Water and energy are interconnected. A frequent term to describe
this relationship is the “water-energy nexus.”
Energy for Water: Energy is needed to store water, get it where
it is needed and also treat it to be used:
* Extracting water from rivers and streams or pumping it
from aquifers, and then conveying it over hills and into storage
facilities is a highly energy intensive process. The State Water
Project (SWP) pumps water 700 miles, including up nearly 2,000
feet over the Tehachapi Mountains. The SWP is the largest single
user of energy in California. It consumes an average of 5 billion
kWh per year. That’s about 2 to 3 percent of all electricity
consumed in California
* Water treatment facilities use energy to pump and process
water for use in homes, businesses and industry
* Consumers use energy to treat water with softeners or
filters, to circulate and pressurize water and to heat and cool
water
* Wastewater plants use energy to pump wastewater to
treatment plants, and also to aerate and filter it at the plant.
Different end uses require more electricity for delivery than
others. Water for residential, commercial and industrial end-use
needs the most energy (11 percent), followed by agricultural
end-use (3 percent), residential, commercial and industrial
supply and treatment (3 percent), agricultural water supply and
treatment (1 percent) and wastewater treatment (1 percent),
according to the California Energy Commission.
Water for Energy: Water is used to generate electricity
* Water is needed either to process raw materials used in a
facility or maintaining a plant,or to just generate electricity
itself.
Overall, the electricity industry is second only to agriculture
as the largest user of water in the United States. Electricity
production from fossil fuels and nuclear energy requires 190,000
million gallons of water per day, accounting for 39 percent of
all freshwater withdrawals in the nation. Coal, the most abundant
fossil fuel, currently accounts for 52 percent of U.S.
electricity generation, and each kWh generated from coal requires
withdrawal of 25 gallons of water.
The lawsuit Kern County filed this week against Gov. Gavin
Newsom is aimed at not only ending his de-facto ban on fracking
but also at easing state regulatory constraints on at least two
other oilfield techniques common locally. As part of its
larger argument that the Newsom administration has overstepped
its constitutional authority, Monday’s petition for a writ of
mandate in Kern County Superior Court asserts Newsom had no
right in 2019 to place a moratorium on high-pressure cyclic
steaming or require extensive “area of review” analyses prior
to approval of underground injections.
Water quality regulators let a Sonoma County-based quarry know
last week it could face a $4.5 million-fine for multiple
alleged violations of the Clean Water Act that threaten the
survival of endangered salmon populations in tributaries of the
Russian River. The proposed fine from the North Coast
Regional Water Quality Control Board is part of a legal
proceeding known as an administrative civil liability that
alleges the operator of Mark West Quarry, Dean Soiland, doing
business as BoDean Co. Inc., discharged highly turbid
stormwater from its quarry operations into Porter Creek from
September 2018 through May 2019.
Historically speaking, corporate action on water-related
environmental issues has been less publicly visible than
strategies for reducing energy usage and related greenhouse gas
emissions. Consider this data point. As of its 2020 water
update, corporate data gatherer CDP reports about two-thirds of
reporting businesses are reducing their water withdrawals;
slightly more than half are monitoring the quality of their
wastewater discharges and just 4 percent are making progress
against water pollution targets. But the tide may be
turning… -Written by Heather Clancy, Greenbiz editorial
director.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has approved a request by
California’s electric grid operator to dispatch more than 200
MW of natural gas-fired generation capacity beyond currently
permitted levels to compensate for projected shortfalls in
power supply. … Due to the drought and abnormally high
temperatures, CAISO “expects the wildfire season, which began
early this year, to continue into November.” Wildfire
threats “can cause sudden de-rates of transmission capability”
and of generating facilities on the CAISO system …
The Biden administration on Friday issued an emergency order
allowing some California natural gas power plants to operate
without pollution restrictions to shore up the state’s tight
electricity supplies, the U.S. Department of Energy said.
Corporate America is making a new kind of climate pledge. In
recent months, multiple tech giants have pledged to use their
reach and resources to join the fight for water conservation.
Facebook made an announcement at the end of August declaring
their efforts to “be water positive by 2030.” And just this
week, Google made a similar announcement to make its data
centers more efficient and support water security in the
communities it operates in.
Central Valley water-quality regulators released a final report
Friday concluding oil field wastewater from central Kern
County, when blended with other water sources, can
safely be used to irrigate a variety of locally grown
crops. The report, based on five years’ work and
incomplete in some respects, found no evidence of risks to
human health from watering tree nuts, citrus, berries, tubers
and other ag products with the saline water that comes up from
the ground along with oil and which contains small
concentrations of toxic chemicals.
Drought in California, coupled with population growth, is
accelerating the need for energy-intensive water projects —
driving up greenhouse gas emissions and thwarting the pace of
statewide decarbonization efforts, a new study has found.
Water use, collection, treatment and management is linked to
about 20 percent of California’s statewide electricity use,
one-third of non-power plant natural gas consumption and 88
billion gallons of diesel use, according to the study,
published by the Oakland-based Pacific Institute and
commissioned by the non-profit think tank Next 10.
It’s like a magic trick for poop. Put it in one end of the
machine, and out the other comes electricity, distilled water
and a small amount of ash. And there’s none of the greenhouse
gas — namely methane — produced by traditional sewage treatment
and sewage sludge decomposition. Though it might seem
futuristic, this innovative blueprint has attracted grants from
the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy
Commission, the latter to the tune of $1.6 million. The
money is helping to fund a demonstration project at south
Orange County’s Santa Margarita Water District.
Rare earth elements are finding their way into Colorado water
supplies, driven by changes in climate, finds a new study
published in the journal Environmental Science &
Technology. Rare earth elements are necessary components
of many computing and other high-tech devices, like cell phones
and hard drives. But there is growing recognition that they can
be hazardous in the environment even at low levels of
concentration.
The federal agency that distributes electricity from hydropower
plants in the Upper Colorado River Basin will ask its
customers, including more than 50 here in Colorado, to help
offset rising costs linked to Lake Powell’s inability to
produce as much power due to drought. The Western Area Power
Administration (WAPA), which distributes Lake Powell’s
electricity, is gathering public comments and asking its
customers how best to cope with long-term drought conditions
that have pushed Powell and other reservoirs to historically
low levels.
As part of its recently enacted budget for 2021-22, California
included funding to help foster the development of one such
storage method, known as pumped-storage hydropower. In
particular, the budget provided $18 million to the city of San
Diego and the San Diego County Water Authority for use in
advancing their planned joint project known as the San Vicente
Energy Storage Facility. The funding will enable the two
entities to issue a request for proposals in September for a
private partner willing to develop the project at its own
expense.
Near Southern California’s dying Salton Sea, a canopy next to a
geothermal power plant covers large containers of salty water
left behind after super-hot liquid is drilled from deep
underground to run steam turbines. The containers connect to
tubes that spit out what looks like dishwater, but it’s
lithium, a critical component of rechargeable batteries and the
newest hope for economic revival in the depressed region.
California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recall election in
mid-September, should he lose, will very likely terminate the
floundering politician’s career. A late-term gubernatorial
replacement would also mean a potentially major shift in
California environmental policies. … Budget spending
… could be directed away from hundreds of conservation
projects that are tentatively scheduled to begin, and directors
of wildlife, water, and resource agencies who were appointed by
Newsom would almost certainly be replaced.
Wildfires and declining water levels at reservoirs have
threatened California’s power supply at various points this
summer. Desperate to avoid blackouts amid the compounding
crisis, California’s Gov. Gavin Newsom is eyeing the
construction of five “temporary” gas-fueled plants in the
coming months. According to Bloomberg, California’s Energy
Commission approved licenses for the emergency gas generators
on Tuesday for up to five years, each of which reportedly has
an individual capacity to generate 30 megawatts of energy.
EPA laid out a path for states and tribes to take more time to
negotiate and tackle challenges before signing off on water
permits — an attempt to defang a controversial Trump-era rule
that allows only a year to approve or deny permits for
utilities and oil and gas pipelines. Sources say the move is an
attempt by the Biden administration to mitigate the adverse
effects of the Trump water rule finalized last year that’s
still on the books while showing sensitivity to advocates
fighting the proliferation of fossil fuel projects.
Welcome to the summer of climate change. No longer a
distant phenomenon — something to worry about in a few decades
— the consequence of a warming planet has arrived in a
resounding fashion. Most Californians probably didn’t need
to read the recent doomsday report by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change to know that their lives are being
upended already by climate change. Now they must fret about
their electricity being shut off, their faucets running dry and
their houses catching fire.
Facebook announced plans Thursday to restore more water than it
consumes by the year 2030, the company’s latest initiative
targeting climate change. The company mostly uses water for
cooling the banks of computers that run in its data centers. In
2020, Facebook withdrew 3.7 million cubic meters of water for a
total consumption of 2.2 million cubic meters. Facebook intends
to focus its efforts in regions where it uses local water
resources, but it will also look at high-risk areas that face
the most challenges in terms of their water supply…
Severe droughts are drying up rivers and reservoirs vital for
the production of zero-emissions hydropower in several
countries around the globe, in some cases leading governments
to rely more heavily on fossil fuels. The emerging problems
with hydropower production in places like the United States,
China and Brazil represent what scientists and energy experts
say is going to be a long-term issue … In
California, the State Water Project was forced to shut down a
750-MW hydroelectric power plant at Lake Oroville this month
for the first time since it was built in 1967 because of low
water levels.
Included in the sweeping $1 trillion infrastructure bill
approved by the Senate is funding for Western water projects
that farmers, water providers and environmentalists say are
badly needed across the parched region. … The plan would
provide $1.15 billion for improving water storage and transport
infrastructure such as dams and canals. Groundwater storage
projects, which replenish underground aquifers that aren’t
vulnerable to evaporation, would also get funding.
On Monday, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change released a report that makes it unequivocally
clear that human beings have locked in a measure of warming for
the planet that will be extraordinarily difficult to endure.
… A 1.5 degree-warmed world means more summers like this
one: more evacuees in California, more intense drought in the
West, more blistering heat waves, more tropical storms that
dump a season’s worth of water in 24 hours. And yet, the
IPCC report makes it clear that this is officially
the best case scenario.
For the second time, State Oil and Gas Supervisor Uduak-Joe
Ntuk has used his discretionary authority, as opposed to
technical standards, to reject a series of permit applications
to use the controversial oilfield technique known as fracking.
