A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
January 28, 2008
3. Watersheds
Agencies focus on river erosion; Pact to hear Woodson Bridge area plan - Red Bluff Daily News
A trickle of success; The San Diego River Conservancy is far behind goals for enhancing waterway, securing funds - San Diego Union Tribune
COASTAL WETLANDS RESTORATION:
State wants wetlands to return to nature - Associated Press
Editorial: Seal Klamath deal -
Column: Best use of
Agencies focus on river erosion; Pact to hear
Red Bluff Daily News – 1/26/08
By Karen McIntyre, staff writer
CORNING - Flood damage has been a problem for
Whether it's the right step was debated among residents who attended the meeting at the Corning Council chamber.
The Kopta Slough Flood Damage Reduction and Habitat Restoration Project affects the Sacramento River between River Mile 218 and 223, or the few miles upstream of
Agencies involved are the Sacramento River Conservation Area Forum, Department of Water Resources, Tehama County Flood Control and
There was standing room only as Aric Lester, environmental scientist for the Department of Water Resources, described the proposed project to the public.
The project's goals, Lester said, are to restore ecosystem function, reduce the effects of flooding and erosion, protect habitat and provide recreation opportunities. To accomplish those goals, the project includes removing rock that no longer serves its purpose of protecting 5,600 feet of bank along the Kopta Slough property and placing rock along the bank downstream to protect the west abutment of
If Flood Control gives the go-ahead, a feasibility study conducted this year will examine the project and its outcomes.
Factoring in the study, designs, permits and construction, the project is scheduled to be completed in 2011 if it is approved.
That is too long, residents pointed out. In four years, erosion could destroy
Shoreline at
Residents were concerned that removing only the top portion of rock from the water would cause eddies and that easing water pressure in one area would create more pressure and erosion in another area.
Gary Ford, from the Woodson Bridge RV Park, said the river changes so quickly that whatever solution is proposed now will not be sufficient years down the line.
"Every environmental thing that's been put in in the last 30 years, I think, has been found to be a big failure," Ford said. "So whatever you guys decide to do, do the wrong thing faster."
Project leads responded to questions and comments from the audience, and Flood Control Water Resource Manager Ernie Ohlin said project leads do not yet have all the answers. The purpose of the meeting was to let the public know a project is in the works, but it has a long way to go.
Studies conducted in the past will help speed the process. Agencies have been working to fix this problem for years, former Tehama County Supervisor Burt Bundy said.
Bundy spoke about the history of the river, and what has previously been done. After a storm washed away the bank in 1964, water was high for the next 20 years.
"It's like taking a garden hose and squirting it in the same spot for a long time," he said.
The access road was rebuilt several times, and people working on the problem were reluctant to dump rock. So in 1986, they put pillars connected with webbing in the water.
More than 10 years later, the 1997 storm damaged the piers, creating a navigational hazard. The pillars were removed, and with no protection, erosion almost doubled, Bundy said.
A solution was proposed, but the grant money for the project disappeared after the 9/11 attacks.
Now, project leads are preparing a memo for Flood Control. If they are given permission, a feasibility study will be conducted. Projects like this "move at the speed of bureaucracy," Ohlin said.
The project includes:
Protecting the west abutment of
Transferring ownership of the 708-acre Kopta Slough property from the California State Controller Environmental Trust to the state to be managed by California State Parks
Removing unnecessary revetment along 5,600 feet of the riverbank at Kopta Slough
Reducing the rate of erosion along the southeast riverbank of the Woodson Bridge State Recreation Area to preserve oak trees and develop camping, picnicking and facilities
Restoring 176 acres of forest on Kopta Slough
Project goals:
Provide flood damage reduction benefits through reduced bank erosion to protect public resources
Provide advance mitigation credits for projects on state-maintained Central Valley Flood Control facilities for mixed riparian habitat
Provide ecosystem benefits through the restoration of natural fluvial and floodplain processes and mitigate for the loss of shaded riverine aquatic habitat from Department of Water Resources Flood Control Projects
Establish long-term public ownership of the Kopta Slough property to protect public trust resources
Expand recreational opportunities including camping, hiking, picnicking and equestrian use. #
http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/ci_8086966
A trickle of success; The
By Mike Lee, staff writer
When state lawmakers formed the San Diego River Conservancy in 2002, they wanted the agency to help restore and enhance the neglected waterway.
