Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 1, 2007
3. Watersheds
BAY AREA WETLANDS:
Berkeley wetlands get $1.5 million; Grant seen as step forward in developing Eastshore State Park - Inside Bay Area
DELTA ISSUES:
Guest Opinion: The fish and the whales - San Francisco Chronicle
BAY AREA WETLANDS:
Inside Bay Area – 6/1/07
By Kristin Bender
It's another step forward in the more than three decades-long effort to develop the 8.5-mile long Eastshore State Park, 2,000 acres of uplands and tidelands along the waterfront of Berkeley, Oakland, Emeryville, Albany and Richmond.
Of the $1.5 million, more than $1.4 million will go to the East Bay Regional Park District to restore seasonal wetlands at the Berkeley Meadow, an area on the northern side of
"We've lost 90 percent of all the wetlands. This is a major step forward to put forth that back," said Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, who has worked on developing the
Before Bates was mayor, he served in the state Assembly for 20 years and wrote the legislation that created the park.
The 72-acre meadow is a gateway to the park and a mix of nature preserves for birds and wildlife, and recreation areas for walkers, waders, bicyclists, anglers and picnickers.
Last fall, a 17-acre slice of the Berkeley Meadow was opened.
Restoration of the former garbage dump marked the first completed phase of the Eastshore State Park General Plan, adopted in 2002 after 25 years of work by park leaders, elected officials and community watchdogs.
About $120,000 of the Coastal Conservancy's grant funds will go to California State Parks for planning and design of an area known as the "brickyard."
Ultimately, there will be an interpretive center, more access to the shoreline, trails and picnic areas and the perfect place to throw a Frisbee, Bates said.
"We keep pushing and pushing, and pretty soon we'll have a real park," Bates said.
The plan is expected to be completed in a year, and it will put the park in line for millions of dollars in state bond money.
"People will have a lot of input into the (plan), and then we'll be ready for the next step," he said. Developing the area will ultimately cost $10 million to $12 million, Bates said. #
http://www.insidebayarea.com/localnews/ci_6036532
DELTA ISSUES:
Guest Opinion: The fish and the whales
San Francisco Chronicle – 5/31/07
By Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute
The Terminator may soon become Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's official title, not just his humorous nickname. For the past week, media and public attention has been riveted on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as two wayward whales made their way back to the
Numerous surveys this year turned up only 25 of the officially threatened fish, a tiny fraction of the number found in similar surveys taken over the past seven years. This led the federal and state scientists conducting the surveys to issue an unprecedented warning describing the delta smelt as "critically imperiled" and calling for an "emergency response."
The extinction of any species is a tragedy. The extinction of the smelt would be an unnecessary one, given our impressive scientific understanding of this species and its ecosystem. While the smelt is small, unphotogenic and unlikely to generate swarms of reporters in helicopters, boats and TV vans, the implications of its extinction will be felt from the governor's office to the farms and cities of
Unfortunately, for many years California governors and federal and state environmental officials at agencies ranging from the Department of Water Resources to Fish and Game to the Bureau of Reclamation have been unwilling to implement the increasingly urgent recommendations of the scientific teams to change the way the delta water system is managed. The economic and political pressures to maintain exports of water to
The scientific evidence suggests that reducing the amount of water diverted from the delta by both state and federal facilities during the critical periods when young fish are near the pumps should help reduce piscine mortality. Reducing exports during spawning is also considered critical, and can be done by better monitoring and controlling for delta water temperatures. Despite specific recommendations to reduce exports of water that threaten fish and to modify or eliminate physical barriers in the delta, water exports have gone up in recent years, not down. The science shows a clear relationship between increasing water exports and decreasing survival of fish. Yet we know that exports of water south can be reduced by accelerating and expanding efforts to reduce wasteful and inefficient uses of water. Even now, during a severe drought, few water agencies are putting new water-use efficiency programs in place, preferring instead to just hope that next year is wet.
Scientific uncertainties remain, but this is not the time for new studies. There is now a real risk that the fish may literally be studied to death. While the biology of the fish and the complex dynamics of the delta make it hard for scientists to know what will guarantee survival of the species, the official scientific working group has made a set of specific recommendations in its most recent briefing statement. In particular, the massive delta pumps must be operated so that they don't completely reverse the flows of the Old and Middle rivers; south delta water exports and physical barriers must be limited until the vast majority of the smelt population migrates below the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers; flows in the San Joaquin River must be increased during summer; and the salinity in the western delta must be managed to maximize smelt spawning and survival.
If the governor doesn't want to be a real-life Terminator, he must immediately direct his agency officials to implement these recommendations. Save the whales, but save the fishes, too.
Peter H. Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an independent nonprofit policy research group in Oakland, a MacArthur fellow and a member of the
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/05/31/EDGHRQ45531.DTL
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