The Wednesday Wetness

The Peacock whines Palestinians struggle to find water as clean sources become increasingly scarce in Gaza. "Many now have to walk, sometimes for miles, to get a small water fill after the Israeli military’s bombardment damaged a pipeline operated by state-owned Mekorot." State owned in Gaza mean Hamas owned. My sympathy is limited. They FA and FO. 

The Wombat has Rule Five Sunday: Bunny Season! awaiting your attention at The Other McCain.

The Wednesday Wetness

Bay Journal, Environmental groups send EPA lawsuit warning

The Environmental Integrity Project, on behalf of the Waterkeeper Alliance and Center for Biological Diversity, sent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a notice of intent to sue May 2. Among the Waterkeeper Alliance are 16 waterkeepers — advocates for various waterways — in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

The organizations accuse the EPA of failing to provide Congress with regular comprehensive reports on the state of the nation’s waterways as required under the Clean Water Act.

“The Clean Water Act can’t live up to its promise if EPA won’t report on polluted waterways, as required, or update its standards to keep pace with technology,” Meg Parish, senior attorney at the Environmental Integrity Project, said in a press release.

In the notice, the groups assert that the Clean Water Act requires the EPA to provide a thorough analysis to Congress on the condition of the nation’s waterbodies at least once every two years. The groups contend that the EPA hasn’t done so since 2017.

I assume, this being EPA, and they being environmental groups, that this will be a case of sue and settle. 

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Low Effort Komiposting up and garnering clicks.

Wednesday Wetness

WTOP: Cold month wreaks havoc on DC-area water systems

The frigid temperatures are taking their toll on D.C.-area water systems. Burst pipes and water mains are causing numerous road closures and leaving many without water.

“In the past two days, we’ve seen about 70 water main breaks and leaks,” WSSC Water spokesperson Lyn Riggins told WTOP Monday.

A water main break in Silver Spring prompted officials to close all southbound lanes of Route 29 on Colesville Road on Sunday, which remained closed until around 1 p.m. Monday, according to the Maryland State Highway Administration.

WSSC Water monitors and maintains nearly 6,000 miles of water pipes in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland. On average, there are 1,800 breaks and leaks in a year. The vast majority of those happen during the winter months.

It's pretty rough on our water system too.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Pre-Tax Double Scoop Edition ready and awaiting your digital pleasure.

That's Some Expensive Sushi!

California spends $178 million per fish to bring back salmon

Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of ... five ... salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California's farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That's some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream.

Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be:
In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws.

In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean.
In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement.
Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River.

Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this week’s news, it appears to be working.
Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000.
And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year.
I won’t even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and – lest we forget – lost jobs. Many politicians aren’t either. . . .

The author confused gallons with acre-feet (the amount of water needed to cover one acre a foot deep, or 325,851gallons. That's a pretty huge error.

But just think, if they get 5 more fish back next year, the average price per fish drops to a mere $89,000,000 per fish, and assuming a 10 lb averages, a mere 8.9 million dollars per pound! That is, assuming they don't spend any more money . . .

Now, it is worth fixing things in the environment for their own sakes, but the San Joaquin River is the main river draining the lower end of California's Central Valley. It is, almost literally, a giant agricultural drainage ditch. I wouldn't want to eat those salmon.

The value of agriculture in the Central Valley to the nation's food supply and economy far outweighs the value of restoring the San Joaquin to fraction of it's original state. Let Alaska handle the salmon production.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links.

Up the Klamath and Back Again

Today's entertainment was a trip up the Klamath River in a jet boat. We drove up to where the Klamath crosses Highway 101.

Mary and Georgia await the boarding call.

The boat. 860 horse power, twin turbine jet powered, seating about 30.

A sea lion hunting salmon in the estuary.

In the estuary, near the mouth of the river, where it joins the Pacific Ocean.

Once upstream, the fog was gone, and we had a sunny ride uo

Apparently, the river has a big run of salmon going on, and there were many boats out fishing, anything from kayaks to other jet boats.