Ntuk sent a letter Monday to Bakersfield-based oil producer
Aera Energy LLC saying he has reviewed and denied applications
filed by the company to hydraulically fracture 14 wells in the
South Belridge oil field in western Kern County.
Nations have delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so
long that they can no longer stop global warming from
intensifying over the next 30 years, though there is still a
short window to prevent the most harrowing future, a major new
United Nations scientific report has concluded. … At 1.5
degrees of warming, scientists have found, the dangers
grow considerably. Nearly 1 billion people worldwide could
swelter in more frequent life-threatening heat waves. Hundreds
of millions more would struggle for water because of severe
droughts.
When the sewage utility and the Peninsula’s water management
agency began negotiating in late April with California American
Water about buying water through the recently approved
recycled water project expansion, some local officials felt a
deal could be reached by May. Then June. Then July. Those close
to the negotiations are still singing a familiar refrain: a
deal is imminent. However, the two clauses that have stalled
negotiations – terms proposed by Cal Am – remain
unsettled.
Seeking to stave off legislation that would force Riverside
County representation on its board of directors, the Imperial
Irrigation District on Thursday convened the first meeting of
its new Coachella Valley Energy Commission. Undera
long-term agreement with the Coachella Valley Water District,
IID provides electrical power to 100,000 Coachella Valley
residents. That pact expires in 2033, and the
new commission’s overarching goal is to hammer out a way
forward for those customers.
The giant hydropower plant at Lake Oroville shut down in a
historic first Thursday because of the drought, putting
another dent in California’s defense against rolling
blackouts. The state Department of Water Resources said
the Hyatt Powerplant, a fixture at Lake Oroville since the
reservoir was built in the late 1960s, has been taken down
because of low water levels.
Ural Federal University (UrFU) engineers have developed a new
desalination technology. It will significantly reduce the cost
of desalination and quadruple the volume of production. The
results of the research are published in the journal Case
Studies in Thermal Engineering. Today one of the most popular
and simple ways of desalination is the distillation of water
with the help of solar energy. UrFU scientists, together with
colleagues from Iraq, have developed a hybrid technology to
increase the efficiency of evaporation inside a solar distiller
by means of a rotating hollow cylinder and a solar collector.
Wastewater treatment plants in the United States are in a race
against time. Like all other industries, the clock is ticking
for the sector to cut its carbon pollution, given President Joe
Biden’s goal to halve the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by
2030 and reach net zero by 2050. To make their contribution,
utilities will have to pull against strong currents. The energy
needs of the wastewater sector are projected to climb during
this period, due to population growth and tightening
water-quality standards.
The California State Water Resources Control Board (“State
Water Board”) has issued an Order to approximately 160 bulk
fuel storage terminals and refineries in California requiring
implementation of a PFAS site investigation. The State
Water Board identified the recipients of the Order on the basis
that they had stored and/or used materials that may contain
PFAS such as AFFF for fire suppression, fire training, and
flammable vapor suppression.
Will the dream of renewable energy in the “Lithium Valley”
around the Salton Sea be a nightmare for surrounding
communities? The area contains huge amounts of lithium,
and demand for electric cars — which use lithium-ion
batteries — is booming. So we are at a vital moment
to meaningfully engage residents and ensure that future
decisions and actions not only prevent harm but also benefit
local communities. -Written by Mariela Loera, a policy advocate with the
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability.
But come back in 40 or 50 years, and most California cities
would look very different if [new housing] bills passed. Cities
would be bigger, housing would be cheaper (after inflation is
factored in), and living conditions would be more crowded than
ever before. Neighborhoods filled with single-family homes on
distinct lots would be far rarer than today. That is, if enough
water and energy can be found to make these changes possible,
two problems that grow larger and less predictable the longer
the current drought continues and the more often dry spells
recur in an era of expanded climate change. Written by Thomas Elias, a syndicated columnist.
Across the U.S. West, shifting climate patterns are wreaking
havoc. An early start to fire season is scorching rural Oregon
and parts of Northern California. Record temperatures have led
to deaths of hundreds of residents of Seattle and Portland,
Ore. Lake Mead, the massive Colorado River reservoir outside
Las Vegas, is at its lowest point since its 1935 federal
construction, threatening water supplies to Arizona, Southern
California, Nevada and Mexico. In Arizona, 99% of the land
is undergoing years-long drought that has accelerated. Large
swaths of the region are now in extreme distress and the
picture may well get worse…
As more communities impose water use restrictions because of
the drought, the California Coastal Commission is likely to
vote on a controversial proposal later this year that could
ease water worries for millions of Orange County residents.
After decades of debate, Poseidon Water just needs approval
from the commission to begin the construction of a desalination
facility in Huntington Beach that would produce 50 million
gallons of drinking water per day.
With an $18 million boost from the state, a major energy
storage project using hydroelectric power is taking shape at
the San Vicente Reservoir, nestled in the Cuyamaca Mountains
near Lakeside. The long talked about San Vicente Energy
Storage Facility — proposed by the city of San Diego and the
San Diego County Water Authority — received the funding earlier
this month when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the state budget.
The House of Representatives approved a $715 billion
infrastructure plan, and if the Senate passes it, it will mean
$20 million for the Valley Link project to connect Bay Area
Rapid Transit to the Altamont Corridor Express commuter train.
… California would be a big winner under the proposed
law. The bill includes more than $900 million for projects
throughout the Golden State. They include bridges, bike lanes
and express lanes … wastewater and drinking water
projects and other infrastructure to prepare for rising sea
levels.
The drought is taking its toll on dams and rivers throughout
California and there is no clearer example than at Lake
Oroville where water levels have been dropping all year.
… The Oroville Dam is the state water system’s tallest,
but boaters and fishermen have witnessed the water level fall
nearly 250 feet below average. State water regulators are
required to release water to protect fish downstream. They are
trying to preserve as much water as possible, but levels are
dropping a foot a day.
With temperatures in Dubai regularly surpassing 115 degrees
Fahrenheit, the government has decided to take control of the
scorching weather. Scientists in the United Arab Emirates
are making it rain — artificially — using electrical charges
from drones to manipulate the weather and force rainfall across
the desert nation. Meteorological officials released video
footage this week showing a downpour over Ras al Khaimah, as
well as several other regions. The new method
of cloud seeding shows promise in helping to mitigate
drought conditions worldwide …
More than 200 of the world’s leading climate scientists will
begin meeting today to finalize a landmark report summarizing
how Earth’s climate has already changed, and what humans can
expect for the rest of the century. … The urgency of
addressing global warming has never been more clear. The
two-week virtual meeting of IPCC scientists coincides with a
raft of deadly climate-driven disasters unfolding around the
world, from flash floods in Europe, North America and Asia, to
intense wildfires in Siberia, to widespread persistent heat
waves and droughts that threaten to upend food supplies in the
U.S., Middle East and much of Africa.
In a draft report, California says only extremely low levels of
two toxic “forever chemicals” are safe for humans to drink in
water. A July 22 draft report from the California Environmental
Protection Agency would set a science-based safe level—called
a public health goal—of 0.007 part per trillion for
perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and 1 ppt for
perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in drinking water. The two
compounds are the two most common per- and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS)—a group of environmentally persistent
synthetic molecules—found as contaminants in drinking water.
Manufacturing jobs in California have migrated overseas for
years in a race to the bottom on wages and regulations. But now
many industries face a new challenge: They depend on access to
cheap endless water, and California’s future looks increasingly
dry. Textile factory owners like [Sean] Zahedi are among the
first to ask: Will we adapt or call it quits? Eighty-five
percent of California is experiencing either extreme or
exceptional drought conditions, the highest level there is on
the U.S. Drought Monitor scale. Without water, Zahedi
says, there’s no fabric.
A windfall of state funding is coming to San Diego, including
money for Ocean Beach Pier repairs, an energy-storage project
at San Vicente Reservoir, and the city’s Pure Water
program. Money from California’s state budget, signed last
week, will fund the series of San Diego projects and programs.
Desalination is the process of converting seawater into potable
water by removing salt and other minerals. Although rudimentary
forms of desalination have been used since antiquity, only in
the mid-20th century did industrial-scale desalination methods
become widely available for water-insecure coastal communities
around the world. Today, about 300 million people in more than
150 countries get water every day from some 16,000 desalination
plants.
A prominent oil and gas lobbying group seeks to strip
environmental protections from groundwater sources designated
by the state for agricultural use and which may grow
increasingly important to California’s water-scarce future,
according to a memo obtained through a records request. The
proposal, which hasn’t been publicly announced, suggests
removing protections for groundwater reserves underneath 1,500
square surface miles in western Kern County, where the
upper groundwater zone alone can extend down thousands of feet.
[A] developer hopes to submit [an application] by
the end of the year [to] utilize excess solar and wind energy
to power their pumped storage technology … By using
renewable energy to transfer water back and forth between two
reservoirs, the project would be a non-consumptive means of
using water to generate power. In the case of the Mokelumne
Pumped Storage Water Battery Project, the Salt Springs
Reservoir has been identified as the lower reservoir, as it
already has a small hydro-facility on it that generates about
44 megawatts of energy.
Thanks to our ever increasing reliance on the Internet, the
amount of data online is skyrocketing. The global data volume
is expected to grow sixfold from 2018 to 2025. It might seem
like that information is swirling in the cloudy sky, but it’s
stored in physical data centers. Landon Marston, an
assistant professor at Virginia Tech, recently noticed news
articles addressing the growing energy requirements of the data
center industry. As an expert in water resources engineering,
he wondered how those energy requirements translated into water
consumption.
To the extent most Californians are thinking about energy right
now, they’re probably wondering whether the lights will stay on
during the next heat wave. It’s a reasonable fear, especially
after the state’s power grid operator issued an urgent call for
electricity supplies last week and warned of possible
shortfalls this summer. The California Independent System
Operator is seeking bids from power plants that can fire up
after sundown, when solar panels stop generating but air
conditioners keep humming. -Written by Sammy Roth, LA Times columnist.
[A]s a result of this year’s harsh drought conditions, we
expect hydroelectric generation in California to be lower in
2021 than it has been in recent years. In the first four months
of 2021, hydroelectric generation in California was 37% less
than in the same four months in 2020 and 71% less than during
those months in 2019. According to our Short-Term Energy
Outlook, hydroelectric generation in California this year will
be 19% less than last year, decreasing from 16.8 million
megawatthours (MWh) in 2020 to 13.6 million MWh in 2021.
