Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 20, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
SPECIAL SESSION:
Nuñez, Perata differ on vote on water bond - Associated Press
ACWA WATER CAMPAIGN:
Motives behind water campaign cloudy, agencies say - Stockton Record
Weather, water and wetlands; Is
DELTA LEVEE REPAIRS:
CONTRA COSTA CO.: SUPES PASS VISION STATEMENT FOR DELTA LEVEE REPAIRS - CBS Channel 5 (Bay Area)
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE:
Guest Opinion: Climate Change and Those Two New Dams - The Signal
SPECIAL SESSION:
Nuñez, Perata differ on vote on water bond
Associated Press – 9/19/07
By Samantha Young, staff writer
SACRAMENTO - The Legislature's two top Democrats disagreed Wednesday about whether they need to rush a water bond to the February presidential primary ballot, underscoring just how complicated it could be to reach a compromise on the issue.
"I'm certainly not driven by a Feb. 5 election," Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez told The Associated Press. "I'd much rather we get it right than we do it quickly."
But Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata insisted that the bond needs to be on the Feb. 5 ballot because of a court-imposed cutback on water deliveries out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta scheduled to take effect at the end of the year.
The federal court's ruling, along with a record dry year and a looming drought, prompted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week to call a special session to negotiate a water bond with the Legislature.
The governor has proposed a $9 billion bond that would earmark more than half of the money for dams that are opposed by most of the Democrats who dominate the Legislature.
Both the governor and Perata, D-Oakland, have said a bond should be on the Feb. 5 ballot, although they disagree on whether the state should set aside money specifically for dams.
"If we don't do something quickly, the water in
Lawmakers have a Sept. 27 statutory deadline to put a measure on the ballot, although they can give themselves more time.
Secretary of State Debra Bowen is working to determine how much more time lawmakers might have, analyzing how long election officials would need to print the ballots and voter guides before the election, said spokeswoman Nicole Winger. Perata said Wednesday that he expects the deadline could be extended to mid-October. #
http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_6942485?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com
ACWA WATER CAMPAIGN:
Motives behind water campaign cloudy, agencies say
By Hank Shaw, staff writer
SACRAMENTO - A major ad campaign by the Association of California Water Agencies is drawing fire from two San Joaquin County water agencies that fear the ads are intended to boost support for a peripheral canal that they think would turn the Delta into a swampy backwater.
The Stockton East Water District, which is a member of the association, and the South Delta Water Agency, which is not, are opposing the taxpayer-funded ad campaign, which plans to spend more than $6 million to tell Californians their water supply is in crisis.
To be sure, there is no doubt that the state's water systems are in trouble: The Delta's ecosystem is collapsing, the state has not built a new dam in 30 years, the canals that crisscross the state are in need of repair, the Central Valley's underground water supplies are dwindling, and water conservation efforts in the Valley need to be stepped up.
The water association is asking its local member agencies to chip into the campaign, but thus far at least half of its funds have come from three agencies that rely on water sucked out of the Delta: Los Angeles' Metropolitan Water District, the Kern County Water Agency and the Friant Water Users Authority. Each has pledged $1 million to the ad campaign, according to water association spokeswoman Jennifer Persike.
A federal judge recently demanded that water exports from the Delta - exports these three agencies rely on - be drastically curtailed to help slow the estuary's decline.
Stockton East General Manager Kevin Kauffman wrote the association last week saying that, at least for now, his agency couldn't support the campaign.
"My initial reaction (and I think my board will agree) is that this effort is clearly focused on where the governor has been trying to push our industry for the last year," Kauffman wrote. "Unless the message is clarified, I'm not sure you can expect our support with this campaign."
Dante Nomellini of the South Delta Water Agency was blunter: "We wouldn't contribute to our own demise. I view this all as part of a scheme to drum up support for a water grab. This is part of the campaign for the initiative."
Persike disagreed. "That is not how we view it," she said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the idea of a peripheral canal, which would shunt water from the Sacramento River in the north Delta and send it south to the giant pumps near
Schwarzenegger this week unveiled a $9 billion proposal for a bond initiative to strengthen
The association had plans for its own initiative circulating earlier this year and may yet push for an independent water supply bond should Schwarzenegger and the Legislature fail. Persike says their ad campaign has nothing to do with that.
"Part of our obligation as public agencies is to educate the public - and that's what we're doing," she said. "In general, people don't understand the seriousness of the problem." #
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070920/A_NEWS/709200329
Weather, water and wetlands; Is
Be Jennifer Davidson, staff writer
I only allow myself to look at pictures and read stories of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in private, when I am alone and life is still. That way I can turn the pages slowly, touch my hand to the crumpled faces and let the tears spill as easily as the floods flowed through
Little did I know that a recent visit to the California State Fair to meet Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist for the Department of Water Resources and one of
I sat on the floor with the kids starring up at this super cool gigantic globe that appeared suspended in space as Elissa gave her presentation on weather, flooding and climate change. The super cool globe is actually one of only 15 in the world and a special treat for fairgoers hosted by the DWR and the National Weather Service. It is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Science on a Sphere, which uses the latest in video technology to create the illusion of any planet in our solar system, Earth’s topography, land and ocean temperature patterns and predictions, and global weather patterns at any one point in time. You can watch how storms on one side of the world impact landmasses on the other side the globe. You can watch as storms like Katrina form, then hit.“Katrina is an important story,” Elissa told the crowd. She means important to us here in
While
I laid awake the other night thinking about a Katrina disaster in
I live on a second story, which could very well protect my home from being swallowed, though my friends downstairs wouldn’t be so lucky. I wondered if I live in one of several local regions that could experience as much as 20 feet of flooding, and was haunted by the image of an unbridled sea knocking at my door, leaving us with moments to decide how to escape and survive. I realized I don’t have any flotation devices. Do I need them? Then I wondered how I would safely transport myself, my family and my three cats? I don’t own a canoe, either. So I thought about the many trees surrounding my home, and which ones I could reach from my balcony and hoist my cats onto. One of my cats is 16 years old. I don’t think she would be able to hold on. I don’t think I could leave her.
