12-20-08

 12-20-08Merced Sun-StarUC Merced researcher earns national honor for work on environment...Danielle Gaineshttp://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/603494.htmlA UC Merced professor has been awarded the U.S. government's highest honor for scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. Monica Medina, an assistant professor in the School of Natural Sciences, traveled to the White House on Monday to accept the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Nine federal departments and agencies annually nominate scientists and engineers whose work shows exceptional promise for leadership at the frontiers of scientific knowledge.Medina is one of 20 winners nominated by the National Science Foundation, which also awarded her a $361,238 grant earlier this year. She will use the money to fund her work for the next five years. "It's an amazing recognition," Medina said in a press release from UC Merced. "Besides validating my work, I feel with this award, NSF and the White House are recognizing the importance of basic research on topics related to climate change."Medina's research examines how environmental changes, such as elevated water temperatures and toxic pollution, are affecting coral reefs, and how to conserve the endangered marine habitats.Medina and eight other University of California scientists were among the 67 winners announced Monday. She is the second winner in the history of UC Merced.Shawn Newsam, an assistant professor in the School of Engineering, received the award last year."UC Merced has received this honor two years in a row," Dean Maria Pallavicini of the School of Natural Sciences said in a statement. "This is a remarkable testament to the world-class talent of our faculty and the research environment at UC Merced." Former UC Merced student gets five years in 'Super Meth' caseJason West stole thousands of dollars of lab equipment from the campus to manufacture methamphetamine...Jonah Owen Lambhttp://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/603526.htmlFormer UC student gets 5-year sentenceJason West, a former UC Merced doctoral candidate who stole thousands of dollars of laboratory equipment from the university to manufacture methamphetamine, has been sentenced to more than five years in prison. "I think the outcome was fair. I think the court did the appropriate thing considering the defendant was put in a position of trust out at UC Merced," said Steven Slocum, the prosecuting deputy district attorney on the case.West, who was sentenced in Merced County Superior Court, could have been sentenced to rehabilitation, but since he had prior convictions of theft and meth use, said Slocum, he was sentenced to prison time. West was arrested in August and charged with stealing more than $6,000 and conspiring to manufacture more than a pound of meth.West's lawyers could not be reached for comment.Modesto BeeOutlook for jobs worsens in Stanislaus County...John Holland. The Associated Press contributed to this reporthttp://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/539541.htmlThe recession dug deeper into Stanislaus County last month, sending the jobless rate to a nearly 10-year high of 12.4 percent, the state reported Friday.It was the county's highest monthly rate since the 12.8 percent of January 1999 and the worst November since the 12.5 percent in 1997.Nearby counties and the state also continued to lose jobs, according to the monthly report from the California Employment Development Department."It's terrible," said Joe Peggram of Modesto as he worked on his résumé Friday at the EDD office in downtown Modesto."I was a forklift operator and there's nothing out there right now," said Peggram, 38, who has just finished training for a new career as a truck driver."Slow; very slow" was Aaron Stokes' description of the job market as he searched for work at the same Modesto office."I am a certified welder and a certified forklift operator," the 21-year-old Modestan said. "They're not building a lot of steel buildings right now."Stanislaus County's jobless rate was up from 11.8 percent in October, which can be partly explained by the annual decline in farm and food processing jobs.A year-over-year look reveals the larger economic trouble. In November 2007, the county's unemployment rate stood at 9 percent. It was just 7.6 percent a year before that.The collapse of the housing market in the past three years bears much of the blame. Real estate agents, builders and people in related businesses have lost jobs."Those industries, of course, are related to the housing and credit crisis," said Liz Baker, a labor market analyst for the EDD.She also noted that government has shed jobs because of budget cuts. Retail, however, was up in November, a sign that holiday season hiring was stronger than experts had projected, she said.Kaiser one bright spot Health care gained 300 jobs in the county over the year. That can be attributed mainly to the new Kaiser Permanente hospital in Modesto, said Randy Svedbeck, a research manager for the Stan- islaus Economic Development and Workforce Alliance.Still, the overall numbers, although not good news to job seekers, are well down from the early and mid-1990s, when unemployment sometimes hit the high teens."I think over time, it became more balanced," said Svedbeck, referring to the diversity of the economy.San Joaquin County had 11.9 percent unemployment last month, its worst since hitting 12.9 percent in January 1998.Merced County was at 13.3 percent last month, down from the year's high of 13.6 percent in March but still well up from the 10.1 percent a year earlier.Tuolumne County's rate last month was 8.8 percent, the worst since the 9.2 percent in February 1999.Statewide, the jobless rate was 8.4 percent in November, the highest since the 8.5 percent in January 1996. The national rate was 6.7 percent, a 15-year high.The jump in joblessness comes as California's unemployment insurance fund teeters on the brink of insolvency. The fund is expected to have a deficit of $2.4 billion at the end of 2009.To keep unemployment checks coming, the state may have to borrow from the federal government for the second time since the program was established in the 1930s.Employment experts are hoping that the recession will end sometime in 2009."It's just something that we will have to continue to watch," Baker said, "and hope that businesses stay healthy in these tough economic times."Anti-nuclear dump petition filed...BRENDAN RILEY, Associated Press Writerhttp://www.modbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/538978.htmlA state petition listing more than 200 reasons for not opening a federal nuclear waste dump in southern Nevada was filed Friday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto.Among major concerns highlighted by Masto and other state officials at a news conference in Las Vegas was what they termed an incomplete and inadequate plan for shipping high-level radioactive waste across the country to the Yucca Mountain site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.Masto also said the U.S. Department of Energy has stated the dump would have "drip shields" to keep waste from contaminating the environment - but those shields have yet to be invented and might not be installed for a century."Nevada has been fighting the federal government on this issue for nearly 30 years and will continue all appropriate efforts to prevent this dangerously unsafe facility," Masto said.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is considering a license application from the DOE for the dump. If approved, it would be the first such project of its kind anywhere in the world. The NRC review will take up to four years.Nevada's petition also contends releases of radionuclides would be greater and occur much earlier than DOE claims; and that whole areas of relevant science have been excluded from consideration, including the potential for greenhouse gas-induced climate change.Masto said 229 arguments against the dump are listed in the state petition, which runs more than 1,200 pages."We needed hundreds of pages just to document the most blatant problems with DOE's application," Masto said. "Although Nevada has known for years about many of these problems, we are approaching a real time of reckoning."Yucca Mountain is an unsuitable and unsafe site, and transporting high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain from nuclear power plants and elsewhere is unsafe and unnecessary, especially when the waste can be safely stored where it is now," Masto added.The Energy Department wants to entomb at least 77,000 tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel at the site. But opponents of the project say they're confident President-elect Barack Obama will make good on a campaign promise to keep nuclear waste from being shipped to Nevada.U.S. