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Rain, We NEED Rain!!!

California is getting some much needed rain in the lowlands and snow in the mountains. We need it badly. In fact, it would be very nice of mother nature to drop some snow onto the mountain snowpack everyday from now until May. That might help make up for our drought and fill our nearly empty reservoirs. Last I read, this has been one of the driest Januaries on record in California.  Most troubling is that the snowpack, our biggest reservoir, is below normal. An inadequate snowpack means less water for consumers come summer and fall.

In addition to a thin snowpack, California is entwined in a series of ecological and legal battles affecting our water supply. The most contentious are the battles over water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers Delta, affectionately and simply called “The Delta” by Central Californians. The Delta supplies water to irrigate more than 3 million acres of farmland and two-thirds of California residents. The Delta ecosystem is in distress due to a number of causes including from the pumps that extract huge volumes of water for use elsewhere in the state. Those pumps have been turned down in recent months after a recent string of legal wins for Delta environmental interests and, as a result, less water is now sent West to the San Francisco Bay Area and South to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and cities in Southern California.

Needless to say, water agencies are now scrambling to find alternative supplies and convince water consumers to use less. Come summer we are all likely to see large scale water rationing. That might include limits on what water can be used for (such as landscaping) and even no deliveries to some water users.

I expect (or should I say hope) that the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) also gives a serious look at what it considers a reasonable use of water. The California Constitution requires that water be used for beneficial and reasonable purposes. If not reasonable, a person’s water rights can be voided.

Consider, for example, the case of alfalfa a perrenial crop used as feed for cows and other grazing animals. Each acre of alfalfa requires 5 acre feet of water per year. An acre foot is the measurement used for large volumes of water. Each acre foot per year can support about 4 people in an urban setting.  Agriculture consumes 80% of water in California and alfalfa farming constitutes 15% of that amount. In other words, 12% of water consumed in California is used to grow alfalfa. The SWRCB should ask whether alfalfa farming during a drought is a reasonable use of water. I won’t make a decision without more information but think a formal review should at least be undertaken. Farmers who grow alfalfa argue that alfalfa is actually more efficient than other crops with comparisons such as: “303 pounds [of alfalfa], vs. 109 pounds for rice and 31 pounds for almonds, per inch of applied water.” The problem I have with that argument is they compare an item humans cannot consume to two other items we do. Scientific studies should determine the amount of human consumable food stuff, such as beef or milk, attributable to each pound of alfalfa and through that per inch of water. Without reliable scientific studies it sounds like growing alfalfa wastes water. To be fair, SWRCB also needs to look at urban landscaping (lawns mostly) which also consumes about 12% of water in California.

I wrote a paper last semester** on the precarious nature of one water agency’s water supply – Westlands Irrigation District. Westlands is the largest and one of the richest agricultural districts in the country but has a dirty little secret. Its soil drains poorly and contains high levels of salts and trace elements such as selenium and arsenic. If not drained properly (farmers want to drain their land into the Delta) then the land eventually becomes unusable and ground water too contaminated to use. In addition, the trace elements and salts are toxic to wildlife in high concentrations such as what is found in drainage water. Westlands is hardly alone in the Central Valley when it comes to poor drainage and salty soil. So the question is whether it is reasonable for the Central Valley Project (Federal reclamation project) to provide water to irrigate land with bad soil that drains poorly.
My conclusion:

“California is reaching the limit of its water supplies and will collectively need to readjust who gets water and for what purpose. By exploring the precarious nature of water availability to the largest water customer, Westlands Water District, of the largest federal reclamation project, I demonstrated just a few of the many ways access to water by a water user might be threatened by our changing times. In truth, Westlands is a proxy for any other water user, big or small.

