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Evidence of Ancient Lake in California's Eel River Emerges

11/14/11

A catastrophic landslide 22,500 years ago dammed the upper reaches of northern California's Eel River, forming a 30-mile-long lake, which has since disappeared, and leaving a living legacy found today in the genes of the region's steelhead trout, report scientists at two West Coast universities.

Using remote-sensing technology known as airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and hand-held global-positioning-systems (GPS) units, a three-member research team found evidence for a late Pleistocene, landslide-dammed lake along the river, about 60 miles southeast of Eureka.

The river today is 200 miles long, carved into the ground from high in the California Coast Ranges to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean in Humboldt County.

The evidence for the ancient landslide, which, scientists say, blocked the river with a 400-foot wall of loose rock and debris, is detailed this week in a paper appearing online ahead of print in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Science Foundation-funded study provides a rare glimpse into the geological history of this rapidly evolving mountainous region.

It helps to explain emerging evidence from other studies that show a dramatic decrease in the amount of sediment deposited from the river in the ocean just off shore at about the same time period, says lead author Benjamin H. Mackey, who began the research while pursuing a doctorate earned in 2009 from the University of Oregon. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology.

"Perhaps of most interest, the presence of this landslide dam also provides an explanation for the results of previous research on the genetics of steelhead trout in the Eel River," Mackey said, referring to a 1999 study by U.S. Forest Service researchers J.L. Nielson and M.C. Fountain. In their study, published in the journal Ecology of Freshwater Fish, they found a striking relationship in two types of ocean-going steelhead in the river -- a genetic similarity not seen among summer-run and winter-run steelhead in other nearby rivers.

An interbreeding of the two fish, in a process known as genetic introgression, may have occurred among the fish brought together while the river was dammed, Mackey said. "The dam likely would have been impassable to the fish migrating upstream, meaning both ecotypes would have been forced to spawn and inadvertently breed downstream of the dam. This period of gene flow between the two types of steelhead can explain the genetic similarity observed today."

Once the dam burst, the fish would have reoccupied their preferred spawning grounds and resumed different genetic trajectories, he added.

"The damming of the river was a dramatic, punctuated affair that greatly altered the landscape," said co-author Joshua J. Roering, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Oregon. "Although current physical evidence for the landslide dam and paleo-lake is subtle, its effects are recorded in the Pacific Ocean and persist in the genetic make-up of today's Eel River steelhead. It's rare for scientists to be able to connect the dots between such diverse and widely-felt phenomena."

The lake's surface formed by the landslide, researchers theorize, covered about 12 square miles. After the damn was breached, the flow of water would have generated one of North America's largest landslide-dam outburst floods. Landslide activity and erosion have erased much of the evidence for the now-gone lake. Without the acquisition of LiDAR mapping, the lake's existence may have never been discovered, researchers say.

The area affected by the landslide-caused dam accounts for about 58 percent of the modern Eel River watershed. Based on today's general erosion rates, researchers theorize the lake could have been filled in with sediment within about 600 years.

California sues bottled water company over greenwashing

10/31/11

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris filed a first-of-its-kind “greenwashing” lawsuit Oct. 26 against three companies that allegedly made false and misleading claims by marketing plastic water bottles as 100 percent biodegradable and recyclable.

Under California law, it is illegal to label a plastic food or beverage container as biodegradable. Plastic takes thousands of years to biodegrade and may never do so in a landfill. The lawsuit is the first government action to enforce the state’s landmark environmental marketing law.

“These companies’ actions violate state law and mislead consumers,” Attorney General Harris said. “Californians are committed to recycling and protecting the environment, but these efforts are undermined by the false and misleading claims these companies make when they wrongly advertise their products as biodegradable.”

Balance and AquaMantra sell their products in plastic water bottles marketed by ENSO Plastics LLC. According to the label, ENSO claims that a microbial additive created the first truly biodegradable and recyclable plastic bottle. The bottles’ labeling states that the bottles will break down in less than five years in a typical landfill or compost environment, but that claim is false because the additive does not speed up the centuries-long process required to break down plastic.