If all goes to plan, General Motors Co.’s future electric cars
will rely on batteries made from a broiling-hot, brownish fluid
that gushes from the California desert. The contours of that
future emerged on Friday, when GM struck a deal with a
little-known company called Controlled Thermal Resources (CTR)
to supply the country’s largest domestic automaker with tons of
lithium from a desolate area called the Salton Sea. The
arrangement is the first concrete sign that “Lithium Valley,”
as its boosters call it — a green industrial ecosystem that
produces zero-carbon electricity, battery-grade lithium and
lots of jobs — could actually become a thing.
Now, California is eyeing the benefits derived from several
successful canal installations in India. With the world’s
largest irrigation canal network, and 290 days of average
sunshine, California is uniquely positioned to ease its own
severe water shortages with this emerging innovation of
canal-covering solar farms. UC Santa Cruz has investigated
this method for use in California and estimates that—on top of
generating green energy—it would save 63.5 billion gallons of
water from evaporation annually, a massive windfall for a state
that sometimes rations water and which regularly suffers from
droughts.
California’s reservoirs and rivers are startlingly low, forcing
many of the state’s more than 270 hydropower facilities to
generate less power. Lake Oroville, one of the state’s largest
reservoirs, made headlines because its water levels have
dropped so low the power plant may need to shut down for the
first time. While most other hydropower plants aren’t at risk
of shutting down, plants that rely on watersheds up and down
the state are not able to generate normal amounts of power.
A vision for a “Lithium Valley” around the Salton Sea does
appear to be on its way to reality. The potential of the sea as
a vast untapped and sustainable reserve of lithium for a world
increasingly focused toward renewable — and rechargeable —
sources of power got a shot in the arm last week. News
that automotive giant, General Motors, has invested millions to
be first in line to receive lithium hydroxide and carbonate
from Controlled Thermal Resources’ Hell’s Kitchen project at
the Salton Sea was a welcome development when it hit
business wires and went out in multiple press releases on
Friday morning, July 2.
Cadiz Inc. is pleased to announce today that it completed
the acquisition of an existing 220-mile pipeline, the Cadiz
“Northern Pipeline,” making final payment of $19 Million to El
Paso Natural Gas. As California continues to address supply
inequalities, infrastructure challenges and intensifying
drought, the Northern Pipeline can provide new water conveyance
access and supplement California’s water infrastructure along
an underserved, growing east-west route with additional
regulatory approvals. The Northern Pipeline extends southeast
from California’s Central Valley near Bakersfield and
terminates at the Company’s Cadiz Ranch agricultural
operations.
Residents in Valley Center say they are running out of water
and blaming an SDG&E project meant to reduce fire danger.
The olive trees that line Kristen Bazata’s Valley Center farm
have not been watered recently – at a time they need all the
H20 they can get. … Bazata stopped watering the trees
after noticing an alarming change when she turned on her own
faucets. “We have lower water pressure than we have ever
had,” Bazata said.
When California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced plans to ban
hydraulic fracturing, a highly controversial method of oil and
gas production more widely known as fracking, he focused
primarily on climate change impacts. He may have a water
conservation argument to make as well. … The practice of
fracking entails injecting large amounts of water, sand and
chemicals deep underground at high pressures in an attempt to
crack open rock layers and release oil or gas trapped
inside.
PG&E will pay the Central Coast Regional Water Quality
Control Board $5.9 million in a landmark settlement that
recognizes the long-term impacts of dumping water used to cool
Diablo Canyon Power Plant back into the Pacific Ocean — but
also the realities of a plant that is expected to close in the
next decade.
The Water Replenishment District (WRD) Board of Directors
appointed Stephan Tucker as the new General Manager of the
district. With his expertise in managing large-scale water
infrastructure projects, Mr. Tucker will help lead the
District’s efforts to build a drought-resilient water supply in
the region. … Mr. Tucker is a successful Program
Management Director and mechanical engineer with more than 35
years of experience managing significant programs at the Los
Angeles Department of Water & Power for most of his career.
High temperatures are returning again this week — with the
hottest months still ahead — and that means the demand on
electricity will keep spiking. The answer to our problems is
not in rivers or lakes but in the ocean. Last month, the Biden
administration announced plans to build roughly 380 wind
turbines in federal waters off the California coast.
Eventually, the turbines will generate 4,600 megawatts — enough
to power 1.6 million homes.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. (SDG&E) appears to be
violating a water discharge waver by the California Water
Quality Control Board issued earlier this month by the board,
according to Larry Schmidt of the VC Planning Group, whom The
Roadrunner contacted Saturday. Schmidt is the lead for the
planning group on this issue after being appointed Monday night
to head the group’s subcommittee investigating the utility’s
work on Cole Grade Road that is near Cool Valley Road.
As California suffers from a major drought and enters a climate
change fueled wildfire season, oil and gas operators continue
to use hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater for
drilling operations annually. It’s a vicious symbiotic cycle:
fracking and drilling contribute to climate change and suck up
finite water resources, then drought and wildfires worsen from
climate change.
The story of Lithium Valley begins in earnest on Sept. 29,
2020. That’s the day when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law
Assembly Bill 1657, sponsored by Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia,
creating a “Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in
California.” That commission is now called the Lithium Valley
Commission. What is this all about? Oh, just the fact that up
to 40% of the world’s potential future lithium supply is
located under and near the Salton Sea.
The catastrophic drought that’s gripping the U.S. West is
claiming a new victim: the hydropower dams that much of the
region depends on for electricity supplies. Low water levels in
key reservoirs mean that hydropower supplies are declining. One
of the hardest hit areas is California, where output has
tumbled to the lowest in more than five years.
A large oilfield wastewater disposal pond near Buttonwillow
will likely close this summer, and its operator and last
remaining customer will together pay $645,000 in penalties and
fees, under a recent court settlement that further restricts a
decades-old practice that has become a focus of regional water
quality regulators. The accord concludes a 2019 lawsuit that
accused facility owner Valley Water Management Co. and
Colorado-based oil producer Sentinel Peak Resources of dumping
fluid containing harmful chemicals above a reservoir that
provides local drinking and irrigation water.
The Union has printed several opinion pieces by Idaho-Maryland
Mine Project opponents. The majority of these columns present
“information” that’s either biased or misleading and based
neither on science nor logic. Here are the facts.
… Recent columns erroneously suggest that groundwater
impacts cannot be accurately predicted. Numerous expert
hydrogeologists and a century of mining at the Idaho-Maryland
say otherwise. … The actual conclusion is that no wells
would be drained… -Written by Ben Mossman, president of Rise Grass
Valley and CEO of Rise Gold Corp., U.S. corporations.
For decades, large red-hot furnaces cooked the lead from
smashed batteries at the Exide plant, just seven miles from
Downtown Los Angeles, spouting plumes of toxic air that settled
on and contaminated thousands of homes. … In the years
since, the facility has been cited repeatedly for serious
compliance problems. According to a former DTSC senior
scientist’s review of public records, at least four are
responsible for soil and groundwater contamination that the
department has or should have known about for years or even
decades.
Ateam led by UC Riverside engineers has developed a catalyst to
remove a dangerous chemical from water on Earth that could also
make Martian soil safer for agriculture and help produce oxygen
for human Mars explorers. Perchlorate, a negative ion
consisting of one chlorine atom bonded to four oxygen atoms,
occurs naturally in some soils on Earth, and is especially
abundant in Martian soil. As a powerful oxidizer, perchlorate
is also manufactured and used in solid rocket fuel, fireworks,
munitions, airbag initiators for vehicles, matches and signal
flares. It is a byproduct in some disinfectants and
herbicides.
A proposal that would more than double the cost of sewer
service in the region over the next five years and has drawn
the rage of the area’s hospitality and business interests heads
to a board for final approval on June 7. The board of directors
for Monterey One Water, the regional wastewater management
service, will vote on the proposed schedule of rate increases.
If approved, ratepayers will see a 47-percent jump in their
sewage bills after July 1. By 2025, rates would be 122-percent
higher than they are today. … [T]he increase is needed to
maintain and update the utility’s $750 million infrastructure
assets, some of which are more than 30 years old.
The Biden Administration last week released its FY 2022 budget
proposal. The $6 trillion dollar budget includes funding for
several water resources priorities, including PFAS research and
remediation, drought resilience, watershed protection, and
infrastructure improvements. The Biden budget proposes an
increase of 16.5% for discretionary, non-defense spending.
Notably, the budget includes $27.9 billion for the Department
of Agriculture (USDA), $17.4 billion for the Department of
Interior (DOI), $6.8 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers
(Corps), and $11.2 billion for the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA).
San Diego is launching a $10 million effort to complete risk
assessments of all nine of the city’s aging dams — only three
of which are considered in satisfactory condition. City
officials say the assessments are expected to reveal problems
that will require an estimated $1 billion in repairs and
upgrades in coming decades — and possibly some replacement dams
in extreme cases. San Diego’s dams are among the oldest in the
state and the nation.
At the May 20 meeting of the Placer County Water Agency
(“PCWA”) Board of Directors, the Board awarded 12 grants,
totaling over $3.6 million, to seven public water purveyors in
Placer County. The $3.6 million figure is the most ever
granted by PCWA in a single year. This is also the first
instance in which the grants were wholly funded with net
revenues from PCWA’s Middle Fork American River
Project (“Middle Fork Project”).
Demand for solar power is growing. And recent research suggests
that people should consider installing solar panels not only on
fields and rooftops, but above waterways as well. Brandi McKuin
of the University of California, Santa Cruz, says canopies of
solar panels can be installed over canals. The approach would
generate clean energy, and by shading the water, reduce
evaporation. Her research estimates that covering California’s
4,000 miles of open canals with solar panels could save about
65 billion gallons of water a year.
[P]rivate and public stakeholders must hold Rise Gold Corp.
accountable when it promises to deliver drinkable water — a
promise it’s made — and in particular, investigate what primary
and secondary drinking water standards mean. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency, national primary drinking
water regulations are legally enforceable standards applied to
public water systems. In contrast, secondary drinking
water standards are “non-enforceable guidelines regulating
contaminants that may cause cosmetic or aesthetic effects.”
Cosmetic effects are detailed as affecting skin or teeth color,
and aesthetic effects refer to water’s taste, odor, or color.
Tiny structures inspired by the shape of cactus spines allow a
newly created material to gather drinkable water from the air
both day and night, combining two water-harvesting technologies
into one. The material, a micro-architected hydrogel membrane
(more on that later), can produce water through both solar
steam-water generation and fog collection—two independent
processes that typically require two separate devices. A paper
about the material was published in Nature Communications on
May 14.
