[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 1/26/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

January 26, 2009

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

Obama to order review of state's emissions bid

San Francisco Chronicle

 

Repaired Delta levee leaking again

Sacramento Bee

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++=

 

Obama to order review of state's emissions bid

San Francisco Chronicle – 1/26/09

Zachary Coile,Robert Selna, Chronicle Staff Writers

 

(01-26) 04:00 PST Washington --

President Obama, in his first major environmental act since taking office, will order the Environmental Protection Agency today to move swiftly on a request by California and other states to set the nation's toughest vehicle emissions standards.

• Owner jumps on board as suspect takes truck 01.26.09

 

Obama plans to make the announcement at a White House ceremony, according to congressional sources briefed on the plan. The move signals a sharp break with the Bush administration, which rejected California's request to enforce its rules limiting greenhouse gases from cars and trucks.

 

While Obama's order only requires the EPA to reconsider California's request, all sides expect the agency will approve it. His new EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, must finish a formal review before making the decision, but environmentalists were already cheering the likely outcome.

 

"These are monumental decisions that will have an immediate impact in reducing global warming pollution in the United States," said Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Just days into office, President Obama is showing America and the world that he will lead our country in a bold new direction to protect the environment and fight global warming."

 

Obama's presidential directive could ultimately transform the entire U.S. auto fleet. If the EPA approves California's request for a waiver to enforce its rules, any state can opt for either the federal or the state's emissions standards. Thirteen states have adopted California's rules, covering about half the nation's population, and a half-dozen more, including Florida, are considering doing so. Automakers probably would be forced to sell more fuel efficient cars and trucks in every showroom nationwide.

 

California Sen. Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and has lobbied Obama to approve the state's request, called his expected announcement "more than welcome news."

 

"An immediate EPA review of the waiver decision shows respect for California and the 18 other states ... who are waiting for the green light to address global warming pollution from motor vehicles," Boxer said. "When the waiver is signed, it will be a signal to Detroit that a huge market awaits them if they do the right thing and produce the cleanest, most efficient vehicles possible."

 

The auto industry opposes California's rules and has fought a long-running legal battle to block the standards. Automakers have warned of the perils of creating a patchwork of vehicle emissions rules and have lobbied Congress instead for a single national standard.

 

California's rules would require vehicles to reduce their greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2016. The transportation sector is the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state, at about 38 percent of total emissions.

 

The state's regulations are much more stringent than even the higher fuel economy standards passed by Congress and signed by Bush in 2007, which requires vehicles to reach an average fuel economy of 31.5 miles per gallon by 2015. The state's rules require automakers to meet a fleetwide average of 36 miles per gallon by 2016.

Obama's directive is also expected to force the Transportation Department to complete interim fuel economy standards to implement the 2007 law, which the Bush administration chose not to do. The goal is to speed the shift to more efficient vehicles, and the new rules would be issued by March so automakers would have time to update their fleet for the 2011 model year.

 

The East Room announcement is expected to be attended by Jackson, top EPA and Transportation Department officials and environmentalists, among others, Capitol Hill sources said.

 

Obama's decision is a victory for California leaders, including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and California Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols, who wrote letters last week urging the president to take action. Schwarzenegger's spokesman, Aaron McLear, said Sunday night that the governor was "withholding comment until the president has something to say."

 

California's landmark law limiting greenhouse gas emissions was written by former Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills (Los Angeles County) and passed by the Legislature and signed by then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2002. It was supposed to go into effect starting in the 2009 model year. One thorny issue the EPA may decide is in which model year California's rules would now take effect to give automakers enough time to transition.

 

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, who was in the Assembly when the law was passed, said Obama's announcement "represents the beginning of a very different and much more positive relationship between California and the federal government."

 

"California did not get a whole lot of attention in the past eight years," Steinberg said. "This is an important signal that things will be different."

 

Derek Walker, director of the California Climate Initiative for the Environmental Defense Fund, said Obama's move also suggests that the new president rejected the automakers' assertions that California's rules would hurt the industry and the economy.

 

"This is a tremendous out-of-the-gate move by the new president and shows that he is taking a fresh look at environmental and energy policy from the perspective of sound science," Walker said. "It also shows that he understands the strong nexus between economic stimulus and environmental protection."#

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/25/MNMF15GTPU.DTL&feed=rss.news

 

Repaired Delta levee leaking again

Sacramento Bee – 1/25/09

By Matt Weiser

A Delta levee that burst in 2004 is leaking again, though officials differ on whether to call it an emergency.

 

The levee on Upper Jones Tract in San Joaquin County burst along Middle River, just north of Highway 4, on June 3, 2004. It flooded the 2,000-acre tract and 2,000 more acres on adjoining Lower Jones tract.

 

But the repair apparently began leaking at an unusually fast rate several months ago. That prompted officials at Reclamation District 2039, which maintains levees on the tract, to declare an emergency.

 

Dante Nomellini, a Stockton attorney for the neighboring district on Lower Jones Tract, said the leakage definitely qualifies as an emergency. The two districts are linked by a railroad underpass, and both would flood if the levee broke.

 

California's Department of Water Resources, however, has not decided to declare the leak an emergency. It said the situation requires monitoring, although it has granted money to get repair work started.

 

The Jones Tract leak underscores the tricky business of fixing Delta levees – a vast network of barriers at risk because many are old and not considered strong enough to defend against severe flood conditions.

 

The 2004 break in the Jones Tract levee is a wake-up call because it highlights the ever-present threats to Delta levees: It occurred on a sunny day, not in a storm, and officials eventually blamed either a porous foundation or rodent burrowing.

 

Delta water is an important supply for two-thirds of California residents and millions of acres of farmland. Levees in the estuary protect that freshwater supply from contamination by salty tides. Another levee break on Jones Tract could draw a surge of saltwater into the estuary, requiring water deliveries to be halted.

 

Leaks are common at many levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta because they are built from poorly engineered soils atop uncertain foundations.

 

Mike Mirmazaheri, Delta levee program manager for the state Department of Water Resources, said it's not unusual for seepage at a repair site to worsen over time.

Repaired levees in the Delta are especially prone to leakage because the fix usually must be performed underwater.

 

On Upper Jones Tract, the 2004 break was closed by filling the bottom of the void with large rocks, then adding smaller rocks and dirt on top.

As the material settles, Mirmazaheri said, it sometimes leaves voids within the levee that increase seepage.

 

To plug the Jones Tract leak, DWR granted the levee district $50,000 to design a fix, and another $300,000 to subsidize construction.

 

But it wants the district to first commit to repair any environmental damage caused by the work, which requires an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

It also wants the district to monitor the rate of seepage and slumping in the levee itself, to determine how severe the problem might be.

 

Mirmazaheri said there is little risk of a sudden failure.

 

"If it continues seeping through, and if it continues settling, then it could potentially fail in the future," he said. "When or how soon, these are questions we don't really have an answer to. That's why monitoring becomes important."

 

But Nomellini said water leaking through the Jones Tract levee is not cloudy or muddy, a classic danger sign that the levee is eroding from within.

"This isn't normal leakage. It's no time to fool around," Nomellini said. #

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1571385.html?mi_rss=Our%2520Region

 

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

DWR’s California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff,  for information purposes, by the DWR 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.