12-26-08

 12-26-08Merced Sun-StarLoose Lips:  So long, farewell, aufwiedersehn, goodnighthttp://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/610596.htmlLips learned last week that Supervisor Kathleen Crookham took insult to our column, which poked fun at her goodbye speech. Did we mention it was 26 minutes long?Anyway.It included, she said, the meanest words written about her. We'll reprint it in full below.Kidding. We strive for mediocrity. We avoid going above and beyond, but as Will Rogers put it, "There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you."In this case, it was our cherished District 2 supervisor. Lips will miss her sense of humor, bluntness and, of course, bottomless appreciation for the Merced Theatre.Letter: Dismaying column...JERRY O'BANION, District 5 supervisor, Merced http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/610608.htmlEditor: I was dismayed to read the "Loose Lips" column in last Friday's Merced Sun-Star regarding outgoing Supervisor Kathleen Crookham.Whether you personally like Crookham or not, this woman gave 30 plus years to the education system here in Merced County, and earned the retirement benefits afforded. Later, she decided she had more to offer the citizens of Merced County, so she ran for and was successfully elected to a seat on the Board of Supervisors for not one, but three terms.During this time, she chose to refuse medical coverage from the county because she was already insured through her previous employment. This choice saved the county thousands of dollars. Crookham always made decisions that she felt were best for Merced County.Like her or not, her door was always open to her constituents and without exception, she made time to hear what the people of Merced County had to say.I would like to personally thank Crookham for not only dedicating her life's career to the children of our county but for stepping forward to serve the public in good times and bad.Fresno BeeGovernor renews Valley partnership; now show us the moneyRegional planning effort is too valuable to lose...Editorialhttp://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/story/1095676.htmlAn essential regional planning effort will continue, now that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has renewed the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley for another three years. Or maybe not.Schwarzenegger on Wednesday issued an executive order renewing the agency, which would otherwise have expired on Dec. 31.But the renewal of the agency's charter does not come with renewed funding, which only the Legislature can provide. And that's up in the air, with the state facing a staggering deficit of as much as $40 billion over the next 18 months. It would be a great shame if the funding can't be found. The partnership has done effective work pinpointing areas in which the Valley lags behind the rest of the state.As the governor's executive order notes: "Young adults [from the Valley] attend college at one-half of the average rate. Access to health care is nearly one-third lower for the Valley's citizens than other Californians. The region is also put at risk with its air quality, which is among the lowest in the nation."Other areas in which the Valley has been shortchanged historically include economic development, transportation and land use.But the partnership's most valuable contribution may have been the growing sense of a regional identity for the eight-county Valley.The economic and quality of life issues we face don't end at county lines or city limits, and the most effective solutions to those problems won't be limited to one jurisdiction.Water supplies and quality, transportation needs and air quality efforts are the prime examples. None of those issues can be solved at the purely local level, and the partnership is key to crafting regional answers.That's why we hope the Legislature can find some way to keep the effort alive. We're not talking vast sums; a few million dollars each year is all that's required.That pales by comparison with some of the big-ticket items the state funds, such as prisons, but in the long run it may do the Valley and the state much more good than some of those larger expenditures.For all those reasons, we believe the partnership should be funded to continue its work. It's a small price for some very large dividends. Sacramento BeeSierra Warming: Later snow, earlier melt: High anxiety...Tom Knudsonhttp://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/v-print/story/1499249.htmlLAKE TAHOE – Finally, snow.After weeks of waiting, mountain residents awoke to their first glimpse of winter on Dec. 13, a few fluffy inches of powder that clung to the tops of boulders like chefs' hats.More fell over the past two weeks, enough to bury the camel-colored meadow grass and wine-red willows in a deepening blanket of white. The magic, though, came late, just days before Christmas – one of the tardiest winter debuts ever. How much more snow will fall is anyone's guess. A winter storm just hit Thursday, dumping several feet of snow, to the relief of snow-starved resorts. But in the late arrival of this year's snow season – and increasingly early spring snowmelt from the mountains – scientists and state officials are finding more than the signature of a natural drought. They believe they detect the fingerprint of climate change.The implications could be enormous. After all, the snowcapped Sierra is more than a skier's paradise. It is a giant water faucet in the sky, a 400-mile-long, 60-mile-wide reservoir held in cold storage that supplies California with more than 60 percent of its