Withheld report was requested and funded by Congress.

^{[1]   Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue}

ROCHELLE, ILLINOIS, AUGUST 2010: The Illinois River Energy biofuels plant in Rochelle releases plumes of steam at sunrise. The ethanol plant processes over 40 million bushels of corn into 115 million gallons of fuel grade ethanol annually. The plant is one of hundreds around the country transforming corn into ethanol. It takes nearly 1,000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol from irrigated corn: four gallons from unirrigated corn.

By Keith Schneider  Circle of Blue Posted On September 7, 2010 @ 9:58 pm

Original source: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/energy-department-blocks-disclosure-of-road-map-to-relieve-critical-u-s-energy-water-choke-points/

A far-reaching federal program of research and analysis, funded by Congress and designed to help the nation anticipate and temper the mounting conflict between rising energy demand and diminishing supplies of fresh water, has been brought to a standstill by the Department of Energy, according to government researchers involved in the project.

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The research program, known as the National Energy-Water Roadmap and ordered up by Congress as part of the 2005 Energy Security Act, was meant to provide lawmakers and the executive branch two studies of the impending collision between energy and water, and what to do about it.

The first, completed by a team of federal scientists in December 2006 and made public a month later, described the serious consequences the nation is already encountering as the United States encourages more energy production, the second largest user of water, but gives scant consideration to water supplies, which are in retreat in most regions of the country.

Meanwhile the second and final report that Congress commissioned, a comprehensive research agenda to better understand the nation’s energy-water choke points and begin developing real world solutions, has been held out of public view for more than four years.

22 Rewrites

Michael Hightower, an energy systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories and a co-author of the report, said the first draft of the study on research needs was delivered to the Energy Department in July 2006. Energy Department reviewers have since called for 22 rewrites, the last of which was delivered in May 2009, Hightower said.

Since then the five-member team that co-authored the study has not had any communication about the report with the two primary reviewers, Samuel F. Baldwin, chief technology officer in the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and Nicholas B. Woodward in the DOE Office of Science.

“I don’t know why they are holding up the report,” said Hightower in an interview with Circle of Blue. “I can only conclude we don’t know how to write or they don’t like the report. I think we have done a nice job in collecting the data. Maybe the quality is in question.”

Neither Baldwin nor Woodward responded to email messages from Circle of Blue. Ebony Meeks, an assistant press secretary, offered this explanation by email and did not respond to follow-up questions: “When developing a comprehensive technological road map it is imperative that all the data is thoroughly reviewed for accuracy and concurred upon by the multiple participating programs. We plan to release the road map as soon as possible.”

The Energy Department’s decision to prevent the report’s public release could also prove embarrassing. Read more

Sep 7 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Debra McCown Bristol Herald Courier, Va.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16882616

A power plant in Russell County is among two in Virginia causing water quality problems from the storage of coal ash, according to a study released this week by three environmentalist organizations.

Appalachian Power’s Clinch River Plant in Carbo is identified in the report along with 38 other sites in 21 states called “toxic” in a news statement timed to coincide with the start of public hearings on the proposed federal regulation of coal ash.

The other Virginia plant highlighted in the study is Appalachian’s Glen Lyn plant in Giles County. Three plants owned by the Tennessee Valley Authority are listed in Tennessee.

The three groups — the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthjustice and Sierra Club — allege that the ash sites are contaminating the water with heavy metals such as arsenic and lead.

They point the finger at states’ environmental protection agencies, claiming they “are not adequately monitoring the coal combustion waste” and they call on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to impose strong new regulations. Read more

Sep 7 – McClatchy-Tribune Regional News – Cathy Dyson The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va.

Original source: http://www.energycentral.com/functional/news/news_detail.cfm?did=16887213

Because of toxic pollution at other sites across the nation where coal-ash waste has been dumped, King George County residents near the landfill should wonder if the same kind of material might contaminate their water, according to a group that recently studied the dangers of coal ash.

“If they’re concerned there could be a threat — and there certainly is that likelihood — they should absolutely test for arsenic, mercury, lead” and other toxic metals in the water, said Kate Pollard, a field organizer for the  Sierra Club. “There’s a much higher likelihood of contaminants from coal ash leaching into the water than what was previously understood.”

The Sierra Club partnered with the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice to produce a report on coal-ash contamination. Called “In Harm’s Way: Lack of Federal Coal Ash Regulations Endangers Americans and Their Environment,” the report was released in late August.

It was timely on national and local levels. Read more

Posted By Dr. Peter Gleick On September 8, 2010 @ 6:05 am

Original source: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/north-america/peter-gleick-californias-next-one-million-acre-feet-of-water/?utm_source=Circle+of+Blue+WaterNews+%26+Alerts&utm_campaign=7be68f3fdc-Weekly_Water_News_September_8_2010&utm_medium=email

This is a key time for California water: we are coming off of three years of serious drought and growing political conflict over water allocations. The Legislature passed a comprehensive water bill last November. A major water bond was proposed to fund a wide range of interventions, but has now been tabled for at least two years and could be greatly altered or even scrapped altogether. New reviews from around the state are calling for prompt efforts to use infrastructure, markets, and institutional reform to address the state’s water crisis. All parties agree that the state will need a diverse portfolio of solutions for our diverse and complex water problems.

