Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 25, 2009
4. Water Quality –
State should aid clean water push
Sacramento Bee
Water problem at Kern Valley State Prison is fixed
Bakersfield Californian
City ready to go forward with groundwater project
Desert Dispatch
Research finds higher acidity in Alaska waters
San Diego Union-Tribune
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State should aid clean water push
Sacramento Bee-8/24/09
Editorial
In Galt and South Lake Tahoe, residents are drinking arsenic with their tap water. Traces of the naturally occurring toxic chemical have leached from old mines, rocks and orchards into groundwater, reaching levels that violate state and federal safety standards.
In dozens of tiny towns that dot the Central Valley, residents regularly sip dangerous levels of nitrates with their water. The chemical comes from fertilizers or fecal matter that washes into the soil from broken septic tanks, or from the tons of manure that flow from dairies.
Drinking water in many of these areas is also contaminated with the cancer- causing DBCP. A pesticide that also causes sterility, DBCP was banned in 1977 but persists in groundwater.
When tests show their wells are contaminated, water agencies regularly warn their customers to drink bottled water instead. But that can be expensive, particularly for residents of tiny rural districts, many of whom are impoverished farmworkers.
Once groundwater supplies are contaminated, small water districts rarely have the resources to put in new wells or provide the treatment necessary to bring their water up to safe standards.
As The Bee's Susan Ferriss reported last week, the state has been less than diligent in helping districts address what is a serious health hazard in too many communities.
Frustrated activists in the Central Valley are pushing legislation that would declare clean drinking water a human right. Assembly Bill 1242 by Ira Ruskin, D-Los Altos, specifically establishes a human right to clean, affordable and accessible water.
The bill, which has passed the Assembly and is pending in the Senate, seeks to clarify existing state law that has long given priority to domestic water users.
Proponents hope it gives health officials greater incentive and authority to address the problem of contamination.
But the bill does not appropriate any money to make sure that people get the clean water they need, and that's the real barrier here. Though state voters have passed bond measures that provide $230 million for water cleanup, and the federal government provides tens of millions more, a 2007 study estimated that it will cost $39 billion and take 20 years to bring drinking water in California up to federal health standards.
But not every remedy needs new money.
The state is not using all the resources now at its disposal to protect public health. A simple example contained in The Bee story is illustrative. Last year, the tiny Tulare community of Alpaugh was barred from obtaining a state grant to build an arsenic treatment system because of a temporary freeze placed on such grants.
But when the freeze was lifted in April, no one from the state bothered to inform officials at Alpaugh.
More also needs to be done to address the source of pollution.
Tulare is home to more dairies than any other county in the world, a major reason nitrate contamination of groundwater is so pervasive there.
The state has the power to force dairies to control waste from their operations. The dangerously elevated levels of nitrate in groundwater suggest that's not being done.
Whether or not California declares that the delivery of clean water is a right rather than simply a public service, the state can and should be doing more to see that all its residents have access to the water they need to sustain their lives.#
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2133347.html
Water problem at Kern Valley State Prison is fixed
Bakersfield Californian-8/24/09
About 4,700 inmates at Kern Valley State Prison near Delano drank bottled water over the weekend because of a test at one of the prison's well showed the water was contaminated, officials said Monday.
A test showed elevated levels of ecoli, spokesman Lt. Xavier Cano said. A new test on Monday morning showed the water was within safety limits and normal water delivery was restored, he said.
Inmates were allowed to have as much water as they needed, he said.#
http://people.bakersfield.com/home/Blog/BreakingNewsTeam/48755
City ready to go forward with groundwater project
Desert Dispatch-8/21/09
By Jessica Cejnar
The city is ready to move forward with its project to clean up the nitrate-laden groundwater in the Soap Mine Road neighborhood, according to Wastewater Project Manager Mark Murphy.
The Barstow City Council approved an easement agreement between Pacific Holt Corporation and the city for the construction of a pipeline on 492 feet of property owned by the corporation.
The City Council voted 4-0-1 in favor of the agreement at a special meeting Thursday. Councilmember Timothy Silva was absent.
The Council’s approval of the agreement between Barstow and Pacific Holt, a Merced-based developer which plans to build a 300-unit housing development on 150 acres of land, will allow the city to complete construction of the pipeline, Murphy said at the meeting.
The pipeline will take the groundwater from the Soap Mine Road area across the river to a treatment facility situated within the wastewater reclamation plant, he said.
Murphy told the Council the entire pipeline and the treatment system will probably be installed and running by the end of September. The city will pay Pacific Holt $492, or $1 per foot, for allowing the pipeline on its property, according to Murphy.
By Nov. 30, the city has to deliver a plan to clean up the nitrate-laden groundwater in the Soap Mine Road area to the Lahontan Regional Water Board.
“Our pilot project will cover three months worth of data gathering,” Murphy said. “Once we have the project data gathered and analyzed we go into final remediation.”
Murphy said once the plan is finalized, the cleanup could take as long as 30 years, but it may be less.
The Council’s decision comes after Tom Nevis, whose wife Saundra Nevis heads Pacific Holt, threatened to sue the city. At an informal meeting June 16, Nevis told City Manager Richard Rowe he was going to sue the city because he was unable to develop the property. No lawsuit has been filed, Rowe said after Thursday’s meeting.
