CSPA Files Comments on Bay Delta Conservation Plan

Posted by: Maven on May 30, 2008 at 9:08 pm

From IndyBay.org, posted by Dan Bacher but written by Jerry Neuburger, the CSPA has filed comments on the DWR’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan:

May 30, 2008. In comments sent to Ms. Barbara McDonnell, Chief of the Division of Environmental Services Department of Water Resources, CSPA’s Bill Jennings called the Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) portion of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), “the most ambitious and far-reaching Habitat Conversation Plan (HCP) ever envisioned coupled with a massive scheme to change the hydrology of the Central Valley.”

However, Jennings, commenting for CSPA, found numerous and fatal flaws in the plan as it is now proposed. Among those are the inconsistencies of protecting and restoring listed species and a conveyance plan involving a massive public works project that will change the hydrology of the estuary and tributary waterways. Further, the plan guarantees water delivery to the south state, a basic inconsistency with habitat preservation. The plan does not consider recent court rulings regarding the Endangered Species Act and does not conform to the governor’s Delta Vision statement. Numerous other faults were found which lead Jennings to conclude, “The plan is little more than a Bay-Delta Conveyance Plan masquerading as an HCP.”

Read more from IndyBay.org by clicking here.

Assembly approves Wolk bill to protect Delta´s declining fisheries

Posted by: Maven on May 30, 2008 at 5:30 am

From the California Chronicle:

The State Assembly voted 41-31 yesterday to approve Assembly Bill 1806 by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis) to protect the declining fisheries in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The legislation requires the development of protocols to guide preparation and implementation of emergency fish rescue plans for Delta fisheries. Wolk introduced the bill in response to a massive fish kill on Prospect Island that resulted when the Bureau of Reclamation drained water from the area to conduct levee repairs.

Wolk says her bill is intended to prevent such incidences from occurring in the future. Perhaps more importantly, this:

AB 1806 also requires the board to enforce reasonable mitigation requirements for adverse impacts on Delta fisheries arising from operation of the large water export pumping facilities of the state and federal water projects.

“While there have been a number of efforts over the years to restore habitat for fish, millions of salmon and other species continue to die annually as a result of both the direct and indirect impacts of the state and federal water project pumps,” said Wolk. “My bill requires the state and federal projects that pump water out of the Delta to mitigate for these losses, which have huge negative impacts on our state’s fisheries, as well as the commercial and sport fishing industries that contribute billions of dollars to our economy.”

Read the full text of this article from the California Chronicle by clicking here.

How the world is realizing that water is “blue gold”: Increasingly it is being asked: Which countries are water rich, which are water poor, and who should manage water resources?

Posted by: Maven on May 29, 2008 at 10:36 pm

From AlterNet:

Public fountains are dry in Barcelona, Spain, a city so parched there’s a €9,000 ($13,000) fine if you’re caught watering your flowers. A tanker ship docked there this month carrying 5 million gallons of precious fresh water — and officials are scrambling to line up more such shipments to slake public thirst.

Barcelona is not alone. Cyprus will ferry water from Greece this summer. Australian cities are buying water from that nation’s farmers and building desalination plants. Thirsty China plans to divert Himalayan water. And 18 million southern Californians are bracing for their first water-rationing in years.

Water, Dow Chemical Chairman Andrew Liveris told the World Economic Forum in February, “is the oil of this century.” Developed nations have taken cheap, abundant fresh water largely for granted. Now global population growth, pollution, and climate change are shaping a new view of water as “blue gold.”

Water’s hot-commodity status has snared the attention of big equipment suppliers like General Electric as well as big private water companies that buy or manage municipal supplies — notably France-based Suez and Aqua America, the largest US-based private water company.

Global water markets, including drinking water distribution, management, waste treatment, and agriculture are a nearly $500 billion market and growing fast, says a 2007 global investment report.

But governments pushing to privatize costly to maintain public water systems are colliding with a global “water is a human right” movement. Because water is essential for human life, its distribution is best left to more publicly accountable government authorities to distribute at prices the poorest can afford, those water warriors say.

“We’re at a transition point where fundamental decisions need to be made by societies about how this basic human need — water — is going to be provided,” says Christopher Kilian, clean-water program director for the Boston-based Conservation Law Foundation. “The profit motive and basic human need [for water] are just inherently in conflict.”

Will “peak water” displace “peak oil” as the central resource question? Some see such a scenario rising.

Read the full text of this article from AlterNet by clicking here.

DWR unveils pumping plant energy efficiency improvements

Posted by: Maven on May 29, 2008 at 10:23 pm

From the Department of Water Resources:

The Department of Water Resources today announced that the first pump refurbishment project at the A.D. Edmonston pumping plant has been completed. This is the first step of a project to refurbish four of the 14 pumping units at the plant to improve State Water Project (SWP) energy efficiency.

“This represents another milestone in our efforts to increase the energy efficiency of the State Water Project and reduce the carbon footprint of our operations,” said DWR Director Lester A. Snow, speaking at A.D. Edmonston pumping plant, located about 30 miles south of Bakersfield.

When completed in 2011, the refurbishment of the four Edmonston pumps, combined with the efficiency improvements already done at Hyatt Powerplant in Oroville, will save enough energy to power 33,000 households for a year, or the equivalent to taking 11,000 cars off the road. The energy saved from the refurbishment of the first pump alone is equivalent to that generated by a 12-acre solar panel farm.

DWR is one of the largest generators of clean hydroelectric generation in the state. On average, 60 percent of the SWP’s power portfolio is from non-carbon emitting sources, primarily the SWP’s hydroelectric plants. The Edmonston plant is an essential link in the SWP that pumps water over the Tehachapi Mountains into Southern California.

The SWP is the largest state-owned water conveyance system in the United States, yet it yields less than one percent of California’s greenhouse gas emissions. The A.D. Edmonston pump refurbishments, along with other efficiency projects, will help DWR meet the state’s strict Assembly Bill 32 goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. DWR is on track to meet those levels seven years ahead of schedule, in 2013.

DWR also plays an important role in stabilizing the state’s energy grid by participating in the Demand Response Program. As part of the program, DWR reduces its pumping operations during peak summer hours, freeing up cleaner energy to provide power to the grid that would otherwise be attained from dirtier sources.

DWR is also working on other initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint including:

• A study to investigate the potential for the development of solar and wind energy at DWR facilities.

• Investigating the potential for additional pumped storage operations and facilities.

• Installation of a small hydroelectric generator (14 megawatts) as part of the East Branch Extension Phase II project.

——————————————————————————–

The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs.

Zero-salmon bag: New fishing ban may force action on salmon collapse

Posted by: Maven on May 29, 2008 at 10:21 pm

From Dan Bacher, writing for Sacramento News & Review:

Fishing for chinook salmon on the Sacramento and American rivers in downtown Sacramento, just a short distance from the state Capitol, is a unique tradition that has been an integral, iconic component of life in the capital city for decades. Every September and October, crowds of boaters and shore anglers descend on the river—along the stretch from Discovery Park to Miller Park—in the early morning hours. They’re out there in the hopes of hooking large, hard-fighting salmon on their annual spawning migration from the Pacific Ocean to hatcheries and spawning gravels on the Sacramento, American and Feather rivers.

But this year is different, since salmon fishing in the Sacramento area will be banned because of the collapse of Central Valley fall-run chinook salmon populations. While more than 800,000 fish returned to spawn in the Sacramento River system in 2002, fishery scientists expect less than 60,000 to come back this year. In an unprecedented action, the California Fish and Game Commission voted on May 9 to adopt a “zero bag limit” for salmon—meaning that no salmon may be taken or possessed—in 14 Central Valley rivers and streams.

The only exception is a one salmon bag limit in the Sacramento River from Red Bluff Diversion Dam to Knights Landing from November 1 to December 31. To the surprise of many anglers who expected that spring chinook fishing on the American and Feather rivers would remain open, these rivers will be also be closed to the take of spring-run chinook also. These new regulations will go into effect on or before July 15.

“The department proposed and recommended this option because of concerns about impacts to spring chinook salmon,” said Steve Martarano, Department of Fish and Game spokesman. “This option will provide maximum protection to Sacramento River fall chinook in the Central Valley, while providing very limited access to late fall chinook.”

For more on this story from Dan Bacher at the Sacramento News & Review, click here.

Reminder: Delta Vision today and tomorrow

Posted by: Maven on May 28, 2008 at 6:35 am

Just a reminder for those interested:

The Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force will once again be meeting on Wednesday & Thursday to continue discussions on developing a strategic plan for implementing the Delta Vision. The meeting will be webcast. You can find links to the webcast, plus a meeting agenda with links to materials by clicking here.

GE releases white paper on best practices for recycling and reusing water

Posted by: Maven on May 28, 2008 at 5:43 am

From Business Wire:

GE Water & Process Technologies released today — Addressing Water Scarcity Through Recycling and Reuse: A Menu for Policymakers — a white paper outlining the policies and best practices currently being used to increase and implement successful water conservation programs in water scarce regions of the world.

“Policymakers are looking for ways to expand water recycling and reuse initiatives, but until now finding information on how best to do that was tough,” said Jeff Garwood, president and CEO, GE Water & Process Technologies. “By providing a menu of policy tools ranging from less intensive mechanisms, like public outreach programs, to more proactive, regulatory approaches, our paper will help governments, communities and businesses effectively evaluate their options.”

