Environmental Flows: Free-flowing rivers around the world

Environmental Flows: Free-flowing rivers around the world - Parineeta Dandekar of Gomukh Trust, Pune

First in a new series of articles that India Water Portal will host on various aspects of Environmental Flows

International Day of River

March 14, 2010, the International Day of River is fast approaching. What should we do to help our Rivers to Flow?

River runoff improves

Nov 15 2007 6:18AM
Associated Press
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) More water than normal ran into the Missouri River system last month for the first time in many months.

The U-S Army Corps of Engineers says runoff was 4 percent above normal.

However, that still leaves runoff about 16 percent short of normal for the year.

This is the 8th year in a row for drought in the Missouri River Basin.

Consequently, the downstream navigation season has been shortened by 35 days.

Lake Oahe (oh-WAH'-hee) ended October at 18.5 feet below normal, but it's 8 feet higher than a year earlier.

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Basin panel prepares NYC Delaware River reservoir rule-making

To better balance of competing

uses and needs

WEST TRENTON, N.J. n Basin officials are preparing rules to help manage New York City’s three Delaware River reservoirs.

The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) at its Sept. 26 meeting directed staff to begin the public rulemaking process to implement an amended Flexible Flow Management Program for operation of the three New York City Delaware Basin reservoirs.

The flow program is intended to provide a more adaptive means for managing the Cannonsville, Pepacton, and Neversink reservoirs for multiple, competing uses, including water supply and drought mitigation, management of the reservoir tailwater fisheries along with other habitat needs, and spill mitigation. The 1954 decree, which resolved an interstate water dispute centering on the city reservoirs, made no provision for spill mitigation, conservation or ecological releases.

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UF toxicology lab to assess effects of pollutants on sharks

Filed under Research, Health, Environment, Veterinary on Thursday, September 27, 2007.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Sending commonly prescribed medications down the drain may be taking a bite out of the environment — at least when it comes to shark habitat, University of Florida veterinary scientists say. In fact, the combination of flushing unused medications and the natural excretion of drug residue from antidepressants, cholesterol-regulating drugs and contraceptives into wastewater systems could be having repercussions on aquatic animal life in general.

Researchers at UF’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s Analytical Toxicology Core Laboratory, in collaboration with Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, are studying the bull shark’s exposure to pharmaceutical drug residue found in the waters of the Caloosahatchee River near Fort Myers. Bull sharks leave the ocean to spend time in brackish rivers and estuaries, and the river serves as a nursery for their young.

“Because bull sharks have the unique ability to survive in both saltwater and freshwater environments, they are in close, frequent contact with people — and, as a result, are frequently exposed to wastewater pollutants found in freshwater basins,” said Jim Gelsleichter, senior scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory.

Scientists are trying to determine whether exposure to prescription residue contaminants from water treatment plants and other sources affects the sharks’ ability to grow and reproduce.

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River down to lowest level ever

09/25/07 By Andrea Freygang

Rome officials said although Monday’s 13-inch water level at the Oostanaula River pumphouse is the lowest ever recorded, it isn’t causing the city any problems yet.

City Manager John Bennett said the city can still meet the average demand of about 10 million gallons per day, but because of the low water there’s no way the allowable maximum of 18 million gallons per day can be withdrawn.

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River decline worries tourism operators

Posted Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:33pm AEST
Updated Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:34pm AEST

Tourism operators are worried about the falling river level of the Murray. (user submitted: Kathy Selfe)

Tourism operators along the River Murray are worried about water levels that are forecast to drop dramatically in the summer months.

The latest Murray-Darling Basin report predicts the river water below Blanchetown in South Australia will fall by almost a metre by next April.

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Australia: dip into Murray River culture

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 17/09/2007

With the drought now in its fifth year, time may be running out to cruise the Murray River, writes Sue Attwood.

Mark Twain likened the Murray River in South Australia to the Mississippi and, as we cast off from Mannum Wharf on a four-night Outback Heritage Cruise in the magnificent 230-foot paddle steamer Murray Princess, we could indeed have been on the Mississippi had it not been for the racket from the galahs in the trees by the waterside.

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Dry spell leaves Charles River low

By Ralph Ranalli, Globe Staff | September 9, 2007

Pressure from development in the outer western suburbs and the recent dry spell have dropped water levels in the Charles River to their lowest point in 16 years, prompting concern among conservationists about increased pollution levels and damage to fish and wildlife populations.

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Halve use of water to save Darling

Asa Wahlquist, Rural writer | September 08, 2007

THE extraction of water by irrigators on one of the Murray-Darling Basin's least developed tributaries would need to be halved by 2030 to ensure the Darling River received its minimum mandated flow.

