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.
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.
A Conejo Valley water district is going green in a way which
will reduce pollution and save millions of dollars. A new
five-megawatt solar farm is cutting power consumption by the
Los Virgenes Municipal Water District.
Wind rustles the barbed fence surrounding Canyon Mine as
Amber Reimondo patrols its perimeter. For the last four years
under the Trump administration, Reimondo, the energy
director for the Grand Canyon Trust, has worked
to make the temporary Obama-era uranium mining
ban around the Grand Canyon permanent. So far, her efforts have
not paid off. But with an impending change
in presidents, Reimondo hopes change is in the
wind.
Most experts agree that halting climate change — and the global
warming, extreme heat events and stronger storms that come with
it — will require the removal of carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere. But with humans pumping
out an estimated 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide
annually, current strategies for capturing it seem likely to
fall short. Now, a UCLA research team has proposed a pathway
that could help extract billions of metric tons of carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere each year. Instead of directly
capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide, the technology would
extract it from seawater, enabling the seawater to absorb more.
Why? Because, per unit volume, seawater holds nearly 150 times
more carbon dioxide than air.
The year 2020 was either tied for the hottest on record or
second hottest — an unwelcome distinction whichever you choose
to go with. Two reports released Thursday by NASA and the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, while
measuring heat a bit differently, both show the planet was more
than 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer last year than the 20th
century average, highlighting an unrelenting shift toward a
hotter and less-hospitable future. The heat hit California head
on.
For many years Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has operated the
“Potter Valley Project,” a hydroelectric facility on the main
stem of the Eel River consisting of Scott and Cape Horn dams
and a tunnel diverting water into the Russian River watershed,
where it is used to generate a small amount of electricity and
for irrigation by farmers in Potter Valley and farther south in
Sonoma County. The construction of Scott Dam in 1922
completely blocked passage of critically imperiled anadromous
fish including salmon, steelhead and lamprey…
The U.S. Department of Energy will soon announce semifinalists
for its Solar Desalination Prize. The goal: a system that
produces 1,000 liters of usable water for $1.50… Such
systems could surmount a big downside of reverse osmosis: it
typically desalinates only half of the input saltwater, and the
solution left behind eventually builds up enough salt to clog
the membrane…
A team of researchers have developed a framework to evaluate
complex connections between water and energy, and options for
adaptations in response to an evolving climate. Their study,
“Evaluating cross-sectoral impacts of climate change and
adaptations on the energy-water nexus: A framework and
California case study,” was published in the open-access
journal Environmental Research Letters.
As the planet continues to warm, the twin challenges of
diminishing water supply and growing energy demand will
intensify. But water and energy are inextricably linked. For
instance, nearly a fifth of California’s energy goes toward
water-related activities, while more than a tenth of the
state’s electricity comes from hydropower. As society tries to
adapt to one challenge, it needs to ensure it doesn’t worsen
the other.
The seven-year-long California drought that ended in early 2019
and the wildfires that ensued are just two recent events that
have cast a spotlight on the far-reaching consequences of
worsening water shortages…. Data centers are under
particular scrutiny. In the U.S. alone they are expected to
consume an estimated 174 billion gallons of water in 2020. A
15-megawatt data center can use up to 360,000 gallons of water
a day.
Tuolumne Utilities District efforts to acquire water rights and
infrastructure from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. were slowed by
the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, but TUD’s general manager
said that negotiations with the utility giant are “still on
track,” and he is optimistic an agreement could be reached this
year.
Jason Czapla is walking across a former lake bed in the middle
of southern California. The ground simmers at our feet as
little mud volcanoes disgorge piles of hot, sulfurous muck. The
Salton Sea glitters in the distance, beckoning as the morning
temperature approaches 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
A city floating three-megawatt solar array project that will
produce roughly 6.5 million kilo-watt hours — enough energy to
supply 8% of Healdsburg’s annual energy needs — is nearing
completion and will likely be up and running and energized by
the end of this year….The final design will float roughly
11,600 solar panels on the city’s recycled water ponds at the
wastewater treatment plant…
The Association of California Water Agencies presented its
Huell Howser Best in Blue Award to the East Bay Municipal
Utility District (EBMUD) for its highly successful Public
Safety Power Shutoffs Outreach Campaign. EBMUD conducted
an unprecedented public outreach campaign to educate its
customers about the impacts of pre-emptive power shutoffs on
its water and wastewater systems.