Addressing Water Scarcity Through Recycling and Reuse: A Menu for Policymakers is built around a variety of policies that are being used in different locations of the world, including efforts to:

* Provide more information on and recognition of water recycling and reuse efforts
* Reduce or remove regulatory or cost barriers that prevent more water reuse or recycling
* Provide financial, regulatory or other incentives for water recycling and reuse
* Require more water recycling and reuse

Examples of how these policies are being applied in communities around the world are included in the report, which can be downloaded at www.ge.com/water.

Today, GE also announced its own commitment to reduce its own fresh water use by 20% by 2012. The new initiative is one of the world’s most aggressive corporate water target to date and is expected to free up 7.4 million cubic meters (2 billion U.S. gallons) of fresh water a year – enough water to fill over 3,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. GE expects to implement water reuse technologies and/or process efficiencies at over 100 company facilities to meet the absolute water reduction target. GE is also using the same portfolio of water-saving solutions to help reduce municipal, industrial and agriculture customers’ water footprints.

“Green technology offers a brighter future for our Blue Planet,” said EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Benjamin H. Grumbles. “Ecomagination and others are growing green collar jobs and seizing on this changing climate of opportunity for water sustainability. EPA commends citizens, companies, and communities who are reducing water waste and increasing recycling because efficiency and reuse are the true blue wave of the future.”

For more information on GE’s water commitment please visit www.ge.com/ecomagination.

ABOUT GE WATER & PROCESS TECHNOLOGIES

A world leader in membrane and filtration, diagnostic tools, specialty chemicals, mobile water, service, and financing, GE Water and Process Technologies, a unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), offers the broadest portfolio of global expertise and local capabilities. We invest in forward looking water and process technologies, leveraging the best practices of GE’s ecomagination, to help customers balance environmental and economic goals. Our innovative team develops unique partnerships and delivers reliable, long-term solutions for communities, governments and industry that maximize water and energy resources. www.ge.com/water.

GE (NYSE: GE) is Imagination at Work — a diversified technology, media and financial services company focused on solving some of the world’s toughest problems. With products and services ranging from aircraft engines, power generation, water processing and security technology to medical imaging, business and consumer financing and media content, GE serves customers in more than 100 countries and employs more than 300,000 people worldwide. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.ge.com.

Life, liberty, and water

Posted by: Maven on May 28, 2008 at 5:10 am

From Yes Magazine, an article written by Maude Barlow, the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water:

It’s a colossal failure of political foresight that water has not emerged as an important issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign. The links between oil, war, and U.S. foreign policy are well known. But water—whether we treat it as a public good or as a commodity that can be bought and sold—will in large part determine whether our future is peaceful or perilous.

Americans use water even more wastefully than oil. The U.S relies on non-renewable groundwater for 50 percent of its daily use, and 36 states now face serious water shortages, some verging on crisis.

Meanwhile, dwindling freshwater supplies around the world, inequitable access to water, and corporate control of water, together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, have created a life-or-death situation across the planet.

Both Democrats and Republicans have emphasized loosening U.S. dependence on nonrenewable energy resources in their platforms, but neither party gives significant air time to the threats posed by water shortages. This is not to say that no one is paying attention. In fact, water has become a key strategic security and foreign policy priority for the United States government.

Recently, a series of 6 meetings were held by the U. S. Center for Strategic & International Studies, bringing together representatives from Canada, Mexico & the United States to discuss a wide range of issues, water being one of them:

“As … globalization continues and the balance of power potentially shifts, and risks to global security evolve, it is only prudent for Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. policymakers to contemplate a North American security architecture that could effectively deal with security threats that can be foreseen in 2025,” said a leaked copy of a CSIS backgrounder.

On the agenda for one of two meetings in Calgary were, “water consumption, water transfers, and artificial diversions of bulk water” with the aim of achieving “joint optimum utilization of the available water.”

The water and security connection deepens with the fact that Sandia National Laboratories, a vital partner with CSIS in its Global Water Futures Project, also plays a major role in military security in the United States. While Sandia is technically owned by the U.S. government, and reports to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, its management is contracted out to Lockheed Martin, the world’s biggest weapons manufacturer.

Ralph Pentland, water consultant and primary author of the Canadian government’s Federal Water Policy in 1987, believes that the purpose of these cross-border discussions is to secure sufficient water for Alberta tar sands production in order to ensure uninterrupted oil supplies to the United States. Energy extraction would be far more attractive if a new source of water—potentially from northern Canada—could be brought to the tar sands through pipelines or other diversions. As long as the water doesn’t cross the international border, it is within Alberta’s power to do this.

The article then discusses the right to water, noting that the United States and Canada are the only countries actively blocking efforts to recognize water as a human right. Is there a conspiracy here? Decide for yourself – read the full text of this story from Yes! by clicking here.

Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force to meet tomorrow & Thursday

Posted by: Maven on May 27, 2008 at 6:23 am

It’s Delta Vision time again!

The Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force will once again be meeting on Wednesday & Thursday to continue discussions on developing a strategic plan for implementing the Delta Vision.

The meeting will be webcast. You can find links to the webcast, plus a meeting agenda with links to materials by clicking here.

Heal the Bay rates state’s best, worst beaches

Posted by: Maven on May 27, 2008 at 5:48 am

From Surfline:

California enjoyed its best dry-weather beach water quality on record in 2007-08, according to the 18th annual Beach Report Card , which was released today by environmental group Heal the Bay.

Heal the Bay assigned A-to-F letter grades to 517 beaches along the California coast, based on levels of weekly bacterial pollution reported from April 2007 to March 2008. During the high-traffic summer beach going season, 93% of beaches statewide received A or B grades, meaning very good to excellent water quality. That figure marks an 8% improvement from the previous summer.

Southern California’s record low rainfall last winter led to enhanced water quality by limiting the amount of polluted urban runoff that reaches the ocean via storm drain systems. Only 29 of the beaches (7%) monitored annually statewide received D or F grades in this year¹s report.

Nonetheless, there continues to be a great divide between water quality in dry weather vs. wet weather. This year, 46% of monitoring locations statewide received fair-to-poor grades during wet weather, with 26% receiving failing grades. Wet weather grades were down slightly from the same period a year ago.

For the third straight year, Los Angeles County had the worst overall beach water quality in the state, including five of the 10 lowest-rated beaches in the survey. While only 71% of Los Angeles County beaches received annual A or B grades, that figure marks significant improvement from last year. In our last report, only 57% of L.A. beaches earned A or B grades and seven of its beaches were on the Beach Bummer list.

Read more of this article and see a list of California’s worst beaches by clicking here.

Bush may create largest marine reserves in world

Posted by: Maven on May 26, 2008 at 6:45 am

Thanks to Dan Bacher (www.fishsniffer.com) for sending me this link! From NPR:

The Bush administration is considering launching one of the biggest conservation programs in U.S. history.

If implemented, President George W. Bush could, with the stroke of a pen, protect vast stretches of U.S. territorial waters from fishing, oil exploration and other forms of commercial development. The initiative could also create some of the largest marine reserves in the world — far larger than national parks like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon.

The White House is thinking about taking “big steps, not small ones,” says Jack Sobel, a senior scientist at the Washington-based Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.

A spokesman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality confirmed that the administration is considering the initiative but declined to discuss details, saying they are still under review. The idea is drawing strong support from conservationists who typically have been harshly critical of the Bush administration’s overall environmental record. But some of the possible reserves are already attracting opposition from local leaders and industry groups and from some members of Congress.

Read more on this story from NPR by clicking here.

AB 1806, Wolk’s bill to protect California Delta fisheries, wins fiscal approval

Posted by: Maven on May 26, 2008 at 6:28 am

From Dan Bacher at the Fish Sniffer (www.fishsniffer.com):

Long-needed legislation by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis) to protect the California Delta’s rapidly declining fisheries won the approval of the State Assembly’s Appropriations Committee on Thursday, May 22. The bill will be heard next week on the Assembly Floor, according to Melissa Jones, Wolk’s spokesperson. The Committee vote was 12-5 for Wolk’s AB 1806, a bill that requires public land managers to prepare emergency fish rescue plans before undertaking a project that would have a significant adverse impact on fishery resources in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The vote passed through Committee on a party line vote, with Committee Democrats voting for the bill and the Republicans voting against it. Assembly Members Mark Leno, Anna Caballero, Mike Davis, Mark DeSaulnier, Mike Eng, Jared Huffman, Patty Berg, Paul Krekorian, Ted Lieu, Fiona Ma, Pedro Nava and Jose Solorio voted “Yes,” while Mimi Walters, Bill Emmerson, Doug La Malfa, Alan Nakanishi and Sharon Runner voted “No” for the bill.

Wolk introduced the bill in response to a devastating fish kill on Prospect Island that took place last fall after the Bureau of Reclamation drained water from the area for levee repairs, leaving thousands of striped bass and other fish to die while fishermen volunteers struggled to rescue fish. A volunteer crew of anglers rescued 1831 striped bass and tens of thousands of smaller fish including Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail, black bass, bluegill, crappie and other species.

Continue reading “AB 1806, Wolk’s bill to protect California Delta fisheries, wins fiscal approval” »

Mayor Villaraigosa calls for new wave of Los Angeles water policy

Posted by: Maven on May 26, 2008 at 6:14 am

From the California Progress Report:

Last week Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made an exceptionally bold move by declaring that Los Angeles would accommodate all new water demands through intense water conservation and water recycling. “Securing LA’s Water Supply,” the Mayor’s plan, reflects a changing paradigm in California water policy.

