PG&E Project 2105 is a large “project” owned and operated by PG&E that includes several electrical power plants on the North Fork of the Feather River, including Lake Almanor in Plumas County. The project of putting power plants on this portion of the Feather River began in 1910, resulting in the entire stretch of the river and lakes in this region making up a large, highly managed, power generation system. The Upper North Fork Feather River Hydroelectric Project (UNFFR Project) is located on the North Fork Feather River in Plumas County. It consists of three reservoirs with dams: Lake Almanor, Butt Valley reservoir and Belden forebay; five powerhouses; tunnels and penstocks connecting the reservoirs to the powerhouses; and transmission, operation and maintenance, and access facilities. The five powerhouses include eight hydroelectric generating units with a total nameplate capacity of 362.3 megawatts (MW).

This project came up for re-licensing in 2004, but has been stalled since that time because of a new requirement imposed by the State Water Resource Control Board (SWRCB) to draw cold water from Lake Almanor in the hopes of cooling a stretch of the Feather River located about 20 miles downstream that has been deemed to be too warm to support the native rainbow trout population. The average temperature of the river in some locations gets to approximately 23°C during the months of July and August. EPA regulations state that water temperatures above 20°C are dangerous for cold water fish, including rainbow trout.

There are many problems with those regulations, not the least of which is that they don’t actually conform with science. It turns out that for rainbow trout to achieve maximum growth rates they require a varying thermal environment shifting between about 16° C to 24°C on a daily basis. 20°C is NOT an absolute limit as it is treated in the regulations. The conditions in the UNFFR are quite varied, with deep cold pools provided by underground springs, and many small tributaries feeding the river that provide spawning and brood waters at the “nursery” for rainbow trout. The 20°C limit was set decades ago before enough studies were performed to have a good idea of the conditions necessary for a healthy fish population. It was just a guess, that was never intended to be the final answer, it was more or less just a place-holder until better information became available. Better information has become available, but the regulations have not been changed.

It is clear that if there is a problem with the rainbow trout in the river, it is almost certainly not because the average river temperature exceeds 20°C for a couple of months out of the year. The native trout are well suited to the environment in the river and congregate around the cold pools when necessary. The fish spawn and remain in the tributaries, not in the main body of the river. Decreasing the river temperature by dumping more cold water into it from Lake Almanor will have no impact on the critical spawning habitat in the tributaries. In fact, there is no evidence that increasing the water temperature will have any beneficial impact on the cold fish populations, with the available science pointing strongly to the conclusion that water temperatures are not a danger to the fish.

However, drawing cold water from Lake Almanor is a known high risk option. In fact, the SWRCB acknowledges that their plan will result in large scale fish kills to the large and robust native rainbow trout population in the lake. Their solution to these fish kills is to annually plants tens of thousands of hatchery raised trout to maintain a large enough population to satisfy the sport fishermen. They intend to plant “catchable” sized fish since they know that the environment will be unable to support the fish once they draw out the pools of cold water at the bottom of the lake.

In addition to the problem of killing the rainbow trout that current live in the cold pools at the bottom of the lake, they expect the overall water temperature of the lake to increase due to the removal of the cold water. However, they don’t know how much warmer the lake will become because they have not studied that outcome – they are focused on river temperatures, not lake temperatures. There appears to be a real, but unquantified, risk of the lake warming sufficiently to induce algae blooms that could result in a feedback loop of more algae resulting in darker water, resulting in more solar induced warming, creating more algae – etc. That would be a terrible thing to happen to the beautiful, clear waters of the lake.

An additional problem with their proposed cold water withdrawl plan is that it is in addition to the water that is currently needed for hydroelectric production and irrigation. Currently the lake is operated in a way that provides adequate flow for a massive amount of sustainable hydroelectric power production, irrigation needs in the Sacramento Valley, and maintaining a healthy ecosystem in the river – while keeping lake levels relative constant in support of other needs such as recreation and maintaining beach front for the thousands of homes and cottages surrounding the lake. Removing large amounts of additional cold water will probably result in a significant disruption to the lake levels, threatening the human uses, and also the wildlife (such as nesting grebes) that have come to depend upon the current lake levels.