California oil regulators ignored their own regulations and
issued improper permits for hundreds of new wells last year,
according to an audit … finalized this week. … The audit
was requested after stories in The Desert Sun
revealed that CalGEM employees used so-called “dummy”
folders to approve new injection wells for
several oil companies that do risky steam injection.
Joining a growing list, Turlock and Modesto Irrigation
Districts filed a Petition with the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission asking that the commission find that the State of
California has waived certification under the Clean Water Act.
… The Districts are seeking a new FERC license for two
hydropower projects on the Tuolumne River, the Don Pedro
Project and the La Grange Project.
The Department of Water Resources recently published a summary
report of a comprehensive needs assessment of safety at
Oroville Dam. It comes after the reconstruction of the
spillways that were damaged and failed in 2017.
Karuk Tribe natural resources spokesperson Craig Tucker joined
John Howard to talk about the historic agreement, its impact on
the region’s Salmon fisheries, and the potential for
replication in other places where dams are contested.
At a time when every other car on the South Coast seems to be a
Tesla, it’s fitting that the City of Santa Barbara will soon be
relying on a small mountain of Tesla storage batteries to help
move water in and out of its Cater Water Treatment Plant…
The solar installation consists of 4,959 high-output solar
panels mounted atop a floating solar racking system. The system
will generate power for the Windsor Wastewater Reclamation
Facility, Public Works Corporation Yard and the Geysers pump
station, delivering approximately 90% of the water reclamation
facilities’ power requirements while saving about 30% of the
electricity cost based on the facilities’ existing grid
service…
For Gershon Grossman and Ed Murray, 1978 was a big year.
Grossman, then a solar energy pioneer at Technion, Israel’s
premier technological institute, was launching the first
International Conference on the Application of Solar Energy.
Murray, an idealist attending college, joined an upstart solar
heating company in Sacramento, California’s capital… Four
decades later, however, they live in two different worlds.
PG&E Corp. named a new CEO on Wednesday, hiring a Michigan
utility executive to run California’s largest utility as it
confronts the state’s mounting wildfire risks following a stint
in bankruptcy. Patricia K. “Patti” Poppe, who has been CEO of
Michigan-based CME Energy Corp., will take over Jan. 4.
The Yuba Water Agency is in the process of applying for a new
license to continue its hydroelectric operations along the Yuba
River, but agency leaders say some requirements issued by the
State Water Resources Control Board threaten the effort by
making it too costly. The agency filed lawsuits in state and
federal court Friday to essentially vacate the state board’s
requirements to obtain what is called a water quality
certification.
The Army Corps of Engineers … is considering another rule
change that would also shrink federal protection of small
streams, ecologists and lawyers say. The Corps said in its
proposal it is acting in response to the president’s order to
review regulations that burden energy development. Some of the
proposed changes will have essentially the same consequence as
the Trump administration’s contraction of the Clean Water
Act…
A decade ago, the State Water Resources Control Board decreed
that electricity providers had to stop using water to cool
their generating plants. … But fulfilling that edict could
cause water quality in Alamitos Bay to go very bad very
quickly.
Should the public have access to documents that show why the
federal government changed its stance on the impact an EPA rule
would have on vulnerable species? That’s the question the
Supreme Court will set out to answer Monday in the case Fish
and Wildlife Service v. Sierra Club, which deals with a Freedom
of Information Act request for documents underpinning a 2014
rule for cooling water intake structures at power plants.
Many who oppose the restoration project say it includes a plan
to install new infrastructure adjacent to the wetlands. “The
last thing we need when we are in a crisis of climate change is
to build new fossil fuel infrastructure,” said representatives
for The Sierra Club Ballona Wetlands Restoration Committee. And
who is investing in fossil fuel use? SoCalGas owns a natural
gas facility adjacent to the wetlands.