Historically, Los Angeles has sought out new sources of imported water to meet growth demands. The city is famous for fighting legal and public battles to win water from the Owens River, tributaries to Mono Lake, the Colorado River and northern California’s Bay Delta Estuary. Yet, these sources are becoming increasingly unreliable as climate change, increased competition for water, and environmental needs all limit the water available to the city.

Rather than fight another water war, the Mayor’s plan targets the enormous untapped potential of water use efficiency and recycled water. The California Department of Water Resources estimates that these two options alone could produce over 4 million acre feet of “new” water – more than enough to meet the needs of 12 million new residents expected in California through 2030. By tapping into these sources, L.A. will also secure highly reliable local water resources that will not be impacted by declining snowpack or other side effects of climate change.

Read the rest of this story from the California Progress Report by clicking here.

California desalination effort info release: Sea of Cortez to the Salton Sea channel

Posted by: Maven on May 25, 2008 at 7:22 am

Please, folks, take this with a grain of salt. No, on second thought, grab the whole salt shaker…. From Helium.com:

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
To be placed in all California Newspapers as an informational news release

Announcing the release of information on a US & Mexico joint effort project known as the Sea of Cortez to the Salton Sea Desalination Channel

Let me point out that this “press release” is posted on Helium.com and not from the State of California. So what is this ‘channel’?

The Channel is a proposed project, a large canal actually, proposed to be built from the Sea of Cortez, Mexico, to, and as far north as, Palm Springs, California. Though, proposals vary, on its width, from between one to two miles wide, it will be deep enough for the largest of ships to travel. It is called a channel, instead of a canal, because that is the legal definition for such a project. On the United States side, it will run from the United States/Mexico border, just west of Calexico, northerly to Palm Desert, CA; 115 miles through Imperial County and, at least, 66 miles through Riverside County and, further if it goes to Palm Springs, CA. Upon the commitments of former President Fox and current President Lopez of Mexico, and Governor Eugenio Elorduy of the State of Baja, Mexico, the proponents, the National Outdoor Recreation Council (NORC), correctly assumed that there will be built, concurrently, a matching Mexican channel from the Gulf of California to the United States/Mexico border.

Okay…. a shipping channel from the Sea of Cortez to Palm Springs. An earlier post by the same person months ago talked of cruise ships docking in Indio and heading towards Indian casinos, along with a port 2 miles wide in El Centro…. This ‘press release’ continues, and tells of how the Clinton administration dissed the channel, but not Governor Schwarzenegger:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was first made aware of NORC’s Channel Proposal by DR. Abe Beagles on August 18, 2005. Dr. Beagles and a team of six international scientists had done an extensive reclamation study to see if either Electro-coagulation or the Plasma Incubator Reactor System, a revolutionary desalination process, could restore the Salton Sea.The report was then delivered to the Governor in 2003. Shortly after his personal examination and meetings with key individuals, throughout the United States and Mexico, he soon became convinced of both its validity and its potential but, was forewarned by the California Legislature against releasing it to the public until further, more thorough, examination by them. He acquiesced to their experienced judgment, in part. Indirectly, though, on January 5, 2006, he released, the Channel’s income potential, and some other aspects, in his State of the State address.

Hmmm… Schwarzenegger talking about the channel in his 2006 State of the State address? I guess me, you, and the entire media industry must have somehow missed that….

Throughout the following two years, the Governor only hinted, in public, about the forthcoming green technologies but, it wasn’t until his most recent State of the State address, on January 8, 2008, that he began to unveil the Channel. Therein, he revealed the need to re-build (to modernize) California’s antiquated water production and distribution system.

Ha! And you & I thought the Guv was only talking about a couple of new dams, but really he’s talking about the Salton Sea channel with the “Plasma Incubator Reaction System”! Talk about bait and switch…. So now, says this post, they need to set up “Harbor Improvement Districts” in Riverside, Imperial & San Diego counties, but they need public support for this:

Private Donations are Required to Form the Harbor Improvement Districts
NORC plans to process the Petitions to Form the Harbor Improvement Districts that are necessary, by law, to govern the construction and management of the Channel. They do not, however, have the funding to complete this monumental task, at present. As such, they will require significant (tax exempt) donations to perform this great task. Please support the Channel, and the development of its green technologies, by sending your donations directly to NORC.

And there’s even an address you can send your money to! (But first, send some to me, okay?)

And now, let’s talk benefits: 30 million acre-feet of per year of desalinated water; electricity produced and sold to the Harbor Improvement Districts for only 1 cent per kilowatt hour; but wait! there’s more!

At maximum build out, the Channel is estimated, by NORC, to generate, approximately, $92.12 trillion dollars per year, net profit, in private income from the sales of water, hydrogen, electricity, development, precious metals retrieval, and the manufacture of new automobiles. That’s correct, hydrogen will be sold, as well. This is because hydrogen is a by-product of the desalination method Dr. Beagles proposes. Not only can the Channel produce as much as 300 million acre feet, per year, of desalinated water but, it can also produce 4 million acre feet, per year, of compressed hydrogen. This is more than 20 times that needed to fuel all the passenger vehicles expected to be on the road in California in 2020; that is, if they are all hydrogen powered vehicles, of course. Though, there are expected to be a number of other profitable sources, NORC only estimated these. At a simple one (1) percent tax, this would mean, a maximum yearly expected revenue of $1.24 trillion dollars per year. Even at 10 percent of maximum build out, the Channel is expected to generate additional revenue, for the State of California, the affected Counties, and the United States, of $92.4 billion dollars per year.

92 trillion dollars per year in private income, and 92.4 billion in revenue for the government?! Bye bye budget deficit!!! And by the way, didn’t he say 30 million acre-feet of desalinated water earlier? and now it’s 300 acre-feet? Ahh, but who cares, we’ll all be rolling in the trillions of dollars anyway, while driving our hydrogen powered cars to board cruise ships in Palm Springs.

But what about the environmentalists? Rejoice, tree huggers everywhere! The channel will reduce environmental impacts to insignificant!

In accordance with the vast body of environmental law, today, any new water production and distribution system would have to be designed, in such a way, as to reduce environmental impacts to insignificance. Prior to the Channel, this was considered an impossible task. The Channel exceeds these expectations. It will not only maintain environmental impacts below threshold but, it will allow for the restoration of the many significant negative environmental impacts that the prior existing water production and distribution system caused. It is an environmentalists dream come true.

Yeah, right…. Earlier versions of this post mentioned removing every single dam in the Western United States, because the Salton Sea channel would provide enough water for all.  Of course they didn’t give any details on how they would distribute that water to everyone….

Coming next week, Aqua Blog Maven will unveil a enormous investment opportunity to solve world hunger while eliminating global warming and unwanted facial hair!

You can read the full text of this ‘press release’ by clicking here.

Desalination No “Silver Bullet” in Mideast; relying on this solution is not quite so clean-cut, say experts

Posted by: Maven on May 24, 2008 at 7:02 am

From National Geographic, an article on Israel’s increasing reliance on desalination. More than 10 million Israelis and Palestinians live side by side in a densely populated region, parched by drought and a dwindling aquifer. And so, Israel is looking towards desalination to augment it’s meager water supplies:

Desalination, the process of removing salt and other minerals, in this case from the Mediterranean and brackish sources, has popularly been seen as the best solution to the water shortage, and most efforts—and budgets—are aimed in this direction. With five large state-of-the-art facilities already built or in the works, and 31 smaller facilities in the country’s south, desalination will soon form the backbone of Israel’s water system. Some experts believe half of Israel’s potable water supply will eventually come from desalination.

But Israeli and Palestinian engineers, economists, and political scientists at the Water Wisdom conference, in April, raised serious questions about the potential environmental, geopolitical, and social impacts of desalination.

As the world is seeking to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, desalination plants are factories like any other—generally dependent upon unsustainable energy sources. Experts fear large-scale use of desalination would exchange one environmental problem, freshwater shortages, with another: burning fossil fuels.

Nader Al-Khateeb, Palestinian general director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, warned that such facilities require a constant supply of power and must be kept running 24 hours a day. “During the past year, there has been no [reliable] energy in Gaza,” Al-Khateeb said. “If they don’t have a reliable power supply, they would turn into garbage dumps.”

An enormous amount of energy is used to push sourcewater through a membrane that filters out salt. A typical reverse osmosis system, which can also remove some chemicals, takes three to seven kilowatt hours of energy to produce one cubic meter of fresh water, according to a 2008 National Acadamies Press report on desalination. At that rate, it would take 7,500 kilowatt hours to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool—the same amount of energy the average person in Israel uses over the course of two months, for everything from cooking to driving.

Odds and ends… Schwarnegger & McCain discuss water, bad beach report cards, more on wind energy for California, and another new water blog(?) to check out

Posted by: Maven on May 23, 2008 at 1:48 pm

Schwarzenegger and McCain discuss water issues: The two met at a business round table last week, and water was one of the first things they discussed: The movie star governor turned to the presumptive Republican nominee for president and called him “a great friend of California, even though Arizona is taking some of our water.” Not to be outdone, McCain called that comment “one of the great distortions,” and added with a smile that as a result of California’s usage of water from the Colorado River “we have so little water in Arizona that trees chase the dogs.” Then it was on to other issues. From the Wall Street Journal – click here.

SFist to LA: Ha! It sucks to be you, Los Angeles! referring to the recent beach report card in which all but two of the bad beaches were located in Southern California. Sure, our water is colder and we’ve spilled a ton of oil and garbage around here but despite this all we have the cleanest beaches in California. What the hell is LA doing to their beaches that keeps them worse than all of our spills? Actually use them, one of the commenters writes. Oh, if only it were that easy…. Click here for the SFist post.

