Environment

The next time you’re fishing the Upper Sacramento and a train rolls by, see if this news doesn’t give you pause: on Thursday, a Union Pacific train derailed east of Sacramento, killing two workers, spilling thousands of gallons of diesel fuel, and igniting a small forest fire.

Plenty of alarming details here, and while you’re waiting for that page to load, give a thought to what a couple thousand gallons of diesel fuel would do the the Upper Sac…

The two dead workers were employed by a company contracted to repair the tracks, and dental records will be needed to I.D. the remains. The cause of the derailment was being investigated.

[tags]derailment, sacramento, union pacific, train[/tags]

The intrepid souls at Moldy Chum have found a way for you to fund brook trout recovery while giving yourself the jitters every morning. You can support Trout Unlimited’s native brook trout recovery efforts by purchasing “Back the Brookie” coffee.

I don’t drink the wretched black liquid (I’m usually in enough trouble without adding caffeine to the mix), but I do so love the brookies, so give this link a look.

[tags]brook trout, trout unlimited, coffee[/tags]

The San Joaquin River – which has run dry since the Friant Dam was constructed – should now run wet all the way to the delta, opening the door for its once-sizable runs of salmon to return.

You can read about this new agreement here.

It’s going to be exciting to watch the return of this river (if not to greatness, at least to wetness), and it’s clearly a huge step in the right direction. Still, it’s not hard to notice that original lawsuit that drove this settlement was filed in… 1988. Speedy, indeed.
[tags]san joaquin, restoration, Friant dam, salmon[/tags]

From New West Magazine comes a well-written article about the Yellowstone River, which is under siege from a host of channelization (mostly rip-rap) projects – projects which are a direct result of skyrocketing real estate prices, mushrooming development, and a desire to live right on the floodplain of a very dynamic river.

The basic premise is this: channelization confines a river that’s spent thousands of years doing largely what it wants. Restricting it to a narrow riverbed increases flow rates, forcing more channelization projects downstream with predictable consequences:

Once confined, the river can only scour down its own channel, deepening it, or disperse its concentrated energy onto a point downstream. If you are a landowner downstream or across from a riprap project, you may be in trouble. “Riprap begets riprap,” said Missoula hydrologist and river consultant Bruce Anderson. “A river like the Yellowstone is a completely dynamic system. If you pin it down in one place, the energy moves somewhere else.”

Delving into the recent history of the river’s management, the story also delivers some gripping accounts of the 1996 and 1997 floods, including this passage:

“The front page of local papers showed a 4200 square foot home, hanging out over a massive newly cut bank, being torched by the firefighters before it could collapse into the flood, spin downstream and take out the bridge.”

Naturally, underlying the drama are the usual trappings of any modern Western land/water dispute: skyrocketing land values, growing demands on a finite water resource, and a hint of a class war between natives and far-wealthier newcomers. A must read.

[tags]Yellowstone River, riprap, Missoula[/tags]