Water

Stories about water use and conservation. Snow pack, storm water and tap water. Water for farms, habitat and hydroelectricity. Rivers and lakes, gaping estuaries and the mighty Pacific.

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May 8, 2012 | 9:31 PM | By

New Hillsboro Plant Sells Nutrients From Sewage

Standing in front of a 1-ton bag of Crystal Green fertilizer pellets made from sewage are, left to right, Clean Water Services Operator Brett Laney, Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies CEO Phillip Abrary.

A sewage treatment facility in Hillsboro will soon be making money off of nutrients people flush down the toilet.

The wastewater utility Clean Water Services teamed up with Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies, Inc. of Vancouver, B.C., to build the world’s largest nutrient recovery operation at Hillsboro’s Rock Creek Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility.

Ostara has created technology that can extract 90 percent of the phosphorous and 20 percent  of the nitrogen from municipal wastewater and turn it into slow-release fertilizer pellets the company calls Crystal Green.

The system reclaims nutrients that Clean Water Services would have to remove from wastewater anyway to protect water quality in the Tualatin River. And it uses them to make fertilizer with a fraction of the energy inputs normally required.

The energy savings in fertilizer production are so substantial – roughly 85 percent – that Clean Water Services got a Business Energy Tax Credit of $1.12 million from the Oregon Department of Energy to help build the $4.5 million facility.

“A lot of the carbon footprint savings comes from the fact that you don’t have to go out and mine this resource. You can conveniently recover it from our waste stream,” said Ostara President and CEO Phillip Abrary. “This method is between seven and 10 times less energy intensive – it’s a tremendously smaller carbon footprint. So you can recover phosphorus in Oregon now and you’re producing it locally and consuming it locally. ” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Sustainability, Water, Tualatin River, wastewater
March 6, 2012 | 9:20 PM | By

Obama: Medford Has The Right Idea

Gold Beach Real Estate/Flickr

The City of Medford can earn thermal credits to offset warm water discharges from its wastewater treatment plant by paying landowners to plant shady trees along the banks of the Rogue River. In a speech on Friday, President Obama said the program – which is also underway in the Tualatin River Basin, and in the works for Ashland and Eugene – is an example of a win-win for business and the environment.

At Friday’s White House Conference on Conservation, President Barack Obama tipped his hat to Medford’s new thermal trading program, which he held up as an example of a win-win for business and the environment.

He didn’t complicate his speech by using the rather obscure name of the program. Instead, he explained it in story form, like this:

“A while back, I heard a story about the Rogue River in Oregon. Every year, the Rogue is filled with salmon swimming upstream to spawn. But because factories were allowing warm water to run back into the river, the temperature was becoming too high for the salmon to survive.

So to fix the problem, the town could have required the company to buy expensive cooling equipment, but that would have hurt the local economy. Instead, they decided to pay farmers and ranchers to plant trees along the banks of the river, and that helped to cool the water at a fraction of the cost. So it worked for business; it worked for farmers; it worked for salmon.

And those are the kinds of ideas that we need in this country -– ideas that preserve our environment, protect our bottom line, and connect more Americans to the great outdoors.”

That’s a rather loose interpretation of the facts that led to the creation of the city of Medford’s cold-water credit system, according to John Gasik, water quality program coordinator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality in Medford. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Water, Barack Obama, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, Thermal Trading
February 14, 2012 | 11:53 AM | By

Tracking Oregon’s Turtles With Radio-Telemetry

Remember that scene in Honey I Shrunk the Kids where Rick Moranis is lost in the back yard? The blades of grass seem like skyscrapers and a passing ant is an enormous and terrifying monster. I couldn’t help but imagine this scene at the Discovering Wildlife Lecture Series when Dan Rosenberg of the Oregon Wildlife Institute described his study that tracks the movements of hatchling turtles.

You read that right – he tracks baby turtles.

Rachel Diaz-Bastin /Flickr

The Western Pond Turtle is one of Oregon's two native turtles.

He does it using radio-telemetry. Maybe you’re familiar with it. It’s the process of capturing an animal and attaching a radio frequency to it, by collar, tag, or wire, and then tracking its movements with an antenna. It works just like the radio in your car, where each station, or in this case each turtle puts out a unique frequency once outfitted with a transmitter. All you have to do is tune in to find out where it is. It’s a common practice among wildlife biologists to learn more about how animals use their habitat.

