6-24-09

 
6-24-09  
Badlands Journal
CSPA and Environmental Law Foundation Sue Regional Water Board Over Tracy Discharge Permit...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2009-06-23/007283
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
Contacts:
Bill Jennings, CSPA Executive Director: 209-464-5067, Cell 209-938-9053, deltakeep@aol.com
Erin Ganahl, Environmental Law Foundation, 510-208-4555, Cell 510-898-8620 eganahl@envirolaw.org
Michael Lozeau, Lozeau/Drury LLP, 510-749-9102-2#, Cell 415-596-5318, michael@lozeaudrury.com
Permit authorizes massive increase in pollutants discharged to degraded Delta
http://www.calsport.org/6-18-09b.htm
Stockton, CA – Thursday, June 18, 2009 --  Today, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) and the Environmental Law Foundation (ELF) filed a lawsuit against the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board (Regional Board) for issuing a permit to the City of Tracy allowing increased discharges of polluted wastewater to the seriously degraded Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The Complaint, filed in Sacramento Superior Court, alleges the Regional Board failed to comply with fundamental state and federal antidegradation requirements in issuing the Tracy wastewater discharge permit.
“The Tracy permit is a poster-child of the state’s failure to comply with laws designed to protect the water quality and fisheries of the Delta,” said CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings.
“Antidegradation requirements are fundamental to protecting the estuary and the Regional Board, under pressure from dischargers, has abdicated its responsibility to protect the people and environment of California,” he said.
Erin Ganahl, an attorney with ELF observed that, “at a time when Delta water quality is deteriorating and Delta smelt and other fish species are hovering on the brink of extinction, the Regional Board’s actions in allowing massive increases in the discharge of toxic pollutants in violation of state and federal statutes are simply unacceptable.”
The Regional Board issued the permit in May of 2007 and CSPA and ELF appealed it to the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board). The State Board reviewed the appeals and, on 19 May 2009, remanded the permit back to the Regional Board to correct several deficiencies (i.e., final limits for salinity, ammonia, narrative toxicity and elimination of a dilution credit).
However, the Board dismissed core claims that addressed Tracy’s degrading pollution and the antidegradation laws by suggesting that the Board was considering a revision to the antidegradation policy, apparently believing that voicing consideration of modifying a policy excuses compliance in the meantime.
Antidegradation provisions of the Clean Water Act and the state’s Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act were established to prevent degradation of waters beyond certain levels. In other words they establish a floor beyond which degradation is simply not allowed. For lesser degrees of degradation, the provisions explicitly mandate that permitting agencies must perform a detailed socioeconomic and alternatives analysis of potential degradation from the proposed action and make findings, supported by evidence, that any degradation is justified by important social or economic development. The Regional Board refused to conduct the required antidegradation socioeconomic and alternatives analyses for the Tracy permit even though it allowed major increases in pollutant loading.
Without benefit of an adequate antidegradation analysis, the Tracy permit allows the City to discharge 78% more aluminum, 62% more arsenic, 78% more barium, 54% more copper, 77% more fluoride, 78% more iron, 79% more lead, 14% more nickel, 114% more silver, 88% more
thallium, 75% more zinc, 78% more MBAS, 78% more Nitrate (N), 77% more phosphorus, 78% more chloroform, 74% more dibromochloromethane, 77% more MTBE and 78% more 2,4-D.
Additionally, there was no evaluation of increased toxicity caused by additive or synergistic interactions between metals.
The Delta is one of the most degraded and polluted waterbodies in the Central Valley. It is listed as an “impaired waterbody” and Toxic Hot Spot” under state and federal law and its aquatic ecosystem is collapsing. Toxicity from pollutants, along with water exports, have been identified by state and federal scientists as one of the principle causes for the catastrophic collapse of the Delta’s pelagic (i.e., Delta smelt, splittail, threadfin shad, longfin smelt, striped bass) and salmonid (steelhead, sturgeon and winter, spring and fall-run Chinook salmon) fisheries.
Michael Lozeau, an attorney representing CSPA stated that, “As the Delta’s water quality continues to decline, the Regional Board is opening the pollution spigots more rather than ensuring that the Delta’s cities and industries take steps to reduce their already dangerous levels of pollution. California’s water quality law is supposed to protect water quality, not shield polluters from its requirements.”
Merced Sun-Star
Meeting at UC Merced outlines options for upcoming pay cuts...DANIELLE GAINES
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/916499.html
Many of the questions posed couldn't be answered Tuesday at a forum to address pay cuts and furloughs next year for University of California employees.