Will wind energy really work in California? I posted an article earlier about how wind power can save water, but this Daily Kos post points out the problem with wind power: “Wind generation energy production is extremely variable, and in California, it often produces its highest energy output when the demand for power is at a low point. During some periods of the year, wind generation is hard to forecast because it does not follow a predictable day-to-day production pattern.” Furthermore, relying on wind power in California could actually increase global warming: “Because California needs reliable electricity all of the wind generators must be backed up fossil fuel burning generations plants, that must be constantly kept online burning fossil fuels in case the wind would drop. As a method of fighting global warming building more windmills in California is about as useful as licensing rickshaws in Los Angeles would be.” The article ends up advocating for nuclear power. Check it out from the Daily Kos by clicking here.

I’d rather be living in a riparian world ’cause I am a riparian girl! Sung to Madonna’s hit, Material Girl, the Great Lakes Law blog has posted re-written lyrics by water law students, Laura Colangelo. Just what you need to entertain your guests at your next karoake party! Check it out from the Great Lakes Law blog by clicking here.

Another great new water blog (?) to check out: Well, it’s not really a blog, but I’m not sure how to describe it. Links to all sorts of water news articles, and plenty of discussion here as well. All water issues are posted here. Check out the Water SISWEB by clicking here.

Mercury rising: Dealing with the dark legacy of the Gold Rush

Posted by: Maven on May 23, 2008 at 1:47 pm

From YubaNet:

When gold recently touched $1000 an ounce, the mainstream media ran stories about Sierra gold panning concessions that were experiencing a business boom. The glitter is still glamorous, but behind the shine lies the Gold Rush legacy of darker chemical remnants: mercury, lead, arsenic, and asbestos.

More than 150 years after James Marshall saw a sparkle in the American River that started a worldwide rush to California, the cleanup of those potentially harmful byproducts is just now being addressed. “Stepping back and thinking about how much work there is to be done on this issue, it’s huge,” Dr. Carrie Monohan said. Monohan is a hydrologist consulting on several mercury contamination projects in the Sierra. “It’s mind boggling!”

There are an estimated 47,000 abandoned mine sites on public lands in the Sierra, according to Monohan. “There are years of field work to be done just locating those and assessing what type of hazards they represent.”

One of the more useful elements for collecting gold in the 1800s was mercury. Today it is one of the most prominent mining toxins in the Sierra Nevada. The silvery metal commonly was dumped into Gold Rush creekside sluice boxes where it bound with finer-grained gold into an amalgam more easily removed from the box’s sediments. When hydraulic mining created a great deal more slurry, more mercury was added. Some of the mercury got suspended in the water and transported downstream. Much of it is still with us.

Since we are all hydrologically connected, cleaning up the mercury is a statewide issue:

“The Sierra is California’s watershed, and it affects everybody in the state,” Martin continues. “We want to document the problem. We want people to understand there’s a big problem. We want to move people forward toward solutions. We’re interested in having people understand that we can actually solve this one. We can clean this one up.”

Find out more about left-over Gold Rush toxins in this comprehensive report from YubaNet by clicking here.

DWR Reminds Boaters & Water Users: Don’t Move a Mussel

Posted by: Maven on May 23, 2008 at 6:11 am

From the Department of Water Resources:

As California’s water recreation season begins, a state multi-agency taskforce reminds boaters to do their part to help thwart invasive Quagga and Zebra mussels. Boats are the primary transporters of the aquatic species and recreationalists on State Water Project water bodies should take special care to properly clean, drain and dry vessels.

“Invasive mussels pose a serious threat to our water systems and recreational facilities,” said California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman. “Over the Memorial Day holiday and throughout this boating season we ask for the assistance of water users to prevent the spread of Quagga and Zebra mussels in California.”

The taskforce – comprised of California’s Department of Fish and Game, Department of Water Resources, Department of Parks and Recreation and Department of Boating and Waterways – urges boaters to take action to protect the state’s many water bodies from Quagga and Zebra mussel infestation.

Invasive aquatic mussels are primarily transported by watercrafts and boaters should follow these steps to inhibit their spread:

• -Inspect all exposed surfaces – small mussels feel like sandpaper to the touch.
• -Wash the hull of each watercraft thoroughly, preferably with high-pressure hot water.
• -Remove all plants and animal material.
• -Drain all water and dry all areas.
• -Drain and dry the lower outboard unit.
• -Clean and dry all live-wells.
• -Empty and dry any buckets.
• -Properly dispose of all bait.
• -Wait five days and keep watercraft dry between launches into different fresh waters.

These steps are designed to thwart spread of the invasive mussels, safeguard boats and preserve high-quality fisheries.

Click ‘read more’ to read the rest of this press release.  Continue reading “DWR Reminds Boaters & Water Users: Don’t Move a Mussel” »

Are we ready for water shortages in western states? EPA report has some proposals

Posted by: Maven on May 22, 2008 at 6:01 am

From AlterNet:

The rivers are rising as spring arrives in the Rocky Mountain West. In the annual pattern that sustains the environment and much of the economy of this region, water generated from melting snow feeds the streams, soaks the soil, and is diverted into ditches and reservoirs to serve millions of people and water their landscape. Here at the crown of the continent, the snowcapped peaks are far more than a pretty picture — they are an interest-bearing savings account we draw on throughout the year.

Unfortunately, the principal of this account is being depleted by the increasingly obvious impacts of global climate change. Even this winter’s abundant snowfall fails to overcome decades-long trends of increased temperatures and altered patterns of precipitation and spring runoff. The latest documentation of these impacts is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Water Program Strategy: Response to Climate Change.

The EPA, which is seeking public comment on the report by May 27, 2008, provides an overview of the effects of observed and projected climate change on national water resources, with a focus on water quality and aquatic species. The draft National Water Program Strategy offers a whopping 46 “key actions” that the federal agency proposes to implement in response, ranging from water and energy conservation incentives to new and modified water quality regulatory programs.

Read the rest of this story from AlterNet by clicking here.

Lessons NOT learned: Why a gulf wetland may become the fourth-largest city on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Posted by: Maven on May 22, 2008 at 5:57 am

From AlterNet:

If America learned one thing from hurricane Katrina, hydrologists argue, it should be this: Don’t fill in tideland marshes and build on them. Such human activity, they insist, diminishes the marshes’ ability to absorb some of the wallop of storms as they strike coastal communities.

Here on the westernmost reaches of Mississippi’s marshes — the very place where Katrina rushed ashore on its path to becoming one of the worst natural disasters in US history — that lesson is being tested, with broad implications for US taxpayers who pay most of the bills for storm repairs.

Bob Metz, a crab dealer who plies the tidelands of Bayou Caddy, has only to look out from his boathouse to see, in the distance, the future: the new Silver Slipper Casino, its bright sign twinkling beneath a dark cumulous cloud stack.

To Mr. Metz, plans to augment the casino with a new condo city built on top of a tidal marsh is the prototype of a boondoggle waiting for a bailout. But local and state governments so far are backing the plan, and the US Army Corps of Engineers is considering a permit application to fill the spongy ground so the development will have firm footing. If approved, the permit would, quite literally, lay the groundwork for a project that could create the fourth-largest city on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

“The big guys get what they want; that’s the lesson I take from this,” says Metz.

Another lesson might be that the dream of living on the ocean’s edge dies hard. Some $80 billion in damages from Katrina apparently have not dampened it, nor have scientists’ warnings that a $500 billion storm is possible in the US by 2020 and that the sea level may rise as much as three feet in the next century. So long as people gravitate to coastal living, political and economic pressures to allow it will rub up hard against the cautionary notes of scientists and environmentalists.

“The tough part is where the science leaves off and management and policy pick up,” says Bryan Harper, senior economist at the Army Corps’ Institute for Water Resources in Alexandria, Va. “We collectively use and enjoy the coast, but we have to understand what the balance is between what we get out of it and what is the real cost of occupying those areas. What we don’t want is to induce development to areas that are not currently developed in these high-risk areas.”

Read more on this story from AlterNet by clicking here.

Farmed salmon being subjected to excercise regimes to stay fit

Posted by: Maven on May 22, 2008 at 5:51 am

From AlterNet, this rather bizarre story about farmed salmon:

Sit-ups, crunches, weightlifting, interval training — sounds like a rigorous workout for anyone trying to get in shape. Could this be a fitness regimen for salmon too? That’s what the scientists in Norway are trying to prove.

Since training and exercise are essential in maintaining good health for humans, could the same be applied to fish? In order to make farmed salmon stronger and more resistant to disease once they are transferred to ocean cages, a research group in Norway is trying to get farmed juvenile salmon in shape for ocean water using some techniques from the top football team of Spain (we here in the U.S. call it soccer). Scientists from the project discovered that the heart capacity in wild salmon is greater than in farmed salmon, so they put the farmed salmon on a strict training regime to make their hearts stronger.

The exercise? They say the equivalent of jogging — swimming faster with increased water velocity in their tanks. The fish in the trial were divided into three groups — one was a control group (normal fish tank conditions), one group was put in a tank with increased water velocity throughout the day, and one group was put in a tank for “jogging” or intervals of increased water velocity (what the scientists call “high intensity training”).

They actually put heart rate monitors on the fish….! Read more from AlterNet by clicking here.

Lawmakers call for action on water bond

Posted by: Maven on May 21, 2008 at 5:59 pm

From the ACWA E-news:

Citing the state’s growing water challenges, a group of 16 lawmakers called on legislative leaders last week to renew efforts to place a comprehensive water bond package on the November ballot.

