A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 4, 2007
3. Watersheds
Salton Sea experiment is for the birds - Riverside Press Enterprise
Supes call out IID, want meeting - Imperial Valley Press
DELTA ISSUES:
Editorial: Cut off water, dry up Kern; An Alameda County judge must be convinced to allow delta water to keep flowing down aqueduct - Bakersfield
Guest Commentary: Don't shut off Valley's water -
Editorial: Shut the spigot -
Riverside Press
By Jennifer Bowles, staff writer
Four seemingly innocuous ponds near the Salton Sea could ensure that
State agency officials trying to prevent the saltwater lake from shrinking and becoming too salty for fish and birds are gambling that the test ponds will be a successful substitute and that larger-scale versions can be built into the seabed as the water recedes.
California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman is expected to recommend a roughly $6 billion restoration plan for the lake to the state Legislature by the end of this month. It's likely to call for the construction of 62,000 acres of shallow lakes that, like the test ponds, are dotted with islands and other features to attract birds.
"This is my baby," said Doug Barnum, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, as he gazed across the ponds.
Built a little more than a year ago on the edge of Niland, a small farming town south of the Riverside County line, the ponds today are teeming with wildlife.
Ruddy ducks thud across the surface, swarms of tiny brown swallows flit above, and sandpipers dance on the water's edge.
Western snowy plovers, snowy egrets, eared grebes and gull-billed terns make appearances. And overhead, a great blue heron with its 6-foot wingspan appears to check out the new ponds as it heads toward the
On one of the islands, a promising scene: Two American avocets are gathering dirt clods with their bills, most likely to build a nest. They could become the first breeding pair of the nesting season, which runs April through July, said Tom Anderson, who paddled a kayak across the ponds to check out the bird activity on the islands.
A
Ponds With a
Barnum said the idea of creating the shallow birding habitat percolated in his mind for 20 years. He presented the concept to state committees looking at ways to save the
Although they appear simple, the 25-acre ponds were constructed with a specific mission: to see whether they would attract birds and the bugs that they eat, whether the levees and islands would hold up in the windy area and whether the water quality would degrade and harm the wildlife, Barnum said.
Dale Hoffman-Floerke, the state's chief of the Colorado River and
"It's something we believe creates the primary stuff we can build on and modify," she said.
Under a draft 75-year plan, similar ponds would be built into the desert lake, which has a long list of environmental woes, including the loss of large amounts of water. As part of a state-approved plan meant to ward off a water crisis, farmers are sending some of their water to
Hoffman-Floerke said that as the
In the meantime, she said, another test project by the California Department of Fish and Game will look at how fish survive in ponds, whether they seek refuge in deep holes and how fish-eating birds such as pelicans and cormorants use the ponds.
Julia Levin, state policy director for Audubon
Some of the birds that use the Salton Sea, such as brown pelicans and
And with 90 percent of the state's historic wetlands lost to development, Levin said, fewer places remain for the birds to rest and feed as they migrate north or south.
"They're pretty depleted by the time they get to the sea," she said. "It's like us driving across the country -- you need a gas station every so often. It's a really long walk if you're in the middle of the desert or
Islands Critical
Given that the
The islands, he said, are key in attracting the birds.
"These are critical for these birds to feel safe for their nesting habitat, for them to get out and just relax without them feeling threatened or attacked by predators," he said, referring to coyotes, raccoons and rattlesnakes.
There remains a small but potentially devastating possibility that selenium will build up in the ponds to a level toxic to wildlife, causing fewer eggs to hatch and deformed embryos. Such a disaster happened in the early 1980s at the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in
At the ponds, Barnum believes, the risk is low to nonexistent.
"Everyone is holding their breath that the risk is minimal," he said, adding that water samples collected by UC Davis experts will be tested for selenium.
A mineral that is trapped in shale, selenium is released when land is irrigated. Up and down the Colorado River, the potential for that exists before the water drains into the
The sea's rescue has been a politically divisive issue at times, among environmentalists, farmers, developers and lawmakers seeking different features in the design plan.