Facing extended drought, diminishing snowpack, and depleted
aquifers, California water managers face a harsh reality: our
20th century water systems – essentially linear designs in
which fresh water is extracted, centrally treated, distributed
to users, returned as wastewater, and finally treated and
discarded – are breaking down. Although this approach has
served us well for decades, we can no longer sustain ourselves
with a paradigm that uses water once and throws it away. -Written by Peter Fiske, a scientist at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and executive director of
the Department of Energy’s National Alliance for Water
Innovation.
Crystal Geyser bought the nearly 145,000 square foot bottling
plant in 2013. Since then, it’s been the target of protests by
local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Opponents say if it ever started operating, it would draw down
too much water, and cause air and noise pollution. … They are
in the midst of suing the beverage company in an effort to get
a new environmental impact report.
In California Coastkeeper v. State Lands Commission, the Third
District Court of Appeal upheld the State Lands Commission’s
decision to prepare a supplemental environmental impact report
(EIR) for a desalination plant in Huntington Beach, overturning
an earlier trial court ruling that invalidated the
EIR. Limited changes to a desalination project were
proposed in order to comply with desalination-related
amendments to the State’s Ocean Plan.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on May 14 unveiled
his May budget revision that allocates $200
million to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells, many
located near low-income residential areas where the majority of
residents are Latino and Black. In January
2020, a report by the California Council on
Science & Technology revealed that California taxpayers could
be on the hook for more than $500 million to plug thousands of
“orphan” wells drilled and abandoned by oil and gas companies.
.. Plugging all 107,000 oil and wells in California when
they become idle would cost more than $9 billion, the
report also found.
Just before midnight on March 12, 1928, the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power’s St. Francis Dam collapsed,
inundating the canyon below with some 12 billion gallons of
water. The floodwaters, which in the darkness registered first
as a mounting roar to those who were awake, tossed 10,000-ton
fragments of the dam thousands of feet downstream and scoured
the canyon walls to bare rock. More than 400 people in the
flood’s 53-mile path to the sea were drowned or battered to
death as the torrent sheared through orchards, pulverized
buildings, and crumpled bridges.
With shrinking reservoir levels and a summer of water shortages
impending, drought-ridden California on Wednesday pressed the
Biden administration for more control over future
infrastructure projects planned in the Golden State. California
and a collection of states urged the federal government to drop
a Trump-era rule that reduced states’ authority to deny
permitting and licensing for things like new water
infrastructure, oil pipelines, wastewater plants or development
projects in wetland areas. The states claim the rule gives them
little say over projects that could ultimately harm water
quality and the environment.
Although Indigenous people had, since prehistoric times,
modified the [Sierra Nevada] landscape and caused widespread
ecological change, the arrival of Europeans and Americans for
the gold rush brought a much more invasive level of alterations
with the construction of dams, permanent manipulation of
rivers, clear-cutting of old-growth trees and an ill-advised
practice of fire suppression that makes these forests ripe for
wildfires, especially when compounded by climate change, which
means more heat waves, decreased snowpack and drier conditions
among other impacts.
Newly released emails reveal that lawyers and lobbyists for
mining companies, developers and the agriculture industry had a
hand behind the scenes in shaping Arizona’s newly adopted law
on clean-water rules for rivers and streams. The emails
show the involvement of these influential groups went beyond
their public endorsements of the legislation. Their lawyers and
lobbyists were given access to offer input while the final
legislation was being drafted, and the emails show they
suggested specific language, offered “wordsmithing” tweaks and
requested significant changes that state officials incorporated
into the bill.
The California State Lands Commission properly reviewed a
stalled desalination planned to be built on the coast south of
Los Angeles, a state appeals court says. In a decision filed
Saturday, the appeals court affirmed a lower court’s rejection
of a challenge to the plant by the environmental group
California Coastkeeper Alliance and others. It determined that
a 2017 re-review of the planned desalination plant in
Huntington Beach adequately complied with the requirements of
the California Environmental Quality Act.
Along a hot, dusty stretch of freeway in California’s Coachella
Valley, a green rush is booming that not even the coronavirus
pandemic can slow. Desert Hot Springs, once a sleepy retirement
community overshadowed by its more glamorous neighbor, Palm
Springs, to the south, is transforming into a cannabis-growing
capital as businesses lured by tax incentives and a
420-friendly local government pour into the small city.
… With constant sun and almost no rain, growing cannabis
in the desert requires a mammoth water and power supply to keep
indoor operations going when outside temperatures soar.
Hear directly from a range of experts offering a variety of
perspectives on our May 20 virtual Lower Colorado River Tour as
they put into context the 20-plus year drought on what is the
most contested and meticulously managed river in the United
States. Among the experts featured are farmers, tribal
representatives, and managers from wildlife agencies, water
districts, the Bureau of Reclamation and others who will
discuss drought impacts, habitat projects, farming and
restoration efforts at the Salton Sea.
Conservationists in California and across the West are deeply
skeptical of hydropower, and it’s not hard to see why. There’s
a long history of government agencies damming spectacular
canyons, choking off rivers, obliterating fish populations and
cutting off access to Indigenous peoples. … But despite the
environmental damage they’ve done, many dams also generate
electricity that is free of planet-warming carbon emissions.
Tearing down dams can revitalize ecosystems, but it can also
contribute to a climate crisis that is making rivers around the
world drier in some cases, more prone to flooding in others,
and in many cases hotter and more polluted.
-Written by Sammy Roth, a Los Angeles Times staff
writer.
Many miles of streams and rivers in the United States and
elsewhere are polluted by toxic metals in acidic runoff
draining from abandoned mining sites, and major investments
have been made to clean up acid mine drainage at some sites. A
new study based on long-term monitoring data from four sites in
the western United States shows that cleanup efforts can allow
affected streams to recover to near natural conditions within
10 to 15 years after the start of abatement work. The four
mining-impacted watersheds—located in mountain mining regions
of California, Colorado, Idaho, and Montana—were all designated
as Superfund sites …
The Fish and Wildlife Service said today it will deny federal
protections to three salamander species that environmentalists
fear could be put in danger by a proposed California dam
project. Pressed by a lawsuit to make a decision, the federal
agency concluded the Shasta salamander, Samwel Shasta
salamander and Wintu Shasta salamander don’t need to be listed
under the Endangered Species Act even if plans proceed to
expand the Shasta Dam by raising it.
A federal judge’s decision rebuffed environmental groups’
effort to increase water flow from California’s Twitchell Dam,
stating that wildlife conservation was not among the dam’s
authorized purposes and that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
(Bureau) had no authority to modify the water releases for
conservation purposes. U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr.
sided with defendants in San Luis Obispo Coastkeeper v.
Santa Maria Valley Water Conservation District, rejecting
plaintiffs’ claim that by failing to release enough water to
benefit protected steelhead trout, the Bureau and local water
district were in violation of the ESA.
The beaver does more to shape its environment than nearly any
other animal on Earth. They can cause incredible amounts of
destruction to infrastructure; downing power lines, and
blocking and rerouting waterways. But their dam-building also
can improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and create the
conditions for complex wetland habitats to form —providing
refuge for wildlife and storing carbon in the process.
A little more than a week ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that
not only would California effectively ban hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, by 2024, but the state also would work to phase
out oil extraction entirely by 2045. … It was — like the
governor’s promise last year that the state would ban the sale
of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — a sweeping pronouncement
meant to show urgency in addressing climate change while the
state he leads struggles with many of its most dire effects.
But meeting those goals requires complex regulatory
maneuvering.
Climate change and water scarcity are front and center in the
western U.S. The region’s climate is warming, a severe
multi-year drought is underway and groundwater supplies are
being overpumped in many locations. … About 4,000
miles of canals transport water to some 35 million
Californians and 5.7 million acres of farmland across the
state. Covering these canals with solar panels would reduce
evaporation of precious water – one of California’s most
critical resources – and help meet the state’s renewable energy
goals, while also saving money.
As demand for electric vehicles heats up, there’s concern about
a shortage of the key minerals needed to make them. The Biden
administration has called for boosting domestic production of
such minerals, including lithium for the lithium-ion batteries
used in electric vehicles. And that has many hoping for big
business in a desolate spot of California’s Imperial Valley. A
few miles from the shores of California’s Salton Sea, a
construction crew is at work on the future site of Hell’s
Kitchen Lithium and Power. It’s a geothermal facility, meaning
it uses Earth’s natural heat to create electricity.
British journalist James Bartholomew is widely credited with
creating the phrase “virtue signaling” to describe positioning
oneself on the popular side of an issue without actually doing
anything about it. Politicians are particularly prone to
uttering words or making token efforts on difficult issues to
stave off criticism about their failure to act meaningfully.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is California’s champion virtue-signaler as
he faces a recall election later this year. … There’s no
better example than Newsom’s ever-shifting attitude toward
hydraulic fracturing to increase petroleum production. -Written by Dan Walters
Poseidon Water won a key approval Thursday in its long quest to
build a seawater desalination plant on the Orange County
coastline. But the permit from the Santa Ana Regional Quality
Control Board does not ensure that the $1-billion ocean
desalter will rise on the grounds of an old power plant in
Huntington Beach. Poseidon still needs a construction permit
from the California Coastal Commission and, most critically, a
binding deal with a public agency to buy 50 million gallons a
day of purified seawater.
The US Forest Service is taking public comments on a proposed
exploratory mining operation near the headwaters of Hot Creek
in the Eastern Sierra that could lead to harmful open pit
mining near this fishery. We need your help to stop it. This
project is problematic and disastrous in many ways: KORE
Mining wants to drill around Hot Creek for gold with no plan or
guarantee that gold exists in that area. Dredging,
excavation, and hydraulic mining will cause dramatic
stream degradation. The proposal for the exploratory operation
provides no information on how much water is needed, the depth
of drilling, or the negative impact on the wildlife and the
environment.
Hydraulic fracturing has occurred in California and nationwide
for decades; however, recent advancements in horizontal
drilling technologies and “well stimulation” techniques have
been instrumental in triggering an oil and gas boom, making the
U.S. the world’s largest producer of oil and gas
reserves. California produces more oil than all but three
other states (Texas, North Dakota and Alaska), and Kern County
is responsible for more than 70 percent of the state’s oil
production. Environmentalists and other members of the
public became concerned that the hydraulic fracturing process
may contaminate groundwater aquifers …
On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) unveiled a new
initiative to ban new and future permits for hydraulic fracking
beginning in 2024. The ban is part of California’s effort to
move away from oil extraction to source fuel, focusing on
developing renewable sources such as wind and solar. Fracking,
or hydraulic fracturing, is the sourcing of oil from deep
subterranean rocks, using a high-pressured water mixture
drilled into the earth that releases natural gas and oil.
