Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 7, 2008
1. Top Items -
Letter to the Editor
Schwarzenegger and dams
Water Woes Are Drying Up Farm Economy In Southern San Joaquin Valley's
The
Water recycling advances : Pipeline to irrigate parks, private lawns
Whittier
Hatchery program breeds delta smelt
Redding Searchlight- 7/7/08
Irrigating farmers receive good news
The
Rising tide of litigation for Delta
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Letter to the Editor
Schwarzenegger and dams
By Lester Snow
Re “Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t” by Dan Bacher (SN&R Feature, June 12)
This article misrepresents the Schwarzenegger administration’s consistent leadership and support for comprehensive water management to address
While the governor is adamant in his support for increased water storage in the face of climate change and
1. The implementation of a resource management plan for the Delta consistent with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan and recommendations of the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force with much of the funding directed at ecosystem restoration ($2.4 billion).
2. Water resource stewardship projects including Klamath River restoration, Salton Sea restoration projects, as well as restoration projects for the Delta and on the San Joaquin and
3. Integrated regional water management grants which primarily fund regional and local water use efficiency (conservation), water reuse and recycling, and other projects designed to increase regional self sufficiency ($3.1 billion).
4. Water quality improvement funding to reduce groundwater contamination, assist community wastewater treatment projects, provide grants for stormwater management projects and to help the Ocean Protection Council protect and improve water quality in particularly vulnerable areas ($1.1 billion).
Increased surface storage would add much needed flexibility to the way we operate the state’s water system in the face of reduced snow pack and greater climate variability. Additionally, expanded storage could allow for reduced Delta pumping during dry years (when fish need water the most) and opportunistic pumping during wet years, when the ecosystem is flush with water. New surface storage projects would also allow for the optimization of groundwater basins through groundwater replenishment, which is generally achieved through the slow percolation of from water stored in surface reservoirs.
If successful, Governor Schwarzenegger’s water bond package would represent the single largest and most comprehensive investment in ecosystem and water management funding in the history of the state.
Lester A. Snow
director California Department of Water Resources #
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=689176
Water Woes Are Drying Up Farm Economy In Southern San Joaquin Valley's
The
By Dennis Pollock
Hundreds of farmworkers have lost their jobs as growers idled or abandoned crops because of severe water shortages. Hundreds more will lose work because of crops that won't be planted this autumn.
Signs of trouble are everywhere. The Spreckels Sugar plant in Mendota, a fixture since 1963, will close in September unless a grower cooperative can salvage it. Closure would mean 200 jobs lost.
Fordel, a major grower-packer-shipper of melons and other produce, is selling its Mendota facility after more than two decades.
It is not harvesting or packing a crop this year. City officials say the company accounted for as many as 500 growing and packing jobs.
Weather and pest challenges, along with abandoned acreage, are cutting processing-tomato production for
Thousands of acres of cotton are being abandoned at a time when planted upland cotton acreage was at its lowest level on record. In addition, windy weather and roller-coaster temperatures have taken their toll.
Enrollment continues to drop in the
At the root of it all is the state's water crisis.
"Unless we deal with a way to reliably convey water from north to south, there will be no way to keep alive this agricultural marvel of the world," said Riverdale grower Mark Borba.
Several farmworkers gathered recently beneath the shade of a young tree outside a Mendota laundry. They talked about the grim economy and their hopes for a better future.
Rigoberto Fajardo is working just two to three days a week, weeding tomato and melon fields.
Like many in the Mendota and Firebaugh areas, the workers are hoping the season's upcoming cantaloupe harvest will bring them steady work.
"They tell us that there isn't as much work right now because the farmers don't have enough water," Fajardo said. "But how are we supposed to live? We barely have enough money to pay our bills or send money home to our families."
Fajardo and Jose Lopez said they've thought about returning to
"You want to believe that things will get better, that the melon season will bring us good fortune," Lopez said. "But we just don't know right now. All we can do is hope that things get better."
Many fear it will get worse.
Sarah Woolf, a spokeswoman for the Westlands Water District, said at least 200 farmworker jobs have been lost in that district.
