Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
November 24, 2008
3. Watersheds –
Common ground over a besieged wetlands
Editorial:
Stream is half full for state’s wild fisheries
Redding Record Searchlight
Plan calls for overhaul of Delta policies
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Common ground over a besieged wetlands
By Louis Sahagun
Lennie Arkinstall deftly steered his 14-foot aluminum skiff through murky tidal inlets teeming with shorebirds and strewn with trash in the heart of the degraded salt marsh known as the Los Cerritos Wetlands.
The groundskeeper of the privately owned mosaic of mud flats and oil fields framed by power plants, tank farms, malls and busy highways a few miles east of downtown Long Beach wanted to show off the area's potential as a wildlife refuge.
Ahead of him, a solitary common loon bobbed in shallows edged by spongy carpets of pickleweed stretching out to a mobile home park. Kingbirds preened on tangled heaps of rusted scaffolding. The flotsam and jetsam of the surrounding urban watershed littered shoals pocked with the burrows of ghost shrimp and horned snails: fast-food wrappers, beer cans, cigarette butts.
"This place has incredible potential," Arkinstall said over the putt-putt of his small outboard engine. "Just add a little water and cleanup work and, boom! You've got instant thriving ecosystem."
After fighting for decades over its oil and land, conservationists, developers and city planners are joining forces to let the wetlands grow wild again. Earlier this month, the city of
It won't be easy sealing the deal. The issues surrounding the wetlands' future are complex. But at the heart of the ongoing debate is a hope that the wetlands can bounce back and become a model of restoration and cooperation.
Just in time, some might say.
The wetlands on the Long Beach-Seal Beach border at the mouth of the
The developer's willingness to consider a land swap rather than an outright sale of the wetlands -- bordered by
In return, Dean would get a bundle of underutilized city property, including a 29-acre parcel known as
If all goes according to plan, commercial and light industrial development on those parcels will generate jobs and taxes, and Dean will keep the mineral rights on the wetlands, allowing him to continue pumping an estimated $3 million worth of oil a year.
"
The Long Beach City Council has begun workshops with neighborhood associations, conservation groups and others to map a strategy for completing the swap and launching a restoration program.
The issues are daunting. Many low-income residents on the industrialized west side of
"Residents in east
Reyes Uranga, backed by west-side community organizations and organized sports groups, has vowed to oppose the swap unless the city first "frees up more space for our neighborhood youth."
Mike Conroy, the city's director of public works and an architect of the swap proposal, said he has identified several parcels that could become additional park space for west-side residents.
In the meantime, Arkinstall and Cal State Long Beach biologist Eric Zahn have been outlining options for reviving the estuary, a formidable task that would call for hauling out tons of rubbish, uprooting dense hedges of non-native pampas grass and thistle, and taking down dozens of Mexican fan palms. It might also include diverting runoff from local streets to form freshwater sanctuaries for migrating birds while replenishing the land.
Over the last decade, Arkinstall has spent so much time collecting trash in the area that "the shorebirds think I'm one of them now."
"Two years ago, I hauled out 70 tons," he said.
During a recent tour of the wetlands, Arkinstall and Zahn suggested that the toughness of the place has helped preserve it. That resilience is reflected in the tenacity of rare plants -- estuary seablite and Southern tarplant, for example -- that cling to briny flats in the shadow of working oil rigs; in the three families of coyotes that recently had pups in secluded burrows; and in wandering skipper butterflies that lay their eggs only in salt grass.
Arkinstall believes his trash removal has contributed to a dramatic increase in the number of endangered Belding's savannah sparrows, a dun-colored bird that nests in tidelands.
"Belding's savannah sparrows are thick here," he said. "We've got at least 33 pairs. Twenty years ago there were two pairs."
There is also a tide in the wetlands that commands a cycle of growth and replenishment in inlets that provide havens for shellfish and marine plants and are patrolled by halibut, smoothhound sharks and schools of smelt.
