South American Subbasin Alternative Comments

Posted on July 25, 2019July 25, 2019 by Michelle Manning

July 25, 2019

Dear Mr. Eck:

As you are aware, ECOS and Habitat 2020 have been following the Sacramento Central Groundwater Authority’s (Authority) development of the South American Subbasin Alternative (South American Alternative), and the Department of Water Resources (DWR) review and decision regarding its acceptability under the terms and requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA).

The letter you received, dated July 17, 2019, from DWR’s Deputy Director Taryn Ravazzini, and the accompanying staff report, form a well-reasoned determination that the South American Alternative will not satisfy the requirements of SGMA. While the Authority is given thirty days to provide information to refute DWR’s findings, it seems that devoting time to this pursuit is not in the best interest of the Sacramento region and the Authority.
Ralph Propper and Rob Burness

Full letter here.

Never mind those earthquakes: Atmospheric rivers could put Sacramento 30 feet under water

Posted on July 18, 2019August 8, 2019 by Michelle Manning

July 9, 2019
Candice Wang
The Sacramento Bee

The biggest freshwater rivers on Earth don’t flow along the planet’s surface.

Instead, they surge and whip through the atmosphere thousands of feet above our heads, carrying 2½ times the amount of water that gushes through the Amazon River at any given time.

They’re called atmospheric rivers, or, more aptly, rivers in the sky.

These rivers are capable of burying Sacramento under 30 feet of water.

A research team led by Sasha Gershunov at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego published a new study on atmospheric rivers in Nature Scientific Reports this week that places atmospheric rivers under scrutiny as the driving cause behind California’s increasingly extreme, infrequent bouts of precipitation.

Gershunov’s team used 16 global climate models to analyze the expanding role of atmospheric rivers as contributors to precipitation in California. The results show that atmospheric rivers are getting stronger and wetter, and catastrophic events like the Great Flood of 1862 could happen again.

Aerojet Superfund Site Community Workshop

Posted on June 24, 2019June 24, 2019 by Alexandra Reagan

June 24, 2019

The Environmental Council of Sacramento has been providing guidance for the cleanup of this Aerojet superfund site for several years now. There is a workshop about the cleanup happening on July 10, 2019 that the public is invited to attend.

EPA Community Workshop Aerojet Area 40 Operable Unit 10 Cleanup (click here for the Fact Sheet) – July 10, 2019 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM – Folsom Community Center – 52 Natoma Street, Folsom, CA 95630

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency invites you to participate in a workshop describing cleanup activities that will occur in August and September this year at Aerojet Area 40 OU-10, located east of and adjacent to Prairie City Road, south of Highway 50 and north of White Rock Road. The purpose of the meeting is to give a brief presentation on the cleanup, discuss the schedule and answer the public’s questions. In addition, there will a poster board session with subject matter expert available. If you have any questions, please contact Jackie Lane, Community Involvement Coordinator, at (415) 972-3236 or by email at lane [dot] jackie [at] epa [dot] gov.

Click here to access the Aerojet Area 40 Operable Unit 10 Remedial Action Plan.

Click here for past posts from us on the clean up of this property.