[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 7/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

July 2, 2007

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People -

 

 

Tahoe advocate turns his attention to Delta

Stockton Record – 7/2/07

By Alex Breitler

 

In the mid-1980s, Lake Tahoe's crystalline waters grew cloudy as new cabins and hotels crowded the shores. Then-newspaperman Tom Martens joined the League to Save Lake Tahoe, which lobbied for building restrictions.

 

"We had to have police protection in our office at night," said Martens, who led the league for six years. "People slashed my tires. It was really a tense period."

But development rules were put in place, and the Keep Tahoe Blue campaign lives to this day.

 

Now, Martens - fundraiser, consultant and frequent fisherman - sails into a new storm: the fight over the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

Martens, the 61-year-old director of nonprofit group Discover the Delta, is charged with helping give the estuary a public identity as its fish decline, its levees erode and competing factions clamor for its water.

 

A recent survey showed many Stocktonians do not know the location of the Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast. And if that is true for the rest of California, efforts to save the Delta will fail, Martens said.

 

"People have to know there's a problem if they're going to approve money to solve the problem," he said.

 

Discover the Delta is largely a business-oriented group of Delta restaurant and marina owners, but organizers hope it becomes widely representative of agricultural, ecological and recreational interests.

 

The group is hoisting 16 road signs reminding drivers that they are, indeed, entering the Delta. And it is purchasing land for a $2 million educational center at the intersection of Highways 12 and 160 near Rio Vista.

 

Tahoe had one thing going for it, Martens said: It was already a Northern California destination, and people could identify with its deep blue color.

"Saying Tahoe wasn't going to be blue anymore - that was a strong statement," he said.

 

The Delta, largely hidden behind levees, has no such hook. But the education center, when finished, may include models of the Delta, a wine-tasting area and tours of the rarely-seen islands. It could open as soon as 2009.

 

Martens, who lives in Davis, is a fairly new face in recent Delta debates. "He's sort of an objective look coming in, and he has experience in other areas," said Linda Fiack, who heads the state's Delta Protection Commission and sits on the Discover the Delta board.

 

"He knows his way around and knows how to bring recognition in a positive way."

 

But the Delta itself is familiar for Martens. He has explored much of it in his "yacht" - a 16-foot aluminum fishing boat.

 

And he covered the same old Delta issues as a reporter. He says that in the late 1970s, he was cussed out by then-Gov. Jerry Brown during a press conference.

The topic? The peripheral canal.

 

Some things don't change, and indeed, Martens says the Delta has been "studied to death." That can be discouraging.

 

"I think what people do is, well, give up," he said. "But the Delta is there. You've got what you've got, and you've got to work with it."#

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070702/A_NEWS/707020325

 

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: WATER QUALITY - 7/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

July 2, 2007

 

4. Water Quality -

 

 

 

Face it: Sometimes it stinks

By JONATHAN ATHENS, Staff Writer

Imperial Valley Press – 7/1/07

 

The Imperial Valley is often abbreviated as “I.V.,” but some places could be identified by the letters “P.U.”

Thousands of rotting or dried-out fish carcasses ring a portion of the Salton Sea, the stench of warm cattle dung permeating from feedlots hangs heavy in the air in some places in the Valley, and a sulfur-like stink from a sewer grate along a small Brawley side street intensifies when the breeze blows.

There’s no other way to say it but this place really stinks.

Bill and Betty London, who live along the West Shores of the Salton Sea, say the dead fish smell is something they live with.

“It comes and goes. One day you smell it, the next day you don’t,” Bill London said.

 

The Salton Sea is considered an ecological disaster. Years of neglect and rising salinity rates are taking a toll on the state’s largest land-locked body of water. Fish die-offs are common and anyone walking out to the shores, once they get past the claylike muck, finds themselves standing before a long ring of tilapia carcasses. Look closer to the water’s edge and one can see the most recent kills.

The fish odor, Betty London said, reminds her of the time past when she worked and lived in New Jersey’s bay area.

“But you just get used to it,” she said.

Bill London said he doesn’t believe anything will change even though California lawmakers are considering an $8.9 billion restoration and revitalization plan for the Salton Sea.

Although the dead fish smell abates when the wind dies down and there are enough volunteers to clean up the fresh carcasses, there is no relenting from the stink coming from cattle feedlots. The stench of cattle dung is so pervasive and powerful that one can literally smell it before seeing it.