Merced workers expressed dismay over a plan from the University Office of the President to cut pay by 8 percent for all employees earning more than $46,000 yearly. All other salaries -- with the exception of student workers -- would be cut 4 percent.
University President Mark Yudof announced the cut in a letter posted to the university human resources Web site late last week.
"I recognize this is difficult news to receive -- it is difficult to deliver," Yudof wrote.
In short, all employees are expected to take a cut under one of three plans: The first plan is a straight 8 percent pay reduction. Under the other two options, the pay reduction is less severe and employees will have to take unpaid time off, to equal about 8 percent of total pay.
All three plans also increase to 8 percent a voluntary 5 percent cut taken by senior management throughout the system in late May.
About 860 UC Merced employees would be hurt by the cuts, according to a staffing snapshot from last November.
Because the campus is small, very few employees needed to identify themselves before speaking at Tuesday's forum. UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang sat at the front of the auditorium, taking notes on a legal pad.
One person suggested the university allow employees to bank unpaid time off to use later.
Another said that the cuts could significantly impair single-parent families under the $43,000 mark.
"I'm worried about exactly the same thing you are, worried it may send single parents over the edge," said Keith Alley, provost and executive vice chancellor of the campus.
Kang said some chancellors in the system proposed no reduction in salary to employees earning less than $24,000 a year.
The implication by other leaders was that no cut to some would mean a bigger cut to others and that plan was rejected, Kang said.
Alley said Yudof believes the only way to draw the attention of the Legislature and Board of Regents is to upset all employees and create a massive outcry.
One speaker said cutting pay for professors at a time of economic recovery clashed with the spirit of federal stimulus spending and was "just completely nuts."
The crowd clapped and cheered.
"We'll register your disappointment," Alley said. "You're not the only one concerned."
The University of California must cut costs to cope with combined $800 million funding shortfall for the 2008-2009 and 2009-2010 school years.
A 9.3 percent increase in student fees will produce an additional $211 million to cover one-fourth of the shortfall. Systemwide pay reductions could chip in an additional $195 million.
The rest of the cuts will probably be dealt with on a campus-by-campus basis. At the forum, Alley alluded to a reduction in course offerings by 40 sections and hiring half as many professors as previously planned.
University spokeswoman Tonya Luiz said the extent of local cuts would become clear after the regents vote on the salary matter.
Tuesday's forum allowed employees to ask questions about proposed salary reductions and to share concerns with campus leadership before a formal plan is submitted to Regents for approval at their July meetings.
Kang will share the concerns, opinions and suggestions with other UC leaders during a conference call this week, Luiz said.
The University Board of Regents is scheduled to meet July 14-16 at the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay.
Sacramento Bee
May new home sales dip 0.6 percent...ALAN ZIBEL, AP Real Estate Writer
http://www.sacbee.com/830/v-print/story/1972973.html
WASHINGTON -- New U.S. home sales fell slightly last month, in another sign that the housing market's recovery is likely to be gradual and prolonged.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that sales dropped 0.6 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 342,000, from a downwardly revised April rate of 344,000. Sales were down nearly 33 percent from May last year.
The results fell far short of economists' forecast of a 360,000 sales pace, according to Thomson Reuters. However, many analysts think new home sales hit bottom in January and will increase gradually as the economy gathers steam.
The median sales price of $221,600 was up 4.2 percent from April, but down 3.4 percent from a year ago.
Still, houses are still sitting on the market unsold for months. There were 292,000 new homes for sale at the end of May, down more than 2 percent from April. At this sluggish rate of sales, that's a 10-month supply.
The inventory of homes for sale "will remain enormous, particularly with increased competition coming from distressed sales of existing homes," wrote Joshua Shapiro, chief economist with MFR Inc.
Fallout from the housing crisis has played a central role in the U.S. recession, now the longest since World War II. Foreclosures have spiked, homebuilders have slashed construction, and financial companies have racked up multibillion-dollar losses.
San Francisco Chronicle
Water quality disclosure not government's job...Bob Egelko
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/24/BA1V18CGB7.DTL&type=printable
Government agencies that oversee thousands of small water suppliers in California don't have to order the companies to notify their customers when their water is contaminated, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
The court ruled Monday in a case brought by about 80 residents of a Carmel Valley mobile home park, who blamed ailments ranging from rotted teeth and brittle bones to lost kidneys on years of drinking water with too much fluoride.
A lawyer for the residents said the unanimous decision leaves customers of small water systems without protection.
