With the dire consequences of climate change unfolding around the world, its a good time to remind everyone that beavers can help. Okay, maybe not with the virus BUT in most of the other ways. I guess beavers have some pretty important work to do ahead of them. Maybe we should think of them as allies in the fight and get the hell out of their way?

Lets start with a visit to our friends at Phys.org, shall we?

Less water could sustain more Californians if we make every drop count

California isn’t running out of water,” says Richard Luthy. “It’s running out of cheap water. But the state can’t keep doing what it’s been doing for the past 100 years.”

Luthy knows. As a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, as well as director of a National Science Foundation center to re-invent urban water supply (known as ReNUWIt), he has spent decades studying the state’s metropolitan areas.

In a new journal article, he argues that California cities can no longer rely on their three traditional water-coping strategies: over-drafting groundwater, depleting streams and importing water from far away. His analysis focuses on several strategies that, taken together, can help cities provide for their growing population with prudent public policies and investments:

Ya know, I think I heard once about this big rodent that works its entire life to save water. What was that called again?

Billions of gallons of storm water simply pour into the ocean annually. That needs to change, Luthy says. California’s coastal cities were historically engineered to flush out storm water to reduce flooding, but today cities want to capture as much as possible and put it to use. Los Angeles already gets 10% of its water from storm water runoff, and hopes to more than double that by 2035. Like potable reuse, however, storm water capture often requires big investments in pipes, storage sites and treatment facilities. The capital costs of such infrastructure vary widely, depending on local conditions. But the median project cost is often cheaper than costs to import water in the future, even assuming it will be available, Luthy says.

Wow. If only there were some way to STOP THAT WATER from flowing downstream to the ocean all over the united states in every city and town. It wouldn’t take a big dam if there were LOTS AND LOTS of little ones.

Can think of a way to get lots of little dams built in every stream in America? I can.

GUEST COMMENTARY: Leave it to Beavers: significant partners in dealing with climate change

Guest commentary by Gail Sredanovic in consultation with Heidi Perryman

Think a babbling clear stream is the only healthy one? Think again. Once hunted almost to extinction, beaver were once much, much more numerous, and their ponds and wetlands created a very different waterscape of a kind far better adapted to climate change and drought. There is abundant research to document this. Here is what the Water Institute of the Occidental Art and Ecology Center has to say:

Gail is a long time supporter and reader of this blog for many years. She’s the reason the beaver festival in 2013 was visited by the Raging Grannies from the southbay as she was their lyricist. She’s a firm believer in beaver works, and a dedicated conservationist.

“Extensive research has recently heightened recognition of the important role beaver (Castor canadensis) can play in watershed health and climate change resiliency. The species’ ecological services include enhanced water storage, erosion control, habitat restoration and creation, listed species recovery, the maintenance of stream flows during the dry summer period, and other beneficial adaptations to our changing climate conditions.

While this keystone species has created valuable wetland habitat across California for centuries, beaver are often overlooked or maligned. Other western states are taking a pro-active stance towards beaver restoration, but agencies and landowners in California are focused on managing beaver as a nuisance rather than stewarding them for their benefits.”

Reminding millions of climate activists that beavers save water ain’t too shabby, Thanks, Gail.

The Water Institute has a booklet which you can order or view online to gain a better understanding of the history of beaver in California and how, through better stewardship, we can partner with them to fight floods, wildfires, drought and extinction, while mitigating potential damage. Anyone concerned about the future of water in California should take this seriously. Check out also the abundant information on the website martinezbeavers.org/wordpress or consult Ben Goldfarb’s very readable, Eager, the Surprising Secret Life of Beavers and Why they Matter.

Thank you Gail! California needs beavers, and you did a great job reminding us why.

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How do we cope with demands for water as we enter an era of scarcity?

Urban water systems in California and elsewhere face a time of reckoning, warns Richard Luthy, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford.

Groundwater aquifers are being depleted and rivers are drying up, even as demand for water keeps climbing. Yet cities can no longer meet society’s thirst by importing more water from far away. Luthy, however, is optimistic. As director of the National Science Foundation’s ReNUWIt effort—short for Re-Inventing the Nation’s Urban Water Infrastructure—he helps to develop alternative sources through wastewater recycling, stormwater capture and desalination.

“We will have to make big investments, just as we had to make big investments a century ago in dams and aqueducts,” he says. “But with good decisions, we should be in good shape.”

Wait, I know this one. Shhh don’t tell me the answer, I can guess.

California has a long-standing “Public Trust Doctrine,” which holds that we have to protect the “common heritage” of streams, lakes, rivers and marshlands. Following a 1983 case about how Los Angeles was diverting water from Mono Lake, the California Supreme Court ruled that “common heritage” meant protecting recreation, aesthetic values and the ecology. The decision meant people had to leave more water for ecosystems and for fish.

Put all this together, and it means that we need to set aside more groundwater for our aquifers and more surface water for our rivers, streams and lakes—even though the state’s population and economy are still growing. These aren’t just challenges for California. The same issues are arising in the Southwest, in Texas, in parts of Florida and in Atlanta. We are experiencing it first, but we’re hardly alone.

I’m thinking of this animal that stores water better than we do and does it in a way that benefits a whole lot of critters. Can you guess what I’m thinking?

Of course his recommendation has nothing to do with beaver. It involves reusing water and installing recycling plants to collect grey water. Never mind your endearing rodents that would raise the water table and keep valuable resources on the land. They don’t matter.

Which brings us to measure 3.

If you’ve been paying attention you’d know that the Nature Conservancy supports this and the Sierra club opposes it. My friends on the waterboard and the urban streams support it and say its essential to the work to protect salmon, the SF Chronicle and East by Express says its a give away to agriculture interests who should invest money to solve their own water problem.

What’s a beaver supporting ecologist to do?

Feel free to write or post your thoughts and advice. I can’t imagine that any water measure that divides the conservationists into two camps can ever pass anyway, so it might be moot.

But I know what I’d vote fore if it was on the ballot. And I’m saving that story.