Sweetwater Project

                                                                                                                                   We all know how important it is: the Amazon, home to over half of the planet’s remaining rainforest. Source of much of the world’s oxygen and biodiversity, and home to a rich diversity of indigenous cultures, the Amazon is a treasure trove.  Crisscrossing the jungle are the veins of the Amazon, its rivers. Moving matter, life and fluid from the Andes to the Atlantic, the Amazon river is the second longest river in the world and easily the largest river in terms of the amount of water it discharges- one fifth of the entire world’s total river flow.

Keeping the Amazon healthy means keeping its rivers healthy. In California, we are seeing the concrete effects of taking too much water from rivers and impairing their health with large dams. We have lost millions of dollars in the past five years as farmers have been forced to take valuable agricultural land out of production due to lack of Delta water. We have also lost money, livelihoods, and a food source as our native salmon teeter on the verge of extinct due to lack of spawning grounds and overfishing.  We will continue to see ramifications of our overbuilt and unsustainable water system in the years to come. Let’s learn from our mistakes and not make the same ones worldwide!

In what would be the third largest dam in the world, the Brazilian government is moving ahead with building Belo Monte Dam on the Xingu River,

The mouth of the Amazon River

one of the Amazon’s largest tributaries. The dam, when finished, will flood more than 40,000 hectares of rainforest and displace over 20,000 people, threatening the survival of indigenous peoples in the area. Belo Monte Dam is part of the Brazilian government’s plan to build 60 large dams in the Amazon over the next twenty years. On Monday, hundreds of Brazilians, along with supporters in 17 different countries, protested the building of the Belo Monte Dam, supporting the health of the Amazon.

How you can help: Tomorrow, Thursday, August 25^th, people from all over the world demonstrate their support of the Amazon by participating in a twittermob. Be part of it!!

What you can do:

Today, press the “Follow me on Twitter” button on the right hand side of the page to keep updated with actions and posts of the Sweetwater Project. If you don’t have an account, take two minutes to sign up! Twitter is a highly effective way of protesting and showing support online. If you haven’t signed up yet, sign up now to become a part of the global movement to protect rivers!

Tomorrow, I will send out an email and a tweet for the twittermob. Copy and paste the message into twitter. Press ‘Tweet.’ And you’re done. You will have sent the message of “Protect the Amazon. Stop Belo Monte Dam” directly to the Brazilian government as well as banks and construction companies that are involved with building the dam.

To cap off an incredible few months of exploring the Tuolumne River, the source of San Francisco’s drinking water, I went canoeing down a stretch of the Lower Tuolumne!

And really, there is no better way to appreciate what comes out of your tap than getting into your source river. The Tuolumne River Trust knows this and takes adults and school kids onto the Tuolumne River- so that they can understand the biology, the flora and fauna, and the beauty of the river they drink from.

We paddled a stretch of the river a little to the east of Modesto, below La Grange Dam. Unlike the thin stretch of the river that meanders across Tuolumne Meadows, high in the Sierrras, the lower Tuolumne is broad. And unlike the Tuolumne that charges down granite step pools into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne, this part of the river is serene. While we did navigate a few twists and mellow riffles, the river is peaceful as it travels across the Central Valley- its voice gentle.

Tall cottonwoods and alders line the banks. Along with plant life, so many animals make their homes on this stretch of the Tuolumne- beavers, herons, egrets, and river otters (we got to see one!). It is the time of the year where Chinook salmon return up the Tuolumne to lay their eggs and pass away. I saw the watertracks of one momma furiously propelling herself upriver.

As the day progressed and we floated like fall leaves on top of the flowing creature, I was mesmerized. Stepped back from knowing, and saw the water I was floating on in a fresh way. Us humans call them rivers. But when you take a step back, and marvel at  fluid that has somehow gathered together and rushes over rocks, cuts valleys, murmurs as it goes; it’s pretty incredible. We need it to survive and there it is, rushing down from the mountains.

I am thankful to the Tuolumne. Thank you for keeping me alive for the past decade! May I appreciate each drop as it comes out of the tap; may I remember the land it comes from.