"The government agency's supervisory role is meaningless," said attorney Brian Burchett, whose clients wanted Monterey County held responsible for their health problems. "They're totally at the mercy of the system operator," who in this case, he said, was untrained and uninsured.
Deputy County Counsel Patrick McGreal countered that state law makes water system operators, not public agencies, responsible for notifying customers about contamination.
Although government agencies regulate the water systems and have a duty to maintain water quality, McGreal said, requiring a county to police an operator's customer contacts would impose "open-ended liability."
The ruling applies to the 5,500 water systems in the state that serve fewer than 200 customers. They are regulated by local agencies in 35 counties, including Contra Costa, San Mateo, Marin and Napa, according to state records. The state Department of Public Health oversees small water systems in the other 23 counties. Larger municipal water systems are governed by a separate law.
The suit was filed by people who lived at the 25-trailer Jensen Camp Mobile Home Park in Cachagua from 1995 to 2003. They said the owner, Rick Pinch, who also operated the water system, never told them that his reports to the county showed fluoride content that reached more than four times the safety level.
The county health agency did not order Pinch to fix the system until April 2003, the plaintiffs said. Four months later, Pinch sold the site to two residents, who learned of the contamination and started supplying bottled water to the homes.
The residents' suit against Pinch is still pending. A state appeals court ruled in September 2007 that they could sue the county as well, for allegedly failing to review the reports and tell Pinch to notify them of the contamination, but the state Supreme Court disagreed.
A supervising agency is required under state law to tell a system operator to monitor water quality, but nothing more, Justice Ming Chin said in Monday's ruling.
Read the ruling
The ruling in Guzman vs. Monterey County, S157793, can be read at links.sfgate.com/ZHLT.
Air has elevated cancer risk in 600 neighborhoods...DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/06/23/national/w210120D47.DTL&type=printable
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Millions of people living in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency.
The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution.
The average cancer risk across the country is 36 in 1 million, according to the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, which will be released by the EPA on Wednesday.
That's a decline from the 41.5 in 1 million cancer risk the EPA found when it released the last analysis in 2006. That data covered 1999 emissions.
"If we are in between 10 in 1 million and 100 in 1 million we want to look more deeply at that. If the risk is greater than 100 in 1 million, we don't like that at all ... we want to investigate that risk and do something about it," said Kelly Rimer, an environmental scientist with the EPA, in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Parts of Los Angeles, Calif., and Madison County, Ill., had the highest cancer risks in the nation — 1200 in 1 million and 1100 in 1 million, according to the EPA data. They were followed by two neighborhoods in Allegheny County, Pa., and one in Tuscaloosa County, Ala.
People living in parts of Coconino County, Ariz., and Lyon County, Nev., had the lowest cancer risk from air toxics. The counties with the least toxic air are Kalawao County, Hawaii, and Golden Valley County, Mont.
"Air toxic risks are local. They are a function of the sources nearest to you," said Dave Guinnup, who leads the groups that perform the risk assessments for toxic air pollutants at EPA. "If you are out in the Rocky Mountains, you are going to be closer to 2 in a million. If you are in an industrial area with a lot of traffic, you are going to be closer to 1100 in 1 million."
The analysis predicts the concentrations of 124 different hazardous air pollutants, which are known to cause cancer, respiratory problems and other health effects by coupling estimates of emissions from a variety of sources with models that attempt to simulate how the pollution will disperse in the air. Only 80 of the chemicals evaluated are known to cause cancer, EPA officials said.
The information is used by federal, state and local agencies to identify areas in need of more monitoring and attention.
The data to be released Wednesday covers pollution released in 2002.
On the Net:
EPA National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA): www.epa.gov/nata2002
Rainbow waters: fishing for hope...Dr. Peter Gleick, President, Pacific Institute
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?entry_id=42223
I flyfish. Infrequently and badly. But as any unsuccessful fisherman will try to tell you, it isn't catching fish that's important; it is the action of fishing. I was just reminded of the reality behind that jest. I had the opportunity recently to spend four days on the Slocan and Upper Columbia rivers in British Columbia, tossing a line and, occasionally, catching and releasing rainbow trout. And while the monster fish lurking in these rivers mocked my efforts to trick them into striking my flies, it was still time well spent as it reminded me of the importance of fresh water. Healthy rivers are a sign of a healthy society. Sick, contaminated, overtapped rivers are a sign of a sick society.
