[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 5/23/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

May 23, 2007

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

Levees, not bike paths

California lawmakers may spend some of Proposition 84's $5.3 billion in bond money on fish tanks and 'overnight accommodations.' -

Los Angeles Times

 

Shark made run for the border, researchers find

Young great white tracked from Monterey to Baja in effort to discover migration patterns -

Oakland Tribune

 

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Levees, not bike paths

California lawmakers may spend some of Proposition 84's $5.3 billion in bond money on fish tanks and 'overnight accommodations.'

Los Angeles Times – 5/23/07

 

CALIFORNIANS WHO voted for Proposition 84 in November had every right to take the "Official Voter Information Guide" to heart. It said the measure would authorize the state to issue $5.3 billion in bonds to pay for crucial water safety, water quality, flood control and park improvements.

So why are politicians in Sacramento now spending that money on "water-accessible overnight accommodations" at Lake Tahoe, bike trails in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, unspecified improvements to the Huntington Botanical Gardens and a new aquarium — er, make that oceanarium — in Fresno? Why? Because they can.

Put the blame on shortsighted legislators and loose language in the proposition itself, which was written to accommodate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of creative interpretation. Proposition 84 allocates $100 million specifically for museums and $400 million specifically for parks. But hundreds of millions more are set aside for what amount to vague purposes: missions such as "wildlife habitat protection" ($225 million) and the always popular "other projects" ($189 million).

Joe Caves, the lobbyist who wrote Proposition 84, told The Times that the prospect of throwing some funds to museums, aquariums and hiking trails sweetened the deal for voters by giving them something more to like in the measure than just a litany of dull infrastructure repairs. That's hogwash; more likely, it's the other way around. Californians have, in fact, been skeptical of borrowing large sums of money to pay for cultural institutions. Just last year, voters rejected Proposition 81, which would have provided $600 million in bond money for libraries. Crumbling levees and threatened rivers, on the other hand, command considerable respect, and those threats gave Proposition 84 the urgency needed to move voters.

Legislators don't have to engage in this unseemly spending spree. They don't have to violate the spirit of a law intended to use bonds to clean up rivers and improve water management. Citizens take seriously the state's massive bond debt — $55.7 billion, with another $78.1 billion authorized but not issued. Lawmakers should too.

This paper applauded Proposition 84 last year, noting that its passage, along with the other infrastructure bonds, demonstrated that California voters were willing to put their faith in Sacramento when lawmakers acted responsibly. "That's what we elect representatives for — to iron out the details and reach a fair compromise," we wrote then, full of confidence in our state's leadership.

We imagined that such compromises would involve careful weighing of levee improvement and water supply projects, not bike paths and fish tanks. If legislators expect voters to trust them in the future, they need to demonstrate their resolve with this money and spend it as advertised.#

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-water23may23,0,2638704.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail

 

Shark made run for the border, researchers find

Young great white tracked from Monterey to Baja in effort to discover migration patterns

Oakland Tribune – 5/23/07

By Douglas Fischer, staff writer

 

A tagged great white shark traveled 2,200 miles at depths of up to 1,000 feet in a three-month trip from near the Monterey Bay to the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula, according to data released Tuesday from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Stanford University.

 

The tracking information offers a rare window into where young great white sharks go in Southern California. It paints a picture of the shark's daily life and, in this case, it shows a young shark's clear preference for warm water — the white shark moved steadily from colder Northern California waters to the warm waters of the Sea of Cortez.

 

"The animal really just beelined it south and then east," said Kevin Weng, a graduate student at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station.

 

"It slowed down considerably once it got to waters near Baja, where it was considerably warmer."

 

The shark's travels also highlight challenges facing both the United States and Mexico as the two governments worktoward conservation, said John O'Sullivan, the aquarium's curator of field operations and husbandry and the white shark program's manager.

 

"It shows you the extensive areas that young white sharks utilize for their life," he said. "If they just went to the Guadalupe Islands or the Farallones, management would be easy."

 

The data was captured in an electronic tag about the size of a microphone that popped free from the shark about 25 miles from Cabo San Lucas on the Baja Peninsula on April 15 and was recovered eight days later in 4-foot seas.

 

The shark, caught last August off Los Angeles and released at the southern end of Monterey Bay in January, apparently spent days near the surface, with occasional dives to 600 feet and beyond. Deepest dives came at dawn and dusk.

 

Nights were spent in deeper waters of about 250 feet. That's the opposite of most marine fish, such as tuna and marlin, which tend to spend days deep and nights near the surface, Weng said. Researchers can't explain the shark's behavior and said Tuesday they can only assume the dives were for feeding while the time at the surface was spent in transit to new feeding grounds.

 

The most tantalizing tidbit, researchers agreed, was about to be revealed when the tag released on schedule after 90 days.

Scientists have long wondered if sharks migrate between the eastern Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez. The shark was at an important seamount at the Gulf of California's entrance, known as the Cabrillo Seamount, when the tag released.

Researchers will never know if the shark was about to turn the corner and enter the warmer, shallower Sea of Cortez, or if it was simply feeding at the southern end of the known range for juvenile white sharks.

 

"It came right up at this critical place," Weng said. "It left us thinking, 'We left the tag on for 90 days. We should have gone for another 20.'"

The young male was only the second great white shark to survive more than 16 days in captivity, spending 137 days first in an offshore pen then at the aquarium before he was deemed too large to be safely kept in a tank. The record for white shark captivity also belongs to the aquarium, 198 days for a young female that was released in 2005.

 

This summer marks the fifth field season for the aquarium's white shark program and researchers hope to bring another shark back to the aquarium for research and exhibit.#

http://www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_5966067

 

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