LA NADA YEAR
Neither El Niño nor La Niña conditions seem to be an influence on weather patterns this year. As of Dec. 8, snowpack statewide is 79% of average. The Upper Colorado Basin is 75%: Gunnison is at 69%; San Miguel/Dolores/Animas/San Juan is 105%; Upper Rio Grande 101%; Arkansas 83%; South Platte 66%; North Platte 70%; and Yampa/White is 70% of average. Storage in Colorado reservoirs is 100% of average but only at 74% of last year’s storage at this time.
ROD KUHARICH NAMED DIRECTOR OF COLORADO WATER CONSERVATION BOARD
Rod’s most recent position was manager of government affairs for the Colorado Springs Utilities. He was responsible for legislative, regulatory, legal and policy matters related to water, wastewater and power.
JOINT WORKSHOP PLANNED
A joint meeting of the Colorado Water Conservation Board, Water Quality Control, Agriculture, Wildlife and Groundwater Commissions is scheduled for sometime in January or February. The goals of the workshop are to gain a better understanding among Board and Commission members and staff of the roles and responsibilities of the respective agencies and to improve opportunities for coordination and cooperation among the agencies.
TRANSFER OF COLORADO-BIG THOMPSON PROJECT COMPONENTS PROCEEDING
Legislation to transfer several water conveyance components of the C/BT has passed Congress. The Northern Conservancy District has approved paying $1.8 million for these facilities. For some time, the district has already been responsible for maintaining and operating these facilities. The Bureau of Reclamation has completed a draft Environmental Assessment for the transfer.
REFLECTIONS ON A DAM PLAN DEAD BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
Ten years ago, the new director of the EPA vetoed permits for Denver’s Two Forks Dam, an unheard-of blow to a project that was all but approved. The decision, its background and its repercussions are still relevant as an increasingly thirsty Denver looks for water. High Country News; Nov. 21
TRANSMOUNTAIN DIVERSIONS
The Union Park Appeal decision specifically called out an amount of 240,000 af marketable yield in Blue Mesa available for contract with the Bureau for inbasin or transmountain diversion. There are several impediments to negotiating such a contract, but is still possible. The impediments are: endangered species consultation may use up this yield but a programatic biological opinion is likely to include a certain amount of future development; Black Canyon quantification could use up the yield; the privately held instream flow rights in the Taylor River and the 1975 Taylor River management contract will require a diverter to actually pull the water out of Blue Mesa instead of trying to do an exchange. (The issue of whether any entity could condemn an instream flow water right was not dealt with in the appeal. Since the court agreed that there was insufficient water available, it said the condemnation issue was moot.)
Robert Jackson, from Pueblo, has written and floated a new ballot initiative restricting transbasin diversions:
1. No absolute or conditional water rights shall be transferred out of the basin of origin except those already approved for transfer before passage of this initiative.
2. No new rights providing for transfer from one basin to another shall be approved.
3. No existing or new rights shall be transferred out of the basin of origin to a point outside of Colorado which would increase the amount of water due by Colorado under a Compact on that river basin.
4. No existing or new water right shall be transferred within a basin that would adversely affect water quality within the basin.
5. The term river basin refers to the 7 natural basins in Colorado.
6. Provisions of this initiative shall sunset in 50 years.
NWCCOG has drafted a Basin of Origin bill based on Bruce Driver’s draft of several years’ ago, saying that a project
1. Will not impair present or prospective beneficial uses of water or increase the expense to users in the watershed from which water is exported.
2. Will not deprive the watershed in which the water originates of any water necessary for the development of the watershed and protection of the watershed’s economic base.
3. Will be consistent with the applicable watershed plan for the watershed from which the water will be exported.
4. Will not cause significant deterioration of aquatic habitat, fisheries, instream uses, recreational opportunities, and any other water-dependent features of the watershed from which the water will be exported.
THREE STATES AGREEMENT PROCESS STALLED
The states of Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska have not yet signed the renewal of their effort to recover three bird species and one fish living in the Platte River listed as endangered. The primary dispute holding up the process is to what extent sediment movement actions need to be implemented.
