California Water News (DWR)

[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 9/1/09

2009-09-01T08:53:00.001-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

September 1, 2009

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

Perjury charge added to case against water district board member

San Bernardino County Sun

Water district trying to shut out public

Antelope Valley Press

IID to expand conflict of interest guidelines to include consultants

Imperial Valley Press

Nora Jaeschke; property-management leader, staunch water conservationist

San Diego Union-Tribune

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Perjury charge added to case against water district board member

San Bernardino County Sun-8/31/09

By Wes Woods II

A single charge of perjury was filed against Xavier Alvarez on Monday as a result of his filing a false W-4 form with the Three Valleys Municipal Water District when he was elected to the board in 2006.

Sandi Roth, a prosecutor with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Public Integrity Division, said Alvarez checked a box saying he was married which resulted in the withholding of the incorrect amount of taxes in his paycheck.

Alvarez, 51, represents south Pomona on the Three Valleys board.

The perjury charge against him carries a maximum of four years in state prison. Prosecutors discovered the alleged violation while preparing their case over related charges, said Roth.

Alvarez has pleaded not guilty for one count each of insurance fraud, grand theft and misappropriation of public funds, a case originally filed on Sept. 22.

He was accused of illegally registering his ex-wife for health benefits with the Three Valleys Municipal Water District, which gives medical insurance for its directors, their spouses, children and other dependents.

Authorities said Alvarez presented a Jan. 28, 1995 marriage certificate to the district but failed to say a divorce occurred March 2, 2002.

In the case, prosecutors said he added his ex-wife Juanita Ruiz on his insurance from Jan. 24 to Oct. 31, 2007, five years after his divorce was final.

A readiness conference for the health benefit case is scheduled for Monday.

Trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 10.

Roth said an arraignment for the perjury case is scheduled for Wednesday at Pomona Superior Court.

If convicted on the theft charges, Alvarez faces five years in jail.

In July 2008, Alvarez was fined and sentenced to probation for violating the Stolen Valor Act, which criminalizes false claims of military valor. He had claimed he had received the Medal of Honor.

Alvarez could not be reached for comment.#

http://www.sbsun.com/search/ci_13241597?IADID=Search-www.sbsun.com-www.sbsun.com

Water district trying to shut out public

Antelope Valley Press-8/31/09

Editorial

Palmdale Water District board members' 4-0 decision to shift their meeting time earlier will inconvenience members of the public as well as the board member who often doesn't vote the others' way.

Board meetings will now start with a closed session at 5:30 p.m., followed by the public meeting at 6:30 p.m.

The earlier time will make it harder for Palmdale Water District customers who commute long distances to and from work to attend meetings.

In addition, director Raul Figueroa, an aerospace engineer who is frequently the lone dissenter on board votes, said the earlier time will make it hard for him to get to the start of the 5:30 p.m. closed session.

"I know it's done purposely," Figueroa said later.

"Any way they can avoid me being there would be perfect for them."

The Aug. 18 vote was the third time within a year that Palmdale Water District board members have changed their meeting times.

Until last fall, board meetings had started with the open session at 7 p.m.

Directors would convene in closed session after the public session.

In November 2008, the meeting time switched to 6 p.m. at the recommendation of then-interim General Manager Bob Toone.

Directors would go into closed session, but Figueroa could not end his workday in time to participate in that portion of the board meetings.

The meetings continued that way until last spring when Director Linda Godin suggested the board revisit the start time issue.

At the May 13 meeting, the board members went back to the 7 p.m. start time.

The June, July and August meetings began at 7 p.m.

However, the Aug. 18 special meeting at which the time was changed - and from which Figueroa was absent - began at 6 p.m.

During the board's discussion at the meeting, board President Jeff Storm suggested starting at 5 p.m. Director Linda Godin suggested 5:30 p.m.

Director Dave Gomez suggested the ultimate outcome: 5:30 p.m. for the closed session, with the open meeting beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Palmdale resident Tracey Summerford told the board that night that the change will prevent a lot of customers from participating in meetings.

"I think you're trying to silence the public," she said.

We agree.#

http://www.avpress.com/n/31/0831_s7.hts

IID to expand conflict of interest guidelines to include consultants

Imperial Valley Press-8/31/09

By Megan Glenn

The Imperial Irrigation District is working on updating its conflict of interest policy as court decisions have expanded who needs to fill out paperwork detailing their financial obligations.

"That issue is being considered in our revisions," said IID attorney Jeff Garber.

Imperial Valley farmers such as Mike Morgan, who is suing the IID, have repeatedly called for information detailing the financial interests of a variety of consultants that the IID contracts with.

Morgan has alleged during IID board meetings that consultants working on water policies such as the Quantification Settlement Agreement, have conflicts of interest.

Garber said that the IID has a code of conduct that spells out who is required to fill out the conflict of interest forms, which includes board members and general management.

"It's consistent with all other local agencies in the Valley," Garber said of the code of conduct.

Consultants, however, operate within a gray area, as they are neither employees of a governmental agency nor are they elected representatives. However, several court cases have ruled that if they are working on contracts that affect the agency, then they need to make their other financial obligations public.

Garber said that the revised code of conduct will be made public soon.

"We have revised the code of conduct and will be bringing it back to the board," Garber said.#

http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2009/09/01/local_news/news04.txt

Nora Jaeschke; property-management leader, staunch water conservationist

San Diego Union-Tribune-8/31/09

By Blanca Gonzalez

When Nora Jaeschke lost her part-time job at a homeowners association management company in 1971, she started a business so she could help three landscapers who had also been laid off by the company.

The enterprise she started from the garage and living room of her Rancho Bernardo home grew to become one of the region's largest private-property-management companies, with more than 200 employees.

Ms. Jaeschke, a leader in the industry, also became active in water-conservation efforts and served on the San Diego County Water Authority board of directors from 1997 to 2005.

Ms. Jaeschke died Wednesday at her Escondido home. She was 72. The cause of death is pending, her family said.

Although she sold her company, N.N. Jaeschke Inc., in 2004, she stayed active and was at a meeting to help formulate a water-conservation program the night before she died. Friends and family members said she was fearless, optimistic and remarkable.

County Supervisor Pam Slater-Price served on the water board with Ms. Jaeschke, and the two became friends. They also served on the Red Cross board together.

"She always looked on the bright side, no matter what challenges she faced," Slater-Price said. "Nora always brought the same spirit of high energy, positive attitude. . . . She always wanted to help people."

"Things can get contentious (at Water Authority board meetings), and she always tried to build consensus. She had strong leadership skills but was the most pleasant, engaging person."

Friends said Ms. Jaeschke's professional success was inspirational at a time when few women started and owned their own businesses.

"She said it was an uphill battle, (but) she wanted to be an example to her daughters," Slater-Price said.

Elizabeth Jaeschke de Buenrostro said her mother always looked for ways to make things work. Instead of dwelling on problems, Ms. Jaeschke preferred to focus on solutions, her daughter said.

"She had a heart for service. Wherever there was a need, she tried to help," de Buenrostro said.

In addition to her work with the Red Cross, Ms. Jaeschke volunteered with the Mentor San Diego program and was on the board of directors for St. Vincent de Paul Villages. She was founding president of Friends of the Water Conservation Garden.

Carlsbad Mayor Claude "Bud" Lewis, who also served on the San Diego County Water Authority board of directors, said Ms. Jaeschke understood the importance of water conservation for future generations.

"Nora was unsurpassed in her commitment, passion and tireless dedication to water issues," Lewis said. "She was a real go-getter. She was very energized to help San Diego become the best it could be."

Ms. Jaeschke also enjoyed music and learned to play the ukulele five years ago. Friend and water board colleague Fred Thompson taught her to play, and the two would often strum their ukuleles in parking lots before and after water-related meetings.

"Her schedule was so busy that we had to find the time to play in between meetings," Thompson said. "She was like the Energizer bunny — always going. She was brilliant. She was totally involved with the human race. She had a tremendous sense of humor and was always laughing and enjoying life."

Ms. Jaeschke was born Jan. 13, 1937, in Great Barrington, Mass., and was the oldest of two daughters of Thomas Francis Nugent and Mary Williams Nugent. She loved to swim and was the best swimmer at the local Boys Club, her daughter said. She was invited to the Olympic trials when she was 13 or 14, but her grandmother wouldn't let her go "because it was not very ladylike," de Buenrostro said.

She attended Syracuse University before marrying Charles Jaeschke in 1956. They moved to California for the warm climate and settled in San Diego in 1969. The couple had three daughters. The Jaeschkes divorced after 42 years of marriage in 1998.

Ms. Jaeschke is survived by her daughters, Eleanor Jaeschke Hugus of La Jolla, Christina Scott Jaeschke of Escondido and Elizabeth Jaeschke de Buenrostro of San Marcos; a sister, Beth Bartholomew of Sheffield, Mass.; and four grandchildren.

Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. tomorrow at El Camino Memorial in Sorrento Valley. Services will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at The Immaculata at the University of San Diego.

The family suggests contributions to Friends of the Water Conservation Garden, 12122 Cuyamaca College Drive W., El Cajon, CA 92019; or to St. Vincent de Paul Villages.#

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/31/property-management-leader-staunch-water-conservat/?uniontrib

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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.

[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS-WATERQUALITY-9/1/09

2009-09-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

September 1, 2009

4. Water Quality –

School partners with city to clear trash from Ventura River bottom

Ventura County Star

Plant's generator runs straight through outage

Desert Sun

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School partners with city to clear trash from Ventura River bottom

Ventura County Star-9/1/09

By Kevin Clerici

Wearing blue jeans and armed with gloves and masks, more than 600 freshmen and transfer students from California Lutheran University descended Monday into the Ventura River bottom to remove trash and abandoned items.

The students collected soiled clothes, old food wrappers, rusted bike parts and other trash, some of it discarded by people who sleep illegally among the brush and pervasive poison oak.

“We grabbed a couch, a wheelchair, a musty old rug,” said Clayton Cook, 18, a freshman from Phoenix. “We found the cushions. I said, ‘We should snake these beauties for our dorm.’ We’re trying to have fun with it.”

The student army was part of the private Thousand Oaks university’s You Got Served program, a service project for incoming freshmen now in its fifth year. Last year, for the first time, the entire freshman class tackled the same project: cleaning the river bottom. They pulled out 5 tons of trash and materials last year.

“This is a side of life you don’t see very often,” said Paul Witman, an information systems professor who helped out Monday.

Ventura officials hailed the partnership last year and were more than happy to have the students return. The city is under increasing pressure to remove the trash as new environmental regulations cover the sensitive estuary and excessive pollution could lead to fines of up to $25,000 a day.

“You never want to turn down 600 to 1,200 hours of labor,” said Rosie Ornelas, Ventura’s volunteer coordinator, adding the cleanup will directly reduce the amount of waste washed into the river during rainy winter months. “It’s pretty impressive to see them working in mass.”

Part of CLU’s mission is a commitment to service and justice, said university President Chris Kimball, who along with Ventura Mayor Christy Weir addressed the students before the cleanup.

Kimball said he planned to bring next year’s freshmen back again.

“You learn by doing. You learn by serving others,” said Kimball.

People have relied on the river bottom for shelter since World War II. Although happy to have such a large work force to help with the trash problem, city officials say the underlying challenge — relocating the homeless out of the riverbed — is likely to persist until more housing options are available across the county.

Officials expected little interaction between students and campers because most of the homeless leave during the day.

City officials in recent weeks marked cleanup locations and notified campers of the upcoming effort.

Local garbage hauler E.J. Harrison & Sons agreed to donate large metal containers for the cleanup, which extended from the ocean to nearly a mile upstream, organizers said.

Other sponsors included the Salvation Army, Home Depot, the Water Store, Goodwill Industries and Costco, and donations helped purchase shovels, rakes, gloves and other supplies.

Working as a team, freshmen Chloe Vieira, 18, of Camarillo, Rebecca Michalak, 18, of Seattle and Claire Winters, 17, of Ventura stuffed large plastic bags with tattered clothes and yellowing newspapers.

The trio said they were proud to participate and help build a positive reputation for their college.

“It’s an interesting reality check,” Michalak said.

“We’re glad to be here,” Vieira said. “It feels like we’re making a difference.”#

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/sep/01/clu-sends-students-out-to-clean-up-debris/

Plant's generator runs straight through outage

Desert Sun-9/1/09

Officials at Mission Springs Water District report that the Horton Wastewater Treatment Plant “performed without a glitch” despite a 12-hour Southern California Edison power outage on Sunday.

The outage, which started at 4:50 a.m. and was caused by a faulty underground cable, initially affected 1,400 customers, according to Edison spokesman Steve Conroy. Service was restored by 7:01 a.m. to all customers except the water district, he said.

A 21,000-pound backup generator, installed at the plant in 2002, kept the facility running without interruption, according to an MSWD release.

This is the longest the generator has had to run since it was installed, with prior outages having lasted only a few hours, the release stated.#

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009909010309

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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.

[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS -9/1/09

2009-09-01T08:52:00.000-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

September 1, 2009

3. Watersheds –

Lime Saddle operators get nod for Bidwell Marina

Chico Enterprise-Record

Suction dredgers left high and dry

Redding Record Searchlight

Phoenix Lake span cracks force closure

Sonora Union Democrat

Officials stunned at size of Tahoe clam invasion

Reno Gazette Journal

Fish trackers study movement of Tahoe bass

Tahoe Daily Tribune

Dam burn postponed but inspection still on

Ukiah Daily Journal

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Lime Saddle operators get nod for Bidwell Marina

Chico Enterprise-Record-9/1/09

By Mary Weston

State Parks Monday announced a tentative agreement for operations at the Bidwell Canyon Marina that park officials think will allow a smooth transition for all parties involved.

