Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 10, 2008
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
'Green lien' plan would keep water flowing at foreclosed homes
Riverside Press Enterprise- 7/9/08
Major Nevada water ruling issued
The Associated Press - 7/9/08
The old man who farms with the sea: Carl Hodges is growing salicornia, a crop nourished by ocean water that holds the potential to provide food and fuel to millions.
The
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'Green lien' plan would keep water flowing at foreclosed homes
Riverside Press Enterprise- 7/9/08
An Inland water district is hoping a "green lien" will help it combat the blight caused by abandoned and repossessed homes.
Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District's proposed "green lien" program would allow lenders and owners of repossessed properties to agree to a tax lien on the homes to keep the water meters turned on. This would allow the property owners to continue to water the lawns until the home is sold.
The lien would be voluntary, and the district would recoup the cost of the water before the home is sold.
The district will discuss the proposal at a meeting later this month.
"We understand the impact of the foreclosure crisis. The city, the water district and the lenders are all trying to address the issue,"
Other area agencies are exploring ways to ensure the homes are maintained. The cities of
A cluster of brown lawns can lower property values in a neighborhood, be a magnet for crime and make homes harder to sell, local real estate officials said.
"Those brown lawns are a big sign that says 'Nobody's here, do what you want,' " said Gene Wunderlich, chairman of the Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors.
Wunderlich said he had never heard of the "green lien" concept, but said he thinks it would be applauded by people with a vested interest in the homes, such as real estate agents and neighbors.
"The bank that owns it may be in
Water agencies statewide have been negatively affected by the record number of foreclosures, regional and state water officials said.
Most water agencies finance major system improvements by selling bonds that are paid by homeowners through a community facilities district tax. When homeowners default on mortgage payments, they also default on the tax.
This can lower the district's creditworthiness and result in higher interest rates for future borrowing, leading to more costly projects, the cost of which is borne by the ratepayers.
Metropolitan Water District of Southern
"It sounds very interesting; I'm intrigued," said Krista Clark, the water companies association's director of regulatory affairs.
Morrison said he expects most real estate agents and lenders would be in favor of the program.
"A pleasing looking home will sell much quicker," he said.#
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_greenlien10.42d5252.html
Major Nevada water ruling issued
The Associated Press - 7/9/08
By Brendan Riley
CARSON CITY, Nev. – A bid to pump more than 11 billion gallons of groundwater a year from three rural Nevada valleys to Las Vegas was cut to just over 6 billion gallons and approved Wednesday by the state's water engineer.
The ruling by state Engineer Tracy Taylor follows a hearing that ended in February with the Southern Nevada Water Authority saying it's entitled to the water from Delamar, Dry Lake and Cave Valleys and opponents warning that the pumping could have a catastrophic impact.
SNWA representatives had contended the water authority met all requirements for the pumping and critics' disaster scenarios are unfounded.
The Great Basin Water Network opposed the plan, saying SNWA tried to hide evidence that the pumping may harm existing water users and the environment in rural
But before any water is pumped,
Allen Biaggi, the state's conservation-natural resources chief and
Kay Brothers, SNWA's deputy general manager, said the water authority recognized the state engineer's “somewhat conservative” approach to water management in
“We respect the way he manages the state's water basins,” Brothers said. “If that's what he's comfortable with, so are we.”
Brothers noted that the valleys, located between about 75 miles and 125 miles from
While the SNWA application sought more than 11.3 billion gallons of groundwater a year from the valleys and the ruling allows about 6.1 billion gallons, Susan Lynn of the Great Basin Water Network said, “It's way too much considering there are a whole lot of downstream groundwater users who rely on that groundwater flow that is going to be intercepted.”
Launce Rake, also representing the network, said a legal effort to overturn the ruling or have it revised by
Rake added that the valleys already are “really stressed” by drought conditions, adding, “This decision can only exacerbate those issues.”
The SNWA project opponents include ranchers and farmers, as well as local irrigation companies, a water board, the Sierra Club, Nevada Cattlemen's Association and White Pine County which borders
The project is backed by casino executives, developers, union representatives and others who point to water conservation efforts in the Las Vegas area and who warn of an economic downturn affecting the entire state unless the city has enough water to keep growing.
In a related case involving SNWA's application to pump 16 billion gallons of water a year from Snake Valley, on the Nevada-Utah border in White Pine County, Taylor rejected bids by three Indian tribes, local government entities in Nevada and Utah and others for “interested persons” status in those proceedings.
That ruling, which restricts participation in the
SNWA hopes to begin delivering rural groundwater to
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20080709-1546-nv-waterfight.html
The old man who farms with the sea: Carl Hodges is growing salicornia, a crop nourished by ocean water that holds the potential to provide food and fuel to millions.
The
By Marla Dickerson,
A few miles inland from the
The crop is salicornia. It is nourished by seawater flowing from a man-made canal. And if you believe the American who is farming it, this incongruous swath of green has the potential to feed the world, fuel our vehicles and slow global warming.
He is Carl Hodges, a Tucson-based atmospheric physicist who has spent most of his 71 years figuring out how humans can feed themselves in places where good soil and fresh water are in short supply.
The founding director of the
Hodges' knack for making things grow in odd environments has been on display at the Land Pavilion in the Epcot theme park at Walt Disney World in
Here in the northern Mexican state of
The Earth's ice sheets are melting fast. Scientists predict that rising seas could swallow some low-lying areas, displacing millions of people.
Hodges sees opportunity. Why not divert the flow inland to create wealth and jobs instead of catastrophe?
