desal plant in imperial?

according to imperial valley press online:

The City Council here [in the city of Brawley] has decided to continue its public/private partnership in a deal to build a $1.5 billion desalination plant along the Colorado River Aqueduct that could mean millions in revenue to the city.

apparently, the plant would desalinate brackish colorado river water. now they need mwd approval...

For the plant to be built, Brawley FERC needs to have support from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, a water organization made up of 26 member agencies, which will purchase water from the plant....

MWD would face about $2.8 billion in operation costs for the plant over 30 years, if MWD agrees to receive water from the plant.

around $100 million per year! the article doesn't even mention how much water met would get ... it would have to be alot, i think, to justify those funds. further benefits of the plant:

As a side benefit, a waste stream from the desalination plant would flow into the Salton Sea, providing more water for the sea at a time when the level of water in the sea is key to its salvation.

apparently, the city of brawley would benefit due to the excess power produced at the plant...

The plan also would include power facilities and that is where Brawley, according to Clinton, would earn a share of the revenues. The agreement between Brawley FERC and the city of Brawley calls for the city to receive 60 percent of the revenue from the power facilities. That, Clinton, said could mean as much as $2 million in revenue.

i wonder if desalination plants will be the new dams... just thrown up everywhere, because someone can make money, someone else [may] need more water soon, and because that's what we do...

possible aquifer recharge project in the oc

from the monterey county herald

Monterey Peninsula water board directors heard updates Monday night on a number of ongoing projects bent on solving the county's water needs, including two competing desalination projects and an ambitious project that would turn recycled wastewater into safe drinking water.

While the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District board took no action, their most positive feedback was to the presentation by the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control District, which is examining an Orange County project that injects highly treated wastewater into the groundwater aquifer for later extraction for drinking water.

new california ocean council

from san jose's mercury news:

Southern California rainstorms this year pushed water from paved parking lots and storm sewers 20 miles out to sea, said Celeste Cantu, executive director of the State Water Resources Control Board.

that is nothing new, of course. what's new is the idea of trying to consolidate government power in a way that has a possibility of actually making a difference in how quickly we wreck our coastline:

Although it has some of the nation's toughest environmental laws, coordination of California's ocean policies are scattered among so many state agencies that management is difficult or impossible, said members of a new Ocean Protection Council, which held its inaugural meeting Monday.

The council, aiming to better protect California's fabled 1,100-mile coastline and vast reaches of Pacific Ocean, will confront not only bureaucracy, but growing threats of 36 million residents and millions of tourists to the state's world-renowned geography.

i heard a talk at the ucla law school a few months ago, in which it was pointed out 1) that the nature of environmental problems makes a holistic approach the only reasonable way to address them, and 2) that it is essentially impossible to address environmental problems in a holistic way, given the complex system of checks and balances in this country. those are good, the speaker made sure to affirm, but they do make environmental legislation prickly. nevertheless:

The five-member council, widely believed to be the first among coastal states nationally, stems from recommendations made in two national ocean commission reports last year. With expected influence over more than $40 million in state funds initially and hopes of winning matching funds from private foundations, the council's mission is to coordinate state policies toward overfishing, water pollution and growing urban coastal development.

i'm very interested to see where this leads... how will we deal with environmental issues in the future?

death valley blooms

from news-leader:

A rare burst of color is softening the stark landscape of Death Valley, with clusters of purple, pink and white wildflowers dotting the black basalt mountainsides and great swaths of golden blooms bordering the blinding white salt flats on the valley floor.

The winter storms that brought mudslides and death to Southern California dropped 6 inches of rain on this thirsty desert — three times more than usual — encouraging wildflower seeds to sprout. Experts say this kind of show comes once in a lifetime.

anyone up for a road trip??

salt is destroying ca farmland...

from today's contracosta times:

When Miguel Gonzalez looks out over the flat, barren field that seems to stretch from his front door to the distant Sierra Nevada, he sees 38 years of "eating dirt, night and day, behind a tractor."

The hard work provided him with one in a row of tidy cream-colored houses on the farm near Mendota where Gonzalez, his wife, Maria, and other families have lived for decades. But now they have to leave. The land is useless for farming, poisoned by years of irrigation with salty water pumped in from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, more than 100 miles away.

"It's the water here. It's bad, salty," said Sixto Rodriguez, who like Gonzalez, has until August to uproot his family and find a new job. Reyes Rodriguez, Sixto's nephew, also is being forced out.