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid is among Nevada elected leaders who oppose nuclear waste storage in the state.Nearly $14 billion already has been spent on the repository and the total cost is now pegged at $96.2 billion. The opening date has been pushed back repeatedly and the best-case scenario is now 2020, presuming Congress grants adequate funding - something Reid's opposition has prevented in recent years.On the Internet: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste. Bakersfield officials approve large subdivision...last updated: December 19, 2008 04:42:18 PMhttp://www.modbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/539294.htmlBakersfield city planners have approved a housing development that state wildlife officials are concerned could impact an endangered cactus.The Bakersfield Planning Commission voted 6-0 Thursday to approve crucial plans for the development of more than 1,300 homes on the city's northeast bluffs.In March, the California Department of Fish and Game said the subdivision known as The Canyons would wipe out about 100 Bakersfield cactus plants. The species is found only around the city.The city council will decide on the plan in February.Patterson IrrigatorCity holding out hope in West Park suit...James Leonard http://pattersonirrigator.com/content/view/2665/42/The city of Patterson suffered a blow in its lawsuit against the proposed West Park industrial development, but the city attorney remained hopeful that a Fresno County Superior Court judge would ultimately rule in the city’s favor.Judge Tyler Tharpe heard arguments and issued tentative rulings Tuesday regarding a motion brought by Stanislaus County and PCCP West Park LLC — the developer of the proposed 4,800-acre industrial park at the Crows Landing Air Facility — seeking to dismiss the city’s lawsuit.Tharpe’s final ruling was expected to be filed by the end of this week or early next week, but it had not been released as of press time .The city filed the suit May 14, claiming the county violated state law April 22 when supervisors voted to choose a master developer for the site and create a project description before an environmental impact report was complete. The environmental review is currently under way.Tharpe ruled tentatively Tuesday that the county entering into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the developer did not signify the commitment required to trigger the environmental review.But that was only half of the city’s argument. City attorney George Logan claims the county’s display of commitment to the project goes beyond the MOU to an application it turned in for bond money from the California Transportation Commission three months earlier. Logan said the application contains language that shows the county’s strong commitment to the project.The city claims that commitment should have triggered the full environmental review. And it believes a recent state Supreme Court decision supports that claim.On Oct. 30, the state Supreme Court ruled in the case Save Tara v. City of West Hollywood that the city violated state law by joining two developers and obtaining a federal grant for a senior citizen housing project before an environmental review had been completed.The ruling determined that a full environmental impact review must be completed at the time of a governmental agency’s earliest commitment to a project, rather than at its final approval.“In Save Tara, (West Hollywood) said ‘Just because we said we’re going to build this great apartment building and we’re all excited about it doesn’t mean we were committed to it,’” Logan said Wednesday. “The same argument was made here (on Tuesday). We shot that argument down with Save Tara.“I feel pretty good about the case, frankly.”The county and West Park disagree that any commitment was made.“There are no commitments,” West Park developer Gerry Kamilos said. “There hasn’t been a project decision that has been made that binds the county in any way.”County counsel John P. Doering said the process the county has undergone with West Park — selecting a developer, determining the project’s feasibility, etc. — is similar to what a landowner and developer would do in private before seeking governmental approval for a project. The only difference, he said, is that the county had to do it “out in the open.”Doering said the only actions the county took were done to get to the point where a full environmental review could be started. The only way to do that, he said, is to have a developer and a project description already in place. That, he argues, is all the county has done.“You have to study something,” Doering said. “That’s called a project description. I don’t know how you get to a project description without having done those things.“I guarantee you the city of Patterson, if we had done the (environmental review before developing a full project description), they would have argued that it was inadequate.”With the judge already having stated that the MOU itself was not a commitment that required an environmental impact report, the city turned its full attention to the CTC application.“When they made the application with the CTC, they were very specific about what the project entailed,” he said. “They said, ‘We’re committed to this project. Here’s where the train is going to go. Here’s where the freight is going to come in.’ And this was way back in January.“They had a specific program in place when they went to the CTC. They should have done the EIR then.”What the city stands to gain in the lawsuit remains to be seen. With the environmental review already ongoing, it’s unclear what effect a victory by the city would have.The city, concerned with the impact such a massive project would have, remains hopeful that a different or modified project will ultimately be chosen for the site.“It makes them back up and start all over again,” Logan said. “And if they back up and start all over again, they might not do it the same way.”Fresno BeeFresno County won't sue Madera CountyPlanners worried about 3,000-home development...Brad Brananhttp://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-print/story/1088397.htmlFresno County decided Friday not to sue its northern neighbor, Madera County, over a large housing project expected to increase traffic in both counties.Fresno County planners worry about how much traffic the development will add to Friant Road. But supervisors said a lawsuit would inflict further damage on an already weak housing market.Supervisors took the unusual step of holding a public meeting to discuss the possible lawsuit with those who would be affected, including developers and Madera County officials. Usually, potential litigation is discussed in closed session. They met briefly behind closed doors before announcing that they would not file a lawsuit over Madera County's recent approval of the 3,000-home development north of Millerton Lake.Under the California Environmental Quality Act, Fresno County has until Jan. 8 to challenge Madera County's approval of the development.Madera County hasn't provided enough information for Fresno County to measure traffic coming out of the new development, said interim Fresno County Administrative Officer John Navarrette.Navarrette said he will once again ask Madera County officials to consider signing a waiver that would give both sides time to resolve disagreements over the development.If Madera County doesn't agree, Navarrette said, he will ask the Fresno County Board of Supervisors once again to consider a court challenge.But Madera County Resource Management Agency director Ray Beach told the board Friday that Fresno County has all the information it needs to evaluate the project."We have got to move on," he said. "Suing doesn't help."Most Fresno County supervisors said they have no interest in suing Madera County. Board Chairman Henry Perea said Madera County would retaliate by filing suit against a future project in Fresno County -- and create a chilling effect in the housing industry.A similar situation happened in recent years between the city of Fresno and Madera County. Fresno sued Madera County over a proposed housing project, and then Madera County challenged the city's approvals of a shopping center and a housing development.All three lawsuits were related to traffic crossing the San Joaquin River into the two counties. They were all settled.Officials from both counties said Friday that they need to work on regional traffic solutions instead of filing lawsuits. Sacramento BeeConservation deal protects land between Folsom Lake, Auburn...Bob Walter http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/1488263.htmlTwo miles of frontage on the north fork of the American River and 558 acres of forest between the Auburn and Folsom Lake state recreation areas will be protected from development forever under a deal that closed this week.The American River Conservancy purchased a conservation easement for the land, part of the historic Garland Ranch in El Dorado County, conservancy director Alan Ehrgott said.The land is due east of the river, across the canyon from Auburn and immediately downstream from the old Auburn dam site. Ehrgott called the deal a major step toward the dream of a 16-mile trail corridor around the east side of Folsom Lake that would connect with the south fork of the American."This acquisition will help protect existing wildlife migration corridors, the quality of water flowing downstream to Sacramento and the potential for hiking, biking and equestrian trails in the future," he said.The conservancy did not purchase the land, Ehrgott explained, but paid the owners – the Richard Gutierrez family – $1.8 million for the rights to subdivide and develop the 558 acres. Those rights will be retired."We also bought the right to put in a passive recreational trail for hikers, equestrians and mountain bikers," Ehrgott said. The area will be closed for hunting and off-road vehicle use, he said.Most of the purchase price – almost $1.5 million – came from the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks and Coastal Protection Fund (Proposition 40). The rest of the money included a "generous donation" from the Gutierrez family, Ehrgott said.The Garland Ranch has three tributary streams, along with the frontage on the river. The ranch includes ponds that provide habitat for ducks and other migratory waterfowl.Gutierrez said his family agreed to sell the conservation easement to ensure that the land never would be subdivided into residential lots."We now know the wildlife it supports