Some boater owners say they will make waves if the contract still prohibits transferring buoy contracts if they sell their boats.

State Parks spokesman Roy Stearns said they have reached a tentative agreement with Forever Resorts, the same company that operates Lime Saddle Marina.

Details will be announced in coming weeks, Stearns said.

"We think this is a very positive development, and in the weeks and months to come, we think boaters will appreciate the improvements that begin to appear," Stearns said. "Lime Saddle is an example of their track record."

Forever Resorts and current operator Fun Time Full Time, Inc. are negotiating for a transition of the existing docks and facilities.

"I think it's hopeful what's in place will stay in place to be the least disruptive to boat owners," Stearns said.

The marina that houses more than 800 boats has been embroiled in a controversy between the boat owners, the existing operator Frank Moothart and State Parks over the transition to a new operator after Moothart's contract was not renewed.

In June, Moothart sent notices to boat owners to move their boats by Aug. 1, saying he had to remove his docks and facilities by December, and the water would be too low then.

According to the contract, anything left on the lake in January would be removed by the state, Moothart had formerly said.

To compound the issue, the bids for a new operator were all disqualified for various reasons.

State Parks sent out a press release late Monday announcing a tentative agreement for operation of the marina, after a board reviewed five proposals following rejection of the bids.

"We are looking for a smooth transition from Full Time Full Time to Forever Resorts and the improvements Forever Resorts will bring for boaters as this marina," said Jim Luscutoff, chief of concessions for State Parks.

Forever Resorts had made significant improvements since taking over Lime Saddle in 2007, according to State Parks.

Assemblyman Dan Logue will still mediate a town hall meeting Wednesday at the State Theatre to address the issue.

Bob Foster, Northern Buttes District superintendent of State Parks, said the state will attend the meeting. Foster said last Friday he thinks all the issues a can be worked out with a new contractor.

Boaters were also concerned that mooring contracts couldn't be transferred if boats were sold, and it's unclear at this time how that issue will be resolved.

Dan Kohrdt of Save Bidwell Marina said the buoy agreement had been pulled from the discussion at the Wednesday meeting, but boat owners wouldn't let that die because they had too large of an investment.

The agreement now states that if you sell your boat, you have to take it off the lake, Kohrdt said.

Some boats on the lake are so large that other lakes in the state won't accommodate them.

"A lot of people think things are going to go great for Frank, Forever Resorts and State Parks, but make no mistake, the boat owners will take legal action if the nontransferable buoy restriction stays," Kohrdt said.

The meeting starts at 6 p.m. Wednesday at 1489 Myers St.#

http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_13244359

Suction dredgers left high and dry

Redding Record Searchlight-9/1/09

By Dylan Darling

The $20,000 worth of suction dredging equipment Randy Davis accumulated in 25 years of going for gold is now just decorating his backyard because of a state ban on the practice.

The old Volkswagen motor attached to pontoons that powered a vacuum he used to pull river gravel up and into his sluice box is now worthless because of the ban, said Davis, 56, of Weaverville. So are the seven mining claims he has for the Trinity River and Weaver Creek.

"Now with the ban, I'm not able to work them," Davis said.

Early last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the ban into law, saying it would last until the state Department of Fish and Game finishes an environmental review of suction dredging and develops new rules and regulations for it. Critics of suction dredging say it is harmful to fish - particularly salmon - because it clouds the water, churns up mercury and scatters spawning beds.

"It really alters the river channel," said Craig Tucker, spokesman for the Karuk Tribe on the Klamath River.

The tribe petitioned the DFG to ban suction dredging last winter, but the agency denied the petition. State Sen. Pat Wiggins then wrote legislation calling for the ban, which lawmakers approved in July. Schwarzenegger signed it into law on Aug. 6.

Along with the equipment and claims, the ban has also made DFG permits purchased by prospectors for the year worthless, Davis said.

"All permits that were previously issued by DFG are now invalid," said Kirsten Macintyre, a DFG spokeswoman in Sacramento.

The permits cost $47 for a resident and $185.25 for a non-resident, she said. The DFG had sold 3,624 permits, which were originally good until Dec. 31 this year.

Not being able to use his permit anymore, Jim Holder of Cottonwood said he tried to get a refund for it.

But the DFG isn't offering refunds.

Macintyre said the agency can only do so if authorized by law, and the law banning suction dredging made no such authorization.

Frustrated, Holder said he and other prospectors are talking about filing a class-action lawsuit.

He said his family has had generations of gold mines and his wife and kids regularly go out with him.

"We would gold mine all during the summer," he said.

He'd then use the money made from selling gold to buy Christmas gifts, Holder said.

A veteran on disability with a bad back, Davis said he used the gold brought by suction dredging to supplement his income. In good years, he'd bring in as many as seven ounces, he said. Gold has been selling for about $950 an ounce in recent months.

While Davis said he could pan to get gold from his claims, using a suction dredge is much more efficient.

"I would probably have better luck playing the lottery than panning for gold," Davis said.#

http://www.redding.com/news/2009/sep/01/suction-dredgers-left-high-and-dry/

Phoenix Lake span cracks force closure

Sonora Union Democrat-8/31/09

By Walt Cook

Structural cracking on the Phoenix Lake Road bridge over Sullivan Creek due to blasting operations prompted Tuolumne County officials to close the bridge indefinitely starting today.

It’s too dangerous to keep the bridge open, according to Gary Taylor, deputy director of engineering for the county Public Works Department. The ongoing blasting near the bridge appears to have damaged it, he said.

Project crews were blasting rock and earth last week, with blasting continuing into this week.

Detours include Ridgewood Drive to Highway 108 for those living west of the project area, and Creekside Drive and Crystal Falls Drive to Highway 108 for those east of the project area.

The Public Works Department issued the closure notice Friday morning. Taylor explained blasting is scheduled to get closer to the bridge, putting it at even more at risk.

The blasting had prompted the Public Works Department to close the bridge for a few hours a day through Sept. 4 to accommodate blasting crews. That order was voided when the structural damage became apparent.

An indefinite bridge closure may pose a problem for drivers, as the project is scheduled to continue into next summer. But, Taylor noted, a total closure may enable the project contractor, Ford Construction of Lodi, to get the new bridge and related road work completed ahead of schedule.

Dennis Randall, a volunteer fire captain for the Tuolumne County Fire Department, expressed concern about the closure in relation to emergency responses.

"It has a significant impact particularly for that immediate area because Phoenix Lake Estates is isolated from the nearest station (the Crystal Falls station),” he said.

Randall said the suggested detours will add several minutes to emergency response times in certain instances, but he said the routes will provide adequate access.

“We need to discuss this with our dispatch center so they shift the response plan,” he said.

School buses that run in the area, including Curtis Creek Elementary School buses, will also be forced to adjust their routes.

The Phoenix Lake Road bridge project has been in the works since the mid-1990s, when the county Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to seek federal funding.

Taylor said the county faced a deadline that could have resulted in losing funding if construction had not begun this year.

The roughly year-long project will involve not only replacing the bridge, which dates back to 1948, but also reconstruction of the narrow roadway approaches.

The new bridge will be a pre-cast reinforced concrete structure and less susceptible to damage from high water flows.#

http://www.uniondemocrat.com/2009083197689/News/Local-News/Phoenix-Lake-span-cracks-force-closure

Officials stunned at size of Tahoe clam invasion

Reno Gazette Journal-9/1/09

By Jeff DeLong

Peering into cobalt waters, U.S. Sen. John Ensign caught sight of Tahoe's latest threat.

Beneath the hull of a Desert Research Institute boat off Lake Tahoe's southeast shore were visible dense beds of clams.

"It's really shocking to see the numbers," the Nevada Republican said.

Asian clams, first discovered in small quantities in the lake in 2002, have exploded in number. They coat the bottom along much of Tahoe's southeast shore in depths of 3 to 30 feet, in some cases up to 3,000 clams per square yard.

The dime-sized clams are believed to have caused a dense algae bloom at the lake last summer and experts fear they could change water chemistry to allow other invaders, highly damaging quagga or zebra mussels, to thrive at the lake.

DRI President Stephen Wells, who until recently only had seen pictures of the clams, was taken aback.

"I had no idea they would be in that concentration. It's really bad," Wells said.

Participants in the annual Tahoe summit Aug. 13 agreed that clams, mussels, weeds and other invading species -- either already at the lake or threatening to arrive -- could pose a huge danger to Tahoe, the Truckee River and Pyramid Lake.

During the event, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons joined California Natural Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman and top officials with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency in signing a management strategy for aquatic invasive species.

"It's a constant assault on the lake," Ensign said. "This is another battle. It seems like every time we have a victory we have another battle come along."

"We need to get moving," U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said. "If we don't get a stranglehold on them, they will get a stranglehold on this lake."#

http://www.rgj.com/article/20090901/TT/909010306/1047

Fish trackers study movement of Tahoe bass

Tahoe Daily Tribune-8/29/09

By Adam Jensen

Legend has it that a prehistoric beast similar to the fabled Loch Ness Monster roams the depths of Lake Tahoe.

While the “Tahoe Tessie” myth holds more whimsy than weight, researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, were at Lake Tahoe this week tagging beasts that could have real consequences for the lake's historic underwater inhabitants.

Joined by employees of the California Department of Fish and Game, the researchers used two boats equipped with electrofishing equipment to catch 24 largemouth bass in the Tahoe Keys on Wednesday afternoon as part of a new study of warm-water fish in Lake Tahoe.

The largemouth bass is one of several warm-water fish species that were likely introduced — either intentionally or accidentally — into the lake by anglers in the mid-1980s and appears to be spreading around the lake's near shore areas, according to recent research.

The fish may be contributing to a decrease in the number of native fish species in the lake since 1960, said Sudeep Chandra, a University of Nevada, Reno professor who studies invasive species at the lake.

Bass are voracious predators that eat native fish — like minnows and trout — or out-compete those species for food and habitat, added Stafford Lehr, senior fisheries biologist supervisor with the California Department of Fish and Game.

“They are having an impact on the native fishes of Lake Tahoe,” Lehr said.

Some of the bass caught Wednesday weighed more than 6 pounds.

In addition to the University of Nevada, Reno, and the Department of Fish and Game, the study that began Wednesday is sponsored by the U.S. Forest Service and the Tahoe Resource Conservation District.

The study is a follow- up to a pilot project last year that showed warm-water fish species were able to leave the relatively warm refuge of the Tahoe Keys for other parts of the lake as early as July, sooner than researchers anticipated, Chandra said.

In the latest study, bass were stunned using electroshocking equipment and brought on shore, where researchers sedated them using club soda. Researchers then made a small incision on the bass's bellies to implant two tags, before stitching the fish back up and returning them alive near the area they were caught.

One tag — a computer chip similar to what are often implanted into cats and dogs — will stay useful to researchers throughout the life of the fish and may allow them to one day estimate the total number of largemouth bass in the lake, something that remains unknown to scientists, Chandra said.

The second tag is an acoustic tag that will operate for more than a year and will allow researchers to track movements of the bass through the Keys.

By studying bass movements past 13 receivers that have been placed in the Keys during the next two years to pick up signals from the acoustic tags, researchers should be able to determine how often bass leave the Keys and gain greater knowledge about what triggers them to do so, Chandra said.

Researchers also hope to gain a greater understanding of how warm-water fish interact with the invasive plants — like Eurasian watermilfoil and curly-leaf pondweed — that are spreading around the lake and are already ubiquitous in the Keys, Chandra said.

The information gathered during the latest study will likely be critical to understanding how to protect the dwindling number of native fish species in the lake, Chandra said.

Both Lehr and Chandra expressed doubts about whether warm-water fish species could ever be eliminated from Lake Tahoe, but said this study will be critical step to figuring out what to do next.

“You first have to have a good understanding of the problem,” Lehr said.

Because the species were introduced to the lake relatively recently, the spread of the species can likely be controlled, Chandra said.

Using electrofishing to remove fish from the lake and eliminating the dense underwater forests of milfoil and pondweed where the warm-water fish thrive are two ways the populations of the fish species in the lake could potentially be limited, Chandra said.#

http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20090829/NEWS/908289979&parentprofile=search

Dam burn postponed but inspection still on

Ukiah Daily Journal-8/31/09

A control burn of the dam at Lake Mendocino has been postponed but is still expected before a mid-September routine inspection of the earthen dam by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Lake Mendocino and the park around it is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Army Corps inspectors are expected in Ukiah in the weeks following a rescheduled burn.

"Basically it's for an inspection," David Serafini, maintenance manager at the park said. "The engineers come and do a 100 percent inspection."

The inspection is called a pre-flood inspection and all Army Corps projects do it, Serafini said.

When the burn happens the dam will be divided into sections on which various fire departments can come and practice. Due to concerns that firefighters would overdraw their crews, the first date was canceled and a new date has not been set.

The inspection comes in anticipation of the rainy season. Lake Mendocino is scheduled to be inspected Sept. 15 to Sept. 17, according to Army Corps spokesman J.D. Hardesty.

Inspectors will come and visually inspect the upstream and downstream sides of the dam, Hardesty stated. According to Hardesty, removing vegetation helps to spot burrowing animals that may live in the dam's dirt, Coyote Dam's spillway and a structure that regulates the flow of water in outlet tunnels.#

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_13237815?IADID=Search-www.ukiahdailyjournal.com-www.ukiahdailyjournal.com

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[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 9/1/09

2009-09-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

September 1, 2009

2. Supply –

Parched state on track for bumper tomato crop

Sacramento Bee

Over-pressurized pipes cause water-main breaks in La Mesa

San Diego Union-Tribune

Solvang to hold second water workshop

Lompoc Record

Cloud seeding creates rain Northern Nevada needs, Las Vegas wants

Las Vegas Sun

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Parched state on track for bumper tomato crop

Sacramento Bee-9/1/09

Despite the water shortage, California farms are on target to produce a record-crushing crop of processing tomatoes, which are used to make everything from ketchup to tomato soup.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Monday estimated the 2009 crop at more than 27 billion pounds, beating by at least 2.5 billion pounds the record set in 1999.