LOAN FOR WETPACK PROJECT ON THE DOLORES RIVER CONDITIONALLY APPROVED
Even though there are still questions about abandonment concerning the transfer of salvaged water from the Montezuma Valley Irrigation District to the Dolores Water Conservancy District, the Colorado Water Conservation Board approved a loan to the DWCD for $7.26 million conditioned on the District’s ability to negotiate a carriage contract with the Bureau to store water in McPhee Reservoir. The Dolores District intends to use an annuity to secure the loan. The project has not yet obtained permits for the transfer.
CO DELTA MARINE LIFE DOWN 95%
A new scientific study published in the journal Geology has found that the Colorado River delta’s marine life “has declined by 95% since the 1930s when the U.S. started damming the river and diverting its water” says the L.A. Times 12/2. The study provides “scientific documentation” to claims by environmentalists and local fishermen that “the dearth of river water is killing the desert estuary.” Once “teeming with life” the U.S. now takes 90% of the river’s water and Mexico takes the rest. Even a partial restoration of a regular flow into the delta could help endangered species such as the Southwestern willow flycatcher, Yuma clapper rail, desert pupfish, totoaba, and vaquita, “the world’s smallest porpoise.”
IMPASSE AT MINNOW TALKS
A court-ordered mediation over water management in New Mexico’s Middle Rio Grande Valley and the future of wild populations of the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow “remain stalled” after four months of negotiations says the Albuquerque Journal 11/28. The judge has ordered federal agencies to make recommendations on what should be done to protect the minnow, including a plan to allow more water in the river by paying farmers to leave fields fallow as was done on the Pecos River to protect the threatened Pecos bluntnose shiner.
WYOMING WRESTLES WITH COSTS, BENEFITS OF METHANE
Coal-bed methane production looks like an economic godsend to Wyoming, where New Economy prosperity is largely unknown. But it could be at the cost of the state’s most precious resource-water. “What disturbs me about the hysteria over methane production is it has caused people to think only about getting rich while ignoring common sense.”-Montana rancher Clint McRae, on the threat coal-bed methane development poses to ground water in Wyoming and Montana. Christian Science Monitor; Nov. 13 http://www.sltrib.com/11122000%5Cutah%5C42754.htm> http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/11/13/fp2s1-csm.shtml>
TOAD LIKES LEAKS
A University of Wyoming professor has found that the endangered Wyoming toad is dependent on artificial wetlands created by “leaky irrigation systems” says AP 11/20. According to a study, 68% of the Laramie Basin’s wetlands “depend on leaking ditches or irrigation water that has seeped into the ground and reappears in ponds and wetlands” while only 10% of the wetlands depend on “natural rivers and streams.”
BOLSA CHICA CONTROVERSY CONTINUES
The California Coastal Commission has approved a “truncated version” of a massive development that threatened the Bolsa Chica wetlands near Huntington Beach, California says AP 11/17. The approval for 1,235 homes is the latest in a 3 decade struggle to preserve the wetlands as well as other nearby habitat vital to birds, and pleased neither the developer, who wanted to build 5,700 homes and a marina nor local environmentalists who wanted the development stopped altogether. Controversy also continues over a planned restoration that would sacrifice parts of a state beach to open an inlet restoring a link to the ocean says AP 11/12.
