Category: Beavers and groundwater

THE FUTURE OF CALIFORNIA’S DRINKING WATER

heidi08 Beavers and climate change, Beavers and groundwater, Beavers and water March 25, 2021

Some headlines are more equal than others.

You can imagine how excited I was when Bob Kobres sent me this article in phys.org. A discussion of drinking water from the smartest minds at Stanford talking about what would save us. Of course I had dramatic notions of what it was going to say about climate change and fires and recharging the aquifer.

Imagine how surprised I was to see what was never mentioned.

The future of America’s drinking water

In 2020 wildfires ravaged more than 10 million acres of land across California, Oregon and Washington, making it the largest fire season in modern history. Across the country, hurricanes over Atlantic waters yielded a record-breaking number of storms.

While two very different kinds of natural disasters, scientists say they were spurred by a common catalyst—climate change—and that both also threaten drinking water supplies. As the nation already wrestles with water shortages, contamination and aging infrastructure, experts warn more frequent supercharged climate-induced events will exacerbate the pressing issue of safe drinking water.

Gosh fires and climate change sound like big dam problems. I wonder what can possibly help get us through this?

Whether it’s floods, fires, storms, droughts or sea level rise, climate impacts have a direct influence on water supplies. What types of climate mitigation policies should the Biden team enact to protect drinking water?

Marcus: Grants and low-cost financing for community preparedness, especially for underserved communities, to adapt and plan for climate impacts would make a tremendous difference. The federal government should be doing leading-edge research, technology development and dispersion for lower-cost sensor and treatment systems for drinking water. Finally, the administration can explicitly make drinking water its highest priority for research and development, funding, and updating regulations based upon science.

Ajami: Water has to be the central part of both climate mitigation and adaptation discussions. Today we are facing many challenges that are the consequence of our approach to securing water and energy resources over the 20th century, building infrastructure networks under the assumption of abundance and overlooking inherent environmental interlinks. Source protection, demand management and public engagement strategies should be at the center of any climate policy.

Wow these women sound really smart. I’m sure they know all about that animal that builds dams to save water right? I mean I’m sure beavers are among the many sound solutions they can access to solve the issue of course?

Groundwater supplies drinking water to 99 percent of rural populations, but overpumping has led to aquifer depletion and water contamination. What federal and state actions can alleviate growing pressures on groundwater?

Knight: We need to change our approach to land use planning by recognizing that the most valuable use for some land is to become a site for managed recharge of the underlying groundwater system. Getting more water into regions below the ground increases the amount of stored water and can help prevent subsidence. The challenge is identifying the optimal locations for recharge zoning and requires seeing below the ground to find coarse-grained materials, such as sand and gravel, that can act as fast paths to move the water from where it is at the surface to the required depths for recharge. This is an area of work I’m currently focused on and it presents great potential to replenish and grow groundwater reserves.

Ajami: I see our groundwater supplies as our social security system; we all contribute and withdraw from it at different times. Unless we collectively contribute to it and protect it from degradation and contamination, there will be none left for future generations to draw from. I believe collaborative governance and land use management are the two most important parts of achieving groundwater sustainability, and neither can work without reliable data sources and accounting mechanisms.

Any minute now I’m sure they’ll talk about beavers. Right?

Well no. If you were holding your breath waiting for them to mention the “B” word you’d have passed out by now and be long dead before it ever happened. Of course I couldn’t let that stand so I wrote these researchers about the difference beavers make in fire resilience, water storage and mitigating climate change. And then suggested they check out what our great speakers at the beaver summit had to say about these subjects.

Two wrote back that they were very interested and would check it out. Felicia said she’s going to attend for as much of it as she can. Riley says she is extremely cool and used to be the head of the SF EPA and they go way back. So I had to find out more. See for yourself.

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‘LOSING RIVERS’ ARE LOSING BEAVERS

heidi08 Beavers and groundwater March 19, 2021

Great Beaver Summit meeting yesterday, God willing it is the last we will need before April 7th. Everything seems to be humming along, and our biggest problem might be keeping folks from droning on past their very brief time. Mussolini will do what he can to keep the trains running on time and it should be a fantastic learning opportunity.

Hey maybe after something like this we will finally get Phys.org to stop writing articles that are about beavers without mentioning their names?

Researchers reveal the extent to which rivers across the country are losing flow to aquifer

Water is an ephemeral thing. It can emerge from an isolated spring, as if by magic, to birth a babbling brook. It can also course through a mighty river, seeping into the soil until all that remains downstream is a shady arroyo, the nearby trees offering the only hint of where the water has gone.

