A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 12, 2008
3. Watersheds –
Court Considers Interim Measures to Protect
Yubanet.com
Opinion:
JEAN P. SAGOUSPE: New water proposal makes no sense at all
Crabs Coming, But How Many?
As North Coast
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
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Court Considers Interim Measures to Protect
Yubanet.com – 11/12/08
By Center for Biological Diversity
The Pacific Rivers Council and Center for Biological Diversity are represented by Deborah A. Sivas of the Environmental Law Clinic, Mills Legal Clinic at
SACRAMENTO, Calif. Nov. 11, 2008 - The Sacramento Superior Court has ordered the California Department of Fish and Game into talks with Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity to develop interim measures to limit harm to native species caused by fish stocking. The intent is to minimize the adverse effect that hatchery-raised fish inflict on sensitive native fish and amphibian species while the Department prepares an Environmental Impact Report under the California Environmental Quality Act.
"Interim measures limiting stocking are needed to help save
The court ruled in May 2007 that fish stocking has "significant environmental impacts" on "aquatic ecosystems" and "in particular, on native species of fish, amphibians and insects, some of which are threatened or endangered." The court ordered the Department to analyze and mitigate the impacts of the stocking program in an Environmental Impact Report, or EIR, by the end of 2008. The Department returned to court last month to ask for a one-year extension, to January 2010, because the agency has made little progress on the EIR.
To reduce the impact of the Department's delay, the Center and Pacific Rivers Council asked for interim restrictions on stocking, including not stocking in areas where sensitive species such as
"The far reaching, often disastrous consequences of stocking hatchery fish have been known for decades," said Dr. Chris Frissell, Director of Science and Conservation for Pacific Rivers Council. "It's far past time the Department of Fish and Game completed a credible review of the environmental impacts of its hatchery program and identified the steps needed to limit its impacts to sensitive native species, as many other states have done. Interim measures are merely a short-term safety net to protect vulnerable species and waters until the State meets its legal mandate to produce a report."
The required California Environmental Quality Act environmental review will for the first time provide the public and independent wildlife experts with an opportunity to actively participate in how the Department can improve management of the statewide fish-stocking program to better meet the needs of both
"The Department needs to consider the environmental impacts of its fish-stocking program before it stocks more fish into aquatic strongholds," said Frissell, who has published numerous scientific articles on the ecology of native fish and wildlife species. "This is the only way that the Department can be sure that it is not causing or contributing to the loss of the last remaining populations of these native
Removing non-native fish once they have been introduced is difficult, expensive and can cause further damage to sensitive species. Many of the sensitive fish and amphibian species are already so seriously depleted by past impacts, including fish stocking, that even one more year of stocking could cause irreversible loss of some populations.
"The mountain yellow-legged frog has disappeared from more than 90% of its former range in the
The Pacific Rivers Council and Center for Biological Diversity are represented by Deborah A. Sivas of the Environmental Law Clinic, Mills Legal Clinic at
Opinion:
JEAN P. SAGOUSPE: New water proposal makes no sense at all
By Jean P. Sagouspe
Jean P. Sagouspe, a farmer on the westside of the San Joaquin Valley, is the president of Westlands Water District.
The state Department of Fish and Game is proposing a new set of regulations to protect the longfin smelt. If fully implemented, the Department of Water Resources estimates that the proposed regulations could cut off as much as 1 million acre-feet of water deliveries to the two-thirds of
That's on top of the 760,000 acre feet we have already lost because of court-ordered restrictions on pumping intended to benefit another species of smelt. And it comes in the middle of one of the worst droughts in history.
The restrictions probably won't do any good, because the longfin rarely go anywhere near the pumps. But the department proposes no action at all to protect the longfin from ammonia pollution and the extensive list of other stressors that are impacting the fish.
The good news is that even if the new regulations are adopted by the Fish and Game Commission at its meeting Nov. 14, they may never trigger any cutbacks in actual water deliveries, because they address a problem that will probably never arise. So long as the longfin don't move close to the pumps, presumably no additional reductions in pumping will be ordered.
The bad news is that this proposal is being raised at all. It points up some serious deficiencies in the way the state is approaching our water crisis.
Part of the problem is agencies working at cross purposes. The Department of Water Resources works with public water agencies to mitigate the impacts of drought and court-ordered restrictions on water deliveries by encouraging conservation and other measures. Water shortages have already cost
Responsible administrators would ask not only how to minimize the potentially devastating impacts of this regulation; they'd also inquire whether it was necessary and ask if it would do any good. Fish and Game's proposal fails on all these counts, for the simple reason that its own surveys indicate that the pumps have no effect on the abundance of longfin smelt.
The pumps serving all those millions of Californians are located in the south part of the Delta. The longfin are miles away to the north and west. The department wants to start shutting down the pumps if only eight longfin show up next month -- eight fish out of a species numbering in the tens of millions.
Why would Fish and Game propose a regulation that will probably do nothing to help longfin but that could have devastating effects on the economy and public health and safety, while also threatening habitat and other environmental resources south of the Delta? The regulators are simply obeying the oft-repeated mantra that whatever ails the Delta, the pumps must be to blame.
That's not only false in the case of the longfin, it also may be harmful to the fish. While focusing exclusively on the pumps, Fish and Game administrators are willfully ignoring all of the other factors adversely affecting longfin.