So far, the tiny conservancy has not reached many of its goals for funding, land acquisition and cleaning up what's been dubbed
On the financial front, state officials set aside $12 million about six years ago for the conservancy's capital projects.
The agency has collected an additional $3.2 million in project money since then, and various partners have contributed about $17 million to its projects.
The funds pale in comparison to what the conservancy's board of directors hoped to receive when they passed a strategic plan in 2006. The blueprint calls for obtaining $164.5 million by the end of 2009 to build bike paths, buy land and complete other projects along the waterway, which runs 52 miles from its starting point near Julian to its mouth in
The main hitch is where the agency will find the rest of the money needed to fulfill its mission.
The conservancy has outlined many needs, including a target of preserving 1,450 acres along the river by 2010. To date, it has helped to acquire about 185 acres.
Another priority highlighted in the plan is making the river safer for visitors by containing the “significant criminal element” that uses the waterway's overgrowth for shelter, drug deals and sales of stolen merchandise. Today, the floodplain remains pocked by trash, graffiti and homeless encampments in
The conservancy will fold Jan. 1, 2010, unless the state Legislature extends its charter. The idea of letting the agency die may not be far-fetched. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sought to eliminate it in 2004, but several local leaders successfully pleaded for it to be spared.
“I do wish our first five years had produced more,” said Jim Peugh, a veteran activist with the Audubon Society and a member of the conservancy's board. “I hope that we will make enough progress . . . so there won't be a question as to whether the conservancy should be continued. We kind of have to earn that.”
Peugh said he is upbeat about the conservancy's future because it has an expanded board of directors, new consultants and a growing list of projects.
Reasons for the agency's slow start include management turnover, lack of staffing, the complexity of land transactions and the unexpectedly long time it took to build community consensus for an overarching action plan, Peugh and other sources said. They point out that conservation programs commonly take years to get rolling, particularly when they involve numerous government agencies.
For all its growing pains, the conservancy has helped raise awareness about the river.
“A lot of people didn't even know that the
Construction on one signature project, a $2.55 million walking and biking path, was launched this month and should be finished by summer. The new span will connect the existing
The new path will be only about three-quarters of a mile long, but it's significant as part of a larger vision: Dozens of river-related organizations support the concept of building a trail from the
“All of the sudden, you can see the San Diego River Trail emerging,” said Michael Nelson, who took over as the conservancy's executive director in November 2006. “There's real momentum beginning to build (that) will raise the conservancy's profile and make it easier for us to secure appropriations in future years.”
The conservancy is a two-person agency that runs on about $300,000 a year, not counting money for specific projects. The operating budget relies on the state's environmental-license-plate fund, which allows people to support conservation causes by paying an extra fee for their plates.
In general, conservancies harness state funds to help pay for projects involving high-value natural resources such as Lake Tahoe and the
Historically, the
The river flows from forests near Julian through Santee and
Spurred by a major sewage spill eight years ago that fouled the river in
“In two to three years, we expect to see significant change because of the number of projects that are in the pipeline,” said Rob Hutsel, executive director of the nonprofit San Diego River Park Foundation and coordinator of a consortium of 68 related groups. The foundation sponsors various projects and programs in conjunction with the conservancy.
The theme of waiting for results runs through the conservancy's history. State Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, sponsored the legislation that formed the San Diego River Conservancy. The law requires the agency's charter to be renewed by the Legislature by 2010 as a means of encouraging accountability.
When Schwarzenegger looked to eliminate the conservancy a few years ago, then-Mayor Dick Murphy was among the agency's backers. “We are just on the threshold of beginning to make a difference,” Murphy said at the time.