STUDY BLAMES TROUT FOR DEMISE OF AMPHIBIANS IN SIERRA LAKES
A federally-funded study finds that trout stocked in California’s High Sierra lakes have nearly eliminated some native amphibians. The findings could lead to an emergency listing of the mountain yellow-legged frog as an endangered species and may require the state to remove trout from some lakes. The species plight is now so desperate that the USFWS may issue an emergency listing despite its self-imposed moratorium. Other studies of high alpine lakes have implicated stocking by state wildlife agencies in the extirpation of “long-toed salamanders from some mountain lakes in their range” and the reduction of Cascades frogs and spotted frogs. New York Times; Nov. 28
THE RESTORATION OF THE BOISE RIVER
Idaho’s Boise River’s water quality had improved dramatically during the past 25 years — much of it a result of the establishment of the Clean Water Act. Tens of thousands of people float and fish the river, but it has a long way to go before it can be considered pristine. Idaho Statesman; Nov. 26
NEARLY HALF OF THE RIVERS AND STREAMS EVALUATED IN IDAHO FAIL TO MEET WATER QUALITY STANDARDS. Idaho Statesman: Nov. 25
PHOENIX STARTS NOW TO STAVE OFF WATER SHORTAGE
Phoenix-area officials say the city is in no immediate danger of running out of water, but with 25,000 new houses each year for the past five years, it’s time to start planning for added demand and new sources. Arizona Republic; Dec. 7 http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/1207water07.html
NEVADA ABOLISHES WATER PLANNING
Its newly appointed administrator has dismantled Nevada’s Division of Water Planning, a move pushed by ranchers, miners and rural officials, under the governor’s call to streamline government. High Country News; Nov. 21
“SOUTH FORK OF THE SNAKE REDUCED TO TRICKLE”
To appease irrigators, the Bureau of Reclamation has cut water into the South Fork of the Snake River to half of normal winter flows and 27% below the minimum recommended flow necessary to protect the river’s ecosystem and fishery says the Idaho Falls Post Register 11/9. Environmentalists say the low flows could harm Yellowstone cutthroat a candidate for ESA listing. The Idaho Falls Post-Register says, the agency should turn the water back on in the Snake. Nov. 28
NMFS ACKNOWLEDGES WILD COHO SALMON
The National Marine Fisheries Service has finally agreed to consider listing a wild population of the Columbia River coho salmon under the ESA says the Oregonian 11/4. For a decade, the agency had rejected petitions from Oregon Trout, the Native Fish Society and Trout Unlimited “that populations of wild coho spawn naturally in the Sandy and Clackamas Rivers.” The NMFS, however, denied an emergency listing even though “Columbia wild coho salmon have been reduced to less than 1% of historic run size and are near extinction.”
NO SILVER BULLET FOR SAVING SALMON
A new article in the journal Science, that “lays out the scientific case” for the federal salmon recovery plan, finds that a only a comprehensive set of measures to restore habitat can save the Northwest salmon says the Oregonian 11/3.
The study finds that no single measure, including dam breaching, can by itself insure salmon recovery. According to the study “greater survival in the early life stages and in the estuary has the most dramatic effect on population growth.” While the study says breaching is no “panacea” it acknowledges that breaching could help reverse salmon decline if the “delayed mortality” effect from young salmon trying to get around the dams was “9% or greater.”
FED DAM BREACHING PLAN SURFACES
Two months before the official administration salmon recovery plan postponed a decision on breaching the lower Snake River dams for at least 5 years, the NMFS circulated a plan “among federal agencies” calling for the Army Corps to “immediately prepare to breach dams” beginning in 2006 says AP 11/19.
The shadow plan said that the “dams would be breached unless salmon populations made a measurable rebound.” The administration’s “sudden shift” away from breaching revealed “federal uncertainty” over how to save the 4 listed stocks of salmon and steelhead that pass the Snake River dams. Spokesman-Review; Nov. 19
LOGGING HALTED OVER SALMON
A federal judge has suspended “more than 170 timber sales” on 9 national forests and 5 BLM districts in Oregon, Washington and northern California “after finding that they pose immediate harm to threatened and endangered fish” says the Portland Oregonian 12/9. The injunction is the biggest in the region since the 1992 ruling that halted logging to protect the spotted owl. The court also found that the federal agencies “have not complied with the Northwest Forest Plan. According to the Oregon Natural Resources Council its time for the land managers to put away the “rubberstamp” and “get out the magnifying glass to make sure they’re not harming protected species.”