In short, Westlands is likely to come out on the short end of the battle over Delta water. It has low priority and is subordinate to the established water rights of riparians, appropriators senior to the CVP, and exchange contractors. In times of shortage, which sound more likely with global warming, it will share the lesser amounts of water available on a pro-rata basis with other water service contractors. Furthermore, there is a chance the SWRCB finds the irrigation of salty soil with poor drainage to be an unreasonable use. Westlands can force the Bureau to create a drainage solution but any plan to complete the San Luis drain is likely to run into obstacles. And, if the Bureau has too hard a time building a drainage solution, it may back out of the contract through section 11(a) which spares it liability for decreasing water allocations. Regardless of whether the drain is ever built, environmental interest groups and government agencies tasked with protecting wildlife and keeping water clean will be watching for potential violations of laws such as FESA.”

** I should note that, although I did hand it in, I consider this paper a rough draft. It is not my best paper. I only have myself to blame as I wrote it in less than two days using the ream of research I compiled after finishing my tax paper.

BTW: Are you feeling smug because you’re in a Great Lake state where there is plenty of water? Don’t be. Not taking care of the resources you have might give parched Western states a way to void the recently signed Great Lakes compact. The compact can be improved and your water resources even more protected than they are. In fact, consider the damage you’re doing to your waterways by using salt on your roads during winter. The argument that you are likely to hear again in your lifetime is that “Look at those Great Lakes folks with too much water. They just want to hoard the water and keep it to themselves. But look at them, they don’t manage or use the water properly and let it go to waste. We can do better.”

The Arid West

This quote puts into perspective the current drought and battles over the Sacramento-San Joaquin Rivers Delta ecosystem for city/ag water use.

The consequences of aridity multiply by a kind of domino effect. In the attempt to compensate for nature’s lacks we have remade whole sections of the western landscape. The modern West is as surely Lake Mead and Lake Powell and the Fort Peck reservoir, the irrigated greenery of the Salt River Valley and the smog blanket over Phoenix, as it is the high Wind River Range or the Wasatch or the Grand Canyon. We have acted upon the western landscape with the force of a geological agent. But aridity still calls the tune, directs our tinkering, prevents the healing of our mistakes; and vast unwatered reaches still emphasize the contrast between the desert and the sown.

Wallace Stegner, Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs, page 47.

The quote came up while researching my water law paper.


IMG_5384A river dammed – American River in Sacramento.

Return of the Salmon (?)

I’m saddened by what we’ve done to our environment. There must be a way for us to live well without completely destroying the ecosystem in the process. I read the following while researching for a water law paper.

From: Natural Resources Defense Council v. Patterson, 333 F.Supp.2d 906 (E.D. Cal 2004)

