[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 2/8/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

February 8, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People

 

WATER POLICY ISSUES:

County blasts new law on water - Ukiah Daily Journal

 

CONTRACT ISSUES:

Board delays water decision - Lake County Record Bee

 

FLOOD PROTECTION:

Guest Opinion: What the Dutch know about deltas - San Francisco Chronicle

 

 

WATER POLICY ISSUES:

County blasts new law on water

Ukiah Daily Journal – 2/8/08

By Rob Burgess, staff writer

 

Tuesday's Mendocino County Board of Supervisors meeting saw several boardmembers, sitting as the Mendocino County Water Agency, release their collective venom regarding the water rights as outlined in AB 2121.

 

The bill was signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in September 2004 and seeks to regulate stream flows ostensibly to protect various species of wildlife.

 

The item was placed on the board's agenda to address the deadline for public comment on the policy.

 

Roland Sanford, county water agency general manager, said that since the item had first been placed on the board's plate, the comment period had been extended to May 1.

 

"Since this agenda item was prepared, there are some late-breaking events," he said. "Last week they granted an extension. We're grateful to have that extension of time. There are a number of existing reservoirs that will be affected by this policy. "

 

Sanford said the item originally was intended to ask the board to write a letter to the State Water Resources Control Board, asking it to delay the deadline for this comment period.

 

"We do have additional time now to look at this policy more carefully," he said. "It is a very lengthy policy. There are 600 to 700 pages of supporting documents."

 

The draft policy Sanford referred to covers several rivers and streams in Northern California, but not the Eel River.

 

"The geographic scope of this policy, referred to as the policy area, encompasses coastal streams from the Mattole River to San Francisco and coastal streams entering northern San Pablo Bay, and extends to five counties -- Marin, Sonoma, and portions of Napa, Mendocino and Humboldt counties," stated the introduction to the "Draft Policy for Maintaining Instream Flows in Northern California Coastal Streams." "This policy focuses on measures that protect native fish populations, with a particular focus on anadromous salmonids and their habitat."

 

Several supervisors, though, saw the purpose behind the legislation much differently.

 

"It smacks of backroom deals," said 2nd District Supervisor Jim Wattenburger. "I believe that you need to be aggressive. This is a very draconian effort by Southern California legislators to divert water for themselves. This is very poorly thought out. This is not a very public, transparent piece of legislation."

 

Third District Supervisor John Pinches said he didn't see the intent of the law as having anything to do with wildlife preservation.

 

"To me this is not about saving fish," he said. "If it was about fish they wouldn't have exempted the Eel River. This is government at its worst. I think we need to take early action to oppose it."

 

Sanford said the best defense the county has against the implementation of the policy is in the legal aspects of it rather than the more scientific.

 

"As far as a strategy here, I don't see a lot of room in arguing the technical issues here," he said. "This is a document that has been prepared and then peer reviewed. The county has more credibility on the land use side. My real concern is that from a land-use perspective, what does this mean in terms of land values? What happens when you make people more aggressive about finding groundwater? That's an angle that we should exploit."

 

Before adjourning, Sanford said he would be attending a technical staff workshop the next day in Santa Rosa on the issue. #

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_8207085

 

 

CONTRACT ISSUES:

Board delays water decision

Lake County Record Bee – 2/7/08

By Tiffany Revelle, staff writer

 

LAKE COUNTY -- The Lake County Board of Supervisors voted to delay its decision regarding a half-million-dollar change to a contract with consulting firm CH2M Hill at its Tuesday meeting. The contract, signed in 2005, is for improvements to three water systems managed by the county's special districts department.

 

The second amendment to the agreement for engineering services is largely in response to citations issued by the California Department of Public Health (DPH) in Spring Valley and North Lakeport, according to a memo from special districts manager Mark Dellinger. Changes to the contract for the two systems and the Kono Tayee water system totaled $533,000. The discussion was continued to Feb. 12.

 

"This is very unusual, to have this size of a contract amendment, so it's good that you're questioning it," chief county administrator Kelly Cox told the board.

 

"We would like to know what we're getting for our money," Rushing said. "The change order was so large relative to the initial contract. If we had gone into that contract knowing the scope of what we would be doing for the next couple of years, I don't know if we would be doing that." She said the initial contract was around $300,000. With the change order, the contract amount would be more than $800,000.

 

The majority of the added expense is for improvements to the North Lakeport system, county service area CSA) 21.

 

The change calls for $396,500 for a hydraulic study, evaluation of the Robin Hill Water Treatment Plant, repairs for water quality and the county's share of running 700 feet of pipe between CSA 21 and the city of Lakeport and a transfer pump station to establish a link between the two systems.