The claim of recycling is also deceptive. The microbial additive put into the bottle is considered by the Association of Post Consumer Plastic Recyclers to be a destructive contaminant that can compromise the strength of the products they make.

Consumers may buy these defendants’ bottles and either dispose of them incorrectly, on the assumption that they will biodegrade quickly, when in fact they will simply take up space in landfills, or they will try to recycle them, creating problems and costs for recyclers.

A recent Gallup poll found that 76 percent of Americans buy products specifically because of their perception the product is better for the environment.

In 2008, the California Legislature banned the use of words like “biodegradable,” “degradable,” or “decomposable” in the labeling of plastic food or beverage containers. Senate Bill 567, signed into law by the governor this year, will expand that law to all plastic products beginning in 2013.

EPA to assess contaminated sites for renewable energy potential

11/4/11

Determining the potential of former landfills, brownfields and Superfund sites around the country to host solar panels and other renewable energy projects is the focus of a new assessment federal researchers announced Friday.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado plan to spend the next year to 18 months assessing 26 sites. The sites range from a massive open-pit copper mine in southwestern New Mexico to a former lead smelter in Montana and landfills in Arizona, Louisiana and New Jersey.

"There's huge potential for this to really make some inroads toward using contaminated lands as opposed to developing green spaces," said Gail Mosey, a senior energy analyst at NREL.

The EPA is spending about $1 million on the assessment. Aside from sparing green space and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the development of more renewable energy, the goals include re-energizing communities.

Mathy Stanislaus, an assistant EPA administrator, said the studies are the first step toward transforming "these sites from eyesores today to community assets tomorrow."

The so-called RE-Powering America's Land Initiative began about four years ago with the first round of assessments. Since then, Mosey said the idea of reusing contaminated sites for energy development has been gaining momentum.

The latest round of studies will look at the potential development of wind, solar, biomass or geothermal at the 26 sites. The analysis will determine the best renewable energy technology for the site, the potential energy generating capacity, the return on the investment and the economic feasibility of the renewable energy projects.

The EPA said there have already been more than 20 renewable energy projects built on contaminated sites, and more are under construction. The agency pointed to a 6-megawatt solar array that was built last year on the Aerojet General Corp. Superfund site in California's Sacramento County. The array is being used to power the cleanup.

The 10-megawatt Exelon City Solar installation was built last year on a brownfield site in Chicago, and in April, a subsidiary of oil giant Chevron Corp. completed one of the largest concentrating photovoltaic solar power plants in the nation at a tailings site in northern New Mexico.

The feasibility studies, once completed, will help in fast-tracking those sites where developers are interested in moving forward with renewable projects. Some of the considerations when choosing the sites involved their proximity to transmission lines, community and utility support, electric rates and government incentives.

Click HERE for a list of the 26 assessment sites

Federal judge backs rules that limit pesticide use near salmon habitat

10/31/11

A federal judge today upheld new rules designed to protect West Coast salmon and steelhead from three widely used farm pesticides.

Pesticide manufacturers sought to overturn a 2008 decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service that limited where three organophosphate pesticides -- chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion -- could be sprayed in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California.

Among other restrictions, NMFS' opinion requires the Environmental Protection Agency to prohibit ground application of chemicals within 500 feet of salmon habitat and aerial application within 1,000 feet.

The manufacturers, including Dow AgroSciences, said the buffers are too large and inflexible, and questioned the scientific basis for concluding that the pesticides' harm to fish.

The Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides and other environmental groups said it's clear the pesticides damage juvenile fish, including 27 species of West Coast salmon and steelhead listed under the Endangered Species Act.

These pesticides kill fish directly, the groups said, harm their food supply and habitat, and hinder their ability to navigate back to spawning streams.

Maryland U.S. District Court Judge Alexander Williams Jr. ruled against the manufacturers today. NMFS adequately considered the manufacturers' arguments, Williams wrote, noting that record backing the agency's decision runs to nearly 20,000 pages.