In a May 16 letter to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata and other leaders, the group said elected officials have an obligation to modernize the state’s current water infrastructure to ensure water supplies for future generations.

“The water crisis in California is growing appreciably worse as precious reserves dry up, court rulings further limit water distributions, jobs are lost and our aging infrastructure breaks down,” the letter said. “California’s vast diversity of individuals, industries and environments demands a forward thinking, legislative solution that invests in all our key and inter-related water needs such as conservation, water cleanup, recycling, groundwater recharge, conveyance and surface storage.”

The letter is available here.

Fishing groups intervene in striper lawsuit, calling it “simply an outrageous and transparent effort to divert attention from the real cause of the Delta’s decline”

Posted by: Maven on May 21, 2008 at 6:33 am

From Dan Bacher at www.fishsniffer.com:

Three fishery conservation groups today intervened in a ridiculous lawsuit by the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta – comprised largely of Kern County water agencies – that accuses the DFG of imperiling endangered salmon and Delta smelt through its striped bass management program.

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), describes the lawsuit as “simply an outrageous and transparent effort to divert attention from the real cause of the Delta’s decline and blame the victims, instead of the perpetuators.”

“Striped bass have coexisted with salmon and smelt in the Delta estuary for more than a hundred years,” said Jennings. “The dramatic almost 30% increase in the amount of water exported in recent years is the one clear culprit that has led to population crashes of numerous species; including salmon, steelhead, striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, splittail, threadfin shad, among others.”

Some of the largest annual export levels in history occurred in 2003 (6.3 million acre feet [MAF]), 2004 (6.1 MAF), 2005 (6.5 MAF) and 2006 (6.3 MAF), according to the groups. Exports averaged 4.6 MAF annually between 1990 and 1999 and increased to an average of 6 MAF between 2000 and 2007, a rise of almost 30%. Much of the increased pumping occurred during critical periods for Delta smelt survival.

I wholeheartedly thank the CSPA, California Striped Bass Association and Northern California Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers for standing up to the water contractors in their absurd attempt to blame striped bass, the victims of water exports from the California Delta and decades of state and federal government mismanagement, for the catastrophic crash of delta smelt, Central Valley salmon and other species.

The Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) requires that ALL Central Valley anadromous fish populations, including striped bass, delta smelt and four runs of chinook salmon, be doubled, not reduced!

Dan

Click “read more” to read the press release from the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. Continue reading “Fishing groups intervene in striper lawsuit, calling it “simply an outrageous and transparent effort to divert attention from the real cause of the Delta’s decline”” »

Special report on Washington DC salmon hearing May 15, 2008

Posted by: Maven on May 21, 2008 at 6:15 am

Submitted by Dan Bacher at www.fishsniffer.com:

To: California Salmon Interested Parties
From: Roger Thomas and Dick Pool
Subject: Washington DC Salmon Hearing May 15

On May 15 the House Resources Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans held an Oversight Hearing on the actions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). This committee has jurisdiction over these agencies.

The purpose of the hearing was to examine what is wrong with the biological opinions that NMFS has been issuing on salmon. In three major jurisdictions, the Courts have rejected NMFS biological opinions because they allow conditions which violate the Endangered Species Act. These jurisdictions include the Columbia/Snake Rivers, the Klamath River and the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta. The House Committee is upset with the lack of protections being given salmon through these faulty biological opinions.

There were two panels. Rodney McInnis, the NMFS Southwest Regional Director was the agency witness on the first panel. There were three other expert witnesses on that panel discussing why the fisheries were collapsing.

Roger Thomas and Dick Pool were part of the second panel along with a commercial fisherman from Seattle and a salmon fish processor from southern Oregon. Thomas spoke on behalf of his business and the Golden Gate Fishermen’s Association. Pool spoke on behalf of his business and the American Sportfishing Association.

The role of the second panel was to discuss the impact of the collapses on fishermen and fishing related businesses. Pool and Thomas hammered heavily on the reasons for the Central Valley collapse, the huge economic problems it is creating, and proposals to turn the situation around.

Continue reading “Special report on Washington DC salmon hearing May 15, 2008” »

Traces of antiseptic soaps and cleaning agents found in the environment, sparking human health concerns

Posted by: Maven on May 21, 2008 at 5:24 am

From Science Daily:

Parental concerns in maintaining germ-free homes for their children have led to an ever-increasing demand and the rapid adoption of anti-bacterial soaps and cleaning agents. But the active ingredients of those antiseptic soaps now have come under scrutiny by the EPA and FDA, due to both environmental and human health concerns.

Two closely related antimicrobials, triclosan and triclocarban, are at the center of the debacle. Whereas triclosan (TCS) has long captured the attention of toxicologists due to its structural resemblance to dioxin (the Times Beach and Love Canal poison), triclocarban (TCC) has ski-rocketed in 2004 from an unknown and presumably harmless consumer product additive to one of today’s top ten pharmaceuticals and personal care products most frequently found in the environment and in U.S. drinking water resources.

Now, Biodesign Institute at Arizona State Univesity researcher Rolf Halden and co-workers, in a feat of environmental detective work, have traced back the active ingredients of soaps — used as long ago as the 1960s — to their current location, the shallow sediments of New York City’s Jamaica Bay and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary.

“Our group has shown that antimicrobial ingredients used a half a century ago, by our parents and grandparents, are still present today at parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments underlying the brackish waters into which New York City and Baltimore discharge their treated domestic wastewater,” said Halden, a new member of the Institute’s Center for Environmental Biotechnology. “This extreme environmental persistence by itself is a concern, and it is only amplified by recent studies that show both triclosan and triclocarban to function as endocrine disruptors in mammalian cell cultures and in animal models.”

Read more from Science Daily by clicking here.

Les Claypool to lead dazzling line-up of musicians at SalmonAid Festival

Posted by: Maven on May 20, 2008 at 7:28 am

If you’re in the Bay Area on May 31st/June 1st, check out the Salmon Aid Festival:

Bay Area alternative rock royalty and Primus front-man Les Claypool, whose thumping bass lines and unique worldview have become the calling cards for a number of wildly successful and influential albums in the last two decades, will lead a diverse roster of twenty bands on two live outdoor stages at Oakland’s 2008 SalmonAid Festival. Claypool, The Zydeco Flames, Stacy Kray, Sizemo, Saul Kaye, Captain Zohar, Tia Carroll, Manaleo, Captain Mike & The Sea Kings, Asheba, John Craigie, The Bobby Young Project, Eliyahu & Qadim, and other performing artists promise to provide loads of fun when they join West Coast fishermen, tribes, restaurateurs and conservationists on May 31 and June 1 in Oakland’s Jack London Square to celebrate wild Pacific salmon.

The purpose of the free and family-friendly, two-day event is to highlight the urgent need to protect the river habitats of these iconic fish. SalmonAid will feature top music acts, educational forums, children’s activities, speakers and a chance for the public to enjoy wild caught salmon served by some of the West Coast’s finest restaurants.

“Pacific salmon is an icon and inspiration for a lot of us the West Coast, and it’s one of my favorite foods,” said Claypool, who regularly sport fishes for salmon off the northern California coast. “But today we’re in danger of losing this incredible fish. The bands at SalmonAid are playing to help ensure that wild Pacific salmon will always be around, and to help protect the rivers where salmon live.”

West Coast restaurants, including Fish. in Sausalito, CA, The Basin in Saratoga, CA, Flea Street Café in Menlo Park, CA, and Local Ocean Seafoods in Newport, OR, are also banding together for the festival. Due to the total closure of the 2008 ocean salmon season from the Mexican border to the Oregon-Washington line, Alaskan commercial fishermen will be donating the wild salmon served at the festival.

In recent years, salmon fishing has be closed or significantly limited along most of the West Coast because fish populations from three of the most productive salmon watersheds in the world – the Sacramento, the Columbia-Snake, and the Klamath river basins – are collapsing. The problem is not overfishing. Out-dated dams, runaway water diversions, and government inaction are taking a lethal toll on wild salmon. The grim result are some of the most sweeping fishing closures in West Coast history, costing the region’s economy hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of family-wage jobs.

Federal judges have been forced to become involved in managing all three rivers because the federal government, which operates dams and water diversion projects on all three rivers, repeatedly produces inadequate salmon protection plans and refuses to follow the science that says wild salmon need cold, free-flowing rivers and streams to thrive. When salmon habitat disappears, so do the wild salmon.

Despite the bad news of recent years, the festival’s goal is to highlight the economic, cultural, and culinary value of salmon.

At a rally on Sunday, June 1, SalmonAid participants will call on Congress to help ensure the future of healthy populations of wild salmon and the rivers upon which they depend.

To learn more about the musicians playing at SalmonAid, visit www.salmonaid.org

Metropolitan Chairman recognized for leadership in sustainability, environmental stewardship

Posted by: Maven on May 20, 2008 at 6:01 am

From Business Wire:

Acknowledging his leadership of sustainability and environmental stewardship in the Southland, the Los Angeles chapter of the Consulting Engineers and Land Surveyors of California presented Metropolitan board Chairman Timothy F. Brick with its 15th annual Engineering Achievement Award.

First presented in 1995, the award acknowledges individuals whose combination of leadership skills allow the large projects in Southern California to move forward.

