Clean Water West Blog

I'm late with the Wednesday Roundup again but I have a good excuse. Several good excuses.

Join us on Wednesday, February 15 at Noon eastern/11 central/10 mountain/9 pacific for a River Network webinar on a fundamental tool of the Clean Water Act – water quality standards.

I hate to do a post that just says "read this," but sometimes a piece of writing is so compelling there is little to add except an exhortation to engage with the thinking. A recent paper -- Water-Use Efficiency and Productivity: Rethinking the Basin Approach -- by Peter Gleick and two of his colleagues at the Pacific Institute is just such a piece.

In the last week it seems like suddenly everyone in the West is talking about the weather -- or the lack of it. The lack of snow and hence snow pack in particular. While it is early in the season and much can still change, the current clear skies seem to be motivating a flurry of media coverage of issues related to snow, climate, flows and related concerns in the region.

Yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a draft document detailing new recreational water quality criteria for bacteria. Comments on the draft document are due February 21, 2012.

Don't tell the serious anglers who sit on the Blue Ribbon Fisheries Council with me, but this Bert and Ernie sketch may as well be my fishing strategy given my success rate.

With the holiday filling up a big chunk of the week for this week's Wednesday Roundup, we were a bit concerned we wouldn't have enough news to share here.