Environment General Courses (ENVIRON)

graduate level, taught in Durham

298.13 Seeing the Big Picture: Lessons from Watershed Management in California
Instructor: David E. Hinton
Tuesdays and Thursdays

INTRODUCTION
The Sacramento River Watershed extends from the slopes of Mt. Shasta in the North to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in the South and when joining the San Francisco Bay, forms the largest estuary in the western United States. Flanked by peaks of the Coastal Range in the West and the peaks of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the East, this watershed drains 22,146 sq. miles of land, averaging 22 million acre-feet of runoff per year. The watershed has many beneficial uses; a haven for plants and wildlife, it supports over 750 plant and animal species. The Bay-Delta supplies drinking water to two-thirds of California’s citizens and irrigation water for over 7 million acres of the most highly productive agricultural land in the world.
There is a rich history of conflict over resource management in the Bay-Delta system. For decades, the region has been the focus of competing interests - economic and ecological, urban and agricultural. These competing and often conflicting demands have resulted in several resource threats to the Bay-Delta: the collapse of one of the richest commercial fisheries in the nation; the degradation of the Delta as a reliable source of high-quality water; and a Delta levee system now faced with an unacceptably high risk of failure.
Despite the recognition by environmental, urban, and agricultural interests of the Delta as critical, for decades, agreement of appropriate management of Delta resources has not been forthcoming. A Bay-Delta Accord and the developing CALFED Bay-Delta Program represent a consensus-seeking, comprehensive approach to California water management issues. It is upon this backdrop of extensive state and federal research programs to monitor water quality, prioritize remediation efforts and to grasp essentials of multiple stressor effects that this course will unfold. Topics to be covered include: host factors (age, gender, prior history of exposure, physiological fitness) governing fish and wildlife responses and effects; fate, transport and biogeochemistry of agricultural chemicals; exotic species introduction; economic considerations governing water allocation storage, transport, and conservation; conflict resolution efforts between competing interest groups.
The course will be taught by Dr. David E. Hinton, who for 10 years directed research and monitoring efforts in California’s Central Valley including Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, Delta, and upper San Francisco Bay. Visiting speakers from federal agencies whose areas of interest are closely related to the above issues will assist Dr. Hinton.
The overall objective of this course is to acquaint the student with the interdisciplinary and often controversial nature of watershed management using examples from arguably the most manipulated and well-studied watershed in the US.

TITLES OF LECTURES

An overview of the watershed and introduction to course

Multiple Stressors in the Sacramento River: The Upper River

Multiple Stressors in the Sacramento River: the Middle Portion

Multiple Stressors in the Sacramento River: The Delta and confluence with the San Joaquin River

Introduced Species and Concerns

Selenium in the Watershed 1: History and Overview of Issues

Selenium in the Watershed 2: Aquatic Ecotoxicology in the San-Francisco Bay Delta and the Kesterson Reservoir Story

Selenium in the Watershed 3: Development of Aquatic Life Criteria

Dormant Sprays, Storm Water and Runoff

U.S. EPA Three Species Testing and Monitoring

Discussion: “Where have all the fishes gone?” Part 1.

Discussion: “Where have all the fishes gone?” Part 2.

The Biomarker Approach to Monitoring, Part 1.

The Biomarker Approach to Monitoring, Part 2: Endocrine Disruptive Compounds

Competing demands for California water: Historical and Present-Day Conflicts

Guest lecture: Mr. Anthony Maciorowski, U.S. EPA, Washington D.C.
“Risk Analysis, Pesticides and Risk Assessment”

Guest lecture: Dr. Martin Smith, Assistant Professor of Environmental Economics, Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences.
“Economics of Water Supply and Management”

Introduction to CALFED: Stakeholders, Program Elements

CALFED: A Closer Examination of Essential Program Elements

Exploring Alternatives for Water Flow and Transport in the Bay-Delta

CALFED: Current Status and Maintaining the Coalition Over Time

Student In-Class Presentations

LAST CLASS: Wrap-up