Water scarcity drove reductions in tomato acreage in some parts of the Central Valley, such as western Fresno County. But record high prices drove comparatively water-rich farmers elsewhere in the state to increase plantings.

Tomato acreage in San Joaquin County, for instance, rose at least 38 percent this year, to more than 44,000 acres, according to the report. Statewide, processing tomato acreage increased by roughly 31,000 acres, to at least 308,000 acres.

California grows more than 95 percent of U.S. processing tomatoes, and about 30 percent of the world crop.#

http://www.sacbee.com/business/story/2151677.html

Over-pressurized pipes cause water-main breaks in La Mesa

San Diego Union-Tribune-8/31/09

By Jose Luis Jiménez and Susan Shroder

A test of the city's water system sent too much pressure through the pipes, causing three mains to rupture Monday afternoon in separate areas of the city, a Helix Water District spokeswoman said.

The breaks caused water to rush up from below the ground, closing several streets and leaving 46 customers without water. Repair crews plan to work through Monday night to have the streets open for the Tuesday morning commute, said spokeswoman Kate Breece.

Two of the breaks were reported about 1 p.m., said La Mesa police Lt. Carlos Medero. One occurred near the intersection of Yale and University avenues, and caused a sinkhole on Yale about 100 feet south of University.

“There was significant (street) damage,” Medero said.

The second break occurred a few minutes later in a residential area at Oxford Street and Purdue Avenue.

A third break occurred about 2:50 p.m. just south of the intersection of 73rd and Amherst streets.

On Yale, an area of the street about 50-to-70-feet wide buckled, Medero said, creating a sinkhole about 10 feet in diameter.

No one was injured and no vehicles were damaged, the lieutenant said.

Water officials are trying to determine what caused the spike in pressure during the test.

Another water main break on Sweetwater Road, near St. George Street, in Spring Valley temporarily left a shopping center without water, Breece said. Officials do not believe that rupture was related to those in La Mesa.#

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/31/bn31breaks-la-mesa/

Solvang to hold second water workshop

Lompoc Record-9/1/09

An updated version of Solvang’s master water plan, including projections of how much water the city will need and how it will get it, will be the topic of a public workshop at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

A Fresno consultant prepared the city’s master water plan in 2002, but “since that time, this document has become stale,” said City Manager Brad Vidro.

With the help of the Water Department, he has updated the plan with current data and will present it to the City Council at 7 p.m. Wednesday at City Hall, 1644 Oak St.

One result of the update is that city staff members think Solvang will now need less water at “buildout” — when the land inside the current city limits is fully developed — than the 2002 plan projected.

In 2002, the plan predicted an eventual demand for 2,200 acre-feet of water per year; the update expects the city to need 2,003 acre-feet. The city’s annual usage has been closer to1,600 acre-feet for the past decade.

The document also reviews some history of Solvang’s water use and recommends moving ahead with the drilling of six new wells in the bed of the Santa Ynez River, which the City Council has already approved.

“We actually used to use 2,100 acre-feet in the late ’80s,” Vidro said. “We had less population and used more water,” with a peak use of 2,153 acre-feet in 1988.

Since that time, however, a growing conservation ethic as well as higher water rates have led to a steady decrease in demand for water, he said.

However, the city has grown increasingly reliant on deliveries from the State Water Project, which have become unreliable as California is in its third year of drought.

River wells would provide more local control — if a pending plan by the federal operators of Lake Cachuma allows enough water to be released from the lake for Solvang and other users to take their permitted allotments, Vidro said.

Wednesday’s session is an opportunity for the staff to report to the City Council, get any further direction from the council and allow the public to ask questions and make comments, Vidro said.

The city has state approval to draw a maximum of 5 cubic feet per second of water from the river but would need the new wells to achieve that, and its rights to that amount need to be renewed soon.

The city will still pursue that permit, Vidro said, because “there are months in the summer when we’re still going to need that peak rate.”

At a workshop in May, the council invited public comment on a plan for the city to cooperate with Santa Ynez River Water Conservation District, ID1, to cooperate on the development of new water sources.

This workshop is not for the purpose of discussing that idea, Vidro added, but simply to talk about how much water the city might need in the future and the best ways to get the water.

The possibilities of working with ID1 will be the subject of a future meeting after Stetson Engineering consultants have finished a report on the potential compatibility of the two agencies’ water systems, Vidro said.#

http://www.lompocrecord.com/articles/2009/09/01/news/centralcoast/news10.txt

Cloud seeding creates rain Northern Nevada needs, Las Vegas wants

Las Vegas Sun-8/31/09

By Stephanie Tavares

When Southern Nevada Water Authority General Manager Pat Mulroy suggested the agency fund a shuttering Desert Research Institute cloud seeding program, it turned more than a few heads.

The project is vital to a stable water supply in Northern Nevada, but what does it have to do with Southern Nevada?

Well, not much — at least not right now.

The cloud-seeding program provided precipitation to some of the rural ground water basins from which the authority wants to eventually pump water for Las Vegas.

The authority has been involved in the institute’s cloud-seeding program for years — but not in Nevada. It has paid the research institute $121,000 over the past three years to conduct cloud-seeding research and spur precipitation in the mountains between Denver and Grand Junction, Colo. The bill went to the authority’s Enterprise Fund, which gets most of its money from wholesale delivery charges to municipal water agencies.

Because 90 percent of Las Vegas’ drinking water comes from the Colorado River, and because snowmelt from the upper basin has dropped amid the drought, paying for cloud seeding there made sense. In that case, the authority was effectively trying to create its own water.

Cloud seeding means adding chemicals to clouds to induce or increase precipitation. In Nevada that most often involves pumping silver iodide particles into clouds from a remote controlled mountaintop station when the right cloud patterns are present. The silver iodide changes the composition of ultracold water in the clouds, turning the liquid into snow or ice, which then falls to the ground.

Desert Research Institute has 23 cloud-seeding stations in Nevada and six in the Sierra Nevada range along the California-Nevada border. They create about 65,000 acre-feet of precipitation each year in Nevada, mostly in the form of snow, according to institute data.

The institute is a world leader in cloud-seeding research and technology dating to the 1970s. The program developed remote-controlled mountaintop cloud seeding stations used today in Nevada and around the world.

But in this year’s legislative session, funding for the program dried up. With the economy in a shambles and not enough new income, the Legislature made deep cuts in the higher education budget. Desert Research Institute gets only about 15 percent of its budget from the state, but the cuts were felt mainly by the institute’s service-oriented divisions, such as the cloud-seeding program, which get most or all of their funding from state coffers.

The cloud-seeding program is small and appears to have been relatively efficient, with, at most, five highly trained employees with years of experience. Its budget was $550,000 to $600,000 a year, depending on how much cloud seeding took place.

The program served the community in important ways but didn’t bring in many grants or closely align with the core mission of research, institute President Stephen Wells said.

“I don’t have any sources of money to go to keep these parts of DRI functional,” Wells said. “It was a terrible choice I was forced to make.”

How Southern Nevadans might benefit from manipulating precipitation above the Sierra Nevada range and in northeastern Nevada, from which we currently get no water, isn’t as clear.

Las Vegas Valley Water District spokesman J.C. Davis says it all comes down location and timing.

The seeding program increases snowpack by 2 percent to 10 percent, the higher percentages coming in drought years, according to the institute’s figures. When that snowpack melts, some of it recharges the aquifers in the valleys below.

The water authority owns water rights in four such aquifers between here and White Pine County. It has suspended an application for more water in the fifth, Snake Valley, a ranching community below Great Basin National Park on the Utah border.

Water authority staff members are examining whether it would be in Southern Nevada’s best interest to fund part of the core cloud-seeding program, which would make it possible for the institute to continue seeding above the Colorado River basin while supporting cloud seeding above the basins in which it owns water rights.

Keep the water coming in now, when the drought is at its height, they hypothesize, and you’ve got a better chance of pulling something out of the ground in the future.

Northern Nevada, though, is immediately dependent on that snow. It, like much of the rest of the West, has been hit hard by a multiyear drought. The additional tens of thousands of acre-feet of precipitation created each year by the seeding program has kept ski slopes open and stabilized the region’s aquifers, Washoe County Commissioner John Breternitz said.

“In Northern Nevada we’re hard pressed every winter to have enough water to get by,” he said. “The cloud seeding is an added insurance.”

That’s why Northern Nevada is trying to find ways to pay for it. Breternitz is building a coalition of business owners, politicians and residents to raise money to get the project back up and running.

The institute is preparing reports for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority, Washoe County and the Southern Nevada Water Authority on what it would take to resuscitate the program. It has also ordered its staff to stop dismantling the seeding stations.

“We’re in the ramping up mode where we’re trying to get the word out and see if we can find anyone who can fund it on the interim basis and then find a long-term funding mechanism,” Breternitz said. “The state needs to understand how important this program is to Nevada.”

The water authority’s entrance into the discussion, though, has changed the dialogue. The agency wants to pump tens of thousands of acre-feet of water each year from rural Nevada basins. Most rural Nevadans, including many in areas that depend on cloud seeding, oppose that prospect.

The Bureau of Land Management is expecting to complete its draft environmental impact statement on the pipeline in early 2010, but construction isn’t likely to begin for several years.

The project faces mounting opposition from ranchers, farmers, environmentalists, American Indians and national parks enthusiasts who say it will suck dry some of the most beautiful country in the state and ruin the lives of local residents.

The authority has acquired water rights in four of the five basins from which it wants water. In Spring Valley, it had to purchase and operate large ranches to get the water it wanted. And it has made deals with Lincoln County to exchange 3,000 acre-feet of water each year for support for its water rights applications there.

The agency recently agreed, as part of a water basin agreement between Nevada and Utah, to wait 10 years before pursuing the water rights it applied for in a final basin, Snake Valley.

Pipeline opponents see the cloud-seeding proposition as yet another way the water authority is trying to manipulate rural Nevadans into supporting the pipeline. For them and other pipeline foes, it serves as another “ah ha” moment.

“It appears that the SNWA is acknowledging that there just isn’t enough water in the basins they have targeted, at least if they are going to avoid widespread defoliation and environmental destruction,” said Launce Rake, spokesman for the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada.#

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/aug/31/budget-well-dry/

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[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 9/1/09

2009-09-01T08:50:00.000-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

September 1, 2009

1. Top Items–

Water negotiations moving ahead in Capitol

Capitol Weekly

State's water issues to take center stage

Ventura County Star

Debt delusions

Riverside Press-Enterprise

Begin repairing Delta with or without approval of new dams

Oakland Tribune

Sometimes, oil, water don’t mix

Santa Maria Times

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Water negotiations moving ahead in Capitol

Capitol Weekly-8/31/09

By John Howard

Negotiations over a massive overhaul of California's water system picked up steam Monday in the Capitol amid an array of meetings that included a closed-door briefing for lawmakers by the Schwarzenegger administration's top water officials.

The final proposal, an historic attempt to achieve a compromise in the state's seemingly endless water wars, is intended to be completed by the end of this week, with floor votes next week, said sources in both houses and participants in the discussions.

They face a ticking clock: The Legislature adjourns for the year on Sept. 11.

Ultimately, the plan is envisioned as providing environmental protections to the delta east of San Francisco, a canal through or around the delta to move more Northern California water to the south, new storage structures, perhaps even reservoirs, and major conservation programs.

Environmentalists are opposed to the reservoirs, but the Schwarzenegger administration and the construction industry view them favorably. Fishing interests and delta partisans oppose any plan that does not contain ironclad environmental protections for the delta, and environmentalists support conservation programs.

Southern California water interests, Central Valley farmers and hundreds of public water agencies tend to favor construction of the capital projects. There has been limited environmental support for the canal, but strong support for conservation.

The Legislature's Latino Caucus favors a water system overhaul that includes a canal and new construction - adding a new political dimension to the negotiations. The active participation of the Latino Caucus is a departure from earlier years.

Agreement on financing for the programs remains elusive.

There may be a multibillion-dollar bond package requiring voter approval, a mechanism called "continuous appropriation" in which money automatically is directed to the water system year-by-year and a system in which big customers - the water and irrigation districts - are charged fees on a sliding scale.

The dollars involved are huge: Estimates vary wildly, but a canal alone could cost $5 billion to $10 billion, or more, and reservoirs carry similar price tags. Last year, California voters rejected nearly $10 billion in water bonds.

A poll released by EMC Research showed nearly half of those surveyed opposed bonds for new reservoirs, and perhaps a third voice opposition to the construction of a canal. The survey was conducted by telephone Aug. 23-27 of 800 people. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.45 percent. The poll was commissioned by Restore the Delta, an environmental group.

A sticking point in the water discussions is the creation of a two-house conference committee to write the legislation. Sources in both houses said the committee likely will be composed of 10 or 12 members, instead of the usual six members, three from each house.

The names of the committee members have not been announced, although they are expected to include Assembly members Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield; Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael; and Anna Caballero, D-Salinas. On the Senate side, the members may include Democratic Sens. Gil Cedillo or Alex Padilla of Los Angeles, and Fran Pavley of Agoura Hills.#

http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?xid=y8ja4a4mwzxpln#

State's water issues to take center stage

Ventura County Star-9/1/09

By Audra Strickland

Opinion

Those of us in Southern California know that any time is the right time to conserve water. However, state lawmakers’ recent focus on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta reinforces the need for water conservation.

