[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 3/9/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

March 9, 2009

 

3. Watersheds –

 

Bill Deadline Brings New Proposed Environmental Legislation

The California Progress Report

 

Top salmon researcher says outlook for fish is grim

 

The Santa Cruz Sentinel

 

Keeping Sonoma County streams natural — and flood free

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

 

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Bill Deadline Brings New Proposed Environmental Legislation

The California Progress Report – 3/07/09

By Traci Sheehan

Traci Sheehan is the Executive Director for the Planning and Conservation League

Last Friday was the deadline to introduce new bills in the State Legislature. Lawmakers made the most of it but introducing piles of them in the waning hours of the day. Among them are hundreds of bills that affect the environment, on topics as diverse as wildlands preservation, toxic remediation, water quality, and energy development.

The Planning and Conservation League (PCL) is proud to be sponsoring several innovative measures in 2009 to protect California's environment and promote public health. Here's a quick summary:

Senate Bill 565, authored by Senator Pavley and sponsored by PCL, targets the enormous untapped potential of safe recycled water. Using the successful model of AB 939 (Sher), SB 565 directs the State Water Resources Control Board to ensure that California recycles 50% of the water that would otherwise be discharged to the ocean by wastewater facilities by 2030. This measure would result in the development of roughly 2 million acre feet of new water by 2030. That makes SB 565 the largest water development program in California since the State Water Project of the 1960's.

Assembly Bill 1408, authored by Assemblymember Paul Krekorian and co-sponsored by PCL and the East Bay Municipal Utilities District, provides a new tool to allow communities to accommodate growth without increase water demand. AB 1408 would institute a water neutral development option that developers and water agencies can voluntarily choose to utilize during the development approval process. The bill would encourage developers to build highly efficient houses, and further encourages developers to fully offset the water demand of the development by taking part in water conservation programs for existing homes and businesses.

 

Assembly Bill 499, authored by Assemblymember Jerry Hill and sponsored by PCL, is a critical measure relating to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that will help ensure important legal challenges are not dismissed on a technicality. Currently, confusion over which "real parties in interest" to list when a lawsuit is filed can lead to cases being dismissed before they are heard. AB 499 clarifies that the parties that must be named in a CEQA lawsuit for a particular project are those listed by the lead agency as "recipients of approval" for that project in the agencies' Notice of Exemption (NOE) or Notice of Determination (NOD).

Along with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation and others, PCL is co-sponsoring Senate Bill 194 by Assemblymember Dean Florez and Assembly Bill 835 by Assemblymember Bill Monning. SB 194 asks local jurisdictions to develop and implement a plan to address the existing financial and political barriers that are part of the cause of regional inequity and infrastructure deficits in unincorporated communities throughout the State. AB 835 promotes policies that reduce the use of pesticides with high levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ensures that these toxic chemicals are not substituted for others that are also hazardous to the environment and public health.#

 

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2009/03/bill_deadline_b.html

 

 

Top salmon researcher says outlook for fish is grim The Santa Cruz Sentinel – 3/07/09 By Kurtis Alexander   SANTA CRUZ -- The author of last year's landmark report on California's salmon decline repeated his call or protective action Friday and said the Central Coast's coho would be among the first fish to vanish if nothing is done.   "Extinction is not an abstract thing," said Peter Moyle, speaking before hundreds of researchers at this week's Salmonid Restoration Conference, held at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium.   The warning, which Moyle sounded for most of the state's 31 salmon, steelhead and trout species, comes as regulators consider closing the fishing season yet another year for the California chinook -- the state's foremost salmon fishery and a standard catch for local anglers and restaurants alike.   "This is a crisis," said Moyle, a UC Davis professor who led the research behind last year's grim California Trout report. Moyle attributes the dwindling number of salmon, from chinook to coho, to excessive water diversions, construction of dams and other changes to the rivers where the fish spawn. Global warming, and its effect on stream temperatures and food supplies, may be another factor.   Restoring streams and rivers to their natural flows, and coming up with the money and political will to do so, would set the stage for recovery, Moyle says. Without action, he estimates, 65 percent of the state's salmon species will go extinct within 100 years.   Monterey Bay fishermen know the dim outlook all too well.   "It makes it impossible for the guys trying to hang in there and do this for a living," said Tom Canale, 62, who sold his fishing boat at the Santa Cruz harbor just a few years ago. "There really isn't much opportunity now."   The Santa Cruz Commercial Fishermen's Association counts about 70 members, according to Canale, about 40 of whom rely primarily on salmon.   This fall, the state's largest run of chinook fell short for the second straight year, numbering about 66,000 of the normal 122,000 when they returned to spawn in the Sacramento River. The figure almost certainly means federal regulators next month will curtail or cancel the salmon season, which normally begins May 1.   Last year's closure, the first in history, cost the state $255 million and 2,263 jobs, according to the state Department of Fish and Game.   The Central Coast coho salmon, meanwhile, has been federally protected since 1996. While it's never had the commercial viability of the Sacramento River chinook, researchers are trying to ensure its recovery by improving the health of the local rivers and streams where the fish spawn.   A spawning pool was recently built on San Vicente Creek, and earlier this week the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors eliminated a log-removal program to increase the number of naturally forming pools so coho can thrive.#   http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/sports/ci_11858513

