A wrap-up of posts published on Maven’s Notebook this week …
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In California water news this week …
Unstoppable invasion: How did mussels sneak into California, despite decades of state shipping rules?
“After the recent discovery of a destructive mussel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, some experts say California officials have failed to effectively enforce laws designed to protect waterways from invaders carried in ships’ ballast water. A state law enacted 20 years ago has required California officials to inspect 25% of incoming ships and sample their ballast water before it’s discharged into waterways. But the tests didn’t begin until two years ago — after standards for conducting them were finally set — and testing remains rare. State officials have sampled the ballast water of only 16 vessels out of the roughly 3,000 likely to have emptied their tanks nearshore. Experts say stronger regulations are needed, as well as better enforcement. “It’s not really a surprise that another invasive species showed up in the Delta,” said Karrigan Börk, a law professor and the interim director of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “It’s likely to continue happening.” … ” Read more from Cal Matters.
NOAA Fisheries: Recovery through reintroductions for California’s Central Valley salmon
“Today, steelhead and two populations of salmon (winter-run and spring-run Chinook) in California’s Central Valley are listed as threatened or endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. These salmon and steelhead, known as salmonids, require cold water to survive hot summers. Dams block access to historically high quality habitat in high elevation areas, and the only habitat available to these fish is often of poor quality. Barriers such as dams have cut off salmonids from 95 percent of the historical habitat. Dam construction between 1894 and 1968 has prevented fish from reaching high-elevation mountain streams where water is kept cool by melting snow. Instead, today fish are stuck below the dams on the valley floor. When salmonids spawn, their young depend on cold, clean water to survive. If they are restricted to lower elevation spawning areas below a dam, warmer water threatens their continued survival and leaves them highly vulnerable to the effects of a warming climate. Recovery of endangered fish populations in the Central Valley cannot be achieved without re-establishing populations back into their historical habitats. … ” Read more from NOAA Fisheries.
Threatened coho salmon return to upper Klamath River basin for first time in more than 60 years
“The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) has seen the first returns of threatened coho salmon to the upper Klamath River Basin in more than 60 years following historic dam removal completed last month. Not since the construction of the former Iron Gate Dam in the early 1960s has CDFW documented coho salmon occupying their historic habitat in the upper watershed. On Nov. 13, seven coho salmon entered CDFW’s new Fall Creek Fish Hatchery in Siskiyou County, which is located on Fall Creek, a formerly inaccessible Klamath River tributary about 7.5 miles upstream of the former Iron Gate Dam location. “To see coho successfully returning this quickly to this new habitat post-dam removal is exciting,” said Eric Jones, a Senior Environmental Scientist who oversees CDFW’s north state hatchery operations. “We’ve already seen the Chinook make it back and now we’re seeing the coho make it back.” … ” Read more from the Department of Fish & Wildlife.
Can desalination quench agriculture’s thirst?
“Ensuring the survival of agriculture under an increasingly erratic climate is approaching a crisis in the sere and sweltering Western and Southwestern United States, an area that supplies much of our beef and dairy, alfalfa, tree nuts and produce. Contending with too little water to support their plants and animals, farmers have tilled under crops, pulled out trees, fallowed fields and sold off herds. They’ve also used drip irrigation to inject smaller doses of water closer to a plant’s roots, and installed sensors in soil that tell more precisely when and how much to water. In the last five years, researchers have begun to puzzle out how brackish water, pulled from underground aquifers, might be de-salted cheaply enough to offer farmers another water resilience tool. Loya’s property, which draws its slightly salty water from the Hueco Bolson aquifer, is about to become a pilot site to test how efficiently desalinated groundwater can be used to grow crops in otherwise water-scarce places. … ” Read the full story from Knowable.
Undersea pods deployed for energy efficient desalination
“Seawater desalination systems are gigantic, expensive, energy-sucking beasts that take up valuable space on seaside coasts. However, they are badly needed — and more of them are needed — in an era when freshwater resources are strained to the breaking point. The challenge is to get more facilities online without putting an unsustainable burden on energy systems and natural habitats, and a California startup has come up with a unique solution. … OceanWell is among the innovators coming up with solutions. As an alternative to building energy-intensive desalination plants on land at the seacoast, the company has developed a modular, pod-like structure that sits about 400 meters (about 1,312 feet) below the surface of the water. The pods deploy reverse osmosis for desalination, a method commonly used throughout the water purification industry. In reverse osmosis, water is pushed through a semi-permeable membrane, which sorts out contaminants. … ” Read more from Clean Technica.
In commentary this week …
A Delta island came dangerously close to flooding. How California is ignoring the risk
Opinion columnist Tom Philp writes, “Imagine living right next to the Sacramento River on land many feet below sea level — the river next door running above the elevation of your land — and the only thing keeping you dry is an earthen berm never failing that is between you and the river. That is today’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Now, imagine if an unknown weak link in the levee began to fail, water seeping onto your land at a rate that could fill a typical swimming pool in three minutes. This recently happened on San Joaquin County’s Victoria Island. Had the levee failed, Highway 4 would have been under more than 10 feet of water, and key power lines to run the California grid would have been suddenly inaccessible. This near-levee failure on a dry and unremarkable day reminds us of a common enemy — flooding — and the unaddressed risks in the Delta and throughout the Central Valley. … ” Read more from the Sacramento Bee.