With a boom and a flash of light, Condit Dam is breached and White Salmon River unleashed

10/26/11

WHITE SALMON, WASH. – For 31 years, Phyllis Clausen had waited for Condit Dam to relinquish its hold on the White Salmon River. On Wednesday at noon, she sat near the dam, black cane by her side, watching a live feed set to broadcast the dam's demise.

A Cape Canaveral-like hush settled over the crowd.

"Fire in the hole!" came a shout from below. Then a flash of light, a boom, a tremor in the ground and an astonishing surge of charcoal gray water gushed from a hole blown through dam's base, the first time in a century that the wild-and-scenic river has run free.

Clausen led Friends of the White Salmon River for a decade when the battle over the dam was at its peak. She kept her eyes glued to the screen, the smile never leaving her face, as the sediment-laden water churned and boiled downstream.

"I knew this day would come," said Clausen, 87. "I didn't know if I would live to see it."

In less than an hour, 92-acre Northwestern Lake just above the hydropower dam had completely drained, even faster than the six-hour time frame estimated by PacifiCorp, the dam's owner. Long-submerged logs surged downstream, passing through the 13-by-18-foot hole but not clogging it.

Upstream of the dam, the river rushed through the dark-brown, stump-strewn lakebed left behind, carving through a steep gully 100-feet deep.

By early afternoon, the muddy water had reached the Columbia River three miles downstream, a bolt of brown that signaled the river is already restoring itself.

The Oregonian’s continuing coverage of the removal of Condit Dam.

At 125-feet high, Condit is the third largest dam in the nation to be decommissioned, behind two dams on the Olympic Peninsula's Elwha River, whose demolition also began this year.

The breaching eliminates the dam's power generation, enough to supply about 7,000 homes. It turns lakefront cabins into to riverfront properties, and ends the canoeing and fishing that Northwestern Lake provided for decades.

But breaching of the fish-blocking dam, built in 1913, opens up as much as 33 miles of stream for salmon and steelhead, including two runs on the endangered species list. When the dam is fully dismantled by the end of next summer, kayakers and rafters will have new whitewater to run on a river nationally known for epic whitewater and falls.

And it will fulfill the dreams of Clausen and others, including the Yakama Nation, that had longed for the river to run unshackled on its course from glaciers on Mt. Adams to the Columbia.

Clausen started with Friends of the White Salmon in the 1970s, when a local utility district talked of putting a half-dozen more hydropower dams along the river, effectively turning the White Salmon into a series of lakes. Activists beat back that proposal, then gradually worked toward dam removal.

After years of debate, PacifiCorp concluded that the costs of removing the dam, now pegged at $35 million, were about a third less than installing effective fish passage required by federal rules.

But dam removal was delayed four times as it wound through federal and state bureaucracies and opposition from county governments worried about the loss of hydropower and the lake.

The Northwest has seen a spate of dam removals of late, with dams on the Sandy, the Hood and the Rogue falling. Four Klamath River dams are scheduled to come down in 2020, and an acrimonious debate continues over removing lower Snake River dams to benefit fish.

American Rivers expects to hit 1,000 dams removed nationwide this year. The United States has about 79,000 relatively large dams.

But most of the Northwest's federally licensed hydropower dams have now obtained licenses to operate that will extend for another three to five decades.

The focus now will likely shift to removing smaller dams, many established decades ago for irrigation. Those dams block access to high-elevation tributaries important to salmon, a fish that needs cold water to thrive.

On the White Salmon, the emphasis will turn to river restoration. PacifiCorp will monitor the former lake bed for erosion, dredging more sediment if winter rains don't wash it away. The utility will also plant native trees, shrubs and grass to help stabilize the banks.

Clausen and her husband Victor, began living beside the river in 1974, and quickly grew to love the White Salmon's deep basalt canyons. Like the Yakama elders, their vision was to see salmon and steelhead return.

"They're beautiful, wild creatures," Clausen said. "I wanted to see them come home."

Watch Video: Condit dam is breached, letting the White Salmon River run free.

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