Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
December 1, 2008
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
Water settlement knots finally untangling
Five tribes, two agencies conquering river issues
Opinion:
Increasingly scarce water is the new
Redding Record Searchlight
Court rejects POWER appeal
Global warming fuels hotter Western fires
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Water settlement knots finally untangling
Five tribes, two agencies conquering river issues
By Onell R. Soto
The boundary was easy to spot. On one side, green avocado trees. On the other, the Indian side, brown chaparral. The reason for the difference? The water that flows through the canal at his feet, he said.
The canal was built with federal approval more than 100 years ago to divert water from the San Luis Rey River and deliver it to
The federal government's decision was a mistake and it has taken decades of litigation, legislation and negotiation to correct it.
Although a solution was trumpeted years ago, it appears that the sides finally have untangled all of the legal knots.
The La Jolla, Pala, Pauma, Rincon and San Pasqual Indian bands, plus
They've determined how to make sure the city and the
And they've dealt with side issues such as abandoning a defunct hydropower plant on the Rincon reservation and covering up the canal through the San Pasqual reservation to prevent drownings.
“We're closer than we've ever been before,” said Robert Pelcyger, a lawyer for the San Luis Rey River Indian Water Authority, which represents the five tribes.
Emphasis on settlement
Escondido Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler said a settlement is key. “If we don't work it out, we lose our local water,” she said.
Depending on the weather, the city gets 15 to 35 percent of its water from the San Luis Rey and buys the rest from far away through the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The federal government's misstep long ago was that in establishing the reservations, it had agreed not only to set land aside for the Indians, but also, by implication, the water in the river. The water shouldn't have been diverted.
The federal government finally admitted its error in 1988 – nearly 20 years after the tribes sued.
And now, 20 years after that, the parties say they have a plan that works for everyone.
The agreement also opens up the possibility of a pipeline roughly paralleling the river to bring new water to the
Fed agencies must approve
The parties are just waiting for approval from the federal government – the Departments of Interior, Justice and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
It's not just the complications inherent in combining Indian law and water law that have caused a 40-year delay in resolving a 1969 lawsuit – it's that some problems simply weren't solved.
The San Luis Rey River flowed freely down the
“There was enough water every year for those who wanted to farm,” said Leo Calac, a Rincon elder whose grandfather grew crops. “The riverbed was full of sycamores and willows. . . . The old-timers say in
In 1895, with the approval the federal government, the river was dammed at the La Jolla reservation, its water diverted via the canal to
The free flow downstream stopped, and with it a way of life. “The turtles for rattles, they were all gone when the water went away,” Calac said.
In 1922, William Henshaw, owner of the Warner Ranch, got a permit from the federal government to dam the river 9 miles upstream from the dam on the
The Vista Irrigation District eventually bought the lake and the wells that fill it. Its water flows down the river, through the
Tribes sue in 1969
Then, in 1969, the tribes joined together and sued.
For more than a decade, the battle was fought in the courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court. Decisions by judges in the early 1980s voided parts of the contracts
Faced with a nearly endless battle, U.S. Rep. Ron Packard, the Republican who represented the region, brought the sides together and, in 1988, pushed a solution into law.
The federal government would give the Indians 16,000 acre-feet of water and pay $30 million for the decades the river was unjustly diverted. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, or enough for two families for a year.
The money was the easy part. It's been collecting interest and is now more than $60 million and can only be used for water projects.
But getting the water was another matter in the American West, where every drop is seemingly allocated among thirsty regions.
“Water is gold in
Finally, in 2003, another deal and a breakthrough.
The tribes would get the first 16,000 acre-feet of water saved lining the All-American and Coachella canals in the
Since then, the tribes,
Among those working on the settlement was David Chapman, a former
He noted it touches on water, power, the
“It's a history of southwestern
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20081201-9999-1m1river.html
Opinion:
Increasingly scarce water is the new
Redding Record Searchlight – 11/30/08
By Thomas Glenn Dye
Thomas Glenn Dye is a retired
The future of
Californians have taken water for granted for far too long. With the burgeoning population, that can no longer be the case. We have to balance it against our needs in the future. Where do we put our priorities? They are: first, in life-giving drinking water; second, in food and foliage production, and third, in sanitation.
With the amount of expenditures being evaluated by state and federal agencies, there have to be viable options. Wasting water for generations is no longer acceptable. Curbing inequitable proposed measures could support production of water storage, totally independent of existing waterways and spawning grounds. Water education, like power and fuel efficiency, should parallel all efforts.
Programs are being studied to store fresh water. Catch basins/dams and replenishing aquifers are considered. Current clean hydroelectric reservoirs should be retained. We need more off-line storage when wet years provide a surplus of water.