and its enduring beauty will be protected indefinitely," he said.The conservancy, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, is dedicated to protecting the water supply and wildlife habitat immediately upstream of Sacramento.The nonprofit has completed 71 conservation projects that protect more than 10,600 acres. The agency also operates the American River Nature Center in Coloma.Editorial: A new casino, more questionshttp://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1487753.htmlThis page has consistently opposed gambling, whether the state lottery or Indian casinos. The reason is simple. Gambling preys on the poor and the desperate. Sure, for some it is a harmless and enjoyable diversion, but for others it can be dangerously addictive. Rather than creating new wealth, it tends to move money around from one form of entertainment – movies, concerts, amusement parks, what have you – to another: gambling.That said, it's impossible to ignore the excitement and the economic jolt in the arm the opening of the Red Hawk Casino has provided for this region. California's newest Indian casino employs 1,750 people, 46 percent of them residents of El Dorado County. These are not all low-wage jobs. They range from busing tables to programming computers, from dealing cards to managing hotels. The jobs come with health benefits and paid vacations, perks that can't be taken for granted in our sagging economy.Businesses near the new casino hope to benefit too. Everything from grocery stores to gas stations to ski resorts expect a boost. So do local vendors. Red Hawk needs everything from food to light bulbs, toilet paper to tablecloths. The state gets something as well. The Shingle Springs Band of Wintun Indians, owner and operator of the casino, has negotiated a compact which requires the casino to pay California government 25 percent of the net win, the most generous share of profits the state has received from any of its other Indian gambling deals. After years of fighting the casino, El Dorado County officials have struck a local revenue sharing arrangement as well. The county will receive $5 million a year to help pay the increased cost for police, fire and other services the casino will generate.Some impacts can never be mitigated. The community around Red Hawk has lost the quiet of what was once a rural existence. Residents will have to get used to longer backups on Highway 50. A new interchange has been built for the casino, but construction has not yet begun on HOV lanes to ease congestion on the freeway.The big question remains, can gambling revenues continue to grow in a deepening recession? Historically, gambling has been more resistant to recession than other businesses, but the nation's current massive downturn is beginning to challenge even that industry. Nevada casinos have experienced a serious slump, with revenues falling substantially for the last 10 straight months. The recession accounts for part of the downturn, but competition from California's Indian casinos are also having a big impact.But how much more gambling can California and the Sacramento region absorb? In addition to Red Hawk, there are three other big Indian casinos within easy driving distance of Sacramento: Thunder Valley near Roseville, Cache Creek in Yolo County and Jackson Rancheria in Amador. Thunder Valley has already announced plans to scale back an expansion it planned earlier this year, a sign that a limit may have been reached.Red Hawk Casino is betting that it can survive the slump and compete successfully against other gambling palaces whether in Nevada or California. Judging by the size of the crowds that have descended in the first few days, Red Hawk has been dealt a good first hand. Stockton RecordS.J. County's jobless rate risesEven traditionally healthy industries seeing a slowdown...Bruce Spencehttp://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081220/A_BIZ/812200310Unemployment in San Joaquin County took a seasonal jump to 11.9 percent in November, up from 11.1 percent in October, most of that in farming and farm-related manufacturing job losses, the state Employment Development Department said Friday in its monthly report. The state's jobless figure also rose.More telling, though, is year-to-year employment slippage in the county that reflects the recession over the past year.Job losses have piled up not only in the expected sectors of construction and financial activities (each down 700), professional business services (down 400), and leisure and hospitality (down 500), but also in usually solid employment areas of government (down 1,200), and education and health services (down 200)."It's not a good jobs report," said Jeff Michael, director of University of the Pacific's Business Forecasting Center."We think it's going to be terrible, and it doesn't disappoint," Michael said. ... I can't point to any single sector as a catastrophe, but, overall, there's nothing positive on the Stockton report. It's pretty broad-based."Even usually dependable health care is flat for employment year to year, he said.The declines continued to accelerate since late summer, he said.Earlier this year, the story behind rising unemployment was rapid labor force growth of about 3 percent paired with slow job growth of about 0.5 percent, Michael said. Now employment has started declining.The EDD report showed employment fell from 271,600 in San Joaquin County to 268,600, a decline of 1.1 percent."And that's a bigger concern when you see the unemployment rate rising," he said.EDD market analyst Liz Baker said that although an unemployment rate increase is typical for the county from October to November, the last time the jobless rate rose to this height was March 1998, when the unemployment level hit 12.4 percent."It's not just people working in the seasonal industries, such as farming and manufacturing; it's across the board - construction, finance, all those impacted by the financial crisis," she said.For some local businesses, the economic downturn has been inflicting pain for the past year and a half or so.Carl's Restaurant & Catering, at 3455 Cherokee Road near Highway 99, is running with reduced staffing of 15, down several employees and no longer stays open for dinner service, owner Carl Nahigian said."Absolutely, it's the economy," he said.With much of his business typically coming from hungry construction workers, he said, business started dipping hard about 18 months ago. Then, earlier, this year, soaring gas prices pounded business again.He's actually seen an upward spike in business in recent weeks, he believes due to plummeting gas prices."When they have that money in their pocket, it's discretionary income, and they go out and eat," Nahigian said.He said that as tough as it's been, the 55-year-old business will keep chugging along."You do what you have to do to get through it," he said. "We'll figure it out. I have an apron on as we speak, and I'm doing payroll. If you can make it through this year, you can make it through anything."Meanwhile, California's unemployment rate rose to 8.4 percent in November, up from 8.2 percent in October. That reflects a loss of 41,700 nonfarm jobs during the month, EDD reported.The biggest losers were construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; financial activities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and government. Those sectors reported job declines this month totaling 52,500 jobs.The state report said that of 1,562,000 unemployed people in California last month, 679,200 were laid off, and 97,200 left their jobs voluntarily.The U.S. jobless rate also rose by 0.2 percent for the month, to 6.7 percent. The nation lost 533,000 jobs in November, its largest monthly job loss in nearly 34 years.Because phone lines tend to get busy, the EDD encourages those who needs to file for unemployment benefits to do so online by going to www.edd.ca.gov/uirep/uiappind.htm. Tracy PressA premature postmortem on Ellis...Jon Mendelson Columnist Jon Mendelson says it's too early to pass full judgement on the Ellis project, but right now, it looks like the city might get less than it bargained for.http://tracypress.com/content/view/16791/2244/In retrospect, Wednesday’s early-morning vote by the City Council was not so much an if, but a when. A true fait accompli. At least that’s the impression left after the vote that gave the go-ahead for both the housing development and an agreement between the city and The Surland Cos. for an aquatics center, an agreement the Tracy Planning Commission chairman said should be renegotiated on the grounds that there were too many "special interests" involved. That didn’t happen, and Ellis will be set in stone if the Local Agency Formation Commission gives Tracy the green light to annex the land into the city. But just because the project’s approval seemed preordained isn’t to say it will be a failure or disaster. On its own, the Ellis project looks like a jewel. It contains land for a transit station that can connect residents to Tracer or the Altamont Commuter Express, its neighborhoods are built on a "village" model, and it includes a mix of housing densities as well as a new zoning designation that could give the city more flexibility to mix commerce and housing. In other words, there is reason to be optimistic. Of course, Ellis will not exist on its own. It’s part of a much larger city. Here’s where things get sticky. This is where many reasons were found to oppose Ellis’ approval, the most relevant of which was that the city should take care of growth it’s already created before it OKs an expansion of more than 2,000 houses. Fire department response times need improvement. Building the city’s business base needs more