Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
June 2, 2008
1. Top Items -
Sewage spills prompt $201,000 fine
Sacramento
Ammonia from Sacramento
The Sacramento
Editorial
Californians, start conserving
The entire state should share the pain of a groundbreaking and necessary water conservation bill.
The
Editorial
A chilling global warming forecast: New reports about climate change should have us all sweating about the future.
The
Of greenhouse gases and greenbacks: Senate debate on a proposal to impose pollution regulations is likely to center on the financial stakes.
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Sewage spills prompt $201,000 fine
Sacramento
By Chris Bowman
The enforcement action against Sacramento Area Sewer District covers several pipeline breaks since November 2006.
The largest of the spills occurred Feb. 13, when a pipe across the creek collapsed, releasing more than 700,000 gallons of untreated sewage, according to the state Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Arcade Creek winds along
The 30-year-old sewer district serves more than 1 million residents in the region, including unincorporated areas of
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/978590.html
Ammonia from Sacramento
The Sacramento
By Matt Weiser
After years of searching high and low for a culprit in the collapse of Delta fish populations, scientists are learning the problem may lie right under their noses.
The likely fish killer is ammonia, a common byproduct of human urine and feces.
Two recent studies by Richard Dugdale, an oceanographer at
The discovery, if it holds up to further scientific review, reveals how just one factor can tilt the Delta's complex ecological balance. It also illustrates how fixing the Delta will be a costly task for many
The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District estimates it needs as much as $1 billion to remove ammonia from the metro area's wastewater. Monthly sewer bills would have to triple throughout the region.
"We're not going out on the edge to say this is the whole answer," said Dugdale, co-author of the studies along with others at the university's Romberg Tiburon marine lab. "But we think it's part of the reason for the decline in (ecological) productivity."
Ammonia in the river does not make fish unsafe to eat, nor does it pose a threat to recreation. It does, however, seem to interrupt a natural food production line that would otherwise yield abundant blooms of tiny aquatic animals to feed salmon, smelt and bass, Dugdale said.
Those species have been in steady decline.
The ammonia threat was dramatically illustrated last May when dozens of chinook salmon showed up dead in the
The plant near
Despite this volume, Mueller-Solger said, the
"But there is this big urban area called
The ammonia load in
To handle more growth, the regional sewer agency is planning a major expansion that would allow total discharge volume to grow 30 percent. The plan includes no ammonia controls.
"This is a cost of growth that is too often externalized onto a degraded environment," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and longtime Delta water-quality watchdog.
Sewage officials counter that they have a responsibility to ratepayers. They estimate upgrading the wastewater treatment plant to filter out ammonia would cost $740 million. To remove excessive nitrates produced as a byproduct of that treatment would raise the cost to $1 billion. #
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/979721.html
Editorial
Californians, start conserving
The entire state should share the pain of a groundbreaking and necessary water conservation bill.
The
Abill that would require Californians to cut per-capita water use 20% by 2020 quietly passed in the Assembly last week, by a vote of 48 to 30. Though it didn't get much attention, AB 2175 was the first serious effort to impose a statewide target for water conservation in California -- a major shift for a state where water management is fragmented and historically has been based on a blind and false faith that cities and farms will always be able to get more water when they need it.
Like its spiritual cousin, AB 32, which set statewide goals for greenhouse-gas emissions, AB 2175 represents a groundbreaking and positive step for
Proposals for amendments to the bill, which is expected to have its hearing in a Senate committee this month, abound. Cities that already have successful conservation programs in place worry about establishing a baseline for future cuts. Will they receive credit for the work they've already done? How will the state measure progress in places like
Obviously, the Senate should consider these concerns and work to write a bill that treats everyone as fairly as possible. It should not, however, cave in to the decades-old rules of the water game, which hold that all players do anything it takes to exploit the system for their own advantage. If saving water weren't painful,
That means farmers too. AB 2175 already sets a less-stringent standard for agricultural users, some of whom are notorious water guzzlers, than it does for cities. Agricultural interests may push to be removed from the bill altogether, citing the instability they've suffered as the state has cut water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Thus far, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has pulled off a neat trick: He has managed to promote conservation and placate agricultural districts, which are a key part of his Republican base, at the same time. The governor earlier this year called for a 20% per-capita water-use reduction, but only in urban areas. He has not yet taken an official position on AB 2175.
We understand that reducing water use could hurt farmers. It almost certainly will hurt residents and businesses throughout
http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/979721.html
Editorial
A chilling global warming forecast: New reports about climate change should have us all sweating about the future.
The
There's always a new report about global warming, but the one released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with its charts on optimal temperatures for soybeans and peanuts, is downright creepy in its detail. This isn't your usual futuristic fodder, with vague but dire predictions. The USDA report is more frightening because it states matter-of-factly the practical changes in farming, forestry and water that are transforming the landscape now and will do so again over the next few decades.
