Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
June 25, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People -
Price delays Delta screens
Debated smelt solution falls prey to $1 billion cost -
Coastal zones set agenda on climate
Vulnerability forces areas to face change -
Grand jury demands completion of Lake Elsinore
Riverside Press
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Price delays Delta screens
Debated smelt solution falls prey to $1 billion cost
By Alex Breitler, staff writer
Replacing those facilities was discussed long before smelt were pushed to the edge of extinction.
But any action has been indefinitely delayed because of a price of more than $1 billion and, some say, reluctance by those who receive Delta water to pay for fish protection.
"In my opinion, installation of a fish screen is part of the cost of doing business," said Tina Swanson, a biologist with conservation group The Bay Institute.
A dead end
But would the new fish screens save enough smelt to make them worth the investment?
There is no way to divert smelt - or other sensitive species such as salmon and steelhead - around the state and federal pumps. They're at a dead end in the far southern Delta.
Fish that escaped getting sucked into the pumps are funneled into trucks and driven to release points elsewhere in the Delta. Predators are known to congregate in these areas for a free lunch.
In short, the current salvage and release is a flawed system, some say, one that new fish screens wouldn't solve.
"This whole idea of spending what admittedly would be a large sum of money to salvage smelt, but having the smelt not survive the handling and transport, probably made it a pretty good call" not to replace the fish screens, said Doug Lovell, a fisherman who owns a home on Bethel Island.
Lovell's Federation of Fly Fishers, however, endorses reduced water diversions and control of toxic chemicals in the Delta, pegged as another reason for the smelt's decline. Yet another is hundreds or thousands of smaller private unscreened diversions that might kill smelt.
"We're still strong believers that (cities and farms) just don't have the right to blatantly take and kill viable fish with their diversions," Lovell said.
Record-low numbers of smelt triggered a 10-day shutdown of the state pumps and reductions at the federal pumps earlier this month, prompting the obvious question: Why can't the smelt be kept out of the pumps altogether?
No easy answer
CALFED, the state-federal partnership that was supposed to solve many of the state's water woes, called for new fish screens in 2000 to accompany an increase in exports. The screens were to be built by 2006.
A multi-agency team of water officials, environmentalists and water users appeared to abandon the plan in April 2005, saying in a report that the cost could run as high as $1.7 billion. More cost-effective ideas should be explored, the group's leaders concluded.
Roger Patterson, assistant general manager for Metropolitan Water District, said it's hard to say if new fish screens would aid the smelt but that the district is willing to consider anything that might solve the problem.
"There has been an effort to look at improving the screens," said Patterson, whose district sends water to 18 million people. "It would be expensive to do."
Finger-long smelt, and even smaller juveniles, are difficult to screen at the fish salvage facilities, which were designed for salmon and other larger fish in the 1950s, said Dan Odenweller, a retired Department of Fish and Game biologist who lives in
The state's fish screen uses water turbulence as a behavioral tool, warning fish to swim into pipes that lead to salvage tanks. But smelt often aren't strong enough to swim against the pull of the pumps, Odenweller said.
"It's like building something for teenage swimmers and running 3-year-olds against it," he said.
The smelt slip through inch-wide slots and into the pumps. New fish screens might have openings as small as a couple of millimeters, Odenweller said.
The final toll
The government calculates how many fish are killed at the pumps based on how many are salvaged. But the real toll could be 30 to 40 times higher than these estimates suggest, Odenweller said.
No one knows how many smelt are killed at the pumps.
Katherine Kelly, who heads the state Department of Water Resources' Bay-Delta Office, said officials are planning for ways to create a more fish-friendly salvage, including the use of two new trucks. There is no plan to replace the fish screens themselves.#
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070624/A_NEWS/706240329
Coastal zones set agenda on climate
Vulnerability forces areas to face change
By Mike Lee
KEY WEST,
Strahan figures that few of the people he is there to protect are as worried as he is about a less imminent but far-reaching threat: Global warming is causing the world's oceans to expand, and they gradually could swallow coral reefs such as
Likewise, rising sea levels could haunt dozens of coastal cities, including
Global warming is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and hurricanes. Rising temperatures likely will damage fisheries, increase heat-related deaths, hasten the spread of infectious diseases and alter where crops can grow.
Government agencies, politicians and activists are slowly ramping up their efforts to adapt to these projected changes. No national program exists to coordinate such a monumental mission, so the work largely has fallen to state and local governments.
Like most of the country, the
“We are just seeing so many areas at the local level that we probably would need to do some sort of serious rethinking about,” said Linda Giannelli Pratt, a climate change expert for the city of
Locally and nationally, water is a major focal point: securing enough drinking water, improving flood control and dealing with sea levels that many scientists expect will rise 1 foot to 3 feet during the next century.
Solutions may include building floating docks that can rise with ocean levels, extending sea walls, adding stricter rules to protect coral reefs and retreating from the coast through new zoning regulations.
Researchers also are developing drought-resistant crops and urging the public to conserve more water.
“The first thing to realize is that proactive adaptation is going to be far less expensive than reactive adaptation,” said Stephen Mulkey, the science adviser to the Century Commission for a Sustainable Florida, a state panel assessing climate change.
“We are going to have to make an upfront investment with imperfect insight.”
Starts here
Since at least the early 1990s,
That's partly because of the Bush administration's hesitance to address global warming. Also, some environmentalists believe that focusing on adaptation would undermine efforts to curb pollutants that contribute to climate change.
While it may be possible to stall the worst effects of climate change, the amount of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere likely will alter Earth's climate for decades.