attention. Public transit must be expanded. All are wants that stem in part from a past that favored the quick high of single-family residential expansion over sustainable economic development. Despite its many selling points, Ellis, with its overall emphasis on housing, seems to be a continuation of that past rather than a radical step in a new direction. And it will have its own far-reaching impacts that won’t be realized until much later. But that isn’t the most mystifying part of Wednesday’s council decision. We figured Ellis would happen in one form or another. What’s truly confusing is the aquatics park agreement attached to the project like a pork-barrel bridge to nowhere. There were arguments in favor of Ellis: Its location fit the city’s planned direction of growth, the city would need to approve more houses eventually, Surland’s Redbridge is a preview of how good Ellis could be. There were far fewer reasons to support this incarnation of the aquatics agreement. As approved, the city gets 16 acres and $10 million to build pools and other water attractions within the Ellis project. Sounds nice. But the money is a one-time deal. Maintenance and operational costs for the park must come from deficit-stretched city coffers, or money must be set aside from the initial $10 million to fund future upkeep — which means much less to spend on a competition pool, wave rider or lazy river. The land also comes with restrictions. As in, if construction on the park doesn’t begin within two years of the land being annexed into the city, Surland gets the land back, no compensation required. Given the economic climate predicted for the foreseeable future — a consultant has already brought up the option of closing the no-frills Joe Wilson Pool to save money — it’s entirely possible Surland will recoup the land and fill it with more houses, and Tracy will again start the search for a long-promised aquatics center. It’s so possible, a residential street plan for the 16 acres has already been designed. Seems like Tracy got the short end of that developer deal. All this supposition, of course, is subject to change. A complete postmortem on Ellis is premature — the body has barely been born, let alone grown cold. But from the looks of things right now, the city might get a whole lot less than it bargained for. Who's on First?...Steve Abercrombie Councilman Steve Abercrombie wants to know who's really behind a group that calls itself Tracy First.Steve Abercrombie has served on the Tracy City Council since 2006. He’s a D.A.R.E. officer, high school teacher and retired Hayward police officer who’s lived in Tracy for almost 20 years.http://tracypress.com/content/view/16789/2244/The line "Who’s on first?" was made famous 50 years ago by the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The joke is based on Abbott being the manager of a baseball team consisting of players with unusual names. The first baseman’s name is Who. The second baseman’s name is What, and the third baseman’s name is I Don’t Know. Costello gets more and more frustrated as his partner tells him the players’ names. Well, here in Tracy, we are facing the same comedy routine with an organization named Tracy First. When you hear the title, "Tracy First," you get the impression that this is a group of community activists that wants what is best for Tracy. However, that does not seem to be the case. We have heard from this group on only two occasions. The first time was when WinCo, a big-box grocery store, wanted to build in Tracy. People who identified themselves as members of Tracy First attended a City Council meeting and requested that the council members vote no on the WinCo development. The council approved the WinCo development, 3-2. Unfortunately, the project has been held up in court for almost two years because of legal challenges filed by Tracy First. Tracy First appeared again at the public hearings regarding Wal-Mart. The members and an attorney representing Tracy First once again requested that the council vote no on the Wal-Mart expansion. During the hearing, one council member asked a gentleman, who had identified himself as a member of Tracy First, "Who is Tracy First?" The gentleman was evasive in answering the question before admitting he did not know the answer. He later admitted to the council member that he was hired by Tracy First to oppose Wal-Mart. At the same hearing, an attorney for Tracy First advised the council member that Tracy First is made of taxpayers and voters. This basically eliminates only plants, animals and minerals. The council approved the Wal-Mart expansion, 3-1. Once again, this project is being delayed by a legal challenged filed by — yep, you guessed it — Tracy First. It is represented by an attorney who delayed the Wal-Mart expansion in Bakersfield for seven years. I wonder how long this expansion will be fought in court. I am not opposed to organizations that disagree with the direction of the council. Disagreements are good for any conversation. It allows people to look at all the facts and hopefully come to the best decision for the city. The difference is that with most organizations, you know who they are and how to contact them if you want to discuss the issues. This does not appear to be the case with Tracy First. As a council member, I want to attend one of Tracy First’s meetings. I believe it is the duty of council members to hear both sides of issues. If Tracy First truly does exist, I am open to meet with them. This would give me the opportunity to find out if they truly put the needs of Tracy first. San Francisco ChronicleNewsom signs bill for water system upgrade...(12-19) 22:04 PST San Francisco, CA (AP)http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/19/state/n220419S80.DTL&type=printableA plan to upgrade the water system that supplies more than two million people in the San Francisco Bay Area with drinking water is moving forward.Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a bill Friday that appropriates $1.9 billion for the $4.4 billion Water System Improvement Program, which was passed by voters.City officials say the money approved Friday will be used to build pipelines, tunnels, pump stations and dams in six Bay Area and Central Valley counties over the next 18 months. It is expected to generate 28,000 jobs.Supporters of the $4.4 billion plan, which includes dozens of individual projects, say it's needed to keep the system safe in case of a major earthquake or drought.The system draws water from Yosemite National Park's Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.Coal's Bait And Switch...Cameron Scott, The Thin Green Linehttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=49&entry_id=33822The coal industry has claimed that soon-to-come carbon capture and storage technologies will make coal a safe source of energy even in a warming world. But don't ask them to prove it. Big Coal successfully lobbied the EPA not to consider potential greenhouse gas emissions when approving applications for new coal plants. The decision was yet another one issued by Bush flunkie Stephen Johnson in defiance of the advice of career regulators. Environmentalists fear that the decision will clear the way for quick and dirty approval of a handful of new coal-fired power plants in the waning days of the Bush administration. And that's exactly what Big Coal is counting on. Once the plants are operational, they can begin lobbying against the carbon capture that they themselves have been touting in order to get the plants approved. (By the way, notice that the NY Times article quotes Bruce Nilles, who has a reader blog here on SFGreen.)This is a startlingly clear example of the Bush administration's willingness to throw the public to the wolves in order to give some plum parting gifts to its friends in industry. Shouldn't some article of the constitution protect us from laws that are so flagrantly contrary to public interest? Amazon pollution case could cost Chevron billions...FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer. Associated Press writer Jeanneth Valdivieso in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/20/international/i102751S74.DTL&type=printableWhen the sun beats particularly hot on this land in the middle of the jungle, the roads sweat petroleum.A Rhode Island-sized expanse of what was once pristine Amazon rainforest is crisscrossed with oil wells and pipeline grids built by Texaco Inc. a generation ago. And for the past 15 years, a class-action lawsuit has been winding its way through the courts on behalf of the more than 125,000 people who drink, bathe, fish and wash their clothes in tainted headwaters of the Amazon River.Now a single judge is expected to rule in the case in 2009 from a ramshackle courtroom in this northern frontier town. Statements from a court-appointed expert suggest Chevron Corp. — which bought Texaco in 2001 — will be held responsible for the many oil spills and dumping of wastewater. If Chevron loses, it could be ordered to pay up to $27.3 billion in damages, though an appeal would be likely.The expert, geological engineer Richard Cabrera, largely accepts plaintiffs' claims that Texaco left a mess when it left in the early 1990s. He is recommending damages based partly on his calculation of 1,401 pollution-caused cancer deaths.Chevron does not deny "the presence of pollution and we don't deny that there were impacts," says spokesman Kent Robertson. But Chevron contends a 1998 agreement that Texaco signed with Ecuador, after spending $40 million on remediation, absolves it of any legal responsibility. It says, and few dispute, that its former partner, state oil company Petroecuador, kept polluting after Texaco departed.