Water and energy are interconnected. A frequent term to describe
this relationship is the “water-energy nexus.”
Energy for Water: Energy is needed to store water, get it where
it is needed and also treat it to be used:
* Extracting water from rivers and streams or pumping it
from aquifers, and then conveying it over hills and into storage
facilities is a highly energy intensive process. The State Water
Project (SWP) pumps water 700 miles, including up nearly 2,000
feet over the Tehachapi Mountains. The SWP is the largest single
user of energy in California. It consumes an average of 5 billion
kWh per year. That’s about 2 to 3 percent of all electricity
consumed in California
* Water treatment facilities use energy to pump and process
water for use in homes, businesses and industry
* Consumers use energy to treat water with softeners or
filters, to circulate and pressurize water and to heat and cool
water
* Wastewater plants use energy to pump wastewater to
treatment plants, and also to aerate and filter it at the plant.
Different end uses require more electricity for delivery than
others. Water for residential, commercial and industrial end-use
needs the most energy (11 percent), followed by agricultural
end-use (3 percent), residential, commercial and industrial
supply and treatment (3 percent), agricultural water supply and
treatment (1 percent) and wastewater treatment (1 percent),
according to the California Energy Commission.
Water for Energy: Water is used to generate electricity
* Water is needed either to process raw materials used in a
facility or maintaining a plant,or to just generate electricity
itself.
Overall, the electricity industry is second only to agriculture
as the largest user of water in the United States. Electricity
production from fossil fuels and nuclear energy requires 190,000
million gallons of water per day, accounting for 39 percent of
all freshwater withdrawals in the nation. Coal, the most abundant
fossil fuel, currently accounts for 52 percent of U.S.
electricity generation, and each kWh generated from coal requires
withdrawal of 25 gallons of water.
… The Salton Sea region is facing economic pressure to become
a substantial domestic supplier of lithium, placing greater
challenges on lower-income communities that already face
significant disparities – yet contribute so much to the
prosperity and quality-of-life of others. … This year, state
leaders have a chance to place a climate bond on the
November ballot, which would give voters an opportunity to
approve important environmental protections and clean energy
projects. This bond can benefit all areas of the state, while
also providing $400 million to the Salton Sea region and $15
million to establish a conservancy. -Written by Silvia Paz, executive director of
Alianza Coachella Valley, and former chair of California’s
Lithium Valley Commission.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta intensified his legal
fight against five of the world’s largest fossil fuel companies
Monday, filing an amended complaint that accuses Exxon Mobil,
Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, BP, and the American Petroleum
Institute of engaging in a prolonged campaign of deception
about the realities of climate change and the environmental
damage caused by fossil fuels. In the amended complaint, filed
Monday afternoon in San Francisco County Superior Court, the
attorney general introduces new evidence of false advertising
and greenwashing by the companies and seeks the disgorgement
remedy provided by Assembly Bill 1366, which was enacted
earlier this year. The remedy would require the defendants to
surrender profits obtained through their alleged illegal
activities, with the funds being directed to the newly
established Victims of Consumer Fraud Restitution
Fund. Related article:
The city of Bakersfield and California Water Service Co. on
Sunday lifted the do-not-drink, do-not-use advisory issued
Tuesday to 42 commercial customers south of Lake Truxtun after
an oil company reportedly allowed pressurized natural gas and
crude oil into the municipal water system.
The state engineer recently approved water rights for lithium
drilling on the Green River. She is now reconsidering her
decision. Lithium extraction requires a lot of water. An
Australian company promises that a new method uses virtually no
water to draw out the metal, which is a fundamental element for
rechargeable batteries used in phones, computers, cameras — and
especially electric vehicles. The Biden administration
considers lithium vital to the nation’s transition to cleaner,
renewable energy, and in her approval, Utah State Engineer
Teresa Wilhelmsen cited a growing demand for lithium and
batteries. But a group of farmers, residents and
environmentalists said that using water from the
drought-plagued Colorado River system for an unproven project
opens a dangerous door.
Utah state officials reversed course this week on a key water
permit for a major lithium extraction project in the state,
agreeing with conservation advocates who asked for further
review of the project. In a decision issued Tuesday, Utah State
Engineer Teresa Wilhelmsen said her office would suspend its
earlier approval of nearly 4.6 billion gallons of water to be
used by a mining company as part of a “direct lithium
extraction project” near the Green River. The office will
continue consideration of the proposal. Wilhelmsen’s ruling
came at the behest of conservation advocates who had raised
concerns about the location of the proposed wells — which would
draw water from an aquifer system 10,000 feet below the surface
— including the proximity to waste left by a former uranium
mining facility.
“Have you ever heard of nurdles?” I have posed this question
countless times while tabling at events and giving talks across
San Diego County. “They are pre-production plastic
pellets,” I explain while pouring a few out of a jar into the
palm of my hand, adding, “Just about everything made out of
plastic starts with nurdles. They are melted down and poured
into molds to create plastic cutlery, beach toys, milk jugs…you
name it!” I then reveal that I collected the nurdles on
display from North County San Diego beaches, emphasizing
that ”they easily escape during manufacturing and can also
be lost when transported in trucks, shipping containers, and
freight trains.” Despite sharing this information with people
of all ages for years, it hadn’t occurred to me that the
nurdles I find might originate from the rail corridor that
transects the beach communities that I frequent in Northern San
Diego.
Around the world, demand for lithium is surging, and the
Imperial Valley is in a strong position to help meet that need.