"If nothing else," Barnum said, "they can agree this is a valuable project, and it's worth its weight in gold."
Vital to Birds
The
90 percent of the North American population of eared grebes
90 percent of the western population of American white pelicans
45 percent of the
Half of all ruddy ducks, about 40,000, on the Pacific Flyway
The only Inland population of brown pelicans
Gulled-billed terns, which use it as their largest breeding site in the western
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_salton03.3c99ea8.html
Supes call out IID, want meeting
By Eric Galvan, staff writer
The Imperial County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday held nothing back in expressing its disdain for the Imperial Irrigation District’s praise of a recently released draft
On March 27, California Secretary of Resources Director Mike Chrisman presented the Salton Sea Advisory Committee’s draft plan to restore the sea. The plan would cost about $6 billion.
Though the IID board has yet to come out in support of any
That sign of support prompted supervisors to question the IID and call for a meeting between the two boards.
“We need to have a meeting between the boards and find out why they do support it,” Maruca said. “I can’t imagine anyone in this county supporting this piece of crap.”
Supervisors have previously supported the Salton Sea Authority’s plan, which calls for the creation of two bodies of water, a northern lake within
The SSA’s plan is estimated to cost $5.2 billion. In addition to the two lakes, the plan includes installation of water treatment facilities and the creation of a 17,000-acre shallow-water wetlands.
The advisory committee’s plan calls for a 34,000-acre marine sea along the north shore in
The supervisors plan to issue a letter to Chrisman expressing their opposition to the committee’s plan. First, they would like to meet with the IID board to get its stance on the plan before sending the letter.
“If it is not a plan this board will support,” said Supervisor Gary Wyatt, also president of the SSA, “then we will not put one cent behind it.”
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2007/04/04/news/news04.txt
DELTA ISSUES:
Editorial: Cut off water, dry up Kern; An Alameda County
Bakersfield
Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled the state lacked a permit to kill chinook salmon and delta smelt as a consequence of pumping water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta into the Aqueduct.
Roesch gave the state 60 days to obtain the permit from the Department of Fish and Game or shut down pumping. He has scheduled a hearing Friday. State Department of Water Resources officials must convince Roesch not to follow through with his threat. They also must move quickly to obtain the permit.
The entire
Numerous urban water districts in the valley and
Environmental damage to habitat restoration efforts specifically the Kern Water Bank also could result if pumping is stopped, according to state officials. The Kern Water Bank stores water in wet years for use by various water districts in dry years.
Overall, Snow said he was "perplexed" by the ruling, adding, "Environmentally, it would be unacceptable to curtail all deliveries from the State Water Project. There are wetlands areas that would suffer from a loss of Delta water, and there could be overpumping of the groundwater basin."
In a teleconference with newspaper editors, including The Californian, Snow made several points he and other officials said they would present to the court in seeking to have the order modified:
* It will be impossible to do the paperwork to obtain the permit within 60 days.
* In effect, DWR has met the requirements for justifying a permit through a series of operating agreements it has with the Department of Fish and Game in recent years.
* The court's order doesn't take into account economic damage that its ruling would have.
* The ruling fails to take into account numerous environmental initiatives that have been undertaken in recent years, yielding benefits that offset any adverse circumstances a missing take permit might have.
Those are compelling arguments. The flow of water from the delta must continue. #
http://www.bakersfield.com/135/story/111939.html
Guest Commentary: Don't shut off Valley's water
By Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, represents the 18th Senate District including Tulare, Kern, Inyo and San Bernardino Counties
The State Water Project, operated by the Department of water Resource provides water to more than 23 million Californians and more than 750,000 acres of the nation's most productive agricultural land.
