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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=2 face=Arial>name it after Jim Costa ... ...
...</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=ahart@harpos.to href="mailto:ahart@harpos.to">Allen Harthorn</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=frankemerson@redshift.com
href="mailto:frankemerson@redshift.com">frankemerson@redshift.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A title=fotr@mailman.dcn.org
href="mailto:fotr@mailman.dcn.org">FOTR List</A> ; <A
title=env-trinity@mailman.dcn.org
href="mailto:env-trinity@mailman.dcn.org">Trinity List</A> ; <A
title=srosekrans@edf.org href="mailto:srosekrans@edf.org">Spreck Rosekrans</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, April 07, 2010 2:41
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [env-trinity] [FOTR] Fresno
Bee, Diener</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>Has anybody seen the Carrizo Plains National Monument west of
<BR>Bakersfield in the hills? This would be a great use for the
Westlands. <BR>I think a Westlands-Grasslands National Monument would
put this land <BR>back to what it was and should be - open space, natural
grasslands, full <BR>of wildflowers. We could even name it after a
Senator or something. <BR>TNC, UC and other sould make it a
showcase!<BR>Allen<BR><BR><A
href="mailto:frankemerson@redshift.com">frankemerson@redshift.com</A>
wrote:<BR>> Hey what a great idea, UC Kern, maybe they can take over the
Kern Water<BR>> Bank as part of the research on ASR. :P<BR>><BR>>
Frank<BR>><BR>> <BR>>> Oh thank you, I have had my
belly laugh for the day, and it's only 8 am<BR>>> ... I can possibly
imagine what Byron is thinking ...<BR>>><BR>>> well, if it works,
hurray, more power to them, who is Diener, anyway?<BR>>> I'd like to see
solar farms out there, and forget about water-intensive<BR>>> food
farming. In fact, if I had land out in the Westlands, I would
get<BR>>> some grants and open up an an energy and water research center
... much<BR>>> better use of public moneys than growing subsidized
cotton and produce ...<BR>>> these can be, and are, grown
elsewhere.<BR>>><BR>>> I have thought for a long time that the
next UC campus should be an off<BR>>> grid non-fossil fuels energy
research center; it would attract people from<BR>>> all over the world,
the campus would run on solar, wind and geothermal<BR>>> energy
... I imagine it to be way out in the wild windy butte country<BR>>>
east of Redding, but the Westlands would be a good place for a
research<BR>>> center ,
too.<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>
________________________________<BR>>> From: Spreck Rosekrans <<A
href="mailto:srosekrans@edf.org">srosekrans@edf.org</A>><BR>>> To:
Byron Leydecker <<A
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net">bwl3@comcast.net</A>>; FOTR List <<A
href="mailto:fotr@mailman.dcn.org">fotr@mailman.dcn.org</A>>;<BR>>>
Trinity List <<A
href="mailto:env-trinity@mailman.dcn.org">env-trinity@mailman.dcn.org</A>><BR>>>
Sent: Mon, April 5, 2010 10:47:28 AM<BR>>> Subject: Re: [FOTR]
[env-trinity] Fresno Bee 4 3
10<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>> I<BR>>>
cannot possibly imagine what Byron is thinking.<BR>>><BR>>> I
am<BR>>> skeptical of the economics, however. $2500 per af is about the
cost of<BR>>> desalting seawater. They have boron etc. to worry about as
well.<BR>>><BR>>> But if there<BR>>> is a solid concept,
maybe spending $M 3.2 on a pilot project is<BR>>> worthwhile.
