A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 9, 2007
3. Watersheds
LAKE TAHOE :
Keeping Tahoe safe; Harold Singer lost his home in the Angora fire. Now, the head of the water district dedicated to keeping Tahoe blue is taking a new look at his agency's rules - Sacramento Bee
River is resurrected; The long-dry Owens now teems with birds and fish -
State to try to kill High Sierra lake's pike; The water was poisoned 10 years ago but it didn't exterminate the carnivorous fish, which pose a threat to native species - Los Angeles Times
BUTTE CREEK:
Dry year has PG&E tweaking Butte Creek system - Chico Enterprise Record
Salton Sea restoration plan is one step closer - Imperial Valley Press
DELTA ISSUES:
State turns delta pumps off at night to protect threatened fish - Associated Press
Delta has said goodbye before; Long before talk of disappearing smelt, there was the chub - Stockton Record
Historic hatchery is set to become research facility - Tahoe Daily Tribune
LAKE TAHOE :
Keeping Tahoe safe; Harold Singer lost his home in the Angora fire. Now, the head of the water district dedicated to keeping Tahoe blue is taking a new look at his agency's rules
Sacramento
By Chris Bowman, staff writer
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE -- California's top water quality enforcer at Lake Tahoe, the sapphire of the Sierra, said the recent wildfire that ripped through hundreds of south shore homes should "re-open the book" on environmental rules that call for preserving the lake's clarity above all else.
For decades, "Keep Tahoe Blue" has defined the overarching mission for this region that Congress declared a "national treasure."
Sport-utility vehicles, hybrids and skateboards alike sport the motto on decals. Former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore embraced the goal at a lakeside summit that raised nearly $1 billion to halt urban runoff into the lake.
But the destruction from last month's Angora fire has the
"The biggest tragedy of all of this will be if we don't learn from what happened," said Harold Singer, executive officer of the state Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board.
"I am willing to open up the book on this. If there is something that tells us there is a better way to protect water quality and still allow fire agencies to reduce the fire threat, we will work with them."
To that end, Singer has already opened discussions with federal and state land managers and the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which includes the devastated
Foremost on their minds are the regulations protecting the 64 "stream environment zones" around the lake. Many of these creeks are cluttered with deadwood and flanked with dense stands of white fir and lodge pole pines.
The stream zones, however, are off-limits to conventional logging operations that fire officials say are needed to efficiently reduce fire hazard throughout the heavily forested, 500-square-mile Tahoe basin.
Heavy disturbance could release large slugs of sediment that streams would funnel into the lake, clouding its clarity. Likewise, heavy equipment could compact the spongy wetlands that naturally absorb and filter stormwater runoff.
The lake already is losing about a foot of transparency a year, the result of development disturbing the fragile granite soil and the fallout of air pollutants from traffic ringing the urban playground.
Some fire analysts said Angora Creek became the primary path of the blaze because it is choked with deadwood and because stretches of the creek corridor run southwest to northeast, the predominant direction of the wind-driven fire.
"I know that with the very strong southwesterly winds that day (June 24) and with the alignment of the creek, all that dead material in there contributed to the intensity of the fire -- that and the fact that we had very low relative humidity the previous two days," said Dave Marlow, manager of vegetation, fire and fuels for the U.S. Forest Service's Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.
"It's why we call the stream zones the wicks to the bigger fire," Marlow said. "The fire will tend to follow that untreated, decadent jackstraw pile of vegetation along streams, and then get up to the forest and cause problems. That's partially what happened in the case of the
Singer said the devastation has prompted him to investigate whether the streams could sustain more disturbance for the sake of better fire protection.
"I have called fire officials and they've said that (
If Singer sounds as though he is taking this personally, it's because he has been publicly blamed for the fire.
In the midst of the blaze, Tim Leslie, who represented the
"Harold Singer ... is the bureaucrat of bureaucrats," Leslie said in a June 27 phone interview with KFBK radio talk show host Tom Sullivan.
"You should have him on the show, but when he comes on, he'll wow everybody, he'll convince everybody he did everything humanly possible, blah, blah, blah. But I tell you that's what it is -- blah, blah. He's the one who says, 'Oh, you can't walk on the ground, you can't cut out those dead trees.' "
Had Sullivan sought out Singer for response, he probably would have had a hard time reaching him. Singer said he was out all that day house hunting with his wife and two children. Their home of 19 years was one of the 254 destroyed in the fire.
