OROVILLE DAM, Saturday update: 5 units at Hyatt Power Plant now running; work continues on debris pile (with pictures and video)
OROVILLE DAM, Saturday update: 5 units at Hyatt Power Plant now running; work continues on debris pile (with pictures and video).
From the Department of Water Resources: The flood control spillway flows remain at 0 cubic feet per second (cfs).
Inflows are approximately 12,000 to 18,000 cfs which has resulted in the lake rising from 860.1 to 860.5 feet elevation in the last 24 hours.
Contractors continue to remove sediment and debris below the spillway.
Approximately 897,000 cubic yards of material have been removed from the debris pile to date.
The total flow to the Feather River is currently 11,000cfs.
Flows to the Feather River will increase at noon to 13,000 cfs.
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Researchers find new way to deal with water contaminated with fire-fighting foam chemicals
Researchers find new way to deal with water contaminated with fire-fighting foam chemicals.
Australian researchers may have found a solution to help deal with fire-fighting contamination water at Defence bases and other airports around the country.
The chemicals in the foams, per- and poly-fluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), are today known as being ubiquitous in the environment and human bodies.
But researchers at the Cooperative Research Centre for Contamination Assessment and Remediation of the Environment have found a way to use electricity to create strong oxidising agents that strip PFAS molecules of electrons, breaking them down into smaller and safer compounds.
It could be part of a solution to wider chemical contamination globally, to treat "almost all organic contaminants", and help remediate some of the 160,000 contaminated sites CRC CARE estimates Australia already has.
Lead researcher, University of Newcastle’s Dr Cheng Fang, said previous "iterations" of the technology needed expensive materials to be effective, but the new substance used more common, and cheaper, lead peroxide, to cut production costs.
Dr Fang said that while authorities had often simply removed PFAS-contaminated material to store elsewhere, it did not solve the problem of ‘what to do with the hazardous chemicals’, which still needed to be properly treated.
CRC CARE managing director Dr Ravi Naidu said the new treatments could be used to treat wastewater or ground water, and there was more research underway to treat contaminated soil – one of the other key issues currently facing authorities around Australia.
Read more about the political lobbying behind the scenes of chemical regulation reforms underway in today’s Canberra Times Forum.
The story Researchers find new way to deal with water contaminated with fire-fighting foam chemicals first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.
Study finds small public wells in Minnesota have viruses, bacteria
Study finds small public wells in Minnesota have viruses, bacteria.
ST. PAUL — Bacteria and viruses that could make people sick have been discovered in small public drinking water wells across the state, according to a report released Friday by the Minnesota Department of Health.
The study, ordered by the state Legislature in 2014, found that, while the overall presence of microbial indicators in samples was low, a high percentage of wells had at least one detection.
But 37 percent of systems had DNA-like evidence of human viruses and 89 percent of systems had evidence of microbes, including some that don’t cause human illness, detected at least once.
They also don’t know if there is any widespread human health risk for people drinking from wells that test positive — whether people drinking that water are getting sick.
“That’s part of the work we still have to do: looking at the wells, potential sources of contamination and other factors, and figuring out how the contamination is occurring and what can be done about it.” None of the wells involved serve municipal water supply systems — those larger systems require treatment to kill viruses and bacteria.
There are about 1,500 of those small, public systems across the state that don’t treat their water, officials said Friday.
Finding such evidence of microbes in a drinking water system does not necessarily mean that those consuming water from these systems would become ill. “We continue to analyze the results of the study to get a better sense of the potential risk,” said Paul Allwood, assistant state health commissioner, in a statement Friday.
The 2014 Minnesota Legislature directed the Health Department to conduct a groundwater virus monitoring project using funding from the state’s Clean Water Fund.
The Health Department recommends that both public and private water systems continue to maintain their wells and conduct routine testing of their water supply.
Study: Viruses, Bacteria May Be Found In Minnesota’s Public Water
One year into a two-year study requested by state lawmakers, scientists with the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) report finding evidence of genetic material, like DNA, from viruses and bacteria in water from some of the state’s public water supply wells.
Finding such evidence of microbes in a drinking water system does not necessarily mean that those consuming water from these systems would become ill, but it does indicate the system may be vulnerable to contamination, according to a news release.
Health officials will now work with systems to determine how to reduce potential contamination.
The project has two components: a monitoring study divided into two phases and a community illness study.
In the first phase of the monitoring study, MDH looked at how often microbes were detected in groundwater by sampling source water from the wells of 82 systems.
The second phase of the monitoring study, scheduled to be completed by this summer, includes wells with different characteristics than the wells in the first phase.
However, 37 percent of systems had evidence of human viruses and 89 percent of systems had evidence of microbes (including some that don’t cause human illness) detected at least once during the study period, according to health officials.
In the next several months, MDH and project partners will complete an analysis of all study results including the community illness study.
After completion of the study, MDH will work with systems to determine what recommendations might be warranted to ensure public health.
