9-24-09

 
9-24-09
Merced Sun-Star
Wal-Mart distribution center: Fewer people attend special meeting ahead of Monday vote...SCOTT JASON
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/1074995.html
Merced's need for jobs took center stage Wednesday as residents debated whether allowing a Wal-Mart distribution center to be built would be the wisest way to boost the area's fledgling economy.
The City Council is faced with approving or denying a 1.2-million-square-foot distribution center Wal-Mart wants to build in the southeast part of the city.
Supporters say the choice should be clear. They point to the county's unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent and Wal-Mart's pledge to create 1,200 jobs, 900 of which will be full-time.
"Wal-Mart jobs are the perfect stepping stone for our residents to improve their lives," Atwater resident Steve Ewing told the council.
Opponents remain skeptical about how many of the jobs will be given to local residents as people from all over the Valley may try to secure positions at the center. They note the environmental review shows there will be unavoidable impacts to the air quality and believe the company's trucks will clog up the roads.
Kyle Stockard, co-chair of the Stop Wal-Mart Action Team, said the distribution center will also lead to more supercenters "filled with junk made in China."
"Everything's Wal-Mart all the time," he said, quoting a Merle Haggard song. "No more mom and pop. No more five and dime."
About 150 people turned out for the meeting, though the crowd thinned slightly around 9 p.m. The turnout was less than what many people were anticipating. The city had two overflow areas set aside in case there were scores of people.
Forces against Wal-Mart dominated the beginning of three-hour meeting, which was dedicated to hearing from the public. Only project opponents spoke during the first hour. The rest of the meeting was a mix, though there were more supporters.
Fifteen people spoke in favor of the distribution center. Seventeen people spoke against the distribution center. Four of them were from outside Merced County.
The long line of opponents who turned in their request-to-speak-cards on Monday seemed to be in response to the hearing before the Planning Commission, when proponents commanded the first half of the meeting and opponents spoke later in the evening as people grew tired.
The seven-member council remained quiet and listened. They'll deliberate on the project Monday and likely cast the deciding vote. Opponents have already made it clear they'll file a lawsuit if the center moves forward.
The threats were troubling for local Wal-Mart worker Linda Lee-Peoples, who praised her jobs benefits and wants more people to gain employment.
"Merced needs a face-lift," she said. "You know what a face-lift does? It makes you look a whole lot better."
She was disappointed that opponents haven't offered any tangible alternatives. "What are you bringing to the table?" she asked. "Nothing but a lot of words."
John Grant said the council must think about the city's grandchildren, who will be harmed by more air pollution. He said 16 percent of Valley children have asthma. He lamented commerce taking precedence over the environment.
"This is not an economic issue," he said. "It's a moral issue. It's an ethical issue."
More residents will have a chance to speak from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. The meeting will continue into the afternoon if everyone hasn't had a chance to address the council.
Fresno Bee
High-speed rail planners seek federal funds...E.J. Schultz, Bee Capitol Bureau
http://www.fresnobee.com/updates/v-print/story/1648779.html
SACRAMENTO -- California's bullet train planners are going after $4.6 billion in federal stimulus money, including nearly $1.3 billion to begin work on the route from Merced to Bakersfield through Fresno.
The state High Speed Rail Authority unanimously approved the application at a hearing Wednesday, along with plans to match the funding with state and local money.
Valley officials had feared the authority would seek money for only a portion of the Valley route, so they were pleased with the vote.
"The San Joaquin Valley is united behind this recommendation," Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin said in testimony.
California's application seeks more than half of the $8 billion in federal stimulus money dedicated to high-speed rail construction.
Regions expected to compete for the money include Florida, the Northeast and the Midwest. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must formally submit California's bid by Oct. 2.
The rail line, estimated to cost about $40 billion, is planned to eventually run from Sacramento and San Francisco to San Diego, with trains hitting top speeds of 220 mph.
The stimulus application seeks money for four segments that the authority said are furthest in the planning process: Merced-Fresno, Fresno-Bakersfield, San Francisco-San Jose and Los Angeles-Anaheim. Stimulus rules require construction to start by September 2012 and finish in 2017.
The Valley route is a priority because rural stretches can be used to test trains at their top speeds, according to the authority.
With local and state matches, the federal money would be enough to complete up to 70% of the construction on the 148-mile Valley route, planners said. The segments would stop just short of Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield. The cities would be connected later, but the initial test tracks could be used by conventional rail, planners said.
In the planning stages for many years, the high-speed rail project got a major boost in 2008 when voters approved a bond that includes $9 billion to jump-start construction.
The federal stimulus money could provide another shot in the arm. But even if California were approved for its entire request -- and that's far from certain -- the state would need to find at least $26 billion more to complete the project.
Planners hope to raise a good chunk of the money from private sources, including rail equipment vendors and institutional investors. Local governments also are expected to contribute.
Under the terms of the high-speed rail bond, route segments that draw the most federal, private and local money jump to the front of the line, said Mehdi Morshed, the authority's executive director.
"The authority must give priority to projects that require the least amount of [state] bond funds," he said.
The Bay Area segment has drawn more than $300 million in local pledges, authority officials said. The Valley has generated far less.
"Other regions in California are further along with their planning for high-speed rail," Swearengin said in an interview, although she noted that rail planners have yet to seek money.
One "potential funding source," she said, is $100 million that's now set aside for rail consolidation. The money comes from Measure C, Fresno County's half-cent transportation sales tax.
Opening arguments to begin in pollution case...JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer
http://www.fresnobee.com/641/v-print/story/1649399.html
TULSA, Okla. On a trip through the Illinois River watershed this summer, Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson bluntly revealed the main advantage he thought the state had in its pollution lawsuit against the Arkansas poultry industry.
"We're right," Edmondson said of the 2005 case, which names poultry giants Tyson Foods and Cargill as defendants. "That's always an advantage in litigation."
When the trial begins Thursday, Oklahoma will attempt to make its case that 11 poultry companies are to blame for polluting the 1 million-acre watershed, which spans parts of Oklahoma and Arkansas, with bird waste. The federal trial is expected to last several weeks, and its outcome is being closely studied by other states thinking about challenging the way Big Poultry does business.
For decades, farmers in northeastern Oklahoma have emptied litter from their chicken houses and spread the droppings on their fields as a cheap fertilizer to grow other crops.
But as the industry expanded in the area, so did the amount of waste produced - as much as 345,000 tons annually, the state estimates.
Edmondson, who is expected to deliver the state's opening remarks Thursday, has said the industry took the easy and cheap way out when it came to properly disposing of the waste, rather than burning it as energy, processing it into pellets or composting it.
Now, the state argues, runoff from the waste spread on fields has polluted the Illinois River with harmful bacteria that threatens the health of the tens of thousands of people who raft and fish there each year.
"This case is much more than a war of words between attorneys," Edmondson said Monday. "This case is about the future of an entire watershed.
"It impacts the environment, tourism, agriculture and public health," he said.
The industry argues that Arkansas and Oklahoma have sanctioned the practice of spreading chicken waste on farmland by issuing farmers permits to do it. Oklahoma "is essentially at war with itself in this lawsuit," said Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for Tyson Foods.
"The attorney general's office claims pollution by the poultry industry, while the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture says poultry farmers and others who use poultry litter as fertilizer are abiding by the law," Mickelson said.
The case will be heard from the bench by U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell.
On Wednesday, Frizzell questioned whether the case should even go forward because the state failed to name the Cherokee Nation - whose lands lie within the watershed - as a plaintiff. But he decided against dismissing the lawsuit after attorneys for Oklahoma objected strongly, paving the way for Thursday's opening statements.