water, much of it when it's needed most: over the hot, dry summer months.Not only are warmer temperatures thawing that mountain snow sooner, they are changing the nature of the precipitation as it falls – turning more Sierra snowflakes to sleet, slush and rain. Now 10 percent smaller than a century ago, the Sierra snowpack is expected to retreat dramatically in coming decades, posing major challenges for water managers and the climate-dependent ski industry.Ski areas already are feeling the heat. This fall, temperatures were so toasty around Lake Tahoe that many resorts missed planned Thanksgiving weekend openings, despite major investments in energy- intensive snowmaking operations. Alpine Meadows did not open for the season until Dec. 19 – one of its latest starts ever."The fact that snow is coming later is clearly having a major economic impact," said Art Chapman, president of JMA Ventures, which owns Alpine Meadows and Homewood ski areas. "I think everybody in the ski industry is very concerned about climate change."As the peaks warm, some ski areas are moving beyond snow and skiing – and sometimes kicking up controversy as they do, particularly with high-end real estate development ventures.At Mammoth Mountain, guests no longer simply slide downhill on skis. They ride mountain bikes, golf, fish, even scale an artificial climbing wall."We absolutely recognize the problem. Seasons are changing. Shorter winters mean longer summers," said Greg Dallas, a Mammoth vice president, at a recent climate change conference in Bishop."Our strategy is to pump more guests through in what we call the mud seasons, the shoulder seasons," he said. "We need to be able to … weatherproof our business."More moisture a false hopeUnfortunately, weatherproofing is not possible at lower elevations where massive state reservoirs – all fed by snowmelt – have dropped to their lowest levels in more than a decade following two years of drought and the driest spring and summer on record."The forecast is that by 2050 we'll have 25 to 40 percent less snowpack than today," said Lester Snow, director of the California Department of Water Resources. "That's like losing 6 million acre-feet, six Folsom Reservoirs – so it's a major amount of storage."Even more worrisome is that California's dams were built on the belief that climatic conditions of the past 150 years, one of the coolest, wettest periods of the millennium, would portend the future. Scientists now know that's not true – and many say global warming is sure to sharpen the pain of natural drought cycles."What we consider to be normal wetness today is a chimera," said Scott Stine, a professor at California State University, East Bay.Stine's research has shown that two century-plus droughts parched the Sierra in medieval times, allowing forests to grow on what are now the bottoms of mountain lakes."This is hopefully not where we're headed," Stine said. "But it has happened before under natural conditions."Few parts of North America are more linked to snow than the Sierra Nevada, which takes its name from Spanish explorers who called it una gran sierra nevada – a great snowy range.It was snow that brought the Donner Party to grief in the 1840s. A century ago, more than seven stories of snow fell in Alpine County near Lake Tahoe, a record for the range. In 1952, 12-foot snowdrifts stopped a Southern Pacific train, the City of San Francisco, near Donner Summit, stranding passengers for days.Today, Sierra residents look back on that history with a kind of wistfulness. In Lee Vining, 78-year-old Rita Banta halted her needlework to recall how a half-century ago, children would flock every winter to a rope tow on a hill outside town near Mono Lake."They'd ski from morning till night," she said. "The kids loved it. We haven't had that for a long time. There's not enough snow."In Yosemite National Park, Mary Kline recalled an old photo that hangs in the Ahwahnee Hotel, a grainy, black-and-white shot showing people whooshing down a hill on a toboggan at Curry Village."I didn't even believe it when I first saw it," said Kline, Yosemite's branch chief for interpretive services. "It was like, 'You're kidding? Curry Village?' They actually had a toboggan run on packed snow."Nobody has that kind of fun on the valley floor anymore. Nor are they likely to anytime soon. Climate models suggest that by the end of this century, the Sierra snowpack could shrink 70 percent to 90 percent – a somber prospect for many."Mountains are the places where winter never dies," said Shelton Johnson, a Yosemite ranger. "When you see a peak covered in snow, that's more than geology and hydrology. It's a visceral thing. But when that peak is missing snow, something is literally gone. It's a lessening of grandeur."Flood cycles could worsenAt its simplest, the Sierra's problem is location: The range sits close to the Pacific Ocean, meaning snow often falls close to freezing point, making it more vulnerable to global warming. A 2006 study in the Journal of Climate found that while three-quarters of mountain weather stations across the West recorded declining snowpacks over the past half-century, the losses were greatest in the Sierra."Temperatures have warmed during winter and early-spring storms," the study noted. "Consequently, the fraction of precipitation that fell as snow declined while the fraction that fell as rain increased."More winter rain spells trouble for California – melting snow and triggering floods like the massive New Year's Day deluge of 1997 that roared out of the Sierra and inundated large parts of the Central Valley."Ironically, while we get drier we're also going