1. New Arizona Water Law Provides Legal Protections To Well Owners.
By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services June 6, 2019. PHOENIX — A new law signed by Gov. Doug Ducey is designed to provide legal protections to those who drill wells into underground streams they are not legally entitled to tap
The measure repeals existing laws that make it a crime when a well owner “uses water to which another is entitled.” That law, until now, has subjected violators to up to four months in jail and a $750 fine.
Now, that criminal penalty will be available only when someone knew they were breaking the law.
“That would make it very easy for certain groups or organizations or people to do something unethically and get away with it,” by claiming “I didn’t know this was against the law,” Blanc said.
And Rep. Kirsten Engel, D-Tucson, said the law “undercuts private property rights.” The legislation was pushed by House Speaker Russell Bowers, R-Mesa. He argued that those who drill wells don’t — and can’t — know whether they’ve tapped into a subsurface flow. That water, like surface water, is allocated not based on who owns the land, but on different laws about who has the right to use it.
Bowers said the state is still trying to determine who has the rights to certain surface and subsurface waters.
He said some of the water rights at issue could turn out to belong to tribes. Bowers said there’s no reason to subject well drillers to criminal liability if it turns out that what they’re pumping “contains one molecule of subflow.”
Bowers said he drilled a new well two years ago himself. “We don’t know where that water comes from,” he testified during hearings earlier this year. “It could be coming from the river, being forced up by capillary action.” Bowers said there are “tens of thousands of people” who face similar risk
2. Two Simple Ways You Might Be Wasting Your Money.
We’re talking about the little things, not the big purchases like cars and houses. Small things like coffee and bottled water. Source: Wall Street Journal If you didn’t spend $3.50 a day on coffee, you would save $1,277 year. If you invested that money over thirty years, you’d have $85,305 (with a 5% annual return). How can you save the $3.50 a day on coffee? Make coffee at home and carry your coffee in a thermos. Cost to you 15¢ to 20¢ per cup.
If you didn’t pay $1.50 a day on bottled water, you’d save $548 a year. If you invested that money over 30 years, you’d have $36,608 (assuming a 5% annual return). How can you save $1.50 a day on bottled water? Purchase a home water filter and fill a reusable bottle from home every time you want to take water with you. Cost to you 3¢ to 5¢ a bottle.
3. New Holding Pond To Help Williams’ Water Conservation Efforts.
WILLIAMS, Ariz. — The city of Williams continues to adjust and rehabilitate its water and wastewater systems, and the city recently received approval to use the historic treatment lagoons as a holding pond for reclaimed water.
According to city water contractor Pat Carpenter and City Councilman Bernie Hiemenz, the city recently received a reuse permit from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (AZDEQ) to allow the city to store water treated at the wastewater treatment plant for irrigation and other projects.
Reuse water had already been used for irrigation at Elephant Rocks Golf Course, but the holding ponds will now allow the city to store additional water for its use.
“Previously, whatever the plant was discharging would go into this tank and the pumps in the vault would push it out to the golf course,” Carpenter said. “The problem was that we would run out because it (the golf course) would use more than we could make.”
In the past, Elephant Rocks Golf Course has used Cataract Lake to supplement irrigation when reuse water wasn’t available.
“They shouldn’t need to get any out of Cataract now, that was the whole point of this project,” Hiemenz said.
Previously when the golf course closed for the season, the reuse water could not be stored and was off-loaded into Cataract Creek.
Carpenter and Hiemenz have been working on developing the reclaimed water pond for several years and after receiving the permit, city crews were able to rehabilitate the area.
“When I first started, Bernie and I had this idea, we take the dyke out and we could use this to store our treated effluent,” Carpenter said. “It took about two years to go through ADEQ to get the permit amended.”
Although all the work was done with city staff, the city purchased approximately $60,000 worth of pumps to facilitate the pumping of the water to the golf course. Those pumps will also be used for another water conservation effort coming soon to the wastewater plant. That project will involve using the reuse water to clean and flush the filters.