In July, Frizzell decided the state couldn't win $611 million in damages because it had failed to include the tribe as a plaintiff. The tribe later filed a motion to join Oklahoma in the lawsuit, but Frizzell rejected the tribe's bid last week, saying it was filed too late. The nation has filed notice that it would appeal his decision barring it from joining the case.
The other defendants named in the lawsuit are Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.; Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cargill Turkey Production L.L.C., George's Inc., George's Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc.
Stockton Record
Flood of frustration
State tells eight Stockton levee residents they must tear up their backyards — and pay for it...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090924/A_NEWS14/909240335#STS=fzzr6b8s.zuu
STOCKTON - Despite having secured permits a decade ago, eight homeowners on a north Stockton levee must remove most of the trees, walkways, patios and even one swimming pool that they legally built on or near the levee, state flood control officials have decided.
The work - which the state says will be done at the residents' own expense - must be completed by April to avoid triggering a process that would lead to mandatory flood insurance for up to 383 homeowners in the Twin Creeks subdivision.
The case shows how dramatically enforcement of levee standards across the nation has tightened since Hurricane Katrina.
"The board and the staff had sympathy with the property owners, because they spent money and effort to develop their backyards, and now they have to tear these things out," said Jay Punia, director of the state's Central Valley Flood Protection Board.
But, he said, federal officials were firm in their opinion that the improvements built by residents impede their ability to inspect the Bear Creek levee during a flood, and in some cases could weaken the levee itself.
Pool owner Sharon Giudice has her own piece of heaven in her backyard, with a pool, waterfall, flowers on the levee slope and three mature evergreens. Most, according to the board's decision, will have to go, including the pool.
"Birthdays, graduations, summers with my children and our friends - our whole life is this backyard," Giudice said.
Four months ago, a bid pegged the cost of moving the pool at $52,000, Giudice said. Installing it 13 years ago cost $26,000.
Bureaucratic bumbles are partly to blame for the residents' plight. When their permits were approved years ago by the flood protection board, many were not reviewed and endorsed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers first.
That had no consequence until 2007, when the Corps visited the levee and decided that the improvements were a problem. Since Katrina, the agency is more strictly enforcing levee standards that have always been in place.
The Corps' decision did two things: It led to a threatened loss of federal funding for levee repairs should a flood occur. It also made it likely that the entire Twin Creeks subdivision would be mapped into a new high-hazard flood zone by FEMA in 2010, meaning mandatory flood insurance for most homeowners.
The levee property owners were told to reapply for new permits. But the majority of the things they legally built years ago were rejected by the flood protection board in two day-long hearings earlier this month.
This, despite county officials having mostly endorsed those applications.
"Our preference would be not to have any impediments on the levee. ... That said, we live in the real world, we understand things have been permitted in the past and we can live with those things," said Steve Winkler, deputy director of the San Joaquin County Department of Public Works.
The Corps saw differently, and the flood protection board largely sided with the Corps.
Everything from a 12-inch wood retaining wall to towering fir trees, a wood shop, a gazebo, brick steps, irrigation systems and one in-ground swimming pool were slated for removal. Boat docks can stay. Residents will have a chance to appeal.
Punia said residents must pay because "there is no other funding mechanism." The decade-old permits do contain a clause warning that removal of the items could be required in the future, at owners' expense.
Kevin Kauffman, president of the Twin Creeks homeowners association, promised a fight.
"Any encroachments that have to be removed, we want to make sure homeowners aren't paying for it," he said, or else the issue will go before a judge.
Neighbor Dan Sanchez said he was waiting for a final list to clarify which of his items must be removed. He has already paid to have ice plant torn out from behind his home.
"This is going to be major," Sanchez said.
Similar decisions are still pending for levee encroachments on the south side of the Calaveras River in central Stockton; action is necessary there to keep an additional 8,000 homes in the Country Club area out of the flood zone. Local officials said that round of decisions will likely be even more difficult.
Debunking Hannity...Alex Breitler's blog
http://blogs.recordnet.com/sr-abreitler
I had aspirations of writing a piece exposing all of the errors and omissions in Sean Hannity's "The Valley that Hope Forgot" last week.
Colleague Mike Fitzgerald beat me to it, and did a darn fine job.
Check out his piece if you haven't seen it. And read his blog for supporting information.
Hannity's nonsense has been picked up by the blogosphere and some widely-read columnists, including Michelle Malkin. From her column, I quote:
PERHAPS THE MOST MYSTIFYING ELEMENT of California’s farms-versus-fish imbroglio is the unwillingness of the media and the state’s political establishment (other than the elected representatives of the region) to confront the issue head-on. Sidestepping the tough questions involved, they refer instead to California’s lengthy drought as the cause of much of the state’s misfortune.
It is, Michelle, it is. From the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which would know: Delta exports were about 2.1 million acre-feet below average this year. 1.6 million acre-feet was due to drought. 500,000 acre-feet was due to restrictions protecting endangered species.
Do some original reporting next time.
Michael Fitzgerald's Blog
http://blogs.recordnet.com/sr-mfitzgerald
Slowing the rolling
This hopeful message just in from Barbara Barrigan-Parilla of Restore the Delta:
We are hearing from various legislative offices in Sac and from those representing us in Sacramento that the legislators and the water bureaucrats are finally realizing that they cannot “go around” the Delta with the policies that they are pushing to create.  While we did not expect that our participation in the BDCP (Bay-Delta Conservation Plan)meetings to alter or lessen the determination of those in the legislature who want the Delta transformed into a newly designed pumping station, we are gaining traction as a movement and slowing down the “rolling” of the Delta. 
That's progress.
Cotton and corporate welfare
Reader Bob Hnath writes: 
Sure hope you sent a copy of your column to Fox/Hannity, not that he would read it. You ought to ask him if he has the (guts) to read it on the air.
As to cotton, not only does it suck up a lot of water and use more pesticides than any other crop, the growers get a subsidy for producing it. Roughly $3 billion annually to grow and market US Cotton and the large California producers get their unfair share. So they get subsidized water and subsidized prodution. Nice deal! 
...I Googled info on cotton subsidies and heres a part of one article dated Aug 31, 2009.   ".....today the WTO ruled that Brazil could get $295mil in annual sanctions against American goods entering that country in retaliation for the US failure to eliminate illegal subsidies to the US cotton industry." 
But you don't hear Hannity denouncing corporate welfare, do you?
The latest sleazy tactic
Powerful south-state water interests and their politicians have been trying to subvert Judge Oliver Wanger's water cutbacks -- which are keeping the Delta from collapsing -- since he ruled excessive exports were violating the law.
The latest saboteur is Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), reports the California Sporetfishing Protection Alliance. On Tuesday DeMint
introduced an amendment to an Interior Department funding bill on the floor of the Senate that would have prevented any federal funds from being used to restrict exports of water from the Delta.  Had it passed federal agencies would have been prevented from implementing the recent salmon and Delta smelt biological opinions.
The surprise amendment was orchestrated by a coalition of south valley agricultural groups led by Westlands Water District and only a quickly organized response, by a coalition environmental and fishing groups, defeated it by a 61-36 vote.  Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer withstood a vigorous last-minute e-mail lobbying campaign and opposed the amendment.  Senator Feinstein likened the amendment to “Pearl Harbor.”
The amendment was virtually identical to one proposed by Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Visalia) that was defeated in the House of Representatives.  Congressman George Radanovich (R-Mariposa) lobbied Feinstein to support it.
