A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 12, 2007
3. Watersheds
LAKE DAVIS PIKE:
DFG gears up for big pike kill with treatment of tributaries - Plumas County News
Writers on the Range: The lesson of killing fish on Lake Davis - Summit Daily News
FISH DIE-OFF:
Dozens of dead fish found in eastern Murrieta lake - North County Times
DELTA ISSUES:
Editorial: Water-cut challenge - Inside Bay Area
Living below Sea Level -
LAKE DAVIS PIKE:
New York Times – 9/11/07
By Jesse McKinley, staff writer
PORTOLA,
For the last decade, the state of California has waged a Sisyphean battle against the northern pike, a fish and a voracious eating machine. In the mid-1990s, when pike were first found in Lake Davis, a Sierra Nevada reservoir about four miles north of here, the discovery set off a panic over the potential impact on the local trout-fishing and tourist industries as well as the possibility of the fish migrating to fragile ecosystems downstream. Since then, millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours have been spent trying to spike the pike.
But while the methods, including poison, electro-fishing, explosives and decidedly low-tech nets, have varied, the results have remained the same.
“We’ve taken 65,000 pike out of the lake,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the State Department of Fish and Game. “And we haven’t made a dent.”
But like Captain Ahab or perhaps Wile E. Coyote, the state has not let a little adversity stop it. On Monday, more than 500 fish and game personnel began a last-ditch, $16 million effort to rid the lake of pike, the most expensive ever undertaken against an “invasive species” in
The lake was closed after Labor Day to prepare for the watery assault. The plan is simple: poison the fish with 17,000 gallons of rotenone, a commonly used pesticide that is absorbed through the gills and blocks the ability to process oxygen. Rotenone is widely considered safe for mammals and other nongilled animals, though some concerns have been raised about links to Parkinson’s disease and some types of cancer.
But Gerald Sipe, the director of environmental health for the Plumas County Public Health Agency, said his office had determined that the treatment plan would not adversely affect the public.
It is not the first time the state has used rotenone in
This time, though, the state is using a milky liquid version of rotenone, and is focusing on the streams and tributaries that lead into Lake Davis, a 4,000-acre artificial reservoir about 60 miles north of Lake Tahoe. On Monday, about 60 workers staffed “drip stations” in creeks and streams while others sprayed ponds and other still waters with poison from plastic backpack tanks.
The state has also begun an extensive education effort. On Monday, two dozen reporters and television crews crowded around a rocky streambed as Stafford Lehr, a fishery biologist, described his pike-killing method.
“These fish will be exposed to the product for eight hours,” said Mr. Lehr, who wore a cowboy hat, goggles and white coveralls.
“Which is more than enough time to kill these individuals.”
No one knows exactly how many of “these individuals” live in
Whatever the cause, the pike is not a friendly newcomer to any ecosystem. A slender, razor-toothed hunter that can grow to more than three feet long, the pike has been known to devour anything it can get its pointed maw around, including frogs, waterfowl and — legend has it — small dogs.
While not a flashy menu topper like tilapia or trout, pike is edible, even glorified by some palates, though its bones make for challenging chewing. But in
State officials are particularly concerned that the pike might escape to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where it could feast on other fish, including valuable salmon and threatened species like the delta smelt. Signs on the lake recommend cutting the head off any pike caught and tossing the fish back in the water, apparently to show the other pike that human beings mean business.
On Monday, at least, the poison seemed to be working. Within a few hours, fingerlings were starting to turn belly-up downstream, with reports on Tuesday of bigger pike giving up the ghost. The body of the lake will be treated in late September.
