5-5-09

 
5-5-09
Merced Sun-Star
Rules tangle up Merced County Mosquito Abatement District spraying
Permits needed to spray adult insects, but there are no permits...CAROL REITER
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/827758.html
If it weren't so serious, you could just shake your head and mutter: It's just the feds tying us up with more red tape.
You could almost laugh it off as merely another bureaucratic blunder.
But it is serious -- and potentially deadly.
For sure, it's the most stunning problem that Allan Inman has had to deal with in his 30 years with the Merced County Mosquito Abatement District.
Inman, the manager-entomologist for the district, has been told that his district, along with 45 other California mosquito abatement districts, can no longer spray for adult mosquitoes.
"I've never had to deal with anything like this before," Inman said.
The district usually sprays both adulticides and larvacides to control mosquito populations in the county. In the past, mosquito abatement districts have been exempt from the National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit requirements.
In 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule that excluded some pesticides from permit requirements, including pesticides used against mosquitoes. That was overruled by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio on Jan. 7 of this year.
Inman said the court required districts to have both adulticide and larvacide permits before spraying. The only problem is, there is no permit given by the National Pollution Discharge System for adulticides -- only for larvacides.
"They're saying that we won't have a permit to even apply for until September," Inman said.
The West Nile Virus, a potential killer of both people and horses, has been found every year in Merced County since 2003. Inman said that without the use of adulticides, the district cannot control the little pests once they hatch.
"If we can do larviciding early enough, we can get a handle on it," Inman said. "But it won't be 100 percent."
Katie Albertson, spokeswoman for Merced County, said not using adulticide could affect public health.
"If the mosquito populations increase, there is a greater chance that mosquito-borne illness could also increase," Albertson said.
Although citizens can help keep the mosquito population down, the mosquito abatement district is the first-line defense in the fight against mosquitoes.
In a typical year when West Nile is found in the county, about 75 percent of the spraying done uses an adulticide, Inman said.
"We are larvaciding now," Inman said. "We've had our plane up on a number of occasions."
The district, along with other mosquito abatement districts in the state, is being told that it's in violation of the Clean Water Act if it sprays adulticides. The law offices of Donald B. Mooney in Davis has sent letters to all districts affected by the permit requirement.
"We are more at risk of being sued if we spray than being sued for the transmission of West Nile Virus," Inman said.
The district is getting information about the permit requirements on an almost daily basis, Inman said. But, he insisted, he isn't going to sit and wait for events to unfold.
"I'm going to Washington, D.C., in May," Inman said. "What happens in California can happen in other states -- no one has these permits."
He hopes to find common sense somewhere in the Beltway.
THE THREE D'S OF FIGHTING MOSQUITOES
DEET -- Apply inspect repellent containing DEET, picaradin or oil of lemon eucalyptus according to label instructions. Repellents keep the mosquitoes from biting you. DEET can be used safely on infants and children 2 months of age and older.
DAWN AND DUSK -- Mosquitoes that carry WNV bite in the early morning and evening so it is important to wear repellent at this time. Make sure that your doors and windows have tight-fitting screens to keep out mosquitoes. Repair or replace screens with tears or holes.
DRAIN -- Mosquitoes lay their eggs on standing water. Eliminate all sources of standing water on your property, including flower pots, old car tires, rain gutters and pet bowls. If you have a pond, use mosquito fish or commercially available products to eliminate mosquito larvae.
Source: Merced County Public Health
Council decides to lay off 14 city employees...SCOTT JASON
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/827745.html
Fourteen Merced government employees are slated to be laid off in the coming months, while the rest of the city's work force will pay more to keep top-tier medical coverage, the City Council decided Monday.
The layoffs and benefit changes, unanimously approved, will help reduce the $10.2 million budget shortfall the city's faced with.
The cuts represent about $1.6 million in savings and nearly 3 percent of the city's work force of 513.
"This is not a pleasurable," Councilman Bill Spriggs said, adding that he had a couple concerns.
One was that by losing a deputy city attorney the city may be forced to hire an outside attorney later on at a higher cost to handle the additional work.
The second was whether the city manager's office could handle losing an assistant since that person supports the council along with other managers.
Nine workers -- an urban forestry supervisor, an engineering technician, an account clerk, a code enforcement officer, a deputy city attorney, an assistant city manager, a senior engineer, a capital improvement coordinator and a park worker -- will be let go June 28.
Five police officers will leave the city in mid-October, unless it wins a federal grant.
No employees or union officials spoke against the layoffs.
Before voting, Councilman Jim Sanders told a story about when he was let go and said this is the hardest decision he has to make in office.
"It's my hope that a little good luck lands in Merced's lap," Sanders said.
The city was initially looking at shedding 52 employees because of steep revenue declines. Sales tax has been declining for six quarters and property tax has fallen 20 percent in the past two years.
Besides the cuts, 23 city workers will likely leave early, spurred by a severance package or a golden handshake that adds two years of service. The city has frozen or cut 50 positions in the past 18 months as revenues declined.
The budget gap grew larger this year, with 2008's final quarter showing an 18.96 percent decline in the city's sales tax compared with the 2007 fourth quarter.
Leaders are planning to pull $2 million from its reserve account to bridge the shortfall. Last year, it relied on about $4.5 million to deal with the shortfall.
City staff asked the council in the fall to change the health plan to save money. It failed in the face of fierce opposition from workers. The unions were mixed on the latest proposal with three supporting them and three not taking a stand.
"Our budget situation has become clearer and is clearly worse than we thought in October," Assistant City Manager Bill Cahill told the council.
The change in health and vision benefits will save between $250,000 and $300,000 -- or what amounts to four jobs. The core coverage was the premium plan and employees could downgrade to save money.
Now, the core is lower and employees must buy-up to get the better care.
The firefighters union asked that the council revisit the benefits issue in the next six months or include a sunset clause so that the benefits revert back.
Detective Keith Pelowski, with the Merced Police Officers Association, said the benefits cut wasn't fair because some employees have to pay more for coverage than others. Some unions negotiated different contribution amounts from the city as part of their contract.
"Everyone should pay the cost, not just three (bargaining) units," Pelowski said.
In an effort to maintain or even boost the police force, Merced applied for funds from a $1 billion economic stimulus program to help cities retain officers during the recession. The city asked for enough money to keep the five officers and hire another five.
The money pays for the base salary and benefits for three years. Leaders should learn in September whether money's on the way. If funding isn't awarded, the officers will be laid off Oct. 18.
"We knew this day was coming," said Councilman Joe Cortez, a former police commander. "Now, we have to hope it doesn't last."
