7-15-09

 
7-15-09
Merced Sun-Star
Water battle lines drawn along parties
Congressmen from the San Joaquin normally put up a united front but severe drought and environmental regulations have made this fight fierce...MICHAEL DOYLE, Sun-Star Washington Bureau
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/268/v-print/story/951301.html
WASHINGTON -- Sharp partisan conflict now divides the once-united Valley lawmakers who are seeking solutions to the region's water shortage.
On Tuesday, the simmering conflict boiled over as two Valley Democrats blasted Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia for "grandstanding" in zealously pursuing water-delivery amendments. Nunes, in turn, asserted his Valley colleagues were "mesmerized" by liberal environmentalists.
While prevalent on Capitol Hill, the outright partisan spear-throwing is rare among Valley lawmakers who once prided themselves on working across party lines. It's already starting to hinder how the members work together.
"This is baloney, to be doing this (sort) of thing," Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, said of Nunes' approach. "I have had a number of my colleagues tell me they are fed up with it."
Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, added that Nunes has been "not helpful" with repeated water-related amendments that Costa characterized as grandstanding.
"I have been frustrated in the past two weeks," Costa said Tuesday, when asked about Nunes. "We can't make water a partisan issue."
Last week, for instance, Nunes had been invited to meet with Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes and House Democrats to discuss Western issues.
Nunes himself acknowledged Tuesday that he was "disinvited" to the meeting as a result of Democratic displeasure over his sharp-tongued rhetoric that often targets House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and what he invariably calls "radical environmentalists."
Hayes met separately with Nunes and other House Republicans on Monday. Unchastened, Nunes insisted he remains "friends" with Cardoza and Costa, even as he dismissed their water-related efforts as inadequate.
"My friends have been mesmerized," Nunes said Tuesday night. "It's like they're under a spell of some kind. I hope they get their sea legs under them again and return to reality."
Drought dominates the thinking of all three House members, as well as other lawmakers representing the Valley. Low precipitation along with judicial and regulatory decisions designed to protect endangered species and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have combined to slash irrigation water deliveries.
Nunes has attacked the problem by authoring amendments that would cut off funding for some of the environmental decisions.
For instance, one amendment would have effectively blocked a National Marine Fisheries Service decision that cuts delta water deliveries by up to 7 percent to protect endangered Chinook salmon and steelhead.
The House rejected Nunes' original water-delivery amendment last month by a 208-218 margin. He has since tried several times to offer similar amendments, and has either been defeated outright or been denied the chance to bring the amendment to the House floor.
On Tuesday, Cardoza and other Democrats on the House Rules Committee rejected Nunes' latest bid to offer three water-related amendments to a fiscal 2010 energy and water funding bill.
Instead, the rules panel permitted Costa and Cardoza to offer their own amendments when the House takes up the energy and water bill.
One would provide $10 million for the so-called "Intertie" and "Two-Gates" projects. The former would connect state and federal canals and the latter would permit greater water deliveries by keeping fish out of pumps. The other amendment will ease water transfers.
"It's a good step," Costa said of the amendments, which do not face any known opposition.
Nunes, though, called the Democrats' proposals mere "window dressing" that won't do much to solve the region's underlying water shortage. He insisted that Costa and Cardoza will have to challenge Pelosi in order to succeed.
"I feel bad for them," Nunes said.
Modesto Bee
Foreclosures still building in Modesto, San Joaquin Valley...J.N. Sbranti
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/781979.html
The relentless march of foreclosures continues to ravage the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
More than 2,100 homes were foreclosed during June as Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced county homeowners defaulted on nearly $643 million in mortgages.
About 43,000 homes have been foreclosed in the three counties since September 2006, costing lenders nearly $16 billion in unpaid loans, according to statistics from ForeclosureRadar.
"If your home is worth a couple hundred thousand dollars less than your mortgage and your bank won't lower your principal, then letting the home be foreclosed is the financially prudent thing to do, regardless of the moral or ethical issues," said Sean O'Toole, Fore-closureRadar's chief executive officer.
O'Toole said "an awful lot of homeowners are underwater on their loans and have stopped paying their mortgages" in the Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Foreclosures for many of those homeowners were delayed by state-imposed moratoriums during the past year. But as lenders jump through the increasingly complex legal requirements, the flow of foreclosures is increasing.