While a decades-long battle over one major dam and river
diversion in northern Colorado appeared to end last week,
environmental groups signaled another fight will go on longer
as they filed an appeal meant to undermine Denver Water’s Gross
Dam expansion. The environmental coalition Monday asked
the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review a dismissal of
their case by a federal district court and order a trial on the
merits of their claims about the dangers of adding 131 feet to
the height of Gross Reservoir Dam. They argue federal review
agencies neglected species-protection laws and other guidelines
when handing Denver Water a permit for Gross.
Both proponents and opponents of the controversial Poseidon
Water desalination plant in Huntington Beach made their voices
heard Friday in an all-day virtual meeting that continued well
into the night. In the end, however, a decision by the Santa
Ana Regional Water Board on whether to permit Poseidon’s
$1.4-billion project will have to wait until at least [this]
week. Another meeting is scheduled for Thursday, with a third
meeting on May 13, as necessary.
Gov. Gavin Newsom directed the state Friday to stop issuing
permits for the oil extraction method known as fracking by
January 2024 and to draw up plans to end all fossil-fuel
drilling in California by 2045 — the most sweeping declaration
of its kind in the nation. … Eliminating all extraction would
have far-reaching consequences in California, the nation’s
seventh-largest producer of crude oil… [Fracking
has] long been a controversial method because of what
climate activists see as unacceptable dangers, including the
possibility that it can contaminate groundwater.
Questions have been raised over California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
political maneuvers to push a controversial seawater
desalination plant proposed for the Huntington Beach
coastline. Critics say their concerns about the actual
need for the project and its potential environmental effects
remain. The company pushing it, Poseidon Water, remains
steadfast in its intent to build a plant that would suck in 100
million gallons of seawater daily and make half of it
drinkable….[The Regional Water Quality Control] board’s next
hearing is scheduled for [Friday] April 23. If the board
approves the permits, the project then goes for a final say
from the state Coastal Commission.
Given a growing body of evidence that many chemicals in
plastics pose human health risks, Californians should welcome
recently-passed legislation putting the state on path to be the
first to track microplastics in tap water. Because
plastics are highly resistant to biodegradation, instead
fragmenting into ever smaller bits, eventually reaching micron
and nanometer dimensions (there are 25.4 million nanometers in
one inch)—they travel unseen in wind and waterways so that even
the most remote regions of the globe, like the Arctic
seabed and summit of Mount Everest, are contaminated
with microplastics. -Written by Sarah Mosko.
Install photovoltaic panels atop canals, and avoid the land-use
battles over habitat protection and rural community character
that are a growing roadblock for the solar industry. Save water
in a drought-prone state that can use every last drop. …But
when I’d heard these ideas floated in the past, I’d also heard
skepticism from the people who run California’s water
systems…. Then a surprising thing happened…. -Written by Sammy Roth, a Los Angeles Times staff
writer.
A committee for the Monterey One Water Board has recommended
final certification of an environmental report crucial to the
expansion of Pure Water Monterey, signaling increased momentum
for the recycled water project. The five-member Recycled
Water Committee of the Monterey One Water Board of Directors
voted 4-0-1 on April 15 to recommend the board of directors
certify the completed supplemental environmental impact report,
or SEIR, needed for the expansion.
A new proposal to drill for natural gas in the East Bay has
environmentalists up in arms, and not just because it’s a
polluting fossil fuel. It’s the location that has people really
upset. That’s because it’s in the Suisun Marsh, the largest
marshland on the West Coast, a highly protected natural habitat
for migratory birds, fish and wildlife. … A dozen
environmental and community groups have submitted a letter
opposing a plan by Brentwood-based Sunset Explorations to build
an acre pad on private property in the marsh and drill an
exploratory gas well there.
Solar canals: What if, instead of letting the sun dry up canals
in drought-prone California, we covered them with solar
panels? It may sound weird — but solar panels and canals
seem to make a brilliant combination. Instead of allowing the
sun to evaporate the water in canals, solar panels can shade
the precious liquid, while also capturing the sun’s energy.
For the past four years, a Canadian mining company has been in
Nevada County, about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento,
collecting samples of what it suspects is one of the world’s
highest-grade underground gold deposits, potentially worth
billions. … The legacy of gold, while widely celebrated, is
not something that many in this area, now home to more retirees
and Bay Area transplants than men in hard hats and overalls,
want to revisit. … [T]he scars it left on the landscape
remain visible, and unwanted. Creeks still get mucked up
with iron and sulfuric acid from old mines. Soils contain
arsenic left over from drilling. …
SCV Water, the Santa Clarita Valley’s water
agency, received a nearly $250,000 California Special
Districts Association Public Safety Power Shutoff program
allocation from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency
Services (Cal OES). The allocation will be used to help
fund the installation of a permanent generator at the Earl
Schmidt Filtration Plant on Lake Hughes Road near Castaic.
The addition of this second generator brings the facility up to
100% operational capacity in the event of a power outage.
As the latest evidence of extended drought and extreme wildfire
danger confirms, California’s climate is changing quickly. Its
policy on burning planet-warming fuels — not so much. A
state Senate bill to ban hydraulic fracturing and otherwise
restrict oil and gas extraction died in its first committee
Tuesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and three Democratic lawmakers
withholding support.
A far-reaching proposal to outlaw hydraulic fracturing and ban
oil and gas wells from operating near homes, schools and
healthcare facilities failed in the California Legislature on
Tuesday, a major setback for progressive leaders who hail the
state as the nation’s bellwether on environmental protection.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in September called on state lawmakers to ban
fracking and voiced his support for safety buffer zones around
wells …
Ballona Wetlands activists and Westside residents are planning
an Earth Day protest, calling on local leaders to shut down the
Playa del Rey oil field and pushing back against what they call
a disguised restoration project meant to restore the gas
company’s infrastructure below the ecological reserve.
Poseidon Water announced that the Third District California
Court of Appeal issued a decision denying the petition by
seawater desalination opponents to overturn the Sacramento
County Superior Court’s 2019 ruling upholding the California
State Lands Commission’s 2017 approval of an amended lease for
the proposed Huntington Beach Desalination Project (“Project”).
The Court of Appeal decision reaffirms that the State Lands
Commission correctly analyzed the Project under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and that the Project protects
the state’s Public Trust resources.
Legislation that would gradually phase out fracking and other
extraction methods that account for most of California’s
petroleum production faces its first big test in Sacramento on
Tuesday. The nine-member Senate Natural Resources and Water
Committee is set to vote on a proposal, Senate Bill 467, that
would bar new permits for hydraulic fracturing, cyclic
steaming, steam flooding and water flooding. The legislation
would begin taking effect in 2023 and also prohibit renewing
existing permits for fracking and the other targeted methods,
which a committee bill analysis says accounts for an estimated
80% to 95% of the state’s oil production.
The Suisun Marsh — known as the largest swath of contiguous
wetlands on the West Coast and a haven for thousands of
migrating waterfowl — has become the Bay Area’s latest
battleground between fossil fuel producers and
environmentalists hellbent on fighting climate change. A
Brentwood company, Sunset Exploration Inc., announced in
January it wants to explore for natural gas by drilling a
section of the 116,000-acre marshland about 9 miles southwest
of Suisun City in an area known as Hunter’s Point, according to
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Despite its green reputation, California has a big fossil fuel
problem on its hands: neighborhood oil and gas drilling. In
California, there’s nothing preventing frackers or drillers
from setting up shop right next to your home, school, or
hospital — and indeed, this is the reality for 7.4 million
Californians currently living within 1 mile of oil and gas
drilling operations, who are disproportionately non-white and
low-income. Now, a new state bill called S.B. 467, slated
for a hearing in the California Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water on Tuesday, may reshape the lives of
frontline communities by eliminating fracking and instituting
mandatory buffer zones between oil and gas extraction and
places where Californians live, work, and study.
Throughout 2020 and early 2021, California issued more than 300
permits to oil and gas companies for new underground injection
wells — an intensive form of oil production and wastewater
disposal. But the actual number of new injection wells is
likely higher, owing to the state’s opaque approval process
that has drawn scrutiny from auditors and environmentalists.
Some of these undercounted wells may be polluting groundwater
used for public drinking and agricultural purposes, according
to regulatory filings reviewed by Capital & Main. The impact of
injection wells on groundwater in California is understudied,
regulators say.
Chuang Cheng-deng’s modest rice farm is a stone’s throw from
the nerve center of Taiwan’s computer chip industry, whose
products power a huge share of the world’s iPhones and other
gadgets. This year, Mr. Chuang is paying the price for his
high-tech neighbors’ economic importance. Gripped by drought
and scrambling to save water for homes and factories, Taiwan
has shut off irrigation across tens of thousands of acres of
farmland. … Officials are calling the drought Taiwan’s worst
in more than half a century. And it is exposing the enormous
challenges involved in hosting the island’s semiconductor
industry, which is an increasingly indispensable node in the
global supply chains for smartphones, cars and other keystones
of modern life. Chip makers use lots of water to clean
their factories and wafers, the thin slices of silicon that
form the basis of the chips.
Governor Gavin Newsom frequently says California is a leader in
sustainability and the transition away from fossil fuels. The
governor has also issued an executive order to fight climate
change in response to the deadly wildfires that ravaged our
state last year. Despite these public statements and official
efforts, it’s puzzling that his administration has been
promoting the climate-wrecking Poseidon desalination plant in
Huntington Beach as an infrastructure to source additional
water for California. There are plenty of things we can do to
ensure that Southern Californians have enough water to
thrive….
-Written by Alejandro Sobrera, the Orange County Hub
Coordinator for the Sunrise Movement, a youth led effort to
bring about a just transition to a greener
world.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom voiced his support last year for a ban
on hydraulic fracturing by oil and gas companies, an effort
long fought by the industry and trade unions alike, he gave
Democrats a green light to send him legislation to achieve that
goal as they saw fit. But the crackdown on oil and gas
production under consideration by the California Legislature is
much wider in scope than the plan requested by the governor,
who may get more than he bargained for as he shoulders the
pressures of carrying out the state’s COVID-19 pandemic
response while battling a looming recall election. The
ambitious proposal would outlaw hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking, and a series of other oil extraction methods reviled
by environmental activists.