Our View: Success' price steep, so are rewards
Unexpectedly landing Michelle Obama at UC Merced also changes nature of commencement.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/827747.html
What's the price of success?
Now that first lady Michelle Obama has accepted UC Merced's invitation to be the keynote speaker at commencement May 16, we've found out.
About $700,000. Nobody said this was a MasterCard commercial.
When the students surprisingly landed Mrs. Obama with their Valentine card campaign, the commencement morphed from a small affair for the university's pioneer class with family and friends into an international media frenzy.
Now university administrators and professors, local and state elected officials and thousands more are seeking invitations for a chance to see the first lady up close.
And we do want the university to look good.
Campus planners said they will try to be careful with what they spend. Some corporations are stepping up -- AT&T, Educational Employees Credit Union and Kaiser Permanente are donating about $80,000, said UC Merced spokeswoman Tonya Luiz.
We should also keep in mind what the long-term impact will be. If it shows the campus as an attractive place, maybe more potential students will look at UC Merced as a first choice and not a last resort or afterthought.
We need to caution to spend wisely in these tough economic times. We should focus on improvements, such as new grass or landscaping, that will last a long time and was probably in the planning stages anyway. Such a dual-use approach will give us a chance to show our town and university in our Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes.
Even Merced's downtown Cap & Town festival is putting on the ritz. The city was looking at spending about $30,000. Rabobank is donating $10,000, and West-america is giving $5,000. AMS.NET of Livermore is giving $5,000 in telecommunications equipment to get a live feed downtown.
Then there are the televisionsat Jack Hart Square and JumboTrons at the UC campus and televisions and computers around town so that everyone can see the speech.
Up at the university, meanwhile, there will be the extra expense of security. This will be borne by officers from the University of California police force, the California Highway Patrol, the county sheriff, Merced police. And, of course, the Secret Service.
The cost for the university police alone is expected to run about $90,000. Then throw in about $5,000 for the metal detectors if they are needed.
The largest cost -- at $300,000 -- is expected to be for an audio/visual company to broadcast the first lady's speech so the large audience at the commencement. The university said Monday afternoon that a vendor is offering to broadcast the event on the Internet free of charge, which media outlets and others will be able to tap into.
UC Merced officials may look to the UC Office of the President to pitch in some cash.
On the plus side, all these extra people coming into Merced will inject a healthy dose of money into our economy.
This is going to be a big day for the university, the city, the Valley and the state. We do have to put our best effort forward. Mrs. Obama's speech is going to be heard that night on many cable news shows, networks and radio station nationwide. It will be read the next day in Sunday newspapers and Web sites across the country.
This will be an ideal chance for us to tell the nation a good story about Merced. The price of success may be steep -- but so are the rewards.
Letter: Our own little Pravda...PETER LIZDAS, Merced
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/827760.html
Editor: In Saturday morning's editorial we read, "One of the most serious concerns we have is that opposition is fueled by out-of-town, anti-Wal-Mart interests that don't even care about our city. They will leave town after their opposition is done and never come back."
Maybe it's out of line for me to speak up -- after all, I've only lived in Merced for 26 years, but if I am an out-of-towner, what is Wal-Mart? Last I checked, its corporate headquarters is in Bentonville, Ark. -- not Merced.
And please excuse me if I seem just a bit skeptical that Wal-Mart's primary interest is the well-being of Merced, not corporate profits.
Go out and have a look at Highway 99, any hour of the night or day, any day of the week. Notice the number of tractor-trailer rigs over in the right-hand lane (and bless the CHP for mostly keeping them there, incidentally).
Now picture 450 more of them rolling into and out of Merced each day -- day in, day out.
I am close to resigned to the inevitability of our local authorities approving the distribution project, even though it will probably not be a good long-term thing for our community.
The Sun-Star is appearing more and more each day to me as not the reasonably objective newspaper for our local area which it once was -- but rather as an instrument of propaganda, our very own little Pravda.
The propagandistic reference to mysterious, sinister outsiders who are leading our witless, malleable locals astray is another. Some of the reporting and editorializing in Sun-Star is not looking so good these days when exposed to daylight.
Letter: Ill-informed? Hardly...RON ARAGON Merced...5-4-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/177/v-print/story/825738.html
Editor: In response to Sam Palmer's letter denigrating Joan Porter's letter to the editor about living in a flood plain in California as an argument against the Wal-Mart distribution center:
She is absolutely correct and his response is based solely on emotion and very little substance so it does not even come up to any level of discussion or response.
However, I would like to respond to his statement: "Those who denigrate this type of industry are ill-informed to the realities of life."
I took that as a direct insult not only to my person but to my intelligence as well as to the intelligence of all decent, hard-working, loyal Americans.
Not only did I work in a Wal-Mart distribution center for a year, I lived, worked and fought in Southeast Asia for more than a year -- both as a civilian and in the military -- and got a direct taste of what life would be like for us here in America if the Wal-Marts and Chinese-controlled sweat shops dominated the world.
He seems to think all Americans are ill-informed about how China uses slave labor to manufacture all of the shoddy goods being sold in Wal-Marts throughout America today.
Letter: Soon to be moot...WILLIAM L. ROBERTS, Merced...5-2-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/177/v-print/story/823762.html
Editor: Doesn't Merced -- opponents and proponents of the Wal-Mart distribution center -- realize that it could soon be a moot point as to environmental reports and everything else?
There will soon be a ready-built, ready-to-go, distribution center available when Gottschalks closes just down Highway 99. Look at the money it could save Wal-Mart in time and construction cost. As a plus for opponents, it would move all the jobs, revenue and future expansion to Madera County. The trucks will still be traveling on Highway 99 so Merced would lose everything but the air pollution.
Sounds like a win-win situation doesn't it, especially for Madera County, Wal-Mart and the people who have delayed the whole operation.
Letter: Build Wal-Mart...SAM PALMER, Merced...5-1-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/821914.html
Editor: In response to Joan Porter's letter to the editor Tuesday about living in a flood plain in California as an argument against the Wal-Mart distribution center, I have the following response:
We have a system of flood control and water storage in California. It is made up of things called dams and canals.
Unfortunately, Bear Creek is unregulated due to what some call "environmental concerns," and the money to build a flood control "dam." The mitigation measures typically used in commercial construction address both flood control and runoff. There are also so-called "green building" practices like gray water systems for landscape irrigation and water re-use.
Wal-Mart is a good fit for Merced. I thought it a good idea when first proposed and consider it a good idea now. We need high-quality transition employment in this area as we undergo a lifestyle change that will take 20 to 30 years to accomplish.
