7-13-09

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on Monday, 13 July 2009

7-13-09
Badlands Journal
California water: some recent theological texts...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2009-07-12/007317
Every culture has its sacred texts. Chinese, the Sumerians, Indians, Persians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabs -- and on and on. You name the culture and we'll name the sacred text -- from the I Ching to the Koran and beyond. It is the world's greatest literature,
the true treasury of the deepest human values and highest human visions.
In California, we have the water news. Because we are so young, dynamic and full of the belief that economic growth equals population growth, the notion that natural resources, especially water, may have limits, has created a theological crisis here in California.
The very idea there might not be enough water to support unlimited population growth has had an impact in California nearly the equivalent of the Black Plague of the 14th century. But as all the traditions teach, crisis is an opportunity for personal spiritual growth. Selah!
Scribes among us, working in austere newsrooms in the state and living in poverty worthy of midieval monks and nuns, compose the daily sacred chronicle of our anxiety about the horrors of drought, growth slow-down, and global warming, illuminated with photo illustrations of water demonstrations and even moving pictures (http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/video?id=6872749) of shoving matches: Paul Rodriguez, a Mexican-American LA comic who fronts the Latino Water Coalition and his Dinuba goon squad v. an Azorean dairyman from Merced named Corvelo. It was Rodriguez and goons in three on points, according to Fresno ABC Channel 30 -- Action News indeed. And what's Corvelo complaining about? What did Rodriguez promise small Valley dairymen facing the worst milk prices in memory?
Most of the high priests however are engineers, politicians, bureaucrats and public relations executives. If you receive your spiritual messages best from those who speak in tongues, we recommend Rep. Devin Nunes, whose discourses can be witnessed at http://www.youtube.com/user/RepDevinNunes
The California daily water chronicles are full of incident, dispute, passion plays in front of city halls, pronouncement, political posturing, slogans, rage, raving, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse -- all the stuff of great theological drama. As all later theological works, they draw upon earlier traditions. South of the San Joaquin River,
they specialize in Armaggedon rhetoric straight out of the Book of Revelations. North of the San Joaquin, water logicians of the rank of the great nominalist, William of Ockham, hold sway on the floors of the state Capitol, slicing and dicing with the the glinting razors of their highly educated minds.
As is true with all real religious phenomena, the California water chronicles defy simple synopsis. Within them lie the turbulent currents of the real society, including religious schism. See below, just two weeks' worth of the naked face of the human spirit of California grappling with the existential issue of economic growth and water. All this, in digest form, is collected for you by Badlands Journal editorial board from a portion of the collected works of the heroic genius of reporters laboring in the economic collapse occasioned by their publishers' debts, based on assumptions of 30-percent profits for newspapers. Bearing down upon the editors who guide humble reporters seeking the truth are huge forces of feudal orthodoxy, Westlands Water District, Friant Water Users Authority, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the Hun, our governor and his doo-wop group, the Delta Visionaires, the combined authority of finance, insurance and real estate, a quartet of gibbering congressmen (Cardoza, Costa, Nunes and Radanovich) orchestrated by a massive international public relations firm we prefer to call by its simple, accurate acronym, BM. Yet from out of the desert, as so often happened in history, come the cries of the Truth Tellers, who have slowly, with steady determination and unflagging courage, revealed every utterance of the feudal orthodoxy for what they are – Big Lies. Don’t miss the chapters written by Carter, Bacher, Jennings,. Gleich, and Haze. We include in full a short introductory text by Lydia Miller, submitted to the Secretary of the Interior in Fresno on June 28.
When reading sacred texts, the spiritual seeker is, of course, advised not to focus completely on any one detail. If one reads properly and in the correct sitting position, the seeker will automatically achieve the desired ocular attitude, eyes slightly crossed. As all spiritual schools teach, it is necessary NOT TO ATTACH. Badlands Journal editorial board has made it as easy as possible NOT TO ATTACH by including only the headline, the lead and the link to all but a very few stories in the last two weeks. For further study, it will be necessary to contact Badlands water guru, Aguananda Baba. However, we note Baba’s invarariable advice is, “Don’t worry. You can’t afford me.”
Meanwhile, go with the flow and be happy.
Om.
Badlands Journal editorial board
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6-28-09
Statement at Salazar Town Hall Meeting, June 28, 2009...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/
My name is Lydia Miller. I live in Merced. I am president of the San Joaquin Raptor Wildlife Rescue Center. I am here today representing the Center, Protect Our Water, Central Valley Safe Environment Network, and South California Endangered Species Habitat Alliance.
The Raptor Center was a petitioner on the 22-year-old San Joaquin River Settlement.
We would like to thank Secretary Salazar and Valley congressmen for convening this meeting. We thank congressmen Cardoza and Costa for their recent plea in Congress to declare Cardoza's district an economic disaster area. Merced County, despite receiving 100 percent of its irrigation water, has a higher unemployment rate than the counties where Westlands operates. So does Stanislaus, also in Cardoza's district. We take this opportunity to applaud Congressman Cardoza for his belated recognition that his pro-growth policy during the speculative housing bubble has led to immense misery in his district, which has the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. We regret the congressman has moved his family to Annapolis Maryland. His wife, a physician, was badly needed in our community.
There are six other CA counties that have higher unemployment rates than Fresno, Kings or Kern. Farm labor employment in Westlands counties has gained during the drought. This unemployment propaganda is just another grower argument for depressing wages.
The meeting today is about two sources of surface water: the San Joaquin River and the San Joaquin Delta and west side groundwater, full of heavy metals and salts, which for 60 years has turned the 100-mile-long western reach of the San Joaquin River into a toxic drainage ditch. Last year, a federal court decision restricted some pumping from the Delta to protect endangered species.
Westlands use of water jeopardizes the public trust in water, fish and wildlife in the Central Valley. It jeopardizes small farmers from here to Trinity County. It jeopardizes cattle land. All of this came to bear at the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in Merced County, where toxic agricultural drainage from Westlands poisoned and deformed migratory birds protected by international treaty, poisoned cattle and created a human cancer cluster. Westlands has created other cancer clusters on the west side of the Valley, in McFarland, for example. Its "economies of scale" have driven countless small farmers off the land.
We thank Westlands for making this an environmental justice issue by tying it to unemployment rates, at least in Mendota, and by extension to health and safety issues their farmworker employees have lived with since the beginning of Westlands. We regret that because of a series of special-interest deals by the federal government, it is impossible to openly discuss farm labor in our communities today. However, we will say that the largest beneficiaries of these deals have been agribusiness and the greatest victims, in addition to farmworkers, have been the Valley's natural resources, its wildlife, the public health and safety of all Valley citizens.
Westlands Water District has been a bad neighbor since it first began receiving Delta water. This current propaganda campaign is in league with outside urban interests intent on gaining a peripheral canal on the Delta. Westlands should be taken off the table of the Delta debate. It should receive no more surface water to irrigate its alkali flats at the expense of the Public Trust.
Mr. Secretary, we won’t tolerate any more Julie MacDonalds in California.
Julie MacDonald
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_MacDonald
…Biography ...

…Events leading to resignation ...
…Aftermath ...
…References ...

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7-12-09
Indybay.org
Tulare Lake Restoration – Fiction or Fact?...Steve Haze
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/11/18607139.php
Did you know that at one time the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi used to be right here in the San Joaquin Valley, just down Highway 41 heading from Fresno past Lemoore over to Kettleman City and Interstate 5? And, would you believe that at one time this lake covered over 500 square miles and contained almost as much fresh water as is now stored in all of the reservoirs in California today?
Modesto Bee
Politicians can't get dam thing done...Editorial
http://www.modbee.com/editorials/v-print/story/778819.html
The politicians are scrambling for political cover as California's water crisis gets more serious because of a drought in its third year and because of environmental restrictions on how much water can flow in the Golden State.
Stockton Record
McNerney criticized for Delta vote
Congressman says he supports restoring estuary...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090712/A_NEWS/907120319
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Rep. Jerry McNerney said this week that he is committed to restoring the Delta, despite an earlier vote to remove funding for new protections for salmon and steelhead.
The vote - which temporarily aligned McNerney with thirsty south and Central Valley lawmakers - failed by a narrow margin.
Los Angeles Times
Many underwater homeowners are deliberately walking away from mortgages
A study finds that 26% of the defaults across the country are calculated economic decisions to bail out of loans by borrowers who could afford to make the monthly payments...Kenneth R. Harney. Distributed by the Washington Post Writers Group.
http://www.latimes.com/classified/realestate/news/la-fi-harney12-2009jul12,0,1493788,print.story
Reporting from Washington — Would you, under any circumstances, default on your home mortgage, even if you could afford to make the monthly payments?
That's a trickier question than you might assume, according to new research from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business and Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.
7-11-09
Fresno Bee
Cantaloupe crop likely to match last year's supply...Robert Rodriguez
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/v-print/story/1528503.html
Despite water shortages in Fresno County, one of the state's top melon growing regions, cantaloupe production is expected to match last year's supply.
DAVID HOPELAIN: No water, no future for Valley...David Hopelain
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/valley_voices/v-print/story/1528353.html
The fate of the San Joaquin Valley is "on the line." Water, the principle raw material of the region's $25 billion agricultural economy, is being removed.
Budget's impact on levees
A failure in Delta system would put entire state's water system at risk...Editorial
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/v-print/story/1528354.html
Massive program cuts, state worker salary reductions and IOUs aren't the only consequences of California's budget stalemate. The deadlock is also preventing the state from selling bonds needed to fund initiatives that have already been approved by voters.
Sacramento Bee
Golden State exports plunge, but rice sales remain strong...Mark Glover
http://www.sacbee.com/business/v-print/story/2017538.html
Reflecting the depressed state of the worldwide economy, the quantity of goods flowing in and out of California ports continued to slow in May…One bright spot: Exports of rice from the Central Valley were strong and expected to remain so due to factors that have reduced the supply coming from other nations.
