by Spreck | Sep 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
After reading coverage of the connection between wastewater treatment plants and the excess concentrations of phosphorus and nitrogen in the Bay that led to the ongoing toxic algal bloom and talking with scientists at the SF Baykeeper, it seemed important to submit last week’s blog as an editorial opinion to the San Francisco Chronicle.
We are pleased that the Chronicle published it yesterday with this provocative headline: A toxic algae bloom has made it obvious the Bay Area needs to recycle its wastewater.
A few things were changed form the blog. First, we added the role of phosphorus – it and nitrogen are both harmful in these large doses. We also decreased the emphasis on San Francisco’s southeast plant, as there are nine water treatment plants south of the Bay Bridge – all of which are culprits to varying degrees (see chart).
Not also that such an algal bloom has been predictable as noted in “Nutrient Status of San Francisco Bay and Its Management Implications (James E. Cloern et al, 2021): “… our assessment includes reasons for concern: nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations higher than those in other estuaries impaired by nutrient pollution, chronic presences of multiple algal toxins, a recent increase of primary production, and projected future hydroclimatic conditions that could increase the magnitude and frequency of algal blooms.”
Please consider signing the Baykeeper’s petition to San Francisco Mayor London Breed, asking that she pursue water recycling. We have signed and will be encouraging other communities to do so as well.
There are many reasons that San Francisco, like other water agencies, will be fundamentally changing in years to come. Recycling, made possible with advanced technology including nanofiltration, provides reliable supplies and reduces pollution. It’s time has come.
Recycling will also reduce San Francisco’s reliance on the Tuolumne River and could replace the water storage function of Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. The time has also come to give Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley back to the people.
by Spreck | Aug 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
San Francisco Bay, Algal Blooms and Water Management
San Francisco Bay is sick this summer. A toxic algae bloom is happening across the Bay, with numerous reports of dead fish. Local environmental groups seeking to protect the Bay say the existing condition of the Bay is unprecedented and a result of outdated discharge policies and regulations. Some of the largest discharges into the Bay come from wastewater treatment plants operated by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the East Bay Municipal Utility District and others.
Lake Merritt in downtown Oakland is connected to the bay. Today it is full of dead fish.
Wastewater reform in the Bay Area should drive water reform as it has elsewhere. Recycling wastewater into a potable supply could eliminate tons upon tons of nitrogen that now enter the Bay daily in the form of partially treated sewage. Should. Whether this algae bloom will soon be a forgotten moment in the history of the Bay, or a tipping point that leads to stronger protections for the Bay, remains to be seen. But the ongoing incident and the follow-up findings are very much worth watching.
At the moment, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission has no plans to modernize its primary wastewater plant and purify the resource into a potable supply for its service area. Its discharge permit issued in 2019 allows it to do so. But these permit conditions are subject to change with new and better science.
Algae blooms are fueled by two primary ingredients. One is higher temperatures, which seems a guarantee going forward. Another is nitrogen. All accounts suggest that San Francisco Bay is artificially loaded with high levels of nitrogen due to the wastewater discharges of San Francisco and other communities surrounding the Bay. The Regional Water Quality Control Board of the San Francisco Bay Region has allowed these discharges to continue based on what it has considered to be insufficient science to justify upgrades at the wastewater facilities.
The city of San Diego provides a notable case in point when the regulators finally decide that is time to end decades-long discharge practices and begin cleaning up one’s proverbial act. San Diego had a choice: Spend considerable money to clean up the wastewater before sending it to the Pacific Ocean. Or spend an increment more to convert it into a resilient new water supply.
Concern for the health of its beaches helped drive the Pure Water San Diego program to recycle wastewater.
Pure Water San Diego is now in the process of converting its wastewater stream into more than a third of its water supply upon buildout. The city of Los Angeles isn’t far behind with a similar project known as Operation Next. The same holds true for the rest of Los Angeles County with Pure Water Southern California, via a partnership with the Metropolitan Water District. Orange County is already there.
If this algae bloom in San Francisco Bay and other science ultimately prompts our regional water board to revise discharge permits to prohibit today’s partially treated sewage from entering tomorrow’s Bay, San Francisco and many other dischargers will face the same question:
Is wastewater something to forever get rid of?
Or is it something to use over and over again?
