1. Upper Agua Fria Waterhed Meeting. Upper Agua Fria Watershed Partnership Tuesday, June 4, 2019 10:00 am at
Mingus Springs Camp
Thanks Henry Dahlberg for hosting; Map to follow
Draft Agenda
Introductions and Announcements
1. Ash Creek Headwaters and Mingus Springs overview
2. AZ Water/Ways http://azhumanities.org/water-ways/. Update, May 22 Meeting, other BCC activities, Potential UAFWP sponsored activity in the Fall?
3. Friends of the Agua Fria – Agua Fria Days, May 18 report; Wet/Dry details, orientation meeting June 8,
4. “Green Ribbon” Conservation easements: Central Arizona Land Trust – Cold Water Farm, Spring Fling May 16 at Mortimer’s, Orme updates, Catalyst Landscape Conservation Grant update
5. Solar Farm on State Land proposal: Update if available.
5. 2019 Meeting Schedule -Mayer Water District (Frank Soto) possibly July
6. Other Business
2019 Goals Livestock for Landscape- Kathy Voth Cordes Junction Projects – Love’s to start construction maybe by August
Bring your lunch and picnic by headwaters or in Henry’s wonderful ‘yard’
2, CAP 2020 Water Supply and Deliveries to Remain Steady 5/22/2019
The key take-away from this week’s Central Arizona Project Water Supply Briefing was that CAP anticipates water supply and deliveries to remain steady thanks to a wet winter that will likely keep the Colorado River Basin out of a Tier 1 shortage.
Originally, the meeting was styled as a “Shortage Preparation Workshop.” Now, with the near certainty that there will not be a Tier 1 shortage in 2020, the meeting was reworked into a briefing to not only project supplies and deliveries, but to brief customers on a number of related topics, including Colorado River conditions, Intentionally Created Surplus (ICS) program and post-Navajo Generating Station (NGS) energy management.
Projected 2019 CAP Supply and Deliveries
The 2020 water year is being planned according to Drought Contingency Plan implementation, assuming a Tier Zero (rather than Tier 1) shortage level. This includes:
- Mandatory 192 kaf reduction in supplies, nearly the amount CAP has been voluntarily leaving in Lake Mead since 2015 as part of our Lake Mead Conservation program
- An offset program meant to keep Lake Mead stable while using CAP’s ICS as a future mitigation resource 2020 CAP Delivery Supply Projections:
- CAP Colorado River Available supply — 1.67 maf • CAP supplies available for delivery – 1.43 maf, after accounting for –
- – 192 kaf mandatory Tier Zero DCP reduction
- – 75 kaf in CAP system losses (evaporation)
- – 30 kaf supplied from water in Lake Pleasant
- Forecasted CAP deliveries – 1.2 maf available to order based on long-term contracts, with a least 233 kaf projected for the CAP Ag Pool
Current Colorado River Conditions
Projections are favorable, thanks to a wet snow season, which translated into runoff projected to raise levels in Lake Powell and subsequent releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead. The April-July inflow into Lake Powell is projected to be 128% of the 30-year average. Currently, Lake Mead is projected to end 2019 at 1085’ elevation (Tier Zero under DCP). 2020 is also projected to end in Tier Zero, at elevation 1080’. Intentionally Created Surplus Programs ICS facilitates storage in Lake Mead for certain Colorado River contractors that implement conservation efforts. Exhibits are submitted by those wishing to create ICS, which then Page 2 require a Creation Plan, Certification Report and Accounting. DCP creates additional flexibilities to encourage additional conservation in Lake Mead. Currently existing ICStogether with planned ICS creation through 2021 would provide approximately 600,000 acre-feet of ICS for Arizona, of which about 500,000 acre-feet would count toward Arizona’s ICS accumulation limit. The process for approving the Arizona 2019 ICS Creation Plans is nearing completion and the review of proposed 2020 ICS Creation Plans will begin in the near term.
+• CAP supplies available for delivery – 1.43 maf, after accounting for – • – 192 kaf mandatory Tier Zero DCP reduction • – 75 kaf in CAP system losses (evaporation) • – 30 kaf supplied from water in Lake Pleasant • Forecasted CAP deliveries – 1.2 maf available to order based on long-term contracts, with a least 233 kaf projected for the CAP Ag Pool
Current Colorado River Conditions
Projections are favorable, thanks to a wet snow season, which translated into runoff projected to raise levels in Lake Powell and subsequent releases from Lake Powell to Lake Mead. The April-July inflow into Lake Powell is projected to be 128% of the 30-year average. Currently, Lake Mead is projected to end 2019 at 1085’ elevation (Tier Zero under DCP). 2020 is also projected to end in Tier Zero, at elevation 1080’.
Intentionally Created Surplus Programs ICS facilitates storage in Lake Mead for certain Colorado River contractors that implement conservation efforts. Exhibits are submitted by those wishing to create ICS, which then Page 2 require a Creation Plan, Certification Report and Accounting. DCP creates additional flexibilities to encourage additional conservation in Lake Mead. Currently existing ICStogether with planned ICS creation through 2021 would provide approximately 600,000 acre-feet of ICS for Arizona, of which about 500,000 acre-feet would count toward Arizona’s ICS accumulation limit. The process for approving the Arizona 2019 ICS Creation Plans is nearing completion and the review of proposed 2020 ICS Creation Plans will begin in the near term.