After the poisoning is complete — and all the dead fish are scooped out of the water — the lake will be tested for toxicity, and will remain closed for two months, Mr. Martarano said. After that, restocking will begin, with a goal of one million trout in
Not every effort has been as encouraging. In March 2003, the department used underwater detonation cord to try to blow up the pike. A grand total of four pike were killed. Jim Murphy, the city manager in Portola, a railroad town of 2,300 people along the
That sentiment was echoed by Sara Bensinger, who runs the Grizzly Country Store, a fishing tackle and potato chip outlet on the lake’s southern shore. Ms. Bensinger said her business had been badly hurt by the pike problem, and the bad press that followed. On Sept. 1, she and about 200 other locals gathered to celebrate the beginning of the eradication effort by burning of a 13-foot-long papier-mâché pike, complete with nails for teeth.
“They’re going to get it right this time,” she said. “And then we’re going to start over.” #
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/us/12pike.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
DFG gears up for big pike kill with treatment of tributaries
By Diana Jorgenson, Portola Editor
The California Department of Fish and Game spent last week trucking in CFT-Legumine, a chemical compound that includes the plant derivative rotenone, and other supplies to set the stage for the toxic treatment of
The spraying of tributaries and the establishment of drip stations in streams began Monday, Sept. 10, with a media briefing and demonstration of the process.
Tributary treatment continues throughout the week. No treatment is scheduled for the following week.
DFG plans to monitor the effectiveness of the stream treatments and collect dead fish during the week of Sept. 17 and follow up with a second treatment of streams and tributaries the week of Sept. 24.
A two-day treatment of the reservoir is scheduled to begin Sept. 25.
DFG also spent the last days of August and into September completing mitigation negotiations with Grizzly Lake Resort Improvement District.
The new settlement agreement amounts to $326,250. Details are yet to be released.
DFG also finished analysis of the seven lots of CFT-Legumine received from the manufacturer that will actually be used in the chemical treatment. DFG is currently completing the risk assessment that will accompany the analysis.
In a statement, the agency said: "In addition to the compounds identified previously in the CFT Legumine sample analyzed for the EIS/EIR, the laboratory detected fatty acids (these are compounds which may be in the lake naturally as well), glycols, and trace amounts of hexanol and substituted benzenes. The risk assessment currently underway strongly suggests that ecological risks from these compounds are insignificant, nor do they appear to be at concentrations that would suggest any human health risks through water, air, or ingestion exposure scenarios."
DFG is, however, adding them to the monitoring program, and the complete chemical names are expected in the near future.
At the same time that DFG gears up for active chemical treatment, the U.S. Forest Service has closed off the area and established checkpoints to keep people out of the
A media center is being set up at the Chalet View Lode, with briefings scheduled on a daily basis. Members of the public will be able to attend these briefings for current information.
The public can also call the information line at 832-4754 or visit the Web site at dfg.ca.gov/lakedavis. #
http://plumasnews.com/news_story.edi?sid=5419
Writers on the Range: The lesson of killing fish on Lake Davis
By Jane Braxton Little, a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News in Paonia
Early on a morning in September, government workers will don masks and protective suits, embark in a fleet of small boats and begin pumping 17,000 gallons of poison into
Poisoning an ecosystem to save it is a dire scenario. But
The lake now teeming with pike was once a 5,000-acre
All that changed in 1967, when the creek began to back up behind newly built Grizzly Dam. State officials planning for urban growth had selected the meadow for one of a series of reservoirs designed to increase the water available to cities and agribusiness. The State Water Project made Grizzly Creek and other streams high in the Feather River headwaters the lifeblood of
To gain local support, government officials promised to also develop the reservoir’s recreation potential. Every spring they dumped truckloads of rainbow trout into
Enter the pike, a rude intrusion to this man-made scene. Spiny-backed, spiny-mouthed and spiny-tongued, these four-foot-long fish have been scaring the bejesus out of the Fish and Game Department since 1994, when they were first discovered in
This scenario is such a nightmare that the department has committed millions to the September poisoning. That’s on top of the $20 million it invested in 1997, when it conducted a nearly identical chemical treatment. The first poisoning was a disaster.
Local residents were so opposed to it that state officials brought in snipers to deter saboteurs the night before the treatment.