This is primarily an agricultural area with very few other opportunities for advancement in life. Wal-Mart, and other similar industries, will help our transition. This type of employer is a good fit for the area and educational abilities of a large percentage of our residents, certainly better than a lot of the field work many families perform.
This is a step-up opportunity for them and us as a whole, especially in this economic environment.
Those who denigrate this type of industry are ill-informed to the realities of life. They want industries that we cannot provide the level of education required in the quantities that are needed.
One thing builds upon another, as I am sure you realize. We cannot attract hi-tech industry without a proper demographic and existing job base for them to draw from. I urge you to support the distribution center.
Letter: China says 'thank you'...MICHAEL J. LEONARD, Merced...5-1-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/177/v-print/story/821900.html
Editor: China says "Thank you, Merced."
Thank you for building the Wal-Mart distribution center in your town.
Yes, the creation of a few hundred jobs in Merced employed thousands of us to manufacture the cheap stuff you buy at Wal-Mart.
And as your fair city basks in the 24 hours of daylight from the towers of stadium lighting and the comforting hum (visible and audible for miles) of idling trucks, grinding gears, the occasional tooth rattling slam of a load hitting the 100 acres of asphalt, and as your school- children breathe the poison belched from 900 trucks a day, China says thanks and keep supporting the People's Republic of China by shopping at Wal-Mart.
Letter: Misleading headline on Wal-Mart story?...PETER LIZDAS, Merced...4-30-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/177/v-print/story/819838.html
EEditor: "Opponents of Wal-Mart distribution center are aligned with attorneys, environmentalists," according to Scott Jason's front page article in the Tuesday Sun-Star.
In fact, only one attorney is named in the article.
But the headline the article, by using the plural, creates the impression that those opposing the Wal-Mart distribution center are a group top-heavy with those pesky lawyers and cursed environmentalists -- as opposed to those speaking out in favor of project, who are presumably just ordinary, decent citizens, who just don't get what the big fuss is all about with respect to the environment.
(After all, our air has always been dirty, so why can't the kids with asthma just deal with it? -- as one person quoted by Jason seemed to be saying.)
I am willing to bet that Wal-Mart also employs attorneys to further its corporate aims.
In fact, I am willing to bet that for every lawyer who serves the side opposing Wal-Mart in this issue, Wal-Mart employs a dozen, well paid, to fight for it.
So why not a headline saying, "Millionaire Wal-Mart corporate executives spend big bucks on attorneys to fight for distribution center?"
I'm sure if Jason dug deep, he would find a lot there to support such a headline.
Letter: Katrina ignorant?...JOAN PORTER, Merced...4-28-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/815290.html
Editor: We live on a flood plain that has existed since this great Valley was a sea with dinosaurs swimming.
In 1850, most of Merced County was sold by the U.S. government under the Swampland Reclamation Act at a very low price. The railroad picked up some of it to build the tracks that go through the center of the Valley. Ranchers drove their cattle into the mountains to keep them out of floodwaters when they grazed.
We learned how to pump water from one place to another to dry up land for one purpose and use the water for other purposes. People seem to have forgotten that if nature had her way we would still be a flood plain with a lot of swampland.
In 2006, the water runoff at the peak of county construction boom successfully flooded Ashby Road, a mobile home park on Highway 59, parts of Sandy Mush Road and left cattle standing in water dying in fields.
Now Wal-Mart has submitted an EIR for our flood plain with the intent of blacktopping 110 acres near schools, UC Merced and residential housing.
To do this would be a flooding accident waiting to happen. Does Wal-Mart think Merced is Katrina ignorant? The follow-up question: Are we Katrina ignorant and will we let them do it?
First Class: Commencement a good start for UC Merced senior...DANIELLE GAINES
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/827750.html
It's almost certain that UC Merced senior Lena Thomas has sent out more commencement notices than any of her classmates.
As a data-entry student worker in the university relations office, Thomas has been verifying the addresses for guests of all sorts to the May 16 commencement ceremony.
That's when she herself will receive her bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in sociology.
But Thomas is much more than just a UC Merced student and employee...
Fresno Bee
Is expense of first lady's visit to UC Merced appropriate now?...Editorial
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1378765.html
We all tend to spruce up our place when special guests are coming. But we're not sure how wise it is to be spending $700,000 at the University of California at Merced for the commencement speech of first lady Michelle Obama.
The first lady has confirmed her appearance at UC Merced's May 16 ceremonies, and that has thrown the campus into a spending frenzy.
When the UC Merced students surprisingly landed Mrs. Obama with their Valentine card campaign, the commencement morphed from a small affair for the university's pioneer class with family and friends into an international media frenzy.
Now university administrators and professors, local and state elected officials and thousands more are seeking invitations for a chance to see the first lady up close. It's a very tough ticket to get, and this event will put the newest UC campus on high-profile display.
UC officials say some corporations are helping to pay for the extravaganza. AT&T, Educational Employees Credit Union and Kaiser Permanente are donating about $80,000. The university is looking for other sponsors to help with the cost.
When you have a member of the first family visiting, the security costs go up dramatically. That is appropriate, and required. These costs will be borne by the University of California police force, the California Highway Patrol, the Merced County sheriff, Merced police. And, of course, the Secret Service. The cost for the university police alone is expected to run about $90,000. Metal detectors will add another $5,000.
The largest cost -- at $300,000 -- is expected to be for an audio/visual company to broadcast the first lady's speech to the thousands gathered downtown and in other nearby areas. That bill seems a bit excessive to us.
There's no doubt that this is going to be a big day for the university, and the entire region.
But these are tough economic times -- UC students are being asked to pay higher tuition to help balance the UC budget -- and they call for wise spending.
Some of the improvements, such as new grass and landscaping, will last well beyond the first lady's visit.
But $700,000 is a lot of money, and UC officials might consider stepping back and asking whether all this commencement spending makes sense in the current economic environment.
High court rules on Arvin Superfund site
Ruling relieves funding burden from Shell and two railroad companies...Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-print/story/1378786.html
WASHINGTON -- California will pay more and companies pay less to clean up a polluted San Joaquin Valley site under a closely watched Supreme Court decision Monday.
Capping a long legal battle, the court by an 8-1 margin limited the liability of two major railroads for chemical spills in the Kern County town of Arvin. The court also absolved Shell of liability for the Arvin site.
The ruling could help restrict corporate liability in future pollution cases involving other companies, said Phil Karmel, an attorney with Bryan Cave LLP in New York, who handles pollution issues but was not involved in this case.
"The court's decision limits the liability of industry in Superfund [cleanup] cases by broadening the circumstances in which defendants can escape ... liability for cleanups," Karmel said.
Baker & Botts attorney Daniel Steinway, who wrote a legal brief on behalf of the National Association of Manufacturers and other business groups, said the ruling "will have enormous financial consequences for industry."