But two years later, the conservancy's board fired executive director Deborah Jayne over concerns that she wasn't obtaining enough land or boosting the agency's profile. Jayne contested her firing, saying she was on the verge of doing bigger things.
Nelson, Jayne's replacement, garners high marks from the conservancy's board members and other advocates for the river. In particular, he is praised for his work ethic and attempts to forge partnerships with regional and state organizations.
Kehoe and other supporters of the conservancy said it's back on track toward making significant progress.
“Given the challenges, I think we have done very well,” Frye said. “Would I have liked to have done (things) more quickly? Of course.” #
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080126/news_1m26river.html
COASTAL WETLANDS RESTORATION:
State wants wetlands to return to nature
Associated Press – 1/27/08
By Noaki Schwartz, staff writer
It's not without shortcomings, though. The 79-year-old goes without electricity and running water, and for three months of the year, rising waters threaten to swamp the portable toilet and rusted Oldsmobile that sit in a gully below.
"At night, when it's all flooded and the water gets in here real deep, it just reminds me of a monster from the deep -- it's a dull kind of spooky roar," Holzworth said.
A flood, however, is not what is likely to drive Holzworth to drier land. The narrow sandy spit she occupies is the subject of a battle that has gone on for decades between bureaucrats hundreds of miles away and unwitting landowners who thought they had bought prime real estate in the 1960s.
In the eyes of the state, Holzworth is a squatter living in the middle of one of
Pacific Shores, as it was dubbed by a developer who sold lots on the cheap to far away dreamers, is a limbo land where the state has been able to prevent development but unable to get lot owners to give up their quest.
Owners have been squaring off with the agency that oversees coastal development since the Coastal Act of 1976 was created, partly in response to
About a half dozen times a year, commissioners grapple with some new legal entanglement thrown up by owners so bent on building they've spent upward of $2 million on lawyers and environmental studies.
"People have this need to feel they own this piece of ground so they will jump on it, no matter how unrealistic it is, even if they'll never really be able to build on it," said Peter Douglas, the California Coastal Commission's executive director. "I think they were swindled; I really do."
If the commission and other public agencies have their way, a subdivision that never developed much beyond a network of paved streets could be on the road to officially being reclaimed by nature.
Squatter's paradise
In the 1960s, the Tamco Development Company purchased more than 760 acres of land that sat between the ocean and joint Lakes Earl and Tolowa. The ranching family who owned the property would periodically breach
The two lakes are joined at a narrow bend and form a lagoon. The water rises and falls with the rains and tide, spilling over sandbars and into the ocean several months of the year.
The mix of fresh and salt water provides habitat for at least 15 threatened species such as the western snowy plover, the Oregon silverspot butterfly and tidewater goby. As many as 100,000 birds use the wetlands during seasonal migration.
When the waters were low, developers paved 27 miles of roads and put up street signs. With county approval, they began selling the half acre lots in the newly named
Less than a decade later, the Coastal Act was passed. Ever since, lot owners have been unable to get a water and sewer system installed in such a sensitive area of seasonal wetlands, sand dunes and endangered species.
Maxine Curtis, a property owner in
The roads are now cracked and lead toward rusted mailboxes waiting for letters that will never come. Some lots have been turned into a squatters' paradise of abandoned buses, boats and trash. A half-submerged "for sale" sign marks one parcel.
Many owners remained defiant.
In 1988, they created a water district that collected fees used to pursue the right to build. That same year, Fish and Game and the county stopped breaching the lake to let it drain into the ocean, instead allowing it to flood.
"The idea is to return it to as near natural as possible," said Tim Williamson the Fish and Game area manager, who oversees the Lake Earl Wildlife Area. "Even without bringing the water down, it's 70 percent wetlands."
Over time, the subdivision's neatly trimmed lots and roads fell into disrepair, confounding property owners who were occasionally found wandering around searching for their lots.
Locals, meanwhile, found other uses for the vacant subdivision.
"Ninety percent of the residents here either learned how to drive here or were conceived here," Williamson said.