The California Department of Justice (DOJ) filed comments with
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) regarding Sunset
Exploration’s proposal to drill for natural gas in the Suisun
Marsh. Located in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, this 88,000-acre
wetland is home to a number of endangered and threatened
species, including California Ridgway’s rail, black rail, and
Chinook salmon – and is just a few short miles from
environmental justice communities in Solano County…. DOJ
urges the Army Corps to fully consider the proposal’s
significant environmental impacts, including harm to these
communities and protected species, as well as increased
greenhouse gas emissions, before deciding whether to grant the
requested permit.
Placing solar panels atop Central Valley canals could get the
state halfway to its goal for climate-friendly power by 2030, a
new study suggests. And the panels could reduce enough
evaporation from the canals to irrigate about 50,000 acres, the
researchers said. They are from the Merced and Santa Cruz
campuses of the University of California. The idea has
already drawn interest from the Turlock Irrigation District, as
one of several options for boosting the solar part of its
electricity supply.
President Biden announced the first components of his proposed
$2 trillion national infrastructure plan to rebuild failing,
aging, and outdated water, energy, transportation, and
communications systems. While the current information provides
only the broadest outlines of his proposals, and the details
will have to be worked out in specific legislation to be
debated in Congress, it is clearly the most ambitious plan to
have been put forward in many years.
Rejecting arguments that a utility can’t be sued over
century-old pollution, a federal judge signaled Wednesday that
he will likely advance a lawsuit seeking to hold Pacific Gas
and Electric liable for contamination that occurred more than
100 years ago. … [Plaintiff and San Francisco resident Dan]
Clarke claimed groundwater contamination stemming from the site
of PG&E’s former gas plant “is intermittently discharged
into the bay.” He said seasonal, tidal and other factors result
in groundwater passing the former plant site and intermixing
with contaminants before leaking into the San Francisco Bay.
In the coming weeks, officials are expected to release a new
plan for reaching the goals set out under the Paris Climate
Agreement and recommend changes to several national monuments.
More broadly, the administration is considering steps that
could include taking a harder line on climate regulations.
… The Biden administration has also listed dozens of
Trump-era environmental rules across several agencies that it
plans to review, including rules governing air quality
standards, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
A Brentwood company’s proposal to drill a natural gas well in
Suisun Marsh has become the latest flash point in California’s
quest to fight climate change and transition away from fossil
fuels. Sunset Exploration wants to search for a commercially
viable amount of gas at the site of an abandoned well in the
wetlands south of Suisun City. If the company finds enough
fuel, the Solano County project could be operational for 20
years, connecting to a pipeline that would help heat homes and
light stoves around the region. It’s the kind of proposal that,
in a prior era, might have encountered little organized
resistance.
Many of the wetlands in the western United States have
disappeared since the 1700s. California has lost an astonishing
90 percent of its wetlands, which includes streamsides, wet
meadows and ponds. In Nevada, Idaho and Colorado, more than 50
percent of wetlands have vanished. Precious wet habitats now
make up just 2 percent of the arid West — and those remaining
wet places are struggling. Nearly half of U.S. streams are in
poor condition, unable to fully sustain wildlife and people,
says Jeremy Maestas, a sagebrush ecosystem specialist with the
NRCS who organized that workshop on Wilde’s ranch in 2016. As
communities in the American West face increasing water
shortages, more frequent and larger wildfires and unpredictable
floods, restoring ailing waterways is becoming a necessity.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) took another step in
its ambitious efforts to reduce climate change impacts by
replacing an old electricity-generating turbine with a new,
energy efficient model at the Ronald B. Robie Thermalito
Pumping-Generating Powerplant in Butte County that will help
the Department achieve its goal of using 100 percent
zero-emission resources by 2045.
Environmental groups are calling for massive spending on an
infrastructure package they view as a generational opportunity
to address climate change, ramping up pressure on Democrats to
deliver on campaign trail promises on clean energy and
environmental justice. As Democrats call for bipartisanship and
Republicans demand a narrower and cheaper bill, greens will be
warning the new congressional majority against giving in to GOP
demands. That tension came to a head yesterday when reports
emerged in The New York Times and The Washington Post that
White House aides were working on an ambitious $3 trillion
infrastructure legislative effort encompassing climate, taxes
and income inequality.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced awards
totaling $27.5 million for 16 water infrastructure projects.
Modern technology has the potential to reduce energy use in
aging water infrastructure, particularly in wastewater
treatment, which demands up to 2% of domestic electricity use
each year. These projects, operating in 13 states, have the
potential to reduce carbon emissions and water-treatment costs
while improving water quality and equity of distribution
nationwide. … They are based out of California,
Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, and
Virginia.
A new lawsuit brought by environmental groups against the
Bureau of Land Management seeks to rescind leases for seven
parcels of federal land auctioned to energy companies in the
waning days of the Trump administration. They are the first
federal land oil and gas leases of their kind to be sold in
nearly a decade and would open vast tracts to oil exploration
and fracking. The land in question sits in California’s Central
Valley, an agricultural region that already experiences some of
the worst air and water quality in the country.
Shading California’s irrigation canals with solar panels could
reduce pollution from diesel irrigation pumps while saving a
quarter of a billion cubic meters of water annually in an
increasingly drought-prone state, a new study suggests. Pilot
studies in India and small simulations have shown that
so-called “solar canals” have lots of potential benefits:
Shading the water with solar panels reduces water loss from
evaporation and keeps aquatic weeds down.
Water is one of the most valuable resources on the
planet — we need it to survive, to stay clean
and healthy, to grow food, to run businesses, to
support ecosystems, and so much more. And yet clean,
accessible, abundant water is often taken for granted, in
part because its cost rarely reflects its true value. But
anyone who has spent even a day, or a few hours, without
access to water knows its vital importance. Still today
over 2.2 billion people globally lack
access to safe drinking water.
Inframark LLC, has entered into a five-year partnership with
the City of Camarillo, Calif., for the operations and
maintenance (O&M) of the City’s new $66.3 million North
Pleasant Valley Desalter. On January 13, the City Council
unanimously approved Inframark’s proposal over three other
international competitors. Inframark will also assist in the
startup and commissioning of the brackish water reverse osmosis
facility, which is currently under construction and is expected
to be up and running this fall.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management decided to sell oil and gas
leases on public land in California for the first time in
nearly a decade without taking a hard look at the environmental
and public health impacts, according to a lawsuit filed Monday
in a federal court in the state. The agency’s “hasty”
environmental review ignored comments from experts and failed
to consider evidence showing fracking could pollute already
scarce groundwater resources, environmental groups say in the
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California
filing. The decision violated the National Environmental Policy
Act …
Installing solar panels over California’s network of water
canals could save the state an estimated 63 billion gallons of
water and produce 13 gigawatts of renewable power every year,
according to a feasibility study published in Nature
Sustainability. California moves more water than any other
system in the world, with 75% of the state’s available water in
its northern third and the southern two-thirds accounting for
80% of the state’s demand. Covering the canals with solar
panels would reduce evaporation by shading the canals from the
sun (along with the co-benefit of reducing canal-choking plant
growth) and the cooling effects of the water could boost solar
panel efficiency.
Tucked out of sight, oil wells run thousands of feet deep,
tapping thick crude from one of California’s many urban oil
fields. And in the fall of 2019, investigators with the state’s
oil agency flagged trouble. Nasco Petroleum was injecting
huge amounts of water into well bores above the legal pressure
limits, aiming to push more crude out of the aging downtown
field. … The wells, investigators wrote in a report to a
manager, posed “immediate” risks to drinking water aquifers.
As of 2021, California is home to 31 distinct kinds of native
salmon, steelhead and trout species, 20 of which are found only
in our state. These fish are prized for their economic and
cultural significance by local communities, and for their
recreational attributes by anglers from around the world. But
these fish face an alarming threat that can’t be ignored. If
current trends continue, nearly half of these fish will be
extinct within the next 50 years. How do we know this? And
perhaps an even better question: what can be done about
it?
A new analysis finds that covering water canals in California
with solar panels could save a lot of water and money while
generating renewable energy. Doing so would generate between
20% and 50% higher return on investment than would be achieved
by building those panels on the ground. The paper, published
Thursday in Nature Sustainability, performs what its authors
call a techno-economic analysis, calculating the impacts and
weighing the costs and benefits of potentially covering the
thousands of miles of California’s open irrigation system.
Tribal leaders see President Joe Biden’s administration as
an opportunity to increase tribal consultation regarding issues
like water management, oil and gas leasing, and land
conservation. Here, we look at four major projects … that the
new administration is tasked with advancing…. Negotiations
among federal, tribal and state governments on water flows and
allocations in the Colorado River Basin began last year and are
set to conclude by 2026…. After years of political,
social and regulatory barriers, the undamming of the Klamath
River is within sight….
[The Salton Sea is] drying up, spewing harmful dust into the
Imperial Valley’s already badly polluted air. There are
countless stories to be told around the Salton Sea. To me, one
of the most fascinating is about lithium. … I wrote
about the increasingly bright prospects for Salton Sea
lithium extraction in October 2019. Today, I’ve got
several updates on the companies trying to make the Imperial
Valley the first major source of North American lithium
production — including the entrance of some powerful new
players.
Spurred by the rising price of gold, K2 Gold Corp., of
Vancouver, Canada, is drilling and trenching in hopes of
selling its findings or partnering with a bigger company that
would, perhaps, transform the public lands into an open pit
cyanide heap leach mine, just a few miles from Death Valley.
… Opponents … worry about air pollution … and
the water required for mining gold. Pumping out millions
of gallons from desert aquifers, or underground lakes, they
fear, could exhaust regional springs in valuable wildlife
habitat, and attract wildlife to ponds of cyanide-laced water.
Pacific Gas and Electric will pay to remove soil possibly
tainted by century-old gas plants and investigate groundwater
contamination in a San Francisco shoreline area under the terms
of a deal announced Monday. The agreement represents the third
and final settlement reached in a lawsuit filed in 2014 over
pollution from manufactured gas plants operated by PG&E in
the late 1800s and early 1900s. Under the deal entered Monday,
PG&E will fund a study on how to remove or mitigate
contamination from an underground storage tank on the former
site of its North Beach gas plant, which stopped operating
after it was damaged in the Great Earthquake of 1906.
Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico made history on Monday
when the Senate confirmed her as President Biden’s secretary of
the Interior, making her the first Native American to lead a
cabinet agency. … Beyond the Interior Department’s
responsibility for the well-being of the nation’s 1.9 million
Native people, it oversees about 500 million acres of public
land, federal waters off the United States coastline, a huge
system of dams and reservoirs across the Western United States
and the protection of thousands of endangered species.