We began to realize this when massive dams began to store water for droughts, to generate electricity, and to stop floods, and along with this, also began to destroy free-flowing rivers, wipe out massive populations of fish, and change the character of our wild lands. As a result of these transformations, in 1968 Congress passed the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which states, in part:
It is hereby declared to be the policy of the United States that certain selected rivers of the Nation...shall be preserved in free-flowing condition, and that they and their immediate environments shall be protected for the benefit and enjoyment of present and future generations. The Congress declares that the established national policy of dams and other construction at appropriate sections of the rivers of the United States needs to be complemented by a policy that would preserve other selected rivers or sections thereof in their free-flowing condition to protect the water quality of such rivers and to fulfill other vital national conservation purposes.
We watched the Cuyahoga River burn on national television in 1969, and we eventually passed the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to slow industrial wastes from killing our rivers and to protect our tap water quality. We passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to prevent our ignorance or hubris from literally wiping species of plants, animals, birds, and fish from the face of the planet.
We watched the Cuyahoga River burn on national television in 1969, and we eventually passed the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to slow industrial wastes from killing our rivers and to protect our tap water quality. We passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973 to prevent our ignorance or hubris from literally wiping species of plants, animals, birds, and fish from the face of the planet.
In each of these cases, we tried to save a tiny part of the waters of the United States from destruction. In each of these cases, commercial and industrial interests fought tooth and nail to stop the protection from being put in place. And even today, the battle continues. But as I floated the Upper Columbia, I realized that I was trying to catch rainbow trout along a stretch of the river that was once devoid of life because of an upstream pulp and paper mill, but had been restored. I saw a dozen bald eagles - now removed from the Endangered Species Act because we actually reversed their path toward extinction. I saw new habitat being created by active restoration efforts And I saw rafters, fishermen, birders, and other pleasure-seekers putting money into local economies that - more and more - depended on the rivers being healthy and not dead or used up.
As long as we look upon our rivers as something to be consumed or treated as a dump, we will never be a completely healthy society. As long as water flowing to the end of a river is considered "wasted," we will never be a completely healthy society.
As long as we think that the goods that water produces have more value than the environmental services that water provides, we will never be a completely healthy society.
And as I floated along thinking of these things, suddenly, actually catching fish no longer seemed to be as important as the possibility itself.
Water Number: 0.25 percent. As of 2008, the 40th anniversary of the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the U.S. Wild and Scenic River System protects around 11,000 miles of 166 rivers in 38 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; this is a little more than one-quarter of one percent of the nation's rivers. By comparison, more than 75,000 large dams across the country have modified at least 600,000 miles, or about 17%, of American rivers.
Contra Costa Times
Half Moon Bay getting ready to pay developer $18 million...Julia Scott, San Mateo County Times
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_12674500
HALF MOON BAY — Developer Charles Keenan will soon be $18 million richer as city officials prepare to write the check that will seal an inglorious chapter in Half Moon Bay history known as Beachwood.
The city will soon issue $15 million in municipal bonds toward paying the $18 million property lawsuit settlement reached with Keenan in 2007. In actuality, interest payments and other fees will cost the city up to $35 million between now and 2039.
It was the worst-case scenario City Council members had feared since deciding to settle with Keenan after the developer prevailed in a property-rights lawsuit in U.S. District Court in 2007. Judge Vaughn Walker ordered the city to pay $41 million in damages and attorney fees to Keenan for having prevented him from building a subdivision on the Beachwood property east of Highway 1. The city had ruled that wetlands on the site made development inappropriate and possibly illegal.
The city has done all it can to avoid paying the settlement money, hiring an expensive lobbying firm and legal team to push through three successive failed bills in Sacramento. The final bill, AB 650, died before making it out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Monday. Sponsored by Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, the bill would have awarded $10 million worth of grants and loans to Half Moon Bay to keep the city from buckling under debt.
Hill issued a statement naming several reasons for the failure of the bill.
"Unfortunately, the collective actions of the City Council last week and the recent announcement that the city would not file for bankruptcy, coupled with the $20 billion state budget deficit impacted the willingness of my legislative colleagues to support AB 650."
A year ago, City Council members were frequently quoted as saying they feared for their city's solvency if forced to pay the entire $18 million debt. But the city ultimately earned a better bond rating than the state itself and, after some painful staffing cuts, is projecting a narrow budget surplus for the next few years.
The "collective actions of the City Council" at last week's meeting refers to a controversial 4-1 vote to give the city manager a 25 percent raise just a few weeks after the city cut or froze 15 staff positions to save money. Mayor John Muller defended the vote, which also awarded a raise for the interim finance director, because they were contract positions already up for renewal and because both men were deserving of a raise.