I think this entire thing is a travesty with some people whose job it is to regulate things doing so without stepping back and including the entire system under study. They are focused on a single outdated target number rather than the health of the ecosystem that the number is supposed to represent. I am totally in favor of regulations, and understand that they are necessary in order to make sure that projects “do the right thing.” However, the regulations need to be implemented with a large dollop of sound science. The law being enforced specifies that reasonable measures be taken. To me, that means that the solutions to the problem do not cause more problems. It is not appropriate to move the problem from one place to another, nor is it appropriate to mandate actions just because of the existence of an unsupported number. I think the fact that the risk has been flagged as “at risk” because of water temperatures is a clue that perhaps there might be a problem. That means that it is probably worthwhile to study the problem to see if the fish are actually at risk, or actually being harmed. That study should include the other possible sources of harm that were identified along with water temperatures, include lack of proper gravel in stream beds, lack of adequate access to tributaries, the presence of introduced predatory fish, and others.

In addition to all of these problems, the studies projecting the amount of cooling that could result from these actions were performed in 2000, using engineering models that were based upon past historical data using what are now out-of-date computer models. The newer models, using current projections of water cooling with global warming indicate that the impact of the cold water releases with be on the order of 0.2°C, or less. That means that the water will be drawn from the lake but will have essentially zero impact on the temperatures of the river water. There will be a lot of costs, a lot of risks to the lake, and no resulting positive outcomes. The problem is that once a regulatory “machine” gets started, and regulators have made their pronouncements, it is extremely difficult to stop the train before the train wreck happens. The machine has a lot of momentum and just keeps rolling along.

I want to take a rare moment to brag a little. I live in the HOT part of the Sacramento Valley in California. We are in the middle of the summer heat, varying from about 98°F to 113°F at the hottest part of the day. Not like Phoenix (or Death Valley), but plenty hot enough for me. When my family bought this home in 1991 it came with a swimming pool Not my first choice, but it is here so I am attempting to live with it.

Keeping the pool algae free is a never ending battle during the hot part of the summer when the pool water is about 82°F, which seems to be the preferred temperature for things that grow in the pool water. About six weeks ago the water magically went crystal clear! It was beautiful and so inviting. However, about two days after that it turned bright chartreuse! Not an altogether ugly color, but not one you would want to step foot into. Not only was it that color, but it was so cloudy that you could only see about a foot into the water. More like someone poured paint into the pool than water.

That started my summer “chemistry project”. I checked all of the things chemicals that are normally important and found them all to be way out of wack. Ph was skyhigh, combined chlorine was off the charts, total alkalinity was crazy numbers, and cyanuric acid was through the roof. The problem is that when they are all so far out of control most of the tests are no longer valid. You can’t measure one thing accurately when another thing is crazy, so knowing how much of what to put in when is rather difficult to judge. I chased the chemistry for almost a month, at times wondering how long it would take me to fill up the hole with dirt!

Slowly the wild swings started to get smaller, and I eventually could even see the pool sweep on the bottom of the pool. I could tell that success might finally be in reach. However, success wasn’t quite so easy. I had to endure two or three more wild swings in color until it finally seems to have settled down. For the last few days the pool water has been clear, and the algae has finally gone into hiding (I don’t think it is really “gone” – it is just what might be called under control). Many of the chemicals were still out of “optimal” range, but at least they were close enough to be measurable and adjustments could be made without throwing everything else out of wack.

This morning the pool is clear, and ALL of the chemicals are almost centered in the “optimal” range! Yippy! Perhaps it will stay this way for a couple of days, as long as I fiddle with chlorine levels a couple of times a day. The blazing sun and hot temperatures seem to really chew up chlorine.

So now that it is close to good, my wife is wanting to go spend a week or so in our summer cabin in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. That sounds lovely, but I am more than a little concerned about what will happen to the pool while we are gone and there is nobody to baby it along. I am hoping to figure out how to maintain it with chlorine tablets for that period of time. I normally don’t use them because cause they are “stabilized” to minimize chlorine use (a good thing), but the stabilizer builds up over time until there is so much that the chlorine stops working (not a good thing). I think this is what started my wild chemistry project. I had been using tablets over the winter because they are easy, the water is fairly cold and the algae is easy to control. However, when summer came the stabilizer (cyanuric acid) levels were very high, preventing the chlorine from working now matter how much I used, until all the rest went out of control. I am hesitant to add more stabilizer – but don’t know of another solution. I guess I will just keep my fingers crossed in hopes of only a small disaster, and be prepared for another month or so of chemistry adventures.

