyons, planning and conservation director at the Long Beach Water Department. “It sends the wrong message.”

To read the full text of this article from the Los Angeles Times, click here.

The Monterey Amendments: eliminating drought safeguards for urban areas, says the PCL

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 27, 2007 at 6:23 am

From the Planning & Conservation League, this press release:

Despite the recent crisis in the Delta and the Governor’s push for new dams, last week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) proposed to give away the largest water storage facility in the state and to eliminate drought safeguards for urban areas in California.

DWR’s draft decision, revealed in the Monterey Plus Environmental Impact Report (EIR) (http://www.des.water.ca.gov/mitigation_restoration_branch/rpmi_section/projects/index.cfm), would require the State to permanently adopt State Water Project contract amendments, called the “the Monterey Amendments,” negotiated in secret by DWR in 1994. The original behind closed doors deal was successfully challenged in a lawsuit by the Planning and Conservation League, the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara, and Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District (Planning and Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 Cal.App.3d). While DWR has been allowed to operate under the Monterey Amendments provisionally since 1995, the PCL lawsuit forced DWR to analyze the impact of the amendments and to decide whether or not permanently to adopt the Monterey Amendments or to modify the proposed contract changes based on that analysis. Read more

Peripheral Canal subject of radio broadcast

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 26, 2007 at 5:02 pm

KQED, a Bay Area public radio station, is running a story on the return of the peripheral canal on its new series, Quest. The show lasts about 6 minutes. From the website:

The consequences of Southern California’s long drought have made themselves clear this past week. But here in Northern California, fire danger is low and the winter rains already have begun. This illustrates one of California’s oldest and thorniest problems: How to move water from the wet north to the dry south? This week Sacramento lawmakers failed to settle on a comprehensive water plan. And, as Amy Standen reports, debate has only just begun on one of the most politically explosive water proposals the state has ever seen.

To listen to this radio show from KQED, click here or click here.

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• Governor signs disaster assistance order
• Dry conditions continue
• New rate plan slated for Lakeside Water District customers
• Friday’s top of the scroll: State budget crisis scuttles Delta levee hazard detection, repairs

Aquafornia's Mission

Aquafornia's mission is to educate readers about the complex and often controversial issues surrounding water in California.
 
Aquafornia is affiliated with the Water Education Foundation, an impartial non-profit organization, whose mission is to create a better understanding of water issues and help resolve water resource problems through educational programs.

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News Article Archives

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Web Resources

• Agriculture

  • California Department of Food and Agriculture
  • California Farm Bureau Federation
  • California Farm Water Coalition

• Conservation

  • Be Water Wise
  • Earth 911: Water Conservation
  • H2O Conserve Website
  • H2ouse.org
  • Water - Use It Wisely

• Delta Resources

  • Delta Vision Task Force Website
  • Restore the Delta
  • San Francisco Bay and Delta (Access USGS)
  • San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science website

• Environmental Organizations

  • American Rivers
  • California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
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  • Foothill Conservancy
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  • R4RD: Residents for Responsible Desalination
  • Restoring Rivers Blog
  • Riparian Rap
  • The Reef Tank

• Fishing Blogs

  • Fishing the Aqueduct with Striper Bill
  • Fly Fishing Community
  • Trout Underground

• Landscaping

  • High Country Gardens
  • The Garden Spot
  • The Prickly Palace

• Los Angeles River

  • Friends Of Vast Industrial Concrete Kafkaesque Structures
  • Los Angeles River Connection
  • Los Angeles River Project
  • Nature Trumps: An L.A. River Blog

• News

  • All the top water news
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  • AWE Federal Legislation Watch
  • B C Water News
  • High Country News
  • San Joaquin Valleyfornia
  • Total Capitol (Legislative News)

• Salton Sea

  • Salton Sea (University of Redlands)
  • Salton Sea 101
  • Salton Sea Ecosystem Restoration Program (DWR)
  • The Salton Sea Authority

• Southern California Blogs

  • Griffith Park, Interrupted
  • L. A. Observed
  • Ron Kaye L.A.
  • Westchester Parents

• Water Agencies

  • CA Dept of Water Resources
  • LA DWP
  • Metropolitan Water District

• Water Blogs

  • Aguanomics
  • American Water Resources Assn. Blog
  • Aqua Channel
  • Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood
  • EDF’s On The Waterfront
  • Great Lakes Law Blog
  • H2ONCoast Blog
  • Inkstain - jfleck
  • Misu Blog
  • Spouting Off - Mark Gold of Heal the Bay
  • Water Cooler Blog
  • Water SISWEB
  • Water Words That Work
  • Waterblogged
  • WaterCrunch
  • WaterWired
  • Western Water Blog

• Water Information

  • ACWA’s California Water Crisis Website
  • USGS California Water Science Center
  • USGS Water Resources of the US
  • Water Education Foundation
  • Water Reources Center Archive - UC Berkeley
  • Where Does My Water Come From?

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