“I am deeply honored to receive this prestigious award,” said Brick, who received the honor during CELSOC’s Los Angeles chapter ceremonies May 16 at the Los Angeles Marriott. “Metropolitan adopted a sustainability initiative to bring together a number of different activities we’ve undertaken in the past few years to reduce our waste and make more environmentally friendly decisions in the way we do business. We join other California water agencies in leading by example that it’s possible to do the right thing for the environment and, at the same time, our bottom line.”

Michael Mooradian, past president of CELSOC’s Los Angeles chapter, noted the chairman’s “calm progress in the face of daunting fiscal and environmental challenges and the political realities of his position.”

“Chairman Brick has built and maintained a solid, well-organized and effective team to deliver and manage our precious water resources that the people of Southern California take for granted,” Mooradian said. “His continuing profound commitment to providing critical water resources, while protecting the environment, is both essential and greatly appreciated.”

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies serving 18 million people in six counties. The district imports water from the Colorado River and Northern California to supplement local supplies, and helps its members to develop increased water conservation, recycling, storage and other resource-management programs.

A sea of synthetic trash; For 60 years, a huge garbage patch has been growing in the Pacific, with deadly consequences for the marine life around it

Posted by: Maven on May 19, 2008 at 5:48 am

From Canada’s Globe & Mail:

Out in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, hundreds of kilometres from land, Captain Charles Moore stood at the bow of his 50-foot catamaran and looked toward the horizon. But instead of gliding along calm, sapphire-coloured waters glistening in the afternoon sun, his aluminum-hulled Alguita carved through a sea of shiny, modern-day refuse. For days on end, it was plastic, plastic, everywhere.

That was nearly 11 years ago. Capt. Moore was returning to his home in Southern California from a sailing race in Hawaii. With some time to spare that Aug. 3, 1997, he decided to take a slightly longer route home, one that would see him sail through a stretch of ocean historically avoided by even the most weathered sailors. The 26-million-square-kilometre area known as the North Pacific Gyre is essentially free of wind – a kind of ocean desert – and its slow-moving, clockwise vortex of water is nearly impossible to plow through.

What he discovered at the heart of the deep swirls were miles upon miles of water bottles, plastic tarpaulins, dolls and furniture that have been collecting there for as long as 60 years. This plastic soup, with billions of tiny shards of the synthetic material floating just below the surface of the water, is estimated to span an area 1½ times the size of the continental United States.

Alarming new data collected during Capt. Moore’s most recent voyage to the gyre’s centre in February shows the girth of the so-called Eastern Garbage Patch “dramatically increasing.” The United Nations estimates that each square kilometre of ocean carries 13,000 pieces of debris, but this area in the north Pacific has something like 330,000 pieces per square kilometre.

Now, armed with proof that the plastic is making its way into the human food chain, experts warn the existence of the garbage patch and its far-reaching implications could be just as imminent as the worldwide food shortage and the effects of global warming.

What makes plastic so functional – its durability – is precisely what makes it so dangerous. It does not biodegrade, but rather cracks into smaller and smaller pieces as it is exposed to sunlight and thrashing waves.

Greenpeace estimates that one-fifth of the plastic is dumped off ships or accidentally lost off cargo boats (like the container headed to Tacoma, Wash., from Hong Kong in 1992 that spilled about 29,000 rubber ducks overboard, or the 61,000 pairs of Nike shoes that were knocked into the ocean in 1990). The rest comes from land: the Asian Pacific Rim and North America. A plastic bottle discarded on the ground can easily make its way into a municipal water system, which ultimately leads to the ocean, said Capt. Moore, 60, who established the non-profit Algalita Marine Research Foundation.

Read the rest of this comprehensive story from Canada’s Globe and Mail by clicking here.

Odds and Ends: LA’s neighborhood councils & recycled water, the Dominquez Gap Wetlands, new water war in the Delta, and a new water blog to check out!

Posted by: Maven on May 18, 2008 at 7:33 am

Good stuff out on the internet this week….

Conservation, recycled water and neighborhood councils: This blogger, a former Southern Californian now relocated elsewhere, talks about the Mayor’s new plan, recycled water, and the effects of the powerful neighborhood associations: Conservation, that dirty word again, is what most Angelenos should practice daily and religiously. But no, they all go on blithely, assuming the Colorado River will continue to provide for the bounty of their lush gardens in this desert landscape, each assuming that this well will never, could never ever run dry. Global warming, of course, was an unforeseen calamity. What struck me in the piece, covered in the New York Times, was how even Mayor Villaraigosa still didn’t understand the full impact of what will occur if everyone, and I mean, everyone does not get on board about conserving water from now until eternity. His proposal about the use of recycled sewage water and the need for Angelenos to conserve only during the dry season (as if they ever have a really wet season) felt half-hearted. He knows too well the foes of both the recycling and conservation will quickly descend to kick this proposal to the curb, all the while not offering any other viable alternative. Read more from the Coast2Coast blog by clicking here.

Get a photo tour of the ‘new’ Dominguez Gap Wetlands: Extensive photos and commentary in this post from the Long Beach Natural Areas Blog, who fills us in on the purpose of the new area: These wetlands aren’t at all natural–they were constructed and serve a variety of purposes. Specifically, the wetlands are designed to treat stormwater (removing nutrients and metals before it enters the LA River and the Pacific Ocean. It will also help recharge the groundwater in the area. In addition, the wetland provides habitat for wildlife. And wetland-dependent wildlife is desparate for real estate in southern LA County! Check it all out on the Long Beach Natural Areas Blog by clicking here.

New water war brewing in San Joaquin Valley: From the Modesto Bee Hive, a blog related to the Modesto Bee, we get the details: The fight over water in the San Joaquin River has resumed in earnest. In a letter dated May 12, Modesto Irrigation District general manager Allen Short demanded that action be taken against those who pump water from the south delta. This is the latest salvo in a battle that stretches back decades. Acting as the coordinator for the eight-member San Joaquin River Group, Short says that two small irrigation districts and a specific farmer have been taking water they have no right to use. He lays out his case in a four-page letter to the State Water Resources Control Board, which has authority over such pumping. The specific farmer? Alex Hidlebrand, an ardent foe of the peripheral canal, who has had several commentaries in the papers in the past. Find out the details from the Bee Hive blog by clicking here.

Surfing machines, giant squids, blue-green algae and more: Check out the Aqua Channel blog, which covers aquatic life of all kinds, with lots of great pictures. I especially found this post on the new “surfing machine” to be completed in 2011 in East London very interesting. This blog covers a wide range of water topics, from aquatic fruit to how to avoid water snakes… find out more from the Aqua Channel by clicking here.

Enjoy your weekend!

Drought-stricken Barcelona starts bringing in drinking water by ship

Posted by: Maven on May 18, 2008 at 5:56 am

From the Christian Science Monitor:

With Spain’s average rainfall down 40 percent last year, many cities have restricted residents from filling their swimming pools or watering their lawns. But perhaps no municipality has developed such diverse and creative solutions as hard-hit Barcelona, which this week began a €44 million ($68 million) operation to bring in drinking water by ship.

On Tuesday, the first vessel – from the southern city of Tarragona – arrived in Barcelona’s port, where firemen discharged the ship’s 20 tanks into a pipeline linked to the city’s water distribution network. The next day, Barcelona residents were drinking Tarragona water from their taps.

The measure is designed to stave off a water crisis that has been building for some time and has reduced Barcelona’s reservoirs to 20 percent of their capacity.

“For the past four years, we’ve had a shortage of rain,” says Narcis Prat, a water expert at the University of Barcelona. “Now we have a shortage of water. Without significant rain, we only have enough to last until December.”

Professor Prat points out that the population of Spain’s second-largest city has grown by more than 1.5 million in the past 15 years, stretching limited resources further. That means the citizens’ “excellent” conservation habits aren’t enough, says Barcelona’s mayor, Jordi Hereu.

“The area of Barcelona is exemplary in its consumption,” he says. “But we’re talking about 5.5 million people…. And all of them have a right to water.”

The water boats are the most immediate solution, which will allow the city to forgo rationing over the summer. Ten ships will bring an estimated 2.6 cubic hectometers of water to the city each month for the next six months. Most of it will be bought from Tarragona and Marseilles, though some will also come from a desalination plant in southern Spain.

It’s hard to imagine how shiploads of water could make a dent in the needs of 5.5 million people… Officials there are looking for more permanent solutions, including canals and pipelines, and they are having water wars of their own. Pipelines aren’t the only solution, some say:

… some critics worry that the government is missing the most effective solution.

“In California, where they have a lot of experience with water shortages, a city like Los Angeles can negotiate for water with a place like the Imperial Valley that has greater supply. They create a water bank,” says Prat. “Here, we don’t have these global solutions.

“Our government may be Socialist, but when it comes to water policy, Schwarzenegger is far more progressive.”

Read the rest of this story from the Christian Science Monitor by clicking here.

DWR Press Release: DWR and USBR Issue Biological Assessment on Delta Pumping

Posted by: Maven on May 16, 2008 at 2:14 pm

From the Department of Water Resources:

SACRAMENTO – The Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the United States Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) issued Biological Assessments today on their respective water projects, particularly as they relate to Delta pumping and the effects on endangered fish species.

The assessments are posted on the Bureau of Reclamation’s Mid-Pacific Region Web site at http://www.usbr.gov/mp/

[Aquafornia note: here is a more direct link: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/ocap_page.html]

The assessments are part of what’s identified as the State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) joint Operations Criteria and Plan.

Operational requirements are spelled out in permits known as Biological Opinions Issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

Recent court decisions conclude that current permits do not adequately protect certain fish species. That means the federal fish agencies must develop new Biological Opinions regarding SWP and CVP operations.

