In the latest chapter on a controversial subject we’ve discussed before on the WETLAB blog, a judge has once again rejected a Southern Nevada Water Authority pipeline aimed at eastern Nevada water.

This is the second time a judge has blocked the project since 2009, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which would siphon billions of gallons a year from eastern Nevada to Las Vegas.

Seventh District Court Judge Robert Estes ruled that Nevada’s chief water regulator needed to recalculate and reduce how much water could safely be taken from Spring, Cave, Dry Lake and Delamar valleys, according to the article.

Estes found that the amount of water proposed would affect other water rights, particularly in Spring Valley, where the project would mean the valley wouldn’t reach equilibrium even after 200 years.

He said the project, “is unfair to following generations of Nevadans and is not in the public interest,” according to the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The proposed project, according to the Las Vegas Sun, would have cost $6.5 billion over 10 years, and has been protested by environmental groups, ranchers and Indian tribes.

If approved, the deal would have taken an estimated 84,000 acre-feet of water. An acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons.

“There is no objective standard to determine when mitigation efforts will be eliminated and implemented,” Estes said in the Sun article, requiring the State Engineer, Jason King, to take steps to avoid potential environmental impacts.

While King said he was disappointed, opponents lauded the decision. And while the decision has been made for now, it didn’t dispute the need for water for Southern Nevada outside of the Colorado River supply – an issue that will continue to arise as time goes on.

As the consequences of the government shutdown continue to unfold, one interesting water-related headline popped up in northeastern Nevada – wild horses near Elko that were unable to get water.

The Elko Daily Free Press reported that Jackie Wiscombe, a contractor with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) who hauled water for wild horses on BLM land, was told to stop.

“Due to the government shutdown, these animals are in dire circumstances with no water available,” she said in an Oct. 10 article.

Following that article, BLM Elko District Director Jill Silvey sent an employee to check on the horses and water conditions, according to a second article published Oct. 12.

Silvey said that hauling water to the horses was considered an essential service, not intended to be shut down, which meant Wiscombe could go back to work.

“I like working with the BLM office,” she said, “and they really do care about these wild horses.”

Winter Weather & Water Update 

Accuweather.com is the latest player to throw its hat in the ring with winter weather predictions, claiming a wet and snowy winter for much of the West.

“With the East as an exception, most ski resorts country-wide should not have a problem getting up and running this winter,” The prediction states. “This season’s precipitation may even bring drought relief to California, replenishing reservoirs and easing water shortages.”

In particular, the forecast calls for heavy precipitation between December and January.

We always take these long-term forecasts with a grain of salt, but its always nice to find an encouraging forecast.

First Lady Michelle Obama has been advocating for people to drink more water in an effort to improve health.

If you’re a fan of WETLAB on Facebook, you’ll know that’s something we whole-heartedly agree with.

According to an Associated Press report, Obama launched the campaign earlier this month in Watertown, Wisc., saying drinking more water is the “single best thing Americans could do to improve their health.”

“Water is so basic, and because it is so plentiful, sometimes we just forget about it amid all the ads we watch on television and all the messages we receive every day about what to eat and drink,” she said in the article.

Mrs. Obama spoke about seeing improvements in her two daughters’ health after deciding to drink more water, but was careful not to attack the soft drink industry, according to the article, because she said healthy changes won’t happen without buy-in from the food industry.

In fact, this campaign is backed by the American Beverage Association, which represents makers of soda, sports drinks and energy drinks, according to the article, but many of those companies also make bottled water.

This is where some environmental groups take issue.

“We applaud the first lady’s initiative to encourage people to choose water over sugary beverages, but we do have concerns that this partnership is working in conjunction with the bottled water industry and with that instead she were encouraging people to choose the much more affordable, more regulated option of tap water,” said Emily Wurth, water program director for Food and Water Watch in the article.

The issues are two-fold: the waste created by disposable water bottles (about ¼ of plastic water bottles are recycled according to Wurth) and tap water is held to higher quality standards than bottled water, which often comes from municipal water systems anyway, making the premium price questionable, according to the article.

