Tag: dams
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Representing interannual variability for environmental flow operations: the functional flow regime
By Lindsay Murdoch, Sarah Yarnell, and Jay Lund California’s local communities and native ecosystems alike have adapted to cycles of flood, drought, and a healthy portion of everything in between. Our river management, on the other hand, has fallen out of natural balance and tends to oscillate between insufficient minimum flows and emergency flood responses,…
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California Water under a Trump Administration, Part 1 of 2
By Karrigan Börk Editor’s note: Interim Director Karrigan Börk appeared on the NPR show AirTalk a few weeks ago to address California water policy under a Trump administration; the segment starts at 18:00. This blogpost is the first of a 2 part series exploring the topic from a nonpartisan perspective with a goal of predicting likely outcomes…
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Reallocating Environmental Risk
By Karrigan Bork & Keith Hirokawa [X-posted from Environmental Law Prof Blog] Living the good life has often meant finding ways to allow for growth and construction while ostensibly protecting the natural environment on which we depend. Want to build a housing development, but there’s a wetland in the way? Mitigate the harm by building…
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Strategic Decision Making for Dam Removal Planning
By Suman Jumani, Ted Grantham, Lucy Andrews, Jeanette Howard California has a dam problem. Since the start of the 20th century, the state has built thousands of dams on its rivers and streams. Now, more than 75% of the largest dams (totaling over 900) are greater than 50 years old, and the mean age is…
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Putah Creek’s rebirth: a model for reconciling other degraded streams?
By Emily Jacinto, Nann A. Fangue, Dennis E. Cocherell, Joseph D. Kiernan, Peter B. Moyle, and Andrew L. Rypel It’s hard to look at native fishes in Putah Creek and not grin a little. Be it a Sacamento Pikeminnow (below), a Sacramento Sucker, a Tule Perch, or even a Chinook Salmon – Putah Creek has…
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Facing the Dragon: California’s Nasty Ecological Debts
By Andrew L. Rypel “Every time you borrow money, you’re robbing your future self.” ~N. Morris When I was younger, a close friend of mine struggled with a crippling debt. It was during that unique period shortly before and after college graduation. He had, in relatively short order, maxed out three credit cards, plus taken…
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What’s the dam problem with deadbeat dams?
by Andrew L. Rypel, Christine A. Parisek, Jay Lund, Ann Willis, Peter B. Moyle, Sarah Yarnell, Karrigan Börk *this is a repost of a blog originally published in June 2020. Damming rivers was once a staple of public works and a signal of technological and scientific progress. Even today, dams underpin much of California’s public…
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Monster Fish: Lessons for Sturgeon Management in California
By Peter B. Moyle & Andrew L. Rypel If you ever watched National Geographic television and are interested fishes and rivers, you likely have some familiarity with Dr. Zeb Hogan. He hosted a series of shows on giant freshwater fishes, called Monster Fish. He and a colleague also recently published a fascinating book (Hogan and…
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Green Sturgeon in California: Hidden Lives Revealed From Long-Term Tracking
By Scott F. Colborne, Lawrence W. Sheppard, Daniel R. O’Donnell, Daniel C. Reuman, Jonathan A. Walter, Gabriel P. Singer, John T. Kelly, Michael J. Thomas, and Andrew L. Rypel You gotta respect fishes that have been around since the dinosaurs, such as the 27 described sturgeon species. Unfortunately, the majority of these fishes currently face…
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Dammed hot: California’s regulated streams fail cold-water ecosystems
by Ann Willis, Ryan Peek, and Andrew L. Rypel Given the current drought, it’s no surprise that California’s dams are struggling to provide cool water habitats to support native freshwater ecosystems. But what if they were never able to support them under any conditions? New research shows how current stream management fails to provide the…
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A Swiss Cheese Model for Fish Conservation in California
by Andrew L. Rypel, Peter B. Moyle, and Jay Lund We read with great interest Nicholas Chistakis’s piece outlining a “Swiss Cheese Model For Combating Covid-19” in the Wall Street Journal. Christakis presents a model for considering the individual steps needed to achieve a larger goal, and how each step should fit into a larger…
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New insights into Putah Creek salmon
by Malte Willmes, Anna Steel, Levi Lewis, Peter B. Moyle, and Andrew L. Rypel It’s November 2016, and we’re out in canoes on Putah Creek as part of the annual salmon survey. Just as we navigate our watercraft through a narrow river section using push poles, thorny blackberry bushes and trees begin to close in…
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How dam operators can breathe more life into rivers
By Sarah Yarnell Dams are no friend to biodiversity. Once impounded, a river answers first and foremost to human needs, be it water supply, energy production or flood protection. Releases are measured and timed to satisfy these demands. As a result, the river downstream loses much of its natural variability in timing, volume and spread of…
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Flagging problem dams for fish survival
By Ted Grantham and Peter Moyle This drought year, as in those past, California water regulators have given away to cities and farms some river flows critical to fish and wildlife. It’s a dicey tradeoff considering most of our native fishes are in trouble even without the drought. There are, however, legal backstops to prevent…
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Time to revisit economics of dam removal
By Sarah Null In California, we ask water managers to do the near-impossible task of managing rivers for both environmental and economic objectives, which are often at odds. Where we have repeatedly failed to stem or reverse environmental problems, environmental regulation can drive water management. California’s Bay Delta – a water source for 25 million…
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Dammed fish? Call 5937.
Peter Moyle, Professor of Fish Biology, UC Davis Brian Gray, Professor of Law, UC Hastings School of Law “The owner of any dam shall allow sufficient water at all times to pass over, around, or through the dam, to keep in good condition any fish that may be planted or exist below the dam.” California…