I. Undisputed Facts

A. THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER BEFORE FRIANT DAM

The San Joaquin River is the main artery of California’s second largest river system. The river originates high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, on mountain peaks southeast of Yosemite National Park, and then tumbles westward out of the mountains and into the trough of the Central Valley. Near the city of Mendota, the River turns abruptly north for the final stretch of its several hundred mile journey, picking up the Merced, Tuolumne, Stanislaus, Mokelumne, Calaveras, and Cosumnes Rivers as major tributaries on the way. It finally merges with the Sacramento River to form the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary.
Historically, the San Joaquin River supported substantial populations of Chinook salmon, including both a fall and a spring run (Decl. of Peter Moyle, Exh. F, at 16). Chinook are distinguishable from other species of Pacific salmon by their large size and unique markings. They are an anadromous species, which means that they emerge and rear in freshwater tributaries, migrate to the ocean as juveniles, and return to their natal waters to spawn two to four years later. The San Joaquin River’s adult spring-run Chinook historically returned to the River mostly during the months of March through June, and spent the summer holding in deep pools above and below the existing location of Friant Dam. Spring-run would then spawn in the early fall, and their offspring would migrate out to the sea the following year, generally from January to March. Historically, the adult fall-run Chinook returned to the river mostly between September and December, and spawned soon thereafter. Fall-run juveniles would emerge in late winter and migrate out to the sea primarily in the months of March through May.
Salmon on the San Joaquin River were abundant prior to the closure of Friant Dam (Moyle Decl., ¶ 1; Decl. of Amy Macaux, Exh. F, at 16). The river’s spring run was one of the largest Chinook runs anywhere on the Pacific Coast and has been estimated at several hundred thousand fish (Moyle Decl., ¶ 20; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 9; Macaux Decl., Exh. F, at 8). The historical fall run is conservatively estimated to have numbered 50,000 to 100,000 fish. So many salmon migrated up the San Joaquin River during the spawning season that some people who lived near the present site of Friant Dam compared the noise to a waterfall. Some residents even said that they were kept awake nights by the myriad salmon heard nightly splashing over the sand bars in the River. One observer reported that salmon were so plentiful that ranchers trapped the fish and fed them to hogs. A fisherman who lived downstream recalls that, in the 1940s, the salmon were still â??so thick that we could have pitch-forked them. One almost could have walked across the River on the backs of the salmon when they were running.â? (Decl. of John Banks, ¶ 5).
The upper San Joaquin River contained Chinook habitat both above and below the location of Friant Dam, including some of the best spring-run habitat anywhere in California. This included a mixture of deep pools for holding and gravelly riffles for spawning, over which cold water ran. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 19). Much of that habitat still survives in the River below Friant Dam. ( Id.) Other anadromous fish, including Pacific lamprey and steelhead, once lived on the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam as well. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 22; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 1,9; Wall Decl., Exh. B., at 29-32). Collections of fish made in the vicinity of Friant in 1898 and 1934 indicate that the River supported diverse native fish that included rainbow trout, splittail, hitch, hardhead, and Kern brook lamprey, all species of conservation interest today. The river’s flow into the Delta also helped support that important ecosystem’s water quality and habitat. In 1999, the National Marine Fisheries Service designated the San Joaquin River between Friant Dam and the Merced as â??essential fish habitatâ? for Chinook salmon, pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1801-83 (Decl. of Michael E. Wall, Exh. A; RJN, Exh. A).