Now that California has almost “opened” after the covid restrictions, the health department is once again “strongly” recommending that fully vaccinated oldsters and at risk folks go back to masking indoors. They aren’t exactly clear about the details of why this is so, but my guess is that while the vaccines are very effective, they are not totally effected. They are claiming 95% effective at keeping a person from getting so sick as to go to the hospital, but some much lower effectiveness at keeping people from catching it. So, it sounds like 1 out of 20 (5%) are at risk of getting pretty sick even with vaccines. The State’s population is about 32 million people, so that leaves about 1.5 million vulnerable people assuming everyone is vaccinated. Since there are less than 50% vaccinated, that leaves about 16 million totally vulnerable to the full on illness, and about 3/4 million that are likely to get a mild version. While this is better than a few months ago, it still leaves us with the most “at risk” people in the country.

Since there appears to still be no solid evidence that vaccinations prevent a person from contracting it, and therefore being able to spread it, there is still a huge risk. My assumption remains that if after all of this time, and all of the vaccinations worldwide, they “don’t know” if it protects from spreading – it doesn’t. I suppose I am a skeptic, but I think they would really like to state that it stops spreading – but since they haven’t I think it doesn’t. Perhaps it changes the rate of spreading somewhat, but we haven’t yet heard data on that point either.

The point of all of this isn’t to scare anyone, or to harangue on the topic. The point is to once again try to update people’s perception of where we stand with this pandemic. We are to the point that was considered to be terrible, huge, massive (or whatever terms you like) before it got even worse. Not only that, but there is every suggestion that it will get much worse again as the weather changes and new variants become “popular.”

Another misconception that the general public seems to have is that the CDC’s (and State’s) recommendations are intended to help keep individuals (you and me) healthy. I think that is not what they are worrying about. They don’t care much about you and me as individuals, they care about the health care system and the economy. The recommendations are aimed at keeping the case rate in hospitals as high as they can without overwhelming them. The faster people get sick and then better, the quicker this whole thing will come to an end. Shorting the period of time that the pandemic lasts has many important features – not the least of which is that it allows less time for new variants to emerge. So the goal isn’t to keep us healthy as individuals, it is to moderate the rates in the entire population. So the idea that it is “your choice” whether or not you want to take the risks is totally counter to the important goal of us all working together to get past this whole thing as a large community. It is all about what is good for the Country, it is not about what risks we feel comfortable with as individuals. So when they suggest that it is “safe enough” to go unmasked indoors they don’t mean it is safe enough for you, it means that they think that it won’t overwhelm the health care system. They know that lots of people that follow that recommendation will get sick, but that is sort of the point – since many people refuse to get vaccines then it is important to make sure that many of those people contract the disease. Otherwise we are all stuck with this thing. The way to help the Country (or local community) as a whole is to either get vaccinated, or get infected. Oddly, both of these options lead to the same hoped for ending of the pandemic, but one options has a much larger number of dead people along the way (those that are willing to take the risks of not being vaccinated).

And then there is the little problem of getting the economy restarted. Clearly it is important to get people buying stuff again, and buying stuff in their local communities. This presents an immense pressure on the politicians to convince people to take the riskiest approach by interacting with each other. Not that the politicians want you to get sick, they want you to do things to get the economy rolling (spend money, get jobs, build stuff, sell stuff). If that means recommending less than optional behavior, so be it – as long as the hospitals aren’t overrun in the process. They have a delicate balancing act without having sufficient knowledge or data to know exactly what outcome is most likely. I don’t envy the decision makers who have to make decisions that are balanced on an invisible wire.

So my advice is to not depend upon CDC or government recommendations to decide your personal risk. They are making decisions for the overall group, we have to make decisions for ourselves – knowing that those decisions are important for the overall group as well. I am holding to my position that personally I got vaccinated and I mask and social distance as much as feasible. I am taking more risks now than before because of “social pressures” – but I certainly have not stopped paying attention. Being fully vaccinated I feel pretty safe for myself, but I think I still have a responsibility toward society at large.