The results of the CSIRO survey into the Warrego River, the first of a series on the basin, is alarming because it suggests that more developed river systems, like the Condamine-Balonne, will face serious problems.

By 2030, climate change and water use will see a 7 per cent reduction in the amount of water that flows out of the Warrego, in southwest Queensland, into the Darling.

Water extraction would have to be halved on the second-least developed river in the basin for the Warrego's water- sharing plan, which specifies 89 per cent of its flows should reach the Darling.

The Murray-Darling Basin Commission reports there is less than 12 gigalitres (billion litres) of private water storage built along the Warrego, compared with 1333GL on the Condamine-Balonne. In 2005-06, 25GL passed through Cunnamulla on the Warrego, while the total flow through St George, on the Balonne, was 123GL.

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Murray river group seeks greater cross-state collaboration

Posted Wed Sep 5, 2007 11:16am AEST

A New South Wales river management group has called for state and federal cooperation to deal with the nation's failing waterways.

The NSW Murray Wetlands Working Group has won $100,000 at this week's River Symposium at Brisbane for its work in rehabilitating wetlands.

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Having a say on water management issues

News | 16 August, 2007

FARMERS, the industry and conservation groups are invited to have a say about the best ways to tackle significant water management issues, such as diffuse pollution and river flows and abstraction, in an effort to further protect and improve rivers, lakes and groundwater.

‘River Basin Planning: Summary of significant water management issues’ is the second step in the process of developing new and better ways in which the Environment Agency and others will work towards achieving ecological standards defined in the European Water Framework Directive by 2015.

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VP Cheney and politics not to blame for 2002 Klamath salmon die off?

August 10th, 2007

Indian Country Today reports that Vice-President Dick Cheney and politics might not be at fault for the massive die off of salmon in the Klamath River in 2002.

In the hearing of the Natural Resources Committee in the House of Representatives on July 31, the paper reports that most of the press and public had left the hearing after seven hours and missed the testimony of William M. Lewis Jr., professor of biology and a researcher in environmental sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, former chairman of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin. His testimony ruled out any real likelihood of a direct connection between a politicized water management decision and the Klamath salmon die-off.

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Article Posted: 08/08/2007 7:54:54 AM
NDA Adds Phragmites to Noxious Weed List for Republican River BasinLINCOLN - In order to protect Nebraska's economy and the quality of its land and waterways, Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) Director Greg Ibach has designated phragmites as a noxious weed in the Republican River Basin. The designation took effect August 3, 2007.

Ibach said the phragmites designation covers four Natural Resources Districts: the Tri Basin, Upper Republican, Middle Republican and Lower Republican.

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Smith defends decision to divert water from river

By David Steves

The Register-Guard

Published: Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Sen. Gordon Smith said Tuesday that he has no regrets about the diversion of water from the Klamath River that was intended to protect fish but instead went to farmers.

The 2002 water diversion - and subsequent die-off of 77,000 salmon and eventual suspension of coastal fishing - was the subject of hearings that began last week in a U.S. House committee.

Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee are trying to determine whether Vice President Cheney's intervention in the Klamath River Basin's water management led to the die-off a few months later, which was the largest ever recorded in the West

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Science clears Cheney in Klamath salmon die-off

Posted: August 03, 2007

by: Jerry Reynolds / Indian Country Today

WASHINGTON For the lions of oversight had vanished by the time a scientist's testimony solved the riddle of the Klamath River salmon die-off of 2002. So had the television news cameras, most reporters and much of an audience that once numbered 100 strong. A comparative few heard William M. Lewis Jr., currently a professor of biology and a researcher in environmental sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, former chairman of the National Academy of Sciences National Research Council Committee on Endangered and Threatened Fishes in the Klamath River Basin, give an account of committee findings that ruled out any real likelihood of a direct connection between a politicized water management decision and the Klamath salmon die-off.

Lewis gave an admittedly conservative estimate of salmon mortality at the mouth of the Klamath River in Oregon in September 2002: 32,897, compared with other estimates that have ranged from 70,000 to almost 80,000. Of those, 1 percent, or 384, were coho salmon, protected under the Endangered Species Act; the rest were fall-run chinook salmon. The salmon did not die because of low water flows in the drought-stricken Klamath River. After comparing low river flows in previous dry years that did not produce a salmon die-off, ''The committee ... concluded that mortality was the result of an unusual combination of conditions, probably including unusually low flow plus the absence of a cool pulse of flow that even a brief precipitation event might have provided.''

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