Local Water News

In northern Nevada Water news, winter forecasts are starting to turn up, offering interesting predictions into Sierra snow pack and our subsequent water supply. The Farmers’ Almanac is calling for a cool winter with near-normal precipitation, which would be an improvement over the last two years. But the National Climate Prediction Center is having a tough-time nailing down a prediction, reporting “equal chance of being below normal or above normal for snowfall for the western states.” Only time will tell, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed.

As summer comes to a close, another dry season has taken its toll on Southern Nevada water supplies.

Drought conditions have dropped water levels in Lake Mead to “near critical levels,” according to 8newsnow.com, putting Las Vegas Valley water supply in a tight spot.

The situation has gotten bad enough that Las Vegas water officials may seek federal disaster aid, according to ktvn.com.

In a comment to the Las Vegas Review Journal, Southern Nevada Water Authority chief Pat Mulroy compared the severity of the situation to Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast last year.

Lake Mead’s water level has dropped more than 100 feet since 2000, according to ktvn.com.

If Lake Mead drops to 1,075 feet, Nevada will be forced to cut water usage by 4 percent, according to 8newsnow.com. The lake was at 1,106 feet, as of August 8, and falling fast.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority cannot pull water out of Lake Mead if it drops below 1,000 feet, but is drilling a third “straw” into the lake to gain deeper access in case levels continue to drop.

Many are viewing this as a long-term issue, and one that will have to be dealt with on a larger scale.

“They really all see, as do most scientists, the fact that we’re not really in a period of drought. It is climate change,” Dr. Stephen Parker of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, told 8newsnow.com.

And according to federal water experts and climatologists, the picture is grim for all of the South West that depends on the Colorado River for water, according to an article in the Las Vegas Sun.

Demand for water from the Colorado River exceeds current supply, according to the article, meaning the government may have to spend between $4 and $7 billion to ensure a more stable supply for Nevada, Arizona, California, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico.

This situation only reinforces the importance of properly, and carefully, managing not only our water supply in the west, but insuring the water we do have is kept at high water quality standards so it isn’t wasted.

As we’ve discussed before, Lake Tahoe gets a lot of attention from both Nevada and California regarding water quality.

Tahoe’s clarity – measured by the depth at which a white disk can be seen from the surface – is the standard used to gauge the alpine lake’s health. But the measurement is taken near the middle, not the shore, painting an incomplete picture of Tahoe’s true health.

But that’s about to change, according to an article from the Nevada Appeal, when the Desert Research Institute (DRI) launches a boat that will collect new water quality data. Thanks to new funding, DRI will conduct regular testing in shallow water environments around Lake Tahoe for the next three years.

“This will give us an idea of what areas of the lake are threatened, what are the hot spots,” DRI staff scientist Brian Fitzgerald told the Nevada Appeal.

The group is using a jet-powered craft, which can go into shallower water than a prop-driven boat, according to the article, and can take continuous readings as it moves along the lakeshore.

The DRI boat will take water quality measurements including turbidity, translucidity and chlorophyll content, all components of clarity.

As explained in the article, this new data should give scientists a much better handle on what impacts Tahoe’s clarity, as the majority of clarity-reducing pollutants enter the lake as runoff in these shallower zones.

“The near-shore is where it happens,” Fitzgerald said to the Nevada Appeal. “It’s where the interactions are, where the sediment is coming in.”

The study should identify the most impacted areas, allowing cleanup efforts to be focused in the right places to improve water quality and clarity.

We’re interested in following the results of this study, to see what the near-shore water quality monitoring does beyond the already-successful measures taken in the past to bring back Lake Tahoe’s legendary clear waters.

What’s living in Northern Nevada’s water is an important indicator of water quality for our area, and in some cases can affect water quality, so news on aquatic species is always of interest here at WETLAB.

First, the good news. As reported by Tom Knudson in the Sacramento Bee, the Pyramid Lake Lahontan Cutthroat Trout is recovering from near extinction.