Once released into the reservoir, the chemicals leaked downstream, killing fish in Grizzly Creek. Some people were hospitalized for headaches and nausea. The water remained toxic eight months longer than predicted. Worse yet, pike were flourishing again in
No one is happy about this invasive species in a
So the meddling goes on: Chemicals to kill all aquatic life in
Chemicals to treat the water for human consumption. Once the reservoir is deemed safe, Fish and Game officials will resume planting fish. They are promising bigger stock to mollify local merchants who have suffered during a decade of controversy and fishing closures.
The lesson of
But future meddling may be far more costly. #
http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070911/COLUMNS/70911011
FISH DIE-OFF:
Dozens of dead fish found in eastern Murrieta lake
By Brian Eckhouse, staff writer
MURRIETA -- Dozens of dead fish -- a few large, several small -- have been found floating on a pond abutting the backyards of several Murrieta homes in a tract west of Winchester and Hunter roads that neighbors the SCGA Golf Course on Robert Trent Jones Parkway.
A few dozen small fish lay dead Tuesday among the reeds behind the home of Bob Shaub, who lives on
But 20-pound fish also have been found dead, residents said.
"When you start killing bottom-feeders, you know something's really wrong," said resident Mike Matthews.
A few weeks back, Shaub observed a 2-foot-wide ring of dead fish lining the edge of the pond, he said.
It is unclear what's causing the deaths of the fish. Attempts by residents to find out the exact cause from the state Fish and Game and the county's health department have been unsuccessful, Shaub said.
Efforts to reach golf course attendants Tuesday evening were unsuccessful.
"I've been here for five years," said Shaub, 63. "Fish and Game says it happens every year. Well, they have erroneous information; it doesn't happen every year."
Some residents speculate the pond has a high algae count, a prime symptom of stagnant pools, which are prime attractions for mosquitos.
"The only thing that separates me and the potential of
That isn't the only potential health hazard concerning residents.
"The worst part is, if this (pond) is allowed to go lower ... you could get hydrogen sulfide," said Matthews, 56. "That's the rotten egg odor, and it's very dangerous."
Murrieta City Manager Ron Bradley was not aware of the issue until Tuesday afternoon.
"If we have dead fish and a problem with this pond, we'd certainly have the county health department take a look at it and see if there are any existing health hazards,"
City Councilman Rick Gibbs also didn't know about the matter until Tuesday. He said it was a city matter, as Murrieta's public nuisance ordinance "involves public health."
"Nobody's talked to me about it ... but it's something we need to get on instantly," Gibbs said -- especially if the problem isn't limited to this one pond in eastern Murrieta.
"If this pond is connected to other ponds, are they having the same problem?" Matthews wondered. #
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09/12/news/californian/4_03_379_11_07.txt
DELTA ISSUES:
Editorial: Water-cut challenge
Inside Bay Area – 9/12/07
AFEDERAL JUDGE'S decision to severely cut back water pumping from the Delta presents a historic choice for
Federal environmental law forced U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger to order a reduction of about 1 million acre-feet of water being pumped from the Delta to save smelt from extinction.
That's enough water to supply 2 million households.
The water cutbacks come after a May decision by Wanger that the federal projects that supply water to farms and 25 million Californians were violating the Endangered Species Act.
A month earlier, a
As a result of the cutbacks, which could be as many as 2 million acre-feet under some conditions, San Joaquin Valley farms will be forced to idle hundreds of thousands of acres of productive land, probably in the next growing season.
Also hit hard will be the Zone 7 Water Agency, which supplies water to 200,000 people in Dublin, Livermore and Pleasanton. Much of the district's water comes from the state water project, which pumps supplies out of the Delta.
Other urban water districts from the Bay Area to
The biggest loser in
Some environmentalists wanted even steeper reductions in water pumping to protect the endangered Delta ecosystem.