The California State Water Resources Control Board and a group
of environmental organizations each have filed a petition for
review with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit of
FERC orders finding that the Water Board waived its authority
under section 401 of the Clean Water Act to issue a water
quality certification in the ongoing relicensing of Merced
Irrigation District’s Merced River and Merced Falls Projects.
The future of our existing dams, including 2,500 hydroelectric
facilities, is a complicated issue in the age of climate
change. Dams have altered river flows, changed aquatic habitat,
decimated fish populations, and curtailed cultural and treaty
resources for tribes. But does the low-carbon power dams
produce have a role in our energy transition?
In the U.S., the number of households that have a solar water
heater is less than 1%. In California, many people don’t even
know the technology exists. … Heating water accounts for 25%
of residential energy use worldwide, mostly achieved by burning
fossil fuels. Solar water heaters do the job without
combustion.
Located right below Slab Creek Dam and Reservoir and priced at
$16.5 million … the project has two main functions. One
includes a recreational flow release on a nine-mile stretch
below the reservoir that will improve boating, rafting and
kayaking opportunities… The other release feeds water into
the powerhouse to drive the turbine.
For decades it’s been done on a relatively small scale near
Bakersfield, and recent studies confirm it doesn’t threaten
crop safety. So why aren’t more local oil producers giving
farmers the briny water that comes up from the ground along
with oil? In a word, money.
California lawmakers need to create a package of legislation
that limits multiple kinds of oil drilling, not just hydraulic
fracturing, if they want to respond effectively to the world’s
climate crisis, says state Sen. Henry Stern, D-Los Angeles, who
chairs the Natural Resources and Water Committee.
Virtual rallies will be held Friday at the utility’s
headquarters in Portland and in Buffett’s hometown of Omaha,
Neb., according to a Save California Salmon news release. A
rally will also be held in Seattle, home of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, the top shareholder in Buffett’s
Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate. Berkshire Hathaway Energy is
PacifiCorp’s parent company.
Congressman John Garamendi, who represents the northern half of
Lake County, on Friday submitted a formal comment to the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opposing removal of Scott
Dam on the Eel River at Lake Pillsbury and demanding that Lake
County have an equal seat at the table for determining the
future of Potter Valley Project and the lake.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is
preparing to build four new battery energy storage systems that
will boost the district’s energy resilience and cut operational
costs by optimizing solar power and reducing peak load at its
facilities.
A dialogue organized by Stanford that brought together
environmental organizations, hydropower companies, investors,
government agencies and universities has resulted in an
important new agreement to help address climate change… Dan
Reicher, a former U.S. assistant secretary of energy and board
member of the conservation group American Rivers, spoke with us
about brokering this new agreement…
The industry that operates America’s hydroelectric dams and
several environmental groups announced an unusual agreement
Tuesday to work together to get more clean energy from
hydropower while reducing the environmental harm from dams, in
a sign that the threat of climate change is spurring both sides
to rethink their decades-long battle over a large but
contentious source of renewable power. The United States
generated about 7 percent of its electricity last year from
hydropower, mainly from large dams built decades ago, such as
the Hoover Dam, which uses flowing water from the Colorado
River to power turbines.
Last month, Microsoft announced it would replenish more water
than it consumes by 2030, focusing on 40 “highly stressed”
basins where it operates. … Microsoft has provided a grant to
the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, to work
on software to better predict levels and accessibility in the
drought-threatened Central Valley region of California.
A team of scientists at Utah State University has developed a
new tool to forecast drought and water flow in the Colorado
River several years in advance. Although the river’s headwaters
are in landlocked Wyoming and Colorado, water levels are linked
to sea surface temperatures in parts of the Pacific and
Atlantic oceans and the water’s long-term ocean memory.
While use of large seawater desalination plants will continue
to be limited to coastal communities, small-scale, localized
systems for distributed desalination will be essential to
cost-effectively tapping and reusing many of these
nontraditional water sources across the country.
Developing lithium from the Salton Sea in California can help
anchor a multi-billion dollar domestic electric vehicle battery
supply chain and inject thousands of jobs and billions of
dollars into California’s economically disadvantaged Imperial
Valley, according to a new report from New Energy Nexus.
