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 – July 28, 2010

Deseret News: Strawberry River restoration project brings promise – Along a section of the Strawberry River, the bare earthen bank tells the story of man’s meddling gone wrong, of ripping away vegetation that once held together the soil.

Provo Daily Herald: Pleasant Grove officially joins aquifer study – Hoping that the city may someday be able to store water for future use, the Pleasant Grove City Council has agreed to join other north county cities in the North Utah County Aquifer Association.

Salt Lake Tribune: Groups challenge plans for Utah tar sands mine – A small Canadian company, in need of millions for its ambitious plans, also is facing stiff opposition from two Utah environmental groups that are trying to thwart its efforts to build one of the first commercial tar sand mines in the country.

MSNBC: Pipeline leak pollutes major Michigan river – Crews were working Tuesday to contain and clean up more than 800,000 gallons of oil that poured into a creek and flowed into the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan, coating birds and fish.

HCN: It’s getting warmer and drier – A new report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) offers a mixed picture of how climate change will affect Western water supplies.

Water News Roundup – May 26, 2010

KCPW: Utah water outlook good, despite low snowpack – Yesterday marked the latest measureable spring snowfall in Utah’s history. It’s the most recent storm in what’s turned into a cool, wet spring. That’s just the kind of weather the state’s water forecasters like to see when the snowpack is lower than average.

Salt Lake Tribune:

Archaeologists work on ancient ruins as dam construction begins – A site once occupied by prehistoric Puebloan people, which includes multiple American Indian remains, is being excavated before the place is scraped away to make room for a dam and reservoir.

Amateur biologists – A Utah angler, leading a flotilla of state biologists to the spot where he caught and killed three non-native white bass, may have saved the rainbow trout fishery at Deer Creek Reservoir.

KSL: $7000 reward offered in illegal stocking case – The Provo River is one of the most popular fishing spots in Utah. Recently, a fisherman there caught a white bass near the inlet of Deer Creek Reservoir in Wasatch County.

Deseret News: Biologists study otters as they adapt to new home – Wildlife biologists are encouraged about river otters transplanted in the fall of 2009 into the Provo River.  The specialists are now gathering data on the otters to better understand how they are adapting to their new home.

Water News Roundup – May 25, 2010

KSL: Wet spring give boost to Utah’s water supply – Though some Utahns are cursing this cold, wet spring, it has made a big difference in the water we’re storing up for later on in our reservoirs.

St. George Spectrum: Water threatened – Regardless of how serious the threat posed by the possible quagga mussel found Friday in Sand Hollow Reservoir turns out to be, two things are certain for Washington County: water rates will go up and boating will change dramatically.

Utah Water Law & Water Rights Blog: Utah Waterways Taskforce – The Utah Waterways Task Force has set its first meeting for June 24, 2010 at 10:00 am at the Department of Natural Resources building (1594 West North Temple, Salt Lake City). The meeting notice can be viewed here.

Water News Roundup – May 24, 2010

Deseret News: Invasive quagga mussel found in Utah reservoir – State wildlife officers say divers have found what appears to be signs of the invasive quagga mussel in a Utah waterway.

Salt Lake Tribune:

Suspected quagga mussel found in S. Utah – The long-feared first case of an invasive, troublesome and costly exotic mussel is suspected at Sand Hollow Reservoir in southern Utah.

Thirsty farmers in Sanpete County may get dam soon – After nearly 80 years of hoping, bickering and legal challenges, farmers in northern Sanpete County are closer than ever to having water flow to their fields in the arid months of summer from a dammed creek high on the Wasatch Plateau.

Skip the sprinklers: rain will water for you this weekend – The bad news is that yet another spring weekend in Utah is likely to be wet. The good news: you still don’t need to start up the sprinkler system. (Check out the regional, weather-station/ET-based Weekly Lawn-Watering Guide!!)

St. George Spectrum: Water services expanding – The St. George City Council approved a bid for a $3.7 million water project Thursday that should improve water capacity and pressure on the south side of the city.

Provo Daily Herald: Pl. Grove needs $3M to pipe mountain runoff – A massive effort to pipe the Murdock Canal has left Pleasant Grove looking for ways to pay for its own $3 million pipeline.

Provo Daily Herald – Opinion: Another look at Utah Lake bridge plan – I am writing in response to the recent guest opinion by Howard Johnson (“Facts support need for Utah Lake bridge” in the May 17 edition of the Daily Herald).

I know I should be thrilled for our water supply, but dang it!! This is asking too much:

Water News Roundup – May 18, 2010

Ogden Standard Examiner: Warmer Utah temps mean faster and more dangerous rivers – A spike in temperatures means Utah’s mountain-fed rivers and streams are quickly swelling — some tripling in volume in a matter of days — and raising the risk for those who recreate around them.

Brian McInerney’s April Water Supply Forecast (Waiting for May’s to be posted.)

New York Times: From Budding Poets, an Ode to Water –

Where do New York City’s budding poets find inspiration?

If you are Jeffrey Weiner, a sixth grader at Horace Mann School in the Bronx, you find it in one of the city’s sewage treatment plants handling more than 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater a day.

Treatment at wastewater plants must be quite quick,
To remove the pollutants so you don’t get sick.
In a mere seven hours, the job is complete,
Compared to weeks in nature to perform the same feat!

Water Supply Outlook – 2010

On the snow forecasting front, here is a link to Brian McInerney’s Water Supply Outlook.  It’s a great, narrated PowerPoint presentation.  Brian presents his forecast every year for the National Weather Service.

Another popular snowpack assessment by Randy Julander, our esteemed Snow Survey Supervisor from the NRCS, can be found here:  Randy’s Presentation.

Technorati Tags: water supply,hydrology,snowpack,precipitation forecast

Water News Roundup – February 11, 2010

Deseret News: Ogden OKs 5 million gallon tank – The Ogden City Council recently approved the construction of a 5 million gallon water tank, which is part of a major water system upgrade.

Provo Daily Herald: Century-old wooden pipeline unearthed in Springville – Construction crews digging a trench for a new pipeline along 400 East in Springville found out this week that some of the trench’s previous occupants never vacated.

And two stories that illustrate how too much or too little of the white stuff can be a bad thing…

Salt Lake Tribune:  Enough already: Snow shatters records – Worst winter ever? The second blizzard in less than a week buried the most populous stretch of the East Coast under nearly a foot of snow Wednesday, breaking

records for the snowiest winter and demoralizing millions of people still trying to dig out from the previous storm.

Washington Post: With warm weather, forecast calls for hauling snow in for the Vancouver Olympics – While blizzard conditions forced even the plows off the road in Washington, dump trucks on the other side of the continent hauled heaping mounds of snow up winding mountain roads, while twin-engine, heavy-load helicopters dumped large buckets of it every three minutes during daylight hours Wednesday.

Technorati Tags: pipeline,Springville,weather,snowfall