B. THE BUILDING OF FRIANT DAM

The Bureau built Friant Dam across the upper San Joaquin River, northwest of Fresno, in the early 1940s as part of the Central Valley Project. Construction began in 1939 and was largely completed by the mid-1940′s. The Dam stores the river’s flow in Millerton Lake, the reservoir behind the Dam, and diverts water for irrigation and other purposes into two canals. The first of these, the Madera Canal, was completed in 1945. The second, the Friant-Kern Canal, began delivering water by 1949. Since that time, the Bureau has operated Friant Dam to maximize the quantity of water diverted to its Friant Division contractors, including the non-federal defendants.
Friant Dam blocked upstream access to a portion of the San Joaquin River’s spawning habitat for salmon and steelhead; however, it was not the construction of the Dam that terminated the salmon runs. For several years after Friant Dam was in place, the Bureau released sufficient water to sustain the salmon fishery. Chinook salmon are a remarkably resilient species, and although Friant Dam blocked passage to upstream habitat, during the first years after the Dam was built, spring-run Chinook successfully held in pools below Friant Dam during the summer months, adults successfully spawned in habitat below the Dam, and juveniles continued to migrate downstream. In one of these years, 1945, an estimated 56,000 spring-run returned to spawn below Friant Dam. While the upper San Joaquin’s salmon runs were not as strong as they once were, Professor G.H. Clark, of Stanford University, reported that the fish themselves were â??in excellent shapeâ? in 1942 (Decl. of Adam Wolf, Exh. F).
By the late 1940s, however, the Bureau’s operation of Friant Dam had caused long stretches of the River to dry up. (Macaux Decl., Exh. F, at 18). In the spring of 1948, the California Division of Fish and Game responded with a dramatic fish rescue in an attempt to save the River’s spring-run Chinook salmon. About 2,000 up-migrating Chinook were trapped in the lower portion of the River, hauled by truck around the dewatered stretch of the River, and released at a point from which they could migrate upstream to deep pools just below Friant Dam. These salmon were able to hold over the summer in these pools, and to spawn successfully below Friant Dam in the fall, but their offspring perished in early 1949 when they attempted to out-migrate through the dried-up River bed.
With the completion of the Friant-Kern Canal, the Bureau in 1949 further increased diversions, leaving even less water for the San Joaquin River. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Macaux Decl., Exh. J, at 6). The last of the upper San Joaquin River’s fall-run Chinook salmon were reported in a pool below Mendota Dam in 1949. (Loudermilk Decl., Exh. K). Spring-run Chinook salmon disappeared from the San Joaquin River after unsuccessful salmon rescue attempts in 1949 and 1950. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 39; Macaux Decl., Exh. F., at 18; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 9). For most of the last 50 years, the Bureau has diverted virtually all of the River’s flows. (Macaux Decl., Exh. J, at 6; Macaux Decl., Exh. K, at 3; Moyle Decl., ¶¶ 22-28, 31; Loudermilk Decl., ¶ 2). While salmon continued to return and spawn until 1949, after that, â??the San Joaquin chinook was extirpated in its southernmost range.â? (Macaux Decl., Ex F, at 18).
Some sixty miles of the River upstream of its confluence with the Merced now lie continuously dry, except during rare flood events. (Macaux Decl., Exh. E, at 7; Macaux Decl., Exh. K, at 3; Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 43; Loudermilk Decl., ¶ 2). The spring-run Chinook-once the most abundant race of salmon in the Central Valley-appear to have been extirpated from the length of the River. (Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 36, 42, 48; Macaux Decl., Exh. H, at 9). Small populations survive only in the Sacramento River system. (Moyle Decl., ¶ ¶ 26, 29). The fall-run Chinook, too, were eliminated from the upper San Joaquin River, although reduced populations of fall-run Chinook survive on downstream tributaries, principally the Merced, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus Rivers. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 27; Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 36, 42, 48; Macaux Decl., Exh J at 6). In the words of the Department of the Interior, Friant Dam’s operations have been a â??disasterâ? for Chinook salmon. United States Dep’t of the Interior, The Relationship Between Instream Flow, Adult Immigration, and Spawning Habitat Availability for Fall-Run Chinook Salmon in the Upper San Joaquin River, California at 6 (Sept.1994) (Macaux Decl., Exh. J).
Despite the upper San Joaquin River’s degraded habitat and long stretches of normally dry river bed, salmon and Pacific lamprey have returned to the upper San Joaquin River in wet years, even after Friant Dam began full storage and diversion operations. Part of Chinook salmon’s natural behavior includes establishing or re-establishing themselves in new streams and rivers by â??strayingâ? from their natal waters. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 33). In some years, salmon have made it to the base of Friant Dam. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 33; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 10). Adequate flows of water have not been released from Friant Dam for these up-migrating salmon to spawn, however, or for their offspring to migrate back to the sea. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 33; Loudermilk Decl., ¶ 2; Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 29, 35-36).
The Bureau’s operation of Friant Dam has also contributed significantly to declines in other native fish throughout the San Joaquin River system. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 22, 31; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 1-2; Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 42-43). Following the construction of Friant Dam, ten of the sixteen species of native fish disappeared from the area. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 22; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 1-2). They were replaced, in the reaches where enough water for any fish still exists, primarily by a variety of non-native fishes. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 22; Macaux Decl., Exh. E, at 6-7).
Waters from the upper San Joaquin had been critical to providing habitat for fish species many miles below the Dam. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 1). San Joaquin River flows are needed to help attract adult salmon to their spawning grounds, to provide habitat for young and juvenile salmon, to move juvenile salmon downstream in the spring through the lower San Joaquin River, and to provide sufficient dilution of toxic and saline drainage to maintain a minimum level of water quality. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Macaux Decl., Exh. E, at 10). Failure to release water from Friant Dam has rendered many miles of fish habitat unusable, especially in the stretch between the Dam and the river’s confluence with the Merced, and has also adversely affected water quality along the whole course of the river. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 1, 2; Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 44, 46). Today, the first several miles of the San Joaquin River deep water ship channel, near Stockton, experience dissolved oxygen levels that are so low during summer and fall months that they do not meet the state water quality objective. (Wall Decl., Exh. C, at 1). Low dissolved oxygen in these reaches poses a danger to fish generally, and a migration barrier to anadromous fish, including salmon in particular. Id.
Reduced flows in the San Joaquin below Friant Dam have diminished the area available for fish, increased the temperature of the water that is available, reduced the ability of the river to assimilate agricultural runoff and other pollutants, and substantially degraded riparian vegetation. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Wall Decl., Exh. B, at 46; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 6). Native fishes such as hitch, splittail, tule perch, and pikeminnow, have largely disappeared from the River and have been replaced by exotic fishes tolerant of warm polluted water. PSUF 66. The present warm-water fishery that exists on portions of the San Joaquin River between Mendota Pool and the San Joaquin’s confluence with the Merced River is small and erratic. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 32). Many of the fish in this reach are contaminated with pesticides and other agricultural contaminants. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Wall Decl., Exh. B., at 35). From Mendota Pool to Sack Dam, the river is basically used to convey irrigation water, and from Sack Dam to the river’s confluence with the Merced River, the river is dewatered for forty miles until agricultural drain water provides a small flow that is a *912 highly degraded environment for fish. (Moyle Decl., ¶ 31; Macaux Decl., Exh. G, at 6). Surveys by the U.S. Geological Survey indicate that the fish in this polluted section of the river are almost entirely pollution-tolerant non-native fishes, such as common carp, red shiners, bluegill, and mosquito fish (Macaux Decl., ¶ 32). The native fish have largely disappeared.