Local political leaders and a dozen Bay Area environmental
groups are urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reject a
permit proposal for an exploratory natural gas drilling project
in Suisun Marsh. The 88,000-acre wetland in Solano County — the
largest contiguous brackish marsh on the west coast of North
America — lies near the North Bay cities of Fairfield and
Benicia, at the mouth of the vast Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta where the salty waters of San Francisco Bay mix with
river water to create an estuary ecosystem that is home to
hundreds of species of birds, fish, amphibians and mammals,
including river otter, tule elk and the endangered salt marsh
harvest mouse.
A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge ruled that the California
Coastal Commission did not abuse its power when it approved a
land-swap deal in 2018 that will allow for the rehabilitation
of 150 acres of wetlands, but also the development of up to 120
new oil wells. In a 22-page tentative ruling, Judge Mary
Strobel denied a request to stop the project in the Los
Cerritos wetlands in the southeastern part of the city.
Strobel’s ruling said that the commission did not misinterpret
the Coastal Act in approving the deal, and the public benefits
of the project were correctly weighed before voting to approve
the deal.
A judge has ordered the Los Angeles Department of Water and
Power to continue providing historic quantities of irrigation
water to lessees of its pasturelands east of Yosemite, despite
the agency’s assertion that climate change is making water
resources in the Sierra Nevada watershed increasingly
unreliable.
It was a chilly morning in 2010 when Oxnard farmworkers,
tending to their broccoli crops, discovered an oily sheen
floating on their irrigation water. In a nearby oilfield, a
tank of diluent — a carcinogenic mix of benzene, toluene, and
diesel — had sprung a leak. … A decade later, we
still face the same dangers. Right in the heart of our prime
farmland, which infuses Ventura County with over two billion
dollars annually. We’re risking that vital economy for the
dregs: Tar Sands becomes bunker fuel and asphalt — not
gasoline. And annually, Tar Sands extraction in Oxnard could
use up approximately 12 Olympic-size swimming pools worth of
drinkable water — just to make steam. -Written by Liz Beall, executive director of Climate First:
Replacing Oil and Gas.
Many people in Grass Valley, Calif., live and work over the
Idaho-Maryland Mine without realizing it. A lot of information
about the location of the two surface sites and the project
features has been circulated, but not much has been shared
about the sheer size of the project underground and how that
may affect us. … Wells are of even greater concern. Due
to dewatering of the mine, there will be lowering of the ground
water levels in the area.
The Grand Canyon Protection Act was recently introduced by U.S.
Rep. Raύl Grijalva and passed in the House and has been
introduced in the Senate by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. The bills will
permanently protect about 1 million acres of public lands
surrounding Grand Canyon from the harmful and lasting damage of
new uranium mining. … This legislation is critical
to stopping the threats that mining poses to water quality and
quantity, unique habitats and wildlife pathways, and to sacred
places. -Written by Sandy Bahr, director for Sierra
Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter, and Amber Wilson
Reimondo, Energy Program director with Grand Canyon
Trust.
Environmental and community groups have sued a California
county after the prime oil-drilling region approved a plan to
fast-track thousands of new wells in a state that’s positioned
itself as a leader in combating climate change. The Kern County
Board of Supervisors on Monday approved a revised ordinance
that could lead to approval of more than 40,000 new oil and gas
wells over roughly 15 years. … The oil and gas industry
faces challenges from California lawmakers and environmental
groups for creating air and water pollution and contributing to
climate change.
When an oil or gas well reaches the end of its lifespan, it
must be plugged. If it isn’t, the well might leak toxic
chemicals into groundwater and spew methane, carbon dioxide and
other pollutants into the atmosphere for years on end.
… There are nearly 60,000 unplugged wells in Colorado in
need of this treatment — each costing $140,000 on average,
according to the Carbon Tracker, a climate think tank, in a new
report that analyzes oil and gas permitting data. Plugging this
many wells will cost a lot —more than $8 billion, the report
found.
Hearings have been scheduled to resume in April for Poseidon
Water’s controversial proposed Huntington Beach desalination
plant. Last April the California Regional Water Quality Control
Board, Santa Ana Region was expected to vote on renewing a
permit for the proposed $1 billion project but the workshop was
canceled due to COVID-19. A hearing scheduled for
September was also delayed so Poseidon could have
more time to address water board concerns.
Opponents of a proposed desalination facility along the
Huntington Beach coastline are aghast that Gov. Gavin Newsom
has taken steps to help end a years-long regulatory logjam.
Although an environmentalist, the governor clearly recognizes
the importance of developing new water sources to meet
California’s needs. Privately funded facilities plants that
turn saltwater into drinking water aren’t the only solution to
California’s water shortages, but they are one solution. For
instance, a similar plant in Carlsbad has the capacity to meet
9 percent of San Diego County’s water needs. That’s an enormous
contribution, especially with another drought looming.
Selectively cutting trees in riparian zones to aid forest
restoration can be done without adversely affecting streams’
water temperature as long as the thinning isn’t too intensive,
new research by Oregon State University shows.
… Northern California is well known for its groves of
large, iconic redwood trees. However, intensive logging removed
most of the old-growth forests from this region and less than
10% of those forests remain.
A plan to fast-track drilling of thousands of new oil and gas
wells over the next 15 years in California’s prime oil patch
was approved Monday by Kern County officials over objections by
environmental groups….The ordinance came up for discussion as
the industry faces challenges from lawmakers as well as
ever-present opposition from environmental groups for creating
air and water pollution and significant contributions to
climate change.
[D]esalination may have a role to play in addressing
California’s long-running water shortage issues. After all,
we’ve got a 1,100-mile coastline in a drought-stricken state,
and it’s only natural to think: Hey, let’s just stick a straw
in the ocean, and our rabid thirst will be quenched once and
for all. But desalination comes with many costs, including
big hits to the environment and ratepayer pocketbooks. And as
Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal
Protection Network, puts it, we need to temper our lust for
what seems an easy fix.
After a state appeals court blocked Kern County’s effort to
speed up new oil and gas drilling, officials overseeing the
state’s prime oil patch have revised an ordinance that could
permit tens of thousands of new wells over the next 15 years.
The Kern County Board of Supervisors is poised to vote Monday
on the plan that would streamline the permitting process by
creating a blanket environmental impact report for drilling as
many as 2,700 wells a year. … The county hasn’t
been able to issue permits in a year and the industry is facing
challenges from lawmakers as well as environmental groups for
creating air and water pollution and for significant
contributions to climate change.
Often the value of a plan or project can best be judged by its
opposition. In the case of the proposed Poseidon desalination
plant in Huntington Beach, the forces lined up against it are
clear indicators that it’s a worthwhile enterprise. The
Sierra Club calls the plant “rather pathetic,” “the most
expensive and environmentally damaging way to secure Orange
County’s future water supply.” -Written by Kerry Jackson, a fellow in the Center
for California Reform at the Pacific Research
Institute.
One of the first two Native American women to be elected to
Congress, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.) is well on her way to being
confirmed as the first Native American to serve as secretary of
the Interior. Last week, Haaland went before the U.S.
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for her
confirmation hearing in which she answered questions for two
days. Today the committee will host a business meeting to
consider the nomination of Haaland and members can vote in
person or by proxy.
White Pine Renewables has completed a floating solar array in
northern California that the company claims is the largest such
project in the United States. The 4.8 MW Healdsburg Floating
Solar Project was installed on ponds at a wastewater treatment
plant in Healdsburg, California. It will deliver energy to the
city under under a 25-year power purchase agreement. The
company chose the project site and floating PV approach to help
reduce evaporation and algae growth at the ponds. The
electricity will cover around 8% of the city’s total energy
demand and move it toward its goal of 60% renewable energy
usage before 2030.
[A]s often as I write about the importance of building clean
power infrastructure to fight climate change, the cheapest,
easiest way to reduce emissions is to use less energy in the
first place. And in Los Angeles, at least, one of the cheapest,
easiest ways to use less energy is to use less water.
The coal-fired power plant that sat on Navajo Nation land in
the northeastern corner of Arizona did not just generate
electricity. It also drew water from the Colorado River, an
essential input for cooling the plant’s machinery. What
happens to that water now that the plant is being
decommissioned? Who gets to decide how it is used? In a drying
region in which every drop of water is accounted for and
parceled out, the stakes are high and the legal claims are
unresolved.
On Feb. 22, 2021, Lake Powell was 127.24 feet below ‘Full Pool’
or, by content, about 38% full. Based on water level
elevations, these measurements do not account for years of
sediment (clay, silt, and sand) accumulation—the millions of
metric tons on the bottom. Geologist James L. Powell said, “The
Colorado delivers enough sediment to Lake Powell to fill 1,400
ship cargo containers each day.” In other words, Lake
Powell is shrinking toward the middle from top and bottom. The
lake is down over 30 feet from one year ago, and estimates
suggest it could drop another 50 feet by 2026. The Bureau of
Reclamation estimated the lifespan of Glen Canyon Dam at
500–700 years. Other estimates aren’t as optimistic, including
some as low as 50 years.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors
Thursday announced a plan to distribute a rebate of $44.4
million to its 24 member agencies across the region. They did
so after receiving a check for that amount from the Los
Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern
California to pay legal damages and interest after a long legal
battle. The money resulted from the water authority’s
decade-long litigation in Superior Court seeking to compel MWD
to set legal rates and repay overcharges.
Sterling Construction Company, Inc. today announced that its
subsidiary, Road and Highway Builders, LLC, has been awarded a
$135 million heavy civil contract by the City of Los Angeles
for the construction of the North Haiwee Dam No. 2 in Inyo
County, CA. …The project will also involve the rerouting of
the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which supplies clean drinking water
to the city of Los Angeles, to allow for the appropriate
tie-ins for the dam construction.
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) released the following
statement on being named chairman of the Appropriations
Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development. This subcommittee
has jurisdiction over funding levels for the Department of
Energy, the Army Corp of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation
and other federal agencies related to our nation’s energy and
water infrastructure programs.
Federal regulators have issued a preliminary permit for a
pumped-hydropower project using water from Lake Powell, but
conservation groups say climate change could make the plan
unsustainable. The project would pump water from the lake,
drain it downhill to a generator, and send the power to massive
batteries for storage. The 2,200-megawatt project would supply
cities in Arizona, California and Nevada, over lines previously
used by the retired Navajo Generating Station. Gary Wockner,
executive director for Save the Colorado, which opposes the
plan, said falling water levels will make the Colorado River
Basin an unreliable source of water.