They had about 20 minutes to pack and flee.
Singer, 58, dashed for the family documents and computer. His wife, Pam, grabbed the photo albums.
Their young daughter, Regan, 7, clung to "Uni," her stuffed unicorn, while their son, Garrett, ran for the Lionel train set he got for Christmas.
"It's a Santa Fe Chief," Singer said, tears welling. He said, 'Dad, get your Lionel train, too.' "
As Singer pulled a jam-packed Ford Expedition away from their home, Garrett said, "Dad, stop!" The 13-year-old ran back and hugged the house as far as his arms could stretch.
The fire left nothing but memories to embrace upon their return six days later.
Leslie said he didn't know Singer was homeless when he skewered him on air.
"I feel sorry for anyone who lost their home. But that has nothing to do with any of my opinions related to the fire danger around here," Leslie said Friday in an interview with The Bee.
Leslie called Singer's willingness to reconsider the streamside logging restrictions "a pleasant change of attitude" -- but too little, too late.
"He should have realized the danger a long time ago," Leslie said. "Instead of looking for ways to stop thinning, he should have been looking for ways to get around these bureaucratic obstacles."
But Singer and other environment officials in the Tahoe basin have been keen to the fire danger for years.
In 1994, the politically appointed members of the Lahontan water board -- whose region runs the length of the eastern side of the Sierra -- approved Singer's recommendation to allow greater use of controlled burns in stream zones and permit heavy logging in these areas under certain conditions. For example, big trucks and trackers can enter wetlands over the snow in meadows that already have roads.
The following year Singer won an exemption from the state forestry board that made it easier to remove dead and dying trees on the
Two years ago, with the fire danger reaching the critical stage, the forestry board adopted an "emergency order" exclusively for Tahoe allowing live green trees to be removed along streams without the normally required environmental impact report -- again at Singer's urging.
And last year, the Lahontan water board secured $200,000 in state money with a 50 percent match from up to 80 property owners to pay for the removal of trees and underbrush within 30 feet of homes in the Lake Valley Fire Protection District.
Still, most of the fire clearing along Tahoe streams has been done on foot with chainsaws, with crews carrying out wood by hand, the Forest Service's Marlow said.
Singer said he is open to loggers entering sensitive areas with big rigs that cut costs and time so long as they can show the soil disturbance will be minimal.
The Forest Service is taking up Singer's offer in a fire-prone area threatening
"We are really hoping that we can really be able to do this work without any negative effect on the environment," Marlow said. #
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/263183-p2.html
River is resurrected; The long-dry Owens now teems with birds and fish
By Louis Sahagun, staff writer
In this case, his charge is the
Ecologists knew the Lower Owens would come back to life. But how fast would it rebuild itself? Which wildlife would appear first? Which plants?
Scientists have been surprised by some of the early answers, and to flesh out the details Hill recently took his first survey by kayak of the river. Hill, the lead scientist in the Lower Owens River Project, stepped into a blue inflatable 16-foot kayak, said "Let's go," and was soon scooting through the channel that cuts across the
Hill's daylong journey, which included visitors in a separate kayak, was marked by striking displays of birds, fish and insects already setting up shop during the restored river's first summer. The water ran cold and, in this part of the channel, about knee deep. But the water was so clear that it seemed as though the kayaks were moving barely above the gravel bottom.
Locals call this vast, arid region, about 200 miles north of
"Wow! Look at that," Hill said, nodding toward a cloud of baby largemouth bass — evidence of the species' first spawn in the revived river system — wafting through a tangle of water lilies. Nearby, carp and
Great blue herons and kingfishers plucked fish from myriad shallow inlets created by the new flows. At dusk, bank swallows caught flying insects after emerging from small caves they had chipped out of steep riverbank cliffs.
The water, which comes from the Upper Owens River, began its journey high in the
The original river channel here was formed about 25,000 to 50,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene Epoch, and the water flowed in torrents as fast as 3,000 cubic feet per second. The water now courses at a carefully controlled rate of about 40 cubic feet per second.