Diversion tactics: How Voluntary Agreements fail the Bay-Delta
The Tuolumne River Trust writes, “Late last month, the State Water Board released a new document for Phase 2 of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan. The sprawling Bay-Delta watershed includes all tributaries of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers, including the Tuolumne. Phase 2 focuses on the Sacramento tributaries and the Delta and will set precedent for how flow rates are determined in this system. Phase 2 planning continues a years-long process that examines new approaches, including Voluntary Agreements that prioritize feel-good restoration projects over much-needed flow increases. It’s not an either/or: both restoration and sufficient flows are needed to support salmon. Adequate flows are the missing link to reducing water temperatures, inundating floodplain habitat, helping baby salmon out-migrate and flushing toxic algae blooms out of the Delta. Voluntary Agreements are a half measure that won’t get our rivers flowing. … ” Read more from the Tuolumne River Trust.
Trump victory will lead to new battles in California’s ‘water wars’
Kerry Jackson, the William Clement Fellow in California Reform at the Pacific Research Institute, writes, “California has been lately in the business of blowing up dams. So a decision to actually raise one is big news. In a deal approved by eight water agencies as well as the federal government, the San Luis Reservoir between Gilroy and Los Banos, the fifth-largest reservoir in the state, will be raised by 10 feet. Already at 382 feet, the added height will increase storage by 130,000 acre feet. That’s roughly the amount of water that would be consumed by 650,000 people in one year. Matthew Keller, a spokesperson for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, one of the eight agencies, called it “a significant milestone and positive direction,” which is no embellishment in a state that has made dam removal a centerpiece of its identity. … ” Read more from GV Wire.
Peter Gleick: I’m a climate scientist and an optimist. I refuse to give up hope
Peter Gleick writes, “I’m a climate and water scientist. For more than 40 years, I’ve worked on trying to understand and communicate the complex climate threats facing the planet. In general, I’ve always been an optimist: I believe that we can solve these challenges. But I also have to acknowledge both my growing worry that I’m wrong, and the remaining steep obstacles in our path now made steeper by the recent U.S. election and the persistent failures of the world’s nations to commit to actions to adequately tackle the problem. The scientific facts of climate change and the role that humans play in driving those changes are irrefutable and have been understood and tested for literally decades—some of the earliest warnings about the adverse effects of burning fossil fuels on the climate and the planet were actually made more than 150 years ago. … ” Read more from Time Magazine.
In regional water news this week …
Lead-sheathed telecommunication cables successfully removed from Lake Tahoe
“In a major milestone for efforts to Keep Tahoe Blue, the League to Save Lake Tahoe announced that the removal of lead-sheathed telecommunication cables from below Lake Tahoe’s waters is complete. This accomplishment for the Lake’s preservation is the culmination of a multi-year effort. The League is proud to have served as both environmental watchdog and partner to AT&T in the removal process. “This is a major milestone for Lake Tahoe,” said the League to Save Lake Tahoe’s Chief Strategy Officer Jesse Patterson. “We are grateful that AT&T did the right thing for the Lake Tahoe environment and honored that the League could play an instrumental role to Keep Tahoe Blue for all.” … ” Read more from the Tahoe Daily Tribune.
Dead salmon in Lake Merritt could point to healthier waters, researchers say
“It’s a sunny Tuesday morning on the shores of Lake Merritt, and a small group of researchers and curious onlookers is crowded around a dead fish. The silvery, 13-inch-long Chinook salmon, pulled that morning from a small, enclosed arm of Lake Merritt that leads to Glen Echo Creek, is placed on a concrete slab, and a man with a sharp instrument gets to work. First he slices through the belly, and then separates the head from the body. “We are going to remove the ear bones, which have a lot of information,” says Katherine Noonan, founder of Oakland’s Rotary Nature Center Friends, an environmental education group, as the passers-by crane their necks to observe. “They have rings in them like the rings of a tree.” By analyzing them, she explains, it might be possible to decipher how this Chinook salmon found its way from the ocean to downtown Oakland. … ” Read more from East Oakland.
‘Unique’ Lafayette Reservoir tower will be shortened, but residents want to halt plan
“The battle over the shortening of a 100-year-old tower that stands within Lafayette Reservoir took center stage Monday night, with East Bay water officials concluding it must be altered while residents and community leaders said not so fast. The East Bay Municipal Utility District, the owner and operator of both the reservoir and the tower, has told residents over the past year that the tower must be reduced by 40 feet to meet seismic standards, in case of a major earthquake. Built in 1929, the 170-foot tower, which is used to control the water level in the reservoir, has become an iconic fixture to residents and visitors alike. The tower ended up being built too high because the original plan called for building the dam 33 feet higher than its current height – but that was scrapped since the soil couldn’t support it. … ” Read more from the San Francisco Chronicle.
Photo feature: Capturing precarity & plenty in the Central Valley
Steven Haring writes, ““The Central Valley is the armpit of California.” After I first moved here, a group of Californians would—with a straight face—give me unsolicited opinions like this about their home state. On some level, I get why people slander the Central Valley. While driving on Interstate 5 between San Francisco and Los Angeles, the sights and smells can convince a lot of people that Central California is drive-thru country. For the record, I don’t think that the Central Valley should be written off as a wasteland. It appears different than other parts of California, sure, but the Central Valley is challenged by the same kind of impermanence and overzealousness that makes places like Silicon Valley and Hollywood attractive. Tech moguls and wannabe movie stars are not really that different from the land speculators and water barons hoping to make their mark on Central Valley agriculture. … ” Read more from Edge Effects.
Announcements, notices, and funding opportunities …
NEPA DOCS AVAILABLE: Sacramento River Settlement Contractors Water Reduction Program