to get floodier," Daniel Cayan, a research meteorologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said at the Bishop conference.It's only recently that scientists have begun to uncover the changing nature of the Sierra snowpack. Their findings and projections, published in academic journals, often are highly technical. Nonetheless, they reflect what people are observing in the field.In the journal Climate Change, for example, three researchers at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography reported that peak spring runoff in Sierra streams now comes as much as three weeks earlier than it did in 1948.Don Ahlert, a Bay Area carpenter who has rafted and kayaked the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and American rivers since the 1960s, is familiar with the trend."We'd usually get our peak in the middle of June, or late June," he said. "Now it seems like it's a month earlier."In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, a team of more than a dozen scientists projected that a declining Sierra snowpack would one day trigger widespread water shortages in the foothills and Central Valley.Four years later, that's already happening around Mariposa west of Yosemite, where even normally reliable subsurface water sources are in danger."I know people whose wells have gone dry, who've had to drill multiple wells or who've had to go much deeper," said Len McKenzie, a 67-year-old retired naturalist with the park.In the 2006 Journal of Climate article about a rainier and less-snowy Sierra, researchers warned that "the shift from snowfall to rain may also be expected to increase the risk of winter and spring flooding in many settings."That pattern is a major concern for state water managers, who must keep reservoirs low in the winter for flood control, yet fill them up in the spring with snowmelt for irrigation and municipal use. More winter rain and snowmelt trips up that timing."What you probably want to do is have your reservoirs drawn down farther going into the winter season," said Snow, the state water manager, "so you can more readily capture these higher flood flows that would have normally been in snowpack until early spring."Ski areas face lean timesFew corners of the Sierra are more vulnerable to a vanishing snowpack than its ski slopes. By the end of the century, ski seasons across the state could shrink by seven weeks down to three months, according to the 2004 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.That future is coming into focus today across the range, including at the Stover Mountain Ski Hill, a small nonprofit rope tow near Chester in the northern Sierra that has not opened in two years."Twelve years ago, we were averaging 50 to 60 days a year," said Dan Smith, manager of Stover Mountain and coach of the high school ski team.The facility has operated for more than half a century and charges just $12.50 for a lift ticket. But it is 5,600 to 6,300 feet above sea level, making it one of the lowest-elevation ski slopes in California – and therefore more susceptible to warming."A couple years back, we were not able to cover the brush and manzanita," said Smith. "We used to get storms constantly. Now it's a little moisture here and there – 6, 7 inches. That's nothing."Even better-known, high- elevation resorts around Lake Tahoe found themselves struggling to open this fall. Conditions were so balmy that not even snowmaking equipment could help.Ski areas make snow by shooting a mixture of water and compressed air through small, cannonlike guns and other devices stretched across the slopes. The process works best with temperatures in the mid-20s or below, and low humidity.This fall, the resorts got neither.By early December, with an inversion layer pushing temperatures into the 40s and low 50s, the snowmaking crew at Alpine Meadows was getting nervous."It's depressing," Dave Thatcher, director of snowmaking at Alpine, said at the time. "I'm hoping it gets real cold."On Dec. 8, he got his wish as temperatures dropped into the 20s. All night, the big compressors under Thatcher's office rumbled, shaking the floor; outside, the snowmaking guns howled and roared.At dawn, a mini-blizzard was raging outside Alpine's base lodge. In all, a foot of snow had fallen – every flake of it man-made – across approximately 7 1/2 acres.Sitting at his desk, as the compressors thundered beneath him and snow piled up outside, Thatcher, a compact, energetic man, beamed. "We're slaying it," he said. Slapped to the side of his desk, a bumper sticker read: "Snow Happens."A co-worker in coveralls walked by and shouted: "We're going to open this week, aren't we?""By hell or high water," Thatcher shot back.Then it started to warm up: 32 degrees at 8 a.m. … 37.5 degrees at 9 a.m. … 40 degrees at 10 a.m. At the bottom of Kangaroo run, puddles of water began to form and flow downhill.Standing nearby, Jim Kercher, Alpine Meadows' general manager, surveyed the night's work. He liked what he saw on the ground but not the lemon-orange rays of sun spilling over the ridge."You can feel it. This is warming up," he said. "It feels good on my back, but it hurts me in my head."As more warm days followed cold nights, the struggle to make snow continued. Finally, Alpine opened a few runs on Dec. 12. But with real snow in the forecast and conditions for making more of it improving, the ski area shut down to prepare for a more expansive Dec. 19 opening."Thirty to 40 percent of your season occurs before the end of the year," said Chapman, Alpine's owner."When you're not able to open, or you open late, you can't make it up on the other end because once