4. Summer Solstice Is On Friday June 21, 2019. Summer solstice is also known as Midsummer, June solstice (Northern Hemisphere) and the longest day of the year. Summer solstice takes place twice a year, once in the Northern hemisphere (may take place between June 20 and June 22 according to the year and time zone) and once in the southern hemisphere (may take place between Dec 20 and 22).
According to wikipedia seasons start at solstices and equinoxes. Similarly, summer starts from summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. Solstice is derived from Latin word “Sol” meaning Sun and “Sistere” meaning stationary or stand still. On the longest day of the year Sun stays for the longest before setting up. Summer solstice is an astronomical event, celebrated in many countries.
| City,County | Solstice Time | Sunrise Time | Sunset Time | Day Length (Hr. Minute, Sec) |
| New York | 11:53:46 | 5:24:53 | 20:30:38 | 15.05.44 |
5. Blue Sky Science: Could The Biofuel Cycle Be Made More Efficient? John Greenler, director of education and outreach at the Wisconsin Energy Institute and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center:
The production of biofuels starts by growing plants out in a field or forest. All of the biomass represented in those plants essentially comes through photosynthesis.
In photosynthesis, energy comes from the sunlight, but the matter, the weight of the plant material, comes mostly from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The biofuel process begins by taking carbon from the atmosphere and locking it into the organic plant material.
Next, scientists take steps to turn the solid plant material into a liquid. The material is broken down into sugars, and the sugars are used through fermentation to make different types of fuel, including ethanol.
Fuel, usually composed of about 10 percent ethanol in the United States, is used in cars and undergoes the process of combustion.
Combustion produces carbon dioxide. This puts carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere where it was first taken, back at the beginning of the cycle.
Scientists are working to make the process more efficient and to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. While plants use some carbon dioxide for food, rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are accompanied by a warming climate.
The biofuel industry today largely relies on corn grain to produce ethanol. There are some issues and concerns with using a food material to make a fuel. As the population on this planet grows, it’s important to be responsible with what is done with food material.
Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is looking at using fibrous plant material, leaves and stems instead of grains to make biofuel.
While using fibrous plant materials can be a little more complicated, it’s an opportunity to be much more efficient in terms of the energy and fertilizer required to make a biofuel. This can significantly reduce the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere and therefore minimize or even mitigate climate change. Source: Flagstaff Daily Sun
6. The End Of ‘Wishful recycling’ In Kingman And Casa Grande.
Source KTVK and Kingman Daily Miner
The City of Kingman is removing its EZ recycling drop locations and replacing them with one at the Public Works facility. Casa Grande is terminating all recycling throughout the city’s result of the tariffs imposed by China.
7. Pima Official Defends Clean-Water Rule That Farmers Blast As Burdensome.
A Pima County supervisor told lawmakers Wednesday that a plan to limit the so-called Waters of the United States rule would end up eliminating clean-water protections for “rivers like the Santa Cruz, the Salt, the Gila.”
But other witnesses, and GOP senators on the committee, said the old rules unveiled under the Obama administration need to be replaced. Those rules were confusing and imposed an unfair burden on farmers, ranchers and local officials who know best how to protect local waterways.
When it was proposed in 2015 by the Environmental Protection Agency the WOTUS rule was supposed to help farmers and landowners by clarifying which waterways were subject to EPA regulation. But critics quickly attacked the plan that they said went too far, by including wetlands, ponds far removed from rivers and streams, and “ephemeral” waterways — areas that were often dry but carried water at some time during the year.
Environmentalists call that change “short-sighted,” saying it does not take into account underground aquifers and will allow dumping in still-water sources that could easily contaminate other waters used for drinking and farming.
Elias said that is the case in his county, where he said groundwater pollution from industrial solvents in the 1950s wound up injuring or killing people decades later, including friends of his.“There’s been a lot of communities poisoned by discharges from Air Force bases, military institutions as well as the various mines and mineral exploration operations in the state of Arizona,” Elias said after the hearing.
Copyright EnviroInsight 2019
