Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 31, 2009
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
Goodwill planting helps victims of water shortage
One farming family's gesture has yielded 237,760 pounds of produce for the Valley's needy.
Shasta County takes steps to save Kilarc Reservoir
The Record-Searchlight
S.F., U.N. partner on global warming center
San Francisco Chronicle
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Goodwill planting helps victims of water shortage
One farming family's gesture has yielded 237,760 pounds of produce for the Valley's needy.
By
A 15-acre plot may not seem like much of a farm on the west side, where crops stretch for miles.
But the produce grown here isn't for sale. It goes to help some of the Valley's neediest families.
The Woolf Farming Co. planted 15 acres near Huron in early June to supply fresh produce to workers who have lost jobs or hours because of the Valley's water shortage.
Because of drought and environmental restrictions, farmers in the Westlands Water District have received less water this year, forcing them to fallow thousands of acres and lay off workers in Huron, Firebaugh and Mendota.
Morgan Woolf, a 20-year-old member of the farming family and a UC Davis student, organized the project that has produced about 119 tons of vegetables, including squash, three types of corn, jalapeño peppers and bell peppers.
The "garden," as Woolf calls it, has provided produce for the farming company's workers and countless families on the west side and throughout the
"We knew that people were suffering, and we wanted to do what we could," Woolf said.
"We also want to make it clear that the farming community does care about what is going on in these communities."
The Woolf family operates Los Gatos Tomato Products in Huron and also grows crops including pistachios, almonds, wheat, garlic and grapes.
"Although the drought has not hit us as bad as some other farms, we wanted our employees to take home some food because we knew that everyone knows someone who has lost a job or has had their hours cut," Woolf said.
Woolf, who is studying regional and community development, began working with several social service agencies, including FoodLink for
Lisa Quiroz, food resource coordinator for the food bank in
The organization supplies food to 150 agencies in
"It is pretty unique to have someone set aside land and donate all the produce that comes from it," Quiroz said. "We are very lucky to have such generous people in the Valley."
Dana Wilkie, chief executive officer for the
"It is not that there is a lack of interest -- the problem is that there are so many people who can barely stay in business because of the drought," Wilkie said.
Woolf said the project would not have been possible without the help of other agriculture companies that stepped in to help pick the crops and provide supplies.
Other farmers who have not been deeply hurt by water shortages also have come forward with donations of their own or have helped in the project, including Crop Production Services, Syngenta, TS&L, Pro Plant, Huron Ag, La Jolla Farms, Red Rock Ranch, Dresick Farms, Vasto Valley Cold Storage, Antonini Fruit Express, Hall Ag, Harris Ranch and Borba Farms.
"I got a call from a guy who wants to donate 5 tons of carrots and potatoes," Woolf said.
"And the more farmers are getting to know what we are doing, the more they want to help."
http://www.fresnobee.com/1093/story/1566209.html
Shasta County takes steps to save Kilarc Reservoir
The Record-Searchlight – 7/31/09
By Amanda Winters
A popular east county fishing reservoir could be saved after
The county filed a motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to intervene in the process started by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
The company signed an agreement for demolition with state and federal water and wildlife departments in 2005, and released the outline for a removal plan in September 2008. The plan would remove dams from Old Cow Creek and drain Kilarc Reservoir, which is a popular fishing hole, and remove most diversions and canals.
Charles White, PG&E spokesman, said the utility company began the process of giving up the operating license for the plant in March, which was required after an application for reoperation of the plant was not made with FERC. White said the license was open for other entities to take over for a period of time, but none came forward.
On June 30, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted in closed session to intervene in the project, and on July 14 the county filed an affidavit with FERC.
"I don't think anyone in this county wanted to see it taken out," said Supervisor Glenn Hawes, whose district includes Kilarc. "A lot of people use it for fishing and recreation."
Hawes said when his children were younger, they often would go to the reservoir as a family to fish, and many families continue to do so today.
The county had to act fast before FERC approved the license surrender and PG&E began demolition, he said.
"I don't think FERC really wanted these things to go, and by our intervening, it kind of stops the time clock of the decommissioning project," Hawes said.
But the county's financial woes may put a damper on keeping the area as it is.
"The county strongly desires to retain the existing project features at Kilarc ... but its finances are not adequate to assume the maintenance and other costs associated with these facilities, and it does not have the capability to own and operate the power facilities," wrote Shasta County Administrative Fiscal Chief Bebe Palin in the affidavit.