Fish surveys from 1977 through 2006, for example, show an important correlation between longfin population, temperature and the concentration of ammonia in the water. The more ammonia, the fewer the fish. We cannot control temperature, but the sources of ammonia contamination are well known. Yet there are no permit requirements for wastewater discharges that increase ammonia concentrations in the
Ill conceived, incomplete and ineffective -- the proposed regulation is all of that and more. It is also illegal. The Fish and Game Code does not apply to water project operations by the Department of Water Resources or the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
The Westlands Water District has a responsibility to the public that we serve directly, and to the communities of the Valley whose well-being depends upon the success of families who farm in the district. To protect those interests, Westlands will bring a lawsuit to oppose the implementation of this regulation if the Fish and Game Commission chooses to adopt it. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/287/story/1005531.html
By Louis Sahagun
Under terms of the deal, 52 acres of city-owned land would be traded for acreage lying in the heart of the Los Cerritos Wetlands. The city would then sell the marsh to the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority for about $25 million.
The city would use the proceeds to acquire and develop about 20 acres of property a few miles to the west along the
"Once completed, this will place the largest privately owned coastal marsh into the public trust," Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said in a prepared statement. "Los Cerritos is the final piece needed to complete more than a decade-long effort to restore
The land swap is the latest in a series of efforts to preserve wetlands that were once a thriving part of
The Los Cerritos is already home to a variety of bird species. Flanked by supermarkets, movie theaters, motels and power plants, the wetlands remain a critical link along the migratory bird route called the Pacific Flyway, which birds travel from North America to
Dismissed by some as a weedy oil field, the wetlands sustain a surprisingly vibrant ecology. Burrowing tiger beetles thrive on its salt flats, and brackish ponds edged with saltwort and pickle weed are rife with horn snails and minnows. Osprey feast on fish, and coyotes prey on rodents.
Rejuvenating the area bordered by
"Right now, it looks very poor, but it has the potential to be a real jewel," said Long Beach City Councilman Gary DeLong, chairman of the Los Cerritos Wetlands Authority. "After the first year, we plan to launch a complete restoration of a total of 350 acres. It will involve removal of nonnative vegetation and allow for surges of tidal flooding."
The future of the wetlands has been contested for decades.
A century ago, the wetlands stretched over 2,400 acres at the mouth of the
In 1982, the state Coastal Commission approved a plan calling for development of houses, commercial buildings and some light industry on 112 acres in the area. In return for those development rights, 129 acres of wetlands were to be reestablished in areas damaged by oil operations. That plan was never realized.
The area gained unprecedented attention two years ago because of local developer Thomas Dean's controversial proposal to build a 16.5-acre Home Depot Design Center retail complex on the east side of the wetlands.
The development threatened to trigger yet another prolonged tussle for control of the land. Earlier this year, however, a federal judge tossed out the developer's environmental impact report.
In 2006, the wetlands authority bought a 66-acre chunk of the area called the Bryant Property.
However, city officials said negotiations to buy a 175-acre parcel in the wetlands' core went nowhere because the parties were unable to negotiate a price.
That property, known as the Bixby Ranch Co. parcel, was bought by Dean in 2007.
Dean expressed a willingness to consider a land trade rather than an outright sale for 52 acres of city-owned land that are currently vacant, or operated by its public works department and oil and gas company, officials said.
Under the pact announced Tuesday, Dean would continue to control mineral rights and to pump oil in the 175 acres of wetlands, but the land would be protected from commercial and residential development in perpetuity.
"It's a very exciting moment for
"It was a complicated deal," he added, "and we still have a lot of details to iron out. But we've completed step one."#
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wetlands12-2008nov12,0,6622600.story
Crabs Coming, But How Many?
As North Coast
Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 11/12/08
By Robert Digitale, staff
Chris Lawson maneuvered a small forklift to deliver a stack of crab pots to the dock next to The Tides restaurant as a flock of sea gulls and two pelicans watched atop the roof of a nearby warehouse.
With the help of a mechanical hoist, three crew members began loading more than 170 crab pots onto Lawson's vessel, the 47-foot Seaward, that was tied up Tuesday in the
By Friday morning, the four fishermen hope to drop the pots into ocean waters and to pull them early Saturday, the first day that Dungeness crab can reach the docks for consumers.
Lawson, president of the local commercial fishermen's association, is expecting a lower catch this year, in sharp contrast to the relatively abundant harvests for the past six seasons.
The forecast is partly based on results reported by recreational crabbers, whose season is already under way, along with the low number of juvenile crabs seen during last year's harvest.
Lawson noted that many newer fishermen in
It remains to be seen what the season will mean for consumers. Besides uncertainties over abundance, the fishermen and the fish buyers have yet to agree on a dockside price. The fishermen have proposed $2.25 a pound, compared to $2 a pound for the start last year. Preliminary state figures put the average price for all state crab landings last year at $2.75 a pound for the 8.4 millon pounds landed.
For their part, the fish processors who buy most of the crab expressed uncertainty whether in a shaky economy there will be as much demand, including orders from once-large buyers such as cruise ships and casinos.
What is easier to predict is that once a price is set, crab lovers should have to wait only a few days to put the clawed crustaceans into grocery carts.
"I think the stores will have them by Monday," said Jim Caito of Caito Fisheries in
He noted that nearly a dozen fishermen who sell to his company were preparing to head south Tuesday night from his port and points north. The season opens first off
The crab-gathering begins after what Lawson and others describe as a roller coaster of a ride for fishermen during the past 12 months.
A year ago, a Hong Kong-owned container ship struck the
Then last spring, fishermen learned that for the first time in history they would be banned from fishing for salmon off the coast of
For the past two decades, crab has reigned as the predominant fishery on the
But the fishery is given to significant swings in abundance, and some of the biggest landings in the past two decades occurred between 2003 and 2006. In those boom seasons the greatest share of crab was caught off
Lawson, a commercial fisherman for more than three decades, said
"The competition is a lot more fierce," Lawson said.#
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20081112/NEWS/811120311/1349?Title=A_crabby_season_coming_
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