Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 18, 2009
4. Water Quality –
Empire mobile home residents forced to boil water
Modesto Bee
Crews cleaning up oil sheen in San Francisco Bay
Ventura County Star
Fish kill strikes Lake Elsinore once again
North County Time
Scores of dead fish in Atwater canal prompt investigations
Merced Sun-Star
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Empire mobile home residents forced to boil water
Modesto Bee-8/18/09
By Patty Guerra
Boiling water before using it is a chore anytime; it's especially unappetizing in August in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
But residents of a mobile home park east of here are firing up their stoves after a water main break last week left the water system contaminated.
"Three lines burst open," said Rosemary Sofes, who has lived in the 177-space park near Geer and Jantzen roads since 1995. "A friend of mine went home, and at 1 o'clock in the morning the line burst in her house."
Residents of Pinewood Meadows Mobile Home Park have called the Stanislaus County Department of Environmental Resources about the problem, environmental health manager Denise Wood said Monday.
"They have an old distribution system," Wood said. "(The owners) have plans that have been submitted, reviewed and approved by this department to replace that system."
That project is waiting on funding through the federal government, Wood said, so in the meantime, workers are making a short-term fix. That should be complete Wednesday or Thursday.
Park managers sent residents a notice advising them to boil any tap water before using or drinking it.
Evans Management Group of Santa Cruz, which has run the park since 2006, has made bottled water available to residents at the park's clubhouse. The county doesn't require the park to do that, but Evans Management owner Greg Evans said, "Those are our customers. We realize it's a very warm summer."
Sofes was among about 70 residents who sued park owners in 2003, seeking improvements in the water, electrical and sewer systems. In 2006, they got a $1.6 million settlement. A lawsuit against previous owners in 1996 resulted in a $925,000 settlement.
Sofes said residents have formed a chapter of the Golden State Manufactured-Home Owners League and have considered filing another lawsuit over substandard conditions at Pinewood Meadows.
An environmental health inspector has been to the park and will oversee the repair project. Once the fix is made, Wood said, the county will test the water to make sure it's suitable for use.
Wood said the state contracts with her department to oversee small water systems similar to the one that serves Pinewood Meadows.
"When people are out of compliance we work with them to get them into compliance," she said.
That can involve enforcement letters and, in some cases, fines and citations.
But that hasn't been the case at Pinewood Meadows.
Wood said the park has been in compliance with state and county regulations.
"They're on the right track, yes, indeed."#
http://www.modbee.com/featured/story/820566.html
Crews cleaning up oil sheen in San Francisco Bay
Ventura County Star-8/17/09
Crews are cleaning up an oil sheen near a sunken tugboat in San Francisco Bay.
A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman says a 400-foot debris field and an oil sheen stretching several hundred yards was reported around noon Monday along the eastern side of Treasure Island, near the decommissioned tug USS Wenonah.
Coast Guard Lt. j.g. Jeremy Pichette says crews and pollution investigators responded with an absorbent boom and other cleanup materials.
After getting an initial report the decommissioned tug was sitting low in the water, Pichette says the vessel is now resting on the bottom with only her mast showing.
The Wenonah was decommissioned in April 1974 after 33 years in service with the U.S. Navy.#
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/aug/17/crews-cleaning-up-oil-sheen-in-san-francisco-bay/
Fish kill strikes Lake Elsinore once again
North County Times-8/17/09
By Michael J. Williams
One whiff of the breeze blowing across the lake Monday morning toward Lakeshore Drive told the story ---- another fish kill.
Between 10 million and 15 million threadfin shad minnows and a much smaller number of larger fish died over the weekend as a result of low oxygen levels in Lake Elsinore, officials said.
Many of them washed up on shore and work crews were busy removing the carcasses from shoreline along the northeast side of the lake where most of the public access areas are found.
"I've never seen anything like this anywhere," Colton resident Perry Jones said.
He was among nine anglers who braved the stench and ignored the strand of carcasses at the waterline at Whisker's Beach late Monday morning. Amid the myriad silvery shad bodies, a couple bloated carp carcasses lay near Jones' post.
He said the presence of other fishermen led him to try his luck, despite the distasteful conditions ---- the odor wasn't quite as bad by the water as it was up higher by the road.
"Well, some other guys are doing it," he said of his decision. "It does bother me a little bit, and I'm probably not going to stick around too much longer."
Redlands resident Lyndon Lau, who said he is a 20-year-veteran Lake Elsinore fisherman, accepted the situation stoically, noting the bass he was after probably were gorging themselves on the lifeless bait fish.