Perhaps we can see the salmon return one day. Congress may help that happen during the next session when it votes on whether to support a court settlement that would return some flows to the river (see: Senate puts [San Joaquin] river restoration plan on hold, Modesto Bee, November 18, 2008). If not, I’d like to see the public trust doctrine invoked by the State of California to require the Bureau of Reclamation to restore some river flows as part of its license to appropriate water. In addition, we should use our ingenuity to look to find alternative solutions to our water needs, whether it be water recycling like Singapore, desalination, or a mix of those and other solutions not yet created.

Cougars invading the MidWest?

It sounds like MidWestern states will need to create policies regarding cougars and confront a new reality in which the big cats will return.

Cougar killed on North Side may have wandered from Black Hills — chicagotribune.com

The voyage may sound improbable, but wildlife officials say that a DNA test should reveal whether a cougar killed Monday in Chicago took a 1,000-mile trip from the Black Hills of South Dakota through Wisconsin before being shot by police in the Roscoe Village neighborhood.

…

Clay Nielsen, wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and director of scientific research with The Cougar Network, said that more cougars are wandering out of high cougar population areas like South Dakota into Midwestern areas that have not seen them for hundreds of years.

When I was a kid, it seemed the TV news shows would broadcast a story about the elusive Michigan panther once every few months. It has such legendary status that the local USFL (football) franchise was named the Michigan Panthers in the early 1980s.

If you wade through links in search engines regarding the USFL team, you’ll get gems that provide conspiracy theories about why Michigan DNR refuses to investigate or acknowledge Michigan’s panther population. The DNR responds on its web site.

The true test will come when, and if, a female cougar makes the trek and establishes a line further from the current breeding community in the Dakotas.

Cheap, Green Drain Cleaner

Our shower was completely clogged two weeks ago. It didn’t even drain after a full day sitting there. Nasty!

But I was too lazy to go to the store. So I went online and searched for an alternative drain cleaner. The recipe I found was:

  • 1/2 cup baking soda
  • 1/2 cup white vinegar
  • hot water

So I boiled a small sauce pan of water (4-6 cups). I then scooped up the baking soda out of the bag we have and poured it over the drain to get as much of it as possible to float down into the drain to the clog. I then poured in the vinegar over the same spot. It immediately fizzled, bubbled, and showed its effervescence. I waited two or three minutes to let the bubbles do their work. Then in went the boiled water, still piping hot, down the drain.

Nothing.

So I started to repeat the steps. By the time I put more water on the stove to boil and walked back to the bathroom, the drain had cleared. A few weeks later and the drain is still clean as can be.

So I now have a green drain cleaner that won’t eat the pipes or kill the kids and fish. I highly, highly recommend that you also try this drain cleaner. It works well and the ingredients are probably already in your home, as they were in mine. Cheap, too!