[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 8/11/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

August 11, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

 

 

Mines still threaten Colorado River, foes say

The Arizona Republic- 8/11/08

 

Don't let thirsty Las Vegas suck the life out of Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune- 8/9/08

 

RURAL COURTS: Petitions challenge water pipeline : Opponents in two counties dispute state engineer ruling
Las Vegas Review- Journal- 8/9/08

 

I-Team: Goshute Tribe Opposes Water Pumping

Channel 8 News- 8/8/08

 

Computerized systems make irrigation easy, save precious water

The Modesto Bee- 8/9/08

 

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Mines still threaten Colorado River, foes say

The Arizona Republic- 8/11/08

by Shaun McKinnon

 

Federal officials plan to remove more than 16 million tons of abandoned uranium waste from a mining site on the banks of the Colorado River, but environmental groups warn that new threats of toxic pollution lurk downstream from future mining activity.

 

The pile of uranium waste near Moab, Utah, will be hauled away by train, but the move could take a decade or longer. The abandoned mine, environmentalists say, highlights the risk of other mines near the river.

 

The Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy organization, compiled a database of mining claims on public lands and found more than 5,500 hard-rock mining claims within 10 miles of the river and nearly 1,200 within 5 miles. Claims for uranium, gold and other metals have doubled along the river in the past five years as demand for the materials rose.

 

Environmental groups say mines too close to a river could contaminate the water and damage fragile ecosystems. The Colorado River supplies water for drinking and irrigation to more than 25 million people in Arizona, Nevada, California and four other states.

 

Existing laws permit mining on public lands with only a few restrictions. Attempts to protect rivers or to close ecologically sensitive areas to mining have failed in the past. A broad rewrite of the laws was passed this year in the House but seems unlikely to even come up for a vote in the Senate, where mining enjoys stronger support.

 

"The Colorado River is the lifeblood of the West," said Dusty Horwitt, an analyst for the Environmental Working Group. "The Senate's failure to pass the mining law (would leave) citizens virtually powerless to protect drinking water."

 

Mining companies say only a few of the claims identified in the advocacy group's study will turn into mines. They argue that existing laws protect the land by forcing mining operations to undergo a litany of reviews before the first bucket of ore is removed.

 

A top mining executive who testified before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this year said new mines are either restricted or banned on more than half of public lands.

 

"Congress has closed lands to mining for wilderness, national parks, wildlife refuges, recreation areas and wild and scenic rivers," said William Cobb, vice president of environmental services for Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold.

 

Laws cover operations from start to finish, Cobb said, and he warned that new controls could harm the industry's domestic business and hurt U.S. companies in their bid to compete globally.

 

A river at risk

Environmental groups say existing laws won't prevent another fiasco like the one near Moab, where uranium waste seeped into the water for decades after the mine's owner failed to remove the pile.

 

The costs of cleaning the toxic mound grew so high that the owner, Atlas Corp., eventually filed for bankruptcy protection.

 

The federal government stopped the seepage several years ago and agreed in 2005 to move the waste away from the river.

 

"What we're seeing here is that the cost of remediating a big uranium mill is astronomical," said Bill Hedden, executive director of Grand Canyon Trust, a Flagstaff group that fought for removal of the waste. "In this case, as in many others, the company responsible has skipped out of town without paying much of anything and left taxpayers paying."

 

The U.S. Department of Energy said last week that it would remove the waste by train, considered the safest method, but the agency said the process could take a decade or longer.

 

In the meantime, Hedden said, the river is at risk.

 

"The big threat right now is some kind of high-water year or a really dramatic thunderstorm," he said. "The pile blocks a large drainage (route) out of Arches National Park. A flash flood could wash a lot of tailings into the river."

 

Grand Canyon focus

Although the Environmental Working Group found mining claims down the whole length of the Colorado River, most of the recent attention has been focused on the Grand Canyon, through which the Colorado flows.

 

Mining companies with uranium claims along the Canyon rim were poised to drill exploratory tunnels last year when Grand Canyon Trust, the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity intervened.

 

In April, a court blocked a British company from drilling tunnels. In June, the U.S. House issued an emergency declaration to block uranium mining and exploration on 1 million acres of public land around the park.

 

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., has introduced legislation to permanently protect the Canyon's watershed, but that bill faces the same uphill climb as the broader rewrite in the Senate.

 

Representatives from the three states on the lower Colorado River have urged Congress to act. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said lawmakers should at least block mining around the Canyon until more is understood about the water and land in the region.

 

The Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California also expressed concern, seeking stronger environmental analyses before future mines are allowed to open.

 

The price of mining

The National Mining Association says too many new regulations would impose major costs on an industry already under economic pressure.