During June, more than 1,000 Stanislaus homeowners received notices of default, the first step in the foreclosure process. Reaching the final foreclosure stage sometimes takes a year or more.
But 749 Stanislaus homes made it to that final stage last month, including 62 homes purchased by investors during auctions on the courthouse steps in downtown Modesto.
More foreclosures are expected, based on mortgage delinquency rates.
An estimated 13.9 percent of Stanislaus homeowners with mortgages are 90 days or more behind on their payments, according to First American CoreLogic. The delinquency rate is 17.4 percent in Merced and 14.5 percent in San Joaquin. Nationwide, the rate is 6.5 percent.
Feds make grab for OID, SSJID water in Melones...Steve Knell. Knell is general manager of the Oakdale Irrigation District.
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/community/v-print/story/781911.html
Early in June, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a Biological Opinion on the impacts of the State Water Project and federal water project on endangered salmon and steelhead fish populations.
Both projects pump water out of the Delta to send water to Southern California and it is these actions that the opinion addressed. It stated that in no uncertain terms, both salmon and steelhead were being harmed, and immediate and long-term actions are necessary to protect them.
In the fisheries service's Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives Report, a solution to help remedy the problem on the Stanislaus is to "take" 100,000 acre feet from two irrigation districts during normal years and up to 300,000 acre feet in critical years.
Those irrigation districts are the South San Joaquin and Oakdale irrigation districts. Both districts are senior water rights holders on the river and have an agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that allowed the bureau to get its permits from the state Water Resources Control Board to operate New Melones. Under that agreement, the districts share the first 600,000 acre feet out of the basin.
If this biological opinion had been in place in 2007, the OID would have received half of its 300,000 acre-foot share. The same for 2008 and 2009.
The alternatives report supports taking 17 percent of the irrigation districts' water supply in normal years and 50 percent of their water in four out of 10 years — those deemed as critical years.
That would leave only enough water to meet the irrigation needs for 27,000 of the 55,000 irrigated acres in the OID's service area. It would have a similar draconian impact for the South San Joaquin Irrigation District's ag area.
The alternatives report is disturbing on a number of fronts. First and foremost, OID and SSJID waters are not under federal control. Our water rights are pre-1914 rights, established before state controls were in place and they are adjudicated rights, affirmed by the state Supreme Court in 1929.
Additionally, both districts signed an agreement affirming the seniority of those rights in the 1980s, prior to the filling of New Melones Reservoir by the federal government. It's bad enough when federal agencies come in and circumvent or disregard state law, but it's bad government when they disregard their own agreements.
In response to this action, both district boards authorized the filing of a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Reclamation to stop this illegal, arbitrary and capricious taking of water.
The water community as a whole is in arms against the alternatives report and the heavy-handed approach taken by the fisheries service. Unfortunately, its position sets the stage for a protracted and expensive legal battle.
Fresno Bee
Judge throws out cinema deal at Fresno State...Sanford Nax

http://www.fresnobee.com/business/v-print/story/1535870.html
A California State University trustee had a conflict of interest when, as CEO of a movie-theater company, he made a deal to build a multiplex on Fresno State land, a judge has ruled.
Moctesuma Esparza stepped out of line when he signed the lease in 2006 as chief executive officer of Maya Cinemas North America Inc., Fresno County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Y. Hamilton Jr. concluded.
Maya was going to operate a multiscreen theater at Campus Pointe, a mixed-use development being built near the Save Mart Center. But Hamilton voided the lease.
The ruling is the latest twist in the debate over whether the $200 million Campus Pointe development is a proper way to use university land.
The idea of a commercial enterprise on 45 acres at Fresno State has drawn flak for years, especially in the business community. Several controversies, mainly involving fees for road improvements, had to be settled with Fresno, Clovis and Caltrans before work could begin.
Now some of it is already finished. The first apartments are open. Eventually, Campus Pointe is envisioned as having apartments for working families, students and senior citizens, as well as a hotel and shops.
Fresno State officials have said the project would generate $1 million in annual rent to help pay off debt on the Save Mart Center, and to support campus agriculture programs.
But the movie theater is in doubt. Esparza had signed the Maya deal with developer Ed Kashian. It was technically a sublease from Kashian, who is leasing land from a Fresno State auxiliary for Campus Pointe.