That rate is about the pace of a leisurely stroll, and when the diversion project began Dec. 6, it took about 19 days for the water to arrive at the northern end of
The
The manure-fed moss provides food for unexpectedly vigorous populations of fish, which have begun venturing out beyond the spring-fed ponds. Gravel in the riverbed provides an ideal habitat for diatoms, beautiful microscopic algae and early links in the food chain.
Tree stumps, eyesores when the channel was dry, now offer shelter for young fish or redirect currents, which sometimes gouge the riverbed. Mathematical simulations predicted the water would run about 2 to 4 feet deep, depending on the width of the channel. But the redirected currents are digging out sections 6 to 10 feet deep in places.
"We didn't expect to see this much velocity in the river," Hill said. "We didn't expect to see this much clarity in the river. We didn't expect to see this many deep holes in the river."
Groundwater has recharged and risen faster than anticipated and oxygen levels remain high, creating hundreds of channels and ponds that will soon become ideal habitat for waterfowl and fish. "All good signs the river is coming on strong," Hill said.
Later this year, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plans to release pulses of water at rates of 200 cubic feet per second to mimic annual flood cycles and distribute willow seeds. If all goes according to plan, within a decade, willows will cloak the banks, creating shady canopies over pools that Hill predicted would be "prime bass and catfish real estate."
But the arrival of some species means the departure of others. When willows and cottonwoods finally shade parts of the river, sun-hungry moss will disappear from those areas. Some desert shrubs, such as salt brush, rabbit brush and bitter weed, are already dying because they don't like the high water table.
"We're witnessing the start of a recovery that will occur in stages in what has become an enormous outdoor laboratory for river restoration," Hill said.
The project was long in coming and, like most issues involving water between
Earlier this year, a judge said the DWP had not done all that was required in the Lower Owens River Project. As a result, Inyo County Superior Court Judge Lee E. Cooper denied a request by the city to lift fines of $5,000 a day that the judge imposed Sept. 5, 2005, for failing to restore the river in a timely manner.
These days, the river's flow and nature's rapid response are instilling a new sense of pride at the DWP, long viewed as a hostile landlord and responsible for environmental devastation. For locals, the project is a remarkable gift of conservation and potential boon for the tourist stops along U.S. 395 just east of the snaggletoothed Sierra range.
Francis Pedneau, a lifelong rockhound and bass fisherman in these parts, described the improved relations with
During a recent flight over the Lower Owens, pilot and local motel owner Martin Powell banked his single-engine Cessna over glistening marshlands north of the community of Lone Pine and said, "It's as green as I've ever seen it. There's a lot of sand down there seeing water for the first time outside of a rainstorm. Very nice. Very nice."
Back in the river channel, Hill maneuvered his kayak among clumps of tumbleweeds, tree stumps, beaver dams and tule thickets, which are a continuing problem because they obstruct ideal flow patterns.
The DWP is considering using a special machine to remove tules, Hill said.
But the project's biggest challenge, he said, will be keeping the valley's cattle herds away from pioneer colonies of willows and cottonwoods until they can grow to a height of at least 4 to 6 feet.
"We're putting up more than 50 miles of barbed-wire fences along the river channel to manage the cows," Hill said. "To cows, willow shoots are like candy."
Most of the restoration work, then, falls to Mother Nature. There are no plans to stock the stream with fish or new plants. In about five to seven years the larger species in the food chain, such as elk, deer and mountain lion, will establish themselves along the river system.
For now, that system continues to awaken. The kayaks slipped past willows spewing seeds into the flow. Brambles buzzed with dragonflies that were dropping eggs into the water, which will produce larvae to feed fish. A green tree frog climbed aboard a patch of bunch grass.
After exploring six miles of the river, Hill dragged his kayak onto a sun-bleached, sandy shoal where he was greeted by William Platts, his associate and mentor at Ecosystem Sciences Foundation, a
Standing on a bluff and watching the river flow, the affable 79-year-old Platts smiled. "It's working good, Mark," he said. "This will be a better river than it was before the DWP came into the
"It took a long time to get this far," he added. "All we have to do now is get out of nature's way." #
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-owens8jul08,1,6004208,full.story
State to try to kill High Sierra lake's pike; The water was poisoned 10 years ago but it didn't exterminate the carnivorous fish, which pose a threat to native species
By Eric Bailey, staff writer
Ten years after the state poisoned the water in a highly controversial and ultimately unsuccessful bid to exterminate the pike, officials once again plan to treat
The list of chemicals includes known carcinogens that in sufficient quantities can cause human health problems such as liver and kidney ailments or cancer. But state health officials contend that the chemicals, which will be released in minute concentrations, should dissipate within weeks to levels that won't pose a threat to people.