It<BR>>> will need to be watched
closely.<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>
From:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us<BR>>>
[mailto:env-trinity-bounces@velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us] On Behalf Of
Byron<BR>>> Leydecker<BR>>> Sent: Monday, April 05, 2010 10:37
AM<BR>>> To: FOTR List; Trinity List<BR>>> Subject: [env-trinity]
Fresno Bee 4 3 10<BR>>><BR>>> I<BR>>> will keep my thoughts
to myself.<BR>>><BR>>> Byron<BR>>><BR>>>
Water-cleaning<BR>>> project may aid Valley farms<BR>>>
Fresno<BR>>> Bee-4/3/10<BR>>> By<BR>>> Mark
Grossi<BR>>><BR>>> A<BR>>> surprising marriage of
molecular chemistry and business might soon end the<BR>>>
slow<BR>>> poisoning of lucrative farmland in the nation's largest
irrigation<BR>>> district.<BR>>><BR>>> The<BR>>>
science will be blended with business later this year in a $3.2
million<BR>>> project<BR>>> to pump trapped farm drainage from
beneath crop fields in Westlands Water<BR>>> District, purify the bad
water and harvest contaminants as valuable<BR>>>
products.<BR>>><BR>>> One<BR>>> big plus for taxpayers: It
might eliminate most of the $2.7 billion price<BR>>> tag<BR>>>
federal officials have estimated to clean up the salty water
beneath<BR>>> 200,000<BR>>> acres.<BR>>><BR>>>
As<BR>>> bonuses, the project would remove the global-warming gas carbon
dioxide<BR>>> from<BR>>> the air and eventually run on a renewable
fuel, such as biogas from manure<BR>>> or<BR>>> cogeneration with
crop wastes.<BR>>><BR>>> It's<BR>>> possibly a high-tech
Holy Grail for the west San Joaquin Valley, where<BR>>>
billions<BR>>> of gallons of used irrigation water are perched on
shallow layers of clay<BR>>> beneath crops. The briny water slowly rises
as irrigation takes place. It<BR>>> already has made thousands of acres
unusable, putting some farmers out of<BR>>>
business.<BR>>><BR>>> The<BR>>> contamination has lingered
for decades, mostly because no one knows how to<BR>>> economically
filter the bad water beneath this big swath of land -- which<BR>>> has
a<BR>>> footprint two-thirds the size of Los
Angeles.<BR>>><BR>>> The<BR>>> pilot project, spearheaded by
westside farmer John Diener and a<BR>>> joint-venture<BR>>>
company, is supposed to clean up about 200 gallons per minute
through<BR>>> desalination, a well-known filtering process used on ships
to provide<BR>>> drinking<BR>>> water right out of the ocean.
Officials with the company say they can<BR>>> clean out<BR>>> such
troublesome contaminants as boron, selenium and
others.<BR>>><BR>>> The<BR>>> newest part of the approach
will be the removal and chemical alteration of<BR>>> several tons of
salt from each acre-foot of water. The salt will be<BR>>>
converted<BR>>> to marketable chemicals commonly used in plastics, glass
and building<BR>>> materials.<BR>>><BR>>>
Officials<BR>>> said the cost to clean up the water this way might be as
high as $2,500<BR>>> per<BR>>> acre-foot -- an acre-foot is equal
to 326,000 gallons or a year's supply<BR>>> for an<BR>>> average
family of four. But by selling products created in the process,<BR>>>
the<BR>>> resulting clean water might cost farmers about $300 per
acre-foot.<BR>>><BR>>> "I<BR>>> can't say if it's the whole
answer to our problem," said Diener, a former<BR>>> Westlands board
member. "But I think we're quite a bit further down the<BR>>> road
now."<BR>>><BR>>> For<BR>>> decades, the cleanup has been
Diener's passion. He has worked on<BR>>> committees and<BR>>>
invested in attempts to recycle the dirty water on his own
land.<BR>>><BR>>> He<BR>>> says the pilot project will clean
up dirty water beneath a 640-acre field<BR>>> of<BR>>> his and
produce enough water to irrigate the field. The next hurdle would<BR>>>
be<BR>>> expanding the process to clean up more of the billions of
gallons of<BR>>> tainted<BR>>> water.<BR>>><BR>>>
It<BR>>> was Diener who connected with water-treatment specialist Ron
Smith, based<BR>>> in<BR>>> San Francisco, to talk about