PROFESSOR SAYS TO BREACH MISSOURI DAMS -A Texas university professor and author of a book on the effects of Missouri River dams has called for breaching the dams. He says they serve none of their intended purposes. Missoulian (AP); Nov. 17 http://missoulian.com/display/inn_news/news05.txt
MO RIVER DAMS HARM ENDANGERED SPECIES
The USFWS has released its final Biological Opinion on current Missouri River dam operations with a “jeopardy” finding that failure to “appropriately” change operations will “likely” result in the extirpation of the least tern, piping plover and pallid sturgeon in the river says American Rivers 11/30. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reports 12/1 that the Army Corps of Engineers has agreed to implement by 2003 a modified version of the USFWS recommendations including a “spring rise” in the river necessary to restore a more natural flow pattern, likely to block barge traffic.
TX DOT RENEGING ON WETLAND MITIGATION
Four years after a wetlands mitigation project was supposed to be completed, the Texas Department of Transportation has still not begun work on the “long-overdue wetlands project on the Katy Prairie” says the Houston Chronicle 11/7.
The Katie Prairie is important to migrating birds and the project was “intended to compensate for other wetlands” destroyed by the nearby Grand Parkway, which the Sierra Club calls a “sprawl-inducing, habitat-destroying boondoggle.”
INTERNATIONAL REPORT REVEALS FLAWS IN U.S. DAM REGULATION
Prompts Call on New President and Congress to Reassess Federally Owned Dams in the United States
A report issued by the World Commission on Dams calls for a change in thinking about existing dams and improving their economic, environmental and social performance. The Commission proposes that constructed dams are changeable, and should be subject to periodic reviews to get the greatest benefits for current social, economic and environmental conditions.
The U.S. owns and operates 1,932 dams across the nation, but once they are constructed, requires no further comprehensive review.
American conservation organizations today called on the new President and Congress to establish a procedure for periodically reassessing the impacts and benefits of federally owned dams. “Federal taxpayers have an investment worth hundreds of billions of dollars in federal dams and water projects,” said Steve Malloch of Trout Unlimited. “No rational investor would make that kind of investment and then forget to manage it. We should bring these dams into line with current needs.”
On November 16, 2000, the World Commission on Dams–a multi-stakeholder international commission sponsored by the World Bank and the World Conservation Union (IUCN)–released an appraisal of the promise and delivery of large dams worldwide. The report found, in many cases, the economic benefits of dams are much oversold, and the environmental and social costs much underestimated. While the Commission’s report focuses primarily on new dam construction, it also addresses the ongoing impacts of existing dams, and recommends maximizing benefits from existing dams. Foremost of its recommendations for existing dams is periodic comprehensive reevaluation of the facilities and performance of dams, and more frequent (every five to 10 years), evaluation of dam operations.
“The U.S. has been a world leader in building dams,” said Margaret Bowman of American Rivers. “It is time that we become world leaders in managing them.”
In a letter to the next President of the United States and new Congress (see below), a coalition of conservation groups wrote, “If we now examined those almost two thousand major federal dams, we would be able to find many ways to improve their performance. In many cases, troublesome environmental impacts caused by dams and water projects can be mitigated simply by changing operations–changing the timing of water releases or using modern hydrological analysis to optimize benefits. In some cases modernizing facilities–installing efficient turbines and generators, eliminating wasted water and power, or installing fish ladders-can increase benefits. In a small number of cases those impacts are simply the price paid for the benefits and we either accept the cost or remove the dam.” To see the remainder of the article go to http://www.tu.org/article_list.html?XP_PUB=pr&XP_TABLE=articles.db&XP_RECORD=2000112003 To review the report, http://www.dams.org
HYDROELECTRIC POWER NOT FREE OF GREENHOUSE GASES
The reservoirs of many large dams built to generate hydroelectric power do produce greenhouse gases, the World Commission on Dams says in a comprehensive report issued earlier this month. This finding is in contrast to the widespread assumption that such emissions are zero or negligible. For full text and graphics visit http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2000/2000L-12-01-01.html
NO DELAY IN WILD ATLANTIC SALMON LISTING?
