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 – 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 – July 27, 2010

KSL: Tests show no source for sheen seen in underground streams – Water managers in Salt Lake City say test results reveal no link, so far, between a sheen found on water running through several east bench properties a few blocks north of Red Butte Creek and the Chevron oil spill into that stream. Still, the source of the sheen is mystery.

Deseret News: How bad was the Red Butte spill? – Neil Vickers would like to know what made him and his wife sick the weekend a Chevron pipeline leak sent tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil down the creek that runs through his east Salt Lake City yard.

Science Daily: New water management tool may help ease effects of drought – Continued improvement of climate forecasts is resulting in better information about what rainfall and streamflow may look like months in advance.

After reading this article, I feel slightly better about not obsessing about drinking 64 oz. of water each day.  Too much of a good thing, etc…….

Scientific American: Strange but true, drinking too much water can kill you – Liquid H₂O is the sine qua non of life. Making up about 66 percent of the human body, water runs through the blood, inhabits the cells, and lurks in the spaces between.

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 – 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 22, 2010

Salt Lake Tribune:  Oil flows again as probe points to why sensors failed – Black gold began flowing Monday through a mended canyon pipeline into Chevron’s refinery — and its coffers — even as a federal petroleum engineer pointed to a power surge as the likely reason sensors failed to detect the Red Butte Canyon oil spill.

KSL: Restoration project in the works for Jordan River – Officials will restore a section of the Jordan River to a more natural condition. Rocky Mountain Power gave its approval for the project along 550 yards of the river in West Jordan.

KCPW: Chevron spill impacting life in Red Butte Creek and beyond – Oil-soaked geese were one of the most visible signs of the Red Butte Creek pipeline spill, but it also affected what lives below the surface. KCPW’s Elizabeth Ziegler focuses on wildlife, in the first of a series on the spill.

Ogden Standard Examiner: Support sought for Jordan River plan – This summer, Davis County commissioners will be asked to financially support the creation of the Jordan River Commission, an agency designed to steward river development.

New York Times: A new panorama at the Hoover Dam – Generations of photo albums are filled with images of children squinting in front of the enormous canyon here, one of the greatest engineering feats in America’s history.

Water News Roundup – June 21, 2010

Las Vegas Sun: Supreme Court rules on Las Vegas water applications – It’s back to square one for the Southern Nevada Water Authority in its efforts to pump thousands of acre feet of water from rural Nevada to serve the Las Vegas area.

KSL:

Nevada high court withdraws water right ruling – The Nevada Supreme Court has withdrawn an earlier ruling in a key water rights case, giving new life to a proposal to build a massive pipeline to get water from the northeastern part of the state to Las Vegas.

Chevron says flush of Red Butte Creek appears to be successful – A flush of water rushed down Red Butte Creek in an effort to push any lingering oil residue downstream. Chevron pumped extra water into the creek Saturday afternoon.

Deseret News: Great Salt Lake had its day in Utah – Transport a northern Utahn from a hundred years ago to today, and he’d certainly be shocked by all our technology, as well as our hustle and bustle. He or she would also likely be surprised that many residents have never visited a Great Salt Lake beach or so much as dipped a toe in the briny waters of the lake.

Interesting article on water right pricing and how it is getting more expensive to buy water (via Aguanomics)

Water News Roundup – June 17, 2010

KSL: Engineers testing northern Utah’s Hyrum Dam – Engineers are drilling to determine the composition of the 75-year-old Hyrum Dam and whether it would hold up to a major earthquake.

Ogden Standard Examiner: Wetlands should be safe from oil leak – The 33,000 gallons of crude oil that drained into the Jordan River from a Salt Lake City creek and flowed north toward Davis County, pose very little and likely no threat to the wetlands that thousands of birds call home in Davis County.

Deseret News: Chevron replaces section of Red Butte pipe – Chevron officials have replaced a 22-foot section of the pipeline that fractured last weekend sending an estimated 33,000 gallons of crude oil into Red Butte Creek.

KCPW: Oil slick sighted in Great Salt Lake wetlands – It remains unclear whether oil sheen spotted on Great Salt Lake is linked to Saturday morning’s oil spill in Salt Lake City, though the company responsible says it’s not.

Water News Roundup – June 16, 2010

Deseret News: Jordan River access cut off for oil clean up – City officials have shut off public access to the Jordan River from 1700 South to 500 North as a result of cleanup efforts due to Saturday’s oil spill.

Salt Lake Tribune: Oil spotted in Great Salt Lake Wetlands –  Crude oil from the Red Butte Creek pipeline spill appears to have turned up in the Great Salt Lake wetlands.

Salt Lake Tribune – Editorial: Foiled by oil – Oil-soaked birds, a sheen on the water, stream banks painted with petroleum.

KCPW: Environmentalists consider lawsuit against Great Salt Lake Minerals – Several conservation groups are taking preliminary steps toward a lawsuit against the state for issuing a permit to a mineral extraction company that’s operated on Great Salt Lake for the past four decades.

I received this video from a friend of bank-side Red Butte Creek after the recent oil spill.  The contrast of the crude and beautiful 30” rainbow trout struggling and dying makes me incredibly sad.  I know it’s not the Gulf, but it’s our backyard.  I hope Chevron’s clean up is vigorous and is a long-term commitment to restoring the creek, the Jordan River and the Great Salt Lake wetlands affected by the spill.

Water News Roundup – June 15, 2010

KSL: Warm temperatures lead to flooding in Utah and Summit counties – An irrigation canal in Utah County got a lot more water than it could handle Monday. It’s now a swift-moving river, and residents in Lehi are bracing themselves for round two of the flooding.

Deseret News:

Aftermath of the S.L. oil spill: Did power line cause the break? – At ground zero of the weekend’s oil spill into Red Butte Creek, a welding crew is furiously at work, high-voltage power lines swinging overhead.

Water break causes geyser-like explosion in Fairpark – Salt Lake City public utilities officials said the cast-iron pipe, installed in 1929, gave way, and the pressure pushed the water to the top, creating “a nice plume of water,” public utilities maintenance supervisor Bret Shelley said.

Click here for Brian McInerney’s recent Flooding Update

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.