Thank you to Carlos! And to the Tuolumne River Trust for a great day and its continuous advocacy for the Tuolumne River. To go for a paddle on the river (THERE ARE STILL TRIPS THROUGH THE END OF NOVEMBER!), check out more of the Trust’s programs, or donate to get kids out to the river, go to www.tuolumne.org.

penstocks comin down into Moccasin

On our way up to Yosemite, we stopped off at Moccasin, a powerhouse and reservoir in the San Francisco Public Utilities Commision system, the water system which brings Tuolumne River water to San Francisco’s tap. After a little meander around,  we got down to the heart of things with the man who decides how much water to release from the Hetchy system’s reservoirs and when. And how much power to make from said water.

Just a lil’ background for you. The Tuolumne River’s source is deep in Yosemite National Park. It runs its natural course all the way into the granite-walled Hetch Hetchy reservoir. Nestled in the lower foothills, Moccasin is at the bottom of a steep section of parched hills.

Who’s got the power? We do.

If you can imagine, water from Hetchy funnels into pipes. The water runs down

Moccasin power

the arid foothills, gravity pushing it to pick up speed. All of a sudden, out of the mountains and close to the great valley, the water is at the top of a steep, dry hill.  It shoots down the hill in four pipes called penstocks. And at the bottom of the hill, it runs into a building where its kinetic force is turned into power.

Two cool things about all that. One- that power is gravity-created and Two: It is not created directly on the river. Most of the hydroelectric power I’ve seen so far is gravity-created as well, but the height comes from the massive face of the dam. Basically, instead of a hill, the water falls off the top of a dam. At the bottom, a hydroelectric plant converts the force into electricity.

The down side of on-river hydroelectricity is the gigantic structure which impedes the natural flow and ecology of a river. Nothing can get past it (except for da birds). I appreciate that aspect of Moccasin power- that water in the river is diverted out of its natural course and the power of it running down a hill is converted to power. While there are dams below Moccasin on the main stem of the river, Moccasin points to a possible alternative to the massive on-river dams that while storing water for us, don’t allow a river to do it job.

Filling in the holes

the part of the city out in the sticks

Another interesting tidbit we learned is that hydropower is a much more flexible energy-producer than coal-fired power. For example, a hydro plant can go from producing zero to 160 megawatts of power in five minutes. By contrast, it takes a quarter million dollars and hours to get a coal plant lumbering along. Once started, a coal-fired plant produces a lot of power, but isn’t flexible. Since electricity cannot be stored, demand must be met by an equal supply. Hydropower, which supplies 25 percent of California’s energy is the flexible power source that fills in the gaps, ramping up and tapering off as needed.

Rafting

A river in the Sierras can go from 100 cubic feet a second to 1000 in ten

the water after its fall in Moccasin Reservoir

minutes thanks to a hydropower plant. And during the rafting season, that’s exactly what it does. The river flows at a mellow pace all night. Morning comes and the river cranks up to ten times its original flow. All of a sudden, a gentle river has Class III rapids. Power can be made from the fluctuating amount of water flowing through a plant at the top of rafting area. And then, after a long adventurous day of rafting the ‘wilds’ of the Sierras, the river is turned to a hush…until the next morning.

the lines that bring us Moccasin hydropower

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir

The more recent story of the Tuolumne River began in the early 1900s- when San Francisco believed it would not be able to meet its growing population’s water needs with local sources alone.

San Francisco looked at a few different far-off rivers for a new source of water. One choice was the Mokelumne River, which is now the source of the East Bay’s water. Another, was the Tuolumne River. In pristine Yosemite National Park, the purity of the water would be assured and granite canyons offered a perfect place to store water.

One valley became the source of great controversy- Hetch Hetchy. Most San Franciscans know the story.  Of the great battle John Muir waged against a reservoir being built in a valley Muir said was as beautiful as famous Yosemite Valley. At the height of the battle, Muir said, “Dam Hetch Hetchy! As well dam for water-tanks the people’s cathedrals and churches, for no holier temple has ever been consecrated by the heart of man.” Muir lost the fight. And in 1913, Congress passed the Raker Act, giving San Francisco the right to build O’Shaughnessy Dam and flood Hetch Hetchy Valley.