The USFWS is not going to grant Maine Gov. King’s request to delay a listing decision on wild Atlantic salmon says AP 11/10. Apparently, Interior Secretary Babbitt has signed a consent degree forgoing further delays in order to avoid a lawsuit from conservation groups who want the listing immediately. Gov. King had hoped that a $500,000 appropriation to have the National Academy of Sciences study the listing issue could delay federal action until it became moot. The listing recognizes that a state conservation plan was not working and “did not rule expanding the area of protection” from the 8 Down East rivers now included. http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13031-2000Nov13.html http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=111400&ID=s879607&cat=section.regional>
HUGE FISH FARM ESCAPE MENACES NEWLY LISTED SALMON
A boat tore a hole in an aquaculture pen releasing 13,000 farm-bred salmon “within striking distance of at least one the rivers where wild salmon are now listed as endangered” says the Bangor Daily News 11/30. In listing the wild Atlantic salmon, the USFWS “identified interactions between farmed salmon and Maine’s few remaining wild salmon as a serious threat to the genetic integrity and health of the wild fish.”
USFWS SUSPENDS NEW ESA LISTINGS
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Jamie Rappaport Clark has ordered the USFWS to immediately stop listing any new species under the ESA until at least October of next year says AP 11/21. The agency, which has consistently requested insufficient funding from Congress, now claims that lawsuits, (advanced by environmentalists to force the USFWS to designate critical habitat), have so depleted their budget that they cannot full fill their other legal requirement to list species in a timely manner. According to ESC Executive Director Brock Evans, “This cynical move by the very agency which is supposed to be the guardian of our country’s wildlife could amount to a death warrant for the 25 species now awaiting their chance of rescue.”
LEOPARD OF THE KOOTENAI NEXT ON DOCKET
The Kootenai River burbot is the next species due in court to challenge the USFWS listing moratorium after American Wildlands and the Idaho Conservation League filed a notice of intent to sue over the agencies “failure to act” on a listing petition say GREEN sources 12/7. Under the ESA, the USFWS has 90 days to determine if there is “substantial information indicating that the species should be listed” but in this case the groups have been waiting for 10 months.
MARINE FISHERIES EXTINCTION RECONSIDERED
A long-held “dogmatic view that extinction of marine fish stocks is an impossibility” is buckling under a new American Fisheries Society study that finds “82 species and stocks” are “at risk of extinction” says the L.A. Times 11/16. The report has caused a “shift in thinking” from the outdated management view that “the ocean was too vast and resilient for humans to entirely extirpate a species” to one that recognizes some species “mature and reproduce very slowly.” Currently, there are no non-anadromous oceanic fish listed as threatened or endangered.
SHARK FINNING BANNED
Legislation to ban the practice of shark finning, “cutting off a shark’s fin and throwing the dying fish back into the sea,” has cleared Congress says AP 12/8. The bill which is expected to be signed by President Clinton would make it illegal “to enter an American port or operate in the 200-mile U.S. federal” waters while “carrying shark fins without the carcass” and is primarily targeted toward Pacific fishing boats that supply the fins to the Asian market.
The bill also would study ways to “minimize incidental catches of sharks.”
LAWLESS FISHERMEN RAMPAGE IN GALAPAGOS
Renegade fishermen in the Galapagos Islands have burned national park offices, threatened conservationists and tourists and occupied the giant tortoise breeding center reportedly taking several baby and an adult tortoise say GREEN sources 11/20. The fishermen, whose numbers have nearly doubled in the last year, are using violence and intimidation to overturn quotas on lobster fishing and open up the Galapagos Marine Reserve to longline fishing for sharks and other species.
NMFS FAILS MONK SEALS
A federal judge has indefinitely closed the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands to lobster fishing because the National Marine Fisheries Service has “failed to protect the endangered Hawaiian monk seal from the impact of the fishery” says AP 11/17. Overfishing is “causing starvation among” the monk seals of which only “1,300 to 1,400” remain.