So here we are in the middle of yet another recording breaking hot summer following a record breaking lack of winter/spring rain. I live a few miles north of Sacramento, California on the western edge of the Sacramento Valley. My house is about five miles north of the largest town in the area (with a population of less than 20 people). The closest “real” town with a population of around 60,000 is 12 miles to the south. I am surrounded on all sides by tens of thousands of acres of new almond trees. Last week our well stopped producing water, the water table had fallen below the level of the pump.

“Normally” the water table stays at around 90 feet deep. Since my pump is located 150 feet down, there is normally plenty of water above it to provide the water that we need for domestic purposes and to maintain a nice yard and small vegetable garden. However, the water table is now at 150 so our pump was trying to suck air instead of water. Not a good thing! This is the sort of thing that really gets my mind to working, wondering what is going to happen next. Do we drill a new well in the hopes of finding more water, do we try to “fix” the well we have, and if so how long with that last? Do we leave for a few months in the hopes of rains returning next year? Do we order up a big water tank that we can fill by trucking water in? What just happened to the value of our property – did we just lose the investment in our home? Do we stop watering our yard in the hopes that the water table will come up a little?

And then come all of the questions about why is this happening. Clearly the lack of rain has had a major impact. If there is no rain to recharge the aquifer it will drop, whether we use it or not. Maybe the eight nearby houses on 30 acre “subdivision” (I live on a piece of land that was subdivided into 5 acre plots 100 years ago) are using too much water and that is drawing down the water table. Or maybe the 6 new 500 HP pumps within 1/4 miles installed to irrigate the millions of new almond trees are having an impact. Maybe the 3000 HP worth of new irrigation pumps that run 24/7 are taking more water than is available. Our neighbor has stopped watering his lawn because he thinks that might help. I suppose a 2 HP pump running 30 minutes a day might be the problem, but somehow I doubt it when compared to the 3000 HP of pumps running twenty four hours a day. When I consider how much that pump removes as opposed to how much the orchards use, it feels like he is trying to stop a forest fire by peeing into it.

Then the question comes about how can it be legal for the farmers to do such a thing? That is one of the beautiful things about California, while we are drought prone, and we have an extremely limited water supply, there are almost no regulations on water use (except in cities where they limit the times and days that lawns can be watered). For example, if your property happens to border a river (such as the Sacramento River), you get what is called riperian rights – meaning that you can pump as much water out of the river as you like, without any regulations, monitoring, or cost (beyond your pumping costs). The same holds true for the big wells near my house. The assumption is that they “own” all of the water under the property and can use it however they want. There is no monitoring of use, no regulations on its use, and no cost other than pumping expenses. The laws ignore the fact that they are really drinking out of the middle of an underground lake that is shared by all. The implicit assumption is that you can pump a square hole directly below the property lines in the middle of the lake and the rest of the lake water level will remain unchanged.

An interesting feature of our local water situation is that we have two aquifers. One is located at about 100 to 500 feet deep. It is slowly recharged by rain water during wet years. I don’t know if the water flows like a river, or is stationary like a lake. In any case, it is renewable water and if managed properly represents a sustainable resource. The few homes in the area, and the “old” style farming (row crops, alfalfa, dry wheat, small orchards) drew from this water supply. However, there is another deeper aquifer starting at about 1000 feet deep. It has ancient water in it, water that literally came from Montana 12,000 years ago when the glaciers melted. The two water supplies are separated by 500 feet or so of hard rock that prevents them from interacting. There is no recharge into this lower aquifer, and since the ground compresses as the water is removed, it is not possible to recharge it artificially pumping river water into the ground. It is NOT sustainable, and in fact is being mined by the farmers which IS regulated and is illegal, but since there is no monitoring there is no “proof” that is happening (even though the State hydrologists know all about it and are tracking the impacts). The story we were told was that they were only using water out of the “wasted” ancient resource. The well drillers tell a very different story, they are drawing water from wherever they can find it, including both aquifers. It is much less expensive to pump from the shallow aquifer, so they do that as much as possible.