The sublease violated a state government code that prohibits CSU board members from having a financial interest in any contract they approve, Hamilton said in his July 1 ruling.
Esparza resigned as a CSU trustee in May 2007 after the owner of Sierra Vista Mall sued over the deal.
The Clovis mall's lawsuit cited the potential conflict of interest as well as issues with an environmental analysis for the development.
The mall's lawsuit named CSU trustees, Kashian Enterprises, Maya Cinemas and the California State University, Fresno Association, the nonprofit corporation that runs commercial operations at the university.
In response, the CSU trustees and Kashian argued that the deal was between Kashian and the CSU Fresno Association, which they said is a private entity. Maya's participation -- and Esparza's involvement in it -- was therefore part of a private contract, not a deal with the university, they argued.
"They are mistaken," Hamilton replied.
Citing case law, the judge said that in determining whether a conflict of interest exists, courts will "disregard the technical relationship of the parties and look behind the veil which enshrouds their activities in order to discern the vital facts."
He noted that Esparza was a member of the committee on finance and participated in a Nov. 8, 2006, meeting on Campus Pointe -- a meeting held more than two months after he signed the sublease.
"The winding trail here leads to the conclusion that Esparza was involved in the planning of the project, negotiated the contract with Kashian and executed the contract on Maya's behalf," the judge wrote.
Esparza couldn't be reached Tuesday to comment. His attorney referred questions to CSU officials.
In his ruling, Hamilton also found that the environmental analysis of certain traffic, water and air-quality issues for the project was inadequate. He ordered the developer and trustees to make revisions.
CSU attorney Christine Helwick said the environmental analysis complied with the California Environmental Quality Act, except for some additional study on the traffic, water and air-quality issues.
"CSU expects to be able to provide the necessary additional analysis in the near future," Helwick said.
The ruling can be appealed, but attorneys for Kashian and the CSU system said they haven't decided what to do next.
If Hamilton's ruling stands, Campus Pointe would have to find another theater operator, said David Doyle, the Fresno attorney who represented the mall owner, LandValue 77.
"Whether you can find another operator in today's economy remains to be seen," Doyle said.
Kashian responded: "If necessary, I can find another theater operator.
"I will comply with the law, and I know I will finish the project," he said. "I have $90 million in it."

Sacramento Bee
Legislature OKs ban on river suction dredge mining...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/v-print/story/2026718.html
The Legislature has approved a bill to temporarily ban suction dredge mining in the state's rivers, a largely recreational practice blamed for harming salmon spawning habitat.
The Senate on Monday voted 28-7 to approve Senate Bill 670 by Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa. It was approved by an even wider margin in the Assembly last week. The bill contains an urgency clause, meaning it becomes law immediately upon signing by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. It would ban suction dredge mining until the Department of Fish and Game completes a court-ordered update of regulations governing the practice.
The review was supposed to be finished by July 2008, but Wiggins said the department has yet to begin. As a result, a new court order last week prevents the department from using general fund money to operate the dredge permitting program. .
Stockton Record
Power line project blacking out
$1.5B plan to build towers across S.J. dying...Reed Fujii
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090715/A_BIZ/907150321/-1/A_NEWS
Plans to build high-voltage transmission lines from Tracy across south San Joaquin County to near Oakdale appear dead with Tuesday's decisions of the Modesto and Turlock irrigation districts to withdraw from the project.
And the sponsor, Transmission Agency of Northern California, plans a special telephone conference meeting this morning to decide how to proceed on the remainder of the project, originally planned to include roughly 600 miles of power lines from northeast California to serve utilities in the Central Valley and Bay Area.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility, which originally pledged to support 35 percent of the project's $1.5 billion projected cost, announced its withdrawal from the transmission project earlier this month, citing doubts over its financial feasibility and possible increased state regulation.
That withdrawal was a factor cited by Turlock Irrigation District officials, as their board of directors voted unanimously to withdraw from the transmission project.
The TID had expected to contribute about $200 million and only toward the power lines running from Tracy to Oakdale, then south to Turlock.
Its partner in that southern circuit, the Modesto Irrigation District, also decided Tuesday morning to pull out by a unanimous vote.