The Argonaut
Residents, community boards see no allowance for drought in plans for high density residential and commercial projects...GARY WALKER
http://www.argonautnewspaper.com/articles/2009/07/08/news_-_features/top_stories/2a.prt
Water may be in short supply, but there seems to be no shortage of development projects in the planning stages throughout Los Angeles.
Merced Sun-Star
University chief proposes furloughs to cut costs...TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer. Italic...Merced Sun-Star
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/109/v-print/story/944543.html
OAKLAND, Calif. Tens of thousands of University of California employees would be forced to take furloughs and lose pay under a plan proposed Friday to offset deep funding cuts to the 10-campus system.
Our View: Profs' letter means little to UC execs
UC Merced won't be boarded up to save paychecks at other campuses, Kang assures.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/story/945883.html
Now that we've had a couple days to comment and blog on the front page story Thursday, "Profs target UC Merced," let's put this into perspective.
In a letter that 23 UC San Diego professors wrote to the UC Office of the President and the Board of Regents, the third of their suggestions to save money was shuttering either UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz or UC Riverside.
Sacramento Bee
Mortgage defaults spread as even 'safe' borrowers falter...Jim Wasserman
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/2017811.html
The mortgage default crisis has an ominous new face. It's your neighbor with a traditional fixed-rate loan.
No longer is the real estate bust simply the result of exotic, subprime loans that doubled payments and blew up in homeowners' faces. As the Sacramento economy buckles, even the safest mortgages have become part of a new wave of loan defaults, experts say.
Stockton Record
Bullet train funds still on track...Zachary K. Johnson
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090711/A_NEWS/907110324
Despite the state's economic troubles, early funding for the California bullet train is on target, Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani said Friday in a meeting with The Record's editorial board.
San Francisco Chronicle
UC chief lays out 'draconian' budget cut plan...Nanette Asimov
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/11/BA5D18KG4E.DTL&type=printable
Facing a loss of $813 million from the state, University of California President Mark Yudof is proposing widespread cuts for UC, including imposing unpaid days off on employees, eliminating jobs and killing out courses.
7-10-09
Indybay.com
Delta Groups Rally Against The Panama Canal North
“The exporting of more water out of the Delta not only dooms agriculture in the Delta, but also dooms one of the largest estuaries on the North American West Coast,” stated Rudy Mussi, Central Delta farmer and Member of the Central Delta Water Agency...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/09/18606534.php
Legislators and hundreds of Delta advocates held a rally at the State Capitol in Sacramento on Tuesday to oppose the peripheral canal, a budget-busting and environmentally destructive project that would approximate the Panama Canal in width and length.
Los Angeles Times
U.S. plans to boost 'critical habitat' acreage to help rare shrew...Louis Sahagun
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/07/feds-plan-to-boost-protected-acreage-to-help-rare-shrew.html
Chalk one up for the Buena Vista Lake ornate shrew.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed today to review and redesignate habitat crucial to the survival of the tiny, nocturnal insect eater with beady eyes and long snout found in only
four places along a 70-mile stretch of the western edge of Kern County, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.
Modesto Bee
Modesto puts off annexing islands...Adam Ashton
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/776789.html
Modesto this week chose to look outside its borders for growth that could bring new commercial and industrial development over the next decade.
CNN Money
Bad loans are only one part of the problem; disastrous investments and risky funding sources have also helped to bring about the latest batch of bank failures...David Ellis
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/10/news/companies/banks_failures/
index.htm?postversion=2009071012
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- On just about every Friday afternoon, bank regulators announce the latest batch of bank failures...they've shuttered 52 so far this year and the pace could well pick up.
Behind these causalities is a dangerous mix of risky funding techniques and loans to local businesses that simply went bad.
7-9-09
Merced Sun-Star
Our View: Facts, fiction about water
Challenges abound for experts, but the main problem facing the Valley is years of drought.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/942006.html
Faced with a pitchfork rebellion in the San Joaquin Valley, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last month appointed a "water czar" to deliver extra water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farmers in certain districts south of the delta.
That prompts a question: Will the Obama administration also appoint a "salmon czar" to help bring relief to the North Coast fishing industry, which is dependent on healthy flows in the delta so salmon can migrate and spawn?
Fresno Bee
Status quo for farm bill 2010
$124 billion funding legislation is loaded with earmarks...Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/v-print/story/1523872.html
WASHINGTON -- The House of Representatives has written a $123.8 billion farm-spending bill that's loaded with congressional earmarks.
Brushing off conservative criticism, lawmakers are steering funds toward California pest detection, wine-grape research and "asparagus production technologies," among other targeted projects.
More broadly, the funding bill largely retains the farm-policy status quo some had hoped to change.
The bill -- set for approval late Wednesday or early today -- funds the Agriculture Department and related agencies for fiscal 2010. It closely resembles past appropriations bills, passed under both Democratic- and Republican-controlled Congresses.
Capital Press
Project pumps water hopes
‘Two Gates’ proposal authors say project won’t solve Delta’s problems...Wes Sander
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=52716&TM=50042.37
As the proposed "Two Gates" project gains popularity in California water discussions, the plan's authors caution against expectations that it will significantly increase deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The project, much talked-about at recent water gatherings in the Central Valley, would include two temporary, mechanically operated gates that could help restore some of the Delta pumping recently lost because of biological opinions to protect fish. But they would together function as only one tool among many that could allow for successful Delta management in the future, water managers say.
Capitol Weekly
Peripheral Canal, crux of state water wars, draws fire...Kevin Hefner
http://www.capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=y3ykqltisyt4kp&xid=y3ykcmuiadp3oa&done=.y3ykqltiszc4kp
Legislators backed by farmers, fisherman, environmentalists, and community activists rallied at the Capitol this week against the proposed Peripheral Canal, which would shift Northern California water to the south around the Delta.
Protesters feared the canal would damage the heart of the Delta, through which most of California’s drinking water flows. The canal has not been officially approved, but there are persistent rumors in the Capitol that the project is gaining new traction.
Vacaville Reporter
Wolk, farmers call for Delta input...Reporter Staff
http://www.thereporter.com/ci_12791835?IADID=Search-www.thereporter.com-www.thereporter.com
State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Solano, and a broad coalition of Delta farmers, fisherman, community advocates, environmentalists, state and local elected representatives converged on the steps of the State Capitol Tuesday to demand that the voice of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta community be heard as plans are written and carried out to restore the Delta. "You can't fix the Delta without the people of the Delta as your partners," said Wolk, chair of Senate Select Committee on Delta Stewardship and Sustainability. "Nobody is more concerned about the decline of the Delta than those who live in the Delta, the people who work, farm, fish, and recreate here. We know the Delta is not a blank slate. We love the Delta's many facets, not justthe water that flows through it. We love the Delta for the place that it is and the people who live, work, and play here, and we are committed to preserving and protecting it."
Stockton Record
Delta supporters rally at Capitol's doorstep...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090708/A_NEWS/907080314/-1/A_NEWS14
SACRAMENTO - It seems all the attention has gone to the south San Joaquin Valley, where marches, public demonstrations and news conferences have highlighted the cry for water there.
Tuesday it was the Delta's turn.
More than 200 farmers, fishers and Delta residents turned out for a rally at the steps of the Capitol, inside of which negotiations on a series of water bills continue even while the budget takes center stage.
Manteca Bulletin
State dragging feet on crucial water transfer to help keep crops alive...Dennis Wyatt
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/article/5250/
The San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority that serves 2.1 million acres is in a world of hurt due to lack of water.
The South San Joaquin Irrigation District wants to help by selling them 25,000 acre feet of water that district farmers have helped them conserve through prudent water practices.
The only problem is the State of California is holding up the transaction.
Indybay.org
Delta Advocates Rally Against the Canal at State Capitol...Dan Bacher
Jerry Neuburger, webmaster for the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, has written a good report on the rally against the peripheral canal at the State Capitol yesterday. To check out video clips of speakers and photos of the event, go to: http://www.calsport.org/7-7-09.htm.
The Delta Press Conference...Jerry Neuburger...July 7, 2009
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/08/18606338.php
July 7, 2009 -- Over 250 fishermen, farmers, businessmen and conservationists gathered at the north steps of the capital to listen to Senator Lois Wolk, Lt. Governor John Garimendi, other legislators, and citizens speak in opposition to a series of bills moving through the legislature designed to fund a peripheral canal and two additional dams.
CSPA was well represented at the conference with Executive Director Bill Jennings, President Jim Crenshaw, Conservation Director John Beuttler, Director and Attorney Michael Jackson, Webmaster Jerry Neuburger and Advisory member John Ryzanych, who also represented the Allied Fishing Groups.
Badlands Journal
A state bank for California?...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/
Since 1919 North Dakota has had a state bank, one the state government owns. North Dakota and neighboring Montana are the only two states in the nation this year that don't have budget deficits.
Merced County Times
HUD Secretary tours subdivision which has become Ground Zero in the foreclosure crisis...Beverly Barela
http://www.mercedcountytimes.net/content/2009-07-09/001743
On July 2^nd, U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and Representative Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced) walked grimly through the empty lots and vacant, foreclosed homes that make up the Sierra Vista subdivision in southeastern Merced (near N. Coffee Road and E. Childs Avenue).
The tour was one of two in Merced which Congressman Cardoza arranged that day so that HUD Secretary Donovan could see firsthand the economic devastation suffered by residents of his district, California’s 18^th Congressional District, due to the tough economy….According to Congressman Cardoza’s two-page report,RealtyTrac listed Merced as having the second highest foreclosure rate in the country at the end of the first quarter of 2009, with 4.2% of properties in foreclosure (seven times the national rate) and 13% of mortgages in foreclosure. From December 2005 to December 2008, home values in Merced dropped 70%! In 2008 alone, the home values in Merced plummeted 42%, although the national average was 8.2%.
At the same time, Merced’s unemployment rate is 18.3% or higher, the third highest in the country.