Most of the big new pumps are pumping from that supply, rapidly depleting the ancient supply and dropping the ground level in this area by about a foot a year from what is called “subsidence.” It is expected that the water in this aquifer will be depleted in another six or seven years, at which point the orchards will die and be torn out of the ground, the “backup” supply of deeper water will be depleted, and the ground level will be much lower resulting in increased risks from the periodic floods that visit this location. Caltrans is concerned that the subsidence will damage the freeway and the overpasses, costing hundreds of millions of dollars to repair. How can this be the case you ask? How can farmer afford to plant millions of trees knowing full well that they are going to deplete the water, resulting in their trees all dying. It is easy, all that they want to do is keep them going long enough to make a giant profit by invading a shared but unregulated resource. After that the trees will be gone, the leases will have run out and the investors can move along to a new location. This recently happened in the section of the San Joaquin Valley to the south. About 25 years ago they planted millions of almond and other nut trees. The farmers harvested them to great profit for a few years until the water ran out, then the investors left the area with ruined homes and worthless agricultural land because of the lack of water. Not only that, but they left behind damage to critical infrastructure due to subsidence that will cost the government many billions of dollars to repair, while vastly increasing the risk from floods because of the lowering of the surface of the land.

So goes the water wars in California. The State implemented a need for local communities to develop water regulations. They were given ten years to think about thinking about regulations, and an additional ten years to think about the regulations and a final ten years to write the regulations. The first ten year period is up, now they can start to think about how they might create regulations. I guess this is better than never, but it is also a lot of the reason for the push into put in millions of new trees ASAP. If the farmers wait too long, then the free water will no longer be quite so free. It is important to get ever last drop before regulations are created to manage the water supply.

Oh yes, my situation is temporarily past the critical stage. I call an well company that came out and dropped the pump 84 feet further down the pipe. Luckily my well was drilled 300 feet deep so this is possible. Several of my neighbors aren’t so lucky – they are going to drill new wells. There is a one year backlog before the drilling companies can get to them – they are too busy drilling more very large, deep wells for the new almond orchards that keep getting planted. If the orchards fail it isn’t a problem, the government will help them out with disaster relief to cover their costs.

Yesterday I listened to a really interesting interview on National Public Radio. Here is the link if you would like to dive a bit deeper into it.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/29/1011415113/awe-appears-to-be-awfully-beneficial

The person being interviewed (Michelle Shiota) is a psychologist at Arizona State University and an expert on emotions. A few months into the isolation of the pandemic she noticed that not only were her activities being limited, but that it felt like her mind was also shutting down – and life was becoming a whole lot less “fun.” Being an expert on such things, she created a plan for herself. The plan was centered upon creating the ability to more easily experience “awe” in her daily life.

She started by taking a walk around the block every morning with the express intent of finding the feeling of awe. It sounds like it was a fun adventure — carefully exploring her environment looking for things that pulled her in that direction. The things that she found were mostly little things, things that would normally go unnoticed such as a child’s chalk drawing on the sidewalk, or the color and beauty of a beetle’s back, or the sparkle of a water-drop hanging in the sunlight.

She found that when she found that experience she felt better. Her emotions lightened up and her interest in life improved. She quickly found herself beginning to notice these things without having to hunt them down, they were just there. Her explanation about this new found ease if in finding awful things (pun intended) is that practicing activities such as this cause the brain to actually re-configure itself, laying down new neural pathways that quickly become the “default” pathways. At first you have to think you way to the experiences, but once your brain is reconfigured they are just there. Sort of like riding a bicycle. At first it is hard because you have to “think” about the details – which overwhelms our brain. But after a bit of practice, and a few night’s sleep, it all just happens. Apparently the same thing applies to finding things that are awe inspiring, and that in turn fires up parts of the brain that include happiness, contentment, and a feeling of being connected to the universe.

I find this to be an extremely hopeful message. Maybe it isn’t so darned hard to become a little bit “enlightened.” Perhaps there are simple exercises that we can all do that help us to not dwell in feeling isolated and on our own. Maybe simple things such as this open our hearts and minds to better things. One thing is for sure, it is easy, inexpensive, and can be done anywhere at any time. It also doesn’t seem like there is much danger to trying. If it works, wonderful. If it doesn’t, at least it was a fun little adventure in searching for beauty in our everyday lives.