Both decisions were welcomed by Joe Bacchetti, president of the Tracy chapter of Farm Bureau, who had helped organize opposition to the transmission project. He objected because the lines and 100- to 150-foot-tall transmission towers would have crossed many small farm parcels in his area, making them impractical to farm or impossible to live on in many cases.
"We were kind of worried there for a while, but hey - power to the people, power to the Farm Bureau," Bacchetti said.
Still, he added a note of caution Tuesday afternoon, saying: "We'll wait for a formal defeat before we start partying it up."
That could come as early as this morning.
Transmission agency spokesman Brendan Wonnacott said the agency's special commission meeting is to begin at 8:30 a.m.
"The general manager will report to the commission as to the status of the project and whether to proceed, suspend or terminate activities related to the project," he said.
Only two Transmission Agency members - the municipal utilities of the cities of Santa Clara and Redding - remain in support of the project.
Public access to the phone conference meeting will be available at all 15 member municipal utilities, including Lodi Electric Utility offices at 1331 S. Ham Lane. George Morrow, Lodi Electric's director, asked anyone planning to attend to arrive early in order to have time to register before the meeting starts.
The gloves are off...Alex Breitler's Blog
http://blogs.recordnet.com/sr-abreitler
So proclaims this new anti-peripheral canal Web site produced by Delta fisherman Robert Johnson, who has taken a prominent role of late in representing Delta advocates.
stopcanal.org
Californians Against the Canal
Welcome to Californians against the Canal!
(NOTE:  SITE UNDER DEVELOPMENT)
http://www.stopcanal.org/index.html
THE GLOVES ARE OFF!  The purpose of this site is refute the well honed “Peripheral Canal & Turn up the Pumps” media campaign talking points and frames that seek to divide Californians, and push through a massive - $40+ billion (including interest) water infrastructure program that won’t net one additional drop of water for California.  California is in a time of Crisis.  The 2008 economic meltdown is having severe effects on the state.  We are essentially BROKE.  Teachers are being laid off by the thousands; state employees furloughed several days a month; IOUs from the state are being used to pay its bills.  
 And yet, Governor Schwarzenegger and his cronies have launched an unprecedented highly coordinated astroturfing media campaign to persuade unknowing Californians that we have a severe drought; that “radical environmentalists” and fishing advocacy organizations (and democrats) are putting “fish before people;” and that opposition to increased water exports and this “Water Bill Package” has (and will continue to) put thousands of people out of work and in food lines in the San Joaquin Valley.  We reveal the naked truth behind these lies.
 Californians against the Canal is not solely about just stopping the Peripheral Canal.  We are also about reforming the corrupt water management practices that have been sinking our state further into deficit and enriching a handful of secretive, highly influential corporate agribusinesses in the San Joaquin Valley, whom we refer to as the Hydraulic Billionaires Cabal.  
 We mean to affect change by first stopping a tragic mistake by the California legislature, and then by proposing superior solutions to help California.  So please watch the video, read through the site, and JOIN US!
San Francisco Chronicle
California's looming groundwater catastrophe...Dr. Peter Gleick, President, Pacific Institute
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?entry_id=43563
California is one of the only states in the United States with almost completely unregulated groundwater use. Groundwater users are, with few exceptions, not required to report how much water they pump. Further, groundwater levels are irregularly and incompletely monitored, leaving these withdrawals unmeasured and policymakers in the dark. In part, this is a legacy from the old days when groundwater and surface water were considered separate. We have known for a long time, however, that they are connected, and that the use of one affects the availability of the other. Pretending that we only need to allocate and monitor surface water use and rights, while unlimited groundwater use is permitted, is a recipe for disaster.
Some people like it this way. And these people do whatever they can to prevent any move to get the state to regulate, or even measure, groundwater use. If their groundwater use affects their neighbor's well or a nearby stream, tough luck.
This isn't sustainable. Sooner or later, bad things happen when the use of common resources, such as air or water, is left completely unmanaged. For groundwater in California, bad things are already happening.
Water Number: 60 million acre-feet. This is the amount of groundwater that a new study from the US Geological Survey estimates has been lost in California's Central Valley since 1961. Lost. Consumed and not replenished. In some places, groundwater levels have dropped 400 feet or more. The vast majority of this overpumping has been in the Tulare Basin, though the last few years of drought have led to significant increases in overdraft in the San Joaquin Basin as well.
