[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 3/6/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

March 6, 2008

 

3. Watersheds

 

COLORADO RIVER:

Grand Canyon flush with water from dam; Officials hope that man-made flood will restore sediment that was lost in the ecosystem - Associated Press

 

DELTA ISSUES:

Editorial: Fox in the smelt house?; Inclusive process needed in Delta - Sacramento Bee

 

Guest Column: Delta peripheral canal would be a costly environmental mistake - Capitol Weekly

 

QUAGGA MUSSELS:

Editorial: Lakes being closed to thwart invasive crustaceans - Modesto Bee

 

 

COLORADO RIVER:

Grand Canyon flush with water from dam; Officials hope that man-made flood will restore sediment that was lost in the ecosystem

Associated Press – 3/6/08

By Amanda Lee Myers, staff writer

 

PAGE, Ariz. -- Four arcs of water unleashed from a dam coursed through the Grand Canyon on Wednesday in a flood meant to mimic the natural ones that used to nourish the ecosystem by spreading sediment.

 

More than 300,000 gallons of water per second were released from Lake Powell above the dam near the Arizona-Utah border. That's enough water to fill the Empire State Building in 20 minutes, said Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne,

 

"This gives you a glimpse of what nature has been doing for millions of years, cutting through and creating this magnificent canyon," Kempthorne said after he pulled the lever releasing the water from Glen Canyon Dam, upstream from Grand Canyon National Park.

 

The water gushed from two of four giant steel tubes in parallel arcs into the Colorado River. By afternoon, water poured from all four tubes, creating a churning pool beneath the sheer, sandstone canyon walls rising hundreds of feet.

 

The water level in the Grand Canyon rose 2 to 15 feet in some places. After the flood ends Friday, officials hope the water will leave behind sediment and restore sandbars as it goes back to normal levels. Officials have flooded the canyon twice before, in 1996 and 2004.

 

Before the dam was built in 1963, the river was warm and muddy, and natural flooding built up sandbars that are essential to native plant and fish species. The river is now cool and clear, its sediment blocked by the dam.

 

The change helped speed the extinction of four fish species and push two others, including the endangered humpback chub, near the edge.

 

Shrinking beaches have led to the loss of half the camping sites in the canyon in the past decade. Since Glen Canyon Dam was built, 98 percent of the sediment carried by the Colorado River has been lost, Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Steve Martin said.

 

Martin said man-made floods need to occur every time there's enough sediment to do so -- about every one to two years depending on Arizona's volatile monsoon season.

 

"The science is really clear that's what we need to do," Martin said.

 

The Grand Canyon Trust, a Flagstaff-based group that has been critical of the federal Bureau of Reclamation's management of the dam, also is calling for more regular high flows.

 

"The power industry is driving the Bureau of Reclamation more than anything else, as opposed as to what's best for the canyon," trust spokesman Richard Mayol said.

 

Scientists will document habitat changes and determine how backwater habitats are used by the chub and other fish. Another study will look at how higher water flows affect the aquatic food base. #

http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_8473729?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com&nclick_check=1

 

 

DELTA ISSUES:

Editorial: Fox in the smelt house?; Inclusive process needed in Delta

Sacramento Bee – 3/6/08

 

State and federal water contractors are undisputed experts in the mechanics of moving water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

But are they experts on how to avoid impacts to the Delta smelt? The record suggests otherwise.

 

Last year, the contractors tried to convince federal Judge Oliver Wanger that there was no credible evidence that state and federal pumps in the Delta were harming smelt.

 

Wanger wasn't persuaded. In a landmark ruling, he sided with environmental groups and their biologists that water diversions could well be harming these threatened fish. He ordered federal and state agencies to cut back pumping and prepare a new biological assessment to govern water shipments in the near future.

 

Wanger's ruling rocked the water world, further reducing the reliability of supplies to two-thirds of California's population and millions of farm acres. Yet apparently it has altered the practices of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies, which need to avoid further showdowns over the Endangered Species Act.

 

As The Bee's Matt Weiser has reported, these agencies have asked state and federal water contractors to help write the new biological assessment – a blueprint that describes how the pumping system will be operated. These contractors, which have a vested interest in maximizing water diversions, weren't involved the last time the Bureau of Reclamation prepared such a document. So it is highly curious they are involved now.

 

To top it off, the bureau has denied a request by the Natural Resources Defense Council – the main litigant in the smelt lawsuit – to have its biologists play a formal role. Lawyers for the bureau say they are not legally obligated to include environmental groups. That may be true, but it's still not a reason to exclude them.