Said Zahn, peering through binoculars: "Watching endangered
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-wetlands24-2008nov24,0,1112981.story
Editorial:
Stream is half full for state’s wild fisheries
Redding Record Searchlight – 11/22/08
California Trout’s new comprehensive report on the state of the state’s native fish makes for grim reading. At the current rate, it concludes, the damage from dams, logging, road-building and agricultural diversions will leave two-thirds of the original wild fish species extinct in another century.
But sometimes environmentalists don’t know when to claim a victory.
The 20th-century trends that developed modern
This summer’s salmon crash — largely caused by fluctuating ocean currents — notwithstanding, at the current rate we’ll have protected and restored great stretches of California’s salmon and trout habitat in another century. The north state is salmon central, and the list of local projects to improve conditions for fish is as long as a fall-run chinook.
We’ve extensively restored Clear Creek, busting the old Saeltzer Dam and opening miles of new spawning grounds below Whiskeytown Dam.
The Trinity River, once drained to a trickle by agricultural diversions into the
Pacific Gas and Electric and various government agencies will start work in earnest next year to restore some 50 miles of habitat in
The Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority has devised a plan to replace the Red Bluff Diversion Dam with a much more fishfriendly set of modern pumps. (The proposal is tied up in a lawsuit with the city of
The Bush administration just last week announced an agreement to remove Pacifi- Corp’s controversial hydroelectric dams on the
Fixing them requires controversial steps. A lot of habitat is permanently blocked by big dams like Shasta that Californians couldn’t live without. It’s difficult to change the balance among farm, hydropower and environmental needs. It’s often painful to lose lakes that have become beloved local landmarks.
It’s expensive to do everything we should. And CalTrout’s alarm should alert us to the need to keep moving forward even though progress can be slow. But looking around
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/22/stream-half-full-states-wild-fisheries/
Plan calls for overhaul of Delta policies
By MIKE TAUGHER, media news
The "Delta Vision Strategic Plan" released in October calls for a complete overhaul of the way the Delta — the West Coast's largest estuary and a source of water for 25 million Californians — is managed.
Developed by a panel appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the proposal addresses water deliveries, the environment, the local economy, state water policies and overall management.
Recognizing that any fix will take many years, and perhaps decades, the plan calls for a series of short-term actions that, while offering no permanent solution, are meant to improve water supplies and the environment at relatively little cost.
Those actions include information gathering, installing a new fish protection screen at the forebay that serves state pumps and stockpiling rock and other emergency response materials around the Delta to be ready in case of a levee break.
The recommendations are not binding and the plan is under review by a committee of cabinet members and state Public Utilities Commission President Michael Peevey.
The plan contains 73 recommendations grouped to meet seven goals. The goals include:
· Legally acknowledge the coequal status of the Delta ecosystem and water supplies. Panel members observed that historically the environment has taken a back seat to water deliveries and recommended the state constitution be amended to put those values on equal footing.
· Recognize and enhance the unique cultural, recreational and agricultural values of the Delta.
· Restore the Delta ecosystem.
· Promote statewide water conservation, efficiency and sustainable use.
· Build new conveyance and water storage facilities. The report says it is likely that the best option to convey water from north to south is to build a new aqueduct to take water from the Sacramento River near the capital directly to pumps near
· Address the threat of flooding through better emergency preparedness, land-use regulation and policy and develop a plan to strengthen high-priority levees.
· Establish new agencies to improve governance.
The Delta Vision Task Force was composed of seven members: Phil Isenberg, a chairman of a similar task force that established marine reserves off the coast; Sunne Wright McPeak, former Contra Costa County supervisor; Monica Florian, Richard Frank, Thomas McKernan; William Reilly, former administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President George H.W. Bush, and Raymond Seed. #
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DWR’s California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff, for information purposes, by the SWR Public Affairs Office. For reader’s services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news . DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of California
No comments:
Post a Comment