The five-acre site in question, located about 21 miles southeast of Bakersfield, is laden with contaminated soil and ground water. Formerly the Brown & Bryant agricultural chemical distribution center, the now-abandoned site is on the nation's Superfund list of most-polluted sites.
It is one of 94 Superfund sites scattered throughout California, more than two dozen of which are in the Central Valley region between Sacramento and Bakersfield. The sites typically cost tens of millions of dollars to clean up, prompting regulators to search for responsible parties who can be billed.
State and federal officials wanted to charge Shell and the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe and Union Pacific railroad companies the full cost of the Arvin site cleanup, which has been under way since 1988. The railroads own part of the property, and Shell supplied some of the chemicals distributed by Brown & Bryant, which is now out of business.
The government officials wanted to apply what's called joint-and-several liability. This means a responsible company can be charged 100% of the cleanup cost even if it is only responsible for, say, 1% of the problem.
Instead, the court ruled Shell wasn't liable at all, while the railroads had only limited liability.
"The primary pollution was contained in an unlined sump and an unlined pond in the southeastern portion of the facility most distant from the railroads' parcel," Justice John Paul Stevens wrote, adding that "the spills of hazardous chemicals that occurred on the railroad parcel contributed to no more than 10% of the total site contamination."
The contamination includes pesticides, soil fumigants like D-D and Nemagon and the weed-killer dinoseb.
The court's ruling overturned the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and restored Fresno-based U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger's determination that the railroads owe a total of 9% of the total cleanup costs. The ruling absolved Shell, on the grounds that the company wasn't directly involved in the pesticide spills.
The cleanup so far has cost well over $8 million, and the final cleanup will require millions of dollars more.
The ruling culminates a series of lawsuits that began in 1992, and it largely united the court's traditional liberal and conservative wings, with only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissenting.
"Relieving Shell of any obligation to pay for the cleanup undertaken by the United States and California ... is surely at odds with [the law's] objective, to place the cost of remediation on persons whose activities contributed to the contamination rather than on the taxpaying public," Ginsburg wrote.
For other companies, attorney Dan Steinway noted, the ruling means that joint-and-several liability may be avoided if a percentage of liability can be calculated.
Sacramento Bee
Almost 24,000 homes, apartments vacant in Sacramento area...Jim Wasserman
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/1833742.html
Nearly four years into California's housing downturn, close to 24,000 Sacramento-area homes and apartments are vacant, a number that climbed 40 percent in the past year, according to a Bee analysis of federal data.
Roughly a third, or about 7,200, of the six-county region's vacant homes have been empty longer than a year. About 3,500 have been empty longer than two years.
The vacancy count, revealing a vast excess of unused shelter in a region that overbuilt during the housing boom, stems from a U.S. Postal Service survey of houses and apartments where mail has not been picked up for 90 days.
Unoccupied houses put further stress on neighborhoods already hit hard by foreclosures.
"If I could afford to move out of here I'd do it," said Angela Trejo of Sacramento's Oak Park. Across the street is a house vacant for months, now for sale for less than $20,000.
In the northern sections of Oak Park, and parts of West Sacramento, more than one in 10 homes is vacant. More than one in 20 homes is vacant in parts of Oak Park, south Sacramento, North Sacramento, North Highlands and Citrus Heights.
Reasons vary for the surge of vacant dwellings.
Area real estate agents and others Monday cited recent foreclosure moratoriums and banks increasingly sitting on large numbers of repossessed homes. Apartment communities also report rising vacancies as 11.3 percent regional unemployment forces renters to double up or move back in with family members.
Novato apartment industry tracker RealFacts reported last month that 7.8 percent of 76,000 apartments in large complexes in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties were vacant in the first quarter of 2009. A year earlier 6.9 percent of the region's apartments were vacant.
Meanwhile, 8,189 homes were for sale in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties as March ended, reported Sacramento researcher TrendGraphix. It was not known how many were empty.
"There's several houses in my neighborhood that were supposed to go into foreclosure in November of last year," said Coldwell Banker real estate agent Mike Toste of Roseville. "They're still sitting vacant. Banks are trying to keep this excessive inventory from coming into the market like last year and the year before."
Highlights of the data:
• The nearly 24,000 vacant homes and apartments in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo and Yuba counties compare with 17,000 the same time last year.
• Regionwide, 26 of every 1,000 homes have not picked up mail for at least 90 days, well above the statewide average of 17 per 1,000.
• Among the 10 largest counties in the state, only Riverside had a higher vacancy rate – 4.1 percent – than Sacramento County's 2.8 percent.
• Yuba County now has the highest percentage of vacancies in the state; 8.9 percent of homes in the county have not picked up mail in 90 days. And almost half have been empty for more than a year.
"It doesn't really surprise me, frankly," said David Burrow, a Keller Williams real estate agent in Yuba City. "With all these foreclosure moratoriums, properties are vacant, but nothing is happening."
Yuba County has taken some of the downturn's hardest blows after a five-year housing boom planted 4,200 new houses and attracted many Sacramento commuters who bought with loans that turned toxic when values fell. The rural county has seen nearly 1,200 foreclosures in the past 15 months, according to researcher MDA DataQuick.
Collectively, thousands of vacant properties and empty apartments across the region have steadily driven down sales prices and rents. In some neighborhoods vacant homes have become crime magnets and scenes of squatting. Many vacant properties also have neglected swimming pools, breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus.
Monday, Jovella and Louis Christian moved into a rental home near Ninth Avenue in Oak Park. Homes on both sides of them are vacant. On one side the house was getting repairs. On the other, only a halfhearted attempt to nail boards over a few windows.
"I'd love to see a family come into it that is going to keep it up," said Louis Christian.
Stockton Record
Questioning the numbers...Alex Breitler's Blog
http://blogs.recordnet.com/sr-abreitler
Increasingly, peripheral canal skeptics and opponents are questioning the staggering unemployment numbers that keep coming out of the central San Joaquin Valley.
Not whether the numbers are high, but WHY they're high.
UOP prof Jeff Michael, a Stockton newbie who has made quite a name for himself in the water world as a canal skeptic and Delta advocate, writes in the Sac Bee this weekend that farm jobs have actually grown in the Valley over the past 12 months.
The oft-reported 40 percent unemployment rate in Mendota (which always has high unemployment, even during good water years) is due largely to the foreclosure crisis and the dropoff in homebuilding, Michael writes. This erodes the water contractors' and the state's argument that a multibillion-dollar peripheral canal is needed.
