DAILY DIGEST: Meet the Megaflood: How the other 'Big One' could devastate San Diego County; After its dams came down, the Elwha River is reborn; Thomas Elias asks, Will lawsuits, high costs frustrate Brown's water tunnels plan?; and more ... ~ MAVEN'S NOTEBOOK

In California water news today, Meet the Megaflood: How the other ‘Big One’ could devastate San Diego County; Clear Lake: Water Board calls for more forums; After its dams came down, the Elwha River is reborn; Ex-Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience makes final call on EPA’s grants; Flood insurance is a mess, and Harvey won’t make Congress any more likely to fix it; Thomas Elias: Will lawsuits, high costs frustrate Brown’s water tunnels plan?; and more …

On the calendar today …

Brown Bag Seminar: Exploring Abandoned Derelict Vessels in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from 12pm to 1pm: Annie Daly, Masters Candidate, UC Santa Barbara Bren School of Environmental Science and Management will discuss how abandoned derelict vessels (ADVs) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta impede navigation, interfere with boating traffic, and leak toxic chemicals into waterways; she will also discuss how other states handle ADVs. This information will help managers anticipate the resources needed to address the problem. Attend in person or by webex. Click here for more information.

In the news today …

Meet the Megaflood: How the other ‘Big One’ could devastate San Diego County: “You’ve heard of The Big One. Now meet The Other Big One – a massive statewide flooding catastrophe that could cripple California for months or years. Researchers think a megaflood is just as likely to hit the state as a 7.8 magnitude earthquake, and has the potential to cause three times as much damage. San Diego County alone would suffer $25 billion in losses under a doomsday “atmospheric river” scenario created in 2011 by dozens of researchers during which a series of heavy storms would slam the northern and central parts of the state. … ” Read more from the Voice of San Diego here: Meet the Megaflood: How the other ‘Big One’ could devastate San Diego County

Clear Lake: Water Board calls for more forums: “Following the public outreach meeting for Clear Lake last Monday held by staff members of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board at the Lakeport City Council chamber, the staff is asking for more public participation before September 15 to incorporate in their upcoming reports. While the Board continues to gather information, local organizations will hold town forums this month. Over 75 people attended the early afternoon meeting to discuss the consideration of amending the compliance date — June 19, 2017 — for the total maximum daily load (TMDL) and waste load allocations required by the Basin Plan’s Clear Lake Nutrient Control Program to help reduce phosphorous runoff onto Clear Lake. ... ” Read more from the Record-Bee here: Clear Lake: Water Board calls for more forums

After its dams came down, the Elwha River is reborn: “The Elwha River starts at Dodwell-Rixon Pass, a high crack in Washington’s Olympic Mountains. There, a hiker who crossed would find the Elwha Snowfinger, formed by heavy winter storms and the avalanches that pour off the surrounding mountainsides. Wedged into a steep-walled gully, it forms the upper reaches of the Elwha basin. If the hiker followed this snow down, eventually she’d find a stream, and that stream would widen and become the Elwha River. As she traveled down, as more streams joined its flow, she would find one of those messy rivers that characterize the Pacific Northwest: Wide, braided channels, scattered with logs and boulders, gravel bars strewn with detritus, a sense of a landscape half-finished. Then the river would round a corner and flow out into an area of high gravel banks stretching on for yards, dozens of feet above the water. These are what’s left of Lake Mills, one of two reservoirs that once trapped the Elwha. ... ” Read more from High Country News here: After its dams came down, the Elwha River is reborn

Ex-Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience makes final call on EPA’s grants: “The Environmental Protection Agency has taken the unusual step of putting a political operative in charge of vetting the hundreds of millions of dollars in grants the EPA distributes annually, assigning final funding decisions to a former Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience. In this role, John Konkus reviews every award the agency gives out, along with every grant solicitation before it is issued. According to both career and political employees, he has told staff that he is on the lookout for “the double C-word” – climate change – and repeatedly has instructed grant officers to eliminate references to the subject in solicitations. … ” Read more from the LA Times here: Ex-Trump campaign aide with little environmental policy experience makes final call on EPA’s grants

Flood insurance is a mess, and Harvey won’t make Congress any more likely to fix it: “Hurricane Harvey is sure to add more crushing debt to the National Flood Insurance Program, which is already $25 billion in the red. So when Congress resumes on Tuesday, will it immediately act to fix this troubled program? Don’t count on it. Entrenched regional and partisan divisions have sidelined flood insurance reform for years. Those divides could intensify this month as lawmakers confront three tasks: Formulating an aid package for hurricane victims, raising the debt ceiling and reauthorizing the flood insurance program, which is set to expire by Sept. 30. ... ” Read more from McClatchy DC here: Flood insurance is a mess, and Harvey won’t make Congress any more likely to fix it

In commentary today …

Thomas Elias: Will lawsuits, high costs frustrate Brown’s water tunnels plan? He writes, “The first time Jerry Brown was governor of California, his greatest policy defeat came when resentful Northern Californians voted almost unanimously in 1982 to reverse a legislative vote authorizing a massive ditch around the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. This was called the Peripheral Canal; it aimed to bring Northern California river water to the farms of the San Joaquin Valley and cities in Southern California. Once that plan died, anything remotely similar became political anathema for decades until Brown retook the governor’s office in late 2010. Demonstrating that his goals rarely change, Brown soon began pushing for a more sophisticated and expensive version of the canal, this time two giant underground concrete culverts rather than an earthen ditch like the original canal plan. … ” Read more from the Daily News here: Thomas Elias: Will lawsuits, high costs frustrate Brown’s water tunnels plan?

Poll may wake up a few people at DWR, says the Oroville Mercury Register: The write, “We were glad to hear Assemblyman James Gallagher is polling the residents who were ordered to evacuate during the Oroville Dam spillway crisis in February. These are the people who were most impacted by the crisis, and their concerns should be in the forefront as the Department of Water Resources gets the system back to normal operation. A poll would have been a good way to measure those concerns. But it didn’t happen, and there are two alternative reasons why. ... ” Read more from the Oroville Mercury Register here: Poll may wake up a few people at DWR, says the Oroville Mercury Register

More news and commentary in the weekend and Labor Day editions …

Also on Maven’s Notebook today …

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About the Daily Digest: The Daily Digest is a collection of selected news articles, commentaries and editorials appearing in the mainstream press. Items are generally selected to follow the focus of the Notebook blog. The Daily Digest is published every weekday with a weekend edition posting on Sundays.

DAILY DIGEST: Meet the Megaflood: How the other ‘Big One’ could devastate San Diego County; After its dams came down, the Elwha River is reborn; Thomas Elias asks, Will lawsuits, high costs frustrate Brown’s water tunnels plan?; and more …