One near-term effort needs to be to educate the population. Wasting of this precious resource should be curtailed. Water is the life blood of all
Without adequate water, the agricultural economy of the state is in trouble. The world needs the food
Areas of
Sources are at work to open up streams for fish spawning. Though this is a worthwhile effort, it must be done without impacting other needs. Currently National Marine Fisheries Service scientists have identified the cause for the reduction of anadromous fish as not being the feeder streams. Removing valuable hydroelectric facilities does not appear justified and is in opposition to the efforts to promote "green" power.
Millions of dollars are being spent in the Northwest studying means of retaining fresh water, while millions are being spent in
Opening up streams means a greater flow of water to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta region and spurs the effort to create a peripheral canal to take water south. It is needed to support the growing population in the south, but at what cost to the north and the farms and ranches throughout the valley? Is it unreasonable to expect comprehensive study of cause and effect?
A battle over water rights would be unsatisfactory and detrimental to all areas and agencies that are involved. It could easily become a federal rather than a state problem for resolution, since the option being considered of raising the height of Shasta Dam is a federal project.
The current economic crisis means conservation. The balancing of the budget is vital, but it must go beyond the fiscal and include productivity. Allocations for water supplies can be established and escalating costs can be set for excessive use. There are always individuals who feel they can flaunt the rules. They should be forced to support the cost of remediation. The new
http://www.redding.com/news/2008/nov/30/speak-your-piece/
Court rejects POWER appeal
By MEGAN BAKKER, Staff Writer
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One of the groups suing the Imperial Irrigation District has suffered a setback.
POWER, which stands for Protect Our Water and Environmental Rights, initially sued the IID claiming environmental reviews on the All-American Canal were not adequate. It had two appeals to its case denied Friday.
“This means POWER lost again. What a surprise,” said IID Board President John Pierre Menvielle.
The lawsuits were initially filed in 2006 by brothers Mike and Jimmy Abatti, members of POWER. Mike Abatti later dropped his involvement in the lawsuits after he was elected to the IID board.
POWER’s position is that the IID approved a canal-lining plan that “removed safety measures meant to protect human and animal lives,” according to a letter POWER attorneys wrote to the Imperial Valley Press.
However, the suits were dismissed and POWER appealed.
It was those appeals that were denied. One of the reasons given was that Congress has already directed the Secretary of the Interior to carry out the lining of the
If the project were delayed, the text said, the IID “will be caught between its obligations to the federal government to perform under the construction agreement, on the one hand, and a conflicting state court order to delay the project on the other.”
POWER had recently tried to settle with the IID in September, asking that the IID make changes to mitigate negative environmental impacts, and for the IID to pay $230,000 for POWER’s legal fees. The IID rejected the settlement.#
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2008/11/30/local_news/news03.txt
Global warming fuels hotter Western fires
By Tom Knudson
Wildfire has marched across the West for centuries. But no longer are major conflagrations fueled simply by heavy brush and timber. Now climate change is stoking the flames higher and hotter, too.
This view, common among firefighters, is reflected in new studies that tie changing patterns of heat and moisture in the western
Among other things, researchers have found the frequency of wildfire increased fourfold -- and the terrain burned expanded sixfold -- as summers grew longer and hotter over the past two decades.
"When I started fighting fire, the normal fire season was from the beginning of June to the end of September," said Pete Duncan, a fuels management officer for the
Numbers bear this out: The fire season now stretches 78 days longer than it did during the 1970s and '80s. And, on average, large fires burn for more than a month, compared with just a week a generation ago.
Scientists also have discovered that in many places nothing signals a bad fire year like a short winter and an early snowmelt. Overall, 72% of the land scorched across the West from 1987 to 2003 burned in early snowmelt years.
Across the Sierra, satellite imagery shows that today's wildfires are far more destructive than fires of the past, leaving larger portions of the burned landscape looking like nuclear blast zones. That fire intensity, in turn, is threatening water quality, wildlife habitat, rural and resort communities and firefighters' lives.
As the climate warms, the ability of the region's iconic mixed-conifer forests ecosystem to regenerate from these destructive fires is compromised.
"We're getting into a place where we are almost having a perfect storm" for wildfire, said Jay Miller, a U.S. Forest Service researcher and lead author of a recent paper published in the scientific journal Ecosystems linking climate change to the more severe fires in the Sierra. "We have increased fuels, but this changing climate is adding an additional stress on the whole situation. When things get bad, things will get much worse."
Future could be bleaker
That future may already have arrived. This year, the fire season got off to an early June start in the north and only recently came to a close. Statewide, 1.4 million acres burned in 2008, just shy of last year's 1.5 million acres, the highest total in at least four decades.
