[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 3/26/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

March 26, 2008

 

1.  Top Item

 

Salton Sea Restoration Council clears state hurdle; Salton Sea Restoration Council wins trip to Senate Appropriations panel

Desert Sun – 3/26/08

By Jake Henshaw, staff writer

 

A new agency to oversee restoration of the Salton Sea passed muster Tuesday in its first state legislative review, but it still appears to face plenty of work before it becomes a reality.

The state Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee approved the bill by Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego, to create the Salton Sea Restoration Council with 14 local and state voting members.

 

But Senate committee members passed the bill only after raising questions about issues from the role and power of the proposed agency to its financial obligations.

 

"This is still very murky," Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, said.

 

Ducheny, who also represents Cathedral City, agreed that the bill, as several committee members commented, was a "work in progress," but she stressed that it's important work that everyone agrees needs to be done.

 

"This (restoration) is a 75-year project," Ducheny said. "It needs a system for a governance council. It needs a manner in which decisions can be made."

 

No one spoke against the bill.

 

Environmental groups and representatives of Imperial County and the Imperial Irrigation District commended Ducheny's work on the bill.

 

The measure, Senate Bill 1256, next goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

 

Duchney also is the author of another bill, SB 187, which is stalled in the Assembly, to endorse the 75-year, $9 billion restoration plan produced last year by the state Resources Agency.

 

The measures are aimed at setting out the framework to rescue the state's largest inland lake where coming water supply cutbacks and increasing salinity threaten to kill marine life, drive away a rich bird population and increase air pollution for the Coachella Valley from a drying lakebed.

 

The Legislative Analyst's Office has recommended giving the primary responsibility for restoration to the state Department of Water Resources.

 

But Ducheny has pushed for a more diverse agency overseen by an executive committee with a five state representatives, three public members appointed by state officials, four local elected officials and two tribal representatives. There also would be seven nonvoting federal agency representatives.

 

The council would include a science committee and forums for local governments and for other interested parties.

 

The council would be within the Resources Agency, and the resources secretary would make final decisions if the executive committee couldn't reach unanimous agreement.

 

A mix of federal, state and local money have been discussed as possible funding sources.

 

In the Senate committee, Ducheny ran into questions about whether a 14-member council was unwieldy, the appropriate power of the resources secretary, and the extensive duties of the executive committee.

 

In addition to ongoing questions about the proper local role in any governing agency, Dan Parks, coordinator of the Salton Sea Authority, said a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the sea.

 

"Probably, if anything, if the senator ... can get that firm commitment to move ahead 'We run the risk in taking this on of being the sole ones on the hook" to fund it, added Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Murrieta.  (with the restoration), I think all parties, no matter what their constituencies, would feel better about the sea," Parks said in a phone interview. #

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008803260323

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