-----When Donald Moncayo was a kid, he remembers, Texaco soaked the dirt thoroughfares it cut through the jungle with crude to keep dust down."We would run on roads they coated with oil," he says. "We went to sleep with our feet black. You could only remove it with gasoline."Pipelines across the area connected the wells to the 313-mile Trans-Ecuadorean Pipeline built by Texaco to carry crude to the Pacific. Moncayo, 35, can't remember when the pipelines weren't springing leaks.His mother died in 1987 from an internal infection he blames on oil contamination. Now he works for the plaintiffs, taking visitors on "toxic tours."One of the first stops is a fresh spill. It's little more than 50 gallons, dark and gooey. Bigger spills have smothered crops, choked birds, killed cattle.In the early days of the oil bonanza, Ecuador's government encouraged people to settle in the oil patch by offering free homesteads. But it provided almost no services — hardly any of the area's drinking water is treated.Ecuadorean governments reaped the wealth of Texaco's jungle project, with gross domestic product more than tripling from 1972 to 1977. By the time Texaco departed, the consortium it headed had extracted nearly 1.5 billion barrels of oil from more than 350 wells.In the meantime, Ecuadorean oil field workers slathered the crude on their legs, believing it cured rheumatism. Some coated their scalps because American supervisors told them the crude warded off baldness, they said."They were pulling our legs," recalls Margarita Yepez, a former Texaco social worker who believes such careless exposure to crude killed some of her colleagues. "What did we know? They were the experts."The plaintiffs say Texaco saved $8-$10 a barrel by dumping some 18 billion gallons of the wastewater from drilling and extraction into waste pits instead of re-injecting it back deep into the ground. The more than 1,000 waste pits were not lined, so the toxins seeped into the groundwater, they say.The plaintiffs also allege the company poisoned the air by burning off natural gas and set fire to solid wastes during the 1990s remediation. They say they found a July 1972 Texaco memo that orders the company's acting manager in Ecuador to report only major spills and destroy "all previous reports" on spills.One of the memo's two authors is Robert M. Bischoff, then Texaco's chief for Latin America. He retired in 1984."I don't remember that," Bischoff, 89, told the AP by phone from Florida. "In all my years with Texaco, and I was with them 40 years, I was never asked to do anything that I'd be ashamed of."If the plaintiffs win, according to their lead attorney, Pablo Fajardo, residents will finally get a potable water distribution system and basic health care. But should Chevron have to underwrite the creation of services that no government bothered to offer?"It's a bit of opportunism and a bit of populism rolled into one," says Robertson.Ironically, it was Texaco that first pushed to get the case heard in Ecuador. It argued that a federal court in New York — where Texaco was based — was not the appropriate venue, and that Ecuador's judicial system was reliable and independent. The New York judge threw the case out and in 2003 it was refiled in Lago Agrio.But Rafael Correa was elected president in 2006, and everything changed. Chevron says it can't get a fair trial as long as he is running Ecuador.Last year, Correa led reporters on a tour of former drilling sites, declaring there had been no cleanup. The leftist U.S.-trained economist has expelled foreign oil companies that won't agree to his profit-sharing terms. And in August, Ecuador ordered a criminal investigation of two longtime Chevron executives and seven former government officials for allegedly falsifying the documents that endorsed Texaco's remediation.Chevron also complains vehemently that court-appointed expert Cabrera is a stooge of the plaintiffs. "He's put blinders on and says all conditions today are attributable to Chevron," says Robertson.The presiding judge, Juan Evangelista Nunez, denies he'd bow to political pressure."The only truth that is constant in this case is that there will be no political influence of any kind here," he told the AP.-----One stop on Moncayo's "toxic tour" is Campo Aguarico 2, a well he says was sealed in 1985. Its three wastewater pits were topped off with dirt during Texaco's cleanup.Moncayo plunges a surgical glove-sheathed hand into the muck of one pit. He pulls up rancid, oil-coated leaves from surrounding saplings. A pipe juts out of another pit, dripping what looks like crystalline water that reeks of petroleum hydrocarbons.Cabrera's 14-member team of scientists and engineers found petroleum hydrocarbons at levels deemed unsafe by national standards in 44 percent of the water samples it tested. It found cadmium, barium, lead and other heavy metals in the mud of wastewater pits, and said 80 percent require cleanup.The team cited scientific studies that found cancer levels nearly twice Ecuador's norm, with stomach and uterine cancer the most common followed by leukemia. Chevron disputes the findings as based on unrepresentative samples and says the region's cancer rates are no higher than the countrywide norm.The chief doctor in Shushufindi, Fajardo's hometown, is troubled that more comprehensive studies haven't been done. Dr. Jorge Herrera says spontaneous abortions, respiratory infections, skin rashes and chronic gastritis are common.The "toxic tour" stops to pick up Carmen Perez, a 57-year-old public health worker who lives about 455 yards from a capped well — No. 56, La Primavera. The well water her family drinks has an acrid taste, she says, and her five children constantly suffer gastric pain."What we have here is slow but certain death," Perez says as she pokes with a stick around the edge of an open wastewater pond.So why don't they move away?"We can't afford to."Walking away from the pond, the tourists look up at plump guayaba fruits hanging from a tree. They look tempting."Better not," says Moncayo.Activist sends oil-lease auction into tizzy...Associated Presshttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/20/MN2P14RGFK.DTL&type=printableAn environmental activist undermined an auction of oil and gas drilling leases Friday by bidding up parcels of land by hundreds of thousands of dollars without any intention of paying for them, a federal official said.The process was thrown into chaos and the bidding halted for a time before the auction was closed, with parcels totaling 148,598 acres having sold for $7.2 million plus fees.Buyers will have 10 days to reconsider and withdraw their bids, said Kent Hoffman, deputy state director for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Utah. "He's tainted the entire auction," Hoffman said.Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah student, said his plan was to disrupt the auction. He won the bidding on 13 parcels, auction records show, and drove up the price of several other pieces of land."I thought I could be effective by making bids, driving up prices for others and winning some bids myself," the Salt Lake City man said.Some bidders said they were forced to bid thousands of dollars more for their parcels, while others fumed that they lost their bids. Some also said they may reluctantly hold on to their leases - despite the higher cost - out of concern that the parcels might not go up for auction again under President-elect Barack Obama's administration.BLM criminal investigators questioned DeChristopher, who says he expects to be charged. He was released and the case was referred to federal prosecutors, said Melodie Rydalch, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office.DeChristopher snapped up 22,500 acres of land around Arches and Canyonlands parks. He owes $1.7 million on all of his leases.The sale of the leases has drawn complaints from environmental groups and scathing criticism from actor Robert Redford. Activists said the sale would threaten Utah's wild lands and drilling rigs would spoil the view from some of the state's spectacular national parks.Inside Bay AreaDespite legal obstacles, Delta College trustees keep options open...Mike Martinez, San Joaquin Heraldhttp://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_11273894STOCKTON — Despite receiving some letters threatening legal action if it doesn't fulfill a promise to build a campus in Mountain House, the new San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees is looking at its options.On Tuesday, the first meeting since new members were elected — three campaigned on a platform of moving the proposed campus out of Mountain House — staff gave the trustees a long and complicated history lesson about the prior board's dealings with developers and other elected bodies.In January, the board is expected to discuss the legal obstacles it faces if it decides to build a campus in Tracy, thus abandoning the current site (at a loss of $21 million) north of Interstate 205 just before the Alameda County border.The board faces at least an additional $20 million in challenges from a laundry list of opponents to this idea, including the original property owners who sold to the college under the threat of eminent domain.A letter from Charles Trainor, the Sacramento attorney representing Gerry Kamilos, the developer of College Park at Mountain House, says while they recognize the college's current financial limitation, they do not consider permanent portable structures as fulfilling the requirement to build a campus in Mountain House.The developer would seek reimbursement of nearly $19 million from the college plus "inestimable related damages" if the college breaches its agreement."Despite certain Trustee statements, at