Councilman Jim Grady voted against the raises, just as he cast the lone vote against settling with Keenan in 2007 and against issuing the bonds to pay him in the end.
The political schism wrought by the first Half Moon Bay bill, AB 1991, still resonates in this town, and the divisive rhetoric employed by city lobbyists at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe still makes Grady cringe.
"We vilified the Coastal Commission," said Grady. "And I think trying to exempt Beachwood from the Coastal Act was a mistake."
Orrick launched a Web site called the "Truth Squad" to counter "false and misleading" claims of Coastal Commission staff members who opposed AB 1991 on the grounds that it would have allowed development on protected wetlands by providing a one-time exemption of environmental laws and launched a PR campaign to convince local media and legislators of their point of view.
Ironically, the city will need the Coastal Commission's help now more than ever as it prepares to inherit Beachwood from Keenan under the terms of the settlement agreement.
Officials say they'd like to build homes on the portion of the site not covered by wetlands, although finding water to supply them may be a struggle. Keenan sold his water rights to a neighboring development a few weeks ago, according to Grady.
The Coastal Commission will work with the city to do what is needed, said Legislative Analyst Sarah Christie.
"We have always maintained that development consistent with protecting the wetlands on the site is completely do-able ... If zoning were changed to allow smaller parcels, the density could increase."
Los Angeles Times
Sales of previously owned homes in U.S. fall in May
Last month was better than April, as usual, but sales nationwide fell 3.6% from a year earlier, despite low prices and tax incentives. The West bucks the trend with an 8.7% increase...Peter Y. Hong
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-homesales24-2009jun24,0,3966881,print.story
Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. continued in May to fall below levels of a year earlier, despite lower prices and tax incentives for buyers, according to figures released by a trade group Tuesday.
May home sales were down 3.6% from the same month last year, the National Assn. of Realtors reported. The industry group based that figure on the seasonally adjusted annual rate of home sales, which is the number of homes that would sell for the entire year based on May's sales rate.
At that pace, 4.77 million homes would be sold this year, which would not match the previous May's annualized sales rate of 4.95 million homes. The actual number sold last year, however, ended up at 4.91 million homes.
The Realtors group, nevertheless, noted that May sales this year increased from the previous month, aided by historically low mortgage interest rates and an $8,000 federal tax credit for first-time buyers, said the organization's chief economist, Lawrence Yun. But a sales increase is typical from April to May, which is usually one of the stronger months for home sales.
The total number of homes sold in May was 451,000, or 6.6% below the year-earlier number, but it was up 9.2% from the 413,000 homes sold in April.
The median U.S. home sales price for May was $173,000, down 16.8% from the previous May, the Realtors group reported.
First-time home buyers accounted for 29% of May purchases, up from about 19% of sales a year earlier but down from 40% a month earlier. Repossessed and distressed properties made up 33% of sales.
Yun noted that first-time buyers are concentrated in the lower-priced segment of the market, which is also where most distressed sales occur.
The Realtors group's data show a dramatically different home sales picture across regions.
In the West, where foreclosures abound and prices have fallen more sharply than in the rest of the nation, the number of homes sold rose 8.7% in May over the previous year. Those gains were offset by double-digit declines in the South and Northeast and an 8.5% drop in the Midwest.
The number of homes on the market fell 3.5% to 3.8 million in May, the report said. At the current sales pace, it would take 9.6 months to sell those homes, compared with 10.1 months in April. The historical average inventory level is a supply of about six months.
As falling prices attract buyers, rising interest rates present another challenge to the housing market. The rate on a 30-year fixed loan has averaged 5.42% this month, up from 4.86% in May, according to Freddie Mac. The rate reached 4.78% in April, the lowest level since records began being kept in 1972.
Yun said some sales were delayed or canceled because of "faulty" appraisals. He said buyers have been rejected for loans because of appraisals that give undue weight to foreclosed-home sales.
Richard Dugas, chief executive of Pulte Homes Inc., one of the nation's largest home builders, told an industry conference Tuesday that sales would continue to be sluggish.
Dugas said low consumer confidence and difficulty obtaining mortgages would continue to weigh on sales.
"I'm not here today before you to call a bottom for our industry," he said.
Another sign of housing-market stress came from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which reported that serious mortgage delinquencies were on the rise. The number of borrowers at least 60 days behind on mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rose to 1.1 million from 926,000 in the fourth quarter, the agency said Tuesday. The overall delinquency rate rose to 3.62%, from 3.03% the previous quarter.