Faced with so many hurdles, many lot owners gave up and sold to the state or to unsuspecting buyers from as far away as
A 2006 landauction.com ad invited prospective bidders to: "Listen to the sound of the splashing waves and breathe the crisp ocean air
Borrowed time
For those who have clung on to their property, it's not hard to see why.
Dwayne Smith, a lot owner in
The young firefighter paid $20 a month out of his then $400 a month paycheck, until he finally paid off the $5,000 price for the property.
"The vast majority of us were young couples with this dream of one day moving up to this beautiful part of
Now 73 and living in a retirement community, Smith has yet to lay a single brick. As the years have passed, Smith has built all manner of homes in his mind, from a Kennedy-style complex for family vacations to a one-story ranch-style home for retirement.
Had he been able to develop, Smith might have watched pelicans lumbering over crashing waves from his front porch and fished the lake a few steps from his back door.
Time has taken a toll on those who have remained. Smith and other graying members of the homeowners association still hold monthly meetings at a
"It's like being between
Smith has filled a thick manila file with photocopied newspaper articles, maps and letters he's scribbled on. He tapes interviews and answers most questions about his development battles with a lengthy history about the subdivision.
"It's like owning
At times, efforts to turn the situation around have gotten them into trouble.
After the Army Corps of Engineers stopped draining the lake, Smith and Resch were caught doing just that in 1995 and were fined $5,000 and put on 18 months probation. That year, Smith fired off a series of letters pleading their case to the assistant secretary of the U.S. Interior Department and the secretary of defense.
"This letter is to inform you of an especially egregious and sinister situation," he wrote. "Federal agencies are conspiring with the
Holzworth and her handful of neighbors are now living on borrowed time.
After a decades-long standoff, state officials appear to be finally closing in, ousting squatters and buying back half of the lots. Local officials moved to dissolve the dues-collecting water district in December on the grounds that it never provided any water or septic services.
Many have sold their lots for about $5,000 a parcel to the Smith River Alliance, a nonprofit working with the state.
The land will eventually be added to the nature preserve.
Defiant property owners remain among the only obstacle to completing the wildlife area. Smith believes lot owners are being cheated, but when asked if he'd sell for a fair price and walk away after such a long ordeal, he hesitates.
Like tens of thousands of others still holding onto undevelopable parcels around the country, he isn't ready to let go of the dream.
Last fall, Holzworth was visited by a state Fish and Game officer who told her the day is coming when she'll have to move. By law, the only thing lot owners can do is pitch a tent for two weeks out of the year.
"There's always people hassling you," Holzworth said. "You get hassled a lot here."
She told the officer she had a legal lease -- and has for a decade.
She tried to hold her ground but wobbled a bit in her hip replacement brace, her bare feet unsteady on the shifting sands. #
http://www.contracostatimes.com/bayandstate/ci_8093212?nclick_check=1
Editorial: Seal Klamath deal
Two ingredients are essential in resolving intractable water conflicts:
• A willingness by all parties to engage in honest negotiations.
• A willingness to compromise.
Up in the
They are close to a deal to remove four dams, restore salmon runs on one of the West's largest rivers and protect farmers against endangered species lawsuits. This deal would restore wetlands, ensure more water for wildlife refuges and protect various interests in times of drought.
But for this pact to work, everyone must be willing to give, including groups on the fringes – hard-line farm activists and wildlife advocates. It also includes PacifiCorp, which operates the Klamath dams and is part of Warren Buffett's empire.
In 2001, the Klamath erupted in near-violent clashes. To protect salmon and other fish, federal agencies cut back irrigation water to growers in the basin, which straddles the
For more than a year, the regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Steve Thompson, has been trying to broker a Klamath peace treaty through talks with 26 affected parties.
This treaty would depend on a $950 million public investment – to retire water rights, restore wetlands and improve habitat for salmon.
Some groups, unfortunately, are demanding more. The Hoopa tribe wants guaranteed flows in the Klamath, discounting the benefits to salmon by removing dams. Two
A better course, for all interests involved, would be to recognize the fragility of the current deal, and then band together and put real pressure on PacifiCorp.
