Water News Roundup & Moratorium Edition

I am very sad to say this will be my last Water News in Utah update for a while.  I have been offered a job that likely won’t allow me to keep posting in a substantial way. I will leave the site up in the meantime however, since it has become a handy reference and news story archive. I hope you’ve enjoyed the water news round-up over the past year. I know I have, and I’ll be back if I can swing it. Thanks again for devoting time and energy to stay informed.

Salt Lake Tribune: Oil shale problems – In “Oil and water” (Forum, Aug. 14), Bill Johnson, Utah’s “community representative” for the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Strategic Unconventional Fuels, promotes oil shale development and says that there is enough water to uphold this industry because one study estimates that only about 1.7 barrels of water are needed to produce a barrel of shale oil.

Living history: Utah Lake carp provided food for the needy – Utah Lake was once a fabulous, rich fishery. George Washington Bean, a settler in Utah Valley, wrote that Ute tribes gathered at the lake “on account of the wonderful supply of fish moving up the stream from the Lake to their spawning grounds each spring.

KSL: Feds give $100,000 to help save June sucker in Utah Lake – The Federal Government has given the Central Utah Water Conservancy District $100,000 to rid Utah Lake of non-native fish.

St. George Spectrum: Water rate structure questioned – Water resources and the systems that make use of them shape the way a community develops and thrives, but Cedar City resident Doug Hall believes unless a new water rate structure is instituted by Cedar City Corporation, Festival City USA will no longer have cause for celebration.

The St. George Spectrum online edition requires a login.  I find it interesting that one of Cedar City’s water rate critics cites Washington County Water Conservancy District’s rate structure as a possible model for Cedar City.

Water News Roundup – August 17, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:  Mexico, US talking about Colorado River water – A powerful Easter Sunday earthquake along the Mexico border has had ripple effects in Nevada, spurring international talks about future use of the Colorado River and the water level in Lake Mead.

Salt Lake Tribune – Editorial: Shrinking Mead – Some marinas at Lake Mead are high and dry; new roads now meander on dry ground that used to be far under water. The huge reservoir is shrinking.

New York Times:  Lake Mead’s water level plunges as 11-year drought lingers – Lake Mead, the enormous reservoir of Colorado River water that hydrates Arizona, Nevada, California and northern Mexico, is receding to a level not seen since it was first being filled in the 1930s, stoking existential fears about water supply in the parched Southwest.

City Brights w/ Peter Gleick: Water and energy: obey the law on cooling systems – The connections between energy and water are significant and complex. We use vast amounts of energy to collect, move, treat, use, and clean water. And we use vast amounts of water to produce energy, including for mining, drilling, and processing fossil and nuclear fuels, and especially for cooling power plants.

Water News Roundup – August 12, 2010

Will be visiting beautiful New Mexico next Monday.  Not sure if I’ll have internet access, but we might have a ‘New Mexico Water News’ edition.  If not, see you Tuesday!

Salt Lake Tribune: Public allowed access to Jordan River again – The Salt Lake Valley Health Department has lifted a health order limiting public access to parts of the Jordan River following a June oil leak.

Logan Canal fix might leave out some water users – Cache County residents are wondering how they are going to get irrigation water 13 months after a mudslide along the Logan Northern Canal breached the waterway and claimed the lives of three people.

Wall Street Journal: Cash flows in water deals – Indianapolis is selling its water and sewer systems to a public trust to get money for crumbling streets and bridges. San Jose, Calif., fresh from cutting 49 firefighters, might take its water utility private. “Excess” tap water in Sacramento, Calif., is helping supply a Nestlé SA bottling plant.

Via Gayle Leonard at Thirsty in Suburbia: 1971 Mad Magazine reveals the future – Sad that the thing they got wrong was the newspaper.

Water News Roundup – August 11, 2010

Provo Daily Herald: Pleasant Grove weighs water options – A years-long argument about how to provide water and sewer to Manilla residents continued progress at a snail’s pace on Tuesday. Pleasant Grove elected officials spent more than an hour discussing how to end a stalemate that has now outlasted several mayors.

Salt Lake Tribune: Who dumped paint into City Creek? – The Salt Lake Valley Health Department is trying to determine who dumped latex paint and mortar residue into a storm drain leading into City Creek.

