via TriplePundit
Researchers at the University of California Davis Center for Watershed Sciences have attached a dollar estimate to the economic impact of the drought in California’s Central Valley. Their preliminary report, released earlier this week, estimates a total economic loss of $1.7 billion, along with “substantial long-term costs” of groundwater overdraft that will go unaccounted for.
Last year marked the driest year in California since records began in 1895, and in January Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought state of emergency. Seven of the state’s 12 main reservoirs are at or below 60 percent of the historical average, and a dry winter has left snowpack levels–an important source for replenishing water supplies–at just a fifth of historical levels, as of late April.
Read the complete article here: http://www.triplepundit.com/2014/05/california-drought-leaves-groundwater-reserves-vulnerable-cost-nears-2-billion/
Showing posts with label groundwater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label groundwater. Show all posts
Monday, June 2, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
An Allegory about NIMBYism
Remove contaminated soil.
Restore the aquifer to drinking water quality.
Replace air strippers that vent to the atmosphere with carbon filters.
Redevelop properties to bring in new tenants and raise property values.
What do these objectives have in common?
Throughout the history of a particular Silicon Valley Superfund site, these goals have been supported by the community, responsible parties, and regulators. And at face value, they each appear to be protective of human health and the environment and benefit the neighboring community.
Only more recently has the concept of sustainable remediation been used to look at cleanup programs from a holistic viewpoint, and examine the collateral damage that some remedial decisions can cause, even those that appear to be protective.
In the 2008 Optimization Evaluation reports prepared by Northgate, Geosyntec, Weiss, and Schlumberger, we found that annual carbon (CO2) emissions related to the operation of five treatment systems at the Silicon Valley Superfund site ranged from 42 to 281 metric tons. For comparison, the EPA estimates that the annual CO2 emissions from a typical passenger vehicle are approximately 5 metric tons.
In a 2010 economic analysis of 25 San Francisco Bay Area Superfund sites, Northgate staff, Maile Smith and Scott McLaughlin found that although concentrations of groundwater pollutants had been greatly reduced, contaminant removal rates were insufficient to reach cleanup goals. Furthermore, we found that the benefits of groundwater cleanup were reduced by the cross-media (e.g., water to air) pollution impacts of the remediation programs. The study indicated that the collective pollution reduction achieved by the cleanup programs at these sites is less than the pollution generated by the production of goods and services required to operate and maintain the cleanup programs themselves.
And this week the Center for Investigative Reporting published an article on the journey of the groundwater pollutants from that particular Silicon Valley Superfund site, illustrating the pathway that pollution takes after it is pumped from the ground and filtered through those carbon vessels.
“There’s really no such thing as throwing something away,” said Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Rusty Harris-Bishop. “You’re always throwing it somewhere.”
It's an interesting tale, and certainly highlights the potential collateral damage that can occur when we collectively decide, "not in my backyard."
Read the complete article here: http://cironline.org/reports/cleanup-silicon-valley-superfund-site-takes-environmental-toll-6149
Restore the aquifer to drinking water quality.
Replace air strippers that vent to the atmosphere with carbon filters.
Redevelop properties to bring in new tenants and raise property values.
What do these objectives have in common?
Throughout the history of a particular Silicon Valley Superfund site, these goals have been supported by the community, responsible parties, and regulators. And at face value, they each appear to be protective of human health and the environment and benefit the neighboring community.
Only more recently has the concept of sustainable remediation been used to look at cleanup programs from a holistic viewpoint, and examine the collateral damage that some remedial decisions can cause, even those that appear to be protective.
In the 2008 Optimization Evaluation reports prepared by Northgate, Geosyntec, Weiss, and Schlumberger, we found that annual carbon (CO2) emissions related to the operation of five treatment systems at the Silicon Valley Superfund site ranged from 42 to 281 metric tons. For comparison, the EPA estimates that the annual CO2 emissions from a typical passenger vehicle are approximately 5 metric tons.
In a 2010 economic analysis of 25 San Francisco Bay Area Superfund sites, Northgate staff, Maile Smith and Scott McLaughlin found that although concentrations of groundwater pollutants had been greatly reduced, contaminant removal rates were insufficient to reach cleanup goals. Furthermore, we found that the benefits of groundwater cleanup were reduced by the cross-media (e.g., water to air) pollution impacts of the remediation programs. The study indicated that the collective pollution reduction achieved by the cleanup programs at these sites is less than the pollution generated by the production of goods and services required to operate and maintain the cleanup programs themselves.
And this week the Center for Investigative Reporting published an article on the journey of the groundwater pollutants from that particular Silicon Valley Superfund site, illustrating the pathway that pollution takes after it is pumped from the ground and filtered through those carbon vessels.
“There’s really no such thing as throwing something away,” said Environmental Protection Agency spokesman Rusty Harris-Bishop. “You’re always throwing it somewhere.”
It's an interesting tale, and certainly highlights the potential collateral damage that can occur when we collectively decide, "not in my backyard."
Read the complete article here: http://cironline.org/reports/cleanup-silicon-valley-superfund-site-takes-environmental-toll-6149
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