As CSPA chief Bill Jennings said yesterday, the south-state boys know the status quo of increasing (and increasingly destructive) Delta water exports are in peril. So they have their checkbooks out. When you hear they "lobbied" Feinstein you can read they donated heavily to her campaign. Their goal: to undo the law through the political process, or to de-fund the regulators on which the law depends for enforcement.
Then they stand behind Hannity in Huron and wave the flag. They love this country. They just don't like any laws that come between them and their water grabs.  
Sep-23
A Dust Bowl, except for those yummy tomatoes
Roberts Island farmer Cecil Rogers called to voice his suspicion about that pathetic "fallow field" from which Hannity broadcast his show about the “man-made drought."
"If that’s not a harvested tomato field, I’ll eat my hat," Rogers said. "It’s in beds, and you can see the vines on top of the beds. That’s a tomato field that was harvested a couple months ago. And they’re saying it’s fallow. That’s just more of their bull---.”
Is Rogers right? Judge for yourself. 
I wouldn't put it past them.
Sep-23
Exposing more Hannity lies
In today's columnI left one of the strongest arguments against Sean Hannity's "fish vs. man" hoax on the cutting room floor. Facts obvious to any one reading this week's news.
Contrary to what Hannity asserts (with audacious falsity) the relatively modest court-ordered water cutbacks aren't turning the Valley into a "Dust Bowl." As Tuesday's paper reported, San Joaquin Agriculture rose 6 percent in 2008 to $2.13 billion. Ag here is doing better. 
OK, but what about the counties at the other end of the Valley, where Hannity broadcast from? Is it a Dust Bowl down there?
According to annual crop reports from Ag Commissioners form the seven Valley counties south of the Delta, value of production has increased during the drought.
 The harvest in the seven south counties in 2007 increased by $3.77 billion over 2006. And in '08—with six counties reporting so far—excluding only Merced—production is up $541 million.
 The slowdown there is due not only to Merced’s exclusion, but in part to the collapse in milk prices. Let’s see them blame that on the Delta smelt.
 As for the other canard -- the cutbacks are costing jobs -- that is also a bogus claim. In fact, Ag employment in the San Joaquin Valley is a bright spot in California’s slumping economy. According to employment data from the Department of Economic Development, farm labor employment in the seven counties south of the Delta in July of ’09 increased by 2,700 jobs over July ’08.
 "One of the great estuaries in the world is imploding," says Bill Jennings, the executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, "and fisheries that God nurtured over hundreds of thousands of years are dying and being destroyed by water agency greed and by water speculators in mere decades."
Hannity doesn't care. The author of Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism and Liberalism is a culture warrior. Journalism to him is a weapon to wield against environmentalists and other "Evil" forces. As long as they are thwarted -- and Hannity gets good ratings -- that's all that counts. If the Delta dies, it dies.
There's more. Senator Dianne Feinstein is trying to undo the science-based biological opinion that formed the basis of the judge's ruling.
The Department of the Interior provides a "reality check." Read the PDF below.
http://online.recordnet.com/projects/blog/2009/0923water.pdf
Finally -- predictably -- Michelle Malkin parrots the Big Lie.
San Francisco Chronicle
Obama hooked into salmon plight...Editorial
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/24/EDO719RE9P.DTL&type=printable
The Obama environmental team is playing it safe in its first encounter with plight of endangered salmon in the Northwest. In a high-pressure legal fight over the fish's survival, the White House is asking for more time, money and judicial patience.
At issue are the low numbers of salmon and steelhead on the Snake River, dotted with four power dams in Washington state. The Obama answer: a request to a federal judge to spend nearly $1 billion on watershed improvements, controls on predators and invasive species, and a close watch on fish populations. If the problem worsens, there would be triggers for additional steps, the White House team promised.
The result is clearly the most expedient available in the court battle that dates back to the Clinton era. The Obama pledge builds on a Bush administration opinion that was judged too tame by the federal court in boosting salmon numbers.
But it stops short of much bolder options to order more water flows, which would anger wheat farmers in western Washington, and take down the dams, a position favored by environmentalists. Also, this fall's salmon counts are way up, making drastic steps a hard sell.
In this case, California is more than a near-neighbor on the map. The ocean salmon season here has ended because of puny fish stocks. Earlier this year, this downward trend led to major breakthrough: an agreement to dismantle four dams on the Klamath River along the Oregon border.
This plan will need assistance from the White House. If it remains guided by science, not politics, then salmon may flourish again in the Klamath and Snake waters. President Obama shouldn't dodge the hard choices that may lie ahead.
S.F., East Bay fear water rationing in future...Wyatt Buchanan, Matthew Yi, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/24/MN9R19RGP0.DTL&type=printable
San Francisco and East Bay water managers are warning that a plan to overhaul the state's water system could result in draconian restrictions and rationing in the Bay Area and possibly undermine water rights that are more than 100 years old.
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and the East Bay Municipal Utility District, which combined serve approximately 3.7 million people in the Bay Area, fear that in dry years they could be forced to give up water to protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
They also believe the plan could jeopardize their legal rights to water that could instead be sent to parched regions of the Central Valley and Southern California.
The comprehensive package of water bills intended to improve the way water is distributed in much of California failed to get enough support to win legislative approval as it was rushed through Sacramento earlier this month. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met with legislative leaders this week and is pushing lawmakers to reach a compromise on the plan, and he may call a special session if lawmakers are close to an agreement, a spokesman said.
But unresolved questions about the plan could zap the votes of Bay Area Democrats, some of whom see the proposal as a water grab by Southern California.
"I'm not saying 'absolutely no,' but I'm not willing to turn over the keys to the store," said Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco. "With swimming pools in the desert and lawns in the desert, how do you justify (diverting water) and say you need more water for people to live?"
Part of the plan could lead to the creation of a canal that would divert as much as 6 million acre-feet of water a year around the delta and into pumps that flow to Southern California and other parts of the Central Valley. That water - roughly enough to serve 24 million people - now flows through the delta, helping to dilute salty water, and into the pumps.
Drought worry
In dry years - such as the current three-year drought - Bay Area water agencies fear they would be forced to give up substantial amounts of water from their systems to keep the delta from turning into a giant mud pit.
If that were to happen, "in future dry years our ability to serve our customers becomes more difficult and the prospect of rationing becomes more real," said Randele Kanouse, lobbyist and special assistant to EBMUD's general manager.
That utility district, which serves parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, imposed 15 percent mandatory rationing in spring 2008 that was rolled back earlier this summer. Kanouse said residents could be forced to ration even more if the agency must send water to the delta in dry years rather than piping it from Pardee and Camanche reservoirs to the East Bay.
Bay Area water districts are also concerned about another and perhaps more far-reaching issue: that the plan will create an avenue to undo water rights that guarantee cities, irrigation districts and other municipalities the ability to take a certain amount of water from the state's rivers.
San Francisco has rights dating to the 19th century that allow for taking about 400 million gallons per day from the Tuolumne River. The water is stored at the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park.
Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, who sits on the committee that crafted the legislation, insisted the water bill does not contain any language that would jeopardize water rights. The bill states that water rights would not be affected, but the city of San Francisco wanted to go further and asked lawmakers to explicitly protect its existing water rights.
Huffman said trying to insert language that protects San Francisco would be impractical because that would mean the bill would have to do the same for all other cities, counties or agencies that have water rights.
"I get that they guard their water rights quite jealously, ... but at some point it becomes silly," he said, adding that he thinks San Francisco should do more to help repair the delta and solve the state's water crisis.