Sacramento Bee
California counties see property revenue fall...Robert Lewis
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/2011690.html
For the first time since the taxpayers' revolt of the 1970s, the total assessed value of properties is dropping in Sacramento and across California.
The property tax roll in Sacramento County is down 6.4 percent from last year – to $131.6 billion; in Contra Costa County it's down 7 percent; and in Merced County it's down almost 13 percent.
Developer Skidmore files for bankruptcy...Dale Kasler
http://www.sacbee.com/business/v-print/story/2013145.html
Sacramento developer and builder Kip Skidmore, a founder and former chairman of Greater Sacramento Bancorp, has filed for bankruptcy after running up millions in construction-related debts.
San Francisco Chronicle
Condor science group opposes Tejon development...Wednesday, July 8, 2009
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/08/state/n134715D56.DTL&type=printable
(07-08) 13:47 PDT Los Angeles, CA (AP) -- A group of California condor experts is opposing the proposed development of the sprawling Tejon Ranch north of Los Angeles, fearing harm to the endangered bird.
The group, which includes former members of a federal condor recovery team, says the plan will reduce natural food supplies for the giant bird species. The scientists' opposition was announced Wednesday by the Center for Biological Diversity. Both groups submitted comments to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is considering Tejon's conservation plan.
Los Angeles Times
Building a new UC -- in cyberspace
Online instruction would allow an institution faced with budget pressures to do more with less...Christopher Edley Jr. Christopher Edley Jr. is dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law...7-1-09
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-edley1-2009jul01,0,5929490,print.story
It is time for an 11th University of California campus: a cyber-campus devoted to awarding online degrees to UC-eligible students.
No budgetary alchemy will allow us to educate the state's future university students in the same way we do now but with less money. The budget cuts caused by the state economic crisis are real and huge, leaving two choices. Educators can do less with less, or we can explore new ways of providing value to California and the nation by doing more -- albeit differently -- with less.
7-8-09
Merced Sun-Star
Merced Irrigation District general manager quits after a year on the job...JONAH OWEN LAMB
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/939967.html
After a year on the job, Merced Irrigation District's general manager abruptly resigned Tuesday.
Thousands more in Merced County behind on their home loans...SCOTT JASON
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/939968.html
Merced's already bleak housing market may worsen this year, two reports released Tuesday forecast.
Merced's foreclosure rate for May grew by 2.4 percentage points from the previous month. The rate is almost double the state's average and close to triple the nation's level, according to a study by First American CoreLogic.
Livingston passes water rate increase
Bills will go up an average of 40 percent in August...DANIELLE GAINES
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/939984.html
LIVINGSTON -- Most city residents can expect to see a higher water bill next month, after the City Council voted to pass a resolution increasing water rates by an average of 40 percent.
Residents who use less water will have less severe increases under the plan, which passed the council by a 3-2 vote.
'Peripheral canal' opponents stage their own protest
Foes fear the project is a water grab by Valley and SoCal...E.J. SCHULTZ, The Fresno Bee
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/268/v-print/story/939982.html
SACRAMENTO -- In a counter punch to recent Valley water rallies, environmentalists and fishermen gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to protest a proposed canal to divert water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The "peripheral canal" is an old idea that's enjoyed new life as state water planners search for ways to stabilize supplies for San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California cities. The plan got a boost last year with an endorsement by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision Task Force.
The canal would siphon Sacramento River water upstream of the delta and send it to the pumps near Tracy, bypassing the delta
Boost for tribe's water quest...MICHAEL DOYLE, SUN-STAR Washington Bureau
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/268/v-print/story/939980.html
WASHINGTON -- The Tule River Indian Tribe's long quest for a reliable water supply got a boost Tuesday as the House authorized a $3 million study of a potential new Porterville-area reservoir.
The study will examine the prospects for a 5,000-acre reservoir somewhere along the south fork of the Tule River. The proposed reservoir would ease a problem that dates back to the 19th century, but its construction is still far from assured.
Fresno Bee
Fresno Co. seeks federal disaster declaration...Cyndee Fontana
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-print/story/1521282.html
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday redoubled efforts to have Fresno County declared a federal disaster area due to water shortages and related unemployment.
Tenants move in at Fresno State's Campus Pointe...Sanford Nax
http://www.fresnobee.com/business/v-print/story/1521135.html
The first residents are moving into the Campus Pointe project on the Fresno State campus, even as construction continues and a legal challenge awaits a ruling.
Sacramento Bee
Lawsuit filed over federal energy corridors...SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/2007820.html
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- More than a dozen conservation groups filed suit Tuesday alleging that the federal government skirted several laws when designating thousands of miles of energy corridors in New Mexico and other Western states.
Inside Bay Area
Future of controversial Northern California power line project in doubt...Jeanine Benca, Valley Times
http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyherald/localnews/ci_12771262
LIVERMORE — The future of a massive power line project that would cut through the Livermore Valley to deliver renewable energy to Santa Clara and other parts of Northern California is in doubt after the withdrawal of its biggest investor.
Lodi Sentinel
State requires Lodi to revisit wastewater permit...Maggie Creamer
http://www.lodinews.com/articles/2009/07/08/news/4_water_
090708.txt
More questions surround Lodi's wastewater permit after the state's water board required a re-evaluation of the city's wastewater practices on Tuesday.
The State Water Resources Control Board reviewed the permit after the California Sportsfishing Alliance brought up concerns about the levels of pollutants in groundwater near the White Slough wastewater plant. The city uses wastewater to irrigate 790 acres of crops and stores some of it in 49 acres of unlined storage ponds.
Contra Costa Times
Dry forecast shapes plan for new water storage sites...Julia Scott, San Mateo County Times
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_12771328?nclick_check=1
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission is pursuing a plan to store water underground that can be pumped out in time to supply customers in a drought, given the uncertainty of California's water future.
San Francisco Chronicle
Hundreds of top UC scientists slam planned cuts...David Perlman
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/08/MN6218KIRQ.DTL&type=printable
More than 300 of the nation's most noted scientists from all 10 University of California campuses have warned Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that proposed cuts in the UC budget would endanger the future of science and technology in California and threaten the state's economy.
Los Angeles Times
Shipping industry in deep water
Worldwide container traffic is expected to drop more than 10% this year...Ronald D. White
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ports8-2009jul08,0,1574156,print.story
Trade at international ports is on track to drop more than 10% this year, one of the steepest declines ever, according to a new maritime industry report.
7-7-09
Merced Sun-Star
Merced River has a vital role
Re-licensing of Merced Irrigation District's dams could have far-reaching consequences...JONAH OWEN LAMB
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/937912.html
The Merced River is not often thought of as ground zero in the state's water wars.
Most think of it as just one of many dammed-up rivers that make their way from the Sierra to the Valley floor and feed the San Joaquin River's path north.
Fresno Bee
Lawyer again plumbs depths of state water issues...Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau
http://www.fresnobee.com/1072/v-print/story/1517810.html
WASHINGTON — David J. Hayes is once again No. 2 at the Interior Department and No. 1 for California water.
Call it political déjà vu.
After an eight-year absence, the Stanford-trained environmental lawyer has reclaimed both the California water portfolio and the title as deputy secretary of the Interior. The high-profile, high-risk assignment puts him back in the middle of the Central Valley’s interminable fish-vs.-farm water disputes.
“I expect I’ll have to pay taxes in California, I’ll be spending so much time out there,” Hayes said, half-jokingly.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar introduced Hayes as his department’s go-to California water guy at a Fresno town hall meeting a week ago. Beyond serving as what he calls the “chief operating officer” of the $10 billion-a-year Interior Department, Hayes will coordinate the Obama administration’s role in California water use.
Environment News Service
Dry California Sucks Up Federal Water Recycling Dollars
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2009/2009-07-06-091.asp
SACRAMENTO, California, July 6, 2009 (ENS) - Drought-stricken California is receiving 98 percent of the Recovery Act funding announced nationally for water recycling projects, according to federal and state water officials.
New America Media
California's Disappearing Towns -- Huron may not be here a year from now...Viji Sundaram
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=fe824636288f2231f5e75d0e0b6d7ca3
HURON, Calif. -– As you drive down Highway 198 toward the tiny Central Valley city of Huron, yellow-and-black signs poke out from parched fields with a message that harkens back to the days of the Great Depression: “Congress Created Dustbowls.”
The signs, believed to be the handiwork of the Central Valley’s agricultural industry, reflect a collective cry of desperation from a community of about 7,300 Mexican immigrants, who have made this Fresno County town their home, with hopes of realizing the American dream.
Manteca Bulletin
Goodwin Dam got water rolling for SSJID users...Dennis Wyatt
http://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/article/5182/
Nestled in the rustic Stanislaus River canyon below the western horizon from busy Highway 108-120 in the bottomland of Tuolumne County is arguably the most critical chunk of concrete ever poured when it comes to powering the Manteca economy.
It is here, some 35 miles to the northeast of Manteca, you’ll find Goodwin Dam. The 400-foot high dam was completed in December of 1912 primary as a storage and diversion point for the South San Joaquin Irrigation District and its century-old partner – the Oakdale Irrigation District.
Water Online
EPA Takes New Steps To Improve WaterQuality...SOURCE: U.S. EPA
http://www.wateronline.com/article.mvc/EPA-Takes-New-Steps-To-Improve-Water-Quality-0001?atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a&VNETCOOKIE=NO
Washington — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made available comprehensive reports and data on water enforcement in all 50 states. This is part of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson's larger effort by to enhance transparency, promote the public's right to know about water quality and provide information on EPA's actions to protect water under the Clean Water Act.
Modesto Bee
Study: No increased fire threat in owl habitat...JEFF BARNARD, AP Environmental Writer
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/772345.html
GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- A new study challenges a basic justification about the threat of wildfires that the Bush administration used to make room for more logging in old growth forests that are home to the northern spotted owl.
