Floods may yield record Gulf 'dead zone'

Scientists predict floodwaters that decimated river cities in the Midwest also will whack the Gulf of Mexico, pushing the so-called dead zone to a record size.

Researchers from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium forecast the dead zone - an area that during summer doesn't have enough oxygen at depth to support marine life - will cover 10,084 square miles, an area about the size of Massachusetts.

The expected growth in the zone renews debate over soil conservation in the nation's breadbasket and whether farmers adding corn acres for the ethanol industry is a significant contributing factor.

Researchers such as Eugene Turner of LSU blame farmers and the ethanol industry, but an official of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation disputes that contention, adding that corn acres are down in Iowa this year.

Since 1990, the dead zone off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas has averaged a shade over 6,000 square miles, depending largely on the flow of the Mississippi River. The area of low oxygen, or hypoxia, is caused by a large algae bloom fed by nitrogen and phosphorus from crop fertilizers, dead plants, lawn chemicals and sewage that run down the Mississippi.

When the algae die, they consume oxygen. That disrupts one of the world's most lucrative shrimp fisheries.

The flow in the Mississippi is up 75 percent from last year. Researchers expect nitrogen levels of water running into the Gulf will be 37 percent higher than last year, the highest on record. The forecast is based on nitrate measurements in the Mississippi at Baton Rouge.

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Capital gushes wasted water

The Sacramento metropolitan region has so neglected water conservation that it now ranks as one of the world's most extravagant consumers of water, a Bee review has found.

Throughout California, urban water agencies have generally failed to make good on conservation promises made during the state's last major water fight.

No concentration of residents and businesses, however, uses as much as Sacramento: 25 percent more per capita on a daily basis than Las Vegas, and nearly 50 percent more than Los Angeles. Those cities have cut use despite massive growth.

Even excluding large industrial and agricultural users, the Bee's review of an array of water statistics found per-capita consumption here is greater than the U.S. daily average. It's also higher than urban use in Canada, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and a host of other developed nations.

Experts said the high rate of water consumption leaves California vulnerable to the current drought, declared this month by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In progress reports obtained by The Bee, only one of the capital region's urban water agencies reported progress on all 16 conservation goals they promised to meet in a 2000 agreement. None completed every task, and collectively they fulfilled only about half the goals they agreed to meet by the end of 2006.

The 16 conservation tasks agreed to by members of the Sacramento Water Forum came from a truce between water agencies and environmental groups.

Environmentalists agreed not to fight planned Sacramento and American river diversions if agencies promised to conserve.

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The Gulf's Growing 'Dead Zone'

The American Midwest is essentially the granary of the world, supplying corn, wheat and other crops to markets from Chile to China. But all that food doesn't grow by itself. In 2006 U.S. farmers used more than 21 million tons of nitrogen, phosphorus and other fertilizers to boost their crops, and all those chemicals have consequences far beyond the immediate area. When the spring rains come, fertilizer from Midwestern farms drains into the Mississippi river system and down to Louisiana, where the agricultural sewage pours into the Gulf of Mexico. Just as fertilizer speeds the growth of plants on land, the chemicals enhance the rapid development of algae in the water. When the algae die and decompose, the process sucks all the oxygen out of the surrounding waters, leading to a hypoxic event — better known as a "dead zone." The water becomes as barren as the surface of the moon. What sea life that can flee the zone does so; what can't, dies.

Since 1990 the dead zone, which begins in summer and lasts until early fall, has averaged about 6,046 sq. mi. But the threat is growing. A study released last week by scientists from Louisiana State University (LSU) and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium estimated that this year's dead zone would be more than 10,000 sq. mi., roughly the size of Massachusetts. But that prediction was made before massive floods hit the Midwest: with the flow of the Mississippi at dangerous levels, and with rains sweeping fertilizer off drowned farms, the dead zone could grow even bigger. The Louisiana fishing industry, the second largest in the nation, is already hurting, with shrimp catches falling in the dead zone's wake. The U.S. is not alone in grappling with this aquatic byproduct. As modern, chemically intensive agricultural practices spread around the globe, so does hypoxia; a 2004 U.N. report documents nearly 150 dead zones globally. But none compare to the black hole in the Gulf of Mexico. "This year would be the largest since we've started keeping records," says R. Eugene Turner, a zoologist with LSU who led the modeling effort. "It's definitely getting worse."

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Sewage, chemicals, fuel contaminate waterways

he massive flooding in Iowa has caused a major environmental disaster, state inspectors said Monday.

For starters, excrement is everywhere. Raw sewage is flowing into rivers throughout central and eastern Iowa. Exposure to the wastes could give people intestinal illnesses, skin infections or worse. Hog and cattle manure also is rushing downstream.

Small chemical tanks are popping off their foundations, sending a potentially explosive threat down rivers. There also have been reports of runaway tanks and drums holding propane, gasoline and farm chemicals floating downstream, said Barbara Lynch, who supervises the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' regional environmental-protection offices.
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Her advice: Stay away from them. "They could blow up," she said.

The DNR also fears underground storage tanks may pop to the surface of floodwaters like fishing bobbers, and begin leaking fuel. Already, gas stations in Oakville and Columbus Junction are flooded.

Last week, a disaster was averted when the Iowa River dislodged a 500,000-gallon fuel oil tank at Alliant Energy's Sutherland Generating Station in Marshalltown. The tank, which held 7,000 gallons at the time, got caught on something in a containment area and never leaked, Stricker said.