Ask Calipatria resident Rosie Flores and she’ll tell you that heavy odor is “the smell of money” that comes from the cattle industry.

Flores is business manager at the Superior Cattle Feeders in Calipatria.

The constant odor is so strong that it permeates and settles into the vehicle she drives to work at the feedlot.

“When you park your vehicle out there, eventually your vehicle ends up getting the same smell,” she said.

At her desk in an air conditioned office on the second floor of the company’s offices, Flores has candles that she lights from time to time to cut the smell.

She pulled from her desk drawer a spray can of creamy nutmeg fragrance, another tool in her arsenal against the all-pervasive odor of cattle droppings.

Though she says those who work closely with cattle on a daily basis become accustomed to the smell of dung, it never fades from the olfactory senses, Flores said.

The sulphur-like pungent stink coming from a sewer grate in Brawley is not something Monica Munoz is getting used to.

“It’s bad,” Munoz said. “It bothers me. It’s nasty.”

The sewer odors are at times so strong they will sometimes seep into her small house several feet from the grate.

Munoz, who has lived there one year, said her neighbors had complained about the odors and eventually moved out.

There is little chance the Valley will ever earn the dubious distinction of being the stink spot of the Golden State because, as one local air quality expert put it, “everything smells.”

“There are good odors too,” said Steve Birdsall, Imperial County Air Pollution Control Officer.

Each person’s sense of smell and what they deem offensive varies from person to person, he said.

“Some people smell things and others don’t,” he said.

“Spring is when I look forward to the sweet smells of flowers and blooming plants.”#

http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2007/07/02/news/news01.txt

 

[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 7/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

July 2, 2007

 

3. Watersheds -

 

 

 

Dead zone at fire's origin

One week later some people visit a nearby pond -- an oasis amid the ruins.

Sacramento Bee – 7/2/07

By Hudson Sangree - Bee Staff Writer

 

The Angora fire's point of origin, the exact spot where it first started, is a devastated moonscape filled with charred stumps and thick gray ash.

Amid a cluster of boulders, below a snow-dotted ridgeline, someone lit an illegal campfire, investigators believe.

 

The flames were fanned by swirling winds and fueled by bone-dry vegetation. They roared through the forest and destroyed 254 homes near South Lake Tahoe.

The location of that disastrous campfire is a short walk from Seneca Pond, which today stands as an oasis of green amid the devastation. Before the fire, it was a favorite spot for residents of the devastated neighborhood to walk their dogs and take bike rides with their children.

 

A lone female duck paddled its waters Sunday, one week after the fire began on June 24. Wood roses and alders surrounded its shore. A swing hung from a big pine tree.

 

Standing on the pond's sandy beach, it is almost possible to forget the hellish scene that surrounds it.

 

The Angora fire swept through 3,100 acres with approximately 2,000 people evacuated and an estimated final cost of $13.5 million, according to the U.S. Forest Service. As of Monday morning, the fire is 95 percent contained, with crews using infrared technology to locate hot spots and mopping up 400 feet in from the fire line. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection expects to have the fire fully contained later in the day.

 

Highway 89 road closures have been lifted. With the holiday week in full swing, the U.S. Forest Service warns that no fireworks are allowed in the area. Campfires are allowed within hosted fee campgrounds. No open fires or charcoal barbeques will be allowed on public lands.

 

Many firefighters had been demobilized, but about 698 personnel remained in the region.

 

From the area around Seneca Pond, a few smoking hot spots could still be seen in the woods and on the hillside.

 

On the pond's southern bank -- the direction from which the fire came -- is a porcupine that was overcome and frozen in midstep trying to escape. Like the trees, its south-facing side is charred black while its north-facing quills remain brown.

 

The needles of pine trees point toward the source of the fire, sucked dry of moisture in the tremendous blast of heat.

 

The charring and the dry needles are among the clues that investigators use to determine a fire's direction and pinpoint its beginning, said Jamie Kirby, a fire-prevention specialist from Montana who came to California to assist in the Angora blaze.

 

Kirby said the inferno caused destruction of trees and plant life the likes of which she had never seen in her seven years dealing with wildfires.

"Everything is dead in some areas," she said. "It's kind of like a graveyard."

 

She said residents, though banned from the area, have been walking into the woods to have a look at Seneca Pond.

 

"It's their backyard," she said. "They want to see how their pond is doing."

 

Brian Williamson said he walks his three dogs to the pond everyday. "I love that place," he said.