She said an additional 300 jobs will not be filled this autumn because growers, lacking water, will cut back on planting.
Hard times for merchants
In Firebaugh, it was quiet recently inside Xavier & Sariah's Styles, a men's and women's contemporary clothing store. Manager Xavier Rivera relaxed on a sofa watching television. Foot traffic was slow, real slow.
"Business used to be good a few years ago," Rivera said. "I would go down to
Rivera estimated his sales have dropped about 65 percent in the past two years.
"It all started with rising gas prices, and it didn't get any better after that," Rivera said.
Michael Santos, general manager for Westside Ford Lincoln Mercury in Firebaugh, said the cost of gas has cut into his sales, which are down 50 percent.
"But that wouldn't stop a farmer from buying a truck," said
"For them, the water is the factor," he said.
Water has always been a factor in the Westlands district. It's a reason that only 300,000 acres are being farmed in a district where 500,000 could be. From 1999 to 2001, 100,000 acres were retired.
Less farmland has meant fewer workers. The decline in jobs has spawned social problems.
"It's going to really be tough this winter when the unemployment runs out," said Miguel Arias, board president of the
'People are getting desperate'
The city's low-income housing is drawing unemployed families from nearby communities, causing enrollment in Mendota to rise. With it come stresses. One example: Two years ago, the district had four expulsions. Last year, there were 35.
"The bad part about what is going on is that even though we are seeing increases and getting some additional funding from students who used to be in Firebaugh and Golden Plains," Arias said, "these folks are not bringing in sales tax or property tax that allow us to build new facilities."
Worse, said Mendota Mayor Robert Silva, "some families are becoming dysfunctional." There are more reports of domestic abuse, shoplifting and theft of pharmaceuticals, some of it at the
Josie Munoz of Mendota said thugs recently robbed her husband, Pablo, of his $600 paycheck. They hit him on the head with a baseball bat as he was walking home.
"I have never seen it like this before," Josie Munoz said. "I think some people are getting desperate. There just isn't as much work as there used to be."
Pablo Munoz is working two or three hours less a day weeding tomato fields just west of the city.
"I tell him maybe we should leave, maybe he should get another job, but he likes what he does, he loves working in the outdoors," Josie Munoz said. "But me, I'm worried."
Family-owned store hangs on
Joe Gomez Jr. also is worried. His family-owned Western Auto Store in Mendota, open since 1969, is like many small mom-and-pop businesses in the city that have struggled to stay afloat.
Western Auto supplies nuts, bolts and spark plugs, but big sellers now are locking gas caps.
"People are stealing other people's gas," Gomez said. "It's rough."
Gomez has managed to outlast a few of his competitors and his sales are stable. But for how long, he is not sure.
At Ramon's Tire & Wheel in Mendota, owner Ramon Gonzalez has seen his sales drop 35 percent in the past several years.
Gonzalez, who came to the
He employs eight workers and worries if he'll have enough business to keep everyone on the payroll.
At one time, his service trucks were running nearly nonstop providing tires and repairs to the region's biggest ranchers. But Gonzalez lost some of those big contracts.
They dried up, like some of the farms.
"Everything has changed," he said. "And we've had to change, too."
These days, Gonzalez still sells tires for passenger cars and tractors, but he also provides wheel alignments, lube, oil and filter changes and car detailing. He will soon be adding auto parts and doing front-end alignments for big rigs.
He also seldom leaves the shop, working seven days a week.
"I want to be here for my customers, especially if they have a problem," Gonzalez said. "The way things are, we can't afford to lose any business. You just don't know what is going to happen."#
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/352161.html
Water recycling advances : Pipeline to irrigate parks, private lawns
Whittier
By Jennifer McLain, Staff Writer
Thousands of acres of parks and golf courses across the
But officials at the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, headquartered in
"This project is significant at several levels," said Assemblyman Mike Eng, D-El Monte. "It will save energy, it will free up drinking water so we don't have to import it, and ... it will build on the public's acceptance of recycled water."
The third phase of a nearly $45million recycled water project that will bring water from bathrooms to local parks, cemeteries, schools and golf courses broke ground last month in Whittier Narrows.