Wording details
San Francisco officials, and even as disparate an interest as the California Farm Bureau Federation, disagree with Huffman's assessment of the bill. They said the bill contradicts itself in some places and is so far-reaching that they see an avenue for changes in rights.
"We want to have the conversation with the Legislature so we can tell them why we think that's true," said Laura Spanjian, an assistant general manager with the San Francisco PUC. That desire is common among many agencies' officials who believe they were not consulted on a number of issues as the package was rushed through Sacramento.
The water managers worry that state leaders will jam the legislation through the Legislature over the next few weeks. Schwarzenegger does not want to see any water rights changed, said spokesman Jeff Macedo.
Even still, one official with the state Department of Water Resources said he understood the confusion.
"There's just so much unknown that there's enough space for everyone to have concerns," said Kasey Schimke, assistant director of legislative affairs for the department. "I think those concerns should be addressed or at least vetted."
Water gushes down streets in drought-stricken LA...JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/24/national/a011954D45.DTL&type=printable
Not a drop of rain has fallen on Los Angeles in nearly four months, and the main river that runs through the city looks more like a rain-starved trickle these days.
But you wouldn't know it from the wet images coming out of the city lately.
Torrents of water have been sweeping cars off streets and barbeques out of backyards as aging water pipes have been bursting at a rate of more than one a day in recent weeks.
A recent break in Studio City sprouted a gusher the size of Old Faithful, unleashing water 2 to 3 feet in streets, closing businesses, flooding homes and garages, and carrying away patio furniture. One water break created a sinkhole so big it nearly swallowed a fire truck.
The number of breaks — 36 during the first three weeks of September — isn't unusual for a city the size of Los Angeles, said James McDaniel, senior assistant general manager with the Department of Water and Power. Rather it's the severity of the breaks that is causing alarm.
"It's not what causes a break but why did the break break in such a way that it causes this much damage," McDaniel told a City Council panel Wednesday. His agency has appointed an expert panel to study the city's geology, its 7,200 miles of pipeline, its pattern of water use and any other potential causes.
Los Angeles residents are getting angry, muddy and wet as they watch millions of gallons of water wash away — and wondering if their street will be the next to spout a towering geyser.
"It's not our fault. We didn't know we were living next to such a dangerous situation," said Robert Lee as he stood on the porch of his home on a sunny, 90-degree morning shortly after the deluge in Studio City and surveyed what was left of his front yard.
He had been standing in the driveway admiring his brother-in-law's new car, Lee said, when they heard a rumble and looked down to see water at their feet.
They were walking toward the source, a small leak in the street, when the geyser erupted from a 95-year-old trunk line that rained mud, water and rocks. The water flooded the lower half of Lee's split-level home and washed away his front yard and driveway.
"We lost the videotapes of all our children's birthday parties," he said, shaking his head. "You can't put a price on that."
Down the block, Tulsy Ball pointed to an empty garage with a water ring nearly 3 feet high.
"That's my production office," the independent TV producer said. Nearby, sat a mud-caked pile of expensive film-editing equipment.
Among the theories on possible causes are changes in water habits since the city began limiting lawn watering to twice a week because of the drought.
"Potentially it could cause a surge in flow," said Richard Little, who heads the University of Southern California's Keston Institute for Public Finance and Infrastructure Policy. "Couple that together with old brittle pipes and that's not a good recipe."
The city's water system was put in place by William Mulholland, the self-taught engineer who built the Los Angeles Aqueduct, the revolutionary, gravity-flow system of pipes and channels that carries water from mountains and valleys more than 200 miles away.
The system allowed Los Angeles to grow from a dusty town of 102,000 people in 1900 to a metropolis of nearly 4 million today, but some pipes are as old as the aqueduct itself, completed in 1913.
The DWP has aggressively replaced old pipes in the past two years, but City Councilman Dennis Zine said work crews are finding themselves unable to keep pace with the worn-out pipes.
"My prediction is there will be more of these things," he said.
Indybay
More Lies From the Imaginary “Dust Bowl”...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/23/18622888.php
Bill Jennings of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance exposes the lies of the corporate agribusiness, Tea baggers and Fox news about the "dust bowl" supposedly created by protections for Delta smelt and Central Valley salmon.
More Lies From the Imaginary “Dust Bowl”...Bill Jennings, Executive Director, CSPA
September 21, 2009 -- The public relations machine of San Joaquin Valley water districts, aided by Tea-Baggers and Fox News (sic) continues to issue dire accounts of the plight of Valley farmers and the “dust bowl” caused by the curtailment of water deliveries in order to save a three-inch minnow. The fact that their PR machine keeps spouting lies isn't surprising. However, the failure of print and broadcast media to label this propaganda as lies is nothing less than astonishing. The facts are:
First, the pumps are on. According to the Department of Water Resources, yesterday (Sunday 20 September 2009) the state and federal project pumps exported some 13,626 acre-feet of water at a rate of approximately 6,813 feet-per-second (cfs). As a result, Old and Middle River in the Delta ran uphill against the tide at a negative 5,047 cfs, drawing water (and fish) to the pumps. Indeed, the San Joaquin River was also running uphill at 176 cfs (although down from minus 650 cfs a few weeks earlier).
Second, agricultural employment in the San Joaquin Valley is a bright spot in the California economy. According to the employment data from the Department of Economic Development, farm labor employment in the seven counties south of the Delta (Fresno, Tulare, Kern, Madera, Kings, Merced and Stanislaus) increased by 2,700 jobs between July 2008 and July 2009, while nonfarm employment dropped some 29,700 jobs. Between August 2008 and August 2009, farm labor employment held steady, as nonfarm employment was down 33,500 jobs.
Third, According to the annual Agricultural Crop Reports submitted by County Agricultural Commissioners to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, the value of agriculture production in the San Joaquin Valley has increased during the drought. The seven south-of-Delta counties reported that agricultural production in 2007 increased by $3.77 billion over 2006. And 2008 agricultural production, in the six counties that have so far submitted reports (Fresno, Kern, Tulare, Kings, Stanislaus and Madera), increased by $541,124,648 over 2007. The 2008 increase would have been greater but was depressed by a massive reduction in milk prices that caused the market value of milk to drop by $299,972,000.
Fourth, California's Water Code is working as designed. The only ones not receiving full water allotments during this third year of a drought are those whose rights to water are based on the most junior water rights and whose water contracts explicitly specify that they won't receive contracted amounts during droughts and periods of water shortage.
Lastly, it isn't all about a three-inch fish. Beyond Delta smelt, the hemorrhaging of the Delta estuary is reflected in the population collapses of longfin smelt, American shad, splittail, threadfin shad, striped bass, herring, sturgeon, steelhead and all four runs of salmon (winter, fall, late fall, spring), as well as the native zooplankton and phytoplankton that comprise their food supply.
All of the commercial fisheries in San Francisco are closed. The coastal commercial salmon has been closed for two years and the fleet is either dry-docked or in foreclosure. Recreational salmon fishing is shut down and fishing license sales have dropped by half. One of the great estuaries of the world is imploding and fisheries that were nurtured over hundreds-of-thousands-of-years are being destroyed by water agency greed in mere decades.
Perhaps, its time to make the relentless propaganda come true - Westlands delenda est!
Inside Bay Area
UC Berkeley faculty, students, staff protest job cuts, higher fees...Matt Krupnick and Doug Oakley, Contra Costa Times
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_13411072
BERKELEY — Faculty, students and staff at UC Berkeley are picketing today to protest furloughs, budget cuts and tuition hikes throughout the system.