In fact, many people who died in Katrina didn’t have to. They refused to evacuate because they were not allowed to bring their pets—an unexpected element that has since required all state emergency flood-evacuation plans to account for the evacuation of pets, as well.
Kitty-corner to NOAA’s Science on a Sphere sat DWR’s exhibit: Floodplain Model Demonstrating Flood Damage Prevention Techniques. Here’s the other environmental angle. I watched a mind-numbing number of reruns as
See, urban sprawl has wiped out significant wetlands in
So, if you’re the least bit intrigued, join me tonight, September 20, for a more in-depth discussion on my conversations with Elissa about weather and global warming, on 90.3 FM, KDVS’ Radio Parallax, between 5 and 6 p.m. #
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=539218
DELTA LEVEE REPAIRS:
CONTRA COSTA CO.:
CBS Channel 5 (Bay Area) – 9/19/07
The vision included six main categories the county's Transportation, Water and Infrastructure Committee believed should be addressed in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to repair the delta.
Those categories included protecting public health and safety, including the public's access to safe drinking water, against levee failure; providing a reliable supply of high quality drinking water for California; protecting the infrastructure of the delta; protecting economic assets of the delta, protecting the environmental health of the estuary; and creating an independent regulatory body that would oversee issues pertaining to the delta.
Supervisor John Gioia, however, noted that the vision statement, which was crafted by the Contra Costa Council, had not addressed some key issues to restoring the delta, including the impact of climate change on the delta and its fragile levees, controversy surrounding a potential water storage facility and the impact of water flow on wildlife habitat.
Gioia also said that he didn't want to endorse any vision statement without first hearing from environmental groups.
The Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resource Defense Council have issued their own vision statements, which focus on reducing water exports from the delta, according to a representative from the Contra Costa Council.
The current vision statement doesn't address water flow issues.
The delta is currently home to an estimated 500,000 people and provides habitat for 700 native species, the Contra Costa Council reported.
The waterway also provides drinking water to more than 25 million people, farms and businesses and supports $400 billion in economic activity, according to the Contra Costa Council.
In 2006 Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order directing development of a "vision" for the delta. In that order, Schwarzenegger declared that the delta was unstable and plans needed to be put in place to make it sustainable.
The executive order created a Blue Ribbon Task Force that would provide findings on what was needed to repair the levee system to the Delta Vision Committee, which is composed of state cabinet members.
In approving the statement Tuesday, supervisors added a line indicating that they would be seeking input from environmental groups before approving a final vision statement. #
http://cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2007/09/19/n/HeadlineNews/DELTA-VISION/resources_bcn_html
WATER INFRASTRUCTURE:
Guest Opinion: Climate Change and Those Two New Dams
The Signal – 9/20/07
By Jim Metropulos, legislative representative for the Sierra Club. His column reflects his own views and not necessarily those of The Signal
In his 2007 State of the State address, Governor Schwarzenegger proposed building two new dams as part of his water infrastructure plan for
The two dams proposed are Temperance Flat, a reservoir on the
In pushing his water plan, Governor Schwarzenegger raises the novel argument that new dams are needed because of global warming. He has part of the argument right. Scientists predict that global warming will cause more precipitation to fall as rain instead of snow. This will reduce mountain snowpack, where much of the state's water is naturally stored. As temperatures rise, the snowpack will shrink, leaving a water storage void the administration says should be filled in part with new reservoirs.
Yes, the state's snowpack is likely to shrink as the Earth warms. However scientists disagree on where and how, making it difficult to know whether these proposed dams would be positioned properly to capture the melting snow pack. Many of these scientists believe that the state's water supply and flood control system is already adequate to handle the increased precipitation caused by global warming. One problem with the Governor's water plan is that environmental studies for these projects are not yet completed so we can not determine their effectiveness and impacts.
Another important consideration is that the California Energy Commission has identified water consumption as the single largest category of energy use in the state. The water sector uses a large amount of energy to capture, treat, transport, and use water.
As a result,
Notably, new research suggests that the Governor's water plan may actually aggravate climate change. In recent years, scientists have documented that dams may pump greenhouses gases into the atmosphere in different ways. First, the process of cement making, required in large quantities for the construction of these dams, is already a major source of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. Second, when the land behind the dam is flooded, vegetation rots, releasing carbon dioxide and methane.
These emissions continue throughout the life of the dam as more organic material washes in from upstream. One study estimated that
Sierra Club
At the first committee hearing on the governor's water proposal, Democrats on the Senate Natural Resource and Water Committee rejected the Governor's water bond. Committee Chair Senator Darrell Steinberg (
The Sierra Club
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