• A view of Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  Hikers walk along a path along Phoenix Lake in Ross, Calif. on Feb. 26, 2022. A new proposed project would make it much faster and more efficient for the Marin Municipal Water District to draw water out of Phoenix Lake. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  A view of Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  A bicyclist rides past the Phoenix Lake Log Cabin next to Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  A view of Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  A man jogs on a path near Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  Water flows down the spillway at Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  Water flows down the spillway at Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  A view of Phoenix Lake and the spillway in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

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  A view of Phoenix Lake in Ross on Feb. 26, 2022. (Douglas Zimmerman/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

Phoenix Lake might be prized more for its scenic trails than its drinking water, but the drought has water managers exploring a multi-million-dollar project to extract every drop it can from the small reservoir.

Built in 1905-06, Phoenix Lake is the Marin Municipal Water District’s second-oldest and second-smallest reservoir, making up only about a half-percent of the total water supply for 191,000 residents.

The lake is not connected to other reservoirs in the district, making it time-consuming to extract water when needed. Water quality issues such as large amounts of sediment and low mineral content also make the water difficult to treat, leading the district to tap only a portion of the water.

“Right now it’s not really connected to the water system,” said Paul Sellier, district operations director. “We have to do some fairly labor-intensive pipework to set it up so we can pump it to the treatment plant.”

As a result, the district only taps Phoenix Lake during dry water years such as last year. Prior to 2021, the district had not used the lake since the 2013-2014 drought, Sellier said.

One solution being explored would be to connect Phoenix Lake to the nearby Bon Tempe Lake, about one mile to the west, using a pipeline.

District staff said mixing the Phoenix Lake water into Bon Tempe Lake would work to address water quality issues, making it easier to treat and adding more drinking water to the system. In the rainy season, the district would also be able to extract water from Phoenix Lake more frequently, allowing it to draw on the reservoir multiple times as it refills after rains.

While the district can extract about 200 to 250 acre-feet of water from the 411-acre-foot reservoir, the upgrades could allow it to obtain an additional 300 to 600 acre-feet, depending on the options, according to district staff.

The proposal is also reviving an idea by the county government to potentially use the lake to capture runoff that would otherwise flood nearby communities such as Ross and Kentfield during storms. The idea would be to have the district draw down Phoenix Lake in anticipation of upcoming storms, allowing the lake to capture runoff that could swell Ross and Corte Madera creeks.

County officials told the district board that this concept was demonstrated during the heavy storm in October, when Phoenix Lake was low.

“We really did notice the value of Phoenix Lake, at least in the first half of that storm,” Liz Lewis, a manager at the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, told the MMWD board this month. “In the community, we heard from a lot of folks that really felt like Phoenix Lake being empty prior to that event probably resulted in less flooding in Ross and downstream.”

The project, which would include pump upgrades and about 2,200 feet of new pipe, could cost $3 million to $5 million depending on the options, according to staff estimates. Part of this cost could be shared by the county.

The concept received mostly positive reviews from the district board during a presentation this month.

“I really like this project,” said board member Larry Bragman. “I think it could have a lot of other future uses.”

Board member Monty Schmitt said that if the flood reductions were large enough, they “could have implications for people’s flood insurance and other things that reduce costs for our customers.”

Larry Russell, president of the board, raised concerns about the cost. He said paying up to $5 million for a half-percent of the district’s water supply seemed “very high.”

While the flood control proposal interested him, Russell said the county and the district would have separate priorities on how the lake should be managed.

“From our end, we need to keep it full,” Russell said. “From their end, we need to keep it empty.”

The idea of using Phoenix Lake as a flooding buffer is not a new one. In the early 2010s, the county explored raising the Phoenix Lake dam. But the high cost — estimated at about $20 million — did not make sense financially, according to Marin County Public Works Director Rosemarie Gaglione.

One benefit of Phoenix Lake is that it already exists, so it doesn’t require the construction of new stormwater detention ponds, which can be controversial in some communities, Gaglione said. Additionally, the water transferred from Phoenix to Bon Tempe Lake would be used as part of the district’s water supply, as opposed to spilling during storms into Ross Creek and out into the bay.

“This is just the start of a lot of information gathering,” Gaglione said. “We’re just grateful to start the conversation.”

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BERKELEY SPRINGS, W.Va. (WDVM) — Who has the best water in the world? That decision was made on Saturday at the 32nd Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting Festival. Dozens of people came out to learn about safe drinking water and to find out what brand of water is the best of the best. It was hosted by Travel Berkeley Springs.

“Next to air, water keeps us alive. This is the blood of the planet. And when you sort of suddenly look at water differently, you realize it’s a special thing,” said Arthur von Wiesenberger, Water Master for the festival.