"This is not every year ---- just once every few years," he said of the die-off. "But I've never seen it like this."
The massive die-off occurred just three weeks after the first fish-kill in several years occurred in the lake. This episode, however, was exponentially larger than the one in late July, when an estimated 500,000 shad died along with 6,000 carp, bass and other larger species, according to officials' estimates.
"The causes are the same as far as we can tell," said spokesman Mark Norton of the Lake Elsinore and San Jacinto Watershed Authority, one of several agencies that oversee the lake. "We've consulted with Lake Elsinore experts and from what we can see, it continues to be the low oxygen level that is unfortunately hitting the shad and causing the die-off. It can be attributed to warmer temperatures, a lower lake level and a higher lake water temperature."
The lake's temperature now stands at a season high of about 80 degrees and the level has dropped to about 1,240 1/2 feet, officials said. That's nearly 2 1/2 feet below this year's peak, which was in March near the end of the rainy season.
Dissolved oxygen levels dipped to 1 to 2 milligrams per liter Saturday and Sunday, said Ron Young, general manager of the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, which infuses the lake with recycled water and operates an aeration system intended to buttress the oxygen supply.
Young said the shad, which are about 1 to 4 inches in length, are at risk at 2 milligrams per liter.
He said that in an attempt to improve the lake's state, the district doubled the aerating system's operations from an average of about four hours per day to eight hours. The system typically kicks on when underwater sensors detect that oxygen levels have fallen, usually in the late afternoon. The system has been operating at double its normal load since Saturday, Young said. That is contrary to some reports, including the assertion of a lakefront resident, that the plant on Lakeshore Drive had not been operating.
"We amped it up on Saturday and Sunday, and it wasn't enough, unfortunately," Young said of the system's inability to offset the fish kill.
He said the system has proved a great success, but its immediate effect is limited to a few hundred square feet in the 3,000-acre lake, the largest natural freshwater body in Southern California.
While the fish kill is a turn-off to visitors during a year in which officials and observers had touted the lake to be at its healthiest, Norton stressed that it may be Mother Nature's way of countering the overpopulation of shad, which has the detrimental effect of consuming the zooplankton that feed on algae.
"It's an unfortunate thing in a lot of ways, but nevertheless we're pleased that it's not the sport fish, but the threadfin shad that are dying off," he said. "I think overall, it's a natural process that is happening that we unfortunately have to deal with."#
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/lake-elsinore/article_570f8965-a1d9-54b2-8847-e35ddd737738.html
Scores of dead fish in Atwater canal prompt investigations
Merced Sun-Star-8/14/09
By Carol Reiter
Hundreds of dead fish that filled canals around the southwest rural area of Atwater on Thursday afternoon were probably killed by a lack of oxygen.
The fish, mostly carp and catfish, were found floating in a canal at Highway 140 and Bert Crane Road. A call to the agricultural commissioner's office sparked a state investigation.
The dead fish were in a canal fed by the Atwater wastewater treatment plant. Warden Andy Roberts of the California Department of Fish and Game said the fish probably died because of low flow in the canals.
"The water stopped flowing long enough that the water became hot and depleted of oxygen," Roberts said. The treatment plant is regulated so that it cannot release too much water into canals, but Roberts said there's no minimum that the plant has to release. Because the wastewater flows into many lateral canals, there are signs on the canals stating that the water has come from a treatment plant and people shouldn't swim in it or drink it.
The fish ranged in size from just a few inches up to almost two feet long. Smaller fish and crawdads didn't seem to be affected by the water problems.
Although Roberts believes, after a preliminary probe, that it was low oxygen, a complete investigation will be done on the water, soil and the dead fish.
Officials from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board in Fresno were also on the scene, but didn't want to comment because they hadn't started their investigation into the fish kill.
Roberts said other factors besides low oxygen and hot water could have killed the fish, although his preliminary investigation hadn't turned up anything.
"It could be pesticides or something from the wastewater treatment plant," Roberts said. He said he'd walked the agricultural fields around the canals, and there was no sign of any pesticide spraying.
A biologist from the agricultural commissioner's office was also on scene earlier in the day, documenting the fact that there were dead fish. If any pesticide poisoning is found, the ag commissioner's office will take over the investigation.
Roberts has been working in the Merced and Mariposa area for the past three years, and this was a first for him.
"I've never seen this before," he said. "Those fish could have been killed by anything."
Roberts also reminded people that they shouldn't eat any of the fish found near the canals unless they are caught alive and fresh. The dead fish will probably be cleaned up by scavengers such as birds, raccoons and coyotes, he said.#
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/220/story/1002117.html
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