Global experts at Goldman Sach’s “Top Five Risks” Conference stated a catastrophic water shortage could be a bigger threat to mankind this century than soaring food prices and the exhaustion of energy resources. In light of the ongoing drought in California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers have stated their intent to make water issues a top priority for the coming months.

For many years now, state legislators have glazed over the reality that our traditional water sources are in peril and ignored the urgent need to address the immediate water crisis. Today, California is experiencing the effects of several years of below-average rainfall, low snowmelt runoff and severe cutbacks in water deliveries due to recent court decisions and regulatory actions related to the Endangered Species Act.

California has faced droughts before, but not under such extreme conditions. According to the governor, last spring was the driest ever in our recorded history. The persistent hydrologic drought, coupled with the imposed “regulatory drought” (pumping restrictions in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta), dictates that now, more than ever, we work together to do all within our power to conserve water.

However, conserving water doesn’t just mean turning off the tap when you are brushing your teeth and running full loads of laundry. It also means using our ingenuity to preserve and protect this vital resource, improving our state’s infrastructure and improving the quality of our water, and making much-needed recycled water available to us.

Since we haven’t discovered a way to make it rain, we need to take steps to protect the water we have. That is why it is imperative for the state Legislature to pass Assembly Bill 1366 (authored by Assembly Members Mike Feuer, Anna Caballero and Audra Strickland). This measure would improve the quality of recycled water and remove some of the barriers to its use.

AB1366 provides local communities the ability to reduce the salinity in the water supply, but only upon approval by the city council to implement such action. The increasing concentration of salts in our watersheds, due to municipal and agricultural activities, degrades our local water resources. Salts are as much a concern for water suppliers worldwide than any contaminant, if not more so.

Broad support of AB1366 by area water providers, including the Calleguas Municipal Water District — Ventura County’s primary urban water supplier — is a testament to this reality.

AB1366 will allow local communities to decide whether to target certain types of inefficient water softeners that leech salt into our rivers, streams and groundwater basins, which degrades water quality for both urban and agricultural water users.

Such action is particularly essential in Ventura County where groundwater supplies play a critical role in meeting regional water demands. Significant public investments in water storage programs, including Calleguas Municipal Water District’s Las Posas Basin Aquifer Storage and Recovery Project in Moorpark, underscore the need for us to do more to protect and preserve these vital resources.

Everyone feels the impacts of a drought. Our farmers need water to grow their crops and that competes with our business and residential household needs. As water resources become scarce, the price of produce goes up and affects everything else down the line.

But the importance of water does not end with farmers. Dry seasons make our state especially prone to fire disasters, as we are witnessing. Because of this reality, we need to have an abundant source of water so that firefighters can do their job effectively. We here in Ventura County know how prone we are to very dry seasons, so the shortage of water is very much also a public-safety issue.

Water conservation will continue to be an issue as California’s population continues to grow at a very rapid rate, especially in the drier inland areas. Our communities are growing and using water faster than it can be replenished.

If there ever was a time to genuinely change our collective behavior and conserve water, it is now. It is also time for the Legislature to make fundamental changes to state policy as to both how we conserve our precious water resources and stabilize the integrity of the state’s water storage and delivery system, beginning with the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The water crisis didn’t just materialize. It has been decades in the making and it is essential that we now take bold action to restore water-supply reliability. The time is now. And this cliché has never been more apropos.#

Audra Strickland, R-Moorpark, represents the 37th Assembly District, and Donald R. Kendall, Ph.D., P.E., is general manager of Calleguas Municipal Water District.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/sep/01/states-water-issues-to-take-center-stage/

Debt delusions

Riverside Press-Enterprise-8/31/09

Editorial

A flood of red ink is the wrong solution to California's water woes, particularly in the middle of a financial crisis. The state should not pursue borrowing more money for water needs when it faces huge budget shortfalls and has yet to settle basic water policy questions.

Make no mistake: The state's water system badly needs official attention. The environmental decline of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has endangered a water supply that reaches two-thirds of the state's population and irrigates millions of acres of agriculture. And long-term climate forecasts say California will need to collect more winter rains instead of relying on mountain snowpacks to store the water until the hot summer months.

But rushing to borrow more money now is the wrong approach to those issues. Assemblywoman Anna Caballero, D-Salinas, last week announced plans for an $11.7 billion water bond for the 2010 ballot. The details are still vague, but the bond would apparently provide money for a variety of projects, including water storage, cleanup, recycling and conservation.

The timing is simply wrong, however. The Legislature wrestled with a $40 billion budget shortfall in February, and a $25 billion gap in July. Even then, legislators left the state with a deficit for the next fiscal year of at least $7 billion to $8 billion, and probably exceeding $10 billion. And the state's legislative analyst projects that large shortfalls will persist for years.

Adding another $11.7 billion in debt would add hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly interest payments, which the state would repay out of its deficit-ridden general fund. The state paid about $4.4 billion from the general fund in 2007-08 for debt service on infrastructure bonds.

But the legislative analyst says that once the state markets all the bonds that remain unsold, annual debt payments would hit $9.2 billion in 2017-18 -- a figure representing about 10 percent of current-year general fund spending.

Additional borrowing is also premature when the state has not even spent all the money from previous water bonds. Including what the state proposes to spend this year, California has nearly $4 billion in existing water-related bond money available. So why the haste to borrow more?

Nor is there any reason to hurry when the Legislature has not even resolved the stickiest issues of state water policy. The state needs to find ways to protect the delta ecology without stopping water exports to the rest of the state.

But there is precious little consensus on what the state should do. Any water discussions have been hamstrung for years by a legislative standoff over proposals for new dams.

Ensuring a reliable, sufficient water supply for the state's future will take public investment, certainly. But success in public investment requires a sound strategy, not a rush to fund some unspecified projects with borrowing the state cannot afford.#

http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/editorials/stories/PE_OpEd_Opinion_S_op_01_ed_waterbond1.35c9463.html#

Begin repairing Delta with or without approval of new dams

Oakland Tribune-8/31/09

Editorial

California has procrastinated far too long on a comprehensive effort to repair a degraded Delta ecosystem, rebuild decaying levees and assure thirsty farmers and urban residents of an adequate and reliable supply of water.

Fortunately, there has not been a severe drought in recent years. Even so, the Delta has suffered sharp declines in several species of fish, water deliveries have been cut back and levees continue to weaken.

A drought like the one in the late 1970s could raise salinity levels in the Delta to unacceptable levels and result in even more reductions of fresh water supplies. A major winter storm could undermine and destroy levees, causing significant flooding and possible disruption of water deliveries.

Fixing the Delta's major problems is a difficult and expensive task that could cost up to $54 billion, according to consulting economist Steven Kasower.

With the state's continuing budget crisis, a steep recession and endless political squabbling, progress on salvaging the Delta and serving the 24 million Californians who depend on it is a daunting challenge. But the state's future depends on finding a solution, or at least, beginning work on one soon.

There are three critical elements toward fixing the Delta: Enough fresh water must flow through the estuary to maintain an environment in which fish and other wildlife can recover and thrive.

No matter what is decided upon how water will be delivered — through current pumping, a canal or a tunnel — adequate flows of fresh water must be devoted to ecological balance of the Delta.

Levees must be repaired. There are hundreds of miles of earthen levees that have deteriorated over the years. Continued subsidence of land has weakened the base of levees. The most vulnerable need to be strengthened now before there is a disaster.

Deliveries of fresh water for agricultural and urban use must be reliable even in dry years. It may be that there will be less water available and that greater conservation efforts, particularly on farms, will be needed. But all users should be able to count on consistent deliveries of water, even if it means paying a higher price.

Meeting these three needs will require extensive levee work and a means to deliver a reliable supply of water in a way that does not harm fish and is not vulnerable to an earthquake or flooding.

Fixing the levees will be costly, but there is little political disagreement that they must be improved and maintained.

How to deliver water is far more problematical. Those who opposed the Peripheral Canal back in 1982 understandably are wary of building an aqueduct around the Delta or a tunnel under it.

We believe a tunnel, at an estimated cost of $33 billion, is far too expensive and should be dismissed as an option. But a modest aqueduct that would not dramatically increase water delivery to south of the Delta deserves consideration as long as there are guarantees of a minimum year-round flow of water into the Delta to maintain its ecology.

The key to success in solving all of the Delta's problems is water storage in new or enlarged reservoirs not just in underground aquifers. That is why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is so adamant about building new dams and has threatened to veto any water plan that does not include them.

Greater water storage is essential to make enough water available — primarily for the Delta environment — and for agriculture and urban use in dry periods.

We agree with the governor about the need for more aboveground storage. But he should not allow a veto to kill other aspects of fixing the Delta.

Levee projects should not be delayed by an impasse over reservoirs, nor should a veto undermine monitoring aquifers and increasing conservation. It is crucial to at least get started on work to fix the Delta, with or without quick approval of dams.

We trust that as time goes on the need for new or larger reservoirs will become more evident. That is especially true if global warming raises sea levels and reduces the Sierra snow pack.#

http://www.insidebayarea.com/opinion/ci_13238967

Sometimes, oil, water don’t mix

Santa Maria Times-9/1/09

Editorial

Santa Barbara County has a bit of a split personality when it comes to offshore oil development.

On the one hand, the Board of Supervisors today is expected to sign off on a letter to the U.S. Interior Department opposing a federal scheme to open large areas of the Pacific Ocean to more oil and gas development — possibly a lot more development.

On the other hand, these same local officials enthusiastically endorsed a recent proposal for a slant-drilling operation within sight of the coast.

A casual observer might conclude that supervisors are suffering from a bad case of hypocrisy, backing one oil development plan, but opposing others.

There are, however, significant differences in the competing plans — differences that could affect local residents far into the future.

The slant-drilling deal was shot down by the state Legislature as part of the highly politicized budget agreement process.

In doing so, lawmakers deprived California and Santa Barbara County of a significant source of revenue and other perks, in exchange for a single project that would not change, even a little, the ocean vistas from shore, and that would have had minimal effects on the local environment, in large part because most of the industrial infrastructure is already in place.

Here’s how good the slant-drilling plan really was — it was endorsed by a wide range of local groups and organizations, including the Environmental Defense Center, Get Oil Out, and the Citizens Planning Association.

Even mentioning the names of those groups with any effort to increase offshore oil development is almost unbelievable, and speaks to the efficacy of the proposal.

The bottom line is that these ardently anti-oil folks understood the benefits of the slant-drilling offer, both in terms of dollars and cents, and in common sense — as in, approving the proposal would not have done any harm to the local ecology, while bringing hundreds of millions in revenues to a county that desperately needs the money.

Instead, mostly because of the politics involved, Central Coast residents now face the prospect of large-scale oil and gas development in federal waters, if the plan endorsed and made possible last year by the Bush administration is carried out.

What is now a Santa Barbara Channel dotted with a handful of oil rigs, could become a massive fossil-fuel-extracting energy farm.

And where that slant-drilling notion would have been supported by existing off and onshore infrastructure, if the feds carry out a plan to sell those remaining lease plots, up to 130 million acres of California’s coastline could be vulnerable to construction needed to support the oil and gas extraction effort.

Think Chevron’s huge Point Arguello processing facility on the Gaviota Coast, vastly multiplied.

The Central Coast needed the revenue from that single development proposal — it doesn’t need what could turn out to be runaway growth of the oil business in California. We’ve been through that in the past. It was not pleasant, and the industry left lasting scars on the environment.

It should be clear to everyone by now — at least to those who have actually enjoyed the coast and its many wonders — that our beaches and rocky coastline are among this state’s most important assets, a treasured franchise to be protected, not exploited for profit.

The Board of Supervisors doesn’t need to waste a lot of its time today talking about whether to send that letter to the Interior Department.

Take a quick vote to send that letter of protest to the feds. We recommend sending it Express Mail.#

http://www.santamariatimes.com/articles/2009/09/01/opinion/090109a.txt

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[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 8/31/09

2009-08-31T09:40:00.002-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

August 31, 2009

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

Placerville faces big water and sewer rate hikes

Sacramento Bee

City water, sewer rates could double

Placerville Mountain Democrat

City, water district settle differences

The Desert Sun

MWD gives water saver rebate program more money

Riverside Press-Enterprise

Water reclamation facility to get upgrade

Riverside Press-Enterprise

Power to the pipes

Placerville Mountain Democrat

Water treatment issues on tap for AmCan council

Woodland Daily Democrat

Limit to water rates coming down pipe?

L.A. Daily News

Watershed staff to host open house at Sky Oaks

Marin Independent Journal

Oxnard residents dispute flood-risk forecast

Ventura County Star

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Placerville faces big water and sewer rate hikes

Sacramento Bee-8/31/09

By Cathy Locke

The bill for decades of deferred maintenance of Placerville's water and sewer systems has come due, and city officials say the timing could not be worse.

City Council members were told last week that residential customers could face a 66.7 percent increase in their bimonthly water bill and up to a 122 percent increase in wastewater charges to cover the cost of upgrading the city's aging systems.

"This is one of the most difficult staff reports I've ever written … because of the potential impacts to the community," said finance director Dave Warren.

The city has about 45 miles of water distribution lines, and much of the system is more than 60 years old.

"At any point, we could have a major pipe break costing in the six figures, and we don't have the money to replace it," Warren said.

Randy Pesses, public works director, said water line breaks are occurring at an increasing rate, and maintenance crews spend much of their time patching the system.

Warren said the city needs $300,000 in the current fiscal year and $500,000 in 2010-11 for water system capital replacement projects.

Although the city has replaced some major sewer collection lines over the past three years, staff members said more work needs to be done.

With completion this month of a three-year project to upgrade the wastewater treatment plant, the initial $2.1 million debt service payment on a $35.8 million state loan is due.

