The Chronicles of the Hydraulic Brotherhood
Lloyd G. Carter, former UPI and Fresno Bee reporter, has been writing about California water issues for more than 35 years. He is President of the California Save Our Streams Council. He is also a board member of the Underground Gardens Conservancy and host of a monthly radio show on KFCF, 88.1 FM in Fresno. This is his personal blog site and contains archives of his news career as well as current articles, radio commentaries, and random thoughts.
Lloyd G. Carter, former UPI and Fresno Bee reporter, has been writing about California water issues for more than 35 years. He is President of the California Save Our Streams Council. He is also a board member of the Underground Gardens Conservancy and host of a monthly radio show on KFCF, 88.1 FM in Fresno. This is his personal blog site and contains archives of his news career as well as current articles, radio commentaries, and random thoughts.
SELENIUM KILLING OFF WETLANDS AND STREAMS. EPA FIDDLES WHILE FISH DIE.
Submitted by lgc_admin on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 15:16. Selenium pollution caused by agricultural drainage water, mountaintop coal mining, and phosphate (fertilizer) mining is destroying creeks all over America. To learn more click HERE: http://fresnoalliance.com/wordpress/?p=1403
Water Movies Screening in Fresno
Submitted by lgc_admin on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 15:14.Gov. Schwarzenegger Issues Statement Regarding the Water Supply Act of 2010
Submitted by lgc_admin on Tue, 06/29/2010 - 20:25.Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday, June 29, issued the following statement regarding the Water Supply Act of 2010: READ MORE »
Why Should We Care About Water?
Submitted by lgc_admin on Thu, 06/17/2010 - 15:23.This is an article from thereeftank.com's website that did a feature on me. Follow the link here to read more:
Down in the Valley - June 11, 2010 by Lloyd Carter
Submitted by lgc_admin on Mon, 06/14/2010 - 12:53.31:56 minutes (29.23 MB)
Lloyd’s June 12 radio interview with EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld can be heard HERE
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Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District Withdraws Treatment Plant Capacity Increase Request
Submitted by lgc_admin on Fri, 06/11/2010 - 12:38.The Delta Toilet Bowl
Submitted by lgc_admin on Thu, 06/03/2010 - 22:27.
More on the Delta toilet bowl
By Boutris Wittfogel
It is disappointing to watch the Sacramento County Regional Sanitation District (Sac Regional) tirelessly refute all claims that its ammonia-laden wastewater might be harming fish. Why not solve the problem instead?
Concerns about ammonia are not without merit. Way back in 1986, the Environmental Protection Agency identified ammonia as being toxic to fish, both in the short term (acute) and through periods of long exposure (chronic). In its benchmark manual, known as the Gold Book, EPA makes it clear that toxic acute concentrations of ammonia “may cause loss of equilibrium, hyperexcitability, increased breathing, cardiac output and oxygen uptake, and, in extreme cases, convulsions, coma, and death.” This makes sense. Think about how you feel when you get a little too close to the Windex.
At lower concentrations (chronic), according to the Gold Book, “ammonia has many effects on fishes, including a reduction in hatching success, reduction in growth rate and morphological development, and pathologic changes in tissues of gills, livers, and kidneys.” Think about how you might feel after washing windows all day taking a little bit of the Windex in with each breath.
As with those who attempt to downplay the extent of climate change, Sac Regional is not completely off-base in insisting that ammonia work be based upon “sound science.” The Gold Book is clear that the science of ammonia can be tricky and involves other parts of chemistry such temperature, pH, river flow, and other complicated scientific principles.
We know ammonia kills fish, and most other things that live in rivers. We know the northern part of the Delta, just downstream of Sac Regional’s outfall is prime delta smelt rearing habitat. Anyone who has used Windex knows that stuff cannot be good for you.
I recognize Sac Regional is caught up in a larger debate about Delta management, and it is well known that other interests look to scapegoat others in hopes of advancing their own agendas. That is basic politics. But this is not an “either/or” situation, everyone must live up to their responsibilities. Exports from the Delta continue to cause tremendous damage to the fisheries and pesticides continue to wreak havoc on the ecosystem, the Army Corps continues to dredge up legacy mercury in river beds. But none of these or other issues absolve Sac Regional of its ethical responsibility and imperative duty to solve its problems.
Most disappointing is Sac Regional’s short-sighted interpretation of its own mission to “...protect public health and the environment through reliable and safe ... treatment and disposal of wastewater in the most cost-effective manner possible, now and into the future.” We know how to remove ammonia from wastewater. In order to graduate, engineering schools across the nation require students to understand the basics of ‘nutrient removal.’