Developing a lithium industry in California’s Salton Sea, an
area that experts think could supply more than a third of
lithium demand in the world today, could help set up a
multi-billion dollar domestic supply chain for electric vehicle
batteries, according to a new report from New Energy Nexus.
Linking floating solar panels with hydropower could produce the
equivalent of 40% of the world’s electricity, according to a
new study by researchers at the Department of Energy. … The
study provides the first global look by federal researchers at
the technical potential of the hybrid concept.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday added his signature to a new law
that orders the formation of a commission to study the
feasibility of lithium extraction around the Salton Sea. Local
politicians hope the commission will lead to the creation of a
green economy around the state’s largest lake, which is a
geothermal hotspot. It was one of several bills focused on
California’s environment that Newsom dealt with this week.
Among the people forced to flee the Creek Fire were workers who
keep the vast network of hydroelectric dams running. Eric
Quinley, general manager of the Delano-Earlimart Irrigation
District, worried some of his table grape growers might not get
enough water in the future to finish up the growing season.
When the Creek Fire erupted on Sept. 5 and chewed through the
forest toward Southern California Edison’s Big Creek power
system, little did anyone know how that might affect grape
growers in Delano nearly a month later.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday vowed to work with
the state legislature to phase out new permits for hydraulic
fracking by 2024, but left untouched a more widely used oil
extraction technique in the state that has been linked to
hundreds of oil spills.
Along with being a global leader on addressing climate change,
California is the seventh-largest producer of oil in the
nation. And across some of its largest oil fields, companies
have for decades turned spills into profits, garnering millions
of dollars from surface expressions that can foul sensitive
habitats and endanger workers, an investigation by The Desert
Sun and ProPublica has found….Under state laws, it’s illegal
to discharge any hazardous substance into a creek or streambed,
dry or not.
After years spent developing this project and making
adjustments to respond to stakeholder concerns, it became
obvious that we needed to take more time to address objections
raised by the community of Marina — namely that our project
would be built in their backyard without them receiving any
benefit from it.
The main stormwater issue associated with solar arrays is the
concentrated discharge of stormwater runoff at the solar panel
drip line, which can act like un-guttered roofs that channelize
and accelerate stormwater flow. Instead of traveling as sheet
flow across a fallow field, capped landfill, or macadamized
parking area, stormwater now lands on the surface in
channelized sheets that must be carefully managed to prevent
soil scouring, erosion, and contamination…
The right balance of nutrients is crucial for a healthy coastal
ecosystem. If rivers deposit too much nitrogen and phosphorus
in coastal areas, algae that flourish on those nutrients can
cause dead zones; if too little silicon flows downstream,
organisms that depend on it will die off.
For decades, farmers in California’s Kern County have turned to
wastewater from oil production to help irrigate their crops
during extended dry spells. … But the use of the recycled
water, a byproduct of oil and natural gas extraction that is
mixed with surface water for irrigation, has stirred
controversy.
The Monterey Peninsula is about to find out if a long-term
water supply will become a reality on Thursday as California’s
Coastal Commission is scheduled to hear the application for a
permit to build the desalination source water wells. The Farm
Bureau believes the permit is necessary to secure a reliable
water supply for Peninsula residents and businesses.
The White House’s rewrite of National Environmental Policy Act
rules is set take effect as planned this month, after a federal
judge on Friday declined to freeze the measure. The decision is
a victory for the Trump administration’s efforts to speed up
approvals for pipelines, oil and gas wells, highways, and other
projects.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will this
week consider a pair of nominations — one Republican, one
Democratic — to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is extending its
Emergency Residential Community Assistance Program, designed to
help customers struggling to pay water, sewer and Hetch Hetchy
power bills during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which
launched in May, was originally set to expire Sept. 4, but will
now be expanded through the end of the year
Between February and July 2020, the East Bay Municipal
Utility District completed work on more than 20 community
infrastructure projects totaling $49 million. The projects
include rehabilitated neighborhood water storage tanks, miles
of new water distribution pipelines designed to withstand
earthquakes, and a new photovoltaic system to generate energy
from the sun.