City Manager John Driscoll said he has asked the State Water Resources Control Board to postpone the initial payment until August 2010 and to amortize the loan over 30 years, instead of 20.

If that occurs, the sewer rate increase would be about 88 percent this fiscal year, with a 9 percent increase in 2010-11, and increases of 3 percent in each of the two following years.

Under the current proposal, scheduled for council action in October, the bimonthly water charge for the average single-family residence would increase from $54.21 to $90.37. The bimonthly sewer charge would rise from $94.17 to $177 or $209, depending on whether the city obtains concessions from the state.

Commercial rates would increase as well. Tony Granados, an owner of Tony Matthews, a Main Street shop specializing in kitchen and housewares, said the increase would be a blow to businesses already struggling to survive the current economy.

"I blame councils in the past," Granados said in an interview. "When things were flush, why weren't they proactive?"

Council members said they anticipate considerable public angst over the proposed increases and scheduled a community workshop for 6 p.m. Sept. 29 to discuss concerns.#

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2149439.html?mi_rss=Our%2520Region

City water, sewer rates could double

Placerville Mountain Democrat-8/30/09

By Rosemary Revell

Placerville residents will probably get slammed by higher water and sewer bills, and like the decaying pipes running under the city, the new rates will not be a pretty sight.

The City Council heard the bad news at a special water and sewer rate workshop held Aug. 25. Placerville Director of Finance Dave Warren gave the presentation assisted by senior financial analyst Adam Lynch of Bartle Wells Associates.

Placerville Public Works Director Randy Pesses provided the three-dimensional special effects in the form of the rotting pipes of Placerville.

“This is the hardest report I've ever done, not because of the complexity, but because of the potential impact on the community in this economic climate,” Warren said.

Pesses explained that the water and sewer system in Placerville has worked well for many years. Consequently, the system was left to run itself, but under the ground, the pipes were aging. The situation is now becoming critical as the aging pipes rot and crumble.

The city operates and maintains approximately 45 miles of water distribution lines, much of it over 60 years old. The number of pipe failures has risen in the last few years, especially at Broadway by Save Mart and by Stage Coach Plaza, Conrad Court, Pardi Lane and Rector Street.

“Water pipes are crumbling, and pipe leaks are occurring at an increasing rate. If we don't fix it, it gets worse. We could have a major pipe break, and it will be in the six figures to fix it,” said Pesses.

Bartle Wells Associates estimates that the city needs between $300,000 to $500,000 annually for capital replacement.

What this means for the ratepayer is a 66 percent increase in the current year and a 9 percent increase in 2010-11 and 2011-12. The bimonthly bill for a median-use, single-family home will go from $54.21 to $90.37.

Councilman Dave Machado said, “There is no good solution. The water rates are going to go up. We need to give a workshop for the public so they understand the pain and suffering to come. We're in this mess because the former city councils and staff did not address the problems. The new rates will not be well received.”

The news is ugly, and there's more to come.

The city operates and maintains approximately 50 miles of sewer lines, many in excess of 50 years old and in severe need of repair or replacement. In addition, the first $2.1 million payment on the loan for the new Hangtown Creek Water Reclamation Facility is due in February 2010.

What this means for the ratepayer is a 120 percent increase in the current year and a 5 percent increase for 2010-11. The bimonthly bill for median use in a single family home would jump from $94.17 to $209.05. This amount assumes a 20-year repayment schedule of the loan. In the event the loan can be repaid over 30 years, the bimonthly sewer rate would be $177.03.

For the average consumer, the combined water-sewer bill would jump from $148.38 bimonthly to either $299.42 or $267.74.

Mayor Patty Borelli said, “We have to look into billing once a month instead of bimonthly. We have to instruct the software company to look into it. We'll pay more in postage, but it is better than the alternative.”

If the city bills monthly instead of bimonthly, the ratepayer will pay either $149.71 or $133.87 for combined water and sewer.

Lynch told the Mountain Democrat that there will be another workshop, and meanwhile the City Council will work on mitigating the figures.

“I think the City Council will probably reduce the amount set aside for capital replacement. The council is going to work to mitigate the rate increase. These are not the final figures,” Lynch said.#

http://search.mtdemocrat.com/display.php?id=52519

City, water district settle differences

The Desert Sun-8/31/09

By Xochitl Peña

The city has agreed to pay the Coachella Valley Water District $420,684 in unpaid replenishment fees dating back to July 2007.

It will also begin regular payment of the fee, which beginning Tuesday will result in an average monthly increase of $2.32 a month for Indio water users.

City officials say that increase could more than double over the next couple of years as the water district's water replenishment fees increase.

The Indio Water Authority will meet at 4 p.m. Tuesday to discuss those issues.

The monthly increase and backpay are a result of a settlement agreement reached June 30 between the city's water agency and the Coachella Valley Water District.

Per the settlement, the two agencies have agreed to drop three lawsuits — two filed by CVWD against the city/water authority and one filed by the city against CVWD.

“We are very hopeful that this is a new turn in a relationship between the water district and city,” said Dan Parks, assistant general manager of CVWD.

Indio City Councilwoman Lupe Ramos Watson, who sat on the settlement committee, agrees and thinks the settlement will allow both agencies to focus on the big water picture.

“We have bigger concerns statewide that we need to start focusing on, rather than fighting with our neighbor,” she said.

One of the lawsuits, filed by CVWD in 2008, stems from Indio's nonpayment of the replenishment fee. City officials have said they stopped payment because the city wasn't benefiting from the replenishment.

The fee is charged by CVWD to all groundwater users who take more than 25 acre-feet of water a year, including farmers, industries and cities.

“Our groundwater basin is in a state of overdraft. That means more water is being taken out of the basin than gets put back in. The way that we put water back into the basin in the Coachella Valley is through our recharge efforts,” said Parks.

By now paying the fee, Watson said, the city is doing its part to ensure long-term water sustainability.

Per the settlement, the city agrees to pay the replenishment fee and $420,684 in unpaid back fees.

The city anticipates pumping about 23,363 acre-feet of water in 2009-10, for a replenishment cost of almost $400,000.

That cost is being passed on to the city water users in the form of a $2.32 a month increase per household.

Since the replenishment fee is expected to increase from $17 per acre foot to $40 over the next couple of years, city officials expect the monthly fee for residents to increase as well, accordingly.

“This is not any different than what other residents are paying. We all need to be responsible. The city is certainly not exempt,” Watson said.

As part of the settlement, both parties have also agreed to “identify and evaluate for implementation” a project in Indio or one nearby that will benefit Indio and be paid with replenishment fee monies.

Watson said that ensures the city will see a direct benefit to paying the replenishment fee.

Other terms of agreement include:

Both parties will participate and cooperate to develop an Integrated Regional Water Management Plan.

Both parties agree to share all available technical data relating to the Lower Whitewater River Area, the area from which Indio pumps water.

Cooperation among parties regarding projects by either agency.

If Indio feels CVWD is not involving the city in decision-making, it can decide to discontinue replenishment payments, but needs to give CVWD notice and allow the agency time to remedy concerns.#

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009908310321

MWD gives water saver rebate program more money

Riverside Press-Enterprise-8/30/09

By Janet Zimmerman

A controversial water-conservation rebate program is expected to be up and running again next month, but participants who want a return for high-efficiency appliances better hurry, because money will be doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, officials said.

Funds for the "SoCal Water$mart" program dried up in May because the overwhelming number of requests far exceeded the budget set by Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The rebates, covering 26 cities and agencies that buy water from MWD, were designed to encourage consumers to buy high-efficiency toilets, clothes washers, artificial turf, climate-sensitive irrigation controllers and special sprinkler heads.

After much debate about poor management and monitoring, MWD directors last month authorized $14.2 million for outstanding claims; the program exceeded the original $20 million budget by about $34 million. The final checks for residential customers will be going out in the next couple of weeks, said Roy Wolfe, MWD's manager of corporate resources.

Another $19 million has been earmarked for the program in 2009-2010 -- set to start Sept. 21. Most of this year's allocation will go toward commercial and industrial customers, such as hotels that replace inefficient urinals or toilets; $6 million will go for appliances for private homes.

"It is first come, first served 'til however long that money lasts. Once that money runs out, some member agencies are free to continue on, but we'll have $6 million to provide," Wolfe said.

The money probably will go quickly, if past experience is any indicator, he said. In the first nine months of last year's program, $4.2 million was paid out on more than 35,200 claims; in April, $125,000 available for that month was exhausted within eight days.

Individual rebate amounts have been cut in half to make the money go further. MWD also scrapped its rebate reservation system and now will require customers to apply online at www.SoCalWaterSmart.com or with an application from the store where the appliance is purchased. Customers also will be able to use the Web site to track how much money is left in the program.

Numerous customers have complained, including Carol Krieg, of Temecula, who said she didn't get as much of a rebate as she was promised.

In December, before she bought an $814 Maytag Epic front-loader washing machine, she called SoCal Water$mart from the store and was told the appliance qualified and there was money available. The Epic was more expensive than another brand she liked, but she figured she'd break even with the $135 rebate. Krieg said she sent the application in the next day.

Three months later, Krieg received a check for $85. The remaining $50, which was from a state fund, was no longer available because of the budget crisis -- a missed opportunity she blamed on a poorly run system. Krieg said her friend bought two high-efficiency toilets a month or two after she got her washer and got the full amount.

"Why wouldn't the people who did everything they were supposed to do be fully compensated instead of accepting (less than) the rebate they were offered?" she asked.

MWD officials said the state rebates were separate but administered by SoCal Water$mart to make it convenient for consumers. Rebates are subject to the availability of funds, Wolfe said.

After a newspaper inquiry, MWD spokesman Bob Muir said Krieg's case would be investigated.

In the Inland area, the rebates have been available to customers of Eastern and Western municipal water districts in Riverside County and Inland Empire Utilities Agency in western San Bernardino County.

The three-year, $75 million program will save 300,000 acre-feet of new supplies over the next 20 years, according to MWD. One acre-foot equals almost 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two typical families for a year.#

http://www.pe.com/rss/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_S_rebates31.34a572a.html

Water reclamation facility to get upgrade

Riverside Press-Enterprise-8/29/09

By Melissa Eiselein

Eastern Municipal Water District is embarking on a $46.3 million upgrade project at its Moreno Valley water reclamation facility to make it more efficient while reducing the negative impact on the environment.

EMWD's upgrade will include computer operated fuel cells that will allow the facility to generate some of it's own energy and a new regeneration process to treat the wastewater.

The improvements could make the Moreno Valley facility a model for future "green" water treatment facilities, said U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Associate Water Division Director John Kemmerer.

Eastern Municipal Water District Board President Ronald Sullivan said upgrades at the Moreno Valley water treatment will generate 125 jobs.

Funding for the project is from a combination of low- and no-interest loans from the California State Water Resources Control Board.

About $10.3 million of the project funding came to the board from federal the stimulus package.

The project will generate 125 new jobs at the Moreno Valley plant, said EMWD Board President Ronald Sullivan. The upgrade is expected to be completed in 2012.

Acid phase anaerobic digestion, also known as APAD, mimics natural water regeneration by using microorganisms such as rotifer and stalked ciliate to treat wastewater.

A proper balance of wastewater and microorganisms is required to control the odor and maximize treatment efficiency, said facility director John Jannone.

The treatment process creates a methane gas byproduct. The upgrade will increase the gas production by 20 percent. The gas will then be converted to energy by the fuel cells, said Allen Todd, partner of Carollo Engineers in Fountain Valley that designed the upgrade.

During peak energy use hours, the plant will generate up to 40 percent of its own energy, he said.

The upgrade will also reduce the solid byproduct, sludge, by 20 percent. There will be less sludge to dispose of and fewer trucks needed to haul the solids out of the facility, Todd said.

The Moreno Valley reclamation facility serves about 154,900 people and treats about 15.8 million gallons of water per day.

The upgrade will allow the facility to increase its water treatment to 18.5 million gallons per day.

EMWD is able to sell about 67 percent of its reclaimed water.

Many local schools, including Riverside Community College's Moreno Valley campus, use the reclaimed water on their landscape. Purple water pipe easily identifies the source as a nonpotable water, Jannone said.

While the water is not safe for drinking, the high-nitrogen content in the reclaimed water makes it a good irrigation choice for farmers, Jannone said.

The need for reclaimed water is especially high during the summer months. That need slows during the winter months.

Ideally, EMWD would like to sell 100 percent of its reclaimed water, Sullivan said.

To do so, the district would need to install additional storage tanks to hold the excess water from the winter months until it is needed during the warm months, he said.#

http://www.pe.com/localnews/morenovalley/stories/PE_News_Local_E_ewater30.44f28c1.html

Power to the pipes

Placerville Mountain Democrat-8/30/09

By Michael Raffety

With the prospect of immediate income and a payback in five-14 years, the El Dorado Irrigation District Board of Directors Aug. 24 approved two small hydroelectric projects.

Besides the quick payback period, EID could point to its successful experience with an array of solar panels at the El Dorado Hills Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“I think we agonized on the solar project, but the money coming in far exceeded our expectations,” said Board President George Wheeldon about the solar panels.

The 5.5-acre solar array was installed in June 2006, according to Communications Director Deanne Kloepfer, and the 12-year payback period has shrunk to seven years. The solar farm cost EID $2.8 million, with PG&E paying an equal amount.

The two hydro projects recommended by the engineering staff will take the place of pressure reducing stations on the Pleasant Oak Main at Reservoir 7 and the El Dorado Main at Reservoir 3. Each will cost about $1.5 million. The hydroelectic generators will take advantage of the pressure in the pipes at those points.

The Reservoir 7 hydroelectric project will generate $265,000 annually and be paid back in five-seven years. The Reservoir 3 project will generate $187,000 annually and have an eight-14-year payback period, according the engineering staff estimates.