Wall Street Journal: California puts off vote on huge water-upgrade effort – California lawmakers have voted to delay putting an $11.1 billion water bond to voters, extending a battle to rework the biggest effort in decades to upgrade the state’s water system.

Water News Roundup – August 10, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:  Latex paint spill in City Creek under investigation – Latex paint and mortar residue contaminated City Creek after the materials were dumped into a storm drain from two homes in the Avenues, fire crews said.

Chevron letters rile oil spill victims  – Annie Payne and her family spent two nights in a hotel after 33,600 gallons of crude oil from a leaky pipeline poured into the stream near their Yalecrest home two months ago and made them all sick.  And, like many of her east Salt Lake City neighbors and others driven away by the petrochemical fumes, she took up Chevron on its invitation to submit a claim for spill-related costs.

Deseret News: Pipeline construction moves to Provo – “One day a road will be open, but when you drive there the next day, it will be closed. It’s been very hard to get around here.”  …. It’s been pretty much the same story all summer for everyone who lives on or near 400 East, where workers have laid five miles of 60-inch diameter pipe as part of the Spanish Fork Provo Reservoir Canal Pipeline project.

KSL: No swimming in Salem pond – A swimming advisory was issued for Salem Pond after testing of the water indicates it is unsafe for swimming, deep wading, and ingesting due to bacterial contamination.

Water News Roundup – August 2, 2010

Will be at all day training sessions August 3-4.  No water news these days, but back on Thursday.  Thanks for checking in!

Deseret News: State forestry division plans open houses to craft Great Salt Lake Management Plan – With the wind rustling in the cattails and birds bobbing on the water of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, members of the new Great Salt Lake Advisory Council convened their second meeting — a get-acquainted session on topics related to the unique body of water.

Those meetings are:

Aug. 10, Weber County.

Aug. 17, Salt Lake and Davis counties.

Aug. 24, Tooele County.

Aug. 31, Box Elder County.

More information can be found at www.ffsl.utah.gov/sovlands/gsl.php.

Flash floods set off mudslides and close access to roads in Utah, Duchesne counties – Flash flooding triggered mudslides and closed off access to U.S. 89 near Bird’s Eye Sunday evening but forecasters predict the weather will clear up by Monday.

KSL: Storm floods parts of Utah County – A quick-moving rain storm caused major problems in Utah County Saturday evening.

Salt Lake Tribune: Storms cause flooding in S. Utah – Residents spent Saturday filling sandbags and clearing thick red mud from Kanab streets and basements, caused by floodwaters from torrential rains that swept into town.

Provo Daily Herald: New water restrictions for Pleasant Grove – Residents are using much more water this summer than last year and it is causing a concern about the city’s secondary water supply.

AWRA Blog: Western Governor’s Association DC Workshop: Drought, Climate and Water– The Western Governors’ Association and the Western States Water Council will sponsor a two-day workshop in DC, 14-15 September 2010, on: Drought, Climate and Water: Using Today’s Information and Designing Tomorrow’s Services.

Water News Roundup – July 29, 2010

Deseret News:

Flash floods might continue in southern Utah – The National Weather Service’s forecast of high precipitation levels and flash flooding proved true Tuesday as a mudslide blocked traffic in Grand County. The NWS issued a flash flood warning Tuesday morning for southern and eastern counties in Utah.

Payson officials remind residents of watering schedule – Although Utah experienced a wet winter and spring, water restrictions continue in this south Utah County city.

Report says Utah, northwest poised to make change to clean energy – Utah is among seven regional states identified in a new analysis as the best-positioned area in the country to transition to clean energy within 40 years.

KSL: Western climate initiative offers cap and trade – A coalition of seven western states and three Canadian provinces on Tuesday offered its most detailed strategy yet for controlling greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, saying they hope it will stand as a model for national systems in the United States and Canada.

KCPW: Western climate initiative cap and trade plan released – The most detailed plan yet detailing how the Western Climate Initiative will attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions came out yesterday.

Ogden Standard Examiner: Energy startup defends oil sands project in Utah – An energy startup from Canada on Tuesday defended its plan to launch the first significant U.S. oil sands project in eastern Utah, after opponents argued it would dig up fragile topsoil and pollute groundwater.

After reading up on the “water/energy nexus” I am convinced that stories covering energy, such as cap and trade, oil shale development and renewables, are tightly integrated with water provision.  Water is inexpensive at this time, but will likely increase in cost in the near future as these two resources constrain each other.