“This is such an exciting story because this was such a unique fish,” said Mary Peacock, an associate professor of biology and genetics expert at the University of Nevada, Reno, in the Sacbee story. “You can see pictures from the early part of the 1900s with people holding really large trout out of Tahoe or Pyramid. We thought those fish were gone.”

The particular strain of Cutthrought Trout was overfished in the 1920s and 30s, but the construction of the Derby Dam on the Truckee River to divert water meant the fish could no longer reach their spawning grounds, dealing what was thought to be the final blow, according to the story.

But survivors were found in an unlikely place, Morrison Creek on the Nevada Utah boarder, and a slow, tenuous reintroduction was underway.

On the scarier side of aquatic wildlife news, the Reno Gazette Journal is reporting that the Nevada Department of Wildlife has confirmed that New Zealand mudsnails – an invasive species that can do serious damage to a lake or river, has been detected in the Truckee River.

The small snail can be the size of a grain of sand or up to an eighth of an inch, but can out-compete native species and wreak havoc on a stream’s ecosystem, according to the article.

Looking upstream to Tahoe and other lakes that feed the Truckee River, the specter of invasive species may not be as ominous as once thought, however.

An in-depth review of national scientific studies indicates that quagga and zebra mussels, long thought to pose a significant risk to Tahoe, Donner and other area lakes, may not be able to survive in the calcium-poor bodies of water, according to “the Saga of the Quagga” by David Bunker, published in Moonshine Ink.

This recent revelation has put mandatory, paid boat inspections on Donner Lake on hold, according to the article, while the science is reviewed.

These are all important issues for the Northern Nevada region’s water quality, and will all be important to keep an eye on as they continue to develop.

 

In this blog, we spend much of our time talking about water quality testing news, science and politics that we find interesting; but with this month’s blog, we decided to do something a little different.

Here at WETLAB we care about maintaining and improving water quality, above and beyond our roll in monitoring it. When we came across some tips for average citizens to help from www.cleanwateraction.org, we thought it was a great fit.

First is some news that’s been getting quite a bit of attention in the last few years: Don’t flush medicines, pharmaceuticals or personal care products down the toilet or down the drain. That includes anything from over-the-counter drugs to cosmetics and even sun screen or vitamins. They can all impact both the environment and our drinking water down the road.

Don’t use antibacterial soaps when you don’t need to. These products often contain chemicals that harm aquatic life, and can lead to antibiotic resistant germs.

Don’t put motor oil, detergents, fertilizers, pesticides or anything but water down storm drains. And speaking of motor oil, fix any drips or leaks on your car or truck so it doesn’t wash into the water supply with the rain.

Try to use natural gardening products over pesticides or chemical fertilizers. The same goes for inside the home–stay away from toxic household products in cleaning and home care.

Pick up after your pets! Their waste contains bacteria that can end up in the water supply when it’s washed down the storm drain.

Pave less of your property. The more water runs across pavement instead of seeping down into the soil, the greater chance it has to pick up pollutants, pick up speed and cause flooding or erosion.

These are just a few tips we thought were worth sharing. Please add your ideas by commenting on this post or on our Facebook page.

Earlier this winter, we took a look at a promising beginning to the winter’s snowpack and corresponding water storage after big December storms.

Our January WETLAB blog reported end-of-December totals of 112 percent water content in the Sierra Snowpack that feeds the Truckee River and the Reno-Northern Nevada area downstream. At the time, that put us at 53 percent of the year’s total.

Fast forward to the end of February, and the picture is a little different – because the water is about the same. Yes, the months of January and February were the driest ever recorded for the Northern Sierra since modern records were first kept in 1920, according to the San Jose Mercury News, putting us at only 66 percent of normal to date.

Snowfall, stored in the Sierra to melt throughout the spring and summer as one of the major water sources for both Nevada and California, has been blocked by a ridge of high pressure off the West Coast for the last two months, driving storms up into Canada, and dropping them into the Midwest.