“Understanding how they get into aquifers and wells may help us find a cost-effective way to predict problems and take preventive action.” MDH recommends that both public and private water systems continue to maintain their wells and conduct routine testing of their water supply, and to follow recommended procedures for operating and maintaining septic systems or other contaminant sources.
Study: Natural Methane To Blame For Tainted Water, Not Fracking
Study: Natural Methane To Blame For Tainted Water, Not Fracking.
University of Texas at Austin researchers said high levels of methane in well water was likely caused by naturally-occurring, shallow natural gas deposits, not leaks from fracking operations near Fort Worth.
“Over geologic time, methane has accumulated into these shallower reservoirs,” Dr. Jean-Philippe Nicot, a geologist at UT involved in the research, said in a press statement.
A judge later ruled this “was not done for scientific study but to provide local and national media a deceptive video.” “Shortly after the EPA issued its baseless endangerment order, numerous experts testified at a Texas Railroad Commission hearing that methane in Parker County groundwater was not due to drilling,” Steve Everley, a spokesman for pro-industry Texans for Natural Gas, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The EPA curiously refused to attend that hearing,” Everley said.
Environmentalists often cite Parker County as an example of how fracking contaminates groundwater.
Activists argued in an article published by DeSmogBlog that while “local geology plays a role in leaks,” methane contamination was “traced to natural gas wells with insufficient cement barriers to separate them from surrounding rock and water or to improperly installed steel casings that allow the gas to travel upward.” EPA eventually dropped the case in 2012 and the Texas state government began an investigation.
Terry Engelder from Penn State University, one of the most well-respected experts on shale gas development in America, concluded in 2014 that there is ‘no link between fracking and groundwater contamination in the Fort Worth Basin.
“Our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results,” Amy Townsend-Small, the study’s lead researcher, told Newsweek in April.
Texas’s Barnett Shale is estimated to hold 172 million barrels of shale oil and 176 million barrels of natural gas liquids, twice as much natural gas and oil as expected, according to a December study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Why the EPA Is Allowing Contaminated Groundwater to Go Untreated
Yet even as contaminants continue to spread, the Air Force wants to finish part of the cleanup with a laissez-faire strategy, raising alarm at the local water board.
The approach—adopted by environmental agencies at toxic cleanup sites across the country—leaves contaminated groundwater to remain untreated and instead slowly diminish over time.
It’s a strategy that saves money for polluters but could jeopardize drinking water supplies and cost taxpayers dearly.
That includes when contaminants are expected to degrade over a period of years rather than centuries, and when there is no risk of polluted water seeping into, and spoiling, fresh water supplies.
If the pollutants aren’t correctly monitored, they could continue to spread and contaminate nearby aquifers.
In California, for example, water-quality authorities and the Air Force have been locked in a protracted battle over pollution at the George Air Force Base.
The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, the agency overseeing the cleanup, claims the contaminants won’t degrade to safe levels for up to 500 years if MNA is applied as proposed by the Air Force.
But the Air Force disputes the water board’s dim assessment of MNA for the site.
That directive and the EPA’s updated guidelines state that MNA shouldn’t be applied when, among other things, the source of pollutants isn’t yet under control, when the tainted groundwater still is spreading and when the contaminants won’t break down to safe levels within a “reasonable” period.
At some Superfund sites, critics say, MNA has been applied in circumstances that clearly violate the agency’s guidelines.
WATER CONDITIONS: Water supply forecast for March 1st
WATER CONDITIONS: Water supply forecast for March 1st.
The forecasts are posted at: WSI: http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cgi-progs/iodir/wsi Forecast Summary: The projected median April-July (AJ) runoff in the major Sierra river basins ranges from 131 percent on the Inflow to Lake Shasta to 269 percent on the Kern River.
The WSI forecast is based on precipitation and flows observed through February 2017 and can be summarized as follows: Sacramento River Unimpaired Runoff Water Year Forecast (50 percent exceedance)
For the Cosumnes River, the combined flows for January and February this year were a record 754 TAF which is nearly twice the average water year total for that watershed.
Unimpaired flows for the 2016-2017 water year: Region October-February Runoff (%) February Runoff (%) Sacramento Valley Index (4 rivers) 282 431 San Joaquin Valley Index (6 rivers) 426 589 Tulare Lake Basin (4 rivers) 307 482 Precipitation: The 47.0 inches of precipitation measured during January-February in the Northern Sierra 8-Station Index ranks as the highest total during that two month span in the entire record of the 8-Station Index.
The October-February total of 60.6 inches also ranks as the wettest in the San Joaquin Region during this period.
Precipitation for the 2016-2017 water year accumulated at the following rates of average: Hydrologic Region October-February precipitation (%) Sacramento River 215 San Joaquin River 211 Tulare Lake 215 Statewide 190 Precipitation Index Percent of Seasonal Average to Date through March 8, 2017 Northern Sierra 8-Station Index 213 (77.8 inches) San Joaquin 5-Station Index 212 (61.8 inches) Tulare Basin 6-Station Index 202 (41.8 inches) Snowpack: Snowpack is monitored using two complementary methods: automatic snow sensor (or “pillow”) readings and manual snow course measurements.