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But the argument that we must do everything at once — conservation, new dams, seawater desalination plants, replumbing the Delta, some of this or that — is disingenuous, and wrong. We must do the most critical and effective things first, from a technical, political, and economic perspective.

And the most effective thing, hands down, is improving water-use efficiency. The Pacific Institute has just released a new analysis that recommends a set of specific actions that can annually save a million acre-feet ^[2] of water quickly and at a lower economic and ecological cost than developing new supplies. These water savings are split 30/70 between the urban and agricultural sectors. Read more

Innovative Solution has Roots in 14th Century Switzerland

Country Name: United States of America Author: Tracy Stanton and Steve Zwick

Original source: http://www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/pages/dynamic/article.page.php?page_id=7706&section=news_articles&eod=1

Like many cities around the world, Denver gets its drinking water from rivers and reservoirs, which in turn get their water from forests. Many of those forests, however, are in trouble – thanks to funding cuts, climate change, and a horde of opportunistic beetles. That puts the city’s water supply at risk as well, so Denver teamed up with the US Forest Service to funnel money it collects from water fees into forest restoration. And it’s not the only city to do so.

7 September 2010 | Denver Water¹ delivers clean drinking water to more than 1.3 million people spread across more than 335 square miles, and most of that water comes from rivers and reservoirs that capture run-off from forest-covered hills in clearly-delineated watersheds. The forests both protect the steep slopes from erosion and regulate the flows of water by mopping it up and then releasing it slowly over time.

And therein lies the problem: climate change has extended summers in Colorado just enough to give the northern pine beetle the comfort it needs to multiply like never before.  The bug has taken full advantage – devouring bark at a rate ten times higher than ever recorded, killing trees and leaving them scattered like kindling for wildfires.

And those fires now take hold with increasing frequency, reducing the forest to lumps of silt and sludge.  Lush slopes degenerate into unstable masses of goo.  The water upon which the city depends becomes muddy and irregular, which makes it more difficult – and expensive – to assure people they can turn on their faucets and trust the drinking water that comes out.

Enter the US Forestry Service (USFS), which is charged, in part, with ensuring clean headwaters by maintaining healthy forests.

Both the USFS and Denver Water are struggling to meet their budgets in the face of these challenges, so in August the Forestry Service’s Rocky Mountain office cut a $33 million deal with the Denver utility to proactively manage 38,000 critical acres in five key watersheds – if Denver Water comes up with half the money.  Read more

The 600 MW project is the third on the river scrapped because of environmental and religious pressure.

Original source: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/south-asia/india-cancels-hydroelectric-project-on-ganges-tributary/?utm_source=Circle+of+Blue+WaterNews+%26+Alerts&utm_campaign=7be68f3fdc-Weekly_Water_News_September_8_2010&utm_medium=email

The Alaknanda River and Bhagirathi River form the Ganges river at Devprayag.

India’s central government canceled a dam project on a Ganges River tributary last week, after the leading partner in the ruling coalition intervened because of environmental and religious concerns, the Times of India ^[3] reports.

A group of ministers led by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee green-lighted the 600 Megawatts Loharinag Pala hydroelectric project since the government had already spent Rs 650 crore (US$139 million) on the dam and committed Rs 2,000 crore (US$429 million) in supply contracts, according to the Economic Times of India ^[4].

But leaders of the Congress party, including environment minister Jairam Ramesh, abandoned the agreement because of local and national pressure.

Since it was a run-of-the-river project, the dam on the Bhagirathi River in the northern state of Uttarakhand would not have created a large reservoir, but instead would have dried up a 16-km stretch where the water was diverted through pipes to the generators, the Times of India reports.

Work on the dam stopped in March 2009 after a well-known India scientist, AD Agarwal, nearly died during a hunger strike in protest. Read more

By FELICITY BARRINGER September 3, 2010

Original source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/us/04dams.html?scp=1&sq=Rogue%20River&st=cse

GOLD HILL, Ore. — When four dams on the Rogue River here were scheduled for removal, environmentalists predicted many benefits: more salmon and steelhead swimming upriver to spawn; more gravel carried downriver to replenish the riverbed; more rafters bobbing along 57 miles of newly opened water.

What they did not bargain for was the arrival this summer of a clutch of people, eager to sift through the tons of gravel for flakes of gold once hidden behind the dams.

Prospectors cluster slightly downriver from where the dams used to be. Their suction dredges blare together, in a discordant fanfare louder than lawnmowers.

Resentment now flows as freely as the river. Environmentalists and some riverside homeowners see the gold dredgers as noisy invaders rearranging the riverbed without care for the insects, fish and people who live in and along the Rogue. A state senator, Jason Atkinson, has announced that he will introduce legislation to ban the practice of dredging for gold; three state newspapers have editorialized in support of a temporary ban pending further study.

