A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 21, 2008
3. Watersheds
QUAGGA MUSSEL:
Lake County continues to confront quagga dilemma - Lake County Record Bee
Revived water flow brings life back to river; In the eastern Sierra, L.A. water company forces flooding in Lower Owens River - San Francisco Chronicle
Guest Column: Klamath Basin pact still has problems - Eureka Times Standard
QUAGGA MUSSEL:
By Elizabeth Wilson, staff writer
A full room of more than 50 attendees interacted with the Board of Supervisors during the nearly three-hour meeting, giving suggestions about how to quickly implement a complex series of 13 local action strategies the board approved at its meeting Tuesday.
The quagga mussel is an invasive species that came to the
Deputy Director of Water Resources Pam Francis said because it has been in the state that long, it is likely
But Francis, supervisors and citizens attending the meeting were ubiquitous that prevention and preparation methods remain of utmost importance to prevent its spread and infestation in the lake. Each mussel is capable of reproducing at a rate of 1 million offspring each year.
"Inspection [of watercraft] is what we need to do. We could be installing one [wash station] at Hillside Honda within six weeks," Francis told the board.
Because
The money to pay for the 13 local quagga prevention methods which include a sticker program that will likely charge watercraft owners about $10 to access the lake will come from about $500,000 dollars the county earned in the sale of the dilapidated Cove Resort.
Lakeport Regional Chamber of Commerce CEO Melissa Fulton, a member of a newly-appointed ad hoc quagga committee, said she is working along with many others to provide information to Francis about which businesses would be willing to participate in setting up quagga mussel wash stations for watercraft.
Purchasing four wash stations was part of the 13 action items approved by the board Tuesday. A list of those businesses as well as the roughly 60 people in the county trained to do quagga inspection on watercraft would be available for the Board of Supervisors next Tuesday,
The motions passed at Thursday's meeting include instructing county staff to immediately order four $21,646-per-unit wash stations from Hydro Engineering in
The board also approved appointing a team of 14 to an ad hoc quagga mussel committee that meets today and will report back to the board Tuesday about details having to do with the implementation of the wash stations and a watercraft inspection and certification program. Bob White of Clear Lake Oaks, a former Napa County Supervisor and Coast Guard Auxiliary member was added to the committee.
The fourth motion was to approve eight state-action items that were recommended to the board Tuesday by Francis but not approved at that meeting. As part of the motion, staff was directed to contact the state and California Association of Counties (CSAC) about the action iteThe newly-formed Clear Lake Foundation (CLS), a non-profit with a mission to protect
But a plan to ask for the county's financial support for CLF to hire a full-time person for the task was not voiced by any of the several members in attendance.
Instead, supervisors acknowledged the group after Farrington introduced them and said they were interested in receiving help, specifically if CLF could be a fundraising engine.
In regards to bringing in other entities to help out with quagga prevention, Supervisor Ed Robey said there is an "issue of overburdening our staff obviously after the last meeting, this issue of potential infestation is very serious to this board and we want to deal with it as best we can."
Speaking for CLF Board Member Valentino Jack, Sarah Ryan said, "We're interested in providing support. We have a lot of ideas and energy and we'd like to work alongside the county and help meet the deadlines that have been set."
CLF Board Member Dr. Paul Marchand said after the meeting that the group will likely "talk about CLF's role with the Board of Supervisors" soon. #
http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_8646495
Revived water flow brings life back to river; In the eastern Sierra, L.A. water company forces flooding in Lower Owens River
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/21/08
By Louis
(03-21) 04:00 PDT Lone Pine, Inyo County -- As blizzards whipped across nearby High Sierra peaks, ecologist William Platts lifted off in a helicopter here and headed north, 800 feet above a river that looked as if it were throwing a tantrum.
Beneath him, the squiggle of green was overflowing its banks, inundating a patchwork of oxbows, marshlands, forests and sagebrush. Culverts were nearly filled to capacity, and mats of dislodged tules and muck hurtled down the river.
"I really like what I see down there," Platts told the chopper pilot. "But we'll need three or four more seasonal pulses to kick-start this ecosystem into gear."
The
The flood should flush the recently revived river of a century's worth of cattle waste and debris, add topsoil to its flood plain and spur an awakening of riparian rhythms without harming fish populations. Eventually, a canopy forest will grow along the 62-mile river, and
But whether the project achieves that potential will depend on three river bosses who rarely agree: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Inyo County and environmentalists whose lawsuit led to a judicial order that launched the 77,657-acre project as mediation for environmental damage from DWP pumps sucking out groundwater.
Some suggest that the effort also might be affected by drought conditions, which could reduce interest in the project that runs on 55,000 cubic feet of Sierra snowmelt a year.
"If there was not enough water to go around and people were suffering, this project would be the first thing to go," said project consultant Mark Hill, who with Platts helped develop the plan. "It's sacrosanct now and under a court order. But no one should think it's set in stone. It's not."
Early signs, however, are hopeful. With Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's support, the DWP has pledged stewardship of the river that until December 2006 existed as a nearly dry riverbed. A few spring-fed ponds sustained fish and beavers, but the channel was choked by weeds and trampled by cattle.
Now, after a year of steady flows, the channel has become an oasis fringed with tules, wild rose, grass and sage. By June, groundwater had recharged and risen faster than scientists had anticipated, and some desert shrubs had died off, making way for stream-side species. Fish - liberated from ponds - were spreading throughout the river.
Beginning in 2009, the Lower Owens will be flooded each spring to carry along cottonwood and willow seeds.
The seeds will lodge in sandbars and terraces enriched by decomposing tules and tree leaves. By late next year, ecologists expect to see foot-tall saplings along the river's edge.