The snow sensors give us a daily snapshot of snow conditions while the manual snow course measurements provide a monthly verification of snow conditions in locations where snow has been measured in the same manner as far back as 100 years.
The snowpack in the San Joaquin, Tulare Lake, and both North and South Lahontan regions are above 200% of their March 1 historical average and above 175% of their expected April 1 total.
The majority of the expected precipitation will fall today and tomorrow with totals ranging from 0.25 inch up to 1.25 inches over the two day period.
CALIFORNIA WATER FIX: Metropolitan Committee hear presentation on the cost estimate and risk assessment for the Delta tunnels
Assistant General Manager Roger Patterson introduced Chuck Gardner, the program manager for the outside group of consultants who prepared the estimate and risk assessment for the California Water Fix project.
It’s not a unit price extension program, it is tailored specifically to this region in California, the Pacific labor base, equipment availability based on independent third party and Corps of Engineer rates, and the State of California Department of Labor.” Mr. Pettiette presented a slide showing the distribution of costs for the California Water Fix.
It is the what the program would have cost in 2014 dollars.
We went out and we sought material and equipment, and independent labor prices to go into this estimate.” Bob Goodfellow with Aldea Services was retained to do a risk assessment for the California Water Fix program.
Mr. Goodfellow explained the process as such: in the workshops, they tried to identify risks and assess them; they next generated a risk register with a scoring chart, and they then identified control and mitigation measures.
If you allocate risk to yourself, that’s sometimes called acceptance, you accept those risks; if you transfer risks to others, that’s allocation through a contract document to the contractor.” Mr. Goodfellow noted that guidance documents from the tunnel industry identify three items: to have an experienced project team, the use of a risk register as a risk management and risk presentation tool, and having a consistent and continuous risk management process from the early planning, all the way through the life of the project.
The geotechnical delays, either in design or in construction with such a lot of tunneling involved, geotechnical is obviously going to be a major risk that needs to be attended to and mitigated considerably.” Mr. Goodfellow said they then took Mr. Pettiette’s estimate, using the base estimate number at the 50th percentile; they then quantified the risks, put them into time and dollars, and compared the risk exposure numbers with the line item of contingency from the base estimate.
He presented a slide showing the distribution, noting that the numbers are all lined up along the 75th percentile of cost certainty.
Once they added in the risks to the cost, the number goes up to $11.7 billion; they were able to reduce that through successful mitigation down to a base cost plus risk number of $10.7 billion at the 75th percentile, Mr. Goodfellow said.
However, an advantage to keeping things in 2014 dollars allows how design changes in the project affect the costs “There’s any number of ways you can slice and dice this cost estimate,” Mr. Gardner said.
Scientists move closer towards simpler, accurate detection of bacterial contaminants in food and water
Food poisoning is a scourge.
Yet preventing it is far from foolproof.
But in a new study in Analytical Chemistry, scientists report that they are closing in on a way to use a combination of color-changing paper and electrochemical analysis — on plastic transparency sheets or simple paper — to quickly, cheaply and more accurately detect bacterial contamination of fruits and vegetables in the field before they reach grocery stores, restaurants and household pantries.
Of all the contaminants found in food and water, bacteria cause the most hospitalizations and deaths in the United States.
Nearly half of these incidents are attributed to spinach, cabbage, lettuce and other leafy greens, which are sometimes irrigated with unsafe water containing fecal material.
But traditional lab cultures take up to 48 hours to produce results, and other techniques such as DNA amplification and immunoassays are costly and are prone to false results.
Recently, Charles S. Henry and colleagues developed a paper-based method to detect Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli in food and water samples.
To simulate contaminated food, the researchers exposed clean alfalfa sprouts to E.coli and Enterococcus faecalis bacteria.
They also collected unfiltered water from a nearby lagoon.
For colorimetric detection, the team built a simple light box, which served as a substitute for a laboratory plate reader.
Water Contamination Not Only Affects Michigan
Water Contamination Not Only Affects Michigan.
Houston, we have a problem.
Flint, Michigan is not the only area in the United States that has contaminated water supply.
According to Jan Murphy, writer for PENN LIVE, Pennsylvania received a failing letter grade in taking action to prevent pipeline lead from reaching faucets in schools.
Contamination in drinking water is expanding in schools all over the state and this in turn, affects the health of children.
Their lack in effort of tackling this situation can potentially result in death among students.
Lead consumption has the same health effects in Pennsylvania as it does in Flint, Michigan.
Pennsylvania’s government will have to do some serious prioritizing because we’re talking about someone’s life being on the line.
If children continue to consume this poisonous substance, their developmental skills will fall backwards, defeating the initial purpose of school.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer and are not representative of The Slate or its staff as a whole.