"It made an eight-mile run one afternoon, in late October. It burned through an area of fairly high-elevation old-growth timber and at very high severity,"
The Moonlight fire, which burned across the
Vast stands of trees exploded into flame like matchsticks, including forest set aside to protect spotted owls. Smoke spread across Northern California and drifted as far south as
The Moonlight fire even incinerated the soil, leaving mountain slopes barren and prone to erosion. With no natural seed source across wide swaths of terrain, the future of the mixed-conifer forest is in doubt; many fear it could morph into brush, stands of deciduous oak, even desert.
"I don't envision sand dunes like the Sahara," said Mike Yost, a retired forestry professor from
Today, in fact, the region is the focus of the largest federal reforestation effort in
"You will always be left wondering: Is the tree I am planting today going to be able to survive the climate of the future?" said Mike Landram, reforestation manager for the Forest Service in
Walking is a challenge
One thing Landram doesn't want is a forest like the one that burned, an incendiary thicket of pine, fir, cedar and oak that had grown unnaturally dense during a century of fire suppression.
Such crowded stands are common in the Sierra, and walking through them can be a challenge. Where John Muir once strolled through parklike groves of 50 to 60 large stately conifers per acre, hikers today find shadowy tangles of sun-starved trees, some no wider than a fence post, at densities of more than 350 trees per acre. The forest floor -- littered with dead limbs, logs and spiky branches -- resembles a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks.
While such conditions are a major reason fires burn so hot, they are not the only variable. Strong winds, steep terrain and low humidity all push flames into a frenzy as well. Now there is another brick in the oven: the changing climate.
One of the first to make the link was Anthony Westerling, an assistant professor at the
"An early spring means you're going to have a longer fire season [and] drier vegetation," Westerling said at a conference in
Last year's Moonlight fire fits the pattern. The snow melted early in 2007. Precipitation was well below average, and the fuel moisture content of the forest was at or near historic lows by the end of August.
"When we moved here in 1980, the snow stayed around through August," said Shirley Kossow, who lives along Indian Creek near
Natural regeneration tough
After the Moonlight fire, satellite imagery showed the fire had burned 102 square miles, making it the largest blow-up in
Historically, fires in Sierra mixed-conifer forests skipped lightly across the landscape. They singed some areas, scorched others, but most of the forest remained healthy. Only 5% to 10% burned at high severity, said Hugh Safford, regional ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service who works in
Now, that number is climbing, up from 17% two decades ago to 28% for the period from 1997 to 2006. In 2007, it soared to 60%.
"Last year was the most severe fire year we've seen since the beginning of Landsat [satellite] imagery" in 1984, Safford said. "It was astounding. Things burned really, really hot."
Safford is one of the authors of the paper in Ecosystems that ties more high-severity fire to climatic changes, including less-snowy springs and rising summer nighttime temperatures. Last month, he tromped around the blackened aftermath of the 2007 Angora Fire at
"There were large areas where every needle got burned right off those trees," he said. "There isn't anything to cover the soil when the rainy season hits."
Increasingly, people are at risk, too.
"Look at the subdivisions in the
Makeup of forests changing
With fires burning hotter and temperatures rising, though, there is no guarantee conifer forests will remain evergreen.
Already, parts of the northern Sierra that once grew pine now sprout more grass and deciduous black oak -- a possible early warning sign of climate change. In some places, whitethorn, manzanita and other native brush species -- which bounce back rapidly after a fire and shade out sun-loving pines -- are expanding over large swaths of terrain.
Malcolm North, a research scientist with the Forest Service's
"When you have the nearest live trees a mile, two, even three miles from the center of the burn area, it's unlikely that you are going to get seed back in there," North said.
Solving that problem will take human assistance, said Landram, the Forest Service reforestation manager. Next spring, crews hired by the Forest Service will fan out across the rugged terrain, planting 1.7 million trees across 12,000 acres. In 2010, they will do it again, all by hand. Every speck of brush near each seedling will be scraped away, again by hand, because herbicides are not allowed in the forest.
Playing catch-up with climate change could prove risky. "If you end up with a couple of dry years -- which is probably going to happen more commonly with climate change -- you could lose 80% to 90% of your stock," North said.
Successful or not, he feels the region will remain wooded, probably with a different mix of conifers -- in particular more white fir, incense cedar and other species that can more readily grow up beneath the heavy shade of brush fields.
Climate, however, will make the final call.
"There are so many different factors at play," North said. "It's very difficult to predict what plant and forest communities are going to look like in the future.
"To quote 'Star Trek,' we are going where no man has gone before -- where no plant community has gone before." #
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/story/1043621.html
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