[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 12/3/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

December 3, 2008

 

3. Watersheds –

 

 

Comments on Delta plan sought at Friday meeting

Sacramento Bee

 

Crab trickling in

Eureka Times Standard

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 

Comments on Delta plan sought at Friday meeting

Sacramento Bee – 12/3/08

By Matt Weiser

 

The public is invited to comment on the future of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta when a committee of state officials meets Friday.

The Delta Vision Committee is charged with recommending projects and policy to the governor and Legislature to improve the environment and water supply in the estuary between Sacramento and Tracy.

 

Committee members are four state Cabinet secretaries and the president of the Public Utilities Commission. They're reviewing two years of work by the Delta Vision Task Force, a seven-member panel appointed by the governor.

 

A draft recommendation adopts many of the task force recommendations, including a new Delta water canal and 100,000 acres of habitat restoration. Its final recommendation must be made by Dec. 31.

 

Friday's workshop is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Bay-Delta Room of the John E. Moss Federal Building, 650 Capitol Mall. For information, call (916) 445-5511 or visit www.deltavision.ca.gov.#

http://www.sacbee.com/288/story/1444421.html

 

Crab trickling in

Eureka Times Standard – 12/3/08

John Driscoll, staff writer

 

Local markets are selling crab, but it's not the deluge the North Coast often sees at this time of year.

 

”Just getting some water boiling now,” said Mr. Fish fishmonger Mark McCullough Tuesday.

 

The crabs began coming in Monday night, and McCullough was prepared to sell cooked crab Tuesday afternoon. But he wasn't hearing promising reports from fishermen.

 

Dungeness crab fishermen are seeing scanty catches right from the start of the season. Humboldt Fishermen's Marketing Association President Aaron Newman said there appears to be just a scattering of crabs everywhere, and that those will be mostly tapped out in short order. He expected much of the fleet to pack up within a couple of weeks.

 

”We've got a sad crab fleet this year,” Newman said.

 

North Coast fishermen went fishing after Oregon crabbers negotiated a price of $1.60 per pound. While Oregon fishermen are bound to that price for a week, California fishermen are not, and the price they're paid is expected to go up quickly.

 

West Coast markets will likely have the fresh crab they need this season, said Bill Carvalho with Wild Planet Foods, which bought Carvalho Fisheries. But there will be less frozen crab available, he said, which may happen to correspond with lower national demand for the specialty food.

 

The fishing and fish buying industries, however, depend on volume to cover overhead costs, Carvalho said, and there is unlikely to be much volume this year.

”It is a lean season,” he said.
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11126407

 

Whales and dolphins stranded in noisy seas

Associated Press – 12/3/08

By ARIEL DAVID, AP

 

(12-03) 10:37 PST ROME, Italy (AP) --

The songs that whales and dolphins use to communicate, orient themselves and find mates are being drowned out by human-made noises in the world's oceans, U.N. officials and environmental groups said Wednesday.

 

That sound pollution — everything from increasing commercial shipping and seismic surveys to a new generation of military sonar — is not only confounding the mammals, it also is further threatening the survival of these endangered animals.

 

Studies show that these cetaceans, which once communicated over thousands of miles (kilometers) to forage and mate, are losing touch with each other, the experts said on the sidelines of a U.N. wildlife conference in Rome.

 

"Call it a cocktail-party effect," said Mark Simmonds, director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, a Britain-based NGO. "You have to speak louder and louder until no one can hear each other anymore."

 

An indirect source of noise pollution may also be coming from climate change, which is altering the chemistry of the oceans and making sound travel farther through sea water, the experts said.

 

Representatives of more than 100 governments are gathered in Rome for a meeting of the U.N.-backed Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

 

The agenda of the conference, which ends Friday, includes ways to increase protection for endangered species, including measures to mitigate underwater noise.

Environmental groups also are increasingly finding cases of beached whales and dolphins that can be linked to sound pollution, Simmonds said.

 

Marine mammals are turning up on the world's beaches with tissue damage similar to that found in divers suffering from decompression sickness. The condition, known as the bends, causes gas bubbles to form in the bloodstream upon surfacing too quickly.

 

Scientists say the use of military sonar or seismic testing may have scared the animals into diving and surfacing beyond their physical limits, Simmonds said.

Several species of cetaceans are already listed as endangered or critically endangered from other causes. But sound pollution is now also being increasingly recognized as a serious factor, the experts said.

 

The sound of a seismic test, used to locate hydrocarbons beneath the seabed, can spread 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) under water, said Veronica Frank, an official with the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

 

A study by her group found that the blue whale, which used to communicate across entire oceans, has lost 90 percent of its range over the last 40 years.

Other research suggests that rising levels of carbon dioxide are increasing the acidity of the Earth's oceans, making sound travel farther through sea water.

The study by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in the United States shows the changes may mean some sound frequencies are traveling 10 percent further than a few centuries ago. That could increase to 70 percent by 2050 if greenhouse gases are not cut.

 

"This is a new, strange and unwanted development," Simmonds said. "It shows how the degradation of the environment is all linked."

 

However, governments seem ready to take action, said Nick Nutall, a spokesman for the U.N. Environment Program, which administers the convention being discussed in Rome. The conference is discussing a resolution that would oblige countries to reduce sound pollution, he said.

 

Measures suggested include rerouting shipping and installing quieter engines as well as cutting speed and banning tests and sonar use in areas known to be inhabited by the endangered animals.#

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/03/international/i085514S25.DTL&tsp=1

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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.