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Judges from all over came out to look, taste, and feel different municipal water, bottled water, sparkling water, and carbonated water from across the world.

“We like to bring water into the forefront, you know, to acknowledge that it is our most precious, natural resource, and we really need to all do our best to conserve and protect it,” said Jill Klein Rone, Producer for the festival.

Berkeley Springs water tasting festival is the largest and longest water tasting in the world. 

“People have been coming here for hundreds of years. Native Americans and then, of course, George Washington came when he was just 16 as a surveyor and helped lay out the town, and then he came back with his friends and family to take the waters, and Berkeley Springs blew up. It’s the nation’s oldest spa and our country’s first spa. So water has always been very important to Berkeley Springs. So it was kind of a natural progression to do a water tasting,” said Klein Rone.

This year there was no public tasting due to COVID-19, but that did not stop people from showing up. Not only did guests get some free water, but they also learned about the economic impact.

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“In COVID, the millions 10s of millions of people couldn’t pay their water and sewer bills. So I think it really broad light on where the economics was the water, the affordability of water and how it affects, you know, a huge population demographic of our country,” said water expert Scott Shipe Water.

Watermaster von Wiesenberger also shared what the judges are looking for in the water.

“The first thing is the way it looks when you want water to be perfectly clear and transparent. Nothing floating around it. You really just want to have a perfectly clear water. There’s sulfur which can give the yellow color, certain metals like iron and give it a red color. None of that is what you want and those won’t do very well here in Berkeley Springs. The next thing they do is they smell the water and kind of we were going back to the absence of things you don’t want to have a smell in the water,” said von Wiesenberger.

“A lot of municipal water for example has smells like mostly chlorine. So if they take a sniff of a water and it smells like a swimming pool, it’s not going to do very well here. Algae can give water a swampy smell and low grade plastics can give the water plastic aroma, not good. Then they taste the water, you have about 100,000 taste buds in your mouth and they pick up different sides of things like sweetness, sourness bitterness. The mouthfeel is also important how it feels in your mouth does it strip your mouth of all its natural salinity because it’s got a low pH therefore it’s more acidic or does it kind of feel more complete in your mouth more balanced and that would be a result of a higher pH,” said von Wiesenberger

Klein Rone said this festival makes a difference in several businesses.

“It’s really gratifying to us to be able to help provide that economic development throughout the world, as well as like I said, here, you know, in the United States and really recognizing the quality work,” she said.

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Dale Buist knew running a commercial greenhouse would pose challenges. He just never expected a water shortage to be among them. Not in Michigan, with its vast aquatic riches.

Yet a couple of irrigation wells yielded only a trickle. And one quickly ran dry.

He installed equipment to capture rainwater for the plants. Then a drinking water well failed. Finally, Buist spent $350,000 connecting to a pipeline that supplies nearby Grand Rapids.

“My greenhouse sits 12 miles from Lake Michigan, one of the greatest sources of fresh water in the world,” the Ottawa County grower said. “And I didn’t have enough.”

His struggle, resulting from a geological quirk and heavy demand from farmers, developers and homeowners in a surging section of southwest Michigan, is a cautionary tale for a state counting on its reputation as a water paradise to be a competitive economic advantage as climate change afflicts hotter, drier regions.

Lake Michigan shoreline in Ottawa County, Mich., is shown on Feb. 1, 2022. Despite its closeness to the lake, the county has areas where household and business wells are running short of water. That’s because the aquifer beneath the county has dropped significantly in recent decades and it has no connection to the lake. Experts say Ottawa County is a cautionary tale for the state of Michigan, which is trying to leverage its water abundance to build a “blue economy” as climate change brings more drought and depleted aquifers to much of the U.S.

John Flesher / AP

Some futurists depict Michigan and the Great Lakes as “climate havens” that will lure people and businesses weary of worsening drought, wildfire, hurricanes and other disasters. Not so fast, skeptics say. Amid images of abundance lurk problems with pollution, overuse and deteriorating infrastructure.

Outsiders “see these five enormous lakes and assume there’s more than enough water for everybody,” said David Dempsey, an environmental analyst for government agencies and activist groups. “But we have tons of unresolved problems.”

Blue-economy blues

The Great Lakes region is striving to shed its worn out Rust Belt image by developing a “blue economy” that leverages its abundant fresh water. Around the lakes, many cities are promoting water-based tourism and technologies while converting urban riverfronts from industrial wastelands to parks and condominiums.

The strategy would seem especially suited to Michigan. Surrounded on three sides by four of the Great Lakes, it also boasts 11,000 inland lakes and 76,000 miles of rivers and streams.

