Congressional staffers who helped craft the landmark Clean Water Act 50 years ago acknowledge they left a big hole in the law — one that’s now blamed for the single largest pollution source in streams, rivers and lakes.
Nonpoint-source pollution — a technocratic term describing pesticides, oil, fertilizers, toxins, sediment and grime that storms wash into waterways from land — still befuddles federal regulators to this day.
The Trump administration on Friday awarded a permanent water delivery contract to the country’s largest agricultural district, brushing aside environmentalists’ concerns about California’s uncertain water future in the face of climate change.
At issue is irrigation water that flows through the Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project to the Westlands Water District, a Rhode Island-sized agricultural powerhouse and former client of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.
Reclamation cast the agreement as a good deal: In return for a contract that lasts in perpetuity, Westlands pays off its debt for the Central Valley Project construction much faster. As of Sept. 30, 2018, Westlands owed about $480.7 million to the federal government.
If President Trump wants to understand the risk of rolling back water efficiency standards that have been in place for almost 30 years, he can turn to a member of his own Cabinet.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has signed off on regulations that treat water-efficient toilets and shower heads as effective tools to save Americans from droughts and other risks.
In 2007, when Perdue was Georgia’s governor, the state was in the grips of a historic and extreme drought, and Atlanta was months away from losing its primary water source (Greenwire, Oct. 17, 2007).
Before Democrats managed to secure provisions to address a class of toxic chemicals in an annual defense measure, negotiations fell apart at the hands of their own members.
For months, Democrats pushed to attach provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that would designate a class of 5,000 toxic chemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as hazardous.
Doing so would spark federal cleanup standards. Democrats also wanted EPA to set a strong drinking water standard.
California water projects have pushed winter-run chinook salmon into the single place that remains suitable for them to breed: the reservoir behind the Shasta Dam.
Even that sanctuary fails during drought years as the same pressures that drove salmon into the reservoir — too little water and too much heat — take hold in their only breeding ground. Climate change is making those pressures worse, and the chinook population is closer than ever to extinction, according to NOAA Fisheries.
The decadeslong Pacific Northwest salmon war may be nearing the end.
But it’s economics, not fish, that could be the demise of four dams at the center of the fight.
The dams on the Lower Snake River — besieged by conservationists and biologists for killing fish — are now battered by falling prices for renewable energy, skyrocketing replacement costs for aging turbines and a growing tab for environmental mitigation.
“The jig is up,” said Daniel Malarkey, a senior fellow at the Sightline Institute, a regional think tank focused on energy, economic and environmental policy. “We had this super-cheap power relative to other resources, and we’ve piled a bunch of extra costs on it.”
Nearly a century ago, America embarked on a great social experiment in the Pacific Northwest, charging up the Columbia River and erecting dams.
It worked. Construction jobs pulled the country out of the Great Depression. Cheap electricity spurred the growth of cities like Seattle, Portland and Boise. And hydropower fueled the military effort to defeat the spread of fascism in World War II.
Now the system is buckling.
The Bonneville Power Administration, the independent federal agency that sells the electricity produced by the dams, is careening toward a financial cliff.
The Big Lost River earns its name. Beginning in Idaho’s tallest peaks, moving through irrigation dams and diversions, the river flows into the desert here and simply ends.
An ancient tributary to the iconic Snake River, the Big Lost was cut off by volcanic eruptions millions of years ago. Lava cooled into porous basalt, now covered by volcanic ash. When the river reaches the aptly named Sinks, it disappears underground.
Colorado River states cheered this month when President Trump signed swiftly passed legislation ratifying a drought plan for the waterway. But they could be in for a legal fight. Some lawyers say the Drought Contingency Plan, or DCP, may be built on shaky legal ground and could be vulnerable to litigation — depending on how the Bureau of Reclamation implements it. One California water district has already sued to block it. At issue is whether it complies with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA. Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman testified before Congress that the DCP is “designed to specifically fit within existing environmental compliance”
For six years, a coordinated campaign has fought to save the Colorado River, influencing policy decisions like a recent interstate drought plan. But you can’t find it on Google. The Colorado River Sustainability Campaign has been an important behind-the-scenes player for environmentalists working on the waterway, which provides water to 40 million people. It is housed at the New Venture Fund, a tax-exempt charity based in Washington, D.C., that funnels money to dozens of advocacy campaigns on a variety of issues. There is no mention of the Colorado River Sustainability Campaign on the fund’s website, or anywhere in its tax filings. And those tax returns are opaque.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