The court has ordered development of new, more protective, biological opinions by mid-September 2008. This process is known as federal Endangered Species Act re-consultation.

The Biological Assessment (BA) is a starting point in the consultation process. A considerable amount of new science on the Delta and additional fish protection measures will need to be integrated into project operations. DWR and the Bureau will be working with the federal fish agencies to assist them to develop this information.

The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs.

Mayor Villiaragosa unveils his water strategy plan; bloggers react

Posted by: Maven on May 16, 2008 at 5:54 am

From the Department of Water and Power, this press release:

Unveiling a plan to ensure water continues to flow in Los Angeles despite a worsening outlook, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa today laid out a long-term strategy for the City to meet an expected growth in water demand over the next 20 years with aggressive conservation and an unprecedented water recycling program. “LA’s future depends on our willingness to adopt an ethic of sustainability. If we don’t commit ourselves to conserving and recycling water, we will tap ourselves out,” said Mayor Villaraigosa. “This plan makes a basic promise to our kids: We are going to recycle and conserve enough water to meet 100% of new demand.”

By 2030, the population of Los Angeles is expected to jump by 500,000 people, according to the Southern California Association of Governments, pushing up water demand in the City by 100,000 acre-feet per year, or 15 percent.

The plan calls for the first real enforcement of City water restrictions since the early 1990s, dishing penalties to residents who water lawns during prohibited hours and restaurants that serve water to customers who have not requested it. On the technology side, the plan – “Securing LA’s Water Supply” – shifts the City’s focus from promoting efficient indoor plumbing to the outdoors, where Angeleno families use 30-40 percent of their water. Laying out a series of incentives for businesses and families to reduce water use, the plan introduces a new program to distribute free “smart sprinklers” to every home in Los Angeles.

Together, these steps to conserve water will balance out half of the expected 15 percent jump in water demand by 2030. The remaining 50 percent of water demand will be met by the City’s first wide-scale plan for water recycling.

Raising the amount of water it purifies for recycling by six-fold by 2019, LADWP will expand its existing “purple pipe” system (distributing water for irrigation and industrial uses) and will flesh out a “groundwater replenishment” water-recycling program.

“I salute Mayor Villaraigosa for his bold leadership in announcing the ‘Securing L.A.’s Water Supply,’” said David Nahai, LADWP CEO and General Manager. “This is a bold and visionary strategy for securing L.A.’s water supply today and in the future by developing a locally sustainable water supply.”

“We are already seeing the effects of global warming, and as a City we need a comprehensive plan to address rising temperatures and a shrinking water supply,” said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel. “I applaud the Mayor for proposing this bold strategy to ensure our children and grandchildren have an ample water supply. It’s incumbent upon all Angelenos to do their part or we will face severe long-term consequences.”

Read the full text of the press release from DWP by clicking here. Coverage from the New York Times by clicking here.

Blogger Ron Kaye, former editor of the LA Daily News, weighs in on his blog, Ron Kaye LA:

“L.A.’s future depends on our willingness to adopt an ethic of sustainability. If we don’t commit ourselves to conserving and recycling water, we will tap ourselves out,” Villaraigosa told the Daily News. “This plan makes a basic promise to our kids. We are going to recycle and conserve enough water to meet 100 percent of new demand.”

We’re going to drink toilet water for the kids’ sake? Aw. c’mon Antonio.

We’re going to drink water so some people can get rich. We’re going to drink toilet water because we put growth at any cost ahead of the quality of life. We’re going to drink toilet water because we don’t have the imagination or will to embrace regional water policies and conservation efforts

It’s like everything we do.

We don’t solve the traffic congestion problem by tougher regulations on trucks in peak hours, we put billions into the ground for subways that don’t take us where we want to go. We strip neighborhoods of a say on development so we can put up massive apartment complexes that encourage crime and poverty. We fix our schools buildings but not what goes on in the classroom. We build monuments to billionaires’ egos, not community centers for ordinary people to enjoy.

David over at Westchester Parents agrees, saying:

Today’s water conservation efforts have nothing to do with getting through a tough period of drought. It has everything to do with the current administrations efforts to build a staggering number of housing units and fill the city treasury.

Read the full text of Ron Kaye’s blog by clicking here, full text of Westchester Parents blog by clicking here.

Cameroonian environmentalist participates in Tahoe/Baikal watershed education program

Posted by: Maven on May 16, 2008 at 5:21 am

From the Christian Science Monitor:

Most Americans can fill up a glass with tap water and safely drink it. But there are no faucets where Tantoh Nforba lives and works. He is from the Northwest Province of Cameroon, a rural region of Africa where the World Health Organization estimates that only 44 percent of the population has access to potable water.

The rest of the province’s 1.2 million inhabitants either drink from streams and lakes polluted with human and animal feces, contending with potential disease, or walk up to seven miles to collect clean drinking water from sporadically placed water pumps. The pumps are unreliable: Hard to maintain, they frequently fall into disrepair. And while water flows during the rainy season, many go dry later.

Today, Mr. Nforba has joined a global community stretching from the United States to Russia to Africa dedicated to making potable water more available.

Almost one-fifth of the world’s population lacks consistent access to clean water. The situation is made worse, says the United Nations Environment Program, by the water-intensive farming practices being used to feed the developing world’s exploding population. Nforba’s Northwest Province is 90 percent dependent on farming for survival. Its lack of clean drinking water is exacerbated by agricultural deforestation, aquifer depletion, and soil erosion.

“Water is life,” Nforba says by phone from Cameroon. “The crisis is so high here that people are dying from it every day.”

Last summer, Nforba participated in a unique exchange program:

In the spring of 2007, Nforba applied to the Tahoe-Baikal Institute’s (TBI) Summer Environmental Exchange. TBI, a Lake Tahoe, Calif.-based nonprofit, teaches American and international students about watershed management. Around the world, watersheds can be found in all states of usage, from the pristine waters of Siberia’s Lake Baikal – the world’s oldest, deepest, and largest freshwater lake – to the streams and rivers piped deep beneath cities. TBI hopes to balance human population growth and demands for development with the ecological health of these drainage areas.

Founded in 1992 as a student exchange between the polarized superpowers of the Cold War, TBI began hosting students and professionals from around the world in 1996. Nforba was the institute’s first African participant.

“Having Tantoh in the program was huge,” says TBI’s Jon Green, coordinator of the US program. “He really solidified that TBI’s mission is not just about Tahoe or Baikal – it’s about any watershed, anywhere.”

Find out more by reading the full text of this story from the Christian Science Monitor by clicking here.

The triple threat: Our food, water and climate challenges

Posted by: Maven on May 15, 2008 at 1:29 pm

From AlterNet:

Food prices rose 4 percent in the United States last year, the highest rise since 1990. All over the world food prices are on the rise. At the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank finance ministers wanted to focus the world’s attention on food crisis rather than the credit crisis.

There are many factors contributing to this current crisis, including the rising price of oil, deregulated agricultural markets, financial speculation, and biofuels. Another key factor is climate change, which is affecting crop yield and food production. It is time for us to get serious about understanding the way climate change affects water resources for food production and conversely the way agricultural water use is leading to climate change.

In January, scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the U.S. published an article in the journal Science that said what many climate change experts had already been saying for some time: global warming is responsible for the extreme changes that we see in the hydrological cycle in the western U.S. Moreover, the scientists from Scripps found that up to 60 percent of the climate-related trends of river flow, winter air temperature and snow pack between 1950 and 1999 are human-induced.

While the Scripps scientists analyzed data for the western United States, similar changes have been happening around the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2007) found that “climate and freshwater systems are interconnected in complex ways and that any change in one of these systems induces a change in the other.”

Read the rest of this story from AlterNet by clicking here.

New report paints bleak picture for California agriculture

Posted by: Maven on May 15, 2008 at 6:23 am

From the Western Farm Press:

One of the advantages of living a fairly long time is that one remembers what things used to be like way back when. Belonging to the leading edge of the post-World War II baby boom and growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s is a perfect case in point.

My family bought a house in a new subdivision in Norwalk in the early 1950s as the steady encroachment of urbanization pushed out dairies, farm fields and tree orchards. In fact, the only exposure I had to agriculture before I took this job was the few short years that my cousins and I played in the pasture behind my house throwing cow pies at each other in smelly games of tag. The dairy owner eventually had to bend to the onslaught of civilization and move away — an exodus literally sparked by errant neighborhood teenagers setting his haystacks ablaze while smoking in his lofts.

For those of us who grew up in Southern California in the 1950s we watched the last remaining vestiges of production agriculture forced out of the region as valuable ag land was gobbled up by developers who replaced it with freeways, businesses and homes. As recently as 1960, L.A. led the nation in total farm production. Fact is, there are no orange orchards in Orange County anymore. Today you can drive 100 miles from L.A. to San Diego without seeing any vacant land except that surrounding Camp Pendleton — which brings me to the point of this column — the rapid elimination of California’s valuable farmland.

It just boggles the mind to contemplate the consequences of paving over our nation’s “breadbasket.” In the years ahead, I believe, the entire state will go the way of Los Angeles as California’s population continues to grow by as many as a half-million new residents each year and Central Valley farm fields continue to vanish at an alarming pace.

To back up my concerns I point to Paving Paradise: A New Perspective of California Farmland Conversion, a report released late last year by the American Farmland Trust, written by AFT California Director Edward Thompson, Jr. The report is bleak: About one-sixth of all land developed since the Gold Rush was lost between 1990 and 2004. That amounts to about a half million acres, nearly two-thirds of it agricultural land, Thompson notes.