Initially EID had looked at four projects that would be financed by Clean Renewable Energy Bonds. Further investigation found, however, that there was “a substantial incremental cost associated with separate bond offerings, recent poor bidding interest on other CREB offerings, and additional restrictive regulations associated with CREBS,” said the report signed by senior engineer Jake Eymann.

Instead the staff found it more economical and less restrictive to designate it a capital improvement project and piggyback onto the district's existing bond funding.

The key attraction of the small hydro projects is the 11.2 cents per kilowatt hour that PG&E will pay as part of a special tariff rate that the state Public Utilities Commission has established. At peak generating hours the district will make 23 cents per KWh, said Engineering Manager Cindy Megerdigian.

To get the special rates EID must apply by November.

“In December the rates will change and we believe they will be less. The income was estimated conservatively,” Megerdigian told the board Aug. 24.

Director Harry Norris said he was concerned about the approximately $130,000 of staff time already spent analyzing the four projects and working with the county Water Agency that had developed the renewable energy bonds.

“I'm struggling with our bond coverage (required debt ratio). I don't know how we're going to do that,” Norris said.

Finance Director Mark Price said the financing would come from the existing bond funding and not affect the district's bond debt ratio.

“The investment is spread out over five to 10 years, but the cash flow is forever,” said Director George Osborne.

“In 2011 it will start coming in. It makes sense to do this investment. That's what I call it. It is an investment,” Price said.

“I think our customers would approve,” said Director John Fraser.

“It's a 10 percent return,” said Osborne

“It's a great rate — to be able to capture that,” Price said.

The board approved adding the project to its capital projects list and hiring Domenichelli & Associates for $125,000 to prepare the engineering designs and work on permitting from the Forest Service and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exemption, and apply for the special PG&E rates. Staff time for project management, permitting and environmental documents was budgeted at $110,000.#

http://search.mtdemocrat.com/display.php?id=52529

Water treatment issues on tap for AmCan council

Woodland Daily Democrat-8/31/09

By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen

Water recycling, emergency alerts and a long-awaited new senior center are among issues slated for Tuesday's regular City Council meeting.

Council members will consider establishing a $95,386 budget for recycled water meter and pump station upgrades at the wastewater treatment plant, and approving the purchase of a new $35,410 recycled water pump.

They also will consider adopting a policy for the city's new non-emergency notification system which was approved in March.

The mass communication system is to be used to rapidly communicate information like road closures, water issues and community events to American Canyon households and businesses. The system also will be used for interactive surveys with database members.

A database of city residents and businesses was gathered over the past few months from phone listings and the city's utility billing list, according to a staff report.

The policy establishes procedures to ensure only approved and verified information is distributed, designates which officials may access the system and provides safeguards so the system isn't overused.

The Community Advisory Network can rapidly communicate with residents, businesses and city employee groups over cellular and land line telephones, e-mail, and wireless devices. But it will not be used to broadcast emergency information. Emergency protocols are in place and will be maintained by the American Canyon Fire District and Police Department, according to a staff report.

The system's purpose is not to alarm people but to advise them of important situations or information, the report notes.

It can also be used to invite residents for community dialogue on issues like the budget and general plan or to alert them to special city-sponsored events. It can also be used for surveys, according to the report.

Top level access is granted to the city manager and directors of the public works, community development and the parks and recreation departments.

All information will be for official use only and any use for marketing, advertising, or other commercial or community purposes is prohibited, according to the report. Unauthorized use will be subject to discipline including and up to termination or prosecution. The contact database also is confidential and can't be used for any purpose other than those outlined in the policy.

Councilmembers also will consider increasing the new senior center project's projected $1.5 million budget and awarding the approximately $1.2 million construction contract to S.W. Allen Construction, Inc. They also will consider authorizing funds for construction management and professional services for the project and authorizing the purchase of furnishings, computers and telecommunication equipment.#

http://www.dailydemocrat.com/ci_13238091?IADID=Search-www.dailydemocrat.com-www.dailydemocrat.com

Limit to water rates coming down pipe?

L.A. Daily News-8/30/09

By Rick Orlov

Nick Patsaouras has been an insider for years, serving on a variety of commissions and boards.

But after his stint on the Board of Water and Power Commissioners, he wants to be known as the Howard Jarvis of the DWP.

Patsaouras said several city officials have promised to put his proposal for a ratepayers' advocate on an upcoming ballot, but he has even bigger plans.

"I want to put a measure on the ballot that would put a ceiling on DWP rates," Patsaouras said. "We need to put controls on the rates so that we aren't pricing ourselves so high that people can't afford it.

"The DWP keeps saying its cheaper than Edison. That's true now, but what about in three years?"

Patsaouras served as president of the Water and Power Commission before he stepped down for his unsuccessful campaign for city controller.

However, he continues to focus on the agency and has said he will use the initiative process to get his proposal on the ballot if the council doesn't do it first.

"I am very optimistic it will be on the ballot in 2010," Patsaouras said. "One way or the other, it will be on the ballot."

The idea for a rate ceiling came when the commission recently voted to lift the Energy Cost Adjustment Factor, a pass-through to ratepayers to cover the cost of fuel.

"That is the straw that will break the camel's back," Patsaouras said. "If that is adopted, the pass-through will exceed the base rates. We have to stop it now."

Patsaouras said city officials should recognize the growing anger among DWP customers and take steps to put protections in place.

As the race for the 2nd Council District seat heats up, the Studio City Residents Association has sent out a notice warning voters to beware of candidates claiming the group's endorsement in the Sept. 22 election.

"SCRA members have received candidate flyers for the upcoming election ... by which some of our members have concluded that SCRA is endorsing certain candidates," wrote President Andy Dymond, who did not identify any of the candidates.

"SCRA does not endorse any candidate in this election or any election whether city, state, federal or otherwise. SCRA does not make campaign contributions in any election. Any candidate flyer, Web site or other form of communication that implies or attempts to make the connection that a board member, officer or member ... represents an SCRA endorsement is factually incorrect."

The SCRA is among the most active of homeowner groups and has long prided itself on its independence. Like other homeowner groups, it has resisted effort to be dragged into the race.

Ten candidates are running to succeed Wendy Greuel, who was elected city controller. If no candidate gets a majority of votes in the September, a runoff between the top two vote getters will be held Dec. 8.#

http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_13236409?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com

Watershed staff to host open house at Sky Oaks

Marin Independent Journal-8/30/09

Marin Municipal Water District's watershed protection staff will host an open house at the Sky Oaks watershed headquarters from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 9 to share information about a new habitat protection program called "Project Restore."

The program aims to address problems caused by unofficial trails on the watershed. There are more than 53 miles of unofficial trails that degrade habitat, provide pathways for invasive weeds, increase erosion and present a public safety hazard, officials said.

Sky Oaks watershed headquarters is at 49 Sky Oaks Road in Fairfax. People who plan to attend should RSVP by Sept. 3 to volunteerprogram@marinwater.org or call 945-1169.#

http://www.marinij.com/fairfax/ci_13236922

Oxnard residents dispute flood-risk forecast

Ventura County Star-8/31/09

By Scott Hadly

Michael Bisnett is familiar with numbers, regressions and probabilities, but that’s what troubles him about the predictions of how much water could flow down the Santa Clara River if the county is hit by a so-called “100-year flood.”

“There’s all these assumptions in there and I just don’t think you should make a $32 million bet on those kinds of assumptions,” said Bisnett, an Oxnard resident who is also a senior field engineer.

Bisnett was referring to his estimate of what flood insurance might cost over 10 years for the affected residents.

He’s leading a group of homeowners trying to get local leaders and federal authorities to reconsider the new Digital Flood Insurance Rate Map, completed earlier this year. The map includes 1,700 Oxnard properties in the 100-year flood zone, showing where water might go in an extreme flood that has a 1 percent chance of happening in any given year, or once every century.

Bisnett said that if you tweak the assumptions downward by about 4 percent, most of the homes included in the Oxnard flood zone would be excluded.

He concedes that he and other homeowners have an interest in seeing the map revised. Property owners who are in the zone and who have federal insured loans must buy flood insurance. Bisnett also expects that being included in the zone will lower property values.

Homeowners in the zone have until January to qualify for discounted flood insurance. Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to consider extending the time period for enrolling in the discount program, but that has yet to happen.

Bisnett and another engineer, Wally Olsen, who both live in neighborhoods included in the flood zone map, have been working to poke holes in the data and get federal officials to reconsider where the lines are drawn. They were instrumental in rallying more than 280 homeowners to sign a letter seeking help from Capps.

Bisnett and Olsen argue that it’s not just the assumptions used in drawing up the map, but the process and logic behind it.

Federal officials, operating in the wake of the devastating floods in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, are reassessing flood risks across the country. Their interest is making sure property owners and others are aware of those risks.

But Bisnett, quoting a county official, said federal officials are being unnecessarily “hyperconservative.”

“What is the rush?” he asked, arguing that more time should be given to the process. He questions the wisdom of forcing homeowners to buy expensive insurance. He said if the risk really is there, that money instead could be used to help pay to fill the gap in the levee through which floodwaters are predicted to flow.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors recently approved a study to find what it would cost to fill the gap and bolster the existing levee along the river. Some early estimates peg the cost at about $30 million.

Despite meeting with city and county officials and representatives of Capps, no one seems to be budging. That doesn’t mean Bisnett and Olsen haven’t made their point, however.

Bisnett points to the language within the document that looks at historical water flow in the Santa Clara River over the last 70 years used to predict a “100-year flood.”

“Yes, language in there shows some uncertainty,” said Bruce Rindahl, manager of the Ventura County Watershed Protection District’s Hydrology Section, who did work on the flow study. “But there’s also many, many years of data that’s not in dispute.”

The maps are likely to be redrawn again next summer because FEMA is still working on two parallel studies — one looking at the status of a levee protecting the city and the other looking at new hydrology, flow and contour studies of the Santa Clara River.

Those two studies will indicate whether the properties in the Wagon Wheel area and the new RiverPark development will be included in the flood zone.

Even though the studies aren’t complete, local and federal officials say the flood map will ultimately include the Wagon Wheel area — where Oxnard Village Investments has approved plans for a $750 million makeover that includes building 1,500 homes, as well as town homes and commercial properties, on 64 acres.#

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/aug/31/oxnard-residents-dispute-flood-risk-forecast/

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[Water_news] 4. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS-WATERQUALITY-8/31/09

2009-08-31T09:40:00.001-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

August 31, 2009

4. Water Quality –

Northrop Grumman to spend $21 million on San Gabriel Valley water cleanup

L.A. Times

Ranch Water-Quality Course to Be Held

Merced Sun-Star

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Northrop Grumman to spend $21 million on San Gabriel Valley water cleanup

L.A. Times-8/31/09

By Bettina Boxall

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. has agreed to spend $21 million to clean up polluted groundwater in the San Gabriel Valley.

Under a consent decree settlement announced last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the company will pump contaminated water from beneath Industry, La Puente and Walnut; build pipelines; and construct and operate a treatment plant.

The area is one of four federal Superfund sites in the San Gabriel Valley, where more than 30 square miles of the water table are polluted with solvents and degreasing agents used for decades by business and industry.

The pollution, first detected in 1979, has affected the primary source of water for more than 1 million valley residents, forcing the closure of wells and spawning a long cleanup battle.

The settlement stems from an earlier cleanup order directed at TRW Inc., which had several facilities in the valley. The company was acquired by Northrop Grumman in 2002.

A Northrop spokesman said the corporation had no comment.

The EPA found 62 properties that were a source of contamination at the Superfund site. The owners of most of those sites previously settled with the EPA. A number of remaining firms reached an agreement with Northrop, which will treat water drawn from the intermediate groundwater zone.

The decree lasts for a decade, after which the EPA will issue a final cleanup order, agency attorney Dustin Minor said.#

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-sgv-cleanup31-2009aug31,0,4510537.story

Ranch Water-Quality Course to Be Held

Merced Sun-Star-8/28/09

Aug. 28--The University of California Cooperative Extension in Modesto is holding a ranch water-quality short course on Sept. 21 and 28 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Stanislaus County Ag Center, Harvest Hall, 3800 Cornucopia Way in Modesto.

The course includes setting goals, introduction to ranch monitoring, increased knowledge of water quality regulations and requirements and cost-sharing opportunities on rangeland. Registration begins on Sept. 21 at 8:30 a.m. Lunch will be provided both days.

The fee is $25 a ranch. For more information, call Theresa Becchetti at (209) 525-6800.#

http://www.waterworld.com/index/display/news_display/s-134674545.html

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[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS -8/31/09

2009-08-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

August 31, 2009

3. Watersheds –

Grant aims at removing invasive plant along Feather River

Chico Enterprise-Record

Creek cleanup to keep trash from flowing to the sea

Davis Enterprise

Yolo worries about wetlands

Davis Enterprise

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Grant aims at removing invasive plant along Feather River

Chico Enterprise-Record-8/31/09

By Heather Hacking

Invasive weeds are causing big-time problems for resource managers throughout the Sacramento Valley, and the state, nation and globe.

Several weeds are on the hit list for wildlife managers, including Arrundo donax, tamarisk, purple loosestrife and starthistle.

Adding to this growing list is red sesbania. A newly acquired grant through the Butte County Resource Conservation District will be used to try and remove it along the Feather River.

Like many weeds, the plant is attractive, which means people have planted it in their yards.

Red sesbania is also known as scarlet wisteria and the Latin name sesbania punicea. The fast-growing vine has tentacles that wrap around other vegetation, smothering it.

The seed pods are about three inches long and contain many seeds in each pod.

The weed is a problem because it reproduces quickly and the plants form a dense thicket along river banks.