In the meantime, wildlife is moving back into the river more quickly than expected. Bobcats are its top predators, and hawks patrol the sky. Elk and deer drink from the stream amid croaking tree frogs.
On a recent weekday, biologists watched a great blue heron take flight with a brown trout in its beak. Nearby, wood ducks and rare swans glided over a patch of coffee-colored water.
Still, the rehabilitated Lower Owens ecosystem is far from balanced. It could take 15 to 20 years before the $39 million project can be declared a success - or failure.
One of the best ways to monitor the river's progress is by kayak.
Digging deep with his paddle on a recent weekday, Hill said: "We have to be patient and work on ecological time, not political time. Some people expect to see significant change overnight. That's not going to happen.
"Our biggest obstacles," the consultant added, "are lawyers and amateurs."
Things were particularly tense a week before Feb. 14, when the DWP began increasing river flows to rates as high as 220 cubic feet per second.
Warnings that rising water could flood local roads - including Highway 395 - and destroy cattle forage triggered unease among ranchers and elected officials in financially strapped rural
The fears were understandable because the river has offered up surprises. Normally, the water flows at 40 cubic feet per second - about the speed of an easy stroll - and scientists predicted it would run 2 feet to 4 feet deep. Instead, the current began digging out portions of riverbed 6 to 10 feet deep.
But the water pushed through the thirsty sprawl of high desert 200 miles north of
"Looks like it's going to work," said third-generation cattle rancher Mark Johns, 57, as a team of ecologists recorded the depth, temperature and oxygen levels of water flowing through acreage he has leased from the DWP since 1967.
"If my grandfather was still around, he'd stomp on his hat and run everyone out of here," Johns said.
"Personally, I think it's a good project. Probably."
Ranchers and DWP officials warily watched the flooding, and Sierra Club and Audubon Society members chronicled the flood with stream-side inspections and flyovers in airplanes.
During his recent helicopter flight over the Lower Owens, Platts, 80, surveyed the miles of glistening flood plain below.
"It will be some time before the river can sustain commercial enterprises like fishing, hiking, kayaking and bird-watching concessions," he said. "But average Joes like us can still have a wonderful time just as it is."
About a week after Platts' flight, DWP officials began slowing the flow to its usual speed, and the river started returning to its banks. The
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/21/BAC8VLUBR.DTL&hw=water&sn=006&sc=722
Guest Column:
By Greg King, executive director of the Northcoast Environmental Center
Not long ago, my neighbor said he'd seen me on TV discussing the
”I thought you guys wanted dam removal,” he said. My heart sank. Of course the NEC wants to tear down four Klamath dams. The NEC is an original proponent of dam removal, as we've long worked to restore populations of fish and other wildlife along one of
We want the dams out to open up more than 300 miles of former salmon and steelhead habitat, and to improve the abysmal water quality currently released by the reservoirs behind the dams. But dam removal is only one step, however significant.
The agreement's most controversial provision allocates to farmers 330,000 to 340,000 acre-feet of water during dry years, and 385,000 acre-feet in wet years. (An acre-foot is literally that: The amount of water it would take to cover one acre of land a foot deep.)
This allocation can be renegotiated only during “extreme drought” years, but this “drought plan” will not be created until after the settlement agreement is completed, one of the many unsettling provisions of the agreement.
Also, this allocation is about 10 percent more than farmers currently get during dry years under court-ordered Endangered Species Act protections.
Two species of salmon (chum and pink) are already extinct on the Klamath. Spring Chinook runs are at dangerously low levels. Klamath Coho salmon are listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. Dam removal alone is not enough to prevent further declines. Scientists tell us that the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement may not provide enough water for salmon to avoid extinction, owing to significant allocations to farmers.
The NEC supports farmers. They provide our nation with food, and in many places productive farmland can forestall development and preserve open space. So we hope farmers in the upper Klamath basin are able to secure adequate water supplies, but not at the expense of salmon.
This occurred in 2002, when farmers received 400,000 acre-feet of water and 68,000 adult salmon died in the lower Klamath. Would the agreement prevent such an excessive allocation? Probably. Would an allocation of 330,000 acre-feet also be excessive during even dryer years? Good question.
Last year the NEC hired Dr. Bill Trush of McBain and Trush, and Greg Kamman of Kamman Hydrology, to examine the complex scientific modeling of flow allocations contained in the Agreement. Trush's primary conclusion was that once dams come out and ag gets its water, there still might not be enough water in the river for fish.
Last month the NEC again hired Trush, this time to create an alternative path that scientists working on the agreement could follow to better ensure fish recovery on the
In that paper, Trush wrote, “The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement relegates salmon and the Klamath River ecosystem to the status of junior water users, while
At the same time, the NEC's Board of Directors hosted a phone conference with Dr. Thomas Hardy, associate director of the Utah Water Research Laboratory at
Hardy confirmed Trush's conclusions: “Agriculture gets all the guarantees, and everything related to the environment is left to somewhat vague processes and committees.”
In dry years, said Hardy, agriculture in the upper basin will be “taking too much water from the system.” An acceptable agreement, he said, would “guarantee flows for fish first, then other water uses.”
The NEC's rejection last month of the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was intended to make it better, and to aid the recovery of the entire
We are still negotiating. Already the NEC has spent some $60,000 to review the science and legalities contained in the 256-page agreement, and we're not done yet.
If we agree to support the settlement, it will be because dams will come down and fish will get the water they need to thrive. That's our promise to our members, and to the fish. #
http://www.times-standard.com//ci_8635186?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com
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