Easter falls, people put away their skis and pull out their bicycles and their tennis rackets."That early season already is lost. Now, with real snow falling by the foot around Tahoe, moods are shifting from dreary to upbeat – but not jubilant.After all, everyone remembers how the heavy snowstorms of last January and February, so filled with moisture and promise, suddenly stopped.The long-term forecast is not promising."Probably the best we can hope for is an average year," Snow said. "And it could be worse than that." Many UC Davis students find affordable housing elusive...Melissa Nix http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1498271.htmlThe annual apartment survey conducted by the University of California, Davis, released this week, shows that affordable housing in the city of Davis continues to be hard to come by for many students.The UC Davis report revealed that vacancy rates in Davis rose only slightly, from 0.7 percent last fall to 0.8 percent, while rents increased 4.36 percent on average.The university report surveyed complexes with five or more apartments. Emily Galindo, director of Student Housing at UC Davis, said the research "confirms that we need to add some additional housing on campus … . We have no problem filling our residential halls and the privatized housing we have on campus. These two types of facilities are full."She also said that her department considers a vacancy rate of 5 percent to be the ideal balance between the interests of landlord and tenant.The UC Davis Student Housing department surveyed 187 apartment complexes this fall; 162 complexes responded. Of 8,469 apartments, only 67 are vacant.In addition, according to the university survey, the average monthly rent this year for unfurnished two-bedroom apartments – the most abundant type of apartment unit in the survey – rose 4.52 percent, from $1,172 to $1,225.Nearly 6,400 students live on campus, which is often more economical than off-campus living.For 2008-09, Davis undergraduates will pay an average of $11,978 for a meal plan and housing if they live on campus, compared with a price tag of $7,843 for housing only.Galindo said that the campus plans to add three residence halls with 600 beds by fall 2010 at Dairy and La Rue roads.Another project, called West Village, is expected to add housing for 3,000 students; Galindo said she does not know when it will be complete. San Francisco ChronicleA drought of student loans is good for education...Jeremy Bearer-Friendhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/EDLC14V1NA.DTL&type=printableIn the last 25 years, few prices have gone up as much as housing and college tuition. We know what happened to housing. So when will we hear the pop of the college-tuition bubble?There are many competing explanations for why tuition has more than quadrupled since 1982, but one simple economic principle underlies them all: Universities can only charge as much as students and their families will pay. Sure, the University of California may have doubled its fees a few times over, but students kept paying, right?Much like housing, where ever-rising prices were sustained by an overabundant and predatory mortgage market, universities have been able to ramp up prices year after year because they could count on student debt. As long as administrators knew that students had access to credit and private loans, universities didn't have to think twice about raising tuition and fees. And while private industry focuses on improving efficiency in order to grow, many universities finance their growth by escalating student debt.Now, thanks to the recent drop-off of student credit, these same university administrators will have to face the consequences of their own business model. Relying so heavily on student purse strings to cover university cash flow won't work for much longer - especially not for public universities like the University of California and the California State University systems, where median student income is considerably lower than at private schools.This isn't to say to that less available student loans won't hurt. Indeed, the poorest families are the ones hardest hit by the drought of student loans. But the credit crunch could also help shift the burden of responsibility from students to universities. If families can't afford to pay and aren't able to borrow, it will be up to universities to lower their prices.Scientists see more rapid U.S. climate change...Juliet Eilperin, Washington Posthttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/MNQV14V7V0.DTL&type=printableThe United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.The survey - which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and issued this month - expands on the 2007 findings of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.But the assessment also suggests that some other feared effects of global warming are not likely to occur by the end of the century, such as an abrupt release of methane from the seabed and permafrost or a shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that brings warm water north and colder water south. But the report projects an amount of potential sea level rise during that period that may be greater than what other researchers have anticipated, as well as a shift to a more arid climate pattern in the Southwest by midcentury.Information moves quicklyThirty-two scientists from federal and nonfederal institutions contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete. The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990, coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.Tom Armstrong, senior