"Delta Vision, water contractors and now the Bay Delta Conservation Plan are primarily making economic arguments for their plans," Michael writes. "While spending millions on engineering studies and public relations, the state is not sponsoring any serious research to comprehensively evaluate economic effects of the water plan.
"California's overburdened taxpayers deserve better."
Stockton enviro Bill Jennings also jumps into the fray, calling the idea that the drought has been devastating to farm workers a "big lie."
"Water agencies and politicians have been relentlessly claiming that the drought and environmental restrictions have had a devastating impact on farm worker employment," he wrote in a piece for his California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "... These claims have been widely reported in numerous newspapers and broadcast media articles.  Unfortunately, they are substantially lies, facilitated by those seeking to relax environmental protection and facilitate a peripheral canal."
San Francisco Chronicle
Finally, science isn't endangered...Editorial
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/05/EDV517E6TO.DTL&type=printable
In California, it's bighorn sheep and desert tortoises. In Alaska, it's polar bears. And in the Rockies, it's gray wolves.
These creatures share a connection to the Endangered Species Act, a powerful legal protection that the Bush White House weakened in its final days.
President Obama's team now wants to restore the rules by requiring federal agencies to consult with government wildlife experts on decisions about conferring endangered-species status that can stop development in its tracks.
On one level, it's a clear win for sound science and a full environmental accounting. The Bush administration let federal agencies - run by its appointees - skip endangered-species consultations in making timber, oil and grazing decisions. It was clear gift to industry supporters.
But the restored status comes with question marks. Obama's interior secretary, Ken Salazar, last week reaffirmed a decision to drop the gray wolf from the danger list, saying he agrees with the prior administration that its numbers have rebounded to healthy levels. But that move drew protests, including a letter signed by 225 scientists, saying the wolf population hadn't grown large enough.
A bigger endangered-species test awaits: the ultra-photogenic polar bear, which makes its home on melting ice floes. Wolves, eagles, coho salmon and other creatures in the endangered doghouse usually suffer from threats such as a logging road, hunting rules or a dam.
But polar bears are hurting because rising global temperatures are shrinking their icy homebase. Can the endangered species law be used to stop oil drilling when the source of the trouble, say global warming, is so indistinct?
The new White House hasn't quite decided. But by ordering wildlife experts into the debate, it's signaling that - at last - science will have a voice. That's a major step forward.
Study: Most key fishing spots in state polluted...Jane Kay
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/05/MN5I17EG6E.DTL&type=printable
The most comprehensive survey ever of pollutants in California's lakes and reservoirs has found that only a few of the most popular fishing spots are free of mercury, PCBs and other contaminants.
Of 152 lakes tested statewide, 21 were clean while 131 showed one or more pollutants at levels above state health guidelines, according to the study released Monday by the State Water Resources Control Board.
In Northern California, some of the cleanest were the high-elevation lakes of the Sierra Nevada and the Trinity Alps. The only Bay Area body of water free of contaminants found was Lago Los Osos in Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area in Fremont, where fishing isn't allowed.
"This study is helping to define the scope of the statewide problem of contaminants accumulating in sport fish," said Jay Davis, lead author and toxicologist at the nonprofit San Francisco Estuary Institute in Oakland.
Results of the two-year study of California lakes, rivers, reservoirs and coastal waters will be used to develop cleanup plans in watersheds that feed the lakes and to establish guidelines for consuming fish to protect anglers and their families from health risks, Davis said.
In addition to the 100 popular lakes tested in 2007, the survey included 50 other lakes picked at random. Next year, 2008 sampling results from 100 additional lakes will be released, bringing the total to 250 lakes out of 9,000 in California. Some 12,000 fish are being collected and tested, including bass, trout, catfish and carp.
Popular lakes were those that appeared in fishing guides and were known to state fish and water officials. The lakes were considered clean if all concentrations of pollutants in all the tested species were below thresholds set by the state.
Toxic chemicals under scrutiny were mercury, most of which comes from past mining activities; PCBs, chemicals once used in electrical equipment; and the banned pesticides DDT, dieldrin and chlordane. Fish were also tested for selenium, which is discharged as waste from oil refineries and seeps from irrigated land in the Central Valley.
Methylmercury, the potent form of mercury that taints fish, is the most widespread potential health risk, the study said.
Inorganic mercury, used as an ingredient in gold mining or washing out of crushed rock and natural rock formations, transforms to methylmercury in rivers and lakes, where it accumulates in ever-higher concentrations as it moves up the food chain to larger fish-eating species, such as large-mouth bass.
About one-fourth of the lakes surveyed had at least one fish species with a mercury level high enough that state health officials would consider prohibiting it for the most sensitive humans - pregnant and nursing women, women between 18 and 45 years old who might conceive and children.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are the chemicals that caused the second-most concern among health officials. In Northern California, more than one-third of the lakes had a fish species with a concentration about the state's threshold.
Concentrations of banned pesticides and selenium were generally low, and they infrequently exceeded the state's thresholds, the study said.
The study will be used to identify the lakes where state health officials should return to gather and test more fish and establish safe-eating guidelines, officials said.
The strictest limits will be set for pregnant and nursing women because they can pass pollutants onto fetuses and infants, who are most vulnerable to poisons. Mercury and PCBs can impair mental and motor development, while PCBs and the pesticides are believed to increase cancer risks.
Curtis Knight, Mount Shasta manager for California Trout, a 7,500-member conservation organization, said the new information is important for knowing which fish are safe to eat.
"A big part of fishing in a lake is fishing with your kids. That's how they learn to fish. You certainly want to know what you're feeding your kids, and you want that to be safe," Knight said.
Knight said the lakes and the fish in them are indicators of watershed health. "Lakes are collecting bodies for what's coming out of the streams, and that gives a sense of the watershed's history," he said.
Online resources
Read the report at links.sfgate.com/ZGZG.
Read the state's guidelines at links.sfgate.com/ZGZH.
Study: Most key fishing spots in state polluted...Multimedia (image)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/05/05/MN5I17EG6E.DTL&o=0&type=printable
Bay Area lakes showing contamination
EPA: ethanol crops displaces climate-friendly ones...H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/05/03/national/w053806D23.DTL&type=printable
The Environmental Protection Agency says that corn ethanol — as made today — wouldn't meet a congressional requirement that ethanol produce 20 percent less greenhouse gas than gasoline. But the agency said it is still more climate friendly than gasoline.
The EPA in its analysis said that even if worldwide land-use changes are taken into account, ethanol would still produce 16 percent less greenhouse gases than the gasoline it is replacing.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said Tuesday that future improvements in production technologies are expected to make ethanol and other biofuels more climate friendly so they can meet the legal requirement. The requirement for a 20 percent improvement in climate impact applies only to ethanol from future production plants
and exempts fuel made at existing facilities.
