To:

CALMS Members

Stephen McCord, Ph.D., P.E.

Date:

August 14, 2015

759 Bianco Court Davis, CA 95616

Subject: CALMS Lake Manager Contacts Database

(530) 220-3165 [email protected]

Introduction The California Lake Management Society (CALMS) is a statewide network of individuals, lake associations and agency representatives devoted to the preservation and protection of our lakes. CALMS’ mission is to promote understanding, protection and comprehensive management of California's lakes and their watersheds. For the purposes of this memo, the term “lake” refers to both natural lakes and artificial reservoirs (impoundments created by the construction of one or more dams). Important distinctions lie in regulatory options (no one may be responsible for managing a natural lake), and controllability (physical, chemical or biological manipulations of natural lakes are rarely advisable, and many factors such as water level are uncontrollable). This memorandum summarizes the current results of a CALMS-funded project to produce a contacts database of California lake managers, outlines possible criteria for using the database, and recommends a path forward. This project supports the interests of CALMS to effectively outreach to lake managers throughout California by compiling contact information associated with individual lakes.

Advisory Group The project’s Advisory Group included the following individuals: • • • •

Peter Alexander Todd Tietjen Hal MacLean Matt Williams

• • • •

Jeff Pasek Imad Hannoun Daniel Daft Kelly Wucherpfennig

• • • •

Ted Grantham Rich Losee Debi DeShon Mike Blankinship

Their time and effort provided guidance regarding the issues of lake managers statewide. The group met on-line monthly March – May and reviewed draft materials (i.e., project web page, newsletter article, and this memo). Support staff included Atley Keller, Thalles Perdigão, Carl Gutekunst, and Devin Ciriaco.

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Scope of Work The work performed by McCord Environmental, Inc. (MEI), with input and support from the Advisory Group, included the following three tasks. • •

•

Task 1. Communicate with CALMS Members—Outreach via the CALMS website, listserv, newsletter, and annual conference to solicit input and to outreach about its potential utility. Task 2. Compile Contact Information into the Reservoirs Database—Search online and in guides, and work with Advisory Group members and others to compile contact information (responsible agency, point(s) of contact, email addresses, etc.) and produce a metadata table of information collected. Provide contacts compiled in the database to CALMS for use in soliciting new members, adding to the listserv, and advertising for the 2015 conference. Task 3. Identify Next Steps—Describe the database’s current capabilities and shortcomings, suggest potential future uses, and lay out a plan for addressing the shortcomings and attaining the potential future uses.

Database Summary While this project has focused on collecting points of contact for individual lakes, the long-term goal is to develop a comprehensive database of many more lake attributes and environmental conditions that can be used as an information resource for CALMS members. This section provides an overview of available data sources and provides a detailed description of the contact information gathered to date.

California Lakes Database MEI has been compiling a database of all major lakes in California from several distinct sources. Interestingly, there are about 57,000 large dams world-wide, which combined cover a land area the size of California. In California, 1594 dams are registered with the US Army Corps of Engineers, the largest dams database available. The current CALMS database focuses on reservoirs in the Corps’ National Inventory of Dams database. Some natural lakes were subsequently added to the database because of their popularity, available published data, and active management (i.e., a contact was identified). All of the information currently compiled in the full lakes database is summarized in Table 1. Sources of information include federal and state agencies, copied archives, Wikipedia, district web sites, and individual contacts. Compiling all such information for all lakes remains a work in progress. Key challenges to date are described below.

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Table 1. Metadata for existing database compilation. Fields

Lake name Dam name Latitude Longitude NIDID River/Stream Owner type Owner name Primary purpose All purposes Type of dam NID Height (ft.) Year constructed (completed) Watershed area Min depth Max depth Withdrawal elevation Max storage volume Surface area Annual average discharged volume Average water surface elevation Maximum water surface elevation Outflow Temperature Dissolved oxygen pH Salinity/conductivity Nutrients Phytoplankton/Chlorophyll a Mercury Turbidity/TSS/Secchi

Data Sources* 1

2

1594 1427 1427 1427 1594 1427 1594 1427 1594 1427 1594 1594 1594 1427 1549 1427 1427 1427 1427 1427 1549 1427 1427

