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[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 4/16/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

April 18, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People -

 

Federal official says users responsible for levee fixes  -

Las Vegas Review Journal

 

Transit towns a step to cut carbon footprint -

San Francisco Chronicle

 

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Federal official says users responsible for levee fixes

Las Vegas Review Journal – 4/18/08
By SARA SPIVEY
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU

 

WASHINGTON -- The government has only a limited responsibility to repair or replace aging dams, canals and levees that were contracted to local authorities years ago, a top federal official said Thursday.

 

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 Truckee Canal in January.

 

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 Hayward, DeeDee was taken by the old-fashioned brownstone look and the entryway's fragrant wisteria bloom.

 

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 Hayward, 763 residential units have been added within two blocks of BART since a plan to allow such growth was approved in 1993, and nothing is taller than three stories. The long townhouse-style buildings are arranged to look domestic; there are hints of New England and Santa Barbara in the architecture, with magnolia trees and mock-historic light poles along the streets.

 

"It's like a small town," said Anique Barnes, who grew up in San Francisco and moved back to the Bay Area from Sacramento four months ago. She rents a room in a townhouse in City Walk, a complex across a plaza from Hayward City Hall, and takes BART to her job at San Francisco International Airport. "The convenience is the best thing. Honestly, I miss San Francisco. But this is more calm."

 

When Hayward officials in 2004 polled residents in the new housing developments, more than half of the respondents said their household owned two cars. At the same time, 31 percent said they used BART to commute to work; another 7 percent relied on AC Transit, which routes a number of bus lines past the station. By comparison, just 6 percent of residents in the rest of the city reported using transit for their commute.

 

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 Foster City.

 

"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 Florida until 1999, in a private house on a lake; the 17-mile drive to work averaged an hour. On moving west, they purchased a home in the Central Valley and commuted to the Peninsula - often a two-hour trek each way.

 

No longer. The commute from Hayward is a carpool shot across the San Mateo Bridge; Dan needs the car for work, DeeDee takes an AC Transit bus home at night. They ride BART into San Francisco every other weekend, along with short trips to downtown Oakland followed by a stroll to Jack London Square.

 

They've also plunged into Hayward life, visiting each store or restaurant that opens downtown, or going to the farmers' market. DeeDee even serves as the president of her homeowners association and belongs to a civic beautification task force.

 

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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