Several species of fish are declining in the Delta, and the situation could get worse without sufficient flows of fresh water.
There is room for better agricultural water use by eliminating certain crops, such as cotton, in arid regions. Greater use of drip irrigation also would help.
However, the kind of water cutbacks ordered by Wanger still would cause a significant loss to farms that use water wisely.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that the only practical way to ensure enough fresh water for the Delta environment, farms and urban users is to store much larger supplies of water during the wet months so there is enough to deliver to all users year-round.
With the pumping cutbacks, time is running out for decisive action on increasing the state's ability to supply water in an environmentally responsible manner.
That means building at least a couple of major new reservoirs, or significantly enlarging older ones, and an updated delivery system.
That alternative to inaction is a devastating blow to one of the state's largest industries. #
http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/sanmateo/ci_6870171
Living below Sea Level
By Shirley Skeel, a frequent contributer to Coast & Ocean, is a radio and print reporter who recently moved from the
Tammy Martinez looked around her home set in the sweeping flatlands of the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and felt a buzz of pleasure. It was roomy, tasteful, and best of all, brand new. After the police helicopters and car chases near her family's old home in the city of
The
Tammy Martinez knew about
"We feel safe here," she said. "Everything is inspected. I don't think they would allow you to live in their community if it wasn't safe. We have a sports club and a canoe club. We love it here."
The
That the Delta is a disaster waiting to happen has been widely acknowledged for a long time. Since 1900, Delta levees have broken 162 times and flooded more than 250,000 acres. Calls for action became more urgent after Hurricane Katrina tore apart the levees in
More than half a million people reside in the triangular Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. Many more are being drawn in by the relatively inexpensive homes being built there, within an hour's drive (assuming reasonable freeway flow) from the major population centers of the San Francisco Bay Area and
"In
"I like that it's quiet here," he said, gazing down the street of picture-perfect houses backed by giant power lines and blue hills. "There's a lot of family people here, a lot of children for my daughter to play with, and not too many people-notice I say not too many people-speeding through here as though it's The Fast and the Furious. "
Ramirez admitted he "could have done better" checking out the flood threat before buying, but added that most home buyers probably don't probe too deeply. "I think it's mainly because everybody has their own problems and their own concerns with themselves. So until it's actually affecting you, you just wipe it off your shoulder," he said, shrugging. Like the
The Odds Are Scary
"That, in your own backyard there, is the scariest place after
The levees are vulnerable to failure from earthquakes, heavy storms, further subsidence, seepage, erosion, and burrowing by beavers and muskrats, not to mention the threat of flooding as global warming raises sea levels and accelerates seasonal melting of the Sierra snowpack. Geologist Jeff Mount, at U.C. Davis, and Bob Twiss, a levee expert at U.C. Berkeley, estimated that there is a 60 percent chance of multiple, simultaneous levee failures due to an earthquake or flood over the next 50 years. The result could be destroyed homes, roads jammed with panic-stricken residents, disrupted water supplies to much of
John Cain, director of restoration programs at the San Francisco-based nonprofit Natural Heritage Institute and co-author of Re-envisioning the Delta, a report produced by U.C. Berkeley's Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, said in a recent interview that residential areas being built on the fringe of the Delta are on average five feet below sea level. In the winter flood season, water can rise more than 10 feet above the base of these homes. Many of the levees the residents rely on for protection are 10- to 30-foot-high unengineered mounds of dirt.
"I think it's incredibly irresponsible and misguided to develop on deep floodplains," Cain said. "We're not talking about people's living room carpets getting wet every few years. We're talking about whole subdivisions, with houses close together, being inundated up to their eaves. And the odds of that happening are really quite high." David Mraz, Delta-Suisun Marsh chief flood manager at the California Department of Water Resources, said in a telephone interview that there is undoubtedly cause for concern. He said only about 40 percent of the Delta's levees meet federal standards, though many of the poorer levees are in agricultural, not residential, areas. He also believes that even the federal standard is inadequate today.