1427

3

421 421 421 421 421 421 421

4

5

345

233, 418 161, 197 301 233, 418 197 301

345 345

301 301

421

301 301 301

421

421 421 421 421 421

6

7

8

233

197

233

161

20

9

247

20 20

233 233 233

301 233, 418 301 418 301

197

301 418 20 20 20 20 20 20

247

345 20

* Existing Database References: 1) US Army Corps of Engineers (http://geo.usace.army.mil/pgis/f?p=397:12; n=1594 dams) provides data from the National Inventory of Dams. 2) CA Dept. of Water Resources (http://water.ca.gov/damsafety/docs/Jurisdictional2014.pdf; n=1404) provides federal and Jurisdictional dams in California. 3) CA Jurisdictional Dams (n=421). 4) Provided by Central Valley Regional Water Board staff member Michelle Wood. Contains concentration of mercury in fish and their relative trophic level (n=345 lakes). 5) Jurisdictional Dams above elev 800 ft. in CA (n=301 dams). 6) Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lakes_in_California; n=417 lakes) and (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_California; n=233 reservoirs and their dams). 7) CA Data Exchange Center (http://cdec.water.ca.gov/reservoir.html; n=161 reservoirs) and (http://cdec.water.ca.gov/misc/resinfo.html; n=196 dams). 8) EPA national lakes assessment (http://water.epa.gov/type/lakes/lakessurvey_index.cfm; n=20 for CA, 1252 nationwide 9) CA Lakes for MERIS analysis (n=247). Provided by Bev Anderson, State Water Resources Control Board.

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Prioritization Process for Finding Contacts The focus for this CALMS project was to compile point of contact information for as many California lakes as possible. Contact information sought included: responsible agency name and website; and contact person’s name, email address, phone number, and mailing address. To focus attention on finding contacts for managed lakes, these steps were taken: 1) Disregarded dams that do not store water for extended periods, but instead are for silt/debris basins; treated water storage ponds; dikes, embankments or other secondary containment structures; weirs and other diversion structures, tailings and spillways; and percolation areas. 2) Added natural lakes (without dams) of interest. Thousands more natural lakes exist in CA. 3) Prioritized finding contacts for entitles responsible for the greatest number of dams, such as East Bay Municipal Utility District, US Bureau of Reclamation, Metropolitan Water District and PG&E. 4) Prioritized lakes identified in the USEPA National Lakes Assessment, harmful algal bloom satellite survey, and SWAMP statewide sport fish bioaccumulation survey.

Contacts Obtained As of July 31, 2015, we have identified 105 individual contacts representing 438 lakes. From the original set of 1594 dams: • •

342 have been “filtered out” as not creating managed, open-water reservoirs, or being secondary dam structures for the same waterbody 16 natural lakes have been added.

Relevant to specific interests, we have contact information for: • • •

17 of the 20 lakes in California in the National Lakes Assessment; 146 of the 275 lakes in the Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program Sportfish Monitoring database; and 98 of the 186 lakes in the forthcoming MERIS analysis of harmful algal blooms.

Recent Outreach Activities As part of this project all lake management points of contact have been: • • •

“Blind cc” notified of their inclusion in the contacts database, informed of the current protocols for its use, and their ability to “opt out” of future communications. Emailed the 2015 CALM Waters newsletter. Invited to join the main CALMS email distribution list in Mail Chimp, requiring them to “opt in” by registering themselves.

All other CALMS members (i.e., those in the main listserv) have been invited to be associated with a specific lakes in the database.

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Lessons Learned Lessons learned are related specifically to the present objective (to identify contacts) but also the more general lessons learned in working with the available data sources.

Identifying a Reservoir and its Manager Reservoirs (rather than natural lakes) include multiple components. Depending on the issue, the appropriate contact could be the owner/operator of the physical dam structure, downstream distribution networks, hydropower facilities, inundated lake area, water rights holders, shoreline, or watershed. Particular examples of complex responsibilities include: • • •

• •

• •

Some databases refer to natural lakes, which do not have dam owners included in the major dams databases. The same owner can be named slightly differently for its various reservoirs and in various databases. For example, various entries have Pacific Gas & [or “and”] Electric Company and Amador Reg Sanit [or “Regional Sanitation”] Authority. State drinking water regulations require potable water suppliers to assess the health of the source watershed (a Watershed Sanitary Survey) every five years. In many municipalities, stormwater and flood control responsibilities are completely separate, and both are separate from drinking water interests and lake management. CA Department of Fish and Wildlife staff may manage lake fisheries with little to no communication or coordination with dam operators. CA Department of Water Resource’s Joint Operations Center in Sacramento sends daily instructions on how all of its reservoirs are operated. Their decisions on releases, power generation and pumping are based on the power market’s prices, statewide power demands, operating rules for pool storage and minimum downstream flows, and water delivery requests by the 29 state water contractors. Regular modeling projections account for weather forecasts and fit within regulations governing each reservoir’s releases. Area Control Centers at each of DWR’s field divisions control all reservoir and aqueduct operations via a SCADA system or human operators who physically adjust valves. Many of the 29 contractors in turn manage multiple reservoirs, which combine project supplies with other supplies. Larger agencies list general and assistant managers as primary contacts, but staff members are more appropriate contacts for active management questions. Some reservoirs are owned by private individuals or companies that do not respond to inquiries or communicate with other responsible parties upstream or downstream, typically either for fear of regulatory action or simply lack of time.

