A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 8, 2007
2. Supply
Battling blazes won't have long-term effect on water supply - Riverside Press Enterprise
AG CUTS:
Rainbow water officials lay out plan for cuts; North County Times
FARM BILL:
Guest Column: On the Farm Bill; Farm subsidies help few, harm many; Effects felt here and in Africa - San Francisco Chronicle
WATER SUPPLY PLANNING:
Windsor's water future not so bleak - Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Battling blazes won't have long-term effect on water supply
Riverside Press
By Duane W. Gang, staff writer
In just two hours, firefighters drained a 300,000-gallon water tank in their initial battle to save homes from the Grass Valley Fire.
So rapid was the use, the local
To save homes and contain the wildfires that tore through the San Bernardino Mountains and other parts of
With the exception of that tank near
But the ability of firefighters to so quickly drain the tank underscores the need in the fire-prone
"They had one problem with all the fire hydrants open in one area," said Ted Heyck, board president of the Lake Arrowhead Community Services District.
"The tank that holds the water went dry. They did lose pressure. They just drained all the water in the holding tank. In order to meet that situation, we would have had to have a larger holding tank."
The majority of the utility's water comes from
"We kept our pumps pumping the whole time," said Ken Nelsen, the interim general manager of the Lake Arrowhead Community Services District.
The problem: With a 750-gallon-per-minute capacity, their pumps just couldn't keep up, Nelsen said. Firefighters took water from the tank at about 2,500-gallons per minute.
Nelsen said even before the fire, the utility had started studying ways to increase that capacity.
The storage tanks and water treatment system have been upgraded in the last decade, and 13 backup generators are in place at the utility's pumping stations. About $500,000 a year is spent on upgrades, he said.
But the 750-gallon-per-minute pumping system was designed to meet the needs of firefighters in the late 1960s, Nelsen said.
"As fire suppression tactics change the fire agencies have requested more flow from the water distribution (system) for protection," he said in an e-mail.
Nelsen said the district hopes to double its capacity to 1,500 gallons per minute, a rate they meet in some areas but not in others, such as near
Simply building a larger tank might not be the answer, since the utility still would not be able to fill it fast enough, he said.
Too large of a tank won't allow water to circulate during normal periods, stagnating and creating a water-quality problem, Nelsen said.
The
The Grass Valley Fire also burned over a pumping station, said Tracey Martinez, a San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman. But the department had other water sources, including tanker trucks carrying water, she said.
"We work closely with all the water agencies," she said. "Their employees were able to keep things going pretty well."
The Crestline-Lake Arrowhead Water Agency, which supplies water to the Running Springs area, during the first four days of the Slide Fire pumped out 15 million gallons -- enough water to supply a family of four for nearly 100 years.
On some days the agency pumped as much as 4.5 million gallons a day -- more than twice the normal demand, said Tom Newell, an assistant general manager.
At the Crestline water agency, officials over the years have put in place natural gas and electric-powered pumps, plus backup generators, to make sure water can get to firefighters in emergencies, said Roxanne Holmes, the agency's general manager.
"They physically visit tanks and pumps but also monitor them electronically," she said. "They just spring into action and take care of everybody."
The Crestline utility supplies state water project water to the mountain communities from
Newell said the agency would adjust the water flows from the lake depending on how much firefighters needed.
He said the 15 million gallons used won't affect supply. The amount taken is within the agency's allotted amount from the state Department of Water Resources.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California saw a spike in demand of about 5,000 to 10,000 acre feet of water during the fires, or about 1.6 billion to 3.2 billion gallons, spokesman Bob Muir said. An acre foot, about 325,850 gallons, is enough to supply a family of four for two years.
The agency mainly saw the increase at its
Muir said because of ongoing drought any large increase in demand gives water officials pause for concern.
But having water available to fight fires is one reason why water reserves are built up, he said. The agency has about 2 million acre feet of water held in reserves, so the amount used in the fires was small by comparison, he said. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/sbcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_D_water08.346a60c.html
AG CUTS:
Rainbow water officials lay out plan for cuts;
By Darryn Bennett, staff writer
RAINBOW -- Water board members rolled out their plan to implement mandated water cutbacks for area growers Wednesday, but delayed action on the issue of how to allocate extra resources they said may have been created by the Rice fire in October.
Growers in the Interim Agricultural Water Program can purchase lower-cost water from local districts for agricultural use in exchange for agreeing to mandatory reductions during drought situations. Those growers have been told they'll be subject to a 30 percent supply cut beginning Jan. 1.
But Dave Seymour, general manager of the Rainbow Municipal Water District, said that if groves damaged or lost in the fire aren't restored, water demands would drop, leaving the district with unallocated water. He suggested setting those reserves aside for ratepayers with "special considerations."
"There might be a potential that we end up with a little extra water we could make available to people who need an exception," he said.