McLean, Va.-based Freddie Mac and Washington-based Fannie Mae own or guarantee $5.3 trillion of the $12 trillion in U.S. residential mortgage debt.
The firms modified 37,328 loans in the first quarter, up from about 23,777 in the fourth quarter, the report showed.
New York Times
Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears...JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/energy-environment/24geotherm.html?_r=1&sq=clean water act&st=cse&scp=7&pagewanted=print
BASEL, Switzerland — Markus O. Häring, a former oilman, was a hero in this city of medieval cathedrals and intense environmental passion three years ago, all because he had drilled a hole three miles deep near the corner of Neuhaus Street and Shafer Lane.
He was prospecting for a vast source of clean, renewable energy that seemed straight out of a Jules Verne novel: the heat simmering within the earth’s bedrock.
All seemed to be going well — until Dec. 8, 2006, when the project set off an earthquake, shaking and damaging buildings and terrifying many in a city that, as every schoolchild here learns, had been devastated exactly 650 years before by a quake that sent two steeples of the Münster Cathedral tumbling into the Rhine.
Hastily shut down, Mr. Häring’s project was soon forgotten by nearly everyone outside Switzerland. As early as this week, though, an American start-up company, AltaRock Energy, will begin using nearly the same method to drill deep into ground laced with fault lines in an area two hours’ drive north of San Francisco.
Residents of the region, which straddles Lake and Sonoma Counties, have already been protesting swarms of smaller earthquakes set off by a less geologically invasive set of energy projects there. AltaRock officials said that they chose the spot in part because the history of mostly small quakes reassured them that the risks were limited.
Like the effort in Basel, the new project will tap geothermal energy by fracturing hard rock more than two miles deep to extract its heat. AltaRock, founded by Susan Petty, a veteran geothermal researcher, has secured more than $36 million from the Energy Department, several large venture-capital firms, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Google. AltaRock maintains that it will steer clear of large faults and that it can operate safely.
But in a report on seismic impact that AltaRock was required to file, the company failed to mention that the Basel program was shut down because of the earthquake it caused. AltaRock claimed it was uncertain that the project had caused the quake, even though Swiss government seismologists and officials on the Basel project agreed that it did. Nor did AltaRock mention the thousands of smaller earthquakes induced by the Basel project that continued for months after it shut down.
The California project is the first of dozens that could be operating in the United States in the next several years, driven by a push to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases and the Obama administration’s support for renewable energy.
Geothermal’s potential as a clean energy source has raised huge hopes, and its advocates believe it could put a significant dent in American dependence on fossil fuels — potentially supplying roughly 15 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, according to one estimate by Google. The earth’s heat is always there waiting to be tapped, unlike wind and solar power, which are intermittent and thus more fickle. According to a 2007 geothermal report financed by the Energy Department, advanced geothermal power could in theory produce as much as 60,000 times the nation’s annual energy usage. President Obama, in a news conference Tuesday, cited geothermal power as part of the “clean energy transformation” that a climate bill now before Congress could bring about.
Dan W. Reicher, an assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration who is now director of climate change and energy at Google’s investment and philanthropic arm, said geothermal energy had “the potential to deliver vast amounts of power almost anywhere in the world, 24/7.”
Power companies have long produced limited amounts of geothermal energy by tapping shallow steam beds, often beneath geysers or vents called fumaroles. Even those projects can induce earthquakes, although most are small. But for geothermal energy to be used more widely, engineers need to find a way to draw on the heat at deeper levels percolating in the earth’s core.
Some geothermal advocates believe the method used in Basel, and to be tried in California, could be that breakthrough. But because large earthquakes tend to originate at great depths, breaking rock that far down carries more serious risk, seismologists say. Seismologists have long known that human activities can trigger quakes, but they say the science is not developed enough to say for certain what will or will not set off a major temblor.
Even so, there is no shortage of money for testing the idea. Mr. Reicher has overseen a $6.25 million investment by Google in AltaRock, and with more than $200 million in new federal money for geothermal, the Energy Department has already approved financing for related projects in Idaho by the University of Utah; in Nevada by Ormat Technologies; and in California by Calpine, just a few miles from AltaRock’s project.
Steven E. Koonin, the under secretary for science at the Energy Department, said the earthquake issue was new to him, but added, “We’re committed to doing things in a factual and rigorous way, and if there is a problem, we will attend to it.”