Such assurances have helped assuage concerns among many residents of Portola and other towns near
"What they're proposing to do once again is absurd and insane, but there doesn't seem to be any fight left in the community," said Dan Wilson, a fifth-grade teacher from Portola. He believes the poison causes health problems in children, though there are not any studies to support him.
State officials dispute any connection to health problems and say their looming chemical assault is a necessary step to ensure that the invasive fish doesn't escape downriver. "We don't feel these chemicals are a safety hazard — not in these amounts," said Steve Martarano, a Fish and Game spokesman.
The fear among wildlife authorities is that pike could reach the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, putting the bite on salmon runs and obliterating endangered delta smelt.
The pike first appeared in
By 1999, the pike had reappeared. Officials tried every method they could think of to kill the invaders — catching them with nets, setting off explosives, shocking them with electricity. Nothing stopped the pike, which experts now believe may number more than 1 million in the lake.
The proposed chemical treatment, expected to be dumped into
A liquid that goes by the product name CFT Legumine, it includes rotenone but doesn't contain piperonyl butoxide, a suspected carcinogen and toxic substance that lingered in the lake for months after the first treatment.
CFT Legumine does have trace levels of hydrocarbons, which help disperse the rotenone through the water. Those chemicals are associated with human health problems such as cancer and kidney and liver ailments.
State Department of Health Services officials studied the chemical brew and, in a 13-page report, declared that if applied correctly it should produce no adverse health effects in the short or long term.
Randy Kelly, a Fish and Game environmental scientist, said the chemicals would be broken down within weeks by bacteria in the lake, would be absorbed by lake-bottom sediments or would evaporate into the atmosphere. "There are some individuals who don't want anything in their environment," he said. "We're trying to provide them with all the information we have, but we're never going to satisfy everyone." #
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pike7jul07,1,4886388.story?coll=la-headlines-california
BUTTE CREEK:
Dry year has PG&E tweaking Butte Creek system
By Heather Hacking, staff writer
Statewide water managers have been keeping tabs on the amount of water storage in a year that has seen a low amount of rain and snowpack. It's been a dry enough year that
Bill Zemke, senior license coordinator for PG&E, said this year's dry year is comparable to that in 2001.
Water supply is thought to be generally sufficient this year, due to carryover storage from last year, but another dry spring as occurred this year could cause managers to deep-think their water delivery strategies.
PG&E operates a complicated system of water management and hydroelectric production in the Butte Creek Watershed. The DeSabla-Centerville project includes managing water for flows and temperature along Butte Creek, while providing water for powerhouses at DeSabla, Toadtown and
About 15 miles northeast of Magalia, Round Valley Reservoir (locally known as
Temperatures are important because Chinook salmon migrate from the ocean in spring. The fish swim up Butte Creek and eventually spawn in late summer. Most spawn and die about 1-2 miles south of the
Releases from
Last week,
If temperatures are expected to be higher than 105 (measured in Cohasset) for two or more days, resource agencies will be notified so PG&E can divert more cold water to Butte Creek.
Tuesday releases from
Water temperature monitoring will continue throughout warm months in nine stations used in 2006, plus an additional site at
The Centerville-DeSabla project is up for relicensing by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rules in October 2009.
Between now and then, many studies are needed to decide how to modify management of the system in the future, Zemke said.
For more information of the relicensing of the DeSabla-Centerville project, go to www.desabla-centerville-relicensing.com. #
http://www.chicoer.com/fastsearchresults/ci_6325370
By Jonathan Athens, staff writer
SALTON SEA — California lawmakers earlier this week took one small step to revitalizing the Salton Sea and one giant leap to putting more of that responsibility on one man’s shoulders.
The Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee decided Tuesday to put California Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman temporarily in charge of a proposed $8.9 billion restoration and revitalization plan for the sea.
