A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
May 1, 2007
3. Watersheds -
Bureau of Reclamation News Release
Notice of Preparation Available and Scoping Meeting Scheduled for the Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Project
Sick seabirds still inundating local rescuers
Besides a flood of starving grebes and pelicans, several oil-coated birds are now washing ashore -
Reggie the alligator reappears in L.A.
Visitors are stunned at the sight, while park workers quickly erect protective fencing. -
_____________________________________________
Bureau of Reclamation News Release
Notice of Preparation Available and Scoping Meeting Scheduled for the Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Project
Media Contact:
Jeffrey McCracken
916-978-5100
Released On: April 30, 2007
Under guidance of the Trinity River Restoration Program (TRRP), the Bureau of Reclamation, Federal lead agency, and the Trinity County Resource Conservation District, State lead agency, announce the availability of a Notice of Preparation (NOP) for a Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Environmental Assessment (EA) for the “Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Project. The Draft EIR/EA will be a joint document prepared to meet the National Environmental Policy Act and California Environmental Quality Act requirements.
The Lewiston-Dark Gulch Rehabilitation Project is located along approximately 6.3 miles of the Trinity River upstream of the
A 30-day public scoping period will be held Tuesday, May 1 to Thursday, May 31, 2007, to elicit comments on the range of actions, alternatives, mitigation measures, and significant effects to be analyzed in the Draft EIR/EA.
A public scoping meeting will be held on
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
6:30 p.m.
Map
Project information will be presented and comments on the scope of the Draft EIR/EA will be accepted. The NOP and future project information is also available at: http://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_projdetails.cfm?Project_ID=2697.
For further information or to receive a copy of the NOP, please contact Mr. Brandt Gutermuth, Bureau of Reclamation, at 530-623-1806 or Mark Dowdle at Trinity County Restoration Conservation District, at 530-623-6004. Written comments may be sent to Mr. Gutermuth, Trinity River Restoration Program,
http://www.usbr.gov/newsroom/newsrelease/detail.cfm?RecordID=16741
Sick seabirds still inundating local rescuers
Besides a flood of starving grebes and pelicans, several oil-coated birds are now washing ashore
By David Sneed
Large numbers of starving seabirds continue to wash up on
“This abnormally high influx of seabirds is straining our resources immensely,” said Kathy Duncan, vice president of Pacific Wildlife Care, which operates a wildlife hospital in
In April, the hospital treated 110 starving seabirds, most of them grebes, a small diving seabird. Four starving brown pelicans have also been found, said Dani Nicholson, Pacific Wildlife Care president.
The number of birds in distress varies greatly from year to year. Last summer, animal rescuers were inundated by dozens of starving juvenile brown pelicans.
The birds washing up this year are not sick or poisoned but are emaciated from lack of food. The cause of the starvations is not known, said Mike Harris, state Department of Fish and Game biologist in
Pacific Wildlife Care is also dealing with a spate of oiled seabirds. The carcass of an oiled sea otter was also recently found.
“We occasionally get an oiled bird now and then, but we’ve gotten in 15 oiled birds in the past two weeks,”
Samples of the oil have been sent to the state’s oil spill laboratory in
“Typically, every spring there’s a deposit of tar balls on the beach,” Harris said. “We are seeing more this year than typical.”
While most of the starving birds are grebes, the oiled birds are of a variety of species.
Nursing a sick or starving seabird is a painstaking process,
They must also be kept in warm pools because sick birds cannot preen to keep themselves waterproof. Preening releases natural oils that help waterproof feathers, and the act also helps interlock the feathers, forming them into a barrier to water. Without such waterproofing, seabirds quickly become hypothermic in the cold ocean water.
Recently, Pacific Wildlife Care released into
“Both had gained weight, were waterproof and ready to go back into the wild,”
Wildlife rescuers are also bracing for an influx of marine animals sickened by domoic acid poisoning. An outbreak of domoic acid poisonings has taken place in the ocean off Southern California, Harris said, and
The poison comes from toxic algal blooms. The algae are eaten by baitfish, and the poison begins working its way up the marine food chain.
No seabirds have been sickened locally by the outbreak, but several sea lions and fur seals have been brought to the
Wildlife rescuers suspect that domoic acid poisoning will become a problem on the
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/183/story/30213.html
Reggie the alligator reappears in L.A.
Visitors are stunned at the sight, while park workers quickly erect protective fencing.
By Bob Pool, Times Staff Writer
Was that a smile on his toothy snout, or was Reggie the reclusive reptile just humming "See You Later, Alligator," as he floated Monday across a
Stunned visitors at
"He looked back at us with a bewildered look in his eye," said eyewitness Mike Molina, an aide to Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn.
The sighting caused a flurry of shoreline excitement as parks workers hurriedly began erecting safety fences and rangers were deployed to keep parkgoers safe from Reggie — and vice versa.
Hahn hurried to the lake at dusk as a crowd gathered. By then, the alligator had once more slipped beneath the 40-acre lake's murky waters.
"He showed himself for a couple of hours. I don't think any of us thought he was dead. I guess we'll have to call the gator-wrangling teams back," Hahn said as she inspected photos taken Monday of Reggie by park maintenance worker Todd Wales.
Professional alligator hunters, including a self-proclaimed gator expert uprooted from the swamps of Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina, and a team from Gatorland in Florida, spent months in 2005 unsuccessfully searching for Reggie after the creature was allegedly dumped in the lake by owners who considered him too big to keep.
The hurricane refugee, Thomas "T-Bone" Quinn, had angered the Floridians by calling their use of a pontoon boat in the lake "retarded." Insulted, they piled ashore and headed for home, with Gatorland team leader Ted Williams sniffing: "I will not allow some swamp rat to walk into a situation and make comments…. I am not going to allow Gatorland to be referred to as 'retarded.' "
Less than a month later, Quinn proved that Reggie wasn't the only one on the lam: Quinn was arrested on a
Hahn said she planned to call associates of the late "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin, whom she said volunteered his team to search for Reggie. Irwin was killed by a stingray off
In the meantime, Hahn said, she is hoping to obtain restitution from two men who have been charged with dumping Reggie in the lake in mid-2005. Ex-
Brewer pleaded no contest to a state wildlife law violation and was sentenced to probation. Natow, with the LAPD from 1984 to 2001, has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges tied to Reggie's possession and lake release.
"We've spent $180,000 at last count on public safety here because of Reggie," Hahn said.
Reggie's fans, meanwhile, were hoping that the reptile — now grown to an estimated 7-foot length — stays visible for a while this time around. Some point out that city officials quickly relocated a smaller alligator caught in September 2005 in a
"I could grab his tail and catch him," said 4-year-old Corien Yokley, visiting the lake late Monday with
Three-year-old Anthony David Reyes, also of
His father, automotive worker Marco Reyes, was certain Monday's gator was Reggie. "What are the chances of somebody dumping another alligator that size into this lake?" he asked.#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-reggie1may01,1,7957451.story?coll=la-headlines-california
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