adviser for global change programs at USGS, said the report "shows how quickly the information is advancing" on potential climate shifts. The prospect of abrupt climate change, he said, "is one of those things that keeps people up at night, because it's a low-probability but high-risk scenario. It's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, but if it were to occur, it would be life-changing."In one of the most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as 4 feet by 2100. The panel had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much faster than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.Melting ice sheetsKonrad Steffen, who directs the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was lead author on the report's chapter on ice sheets, said the models the IPCC used did not factor in some of the dynamics that scientists now understand about ice sheet melting. Among other things, Steffen and his collaborators have identified a process of "lubrication," in which warmer ocean water gets in underneath coastal ice sheets and accelerates melting.Scientists also looked at the prospect of prolonged drought over the next 100 years. They said it is impossible to determine yet whether human activity is responsible for the drought the Southwestern United States has experienced over the past decade, but every indication suggests the region will become consistently drier in the next several decades. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that nearly all of the 24 computer models the group surveyed project the same climatic conditions for the North American Southwest, which includes Mexico."If the models are correct, it will transition in the coming years and decades to a more arid climate, and that transition is already under way," Seager said. Reassurance on methaneThe report is reassuring, however, on the prospects for some potentially drastic effects - such as a huge release of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, that is now locked deep in the seabed and underneath the Arctic permafrost. That is unlikely to occur in the near future, the scientists said."It's unlikely that we're going to see an abrupt change in methane over the next hundred years, but we should worry about it over a longer time frame," said Ed Brook, the lead author of the methane chapter and a geosciences professor at Oregon State University.By the end the century, Brook said, the amount of methane escaping from natural sources such as the Arctic tundra and waterlogged soils in warmer regions "could possibly double," but that would still be less than the current level of human-generated methane emissions.Toxic wastes around mines go largely ignored...Noaki Schwartz, Associated Presshttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/26/BA6S14SEGE.DTL&type=printableRandsburg, Kern County -- Heaps of toxic mine waste rise like church steeples over this wind-swept desert town, threatening the health of residents and of thousands of off-road bikers.Tests on dust samples have revealed some of the highest arsenic levels in the country - as much as 460,000 times the level deemed safe by the federal government.But while the poison can cause cancer in people and harm wildlife, little has been done to remove the costly waste here or similar hazardous waste at thousands of other abandoned mines around the nation."Worst-case scenario, we'll have to clean up everything, which could do more environmental damage than leaving it and monitoring it," said Richard Forester, who oversees the Rand Mining District cleanup for the Bureau of Land Management.Forester and others worry that particles of arsenic scattered by the area's stiff wind could be slowly poisoning the estimated 300 residents of Randsburg, Johannesburg and Red Mountain.The dozens of old gold and silver mines in the sparsely populated area about 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles are among the estimated 500,000 abandoned mines nationwide that have been largely ignored because of their remote locations.In recent years, however, development has crept closer and off-roaders in search of open spaces have descended on many of the sites.A federal audit released in July said the problem was not being effectively dealt with by the Bureau of Land Management."You're basically on a collision course," said Velma Smith, manager of the Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining, an advocacy group that has been pushing for more federal cleanup money. "Right now, it's less than Band-Aids on a hemorrhage."An audit by the inspector general of the Interior Department accused the BLM of endangering public health and safety by failing to clean up and properly fence off the abandoned mines. It found dangerous levels of arsenic, lead and mercury, along with gaping holes, at dilapidated hard-rock mining sites easily accessible to people.The audit singled out the Rand Mining District as an especially hazardous site that needed immediate action.In a rarely issued "Flash Report," auditors said that in 2007 they found piles of contaminated mine waste in residents' backyards and arsenic-laden trails openly used by thousands of off-road bikers.Still, some old-timers just shrug when asked if they're worried about the high arsenic levels."I don't know of anyone who's died of arsenic poisoning," retiree Darell White, 71, said in Randsburg, a living ghost town of Western-themed restaurants and antique stores.Rangers regularly patrol for trespassers but are required to leave when the wind picks up to 25 mph and the air becomes thick with dust.The BLM, a division of the Interior