The interplay between surface water and groundwater is often overlooked by those who use this vital resource due to the difficulty of studying it. Assistant professors Scott Jasechko and Debra Perrone, of UC Santa Barbara, and their colleagues leveraged their enormous database of groundwater measurements to investigate the interaction between these related resources. Their results, published in Nature, indicate that many more rivers across the United States may be leaking water into the ground than previously realized.

“Gaining rivers” receive water from the surrounding groundwater, while “losing rivers” seep into the underlying aquifer. Scientists didn’t have a good understanding of the prevalence of each of these conditions on a continental scale. Simply put, no one had previously stitched together so many measurements of groundwater, explained Jasechko, the study’s co-lead author.

Gee don’t you wonder which category beaver streams fall into? I’m sure curious whether if a river has all it’s tributaries ponded into dams and those dams are forcing groundwater back into the stream through hypoheic exchange that ultimately puts the river they feed into the ‘plus’ column.

“Our analysis shows that two out of three rivers in the U.S. are already losing water. It’s very likely that this effect will worsen in the coming decades and some rivers may even disappear” said co-lead author Hansjörg Seybold at ETH Zurich.

Hey you know what would be kind of fun. To take the beaver depredation may for California and overlay it for the rivers that are losing or gaining. Gee I wonder what we would find. Don’t you? Well at least Placer isn’t on a loosing river YET, That’s something.

“The phenomenon, set in motion ~~decades ago~~, [When trappers destroyed the beaver population in the 1800’s] is now widespread across the U.S. There are far more streams draining into underlying aquifers than we had first assumed,” Seybold continued. “Since rivers and streams are a vital water supply for agriculture and cities, the gravity of the situation came as a surprise.”

But why focus on the past when there are yet more beavers to kill and streams to destroy. We have to keep are on on the future.

Rivers were particularly prone to losing water in arid regions, along flat topography and in areas with extensive groundwater pumping, they observed. A prime example of this would be flat agricultural land in semi-arid regions like California’s Central Valley. “We are literally sucking the rivers dry,” Seybold said.

Yep. That sounds about right,.

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“If we have a better understanding of how widespread this phenomenon is, then we can influence future policy in positive ways,” added Perrone. Because society is past the point where it can talk about prevention; we’re now talking about response.

Seems to me a healthy beaver population is both.

THE STORIES THAT BEAVERS TELL EACH OTHER

heidi08 Attitudes towards beavers, Beaver Book, Beavers and groundwater November 11, 2020

Yesterday was a cultural explosion for beavers. Two excellent films were uploaded by the Beaver Trust and a fine op-ed was published in the Oregon Register-Guard. I am spoiled for choice. But I’ll start with this:

Keep keystone beavers safe

Chuck Erickson Special to Eugene Register-Guard USA TODAY NETWORK At 8 a.m. Friday, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will hold another commission hearing to ban trapping beavers in our national forests. This action is part of 21st century science and the importance of keystone species and our imperiled fisheries.

The official definition of a keystone species is ‘a species on which other species in an ecosystem largely depend, such that if it were removed the ecosystem would change drastically.’

Beavers fit this definition, and the fact that they do is important for wetland conservation efforts.

Isn’t that wonderful? Every now and then I appreciate the dangers beavers face in Scotland and Oregon and Montana because motivates people to write such wonderful articles and letters about them.

There is more happening with beaver ponding colonies than we can see with our eyes. As ponds form in areas where trees have been cut, all that is left are stumps that have become flooded by the ponded waters. If given enough time, the root systems of these stumps rot away and the ponded water connects to the sub-waters in alluvial soils (sand and rock).

These sub-surface waters are cooled, filtered and flow downstream as springs and seeps. This reduces water temperature and enhances streambed environments. Over and over this process happens. Trees drill into the ground and the beavers cut them down connecting warmer surface water with colder ground waters. Remember the rule: Water seeks the same level as it enters.

Without the beavers’ intervention, our silted-in stream banks act as a cap trapping the water from entering and exiting the alluvial soils. This is one of the reasons we have warmer river temperatures. Without active beaver colonies, the cooling cycle is broken with diminished water storage.

Wow this author knows his beaver facts. Who is it? Chuck Erickson of Coos Bay. I can find lots of letters in protest. but not any official title. Call it a hunch but I don’t think he works for fish and game.

Recent research shows that beavers have a positive effect in areas prone to large fires. The wetlands beavers create recover quicker and help support wildlife. The firebreaks these animals create is needed especially during drought conditions. Beaver colonies trap large amounts of sediments and help improve spawning habitat for fish.

Besides storing and cooling waters, beaver dams may provide a physical barrier to spawning fish during drought years. Though well-intentioned biologists have opened these blocked areas in the past, they may be doing more harm than good. It is more likely nature is holding the fish back for a reason. The blocked fish are forced to spawn in areas with sufficient water instead of upriver where there may not survive or successfully reproduce.