About 60 pickets started the day early in Berkeley in front of a school entrance at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way, shouting, "Chop from the Top," and "You say layoff, we say Yudof," a reference to UC President Mark Yudof.
Most professors plan to stay out of class today and other employee groups and students were joining them on picket lines. Faculty members plan to hold teach-in events and rallies throughout the day. The protests coincides with the first day of classes on eight campuses.
Fewer students could be seen on the Berkeley campus this morning. A handful of student club leaders steadfastly continued to try to attract attention to their organization on Sproul Plaza, but interest was low and passersby were few.
Sophomore Nick Iturraran glumly waited for students to sign up for the UC Rally Committee, but the list in front of him was empty.
"At this time of the day, my list would normally be full and I'd have three others already full," said Iturraran, who would normally have been in class on a Thursday morning. All but one of his five classes Thursday were cancelled.
"I understand their point but then again I'm a student and it hurts me not to be in class right now. It's something I'm paying for," he said.
The protest comes after a rough year for the university, which has cut enrollment, ordered employee furloughs and raised student fees to make up for state budget cuts. In November, the Board of Regents is expected to increase tuition by 32 percent over the next year.
Toni Mendicino, 40, who works as an administrative assistant at UC Berkeley law school, said a threatened furlough would really hurt her bottom line. "Two-thirds of our union members have salaries in the low $40,000s", she said. "I'm 40 and I have four roommates. Every time I take BART or the bus to work I have to think if I can afford it."
Victoria Fowler, who work in the business school, said Yudof "isn't making any sense" when he talks about raising tuition and faculty furloughs.
"He said he wants to raise tuition in order to maintain a high caliber of tuition, but at the same time he's furloughing faculty. It doesn't make any sense."
Similar actions have roiled the 23-campus California State University system, where faculty leaders have scheduled a mock funeral for public higher education at this week's board of trustees meeting.
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Decision on Cemex quarry expansion postponed...Kurtis Alexander
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_13407865
SANTA CRUZ -- The decision on whether Cemex can extend mining in the hills above Davenport was punted by county regulators Wednesday after the building materials giant and the city of Santa Cruz agreed to settle the issue on their own.
The two parties are at odds over how much a 17-acre expansion of a limestone quarry, needed to keep the company's cement plant in Davenport stocked and running, would harm a nearby spring that provides drinking water to the city. The county Planning Commission was scheduled to weigh in on the matter this week but instead gave the two sides until Oct. 28 to resolve the matter before it imposed a decision.
"I don't want to be part of the process that ends up sending Cemex out of town," said planning commissioner Steve Kennedy. "I also don't want to be part of a
process that hurts the city's water supply."
Heightening the debate, a citizens group trying to protect Santa Cruz water supplies from university expansion, the Community Water Coalition, weighed in against the quarry proposal this week. The group is represented by longtime environmental attorney Gary Patton.
Cemex, which has been hit hard by recession, suspended operations at the Davenport cement plant in March but says the facility will reopen when the economy improves and will eventually need more limestone than the current 87-acre quarry can offer.
The effort to expand the quarry, off Bonny Doon Road, dates more than a decade, and reservations about the effort by the Santa Cruz Water Department are just as old. But the long-divided parties said Wednesday that fear of a county decision hurting both sides prompted them to revisit their differences.
"The Planning Department is not going to be able to do this without our help," said Bill Kocher, head of the city Water Department. "I don't want to end up in court, and they don't want to end up in court. And clearly that's where this is headed."
The planned discussions between Santa Cruz and Cemex will center around 71 pages of concerns submitted this week by the city. In the document, the city contends that the county's assessment of the mining, in an environmental impact report, did not appropriately evaluate the harm mining would do to Liddell Spring nor offer suitable ways to address the damage.
"Basically what we're saying here is you didn't listen to us," said Kocher.
The spring provides about 10 percent of the city's water, and city officials worry that blasting from mining could contaminate the supply. Cemex officials say that won't be the case and have offered to compensate the city for any problems they might cause.
As far apart as Santa Cruz and Cemex may be on the issue, quarry officials agreed to talks.
"We are truly committed to sitting down and reaching some conclusion," said Satish Sheth, a vice president of Cemex. "But we would like to see this process end at some point."
Cemex's mining rights date to the '60s, but the county has say over development at the quarry.
A letter to the county from the Community Water Coalition, penned by law firm Wittwer & Parkin, urges the Planning Commission to deny the expansion bid.
"If the Water Department is nervous about this mining plan, I'm nervous about this," said coalition member Rick Longinotti.
About a dozen plant workers also were present at Wednesday's Planning Commission meeting to support the expansion.
Los Angeles Times
Plan for NFL site in City of Industry clears major legal hurdle
The city of Walnut agrees to drop a suit over developer Ed Roski Jr.'s $800-million proposal to build a 75,000-seat stadium near the junction of the 57 and 60 freeways...Cara Mia DiMassa and Sam Farmer
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-nfl-industry24-2009sep24,0,7744959,print.story
Since the Raiders and Rams left Southern California after the 1994 season, several developers have come forward with grand but ultimately unrealized plans for bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles.
Plans have been floated for stadiums in Carson, downtown Los Angeles, Anaheim and Pasadena's Rose Bowl. But at least for now, the proposal attracting the
attention of state and local officials is developer Ed Roski Jr.'s plan to build an $800-million NFL stadium near the junction of the 57 and 60 freeways in the City of Industry. Roski's plan cleared a significant political hurdle this week when the project's main opponent -- the city of Walnut -- agreed to drop a lawsuit aimed at killing the plan.
By quelling at least most of the local concerns over the stadium and gaining the backing of most surrounding cities, Roski has gotten further than some other NFL dreamers.
But football fans should not get their hopes up quite yet.
Even if Roski can clear the remaining legal and zoning thicket, it remains unclear whether such a large project -- which would include retail and office space, as well as practice fields and banquet facilities -- could get construction loans amid the credit crunch. (This issue has stalled several other mega-projects in Southern California, including the Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue development in downtown Los Angeles.)
Another big issue is naming rights, which would be a major source of new revenue for the stadium. Amid the recession, companies have shown little interest in big naming contracts at stadiums, including new NFL venues in Dallas and New York.
And then there's the question of whether a team can be persuaded to move to L.A. John Semcken, a vice president at Roski's Majestic Realty, has said that he hopes to have a team committed to the new stadium as early as next year.
But some NFL watchers said that is unlikely, given that much of the National Football League's efforts in the coming months will be focused on avoiding a lockout or strike, as the current players' collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2010 season. If there is a work stoppage, it might further delay the NFL's return to the nation's second-largest media market. The league would be facing sharply declining revenue if the season were to be curtailed or postponed.
In an interview with The Times last month, Roski said that he and his company "are determined to do it."
"The goal is worthwhile, so you have to keep working at it," he said.
The deal struck with Walnut came after eight intense days of mediation, spurred by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento).
The city of Walnut and a Walnut group calling itself Citizens for Communities Preservation had sued to block the stadium, challenging the project's environmental impact report, which was approved in March. Though Walnut dropped its suit, the citizens group continues to oppose the stadium.
Steinberg got involved because Roski had asked the state Legislature to waive environmental and planning rules for the proposed 75,000-seat structure, arguing that the stadium was a job-creating machine. A bill granting him that waiver passed the state Assembly earlier this month.
Before the bill went to the state Senate for debate, Steinberg asked for the mediation, which was presided over by former state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp.
In Sacramento, lawmakers said they hoped a more global settlement could be reached that includes the citizens group, but without one, the proposed legislation waiving some environmental rules for the stadium project is still alive. Should that bill pass, it could negate the citizen's group's suit, said several people familiar with the process.