Notice of Re-Issuance
Arizona Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
Permits for Industrial Stormwater Discharges
ADEQ has re-issued the AZPDES general permits associated with industrial stormwater
discharges:
- AZG2019-001 – Stormwater Permit Associated with Industrial Activities
- AZG2019-002 – Stormwater Permit Associated with Mining Activities
View Documents on MSGP Page >
The 2019 MSGPs replace ADEQ’s 2010 Non-Mining and Mining MSGPs in accordance with the following schedule:
- 2019 MSGPs issued May 15, 2019
- 2019 MSGPs become effective on January 1, 2020
- Existing permittees (those who have coverage under the 2010 permit(s)) have between January 1, 2020 and February 28, 2020 to submit a Notice of Intent using ADEQ’s online permitting program (myDEQ).
- A Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) must be developed by the time the NOI is submitted. Existing permittees may update their current SWPPP to comply with the 2019 MSGP requirements rather than developing a new SWPPP.
- Prior to January 1, 2020, the following process applies: o Existing permittees must continue to comply with their coverage under 2010 MSGP (e.g., monitoring, reporting, inspections, etc.) o New and unpermitted facilities that are subject to industrial stormwater permitting must apply under 2010 MSGP for stormwater discharges, as required by the Clean Water Act, and federal and state law. 2019 Industrial Stormwater MSGP
- Permit | View >
- Fact Sheet | View >
2019 Mining MSGP
- Permit | View >
- Fact Sheet | View > 2019 Administrative Record and Response to Comments | View >
4. Just In Time For Summer: “EWG Reveals The Best Sunscreens (EWG.org)
5. Bumblebees Need a Diverse Diet Too. A new study shows the pollen a queen bee eats affects the survival of her nest PHOTO BY NNOROZOFF
BY JASON DALEY | MAY 25 2019 Queen honeybees have a pretty cushy life. Living inside the hive, worker bees take care of most tasks like collecting pollen and nectar, producing honey, and fixing up the hive. But that’s not the case for queen bumblebees. For most of their life, the fuzzy, fat, black-and-yellow bees in the genus Bombus fly solo and have to fatten up after hibernation, found a colony, and raise a batch of baby workers before they get a day off. Those weeks as a single mother are perilous for bumblebees, which rely on early-blooming flowers to survive the spring. A new study shows that the more diverse the flowers the queen bees can access, the better off the bees are in the long run.
Unlike queen honeybees, Apis mellifera, which can live for years and overwinter in their hives, the bumblebee life cycle is annual. In the fall, after mating with a male drone, new queen bumblebees dig a cavity in the ground to overwinter. When they emerge in the spring, it’s their job to find a new nest site, which can be a cavity in a tree, a hole in the ground, or even a nice tussock of grass. But searching for real estate is hard work, and the bees need to eat flower pollen for protein and sip nectar for sugar as they go about their business.
When they do set up the colony, they lay their first batch of eggs, sitting on them to keep them cozy while sipping from a little cup of nectar they’ve collected. Once the larvae emerge, the queens need to feed them pollen and nectar until they become worker bees and can take over foraging and nestbuilding duties. In late summer, the queen produces a brood of new queens and males that disperse from the nest. After mating, those new queens dig cavities to hibernate and begin the cycle all over while the old queen dies off as cold weather sets in
According to S. Hollis Woodard, a bumblebee researcher at the University of California, Riverside, bumblebee populations around the globe have crashed over the last two decades. While studies blame introduced pathogens, the overuse of pesticides, and habitat loss, Woodard wondered if something was happening during the vulnerable period when the queens live as Page 5 solitary bees. Most bumblebee queens, researchers believe, never succeed at setting up a nest. Hollis wondered if the quality of their diet could be one factor that could make or break a queen.
To test that idea, Woodard and her team fed 48 Bombus impatiens, or common eastern bumblebee queens, three different pollen diets: one dominated by flowers in the aster family, one dominated by Cistus or rock rose, and one that was primarily Erica, in the heather family. The queens then went on to found colonies in the lab and raise them for eight weeks.
The researchers found that the type of pollen the queens ate didn’t impact how many eggs they laid or the timing of when they started to build their nest. But it did impact how quickly the larvae reached adulthood, with some of the larvae, especially those eating heather pollen, developing days behind others. While a few days may seem insignificant, it’s not for the bees. The quicker the queen bee has help, researchers believe, the more likely a nest is to survive, and those few days can determine a colony’s success.
Woodard says that the study is by no means comprehensive and wasn’t intended to search out the perfect food for bumblebee. The team fed the queens just three diets though there are thousands of different types of pollen available. Instead, she says the research begins to show that the diet of bumblebees matters. And if habitat changes or the loss of biodiversity lead to a floral monoculture in the spring, it could have effects on nest survival.
“When we don’t give bees options, there could be consequences, and those can be really specific effects on development like in our study,” Woodard says. “But you can imagine how those would scale up to impact the whole population. We think a lot of nests fail in the wild and we know workers help queens. You need to put those two things together and say it’s beneficial to these queens to have broods emerge earlier.”
Keeping bumblebees around isn’t just for the sake of conservation. They are important pollinators for many agricultural crops, including tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and melons. The various Bombus species are primary pollinators for many native plants. While there’s been a lot of hand-wringing over the last decade about colony collapse disorder and threats to domestic honeybees, bumblebees—which are also economically valuable—are facing similar challenges but without the same attention and resource. Page
6. Neither Rain Nor Sleet Nor Hail Nor Driver Shall Keep The Mail From Being Delivered.
Next time you travel between Phoenix and Dallas, you may encounter a big rig with no driver.
The trucking company, “TuSimple” has been contracted to make five round trip hauls between Phoenix and Dallas.
This is an attempt by the Postal Service to lower delivery cost while providing. Source: Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2019
Copyright: EnviroInsight 2019