this time, nothing will be served by dropping the Mountain House site and beginning the process anew for another campus," Trainor wrote. "That will simply increase the College's costs and further delay the opening of a campus in the South County." The college board initially revived talks about building a campus at 11th Street and Chrisman Road in Tracy during a closed session in 2006, at which it was revealed that Kamilos was in danger of failing to deliver a letter of credit on time.A June report from a San Joaquin County civil grand jury said that on the day after the closed-session meeting one or more board members relayed, via fax and phone calls, confidential information about the "breach of contract discussion" to the developer and his consultant.The San Joaquin County board of supervisors authorized sending a similar letter to the college, claiming the public discussion about pulling out of Mountain House isn't based on a complete knowledge of the facts or the entire history to the proposed campus site.At Tuesday's board of supervisors meeting, members and staff alluded to taking legal action if a full campus isn't built in Mountain House. The board voted 3-2 to send a letter to the trustees saying a move to another location would have financial impacts on the county, Mountain House and the college.Supervisor Leroy Ornellas, who represents the Mountain House area, said he doesn't know if the current planned campus is the right site regionally, but it became the location when the board bought the property, and a new community was planned around it."A full campus is very important," Ornellas said. "If the board is trying some stunt and taking the rest of the money someplace else, I think we need to take action. This is an example of why voters don't trust government. It's a breach of trust to the voters, residents of South County and Mountain House."Los Angeles TimesRuling may sharply reduce California refinery pollutionAppeals court strikes down an EPA rule that allowed the emission of tens of millions of pounds of excess toxic chemicals annually...Margot Roosevelthttp://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-refineries20-2008dec20,0,281803,print.storyToxic air pollution spikes from California's 21 refineries may be sharply curtailed in the wake of a U.S. Court of Appeals decision Friday in Washington. In a suit brought by the Sierra Club and other groups, the court struck down a 14-year-old federal regulation that allowed refineries, chemical plants and other industrial plants to exceed pollution limits during start-ups, shutdowns and equipment outages.Public health advocates in Southern California's oil refinery hub hailed the decision, saying that facilities routinely operate in malfunction mode to evade pollution caps. "We are elated," said Jesse Marquez, head of the Wilmington-based Coalition for a Safe Environment, a plaintiff in the suit. He noted that telltale flares and billowing smoke can be seen on a near-weekly basis in the area.The Environmental Protection Agency regulation amounted to a "gaping loophole," according to the plaintiffs, represented by Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm. The court agreed, saying the agency had exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act. "Under this notorious exemption, industrial facilities have been allowed to operate like a fleet of junk cars parked in neighborhoods, spewing smoke, misfiring, stalling and chugging," said Marti Sinclair, a Sierra Club official.A 2004 report by the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project, titled “Gaming the System: How the Off-the-Books Industrial Upset Emissions Cheat the Public Out of Clean Air," detailed how the 1994 regulations allowed facilities to emit tens of millions of pounds of excess toxic pollutants annually.The Earthjustice lawsuit described clouds of toxic pollutants from Wilmington refineries during power outages in 2005 and 2007. The refineries could not be prosecuted because of the EPA regulation, the suit states.William Tanner, a spokesman for ConocoPhillips, which owns refineries in Wilmington, Santa Maria and San Francisco, said he could not comment on the lawsuit."Our preference is never to flare," he said. "However, flares are federally approved safety devices that allow refining operations to shut down in an environmentally sound manner."Local air pollution rules require industries to reduce flares by 2012. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has set up so that residents can be notified when flares occur.Several major industrial groups opposed the environmental groups in the lawsuit, including the American Chemistry Council, American Petroleum Institute, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, American Forest & Paper Assn. and National Petrochemical & Refiners Assn.The lawsuit also accused industrial complexes in Texas and Louisiana of unnecessarily emitting large quantities of toxic gases.Curb on refinery, chemical plant pollution...Margot Roosevelt, Greenspacehttp://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2008/12/refinery-chemic.htmlToxic air pollution spikes from California’s 21 oil refineries may be sharply curtailed in the wake of a U.S. Court of Appeals decision in Washington on Friday. In a suit brought by the Sierra Club and other groups, the court struck down a 14-year-old federal regulation that allowed refineries, chemical plants and other industrial facilities to exceed pollution limits during start-ups, shutdowns and equipment outages. Activists in Southern California’s oil refinery hub hailed the decision, saying factories routinely operated in malfunction mode to evade pollution caps. "We are elated," said Jesse Marquez, head of the Wilmington-based Coalition for a Safe Environment, a plaintiff in the suit, noting that telltale gas flares and billowing smoke can be seen on a nearly weekly basis in the area.The Environmental Protection Agency regulation amounted to a "gaping loophole," argued the Sierra Club and other plaintiffs, represented by Earthjustice, a nonprofit law firm. "Under this notorious exemption, industrial facilities have been allowed to operate like a fleet of junk cars parked in neighborhoods, spewing smoke, misfiring, stalling and chugging," said Marti Sinclair, a Sierra Club official.A 2004 report by the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project titled "Gaming the System: How the Off-the-Books Industrial Upset Emissions Cheat the Public Out of Clean Air," detailed how the 1994 regulation was used by facilities nationwide.Besides California, industrial areas in Texas and Louisiana have been particularly affected by emissions during malfunctions.Groups such as the American Chemistry Council and the American Petroleum Institute had argued in favor of the rule, which they say is necessary for smooth operation of their facilities.A CLOSER LOOK: Fish and mercuryWill FDA relax its warnings on seafood?Environmentalists fear that guidelines about seafood will be eased. Agency says it just wants input...Jill U. Adamshttp://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-closer22-2008dec22,0,2294002,print.storyNews reports last week about a Food and Drug Administration report have environmentalists and public health officials worried that the agency wants to relax warnings about eating mercury-contaminated fish. A leaked draft report, obtained by the Washington Post, suggests that the benefits of eating fish may outweigh the risks of ingesting mercury even for pregnant women and children.A quick reaction from the Environmental Protection Agency expressed "serious concerns" about the "scientifically flawed" report and, invoking the holy grail of scientific rigor, reiterated the agency's stance that mercury contamination cannot be taken lightly.FDA officials say they're not preparing to change the guidelines but simply soliciting comments from other government scientists, according to an e-mail from FDA spokeswoman Stephanie Kwisnek.The EPA and environmental activists appear skeptical. "It's important to note these comments -- from EPA -- have been very negative," says Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the nonprofit Environmental Working Group. The advocacy organization, which has seen both the draft report and the EPA response, is adamantly opposed to any attempt to ease the warnings about mercury in fish.The apparent clash between the two agencies is a turnaround from four years ago when they issued a joint advisory with specific fish-consumption recommendations for groups at the highest risk for mercury-related health problems: women who are pregnant or nursing, women who might become pregnant and children. That advice included avoiding shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish -- four fish species with the highest levels of mercury. The advisory also set an upper limit for eating seafood of any kind at two 6-ounce servings per week for those groups.The science behind the policy is tricky. It's hard enough for epidemiologists to correlate one dietary factor to a health outcome. In this case, policymakers must assess what's known about two components of fish -- mercury and omega-3 fatty acids -- which have opposing effects on normal child development. Studies often look at either the risk of mercury intake or the benefit of fish eating, but rarely both.It's true that people accumulate mercury in their bodies from eating contaminated fish. For most adults, there is little concern about the levels of mercury found even in a fish-filled diet. For fetuses and babies, however, mercury can easily have toxic effects on the nervous system, says Kathryn Mahaffey, a lecturer at the George Washington School of Public Health in Washington, D.C. Formerly a senior scientist at the EPA, Mahaffey led the agency effort to define a benchmark mercury level for the 2004 advisory.It also is true that eating fish is good for you. It's a good source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids, which are "critical in the development of the nervous system," says William McCarthy, professor of public health at UCLA. "So our babies, if we want them to have well-functioning brains, absolutely need the omega-3s."What's hard to say is how the pluses and minuses add up. "The FDA/EPA guidelines were considering the risks of mercury primarily as a contaminant but did not consider the benefits of the nutrients of fish, which may offset the risks of mercury," says Dr. Emily Oken, a physician and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "Because at that time, there had not been any studies that looked at the overall effect of fish during pregnancy."Says Lunder: "There are some benefits to eating fish and there are obviously drawbacks like mercury, and the way to maximize that is to steer people to the bestspecies," which the current guidelines do.