Science and researchers have developed new methods that limit the damages that sometimes happen when culverts become blocked. Sometimes called beaver deceivers, these devices fool these animals so they don’t plug areas that need to drain. They also are used to control water levels behind beaver impounded water areas.

Let’s give our fisheries the boost they deserve.

Very well said. Thank you Chuck! You would think that with so many people defending them some of this might sink in?

I’m going to share my favorite film dropped by the Beaver Trust now. It’s not a visual experience but an auditory one. Close your eyes and listen to this amazing author paint a picture and pay especial attention to the “BIG STORY” scene inside the lodge. The one that happened “Before Scent or Sound“.

It captured all my imagination and gave me chills for a day.

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AMERICA THE BEAVER-FUL

heidi08 Beavers and groundwater, Beavers and Nitrogen removal, Beavers and soil, Beavers and water November 3, 2020

What, me worry?

When beavers are on NPR? Not bloody likely. In addition to being most excellent reporting and great news for beavers, this also happens to provide me with the perfect audio to make into a powtoon later today which is an ideal low-stress way to spend nerve-racking election day. Thank you Dr. Brazier!

Beavers bring rich biodiversity back to Devon, England

Come to think of it. America is pretty darn lucky England killed all their beavers 500 years ago. Hear me out. I mean in addition to the shortage driving people to look for them elsewhere and paying for the pilgrims to come to America and basically starting our whole country, the fact that they want them back NOW and are doing such excellent research to justify their existence works well for us in America.

So, thanks England.

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Yesterday’s NM Summit was beyond awesome. Any day when you get to listen to Joe Wheaton AND Jeff Ogburn in the same place you should literally jump at the chance. Jeff is the North Eastern Habitat Biologist for NM Game an Fish so of course he’s very interested beaver. He also has that enviable, pragmatic, energetic style that says ‘lets solve problems and work together and I’m not trying to sell you beavers’ which is SO SO SO helpful and needed on the landscape. (Something I will never be able to do because I am literally always trying to sell beavers, obviously.)

The entire presentation will be available online later an you can bet I’ll be sharing it. Much of Joe’s work is available already in his guidebook online, but wow here’s just a little. Remember he is from the Bay Area, went to high school in Napa where his mother still lives AND his sister came to the beaver festival twice.

By which I mean to say obviously he’s brilliant.Beavers are SO LUCKY to have Joe an all these amazing defenders on their side. Mary Obrien will bring it all home tomorrow, and hopefully by then we will know much more than we do now.

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Now here’s one last gift to get you through today. It has already made the humans in this household cry hopeful tears several times today which is not something I ever believer Taylor Swift could do.

You’re welcome.

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SAVING WATER: SAVING US ALL

heidi08 Beavers and groundwater, Beavers and water July 16, 2020

Oregon just can’t stop shouting about beavers. Good. Maybe next time they vote on whether to kill them or not they’ll pick door number two. Meanwhile there’s articles like this:

Beavers, Our Eager Aquifer Engineers

Well, today, the beaver has an equal degree of importance, but in the area of water conservation. As a positive factor in water conservation, beaver have no equal, and the knowledge of how they function in this all-important role is just becoming known to us.

The water impounded by these dams is what a beaver is after. They build their stick and soil homes in the ponds to keep them safe from predators and provide a place to start a family. And it is that water that makes the beaver irreplaceable in creating one of the best resources for water conservation.

The water keeps rising behind the dams and eventually will become part of our underground aquifers vital to so many parts of human civilization. For that reason, there are several conservation organizations restoring beavers to their native habitats.

Ahh beavers are blushing. The way you do go on! Well of course beavers save water better then anyone. That’s what we were meant to do!

Like it or not, everyone who uses water is unknowingly depending on the dam-building talents of our North American Beaver. Without question, we have the industrious beaver to thank for helping keep the water available for us to drink, cook with, flush our toilets with, irrigate with, and use as we will in hundreds of other ways.

That’s well said. Dam straight! And a great shoutout to our new cousins in the beaver-saving world.

A new pro-beaver organization has come to the fore in Central Oregon, “Beaver Oregon Works.” If you live on a stream or river and have landscape that may be at risk to being utilized by a beaver, go to their web site, beaverworks.org, or email them at: info@beaverworks.org. Their field technicians can mitigate any beaver issues you may be encountering.

This organization states that beavers create wetlands and are the “Earth’s Kidney” and as such provide downstream drought and flood protection, water table and aquifer recharge and improved water quality. They even help bring back salmon to the Northwest.

Removal of beaver from their ancestral habitats has wrought the alteration of many ecosystems, causing flooding, drying up of marshes, plus loss of salmon and other wildlife environments.

Goodness gracious! We could hardly have said it better ourselves.