 

When the House approved its bill, association President Kraig Naasz described the new environmental rules as redundant and said U.S. companies are already the world's most regulated. The bill includes other changes, such as an end to low-cost mining claims and requirements that companies pay royalties on materials removed from public lands.

 

But even regulations can't protect water sources if mines are opened too close to rivers or aquifers, conservation advocates argue. They cite a long list of mines that have polluted aquifers or damaged lengths of rivers.

 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that mines have contaminated stretches of streams and rivers on headwaters in 40 percent of the West's watersheds. The agency is spending $30,000 a day to treat contaminated runoff at one Colorado site.

 

"In the case of uranium, just the act of prospecting and drilling holes to obtain samples can contaminate water supplies," said Roger Clark, air and energy program director for Grand Canyon Trust. "The laws we have in place are inadequate to assure environmental protection from exploration to extraction and to follow-up and cleanup."#

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/08/11/20080811river-mining0809.html

 

 

 

Don't let thirsty Las Vegas suck the life out of Utah

The Salt Lake Tribune- 8/9/08

By Cris Cowley

 

The arid West depends on a delicate balance of water. Even small disturbances in water availability can have catastrophic effects on the plant and animal life that we enjoy and depend on.

The history of the Aral Sea in central Asia and the Owens Valley in California offers a powerful lesson about the likely consequence if Utah allows Nevada to steal water from the Snake Valley that straddles the border between the two states.

In 1960, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth largest lake. The diversion of fresh water to support cotton farming in the surrounding desert cut river flow into the Aral Sea to a trickle. By 2007, it had shrunk to 10 percent of its historical size.

The once-thriving fishery of the Aral Sea disappeared, and the major port city is now more than 60 miles from water. The blowing dust off the now-dry lake bed has smothered local agricultural production and ushered in a health crisis among the residents.

Life expectancy of the local population has dropped by nearly five years, the result of increased respiratory illnesses, throat and esophageal cancers, and liver and kidney aliments all caused by inhaling blowing dust and salts from the dry lake bed.

 
This unimaginable human tragedy was human-caused in four decades by unwise use of very limited water resources.

 
At the turn of the last century, the Owens Valley in California was a thriving agricultural basin with the beautiful Owens Lake as its centerpiece. Growth in Los Angeles soon outstripped the local water supply and an aqueduct was constructed, diverting water from the Owens River to Los Angeles 223 miles away.

Through subterfuge, persistence and bribery, Los Angeles secured most of the water rights in the Owens Valley and diverted an increasingly large amount of water from the Owens River to Los Angeles. In 1970, a second aqueduct began draining the aquifers in the Owens Valley, sending more water to Los Angeles.

As water levels fell in the aquifers, springs and seeps dried up and disappeared, and vegetation dependent on groundwater died. The Owens Valley is now a dead alkali flat that has become the largest source of particulate air pollution in the United States.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority is seeking to remove 16 billion gallons of water each year from the aquifers under Snake Valley and other central Nevada valleys and pump it to Las Vegas to support the relentless growth of "Sin City."

This plan is eerily similar to the Los Angeles water grab from Owens Valley. The Snake Valley aquifers were filled over millennia, but through shortsightedness, they can be emptied within decades.

SNWA hired hydrogeologist Timothy Durbin to quantify the impact of the proposal on local water tables. His findings never saw the light of day during the Nevada hearings held in September 2006. Durbin no longer works for the SNWA and is now trying to make his findings public.

His scientific modeling predicts a fall of up to 200 feet in the water table under Snake Valley, resulting in the loss of local ponds, seeps, streams and vegetation. This scheme could well turn the Snake Valley into another Owens Valley, and the mistake may be irreversible.

Utahns would be downwind of the blowing dust from the Snake Valley. We likely would suffer the health consequences of inhaling this dust, with increased respiratory, kidney and liver aliments, and increases in cancer.

Snake Valley residents would pay for Las Vegas' water grab with their livelihood, and Utah residents would pay with their health.

It is not too late for Utahns to influence the outcome. Let Gov. Jon Huntsman know that you would support him in vetoing this proposal. He has that power.

* CRIS COWLEY is a physician, a member of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, president-elect of the Utah Medical Association, past president of the LDS Hospital Medical Staff and a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists.#

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_10150286

 

 

 

RURAL COURTS: Petitions challenge water pipeline : Opponents in two counties dispute state engineer ruling
Las Vegas Review- Journal- 8/9/08
By HENRY BREAN

A plan to pipe groundwater to Las Vegas from eastern Nevada has drawn its first legal challenge since state regulators began approving portions of the project last year.

 

Pipeline opponents filed petitions in two rural courts late this week requesting a judicial review of the most recent decision granting water for the massive Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline.