The path of the Tuolumne in recent times and our drinking water

The system of reservoirs and pipelines that was built on the Tuolumne changed the flow of the river entirely. At the same time it has enabled San Francisco and the Bay Area to grow. Besides supplying San Francisco with 85 percent of its water, the river also provides the city with revenue from the sale of hydropower.

Engineered to bring water from Hetch Hetchy 170 miles to San Francisco, the system was designed to be almost entirely gravity-fed. Miles of tunnels were cut through rock and mountain so that water could be carried from the mountains to the city using gravity instead of electricity. By contrast, water that flows down the California Aqueduct to Southern California takes an astronomical amount of energy to be pumped over the Tehachapi Mountains at the southern end of the Central Valley. And more electricity almost always means more greenhouse gas emissions.

Tuolumne Meadows

On its new course, the Tuolumne is still born high up in the Sierras, running through Tuolumne Meadows, it drops down through the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne. It then pours into Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, where a highly coordinated effort dictates how much water will be stored in Hetchy and how much will go to the city.

Some of the water is diverted to make hydropower and most will continue its journey through a complex system of reservoirs and pipelines that make their way down the foothills and over the Central Valley. The Tuolumne River itself continues after Hetch Hetchy until it hits its next major road block- Don Pedro Lake, a reservoir created behind New Don Pedro Dam. It then continues two miles downstream where it meets another dam at La Grange.

After the La Grange dam, the Tuolumne River continues on its historical route, unimpeded till it meets with the San Joaquin River. Only it has got a lot less water in it. Our demands on the river are great. Besides San Francisco and the Bay Area, the Tuolumne supplies water to the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation Districts.

This is the second part of a series devoted to the source of San Francisco’s (and much of the Bay Area’s) water: the Tuolumne River.

Tuolumne Meadows: the river near its source.

Since I dipped my toes in the upper Tuolumne River for the first time a few weeks ago, I have felt privileged to drink water daily from such a pristine source.  Every time I turn on the tap in San Francisco, I am connected by pipeline umbilical cord to a clear river running over granite through a meadow in Yosemite National Park.  I am connected to the silvery trout that dart from shadow to shadow and to the land that the river dissolves into it as it flows. I am connected to the tree roots the river scoured free of earth and the momma bear that waded across belly-swelled.

We are lucky. Us Tuolumne drinkers.

And in the spirit of what I mentioned last week, of taking a second to begrateful and knowledgeable about the source of our water, today I will tell the story of the path of the Tuolumne.  There are multiple stories. But today, I will start from the beginning, before there were humans and dams and reservoirs, before the water came to our taps, when the Tuolumne was just a river doing its river thang.

West of Tioga Pass, high up in the Sierras, deep in what is now Yosemite National Park, the Tuolumne has its beginnings. Lyell Fork is its primary source. Where Dana Fork meets Lyell, the river meanders its way through Tuolumne Meadows. Some of you may have been there before. High above Yosemite Valley, at 8,600 feet, the meadow stretches for miles under big blue sky.

dropping into the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

As it leaves the meadows, the river drops down sheer granite stairs and falls into its namesake canyon- the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne.  And now, the stories begin to diverge. For this pre-human story, the river continues its drop out of the Sierras and into the foothills, where it meets a few smaller tributaries. The Middle and South Fork of the Tuolumne join in the foothills, along with the Clavey River and the North Fork of the Tuolumne.

The river’s almost to the Great Valley’s floor. As its descent ends, its pace slows- there’s no hurry to get anywhere, lolly-gagging on the valley floor. Until it meets the San Joaquin River.  This is where the journey of the Tuolumne as a separate river ends, as it joins at its mouth with the San Joaquin, its waters carried to the Bay of San Francisco and out into the Pacific.

The path of the Tuolumne.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Doesn’t San Francisco get its water from Hetch Hetchy?