 

Keeping Sonoma County streams natural — and flood free

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat – 3/07/09
By Bleys W. Rose

Sonoma County is poised to launch a stream maintenance program this summer in an effort to provide flood control and, at the same time, manage vegetation for fish habitat and human recreation.

 

Residents have until March 16 to comment on the program, which drew mostly favorable reviews at a public hearing last week.

 

Under the plan, banks along 225 miles of streams maintained by the county would be trimmed to act more like natural waterways than causeways for simply moving water.

 

“We tried to do that in the mid-1960’s and it would have looked gorgeous except that the urban renewal folks made us put the streams underground,” said retired Water Agency engineer Carl Jackson. He was referring to half-century old decisions to build downtown state and federal buildings over Santa Rosa Creek.

 

The new stream maintenance program would do away with the practice of obtaining special permits from a variety of state and federal agencies before beginning work. It also would establish a regularly scheduled stream clearance and revegetation effort.

 

“For those of us who are concerned about flood control work we have not been able to do, this gives us a good chance to do that,” said Paul Kelley, chairman of the Board of Supervisors.

 

For decades, the county’s stream maintenance effort has been the object of criticism for doing too much on one hand and too little on the other.

 

Pat Raymond, head of the Rancho Feliz Mobile Home Park association, said vegetation and debris problems plague the creek around the complex in Rohnert Park.

 

“We are concerned about blackberries and cattails, which have run amok,” said Raymond, who conceded that the dumping of “shopping carts and spray cans” by residents contributes to the problem.

 

The Water Agency is responsible for maintaining about 75 miles of engineered flood-control channels, which serve the primary purpose of preventing flooding in Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park and Cotati, Petaluma, Sonoma and Windsor. It is largely a system of man-made viaducts built mostly in the 1960s that collect storm water in reservoirs such as Spring Lake and distribute it downstream as quickly as possible.

 

An additional 150 miles of natural streams are mostly situated on private lands, and the agency has easements to cut vegetation and remove debris on these, too.

 

Howard Wilshire, a retired U.S. Geological Survey geologist who lives in Sebastopol, urged supervisors to put greater emphasis on controlling sediment upstream so that it doesn’t clog waterways and culverts in populated areas.

 

“The real problem is sediment generation,” Wilshire said. “To manage the intake of sediment requires education of landowners.”

 

Keenan Foster, a Water Agency environmental specialist, said the agency is pledging to use 10 percent of program funding for sediment control, much of it devoted to efforts upstream.

 

Joel Hoyt, a facilities department official with Alcatel Lucent in Petaluma, said he wanted to thank maintenance crews for cleaning out creeks near the company’s offices following flooding in 2005. However, he added that regular monitoring and maintenance was necessary to prevent recurrence of problems.

 

“It will not be a comfortable situation for us to sit there and watch the blockages come back in again,” Hoyt said.

 

After closure of public comment on March 16, the program’s environmental review document will return to supervisors for approval in late May or early June. The revamped stream maintenance program would begin June 15 and finish toward the end of October each year.#

 

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090307/articles/903070279

 

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