Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
April 18, 2008
5. Agencies, Programs, People -
Federal official says users responsible for levee fixes -
Transit towns a step to cut carbon footprint -
San Francisco Chronicle
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Federal official says users responsible for levee fixes
On projects transferred to local control, "in most cases the arrangement calls for those costs to be the responsibility of the water users," Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Robert Johnson said at a Senate hearing that focused in part on the collapse of the
The breach in the 100-year-old levee flooded 590 homes in Fernley. The earthen embankment has been managed by the Truckee-Carson Irrigation District since the 1920s.
Fernley Mayor Todd Cutler testified the Bureau of Reclamation as the owner and the irrigation district as the operator should share repair costs of the levee "with the idea that it provides us life."
"The canal feeds a great deal of people. With that
said, it is a federal facility," he said.
Depending on the level of repair deemed necessary, the costs could range from $28 million to $390 million, according to the Bureau of Reclamation.
Johnson told members of the Senate water and power subcommittee the levee was inspected in 2006.
"Looking at that, we identified no deficiencies associated with the region of the canal with the failure," he said.
The Bureau of Reclamation owns 7,911 miles of canals in 17 Western states, with most of them managed and operated by local irrigation and water districts.
Several senators, including Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said the bureau should bear at least a share of the cost of repairs for disasters such as the one at Fernley.
Requiring someone who leases federal property to pay for repairs would be like requiring a renter to replace the roof of a condominium, said Thomas Donnelly, vice president of the National Water Resources Association.
"It would be like me owning a condo and the roof blows off; you would pay for water and power, but I would pay to replace the roof," Donnelly said.
The Truckee-Carson Irrigation District is proposing a $1.50 per acre tax assessment on residents to help pay for modernization needed for the canal to return to full capacity. District officials estimate the tax will raise about $300,000 per year.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in testimony the Bureau of Reclamation "cannot completely abandon its legacy."
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau reporter Sara Spivey at sspivey@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-17600.#
http://www.lvrj.com/news/17906089.html
Transit towns a step to cut carbon footprint
San Francisco Chronicle – 4/18/08
By John King, staff writer
When DeeDee and Doug Ligibel saw the townhouse they now own in
Four years later, she's thrilled with something else: the luxury of living near a BART station, close by a downtown that includes a weekly farmers' market.
"I hardly ever drive," Ligibel said. "I love it, absolutely love it."
Ligibel is part of a small but growing slice of the Bay Area population that lives in a transit village, a term coined to describe high-density housing within easy walking distance of train and bus stops. Long touted by city planners as the cure for everything from sprawl to obesity, they're now being built across the region.
The trend is fueled by more than planning logic or consumer demand. Environmental considerations kick in as well, with the newest prod being concern over climate change. The state government has set a goal of reducing carbon levels to 1990 levels by 2020 - and many supporters say an essential tool is to emphasize compact growth patterns that make it easy for residents to leave their cars at home.
"There's no silver bullet in all this, but transportation accounts for 50 percent of the carbon emissions in the Bay Area," said James Corless, a planner with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which oversees the region's transportation projects. "If you don't change land-use patterns so that people need their cars less, it's harder to make an impact."
The MTC is an aggressive booster of what it calls transit-oriented development; this spring it will award $7.5 million in grants to cities and counties that are developing plans to boost density within a half-mile of transit centers. Fifty jurisdictions have applied for grants, a sign that the idea is gaining mainstream acceptance.
But if the notion of high-density growth conjures up images of high-rise enclaves, the suburban reality takes a different form.
In
"It's like a small town," said Anique Barnes, who grew up in
When
The complexity of the appeal of these projects was shown by another finding. Nearly 40 percent of owners said they made their decision to buy based on the relatively affordable price of their homes - the same percentage as was drawn by the proximity to transit.
That's the case with Hayward resident Priya Barmanray; one evening last month she was walking home after a work-related visit to San Francisco on BART, but most days she drives alone to her retail job in Pleasanton. Similarly, her husband uses his car to commute to
"This was our first place, and we bought at the peak of the market," Barmanray said in explaining why they live where they do. They walk to the nearby shops to run errands ("It depends on the load."). As for BART, "Once in a while we use it for an event where parking is a problem."
For DeeDee Ligibel, though, the location has been a revelation.
She and her husband lived in
No longer. The commute from
They've also plunged into
Asked if she lived this way in her prior hometowns, she laughed.
"I have never done this kind of thing before," she said. "It's really a change."#
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/18/BA7CVPQ5R.DTL
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