It’s what allowed us to follow the wolf OR-7 along his 700-mile walk from Oregon to California. It’s what the biologists are using to track the reintroduced bull trout in the Clackamas River. And for tracking something the size of a shrunken Rick Moranis, it’s super helpful. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Fish & Wildlife, Water, Oregon Field Journal
February 7, 2012 | 2:48 PM | By

Oregon Senate Passes Marine Reserves Bill

Ben Enticknap/Oceana

Otter Rock is one of one of the first marine reserve sites to be closed to fishing off the Oregon coast. If the House of Representatives passes a bill in the Legislature this session, another three sites on the north and central coast will be added to the state's network of protected areas.

Today the Oregon Senate voted 25-5 to approve three new marine reserves in state coastal waters.

Senate Bill 1510 restricts fishing in ocean areas at Cape Falcon, north of Manzanita, Cascade Head, north of Lincoln City, and Cape Perpetua, between Florence and Newport. It’s based on recommendations from stakeholder groups, and it still needs approval from the Oregon House of Representatives and a signature from the governor to become law.

Two pilot marine reserves have already been established at Redfish Rocks near Port Orford and Otter Rock near Lincoln City.

Altogether, the five reserves make up less than 10 percent of the state’s territorial sea, which stretches out three miles from the coast. Both California and Washington have already roped off some protected areas in their coastal waters. Oregon has been debating the issue and working through a marine reserve planning process for nearly a decade.

Supporters of marine reserves say fishing restrictions protect the marine habitat and boost fish populations, which can have a positive spillover effect for fisheries. But critics in Oregon who have opposed marine reserves say the fishing restrictions would cause unnecessary damage to coastal economies and fishing businesses. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Fish & Wildlife, Pacific Ocean, Marine reserves
February 1, 2012 | 9:39 AM | By

Bull Trout Are Back In The Clackamas

If you’re not familiar with Bull Trout, it’s not your fault. They’ve largely been missing from the Willamette River Basin for the past 50 years.

But have you heard the news? Bull Trout are back in the Clackamas River.

On June 30th 2011 US Fish & Wildlife biologists Chris Allen and Patrick Barry carefully grabbed 20 wiggly Bull Trout from a blue cooler and reintroduced them back into the cold waters of the upper Clackamas.

Joel Sartore

Bull Trout - Apex Predator

“In the photos you can see that Patrick is smiling and I’m not because I was nervous I was going to knock over the cooler or something after all our hard work,” lead biologist Chris Allen said at a presentation he gave in January for the Oregon Wildlife Heritage Foundation’s Discovering Wildlife lecture series in Portland, Oregon.

The two biologists used this lecture to inform the public of the reintroduction project, but also to update us on the progress of what’s happened since that summer day. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Fish & Wildlife, Water, Oregon Field Journal
January 13, 2012 | 4:08 PM | By

No Marine Reserve Near Coos Bay – For Now

cprofita

A view from Cape Arago, the site of a proposed marine reserve south of Coos Bay that will not be designated anytime soon. Many stakeholders involved in evaluating the reserve said they didn't see the need to restrict fishing in the area and risk having negative impacts on the local economy. Supporters of marine reserves say the stakeholder group didn't have enough information or diverse viewpoints to review the proposal properly.

This week, the International Port of Coos Bay decided not to recommend a marine reserve at Cape Arago – a site that includes Simpson Reef and North Cove, a rare elephant seal haul-out and great kelp bed just south of Coos Bay.

The Cape Arago/Seven Devils marine reserve has been hotly debated for years, but last March a 34-member stakeholder committee took a pivotal vote not to support any of the proposals to restrict or ban fishing in the stretch of Oregon’s ocean between Reedsport and Bandon. That gave the Port Commission the basis of its decision this week, though the board also left the door open to future discussions.