7-6-09
Merced Sun-Star
Water officials fear Calif. Aqueduct could sink...TRACIE CONE, Associated Press Writer
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/280/v-print/story/935376.html
FRESNO, Calif. - Fearing the main canal carrying drinking water to millions of Southern Californians is sinking again, water officials are monitoring the effects of incessant agricultural pumping from the aquifer that runs under the aqueduct.
Fresno Bee
LLOYD G. CARTER: Russian roulette with water
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/wo/v-print/story/1516702.html
While cutbacks in Delta irrigation water for 600 growers in the Westlands Water District continue to dominate the California water wars, a bigger problem as old as civilization itself -- salt -- will force the state Water Resources Control Board this week to decide whether to protect the long-term health of critical drinking water aquifers or to permit the continued use of aquifers and rivers as public toilets.
Sacramento Bee
Delta gates proposal builds support, but environmental impact remains murky...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/2002299.html
A plan to build gates across two Delta channels has strong support from state and federal leaders, though little is known about how the project would affect the environment.
The so-called "two gates" project would build moveable gates across Old River and Connection Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The channels bracket Bacon Island in the heart of the estuary. They are key passages for water and aquatic life moving between San Francisco Bay and the south Delta, where powerful state and federal water export pumps divert water to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
Water officials argue that blocking those channels at key times could prevent threatened Delta smelt from being sucked to their deaths in the pumps. This might allow water diversions to continue even when smelt migrate into the central Delta in winter. Pumping is often reduced now to protect fish, contributing to statewide water shortages.
You'd think water would be a basic right...Peter Asmus
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/1998955.html
In the slums of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, about 1 million poor people pay up to 30 times more for water of dubious quality brought to them in old tanker trucks than middle-class citizens pay for clean and safe water provided by the local public water utility via standard household connections.
Some may be shocked by these disturbing disparities in the developing world, but a lack of access to safe, affordable and clean water is also an issue in California, particularly in the Central Valley and along the Central Coast. In these communities, more than 90 percent of drinking water is sucked from contaminated groundwater sources. All told, more than 150,000 California residents lack safe water for drinking, bathing and washing dishes; even more have water service disconnected because they cannot afford to pay their bill.
Napa Valley Register
Where’s the water?
County launches study of aquifers from Angwin to American Canyon...MIKE TRELEVEN
http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2009/07/06/news/local/
doc4a516d3bed5bb362237055.txt
Napa County wants to find out what it knows and what it doesn’t about its underground aquifers, and is drilling through the data to get a clear assessment of the water supply under the heart of the valley.
Indybay.org
The Budget-Busting Peripheral Canal and the Three Big Lies...Dan Bacher
The campaign by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Legislators to build a peripheral canal is based on "The Three Big Lies."
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/05/18605769.php
The proposal to build a peripheral canal around the California Delta, overwhelmingly defeated by the voters in 1982, has been resurrected many times since then by politicians trying to curry favor with corporate agribusiness. In June 2007 Governor Schwarzenegger unveiled a new water bond proposal for a peripheral canal and more dams – and has been relentlessly campaigning for it ever since.
The current incarnation of the canal, the "dual conveyance" backed by the Governor, Senator Diane Feinstein and Legislators from both sides of the political aisle, is cynically being touted to serve the “co-equal”goals of water supply and “ecosystem restoration."
Los Angeles Times
Despair flows as fields go dry and unemployment rises
San Joaquin Valley farms are laying off workers and letting fields lie fallow as their water ration falls...Alana Semuels
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-drought6-2009jul06,0,3934654,print.story
Reporting from Mendota, Calif. — Water built the semi-arid San Joaquin Valley into an agricultural powerhouse. Drought and irrigation battles now threaten to turn huge swaths of it into a dust bowl.
Farmers have idled half a million acres of once-productive ground and are laying off legions of farmhands. That's sending joblessness soaring in a region already plagued by chronic poverty.
Saving the Columbia and Snake river salmon
A judge overseeing endangered salmon on the Columbia and Snake rivers is raising the possibility of dam removal. If politics trumps science this time, how can we hope to deal with climate change?...Paul VanDevelder. Paul VanDevelder is the author of "Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America's Road to Empire Through Indian Territory."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-vandevelder6-2009jul06,0,1653592,print.story
If ever there were a story that foreshadowed the political and legal Waterloos that loom in seeking solutions to climate change, surely that cautionary tale is the one about the Columbia and Snake rivers' salmon and their imminent extinction. And like most stories about endangered species or environmental threats, this one is not only about fish and rivers -- it's about us.
Washington Post
AP analysis: Economic stress up in much of nation...JEANNINE AVERSA and MIKE SCHNEIDER, The Associated Press. Associated Press Writer Evelyn Nieves in San Francisco contributed to this report
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070601083_pf.html
-- California, Michigan and South Carolina suffered the most financial pain in May as unemployment, home foreclosures and bankruptcies rose, according to The Associated Press' monthly analysis of economic stress in more than 3,100 U.S. counties.
7-5-09
Fresno Bee
Fresno ranked greenest in Valley...Mark Grossi
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-print/story/1515043.html
Out of 100 Central Valley cities, Fresno has the greenest ideas for growth over the next three decades, says a groundbreaking study by the University of California at Davis.
But Fresno still may not be able to protect land, water and air from explosive growth, says lead author Mark Lubell. He doubts other cities will have much luck either. Green policies still could be pushed aside for pollution-causing sprawl that earns more money for city treasuries.
Canal plan upsets delta farmers...Mike Taugher, Contra Costa Times
http://www.fresnobee.com/1072/v-print/story/1515010.html
CLARKSBURG -- Chuck Baker grows pears on land his family has worked since 1851 and has a farmer's sensitivity to the plagues of modern agriculture -- pesticide regulations, the intrusive hand of federal regulators, the threat to private property posed by wetlands restoration -- and, most of all, the need for water.
So, he sympathizes with San Joaquin Valley farmers who are short of water this year, but he also has little patience for the argument being trumpeted by Valley politicians: that the problems confronted by Valley farmers can be reduced to the simple equation of "fish versus farmers."
California water plan aims to save Puget Sound orcas...LES BLUMENTHAL,McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.fresnobee.com/641/v-print/story/1515162.html
WASHINGTON - A plan to restore salmon runs on California's Sacramento River also could help revive killer whale populations 700 miles to the north in Puget Sound, as federal scientists struggle to protect endangered species in a complex ecosystem that stretches along the Pacific coast from California to Alaska.
San Francisco Chronicle
Bay-Delta litigation, by species...Sunday Insight
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/INUL18HQCJ.DTL&type=printable
The war is over water, but California's native fish are deployed on the front lines…
WATER RESOURCES
Take a good look at costly water bills - the ones in Sacramento
Traci Sheehan Van Thull, George Biagi. Traci Sheehan Van Thull is executive director of the Planning and Conservation League. George Biagi is a farmer and is president of the Central Delta Water Agency.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/INBM18I6SM.DTL&type=printable
While still not resolving the $26.3 billion budget crisis, the California Legislature is on the verge of considering an extensive and costly restructuring of California's water laws and water infrastructure. Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?
New threat emerges to tiger salamander...David Perlman
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/BANT18FQEJ.DTL&type=printable
As if it isn't enough that the California tiger salamander and other amphibian pond-dwellers are forced to fight for survival against overdevelopment and pollution in the state, along comes a predatory half-breed salamander to present another serious threat.
VANISHING HABITAT
As the delta goes, so go our salmon...Zeke Grader. Zeke Grader is the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, which represents 14 commercial fishing groups.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/INBM18I79J.DTL&type=printable
California is without its salmon for a second year. Prospects for the reopening of the season next year are encouraging, but the future of this iconic fish beyond that is uncertain.
Pacific salmon - born in free-flowing streams, reared in rivers before going to sea and then returning to their natal streams to spawn and die - face innumerable threats. These include predators - larger fish, birds, marine mammals and man - and the whims of nature.
Water use must change whether fish live or die...Cynthia Koehler. Cynthia Koehler is a consulting attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, a national nonprofit organization.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/INUL18HM0G.DTL&type=printable
Why should anyone care if California salmon, or local fishermen, go the way of the dodo?
Can't we just buy fish from Alaska? And what's wrong with the farmed stuff, anyway? Because of economic suffering in the Central Valley, some are calling for an end to environmental protections for California's once-mighty salmon runs.
Limit agribusiness - for salmon's sake...Paul Johnson. Paul Johnson is president of Monterey Fish Market of San Francisco and Berkeley and the author of "Fish Forever" (Wiley, 2007).
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/INGV18GJGP.DTL&type=printable
When I look at a salmon, I don't just see a silver fish, I see California.
Salmon fishing is part of our heritage, a way of life that has been passed down for generations, deeply connected to the community and tradition. The forests, streams and wildlife of California depend on the return of the salmon for food and nutrients.
THERE'S ANOTHER THREATENED SPECIES - HUMANS...R. William Robinson. Ralph E. Shaffer. R. William Robinson is an elected director of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Water District; Ralph E. Shaffer is professor emeritus of history at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/INGV18H0TP.DTL&type=printable
For Californians south of Tracy's water delivery pumps, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger's recent ruling on the delta smelt has transformed 2009 into both the best of times and the worst of times.
Despite what some view as a victory for 20 million residents dependent upon delta water, Wanger's decision to delay imposition of permanent pumping restrictions merely lengthens litigation and threatens further damage to the state's once-vibrant economy.
Warning on trout hatcheries could force changes...Peter Fimrite
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/MNCU188EDD.DTL&type=printable
Hatchery-raised steelhead trout pass on genetic defects that hamper survival of even their wild-born offspring, according to a study that biologists say could lead to a radical shift in the way salmon breeding programs operate on the West Coast.
ON PROPOSAL TO ELIMINATE BCDC AS A STATE AGENCY
It takes a watchdog to preserve the bay...Editorial
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/EDT218FRQ2.DTL&type=printable
The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) has protected San Francisco Bay for the past four decades. The state agency regulates all filling and dredging, protects eco-sensitive marshland, and tries to minimize development pressures around the bay's edges. In short, it's one of the Bay Area's top partners when it comes to protecting, preserving, and yes, saving the bay.
