A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 12, 2007
3. Watersheds
Klamath volunteers carve paths to cold streams for salmon - Eureka Times Standard
Editorial: Cheney link?; Thompson offers new motive for
Judge deems Lower Owens River healthy; He also lifts a $5,000-a-day fine he imposed on
TAHOE WATERSHED ISSUES:
Funds sought for Tahoe restoration - Sacramento Bee
Klamath volunteers carve paths to cold streams for salmon
By John Driscoll, staff writer
The
A group of
Last week, for example, volunteers working with the Mid Klamath Watershed Council wielded shovels to create passages between Ti and Stanshaw creeks and the Klamath.
The work is not the solution to the many problems fish face on the Klamath, said Sandi Tripp, director of natural resources for the Karuk Tribe. But it's critical, she said, especially for threatened coho salmon that spend lots of time in the river before migrating to sea.
”It's truly a killing zone for the fish out there in the river,” Tripp said. “The only saving grace is to open small tributaries.”
As flows have dropped from Iron Gate Dam, and air temperatures have risen, parts of the river are now peaking at above 76 degrees. Small, cold tributaries that run though forests and are fed by springs and seeps can be 10 degrees cooler than that, providing significant relief for little fish.
”Any fish that decides to go up there has a whole lot better chance of survival than staying in the river,” said Gary Flosi, senior biologist for the California Department of Fish and Game.
Coho and chinook salmon and steelhead use the refuges until the tributaries and the rivers begin to swell with fall rains. The initial work to create the makeshift passages for fish was experimental, Flosi said, but over time it was clear that the cool-water sanctuaries at the mouths of creeks were more important than first realized.
Flosi, too, said the work is not a long-term solution, but may be one of the few viable options to protect young salmon while solutions to the complex problems of the Klamath are hashed out among the varied stakeholders in the basin.
Other projects bring in Caltrans, Fish and Game and the U.S. Forest Service. Fish-blocking culverts are targeted for replacement, and road work is done to prevent landslides from clogging creeks.
The volunteer efforts to do the work at the creek mouths have gained momentum in recent years. People in the mid-Klamath region are more and more bound together by river restoration projects -- something everyone can agree on, said Nancy Bailey, a project coordinator for the Mid Klamath Watershed Council.
”More and more people are understanding the critical nature of the creeks,” Bailey said. #
http://www.times-standard.com/local/ci_6356992
Editorial: Cheney link?; Thompson offers new motive for
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 7/12/07
In the death of 68,000 Chinook salmon in 2002, it's not news that the Bush administration sided with
The impact of that Post story wasn't lost on Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, who has been fighting for federal support for the fishery and for relief for salmon fishermen who suffered when the 2006 salmon season was curtailed.
Politics begets politics. Thompson is a Democrat eager to embarrass a Republican administration.
As his approval ratings tumble, the secretive vice president represents the almost perfect villain.
Still, a House investigation into Cheney's role will be welcome. Americans have a right to know if environmental rules and the economic interests of Californians were discounted because the vice president thought gaining political advantage in
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20070711/NEWS/707110310/1043/OPINION01
Judge deems Lower Owens River healthy; He also lifts a $5,000-a-day fine he imposed on
By Stuart Silverstein, staff writer
The long legal battle stemming from Los Angeles' diversion of the Lower Owens River nearly a century ago took a historic turn Wednesday as an Inyo County judge declared the waterway restored.
"I can now officially declare that the
Cooper also approved an agreement and order lifting the $5,000-a-day fine he imposed on Los Angeles in September 2005, to compel the city's Department of Water and Power to restore a 62-mile stretch of the river. The new pact, negotiated by
But officials with both the DWP and
"If anybody were to look at the history of the relationship between
He called the work "probably the most significant river restoration project in at least the
Greg James, a lawyer for
After decades of political bickering, water was directed back into the riverbed in December, and the area has unexpectedly quickly become home again to various fish and other wildlife.
Still, just four months ago, Cooper found that the DWP's restoration efforts were still falling short. At that time he lauded the city for establishing a steady flow of water of 40 cubic feet per second, a standard that it must continue to meet, but faulted the city for constructing too few water-monitoring stations — a situation the DWP has corrected.
The so-called Lower Owens River Project was conceived in 1991 to remedy excessive groundwater pumping by the DWP that destroyed habitat in the
But in 2001, a lawsuit was brought by the California Department of Fish and Game, California State Lands Commission, Sierra Club and Owens Valley Committee, accusing the DWP of deliberately missing project deadlines.
The judge later imposed the $5,000-a-day fine, ordered the DWP to cut by one third its pumping of water out of the
The legal dispute has underscored the acrimony in the Owens Valley since the early 1900s, when the city had agents pose as farmers and ranchers to buy land and water rights in the valley, then built an aqueduct to slake the thirst of the metropolis more than 200 miles to the south. The river was reduced to a trickle in 1913 when the Owens River Aqueduct began delivering water to
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-owens12jul12,1,5073852.story?coll=la-headlines-california
TAHOE WATERSHED ISSUES:
Funds sought for Tahoe restoration
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg, staff writer
U.S. Forest Service officials at
The bulk of the money -- $1.6 million -- would be devoted to aerial spraying a mulching material onto areas judged especially prone to erosion.
Without the treatment, which costs an estimated $2,500 an acre, storms could dislodge "unacceptable" amounts of ash and sediment, sending the murky mixture flowing toward a lake famous for its clarity.
"It cannot be overstated that
Local Forest Service experts, who drew up the plan outlining immediate first aid for a scorched landscape, give the erosion-control effort an 80 percent chance of success.
Such plans, no matter how well-crafted, are always vulnerable to the weather, because a big enough storm can sweep away efforts to reduce erosion.
"If it works ... it would be very helpful," said Charles Goldman, a UC Davis professor who studies lakes, including Tahoe. "It'll make a real difference."
Researchers have been collecting and analyzing data about ash that fell on the water from the
But they will have to wait until spring to size up how badly runoff might damage Tahoe.
Along with the aerial mulching, the Forest Service report also recommends hand-applied and truck-sprayed mulches in some areas, as well as weed surveys, seeding, small log dams and drainage restoration around roads and trails. Longer-term work, such as reforesting, would be handled separately.
Meanwhile Wednesday, state and county officials agreed to a plan to help residents quickly remove structural debris and ash from the fire, with work starting as soon as Friday, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said.
And today, the California Conservation Corps said, two of its crews will begin sandbagging around culverts and putting down other materials to slow erosion, working in coordination with
The hydromulching proposed by the Forest Service is basically a slurry of a wood or paper fiber, plus additives to make it stick to the ground.
It's becoming more common for such mulching to be one of the immediate biggest burn recovery costs, because it's "seen as the best option for rehabilitation," said Pete Wohlgemuth, a hydrologist at the Forest Service's forest fire lab in Riverside.
"The beauty is you don't have to send people all over the ground disturbing the resources you're trying to protect," he said. #
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/268947.html
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