(For more information on mercury levels~frf/sea-mehg.html in different fish, go to the FDA website. For advisories on local fish consumption, go to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's site. )Lunder cites a recent study of Mahaffey's, based on National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey data from 1999 to 2004 and published online in Environmental Health Perspectives in August, that showed mercury levels in American women are dropping steadily, but omega-3 levels and fish consumption are holding steady."It shows that [the current] guidance is working and people are getting the message and avoiding the highest mercury fish," Lunder says. A reversal of that advice would raise mercury exposure, she says, putting kids at risk.McCarthy points out that fish are not the only good source of omega-3 fatty acids. Significant plant sources of the nutrient include flax seed, walnuts, pecans, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tofu, kale and collard greens.Until the government agencies sort out the science, the current guidelines for eating fish stand.Utah oil drilling leases go fast -- fishily fast in some cases, authorities sayTwo bidders, suspected of being environmental activists, are detained...DeeDee Correllhttp://www.latimes.com/news/science/environment/la-na-drilling20-2008dec20,0,829220,print.storyReporting from Denver — Bidders at a federal auction Friday snapped up oil and gas leases in Utah's red-rock country, despite a legal challenge that ultimately could prevent them from drilling there.Companies paid $48 to $270 an acre, buying up leases on 88% of the offered parcels.The auction, which netted $7.4 million, was briefly halted Friday afternoon when authorities grew suspicious of two bidders suspected of being environmental activists who had no intention of paying. They outbid competitors for a number of leases before officials detained them.Critics of the auction, including actor Robert Redford, have branded the sale as a last-ditch effort by the Bush administration to allow energy development on public lands before the president leaves office. Conservationists contend that some of the parcels are too close to national parks and that federal officials have not considered the effects drilling would have on air quality and other environmental factors.Environmental groups filed suit this week to block the sale. But late Thursday, they struck an agreement with the Bureau of Land Management that allowed the auction to proceed as long as the leases were not issued for 30 days, giving a federal judge time to consider whether the leases should go forward.The 30-day period ends Jan. 19 -- Bush's last full day in office.The judge said he intended to rule before that date, said Stephen Bloch, conservation director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, which is a party to the lawsuit.BLM officials have defended the sales as part of their obligation to open federal lands to energy development in an attempt to reduce dependence on foreign oil."And let's not forget what energy industry jobs mean to local economies," BLM's Utah Director Selma Sierra said in a written statement.She noted that because "oil and gas exploration is costly and highly speculative," about 6% of leases actually result in drilling.The bureau originally planned to lease 360,000 acres in southern and eastern Utah, but it reduced that number to 132,000 acres after weeks of criticism from environmental groups and the National Park Service. It withdrew some proposed leases next to Arches National Park, on a golf course in the town of Moab and beneath the rim of Nine-Mile Canyon, which is lined with ancient Native American rock art.But environmentalists argue that the remaining leases are adjacent to sensitive areas and other national parks or in other regions that the federal government has declared "wilderness quality."About 100 protesters marched Friday in the snow and wind outside the BLM's Salt Lake City office, hoisting signs that read "No drilling in Arches" and "Our home is not for sale," said Terry Shepherd, director of Red Rocks Forests, who joined in the demonstration. Inside, one man drew attention as he repeatedly outbid his competitors for some of the more contested leases. BLM officials did not say how many leases he acquired, but observers said he bought at least 10 in notably scenic areas.The man, who was not identified, and a companion were not arrested. Federal prosecutors will review the case next week to determine whether they violated any federal laws, said Melodie Rydalch, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Utah.BLM spokeswoman Mary Wilson said Friday that the agency had not decided whether to reopen the bidding for those parcels.One industry group suggested to the media that the bidders were in cahoots with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, but Bloch denied any involvement.California posts 8.4% jobless rate, third highest in U.S.The state lost a net 41,700 jobs in November. The rate is at its highest level since 1994 and puts the state behind only Michigan and Rhode Island…Marc Lifsher and Mark Medinahttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-caljobs20-2008dec20,0,1605185,print.storyReporting from Los Angeles and Sacramento — A loss of nearly 42,000 jobs last month pushed California's unemployment rate to 8.4%, a 14-year high and the third-highest jobless rate in the country.California's November unemployment figure lagged behind only Michigan with its crippled automobile industry at 9.6% and Rhode Island at 9.3% after job cuts this year in retail, manufacturing and services. Nationally, unemployment hit 6.7% in November. In Los Angeles County, it rose to 8.9% in November from 8.3% in October. The state's jobless rate was up from 8.2% in October, the Employment Development Department reported Friday.And economists say the grim news isn't over. "I don't at the moment see any kind of turnaround," said John Husing, a Redlands private economist who focuses on Southern California and its international ports. "My instinct is 2010. I think 2009 is going to be the worst year we've seen in many moons."For Jean Battalia, 29, an out-of-work substance-abuse clinic director from Long Beach, 2008 is plenty bad enough. "I don't have groceries. I'm not getting a Christmas tree," she said. Battalia lost her job in May and is about to exhaust her initial unemployment benefits. She's hoping for an extension and spends part of every day using free library computers to get e-mail and send out resumes."I'm feeling more and more hopeless," she said. "I'm not trying to wallow in self-pity, but positivity can only go so far."Finding work doesn't look as if it's going to get any easier in the months ahead as seasonal sales wind down and some stores reduce operations or go out of business. Large employers have filed legal notices with the state that they intend to cut about 9,000 jobs, with big hits expected at airlines, high-tech companies, food processors and manufacturers.Even once-strong hiring in healthcare and government is showing signs of weakening next year. A projected $41.2-billion state budget deficit could lead to involuntary furloughs and wholesale firings of workers at state and local government agencies, school districts, community colleges and public universities. For now, one of the economy's only real bright spots is in motion picture and sound recording, which gained 3,900 jobs in November as studios geared up production for 2009 and 2010.In November, the economy contracted across a broad range of industries. Layoffs compounded ongoing misery in construction and financial services -- spurred by the year-old housing crisis -- and brought new woes to manufacturing, international trade and transportation and retail sales.In all, the recession gripping the Golden State's economy for the last year has claimed 136,000 jobs out of a total payroll of about 15 million people. A year ago, state unemployment stood at 5.7%.Retail store managers, who forecast lackluster holiday sales months ago, cut back staffing, accounting for more than half the November contraction in employment. And December and January are shaping up as even worse as some big department stores and chains go out of business. "After the toys are gone, we're done," said Jorge Bonilla, a cashier at a KB Toys at the Glendale Galleria. KB Toys Inc. is liquidating inventory as part of a bankruptcy filing last week. Co-worker Anthony Lewis said he expected "to be stressing soon, if I don't get any job opportunities."Finding that new