Now the commission needs our help. In his May revisions to the state budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called for eliminating it as a state department and realigning it as a "regional entity" by the year 2010. Schwarzenegger's staff says the change is about "good government" and "improving efficiency." Because most land-use decisions are made at the local level, they told us, it would make sense to offer local governments more "local oversight" of the bay.
States digging deep to monitor water...DAVID TIRRELL-WYSOCKI, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/05/national/a094549D53.DTL&type=printable
About a quarter mile into dense woods, geologists watch as a drilling rig twists a shaft deep into the granite bedrock of southeastern New Hampshire. They are searching for water ? not to drink ? but to watch.
State and federal agencies have been watching, or monitoring, lakes and rivers for more than a century, but less attention has gone to vast amounts of water in cracks and rock fissures deep underground, leaving a void in understanding a resource growing in importance as demands for water increase and surface water sources are being used to the fullest in many areas.
Modesto Bee
Hagerty: 600 miles of blight from Lassen to the Bay...Dick Hagerty
http://www.modbee.com/opinion/community/v-print/story/770498.html
How do you spell "blight?"
Out here in Oakdale we spell it TANC.
Much has been written recently about the planned invasion of Northern California by the juggernaut known as the Transmission Agency of Northern California.
7-4-09
Modesto Bee
Lawmakers anxious to move fast on delta project...Mark Grossi
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/769716.html
FRESNO -- A bold experiment in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could protect threatened fish and ease California's water crisis. But it faces steep challenges.
The idea is to submerge massive barriers in river channels to prevent the delta smelt from swimming toward certain death at water pumps in the delta.
The experiment, called the Two Gates project, comes up at water rallies and political strategy sessions among San Joaquin Valley lawmakers who support the idea. They hope it will bring more water to 25 million residents and millions of acres of farmland.
Stockton Record
Fisherman, advocate has deep ties to Delta...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090704/A_NEWS/907040310
"Jolly Jay" Sorensen has already paid to have his ashes scattered over the Delta, his playground for the past six decades.
How jolly is that?
But Sorensen's plans don't stop with his death:
"I'm gonna be reincarnated as a 231-pound striper," he said with a straight face.
Tracy Press
Our Voice: McCloskey is must-see TV...The Editorial Board
•“Pete McCloskey: Leading from the Front,” airs at 6 p.m. Sunday on KQED Public Television (Channel 9). Narrated by the late Paul Newman, this program tells the colorful and inspirational life story of Pete McCloskey, a war veteran, lawyer and former Republican congressman.
http://www.tracypress.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Our+Voice-+McCloskey+is+must-see+TV-%20&id=2884114-Our+Voice-+McCloskey+is+must-see+TV-&instance=home_opinion_lead_story
A new documentary, “Pete McCloskey: Leading from the Front,” airs this holiday weekend on KQED Public Television after eight years in the making.
It takes us back to 2005 when the former congressman came to town to find someone — anyone — to unseat Tracy’s own rancher-Rep. Richard Pombo, a seven-term U.S. congressman who’d cut his teeth on the Tracy City Council. At the time, McCloskey was a 78-year-old Republican, a decorated military veteran and retired attorney living on his farm in Yolo County and looking for a Republican in the 11th Congressional District to take on Pombo in the primary.
San Francisco Chronicle
TV review: 'McCloskey: Leading From the Front'...David Wiegand
McCloskey: Leading From the Front: A "Truly CA" documentary. Narrated by Paul Newman, produced and directed by Robert Caughlan. 6 p.m. Sunday on KQED, with encore broadcasts.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/04/DDNU18FMIR.DTL&type=printable
Even those who agree with former Rep. Pete McCloskey on every issue may find the new film "McCloskey: Leading From the Art" a bit of a valentine.
Then again, producer-director Robert Caughlan makes his case that if there's anyone in American politics who deserves a whole box of valentines, it's the former Peninsula congressman who was able to balance his Republican beliefs about government's role in our lives with outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War, support for abortion rights and the need for vigilant environmental conversation.
Contra Costa Times
Divisive Delta canal now on the fast track
Fears loom that moving water south could devastate, contaminate supply...Mike Taugher
http://www.contracostatimes.com/top-stories/ci_12749643
CLARKSBURG — Chuck Baker grows pears on land his family has worked since 1851 and has a farmer's sensitivity to the plagues of modern agriculture — pesticide regulations, the intrusive hand of federal regulators, the threat to private property posed by wetlands restoration — and, most of all, the need for water.
So, he sympathizes with San Joaquin Valley farmers who are short of water this year, but he also has little patience for the argument being trumpeted by valley politicians: that the problems confronted by valley farmers can be reduced to the simple equation of "fish versus farmers."
How it works: The Bay Delta Conservation Plan...Mike Taugher
http://www.contracostatimes.com/environment/ci_12749741
In early 2005, state biologists began sharing some alarming new information: The populations of an entire suite of Delta fish species had begun a nose dive three years earlier.
Since one of those fish was protected under endangered species laws, the findings meant Delta pumps surely would be more tightly regulated.
This confronted big water agencies with two basic problems: First, they already knew the channels that convey water to the southern Delta pumps were becoming increasingly unreliable. Second, endangered species laws were now threatening to restrict their access to Delta water.
Los Angeles Times
Another wave of foreclosures is poised to strike
Mortgage defaults have surged to record levels amid rising unemployment and falling home prices. Lenders are expected to move quickly to clear up backlogs as moratoriums on foreclosures expire...Don Lee
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-foreclosure4-2009jul04,0,844223,print.story
Reporting from Washington — Just as the nation's housing market has begun showing signs of stabilizing, another wave of foreclosures is poised to strike, possibly as early as this summer, inflicting new punishment on families, communities and the still-troubled national economy.
New York Times
10 Years, 430 Dams...Editorial
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/opinion/04sat3.html?_r=1&sq=endangered species&st=cse&scp=4&pagewanted=print
Ten years have gone by since a modest but important moment in American environmental history: the dismantling of the 917-foot-wide Edwards Dam on Maine’s Kennebec River.
The Edwards Dam was the first privately owned hydroelectric dam torn down for environmental reasons (and against the owner’s wishes) by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Bruce Babbitt, the interior secretary at the time, showed up at the demolition ceremony to promote what had become a personal crusade against obsolete dams. The publicity generated a national discussion about dams and the potential environmental benefits — to water quality and fish species — of removing them.
It certainly helped the Kennebec and its fish, and dams have been falling ever since. According to American Rivers, an advocacy group and a major player in the Edwards Dam campaign, about 430 outdated dams (some of them small hydropower dams like Edwards) have been removed with both public and private funding. In one case, the removal of a small, 50-foot dam on Oregon’s Sandy River was paid for entirely by the electric utility that owned it in order to improve salmon runs.
Merced Sun-Star
Calif. bullet train hits criticism on SF Peninsula...STEVE LAWRENCE, Associated Press Writer
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/280/v-print/story/933361.html
MENLO PARK, Calif. Last November, more than 60 percent of voters on the San Francisco Peninsula supported a $9.9 billion bond measure to help pay for a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and the Los Angeles area.
7-3-09
Merced Sun-Star
HUD secretary announces possible help for homeowners in trouble...SCOTT JASON
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/932553.html
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan stood Thursday in front of two foreclosed houses on Saddleback Court to reiterate his plan to offer more help to the nation's distressed homeowners.
As he did Wednesday in Las Vegas, Donovan announced that more homeowners will be eligible to modify their loans under the Obama administration's Making Home Affordable program, which targets people who have mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Sacramento Bee
SMUD pullout dims hopes for big power project...Ed Fletcher
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/1997486.html
One of the largest public works projects in the West – 600 miles of high-voltage power lines through Northern California – is on life support after its biggest player abruptly pulled the plug.
A magnet for opposition from both owners of properties the transmission lines would cross and environmental activists, the project was promoted as vital to the region's clean-energy future.
Project pullout leaves SMUD scrambling to fill power needs...Jim Downing
http://www.sacbee.com/business/v-print/story/1997525.html
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District's withdrawal this week from a major Northern California power-transmission project complicates its transition to renewable energy.
SMUD planners foresaw using the new high-voltage lines to carry power to Sacramento from new wind, solar and geothermal energy projects envisioned for Lassen County and northwestern Nevada. SMUD cited financial uncertainties for the pullout.
State budget crisis scuttles Delta levee hazard detection, repairs...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/1997436.html
Politicians across the state are demanding major water projects in the Delta, but basic repairs on its vast network of levees have come to a standstill.
State reimbursement for levee projects completed as far back as 2007 has been stalled by the budget crisis. This means flood-control districts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have not been able to pay back loans they took out for those projects or to finance new projects.
SoCal-to-Vegas route wins federal designation...KATHLEEN HENNESSEY, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/v-print/story/1997300.html
LAS VEGAS -- The clogged tourist travel route between Southern California and Las Vegas has been designated a federal high-speed rail corridor, in a move that officials hope would signal increased cooperation between the regions on building speedier train travel.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced Thursday that the route is now considered part of the federally designated California high-speed rail corridor.
Stockton Record
Delta advocates plan Capitol rally
Peripheral canal looms large in estuary debate...Alex Breitler
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090703/A_NEWS14/907030339/-1/A_NEWS
SACRAMENTo - Hundreds of Delta advocates plan to rally next week at the state Capitol, fearing that behind-the-scenes negotiations by legislators over the future of the estuary will shut them out of the debate until it is too late.
San Francisco Chronicle
Wake up: Here is what a real water crisis looks like...Dr. Peter Gleick, President, Pacific Institute
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?entry_id=42949
California is in the midst of an ugly debate about water--uglier than normal--because of aconfluence of events, including a "hydrologic" drought caused by nature, a longer-term trend to restore some water back to failing ecosystems, and the gross mismanagement of the state's water, which has been going on for a century, but is affecting us now more than ever.
