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Monday, September 29, 2008
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Here's an update on the restoration work on the Eagle River near Minturn, from The Vail Daily. From the article:
Restoration work will begin Tuesday on a warm, wide and shallow stretch of the Eagle River in Edwards, an area notoriously unwelcoming to fish. So, you can expect to see construction crews and heavy equipment actually in the river, moving rocks and dirt. Restoration has already started on a stretch of the Eagle River running through Minturn that was badly damaged by early development in town."
The Eagle River Watershed Council, a nonprofit river advocacy group, raised about $1.5 million to make this area deeper, cooler and faster running, as it was more than 100 years ago. So called "bars" of gravel, cobbles and boulders will be installed on alternating sides of the river bank, which tightens the width and forces water to flow more heavily on the opposite side, creating deeper stretches of water and decreasing the temperature. This creates a natural looking "meandering effect," says to Julie Ash, the water resource engineer with Walsh Environmental who is the project manager. Sediment would then more easily wash downstream, especially when water levels are low. Insects won't be smothered, whirling disease won't thrive, and trout will have better places to live and spawn. This spring, a lot of trees -- such as willows and cottonwood -- will be planted. Trees provide shade, which cools the water and helps the fish. Having trees nearby also helps jump-start the food chain by allowing leaves and logs to fall in the water. The leaves feed the little fish, the little fish feed the big fish, and insects thrive in decomposing logs, which also makes the fish happy, Ash says...
The restoration area is roughly from the Interstate 70 westbound bridge to the Bellum Bridge in Minturn, about 1.6 miles. The goal is to make the river here more natural looking, as it did before development. Restoration will involve strategically placing boulders and cobbles in the river, which will create a variety of homes for fish. There will be some fast moving shallow areas, and some slow moving pools. On the river bank, workers will begin planting cottonwoods, willow, spruce and a variety of shrubs and grasses. In some areas, workers will extend the river bank. Restoration work will finish in mid-October. You'll likely see a lot of heavy construction equipment in the river, and sometimes, you'll see cloudy water -- an unavoidable side effect of doing restoration work.
Thanks to The Water Information Program for the link. More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Colorado Water
6:51:50 PM 
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From The Environmental News Network: "The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota has achieved a major technical milestone in creating a 100% renewable domestic fuel that meets the JP-8 aviation fuel screening criteria, proving a pathway to providing energy security to the U.S. military and the entire nation.
"The technology takes advantage of feedstock chemistry to reduce capital and operating expenses. The feedstock-flexible process can use various crop oils and waste greases. The process can be tailored to produce combinations of propane, gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel that are identical to petroleum-derived fuels, enabling direct substitution with existing fuels and providing renewable options across the spectrum of fuel needs."
Category: Climate Change News
6:34:27 PM
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Here's the press release for the Draft EA for the Green Mountain Reservoir Agreements from Reclamation (via Kara Lamb):
For Release on: September 29, 2008
Draft Environmental Assessment on Green Mountain Reservoir Agreements Available for Public Review
The Bureau of Reclamation is releasing the Green Mountain Reservoir Substitution and Power Interference Agreements Draft Environmental Assessment for public review on September 30, 2008. Written comments must be submitted no later than October 14, 2008.
The Draft EA is available electronically at http://www.usbr.gov/gp/nepa/quarterly.cfm. Hardcopies are available at the North Branch Summit County Library (651 Center Circle, Silverthorne, CO 80498) and the South Branch Summit County Library (504 Airport Road, Breckenridge, CO 80424).
To submit a comment, please send to the attention of Kara Lamb via regular mail, fax or e-mail:
Bureau of Reclamation
11056 W. County Road 18E
Loveland, CO 80537
(fax) 970-663-3212
(e-mail) klamb@gp.usbr.gov
Colorado Springs Utilities is proposing to enter into a long-term agreement with Reclamation to formalize a substitution plan for diverting water from Green Mountain Reservoir during years when the reservoir is not expected to fill to capacity. Springs Utilities is also proposing to enter into a formal long-term power interference agreement with Reclamation and Western Area Power Administration to compensate for lost hydropower due to the diversions. Reclamation is the lead agency in the environmental review process under the National Environmental Policy Act and Western is a cooperating agency.
For more information on the Draft EA, to request a hard copy of the document please contact Kara Lamb at (970) 962-4326.
Category: Colorado Water
6:16:45 PM
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Here's the latest on noctilucent clouds from Science Blog. From the article:
An explanation for a strange property of noctilucent clouds--thin, wispy clouds hovering at the edge of space at 85 km altitude--has been proposed by an experimental plasma physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), possibly laying to rest a decades-long mystery. Noctilucent clouds, also known as night-shining clouds, were first described in 1885, two years after the massive eruption of Krakatoa, a volcanic island in Indonesia, sent up a plume of ash and debris up to 80 km into Earth's atmosphere. The eruption affected global climate and weather for years and may have produced the first noctilucent clouds...
Twenty-five years ago, researchers at Poker Flat, Alaska, discovered that the clouds were highly reflective to radar. This unusual property has long puzzled scientists. Bellan, reporting in the August issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, now has an explanation: the ice grains in noctilucent clouds are coated with a thin film of metal, made of sodium and iron. The metal film causes radar waves to reflect off ripples in the cloud in a manner analogous to how X-rays reflect from a crystal lattice. Sodium and iron atoms collect in the upper atmosphere after being blasted off incoming micrometeors. These metal atoms settle into a thin layer of vapor that sits just above the altitude at which noctilucent clouds occur. Astronomers recently have been using the sodium layer to create laser-illuminated artificial guide stars for adaptive optics telescopes that remove the distorting affects of atmospheric turbulence to produce clearer celestial images.
Measurements of the density of sodium and iron atomic vapor layers show that the metal vapor is depleted by over 80 percent when noctilucent clouds are present. "Noctilucent clouds have been shown to act very much like a flycatcher for sodium and iron atoms," Bellan says. Indeed, in laboratory experiments, other researchers have found that at the frigid temperatures (-123 degrees Celsius) within noctilucent clouds, atoms in sodium vapor quickly become deposited on the surface of ice to form a metallic film.
More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
Category: Climate Change News
6:33:43 AM
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© Copyright
2008
John Orr.
Last update:
10/4/08; 9:03:07 AM.
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