San Francisco’s Southeast Wastewater Facility, according to its web site, discharges about 57 million gallons of wastewater into San Francisco Bay every day. San Franciscans, meanwhile, consume about 82 million gallons every day. A gallon of purified wastewater does not produce a gallon of potable water. But it gives you a sense of just how massive this resource potentially is for water supply.
The health of San Francisco Bay is a core issue for millions of us who love it and don’t want to harm it.
“Pure Water San Francisco” and similar potable reuse projects, if they ever come to pass, would revolutionize the region’s water management. Options scarcely considered by today’s water leaders will be well within the mainstream by their successors tomorrow.
by Spreck | Aug 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
The thrill of whitewater: A dory and its passengers run the Grand Canyon’s Crystal Rapid in 1983, a high water year when unexpected late snowmelt threatened to destroy Glen Canyon Dam.
For almost 100 years, scientists, water agencies and environmentalists have known that the status quo on the Colorado River is not sustainable. Over the last two decades, population growth and especially low runoff have exacerbated an already untenable situation.
The dire conditions and impending changes in the Colorado basin are all over the news. The U.S. government and the many water agencies involved are negotiating future management decisions. Everyone will be doing some serious belt-tightening; some more so than others.
How did we get here?
The Colorado River Compact (aka the Law of the River) was signed in 1922 after an uncommonly wet 16-year period, when the river’s average annual flow measured 18.0 million acre-feet (18.0 MAF). (A single family home might use 1/2 an acre-foot per year).
The Compact’s hallowed text apportioned 15 MAF of river flow among 7 southwestern states (see below). An additional 1.5 MAF per year would be be provided to Mexico. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation built huge storage reservoirs, including Lake Mead (holding up to 29 MAF behind Hoover Dam) in 1936 and Lake Powell (holding up to 24 MAF behind Glen Canyon Dam) in 1963, which together lose about 1 MAF to evaporation. So the total use of the Colorado’s flow plus expected evaporation would be about 17.5 MAF
The Colorado has long been fully subscribed – it has been many decades since its flows reached the Gulf of California.
Between 1922 and 1999, however, Colorado River flows averaged only 14.6 MAF. Oops.
It’s surprising that the current crisis did not occur sooner. But some of the States were not using their full entitlements during the mid 20th century. And, as diversions increased at the end of the 20th century, there were a series of very wet years in the early 1980’s and late 1990’s (in 1983, high water threatened Glen Canyon dam – see the Bureau’s video or better yet read “The Emerald Mile”).
In the 21st century, however, there have been few high water years. In fact, the river’s flow has dropped further – to only 12.2 MAF. The system has been relying on withdrawing water stored in Lakes Powell and Mead. In 1999, these two mega-reservoirs held close to 50 MAF; today they are down to 20 MAF – a decrease of 60%
Whether the recent decline is the natural hydrologic cycle or has been caused by climate change is open to debate. What is not debatable is that cities and farms that depend on the Colorado must make major adjustments.
We are all concerned about water in the west. The situation at Hetch Hetchy is very different in that the Tuolumne River is a stream that feeds the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – a system that depends on water going out to sea, not only to sustain the environment but also to allow transport of water within California from the wetter north to cities and farms in the south.
Restore Hetch Hetchy does not take a position on how divide Tuolumne River’s water between diversions to the Bay Area, supply for farms in Turlock and Modesto and downstream flow to the Delta. We are committed, however, to replacing the storage that the O’Shaughnessy Dam provides so Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National park can be restored to its natural splendor.
by Spreck | Jul 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
Please join us for our 2022 Annual Dinner. The San Mateo County History Museum is a former county courthouse, and a spectacular venue. We will screen Finding Hetch Hetchy (see clip) , hear from the dynamic Timmy O’Neill and more.
by Spreck | Jul 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
“To look upon a tree that antedates the Christian Era; that was in lusty vigor when Rome was founded; that is older than the Iliad, is a thing not to be passed over lightly. I came down from the mountain feeling as thought I had communed with the monarchs of the classic days.” – future President James Garfield in 1875
A firefighter walks near the Mariposa Grove as the Washburn Fire burns in Yosemite National Park, California, July 7, 2022 [National Park Service via AP Photo]
Historically, these magnificent trees have been resistant to fire over the millennia. But the plethora of devastating fires in California in recent years is scary stuff, and giant sequoias are true treasures. May they survive and continue to thrive.