Meanwhile, at least one board member raised the question of who would shoulder the task of deciding who would receive surplus water.
"We're opening a can of worms here," board member Gerald Walson said. "Who qualifies for an exception or consideration?"
"I'd hate to be the one," he said, adding that no exemption guidelines are currently in place.
In other action, board members directed staffers to return next month with an ordinance that would make the offending ratepayer responsible for the cost of installing a flow-restriction device on the meter service, one of the penalties for exceeding the set allocation.
The meters would restrict water flow to the customer by 50 percent -- without warning -- after three months in violation, according to the district's reduction guidelines. District policy allows warnings and fines to be levied before flow restrictions are installed.
Board President Rua Petty also said that it would be too severe to impose penalties during the first two months of cutbacks because growers need time to tweak plans and become compliant.
The reduction measures were put into effect by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the main water supplier for the region, after officials from water agencies statewide said that the region faces serious water shortages partly because of drought and a court ruling last August that could limit water deliveries from
Nearly two-thirds of imported water supplies come from the north, according to state water officials, and the ruling could cut the region's delta supplies by 30 percent next year. #
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/11/08/news/inland/3_01_0211_7_07.txt
FARM BILL:
Guest Column: On the Farm Bill; Farm subsidies help few, harm many; Effects felt here and in Africa
San Francisco Chronicle – 11/8/07
By Janet McKinley, of
Californians have a lot at stake in the Farm Bill that is on the U.S. Senate floor this week, and not just because farming is a vibrant part of our economy and culture.
Take water, for example. It's been a dry year here and the Legislature is considering issuing billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded bonds to build dams for water storage. But there are many other, more fiscally conservative water supply alternatives than dams. We can start by taking a closer look at the federal Farm Bill.
More than 2 million acre-feet of water - that's 2 million football fields covered in one foot of water - are used each year to cultivate cotton in our state, with farmers paying far less than the water's actual cost and a fraction of its true value.
Increasingly, cotton is being treated by commercial farmers in our state as a "marginal" crop, grown when there's sufficient water to harvest the benefit of a subsidy check from the government. Growing cotton in
Perversely, because federal farm policy ensures that farmers get subsidies for each bale of cotton that they produce, cheap
While that policy may have made sense during the Great Depression, it makes no sense today. As taxpayers, we're set up to pay more and more. As Californians, we're set up to export an acre-foot of water that we could have used otherwise here in
Sadly, cotton subsidies would not change under the Farm Bill that is on the Senate floor this week. It would continue farm policy that encourages cotton farmers to produce more cotton with the guarantee of a taxpayer subsidy for every bale of cotton they produce and every acre foot of water they use to produce it.
Cotton subsidies also have severe ramifications for international trade, global poverty and national security. Cotton subsidies threaten negotiations on international trade and risk retaliation from our trade allies that could affect a number of sectors of our economy.
Recently, I traveled to
A recent study by Dan Sumner at UC Davis found that reforming cotton subsidies would increase world cotton prices, resulting in enough income for poor West African cotton-growing households to feed an additional million children a year. The price-deflating effects of our cotton subsidies now substantially offset the benefits of direct
Faced with the opportunity for change this summer, the U.S. House of Representatives failed to muster the political will to reform the Farm Bill's cotton program. The Senate has its turn this week, but it's unclear whether Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of
In
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/11/08/ED18T84PO.DTL
WATER SUPPLY PLANNING:
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 11/8/07
By Clark Mason, staff writer
Two officials still decided to move ahead with plans to develop wells that don't draw from the
Faced with water constraints and other growth pains, Town Council members postponed until December the allocation of residential building permits for the upcoming year.
They directed town planners to get a more realistic idea of when developers will build and if they can phase their projects over a longer period.
The pace of growth has lessened dramatically in
In 2005, 229 residential building permits were issued; in 2006, it was 152. Through September, 63 building permits have been issued in 2007.
Council members fear that when the economy picks up, there could be an explosion in building as developers with reserved permits pull them. Councilman Steve Allen estimated as many as 600 new housing units could become reality in a 2009 "tidal wave."
For 2008, 170 permits have been allocated or tentatively reserved for a half-dozen projects, most of them downtown and projected to be built in phases over several years. But the council still needs to formally approve those, a decision postponed until the Dec. 5 meeting.
Citing uncertainties over water supplies and school capacity, Councilwoman Robin Gobel suggested the council not allocate building permits in 2010. But a majority of her colleagues disagreed.
"I'm a little leery about pulling the train to a stop," Mayor Warin Parker said.
The backdrop for the discussion control was a report that included a dire assessment on water. An updated report eased those concerns.
However,
When the state ordered the Sonoma County Water Agency to cut
The state order resulted from the need to reduce flow rates in the upper
Along with conservation measures,
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20071108/NEWS/711080422/1033/NEWS01
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