Department, has defended its abandoned-mine program as "highly effective" and said it will address the auditors' recommendations.The agency released preliminary results this past week from dust, water, urine and dirt samples taken from the backyards of about 28 residents that did not show elevated arsenic levels. Other lab tests, however, have shown that the arsenic could be inhaled or ingested."Would you want to take a ton of this and spread it around your front yard?" said Chris Kim, a geologist hired by the BLM to test the area. "I think you have to take this very seriously and consider, in addition to short-term doses, what the long-term exposure risk is."In the 1800s, prospectors in California, Nevada and other areas of the West considered areas with high levels of natural arsenic to be good bets for gold and silver deposits.The process of extracting gold concentrated the arsenic and created a semiliquid waste called slurry that miners simply dumped.Kim's preliminary tests show the arsenic is unlikely to get into drinking water but could be ingested by swallowing food exposed to contaminated dust or soil.Money is the biggest obstacle to a cleanup.Estimates of the cost to rid the Rand District of hazardous waste top $170 million. Conservationists believe the cost of cleaning up all the nation's abandoned mines could reach $72 billion.Last year, the House passed a bill that included the creation of an abandoned mine cleanup fund, but efforts stalled in the Senate. In March, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a similar measure but it stalled in committee. She plans to reintroduce it.Forester isn't optimistic that money will be available at a time when the economy has taken center stage. Still, he plans to tap a central hazardous materials fund the Department of the Interior gets annually from Congress and other sources they received this year to at least begin the cleanup."If there were more people dying right and left, then I think you'd have cause to do some quick adjustments," said the 74-year-old. "I'd like to see this done before I turn 80."Los Angeles TimesOld chemicals found years later in marine mammalsA new Cal State Long Beach study finds high levels of DDT and PCB in seals and sea lions that died between 1994 and 2006, suggesting possible danger for humans...Andrew Blanksteinhttp://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-marine26-2008dec26,0,7524129,print.storyMore than a generation has passed since manufacturers in Southern California dumped large quantities of the pesticide DDT and the chemical PCB into the Los Angeles County sewer system, which spilled them onto the ocean floor off the Palos Verdes Peninsula. But a Cal State Long Beach lecturer and a student have found that the toxic chemicals continue to exact a toll on the local marine environment, as shown by high concentrations present in marine mammals, including seals and sea lions. Between the late 1940s and early 1970s, about 110 tons of DDT and 11 tons of PCB were dumped off the peninsula's White Point, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates. The chemicals settled to the ocean floor and have spread over about 25 square miles.The study analyzed the presence of toxic substances in blubber samples from 145 seals and sea lions that died at two facilities that treat sick and injured marine animals, the Fort MacArthur Marine Mammal Center in San Pedro and the Pacific Marine Mammal Center in Laguna Beach. The animals died between 1994 and 2006. The new study found DDT, a once widely used agricultural pesticide now banned in the United States, in slightly lower concentrations in sea lions than was found in studies of marine mammals conducted in the early 1970s, according to the report published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin. Adult male sea lions and seals had the highest concentrations because they had the highest fat content. But the chemicals were also present in pups, who absorbed them from their mothers' milk.Mary Blasius, a marine biology master's student who conducted the research with lecturer Gwen Goodmanlowe, said the levels of contamination off the Los Angeles and Orange County coasts were 10 times higher for DDT and five times higher for PCB than in Northern California. Blasius noted that more research needs to be done on how the toxicity levels are affecting the marine mammals. But she said the study points up possible danger to humans, whose diets include some of the same animals consumed by seals and sea lions."The animals that reside in the sediment are consuming these chemicals, and then fish consume those organisms," Blasius said. "The higher you move up the food chain, the more you ingest."Court ruling on pollution credits shuts projects...Shelby Grad...12-22-08http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/12/court-ruling-on.htmlA court ruling last month invalidating the "emissions credits" used by the South Coast Air Quality Management District has blocked several big projects in the South Bay. And the Daily Breeze's Melissa Pamer says hundreds more projects could be affected:At least nine modernization projects at public and private facilities in the South Bay have been brought to a halt following a sweeping court ruling that air quality officials say could affect hundreds of businesses across Southern California. A Los Angeles Superior Court judgment issued last month has blocked planned upgrades at two public facilities -- the Palos Verdes Landfill and the Terminal Island Sewage Treatment Plant -- as well as the installation of new equipment at the local sites of seven companies. The South Bay projects