The tone is more urgent in Europe. “This was my main question to the experts: Can you exclude that there is a major earthquake triggered by this man-made activity?” said Rudolf Braun, chairman of the project team that the City of Basel created to study the risks of resuming the project.
“I was quite surprised that all of them said: ‘No, we can’t. We can’t exclude it,’ “ said Mr. Braun, whose study is due this year.
“It would be just unfortunate if, in the United States, you rush ahead and don’t take into account what happened here,” he said.
Basel’s Big Shock
By the time people were getting off work amid rain squalls in Basel on Dec. 8, 2006, Mr. Häring’s problems had already begun. His incision into the ground was setting off small earthquakes that people were starting to feel around the city.
Mr. Häring knew that by its very nature, the technique created earthquakes because it requires injecting water at great pressure down drilled holes to fracture the deep bedrock. The opening of each fracture is, literally, a tiny earthquake in which subterranean stresses rip apart a weak vein, crack or fault in the rock. The high-pressure water can be thought of loosely as a lubricant that makes it easier for those forces to slide the earth along the weak points, creating a web or network of fractures.
Mr. Häring planned to use that network as the ultimate teapot, circulating water through the fractures and hoping it emerged as steam. But what surprised him that afternoon was the intensity of the quakes because advocates of the method believe they can pull off a delicate balancing act, tearing the rock without creating larger earthquakes.
Alarmed, Mr. Häring and other company officials decided to release all pressure in the well to try to halt the fracturing. But as they stood a few miles from the drill site, giving the orders by speakerphone to workers atop the hole, a much bigger jolt shook the room.
“I think that was us,” said one stunned official.
Analysis of seismic data proved him correct. The quake measured 3.4 — modest in some parts of the world. But triggered quakes tend to be shallower than natural ones, and residents generally describe them as a single, explosive bang or jolt — often out of proportion to the magnitude — rather than a rumble.
Triggered quakes are also frequently accompanied by an “air shock,” a loud tearing or roaring noise.
The noise “made me feel it was some sort of supersonic aircraft going overhead,” said Heinrich Schwendener, who, as president of Geopower Basel, the consortium that includes Geothermal Explorers and the utility companies, was standing next to the borehole.
“It took me maybe half a minute to realize, hey, this is not a supersonic plane, this is my well,” Mr. Schwendener said.
By that time, much of the city was in an uproar. In the newsroom of the city’s main paper, Basler Zeitung, reporters dived under tables and desks, some refusing to move until a veteran editor barked at them to go get the story, said Philipp Loser, 28, a reporter there.
Aysel Mermer, 25, a waitress at the Restaurant Schiff near the Rhine River, said she thought a bomb had gone off.
Eveline Meyer, 44, a receptionist at a maritime exhibition, was on the phone with a friend and thought that her washing machine had, all by itself, started clattering with an unbalanced load. “I was saying to my friend, ‘Am I now completely nuts?’ “ Ms. Meyer recalled. Then, she said, the line went dead.
Mr. Häring was rushed to police headquarters in a squad car so he could explain what had happened. By the time word slipped out that the project had set off the earthquake, Mr. Loser said, outrage was sweeping the city. The earthquakes, including three more above magnitude 3, rattled on for about a year — more than 3,500 in all, according to the company’s sensors.
Although no serious injuries were reported, Geothermal Explorers’ insurance company ultimately paid more than $8 million in mostly minor damage claims to the owners of thousands of houses in Switzerland and in neighboring Germany and France.
Optimism and Opportunity
In the United States, where the Basel earthquakes received little news coverage, the fortunes of geothermal energy were already on a dizzying rise. The optimistic conclusions of the Energy Department’s geothermal report began driving interest from investors, as word trickled out before its official release.
In fall 2006, after some of the findings were presented at a trade meeting, Trae Vassallo, a partner at the firm Kleiner Perkins, phoned Ms. Petty, the geothermal researcher who was one of 18 authors on the report, according to e-mail messages from both women. That call eventually led Ms. Petty to found AltaRock and bring in, by Ms. Petty’s tally, another six of the authors as consultants to the company or in other roles.
J. David Rogers, a professor and geological engineer at the Missouri University of Science and Technology who was not involved in the report, said such overlap of research and commercial interests was common in science and engineering but added that it might be perceived as a conflict of interest. “It’s very, very satisfying to see something go from theory to application to actually making money and being accepted by society,” Professor Rogers said. “It’s what every scientist dreams of.”