But despite all of the rhetoric, news stories, name-calling, yelling, and screaming, Californians have very little clue about what a real water crisis looks like. It looks like what's happening in Australia. Today's Water Number:
Water Number: 18,000 tons of rice. That is the total rice production from all of Australia last year, compared to the long-term average from 1970 of over 720,000 tons, and the high (in 2000) of over 1.6 million tons. Effectively, Australian rice production has dropped to zero because there is not enough water. And that is only one measure of the severity of their water crisis.
Transit chief backs waterways for moving cargo...Rachel Gordon
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/03/BAJE18IDUN.DTL&type=printable
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood made a brief stop at the Oakland waterfront Thursday to talk up support for "marine highways" - a program to move more cargo over the nation's waterways to reduce truck traffic and air pollution.
Bloomberg.com
U.S. Foreclosures to Peak in Late 2010, Meyer Says (Update1)...Kathleen M. Howley
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aAsDvrWg4aJI
July 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosures will peak in the second half of 2010 and home prices will continue to decline through the end of that year, according to Barclays Capital.
7-2-09
Badlands Journal
And once again we approach the topic ofleadership...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2009-07-01/007301
In May, Merced County official unemployment rate fell to 17.3 percent. – Badlands…
6-18-09
BusinessWeek
Merced: Ghost Town, USA
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_26/
b4137038265539.htm
Some cities, such as Merced, Calif., are struggling more with the housing crisis than others. The housing crisis is creating ghost towns of once-bustling communities like Merced. In largely abandoned neighborhoods, paved sidewalks and driveways lead to empty lots strewn with utility coils. Unfinished frames with rotting rafters and rusted hinges sit alongside occupied homes. Roughly 40% of the homes in Merced are considered distressed, meaning owners are behind on their mortgage payments or can't make them at all. The toll is expected to rise, even though California extended its moratorium on foreclosures for another 90 days.
6-19-09
News From…
Congressman Dennis Cardoza
18th Congressional District of California
Financial Services Committee commits to assist with Valley economic devastation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Mike Jensen
(202) 225-6131
http://www.house.gov/list/press/ca18_cardoza/PRFINCOMIT.html
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank and several other Committee members pledged their support to work with Congressman Cardoza to address the economic devastation facing the San Joaquin Valley.
Modesto Bee
Water pumping restrictions to protect Delta smelt end...Matt Weiser
http://www.modbee.com/region/v-print/story/766568.html
Federal officials on Tuesday ended seasonal water pumping restrictions intended to protect the threatened Delta smelt.
Fresno Bee
GOP ads link Dems to Valley water crisis
Radio spots attack Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa...Michael Doyle
http://www.fresnobee.com/1072/v-print/story/1511134.html
WASHINGTON -- Republican strategists are now roughing up San Joaquin Valley congressional Democrats with radio ads linking them to the region's water woes.
In an aggressive new tack, the National Republican Congressional Committee on Wednesday began running a 60-second radio ad attacking Reps. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, and Jim Costa, D-Fresno. The ad running throughout the week links the two Democrats to systemic irrigation-water shortages.
"Cardoza and Costa can't persuade Democrat leaders to change radical environmental laws," the ad intones. "So while the congressmen fail ... the Valley goes dry."
Rally for water rights hits downtown Fresno...Robert Rodriguez
http://www.fresnobee.com/updates/v-print/story/1510498.html
Ron Schafer and Alice Powlick aren't farmers or farmworkers. They are middle-school teachers who came to Wednesday's water rally in downtown Fresno on behalf of their students.
The teachers joined several thousand who jammed the front of City Hall to plead with the state and federal governments to provide the Valley with more irrigation water. Mike Lukens, city of Fresno spokesman, estimated the crowd at between 3,500 to 4,000 at its peak.
Obama plan expanded to help more in Valley...Sandy Nax, News Blog
http://fresnobeehive.com/news/2009/07/obama_plan_expanded_to_
help_mo.html
Mortgage counselors in the central San Joaquin Valley say many more at-risk homeowners in the Fresno area could get help through an expansion of President Obama's Home Affordable Refinance Program, which was announced today.
467K jobs cut in June; jobless rate at 9.5 percent...JEANNINE AVERSA,AP Economics Writer
http://www.fresnobee.com/559/v-print/story/1511774.html
WASHINGTON Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate climbed to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent. Workers also saw weekly wages fall, suggesting Americans will have little appetite to spend and the economy's road to recovery will be bumpy.
Valley Voice
Council Delays Racetrack Agreement...Julie Fernandez
http://www.valleyvoicenewspaper.com/tv/stories/2009/tv_
racetrackbudlong_0123.htm
Tulare - Developer Bud Long failed to get City Council approval for a much-needed agreement Tuesday after he told Councilman Richard Ortega that the Tulare Motor Sports Complex limited partnership “cannot or will not” repay within two weeks the $1 million it owns the city.
CapitalPress
Pumps bring water, but for how long?
Efforts to protect Delta smelt cut water by 660,000 acre feet last year...Cecilia Parsons
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=52548&TM=49906.38
FRESNo - Federal government pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta started moving much-needed irrigation water to farms Wednesday, July 1, but questions remain about how long those pumps will continue running.
U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told the audience of a town hall meeting in Fresno Sunday, June 28, that the Central Valley Project pumps would run through the end of the year, facilitating 70 approved water transfers totaling 245,000 acre feet. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor, who also spoke at the town hall meeting, said the agency is working to make the most of this year's water supplies.
However, there was some skepticism.
West side farmer Bob Diedrich said growers already knew the pumps would resume moving water south on July 1, but questioned how long they would remain on considering the latest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency biological opinion on salmon recovery.
San Francisco Chronicle
Thousands rally to protest water cuts in Fresno...Tracie Cone, Associated Press Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/02/BAIS18HJP8.DTL&type=printable
Fresno -- Thousands of farmers, farmworkers and their supporters rallied at City Hall on Wednesday, calling on federal officials to ease regulations that have cut water supplies to the nation's most prolific growing region.
"Water makes the difference between the Garden of Eden and Death Valley," said comedian Paul Rodriguez, who acts as a spokesman for the Latino Water Coalition, a group lobbying for changes in water delivery policy regarding the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Indybay.org
Save the Mokelumne River from a New Dam...Dan Bacher
During a time of fish collapses and severe economic crisis, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) is proposing to build a new 400-foot dam on the Mokelumne River as part of its 2040 water plan. "The dam will be yet another nail in the coffin of the Delta and our crashing salmon and steelhead fisheries," according to Katherine K. Evatt, President of the Foothill Conservancy. Here is the action alert from Evatt, a tireless defender of the Mokelumne and its fish.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/02/18605299.php
Urgent Action Alert:
The East Bay Municipal Utility District is proposing to build a new 400-foot dam on the Mokelumne River as part of its 2040 water plan. The dam will be yet another nail in the coffin of the Delta and our crashing salmon and steelhead fisheries. We need to increase freshwater inflow to the lower Mokelumne River for fish and the Delta, not divert more water upstream.
CNN Money
Money train: The cost of high-speed rail
The president is pledging $13 billion for a high speed rail system, but some experts fear it will never cover its own costs...Aaron Smith
http://money.cnn.com/2009/06/10/news/economy/high_speed_rail/
index.htm?postversion=2009070212
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- President Obama is pouring $13 billion into an ambitious high-speed rail project. Some say it will never make money. Some say it will. And still others say profit is not even the point.
Obama's plan is "to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail" in 10 major corridors, linking cities within the Northeast, California, Florida and other regions with "bullet trains" that exceed 110 miles per hour. State governments are in the process of applying for the federal funds.
7-1-09
Badlands Journal
The PR Firm from Hell, Part 1...Lloyd Carter
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2009-07-01/007297
THE PR FIRM FROM HELL
As published in the June 30th, 2009 edition of the Fresno Community Alliance newspaper
(First of two parts)
By Lloyd G. Carter
http://www.lloydgcarter.com/content/090629251_the-pr-firm-from-hell
Cesar Chavez knew the power of a good march. He led by example and he never stopped trying until he found a way.
And this is exactly what we are going to do. We never will stop until we find a way, find a way together here, because this is the right thing to do, because we need water, we need water, we need water, we need water [chanting with crowd]. --
Gov. Schwarzenegger, on April 17, at the San Luis Reservoir, following a four-day grower-funded march in which non-union farmworkers were paid to walk 50 miles from Mendota. Chavez’ United Farm Workers union did not participate. UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta called it shameless exploitation of the late labor leader’s legacy.
State says shopping center shouldn't have chopped down trees...JONAH OWEN LAMB
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/928535.html
ATWATER -- When the owners of the Applegate Ranch Shopping Center cleared away the trees and shrubs near their property running along Highway 99, they may not have known how much it could cost them in the end.
That's because the vegetation was owned by the state of California.
Now the Golden State is suing the owners of the shopping center, Regency Centers Corp., for allegedly trespassing on state property near Applegate Road and for the malicious destruction of state property.
Our View: More action needed on water issues
Salazar offers relief, but it is really up to the Legislature to fix state's problems.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/928554.html
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar offered some federal assistance to ease the California water crisis, and that at least shows the Obama administration finally has put this emergency on its radar screen.
But this problem is too complex for quick fixes, and it will take state and federal action to resolve it.
So far, lawmakers in California have not offered a comprehensive water solution and that's another failing of the state Legislature.
Modesto Bee
Construction spending falls more than expected...MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
http://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/766369.html
WASHINGTON -- Construction spending fell more than expected in May, a sign the problems facing the nation's builders are far from over.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that construction spending dropped 0.9 percent in May, nearly double the 0.5 percent decline that economists expected. Adding to the signs of weakness, activity in the past two months was revised lower.
Construction rose 0.6 percent in April, down from the 0.8 percent increase originally reported. A March increase of 0.4 percent was replaced with a decline of the same amount. That left the April gain as the only increase in the past eight months.