The Senate is scheduled to vote this week on a sweeping bill that would require carbon emissions to be slashed 70% by mid-century. Its chances for passage are slim; President Bush opposes it, as he has opposed all meaningful attempts to curb global warming, on the grounds that it would harm the economy. He ought to read the USDA study, along with a similar but more comprehensive report released last week by his science advisors, which specifies the effects of global warming and its very real costs.
The USDA analysis points out the quandary we're already in after decades of inaction: The impacts during the next few decades are unavoidable. "Much of this change will be caused by greenhouse gas emissions that have already happened," the report says. In other words, we have to plan for adjusting to climate change, as well as preventing it from spiraling into a crisis in this century and beyond.
Though the report stops short of making recommendations, it implies the need for major shifts in agriculture. And there was some good news, though not as much as the bad. Northern latitudes will experience milder winters -- good for cattle -- and longer growing seasons, but also longer lifetimes for harmful pests. The South might grow too hot for traditional crops such as peanuts and watermelon. The eastern
The prognosis for
At the national level, the report should awaken the agriculture sector to the disruption ahead. If the farm lobby, which is powerful enough to continually win wasteful subsidies even though they benefit only a tiny minority, were to team up with environmentalists, imagine what they could do to fight climate change.#
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-warming2-2008jun02,0,5120050.story
Of greenhouse gases and greenbacks: Senate debate on a proposal to impose pollution regulations is likely to center on the financial stakes.
By Richard Simon, Staff Writer
It also is focusing on
The bill would impose new pollution regulations on industries while significantly expanding another business, carbon "offsetting." Billions of dollars would potentially be available for farmers who offered polluters a way to make amends for excess emissions -- a provision that could attract crucial support from farm-state lawmakers.
"I definitely think this debate will be primarily about economics, because there are very few voices left who want to argue about whether or not global warming is really a problem," said Dan Lashof, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council climate center, a bill supporter.
Given the financial stakes, agricultural interests from
"The global warming fight is not only a battle over big pollution -- it's a battle over big bucks," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch.
The shift in the focus of the debate reflects two changes: The sense of urgency about climate change has grown, and businesses are more open to federal rules in order to avert future uncertainties.
A longshot, but odds rise
The bill, sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 66% below 2005 levels by midcentury. Companies that cut gases even more than that could sell pollution rights to those having difficulty meeting caps.
Although the odds of passing such legislation climbed when Democrats won control of Congress in 2006, President Bush opposes mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The Senate measure is considered a longshot for passage this year.
Bill supporters say that even if they can't reach the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, amassing majority support would provide momentum for next year. (In 2003, 43 senators voted in favor of an emissions cap, not enough for passage.)
All three major presidential candidates -- Republican Sen. John McCain of
Backers and opponents have been turning up the heat.
If the
Lashof and other supporters counter that there is also "the cost of failing to address global warming."
Senate Environmental Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who will lead the fight for the bill, sought Saturday to rally public support.
"There are some in the Senate who insist that global warming is nothing more than science fiction," she said in the Democrats' radio address. "These are the same kind of voices who said that the world was flat, cigarettes were safe, cars didn't need air bags -- long after the rest of us knew the truth."
Cultivating farmers' help
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said sponsors were trying to "buy -- excuse me, win -- the support of groups all across this country."
"We should win support based on it being good policy," he said. "Instead, the authors of this bill have tried to win support by spreading money around."
For example: The auto industry would receive aid so it could build cleaner-burning engines, the coal industry to develop emissions-reducing technology.
For farmers, the bill offers a new opportunity to make money. After taking steps to keep carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere -- practicing no-till farming, for example, or planting trees on crop land -- they could sell so-called carbon offsets to polluters.
Sponsors hope those provisions will attract farm-state votes, much as an ethanol mandate generated pivotal Corn Belt support for 2005 energy legislation.
"We see the enthusiastic support of the ag community as being a critical element in piecing together the 60 votes we need," said energy lobbyist Eric Washburn, a former Senate aide.
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said offsets were one reason he was now supporting the legislation, which would give
Businesses can already buy carbon offsets, but Washburn said mandatory reductions would "immensely" expand the number of industries involved.
In a sign of farmers' interest in offsets, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) himself registered as an offset provider on the Chicago Climate Exchange after planting more trees on his own farm.
Farm groups are concerned that bill revisions will limit offset opportunities, and are working on proposed changes.
But environmental groups are concerned about overemphasizing offsets.
Erich Pica, domestic policy director for Friends of the Earth, said offsets give companies a "cheap out" for polluting.
Lashof agreed: "Unlimited use of offsets would delay investments that are needed to clean up the primary sources of global warming pollution."
And Daniel J. Weiss, senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, said, "We must be sure that companies that buy offsets to avoid their own emissions reductions are not paying for something that would have happened anyway."
Boxer, meanwhile, has been working to find ways to round up votes.
Among her ideas: billions of dollars for tax relief to help consumers with any increase in energy bills resulting from the regulations.
"That is what I knew I had to do to build support for the bill," she said in an interview.
"Now, we may not be there yet. But this is a landmark piece of legislation, and we need to take it as far as we can." #
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-climate2-2008jun02,0,6700964.story
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