So long as the citizens group has not joined the settlement, it is premature to say legislation is no longer necessary, according to Jim Evans, a spokesman for Steinberg.
Since the NFL left Los Angeles, communities across the Southland have tried to rally support for NFL stadiums within their boundaries, to little avail. Anaheim and Carson considered, but ultimately abandoned, the idea of building stadiums. Pasadena's Rose Bowl and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum both were ultimately rejected as potential sites. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has talked about building a football stadium, as have officials with AEG, which owns Staples Center.
Roski, however, insists that he has one advantage that potential rivals cannot match -- undeveloped land. The City of Industry site, Roski said, "is the only place we can do it in" Los Angeles County. "We've physically spent time and effort on all of the different opportunities, and you just can't find 600 acres in" L.A. County.
Agreement gives proposed NFL stadium in Industry a boost...Cara Mia DiMassa and Sam Farmer, L.A. Now
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/09/agreement-gives-proposed-nfl-stadium-in-industry-a-boost.html
Efforts to build an NFL stadium in the City of Industry took a step forward today when officials there and in neighboring Walnut agreed to settle a lawsuit aimed at derailing the plan.
Walnut had sued the City of Industry to block the stadium, saying it would cause traffic and quality-of-life problems.
Under the settlement, Walnut would get several things from Industry, according to a statement released from the City of Industry.
"Key features of the agreement include additional traffic mitigation and safety measures, noise monitoring and resolution processes, citizen and business working groups to focus on ongoing safety and traffic concerns related to the operation of the project, as well as reimbursement for the City of Walnut’s legal and consulting fees," the statement said. "Further the cities of Industry and Walnut along with the developer will collaborate on securing increased public transit service for event day."
A second lawsuit brought by a Walnut community group has not yet been resolved.
Since the Raiders and Rams left Southern California after the 1994 season, several developers have come forward with grand but ultimately unrealized plans for bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles.
Plans have been floated for stadiums in Carson, downtown Los Angeles, Anaheim and Pasadena's Rose Bowl. But at least for now, the proposal attracting the attention of state and local officials is developer Ed Roski Jr.'s plan to build an $800-million NFL stadium near the junction of the 57 and 60 freeways in the City of Industry.
But football fans should not get their hopes up quite yet.
Even if Roski can clear the remaining legal and zoning thicket, it remains unclear whether such a large project -- which would include retail and office space, as well as practice fields and banquet facilities -- could get construction loans amid the credit crunch. (This issue has stalled several other mega-projects in Southern California, including the Frank Gehry-designed Grand Avenue development in downtown Los Angeles.)
Another big issue is naming rights, which would be a major source of new revenue for the stadium. Amid the recession, companies have shown little interest in big naming contracts at stadiums, including new NFL venues in Dallas and New York.
And then there's the question of whether a team can be persuaded to move to L.A. John Semcken, a vice president at Roski's Majestic Realty, has said that he hopes to have a team committed to the new stadium as early as next year.
But some NFL watchers said that is unlikely, given that much of the National Football League's efforts in the coming months will be focused on avoiding a lockout or strike, as the current players' collective bargaining agreement expires after the 2010 season. If there is a work stoppage, it might further delay the NFL's return to the nation's second-largest media market. The league would be facing sharply declining revenue if the season were to be curtailed or postponed.
In an interview with The Times last month, Roski said that he and his company "are determined to do it."
"The goal is worthwhile, so you have to keep working at it," he said.
A new crop of eco-warriors take to their own streets
Along the I-710 corridor, where cargo-carrying trucks and trains spew diesel pollution around the clock, grass-roots groups are persuading residents to act and making clean air a priority...Margot Roosevelt
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-air-pollution24-2009sep24,0,7153996,print.story
It is 8:30 a.m. on a Sunday. Along streets of grimy stucco bungalows with bougainvillea, American flags and "Beware of Dog" signs on chain-link fences, a couple of residents are hosing down lawns.
It ought to be quiet, but it's not.
Behind the garden walls of Astor Avenue, there's a chugging and a hissing and a clanking and a squeaking. Two yellow locomotives, hooked to cars piled high with metal containers, idle on the track of the Union Pacific. Their stacks spew gray plumes of smoke.
"We call this cancer alley," said Angelo Logan, who grew up on the city of Commerce street. "And we're fed up."Logan, 42, is part of a new generation of urban, blue-collar environmentalists. The son of a janitor and the youngest of five children, he dropped out of school in 10th grade and went to work as a maintenance mechanic in an aerospace factory.
Now he is executive director of East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, with a paid staff of four and 200 members who join for $5 a year. They recruit door-to-door in Commerce, Bell Gardens, Montebello and East Los Angeles, where more than three-quarters of residents are working-class Latinos.
East Yard operates from a storefront on Commerce's Atlantic Avenue, a street lined with cheap motels and fast-food joints. It has no celebrities on its board, no publicity staff churning out press releases, no in-house attorneys to go toe-to-toe with $500-an-hour corporate law firms.
But in California, where Latinos, African Americans and Asians now collectively outnumber non-Hispanic whites, political power is shifting. Here especially, but also across the country, mainstream foundations, which had long supported environmental groups led by white lawyers and policy wonks, have begun to channel grants to community organizations run by Latinos and blacks who see clean air and water as civil rights.
In the Southland, these environmental justice activists, as they are called, wage war in the dense corridor that runs from the massive ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach through neighborhoods that line the 710 Freeway -- Wilmington, Carson, Compton, Huntington Park, Commerce-- and on through Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with their vast distribution warehouses.
"There are no buffer zones," said Gilbert Estrada, a teacher who co-founded the East Yard group with Logan. "We are the buffer zones."
Each year, pollution from ships, trucks and trains that move goods through the region contributes to an estimated 2,100 early deaths, 190,000 sick days for workers, and 360,000 school absences, according to the California Air Resources Board.
At a recent East Yard barbecue in Commerce's Bristow Park, hand-painted signs read "Salud Sí, Diesel No" -- Health Yes, Diesel No -- as a band played Mexican rancheras and trucks roared by on Interstate 5. Between a kids' finger-painting pavilion and a card table stacked with petitions, Logan, a soft-spoken man with a tidy beard, was working the hamburger line.
"We're having a demonstration on the 25th," he told Pepe Martinez, 44, a metal fabricator. "We're trying to stop the idling in the rail yards. Do you think you could come support us?"
Martinez said he would try. "I know people who live next to the yards," he added. The railroads "never turn those engines off, ever."
Logan headed for a banner-making table, where he showed Angel Armenta, an 11-year-old in a "Star Wars" T-shirt, how to smear black paint on a skull stencil. Logan drew two railroad-crossing signs for eyes, and showed the boy how to staple the banner to a stick. "Would you like to carry this at the demonstration?" he asked.
Armenta nodded vigorously.
Last year, 40% of the containerized cargo entering the United States flowed through the San Pedro Bay ports. That's $335 billion worth of goods, much of it from China and other Pacific Rim nations to be shipped over the Rockies.
Despite the current recession, the ports expect traffic to triple in coming decades -- a scenario that Logan calls "frightening." Like Lilliputians tying down Gulliver, community groups want to block a massive rail yard expansion and a new yard that city officials say will be the greenest ever built. And they are battling a plan to add eight to 10 lanes to the 710 Freeway.
Railroad officials say diesel emissions from their trains will drop by two-thirds by 2020 due to new regulations -- an assertion that Logan disputes.