The lesson learned is to seek the most responsive individual working for the dam owner. For larger agencies, such individuals may be the appropriate point of contact for over a dozen lakes, supervising or coordinating many staff members at each. Organizational constraints notwithstanding, a lake manager can be almost anyone who defines themselves as such. Many natural lakes may be managed very differently (if at all), but monitoring and general interest identifies important lake managers for outreach.

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Watershed Management Since the early 1990s, US EPA policy has focused on watershed management as the solution to reversing water quality impairment in lakes. The Clean Water Act’s waterbody (in-lake) management techniques to improve water quality directly have been excluded from most funding and support. Watershed-based nonpoint-source “best management practices” (BMPs) can improve the water quality in streams, but they have yet to be shown to improve water quality in lakes effectively. To address this issue, NALMS recently adopted a Position Statement “Changes in US EPA Policy Implementing the Clean Water Act Are Required to Restore Water Quality in the Nation’s Lakes and Reservoirs.” 1 NALMS argues that US EPA must embrace a more balanced, wholesystem approach to the implementation of the Clean Water Act and incorporate waterbody management as a fully-supported complement to point-source controls and watershed BMPs. The lesson learned is that many lakes throughout the state are not being closely monitored, actively managed, or coordinated with other regional lakes. This condition indicates an important outreach and analysis role for CALMS to fill.

A Path Forward This section describes the database’s potential evolution, future uses, and a path forward for attaining them. This information and these recommendations could serve as a narrative for future funding applications. The current vision remains to provide a broad-reaching framework (i.e., many available data fields) on which to build over time, and to obtain (and maintain) accurate contact information. Future improvements to the current database could produce one comprehensive, integrated, and accessible lakes database which would serve CALMS members, government agencies, private enterprises, and researchers. To fulfill that promise, such a database would need to be: • • • •

1

Easily analyzable—Include a variety of important data in an accessible data structure (e.g., querying a database with just a few commands to see what ratio of lakes exceed a mercury contamination threshold and are stocked with brown trout). Easily editable—Quickly access and update records when remediation or other changes occur. Clearly linked to individual lakes—A new entry should be clearly not a duplicate of a previous entry, even if the new submission uses a different naming convention. Also, the database should clearly show how each lake was identified. Comprehensive—Lakes have varying levels of information, depending on what was already collected and placed in various databases. Each lake (of a certain minimum size) should still be in the database even if few data are available for that lake. However, it is mandatory that each body of water have a unique identifier with respect to the database key.

Available at https://www.nalms.org/media.acux/e09e5b00-6a9c-45e7-8d46-e20fa2b8d66a

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Recommended near-term priorities for obtaining additional points of contacts are: •

•

•

Support the State Water Resources Control Board’s Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP) and its Cyanobacteria (Harmful Algal Blooms) Early Warning System. SWAMP is funding the San Francisco Estuary Institute to download and analyze satellite images approximately 2-3 times a week and contact the lake managers if they see a bloom developing. SWAMP will also maintain a website of bloom information. Support the State Water Resources Control Board’s statewide mercury control program (http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/water_issues/programs/mercury/) which will include: 1) a mercury control program for reservoirs 2; and 2) mercury water quality objectives. At least 75 reservoirs are listed as impaired, but more reservoirs will be included if the applicable objective is lowered or more lakes are monitored. Engage other professional organizations such as the Western Aquatic Plant Management Society, California Invasive Plant Council, and California Weed Science Society.

Contacts Use Protocols As a broad-based, non-profit organization with a valuable information resource, CALMS needs to have a clear set of protocols for use of its contacts database. For the new lake manager contacts database, draft protocols and their reasoning are: • • •

Store information off-line or password protected and available only to (or through) CALMS officers. Do not share contact information without consent Ensure that contact information is not used for advertising/soliciting without prior consent

I recommend that CALMS officers vote to approve a set of protocols for use of the database.

Future Potential Uses of the Lakes Database Potential uses of the overall lakes database are described by topic in Table 2. The table refers specifically to surveys, analyses and outreach, which inherently rely on the new contact information. In addition to the constant need to maximize the number of lake managers, other specific additions or improvements would be needed. Key questions that could be answered by analyzing lake data are summarized in Table 3. Many of the survey uses described in Table 2 reference the many potential questions in Table 3.

2

Natural lakes will not be regulated by this program.

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Table 2. Potential future uses of CALMS lakes database with points of contact.