As a result of some overpumping, land subsides and compacts. Buildings and roads subside and crack. Drainage patterns change. And ironically, the California aqueduct systems run by the State and Federal governments may be damaged, threatening the delivery of water to other urban and agricultural users.
The truth is, there is not enough surface water to satisfy Central Valley growers, and so they pump groundwater. In an average year in the Central Valley, groundwater provides nearly half of irrigation water demand. In a dry year, such as we've experienced for the past three years, some users pump even more groundwater and groundwater may provide 60% or more of irrigation demand. If this water is then replenished in wet years, groundwater use over time is sustainable - groundwater acts like any other reservoir (only without many of the adverse consequences of surface reservoirs). If not fully replenished, however, groundwater levels inevitably fall.
The primary cost of using groundwater is to drill a well or to run a pump on an existing well - the water itself is not priced. The costs for drilling and running pumps, however, are beginning to rise. Costs for drilling new wells, especially given the depths to which groundwater has fallen, can be hundreds of thousands of dollars. The cost of electricity or diesel to run groundwater pumps is rising as well. Eventually, the damage caused by subsidence, or the conflict among users sharing the same aquifers, or the cost of pumping will increase to the point where pumping must decrease or even stop.
And when that happens, our food supply may go the way of the Delta smelt and California's salmon, and we will end up with neither fish nor farms. Let's stop pretending that pumping groundwater without constraint is a reasonable use of our limited freshwater resources. In some areas of the state, local entities have formed groundwater management authorities to manage this important resource for the benefit of all users. This should be required everywhere, but especially in areas of severe overdraft. Anything less will mean growing confusion and chaos for California water and inevitably diminishing returns for California agriculture.
Interior secretary: Mining reform a top priority...JOAN LOWY, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/14/national/w083933D91.DTL&type=printable
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will make overhauling the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday.
Salazar told a Senate committee considering such legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines."
The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation's public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers and streams throughout the West. Mining companies also don't pay royalties on gold, silver, copper and other hardrock minerals mined on public land.
Reform bills have been introduced in the House and Senate, but past attempts at reform have foundered in the face of opposition from industry and many Western lawmakers.
However, a new crop of conservation-minded lawmakers from the West and a new administration sympathetic to reforming the law have generated renewed interest in an overhaul.
Despite the press of health care reform and other signature issues embraced by President Obama, Congress still needs to take care of important but more mundane business like mining reform, Salazar told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Salazar, a former Colorado senator, said he sees "an emergence of bipartisan pressure to get this done."
He said when he meets with key members of this department, mining law reform will be among several "top tier" issues.
"We are committing significant resources from the Department of Interior to get this done," Salazar told reporters after the hearing. "I think there is a possibility we can get mining reform done in this Congress."
The Environmental Protection Agency's announcement Monday that it plans to develop new regulations related to bonds or other financial assurance by mining companies to protect against environmental abuses creates "a greater sense of urgency" for reform, Salazar said.
The EPA announcement follows a recent Supreme Court decision giving a mining company the go-ahead to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby 23-acre lake, although the material will kill all of the lake's fish.
The National Mining Association has said it supports reform in principle, but it has expressed reservations about the details of legislative proposals, particularly royalty formulas.
Some of the proposed royalty formulas would put otherwise profitable mines out of business and cost jobs, Heckla Mining Co. President and CEO Phillips Baker Jr. told the committee.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, the senior Republican on the committee, also cautioned against choosing a royalty formula without carefully considering it's impact on the mining industry.
If U.S. mines close, the nation risks trading a reliance on foreign oil for a reliance on strategic minerals from other nations, the Alaska senator said.
But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the mining industry is responsible for "decades of taxpayer ripoffs and environmental destruction" and "they ought to have to pay their fair share."
Environmentalists said they were surprised and pleased by Salazar's testimony and the forcefulness of his remarks to reporters afterward.
"I think it's a very positive development that we have an Interior secretary in the Obama administration saying mining reform is a top priority and it needs to be done in this Congress," said Jane Danowitz, director of U.S. public lands programs at the Pew Environment Group.
Salazar also said that holds announced by Sen. John McCain last week on the confirmation of two high-level Interior Department officials could slow mining changes and limit the department's ability to deal with an array of public lands issues of importance to Western states.
McCain has said he wants the Obama administration to take a position on a proposed land-swap bill intended to pave the way for an Arizona copper mine.
