Pipeline Moot as Power Plant Stays Closed

The controversy surrounding the building of a pipeline that would have tapped water from the Coconino Aquifer near Leupp northwest of Winslow, pumping it about 120 miles across the Navajo and Hopi reservations to a Black Mesa mine coal slurry preparation plant is likely to have been resolved. Owners of the Mohave Generating Station which was to receive the Black Mesa coal via the slurry line have decided not to restart the shuttered plant because of the prohibitive costs involved.

The generating station had been closed since January 2006 until Southern California Edison, major owner and operator of the plant, installed about $1 billion worth of air pollution controls. The Black Mesa mine, whose only customer is the plant, also shut down.

A draft environmental impact study released at the beginning of the year described the social and environmental costs that would result from the project. These included the relocation of 17 Navajo families; some wells in the Leupp area could go dry; and the survival of threatened fish in nearby creeks during dry seasons could be jeopardized.

The city of Flagstaff also taps into the C-aquifer and considers it a possible source to meet future increased water needs.

The scheduled public hearings for the proposed pipeline were contested by former Hopi chair candidate Valjean Joshevama and religious leader Jerry Honawa. In a suit that was dismissed, they claimed that by setting the hearing during the winter months the Office of Surface Mining were insensitive to traditional Hopi beliefs prohibiting participation in political affairs during ceremonial months.

The construction of the proposed pipeline included plans to allow the Navajo Nation and Hopi Tribe to construct lateral pipelines tapping into the main trunk to provide water for people living along the pipeline route. According to the proposal, C-aquifer water would have allowed expanded mining operations, from 4.8 million tons to 6.35 million tons a year. This would increase tribal royalties by 10.5 percent and add about 220 jobs.

Black Mesa mine is now without a customer for its coal. Various options are being discussed that would allow the plant to reopen. These include constructing a power plant near the site, processing coal into gas or shipping coal to other users via a rail line. The mine is a source of jobs on the reservations and $29 million annual royalties to Navajo Nation.

Help Wanted: Global Warming Consultants

Global Warming portends change, in myriad and diverse ways including the job market for hydrologists and others able to advise clients about coping with the effects of a warming world. They may find climate change is a cloud with a silver lining.

In need of such professionals are organizations whose interest is water resources. They include utilities, flood control and irrigation districts as well as an assortment of water agencies at all levels of government, from the local to the national and international, not to mention organizations in the private sector. Global warming sounds a note of uncertainty to such operations.

Will less water supplies be available? What will be the effect on water resources if the seasonal weather pattern changes? Will increased water storage capacity be needed? Will climate change in a particular area result in increased or decreased water demand? What will be the results of increased evaporation of surface water? With uncertainties looming on the horizon, professionals knowledgeable about likely options will be in demand.

Preparing for the effects of global warming has taken on greater significance as skepticism about the phenomenon lessens, with more people realizing that something must to be done.
A news story in the April 1 edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel quotes Brent Haddad, associate environmental studies professor at University of California, Santa Cruz, as saying, “The demand is growing. Water agencies are starting to take climate change seriously, so they’re looking for help.”

Persons employed in some present positions, such as disaster and emergency planning, drought mitigation, or planning and preparing for climate extremes such as heat waves and storm, may find their services in demand to cope with global warming developments.

In taking on global warming hydrologists will be confronting a challenging task. Although a scientific consensus exists that global warming is occurring, its effects in a particular area or region are not known for certain. Most climate change models are better at the big picture than providing a focused view of a particular area.

Some dire consequences may be ahead that forewarn that global warming consultants would have a formidable assignment in the Southwest. For example, a projection anticipates a 30 percent decrease in water resources in the area. Also some scientists warn if global warming results in the melting of Sierra Nevada snowpack, California faces the potential collapse of its agricultural industry. Coping with such developments would task the expertise of the most knowledgeable consultants.

Water Officials, Researchers From Around the World Visit Arizona

AZ Chosen for International Recharge Forum

Arizona’s reputation as a center for aquifer-recharge research and development projects is the reason the state was chosen to host the 6th International Symposium on Managed Aquifer Recharge, an event that will draw scientists and practitioners to the state from 27 foreign nations. The conference meets every other year; it was held in Adelaide, Australia in 2003 and Berlin, Germany in 2005.

Doug Bartlett, of Clear Creek Associates in Scottsdale and co-chair of the conference organizing committee, says, “It is not just researchers and academicians; it also is people trying to figure out cost effective ways to manage water.”

Bartlett explains that in Europe recharge is mostly used to treat water. For example wastewater that has been tertiary treated is released into a river then drawn out through wells along the river banks. The water meets drinking water quality standards after passing through the aquifer adjacent to the river.
Confronting severe water supply constraints, Australia is a world leader in recharge research and development. Australians will be well represented at the conference describing work they have done in the field.

Bartlett says, “In the US and more developed countries of Europe and Australia recharge projects tend to be large scale and high-tech. In many other parts of the world that is not the case. Low-tech is more likely to be the rule as inexpensive efforts are devised to capture and retain stormwater or harvest rainfall to store in the aquifer.”

Bartlett says, “There are different ways that can be used to cost effectively capture water and get it to the aquifer; we have a number of people coming from India, Africa, Mexico, Australia and the Middle East to present their experiences.”

For additional information see Announcement section of newsletter, page 10, or check the web site: www.ismar2007.org

Yuma Desalter Attracts International Interest

Although it had operated at ten percent capacity with limited output during its March 31-May 31 demonstration run, the Yuma Desalting Plant attracted global and national attention from visitors who believed they had something to learn even from its reduced operations. Visitors to the plant have come from Egypt, Libya, New Zealand, Australia, Korea, Canada and Mexico.

Jack Simes, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation public relations official, says the plant had drawn international attention because “It has been used as a model for construction of several hundred other desalting plans around the world.”

Those with plants built with YDP specifications are interested in the condition of the pipes and the plumbing now that the plant has begun operating after having been mothballed for 15 years.
Simes says foreign visitors also were interested in the way the pretreatment process had been modified, an alteration that resulted in reduced costs.

Also attracting attention was the environmental monitoring program of conditions at the Cienega de Santa Clara. Simes says, “People know that the monitoring program is part of the demonstration run and will be interested in the numbers once they are published.”
Mexico of course is interested in the monitoring program that affects a site within the country. New Zealand and Australia also are interested.

Whatever the demonstration run might show to other countries, its first and foremost purpose was to demonstrate to U.S. officials that the plant could still function and at what cost after having been shutdown for 15 years. Results showed that the plant with improved technology operated more efficiently and at less cost than was projected. The operation of the plant resulted in more than 4,000 acre feet of water returned to the river.

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