(This version CORRECTS APNewsNow. corrects that ethanol fails to meet congressional mandate, but is still greener than gasoline.)
Inside Bay Area
Proposed Fremont golf course doesn't make the cut...Matthew Artz, The Argus
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_12293243
FREMONT — The best hope for building an 18-hole golf course in Fremont has thrown in the towel after failing for seven years to finance the project.
Developer James Tong is asking the city to cancel a 2002 agreement that entitled him to build the Double Wood Golf Course on 400 hillside acres east of Interstate 680 and the Warm Springs district.
"It's not going to happen because the golf industry went down the tubes," Tong said. "No bank will loan anything."
The development agreement was scheduled to expire in 2012. If the City Council, as expected, agrees later this month to cancel the agreement, it would effectively end any chance of a golf course being built on the site, which is flanked by Avalon Heights Terrace, with Rancho Higuera Road to the north and Scott Creek Road to the south.
Once the agreement is voided, the land will fall under Fremont's 2002 voter-approved hillside preservation ordinance. That law prohibits golf courses and restricts hillside land to open space and agricultural uses, planning officials said.
Tong received preliminary city approval for the golf course in 1996, but it took him six years to get clearance from environmental agencies and sign the development agreement.
"The (U.S. Army) Corps of Engineers ran us crazy," Mayor Bob Wasserman said. "They stalled and stalled. It finally got approved, but by the time it did, the economics weren't there."
Tong, who built a golf course in Dublin, said the market for new courses dried up after Sept. 11, 2001.
Fremont still has a nine-hole course at Central Park. It previously had two relatively small 18-hole courses, but the one on Stevenson Boulevard was replaced with housing, and the one in Warm Springs was turned into homes and a shopping center, Wasserman said.
Fremont was so eager for a top-fight course in the 1990s that the City Council formed a golf subcommittee charged with helping to find a suitable location for a
course.
"We finally found a spot that seemingly worked, and couldn't get it put together," Wasserman said.
Tong said he would like to sell the land to Fremont for a park, but for now is resigned to owning land on which nothing can be built.
"That's the way it goes," he said.
Los Angeles Times
State fines UCLA in fatal lab fire
Cal/OSHA cites safety lapses and lack of training in imposing $31,875 penalty...Kim Christensen
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-uclalab5-2009may05,0,2589538,print.story
State regulators on Monday fined UCLA more than $31,000 for three "serious" violations of workplace safety laws in the fatal burning of a staff research assistant in a Dec. 29 chemistry lab fire.
The findings by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health concluded that Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji, 23, had not been properly trained and was not wearing protective clothing when an experiment exploded, spreading second- and third-degree burns over 43% of her body. She died 18 days later.
Cal/OSHA also cited UCLA for not addressing deficiencies noted in an internal safety inspection two months before the fatal fire in professor Patrick Harran's organic chemistry laboratory, including a finding that workers were not wearing lab coats.
The 10-page report, which contained scant detail of the Cal/OSHA investigation, left many questions unanswered about the lab's protocols, equipment and supervision, said Sangji's sister, Naveen, a Harvard medical student.
"This report sheds very little light on the incident. Sheri went to work that day and never got the chance to come home," she said. "She suffered agonizing injuries, and these . . . pages do not explain what happened or how it happened."
Cal/OSHA officials said the UCLA fine was the largest among seven recent cases involving accidents at academic research labs or those in the chemical and biotechnology industries.
Fines in the six previous cases, which included serious injuries but not fatalities, ranged from $1,200 to $19,135.
"The important point to make here is that these penalties are not designed to compensate for injury or loss of life," said Dean Fryer, a Cal/OSHA spokesman, explaining that the fines merely address the civil violations of workplace regulations.
As in any accident resulting in death, Fryer said, Cal/OSHA will prepare an additional report to present to the Los Angeles County district attorney for consideration of criminal prosecution. Cal/OSHA as a matter of routine does not contact the district attorney before civil penalties are assessed.
UCLA officials, who ordered a comprehensive review of lab safety after Sangji died, said they would not appeal the fines.
New measures in place or in the works include increased inspections, a shortened time span for correcting serious violations and the purchase of flame-resistant lab coats.
"Although substantial progress has already been made, we will continue to thoroughly monitor and assess our lab training and safety protocols as an integral component of our daily operations," Chancellor Gene Block said in a statement. "The Cal/OSHA report will provide critical assistance with these ongoing efforts."
Sangji was transferring about two ounces of t-butyl lithium from one sealed container to another when a plastic syringe came apart in her hands, splashing her with a chemical compound that ignites instantly when exposed to air.
The resulting flash fire set ablaze her rubber gloves and synthetic sweater.
The $31,875 fine issued Monday included $18,000 for the fact that she wasn't wearing a lab coat, which might have kept her highly flammable sweater from catching fire.
Serious violations carry a maximum fine of $25,000 and a base penalty of $18,000, which can be increased or reduced based on the circumstances.
Born and raised in Pakistan, Sangji graduated in 2008 from Pomona College in Claremont with plans to become a lawyer. While applying to law schools, she took a $46,000-a-year job in October in a lab run by Harran, a researcher with a rising reputation in organic chemistry.
A former member of the faculty at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, he joined the UCLA faculty in July as the first Donald J. Cram Chair in Organic Chemistry, according to his biography on UCLA's website.
A day after the fire, Harran told a UCLA investigator that a syringe "was the appropriate method" for transferring t-butyl lithium, and that Sangji had been trained how to do it. But Harran did not know when that training occurred and had no record of it, as required by Cal/OSHA and UCLA lab safety standards.
Two months before the fire, an annual safety inspection conducted Oct. 30 uncovered more than two dozen deficiencies in Harran's four labs, including the one where Sangji worked.
Among other things, inspectors found excessive amounts of flammable liquids, and workers who lacked the required lab coats and other required safety gear, such as rubber gloves and eye protection.
Some of the fixes were made immediately, Harran later told colleagues in e-mails, but others were delayed because the lab was in the process of moving to another floor and was to have been reinspected afterward.
A campus safety official agreed to the delayed reinspection, according to UCLA records reviewed by The Times.
In a statement Monday, Harran said that he and his students "deeply mourn the death of our friend Sheri Sangji," describing her as exceptionally gifted.
He also said that although it is important to develop a culture of lab safety, the inspection and training records that have garnered scrutiny since Sangji's death had little relation to the accident.
"Sheri was an experienced chemist and published researcher who exuded confidence and had performed this experiment before in my lab," he said.