In total, there are four phases that extend from
Upper San Gabriel water district, which has taken the lead on these projects, buys imported water and sells it to five cities and four water agencies throughout the
The $9 million third phase will bring a mile-long pipeline from South El Monte through Rosemead, and will deliver recycled water to Norman's Nursery, four schools, Whittier Narrows Golf Course and to Zapopan Park.
"These kinds of projects will save our water supply," said
An ongoing drought and a decrease in the imported water supply from the Colorado River and Northern California have forced many water agencies in
The recycled water project, which has already been implemented in
When all four phases are completed, more than five billion gallons of drinking water will be conserved each year.
Recycled water also will help reduce energy consumption and cut back on carbon dioxide emissions.
The project has waste water traveling from homes and businesses into reclamation facilities run by the sanitation district, and then are pumped back into pipes that take recycled water to the designated locations.
In the
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_9804308
Hatchery program breeds delta smelt
Redding Searchlight- 7/7/08
The delta smelt -- the 3-inch long subject of lawsuits over water supplies, bellwether of delta health and recipient of federal species protection -- is part of a pilot program at Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery, a small hatchery on the
There hatchery workers are employing techniques on the finger-long fish that long have been used for retrieving sperm and eggs from salmon, said Scott Hamelberg, project leader for the Coleman National Fish Hatchery Complex, which includes Livingston Stone.
“What they have done here is pretty incredible,” he said.
A crash in the number of delta smelt during the last five years led the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the
“There is a great concern about the numbers of these fish left in the environment,” Hamelberg said.
But that doesn’t mean these fish will be going wild.
Currently there is no plan to reintroduce the 20,000 smelt raised at Livingston Stone into the delta, said John Rueth, assistant hatchery manager. Rather, they are being kept as a safety net in case the ongoing population crash causes extinction of the species in the wild.
“They’ll be held primarily as a back-up population,” he said.
Another emergency stock of smelts is being held by UC Davis scientists in Byron, within the delta itself, Hamelberg said.
Raising a delta smelt isn’t easy. The aggressive little fish doesn’t want cold food — it wants to hunt live microorganisms or won’t eat. So Rueth said he and the hatchery’s other worker have to also raise the rotifers and young brine shrimp that are the smelts’ favorite prey.
“You have to grow your own food to feed a delta smelt,” he said.
In tanks that are small models of those used to raise endangered winter-run Chinook salmon in the hatchery’s main building, workers have reared young smelt — which are microscopic at first, then barely visible to the naked eye as juveniles because of their thin, clear bodies.
The fish prefer murky water, making finding them more difficult early in their life. So hatchery workers need to add algae to achieve the green color that allows them to see their prey, Rueth said.
Once grown, the miniature fish will be part of a tagging experiment. A new system will be developed to tag the tiny smelt — Hamelberg said scientists don’t know what the tags will look like yet, or how they will be fastened to the fish.
The pilot project should continue for about five years, and a permanent smelt-breeding operation could supplant it, Hamelberg said. The project has cost about $100,000 so far, with most of that going to setting up the tanks, tubes and other equipment used to breed the smelt.
Built in 1997, Livingston Stone was chosen as the sight for the pilot project because it is one of only two federal fish hatcheries in the state, Coleman National Fish Hatchery near
As a result of the smelt’s population crash, a federal judge ordered water users to draw less water from the delta in recent years.
“Any time you are affecting water supply for a fish it is going to be controversial,” said Kim Webb, project leader at the Fish and Wildlife Service’s
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/jul/07/hatchery-program-breeds-delta-smelt/
Irrigating farmers receive good news
The
By Dennis Pollock
Farmers who irrigate -- and that's a bunch of them -- got some good news last week from the state Water Resources Control Board.
More than $8 million in state bond money is being provided to improve agricultural water quality for the Central Valley, which is home to more than 75% of
The board has approved nearly $14 million of Proposition 84 bond funds for agricultural projects statewide. The $8 million will be used for cost-sharing projects with
| |
The money will be directed to areas where water quality problems have been identified through the Central Valley Water Board's Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program.