A view of the capitol building this morning for a Think!Energy breakfast:

Water News Roundup – July 26, 2010

Provo Daily Herald: Residents learn more about canal, trail project – Jackie Adamson says seeing plans for the $150 million Provo Reservoir Canal Enclosure Project is like watching a life-long dream come true.

Deseret News:

Most residents voice support for Murdock canal, trail plan – Few people pay attention to the “No Trespassing” sign that warns people off the maintenance road along the Murdock Canal.  Every day, walkers, runners and cyclists can be found using the dirt road, and no one stops them.

Safe drinking water a goal of Utah agencies, cities – Orders to boil water issued in two cities about a month apart this year highlighted an aspect of modern-day living most people take for granted — safe drinking water as close as the kitchen faucet.

KSL: Southern Utah officials help residents save water – Water officials in southern Utah are continuing a program that offers free irrigation system checks to residents so they can save water.

AWRA Blog: Evaluating sustainability of water demands in 2050 under climate change –Tetra Tech and the Natural Resources Defense Council have just released the report, Evaluating Sustainability of Projected Water Demands under Future Climate Change Scenarios.

St. George Spectrum (sub. required): The Slide Divide – A discussion that initially started out over a battle of water rights for a few individuals on Cedar Mountain has escalated to an issue that could affect all of Iron County and its taxpayers.

Water News Roundup – July 20, 2010

Even die-hard water newsies like myself have to break for vacation now and again.  I’ll be up running the Snake River over the next few days.  The water news will be back on Monday.

St. George Spectrum:  (Unfortunately the Spectrum has switched to a subscription only format on the web.  You must have a subscription to view the articles below.  I am considering leaving the Spectrum out of the Roundup because of this.  Or I can keep posting them with a note that says ‘sub only.’ What would my readers prefer?  Feedback is greatly appreciated.  Please use the comment link, also below.)

Pipeline studies plodding along – Thousands of pages in, work continues on a group of studies on the possible environmental and social impacts of a proposed $1 billion dollar pipeline…

Residents look to save water – Triple-digit temperatures and a lack of rain have some people scratching their heads about how to keep their plants and lawns green…

Salt Lake Tribune:  Public input sought for proposed otter plan – The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is seeking public input on a proposed plan to guide northern river otter management in Utah for the next decade.

High Country News:  Dust takes a toll – Imtiaz Rangwala studies climate change on the Tibetan Plateau and, more recently, in the American West. In mid-May, the climatologist flew into Durango, Colo., through skies darkened by dust… (Subscription required.  Fortunately HCN offers a free 30-day trial.  Give this great pub a whirl!)

Water News Roundup – July 14, 2010

Provo Daily Herald: Canal project coming quickly – A major construction project will soon be having a big impact on north county cities.  The Interstate 15 rebuild? No, the other big effort getting under way in the region is the Provo Reservoir Canal Enclosure Project. Enclosing the waterway — a.k.a. the Murdock Canal — is a $15 million project that has been years in the making and involved a host of government agencies, including the U.S. Congress.

KSL: Public meetings kick off Murdock Canal project – A major construction project is about to get underway to enclose the Murdock Canal, the open waterway that carries water from Provo Canyon to the Point of the Mountain.  (Steve Cain, Facilities and Lands Manager for PRWUA, gets some serious facetime on KSL.  Usually they let you speak for about five seconds and then clip the take.  Steve manages to get in almost 30 seconds… go Steve!)

Ogden Standard Examiner: New reservoir ready to service two cities – A $3.2 million secondary water reservoir that becomes fully operational on Wednesday will save culinary water costs for two expanding north Davis cities.

KCPW: Lingering concerns dominate town hall meeting on oil spill – The second town hall meeting convened on the Red Butte Creek oil pipeline spill lasted more than three hours last night at Clayton Middle School in Salt Lake City.

Wall Street Journal: Water policy for NY power plants draws reliability concerns – Authorities in charge of the reliability of New York State’s power supply warn a policy to protect aquatic life could threaten the dependability of electricity supplies and increase air pollution.

Water News Roundup – July 13, 2010

Las Vegas Sun:  Vegas water agency halts ‘third straw’ tunnel work – Work has stopped on a tunnel for a new drinking water intake pipeline between Las Vegas and Lake Mead after a cavern that took two years to excavate unexpectedly filled with water.

