[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 4/08/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

April 8, 2009

 

3. Watersheds –

 

Error could delay water facility

The San Diego Union Tribune

 

The Peripheral Canal II, storage, and the Delta – the solution is in our Sites

The San Jose Examiner

 

Refuge provides more land for recreation

The Colusa Sun-Herald

 

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Error could delay water facility

Desalination project's fish impact questioned

The San Diego Union Tribune – 4/8/09

By Michael Burge

 

CARLSBAD — The developer of a proposed ocean-water desalination plant on Carlsbad's coast expected to clear its last hurdle today at a meeting of the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board.

 

Overview

 

Background: Poseidon Resources wants to build the country's largest ocean-water desalination plant in Carlsbad. The plant has secured permits from nearly all regulatory agencies, including the California Coastal Commission.

 

What's new: Poseidon needs final approval from the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board for a plan to compensate for marine life that the desalination plant would kill. The board's staff believes the plant would destroy far more fish and other organisms than Poseidon has calculated.

 

What's next: The board is scheduled to meet today to consider issuing Poseidon's final permit, clearing the way to build the plant.

 

Online: To read the latest version of Poseidon's report, go to uniontrib.com/more/carlsbad-desal.

 

Poseidon Resources has moved through a series of regulatory agencies and expected the regional board to approve its environmental plan so it could begin construction this year.

 

But in poring over Poseidon's study on the number of fish its plant would kill, the board's staff discovered a math error last year that significantly underestimated the number.

 

The number of fish killed could be four to seven times higher than Poseidon's study originally estimated, staff members believed.

 

The error could mean that Poseidon won't receive its final approval today, and it might have to return to the state Coastal Commission, which already has granted a permit.

 

When challenged, Poseidon admitted the mistake but said it shouldn't affect its proposal to create 55.4 acres of new wetlands to compensate for the fish killed.

 

“We believe the . . . impacts for the desalination project are de minimis (insignificant), and the impacts can be offset by the 55.4 acres,” said Scott Maloni, Poseidon's spokesman.

 

A regional board staff report says that Poseidon may have to double that acreage to 109, but it's not specific.

The report says the ways Poseidon interpreted its data resulted in miscalculations.

 

Chiara Clemente, a senior environmental scientist for the board, said she expected Poseidon to update data in one of its studies after the error was caught in April 2008, but that didn't happen.

 

“We knew that the calculations were not correct,” Clemente said. “We didn't know what the correct calculations were.”

The issue is likely to come to a head today at 9 a.m. during a meeting of the regional board at 9174 Sky Park Court in San Diego.

 

The Coastal Commission, which apparently was unaware of the error until recently, has asked the board not to approve Poseidon's plan until it can take a look at the updated figures.

 

Poseidon first proposed a plant in 1998 and has been in the permitting process for six years. It wants to build the plant on the grounds of the Encina Power Station, which draws water from Agua Hedionda Lagoon to cool its steam-powered generators.

 

Poseidon's plant needs 100 million gallons of seawater to produce 50 million gallons a day of drinking water. But to ensure that the water discharged from the plant back to the ocean isn't too salty, it needs a minimum flow of 304 million gallons a day to dilute the stream.

 

Poseidon's math error was in calculating fish that would be killed when trapped on screens leading to the plant.

 

An expert who reviewed Poseidon's numbers questioned its conclusions and methodology, saying the effect to marine life was worse than Poseidon figured.

 

John Robertus, the board's executive director, said his staff didn't get to crunch Poseidon's raw numbers until the board told the company to turn them over in February.

 

“What our position has been – we weren't trying to challenge the calculations or process Poseidon had used,” Robertus said. “We wanted to do our own calculation.”

 

Maloni, Poseidon's spokesman, said the board has always had the data and its conclusions stand.

 

“We should not be required to double that (mitigation) acreage,” Maloni said. “One hundred nine acres is wrong.”

 

Poseidon's updated version of its report was posted on the Regional Water Quality Control Board's Web site March 27. It includes new tables with updated data on mortality in blue. Old tables are crossed through in red.

 

Robertus said the incident raises questions about how forthcoming Poseidon has been.

 

“Hiding the ball can be a criminal act, and I don't believe they've done that,” Robertus said. “We're not taking the position it was intentional.”

For its part, Poseidon has accused the regional board of not disclosing communications it had with other agencies, which Poseidon requested under the California Public Records Act. #

 

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/08/1m8desal225440-error-could-delay-water-facility/

 

The Peripheral Canal II, storage, and the Delta – the solution is in our Sites

The San Jose Examiner – 4/8/09

By Jeff Burgess

 

Jeff Burgess is a California Infrastructure Policy Examiner from Sacramento.

Delta locals are right to be concerned. Their way of life will likely change as the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is enacted. The Delta ecosystem is so large, so impactful to the entire state, and so damaged by decades of mismanagement that it’s going to take radical, extreme changes to restore – to the extent possible – the habitat.