Ms. Petty said that her first “serious discussions” with Ms. Vassallo about forming a company did not come until the report was officially released in late January 2007. That June, Ms. Petty founded AltaRock with $4 million from Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures, an investment firm based in California.
The Basel earthquake hit more than a month before the Energy Department’s report came out, but no reference to it was included in the report’s spare and reassuring references to earthquake risks. Ms. Petty said the document had already been at the printer by the fall, “so there was no way we could have included the Basel event in the report.”
Officials at AltaRock, with offices in Sausalito, Calif., and Seattle, insist that the company has learned the lessons of Basel and that its own studies indicate the project can be carried out safely. James T. Turner, AltaRock’s senior vice president for operations, said the company had applied for roughly 20 patents on ways to improve the method.
Mr. Turner also asserted in a visit to the project site last month that AltaRock’s monitoring and fail-safe systems were superior to those used in Basel.
“We think it’s going to be pretty neat,” Mr. Turner said as he stood next to a rig where the company plans to drill a hole almost two and a half miles deep. “And when it’s successful, we’ll have a good-news story that says we can extend geothermal energy.”
AltaRock, in its seismic activity report, included the Basel earthquake in a list of temblors near geothermal projects, but the company denied that it had left out crucial details of the quake in seeking approval for the project in California. So far, the company has received its permit from the federal Bureau of Land Management to drill its first hole on land leased to the Northern California Power Agency, but still awaits a second permit to fracture rock.
“We did discuss Basel, in particular, the 3.4 event, with the B.L.M. early in the project,” Mr. Turner said in an e-mail response to questions after the visit.
But Richard Estabrook, a petroleum engineer in the Ukiah, Calif., field office of the land agency who has a lead role in granting the necessary federal permits, gave a different account when asked if he knew that the Basel project had shut down because of earthquakes or that it had induced more than 3,500 quakes.
“I’ll be honest,” he said. “I didn’t know that.”
Mr. Estabrook said he was still leaning toward giving approval if the company agreed to controls that could stop the work if it set off earthquakes above a certain intensity. But, he said, speaking of the Basel project’s shutdown, “I wish that had been disclosed.”
Bracing for Tremors
There was a time when Anderson Springs, about two miles from the project site, had few earthquakes — no more than anywhere else in the hills of Northern California. Over cookies and tea in the cabin his family has owned since 1958, Tom Grant and his sister Cynthia Lora reminisced with their spouses over visiting the town, once famous for its mineral baths, in the 1940s and ’50s. “I never felt an earthquake up here,” Mr. Grant said .
Then came a frenzy of drilling for underground steam just to the west at The Geysers, a roughly 30-square-mile patch of wooded hills threaded with huge, curving tubes and squat power plants. The Geysers is the nation’s largest producer of traditional geothermal energy. Government seismologists confirm that earthquakes were far less frequent in the past and that the geothermal project produces as many as 1,000 small earthquakes a year as the ground expands and contracts like an enormous sponge with the extraction of steam and the injection of water to replace it.
These days, Anderson Springs is a mixed community of working class and retired residents, affluent professionals and a smattering of artists. Everyone has a story about earthquakes. There are cats that suddenly leap in terror, guests who have to be warned about tremors, thousands of dollars of repairs to walls and cabinets that just do not want to stay together.
Residents have been fighting for years with California power companies over the earthquakes, occasionally winning modest financial compensation. But the obscure nature of earthquakes always gives the companies an out, says Douglas Bartlett, who works in marketing at Bay Area Rapid Transit in San Francisco, and with his wife, Susan, owns a bungalow in town.
“If they were creating tornadoes, they would be shut down immediately,” Mr. Bartlett said. “But because it’s under the ground, where you can’t see it, and somewhat conjectural, they keep doing it.”
Now, the residents are bracing for more. As David Oppenheimer, a seismologist at the United States Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif., explains it, The Geysers is heated by magma welling up from deep in the earth. Above the magma is a layer of granite-like rock called felsite, which transmits heat to a thick layer of sandstone-like material called graywacke, riddled with fractures and filled with steam.
The steam is what originally drew the power companies here. But the AltaRock project will, for the first time, drill deep into the felsite. Mr. Turner said that AltaRock, which will drill on federal land leased by the Northern California Power Agency, had calculated that the number of earthquakes felt by residents in Anderson Springs and local communities would not noticeably increase.
But many residents are skeptical.
“It’s terrifying,” said Susan Bartlett, who works as a new patient coordinator at the Pacific Fertility Center in San Francisco. “What’s happening to all these rocks that they’re busting into a million pieces?”