position could be a challenge because California's real unemployment picture is darker than the state's 8.4% unemployment rate indicates, economists caution."People believe there are no jobs to be had, and they are simply dropping out of the labor force and don't get counted," said economist Sung Won Sohn of Cal State Channel Islands. California's real or "effective" unemployment rate is probably twice the official number, Sohn said, meaning "the pain in the marketplace is much greater than 8.4% would show."When an eventual upturn in hiring might come will depend "on the success of federal recovery programs underway and the magnitude and success of the economic stimulus package to be unveiled soon by the Obama administration," said Stephen Levy, chief economist and executive director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto.The stimulus package is expected to provide hundreds of billions of dollars for job-rich public works projects and, possibly, direct grants to state and local governments. It should start showing up in economic statistics by the second half of 2009, said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University in Orange. But the spending may not translate into large-scale job creation until 2010, he said.In the meantime, fearful employers could shy away from increasing payrolls and may even "lay off more people than they need to," Adibi said.Tito Ayala, an unemployed truck driver from Anaheim, is used to such skittish employers. "I've been putting a few applications out, but the times are bad," said Ayala, 46, who lost his job with FedEx Freight in May. "They're laying people off."Washington PostPollution Exemption ReversedCourt Strikes Rule That Let Plants Sometimes Exceed Limits...Juliet Eilperinhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121903124_pf.htmlIn a 2 to 1 decision yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down an exemption that for nearly 15 years has allowed refineries, chemical plants and other industrial facilities to exceed federal air pollution limits during certain periods of operation.Environmental groups hailed the ruling, which overturned a provision, enacted under President Bill Clinton, that permits industrial operations that are starting up, shutting down or malfunctioning to emit more toxins into the air than is normally allowed. The Environmental Protection Agency and an array of business groups argued that the exemption was essential, but the court determined that it was illegal.The ruling affects sources of air pollution across the country: Texas alone has 250 industrial sites, including oil refineries, chemical plants and petrochemical plants, that are affected."Citizens will be able to breathe cleaner air with greatly reduced levels of toxic chemicals released, especially people living in the fence-line neighborhoods near Texas's refineries and chemical plants where start-up, shutdown and maintenance emissions have been a huge pollution problem for decades," said Neil Carman, a former Texas state refinery inspector who is now clean air director for the Sierra Club's Texas chapter.It is unclear whether the EPA will appeal. Agency spokesman Jonathan Shradar said, "EPA is disappointed by the court's ruling, and we will be reviewing the decision as we determine steps moving forward."The agency created the exemption in 1994, and Bush administration officials broadened the interpretation of the provision over time. This made it subject to judicial review, and a coalition of advocacy groups including the Environmental Integrity Project, the Sierra Club, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, the Coalition for a Safe Environment and Friends of Hudson challenged the provision's legality in court."What they did is take a bad provision and turn it into an almost complete barrier to enforcement," said Earthjustice attorney Jim Pew, who argued the case on behalf of the coalition. "This was an attempt to make all of the air-toxics laws unenforceable, and they almost got away with it."Pew said industrial facilities routinely violated federal air standards under the guise of malfunctions, but industry representatives said these excesses were a necessary part of operations. Richard Alonso, a lawyer at Bracewell & Giuliani who represents oil refineries, said the plants often need to flare off volatile gases when they start up."These sources are already doing the best they can to reduce their emissions during these times," said Alonso, who worked in the EPA's office of enforcement and compliance from 2001 to 2007. "It's a big setback for refineries, and not just refineries but other industry sectors."Alonso predicted that the next administration would have to devote "big resources" to rewriting regulations to comply with the court's ruling.New York TimesFlawed Science Advice for Obama?...John Tierneyhttp://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/flawed-science-advice-for-obama/?scp=5&sq=epa&st=cseDoes being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor? Apparently not, judging by reports from DotEarth and ScienceInsider that Barack Obama will name John P. Holdren as his science advisor on Saturday.Dr. Holdren, now a physicist at Harvard, was one of the experts in natural resources whom Paul Ehrlich enlisted in his famous bet against the economist Julian Simon during the “energy crisis” of the 1980s. Dr. Simon, who disagreed with environmentalists’ predictions of a new “age of scarcity” of natural resources, offered to bet that any natural resource would be cheaper at any date in the future. Dr. Ehrlich accepted the challenge and asked Dr. Holdren, then the co-director of the graduate program in energy andresources at the University of California, Berkeley, and another Berkeley professor, John Harte, for help in choosing which resources would become scarce. In 1980 Dr. Holdren helped select five metals — chrome, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten — and joined Dr. Ehrlich and Dr. Harte in betting $1,000 that those metals would be more expensive ten years later. They turned out to be wrong on all five metals, and had to pay up when the bet came due in 1990. Now, you could argue that anyone’s entitled to a mistake, and that mistakes can be valuable if people learn to become open to ideas that conflict with their preconceptions and ideology. That could be a useful skill in an advisor who’s supposed to be presenting the president with a wide range of views. Someone who’d seen how wrong environmentalists had been in ridiculing Dr. Simon’s predictions could, in theory, become more open to dissenting from today’s environmentalist orthodoxy. But I haven’t seen much evidence of such open-mindedness in Dr. Holdren. Consider what happened when a successor to Dr. Simon, Bjorn Lomborg, published “The Skeptical Environmentalist” in 2001. Dr. Holdren joined in an an extraordinary attack on the book in Scientific American — an attack that I thought did far more harm to the magazine’s reputation than to Dr. Lomborg’s. The Economist called the critique “strong on contempt and sneering, but weak on substance”; Dr. Lomborg’s defenders said the critics made more mistakes in 11 pages than they were able to find in his 540-page book. (You can read Dr. Lomborg’s rebuttal here.) In an earlier post, I wrote about Dr. Holdren’s critique of the chapter on energy, in which Dr. Lomborg reviewed the history of energy scares and predicted there would not be dire shortages in the future: Dr. Holdren began his critique by complaining that Dr. Lomborg was “asking the wrong question” because environmentalists had known for decades that there was no danger of energy being in short supply. This struck me as as odd bit of revisionist history, given both the “energy crisis” rhetoric of the 1970s and Dr. Holdren’s own bet that resources would become more scarce. Then, in the rest of the critique, Dr. Holdren faulted Dr. Lomborg for not paying enough attention to the reasons that there could be future problems with energy supplies. Dr. Holdren’s resistance to dissenting views was also on display earlier this year in an article asserting that climate skeptics are “dangerous.” (You can read about the response to that article at DotEarth.) Dr. Holdren is certainly entitled to his views, but what concerns me is his tendency to conflate the science of climate change with prescriptions to cut greenhouse emissions. Even if most climate scientists agree on the anthropogenic causes of global warming, that doesn’t imply that the best way to deal with the problem is through drastic cuts in greenhouse emissions. There are other ways to cope, and there’s no “scientific consensus” on which path looks best.Roger A. Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado and the author of “The Honest Broker: Making Sense of Science in Policy and Politics,” discussed Dr. Holdren’s conflation of science and politics in a post on the Prometheus blog:The notion that science tells us what to do leads Holdren to appeal to authority to suggest that not only are his scientific views correct, but because his scientific views are correct, then so too are his political views. AT the Reason Hit & Run blog, Ronald Bailey reviews some of Dr. Holdren’s work and notes that in a 1995 essay, he and his coauthors (Gretchen C. Daily and Dr. Ehrlich) “acknowledge ecological ignorance about the principles of economics, but don’t express any urgency in learning about them.”At OpenMarket.org, the Competitive Enterprise Institute blog, Chris Horner criticizes the reported Holdren appointment and suggests that Dr. Holdren got in to the National Academy of Sciences through a “back door.” What kind of White House science advisor you think Dr. Holdren would make?