 

But Delta locals won’t agree. Their plan is simple, yet completely implausible: self-sufficiency. And it’s best delineated – from their perspective – by a local lawyer and landowner Tom Zuckerman. His idea: communities south of the Delta can be water self-sufficient, and that the best possible course of action is to turn off the pumps that feed the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project.

 

Talk about a non-starter.

 

Conservation had to be part of the solution. Both the Governor and water contractors are advancing conservation as a key tenant in the solution to California’s water crisis. However, to go from conservation to regional self-sufficiency is simply too narrow-minded.

 

We’re all Californians, and California’s water is a statewide resource – regardless of where we as individuals live. In fact, water is a regional and nationwide resource. As an analogy, how would we Northern Californians feel if Oregon and Washington stopped sending cheap electricity from Northwest hydropower projects to us? Would those same folks who were barking “it’s our water” at BDCP scoping meetings applaud our Northwest neighbors if they flipped the electrical export switch to OFF? Would those folks enjoy life by candlelight – embracing energy self-sufficiency?

 

But should Delta landowners stand by without injecting thoughtful, meaningful commentary in the BDCP process. No way – as I said earlier, they have a lot at stake. Delta locals, and all Northern Californians, should simply ask for a whole solution to Delta ecosystem renewal, which includes more surface storage. Specifically, the Sites Reservoir.

 

The location for Sites Reservoir sits in an ideal spot for surface storage that supports Delta ecosystem restoration. It’s upstream from the Delta, pulling water from - and resupplying - the Sacramento River. And it’s off-stream. It would be filled and drained via new and existing conveyance options. This provides a unique benefit – the Sites Reservoir will be fish friendly.

 

Delta locals should insist that the Peripheral Canal II only be built if Sites is also built. They should also tie maximum quantities conveyed via the canal with maximum available output from Sites. And all Northern Californians should insist that water users south of the Delta pay their fair share for Sites and the canal. (Similar to the Southern California lawmakers who insisted that Bay Area bridge users pay for seismic improvements via increased tolls.) As long as the science supports the Peripheral Canal II as the best option to protect both existing water rights statewide, as well as habitat restoration, Delta locals are powerless to reject it – especially when the other so-called option is fanciful concepts like self-sufficiency.#

 

http://www.examiner.com/x-6364-California-Infrastructure-Policy-Examiner~y2009m4d7-The-Peripheral-Canal-II-storage-and-the-Delta--the-solution-is-in-our-Sites

 

Refuge provides more land for recreation

The Colusa Sun-Herald – 4/7/09

By Rick Longley

 

Hunters, bird watchers and fishing enthusiasts have a new place to go with the opening of an additional 450 acres at the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge near Princeton.

 

The Drumheller Slough and Drumheller North Units became available for public use March 28, just in time for turkey hunting season, refuge officials said. In addition to hunting, fishing and wildlife observation, visitors also can take photos and use interpretive trails while gaining environmental education, according to Denise Dachner, an outdoor recreation planner for the refuge.

 

She said Drumheller Slough is one of the few refuge units open to vehicles where there is parking. It is on the east side of the river near the old Princeton Ferry dock slip, accessible by taking County Road 67 west from Afton.

 

“This is a great place for the public to go out and enjoy the land,” she said. “They can fish and picnic.”

 

Assistant refuge manager Kelly Moroney said 200 acres for Drumheller Slough was acquired by the refuge in 1999, and the Drumheller North Unit was purchased in 2004.

 

The Drumheller Slough unit took three years to be restored to a natural habitat, Moroney said. His agency planted native grasses and trees such as thousands of oaks, willows, sycamores, cottonwoods, wild roses and more.

 

Restoration was done in cooperation with Rivers Partners, which acquired a grant and implemented it, he said. The Wildlife Conservation Board and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation provided the funding.

 

The Drumheller North unit was not restored with native vegetation, Moroney said, but it remains a viable recreaton habitat. Both units may be reached either by foot or boat.

 

“As habitat restoration projects and visitor facilities are completed, the service will continue to implement the Comprehensive Conservation Plan and open additional acreage to the public,” Moroney said. “Wildlife-dependent recreation continues to be a priority for the service.”

 

In Tehama County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also opened 200 restored riparian acres on the La Barranca Unit just south of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam in Red Bluff – increasing that unit’s size to 760 acres, officials said. La Barranca is accessed by boat only.

 

Sacramento Valley National Wildlife Refuge’s main headquarters is six miles south of Willows at 752 Highway 99W. For more information, call 934-2801 or go to www.fws.gov/sacramentovalleyrefuges. #

 

http://www.colusa-sun-herald.com/news/refuge_2715___article.html/drumheller_use.html

 

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