The committee’s decision comes as lawmakers are deliberating over the ambitious 75-year restoration plan that Chrisman put before them in May.
The plan is the culmination of three years of public debates, discussions and engineering studies among various area stakeholders here and elsewhere to come up with a way to save the sea, which has been in a state of decay for decades.
Committee members picked Chrisman until they are able to come up with a permanent body made up of area stakeholders who will be held accountable for implementation and oversight of the plan.
“We’ve got to get everybody comfortable with the approach and the process. This is a big effort,” Chrisman told the Imperial Valley Press.
It’s a big job and somebody’s got to do it, but Chrisman isn’t daunted even though he already has a big job. The $6.4 billion agency he heads up has 16,000 employees serving in just over two dozen commissions, boards, departments and conservancies that deal with natural resources issues throughout the Golden State.
“Mike is a very talented individual,” said Rick Daniels, executive director of the Salton Sea Authority.
Daniels said he thinks the committee’s decision was necessary to keep the restoration efforts moving forward, especially since time to save the sea is running out.
The Salton Sea is the largest landlocked body of water in the state and was once considered a playground for
“Obviously, this project needs local leadership and management by people who are attached to the sea,” Daniels said.
Daniels said he expects lawmakers, along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a matter of three to five weeks, will appoint various area stakeholders to serve as a local governing conservancy for the sea.
The various stakeholders, despite their differences over how to restore the sea while protecting their own moneyed interests in the sea’s revitalization, have held together, Daniels said.
“If they fail to do so, then they’ll (state lawmakers) will change it. This thing has to be organized,” he said. #
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2007/07/08/news/news05.txt
DELTA ISSUES:
State turns delta pumps off at night to protect threatened fish
Associated Press – 7/6/07
By Garance Burke, staff writer
Some 609 delta smelt have been killed in the pumps in the month of July alone—since state and federally owned pumps that carry drinking and irrigation water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ramped up to normal operating levels last month.
Since Tuesday, when the state restricted pumping from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., no more than 21 fish have died each day, said Department of Water Resources Deputy Director Jerry Johns.
The new schedule hasn't resulted in significant reductions to the total volume of water pumped to croplands, cities in Southern California and the
The silvery, three-inch long fish are protected under the California Endangered Species Act and considered a harbinger of the delta's health.
In early spring, smelt spawn in channels and sloughs in the delta's upper reaches and then swim into the saltier and colder waters of
"There are far fewer fish getting salvaged since we stopped pumping at night," Johns said. "That said, we don't really know what they want, so we're working on trying to understand that."
In the dark, research has shown that smelt swim more slowly and are less likely to see the screen-like louvers that keep them away from the pumps, said Tina Swanson, senior scientist for the Bay Institute.
But Johns said the fish were more active at night and were more likely to swim toward the delta's main channels, where they could be tugged toward the screens.
Regardless, environmentalists said the move came too late to keep the fish population from crashing.
"We have a species that has been brought to the brink of extinction," said Bill Jennings, head of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "Why is it essential that pumping be maintained until there are no smelt left in the delta?"
In late May, the state shut down its pumps at the Harvey O. Banks pumping station outside
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation also cut back for a time on the amount of water its pumps drew from the delta. The federal pumps have not switched to a daytime schedule because only 72 smelt have been killed since June 13, when they geared up to normal levels, said spokesman Jeff McCracken. #
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_6315645?nclick_check=1
Delta has said goodbye before; Long before talk of disappearing smelt, there was the chub
By Alex Breitler, staff writer
There was a day, long before any of us lived, when thicktail chub could be found with ease in the
Today, the only chub you'll find are those carefully preserved in museum specimen jars, although many bones remain buried beneath American Indian villages.
The thicktail chub is the most recent Delta species believed to have gone extinct. It was last seen on a fisherman's hook in 1957, on the
While little is remembered of this cone-headed minnow, its demise so long ago shows how rare it is to lose a species in the West Coast's largest estuary.
It may happen again.
The Delta smelt has plunged to record lows and is on the edge of extinction, some say. The smelt's condition is said to reflect the health of the overall Delta, which has seen fish populations decline amidst an invasion of exotic species, toxic chemicals and water exports to farms and cities elsewhere in
If indeed the smelt is lost, it would be the 16th species in this state to be extirpated, according to one conservation group's estimate.