Westlands' drainage water. Realizing the<BR>>> problem<BR>>> was
more than water treatment, Smith found Deane Little, a molecular<BR>>>
biophysicist who runs New Sky Energy in Colorado.<BR>>><BR>>>
New<BR>>> Sky uses carbon dioxide in converting salt to products that
are<BR>>> well-established manufacturing staples, such as polymers and
carbonates.<BR>>> Other<BR>>> products include baking soda, lime
or carbon fibers for manufacturing.<BR>>><BR>>> Smith<BR>>>
and Little started a joint-venture company called Ag Water-New Sky to
work<BR>>> on<BR>>> the Westlands problem.<BR>>><BR>>>
Little<BR>>> said the concept worked for his company because he needed a
big supply of<BR>>> sodium sulfate or salt -- which is abundant in the
trapped water beneath<BR>>> Westlands.<BR>>><BR>>>
"We<BR>>> weren't really thinking of the Central Valley and its salt
problems,"<BR>>> Little said. "We were wondering where we would get all
our sodium<BR>>> sulfate."<BR>>><BR>>> There<BR>>> are
other challenges in which Little's expertise helps. The brew of<BR>>>
chemicals<BR>>> in the farm drain water includes calcium and magnesium,
which have clogged<BR>>> expensive desalination filters in the
past.<BR>>><BR>>> Little<BR>>> said one of the products his
company makes from salt and carbon dioxide is<BR>>> sodium carbonate, a
chemical water softener. When mixed with the raw water<BR>>> before
desalination, it converts the calcium and magnesium into useful<BR>>>
chemicals and prevents their fouling the desalination
membranes.<BR>>><BR>>> Converting<BR>>> the salt to a
marketable product is basic chemistry common all over the<BR>>>
world.<BR>>> Little's twist on the process is trapping carbon dioxide
from the air and<BR>>> combining it with the salt. But the process uses
a lot of electricity to<BR>>> get<BR>>> the needed chemical
reactions.<BR>>><BR>>> "The<BR>>> cost for electricity is
about $400 daily and represents about five months<BR>>>
usage<BR>>> for an average residence," Little said. "However, that is
small<BR>>> demand for an industrial
manufacturer."<BR>>><BR>>> Water-treatment<BR>>> expert
Smith said the new company will try to create electricity using<BR>>>
biomass,<BR>>> such as manure, crops or even human waste solids from
cities.<BR>>><BR>>> This<BR>>> melding of science and
business differs from the federal government's<BR>>> multibillion-dollar
plan, which involves buying and retiring a lot of<BR>>>
farmland<BR>>> on the west side.<BR>>><BR>>> In<BR>>>
the past several years, a federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Bureau
of<BR>>> Reclamation and taxpayers are on the hook for the
cleanup.<BR>>><BR>>> Westlands<BR>>> officials say the
federal government has agreed to pay for the pilot<BR>>>
project,<BR>>> though Bureau of Reclamation officials could not confirm
it because the<BR>>> drainage-water case is still in
court.<BR>>><BR>>> Smith<BR>>> said he hopes the pilot
project will jump start a broad cleanup and save a<BR>>> big<BR>>>
part of west-side agriculture.<BR>>><BR>>> "There's<BR>>> a
lot of work that still needs to go into this," he said. "But this<BR>>>
could be a very efficient project that makes good business sense and
is<BR>>> good<BR>>> for the
environment."<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>> Byron<BR>>> Leydecker,
JcT<BR>>> Chair, Friends<BR>>> of Trinity River<BR>>> PO Box
2327<BR>>> Mill Valley, CA<BR>>> 94942-2327<BR>>> 415 383
4810<BR>>> land/fax (call first to fax)<BR>>> 415 519
4810<BR>>> mobile<BR>>> <A
href="mailto:bwl3@comcast.net">bwl3@comcast.net</A><BR>>> <A
href="mailto:bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org">bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org</A>
(secondary)<BR>>> <A
href="http://fotr.org/">http://fotr.org/</A><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>
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illegal.<BR>>><BR>>><BR>>>
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