Commerce is home to about 12,000 people and four rail yards, including BNSF Railway's Hobart facility, the world's busiest "intermodal" yard, which transfers 1.2 million containers a year between trucks and trains. Giant cranes stand in rows like sentinels. Tall poles bristle with flood lights. Blue chassis are piled three-high near a maintenance yard where engines are tested at high-throttle.
"There's stadium lighting, and so much noise and vibration 24/7 that people suffer sleep deprivation and hypertension, " Logan said on a recent tour of the neighborhood. "People worry the stucco's shaking off their houses."
In his red Prius ("I had to stop driving a clunker"), he swung by a battery plant that spews out lead particles, an incinerator served by 150 trash trucks a day, a pesticide distributor, chrome platers, auto body shops.
"Its not just one issue," he said. "All these things are bombarding us. . . . These neighborhoods are targets because there isn't a base of people demanding a clean environment."
In Bandini Park, big rigs on the freeway thundered past the basketball court, drowning out conversation. Logan pointed to the home of a volunteer whose funeral he recently attended. "She was ill, but she would always come to testify," he said. "Folks who never smoked a day come down with lung cancer, throat cancer."
Logan, who dresses in shirt sleeves and sneakers, is no firebrand. He speaks in an even, almost flat tone. He admits to frustration with "professionalized environmentalists" and air pollution bureaucracy.
"My trade is as a mechanic," he said. "It's fixing things. We're community people. We're practical. Enough talk. Let's take action."
His activism, he said, grew out of the influence of a Mexican American grandmother, who talked to him about social justice, and an Irish American grandfather, who took part in a mine workers strike.
As a young man, Logan joined a union, and eventually became an organizer for a statewide group, Communities for a Better Environment.
Eight years ago, he ran into an old friend at a sweatshop protest in a Glendale mall: Gilbert Estrada was working on a master's thesis on highway building through East L.A.'s Mexican neighborhoods. They traded tales of aching chests from air pollution, of chemical spills that sparked evacuations in elementary school, and of playing around 55-gallon drums marked with skulls and crossbones.
Logan told him, "I want to start an environmental justice group."
Soon they were passing out fliers. At first, Logan worked odd jobs as a handyman and financed East Yard activities out of his own pocket. "We were literally working out of the trunks of our cars," Estrada recalled.
It took more than a year to get their first grant, a small sum from the L.A.-based Liberty Hill Foundation. It allowed them to buy a computer.
East Yard now gets money from a dozen philanthropies, including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Annenberg Foundation. Its budget tops $400,000 a year.
Logan has also forged alliances with national groups, recently joining as co-plaintiff a Natural Resources Defense Council lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency. "Angelo is politically savvy," says NRDC attorney David Pettit. "People listen to him."
One city official, who asked not to be named, put it more bluntly: "The combination of the race card and NIMBYism is pretty potent."
Logan shrugs off the accusation. "NIMBYism is complicated," he said. "We're not interested in just saying 'Don't do it here.' We are saying, 'Don't do it in other oversaturated communities either.' "
At a recent community meeting, Logan held up a map of concentric circles showing cancer risk from rail yards. "I grew up here," he told the group. "Diesel soot is the No. 1 carcinogen. The dark circle has the highest level of cancer. That's where we are."
But Logan maintains cordial relations with adversaries. "Angelo is not dogmatic," said Kirk Marckwald, the railroads' Sacramento lobbyist who has sat across the table from Logan. "He honestly reviews technical complexities."
If Logan spends time these days strategizing, grant-writing and lobbying, it is partly because he can leave street-level duties to the loquacious Isella Ramirez, East Yard's 24-year-old lead organizer. Ramirez grew up in Commerce, where, she said, "The 5:30 train was my alarm clock."
She didn't think about pollution until she went to Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., on scholarship. "The word 'environmental' turned me off," she said. "You look at the sky. You think, 'Its fine.' Then I got to college and said, 'Oh, so this is what a blue sky looks like!' "
Wearing a short denim skirt and tights, a tattoo of a dragon-fly peeking out from her tank top, Ramirez marched from door to door on a hot afternoon last month. "Buenos días," she greeted a woman who opened the door a crack, with a suspicious look.
Ramirez launched into rapid-fire talking points in fluent Spanish. "We are the East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice . . . stop the idling near schools and homes . . . these yards are killing us . . . asthma . . . cancer . . . you can sign here . . ."
The woman signed her name. A train rumbled by, loaded with containers stamped "China Shipping."
"Allí van," the woman said -- "There they go" -- lifting her chin in a quick, contemptuous gesture.
On the corner of Noakes Street, Ana Godoy opened the gate to a yard filled with red and green play sets. This time, Ramirez's pitch was in English as she said that the state is considering rules to stop trains from idling.
Godoy's house is a soccer ball's kick away from where the 710, with an average of 50,000 truck trips a day, vaults the Union Pacific rail yard. Her two children, ages 2 and 4, have asthma. Her brother lives next door, with a teenage son who developed asthma after they moved here from Downey.
The trains "park here and let this crap out," she said. She keeps her windows closed. Amid the vibrations of trucks and trains, "we can't even feel the earthquakes."
Meanwhile, Logan slogs through meetings with local mayors, engineers and state policymakers on the intricacies of pollution regulations. He sits on a half-dozen official committees. He pops up to Sacramento on a regular basis.
Recently, a port official told him flatly, "What poor people want is jobs."
But Logan mused, "I don't know if he knows what it's like to be poor. Or to be poor and sick. If you don't have your health, what do you have? The construction jobs are temporary. The permanent jobs are minimal."
Back when he was a factory worker, Logan thought environmentalism was "about saving the whales."
Now he defines it in terms of local victories: stopping the expansion of a rail yard in Bell, a hazardous-waste plant in Commerce, or even saving the neighborhood's old ficus trees from being razed.
More broadly, he credits environmental justice groups with "changing the mentality. Before we got engaged, people weren't saying, 'Let's make this the cleanest, greenest city.' That came about because people in power had to respond to the anger."
Nonetheless, Logan admits to feeling "overwhelmed" most of the time. "We're up against huge forces. The railroads, the shippers, the Wal-Marts, companies with money and lobbyists and PR firms."
As for moving where the air might be cleaner, the working-class families can't afford it, Logan said. "And they feel: 'Why should we move? Why can't industry be a good neighbor?' "
"I don't think we'll ever get back to a point where it's pristine. But this is home."
Will California crack down on rail-yard pollution?...Margot Roosevelt...9-23-09
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/09/railyard-pollution-california.html
Will California crack down on toxic pollution from rail yards? Community and public health groups are planning a demonstration at Friday's Air Resources Board meeting in Diamond Bar to demand that the state enact tough regulations on the California's 18 rail yards.
Trucks, trains and cargo-handling equipment spewing diesel emissions in the yards have caused high cancer risks, according to recent studies.
Southern California authorities passed anti-idling rules on locomotives three years ago, but Union Pacific Railway and BNSF Railway got them overturned in court.
Railroads contend that state and local authorities have little power over them because they are part of the federally regulated interstate commerce system. They have signed voluntary agreements to reduce their pollution in California.
But community groups such as the Commerce-based East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice want the state to subsidize the purchase of cleaner locomotives and enact strict anti-idling rules. Rail yard gates, where trucks idle in long lines, should be relocated away from schools and homes, they say.
The Air Resources Board will examine detailed options at its meeting and hear testimony from the public and the railroads.
Environmental justice groups are battling pollution not just from rail yards but from the massive goods movement activities at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which handle 40% of the nation's containerized imports. Read more and watch the video above.