The project proposes to cover 3,600 acres near the town of
Ducor with enough solar panels to … provide 100% of the power
needed for 180,000 homes… The Tulare County Farm Bureau did
submit a letter reminding the board of the law’s intent to
preserve farm land and not to create solar farms, but
ultimately agreed the project would give landowners with sparse
access to irrigation water options to make their lands
profitable.
Four aging dams on the Klamath River are coming down. Their
completion between 1921 and 1964 brought hydroelectric power to
Northern California. It also blocked hundreds of kilometers of
fish habitat, causing Chinook salmon to effectively disappear
from the upper river basin. But the removal of dams is no
guarantee the fish will return, so a team of wildlife
researchers hopes it can coax the fish to repopulate the river
by exploiting a new discovery about salmon genetics.
Expansion of the Pure Water Monterey recycled water project is
the best option for the Monterey region to meet its future
water supply needs. Unfortunately, California American Water
Co., a private water supplier, is discrediting the project in
hopes of getting approval for their much more costly, oversized
and environmentally harmful groundwater desalination project…
In the Aug. 14 outage, multiple redundant power sources failed
at the plant in West Oakland, something that hasn’t happened
since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Major flooding at the
pump station led sewage to flow from an outlet into the estuary
more than nine hours later. The incident occurred amid hot
weather when people like to swim in the estuary running between
Oakland and Alameda,
EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and California Gov. Gavin
Newsom clashed Thursday over the Trump administration easing
restrictions on wastewater discharges from coal-fired power
plants.
The Trump administration is seeking to fast track environmental
reviews of dozens of major energy and infrastructure projects
during the COVID-19 pandemic… Projects targeted for quick
review include highway improvements in South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida and other states; the Lake Powell water pipeline in
Utah; wind farms in New Mexico and off the Massachusetts coast;
and mining projects in Nevada, Idaho, Colorado and Alaska.
The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity last week
said it’s targeting a federal plan to auction in December seven
parcels totaling about 4,330 acres in or near existing
oilfields in the county. The CBD called the auction plan a
“breathtakingly vicious” move by the Trump administration to
expand drilling and fracking at a time of wildfires driven by
climate change in an area with some of the country’s worst air
quality.
A Monday proposal from the U.S. Forest Service would severely
limit the agency’s ability to call off any oil drilling slated
for its lands by the Bureau of Land Management, which tees up
leasing in federal forests. … The proposed rule removes
specific references within Forest Service policy to review
environmental consequences of drilling and also eliminates the
requirement to provide public notice before new oil activity
takes place.
The Bureau of Reclamation, US Department of Energy’s Water
Power Technology Office and Army Corps of Engineers signed the
memorandum at Hoover Dam on Monday, which was National
Hydropower Day. The MOU provides for a collaborative working
relationship that prioritizes similar goals and aligns ongoing
and future renewable energy development efforts among the three
agencies.
The Clean Water Act previously allowed states to halt projects
that risk hurting their water quality, but that power was
scaled back by the EPA in June, a move Administrator Andrew
Wheeler said would “curb abuses of the Clean Water Act that
have held our nation’s energy infrastructure projects hostage.”
The latest suit argues the Trump administration is
inappropriately denying states veto power over major projects
that pose risks to their waterways.
The Bureau of Land Management will revive its oil and gas
leasing program in California later this year, following a
seven-year moratorium sparked by a fracking fight.
The Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians once warned that a
proposed mine would obliterate a sacred site equal to the
Biblical Garden of Eden. Now, the southwest Riverside County
tribe is sounding a similar alarm about the Lake Elsinore
Advanced Pumped Storage Project, or LEAPS, a hydroelectric
project proposed for the Lake Elsinore area.
Most scientists in the field agree that sea levels should have
risen more than they did over most of the past century. In this
new effort, the researchers have taken another look at the
problem and suggest the reason for the discrepancies was water
being captured in reservoirs by dams.
A new report issued today by the California Environmental
Protection Agency shows that at least half of California’s
landfill-bound food waste could be processed at the state’s
wastewater treatment plants and serve as an innovative power
source.