"However, it seems evident, based on mistakes investigators tell us were made that day, I underestimated her understanding of the care necessary when working with such materials."
Shipping from Asia to the Midwest? Go greener with West Coast ports...Kim Murphy...Greenspace
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/05/carbon-emissions-global-warming-port-shipping.html
All those lawn chairs and sports shoes being shipped from Hong Kong and Shanghai to the American heartland quite often follow the path of conventional wisdom, which says it makes sense to steam through the Panama Canal to New York, then hop a relatively short train ride from there to, say, Chicago.
Not if you're thinking green, though. A new study (Download Ports' carbon footprint) commissioned for the Port of Seattle suggests the carbon footprint on north Asian shipments to the Midwest is much lower if they unload along the West Coast.
The shorter ocean journey more than makes up for the longer rail ride, at least in terms of carbon emissions, says the study by the Alameda-based Herbert Engineering Corp.
For deliveries north of Memphis, the ports of Seattle and nearby Tacoma had the lowest greenhouse gas toll: a 24% savings in emissions on shipments from Shanghai to Chicago via Seattle, vs. New York -- even more for bigger ships. From Memphis south, it's more environmentally friendly to ship to Los Angeles, Long Beach or Oakland.
In the current economic climate, shippers are looking primarily at cost. But as fuel costs rise, Northwest ports expect to look more and more attractive. Grabbing a niche as the "green gateway" can only help, Charles Sheldon, the Seattle seaport's managing director, told reporters. "I've been meeting with major shipping lines in the last couple years where they've asked the question, 'What are you doing to reduce the carbon footprint of your supply chain?'"
Ventura County Star
County failed to enforce mining laws, state says...Zeke Barlow
http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/may/05/ventura-county-failed-to-enforce-mining-laws/?printer=1/
After the county of Ventura failed to adequately enforce laws governing mines, the state stepped in last week and issued a violation against Tom Staben and his Camarillo quarry, Pacific Rock.
The state Department of Conservation had issued the county a 15-day notice in September requiring it to serve Staben with a cease-and-desist order for mining outside his permitted boundaries. It took the county six months to issue the order, but the results did not satisfy the state, which oversees local governments’ enforcement at mines.
“Clearly the law was not being enforced, at least as quickly as we wanted,” said Don Drysdale, spokesman for the Department of Conservation.
Kim Rodriguez, planning director for the county, said the state is merely bringing its tools to help solve the issue of the only mine in the county’s history issued a cease-and-desist order.
“The state is stepping in to assist,” she said. “We are both working cooperatively to bring him into compliance.”
Staben has done millions of dollars in jobs for the county, moving dirt and debris, but has a long history of running afoul of environmental regulations. Staben, 55, declined to comment for this story. At various meetings and in letters to the county, he has said his mine is not in violation and submitted reclamation plans that he said addressed the issue. But the county deemed the plans inadequate.
Staben claims the boundaries were expanded before he bought the mine in 2000, and therefore he isn’t responsible. However, the county has said once he bought the mine, he owned the problems, regardless of who created them.
Rodriguez said how serious Staben’s alleged violations are remains to be seen, but the length of time it has taken to fix the issue is unique. The county has tried without success to get Staben to remedy this issue since May 2007, when a survey showed his mine went beyond its boundaries in the original reclamation plan.
In June 2007, a letter to the county from 1028 Investors, which owns the property next to Pacific Rock, said Staben’s quarry was eating away its property. The quarry expanded onto 1028 Investors’ land, resulting in a “hazardous sheer cliff” that “has created an extremely dangerous condition,” the letter said.
The following month, the county issued Staben a notice of violation for going outside the mining boundaries and for not having a reclamation plan addressing how to repair the area after the mining was complete.
In February 2008, the county issued him an order to comply that would not take effect until a formal hearing was held. Staben’s representatives changed the date of the hearing numerous times until it was held the following month — and Staben did not appear. Although he submitted multiple documents to defend himself, the county said they never adequately addressed the issue.
The state intervened in September 2008 and told the county it had 15 days to bring Staben into compliance.
A cease-and-desist order was drawn up but never sent because the county did not know if the entire mine or only the parts in violation needed to be shut down, Rodriguez said.
“The county had never issued a cease-and-desist order before and it’s not a simple matter,” she said.
The county issued administrative penalties of $1,000 a day against Staben in September, which he appealed.
Though the county did issue an order to stop mining in the area of violation in March 2009, it wasn’t enough for the state.
“Ultimately they weren’t moving forward at a pace we wanted,” Drysdale said.
The state is demanding that Staben submit a reclamation plan on how the site will be rehabilitated once the mining is complete. But if the allegation that he has cut away at a neighbor’s property and created a cliff proves true, it won’t be easy, Drysdale said.
“He’s kind of short on options,” he said.
The state also wants Staben to provide $400,000 in initial financial assurance by May 11 that guarantees the mine can be reclaimed if needed. The new reclamation plan is due by May 29 and a new financial assurance amount will be based upon that plan.
If those terms are not met, the state can impose fines up to $5,000 a day starting with the original violation date, July 17, 2007.
Meanwhile, the California Regional Water Quality Control Board is still working on a violation at the mine for not having adequate stormwater prevention plans. Another violation was fixed after a second notice was issued, said Stephen Cain, a spokesman for the agency.
A separate violation against Staben and his Somis property is being handled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It claims Staben dumped dirt into Calleguas Creek after the 2005 floods to reclaim his property — a violation of the Clean Water Act. A neighbor who was named in the violation for a similar action agreed in January to pay a $75,000 fine. The case against Staben is ongoing.
An investigation by The Star found some of the dirt dumped into the creek came from a county contract project where Staben was paid $4.2 million dollars to remove it from a debris basin.
New York Times
White House Steps Up Support for Biofuels...Matthew L. Wald
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/white-house-steps-up-support-for-biofuels/?pagemode=print
Associated Press The Obama administration is pledging to support more of this.
The White House made its first major statement on ethanol on Tuesday, mustering three Cabinet members to outline a plan to shield corn ethanol producers from the credit crisis, work with them to cut their use of natural gas and coal in ethanol production, and nudge the auto industry toward production of vehicles that can use ethanol at concentrations of up to 85 percent.
In pursuing these goals, the Secretaries of Agriculture and Energy, Tom Vilsack and Stephen Chu, along with the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson, announced during a press conference the formation of a “Biofuels Interagency Working Group,’’ comprised of the three agencies.
Through the working group, the federal government announced several goals, including helping to refinance existing ethanol and biodiesel factories whose owners were having trouble obtaining credit, guaranteeing loans for the construction of new biorefineries, and expediting funding to help producers of cellulosic crops.
