The third in a series of five, free webinars for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater (water sector) utility owners and operators, as well as other water sector stakeholders in the Northwest climate region of the U.S. CREAT is a web-based risk assessment application for water sector utilities to assess and address current and potential future climate change impacts. This free training will help utilities incorporate climate change considerations into their decision-making, identify adaptation projects to build long-term resilience, and learn about federal and local resources for financing utility resilience projects. To learn more about CREAT success stories visit our Case Study and Information Exchange Map and to view other trainings visit the CRWU Training Center. You can register for the free Northwest CREAT training sessions here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7819112488816651792
The second in a series of five, free webinars for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater (water sector) utility owners and operators, as well as other water sector stakeholders in the Northwest climate region of the U.S. CREAT is a web-based risk assessment application for water sector utilities to assess and address current and potential future climate change impacts. This free training will help utilities incorporate climate change considerations into their decision-making, identify adaptation projects to build long-term resilience, and learn about federal and local resources for financing utility resilience projects. To learn more about CREAT success stories visit our Case Study and Information Exchange Map and to view other trainings visit the CRWU Training Center. You can register for the free Northwest CREAT training sessions here: https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7819112488816651792
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Creating Resilient Water Utilities (CRWU) initiative is providing a series of five, free webinars for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater (water sector) utility owners and operators, as well as other water sector stakeholders in the Northwest climate region of the U.S. This webinar training series titled “Building Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change Impacts for Drinking Water and Wastewater Utilities” begins with an Introductory webinar concentrating on the impacts of climate change in the Northwest, the identification of adaptation options, and a utility climate change risk assessment case study. The following four webinars focus on conducting a climate change risk assessment using EPA’s Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT), developing resilience and adaptation projects, and identifying financing programs to pay for infrastructure projects.…
By Margaret Carmel; BoiseDev The entrance of Avimor off of Highway 55. Photo: Margaret Carmel/BoiseDev Police, fire, and emergency medical services aren’t the only essentials a developer needs to sort out when building a subdivision in the Boise foothills. Avimor, a growing community spanning the Ada, Boise, and Gem county lines, hopes to build nearly 10,000 homes by its completion in the coming decades. Along with the necessary road improvements, businesses, a community center, and the homes themselves, developer Dan Richter also has to build a water system to serve the homes along Highway 55. Between the combination of wells, surface water rights on the property dating back over a century, and a boost from Suez, Richter says nearly the entire project will be served by water in the ground…
Moscow-Pullman Daily News The Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee is currently evaluating additional water sources for Latah and Whitman counties. Robin Nimmer, a senior hydrologist in the Water Resources Division at Alta Science and Engineering, spoke at the League of Women Voters of Moscow speaker forum Wednesday about how to ensure a lasting supply of water for the communities. "We've known about water level decline for a very long time," she said. "The wells aren't flowing anymore and we actually have data that shows us the water level is declining in our aquifer." Nimmer has recently been working with the Palouse Basin Aquifer Committee, which was formed in the 1980s, to evaluate alternative water sources for the region. The committee's mission since its start has been to plan for continued use…
By Logan Ramsey; Post Register BLACKFOOT — The City of Blackfoot is working to form a water advisory board in order to involve citizens in preparing to conserve water as the snowpack and the natural flow of the Snake River decreases over time. The first meeting was on March 24. “We want citizen ownership of this,” said Blackfoot Mayor Marc Carroll. Princeton Lee, Blackfoot Water superintendent, said the goal of the board will be “to try to get the citizens to conserve water or help us change the way we use and perceive water. I feel like that’s something that the citizens of Blackfoot or users of the water system should help us craft.” This summer could be particularly hard on people who use irrigation with junior water rights as…
By Jim Lauria; Water Online World Water Day both celebrates clean water and reminds us that 2 billion people live without access to it. Safe drinking water is one of the most fundamental elements of health — healthy water keeps people healthy; sick water makes people sick. Though we have come to understand a lot more about the biology and chemistry that link health and water, even our early ancestors sensed the connection — as Marq De Villiers notes, one of the signs of the Apocalypse in ancient writings is "the bitterness of waters." Taking the metaphor into the very availability of water, Robin Clarke and Jannet King wrote in The Water Atlas, "Thus do the four horses of the Apocalypse — war, famine, pestilence, and death — gallop even faster…
By Rachel Cohen; Boise State Public Radio News A water quality sampling line is fed down a groundwater well in southern Idaho. Idaho Water Science Center USGS Water in south central Idaho has had nutrient issues for a long time. That’s according to Kenneth Skinner, a groundwater hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. But Skinner said, while several state and federal agencies have collected data in the Magic Valley area since the 1990s, there hasn’t been a recent analysis of regional groundwater contamination trends. That’s what he set out to complete by analyzing samples of a particularly widespread pollutant, nitrogen, from over 500 groundwater wells. Some common sources of nitrogen are fertilizer and manure. His findings, shared at the Idaho Water Quality Workshop on Wednesday, show nitrate levels in the Magic…
This year we are excited to merge the GWPC UIC Conference with our Annual Forum. Join us in person or virtually June 21-23, 2022 in beautiful Salt Lake City, Utah. We are offering a hybrid attendee experience for this conference with both in-person and virtual attendance options.
By Hannah Ashton; Magic Valley Times News Snow falls as the water flows Wednesday, March 9, 2022, at Auger Falls in Twin Falls.Drew Nash, Times News TWIN FALLS — Idaho broke water records in March — not the good kind. Across the state SNOTEL — Snowpack Telemetry sites — hit record low precipitation levels for January to March. Many of the data sets go back 40 years, making officials with the Idaho Water Supply Committee even more nervous. “Since about Jan. 7, we’ve really had a failure of normal precipitation in the state,” said David Hoekema, hydrologist with the Idaho Department of Water Resources, during the March committee meeting. The snow water equivalent (SWE), which stands for how much water is in the snowpack if it melted, has “dramatically decreased,”…