are among dozens so far that have been affected by the court decision, which was appealed earlier this month.Emissions ruling halts South Bay projects...Melissa Pamer, Dailyy Breeze.com...12-21-08http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_11286121At least nine modernization projects at public and private facilities in the South Bay have been brought to a halt following a sweeping court ruling that air quality officials say could affect hundreds of businesses across Southern California.A Los Angeles Superior Court judgment issued last month has blocked planned upgrades at two public facilities - the Palos Verdes Landfill and the Terminal Island Sewage Treatment Plant - as well as the installation of new equipment at the local sites of seven companies.The South Bay projects are among dozens so far that have been affected by the court decision, which was appealed earlier this month.The ruling, which invalidated the process used by the South Coast Air Quality Management District to give out emissions credits for new equipment, could affect hundreds and even thousands more public and private projects that need those credits in the coming year, district officials said."It would be impossible to understate the importance of this," said Kurt Wiese, the AQMD's attorney.The district - which implements federal and state clean air regulations in most of Los Angeles County, as well as Orange County and the urban portions of Riverside and San Bernardino counties - changed its complicated permitting process in 2006, leading to the lawsuit.The rule changes gave power plants access to AQMD's internal bank of comparatively cheap emissions credits, which are scarce and expensive on the open market but are required for new equipment that emits air pollutants. The changes also expanded the bank of credits available. The actions were vehemently opposed by environmental groups, which sued, partly hoping to stop a planned gas-fired electricity plant in Vernon."The dramatic shift in policy was what caught our attention," said Tim Grabiel, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the groups that sued the AQMD."We have a trading program designed to support low-polluting alternatives, but at the same time - we have the district destroying the underlying premise of the market," Grabiel said.The district had been swayed to change its rules after state energy officials warned several years ago that electricity shortages were imminent in Southern California unless more power plants were constructed, said Sam Atwood, an AQMD spokesman.Part of the district's argument for its support of new power plants was that energy shortages would be bad for air quality, Atwood said."You get a lot of businesses wanting to fire up their emergency backup units, which are diesel-powered and extremely dirty. Diesel represents a significant cancer risk," he said.But Judge Ann Jones did not buy that.Quoting the environmental groups that filed the suit, she wrote, "The district's proposed medicine is far worse than the disease it purports to cure."Jones stated that the new rules "expanded exponentially the universe of pollution credits available to entities needed to increase emissions in an already polluted basin. The size and breadth of the (AQMD's internal credit bank) has clear, obvious and measurable consequences in a world in which those credits will be accessed and used by credit-hungry polluters."The environmental groups touted the ruling, which called for the district to do a more extensive environmental review before it could again offer credits from its internal bank."This is a huge victory. It has ramifications here in Southern California, statewide, and is raising issues on a federal and international level," Grabiel said.But the side effect of the case has been that any company or public entity that would have relied on the cheap, internal AQMD emissions credits cannot install new equipment.A good portion of those smaller projects would actually reduce emissions, according to AQMD court filings."They took a shotgun approach to dealing with the Vernon power plant and, in the process, our permitting program has taken a hit," Wiese said. "It's collateral damage."According to AQMD court filings, the proposed projects that have been halted in the South Bay include:New equipment that uses methane to create electricity from decaying trash at the Palos Verdes Landfill.Air pollution control upgrades at a Terminal Island sewage treatment plant.Upgrades at the El Segundo power plant operated by NRG Energy Inc.Replacement of old turbines at Tesoro's Wilmington refinery.New equipment at gas and oil pipeline operator Kinder Morgan's Carson facility.New equipment at BP West Coast in Carson.Air pollution control at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo.A new cooling tower at Air Products in Wilmington.A new industrial oven at Pacific Continental Textiles in Rancho Dominguez."Everything is on hold," said Robert Ferrante, who heads the solid waste management department of the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County, which runs the Palos Verdes Landfill."We can't even start anything yet until we receive a permit from (AQMD)," Ferrante said.The Rolling Hills Estates landfill, which was closed in 1980, needed permits for a $10.4 million fuel-cell that would have improved the efficiency and productivity of the site's aging power plant. The project, which was given the go-ahead last month by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, needed a new low-emission flare that would have required pollution credits.Those credits would cost about $10 million on the