“We are a state geographically and culturally defined by our water,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said at a conference last year.

But clean, affordable water isn’t as available as it seems.

Lead pollution has made the cities of Flint and Benton Harbor symbols of neglect disproportionately harming poor, largely minority communities. Water bills are soaring in some areas as infrastructure deteriorates, a recent University of Michigan study found.

Toxic chemicals known as PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, contaminate wells around the state. Industrial waste, farm runoff and sewage trigger algae blooms and prompt occasional warnings about swimming in the lakes or eating too many of their fish.

And while Michigan does not share the growing crisis with depleted reservoirs and aquifers that haunts the West, that situation may be about to change — at least in high-demand areas.

The reason: Despite all that surface water, nearly half of Michigan’s residents get their supplies from underground. The state has the most household wells in the U.S.

Collectively, the Great Lakes region is believed to have enough groundwater to fill another Lake Huron. But it isn’t evenly distributed or accessible.

“This resource is vast but it’s finite and the public isn’t aware of that,” said David Lusch, a geography professor emeritus with Michigan State University. “We’ve all grown up with this bias that we’re the water wonderland and how could we possibly have a shortage?”

Glaciers that scoured the landscape before melting to form the Great Lakes left a jumble of subsurface rock formations, some holding more water than others, said John Yellich, director of the Michigan Geological Survey. Where soils are rich with sand and gravel, rain oozes deep underground, replacing water sucked out for irrigation, industry or home uses.

But in spots, thick clay prevents surface water from replenishing aquifers. Heavy pumping can send levels perilously low — and draw up salty remnants of oceans that covered the continent eons ago.

Michigan is behind on detailed mapping of its underground waters, so the extent of its vulnerability is unknown, Yellich said.

“For some parts of the state it’s a crapshoot,” he said.

In at least one place, the danger is clear.

So close, yet so far

Ottawa is the fastest growing county in Michigan and Allendale Township its boomtown — a Grand Rapids bedroom community home to Grand Valley State University. The main thoroughfare is lined with chain restaurants and stores. The Grand River, second-longest statewide, winds toward Lake Michigan past blueberry farms and cornfields mingled with newer subdivisions.

As Buist battled balky greenhouse wells, local officials juggled reports of salty irrigation water from farmers and spotty supplies in residential developments. Studies found the clay-topped aquifer below had plummeted 40 feet since the 1990s, said Paul Sachs, county director of strategic impact.

It’s a sore point for Chip Rybicki, a fifth-grade teacher whose family was first to occupy a new cul-de-sac in next-door Blendon Township five years ago.

“Nobody said, ‘Hey, do you realize there’s a lack of groundwater and you’re on a well?’” he lamented.

As his lawn sprinkler ran one summer day in 2019, “I heard this spitting and sputtering … like when you go down to the bottom of a glass with a straw,” he said. “We were running out of water.”

He cut back on sprinkling — “I’d rather have an eyesore than no water” — but many others haven’t.

“People say, ‘Hey, I’m not watering that much,’ but add up thousands of homes and it’s a lot,” said Kelly Rice, president of the Ottawa parks commission.

She has defeated several citations alleging violation of rural “noxious weed” and road vision ordinances after replacing water-gorging turf grass with native shrubs on her 5 acres.

A county plan warns of dire consequences unless things change: dry wells; crop failures; health problems from drinking water with excess sodium.

An advisory board is considering policies such as limiting well-dependent subdivisions, which might encounter resistance in the Republican-heavy county where Donald Trump received 60% support in 2020.

But an Allendale ordinance already requires that new residential projects connect to city water. Residents “will appreciate it when they turn on the faucet,” township Supervisor Adam Elenbaas said.

On the beginning?

Some other parts of Michigan have geology like Ottawa County’s and “the potential is there for similar issues,” said Jim Milne, a water supervisor with the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy.

Demand is rising, particularly where farms are stepping up irrigation.

“Groundwater is a natural resource in peril,” Michigan academics and regulators said in an October report arguing for more protection from overuse and pollution.

Inland communities that run short can’t count on a bailout from the Great Lakes. They supply nearly 300 of the state’s public water systems — but mostly in coastal areas. Pipeline projects are very expensive and must meet rigorous environmental standards.

Instead, experts recommend persuading people to take conservation seriously.

“Marketing the blue economy is a good idea,” said Alan Steinman, a Grand Valley State water quality professor. “But we don’t want to go the way of the lumber barons who said they saw a century’s worth of timber in Michigan and wiped it out in 10 years.”

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Originally Appeared Here