(Cellulosic crops refer to non-food crops, or the non-food portion of plants grown for food, like corn stalks, that in theory can be converted to fuel on a commercial scale. Many companies are trying to do just that, but none has yet succeeded on a marketable scale.)
Scientists differ on the degree to which use of ethanol from corn cuts carbon emissions, if at all. Ms. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said the reduction amounted to about 16 percent, but she said that for both ethanol and biodiesel, the “carbon footprint” could be reduced further if the energy needed to create the fuels were derived from burning plants instead of fossil fuels.
President Obama put the Agriculture Department in charge of the multi-agency effort — a strong signal that the ethanol program remains a program for rural economic development.
The industry was looking for a signal of support, especially after the collapse of gasoline prices and the widespread backlash against corn ethanol because of a belief that it was helping to push food prices higher.
Mr. Vilsack, the Agriculture Secretary, referring to stimulus money and other funding, said, “There is over $1.1 billion of opportunity here, created by the Congress, to assist in building biorefineries, in helping existing refineries convert from fossil-fuel power to renewable power.”
The money can also be used to “create opportunities for producers, to receive assistance to produce new cellulosic crops and products,” Mr. Vilsack said.
Where Home Prices Crashed Early, Signs of a Rebound...DAVID STREITFELD
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/business/economy/
05turnaround.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print
SACRAMENTO — Is this what a bottom looks like?
This city was among the first in the nation to fall victim to the real estate collapse. Now it seems to be in the earliest stages of a recovery, a hopeful sign for an economy mired in trouble and anxiety.
Investors and first-time buyers, the traditional harbingers of a housing rebound, are out in force here, competing for bargain-price foreclosures. With sales up 45 percent from last year, the vast backlog of inventory has diminished. Even prices, which have plummeted to levels not seen since the beginning of the decade, show evidence of stabilizing.
Indications of progress are visible in other hard-hit areas, including Las Vegas, parts of Florida and the Inland Empire in southeastern California. Sales in Las Vegas in March, for example, rose 35 percent from last year.
“It’s fragile, and it could easily be fleeting,” said an MDA DataQuick analyst, Andrew LePage. “But history suggests this is how things might look six months before prices bottom out.”
Hope for housing was on full display in the stock market on Monday. News that pending home sales rose in March instead of falling, coupled with improved construction spending, propelled a strong rally. One broad market average, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, is now in positive territory for the year, after being down 25 percent on March 9.
No one in Sacramento is predicting that local housing prices, which have been cut in half from their mid-2005 peak, are going to reclaim much of that ground anytime soon.
Instead, this is what passes for wild-eyed optimism: a belief that things have finally stopped getting worse. “A period of price stagnation would boost a lot of spirits,” Mr. LePage said.
When a market bottoms, foreclosures usually stop piling up and banks become more willing to make loans, confident the collateral backing them will not fall in value.
Nationally, signs of progress in real estate are still faint at best. Existing home sales in March were down 7 percent from last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
The supply of unsold homes was about 10 months, a number that has changed little over the last year and is abnormally high. But first-time buyers were an impressive 53 percent of the market — and that was largely before a first-time buyer’s tax credit of $8,000 became available.
With the tax credit in place and interest rates low, the pace of sales may be picking up. The Realtors’ group said Monday that the number of houses under contract in March was up 1 percent from a year earlier. Those pending deals will be reported in the existing-home sales for April and May.
Sales volume tends to recover long before prices. In fact, some analysts think price declines in many markets are accelerating. First American CoreLogic, a real estate data firm, reported that “the depth and breadth of price declines continued to worsen in February.” Fitch Ratings recently revised its estimate of future declines to 12.5 percent, from 10 percent, saying the drop would extend to the end of next year.
Amid the uncertainty, Sacramento is drawing scrutiny as a test case. The area boomed in the first part of the decade; the population of Sacramento County increased 10 percent, to 1.4 million, as San Franciscans sought cheaper places to live.
When the market peaked and the ability to refinance all those costly mortgages dried up, the carnage began. There have been 28,898 foreclosures in Sacramento County since 2005.
Sales in the top half of the market remain slow. The Federal Reserve reported on Monday that half of all banks recently tightened their lending standards on prime mortgages. Many would-be buyers, here as elsewhere, simply cannot get financing.
Sellers, meanwhile, are reluctant to lower their prices, preferring to bide their time. New construction is nearly nonexistent.
What drives the market here, then, are all those foreclosures. Two-thirds of the 2,092 existing single-family houses and condominiums sold here in March were bank repossessions, up from 8.5 percent two years ago, according to MDA DataQuick, a real estate research firm.
These cut-rate properties are engendering the same frenzy and frustration that symbolized the boom, as Rebecca and Chris Whitman discovered when they started looking for a house in December. Ms. Whitman’s new job as an athletics director at Sacramento State required an immediate move from Chico, two hours north.
In two months the couple looked at 100 houses, nearly all foreclosures priced under $200,000, making verbal offers on 20. Only rarely did they get a response. Banks trying to unload large numbers of properties are less interested in traditional transactions with individuals than all-cash offers from investors.
As interest rates fell, the Whitmans were able to increase their price limit. They ended up buying from investors. A syndicate had bought a three-bedroom foreclosure on a cul-de-sac in eastern Sacramento last fall for $172,000, made a few improvements and was flipping it — another boom-era element that is back. The Whitmans bought it three weeks ago for $224,500.
“We think we got a good deal,” said Ms. Whitman, 31. Their monthly payment, including property taxes, will be about $1,200. Renting an equivalent house, with space for their two dogs, two cats and the baby they are expecting, would have been hundreds of dollars more.
When buying is cheaper than renting, markets begin to turn. At the current rate of sales, there is less than three months of inventory in the Sacramento market. In normal times, that would indicate a seller’s market.
Except these are not normal times. The unemployment rate in the county is 11.3 percent, the highest in decades. That will prompt more foreclosures all by itself. Furthermore, banks have lifted various processing moratoriums that lowered foreclosures last fall.
These two factors yielded a rise in the number of default notices filed in Sacramento County in March to 2,819, a record. Thousands more bank-owned houses are likely to come to market this summer and fall.
“That will stall any progress toward stability,” said Michael Lyon, chief executive of Lyon Real Estate. “The prospects for a recovery are fool’s gold.”
Mr. Lyon expects further price declines and slowing sales. But David Berson, the chief economist for the mortgage insurer PMI, argues that such bleakness from the people whose livelihood is selling houses is itself a positive sign. “Things are awful at the bottom, and we’re at the bottom,” Mr. Berson said. “No question about it. But the trend going forward should be higher sales, and that will eventually affect prices.”