One of the reasons Pacific Holt, which bought the property in 2006, was willing to give the city the easement is because it hadn’t provided for any wastewater treatment for its proposed housing development yet, Rowe said. The corporation approached the city and asked if it could share the existing sewer pipeline that runs under the riverbed, he said.
Rowe said if Pacific Holt can demonstrate that two pipes can be used to accommodate the city’s groundwater remediation project and serve the corporation’s wastewater needs, city staff wouldn’t have a problem bringing that recommendation back to the City Council.
According to City Spokesman John Rader, Pacific Holt has to present an environmental impact report to the city before it can move forward with construction. Attempts to reach Pacific Holt for comment Friday were unsuccessful.#
http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/ready-6747-barstow-city.html
Research finds higher acidity in Alaska waters
San Diego Union-Tribune-8/24/09
By Dan Joling (Associated Press)
Erosion threatens to topple coastal Alaska villages. Melting ice threatens polar bears. Now, a marine scientist says the state's marine waters are turning acidic from absorbing greenhouse gases faster than tropical waters, potentially endangering Alaska's $4.6 billion fishing industry.
The same things that make Alaska's marine waters among the most productive in the world – cold, shallow depths and abundant marine life – make them the most vulnerable to acidification, said Jeremy Mathis, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
"Ecosystems in Alaska are going to take a hit from ocean acidification," he said. "Right now, we don't know how they are going to respond."
Alaska has already seen more than its share of global warming effects: shrinking glaciers, coastal erosion, the march north of destructive forest beetles formerly held in check by cold winters, melting Arctic Ocean ice that also threatens walrus and other marine mammals.
Ocean acidification, the lowering of basicity and the increase in acidity of marine waters, is tied to increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
Oceans absorb 22 million tons of carbon dioxide from human activities per day, removing 30 percent emitted to the atmosphere each year and mitigating the harmful impact of greenhouse gas, according to the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.
When carbon dioxide dissolves in sea water, it forms carbonic acid. That decreases the amount of calcium carbonate, used by marine creatures to construct shells or skeletons.
Mathis last spring collected water in the Gulf of Alaska and found samples to be more acidic than expected – and higher than in tropical waters. The results matched his findings in the Chukchi and Bering seas off Alaska's west and northwest coast. Cold water absorbs and holds more gas than warm water, Mathis said.
His research in the Gulf of Alaska uncovered multiple sites where concentrations of shell-building minerals were so low, that shellfish, including crab, and other organisms would be unable to build strong shells.
"We're not saying that crab shells are going to start dissolving, but these organisms have adapted their physiology to a certain range of acidity," Mathis said. "Early results have shown that when some species of crabs and fish are exposed to more acidic water, certain stress hormones increase and their metabolism slows down.
"If they are spending energy responding to acidity changes, then that energy is diverted away from growth, foraging and reproduction."
Acidification could affect the tiny pteropod, also known as a sea butterfly or swimming sea snail. It is at the base of the food chain and makes up nearly half of the diet of pink salmon. A 10 percent decrease in pteropods could mean a 20 percent decrease in an adult salmon's body weight.
"This is a case where we see ocean acidification having an indirect effect on a commercially viable species by reducing its food supply," Mathis said.
The shallow waters of Alaska's broad continental shelves also retain more carbon dioxide because there is less mixing from deeper ocean waters.
Another contributor is the rich biological life of Alaska waters, from tiny plankton to humpback whales. All use oxygen and emit CO2. Mathis and other scientists call it the "biological pump." Phytoplankton, like other plant life, absorbs CO2 and gives off oxygen, but when it dies and sinks in the shallow Alaska waters, decomposes and adds carbon to the water column.
Mathis has been warning fisheries managers around the state of ocean acidification. He has been hearing back of salmon returns with fewer, smaller fish reaching streams.
"We can't correlate that yet to ocean acidification or any climate process," he said. "We cannot make those connections yet but there's indications in the ecosystem that the ecosystems are stressed."
He said there should be a twofold course of action: increasing studies and observation of the effects of ocean acidification, and reducing carbon emissions.
A future study will look at the physiological impact of acidification on one of Alaska's money fish, pollock. A graduate student will rear pollock from hatch and study them in the larval and juvenile stages under different acidified conditions, looking for decreases in body mass, increases in stress hormones and other physiological indicators.
Pollock is the largest U.S. fishery by volume. Annual catches average 2.5 billion pounds and provide raw material for fish sticks and fast food fish sandwiches. Ocean acidification could be a blow to commercial fishing, which accounts for 50 percent of U.S. seafood production.
The Center for Biological Diversity, citing Mathis' findings, renewed its call for Alaska to declare its waters impaired under the Clean Water Act. The state last year rejected the group's first request for the declaration.
The commercial fishing industry is concerned, said Dave Benton, director of the Marine Conservation Alliance, a trade group representing fishing interests from rural Alaska village associations to factory trawlers, and about 70 percent of the production of North Pacific fisheries.
"It's a real problem," Benton said. "The science is pointing in a bad direction. We don't know how far it may go, we don't now how fast it may progress or anything."#
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/24/us-acid-oceans-alaska-082409/
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