[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 4/5/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

April 5, 2007

 

3. Watersheds -

 

Press Release

Effort Under Way to Protect Fish, Birds, Wildlife and Habitat after Buena Vista Lagoon Sewage Spill

Department of Fish and Game

 

Environmental groups oppose LA's desert-power plan

Riverside Press Enterprise

 

Karen Steele: Longline fishing ban has served the state

Sacramento Bee

 

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Press Release

Effort Under Way to Protect Fish, Birds, Wildlife and Habitat after Buena Vista Lagoon Sewage Spill

Department of Fish and Game – 4/5/07

 

The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) is actively involved in protecting fish, wildlife and habitat following the sewage spill at Carlsbad's Buena Vista Lagoon.

The lagoon is a DFG managed property and our crews and staff are on scene, around the clock, to ensure protection of this valuable resource.

DFG is working with the cities of Carlsbad, Vista and Oceanside. The sewage pipes that led to the spill have been fixed. Over the next three days, five million gallons of water will be flushed into the Buena Vista lagoon from one part of the lagoon into another. This infusion of water into the lagoon will serve a dual purpose. First, it will help to dilute the sewage so that the water quality may be restored. Second, it will provide oxygen for the fish to help keep them alive. Ironically, it is not the sewage that kills the fish, but a lack of oxygen in the water that is depleted by the sewage decomposing.

Moving forward, we continue to monitor the impact on the environment and will aggressively pursue our ongoing effort to provide additional oxygen for the lagoon. We will be available to assist the local clean-up effort through our Office of Spill Prevention and Response. We will also be working with local agencies on a restoration plan that will ensure the lagoon is returned to its pre-spill condition.

The 200-acre Buena Vista Lagoon is a wonderful place, filled with more than 200 species of birds, numerous kinds of fish and abundant wildlife. We are committed to not only protecting the lagoon and the surrounding habitat, but making sure to the greatest extent possible that the impact to wildlife and the environment is minimized.#

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_54244.shtml

 

Environmental groups oppose LA's desert-power plan

Riverside Press Enterprise – 4/4/07

By DOUGLAS QUAN

Plans by the city of Los Angeles to generate "green" energy by tapping into geothermal fields near the Salton Sea came under fire Wednesday from several Inland environmental and community groups.

 

The groups are concerned that a network of transmission towers and roads will be built along corridors that cut through the San Bernardino National Forest, parks, nature preserves and sensitive areas within the purview of the Bureau of Land Management.

 

Los Angeles "just planned new corridors with disregard for the land," David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands Conservancy in Oak Glen, said in a phone interview. "We're not going to stand for it."

 

David Nahai, president of the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, the panel that sets policy for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said Wednesday that the criticism is premature and that a full public-consultation process could begin this summer.

 

"We're at the beginning of the public environmental-review process," Nahai said. "There will be full public discourse."

However, he added, "We could've done a better job of reaching out to these groups at an earlier point."

 

Nahai said a number of options, including building a transmission corridor that would skirt the San Bernardino National Forest, are being considered.

 

He said that while it is impossible to build a corridor without having some environmental impact, LA officials are operating under a guiding principle to do the "least possible harm."

The Green Path Project has been touted by LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as a way for the city to rely less on fossil fuels and achieve its goal of obtaining 20 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2010. However, Nahai said construction of the transmission corridor likely won't be completed until 2011.

 

Geothermal power is generated by using heat from the earth. The Imperial Valley is one of 14 areas in the state using this type of energy to generate electricity.

 

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is investing more than $200 million in the project. It is working with the Imperial Irrigation District and Citizens Energy, a nonprofit corporation that helps low-income residents pay their utility costs.

 

In a joint news release issued Wednesday, several environmental and community groups said one proposed transmission corridor would "destroy habitat and hack off hill tops and ridgelines" in conservancy nature preserves at Oak Glen, Mission Creek and Pioneertown Mountains.

 

Environmental groups are also concerned that a proposed corridor would cut through the Big Morongo Canyon area. Rather than build a new corridor, the project should use existing designated utility corridors, the groups said.

 

Nahai said it would be inefficient to share corridors used by other utilities. Such a solution would lead to higher costs for consumers, he said.#

http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_greenpath05.a881b5.html

 

Karen Steele: Longline fishing ban has served the state

Sacramento Bee – 4/5/07

By Karen Steele - Special To The Bee

 

A nesting leatherback in Caletas, Costa Rica. Photo courtesy Sea Turtle Restoration Project/Andy Pyle

 

For 30 years, California has had a ban on longline swordfish fishing because of the risks to other marine animals, including the endangered leatherback sea turtle.

 

On Friday, that ban will be in question as the Pacific Fisheries Management Council considers an application to allow a longline fishery vessel to target swordfish and operate off the coast near Monterey, beginning in August. We see the application, if approved, as the foot in the door to the creation of widespread, commercial longline fishery off the West Coast.

In 1977, California decided to ban the development of a pelagic longline fishery targeting swordfish within our Exclusive Economic Zone (the area up to 200 miles from shore).

 

This came after an experimental swordfish longline fishery off the California coast yielded a catch rate of a mere two swordfish to every 1,530 blue sharks caught. What happened to all the blue sharks? They were simply discarded as bycatch.

 

In longline fishing, a main line up to 60 miles long trails behind the boat. Other lines branch off the main line, and they employ thousands of hooks to snare whatever comes along. Suffering the same fate as the blue shark in longline fishing are sea turtles, marine mammals, seabirds, stingrays, billfish and other shark and fish species.

 

Fortunately for the blue shark and other California marine species, the longline ban has remained in place. Thirty years after the ban, does California want longlines along its coast? The answer is simple: It is still no.

 

This has been clearly conveyed at the Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) meetings. The representative for California consistently votes no on any such proposal, and public comments have numbered in the thousands opposing a longline fishery.

 

The council serves in an advisory role to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal agency charged with overseeing the country's living marine resources and their habitat. The council can recommend that the fisheries application be approved or not, and the National Marine Fisheries Service has the final say. The state of California has only one vote out of 14 in the council's decision that will directly impact our coast.

 

It does not take much to project the devastating impact lifting the ban could have on California's marine resources.

 

Just consider the data of previous experimental longline fisheries in California, and the long history of problems with the Atlantic and Hawaii-based longline fisheries. Swordfish stocks collapsed, and sea turtles and some marine mammal species have been caught by the hundreds.

 

Only a select few look to benefit from such a fishery in California -- and this approach would come at the cost to the thousands of marine species that would end up discarded as bycatch and to the millions of people who depend on a rich and diverse marine ecosystem in California for both recreation and their livelihood.

California boasts some of the most beautiful and diverse ocean habitat in the world. An array of whales, dolphins, sea otters, sea turtles, seabirds and other marine life can be spotted off our shores.

 

As a result Californians love their ocean. Visitors to California's coast each year number in the millions. People come to enjoy an array of activities from fishing and diving in Southern California's warmer waters, to viewing the beauty of the migrating humpback whales from the rugged cliff tops of Northern California.

 

The National Ocean Economics Program examined the state's ocean economy and reported in July 2005 an array of annual benefits to the state: $5 billion from beach recreation, $22 billion from coastal tourism and $2 billion from recreational and sport fishing, for example, in 2000.

 

Anyone who cherishes the beauty and diversity of California's oceans should let both the council and the National Marine Fisheries Service know that 30 years on, California continues to say no to longline fisheries.#

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/149527.html