On the west side of California's wide and thirsty Central Valley, salt damage is inexorably taking tens of thousands of acres out of production.

the fact is, that the same irrigation that has made the central valley bloom into a multi-billion dollar industry is slowly destroying the farmland it helped create. so what to do now?

Some see this as an opportunity to free up the water for other uses. Instead, irrigation districts are quietly renegotiating contracts with the federal government that lock in -- for at least 25 more years -- control over the same amount of subsidized water they've received for 40 years.

the taxpayers, of course, subsidize the water that is given to the farmers for almost nothing. the water was originally provided in order to bring small farmers to the state. some are upset, then, that farmers will now leave the land fallow and turn around and sell taxpayer's water at a profit.

"It's pretty clear: If you're farming less land, you need less water," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, who has tried to reform the Central Valley Project. "The Bush administration is giving these water districts the same amount of cheap water they've been getting for decades. These agribusinesses get to turn around and sell the extra water and make a big profit that really belongs to the taxpayers who own the water."

very interesting. makes me want to make a sign and start protesting!

a nice overview

this article from voice of america is a nice overview of the last hundred years or so of fighting over water in the western united states.

the article begins with the obligatory recognition that southern california is a desert and the often-quoted mark twain quip:

Much of the region is desert, and the scarcity of water has always caused tensions here. The American writer Mark Twain once remarked, "Whisky is for drinking. Water is for fighting over." The West has done its share of both.

there is a nice quote from james mcdaniel, deputy assistant general manager and director of water quality and operations for the ladwp:

James McDaniel oversees the water system for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. "We like to say that if we depend on our local supplies, eight out of every 10 of us would have to move out of the area because that's how little local supplies there are," he says.

rain record may fall

average rainfall in los angeles, ca is reported to be a bit less than 13". this year, los angeles has received over 34" of rain. in fact, according to the la times, the 34.51" of rainfall as of Thursday night is a few inches short of the wettest year on record; during the 1883-84 year, 34.84" were recorded. according to the story, the record may yet be broken this year.

The National Weather Service said a subtropical Pacific storm should move onshore [Friday] afternoon, dropping about an inch of rain on the city and up to three times that much in the hills and mountains before showers taper off late Saturday or early Sunday. Another storm could bring more rain Monday night and Tuesday.

has all the rain made a difference in the drought conditions that have persisted for several years?

another times article claims that la consumers may see a cut in rates:

The record rainfall boosted Los Angeles' water supply so much that the city plans to reduce customers' water bills by 9%, but many other parts of Southern California aren't likely to see similar rate cuts.

water storage plan in santa rosa

from an editorial that appeared in the opinion column of the press democrat:

Every drop of recycled water used to irrigate lawns means one drop of fresh water is saved for more important purposes, like drinking and providing habitat for endangered fish.
For this reason, at its meeting today, the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities should move ahead on a plan for three new wastewater storage reservoirs.
The reservoirs would be located off Petaluma Hill Road on land owned by a developer, who would partner with the board and the city of Rohnert Park to build and operate the reservoirs. The water would irrigate the yards of 1,610 new homes that the developer plans to build by 2015, and could also be used at parks, schools and other planned developments.

remote sensing to detect coastal pollution

from physorg:

"Clean beaches and coastal waters are integral to Southern California's economy and lifestyle," said Dr. Paul DiGiacomo, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. He is lead author of the study recently published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. "Using Southern California as a model system, we've shown existing high-resolution space-based radar systems can be used to effectively detect and assess marine pollution hazards. This is an invaluable tool for water quality managers to better protect public health and coastal resources," he said.

apparently, the european and candian satellites used in the study can be used to help decide when water is safe to be in:

"During late fall to early spring, storms contribute more than 95 percent of the region's annual runoff volume and pollutant load," said JPL co-author Ben Holt. "Californians are accustomed to warnings to stay out of the ocean during and after storms. Even small storms can impact water quality. Radar data can be especially useful for monitoring this episodic seasonal runoff," he said.

new dams?

from the fresno bee:

The federal government is promising 43% more water for California farmers in new irrigation contracts, meaning new dams would have to be built in the next two decades, a new environmental report warns.

Farmers in the Central Valley Project would receive 1.5 million acre-feet of additional water in 25-year federal agreements now being completed, the report says. The Environmental Working Group in Oakland is releasing the report today.

the feds don't quite agree with this idea, however...

Federal and farm officials called the report absurd. The new contract allotments are the same as previous contracts — no additional water is being offered, officials said.