Parry Klassen, a Parlier farmer who heads the East San Joaquin Water Quality Coalition, said the money will help farmers make needed changes.
"There is technology on the shelf that can be used to make real improvements in water quality," he said. "We've identified problems through monitoring; now it's time to direct funding where we can make a difference. We want to demonstrate that agriculture is ready to be part of the solution to water quality problems."
Keeping a pest at bay
The more they learn about a pest infestation just over the Mexican border, the more uneasy
The California Citrus Research Board says increased trapping in
The pest has not yet been found in
More corn
Corn planted for all purposes in
That's the word from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service.
Small potatoes
The California Farm Bureau Federation reports researchers have discovered how one prepares potatoes has a big impact on the vegetable's nutrient content.
Cubing potatoes reduces boiling time, but also reduces the potassium content.
Researchers also let the potatoes soak in water overnight and found it had no impact on mineral content. Consumers who want the most nutrients from potatoes would be better off boiling or baking them whole.#
http://www.fresnobee.com/866/story/711804.html
Rising tide of litigation for Delta
By Michael Fitzgerald, Record Columnist
Good rivers attract people. Bad rivers attract attorneys.
That being so, the
That came home this week. A sportfishing group and a south Valley coalition of water-takers - excuse me, of farmers - both announced they will sue the city of
The groups are suing because the city's sewer plant and storm drains are illegally polluting the Delta.
Notice I didn't say "allegedly." Perhaps I should, but most information on which suits are based appears to come from the city's own records.
"We're not aware of any violations of our permit," City Attorney Ren Nosky said in defense of the city.
The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance is going after city sewage pollution. The Coalition for a Sustainable Delta is going after storm-drain pollution. The suits overlap.
The CSPA collected damning data on raw sewage spills.
"In 2005, there were 335 spills or 37.2 per 100 miles of pipe. In 2006, there were 371 spills or 41.2 per 100/miles. In 2008, there were already 95 spills by 7 April.
"A well-run collection system experiences 0 to 3 spills per 100 miles per year and
In other words, this city spills a lot of poop into the Delta. Likewise, pollution draining through the storm drains and into the Delta is soaring above legal levels.
"They are by far one of the worst actors up and down the Delta," said Michael Boccadoro, a spokesman for the Delta Coalition, asked why the group targeted
The CSPA is headed by Bill Jennings, the former Deltakeeper whose long-running legal battles to save the Delta are well known. The Delta Coalition is a newcomer.
"Our group - all of the landowners and water agencies - are dependent on the Delta for conveyance of water supplies," Boccadoro explained.
"The reality is, if the Delta is not in a sound environmental state, it is going to disproportionately impact our ability to move water through the Delta."
This group's action is not without irony. Probably the biggest pox on the Delta is excessive export of water. These groups are the takers. The big pox is suing the little pox.
But a legitimate one. One has to ask why on earth
Former Mayor Gary Podesto said mismanagement of the wastewater treatment plants - spills, fines - was one of the reasons he sought to privatize the waterworks.
After a five-year marriage to the private company OMI Thames, a citizens' group sued control of the waterworks back to the city of
Now it is unclear whether either private or municipal management rectified the operational problems with the sewer plant.
Then there is the problem with stormwater runoff. Rain falling on the city washes down storm drains and into the Delta, carrying a witch's brew of toxins.
How do you fix that? "Treatment of stormwater has to be considered," Boccadoro said. "Just like we treat wastewater, if stormwater is going to continue to contain chemicals that affect wildlife and fish."
Whoa. Forcing cities to treat stormwater "would be a nightmare for all
It appears
I'm rooting for the rivers, but not for the Delta Coalition, if it is seeking to impose a staggering burden on the city. Especially if their ulterior motive is to continue draining the Delta.
As for
But we cannot, for instance, denounce a peripheral canal if this city is a remarkably bad actor itself. Killing the Delta makes a peripheral canal inevitable.#
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080704/A_NEWS0803/807040319/-1/A_NEWS03
No comments:
Post a Comment