 

But Williamson said he had seen fire rings there before and wouldn't be surprised if people had camped near the pond.

 

Seneca Drive resident Ben Koda, walking with his wife, Ann, said he didn't understand why someone would light a campfire near the pond.

"That's not a good place to camp," he said. "It's just a nice little walk there and back."

 

Authorities lifted restricted access on public roads leading into the damaged subdivision at 6 p.m. Sunday.

 

Scott Swanson, a fire technician with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said everyone understands that people who have seen news accounts of the fire will want to come have a look at the damage.

 

But he asked visitors to be sensitive to residents, some of whom are in shock, and not block the roads still being used by firefighters and utility vehicles.

"We just ask that they show respect to the victims and the neighborhood," he said.#

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/251909.html

 

 

[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 7/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

July 2, 2007

 

2. Supply -

 

Editorial:

Senate should pass solar bill

AB 1470 to cut install cost of solar water heaters.

Fresno Bee – 7/2/07

 

Anyone who has visited Hawaii with any frequency has probably taken a shower with water warmed by a solar-powered water heater. Because of its combination of plentiful sunshine and high energy prices, Hawaii promotes and subsidizes this clean form of water heating more than any other state.

 

Most of California -- and especially the San Joaquin Valley -- has more sunny days than Hawaii, but as yet the state hasn't seen the light of solar water heaters. Only about 1,000 of them are installed statewide.

 

That could change dramatically if lawmakers approve Assembly Bill 1470, which would help homeowners reduce the costs of heating water with the rays of the sun.

AB 1470, by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, would set a small surcharge on gas bills to generate $250 million over 10 years. Combined with a federal tax credit, this pool of funding would help homeowners halve the cost of installing solar water heaters.

 

Such installations now cost roughly $4,000 to $6,000 per home and pay for themselves, in reduced utility bills, in about 20 years. If Huffman's bill were to be enacted, homeowners could install solar water heaters at a cost of $2,000 to $3,000 per home and have the units pay for themselves in as little as 10 years.

 

Huffman's legislation deserves passage for the same reason lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year enacted Senate Bill 1, which created a subsidy for solar electric technologies.

 

Not only do these subsidies help individual homeowners, but they create economies of scale that encourage mass production of solar technologies, making these technologies more viable and self-sustaining compared to other forms of energy.

 

More solar means less air pollution, fewer greenhouse gases and more protection against gyrations in wholesale energy prices.

 

Of course, making solar more viable also means that gas producers and some utilities may lose some business.

 

This appears to be a main reason that Sempra Energy, parent of the Southern California Gas Company, is opposing Huffman's bill. (To its credit, Pacific Gas and Electric is supportive).

 

AB 1470 has passed the Assembly, but could face a tough ride in the Senate Energy Committee on Tuesday. We'll be watching to which senators warm up to this worthy legislation, and which ones are carrying Sempra's cold water. #

http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/74981.html

 

 

 

 

[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 7/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

July 2, 2007

 

1.  Top Item -

 

 

Water shortage to keep river dry this holiday

DROUGHT

Bakersfield Californian – 6/30/07

BY JAMES GELUSO, Californian staff writer

Independence Day will be a dry one this year, at least on the Kern River through Bakersfield.

 

There won't be water flowing through the Kern River bed in Bakersfield this Fourth of July or anytime soon. This photo was taken at Yokuts Park.

 

Uncertainty about the supply of water from the State Water Project led the Kern County Water Agency to decide against putting water into the river.

 

"We really are, and have been, in a crisis mode of day-to-day operations," said Jim Beck, general manager of the agency.

 

Things were bad enough when water agencies found themselves in a dry year.

 

But on May 31, the state shut down the massive pumps that pull water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, citing concern about the threatened delta smelt, a fish that can be sucked into the pumps and killed.

 

Pumping resumed June 10 and is climbing back to normal, said Don Strickland, spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources.

 

He said the pumps have put as much as 2.7 million gallons per minute into the system, although the operators are still limiting operation in an attempt to limit harm to the fish.

 

Beck said his concern is in making sure there's enough water for use in Bakersfield, and he's not certain enough to warrant diverting some of the supply for recreational use.

 

But that doesn't mean you won't be able to see some water on the river.

 

"If you're willing to go to other portions of the river you'll be able to see it," Beck said.

 

Water will still be flowing down the Kern as far as the Calloway Weir, near the Golden State Avenue bridge over the river, Beck said.#

http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/178295.html