This Portland-based utility is engaged in a bit of brinkmanship, claiming it has been excluded from talks while failing to get involved. PacifiCorp knows it will have to pay more to install fish ladders – and face lawsuits – than to dismantle the four dams. Yet they continue to hold out, perhaps hoping that Congress will spoon out a deal sweetener courtesy of federal taxpayers.
The Bush administration, which has leverage through the federal relicensing process, needs to stand firm. A resolution of the Klamath crisis is near. With a bit more work, it could become a model for other water pacts, including one that continues to elude
http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/663154.html
Column: Best use of
By Lois Henry,
I want a river so bad I can taste it.
You can tell me all day long how much more beneficial it is to carve the
And you'd be right -- to a point. But isn't there just a little water from the mighty Kern that can be set free down its ancient path?
Turns out there might be. Here's why:
A 12-year-long lawsuit between two local water districts culminated last year in a judge finding one of the districts had forfeited its rights to some
The judge also said the Kern might no longer be "fully appropriated" -- in other words, there might be loose water available -- but that was up to the State Water Resources Control Board to decide.
Once that happened, a flurry of petitions and applications were filed with the board, including one from the City of
In its application, the city states it would run that water down the natural channel of the
It seriously made my heart beat faster when I read that.
You may remember we had a river for a short time back in the spring and summer of 2006. The Corps of Engineers was concerned about Isabella Dam busting, so they lowered the lake, dumping water on us. So, it wasn't exactly "natural" and there was some serious worry involved, but who cares!
We had a big, full, fat, lazy, beautiful river. And I swear it made
It was amazing how this ribbon of water through the city changed things, lightened them, made a hot sticky day bearable, made the air seem clearer, made the blind see (OK, I'm exaggerating, but only slightly). Personally, I was spellbound.
I want it back.
And here's our opportunity.
I'm not advocating taking a chisel to the dam. But if you want that river even half as much as I want it, you can write to the State Water Resources Control Board in support of the city.
I'll give you all the deets in a minute. The first step is to get a hearing and then the process will grind on from there.
It's imperative that we get behind this effort now because the board is only taking comments through Thursday, and the city already has competition.
Four other districts have petitioned the board and asked for the water.
North Kern Water Storage District in conjunction with the city of
Buena Vista Water Storage DIstrict wants it for irrigation and storage.
The Kern Water Bank Authority wants it for irrigation, storage and industrial uses.
The Kern County Water Agency would wholesale it to its member ag districts and municipal clients.
No, no, no!
The riverbed is the center of Kern's vast aquifer, I'm told by Florn Core, the city's water resources director.
"So water absorbed there eventually makes it out to the whole basin and everyone benefits," he said.
We also get our drinking water from that aquifer, so recharging it with good clean Kern water, rather than salty water from the California Aqueduct, means higher quality water out of the tap.
Oh, and
Though no one knows the exact number of acre-feet that may be up for grabs, the city has calculated it could be as much as 110,000 to 120,000 acre-feet a year.
Core said in average water years the city typically has a river through town for about two months -- May and June -- as there's more water than is needed by other river users. If the city succeeds in its pitch to the state board, we could be assured a river -- except in dry years, of course -- nine to 10 months a year.
I'm down with all the other benefits Core lists, but I really want that river. Even more so because I believe we were cheated out of our river several years ago.
Back in 2000, the city and the Kern County Water Agency got about $23 million from Proposition 13 funds, about $3 million of which was spent to build the "Kern River Flow Restoration Project."
Sounds impressive, huh?
The water agency took control of the project, which involved building a series of pumps and wells along the river that would pull up groundwater and run it down the river channel between May and September.
In dry years, though, it would have cost up to $1 million to have that "recirculating river" through summer. So the pumps have never been used for that purpose, Core said.
Soooooo, we spent all those millions for what? Classic! Well, here's another chance, a better chance and it won't cost anything except a few minutes of your time. Everyone has taken their cut of the once untamed
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/345777.html
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