A familiar friend, a Great Blue Heron. We also saw Bald Eagles and Ospreys.

Below, one minute taste of the jet boat ride.

On the way home we hunted for elk, taking a long cut through Prairie Creek State Park where they often hang out. We didn't find any. But then, just south, a couple of bulls got out in the road and stopped traffic. We later saw two large herds, one out in a field near Orick, and another on the roadside near the lagoons.

An Old Friend in the Bay News

Dr Kevin Sellner, posing with algae

The river's toll: How the Monocacy feeds into the Chesapeake Bay's problems

Kevin Sellner is most comfortable in two environments: his laboratory at Hood College or getting his feet wet. An oceanographer by trade, he has spent his career studying plankton and nutrient pollution in rivers, lakes and the Chesapeake Bay.

“When I see algae in the water, I look around and say, ‘How are they getting sufficient nutrients?’” Sellner said.

It’s a question with broader reach than one might think. In fact, it has driven decades of policy within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed as blooms of algae have devastated portions of the bay’s ecosystem and — through years of expensive rehabilitation and conservation — begun to show improvements.
. . .
Sellner spent 14 years as the director of the Chesapeake Research Consortium before he retired and moved to Frederick, where he works as a senior scholar for the Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies at Hood College. He occasionally weighs in on county water affairs, and on the periphery, he has watched a debate about the Monocacy River erupt.

The water quality of the Monocacy River has been a controversial topic in Frederick County over the last year and a half as policymakers, advocates and residents have tried to write a management plan for its future. A large tree buffer and a resource protection zone were originally proposed along the river corridor — where there is active agricultural land — in the draft released in 2016.

A little article on the Monocacy River, with a pretty good map.

The draft has since been modified, but in its wake, a groundswell of people have denied that Frederick County’s agriculture is affecting the water quality of the river. Instead, residents have pointed blame at Pennsylvania, urban stormwater runoff or discharge from local wastewater treatment plants.

“In my opinion, they’ve ignored the data from the river,” Sellner said.

The Monocacy River has “marginally” and “slowly” been improving, but it is nowhere near where it’s supposed to be, he said. And the interpretation that Frederick County is not contributing nutrients or sediment to the river also isn’t backed up by available data, he said.

Data collected since the 1980s from monitoring sites at the top and bottom of the river show that more nitrogen exits the Monocacy River at its confluence with the Potomac River than flows into it from the Pennsylvania border, Sellner said.

Considering that the Monocacy just barely gets into Pennsylvania, that's not a particularly high bar. I would be surprised if it managed to pass through Maryland without picking up a lot more nutrients (and a lot more volume).

Frederick County has more than 127,000 acres of farmland, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture, which makes it one of the largest land uses in the county.

Kevin and I worked at the Academy of Natural Science (under a variety of names) together for quite a while. He ran a pretty big program called Biomonitoring that  involved measuring algae and zooplankton in Maryland's portion of Chesapeake Bay. The program was not without its problems (usually lack of money), but it produced years worth of valuable data.

About that "Crisis" Regarding Plastic in the Oceans

Shocking report reveals that 95% of plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from just TEN rivers including the Ganges and Niger, and none are in the United States.

Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research.

The top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste.

About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources - such as the Yangtze and the Ganges - could almost halve it, scientists claim.

And with no further ado, the dirty dozen minus two:

THE 10 MOST POLLUTING RIVERS

Yangtze                                East China Sea               Asia
Indus                                    Arabian Sea                     Asia
Yellow River                         Yellow Sea                       Asia
Hai He                                  Yellow Sea                       Asia
Nile                                       Mediterranean                 Africa
Ganges                                 Bay of Bengal                  Asia
Pearl River                            South China Sea             Asia
Amur                                     Sea of Okhotsk                Asia
Niger                                     Gulf of Guinea                  Africa
Mekong                                 South China Sea              Asia 

This should not be considered a license to dump your trash in the ocean, but just be aware of where the problem seems really come from. China seems over represented even given it's huge population.