ASCE Newsbrief:  Seattle’s price tag for clean water: $500 million – Keeping the water around Seattle clean is going to cost the city half a billion dollars over the next fifteen years.  Seattle Public Utilities will soon begin a federally-mandated, $500 million city-wide infrastructure improvement program designed to reduce storm and wastewater pollution. This will mean higher sewer and drainage bills for people, beginning next year, and for years afterwards.

KSL:  Salt Lake water ranked highly despite number of breaks – Salt Lake City’s water infrastructure suffers hundreds of breaks every year, in spite of a heavy investment from taxpayers. But a recent study shows the city is doing pretty well, by comparison.

Water News Roundup – July 8, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:

Fluoridation battle rages on – Holliday Water won’t have to fluoridate its supply — at least for now.  Under a recent decision by the Utah Supreme Court, the water company will not have to fluoridate its supply, despite a 2000 Salt Lake County ordinance that requires fluoridation. The company argued that as a private corporation, it was exempt.

Detecting oil leaks – In coordination with local, state and federal officials, Chevron has made all the right moves in responding to last month’s oil pipeline leak in Salt Lake City.  Chevron and city crews were on scene quickly, equipment materializing out of nowhere. Within hours of the discovery, the leak was stanched and the cleanup launched.

Open house on Murdock canal plan –  The Provo River Water Users Association is sponsoring an open house to discuss plans to enclose the Murdock Canal in a pipe and create a trail system over the canal right-of-way. The open house is on July 13 at 6 p.m. at Orchard Elementary School, 800 E. 1035 North [in Orem].

Provo Daily Herald:  BYU contributes to digital water policy library – Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library is one of five research libraries that helped complete a content expansion project for the Western Waters Digital Library.  Founded in 2004, the library is an online public resource that provides information about water issues in the western United States.

High Country News:  Monkey wrenchers keep on keeping on – When the news spread last year about Tim DeChristopher’s impromptu act of civil disobedience in Utah, I thought: Somebody is finally reviving the lost art of environmental monkey-wrenching.

Stories about hydro-fracking and groundwater contamination…

Wyoming Trib: Monitoring wells nearing completion – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has almost finished drilling two monitoring wells to test for pollution in a central Wyoming community where residents suspect chemicals related to gas drilling have contaminated their well water… Area residents say chemicals related to a process called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” may have polluted their wells. Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals underground at high pressure to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas.

AWWA:  Fracking bill may face uphill battle – Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette, Maurice Hinchey and Jared Polis introduced a bill in June to reverse a 2005 measure excluding hydraulic fracturing, used to enhance extraction of oil and gas, from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Water News Roundup – July 6, 2010

I’m back from what could possibly be described as the most awesome Fourth of July EVER!  Ahhhh…. welcome back to the water news work week.

Salt Lake Tribune has a bunch of stories that will be posted as soon as they manage to get their website up and running (doh!)

KSL: Insider details state’s issue with energy study – Utah officials spent $200,000 in federal and state funds to have the study done. But when it was finished a few months ago, they sidetracked it and refused to vouch for it — after it ran into a wall of opposition from industry.  The study blames Utah power plants for 202 premature deaths each year and for health and water costs up to $2 billion annually.

An interesting study of how irrigation method possibly contributes to or limits groundwater E. coli contamination…

Science: Keeping feces on the farm – Think dairy farm, and your mind may wander to images of cows grazing dewy green pastures, as glistening silos and red-walled farmhouses slumber in the distance. But something sinister is lurking in the grass: cow feces crawling with disease-causing Escherichia coli bacteria. A new study, however, reveals that these bacteria are much less likely to enter  groundwater and cause illness if farmers spray their fields with water rather than flooding them, as is traditional.

Water News Roundup – June 23, 2010

A perfect day for streamflow measurements in the morning!

Deseret News:

Open houses planned for Provo canal project – A series of three open houses is planned next month to explain the details of a $150 million project that will enclose the entire Provo Reservoir Canal.

Restoration project could pave the way for Jordan River Parkway Trail segment – Bikers, walkers and roller bladers may have to wait a few years, but action that could eventually pave the way for a new segment of the Jordan River Parkway Trail was launched Wednesday.

