Water News Roundup – August 24, 2010

Deseret News: Lake Powell ruled mussel free zone – The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has officially ruled Lake Powell mussel-free three years after a false positive detection.

Salt Lake Tribune: West can lead the new energy economy – The West, with its wealth of wind, solar, geothermal and other clean, renewable energy resources, is poised to lead the nation toward a new energy future.

The Hill: EPA unveils strategy to modernize clean water programs – The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday floated a draft strategy to improve water quality nationwide, one that bluntly recognizes that today’s pollution sources are often difficult to target with traditional Clean Water Act controls.

New York Times – Science: Levels plummet in crucial reservoir – Water levels in Lake Mead, the Colorado River reservoir, fell sharply again this summer and are nearing an elevation that would set off the first-ever official water shortage on the river, The Arizona Republic reported last week.

Indian Point nuclear plant’s toll on river stirs debate – Just beneath the wind-stippled surface of the Hudson River here, huge pipes suck enough water into the Indian Point nuclear plant every second to fill three Olympic swimming pools.

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 – 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 – June 8, 2010

*** I’m headed for hot Moab for a bit of vacation tomorrow.  Water News will be back on Monday!**

Salt Lake Tribune:

Time to water, but just a little – OK, go ahead and water the lawn this week — but only once.  So advises the Utah Division of Water Resources, which posts a weekly lawn-watering guide at slowtheflow.org that is updated every Thursday.

Utah Lake Festival marks 6th year – Reed Price readily admits that Utah Lake doesn’t get the same respect as Utah’s other lakes.

High waters still threaten across Salt Lake County – From the backyard of his home on Canyonview Road, Jim Wilcox looked out over a rushing torrent of chocolate brown water that used to be little more, he said, than a “babbling brook.”

KSL: Officials confirm presence of Quagga mussels – Wildlife officials have confirmed the presence of quagga mussels in Sand Hollow Reservoir.

HCN:

One tough sucker – The razorback sucker evolved in a wild Colorado River. Now, humans are its biggest problem — and its only hope. (Article has a great video vignette on razorback sucker recovery efforts from biologist Abraham Karam’s point of view.)

Photo by Abraham Karam

A boring diagram – Las Vegas’ primary water supply — has been drawing down like a leaky tub over the past decade, thanks to prolonged drought in the Colorado River Basin.