The U.S. Forest Service is crafting a reply to the Arizona Republican, Salazar said.
Kulongoski signs bill to pay for removal of dams...JEFF BARNARD, AP Environmental Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/14/state/n125257D02.DTL&type=printable
Grants Pass, Ore. (AP) -- The state of Oregon will finance most of the cost of removing four Klamath River dams to help salmon under a bill signed by Gov. Ted Kulongoski Tuesday.
Meanwhile, federal officials met in Klamath Falls with representatives of Pacificorp and the states of California and Oregon. The parties must have a binding agreement by September to restore 300 miles of spawning habitat on what was once the third biggest salmon producer on the West Coast.
A preliminary agreement that serves as a framework for the negotiations both guarantees and limits the amount of irrigation water that will be available to farmers in the Klamath Basin, and offers hundreds of millions of dollars for salmon restoration work and research.
In recent decades, the needs of farms and fish in the area have been pitted against each other while declining salmon runs have triggered cutbacks in commercial and recreational fishing.
"Signing this bill into law is a critical step in ensuring that all of the Klamath's diverse rural communities have an economically viable future," Kulongoski said in a release. "Every farmer and fisherman whose livelihood depends on a healthy river system will benefit from the restoration of the Klamath Basin."
Long an opponent of dam removal, PacifiCorp shifted after it became clear the idea had strong public support and the utility could end up paying far more to continue trying to relicense the aged dams.
"We said all along if public policy dictates dam removal, we need to do everything we can to provide our customers with legal and financial protection," Pacificorp spokesman Art Sasse said.
Sasse, as well as representatives of Indian tribes, farmers, and salmon fishermen, who have long battled over balancing scarce water in the Klamath Basin between fish and farms, all praised the governor for his work to make dam removal a reality.
Oregon Wild, however, continues to oppose the deal. The conservation group argues that it gives too much to farmers and too little to fish and wildlife.
Water wars have long simmered in the Klamath Basin, where the first of the dams and a federal irrigation project built in the early 20th century turned the natural water distribution upside down, draining marshes and lakes and tapping rivers for electricity to put water on dry farmland that grows potatoes, horseradish, grain, alfalfa and cattle.
A drought in 2001 forced a shut-off of irrigation water to sustain threatened and endangered fish, and when the irrigation was restored the next year, tens of thousands of salmon died trying to spawn in the Klamath River, which was too low and too warm to sustain them.
Besides blocking salmon from the upper basin, the dams raise water temperatures to levels unhealthy for fish. Their reservoirs produce toxic algae. The fish are beset by parasites.
The law calls for building up a trust fund of $180 million over the next 10 years through a surcharge on PacifiCorp costumers in Oregon, which amounts to about $1.50 a month for a residential customer. California pays $20 million. If dam removal falls through, the money goes back to ratepayers.
If a federal feasibility study shows the dams can be safely torn down, work begins around 2020.
UC staff protests proposed furloughs...Nanette Asimov
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/15/BAPT18NOR8.DTL&type=printable
They're protesting at the University of California, exercising free speech and making demands. But those with the raised fists and angry placards aren't students.
It's an uprising of UC employees - joined on paper by more than 1,000 UC professors, scientists, doctors and faculty - who question why the well-heeled, $19 billion university system can't backfill $813 million in cuts from the state without ordering top-to-bottom pay cuts through unpaid time off.
"They say furlough, we say hell no!" chanted more than 100 nurses, custodians, technicians, clerical employees and other workers who poured out of the UC Medical Center on Parnassus Avenue in San Francisco on Tuesday during lunch hour.
Their anger was directed at UC President Mark Yudof whose budget-cutting plan the Board of Regents will take up today . in a meeting across town. The plan also asks the 10 UC campuses to make deep reductions in academic programs.
"The state's in a mess, but UC isn't!" cried a man dressed as the Grim Reaper and carrying a scythe. "UC has $7 billion in a rainy day fund. Isn't this a rainy day?" asked the reaper, Nino Maida, a shop steward with the University Professional and Technical Employees union.
Erin Carrera, a recovery room nurse who joined the protesters in her blue scrubs, said hospital employees just received an e-mail from the administration saying the medical center had its best year ever financially, and would be providing bonuses to employees for high performance.