State and local leaders have been working hard to ensure that
the communities of the valley will see more far-reaching
benefits this time if the industry continues to grow. As
California races to curb carbon emissions, advocates and
researchers say the growth of the lithium industry could be a
test of a so-called ”just transition.” That’s a movement to
cleaner energy sources that strengthens local communities,
rather than hollowing them out. … Lithium is a soft,
silvery-white metal that’s found in many places around the
world, including in hard rock, layers of sediment and
belowground pockets of salty water. It’s used to lubricate
aircraft engines, added as a fuel to military-grade torpedoes
and is prescribed by doctors as a treatment for bipolar
disorder.
As Texas wildfires burned toward the nation’s primary nuclear
weapons facility, workers hurried to ensure nothing flammable
was around buildings and storage areas. When the fires showed
no sign of slowing, Pantex Plant officials urgently called on
local contractors, who arrived within minutes with bulldozers
to dig trenches and enlarge fire breaks for the sprawling
complex where nuclear weapons are assembled and disassembled
and dangerous plutonium pits — hollow spheres that trigger
nuclear warheads and bombs — are stored. … There’s the
40-square-mile Los Alamos National Laboratory in New
Mexico, where a 2000 wildfire burned to within a half mile (0.8
kilometers) of a radioactive waste site. The heavily
polluted Santa Susana Field Laboratory in Southern
California, where a 2018 wildfire burned 80% of the site,
narrowly missing an area contaminated by a 1959 partial nuclear
meltdown.
A coalition of Northwest Colorado governments has come out in
opposition to designating the Dolores Canyon region as a
national monument. The board of the Associated Governments of
Northwest Colorado this week approved a resolution urging
“President Biden, federal agencies and legislative bodies to
consider the adverse impacts such designation would have on
local governance, economy, access, and national security.” The
board’s action came the same week Mesa County commissioners
passed a resolution opposing the monument designation. … [The
AGNC] worries about potential impacts to things such as
farming/ranching and recreational access, and to potential
mining of uranium and lithium in the region that “represents a
critical matter of national security, particularly considering
the current state of global affairs.”
A Western Slope fundraising effort to buy the historic Shoshone
hydroelectric plant water rights is now more than half of the
way toward succeeding thanks to a $2 million contribution by
the City of Glenwood Springs, just downstream of the Glenwood
Canyon facility. Glenwood’s City Council unanimously approved
the funding Thursday. The city’s recreation-based economy
relies in part on reliable Colorado River flows through the
canyon, which the plant’s water rights help assure by virtue of
their seniority.
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
The majestic beauty of the Sierra
Nevada forest is awe-inspiring, but beneath the dazzling blue
sky, there is a problem: A century of fire suppression and
logging practices have left trees too close together. Millions of
trees have died, stricken by drought and beetle infestation.
Combined with a forest floor cluttered with dry brush and debris,
it’s a wildfire waiting to happen.
Fires devastate the Sierra watersheds upon which millions of
Californians depend — scorching the ground, unleashing a
battering ram of debris and turning hillsides into gelatinous,
stream-choking mudflows.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This 30-minute documentary-style DVD on the history and current
state of the San Joaquin River Restoration Program includes an
overview of the geography and history of the river, historical
and current water delivery and uses, the genesis and timeline of
the 1988 lawsuit, how the settlement was reached and what was
agreed to.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
A companion to the Truckee River Basin Map poster, this
24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, explores the Carson
River, and its link to the Truckee River. The map includes the
Lahontan Dam and reservoir, the Carson Sink, and the farming
areas in the basin. Map text discusses the region’s hydrology and
geography, the Newlands Project, land and water use within the
basin and wetlands. Development of the map was funded by a grant
from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Mid-Pacific Region, Lahontan
Basin Area Office.
Redesigned in 2017, this beautiful map depicts the seven
Western states that share the Colorado River with Mexico. The
Colorado River supplies water to nearly 40 million people in
Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming
and Mexico. Text on this beautiful, 24×36-inch map, which is
suitable for framing, explains the river’s apportionment, history
and the need to adapt its management for urban growth and
expected climate change impacts.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The construction of Glen Canyon Dam
in 1964 created Lake Powell. Both are located in north-central
Arizona near the Utah border. Lake Powell acts as a holding tank
for outflow from the Colorado River Upper Basin States: Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
The water stored in Lake Powell is used for recreation, power
generation and delivering water to the Lower Basin states of
California, Arizona, and Nevada.
Every five years the California Department of Water Resources
updates its strategic plan for managing the state’s water
resources, as required by state law.
The California Water Plan, or Bulletin 160, projects the
status and trends of the state’s water supplies and demands
under a range of future scenarios.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
The connection between water and energy is more relevant than
ever. After existing in separate realms for years, the maxim that
it takes water to produce energy and energy to produce water has
prompted a re-thinking of management strategies, including an
emphasis on renewable energy use by water agencies.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at the energy
requirements associated with water use and the means by which
state and local agencies are working to increase their knowledge
and improve the management of both resources.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed copy of Western Water examines climate change –
what’s known about it, the remaining uncertainty and what steps
water agencies are talking to prepare for its impact. Much of the
information comes from the October 2007 California Climate Change
and Water Adaptation Summit sponsored by the Water Education
Foundation and DWR and the November 2007 California Water Policy
Conference sponsored by Public Officials for Water and
Environmental Reform.
Hydropower generation is prevalent in the West, where rapidly
flowing river systems have been tapped for generations to produce
electricity. Hydropower is a clean, steady and reliable energy
source, but the damming of rivers has exacted a toll on the
environment, affecting, among other things, the migration of fish
to vestigial spawning grounds. Many of those projects are due to
be relicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The California power crisis has made international headlines. But
what is the link between water and power in California? How is
the state’s dry spell affecting its hydropower generation? How
has the electric crisis affected water users in the state? These
questions and others are addressed in this issue of Western
Water.