“This is interfering with the ambience, the sense of what the Rogue is about,” said Bob Hunter, a lawyer with WaterWatch, a nonprofit environmental group. He spent 23 years organizing, cajoling and filing lawsuits to bring down the four dams, the last of which was removed Aug. 11.

The river, he said, “is about rafting and hiking and fishing.”

“It’s not about industrial mining,” he added. “To have this adversely affect what this is all about is a shame.”

Lesley Adams, who works for KSWild, another environmental group, said she feared for the health of the salmon runs that the Rogue has in more abundance than any other Oregon river but the Columbia.

Dam removals “have made great strides in restoring the salmon runs,” she said. But, she added, “while we’re working so hard to restore this river, we’re letting gasoline-powered engines suck up the bottom of the river.”   Read more

Published: Saturday, September 04, 2010, 5:00 AM   Special to The Oregonian

Original source: http://www.oregonlive.com/travel/index.ssf/2010/09/clean-cruising_rules_give_ship.html

The gleaming 13-deck Carnival Spirit docks weekly at Seattle’s Elliott Bay, a symbol of Washington state’s success in building its cruise business.

But that success has come at an environmental price, and regulators are just now starting to assess the damage and tighten oversight.

Absent consistent federal and international regulations for cruise ships, states are creating a patchwork of regulatory and sometimes voluntary systems that allow operators to pick and choose what rules they follow. The situation is pushing some problems related to cruise pollution farther out to sea, where ships can dump waste out of sight of regulators.  Read more

Published: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 11:23 AM     Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 11:34 AM

Original source: http://www.oregonlive.com/west-linn/index.ssf/2010/09/water_conservation_rebates_for_clackamas_county_residents_are_being_left_high_and_dry.html

Special to The Oregonian

Water conservation rebates totaling $9,300 are going mostly unused by households in the Clackamas River Water Providers‘ service area.

Christine Hollenbeck, the coalition’s water conservation coordinator, said the toilet and landscaping rebates can be worth as much as $150 per household. For instance, a family that buys a high-efficiency toilet can receive a $100 rebate.

On top of that, a high-efficiency toilet can save up to 4,000 gallons of water per household a year.

The rebates are valid until summer 2011 or the funds are depleted.  Read more

Published: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 6:32 PM     Updated: Thursday, September 02, 2010, 7:00 PM  Scott Learn, The Oregonian

Original source: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/09/hood_river_juice_owner_pleads.html

The owner of Hood River Juice has pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor pollution counts in a long-running case that also led to the resignation of Attorney General John Kroger’s top environmental aide earlier this year.

David B. Ryan pleaded guilty late Wednesday to failing to file a required report and second-degree water pollution, misdemeanors related to management of the company’s wastewater system in 2007 and 2009.

His company pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors. The original charges included 18 felonies and four misdemeanors.

The plea requires Ryan to serve three years probation and serve 48 hours in jail or perform 80 hours of community service. His company, with 110 workers, must stop operating at the current site by Dec. 15 and move to a new location equipped to handle wastewater.

Hood River Juice also must hire an operator to monitor operations and inspect its wastewater system weekly. And Ryan and the company must pay $12,500 to the Western States Project, which provides environmental enforcement training.  Read more

mweiser@sacbee.com Published Saturday, Sep. 04, 2010

Original source: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/04/3005002/state-board-wants-sacramento-to.html#mi_rss=Top%20Stories

Sacramento may not be able to rely on nature to wash away its sewage problems much longer.

Instead, residents might have to pay for treatment system upgrades that could add $40 to a monthly utility bill.

The metro area’s 1.3 million people have long depended on persistent flows in the Sacramento River to dilute a lot of what they flush away. The regional sewage treatment plant performs an initial scrub, but its system is basic compared to many other urban areas.

Growing concern about the aquatic environment downstream has put a bull’s-eye on this system. Now a new state discharge permit is likely to require expensive new upgrades.

On Friday, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, a state agency, released a draft discharge permit that could require the metro area to spend $2 billion cleaning up its wastewater.   Read more

Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Original source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/07/BALU1F6JHN.DTL

It doesn’t sound like a radical idea: Watering Golden Gate Park’s meadows and bowers with treated wastewater.

But for a city that for 75 years has relied on a pristine water supply from the Sierra Nevada, it is.

Today, San Francisco’s water utility will unveil a proposal for the city’s first large-scale water recycling project, an arc-shaped facility near Ocean Beach that would filter and disinfect 2 million gallons of sewer and storm water each day for use on 1,000 acres of San Francisco land.

The $152 million Westside Recycled Water Project would be used to water Golden Gate Park, the Presidio Golf Course and Lincoln Park.

For San Francisco, the system marks a fundamental shift in water policy. Since the 1930s, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission – which now also serves two dozen Peninsula cities – has been drawing the majority of its water from the Tuolumne River in the Sierra Nevada.

The city’s tap water, most of which is collected in the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, is considered so pure that federal regulators don’t require it to be filtered. But opponents have condemned the city’s reliance on the far-off watershed ever since San Francisco power brokers succeeded in damming the river and flooding the verdant Hetch Hetchy Valley.   Read more