open market, Atwood said."This is a very unfortunate result of this lawsuit because Los Angeles County sanitation district has proposed a very advanced, state-of-the-art project that would benefit the environment," he said.NRDC's Grabiel said he understood the concern over the ruling's effect on landfills and other public facilities, but pointed to the district's recent court filing that lists the dozens of projects that will be halted. Some are from major polluters, and Grabiel questioned whether they deserved easy access to AQMD's internal credits."There's even a beer facility," said Grabiel, referring to an Anheuser-Busch project in Van Nuys.In its appeal, AQMD is seeking to regain use of its internal emissions credit bank, but it has abandoned plans to provide credits to power plants, Wiese said.To get the bank operable again, the district will need to restructure its credit system and submit it to environmental review at the state and federal level. It will likely be at least a year before that process is complete, he said.Colorado seeks protections amid energy boomNew regulations aim to protect medical workers, the environment and wildlife. Critics call them potentially crippling to an industry crucial to the state economy...DeeDee Correllhttp://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-colorado-enviro-rules26-2008dec26,0,3383665,print.storyReporting from Denver — When a Colorado emergency room nurse fell gravely ill after treating a gas field worker, doctors struggled to figure out what was wrong with her.Her liver, heart and lungs were failing, probably a result of inhaling ZetaFlow -- a substance used in natural-gas drilling -- from the patient's boots. But doctors could find little treatment information in the medical texts or on the Internet because the fluid's formulation is a closely guarded trade secret."Nobody knew exactly where to go," said nurse Cathy Behr, 56, who since has recovered.New regulations adopted this month to govern Colorado's booming oil and gas industry aim to make future incidents easier to handle by, among other things, requiring companies to disclose to doctors and emergency workers the ingredients they use.Regarded as the most comprehensive in the country, the rules have been hailed by some as providing much-needed protections for the wildlife and environment, but they are assailed by others as punitive -- and potentially crippling -- for an industry critical to Colorado's economy."We think these are the right regulations for Colorado," said Dave Neslin, acting director of the state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. "The oil and gas industry . . . has a large footprint within the state. We think these rules strike an appropriate and sustainable balance."The requirements come as Colorado is struggling to keep pace with a significant energy boom. A decade ago, state officials issued 1,000 drilling permits per year; this year, they are on pace to issue more than 7,600, Neslin said.The regulations:* Create a 300-foot-wide protection zone around streams that provide drinking water.* Require operators to disclose information about their chemicals to emergency responders and physicians, although the information may not be released publicly.* Require emission controls on operations within a quarter of a mile of schools and homes in northwestern Colorado.* Allow state health and wildlife officials to review and provide input on applications for operations that could affect public health or wildlife habitat.The Colorado Oil and Gas Assn., an industry trade group, regards that last rule as particularly onerous."As a result . . . this process becomes the most burdensome in the nation," said John Swartout, vice president of government and legislative affairs for the association.Swartout said it already takes longer to apply for a permit in Colorado than in other gas- and oil-producing states -- an average of 65 days here, compared with two to seven days in other states.Neslin acknowledged the process takes too long because commission staffing levels haven't kept pace with the growing number of permits."We face particular challenges here in Colorado," including drilling in areas of important wildlife habitat, he said. "In Colorado, it would be difficult to do a thorough review in two or three days."The new regulatory climate could dissuade companies from operating in Colorado, Swartout warned."You're going to see a significant drop in investment in the Rocky Mountains. That equates to a loss of jobs in our state -- good-paying jobs with healthcare and benefits," he said.Several Republican state lawmakers have echoed that concern, saying they intend to push for modifications to the rules. "We cannot afford to push the energy industry out of Colorado, given the current state of the economy," Colorado House Minority Leader Mike May told the Denver Post. "And many fear that the proposed rules will do just that."Environmentalists counter that tourism is a far more important industry in Colorado and that it makes sense to protect the natural assets that draw visitors to the state.Hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation "are contingent on an environment that's thriving," said Pam Kiely, legislative director for Environment Colorado.The argument that the rules will contribute to a worsening economy is flawed, said Elise Jones, executive director of the Colorado Environmental Coalition."What affects the oil and gas industry is really the price of natural gas, which is set on the national market," Jones said. "It's influenced by things that have nothing to do with whether they have to line waste pits."