Pending home sales up 4th straight month in May...last updated: July 01, 2009 07:10:27 AM
http://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/766370.html
WASHINGTON -- A private group says pending home sales rose in May for the fourth straight month, fresh evidence that the housing sector may be recovering.
Modesto-area rainfall was far below average for 2008-09 season...John Holland
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/766024.html
It's a new year for water watchers, one they hope will be wetter than the past three in California.
The 2008-09 rainfall year ended Tuesday with 8.78 inches recorded by the Modesto Irrigation District at its downtown headquarters. That was 72 percent of the historical average of 12.17 inches.
Fresno Bee
DAVE COGDILL: Two Gates can help Valley...Dave Cogdill
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/wo/v-print/story/1507867.html
As if the water crisis weren't exacerbated enough by a system built a half century ago meant to serve a fraction of our current population, the federal government and the courts continue to act in the best interest of fish rather than people.
As I drive through the Valley, it pains me to see crops dying on the vine, causing thousands in our communities to lose jobs because we lack a reliable water supply. It's unacceptable that the farmers and workers who feed the world are going hungry because of the drought.
Places Left Behind...David Mas Masumoto...6-28-09
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/masumoto/v-print/story/1500204.html
I drive country roads, past farms and houses that look and feel old.
Abandoned peach orchards dot the landscape. Branches droop low, bent over, straining under the pressure of neglect. Their fate is sealed, only a matter of time before they die. Piles of dead grapevines sit ready to be burned; no rush to clear the land because the field has been vacant for years without plans for what will be next.
A brown, wood sided farmhouse -- more like a shack -- sits unoccupied, the untreated slats have weathered the decades and numerous recessions and depressions but is now doomed. The nearby barn lists badly to one side.
I've watched this structure over the years gradually deteriorate, wondering earth and create a huge liability. I realize that the farmer had passed away years ago, the heirs left the land decades before and have no inclination of the pending collapse.when the roof would cave in and the sides tumble down. The structure could trap someone inside as it tumbles to the...
Sacramento Bee
Dutch expert offers advice on saving Delta...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/v-print/story/1991103.html
Tropical islands and mountain glaciers get all the attention. But the planet's river deltas are the real front lines of climate change.
Sharing that message is a goal of the Delta Alliance, a new effort by officials in the Netherlands to unite people around the world struggling to manage river delta regions. This includes Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nigeria – and California.
Scientists have advised California to prepare for 55 inches of sea level rise in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by 2100. Protecting communities and the Delta freshwater supply, which serves 23 million Californians, will be a complicated and pricey task.
The Dutch have lived below sea level for hundreds of years. They've survived by building massive levees that are the envy of the world.
Last week, a delegation from the Netherlands visited San Francisco and the Delta. One result is a planned September symposium in California on common challenges.
On Thursday, The Bee interviewed Bart Parmet, director of the Deltateam for the Netherlands Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, during the delegation's stop in Sacramento.
Why did you form the Delta Alliance?
Already 50 percent of the population in the world lives in delta areas, and this will grow up to 80 percent maybe. The problems with the deltas, with rising sea level and changes in river discharges, are similar. That was the background to say, "Hey, why not make an alliance of places to exchange knowledge, do research together and be prepared for this rise in sea level."
We are a nation that is curious. We have a good name in water. We are a nation that doesn't mind selling things. We'd like to combine helping, and if we can benefit from it, too, it's OK.
Does the public understand that deltas may be more vulnerable to climate change than other areas?
Yes, at least in the Netherlands, that's for sure. And I think here, now, growing awareness in California as well. Maybe the Delta Alliance would help to raise awareness of this problem. Because as I understood during our visit, it's not common knowledge with Joe America.
How are deltas more vulnerable to climate change?
Because they are there where the river enters the sea. So with a rise in sea level, they are thefirst victims, so to say. But they are attractive areas to live in, and that's because there is fertile ground, there is water from the river, there is fish, there is everything you need.
You toured the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta today. Tell me what you thought.
I heard about the large subsidence of the soils, and that was very clear to see. And I asked myself, where will this end? How will this end?
What I saw, and what I tried to imagine, is the complex government structure you have here. In the Netherlands, all major levees are owned by the government. So it is very clear who is responsible. Here I heard that levees are privately owned. And if the state would improve them, or the Army Corps, they are liable. So: I'm a farmer, I get help from the state, they improve my levee, and after that I can even sue them if things go wrong.
Well, that's strange. So I try to imagine how to work in such a complex situation, which seems very difficult.
What did you think of the levees you saw?
These levees have a quality that would not meet Dutch standards. Although there are also levees built by the Army Corps which do, there are a lot of levees which are old levees on peat soils and those are not the most, let's say, strong levees. It would be huge work to improve them, but if you want to you can.
How do you deal with people who aren't concerned about sea level rise?
We faced the same problem. And we have one advantage, where I think you have also an advantage. If the Netherlands would not be protected at the moment, about two-thirds would be flooded now and then – without sea level rise.
What you have is not only sea level rise. There are more problems. For example, an earthquake, or a storm surge, or a maximum river flow. You already have problems that can cause inundation. You don't need the sea level rise for that. That could help to make the sense of urgency veryclear.
Do you have any thoughts about what we should do?
To me, this complex situation of conflicting interests, that's something that really needs to be tackled. In the Netherlands, we are used to doing things together. If we don't do it together, we drown together. So that's simple.
In the Netherlands, there will be a delta fund that will be fed by at least 1 billion euros (about $1.4 billion) per year (from income taxes). It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. And 1 billion euros is a real bargain to protect our country. Because the public was involved, it makes it easier for Parliament (to approve this).
So my advice, modest advice for California, would be to think about a delta fund, so you don't have to argue in the political arena about funds every year. Second: Try one water act or delta act in which you combine all the things you have on water and your delta. That will be a major task.
Sit together, talk about it. Confront people if they don't want to look into interests of other stakeholders. You really have to work together because it's too big an issue to think you can tackle it in the Delta alone or in the Bay Area alone. It's an issue of all California.
Otter population falls as humans pollute ocean...Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/MNPA18GK8S.DTL&type=printable
Sea otters along the California coast are dying off faster than at any time since the late 1990s, a disturbing trend that experts say is partially due to human-caused water pollution, the U.S. Geological Survey reported Tuesday.
A spring census of the threatened otters found only 2,654 otters along 375 miles of coast, a 3.8 percent drop from the year before.
Forest Service must reinstate tougher guidelines...Peter Fimrite
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/MNMR18GNNM.DTL&type=printable
A federal judge in San Francisco Tuesday struck down national forest management rules devised by the Bush administration that environmentalists had denounced as a thinly veiled sop for timber companies.
Bay Area coastal projects to get $18 million...Kelly Zito
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BA4018GQV8.DTL&type=printable
Coastal habitat restoration projects in the Bay Area will receive nearly $18 million in federal stimulus money, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Tuesday.
indybay.org
Peripheral Canal: Panama Canal North?
Proposed Government Boondoggle Would Be the Width of a 100 Lane Freeway!
The peripheral canal proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and corporate agribusiness will appoximate the size of the Panama Canal, according to Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo)...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/01/18605005.php
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, corporate agribusiness and other supporters of the peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have carefully avoided discussing what an actual canal would look like, as well as its enormous environmental impacts and budget-busting cost to the taxpayers.
Los Angeles Times
EPA targets nitrogen dioxide emissions near freeways...Amy Littlefield, Greenspace
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/06/no2-asthma-air-toxics-.html
The rest of the country may be catching up to California when it comes to limiting emissions of the air toxin nitrogen dioxide.
6-30-09
Modesto Bee
EPA approves California pollution rule...H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/764928.html
WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency has given the go-ahead for California to impose stringent regulations on greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
Fresno Bee
'Two Gates' project could ease water crisis...Mark Grossi
http://www.fresnobee.com/1072/v-print/story/1505306.html
A bold experiment in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could protect threatened fish and ease California's water crisis. But it faces steep challenges.
Water activists to rally in Fresno
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, expected...Robert Rodriguez
http://www.fresnobee.com/1072/v-print/story/1505288.html
Organizers of a second Rally for Water are expecting several hundred, if not thousands, to descend on downtown Fresno on Wednesday as they continue their fight for more water.
Farmers, workers and elected officials have been invited to attend the noon rally in front of City Hall. A march around the downtown area will follow.
PLF Launches “Save Our Water” Petition to Obama and Schwarzenegger
Federal “God Squad’s” Help Sought for California’s Crisis...Published online on Monday, Jun. 29, 2009
http://www.fresnobee.com/547/v-print/story/1504838.html
SACRAMENTO, Calif. Pacific Legal Foundation today launched an emergency “Save our Water” petition campaign, urging President Barack Obama and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to act to convene a special federal panel, nicknamed the “God Squad,” to address California’s water emergency caused by harsh federal environmental restrictions.
PLF’s petition is online at www.pacificlegal.org. It allows members of the general public to ask President Obama and Governor Schwarzenegger to act to convene the “God Squad.”
Clovis OKs document on Wal-Mart shopping center...Marc Benjamin
http://www.fresnobee.com/updates/v-print/story/1505182.html
The Clovis City Council approved certification of an environmental document Monday night for a 490,000-square-foot shopping center that includes a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Capital Press
Salazar doesn't quench farm thirst for water in California...Cecilia Parsons...6-29-09
http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=616&ArticleID=52461&TM=48230.39
FRESNO, Calif. - A who's-who of San Joaquin Valley agriculture was part of the crowd that packed a Fresno State student union on a blistering Sunday afternoon, June 28, to hear what they hoped would be good news from Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Salazar, dressed in boots and jeans, didn't deliver any immediate relief to their water woes. Instead, he announced plans for some short-term and long-term fixes for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta so more water could be delivered to farms and communities to the south.
San Francisco Chronicle
Truth drought: California's real shortfall...Dr. Peter Gleick, President, Pacific Institute
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?entry_id=42731
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar came to California on Sunday to hear firsthand about California's drought. Unfortunately, some of what he heard was misleading or false. Certainly farms and farmers are suffering, so are fish and ecosystems. But so is the truth. Here are three oft-repeated falsehoods.