Gov. Schwarzenegger toured the
Also this week, however, one judge took steps to change all that with the stroke of a pen. In ruling on a lawsuit over "endangered" fish sometimes caught in the pumping mechanism at the Banks Pumping Plant in
The judge's ruling highlights the underlying problem that the state faces in providing water to our vast population and teeming economy. We can spend billions on water infrastructure projects, but if we haven't addressed the consequences of the California Environmental Quality Act along with the many endangered species laws and regulatory hurdles to the storage and transfer of water in our state, then those efforts will be futile. The lawsuit and the judge's decision highlight the ultimate trade-off between extreme environmental measures and every day life in
The Banks Pumping Plant is the very heart of the California Water Project, pumping our state's life blood in canals to cities in the Bay Area, farms in the Central Valley and all of
The issue that Judge Roesch ruled on was whether the Department of Water Resources has obtained an official permit known as a "take" permit for the protected fish that are sometimes swallowed by the pumps. Take permits are usually required by private property owners, corporations or local government projects where protected species are occasionally killed in the normal course of business.
The operation of the Banks Pumping Plant is already regulated by State and Federal environmental regulations. The Department of Water Resources has also entered into agreements with state and federal agencies to provide a number of fishery protections, many of those agreements voluntarily.
In short, the loss of occasional protected fish is not news and the authorities have been working closely with Water Resources to monitor these accidental losses. In fact, the court did not find that any harm was being caused by the plant. The only transgression is that the Department of Water Resources was not holding one kind of permit. For not having the preferred bureaucratic paperwork the judge has ordered the Department to shut down pumping operations at the Banks Plant within 60 days. Both the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Game agree that 60 days is not enough time to process the permit that the judge is looking for. In the lawsuit no one was able to demonstrate any harm to
Clearly the Governor understands the critical need to keep water flowing across the
Resolving the Banks Pumping case right now is necessary but ultimately will not solve the larger problem. This case is a wake up call for serious reform of CEQA and endangered species laws with respect to the transport and storage of our state's lifeblood. Without sufficient water, we might as well hang a "Closed for Business" sign at
http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070404/OPINION/704040315
Editorial: Shut the spigot
San Francisco Chronicle – 4/4/07
FOR YEARS, environmentalists, sportfishermen and editorial pages -- including this one -- have been sounding alarm bells about the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta's collapsing ecosystem and its rapidly declining endangered fish populations. For years, developers and our state and local governments have offered vague promises to do something about it -- all the while pumping more and more freshwater out of the delta as though their livelihoods depended on it (which, in the case of developers, it does). Now, thanks to a nervy ruling from Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch, something must get done -- or the pumps will be shut off in less than 60 days, threatening deliveries of drinking and agricultural water to 25 million Californians. It's an outrage that it takes a crisis of these proportions to force our state officials to comply with the law. If our own government doesn't take the state's Endangered Species Act seriously, how can it effectively police others?
Roesch's ruling is simple and unequivocal. The Department of Water Resources (DWR) doesn't have a required permit to kill threatened Chinook salmon and delta smelt, which is what happens when they get caught in the giant pumps. Roesch responded to the department the way he would have done with any private individual in the same situation: he shut it down.
Of course, Roesch's ruling won't shut down the pumps in 60 days -- there's too much at stake, and too many legal maneuvers that interested parties can employ to keep the water flowing. It's already set off a firestorm in
Those explanations are as follows: "We felt that we had the coverage for our program to be grandfathered into the (Endangered Species Act)," said Lester Snow, director of the Department of Water Resources. "And after that first Senate hearing, we initiated efforts to get a natural communities conservation plan -- a way to long-term, comprehensive compliance." That plan is called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, and it will take years for participants to gather all the possibilities and execute one.
In other words, our government officials had decided that it was OK to make assumptions about their compliance -- even after being told that they were not complying -- and, in case that didn't work, to stall. Outrageous.
As for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the last thing the delta needs is another plan, committee or project. Over the years, it has had more of those than it can count -- and all of them, by the way, pointed to the same dire outcome -- unless
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/04/04/EDGTLOS7BQ1.DTL
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