 

On July 9, State Engineer Tracy Taylor issued a ruling that clears the way for the authority to pump more than 6 billion gallons of groundwater a year from three watersheds in Lincoln County. When stretched through reuse, the water from Cave, Delamar and Dry Lake valleys could supply almost 64,000 Las Vegas homes.

 

But in a petition filed Friday in Ely, opponents argue that Taylor dramatically overestimated how much water could be safely withdrawn from the mostly empty valleys and underestimated how much water should be held in reserve to supply future development there.

 

Speaking on behalf of the petitioners, Bob Fulkerson said the decision was made to seek a judicial review because "the issues on these valleys were so stark and cried out for relief."

 

"We've pledged to fight this with every tool at our disposal," said Fulkerson, who is executive director of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and a member of the Great Basin Water Network, two groups that oppose the water grab.

 

A similar petition, filed Thursday in Pioche on behalf of a ranching operation in Lincoln County, specifically challenges the portion of Taylor's ruling concerning Cave Valley.

 

Susan Joseph-Taylor, chief hearing officer for the Nevada Division of Water Resources, said the court "might try to consolidate" the separate review requests so they can be heard at the same time.

 

Water authority spokesman J.C. Davis said agency officials couldn't comment on the petitions Friday afternoon because they had yet to see them.

 

Under state law, anyone directly impacted by a water transfer can petition to have a ruling by the state engineer reviewed by a district judge. Joseph-Taylor said "whoever is unhappy" with the outcome of the review can appeal it to the Nevada Supreme Court.

 

"The state engineer is very often upheld, because the standard is the court can't reweigh the evidence of record from the hearing," Joseph-Taylor said.

 

In other words, no new arguments about the pipeline project will be heard during the judicial review. If the engineer's decision is supported by the evidence already on record, the court will most likely back his ruling, Joseph-Taylor said.

 

The petitions filed this week represent the first judicial reviews requested in connection with the authority's pipeline project.

 

Last year, Taylor granted the authority access to 13 billion gallons of groundwater a year in White Pine County's Spring Valley, but that ruling drew no such legal challenge.

 

"In Spring Valley, the issues were not so bold," Fulkerson explained. "We take these court actions very seriously, and we don't want to file lawsuits every chance we get."

 

By as early as 2013, the authority hopes to start pumping groundwater south through a pipeline that could stretch more than 250 miles and cost between $2 billion and $3.5 billion.

 

Authority officials see the project as a way to supply water for growth in the Las Vegas Valley and insulate the community from drought on the Colorado River, which provides 90 percent of the community's drinking water.

 

Critics argue that large-scale groundwater pumping in the arid valleys of eastern Nevada threatens wildlife and the livelihoods of ranchers and farmers.

 

The state engineer's next major hearing on the project is tentatively slated for this fall, when he will consider the authority's applications for groundwater in Snake Valley, an aquifer that straddles the Nevada-Utah border in White Pine County.

 

On Tuesday, two Utah counties and several American Indian tribes filed suit in Ely to be included as "interested parties" in the Snake Valley hearing. Taylor previously rejected a request from those groups for interested party status.#

http://www.lvrj.com/news/26468329.html

 

I-Team: Goshute Tribe Opposes Water Pumping

Channel 8 News- 8/8/08

By George Knapp, Investigative Reporter

A Nevada Indian tribe intends to fight the water authority's plan to pipe water from rural Nevada to the Las Vegas valley.

The Goshute Tribe served notice that it intends to file a federal lawsuit against the water authority in 60 days. They say the water authority has initiated a reckless assault on the environment.

 

The Goshutes have had a tough time, for a long time and they seem to be saying, enough is enough.

 

This week, tribal leaders warned SNWA that a lawsuit is coming -- one that alleges the water authority has already violated the Federal Clean Water Act by contaminating a fragile spring area.

 

But this is just the first of many legal salvos aimed at stopping the proposed multi-billion dollar water grab in rural Nevada.

 

"Water is sacred to our people out here, and I don't think we would ever dream of selling our water to anybody," said Christene Steele of the Goshute Tribe.

 

Steele and the other 500 or so members of the Goshute Tribe aren't going to be asked to sell their water. They're pretty sure it will be taken, whether they like it or not, just as so much else has been taken from the tribe over the last 200 years.

 

About 100 Goshutes eke out a living on their only remaining chunk of land -- in a harsh and remote piece of desert straddling the Nevada-Utah state line.

 

Most are farmers or ranchers who've had to reach a delicate balance with nature to stay alive, especially regarding scarce water.

 

"Being very delicate out here in this arid region, it is best not to use a lot and to be cautious and conserve what you have," said Milton Hooper.

 

But the Goshute's see their future being taken out of their hands.

 

Last year, the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, along with other agencies, dropped their opposition to a proposed multi billion dollar water grab planned by Southern Nevada Water Authority.