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Tapping the oceans

THERE are vast amounts of water on earth. Unfortunately, over 97% of it is too salty for human consumption and only a fraction of the remainder is easily accessible in rivers, lakes or groundwater. Climate change, droughts, growing population and increasing industrial demand are straining the available supplies of fresh water. More than 1 billion people live in areas where water is scarce, according to the United Nations, and that number could increase to 1.8 billion by 2025.

One time-tested but expensive way to produce drinking water is desalination: removing dissolved salts from sea and brackish water. Its appeal is obvious. The world’s oceans, in particular, present a virtually limitless and drought-proof supply of water. “If we could ever competitively—at a cheap rate—get fresh water from salt water,” observed President John Kennedy nearly 50 years ago, “that would be in the long-range interest of humanity, and would really dwarf any other scientific accomplishment.”

According to the latest figures from the International Desalination Association, there are now 13,080 desalination plants in operation around the world. Together they have the capacity to produce up to 55.6m cubic metres of drinkable water a day—a mere 0.5% of global water use. About half of the capacity is in the Middle East. Because desalination requires large amounts of energy and can cost several times as much as treating river or groundwater, its use in the past was largely confined to wealthy oil-rich nations, where energy is cheap and water is scarce.

But now things are changing. As more parts of the world face prolonged droughts or water shortages, desalination is on the rise. In California alone some 20 seawater-desalination plants have been proposed, including a $300m facility near San Diego. Several Australian cities are planning or constructing huge desalination plants, with the biggest, near Melbourne, expected to cost about $2.9 billion. Even London is building one. According to projections from Global Water Intelligence, a market-research firm, worldwide desalination capacity will nearly double between now and 2015.

Not everyone is happy about this. Some environmental groups are concerned about the energy the plants will use, and the greenhouse gases they will spew out. A large desalination plant can suck up enough electricity in one year to power more than 30,000 homes.

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DWP drops 400,000 balls onto Ivanhoe Reservoir

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power dropped the ball Monday.
Actually, it dropped 400,000 of them.

The agency started dumping thousands of floating plastic balls into Ivanhoe Reservoir -- the dwarf sibling next door to Silver Lake Reservoir, the neighborhood's crown jewel -- to protect the drinking water supply needed for summer.

The water needs to be shaded because when sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe's water, the carcinogen bromate forms, said Pankaj Parekh, DWP's director for water quality compliance. Bromide is naturally present in groundwater and chlorine is used to kill bacteria, he said, but sunlight is the final ingredient in the potentially harmful mix.

The DWP drop was designed to stop the three from mingling in the 10-acre, 58-million-gallon Ivanhoe Reservoir. The 102-year-old facility serves about 600,000 customers downtown and in South Los Angeles.

Elected officials, community activists and two dozen DWP officials and maintenance workers grabbed a few balls out of a white tub and tossed them into the aquamarine pool after a brief news conference.

Pebble-heavy "plops" permeated the laughter of smiling onlookers. City Councilman Tom LaBonge shouted, "For quality of water for all of Los Angeles!" with each of three balls he chucked into the water.

At a signal from DWP General Manager David Nahai, a dozen crew members began opening dozens of white nylon bags that lined the reservoir. Each bag bulged with 2,100 balls.

Resembling a stream of oversized caviar, the black balls rolled thunderously down the reservoir's slopes. "Water quality doesn't get more exciting than this," Marina J.F. Busatto, a DWP biologist, said smiling.

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Water crisis to be biggest world risk

A catastrophic water shortage could prove an even bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the relentless exhaustion of energy reserves, according to a panel of global experts at the Goldman Sachs "Top Five Risks" conference.

Nicholas (Lord) Stern, author of the Government's Stern Review on the economics of climate change, warned that underground aquifers could run dry at the same time as melting glaciers play havoc with fresh supplies of usable water.

"The glaciers on the Himalayas are retreating, and they are the sponge that holds the water back in the rainy season. We're facing the risk of extreme run-off, with water running straight into the Bay of Bengal and taking a lot of topsoil with it," he said.

"A few hundred square miles of the Himalayas are the source for all the major rivers of Asia - the Ganges, the Yellow River, the Yangtze - where 3bn people live. That's almost half the world's population," he said.

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Governor Declares Drought in California

Its reservoir levels receding and its grounds parched, California has fallen officially into drought, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday, warning that the state might be forced to ration water to cities and regions if conservation efforts did not improve.

The drought declaration — the first for the state since 1991 — includes orders to transfer water from less dry areas to those that are dangerously dry. Mr. Schwarzenegger also said he would ask the federal government for aid to farmers and press water districts, cities and local water agencies to accelerate conservation. Drought conditions have hampered farming, increased water rates throughout California and created potentially dangerous conditions in areas prone to wildfires.

The declaration comes after the driest California spring in 88 years, with runoff in river basins that feed most reservoirs at 41 percent of average levels. It stops short of a water emergency, which would probably include mandatory rationing.

Efforts to capture water have also been hampered by evaporation of some mountain snowpacks that provide water, an effect, state officials say, of global climate change.

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In Spain, Water Is a New Battleground

Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses — dozens of them, all recently built — give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with the picture of bounty: this province, Murcia, is running out of water. Swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert, a process spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development.

Murcia, traditionally a poor farming region, has undergone a resort-building boom in recent years, even as many of its farmers have switched to more thirsty crops, encouraged by water transfer plans, which have become increasingly untenable. The combination has put new pressures on the land and its dwindling supply of water.

This year, farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting one another over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a rapidly growing black market, mostly from illegal wells.

Southern Spain has long been plagued by cyclical droughts, but the current crisis, scientists say, probably reflects a more permanent climate change brought on by global warming. And it is a harbinger of a new kind of conflict.

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