"We're going to have to think in terms of what's happening in this estuary,"
It's no easy task calculating how many species have taken an early exit in the past couple of centuries. Nonprofit NatureServe databases show seven plants, two fish, two crustaceans, one insect and three mollusks have vanished from
That doesn't count critters that are extinct in this state but still live elsewhere, such as the grizzly bear or gray wolf. Nor does it include 41 plants and animals that are "possibly" extinct.
"The thing about extinctions is it's hard to prove something you can't find," said NatureServe spokesman Rob Riordan.
At any rate, it's been a long time.
Surveys turned up low numbers of juvenile Delta smelt this spring. That bodes poorly for future generations, since the fish live only one year and continuation of the species depends on how effectively each crop of babies reproduces.
"It's a miracle to find one,"
Department of Fish and Game Director Ryan Broddrick said recently that while biologists are watching the situation carefully, he "would not ring the extinction bell."
That bell for the thicktail chub rang as early as 1884, when a newspaper reported that the fish - once abundant throughout the Central Valley - had become scarce in the Sacramento River, said Peter Moyle, a professor of fish biology at the University of California, Davis. Apparently, the draining of wetlands and introduction of nonnative fish caused the decline.
"Little is known ... because no one took an interest in them until they had become extremely rare," Moyle said.
Perhaps that can't be said for the smelt, whose plight brought the water export pumps near
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070709/A_NEWS/707090323
KCBS News 740 AM (Bay Area) – 7/8/07
Islands in the Delta sit as much as 25 feet below sea level and are protected by an aging network of levees.
"The levees, being not very well built, originally built by farmers with substandard materials and using substandard methods, are known to be relatively fragile and they have failed quite often. In fact they have failed over 160 times in the last 100 years or so," said Les Harder, Deputy Director of State Department of Water Resources.
The levees channel Sierra snowmelt and hold back tidal surges from the
"We used to have a large number of earthquakes in the mid 1800s and it's been relatively quiet in the 1900s, but we know that those faults are still there and the stress is building up on them so we know that one of these days one of these faults that is close to the delta will break and cause extensive damage. It's just a matter of time,” he said.
In light of the study, the State Department of Water Resources is reviewing risk reduction methods. "The purpose is to quantify those risks in a more accurate way than they have been before, and try and understand the impact of the various beneficiaries, whether it's the landowners and agriculture or the state's infrastructure system, ecosystem impacts, and the water supply," Harder said.
Governor Schwarzenegger has also proposed legislation to pump money into the state's levees. #
http://www.kcbs.com/pages/657813.php?contentType=4&contentId=671468
Historic hatchery is set to become research facility
Tahoe Daily Tribune – 7/9/07
By Julie Brown, staff writer
The UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center on Friday kicked off the renovation of its newest research center in a sleepy
The UC Davis project will breathe new life into a historical landmark at the intersection of
The former fish hatchery, built in the 1920s, will soon house a cutting-edge research laboratory studying
The converted fish hatchery will be the
"We always wanted to build a full lab here," said Heather Segale, UC Davis' education and outreach coordinator.
Construction began in late June, with completion expected in the fall of 2008.
In the 1970s, UC Davis purchased the fish hatchery, which ceased operations in the 1950s, from the state Department of Fish and Game for the bargain price of $1 - a transfer procedure, Segale said.
With $2 million in private donations, UC Davis plans to maintain the building's historical look and feel, but update the dilapidated interior to meet modern safety standards, and install state-of-the-art research equipment. Another $1.67 million in state grants will fund the renovation of the surrounding grounds and wetlands.
"It's a great opportunity to redevelop this building," said Jennifer Merchant,
The renovation will restore the surrounding Stream Environmental Zone, a wetland habitat that helps absorb runoff into the lake. Test plots will measure stormwater treatment options, and an observation system will monitor movement of the Earth's crust. Interpretive signs, an indoor kiosk and a gathering area with benches should draw visitors to the site.
"This is going to be a great community resource," said Christine McMorrow of the Sierra Watershed Education Partnership, one of the project's community partners.
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20070709/NEWS/107090029
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