 

The cost cited for improvements to Spring Valley's system, CSA 2, is $96,500. Spring Valley is under a moratorium on additional connections after concerns about capacity arose in the summer of 2006. In addition, $40,000 is needed to replace a water storage tank in CSA 13, Kono Tayee's water system.

 

Supervisors Anthony Farrington and Denise Rushing, the supervisors in whose districts the water systems are located, supported putting the project out to bid. Dellinger pointed to a May 1 deadline to be in compliance with DPH, saying the bidding process takes no less than three months.

 

"I'm not sure that it would serve the public interest to follow the process again with the experience that our current engineering firm has," Dellinger said. He listed advantages of retaining CH2M Hill, including familiarity with DPH and the water systems. Dellinger also said he was not convinced the county could get a better price. #

http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_8202693

 

 

FLOOD PROTECTION:

Guest Opinion: What the Dutch know about deltas

San Francisco Chronicle – 2/8/08

By Christiaan Kröner, ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the United States

 

The challenges of climate change, water management, innovation and leadership bind California and the Netherlands together. Climate change complicates water management: a matter of national survival for the Dutch. It is a matter of survival for all of us living in river deltas whether in New Orleans, Sacramento or Amsterdam.

 

Two-thirds of the Netherlands is at or below sea-level, more than 11 million people live in flood-prone areas and 70 percent of Dutch GDP is produced there.

 

We anticipate that climate change will raise sea levels between 1 and 2 feet over the next century, producing more violent storms, drier summers and wetter winters. Our levees will dry out in the summer, weakening them. Ground and surface water levels will decline, accelerating land subsidence, making navigation tricky, farming difficult and clean drinking water scarce. Salt water may intrude into our delta, threatening farms and drinking water supplies. In the winter, more rain will fall and cascade downstream. Does this sound familiar? These scenarios describe the likely climate change not only in my country, but - so it seems - also in California.

 

Given our thousand-year history of coping with floods, Dutch engineering has developed a high level of flood protection. Cities have flood protection infrastructure designed to withstand a 1 in 10,000 year flood, while rural and sparsely populated areas are protected against a 1 in 1,250 year flood. Sacramento's protection is much lower.

 

Climate change is a reality here and now. In the mid 1990s, wet weather in the Alps and physical changes to the river channel and development patterns upstream in Germany caused flooding in Holland. Some 250,000 people were evacuated and valuable land was flooded. It was time to rethink our water management policies. Instead of trying to control water everywhere and all the time, we created policies of adaptation and mitigation to work with nature, and give room for water to flow.

 

One key element of Dutch water management is the "Room for the Rivers" policy, which impacts urban and rural areas along the major rivers. Primary river levees are being set back from the river channel and summer dikes are being lowered. Natural and manmade structures in the river's floodplain - groins, buildings, oxbows - are being removed. River channels are being deepened, broadened. "Green rivers" - dry, grassy channels used for parks and recreation that serve as flood overflow areas during water emergencies - are being created in and around vulnerable Dutch towns.

 

These and similar actions allow rivers to safely overflow their banks during flood emergencies and facilitate efficient water flow downstream and out to sea. More important, these actions lower the overall high-water level, which has numerous benefits. First, stress on the levees is reduced. Second, safety levels behind the levees are increased: Should a levee breach, communities would confront slowly rising water, not a cascade of floodwaters overwhelming nearby streets, houses and buildings. Third, human and economic losses will be contained and rebuilding will be less taxing, less costly. Finally, having more green space improves the overall environment.

 

Room for the Rivers is not without costs. Agriculture is an important component of the Dutch economy, and some farmers have been relocated or have had to give up their property - of course with proper compensation. The Netherlands is the world's third-most-densely populated country, and asking cities and communities to give up land that they need for homes and businesses was not easy. Impacted communities had lively discussions about Room for the Rivers, but in the end these trade-offs were deemed to be appropriate because they provide the Netherlands with a more durable, sustainable approach to flood control.

 

With our extensive history in adapting and mitigating water challenges, we know that tackling climate change can also make countries stronger, wealthier, more productive, creative and innovative. That is what we owe to future generations.

 

The Netherlands applauds California for its leadership on climate change in the United States because, as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has said, "the most expensive policy is to do nothing." California has shown strong leadership in setting goals and taking actions. It is necessary to invest in research, to subsidize energy efficiency and regulate emissions but all these factors are not sufficient to produce real change. In order to truly manage greenhouse gases and their effects, we need technology-neutral drivers for change. We need mechanisms and market signals that provide incentives to change the way we do business and develop technologies. The EU and California acknowledge the need for binding ceilings on greenhouse-gas emissions, cap-and-trade systems, and setting taxes on the use of energy. Only when the United States and Europe show common leadership will we be able to meet the challenge. #

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/02/08/EDRJUTNK3.DTL

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