The seed pods drop from the plant then can float down river for a week or more before landing and starting a new problem far from the first.

Being in the water actually helps the seeds sprout, because the outside of the seeds are soaked and dinged up, allowing it to grow easier.

The plants can affect habitat along the river, eventually harming spawning habitat for fish.

Recreation also suffers if the weeds make it difficult to access the river, explained Alexis Vertolli, who is leading the weed program.

It was first surveyed about five years ago and has established itself from Oroville Dam downstream.

Vertolli said there are many reasons it's important to get the plants out locally, including protection of the Oroville Wildlife Area.

Statewide, the Department of Water Resources, State Parks, the city of Oroville and Feather River Park District are also each affected by the weeds, said Pia Sevelius, director of the RCD.

Other partners include the Department of Fish and Game, Butte County Agricultural Commission, California Conservation Corps and Natural Resources Conservation Service.

Already, there has been about $1 million spent to root out red sesbania along the American River.

"In order for the control project to be effective, everybody needs to do something," Sevelius said.

That's why the RCD is a good fit to be leading the charge. Resource Conservation Districts can take the lead when projects involve a variety of different agencies or groups.

Also, private property owners will need to be contacted to give permission for the weed to be yanked out.

The Resource Conservation District applied and received a grant for $50,000 over two years from the California Department of Food and Agriculture and from federal stimulus funding.

The money will be spent to remove mature plants along the Feather River. Vertolli explained that stumps will be treated with herbicide, and overseen by the Department of Fish and Game, to protect sensitive areas.

After the first flush in spring and early summer (when the plant flowers), another round will be needed to find seedlings in the fall.

After the grant funding ends in two years, it will be up to partners of the project to continue maintenance, Vertolli explained.

The grant funding will purchase a quad and trailer for use on the weed projects. Also, a spray tank with a boom will be bought.

A partnership has been made with the city of Oroville to have trucks haul the plants away and burn them up at the cogeneration plant.#

http://www.chicoer.com/advertise/ci_13237205?IADID=Search-www.chicoer.com-www.chicoer.com

Creek cleanup to keep trash from flowing to the sea

Davis Enterprise-8/29/09

The largest landfill in the world is not, in fact, on land. It floats in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Western Garbage Patch, between Hawaii and California, is twice the size of Texas. Ninety percent of the patch is floating plastic.

What's a local, community-minded person to do? Libby Earthman, executive director of the Putah Creek Council, says volunteering for the Yolo County Creek Cleanup — on Saturday, Sept. 19 — is a great place to start.

“We encourage people of all ages and abilities to come out to our waterways and help pick up trash,” she said in a news release. “It's something tangible that people can do to learn about how little things they do affect life downstream.”

While some of the trash found in local waterways is illegally dumped there, much of it makes its way into creeks by way of stormwater drains.

“When you see a piece of trash in the gutter, floating toward a drain, most people assume that the water and floating trash are heading to the water treatment plant. They are not. They drain

directly into creeks, or in Davis, into stormwater collection ponds,” Earthman said.

A consortium of Yolo County groups, including local government and nonprofit agencies, organizes an annual fall waterway cleanup to help ensure that Yolo County does not contribute to the ocean's trash problem. The local creek cleanup is part of the California Coastal Commission and Ocean Conservancy's International Coast and Creek Cleanup Event, the largest volunteer trash cleanup in the world.

On the third Saturday in September, volunteers throughout the world don gloves and head out to rid waterways of rubbish.

According to the Ocean Conservancy, more than 400,000 people in 100 countries volunteered last year to remove a 6.8 million pounds of trash.

In 2008, a record-breaking 312 local volunteers participated at sites throughout Yolo County, collecting 11,000 pounds of trash and 900 pounds of recyclables. The 2009 cleanup will build on the success of past years.

Last year, 73,461 volunteers participated in California's Coastal Cleanup Day, a 20 percent jump over 2007 and a 46 percent increase over the past two years. These volunteers collectively removed a record 1.6 million pounds of debris, of which almost 200,000 pounds was recycled, both record numbers, Earthman said.

“We want Coastal Cleanup Day to be an opportunity for every Californian to feel their connection to our coast, no matter where they may live,” said Eben Schwartz, outreach manager for the California Coastal Commission. “By pushing the cleanup into every corner of the state, we can clean up a lot of trash before it has a chance to reach our ocean, and in doing so, bind every Californian to one another through our collective stewardship.”#

http://search.davisenterprise.com/display.php?id=53281

Yolo worries about wetlands

Davis Enterprise-8/28/09

By Jonathan Edwards

Outside developers trying to meet state environmental requirements could turn huge tracts of Yolo County farmland into wetlands over the next 20 years.

It could be as many as 20,000 acres, said Phil Pogledich, senior deputy county counsel, and Yolo's supervisors worry that unchecked wetland conversion could jeopardize farming, endanger public health and threaten local wildlife.

“It's something we need to start thinking long and hard about,” said Pogledich, who's working on an ordinance that would give the county a stronger hand in regulating such projects.

Transforming farmland into wetlands is one way developers in the Sacramento Valley and Bay Area satisfy environmental laws. Before getting approval to develop wetlands, developers must offset the effects to vulnerable wildlife. Creating habitat for the affected species in another area is one way to get state approval.

With a lot of cheap land that's home to many of the same at-risk species found in more developed areas, Yolo County is attractive to state-licensed “mitigation bankers” who preserve, manage and create habitat, and then sell “credits” to developers looking to meet their legal obligations.

The county is not out-and-out against wetland restoration, Pogledich said. In fact, the county supports those efforts. Uncontrolled, however, wetlands could undermine rice farming and create breeding grounds for disease-carrying mosquitoes.

So Pogledich, with a head nod from Yolo supervisors, crafted an ordinance over the past few months that would give the county a say in where and how much land gets converted.

Environmental groups — including Ducks Unlimited, Audubon California and the Yolo Basin Foundation — denounced the effort as bureaucratic meddling in an Aug. 2 opinion column in The Enterprise.

People have developed more than 95 percent of the Central Valley's wetlands over the years, according to the column, and battles to turn back the clock were hard-won.

And now the county, a strong supporter of wetlands restoration in the past, according to the column, is proposing an ordinance that “represents another layer of government that will intrude on individual landowner rights.”

“Draconian” and “vague,” the ordinance would delay further wetlands projects and increase costs, driving away grant money and discouraging landowners from starting projects, the authors claimed.

“If there's one more hurdle to get through, you might just say, 'Screw it. It's my land and it's too much hassle. All I want to do is move some water around,' ” said Brendan O'Hara, director of development at the California Waterfowl Association.

Small, local efforts are not the aim of the ordinance, Pogledich said. The county is concerned with bigger efforts pushed by people beyond the county's borders.

Supervisor Mike McGowan echoed the sentiment back in October when the issue first came before the board. Relations between the county and local groups have been “relatively harmonious,” he said. Locals aren't the problem.

The ordinance, McGowan added, is about exercising control over projects led by large, private water districts outside Yolo County who just want to “turn the pumps on” in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and send water south.

The Yolo Ranch, just west of Clarksburg, is one of the largest those projects. The Westlands Water District, which supplies water to farmers in Fresno County, owns the 3,400-acre ranch. According to Pogledich, Westlands intends to make the ranch tidal wetlands for the beleaguered delta smelt and other fish.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan dwarfs them all. The project is a broad consortium of state and federal agencies, water groups and big-time environmental groups, including the California Resources Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

By 2010, proponents want to start implementing a host of the plan's projects to create habitat for numerous fish species, including the delta smelt, Chinook salmon and Sacramento splittail. One of the biggest projects on the table would flood the Yolo Bypass.

Flooding at high enough levels for fish would inundate between 8,000 and 16,600 acres of the 55,500 acres in the bypass, according to a study from a San Diego environmental consultant hired by the Yolo County Natural Heritage Program.

Water would cover as much as 11,400 acres of farmland, much of it planted in rice. If water sits in the bypass from January through April, as proposed, it would delay rice planting, forcing farmers grow different crops or fallow their fields.

Flooding in the bypass, the report adds, would help fish, but at the expense of animals already in the bypass, including the giant garter snake, the northern harrier and the tricolored blackbird.

The projects might fall outside county's jurisdiction, however. The ordinance would not apply to state- and federal-level projects, Pogledich admitted, but, he added, nobody yet knows if either will control the project.#

http://search.davisenterprise.com/display.php?id=53244

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[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 8/31/09

2009-08-31T09:39:00.001-07:00

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

August 31, 2009

2. Supply –

Once promising El Nino might ‘El Fizzle’

Orange County Register

Saving water could save Sonoma County $1 billion

Santa Rosa Press Democrat

Conservation must be a habit

Glendale News Press

Conserve water, yes; but build, too

The Bakersfield Californian

Water being saved, but not enough

Madera Tribune

Will homeowners pay more, less when Fresno moves to water meters?

Fresno Bee

CSUSM professor helping water officials understand conservation psychology

North County Times

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Once promising El Nino might ‘El Fizzle’

Orange County Register-8/30/09

By Gary Robbins

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center said in early July that an El Nino had developed in the eastern equatorial Pacific, and forecasters later added that the periodic, natural climate change — which can greatly enhance rainfall in Orange County — had the potential to become “moderate to strong.”

The CPC issued an updated forecast on Aug. 24, saying “El Niño is expected to strengthen and last through the Northern Hemisphere winter 2009-10.”

But is the agency wrong? Maybe.

Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who studies El Nino and advises CPC, says in an email, “There is considerable uncertainty among scientists as to whether this event will have the staying power to deliver the dramatic impacts that were seen during the last intense El Niño episode, which happened in 1997-1998.”

Recent satellite images show that the distinct signature of El Nino that appears directly along the equator has faded, and that the system may have slipped into neutral status.

“At this time, it is a long shot for this El Nino to expand and intensify into the fall and elevate the present weak to moderate El Niño episode to a stronger event,” Patzert says. “For comparison, the August 21, 1997, TOPEX/Poseidon image of the macho 1997-1998 El Nino is included here. In size and intensity it dwarfs the present conditions.”

Patzert said that, based on the emerging evidence, it’s possible that Southern California will have a drier-than-normal winter. It must be noted, however, that the region can have heavy rainfall even if an El Nino does not occur. And scientists are not sure to what degree any El Nino influences the size and strength of a storm.

Translation: No one truly knows what’s going to happen this winter.#

http://sciencedude.freedomblogging.com/2009/08/30/once-promising-el-nino-might-el-fizzle/52789/

Saving water could save Sonoma County $1 billion

Santa Rosa Press Democrat-8/29/09

By Bob Norberg

The success of conservation measures undertaken by Sonoma County residents is a major reason the county Water Agency wants to pull the plug on a $1 billion water supply project.

“We have done a great job of conservation and we can get by on a (smaller) supply,” Santa Rosa Mayor Susan Gorin said.

From Windsor’s extensive recycled wastewater use to North Marin’s program to upgrade fixtures at the time of a home sale, everyone seems to be stepping up.

“Conservation and recycled water have allowed us to stretch our supplies,” said Mike Ban, Petaluma’s water resources director.

Use in summer, when irrigation is at its highest level, has declined 28 percent this year compared to 2004, surpassing the conservation goal set by the state for Sonoma County.

With that level of conservation and growth hovering at 1 percent a year, the amount of water the agency was seeking — 101,000 acre-feet, almost twice what was delivered in the past fiscal year — is not needed, said Randy Poole, the Water Agency’s general manager.

“There is a great opportunity for water savings; this is not rocket science,” Poole said. “We can meet the general plans of the cities and the county areas, we just want people to be smart about it. You don’t need a lot of water.”

The Water Agency decision, which still needs to be approved by the Board of Supervisors, caught the major customers by surprise.

“The dust is still settling on this decision,” Ban said.

“It just raises a lot of questions about what this means for our planning future,” Gorin said. “We are not even talking about five or 10 or 15 years, but from here on out.”

The Marin Municipal Water District is afraid the Water Agency will not meet Marin’s projected needs.

“All we are asking for is before the agency makes its decision that we go through an analytical process and see what is achievable,” said General Manager Paul Helliker. “The agency is changing its approach, and we have not seen any data to support it.”

The Water Agency wants to withdraw an application to the state Water Resources Control Board to increase the amount of water it takes from the Russian River to 101,000 acre-feet.

It is almost twice the 55,000 acre-feet of water delivered in the year ending June 30. The annual peak Water Agency delivery in the past has been 62,000 acre-feet.

The agency has spent $6 million on the study and environmental impact report for the application over the past decade.

Officially called the Water Project, it would have required spending almost $500 million on a pipeline to augment the capacity of Dry Creek, now the sole conduit for the water stored in Lake Sonoma. Another $500 million would have been spent on rebuilding transmission facilities to serve southern Sonoma County and Marin County.

The cost of those projects to homeowners and businesses would have been about $100 million a year, or a 200 percent rate increase, Poole said.

The Water Agency customers are the 600,000 residents in Windsor, Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati, Petaluma and Sonoma and the Valley of the Moon, North Marin and Marin Municipal water districts.

The general plans for Sonoma County cities are based on the Water Agency providing 75,000 acre-feet of water, the amount that is in the present agreement between the cities and the Water Agency.

“If the water rights are kept at 75,000 acre-feet, we will get close to if not get all” of what Santa Rosa needs, said Glen Wright, the city’s deputy director of water resources. “It is still not enough to take us to 2035, but we are in the process of developing recycled water, looking at ground water and we include additional conservation in the future as a water source.”

That is also enough for the growth that Rohnert Park has projected in its 2004 water plan, which updated its 2000 general plan.

“The way our water consumption is at the moment and the way we are dealing with new development, we can implement our general plan,” said Jake Mackenzie, a Rohnert Park councilman and chairman of a Water Agency advisory committee.