San Franciscans will tell you, with pride, that their water comes from Hetch Hetchy. Which is a part truth.  The well-engineered Hetch Hetchy system does bring water from the Tuolumne River to Bay Area taps. So, in that sense, our water comes from Hetch Hetchy. But the Tuolumne River fills Hetch Hetchy’s pipes.

O’Shaughnessy Dam was built on the Tuolumne River. And Hetch Hetchy is the reservoir behind the dam, which holds the waters of the Tuolumne River so that during dry months, we will be able to sustain ourselves.

Tuolumne Falls

Who else gets Tuolumne River water besides San Francisco?

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission sells water directly to customers who live within San Francisco. The SFPUC also sells ‘wholesale’ water to 26 other cities and water  districts that then sell the water to their customers. Water is sold to cities within San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Alameda Counties.

Why do people say that San Francisco’s water is so pure?

85 percent of San Francisco’s water comes from the Tuolumne River. And water that comes from the Tuolumne is NOT filtered. That means that the water is so clean and pure that it exceeds water quality standards and only needs to be disinfected (with chloramine). Tuolumne River water is some of the only water in the country that is allowed to be unfiltered as it comes out of our taps.

Next week, the second story will be told, of the Tuolumne River and the Hetch Hetchy Water Project that got the Tuolumne to our taps.

If you live in Bay Area, you should know the Tuolumne River. And not just casually either. The way it smells, the way it feels on your skin, its many languages as it drops steeply from its granite source and meanders over meadows and out onto the Central Valley. While not everyone in the Bay Area has the privilege, 2.5 million of us drink of this river everyday. We use it to keep our cells alive and healthy, to brew our tea, to brush our teeth, to clean ourselves, to make this computer I am writing on and the clothes I am wearing.

This river, along with the animals, plants, and rocks that call it home, make their way into our lives everyday- we just don’t stop to notice or appreciate. So, here is the land of the upper Tuolumne for you in pictures. Though really, to know this river, you gotta get your feet wet.

Special thanks to the friends and family who shared this adventure with us!

on its way to the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne

baby waits for mama in a campground tree

San Franciscans get their toes wet

Cosumnes wetlands

On the edge of the Delta, is a river worthy of mention- the Cosumnes. Like the rest of the rivers in the area, the Cosumnes has human pawprints all over it. But whereas other rivers continue to be controlled and highly engineered, the Cosumnes is an incredible experiment in allowing a tamed river to run feral again.

With no dams on the river’s main channel (read: there are dams on its upper feeder creeks), the river stands apart from all its Central Valley neighbors- the Mokelumne, the Tuolumne, the Stanislaus. Like these powerful aquarine creatures, the river was controlled by a series of levees, until an accident showed us what we were missing.

It happened after the Nature Conservancy had bought land on the Cosumnes, establishing the Preserve in 1987. While looking at photos that had been taken a few years apart, the Conservancy noticed a little forest that was growing where there hadn’t been one before. When the group approached the farmer, whose land butted up against this fledgling forest, he sheepishly admitted that there had been a small breach in one of his levees the winter before. All of a sudden, an accident had created an incredible ecological example, as the Conservancy saw the immediate benefits of flooding.

Just like the rivers that carry their sediment to the Delta, making it fertile, rivers

Valley Oaks

that flood their banks leave a rich layer of nutrients behind. Certain trees, like willow trees and box elders, valley oaks and cottonwoods love seasonal flooding. Not only does it leave food behind, but it takes with it competitive weeds and also any rodents that may prey on saplings.

For the past while, us human have loved nothing more than putting a river in a box. The Army Corps of Engineers made their living on it. But now, we are seeing the benefits of a river left to its own course. Animals love this sort of home. All sorts of migrating birds, Swainson’s hawks and sandhill cranes among them, make a stop at Cosumnes. River otters, beaver, muskrat all find a place. Tule rushes and cattails propagate happily in the wetlands.

Cosumnes has become, not only an environmental success, but also a great example of how human use and the environment can co-exist.  Juggling the different needs of recreational and agricultural human users as well as those of the ecosystem, the Preserve is helping to create a model that could apply to other places in California.