He wants to channel the ocean into man-made "rivers" to nourish commercial aquaculture operations, mangrove forests and crops that produce food and fuel. This greening of desert coastlines, he said, could add millions of acres of productive farmland and sequester vast quantities of carbon dioxide, the primary culprit in global warming. Hodges contends that it could also neutralize sea-level rise, in part by using exhausted freshwater aquifers as gigantic natural storage tanks for ocean water.
Analyzing recent projections of ice melt occurring in the Antarctic and
"The only way we can stop [sea-level rise] is if people believe we can," said Hodges, whose outsize intellect is exceeded only by his self-assurance. "This is the big idea" that humanity has been waiting for, he believes.
With his trademark floppy hat, an iPhone wired perpetually to his head and a propensity to assign environmental reading homework to complete strangers, Hodges might be dismissed by some as an eccentric who has spent too much time in the Mexican sun.
"When I first met Carl, I thought he was a philosopher," said actor Sheen, a longtime friend.
Still, experts including Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at NASA's
Hodges has already built such a farm in
All he needs now is $35 million. That's where salicornia comes in.
A so-called halophyte, or salt-loving plant, the briny succulent thrives in hellish heat and pitiful soil on little more than a regular dousing of ocean water. Several countries are experimenting with salicornia and other saltwater-tolerant species as sources of food. Known in some restaurants as sea asparagus, salicornia can be eaten fresh or steamed, squeezed into cooking oil or ground into high-protein meal.
Hodges, who now heads the nonprofit Seawater Foundation, plugged salicornia for years as the plant to help end world hunger. Do-gooders applauded. The private sector yawned.
Then oil prices exploded. Hodges saw his shot to lift his fleshy, leafless shrub from obscurity.
That's because salicornia has another nifty quality: It can be converted into biofuel. And, unlike grain-based ethanol, it doesn't need rain or prime farmland, and it doesn't distort global food markets. NASA has estimated that halophytes planted over an area the size of the
Last year, Hodges formed a for-profit company called Global Seawater Inc. to produce salicornia biofuel in liquid and solid versions. He lugs samples of it around in a suitcase like some environmental traveling salesman.
The enterprise recently planted 1,000 acres of salicornia here in rural
The plan is to cut an ocean canal into the desert to nourish commercial ponds of shrimp and fish. Instead of dumping the effluent back into the ocean, the company would channel it further inland to fertilize fields of salicornia for biofuel. The seawater's next stop would be man-made wetlands. These mangrove forests could be "sold" to polluters to meet emissions cuts mandated by the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
"Nothing is wasted," Hodges said.
Global Seawater already has a small refinery to process salicornia oil into biodiesel fuel, which Hodges believes can be produced for at least one-third less than the current market price of crude oil. Leftover plant material would be converted into solid biofuel "logs" that he said burned cleaner than coal or wood.
NASA is interested in testing fuel from Hodges' halophyte. So are cement makers and other heavy industries. Retired executives from some major corporations are so encouraged by the potential that they are helping Global Seawater raise capital and focus on generating returns for investors.
Fernando Canales Clariond, former Mexican secretary of the economy and member of one of the nation's most powerful industrial families, recently joined the board. "The world doesn't move because of idealism," he said. "It moves because of economic incentives."
Fellow board member Anthony Simon, former president of marketing for Unilever Bestfoods, put it more bluntly. "Carl is a wonderful scientist," he said of Hodges. But he "is a lousy businessman."
Hodges has sold assets and maxed out credit cards over the years to keep his seawater dreams afloat. But it's not for the prospect of a big payday. A lifetime of studying the Earth's ecosystems has convinced him that the planet is in peril. He's determined to help get things back in balance.
Driving through the sun-scorched
"It's a dust bowl," Hodges said. "We're going to making it bloom again . . . with a new kind of agriculture."
Some environmentalists are dubious. Wheat and cotton flourished here until farmers pumped aquifers nearly dry. Shrimp aquaculture operations have fouled the
Channeling millions of gallons of seawater inland could have similar unintended consequences for fragile deserts, said biologist Exequiel Ezcurra, former head of
Hodges says his project has met all environmental requirements posed by
"My father once told me, 'Carl, there is a special place in hell reserved for fence sitters.' "
The son of a horse trainer, Hodges grew up around racetracks. His dad once traded their
A stomach for risk-taking landed the young scientist in the top spot at the Environmental Research Lab in 1967 at the age of 30. There he decided that farming must be adapted to utilize saltwater, which accounts for 97% of the world's water supply.
His team's work on shrimp cultivation fueled the explosion in
"Marlon understood global warming," Hodges said. "He thought we were running out of time."
Hodges' model for the
Political upheaval crippled the operation. But at its peak the farm generated hundreds of jobs and turned famine-prone
"It was a miracle," said Tekie Teclemariam Anday, an Eritrean marine biologist who now works with Hodges in
Whether Hodges' Big Idea wins a wider group of converts remains to be seen.
NASA's Bushnell says seawater agriculture has enormous potential. He praised Hodges' science as "superb." Still, he said algae might ultimately prove to be the best plant-based biofuel because it can produce much more fuel per acre.
Hodges is "a pioneer," Bushnell said. "But first-movers generally aren't the successful ones at the end."
Hodges contends that all manner of renewables are needed to wean the planet from its oil addiction. Still, his talk of stopping sea-level rise and reinventing agriculture is so audacious that some of his own backers have cautioned him to tone it down.
But longtime friend Sheen says Hodges isn't likely to. "We have to be outrageous in our efforts to solve" climate change, the actor said. "Carl is on a mission to save the world."#
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-fi-seafarm10-2008jul10,0,7364335.story?page=1
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