The hope is that Evergreen Shasta Power LLC, run by Steve Tetrick, would pay for maintenance with money from the company's project revenue in agreement with the county, officials said in a news release.
Tetrick could not be reached for comment.
White said the process of taking out the hydroelectric project, which generates enough electricity to provide for 3,750 homes, would take years and questioned the feasibility of the county's late intervention plan.
Tamara Young-Allen, spokeswoman for FERC, said a motion to intervene can be made at any time, but the county may have to show the commission they had good cause to file late.
The Shasta Historical Society has filed a similar motion, citing the historical significance of the old powerhouses.
"The Kilarc Canal and Forebay and associated structures are features eligible for listing in the NRHP (National Register of Historic Places) and the CRHR (California Register for Historical Places), and consequently should be preserved from decommissioning and the proposed demolition," Sandy Winters, a volunteer with the society, wrote in the motion.
For Richard Jones, whose family has lived on South Cow Creek since 1910, the important issue is water rights.
"My biggest concern is keeping our irrigation water," he said. "If they can do it by keeping everything existing, that's fine. If not, then we have to find a way to get water to our ditch."
Jones had signed a letter in 2004 to the PG&E Kilarc-Cow Creek project manager emphasizing water rights that residents have had since before World War I and the importance of water continuing to flow down the Abbott Ditch. #
http://www.redding.com/news/2009/jul/31/shasta-county-takes-steps-to-save-kilarc/
S.F., U.N. partner on global warming center
San Francisco
By Heather Knight
San Francisco's Hunters Point Shipyard - so toxic it's listed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site - will be the future home of a U.N.-sponsored think tank to study solutions to global warming and other environmental crises plaguing the planet.
Due to open in 2012, the facility is envisioned by Mayor Gavin Newsom's administration as the centerpiece of a new green technology campus, akin to
The 80,000-square-foot
The center is expected to cost $20 million. Lennar Corp., the developer partnering with the city to rebuild large swaths of the shipyard and Candlestick Point, will donate the land and infrastructure. The city hopes the remainder of the funds will come from corporate sponsorship, state and federal grants and foundation money.
"Locating the
Michael Cohen, director of the Mayor's Office of Economic Development, said
He said the one missing piece was a brand name anchor - like UC San Francisco at
The announcement comes weeks after the
"The opportunity to establish the Hunters Point Shipyard as a major job generator and as a place where environmental problems can be addressed may be more important than a football stadium," Cohen said.
The partnership between
Synergy needed
Gavin Power, deputy director of the U.N. Global Compact, said
"We hope it will be a vibrant laboratory bringing together leading academics, researchers, social entrepreneurs and others who will collaborate and work on solutions," Power said.
He said the United Nations is well positioned to take whatever technological innovations emerge from the center and spread them worldwide.
Dan Adler is the president of California Clean Energy Fund, a nonprofit venture capital fund that invests in early-stage clean energy technologies. He said the industry is so heavily regulated that innovation can sometimes be hampered, and having key players working in close proximity is critical.
"You have to have more players at the table to make the technology work - you have to have regulators, you have to have legislators, you have to have entrepreneurs, large-scale capital and the innovation community itself," Adler said.
Transforming Bayview
The green tech campus will be built on Parcel C, which sits along the waterfront on the shipyard's eastern edge. The U.S. Navy is cleaning up the toxic shipyard and transferring the cleaned parcels to the city. The entire development project, including the U.N. center, must be approved by various city commissions and the Board of Supervisors.
Malik Looper, executive director of the Hunters Point nonprofit Literacy for Environmental Justice that works with neighborhood youth, said the U.N. center sounds like a fine idea, but he's more concerned that the land it's built on be thoroughly cleaned first. The Navy has said it will cap some parts of the land rather than fully excavate the toxics, which Looper said may be insufficient.
"The big issue in my mind is resolving the matter around what standards will be adhered to in terms of the cleanup, and until that matter is resolved, it's hard for me to be excited about a press release about a potential partnership," he said.
Cohen said the Navy will clean the land so it's safe to live and work there and city officials are satisfied with the process. The campus will help create jobs for Bayview-Hunters Point residents, he said, and local hiring requirements will be put in place.
However, Saul Bloom, executive director of Arc Ecology, an environmental nonprofit that helps communities close and clean up military bases, said the jobs can't go to neighborhood residents without the proper training.
"We can't lose sight of the fact we're trying to provide jobs for people who are in Bayview-Hunters Point, a substantial number of whom don't have that skill set and need to get there," he said. #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/30/MN7O1913JU.DTL&feed=rss.bayarea
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