As the Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage, or LEAPS,
hydroelectric project proceeds with licensing approval from the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, local roles have been
defined with a water delivery agreement following years of
litigation over project details.
It will take time to conduct a thorough autopsy of the
blackouts. Some observers have said the shutoffs were actually
unnecessary, that the state had enough power to make it through
the heat wave. Gov. Newsom has called for an investigation into
the matter.
A new Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, has made
headway in Congress, most recently with House passage of a bill
authorizing about $9 billion for Army Corps of Engineers flood
and storm protection, environmental restoration and other
projects. But with time running short before Congress breaks
for the Nov. 3 elections, industry sources say water
infrastructure legislation may be put off until an expected
lame duck session.
Rep. Jared Huffman repeatedly sought this week to pin down the
utility PacifiCorp on whether it would recommit to the
country’s largest dam removal project — and when.
The California Public Utilities Commission assumed that
hydroelectric plants would provide as much as 8,000 megawatts
when demand peaked this summer. But that number appears to have
failed to take into account low water levels at many dams…
And those plants delivered only 5,514 megawatts last Friday,
according to the California Independent System Operator.
The State Water Board and environmental conservationists have
filed lawsuits against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
at the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals to protect the
Yuba and Bear river watersheds…
North Coast Congressmember Jared Huffman hosted a forum of the
Water, Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee he chairs Tuesday
afternoon, orchestrating a two-hour panel discussion focused on
the stalled agreement to remove four hydroelectric dams from
the ailing Klamath River.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a statewide emergency in order
to help California respond to the fires burning across the
state amid an extreme heat wave that brought more warnings
about power outages on Tuesday. More than 30 wildfires are
burning across California, including nearly a dozen that
started in the last two days…
For the first time in nearly two decades, the federal
government tapped Glen Canyon Dam for extra power generating
capacity this weekend, triggering emergency water releases
as heat waves persisted across the West.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced it will no longer be
conducting higher water flows for whitewater recreation on the
Feather River during the weekend of Aug. 22-23, saying in a
press release the cancellation came as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic.
North Coast Rep. Jared Huffman will lead a live-streamed forum
that will examine the impacts of the Klamath Dams on tribes,
fisheries, the environment and downstream stakeholders on
Tuesday, Aug. 18 at 2 p.m.
Extremely high temperatures on Friday resulted in power outages
for thousands in Vallejo and hundreds of thousands across the
Bay Area on Friday night. … Reports of water service
disruption for some water customers associated with the power
outages in Vallejo began around 6 p.m. on Friday night,
according to the city of Vallejo.
If passed, the new program would promote water conservation and
make water bills more affordable and transparent for millions
of residents, benefitting both low-income customers and those
who use less water.
In what some have described as a cynical attempt by a U.S.
government agency to avoid a long-promised cleanup of toxic and
radioactive contaminants, NASA has nominated the Santa Susana
Field Laboratory for official listing as a traditional cultural
property.
The Department of Energy published a proposed rule this week
that would create a product class to allow for speedier washing
machines and dryers. Environmental and consumer groups charged
that the move would lead to washers and dryers that waste water
and energy and increase utility bills and carbon emissions.
The California Energy Commission is about to launch a
process to update the state’s building energy code, known as
Title 24. It will set the rules for energy efficiency levels
and whether heating and hot water are powered by fossil or
clean energy in new construction beginning in 2023…
If built, it would … pump groundwater into four new
reservoirs … Tribal members and environmentalists say the
project would flood several miles of canyons sacred to the
Navajo; risk damaging cultural sites for several tribes; draw
vast amounts of critical groundwater; potentially harm habitats
for plants and animals, including some endangered species; and
risk adverse effects for waterways leading into the Grand
Canyon.
The Lakewood, California-based Water Replenishment District
announced that its Albert Robles Center for Water Recycling and
Environmental Learning has been awarded Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, the
highest rating offered to environmentally sustainable
buildings. Only 5.7 percent of LEED projects in the U.S. have
achieved this designation.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board concluded three days
of hearings on the project’s next permit by telling Poseidon it
must return with a more robust, more detailed mitigation plan
to offset the environmental damage the project will cause.