"And we're remodeling the cafeteria right now," Carrera said. "We could certainly put that on hold instead of cutting pay."
UC receives just $3 billion from the state, earning most of the rest of its revenue from its hospitals and research grants.
But Yudof and Russell Gould, chairman of the regents, argued in a piece published Tuesday in The Chronicle that they can't shift funds or tap into reserves because much of the money is earmarked for other purposes.
"Hospital revenues are needed to heat the rooms and employ the doctors and dietitians and X-ray technicians that patients pay to see," they wrote. "They also must fund new facilities - for example, the proposed new hospital at UCSF."
Yudof and Russell also said they want to save additional reserves for "an even worse scenario in fiscal year 2010-11."
UC workers from four labor unions, as well as scientists, physicians and faculty members expect to show up today at the regents' meeting at UC's Mission Bay campus and tell the governing board that the hefty cuts will all but destroy the world-class university.
In an open letter to the regents signed by more than 1,000 UC professors throughout the state, linguist George Lakoff, a UC Berkeley professor of cognitive science, writes that the university has more Nobel laureates than any other university. But "cuts in faculty and staff salaries will lead many of our most distinguished faculty to accept competing offers. With them will go their grants, which will deepen the crisis."
The result, he said, "will be a third-rate university system."
The professors blame the state's economic crisis on "the tyranny of the minority" in Sacramento, an oblique reference to California's unusual requirement that the state budget be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. The majority of Democrats want to raise taxes to cover the state's $26 billion budget shortfall, but they can't muster the needed two-thirds majority to do it.
In their letter, the professors say the regents have a "moral obligation to protect this institution from the tyranny of the minority" instead of making cuts.
Earlier this week, hundreds of UC scientists and doctors sent similar letters to the regents warning of the devastating impact of the cuts.
Accountability for UC...Editorial
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/15/ED0H18OEHP.DTL&type=printable
What we said: "The University of California is lobbying against state legislation that would provide whistle-blowers within its ranks the same legal protections as other state employees. The compelling need for such legislation became apparent last year when the California Supreme Court was forced to dismiss a lawsuit by two former computer scientists at UC's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The court pointed to a gap in state law that prevents UC employees from seeking damages in court if the university conducted its own investigation of their retaliation claims in a timely manner. Three of the justices encouraged the California Legislature to change the law, suggesting that without an independent court review of whistle-blower claims, 'the law's protection against retaliation is illusory.' " - Editorial, May 26, 2009
What happened: This week, the Assembly joined the Senate in approving SB219, which would extend whistle-blower protections to UC employees.
What's next: The measure returns to the Senate for concurrence on minor amendments, then goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his signature or veto.
{rdrsp}What you can do: Urge Schwarzenegger to sign this good-government bill. You can e-mail him at governor@governor.ca.gov.
The Business Journal
Another group files suit over Delta smelt order...Gabriel Dillard
http://www.thebusinessjournal.com/index.php/agriculture/1055-another-group-files-suit-over-delta-smelt-order.html
Another farm advocate group has entered the legal fray over federal restrictions on water pumping for San Joaquin Valley growers.
The Klamath, Ore.-based Family Farm Alliance filed its lawsuit last week against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The alliance is challenging the service’s December 2008 order slashing exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by about 30 percent to protect the Delta smelt. The alliance contends the order doesn’t meet scientific standards.
The alliance advocates on water issues on behalf of family farmers, ranchers, irrigation districts and allied industries in 17 Western states. According to itswebsite, the group counts among its board of directors local agribusiness leaders including citrus grower Harvey Bailey with Bailey Brothers in Reedley and Chris Hurd with Circle G Farms in Firebaugh.
According to the alliance, numerous scientific studies have identified multiple causes for the Delta smelt’s decline, including ammonia discharges from Sacramento and other industrial pollution, temperature changes, and invasive non-native species that are devouring the smelt’s food supply as well as the smelt themselves.
“(The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) has refused to analyze these other factors and their importance, sticking instead to their assumption that pumping must be the problem,” said Dan Keppen, the alliance’s executive director, in a statement. “But if anything, their failure to produce any benefits for the smelt over the last fifteen years should demonstrate that the pumps are not the problem.”
The California water crisis has become a hotbed for litigation against the federal government. In May, the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation also sued the service over water pumping cutbacks.