"We have a very extensive levee system and . . . it's a problem just waiting to happen," he said. "The department's pushing for a higher (levee) standard."
Last year, the City of
However, it is the old levee that currently holds back the water. The new levee sits on dry land inside the old one. Between these two levees are 544 homes that cannot be sufficiently protected because some of them are on top of the old levee, obstructing any engineering work. "These homes don't have (federal standards) protection, and it's not practical to get it to them," said Willis. "If their levee fails, they may be out of luck (in terms of saving their homes)." Engineers have made it clear, she said, that the space where these 544 homes which stand would fill up with water far faster than it would have before the
John Cain believes even residents behind the new levee are not safe. If the old levee was breached, he said, rushing water could pound into the new levee and break through it or under it, because it is built largely from compacted soil and sand, rather than clay. Also, he added, seismologists believe a still-poorly-mapped fault line known as the Midland Fault runs near Hotchkiss Tract.
Don Hofer, a vice president with Shea Homes, disagreed. He said the new extra-wide levee is armored in strategic places with a mix of concrete and dirt to withstand any scouring effect from fast-flowing water. He said the compacted soil and sand provide a solid foundation and structure for the levee. He also insisted that the company's project is not on a fault line, and that the levee performance during an earthquake would be "very good." Seismic maps, however, show fault lines, including the
"If it happens, it happens."
Just north of Hotchkiss Tract, across a canal filled with yachts and dinghies, an old community of golfers, retirees, and commuters has been living behind the dirt levees that encircle
Tom Culotta, 61, a former flooring contractor now living on a disability pension, moved his mobile home to the
"There was a train track ran down the middle of the island on top of the levee, and the levee washed away and flooded the island," he said. "The train fell in the water—it was a cargo train—and made a big mess of things."
Nearby neighbor David Mariscal does worry. He moved in from Brentwood four years ago to be closer to his maintenance job at the
Mariscal hopes that government officials look after the levees sufficiently. Local reclamation districts are largely responsible for maintaining and repairing the levees, with support from the State. Mariscal knows only too well that money is always short, so he revealed his own evacuation plan. "Climb the highest tree," he said, laughing. "There's not an easy way to get out." After the
To ensure that all levees are safe, however, three times that amount is needed, said David Mraz at the Department of Water Resources.
Should a multi-levee failure occur, the disaster would affect all of
Earthquakes are a major threat. The Department of Water Resources reported in 2005 that a 6.5-magnitude earthquake in the Delta region—bigger than the 1966 Donner Pass temblor that registered 6.0 on the Richter scale and swayed Sacramento buildings, but less severe than the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which measured at 7.1—could damage more than 30 levees and cause massive flooding. With six major faults nearby, officials are worried. The United States Geological Survey estimates there is a 62 percent probability of a 6.7 or greater magnitude earthquake in the nearby Bay Area in the next 25 years.
A Cheerful Plea of Insanity
Even these statistics seem to bounce off many Delta denizens. Bonnie Brown, 57, a former bartender who has been living in a houseboat on the
The boat did not break loose then, and Brown's biggest concern now is the heavy "wave boats" that tear down the river creating large waves for water skiers to jump over. "You get that big three-foot roller coming in. It just rolls and rolls and rolls. It breaks white water on the shore, and it just washes out the levee," she said.
Brown said she originally came from
This cheerful plea of insanity is not uncommon for old-time residents. Newcomers seem more bemused. Robert Guinan, who bought a house in Mossdale Landing, a new 2,300-home development just east of Lathrop in the southern Delta, laughs at his own rashness. He not only bought in an area protected by old levees, but got in at the top of the housing market prices. After 20 years of living "all over" the
These days he sits on his front porch looking at the grand, empty houses for sale around him. The possibility of a flood is only one of the spooks in his life. With the
"We were hoping to put our kids through college with the profit (from the house). It didn't turn out that way. These are a bunch of white elephants now," he laughed wryly.