KCPW: Chevron reopens Red Butte pipeline – Chevron has reopened a 13.75 mile segment of pipeline that’s been shut down since it leaked 33,000 gallons, or about 800 barrels, of crude oil into Red Butte Creek earlier this month.

KSL:

Gasoline seeps into Emery county groundwater – For several weeks, residents in Ferron in Emery Countyhave complained of the smell of gasoline in their homes coming through their floor drains.

Lab results say pipeline effects diminishing, but still a danger – Utah water-quality officials say the toxic effects of a pipeline oil leak in a Salt Lake City creek are diminishing but still endanger aquatic life.

Water News Roundup – June 14, 2010

Back from vacation and very well rested.  Moab was awesome and St. George even more beautiful than I remember.  So, what’s with all the boil orders of late?  There are so many short articles on boil orders that I’ve left them out of the roundup…  Here’s the rest.  Enjoy!

KSL:

LDS Church protests Snake Valley plan – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has joined hundreds to file a protest with the state of Nevada over a proposal to pump and pipe groundwater from the Snake Valley and surrounding areas to Las Vegas.

Morgan County officials watching Weber River closely – It certainly is a sight to see: an 18-wheeler crossing a small bridge with rushing water high enough to touch the bottom of the bridge.  Morgan County workers, though, say it’s not a problem.

2 dams on ‘Level 1 alert’ due to extremely full reservoirs – Utah’s reservoirs are suddenly bulging with water, and this week officials declared what’s called a Level One Alert for two dams on the Utah-Wyoming border.

Provo Daily Herald: Official: Oil spill hasn’t reach the Great Salt Lake yet – Emergency workers believe they have stopped a 21,000-gallon oil leak from reaching the environmentally sensitive Great Salt Lake, one of the West’s most important inland water bodies for migratory birds that use it as a place to rest, eat and breed.

Deseret News:

Mussel causes restrictions at Sand Hollow Reservoir – In an emergency action taken Thursday, the state wildlife board extended its lasso of boater-related restrictions over Sand Hollow Reservoir in order to control the infestation of invasive mussels.

Mormon church among protesters of Las Vegas water plan – Opponents of a controversial pipeline that would tap water from a shared Nevada/Utah aquifer and convey it to Las Vegas say more than 2,300 protests have been filed against the plan, including objections mounted by the Mormon church.

Rep. Jim Matheson and Mayor Ralph Becker testify in D.C. to expand watershed protection – While clean drinking water became a priority this week for Oakley and Lindon residents as they boiled water contaminated by floods, it’s always on the mind of Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah

Salt Lake Tribune:

Lake Powell Pipeline to water Las Vegas? – Second Congressional District challenger Claudia Wright this week raised the specter of a Las Vegas water grab via Utah’s own proposed Lake Powell pipeline, a puzzling possibility that she said residents of Utah’s Dixie have warned her about.

Lake is the only source of sulfate of potash – Lately there has been a lot of discussion about Great Salt Lake Minerals’ plans to expand our solar evaporation ponds in order to produce more sulfate of potash (SOP), an all-natural crop nutrient. But there is confusion about what SOP is, as well as what the expansion would provide.

Oil shale and the future – “The task is great. So is the need. And there is no time to lose.” – Exxon’s 1980 “White Paper”

Those stirring words concluded a 10-page document released in the early summer 30 years ago outlining Exxon’s grand plan to help solve the nation’s energy crisis of the 1970s.

SLC residents angry, sad over oil-fouled yards and waterways – [Resident’s] backyard serenity was destroyed this weekend when an underground Chevron pipeline ruptured just south of Red Butte Gardens, near the Bonneville Shoreline Trail, and leaked an estimated 21,000 gallons of oil into Red Butte Creek, that flowed to Liberty Park pond and the Jordan River.

Containment the goal of initial oil spill cleanup – Chevron is expected to unveil a cleanup plan this morning, after a day in which the company focused on containing an oil leak that fouled Red Butte Creek and Liberty Park pond, in hopes of keeping the toxic spill from reaching the Great Salt Lake.

KCPW: Becker says city investigation of oil spill underway – Now, the hope is that oil won’t reach the Great Salt Lake.  What’s being done to prevent that from happening, and who will hold Chevron’s feet to the fire to make sure the cleanup is fully completed and paid for?  KCPW’s Jeff Robinson spoke with Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker.