Water News Roundup – August 23, 2010

Ogden Standard Examiner:

Morgan County says municipalities should handle water infrastructure – While county officials wait for the end of a water moratorium and the overdue publication of a water study, they are saying that municipalities should shoulder future responsibility for water infrastructure.

Farmington authorizes new city well – A project to drill for a new city well will move ahead, despite some second thoughts among city officials after hearing from local residents.

Salt Lake Tribune  – Editorial: Teachable moment – Eternal optimists were flummoxed by the Red Butte Creek oil spill. What good can possibly come from 33,600 gallons of crude pouring from a ruptured Chevron pipeline into the creek?

Las Vegas Sun: State reconsidering request to pump water from upstate – State Engineer Jason King has set new deadlines for handling the applications filed in 1989 to pump billions of gallons of water from rural Nevada to Las Vegas.

St. George Spectrum (requires sub.): Vegas water pipeline foes seek NV court hearing – Opponents of a proposed multibillion-dollar water pipeline from northeastern Nevada to Las Vegas are mounting a procedural challenge to a Nevada Supreme Court order sending the case to a state official for review.

Water News Roundup – May 4, 2010

Deseret News: More than 1,600 file protests over plan to tap Snake Valley aquifer – The protests are piling up over a plan that proposes to tap water from an aquifer in Snake Valley that straddles the border of Utah and Nevada.

St. George Spectrum: Water week educates residents – Water managers across Utah kicked off a series of tours, educational events and other activities Monday as part of Water Week, a statewide effort to promote water conservation and educate about how people use water.

Salt Lake Tribune – Editorial: Shrinking lake – The Great Salt Lake is shrinking, taking vital wetlands with it. While the lake level historically rises and falls dramatically, warming temperatures and dwindling snowpack could mean a permanently smaller lake. If that happens, millions of birds and other wildlife could lose vital food, shelter and nesting areas.

Technorati Tags: Great Salt Lake,groundwater management,Nevada,Snake Valley,SNWA,Water Conservation,Water Week

Water New Roundup – April 15, 2010

KSL:

Nevada water director criticizes Utah – The head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority took shots at Utah in a recent interview, ridiculing Salt Lake City and its high water usage.

(Wow!  Them’s fightin’ words Pat.  I can just see the reverse psychology here.  Pat, “You guys don’t know how to conserve!” Salt-Lakers, “Oh yeah??? Well watch THIS!”)

April storm clobbers northern Utah, raises snowpack – Thanks to a series of powerful storms, the first half of April blanketed much of the Wasatch mountain range with a fifth of its average annual snowfall.

Deseret News: Great weather for golf – (No story here, but the DN saw fit to take note that it is INDEED excellent weather for golfing… woohoo.)

Plus, The Golfing Index.

Technorati Tags: golf,Nevada,Pat Mulroy,Snake Valley,snowpack,spring,storms,Water Conservation,weather

Water News Roundup – April 12, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:

Sides gear up for new water fight – Ranchers, county governments, conservation groups and the Goshute tribe are crafting protests against a Nevada water utility’s new applications to pump Snake Valley water to Las Vegas, a conservation group said.

Utah’s first N-plant won’t float without water rights – The former uranium boomtown of Green River sits along I-70 in eastern Utah, 100 miles from the closest city. Now it may become the Western outpost of America’s nascent nuclear renaissance. Blue Castle Holdings, a three-year-old, politically connected startup, wants to build a nuclear power plant there — Utah’s first, and the first in the West since 1987.

Salt Lake Tribune – Editorial: Wilderness bill – An act of Congress to set aside 26,000 additional acres of wilderness in the Wasatch Mountain canyons east of the Salt Lake Valley could benefit water users. It could also benefit its sponsor, Utah Rep. Jim Matheson, whose vote against health care legislation has made him unpopular with some Democratic voters in the 2nd Congressional District.

Las Vegas Sun: Las Vegas can’t handle another era of unimpeded growth – A report by the Sonoran Institute, an Arizona-based nonprofit think tank, says that if the Las Vegas Valley’s population grows to capacity using the Bureau of Land Management acreage designated for development, even the most stringent water conservation measures won’t be enough to ensure that everyone has enough H2O.

Technorati Tags: groundwater management,Nevada,nuclear power,Snake Valley,Water Conservation,water/energy nexus,watershed protection,wilderness designation

Water News Roundup – March 22, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:

Pumping too much water is sinking Cedar Valley – Since 1939, the Cedar Valley spreading west and north of Cedar City has dropped 100 feet and the only way to stop or slow the process is replenish the underlying aquifer with at least as much water as is being discharged through pumping.

Snake Valley water deal stalled for this year – A court ruling, and the inaction of Nevada lawmakers, means any agreement on Snake Valley water won’t happen until at least 2011, according to Mike Styler, executive director of the Utah Department of Natural Resources.

KSL: Spring ends a tale of 2 winters in Utah – Two winters came to Utah this year.  One, in southern Utah, delivered storm after storm that piled deeper-than-normal drifts of snow in the mountains.  The other, in northern Utah, offered only sporadic snow but nothing close to the 30-year average.

The Spectrum: UGS report: Water table down 4 feet – Reports on the Enoch Subsidence Study by the Utah Geological Survey topped the agenda at the Central Iron County Water Conservancy District meeting Thursday.

Technorati Tags: Cedar City,Enoch,groundwater management,Nevada,precipitation,Snake Valley,snowpack,subsidence

Water News Roundup – St. Patty’s Edition

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

KSL:

Heavy snow has S. Utah preparing for potential floods – Temperatures Tuesday pushed above 60 degrees for the first time this year in Cedar City, renewing attention on the possibility of flooding.

NV users seek quick resolution to water ruling – State water officials and others are hoping for a quick resolution to a Nevada Supreme Court ruling that many believe throws the validity of thousands of water rights into question.

The Spectrum: Fissures study to be presented at water district – Reports from the Utah Geological Survey are topping the agenda at Thursday’s Central Iron County Water Conservancy District meeting.

Wall Street Journal: U.S. Opens Spigot for California Farmers – Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a sharp increase in federal water supplies for California’s agricultural Central Valley, further easing drought concerns in a state where El Niño rains have raised the mountain snowpack after three severely dry years.

Technorati Tags: California drought,Cedar City,CICWCD,Enoch,flooding,ground water monitoring,Nevada,Snake Valley,water shortage

Water News Roundup – March 15, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:

Long-held water rights in Nevada could be invalid – A Nevada Supreme Court ruling has triggered a tidal wave of legal uncertainty over decades of water rights sought by thirsty Las Vegas, dealing a big setback to the Southern Nevada Water Authority’s plan for a massive pipeline project and raising questions about thousands of water rights around the state.

Snow forecast for parts of Utah – This weekend’s snowstorm is expected to dump 1 to 2 feet of snow on central and eastern Utah through Sunday with smaller storms stretching across the state’s northern reaches.

KSL: Why is the Jordan River running so fast and furious? – What’s going on with the Jordan River? We’re having a lousy snow year in Northern Utah, and the primary snowmelt season hasn’t begun. Yet the river is running fast and furious, at least in places.  Jeff Bryant is on TV! Cool!

New York Times: Saving U.S. Water and Sewer Systems Would Be Costly – One recent morning, George S. Hawkins, a long-haired environmentalist who now leads one of the largest and most prominent water and sewer systems, trudged to a street corner here where water was gushing into the air.

Happy to spot this particular article, although some of my school chums may disagree…

Wall Street Journal: Engineering Grads Earn the Most – New college graduates may be entering the worst job market in decades, but there are still some majors that pay off—and all of them are in the applied sciences.

Technorati Tags: Jordan River,Nevada,snake valley,snowpack,Weather,engineering,water infrastructure

Water News Roundup – January 26, 2010

The Spectrum: Water standards lax?  If you Google Cedar City safe drinking water, a link on the first page takes you to test results collected by an environmental group that are posted both on the group’s Web site, www.ewg.org, and the New York Times Web site.

Salt Lake Tribune – Editorial: Utah’s pipeline problem – I have been fighting the proposed pipeline from Utah’s Snake Valley to Las Vegas for five years. This misguided project is one of three that seek to take water from Utah and move it out of state. It is astounding that Utah’s governor and the state Department of Natural Resources appear willing at some point to let the Snake Valley plan happen.

Big Gulp – A guy named Million wants to spend billions to pipe part of Wyoming’s Green River 400 miles to Denver and beyond. But as global warming threatens the flows in the Green, it would be foolhardy to suck great gulps of water from the stream. To sustain both wildlife and humans, the waters should be left alone.

Water News Roundup – January 19, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:

Snake Valley pumping hard to monitor – The Southern Nevada Water Authority proposes pumping groundwater from five desert basins in the Great Basin, including Snake Valley on the Nevada-Utah border, and piping the water south to Las Vegas. Under the proposed water-sharing agreement for Snake Valley, a monitoring plan is offered as a mechanism to control excessive adverse impacts.

10 reasons not to give Utah water to Nevada – Utah’s tourism slogan is “Life Elevated.” Perfect irony, because what is most elevated in Utah is our air pollution — the worst in the country this week and hardly a boon to tourism.

N. Utah water outlook is dim but could brighten – As of this week, the water outlook in chilly northern Utah doesn’t look so hot.  On the other hand, southern Utah’s snowpack is above average and likely to stay that way until spring.

Storms could change the snowpack picture – Monday’s crowd at Solitude Mountain Resort lent credibility to ski area advertisements touting lift lines so short resort officials don’t even know how to spell “kroud.”

KCPW: State gathering public input on nuke plant water deal –  The Utah Division of Water Rights held a public meeting last night to gather input on a proposal that would allow the states first nuclear power plant to be built. Those opposed to the project say it will harm the Green River.  But Aaron Tilton, CEO of Blue Castle Holdings, which owns the project, says theyre misguided.

MSNBC:  EPA offers Florida water pollution limits – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed the first numeric limits in the nation for farm and urban runoff polluting Florida’s waterways, limits supporters say could set precedent and lead to similar federal standards in other states.