A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 21, 2007
3. Watersheds
Salton Sea bill may be in peril - Desert Sun
DELTA ISSUES:
Editorial: First, a vision - now comes real work -
Desert Sun – 12/21/07
By Keith Mathney, staff writer
Members of the Salton Sea Authority hope an emerging budget crisis in
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said last week he is prepared to declare a fiscal emergency, with a projected state budget deficit of up to $14.5 billion over the next two years.
The state Senate will soon take up an Assembly-passed health care reform bill that also carries a $14.5 billion price tag.
Neither bit of news is good for a multibillion-dollar
A bill sponsored by state Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-San Diego, would earmark $47 million in state Proposition 84 water bond money for early habitat restoration, air quality monitoring and other first-step work at the sea.
But the bill, Senate Bill 187, stalled in an Assembly committee at the end of the legislative year. It's expected to be reintroduced at the start of the new legislative session in January.
But with the state's sobering financial realities, the bill may continue to get a chilly reception in
"I think 187 is going to get shuffled off to a side pile because they won't want to spend any money they won't have to," Riverside County Supervisor and Salton Sea Authority member Roy Wilson said.
Patricia Cooper, district representative in Ducheny's Coachella office, said the senator is prepared to continue to push the importance of sea restoration for the region. But the pitch is getting increasingly tougher.
"The senator's worst fear was realized when we didn't get S.B. 187 passed this past year, with the difficulty in getting appropriations passed now," she said.
Time to make changes
The
Fish and bird habitats could be severely impacted, and exposed dry lake bed could cause dust problems for miles, including into the
After years of false starts and debate, state Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman this spring chose a 75-year, $8.9 billion mitigation plan to restore the sea, abate air quality problems and preserve wildlife habitat.
Authority members remain concerned about the potential loss of local control over a sea restoration project that will take a generation to pull off and will impact local residents for generations to come.
A conservancy governance concept now being considered in
"The state does not have much of an incentive to pursue the project. Even with a conservancy, what's the state's incentive?" said Coachella Valley Water District board member and authority chairman Peter Nelson.
"The incentive to pursue a restoration project comes from the community; it comes from us."
Water district and authority board member Patricia "Corky" Larson said the conservancy language now being considered would require a consensus of all stakeholders, with the state secretary of resources making the ultimate decision if a consensus cannot be reached. That gives the state de facto veto power over all aspects of the project, she said.
Other questions revolve around whether the conservancy would govern only the early-start work included in Ducheny's bill, or be extended forward if and when the restoration begins in earnest.
"I think that's basically a bad governance for us to buy in on," Larson said.
Cooper said now is the time for authority members to propose language changes to Ducheny's bill, before it's reintroduced.
Authority member and Riverside County Supervisor Marion Ashley noted that a state-led conservancy looked like a good idea before the state's recent bad budget news.
"Conditions have changed," he said. "Maybe they ought to revisit this whole thing, try to push it down (to the locals), give us a try and help us do it."
Authority continues to struggle to stay afloat
The Salton Sea Authority is trying to negotiate an end to the lease on its La Quinta offices and move into a space in the
The authority earlier requested another $75,000 in appropriations from member agencies to continue operations.
But the Imperial Irrigation District's board voted to table approval of the payment until a meeting next month. And the Torres-Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians have never made a payment to the authority, Nelson said.
"It's not a requirement to make the financial contributions," Nelson said. "But we've asked for equal participation."
"We understand the Torres-Martinez financial situation, a fledgling tribe with lots of constituent needs."
Several messages left with tribal officials were not returned.
Nelson said he would attempt to have a meeting with the tribe’s council and chairman, Ray Torres, on the authority funding.
Authority and IID board member James Hanks said the IID is trying to resolve legal questions over its land that would be involved in early-start sea restoration work.
"I believe the votes are there (to approve the payment),” he said. “Until we get some of these issues resolved, there were some people who felt like they were being asked to make a decision and didn’t have all of the information they felt they needed."
Without the IID and tribal payments, the authority has sufficient funds to operate until March, Nelson said. With their payments, it can operate until June, possibly longer with reduced costs of office space, he said.
Members are pursuing state, federal and other grant avenues for additional funding, Nelson said.
"The authority is in a little tenuous situation here," he said. #
http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712210380
DELTA ISSUES:
Editorial: First, a vision - now comes real work
After 10 months of public hearings, scientific reports and expert advice, the governor's Delta Vision blue ribbon task force has finished its report and called upon the state to take an entirely new approach to the way it handles the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and Suisun Marsh.
As it was crafting its report, the task force at times seemed ready to get into the specifics of how things should be done.
In the end, it wisely stuck to its mission of providing a broad vision, recommending the direction that the state should head in without giving instructions for how to get there.
The task force has offered a dozen "integrated and linked recommendations" that it cautions should not be picked apart because "the Delta cannot be 'fixed' by any single action," the executive summary noted.
No. 1 on that list is the need to make the Delta ecosystem and its reliable water supply the main and co-equal goals for future decisions. Striking this balance is the only way to ensure the continued existence of either.
Beyond that, the report offers something for everyone.
• It acknowledges that conserving water is just as important as finding new places to store it or new ways to send it from one point to another.
• It recognizes that stronger, improved levees are needed to protect homes and property, while urging bans on new development in flood-prone areas.
• It recommends establishing a single body to govern the entire Delta (more than 200 agencies and entities now have some say), while advising that "institutions and polices" should be designed for "resiliency and adaptation."
The committee, led by former Assemblyman Phil Isenberg, has put together a well-thought-out vision for the Delta, which forms the eastern and southern boundaries of
Now comes the hard part: Figuring out how to implement it.
Take that recommendation to put one group in charge of decisions about the Delta. In theory, it seems like a sound idea. But who will sit on that board? Whose interests will they represent? Will they be elected or appointed? What happens to those other 200 agencies? And who pays for it?
Those are just a few questions that will have to be addressed to implement just one of the 12 recommendations.
It will take much hard work, but this vision can be implemented. First, though, every interested party - cities, farmers, water districts, environmentalists, citizens, etc. - must acknowledge that it is probably going to have to give up something along the way.
The return, however, could be a healthy, sustainable Delta that provides a reliable water supply for the entire region and much of the state. #
http://www.thereporter.com//ci_7778523?IADID=Search-www.thereporter.com-www.thereporter.com
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