“At this point the community has said we aren’t ready to have a marine reserve or marine protected area at Cape Arago,” said Elise Hamner, the Port’s communications and community affairs coordinator. However, she said the jury is still out on the notion of putting a marine reserve somewhere in the region at some point. “We know this issue’s coming back. It’s not going away. I think this community agreed we want healthy fisheries healthy ecosystems out in our ocean. What people don’t agree on is how to go about that.” Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Fish & Wildlife, Pacific Ocean, Cape Arago, Marine reserves
January 10, 2012 | 10:17 PM | By

Depaving Portland: Will Your Driveway Be Next?


View Depaved! – Completed & Potential Future Sites in a larger map

In 2001, Northeast Portland resident Arif Khan had a backyard full of pavement. Now he has a garden full of veggies, herbs and fruit trees.

“I preferred a garden over concrete,” he said. “I planted a tree a few feet high, and now I can climb up it and eat figs.”

While his fruit trees were growing, so was a new nonprofit organization devoted to tearing out unnecessary asphalt and concrete and replacing it with community gardens. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Land use, Sustainability, Water, Depave, Green infrastructure, Stormwater
December 30, 2011 | 5:12 PM | By

Ecotrope’s 11 Greatest Hits of 2011

Willamette Week couched their top stories of 2011 under the headline: “We know what you’re reading.” That’s true here, too. Ecotrope tracks every click you make on the site. To close out the year, here are 11 posts that got the most clicks in 2011:

How Environmentalists Are Reshaping A West Coast Fishery

This story ran on npr.org, which probably explains its top spot in Ecotrope’s greatest hits list. It’s part of my ongoing coverage of the West Coast groundfish fleet’s transition into catch shares – a management scheme that lets fishermen trade ownership shares of fish. The Nature Conservancy is using its ownership of a dozen groundfish permits to influence the way other boats fish.

 

Wolverines in Oregon: The Rumors Are True

I had no idea how widespread the rumors of wolverines were until a trail camera confirmed their presence in Wallowa County. Wham! The post got 1,000 Facebook shares. Lucky for me, Oregon Field Guide had done a show about searching for evidence of the elusive wolverines that made a great backgrounder. Thanks to all the readers who shared their own sightings of wolverines. That was my favorite part! Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Air, Energy, Fish & Wildlife, Land, Sustainability, Water
December 30, 2011 | 5:30 AM | By

In Pendleton: Newfound well power

Sam Beebe/Ecotrust/Flickr

Pendleton's groundwater aquifer was dropping by 3.5 feet a year before the city started refilling it with water from the Umatilla River. The city is now looking to generate hydropower at five well pumps that send the river water underground.

Twenty years ago, the state shut down eastern Oregon farmer Kent Madison’s water well to protect overdrawn groundwater below.

He was left with a 700-foot well and a pump that he owned but couldn’t use.

It was 10 years before he found a way to legally refill the underground aquifer with water he could use on his farm. New laws and permitting processes allowed Madison to inject winter flood water from nearby Butter Creek into the aquifer below so he could use it later for summertime irrigation.

This aquifer storage and recovery process is now used in numerous locations across the Northwest to store water while it’s abundant and save it for drier days. According to the Oregon Water Resources Department, the concept offers many benefits including a hedge against climate change and population growth.

But Madison discovered another benefit: You can use it to generate power. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Energy, Water, Aquifer recharge, Hydropower
December 14, 2011 | 11:52 AM | By

In court: The ripple effects of catching little fish

bikehikedive/Flickr

How many little fish can people catch while still leaving enough for other predators in the ocean? A lawsuit filed yesterday challenges fishery managers to scrap their current rules for fishing sardines and anchovies on the West Coast and replace them with catch limits that leave enough fish for salmon, birds and whales to eat.

What’s the ecological ripple effect of catching little fish in the ocean?

That’s the question the environmental nonprofit Oceana wants fishery managers to ask *before* they set catch limits for West Coast fisheries.

The group has told the Pacific Fishery Management Council – which sets rules for West Coast fisheries – that the small fish at the bottom of the ocean food chain need more safeguards.

But Ben Enticknap, the group’s Pacific project manager, says the requests have been ignored or put on the back burner. That’s why his group is now taking the National Marine Fisheries Service to court. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Fish & Wildlife, Pacific Ocean, Forage fish, Oceana, Pacific Fishery Management Council, Sardines