 

More than ever, the bureau and other water agencies need to adopt an inclusive process to avoid lawsuits and continued conflict. The insular habits of the past will only assure that everyone loses in the Delta – water drinkers, fish, fowl and farmers. #

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/763607.html

 

 

Guest Column: Delta peripheral canal would be a costly environmental mistake

Capitol Weekly – 3/6/08

By Michael Machado, Senator, D-Linden

 

Water policy has played a deeply personal role in my life as a farmer and as a Californian, as well as in the lives of my constituents. After countless hours in hearings, discussions and negotiations, trying to formulate fair and reasonable water policies, it was shocking to learn last week that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has arbitrarily and without legislative consultation instigated planning for a peripheral canal.

 

By this unilateral action, the governor has single handedly short-circuited months of serious negotiations between Democrats and Republicans over a new water bond in order to pursue an already discredited 1950s solution to a modern-day problem. In my many years of involvement in water policy discussions, I have found that most participants, no matter how diverse their interests, are reasonable people, willing to move the state's water policy forward and willing to listen to water solutions that will benefit all the citizens of our state.

 

I have also spent many days listening to concerned citizens. The San Joaquin farmer is fearful that his access to water could be lost to special interests with more political clout. The Stockton parent is worried about the health dangers of bad drinking water coming out of her kitchen tap. The Davis community leader is concerned about the threat to our natural environment posed by ill-conceived grandiose "solutions."

 

Just on a fiscal level, the governor's proposal to build a hugely expensive peripheral canal to transport water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is irresponsible in light of the budget crisis facing the state. To burden the state with billions of dollars in new debt for a controversial and unproven engineering fantasy, not to mention the potential environmental disaster a peripheral canal poses, is the wrong path.

 

What Gov. Schwarzenegger apparently does not realize is that the era of unproven large-scale engineering boondoggles like the peripheral canal is over. Throughout the country, people are suffering the consequences of similar mistakes made in the past.

 

We need only look at two stark examples. In Louisiana, the Army Corps of Engineers will spend tens of millions of dollars to plug a massive 76-mile channel dug 40 years ago. It's blamed for much of the flooding that destroyed parts of New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina. During its life, the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet also destroyed much of the wetlands through which it flows. One restoration expert calls it "a cancer on the coast of southeast Louisiana."

 

In Florida, a plan to rescue the Everglades, ravaged to near-extinction, will take more than 30 years to implement and will cost almost $8 billion dollars.

 

The delta is being set up to be added to the litany of ill-conceived environmental and infrastructure projects that have moved forward without careful planning. Due to years of neglect and irresponsible state policy, the courts have stepped in to protect the delta's frail ecosystem.

 

The governor must look to the future and not to the failed proposals of the past for solutions to California's water crisis. If he does, he will see that developing a statewide consensus on water policy requires, first and foremost, addressing issues of ecosystem protection, water quality, balanced and fair use, transparent structure and responsible governance. It does not include a peripheral canal.

 

There are other ways. Millions of additional acre-feet of water are available for addressing water quality and supply. First, SB2XX, the Safe Drinking Water Act, would have safeguarded delta drinking water supplies and promoted groundwater storage, cleanup, conservation and recycling. Also, SB1002 would have helped secure Southern California and delta groundwater supplies. The governor opposed both bills.

 

If the governor insists on pushing a divisive peripheral canal proposal, the consequences will be enormous. He risks enflaming old regional passions and suspicions, turning Northern Californian against Southern Californian, farmer against city dweller, environmentalist against engineer. This is not the legacy the governor wants to leave the state in his final years in office.  #

http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?issueId=wy8n0m9ihpch06&xid=wya59putcuon5w&_adctlid=v%7Cjq2q43wvsl855o%7Cwya5iw6vcysnpv

 

 

QUAGGA MUSSELS:

Editorial: Lakes being closed to thwart invasive crustaceans

Modesto Bee – 3/6/08

 

How seriously are people in authority taking the spread of quagga and zebra mussels? Seriously enough to risk angering thousands of anglers. Judging that the risk of hurt feelings will be more acceptable than the possibility of losing its water-delivery system, the Casitas Municipal Water Board voted for a one-year ban on private boats on Lake Casitas -- one of the state's most popular bass lakes. Quagga and zebra mussels attach to the hulls of boats and are spread as boat owners try different lakes. Having done billions of dollars in damage in the Great Lakes region, the mussels arrived in Southern California in 2007. In January, zebra mussels were found in a reservoir near Hollister.

 

That is prompting pre-emptive actions by water agencies statewide. Unfortunately, keeping mussels out of lakes and reservoirs usually means forbidding most boats. More than 30,000 boats launch at Lake Casistas each year and the proposal to ban them angered the 300 who attended the Casitas meeting, wrote the Ventura County Star. Some out-of-town observers were concerned that other agencies across the state are taking similar actions. Charged with supplying water to customers and residents, directors of local water agencies are realizing that keeping the mussels out of their lakes is a higher priority than letting recreational boaters in. It's not a popular position, but necessary. #

http://www.modbee.com/opinion/story/231495.html

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