The water agency that supplies drinking water to Los Angeles agreed Tuesday to contribute $1.5 million toward the planning of Sites Reservoir in the Sacramento Valley, giving the agency a toehold in a potentially valuable storage project. The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, as expected, approved the expenditure by a unanimous … Read more
You hear this every time there’s a drought or deluge in California: “Why haven’t they built more dams?” Truth is, they’ve built a bunch. And they’re about done with it. Tally them up. There are more than 1,400 dams in the state. At least 1,000 are major and 55 can hold 100,000 acre-feet or more … Read more
New fish passage opens 11.2 miles of prime habitat for endangered salmon that had been blocked for decades. Salmon conservation achieved a major victory this October as construction finished on a fish passage and stream restoration project in Mill Creek, California. After California Sea Grant identified that a flashboard dam was stopping endangered coho salmon … Read more
Countries around the world are trying to get their greenhouse gas emissions under control — to see them inch down, percentage point by percentage point, from where they stood earlier in the century. If everybody gets on board, and shaves off enough of those percentage points, we just might be able to get on a … Read more
Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River has a total generating capacity of 1,320 megawatts, far exceeding the minuscule maximum capacity of the Potter Valley Project at 9.4 megawatts. Economic consulting firm Power Consulting recently published their study, The Impact of the Loss of Electric Generation at Glen Canyon Dam, in which they expose how unnecessary antiquated … Read more
H.R. 8, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015, includes an alarming amendment that would allow hydropower operators to bypass environmental laws like the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act, and could limit the powers of states, tribes, and natural resource agencies.
There are more than 123,000 lakes greater than 10 acres in size spread across the United States, and based on the last EPA National Lakes Assessment, at least one-third may contain toxin-producing cyanobacteria. Dams; rising temperatures and carbon dioxide concentrations; droughts; and increased runoff of nutrients from urban and agricultural lands are all compounding the … Read more