Poole said, however, said he doesn’t believe even that much water will be needed to meet future growth.

“It is not about water supply, it is about water management,” Poole said. “There is not a lack of water, it is how we use it effectively.”

Helliker said the Water Agency has a separate contract with Marin Municipal to deliver 14,300 acre-feet by 2030, which Marin projects as its need, but that requires the improvement of the southern transmission system.

“The agency has contractual obligations and we want to make sure we are all moving in the same direction on those contractual obligations,” Helliker said.

The Board of Supervisors has set a Sept. 15 public hearing on the Water Agency’s request to abandon the Water Project.

It will also be discussed Monday by advisory committees that represent the Water Agency’s customers.#

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20090829/articles/908299981

Conservation must be a habit

Glendale News Press-8/28/09

Editorial

Cities throughout the Southland this week reported that their residents had either met or exceeded water saving goals so far this summer, a political victory amid all those annoying conservation commercials.

Perhaps there’s nothing like multiple dry brush fires and blackened skies to hammer those drought warnings home, or maybe residents are starting to finally come around to the idea that lush is no longer sustainable.

Either way, news this week that residents in Burbank, Glendale and La Crescenta had reduced their water consumption by between 10% and 22% was heartening, especially given the previous hard sell with the voluntary conservation messages.

Yes, the fact that Glendale and the Crescenta Valley Water District have imposed, along with most cities, strict irrigation restrictions no doubt had a hand in the steep drop, but it still required a certain amount of buy in from the public.

Burbank has yet to adopt mandatory controls, but even there, utility officials reported “a marked” decrease in water use — there have been brown lawns to prove it.

On the back end, local nurseries have also reported an increased customer interest in drought tolerant and California native plants, while some homeowners have been pushing harder for artificial turf as a frontyard alternative.

The confluence of trends leads us to believe that property owners really are waking up to a different landscape, one where potable water is becoming more of a luxury. We only hope that the routines being put in place now carry through the winter, and on to next summer and beyond.

Only when these restrictions become a fact of life, and then habit, will we truly see an impact to our region’s persistent water woes.#

http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2009/08/29/opinion/editorials/gnp-2editorial082909.txt

Conserve water, yes; but build, too

The Bakersfield Californian-8/29/09

Editorial

In parched California, nothing riles folks up more than a good water war. And that includes folks in Sacramento, where a whole slew of special interests -- farmers, farmworkers, environmentalists, developers, Northern California cities and Southern California cities -- are pressuring legislators over plans to improve the state's fragile water system.

Before they adjourned for their mid-summer break, lawmakers were locked in a months-long battle to close a $26 billion state budget gap. With state coffers running on fumes, California was doling out IOUs to its vendors, while Republicans and Democrats bickered. Very little else was accomplished.

Legislators returned to Sacramento a while back hoping to make progress on other pressing problems. At the top of the list must be fixing the collapsing San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta and increasing water supplies. No longer can this task be ignored or stalled.

The delta is where water from the Sierra Nevada mountains and Northern California meets saltwater from the San Francisco Bay, flows south to irrigate California's agricultural heartland and supplies Central and Southern California with drinking water.

The delta is a spaghetti bowl of rivers, canals and sloughs, some dug by hand at the turn of the century. Its islands support fertile farms and small towns. Its waterways provide recreation to boaters and fishermen.

Delta waterways are near collapse. Many fear an earthquake will wipe it away and cut off critical supplies to millions of Californians. But it doesn't take a big, bad earthquake to do damage. A beaver digging into a dirt bank is believed to have caused the multi-million dollar failure of the Upper Jones Tract, west of Stockton, just five years ago.

Environmental concerns, including the impact of water pumping on endangered fish species, has reduced the flow of water through the delta. San Joaquin Valley farmers and the workers left jobless as fields have dried up, simplistically characterized these concerns as "fish versus people."

While the debate between competing interests isn't new, California's water dilemma can no longer be ignored, or talked to death.

Republican and Democratic governors stretching back decades have studied proposals for fixing the delta and increasing California's water supply. They have all concluded some canal or bypass of the delta is needed to reduce pressure on the sensitive estuary; water storage must be increased; and Californians must conserve water.

Delta interests have long viewed a canal as a threat -- a rip-off of Northern California's water by the South that endangers water quality, fish habitat and recreation. Some environmentalists foolishly believe they can stop California's growth by cutting off its water.

Legislators are beginning to hold hearings on a Democratic-sponsored package of bills that would create an oversight body for the delta, boost statewide conservation, improve monitoring of water use and establish a commission to protect the delta community.

While these bills reflect the findings of an independent panel that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger established last year, the governor vows he will not sign legislation that does not include bonding to pay for the construction of water storage facilities, including new dams and reservoirs.

The governor is correct. Before the Legislature adjourns in mid-September, a package of bills must be passed that includes construction of dams, reservoirs and a water conveyance around the delta, as well as establishing oversight to protect the delta's water quality and supplies.

Protecting the delta is not a frivolous fish-versus-people environmental cause.

The entire state depends on the delta's continuing good health. But it also depends on having an adequate water supply.#

http://www.bakersfield.com/opinion/editorials/x616724967/Conserve-water-yes-but-build-too

Water being saved, but not enough

Madera Tribune-8/28/09

By Charles Doud

Maderans have been saving water since Stage 2 of the city's water-conservation plan was adopted April 1, but they have more to do.

In the next few weeks, further measures for conserving water will be proposed to the Madera City Council for adoption.

"The weekly goal has been met nine out of 21 weeks in the summer season," said city Public Works Director Mathew Bullis, in a report Aug. 19 before the City Council. That weekly goal was a 10 percent reduction in water use year over year.

But the new regulations will be stricter.#

http://www.maderatribune.com/news/newsview.asp?c=251336

Will homeowners pay more, less when Fresno moves to water meters?

Fresno Bee-8/30/09

By Russell Clemings

No one knows for sure what will happen when Fresno starts using water meters early next year -- but some people could be in for a shock.

After six months, data from a study of 70 volunteer households has produced a few surprises:

Water use varies widely even among similarly sized lots. The thriftiest small lot used one-seventh as much as the most wasteful.

Many homes -- from 25% to almost half, depending on the month -- had water-use patterns that suggested leaks in their plumbing or irrigation systems.

A Bee analysis of the data suggests that homeowners on small lots could pay more with meters and those with large lots could pay less, even though the average isn't expected to change much.

The reason: What counts under metered rates isn't your lot size. It's how much water you use.

"If you're a heavy water user, your bill will go up. If you're a light water user, your bill is going to go down," said John Watkins, a management analyst in the city's Department of Public Utilities.

City contractors are installing meter boxes at the 70,000 homes that did not already have them. Most of the rest are newer homes where meter boxes were installed when they were built.

Some homes could start getting metered bills as early as next January. The city's federal water contract calls for the job to be finished by January 2013. By then, all Fresno homes will be paying metered rates.

Under the current flat-rate system, homes on lots of 6,000 square feet or less pay $22.87 per month, no matter how much water they use. Larger lots pay that basic rate plus 22.8 cents for each 100 square feet over 6,000.

The proposed new metered-rate system has a standard charge based on the size of the home's water line. For about 90% of the city's homes, that will be $13.51 per month. On top of that, homes would pay 61 cents for each 748 gallons used.

City officials say the new rate structure is designed to be "revenue neutral." The amount the city would collect from its 110,000 home customers would stay about the same. So would the average bill.

But individual bills could vary widely, depending on each home's water use. And to the extent that the volunteer households resemble the city as a whole, the Bee's analysis suggests that small lots are more likely to see higher bills. (The volunteers continue to pay current flat rates.)

Of 23 homes on lots of 6,000 square feet or less, 17 would have paid more under metered rates for the water they used between February and July, the first six months of the year-long study. At the extremes, one home would have paid $11.70 less than the flat rate. Another would have paid $274.02 more.

Larger lots were a different story. For 24 lots between 6,000 and 10,000 square feet, half of the bills would have gone up and the other half down. The 19 lots measuring 10,000 to 20,000 square feet would have seen 16 bills drop and only three rise. All four of the lots that were more than 20,000 square feet would have seen lower bills with the metered rate.

"If you are on a smaller lot, you're going to save a lot of money. This is what people are assuming. Well, no -- because people on the bigger lots currently pay more," said department spokeswoman Ann Kloose.

That may come as a rude surprise to some of the study's volunteers, who have not been given estimates of what their bills would be under metered rates.

"I expect my water bill to be less because I will be more conscious of my water usage," said one of them, Milton Quan.

Quan said he cut his water use by using the city's free leak detection service. Inspectors found malfunctioning sprinkler heads and other water wasters at his home. He will have to wait until the metered rates start to find out what happens to his bill.

Another participant, Jerry Kennedy, said he lives on a lot measuring 30 by 90 feet -- a mere 2,700 square feet. He said he fully expects to see lower bills once meters go into use.

"I say bring them on," he said. "I want to pay for what I use, not what you use."

Data released by the city did not link individual homeowners to their water use records. But of the 70 households in the study, slightly more than half -- 38 -- would have seen lower bills, according to the Bee's analysis. Total revenue collected by the city under metered rates would have been $13,505, about $136 less than the flat rate.

Citywide, department officials say the average home water bill for the fiscal year that ended June 30 was $28.32. Under a metered rate, they estimate it would have been $28.76 -- a difference of 44 cents.

"It still comes back to consumption," Kloose said. "The good news is that everybody is going to be charged the same price for the water they use under the new system."#

http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/1620984.html

CSUSM professor helping water officials understand conservation psychology

North County Times-8/30/09

By Andrea Moss

Faced with a growing need for water conservation, officials from a North County water agency have turned to a Cal State San Marcos professor to help figure out what motivates people to scale back their consumption.

Dr. P. Wesley Schultz, a social psychologist at CSUSM since 1997, has teamed with the Olivenhain Water District for a pilot program that kicked off earlier this month.

Seventy-five families are participating in the monthlong study designed to find out whether receiving real-time feedback about their water use causes people to cut back.

The program uses a new type of water-use tracking device, the Internet and a special computer application to tell participants how much water they're using throughout the day.

Schultz said last week that a third of the participating households have the devices; the other 50 families are the control group.

He and two of his students are collecting and analyzing data throughout the study.

The results will be shared with Olivenhain water officials after the pilot ends Sept. 10, the professor said.

Joe Randall, management analyst supervisor at Olivenhain Water District, said his agency jumped at the chance to work with Schultz after seeing him make a presentation to county water officials.

The Olivenhain district provides water to customers in a 45-square-mile area that runs from the coast through 4S Ranch to Interstate 15.

"We're just trying to give folks some examples of what they can do, and this one is based on real-time usage," he said. "That's a lot better than once a month, which is what they normally get through the billing cycle. And we're trying to gauge how that feedback affects them in terms of their usage."

Officials with the Vallecitos Water District in San Marcos said they are eager to work with Schultz as well.

The need to reduce water use has been a growing concern for water agencies throughout the region because of an ongoing drought and a court ruling last year that restricted the pumping of water from the state water delta.

The situation has the potential for significant impact in San Diego County because it relies heavily on imported water.

Most area water agencies dealt with the problem by declaring Level 2 drought alerts before summer started. The alerts came with mandatory conservation measures designed to reduce the region's water use by at least 10 percent.

Those measures, including restrictions on landscape watering and a ban on hosing down outdoor pavements, have enabled the water agencies to meet and, in some cases, exceed the reduction goal so far.

Water officials have warned, however, that continued drought could bring higher-level alerts, higher conservation requirements and more-stringent conservation mandates.

Schultz is part of an emerging group of experts trying to find out whether psychology can be used to get people to conserve.

The professor, who has already conducted similar studies on energy consumption, said the field is becoming increasingly prominent as natural resource supplies are depleted.

Schultz said he got the idea for a pilot program on water conservation after learning about a new device that tracks people's water use at their water meters, analyzes the data and reformulates it to a user-friendly format.

Developed by Los Gatos-based Aquacue, the device uses wireless technology, the Internet and special software to relay the information to a constant display on users' computer screens.

Study participants can check the display to see how much water they used during 14 periods throughout the day.

That gives them a better idea of how individual showers, laundry loads and other activities affect their water-use totals, Randall and Schultz said.

The display also shows families how their water use compares to that of the average home in their neighborhood, as well as the amount they themselves used in previous weeks.

Aquacue CEO Shahram Javey said he was pleasantly surprised to learn that study participants were happy to try his company's devices.

The response suggests people are eager to know exactly how and where they can cut back their water use, he said.

"That's one thing that was extremely rewarding for us," Javey said. "There is a demand, and people want to have access to the information."

Study participants whose water use is below average are rewarded with smiley faces on their computer displays; higher-than-average use gets a frowning face.

Schultz declined to make study participants available for interviews or disclose the results he has seen so far, saying that doing so could alter people's responses.

But he said more efficient water use is the goal.

"It's not that people are going to stop using water entirely," Schultz said. "But what you want is a communication channel that will allow people to adjust their consumption, depending on the availability of the resource."

Bill Rucker, Vallecitos Water District general manager, said he was intrigued by Schultz's approach because it shifts the focus from punitive water rates for people whose usage goes over a certain amount.

Although rate hikes tend to work, they typically do so for a short time only, Rucker said.

"You're better off if you can provide ongoing and immediate information about water use so that they know the impact of what they're doing," he said. "Hopefully, you'll gain long-term change that way."

Randall said the growing water problem has officials at water agencies everywhere embracing all kinds of new conservation ideas.

"We're just looking for anything that will work," he said. "What was out of the box a few years ago is now in the box, just because of the water situation we're now in."#

http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/san-marcos/article_35f6a160-fd8b-5648-b70b-a64760d058c7.html

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