Read the rest of this story from the Western Farm Press by clicking here.

Perfect Storm: House Panel Will Hold Hearing on West Coast Salmon May 15

Posted by: Maven on May 14, 2008 at 4:59 pm

From Dan Bacher:

A House Subcommittee will hold an oversight hearing on the management of West Coast salmon fisheries on Thursday, May 15 at 10 a.m. (eastern) in Washington, D.C. The hearing occurs at a time when salmon fishing off the coast of California and most of Oregon has been closed, due to the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley fall run chinook salmon.

The House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans will hold the hearing at Room 1324 Longworth House Office Building. The hearing, entitled, “A Perfect Storm: How Faulty Science, River Mismanagement, and Ocean Conditions Are Impacting the West,” will be webcast live on the Committee’s Web site at: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov.

Witnesses at the hearing will include:
Mr. Roger Thomas, Golden Gate Fishermen’s Association, Sausalito, CA
Mr. Dick Pool, Pro-Troll Fishing Products and American Sportfishing Association, Concord, CA
Mr. Joel Kawahara, commercial salmon fisherman, Seattle WA
Ms. Laura Anderson, Local Ocean Seafoods, Newport, OR
Mr. Rod McInnis, Southwest Regional Administrator, NOAA Fisheries Service
Mr. Mike Rode, Former California Fish and Game
Dr. Jack Williams, Senior Scientist, Trout Unlimited
Mr. Jim Litchfield, Litchfield Consulting
Mr. Jason Peltier, representing San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority

Continue reading “Perfect Storm: House Panel Will Hold Hearing on West Coast Salmon May 15” »

Proposition 98 safeguards property rights and won’t interfere with water projects, says the California Farm Bureau Federation

Posted by: Maven on May 14, 2008 at 6:08 am

From the California Farm Bureau Federation:

Efforts to limit the use of eminent domain have intensified since a 2005 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the right of governments to take property from a private owner and give it to another private owner for commercial development. Uproar over the Kelo vs. City of New London decision prompted more than 40 states to reform their eminent domain laws. California is now seeking to join those states with the passage of Proposition 98, which will appear on the June ballot.

Also known as the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, Prop. 98 is the latest attempt to pass reforms on eminent domain and restore private property protections for all California property owners, proponents of the measure say. They also say that the initiative would protect a property owner’s water rights and other natural resources from being taken through eminent domain.

Opponents, however, claim that the natural-resources clause will block future water development projects such as dams and reservoirs in California.

The California Farm Bureau Federation, which is a co-sponsor of Prop. 98 and strongly supports public water storage projects, asked one of the state’s prominent water attorneys, Stuart Somach, to give his legal opinion on that particular provision. His analysis concludes that Prop. 98 would not preclude the use of eminent domain to acquire property necessary for the construction of water storage or conveyance projects.

Specifically, Prop. 98 prohibits the “transfer of ownership, occupancy or use of private property or associated property rights to a public agency for the consumption of natural resources.” In his legal opinion, Somach wrote, “The relevant question is whether acquiring private property for the purpose of constructing a water storage or conveyance facility is ‘for the consumption of natural resources.’ We believe it is not.”

Aqua Blog Maven interjection: water storage or conveyance facilities are NOT ‘consumption of natural resources??? Click more to read more legal analysis…. Continue reading “Proposition 98 safeguards property rights and won’t interfere with water projects, says the California Farm Bureau Federation” »

California water politics – the water buffaloes are back!

Posted by: Maven on May 14, 2008 at 5:47 am

From IndyBay.org:

California Governor Schwarzenegger wants to build two new dams – Sites and Temperance Flat. They are being sold as necessary to cope with the reduction in Sierra Nevada, Cascade and Klamath Mountains snowpack expected as a result of climate change. New and “enhanced” storage are being marketed by Lester Snow, director of California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) as part of a “portfolio approach” which, in addition to “enhanced” storage, calls for urban water conservation, better groundwater facilities, improved wastewater processing and research into lowering the cost of desalination. The dams are to provide increased capacity in order to catch earlier runoff that – according to climate change data and predictions – will no longer be held in mountain snowpack.

Schwarzenegger and Snow are counting on the climate change predictions to be fairly accurate. If the actual climate does not follow the predictions, the new and “enhanced’ reservoirs might never fill. Furthermore, increasing surface storage would result in more extensive water loss through evaporation. In 1998 the measured evaporation from Californiareservoirs was about a million acre feet – that’s enough water to cover a million acres of land with a foot of water. That’s a lot of water but the amount will rise if new and “enhanced’ reservoirs are developed. Furthermore, if climate change results in higher summer temperatures evaporation from all reservoirs will increase.

The Schwarzenegger/Snow “portfolio approach” ignores the states largest “reservoir” – upland forest soils – and its biggest water user – irrigated agriculture. Let’s look at the forests first.
Upland forest soils in the Sierra Nevada, Cascade and Klamath Mountains are the states largest reservoir. Healthy forest soils are on average about 1/3 empty spaces. In the winter wet season these spaces fill up with water which is released slowly to springs, streams and groundwater during the summer/fall dry season. Road building and logging are known to compact forest soils – reducing their ability to store water.

Increases in flood flows in streams and rivers and a corresponding decreases in base flow as a result of intensive logging are well documented in research and by experience on the ground. But apparently no one in the California state establishment is looking at how upland California forests should be managed to restore the ability of California’s forest soil reservoirs to store water. The state is not even looking at hard research that tells us we can maximize snowpack retention by limiting clearcuts to no more than an acre. The failure to address upland management in the “portfolio approach” may have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of Sierra Forests are owned by Sierra Pacific Industries – a private forest products company that is California’s largest landowner.

Read the full text of this story from IndyBay.org by clicking here.

New analysis by U.C. Davis shows important slowdown in Lake Tahoe clarity loss

Posted by: Maven on May 13, 2008 at 5:55 am

From U.C. Davis:

For the first time since researchers began continuously measuring Lake Tahoe’s famed water clarity 40 years ago, UC Davis scientists reported today that the historical rate of decline in the lake’s clarity has slowed considerably in recent years.

Scientists at the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center say that by using new, more sophisticated models for detecting trends and, by factoring out the effects of annual precipitation, they have concluded that the historic rate of decline in the lake’s clarity has slowed since 2001.

“From 1968 to 2000 there was a near-continuous decline in lake clarity. There were several years at a time when things seemed to improve, but invariably we returned to the same trend,” said Geoffrey Schladow, a UC Davis professor of civil and environmental engineering who directs the Tahoe research center. “But since 2001, we have had seven years in which the clarity has consistently been better than the long-term trend would have predicted. This is unprecedented.”

Schladow cautioned that the data do not pinpoint a specific cause for the recent improvements, but noted that new modeling results show that runoff of fine particles from both urbanized areas and roadways around the lake are the primary factors that influence clarity levels. Fine particles scatter light and limit how far into the lake we can see.

Read the rest of this story from U.C. Davis by clicking here.

Falling water tables threatens grain harvests and agriculture worldwide

Posted by: Maven on May 12, 2008 at 6:04 am

From People and Planet:

As China’s farmers sink their pumps ever lower and aquifers begin to run dry grain harvests could be in serious trouble says Lester Brown in this wide-ranging report on the problem.

As the world’s demand for water has tripled over the last half-century and as the demand for hydroelectric power has grown even faster, dams and diversions of river water have drained many rivers dry. As water tables fall, the springs that feed rivers go dry, reducing river flows. Scores of countries are overpumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs, including each of the big three grain producers – China, India, and the United States. More than half the world’s people live in countries where water tables are falling.

There are two types of aquifers: replenishable and nonreplenishable (or fossil) aquifers. Most of the aquifers in India and the shallow aquifer under the North China Plain are replenishable. When these are depleted, the maximum rate of pumping is automatically reduced to the rate of recharge.

For fossil aquifers, such as the vast US Ogallala aquifer, the deep aquifer under the North China Plain, or the Saudi aquifer, depletion brings pumping to an end. Farmers who lose their irrigation water have the option of returning to lower-yield dryland farming if rainfall permits. In more arid regions, however, such as in the southwestern United States or the Middle East, the loss of irrigation water means the end of agriculture.

The article discusses water use and shortages from around the world, including the U.S.:

While falling water tables are largely hidden, rivers that are drained dry before they reach the sea are highly visible. Two rivers where this phenomenon can be seen are the Colorado, the major river in the southwestern United States, and the Yellow, the largest river in northern China. Other large rivers that either run dry or are reduced to a mere trickle during the dry season are the Nile, the lifeline of Egypt; the Indus, which supplies most of Pakistan’s irrigation water; and the Ganges in India’s densely populated Gangetic basin. Many smaller rivers have disappeared entirely.

Since 1950, the number of large dams, those over 15 meters high, has increased from 5,000 to 45,000. Each dam deprives a river of some of its flow. Engineers like to say that dams built to generate electricity do not take water from the river, only its energy, but this is not entirely true since reservoirs increase evaporation. The annual loss of water from a reservoir in arid or semiarid regions, where evaporation rates are high, is typically equal to 10 percent of its storage capacity.

The Colorado River now rarely makes it to the sea. With the states of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and, most important, California depending heavily on the Colorado’s water, the river is simply drained dry before it reaches the Gulf of California. This excessive demand for water is destroying the river’s ecosystem, including its fisheries.

Read more from People and Planet by clicking here.

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