- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The State Water Resources Control Board recommended a point-of-sale fee on agricultural commodities, a fertilizer tax, or a water-use fee from residents to offset the costs of providing clean drinking water to communities where tap water supplies have high levels of nitrate, reported Gosia Wozniacka of Associated Press. The final report to the legislature is on the SWRSC website.
The AP article was published in BakersfieldNow.com, the
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
The clarity of the Sierra Nevada's largest alpine lake - Lake Tahoe - was not significantly impaired in the aftermath of the 2007 Angora Fire, according to a story in the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Proactive steps taken by the U.S. Forest Service to reseed the land charred by the fire, which burned 254 homes and blackened 3,000 acres, were credited for helping stave off erosion that could have clouded the lake.
The story was prompted by the release in August of the results of an annual survey of Lake Tahoe clarity by the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center. TERC reported that the lake was...
- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
Armed with decades of knowledge gleaned from research on Lake Tahoe, scientists from UC Davis, University of Nevada-Reno and Arizona State are helping tackle pollution on a remarkably similar body of water in Guatemala, according to a UNR news release.
The water in Lake Atitlan is contaminated with waste water and watershed runoff, spurring algae growth and providing suitable conditions for bacteria and pathogens.
UC Davis wetlands ecologist Eliska Rejmankova initiated the project, aimed at training Guatemalan students to protect the water in what Global Nature Fund in 2009...- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
U.S. Forest Service regional forester Randy Moore said the agency and its collaborators take the quality of high Sierra water seriously, according to an op-ed article that ran in the Sacramento Bee over the weekend.
The op-ed came after a May 1 Sac Bee editorial encouraging the Forest Service to limit grazing to lower elevations.
Moore wrote that the Forest Service is working with the State Water Resources Control Board to develop a water quality management plan for California national forests. The plan will establish best-management...- Author: Jeannette E. Warnert
A UC Davis emergency room doctor and the director of the UC Davis Tahoe Research Center have launched a publicity campaign calling for cattle grazing to be suspended in the high Sierra, according to a story in Sunday's Sacramento Bee.
The article, billed as a "Bee exclusive" and written by Tom Knudson, said the doctor, an avid backpacker, took hundreds of water samples from pristine streams and lakes in the Sierras. He found that high-elevation water bodies on land managed by the Forest Service had bacterial contamination high enough to sicken hikers with Giardia, E. coli and other diseases. However, at high elevations in Yosemite and...