The Conservancy has worked with farmers in the area to encourage farming rice and corn in a way that supports the migration of different waterfowl, including the sandhill crane. While agriculture by itself has its own delicate timing issues, some farmers in the area have altruistically added yet another factor by deciding when to flood their fields or harvest a crop based on birds’ rhythms. For instance, flooding fields at a time when birds need a watery habitat. The Preserve has also worked with duck hunters, who have been a force for preservation of waterfowl habitat in the Delta. It is this balancing of human and ecological needs that California will need in its relationship to water.

I have one more favorite thing about the Cosumnes River to relate:

Having a natural affinity for the rhythm of the ocean, I was interested to hear that the Cosumnes is a tidal river- meaning it is close enough to the ocean, to be affected by the tides. Twice a day, the river level rises as much as six feet. This little piece reminds me of how connected all water is- a river to the ocean, the ocean to the clouds, the clouds to the rain, and the rain to the mountains that rivers roll from.

For the next three weeks, the Sweetwater Project will focus its attention on one of the most important aspects of California’s water system: the Delta. We hear about it a lot in the news, and mentioned in passing, but what is it and why is it so important?

To talk about the Delta with people who depend about it, is to poke an open wound. Not only is it one of the most environmentally sensitive places in the state, it is also one of the most politically sensitive. Farmers, environmentalists, and urban interests all have a different idea of what the Delta should look like and how it should be used. But to pull back for a moment, what is it and why is it important?

If the Sacramento River is the aorta of California’s water circulation system, the Delta is its heart. A delta is landform created at the place where the mouth of a river meets the ocean. As the river or rivers meets the ocean, they deposit all the sediment they have been carrying, creating a vast network of waterways and marshes. The Delta’s marshes and waterways act like capillaries that connect freshwater rivers and their nutrients to the vast open ocean.

In California, our Delta, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is a mega

Many farms in the Central Valley rely on Delta water

estuary- the largest on the West Coast- with 700 miles of channels that converge around Sacramento and stretch all the way to the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

The rivers that historically poured down the mountains, fed into the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and into the Delta are many. The Feather River, from which Los Angeles and San Diego get much of their water. The Tuolumne River, San Francisco’s lifeline. The Mokelumne River,  which provides drinking water for the East Bay. And other popular rivers, the American, the Yuba, the lovely McCloud, and the wild Cosumnes.

All of these rivers carry nutrients and wild creatures into the Delta. There, sediment is deposited, and baby salmon and steelhead, among others, find shelter in the Delta’s marshes before they make their trips into the ocean. In fact, salt marshes are the “nurseries for the majority of oceanic fishes and shellfish.” They are one of the most productive places on earth- because of the nutrients found there: they are ten times more productive than the open ocean.  Marshes also act as an incredible natural filter for water.

Environmentally, this is why the Delta is such an important place. A delicate

Water in the California Aqueduct is pumped from the Delta

balance between salt and fresh water, providing nutrients for all levels of the food chain, the Delta is key to the health of our watery ecosystems and fisheries.

Of course, us humans have changed that balance. We use the Delta as the river hub it is, as a transfer station between Northern rivers and aqueducts that conduct water to Southern California and farmland in the Central Valley. Two thirds of Californians get at least some of their water from the Delta. Much of the agriculture in the Central Valley is grown with Delta water.

All of this human demand has taken its toll on the Delta. Around half the water that used to make it to the Delta makes it there today. Of what does make it, billions of gallons of water a year are pumped out of the Delta and into aqueducts. This has put the Delta’s fragile ecosystem on the brink of collapse.

And it has made it hard for the different users of Delta water to agree on how to fix this problem. One of the biggest examples is a federal court case in 2007 where the judge ordered pumps in the Southern Delta to be shut down because of a tiny endangered fish called the Delta smelt.  The ruling forced farmers in the Central Valley to take land they could not water out of production. Signs up and down Highway 5 still proclaim the farmer’s anger.

The Delta, then, represents the tenuousness of California’s relationship with water. It is an opportunity for California to find a balance between human use, agricultural and urban, and the health of the environment.

More to come next week.