CNN Money
Existing home sales slide unexpectedly
The report breaks a four-month streak of increases with a dip of 2.7% in August...Julianne Pepitone
http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/24/real_estate/existing_home_
sales/index.htm?postversion=2009092411
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Existing home sales fell in August, snapping a four-month streak of increases, according to a report released Thursday.
Sales of previously-owned homes fell 2.7% last month from July, but were up 3.4% from a year ago, said the National Association of Realtors.
Sales had jumped 15.2% in the previous four months.
"This is an unpleasant surprise," said Ian Shepherdson, economist at High Frequency Economics, in a research note.
The NAR report said August home sales hit a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million units, down from 5.24 million in July. That's well below the analyst consensus estimate of 5.35 million annual units compiled by Briefing.com.
Shepherdson noted that the July pending sales index, which had been a good predictor of actual sales lately, pointed to sales hitting 5.4 million units or even more.
"The gap between the two numbers is not unprecedented, but we had hoped for better," he said.
The August numbers fell despite low mortgage rates, as well as home prices that have come down significantly in the past year.
"The decline demonstrates we can't take a housing rebound for granted," Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, in a prepared statement.
The median price of homes sold in August was just $177,700, a 12.5% year-over-year drop.
Foreclosures.The NAR report said distressed properties, which include foreclosures and short sales, are pushing down the median price because they typically sell for 15-20% less than traditional homes. Distressed property sales comprised 31% of home resales in August.
But low prices and distressed sales don't explain the sudden sales dip, said High Frequency Economics analyst Shepherdson. "[The August report] could just be noise; we await the next pending sales index with some trepidation."
NAR's Yun said the Obama administration should extend the $8,000 tax credit it made available for qualified first-time home buyers, to help boost sales. That credit is currently slated to expire on December 1.
"With an expected rise in foreclosures over the next 12 months we need to maintain a healthy level of ready buyers to absorb the inventory," Yun said in a statement.
Despite the decrease in sales, the supply of homes on the market fell significantly in August. Total housing inventory fell by 10.8% to 3.62 million existing homes for sale. That's an 8.5-month supply, down from a 9.3-month supply in July.
Where homes are selling.Regionally, the Northeast saw the smallest dip in sales, down 2.2% to an annualized rate of 910,000 homes in August. That was 5.8% higher than last year's rate. The median price of homes sold during the month was $241,100, down 10.5% from last year.
In the West, sales fell by 2.7% to a rate of 1.16 million, which was 7.4% higher year-over-year. Prices there have sunk 12.2% since 2008 to a median of $220,500.
Sales in the South were down 3.1% from July to a rate of 1.89 million. That's up 1.6% from August 2008. Since that time, home prices have dropped 11% to $157,400.
The Midwest market fared the worst last month, with existing home sales down 6.6% from July to a rate of 1.14 million, unchanged from a year ago. The median price there was $149,900, down 10.4% from last year.
Anti Corruption Republican
John Doolittle's Official Action...9-23-09
http://anticorruptionrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/09/john-doolittles-official-action.html
It's hard to keep up with National Journal's Beth Sussman. In a second report today, Ms. Sussman describes Todd Boulanger's afternoon testimony.
We're not going to tell you a lot about this report; please click through to read all the facts. We just wonder if Ms. Sussman didn't bury the lede:
Boulanger also described Ring's relationship with former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., for whom Ring worked as a staffer before becoming a lobbyist. Boulanger said Doolittle helped Ring on issues that were not relevant to his constituents and that were not consistent with his philosophical beliefs -- like reopening a Native American casino in Iowa -- "because of Kevin's involvement." The prosecution claims that members of Doolittle's staff, though not Doolittle himself, received tickets and meals from Ring.
Emphasis in original
The ACR Blog disagrees with Mr. Boulanger's statement that Mr. Doolittle's assistance to Mr. Ring was not consistent with his philosophical beliefs. As Mr. Doolittle's underlying philosophy was to look out for good ol' #1, his actions were 100% in line with his philosophical beliefs. We know that Messrs. Doolittle, Boulanger and Ring styled themselves as philosophical conservatives. They weren't. When it comes to the Abramoff scandal, it is virtually impossible to find any act that was philosophically conservative. Morally corrupt and ethically bankrupt are certainly more appropriate descriptors.
In the opinion of the ACR Blog, Todd Boulanger's testimony seems to describe a specific instance (intervening to reopen the Iowa casino) where Mr. Doolittle performed an official action in response to a request from Team Abramoff. We just need to connect that official action to an illicit stream of things of value. Ms. Sussman reports that, unlike many other people in this scandal, Mr. Doolittle didn't receive tickets¹. I wonder if prosecutors will be able to prove Mr. Doolittle received an illicit stream of things of value. Since it may not have been tickets, maybe Mr. Doolittle convinced Jack Abramoff to hire his wife for $5,000 per month while doing little or no work. Naw ... that would be absurd!

A 2004 check from Greenberg Traurig to Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, Mrs. Doolittle's "company". Amount: $5,000
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Be sure to visit our friend Wendy at Unheard No More! She's writing about the Ring trial, too, with a special emphasis on the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands.
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¹ The ACR Blog believes that Mr. Doolittle may have actually received tickets from Team Abramoff. In GX398, Mr. Ring suggests to Mr. Abramoff that Mr. Doolittle deserves tickets to an Eagles concert over Rep. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.). We don't know if Mr. Doolittle actually attended the concert. However, when attorneys were discussing GX425 at the August 13 status conference, U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle asked if Mr. Doolittle had received "tickets and meals". Prosecutors confirmed that Mr. Doolittle had received such items.
National Journal
Jury Watches DoJ Official Using Ring's Tickets...Beth Sussman
http://undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com/2009/09/jury-watches.php
The court watched a little basketball today in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, as the prosecution tried to demonstrate the value of the tickets they allege Ring swapped for favors from officials.
Todd Boulanger, a former lobbying associate of Ring and Abramoff, identified Robert Coughlin on video watching Michael Jordan from seats a few rows behind the basket at a Washington Wizards game. In e-mail evidence, Coughlin, a former liaison in the Department of Justice's Office of Legislative Affairs, asked Ring for basketball tickets.
According to evidence, Coughlin assisted Ring and "Team Abramoff" with information on how to obtain a jail-building grant from the Department of Justice for one of their clients, the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians. The Department of Justice had approved a grant of $9 million for the jail, but the tribe wanted $16 million.
The jail project was the most important project for the Choctaw, and the tribe was one of Team Abramoff's most important clients, Boulanger said in testimony today. The tribe paid the lobbying firm about $120,000 every month, he reported.
The Choctaw tribe was "the tip of the spear in attracting other clients," and Team Abramoff "opened the floodgates" and used all available tools -- including giving tickets, meals and drinks to public officials -- to get the tribe their desired funding for the jail, Boulanger said.
"We could use [information Coughlin gave us] as a basis for strategy moving forward," Boulanger said in explaining how he assisted the lobbying team in getting the full jail funding approved.
Coughlin pleaded guilty in April 2008 for his involvement in the Abramoff scandal. He is not expected to testify in the Ring trial.
Boulanger also described Ring's relationship with former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., for whom Ring worked as a staffer before becoming a lobbyist. Boulanger said Doolittle helped Ring on issues that were not relevant to his constituents and that were not consistent with his philosophical beliefs -- like reopening a Native American casino in Iowa -- "because of Kevin's involvement." The prosecution claims that members of Doolittle's staff, though not Doolittle himself, received tickets and meals from Ring.
Boulanger's testimony will continue tomorrow.