And accordingly, water officials are tightening their belts. The Walker River Irrigation District said farmers might receive about half of what they received last year, even though last year was also a below average year for water in the Sierra snowpack, according to the Reno Gazette Journal.

That – despite this year’s snowpack holding more water than last year – is due to drawn-down reservoir levels, according to Federal Watermaster Jim Shaw.

“I hate to bear crappy news, but being an old farmer, it doesn’t look very good,” Shaw said in the RGJ article. “If it’s any consolation, it’s this way clear across the U.S., from the Mississippi River west.”

While the April 1 deadline for measuring Sierra snowpack and water stored therein is quickly approaching, some local forecasters aren’t quite ready to write this winter off.

Snow Forecaster Bryan Allegretto of opensnow.com writes that, depending on which forecasting model you look at, there’s still a chance at feet of snow before the month of March is up.

The bottom line – if you’re an optimist, it’s not over until its over, but if you’re not, we’re unlikely to make up for the ground lost in January and February.

Water Quality Award Goes To UNR Educator

WETLAB would like to congratulate Susan Donaldson, University of Nevada Cooperative Extension water quality education specialist, on receiving the McCurry Excellence in Water Quality award!

Presented by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, Donaldson was recognized earlier this month for her extensive and long-time contributions to water quality in Nevada.

Highlights in Donaldson’s work in the field of water quality include leading a statewide tall whitetop and noxious weed education campaign, where she received a Silver Spike Award of Excellence, she established the Nonpoint Education for Municipal Officials Nevada Program to provide water quality education for land-use decision making, she partnered with public agencies to create the Water Wise Program, and she launched a pesticide applicator safety training website with the Nevada Department of Agriculture, according to an article from Nevada Today, University of Nevada, Reno.

She has presented her work around the world, speaking at the 13^th Australian Weeds Conference in Perth, Western Australia, according to the article.

“Dr. Donaldson’s water quality education efforts have greatly informed the public. She is directly responsible for helping stakeholders apply their knowledge and skills to solve community environmental challenges,” said Colleen Cripps, administrator of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection in the article. “We are thrilled to be able to recognize her efforts with this year’s Wendell McCurry Award.”

The award, established in 1999, honors Wendell McCurry who, over a 33-year career, advocated for water quality, established Nevada’s water quality standards and represented the state on the National Association of Clean Water Administrators.

WETLAB appreciates Donaldson’s work in water quality and specifically her contributions to educating both our state’s decision makers and the public on the important issues of water quality.

Sierra Snowpack water content off to a strong start!

It’s that time of year again – the time when intrepid snow surveyors head out into the Sierra Nevada Mountains to assess how much water is stored in the winter’s snowpack.

California Department of Water Resources surveyors went out for the first look at the end of December and confirmed what we all expected – there’s a lot of water already stored in the snow, ready to flow downstream to Nevada and California in the spring.

The Central Sierra region, which includes the Truckee River – the primary water source for the Reno-Sparks region, holds 112 percent of normal water content for this date, and 53 percent of the yearly total measured April 1^st each year.

The Northern Sierra reports 117 percent and 56 percent for those two stats, and the Southern Sierra shows 109 percent and 47 percent, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

After last winter’s dry spell, some in Nevada are still cautious, however.

According to a Reno Gazette Journal article, Federal Watermaster Jim Shaw told the Walker River Irrigation District Board to be cautious, with some long term forecasts showing below normal precipitation for January through March.

Frank Gehrke, chief snow surveyor for the California Department of Water Resources, shared the same caution in a San Francisco Chronicle article.

“We’ve got a real good start to the year, but still three months to go where we need to have more snow,” he said in the article. “From a skier’s standpoint, it’s gorgeous. You can’t get much better in California than we’ve got now. The thing that is always on our minds, though, is whether this sunny weather will keep up for long.”

Still, things look a lot better than last year, according to the article, with 4 feet of snow measured by Gehrke (1 foot of water content) this year, compared to 4 inches of snow – 0.14 inches of water – for the same time last year.

So the bottom line is this – we’re off to a good start, but let’s keep our fingers crossed for more snow to come!