Guinan said he had been aware the Delta was prone to flooding, but when it came to discussing the final details with the sales agent, the discussion went like this: "That's just one of those things. Don't worry, there's only a hundred pages to sign. Just sign this page and move along. That doesn't mean anything. Just keep signing. Sign your life away." Guinan laughed again, throwing his hands up. "I was aware of it. But life is a risk. It's like driving to the Bay Area every day. You take a risk."
He remembers seeing the giant 1997 flood in the Delta on television. More than 30 levees were breached after heavy winter rains and a substantial snowmelt in the Sierra. Thousands of acres of farmland and hundreds of homes were inundated, with the worst flooding along a 15-mile stretch of the
"It's foolish actually," he said. "I haven't seen the flood, only heard about it. If I'd seen it, I would be more apt to say, 'Forget it.' I wouldn't move out here."
Wanting to get into a new home as cheaply as possible, he didn't buy flood insurance. And because Mossdale is officially outside of the Delta flood-zone map, he is not required to. But that could change. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is redrawing the flood-zone map, which in some places is 25 years out of date. City and county officials are scrambling to provide proof that their levees meet the so-called federal 100-year standard. If they don't, the areas behind those levees will be brought within the official flood zone, and homeowners with federally backed mortgages (most mortgages are federally insured, by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae) will be required by federal rules to buy flood insurance. At Mossdale Landing, the age of the levees and the new FEMA requirement for better-engineered levees casts doubt on the community's future.
The City of
Often home buyers who are told their homes are behind a levee built to a standard known as the "100-year levee" feel comforted, thinking the levee was built to withstand floods for at least a hundred years. In fact, the standard means that in any year there is a one-in-a-hundred chance of a flood big enough to breach the levee. FEMA described the 1997 flood as a "typical" 100-year flood, according to the
That calculation rattles Saphon Hok, a young research scientist who bought a home at Mossdale Landing two years ago. He was not pleased to learn that if FEMA puts Mossdale within the flood zone, he and other local homeowners with federally backed mortgages will be required to buy flood insurance. Flood insurance, which only provides home coverage to a maximum of $250,000, can cost $1,400 to $4,600 a year, according to FEMA. Being in the flood zone could also affect a home's value.
"My wife and I are here for the long term, so we bought a house to live in, not get a return," Hok said. "But I would be concerned if we have to pay extra money for insurance."
Hok moved to Mossdale because he and his wife could not afford to buy in
Although Mossdale has not flooded seriously to date, it is across the
John Cain, of the Natural Heritage Institute, said plans for another 11,000 homes in a development called
Council spokesman Esau and Bruce Myers, a vice president with Mossdale's master developer, Pacific Union Homes, both said in telephone interviews that the levees and the project met all the required standards when the development was approved by Lathrop.
All of this debate was news to Matt Kan, who was peacefully fishing on the river, just over the levee from his Mossdale home on a sunny day in early June. Putting down his rod,
"It's a place for them to grow. Everything here is brand new. The school is new. The neighborhood is brand new. People are brand new. It's a way of looking at a fresh start for my family and myself," he said.
Governor Schwarzenegger hopes to curb this growth until the State can be sure the levees are secure. His office is circulating a proposal to require new housing projects in high-risk areas to meet tougher flood-risk criteria. Adam Mendelsohn, the Governor's communications director, told the Sacramento Bee in June that the Governor does not want to shut down construction in the state, and "everything is being debated." Any bill is likely to face fierce opposition from major developers, who also happen to be big donors to legislators' coffers.
Meanwhile,
"But right now, we'll just take it as it is," he said, picking up his rod. "Hopefully it doesn't happen. Hopefully they fix the levees."
Shirley Skeel, a frequent contributer to Coast & Ocean, is a radio and print reporter who recently moved from the
http://www.coastandocean.org/coast_v23_no2_2007/articles/delta_01.htm
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