Potential Database Uses

Database Additions, Improvements and Other Actions Needed Outreach

Share updates on regulations that impact lake managers

• CALMS members track and assess relevant regulatory initiatives

Announce workshops, conferences, joint society meetings, and training events which target lake managers and their representatives Encourage lake managers to upload water quality monitoring data to accessible databases such as CEDEN and CDEC Provide opportunities for regional collaboration

• CALMS members coordinate with other relevant organizations

Announce grant and foundation funding opportunities

• Track grant programs that support lake managers

Provide opportunities for online knowledge sharing

• Add a chat room or work space to the CALMS website • Disseminate inquiries sent to [email protected]

• CALMS members participate in the CA Water Quality Monitoring Council • Associate lat-long data with each lake and produce maps to overlay on jurisdictional boundaries

Promote national and statewide surveys (e.g., Secchi • Dip-in, World Water Monitoring Day, Coastal Cleanup Day, and National Lakes Assessment) Surveys Survey lake managers to ground-truth regional or • statewide lake remote sensing or modeling predictions • on topics of interest (see Table 3) Survey lake managers to develop regional or statewide condition assessments Survey lake managers on relative interests (see Table 3), to prioritize training objectives and annual conference topics Survey lake managers on their challenges and obstacles, which CALMS could help address through advocacy, training and projects Survey lake managers on sedimentation rates and total • volume of sediments accumulated and storage (active and dead pool) volumes lost since construction Analyses Conduct regional- and statewide-scale analyses of lake • conditions and indices to correlate with various factors. •

Identify statewide and regional coordinators among CALMS members

Add parameters to database Link database to CEDEN to correlate past conditions to potential causal factors

Collaborate with USGS hydrologists such as Toby Minear, building off recent research*

Conduct a GIS analysis to determine watershed area of each lake Compile additional dam characteristics: withdrawal elevation(s), storage volume and surface area; and discharge types (multi-level withdrawal, cooling towers, chemical addition) • Link to available flow and water quality data for inflows, vertical profiles, and outflows • Evaluate potential links with USGS’

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Potential Database Uses

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Database Additions, Improvements and Other Actions Needed $ SPARROW model

• Compile lake management objectives, priorities (recreational uses, flood control, water supply, etc.) • Compile lake management practices (e.g., oxygenation, destratification, flocculant or algaecide addition, weed control, and biomanipulation) * Minear and Kondolf 2009. “Estimating reservoir sedimentation rates at large spatial and temporal scales: A case study of California.” Wtr. Res. Res., 45: W12502, doi:10.1029/2007WR006703. Compare lake managers by type (e.g., state/federal agency, special district, private) and lakes by primary functions (e.g., flood control, drinking water supply, hydropower, recreation)

$

Visit the model website at http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/sparrow/.

Table 3. Potential statewide or regional assessment topics which could be addressed with a CALMS lakes database.

Topic Water chemistry

Question

Indicators from Database

• What % of lakes exhibit signs of nutrient enrichment? • What are the levels of bioaccumulation of contaminants (e.g., mercury, PCBs)?

• In situ measures of oxygen and temperature • Nutrients • Assorted anions and cations

Biological assemblages

• What % of lakes have biology that indicate high/ medium/ low disturbance? • Which types of fishery prevail seasonally? • What is the prevalence of non-native invasions (e.g., carp, live updating of quagga mussel finds during boat ramp inspections, Eurasial milfoil, NZ mudsnail)? • What is the % of various levels of trophic status, and the degree of cultural eutrophication? • Which species of biota (phytoplankton, zooplankton, and fish) prevail?

• • • • •

Physical habitat

• What % of lakes exhibit signs of shoreline disturbance? • What % of storage volume has been lost to sedimentation?

• Lake shore habitat • Littoral zone habitat • Physical habitat complexity

Recreation

• For what % of lakes were there algal toxin levels • Algal toxins (microcystins) that indicate a human health risk? • Atrazine pesticide screen • What control methods are applied and how effective have they been?

Climate change

• How has climate change impacted reservoir operations? • How vulnerable is the lake to climate change impacts?

Benthic macroinvertebrates Macrophytes Phytoplankton Sediment diatoms Zooplankton

• Water supply dependability indicators • Flood risk indicators

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Collaboration Opportunities Outreach to CALMS members and the lake manager contacts is a direct, efficient form of communication. But furthermore, outreach messages can be replicated by sharing them with other organizations to forward to their own sets of contacts. Other organizations identified as potential collaborators with CALMS include: • • • • • • • •

Western Aquatic Plant Management Society California Weed Science Society California Invasive Plant Council UC Davis Aquatic Weed School US Geological Survey USDA Aquatic Research Laboratory UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center Phycological Society of America

Funding Opportunities Other potential funding sources identified to add to the work started with this project and to achieve the database uses tabulated above include: • • • • • • • • •

NALMS CA Water Quality Monitoring Council USEPA CA Dept. Water Resources State Water Resources Control Board, Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program CA Dept. Public Health CA Dept. Fish & Wildlife American Water Works Association Water Environment Federation