Sac Regional officials are often quoted as saying the required changes would coast one billion dollars to implement. It is possible it might take one billion dollars to remove the nutrients. But what I would really like to know is since 1986, how much Sac Regional has spent on lobbyists, politicians, trade group memberships, public relations, and consultants resisting doing what all of this year’s graduating engineering students know they should be doing -- removing nutrients.
Myths and Facts about land fallowing in the western San Joaquin Valley
Submitted by lgc_admin on Wed, 05/26/2010 - 13:04.To read the attached pdf file click here:
More Random Musings..
Submitted by lgc_admin on Tue, 05/25/2010 - 09:58.
RANDOM MUSINGS
BY BOUTRIS WITTFOGEL
- The State Water Resources Control Board heard the Once-Through-Cooling Policy this past week. This was a big item, five years in the making and garnering upwards of 9,000 comment letters, including a form letter apparently replicated 7,000 times. The list of commentators was diverse, including a letter of concern from nine legislators.
An impressive group of advocacy groups sent an alarming letter calling the draft OTC policy “...a marked step backwards from previous versions that it not only fails to meet the letter and intent of the Clean Water Act.... [and] is extremely disappointing after almost five years of hard work by all parties involved to see such significant changes, many of which ignore progress and agreements made to date.” While interests on the ‘other side’ did not exactly hail the draft policy, most like Dynergy, RRI Energy, and Pacific Gas & Electric, acknowledged ‘improvements’ to the draft policy. Translation... Score: energy companies 1, everyone else 0.
Dramatic eleventh-hour “significant changes,” on something this controversial are wholly out of character for the group-think Water Board culture. Considering the history of influence energy companies exert in California government, it would be no surprise if the “significant changes” noted by the advocacy group did not originate from within the Water Board. “Significant changes” of this nature tend to originate from the highest reaches of the Executive; think Cal-EPA or the Governor’s office.
- In another controversial action, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted a total maximum daily load for control of methylmercury and total mercury in the Delta. Mercury and its evil sibling, methylmercury are complex issues; only time will tell if this was a good decision by the Regional Board. I hope it was, but disturbing letters like this one do not bode well for my hopes.
Those of us from the environmental justice communities who had been left out of the earlier processes concur with Andria comments below. The draft resolution contains language that misleads the reader and public into believing this process was a collaborative effort that included EJ communities when it was not. Various EJ communities have and continue to voice their concerns of being excluded in activities and processes with the development of the document, processes and numerous previously held meetings where we were excluded.People for Children’s Health an Environmental Justice
It is very difficult to escape the realities of decisions made by a captured regulatory agency. That is, unless you are the beneficiary of the captured regulatory agency, a notion that Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District did not dispute.
- May 18 is the supposed deadline for wastewater plants to satisfy the California Toxics Rule, is imminent. Over the past few years, the Central Valley Regional Board instituted a parliamentary gimmick of splitting permits into two parts – a permit and a compliance schedule. It is, in part, meant to delay implementation of the May 18 deadline. Apparently, we will find out after May 18if the gimmick will withstand legal scrutiny. The guess here is that only a handful of wastewater plants in the state, half a dozen or fewer, could satisfy the California Toxics Rule on May 18 if administered without gimmicks. Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District’s wastewater plant is not one of them.
- Comedian Paul Rodriguez on the California Water Commission? Now that is good for a laugh following news reports Gov. Schwarzennegger is considering Rodriguez for the commission. Rodriguez has been a front man/class clown for the Latino Water Coalition, a front group for large western San Joaquin Valley growers, but he has freely admitted on radio show interviews that he has little actual knowledge of California water issues other than he has bought – hook, line and sinker – the party line of western San Joaquin Valley agribusiness. He has also created the impression his small East Side farm near Orange Cove has been threatened with water cutbacks yet records show he had not been deprived of one drop of water from the San Joaquin River. Since much of California water politics is worth a good belly laugh, maybe putting Rodriguez on the Water Commission will lighten things up. But I doubt it. This appointment, if it happens, is a slap in the face of Delta/fishing/Northern California interests.
Frostbite Enforcement Action – All Bark: No “Real” Protection for Salmonid Species in Sight
Submitted by lgc_admin on Thu, 05/20/2010 - 16:57.Subject: Frostbite Enforcement Action – All Bark: No “Real” Protection for Salmonid Species in Sight
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