 

The system of pumps and pipes will suck billions of gallons of groundwater out of rural valleys, including the land under the reservation.

 

BIA did not bother to consult with the tribe before withdrawing, and when the state engineer authorized SNWA to proceed with its water plans, the tribe was again excluded from the hearings because the state does not consider the Goshutes to be an interested party under the law.

 

Environmentalists and many scientists believe that taking huge amounts of water from under this parched land will drop the water table precipitously, and kill everything.

 

"What does that mean? The vegetation dies -- and not just in Snake Valley. If you look at the impact, we're looking at tens of thousands of square miles that are going to be affected. Once the vegetation of Nevada is gone, the animals are affected as well," said Launce Rake with the Progressive Leadership Alliance.

 

The tribe, along with Great Basin Water Network and Trout Unlimited, has informed SNWA that a federal lawsuit is coming in 60 days. The suit will allege water officials have already contaminated a once pristine fish breeding ground with callous disregard for the consequences.

 

Two counties in Utah have filed their own protests with Nevada because they were excluded from the process as well.

The Goshutes think that their lives will be sacrificed so that Las Vegas can continue to grow.

 

"When it's gone, it's gone, and we don't have nothing," said Clelle Pete with the Goshute Tribal Council.

 

"If that water was taken from us, there are people who have places to go. We don't have any place to run to. This is our land," said Steele.

 

As mentioned, this is the first of what could be many legal actions filed against the proposed pipeline.

 

Environmentalists allege that SNWA has sidestepped laws designed to prevent the kind of widespread damage that they allege would be inevitable if you take that much water out of an already-parched area.

 

SNWA has always denied there would be harsh consequences from the water grab, adding that the only way to know for sure is to start pumping.#

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=8814094

 

 

 

Computerized systems make irrigation easy, save precious water

The Modesto Bee- 8/9/08

By DONNA BIRCH

When Andrew Bolt designed and installed landscaping at his Modesto home, he also had workers put in an irrigation system that automatically waters the lawn, flowers, groundcover and bedding plants in the front and back yard gardens.

 

But instead of going to a timer control panel to punch in which days of the week he wants the garden watered -- along with the time of day it should be done and for how many minutes ---- Bolt heads to his trusty laptop computer.

 

With it, he logs onto a Web site, enters his account information and, with a few keystrokes, programs his irrigation system.

 

One of the perks of his system, manufactured by ET Water Systems, is that Bolt can change or modify his home's watering schedule from anywhere in the world, as long as he has Internet access. And if he doesn't make the adjustment himself, the system will do it for him.

 

So if Bolt and his family are out of town and an unexpected heat wave hits the Modesto area, he doesn't have to worry about coming home to a heat-ravaged garden.

 

Welcome to the world of "smart" water control systems.

 

Smart watering systems, also known as self-adjusting irrigation systems, combine horticultural science and Web technology to automate watering schedules.

 

Water gets applied to the landscape based on local weather conditions and specific factors such as plant and soil types, land slope, the amount of sun and shade the area receives, and sprinkler type, from drip irrigation to sprays.

 

The system determines how much water to use based on user-supplied information and data it receives from a nearby weather station. Weather stations monitor an area's climate and rainfall.

 

Traditional sprinkler timers require manual adjustments when the weather changes. For example, when the weather cools and the garden requires less water, the user must program the traditional timer to water on fewer days and for shorter periods.

 

Smart controller products such as the ones manufactured by ET Water "know" when it's raining outside and will automatically not dispense any water.

 

Dry times for state

Global climate changes, increasing water rates, community restrictions on water use and drought concerns are prompting more people to take a hard look at their consumption with an eye toward conservation.

 

In June, Gov. Schwarzenegger proclaimed a statewide drought after two years of below-average rainfall, low snowmelt runoff and the largest court-ordered restrictions on water transfers in state history.

 

State officials added that the drought outlook for 2009 could worsen if California experiences yet another dry winter.

 

Some communities and water utility companies already have implemented restrictions as a result. The East Bay Municipal Utility District, which serves parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, wants single-family residential homes to cut overall water use by 19 percent and irrigation use by 30 percent.

 

Officials in several Ventura County communities said that despite their pleas for residents to conserve water, usage has increased.

 

While city dwellers in Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties are not yet facing major water restrictions, officials are encouraging residents to practice water conservation.

 

According to information from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's WaterSense program and the Irrigation Association, landscape irrigation is the biggest source of household water consumption, accounting for as much as 50 percent.

 

Most people water their plants too much, said Bolt, a professionally trained landscape designer. In addition to being wasteful, it's not good for the plants.#

http://www.modbee.com/life/yourhome/story/386105.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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