And a huge thank you to the brave and hard-working firefighters!
—- President Garfield is among those inspired by his visit to the Mariposa Grove in 1875. A recount of this historic trip, originally posted on this blog two years ago, is below.
James A. Garfield of Ohio was elected to Congress in 1862. In his first term he voted on the unprecedented 1864 Yosemite Grant, later signed by President Lincoln, to cede Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to California “upon the express conditions that the premises shall be held for public use, resort and recreation.”
In 1871, with the Republican Party in control of both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency, Garfield was named head of the Appropriations Committee. (For those who may not know, the Appropriations Committee controls where the money goes.) James Garfield was one of the most powerful men in Washington.
That all changed during the midterm elections of 1874. In the biggest ever “flip” of the House, the Republicans lost 96 of their 203 seats. Garfield suddenly went from being one of the most powerful men in Washington to being just one of 293 Congressmen.
So what did James Garfield do? He went to Yosemite!
Garfield hopped aboard the transcontinental railroad, completed only six years earlier, and traveled to California. He then took another train to Merced, a stagecoach to Mariposa and finally traveled by horseback to what is now Yosemite National Park.
James A. Garfield was impressed by what he saw, but felt he was unable to put it all in words:
“(Yosemite) is one of the few things I have ever examined which has not been over praised. All description fails adequately to exhibit its greatness.”
Upon visiting the Mariposa Grove, Garfield wrote:
“To look upon a tree that antedates the Christian Era; that was in lusty vigor when Rome was founded; that is older than the Iliad, is a thing not to be passed over lightly. I came down from the mountain feeling as thought I had communed with the monarchs of the classic days.”
Garfield’s view of Yosemite Valley came as a snow flurry subsided. He wrote:
“After a sharp shower of ten minutes the sun burst forth in full splendor disclosing the wonderful beauty of Bridal Veil Fall and the grand doorway to the Yosemite formed by the El Capitan on the left and the Cathedral Rocks on the right.”
In a letter to his family Garfield wrote:
“Tell Mamma that in my late letters I have spelled it as two words, but I was wrong. It is only one word, Yosemite, and is pronounced Yo-sem-i-te, four syllables, accented on the second.
James A. Garfield traveled to Yosemite in 1875, five years before he was elected president of the United States. Many Presidents have visited Yosemite while in office, including Rutherford Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Barack Obama.
No Presidents have visited Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy Valley, but several Secretaries of the Interior have, including Richard Ballinger (Taft), Donald Hodel (Reagan) and Ryan Zinke (Trump). Secretaries James R. Garfield (Roosevelt, and son of President James A. Garfield) and Franklin Lane (Wilson, and former City Attorney for San Francisco), both of whom played key roles in damming Hetch Hetchy, never visited Hetch Hetchy.
Yosemite, including Hetch Hetchy, is rich in American History. Restore Hetch Hetchy is committed to writing the next chapter.
Much of the information above was derived from material posted on the internet by Ephriam Dickson, who researched Garfield’s trip via the Library of Congress. Our thanks to Mr. Dickson.
by Spreck | Jun 25, 2022 | Uncategorized
Jonas doing a “nosestand” in his kayak on the American River.
Environmentalist Jonas Minton passed on June 22, as a result of complications following heart surgery.
Jonas was most recently a water policy advocate for the Planning and Conservation League, where he was known for his knowledge, wisdom, integrity and good humor. He was never afraid to share his strong views about how water should be better and more fairly managed, nor to offer creative solutions.
Jonas also well understood the essential needs of cities and farms. He served as the Executive Director of the American River Water Forum, where he oversaw the sharing of the river between environmental uses and regional water agencies. Jonas also served as a Deputy Director of California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR).
While he was at DWR, a Hetch Hetchy meeting was scheduled in the Director’s conference room. Jonas stunned the small crowd by bursting through the back door, operatically bellowing “Yo Ho, Blow the Dam Down”. We restoration advocates were mightily amused; others not so much.
Most impressively, Jonas balanced passion with realism – he understood success required hard work and patience, and he was determined to have fun along the way. And, as he explains in the short video interview below, Jonas never demonized his adversaries – after all, he hoped to come to agreement with them down the road. Jonas’ spirit and counsel inspire us at Restore Hetch Hetchy. May he rest in peace.