“We're at the point where we have to do both (mitigation and adaptation),” said Peter Altman, a climate change analyst for the National Environmental Trust in Washington, D.C. “We know that we are going to see more changes and that the U.S. is simply not ready.”
In
In the Legislature, the Assembly passed a bill this month that requires local governments along the coast to consider the impacts of sea level rise when amending their general plans. The legislation is awaiting Senate action.
“If we bury our heads in the sand on this one, we may drown,” said Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, who wrote the bill.
Few places in North America are more vulnerable to climate shifts than
Droughts coupled with rising sea levels increase the chance of saltwater infiltrating and contaminating the state's aquifers.
That's just one of the state's many challenges related to global warming.
For example, warming ocean water has damaged coral reefs, which act as nurseries for the Atlantic's food chain and as a pot of gold for
The reefs have massive dead zones where once-vibrant undersea gardens are now eerily vacant, said Billy Causey, a federal oceans official based in
The administration of President Bush recently proposed legislation that calls for better management of the nation's reefs in light of climate change. Congress has yet to embrace the cause.
Across the country from
Like many coastal zones, the Bay Area is susceptible to damage caused by rising water levels. Its shorelines have been extended with dredge spoils, then covered with warehouses, office parks and other buildings.
Potential remedies include extending sea walls in some areas and discouraging development in others.
“We are trying to sort out as a society how . . . we get from here to there,” Travis said.
Guiding government
In
“There is very little guidance on where to find relevant information about the impacts of climate change or how to go about preparing for them,” said Amy Snover, assistant director of the
Apart from the handbook, Sims is pushing for far greater use of recycled water. He sees it as a measure against potential drought, even in the famously wet region.
Sims also has formed a countywide flood-control district to improve levees in anticipation of more frequent and more severe floods.
“Communities that thrive in this new century will be the ones that take action now,” Sims said.
Participants will include The San Diego Foundation. The grant-making operation runs the Climate Change Initiative, an effort to raise public awareness about global warming and help formulate a regional adaptation strategy.
“We need to attain a far greater understanding of what are the local implications of climate change,” said Emily Young, environment program manager for the foundation. “That would provide the basis for developing policies and making investments.”
Cities such as
“This is a crisis situation,” said Michael Meacham, conservation director for
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070625/news_1n25adapt.html
Grand jury demands completion of Lake Elsinore
Riverside Press
By Mary Bender, staff writer
The torrential rains of January 2005 not only deluged
The grand jury report, released on June 13, was brief -- three pages of text, plus two diagrams -- and contained three recommendations about how to prevent a repeat of the flooding that washed out roads at the cemetery and nearly unearthed caskets.
About 7,300 people have been interred at the cemetery at
Property taxes from communities in the district help pay for
The grand jury concluded that the city and
"The taxpayers ... are still paying for undelivered flood control improvements," the report said.
One of the areas hit hardest by the flood runoff was a neighboring Jewish burial ground that, after a synagogue sold it in the 1980s, became part of
The flood waters "came across a large portion of the Jewish cemetery," said Fred Crowe, part of the three-member cemetery district board of trustees. Water flowed past the upright headstones.
Making matters worse, the Jewish cemetery employed a burial technique that adhered to religious custom at the time of putting the casket directly in the soil, Crowe said. At most cemeteries, the casket is encased in a concrete vault before being lowered into the hole.
The CDF/Riverside County Fire Department responded to the flooding by bringing a loader and other excavating equipment to the cemetery, and placing concrete barricades in the path of the runoff, he said.
"They turned the flows away from the cemetery. They deflected the water away," Crowe said. "So they were able to keep those graves from washing out. They would have washed out."
Crowe said the concrete barriers still remain at the Jewish burial ground, more than two years after the flood.
The grand jury report doesn't provide that level of detail about storm damage, but mentions some factors that caused the cemetery to become a repository of storm runoff.
"Heavy rainfall in January 2005, coupled with a series of factors (previous filling of a retention basin, paving of previously permeable soil, and California Department of Transportation's ... lack of culvert maintenance and debris clearance) resulted in flooding of the cemetery," the report said.
The retention basin and the paving mentioned in the report refers to a former clay mine that was filled in for construction of the Lowe's and Costco shopping plaza, at Central Avenue northeast of Interstate 15. The cemetery lies on the opposite side of the freeway from those stores.
Crowe said culverts that drain runoff from the shopping plaza run under the freeway, and
The report recommended the city and the Riverside County Board of Supervisors pledge to "communicate, coordinate and cooperate in areas of mutual concern" to ensure better disaster prevention and response.
The grand jury, whose only identified member is foreman John Todd, also recommended that county supervisors "identify and commit sufficient funds now ... to finish the Arroyo del Toro Channel flood control project." Otherwise, the supervisors should submit another bond measure to voters who live within the cemetery district, this time of an amount sufficient to cover the costs, the panel wrote.
As part of the grand jury process, the parties involved must submit a written response. The city of
Disaster relief funding that allowed the cemetery to repair washed-out roads came from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, not from the local governments, the report stated.
Dennis refuted the grand jury's implication that "the city was somehow indifferent to the situation, or not involved," he said. Rather, the storm's inundation caused problems all over
"We had a cave-in on
The Board of Supervisors, at its meeting on Tuesday, will be asked to direct the Riverside County Flood Control and Water Conservation District to draft a response to the grand jury's findings within 30 days. Under the penal code, county supervisors have 90 days from the report's release to submit their official response, jury foreman Todd said in a letter.#
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_D_scemetery25.3c41d33.html
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