Conservation groups said 80 species were known to have gone
extinct, 16 in the last year alone. Millions of people rely on
freshwater fish for food and as a source of income through
angling and the pet trade. But numbers have plummeted due to
pressures including pollution, unsustainable fishing, and the
damming and draining of rivers and wetlands. The report said
populations of migratory fish have fallen by three-quarters in
the last 50 years. Over the same time period, populations of
larger species, known as “megafish”, have crashed by 94%.
On Friday, the City of Antioch, along with local and
State dignitaries, broke ground on their new and historic
Brackish Water Desalination Plant. At a price of $110 million,
the project was made possible with $93 million in funding from
the State, and $17 million from the City of Antioch.
Texas has always seen its share of extreme weather events,
but over the past two decades they have intensified. A few
years ago, after the fifth “ 500-year flood” in five years, I
remarked to a friend, “We’re going to have to stop calling them
that.” … Of course, this uptick in extreme weather is
not limited to Texas. Numerous places across the country—and
indeed the globe—have experienced multiple “historic” weather
events in recent years. Last year, droughts in California led
to six of the largest wildfires in the state’s
history. In 2017 and 2018, British Columbia had two consecutive
record-setting forest fire seasons.
-Written by Robert Rapier, a chemical engineer
with over 25 years of experience in the energy
industry.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom was photographed dining at an opulent
Napa Valley restaurant during a surge in coronavirus cases,
many Californians saw it as hypocrisy. For opponents of a
planned $1-billion desalination plant along the Orange County
coast, however, the optics were menacing. The unmasked Newsom
was celebrating the birthday of a lobbyist for Poseidon Water,
which is close to obtaining final government approval for one
of the country’s biggest seawater desalination plants.
There are six Mono Lake tributaries to be exact – Rush, Lee
Vining, Parker, Walker, Wilson, and Mill creeks. And the fact
is Mono Lake never had any surplus water; its fullness has
always depended on the amount of water running into it. So as
soon as some of that water was cut off, which began in 1941,
the Lake started to plummet and the entire ecosystem dependent
on those “half a dozen little mountain brooks” soon
followed.
California and Texas, the country’s two most populous states,
have each faced major energy crises within the past six months
that share a primary cause: extreme weather….The Lone Star
State’s plight is many orders of magnitude worse than the
rolling blackouts Californians endured over two blistering days
in August. Yet both situations have exposed the extent to which
the United States’ vital energy infrastructure is threatened by
erratic and extreme weather conditions that are becoming
increasingly common as climate change advances.
Following a disappointing 2019 adult fall run on the Klamath,
2020 proved to be only slightly better. Unfortunately, the
numbers weren’t enough to get us out of the “overfished”
category, and it’s likely we’ll have some severe
restrictions both in the ocean and in the Klamath and Trinity
rivers in 2021. … According to CDFW, the number of returning
fall run kings in 2020 was 45,407, about half the long-term
average. In 2019 only 37,270 adult kings returned. The return
of fall Chinook jacks was 9,037 fish, which is also below the
long-term average of 17,740.
A pipeline rupture that gushed hundreds of gallons of oil into
the San Francisco Bay spurred a class action filed Tuesday that
accuses a Chevron refinery of prioritizing profits over safety
and threatening the survival of herring in the area for years
to come. … On Feb. 9, a Chevron refinery in the East Bay
city of Richmond, California, discovered a pipeline leak that
oozed about 700 gallons of a substance described
interchangeably by Chevron as “a mixture of recovered oil and
gasoline”, “petroleum and water mixture” and “hydrocarbons.”
In a recent study published in Environmental Research Letters,
[Julia] Szinai and her colleagues present a framework that
outlines the links between and vulnerabilities of
[California's] energy and water systems. The findings can be
used to evaluate how both climate change and our adaptation
decisions might affect the interconnected systems. It’s a first
and an “exhaustive” quantification of the linkages between
energy and water…
Emergency crews in Richmond, California, are rushing to clean
up an estimated 600 gallons of oil that spilled from a Chevron
refinery into the San Francisco Bay. Details on the spill are
still scant, but the emergency has reinvigorated calls from
residents and environmentalists for the city to change its
relationship with the refinery.
Nearly every home has a water heater, but people tend not to
think about it until the shock of a cold shower signals its
failure. To regulators, though, the ubiquitous household
appliance is increasingly top of mind for the role it could
play in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and weaning the power
grid from fossil fuels High-tech electric water heaters can
double as thermal batteries, storing excess production from
wind and solar generators. In California,
officials aim to install them in place of millions of
gas water heaters throughout the state. That would reduce the
need to fire up polluting fossil fuel power plants to supply
electricity for water heating after the sun sets.
A Northern California water users’ association has filed a
motion against a $450 million plan to tear down four dams on
the Klamath River they claim irrevocably hurts local
homeowners. The motion was filed with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission (FERC) last Wednesday by the Murphy and
Buchal Law firm on behalf of the Siskiyou County Water Users
Association. It claims the interstate agreement reached by
Oregon and California last year to remove the dams has incurred
“irreparable damage” to lakefront home values in the COPCO Lake
area as water levels are feared to decline.
The Chevron refinery in Richmond is investigating an oil spill
Tuesday afternoon, according to city and county officials. The
spill happened in what’s called the “Long Wharf” off Point
Richmond, where a sheen can be seen on the top of the water at
Bear Point.
Oil and gas remain an important topic in Kern county and come
Thursday, county officials are expected to discuss revisions to
a zoning ordinance focused on oil and gas local permitting.
This is an ordinance that’s years in the making and its faced
challenges along the way. The initial review was approved by
the board of supervisors back in 2015, but last year after a
court ruling it was challenged, so now the county’s planning
commission is revisiting this topic once more.
… However, advocates against the proposed ordinance say
they are concerned with environmental impacts of the air,
water, and noise concerns that may follow if the ordinance is
approved.
The Colorado River supports over 40 million people spread
across seven southwestern states, 29 tribal nations, and
Mexico. It’s responsible for the irrigation of roughly 5.5
million acres of land marked for agricultural use. Local and
regional headlines show the river is in crisis. The nation
mostly isn’t listening.
Tens of thousands of large dams across the globe are reaching
the end of their expected lifespans, leading to a dramatic rise
in failures and collapses, a new UN study finds. These
deteriorating structures pose a serious threat to hundreds of
millions of people living downstream…. In 2017, a
spillway collapsed at the 50-year-old Oroville Dam in
California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. It caused the evacuation
of around 180,000 people. The 770-foot dam is the highest in
the U.S. and, after repairs to the spillway, remains critical
to the state’s water supply.
A detailed analysis released by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
could change its approach in operating the Klamath Project in
compliance with the Endangered Species Act.
In a flurry of first-week executive orders, President Biden
sent a definitive message that his administration would move
faster on climate change than any before. Now, the question is
whether it will be fast enough. Scientists warn that the
coming decade will be critical for slowing heat-trapping
emissions, potentially keeping average annual global
temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius compared
to the mid-19th century. Right now, the world is on track
for an increase of 3 degrees Celsius, a level
that ensures more destructive wildfires and hurricanes,
devastation for coral reefs and rising seas flooding the
coastlines.
The organization tasked with removing four dams on the Klamath
River has contracted with Resource Environmental Solutions to
spearhead habitat restoration work. The Bellaire, Texas firm
will be the lead restoration contractor for the project led by
the Klamath River Renewal Corporation. In hiring RES, KRRC
meets federal and state permitting requirements, according to a
Friday news release from Business Wire.
The California Department of Water Resources has secured $308
million in funding to pay for reconstruction and repair work
that has been done on the Oroville Dam’s spillways. The funds,
released by FEMA, are in addition to the $260 million that the
agency provided for repairs on the lower portion of the dam’s
main spillway. Repair work on the damaged emergency and main
spillways has been ongoing for nearly four years following
February 2017’s spillway crisis. The $308 million announced
Monday was at first rejected but later approved by FEMA
following an appeal from the DWR last year.
The largest body of water in Colorado, Blue Mesa Reservoir is
nothing to scoff at. Found in the southern portion of the
state, Blue Mesa Reservoir is 20-miles-long, home to 96 miles
of shoreline, and constrained by a 390-foot-tall dam. However,
before this man-made reservoir and popular outdoor recreation
spot existed, the area was home to a thriving mountain town
that has since been wiped off the map.
Newly appointed leaders at the California Air Resources Board
began this year with a monumental task ahead of them.
California’s progress on climate change is slipping – and it
will take bold leadership and a visionary approach to put the
state back on track. … For the first time in six years,
California’s greenhouse gas emissions ticked upward in
2018… -Written by F. Noel Perry, businessman and founder of Next
10, and Hoyu Chong, practice lead for sustainable growth
and development at Beacon Economics.
More than 30 states actively regulate oil and gas development
with a variety of practices and rules designed to reduce
health, safety and environmental impacts. …
Colorado approved new, nation-leading well integrity rules
designed to prevent oil and gas wells from leaking methane to
the atmosphere, befouling groundwater resources and causing
explosions that can harm workers and communities.
Ongoing drought in parts of the West could trigger water
conservation measures across seven states this year. It would
mark the first time that cutbacks outlined in drought
contingency plans drafted two years ago have been put in place.
Everything from hydroelectric power generation to agricultural
production to the bubbling fountains at Las Vegas casinos could
be impacted. Impacts on hydro generation could have ripple
effects across the Southwest, including solar and energy
storage.
The Trump administration left President Biden a dilemma in the
California desert: a plan to remove protections from millions
of acres of public lands and open vast areas to solar and wind
farms. Biden’s team could easily block the proposed changes,
which were slammed by conservationists as a last-gasp effort by
the outgoing administration to support private industry at the
expense of wildlife habitat and treasured landscapes….There
are also places to put solar and wind installations besides
intact habitat, including Central Valley farmland with
dwindling water supplies …
Increasingly bleak forecasts for the Colorado River have for
the first time put into action elements of the 2019 upper basin
drought contingency plan. The 24-month study released in
January by the Bureau of Reclamation, which projects two years
of operations at the river’s biggest reservoirs, showed Lake
Powell possibly dipping below an elevation of 3,525 feet above
sea level in 2022. That elevation was designated as a critical
threshold in the agreement to preserve the ability to produce
hydropower at Glen Canyon Dam.