PACIFIC “GROUNDFISH CRISIS”
“Over-harvesting, poor monitoring, an oversized fleet and changing ocean conditions” have forced the Pacific Fishery Management Council to make “most drastic reductions” in quotas for “nearly every species of groundfish” says Greenwire 11/17. Six of the seven species slated for cuts are rockfish, species that “reproduce slowly” don’t mature until 13 years of age or older and can live up to 100 years.
NORTH SEA FISHERY NEAR COLLAPSE
The European Union is ready to take “drastic conservation measures” to save stocks of North Sea cod and other commercial species which appear to be “in severe danger of collapse” says AP 11/17. “North Sea cod stocks are close to the minimum needed to sustain the species.”
NAS RECOMMENDS EXPANDED MARINE RESERVES
The National Academy of Science has recommended that the U.S. needs to expand its currently small system of protected marine reserves says AP 11/9. According to the National Research Council report, current management which focuses on “fishing limits” is “insufficient to protect ocean ecosystems from the growing stresses of human activity.
“DIRTY DOZEN” BANNED
Negotiators have agreed on a treaty to ban 12 highly toxic chemicals, including PCBs, dioxins and furans, chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) says the Boston Globe 12/10. POPs break down slowly, spread easily and besides causing birth defects and cancer in humans can be “stored in living organisms” where they bio-accumulate and cause reproductive and immune system problems for fish, predatory birds and mammals such as orcas. Nine of the toxins are banned immediately and one DDT was exempted altogether because it is used in combating malaria.
TOXIC CHEMICAL IN WATER SUPPLY HAS LA NERVOUS
Los Angeles’ water supply is a worrisome source of Chromium 6, the potentially carcinogenic pollutant made famous by the movie “Erin Brokovich,” and officials are scrambling to determine the seriousness of the threat and how to lessen it. Washington Post; Dec. 8
EPA RELEASES REVISIONS TO THE METHODOLOGY FOR DERIVING WATER QUALITY CRITERIA FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN HEALTH
EPA released revisions to the 1980 Ambient Water Quality Criteria National Guidelines to better protect human health. The 1980 Ambient Water Quality Criteria National Guidelines outline the methodology used by states and tribes to develop human health water quality criteria. Revisions to the guidelines incorporate significant scientific advances in key areas such as cancer and non-cancer risk assessments, exposure assessments, and bioaccumulation in fish. It is most likely that the methodology will result in more stringent criteria for bioaccumulatives and generally similar values of non-bioaccumulatives.
To view the a fact sheet on the rule, the Federal Register notice with the rule, and documents from the draft methodology, go to http://www.epa.gov/ost/humanhealth/method/index.html
For more information about the methodology, contact Denis Borum with EPA at 202-260-8996 or borum.denis@epa.gov.
ENVORNMENTAL PROTECTION REPORT
The National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has just released a report on EPA and environmental protection, with considerable emphasis on watershed protection. The report (“Environment.gov”) can be purchased from NAPA for $20 and/or accessed at NAPA’s website at www.napawash.org.
[Click on “Panel report on EPA”, and then click “full panel report”.]
The report is 220 pages long so you may not want to print it from the website. The report includes a chapter (#4) on “Protecting Watersheds: A New Confluence”, with sub-parts on nonpoint source pollution, TMDLs, and making watershed approaches work, among other topics.
OIL SPILL THREATENS MISSISSIPPI REFUGES
A massive oil spill on the lower Mississippi River is threatening “200,000 migratory waterfowl” such as snow geese, pintail ducks, widgeons, gadwalls and teal, “as well as other shorebirds, fish, mammals and Louisiana’s own state bird, the brown pelican” says the New Orleans Times-Picayune 11/30. So far, oil cleanup crews have been successful in keeping the slick out of the 49,000-acre Delta NWR and 100,000-acre Pass-a-Loutre State WMA, but a change in wind and waves could “push it over the boom” and into the refuges.
For information about joining the Sierra Club, contact chapter-director@rmc.sierraclub.org