Under the Aug. 3 proposal, companies would no longer be
required to notify the Army Corps if the pipelines they lay
require clearing of forested wetlands, or building access roads
longer than 500 feet with fill material dredged from streams or
wetlands or with impervious materials.
Deep beneath the surface of the Salton Sea, a shallow lake in
California’s Imperial County, sits an immense reserve of
critical metals that, if unlocked, could power the state’s
green economy for years to come. These naturally occurring
metals are dissolved in geothermal brine, a byproduct of
geothermal energy production.
In September 2018, Estela Escoto sat down with a team of
lawyers and community organizers and weighed her options.
Escoto’s town—Arvin, California—had just granted an oil
drilling and well-servicing company, Petro-Lud, a permit to
drill four new wells near a neighborhood densely packed with
young families and a park where children played soccer.
After hearings this week for one of two remaining major permits
needed for the project, several members of the Regional Water
Quality Control Board indicated they were dissatisfied with the
proposed mitigation for the larvae and other small marine life
that would die as a result of the plant’s ocean intake pipes.
Summer energy demands driven higher as the COVID-19 pandemic
keeps more people at home could lead to more water flowing from
Glen Canyon Dam into the Colorado River. That could mean
rapidly changing conditions for rafters, anglers, hikers or
others on the river in Glen Canyon or the Grand Canyon,
officials said.
A 1997 guidance document from the White House Council on
Environmental Quality lays out best practices for FERC and
other agencies to address environmental justice as part of
reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act. The agency
isn’t legally required to act on its findings.
Legislation authorizing the Army Corps of Engineers to boost
the nation’s water infrastructure, protect waterways from
emerging contaminants, and bolster coastal shorelines sailed
through the House Wednesday. On a voice vote, the House used a
procedure reserved for mostly non-controversial legislation to
pass the bipartisan Water Resources Development Act of 2020…
Poseidon Water’s seawater desalination plant in Huntington
Beach, first proposed in 1998, could be getting closer to
beginning construction after more than two decades. The Santa
Ana Regional Water Board will hold online hearings this week
and decide whether to issue Poseidon a permit.
President Trump made two nominations to the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission Monday, bowing to pressure from
Democratic lawmakers who have pushed to maintain the bipartisan
split in the commission.
In 1961, Placer County voters overwhelmingly approved the sale
of bonds to finance construction of the Middle Fork American
River Hydroelectric Project (MFP). Nearly 60 years later, with
the bonds fully paid and financial reserves fully funded, the
first-ever distribution of net revenue from the MFP has been
made…
For the past five years, Monty Currier, a California Department
of Fish and Wildlife environmental scientist, has been working
to rebuild the fishery at Mountain Meadows Reservoir after
the PG&E impoundment went dry in 2015 from the
combined effects of maintenance work and the drought. The
unfortunate fish kill presented Currier with something of a
dream opportunity.
Pumped storage hydropower (PSH) is a pretty simple technology.
… The effect is not to create energy. In fact, these
facilities are net consumers of energy. But by making renewable
energy available when it is most needed, PSH helps renewables
better match demand, reducing the need for gas on the grid.
The country’s largest dam removal project was thrown into
question last week when federal regulators refused to let the
current owner fully transfer the impoundments to a nonprofit to
carry out the demolition.
State water regulators have issued a $285,000 penalty against
the Phillips 66 refinery for releasing millions of gallons of
industrial wastewater into San Pablo Bay early last year. The
penalty is the 11th issued in the last 17 years against the
Houston-based oil company. Its refinery sits on the bay shore
in Rodeo, just south of the Carquinez Strait and Vallejo.
The closing of 30 coal-fired generating units across the West –
including 10 in Colorado – could free-up more than 76 billion
gallons of river and groundwater a year in the increasingly
parched region, although utilities appear cautious about giving
up their water rights.
The owner of more than 2,000 idle oil wells in Southern
California declared bankruptcy this week, raising fears among
environmentalists that those wells might never be properly
sealed. … As those old wells sit idle and unsealed, they
present a potential pollution hazard to drinking water
underground and people living nearby.