Inside Bay Area
Report sums up Peninsula's high-speed rail concerns...Mike Rosenberg, San Mateo County Times
http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/
ci_12717937
State high-speed rail officials released a report Monday that caps a tumultuous public outreach period in which a staggering number of issues were raised over the local section of the proposed bullet train.
Merced Sun-Star
Geological Survey finds steep drop in Central Valley's groundwater...MATT WEISER, The Sacramento Bee
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/947924.html
California's San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. That's enough water for 60 Folsom reservoirs.
This is among the findings in a massive study of groundwater in the Central Valley by the U.S. Geological Survey. It helps shed light on the mysteries and dangers of the state's groundwater consumption, which is mostly unregulated.
According to the study, groundwater pumping continues to cause the Valley floor to sink, a problem known as subsidence. This threatens stability of surface structures such as the California Aqueduct, which delivers drinking water to more than 20 million people.
The Central Valley is the nation's largest farming region; it's also the single-largest zone of groundwater pumping. About 20 percent of groundwater pumped in the United States comes from under the Central Valley, said Claudia Faunt, the study's project chief.
In the Sacramento Valley, the study found groundwater levels have remained stable. Virtually all of the groundwater loss has occurred in the San Joaquin Valley, where aquifer levels have dropped nearly 400 feet since 1961, she said.
The current drought has aggravated this problem.
"In most years, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, the groundwater pumping exceeds the recharge," said Faunt, a USGS hydrologist. "With recent times, those groundwater levels have dropped back down close to historical lows."
The study is part of a project by the USGS to update groundwater data around the country that dates to the 1980s. USGS chose to begin in the Central Valley because the region is so important to the nation's food supply. The study took five years and cost $1 million.
California is the only state in which groundwater use is almost completely unregulated. California well owners are not required to report pumping or consumption patterns.
The study relied, in part, on indirect measurements. State monitoring wells provide a peek at regional groundwater behavior. Researchers also tapped into more than 8,500 well-drilling records dating back to 1900, as well as land-use patterns and surface water recharge data.
Overall, Flaunt said, there's a loss in groundwater amounting to about 60 million acre-feet since 1961.
An acre-foot of water is enough to serve two average California households for a year. That groundwater lost from the San Joaquin Valley was enough for every California household for 10 years.
Ken Upton: Merced water under attack. Kole Upton farms in Merced County. He is on the boards of several water districts in the county.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/177/v-print/story/947913.html
The Merced River is under attack by outsiders. The relicensing of Merced Irrigation District's dams with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission provides an opportunity for the fringe environmental community to further decimate the San Joaquin Valley of its historical surface water supplies.
In Jonah Lamb's report on July 7, Ron Stork, a senior policy advocate at Friend of the River, states, "The Merced is essentially the headwaters of the San Joaquin River."
He goes on to say, "The San Joaquin is kind of a stagnant, very turbid, river because so much water is diverted from the Central Valley Project's Friant Dam in Fresno County that the San Joaquin is little more than a stream for much of its southern length."
Stork conveniently fails to mention the much-heralded San Joaquin Restoration Bill passed this year in Congress.
This bill will provide an average of 170,000 to 225,000 acre-feet of new water out of Friant Dam every year.
In wet years, it could be more than 500,000 acre-feet.
Further, Stork's claim that the Merced River is the headwaters of the San Joaquin is bogus. It is a tributary.
What is at stake here is whether the good people of Merced County can determine their own future, or have it determined for them by outside groups.
Many of us depend on water from MID that is excess to the needs of their constituents, and we are willing to pay a premium for this water.
This program is essential to the maintenance of our underground aquifers. In several areas of Merced County, the groundwater levels are dropping precipitously, and surface water is used to mitigate those declines.
Water is a public resource and should be used for the benefit of society as a whole.
Environmentalists use this fact to demand water from folks who are currently beneficially using the water, to divert it for some purported environmental goal.
Unfortunately, neither governmental agencies nor the courts has required any reasonable justification or accountability from the environmental community, no matter how unreasonable their demands.
No better example can be found than in the delta.
For decades, environmentalists and their political allies have used the courts, legislative actions, and executive agencies to spend billions of dollars on the delta's problems. They have had countless meetings of with every imaginable environmental advocacy group, government agency, and water user.
They have virtually shut down the Westside. Yet the delta is in worse shape than ever.
What is needed here with this relicensing of the Merced River is common sense.
The people making the decision need to recognize the local community's needs both now and in the future.
If water is to be taken from the citizens of Merced County, it needs to be clearly proven that the new use is of more importance to society, and that the new use will clearly achieve the goal for which it is being taken.
I am skeptical that could be proved to any objective person or group.
Friends of the River and other environmental groups want the FERC to study the Merced River as part of the whole delta fiasco to demand additional flows.
Local officials want the scoping document limited to the immediate environs of Lake McClure. If common sense is the standard, the study should be limited and the future of Merced County and its citizens protected against this latest attack on its water resources.
Letter: Closing UC Merced a bad idea...CHARLES LONG, Art Department chairman, UC Riverside, Mount Baldy
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/180/v-print/story/947919.html
Editor: Regaring the Sun-Star's page one story Thursday, "UC San Diego professors come up with budget fixer."
Isn't one of the ideals of academia the exploration of new ways of changing social systems that do not work into new ones that do? Academia's autonomy is crucial to advanced societies so that they may realize their potential unbiased from dominant ideologies that wish to propagate themselves regardless of the destructiveness to that society.
This, of course, presumes a society striving for democracy. The fall of many great empires is often brought on by dependence on a narrow range of resources, technologies and systemwide structures and then repeating them until that empire is hollowed out and collapses.
This system is set up to move capital into a narrow sector, bringing profit to the powerful. Change to that system threatens those in power.
The chair of the sociology department at UCSD, Andrew Scull, is advocating to the UC president that he use the corporate model of cutting out losing products and close three UC campuses to save what he thinks are the three best ones, which, of course, includes the UC where he works. He is backed up by no less than 23 department chairs at his university.
This is the same old pseudo-Darwinian model of survival of the fittest. Corporate rule is exactly what has brought our nation to this sorry state that affects everyone.
Scull and his colleagues believe they should be spared their pay cuts and support for their programs. Perhaps instead we should consider cutting out archaic academic programs that only offer to repeat what hasn't been working and are overtly based in their own self- interests and closing down new ideas, which we desperately need to find.
Their suggestion that the president apply GM's strategy to the UC system would be a culture eating its own foot. In the short run, this is a degrading and frightening direction for a society, with the possible end result being anarchy and everyone for themselves.
With all due respect to all the UCSD employees and students,
Modesto Bee
Study finds severe groundwater loss...Matt Weiser
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/779818.html
California's San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a federal study. That's enough water for 60 Folsom reservoirs.
This is among the findings in a massive study of groundwater in the Central Valley by the U.S. Geological Survey. It helps shed light on the mysteries and dangers of the state's groundwater consumption, which is mostly unregulated.
According to the study, groundwater pumping continues to cause the valley floor to sink, a problem known as subsidence. This threatens stability of surface structures such as the California Aqueduct, which delivers drinking water to more than 20 million people.
The Central Valley is the nation's largest farming region; it's also the single-largest zone of groundwater pumping. About 20 percent of groundwater pumped in the United States comes from under the Central Valley, said Claudia Faunt, the study's project chief.
In the Sacramento Valley, the study found groundwater levels have remained stable. Virtually all of the groundwater loss has occurred to the south, in the San Joaquin Valley, where aquifer levels have dropped nearly 400 feet since 1961, she said.
The current drought has aggravated this problem.
"In most years, especially in the San Joaquin Valley, the groundwater pumping exceeds the recharge," said Faunt, a USGS hydrologist. "With recent times, those groundwater levels have dropped back down close to historical lows."
The study is part of a project by the USGS to update groundwater data around the country that dates to the 1980s. USGS chose to begin in the Central Valley because the region is so important to the nation's food supply. The study took five years and cost $1 million.
Water records checked
California is the only state in which groundwater use is almost completely unregulated. California well owners are not required to report pumping or consumption patterns.
The study relied, in part, on indirect measurements. State monitoring wells provide a peek at regional groundwater behavior. Researchers also tapped into more than 8,500 well-drilling records dating to 1900, as well as land-use patterns and surface water recharge data.
After 1900, when large-scale farming began in the Central Valley, water tables dropped significantly as wells were drilled to irrigate crops. Aquifers eventually dropped about 400 feet compared with pre-1900 levels. This was part of the impetus to build the state and federal canal systems in the 1960s. Switching farms to this new surface water supply allowed aquifers to recover.
Then drought came in the late 1970s, and surface water diversions were cut back, as they have been in the current three-year drought. In both periods, farmers relied more heavily on groundwater, and aquifers declined again.
From 1961 to 2003, the period covered by the new study, groundwater levels in the San Joaquin Valley fluctuated depending on drought, Faunt said. The current drought has caused aquifers to drop again by nearly 400 feet, to near the historic low.
Overall, Flaunt said, there's a loss in groundwater amounting to about 60 million acre-feet since 1961.
An acre-foot of water is enough to serve two average California households for a year. That groundwater lost from the San Joaquin Valley was enough for every California household for 10 years.
One consequence has been land subsidence over vast areas of the San Joaquin Valley. The most severe drop is about 29 feet near Mendota, which occurred before construction of the water canals, said Al Steele, an engineering geologist at the state Department of Water Resources in Fresno.
"That's a three-story building, almost," he said.
Sinking hasn't stopped
The land generally does not recover from this subsidence, and often the compacted aquifer loses its ability to store water.
It was assumed that subsidence had stopped after about 1970. But Steele and Faunt said it has continued because of periodic droughts.
Ironically, this threatens the 444-mile California Aqueduct, built in part to address groundwater shortages in the San Joaquin Valley.
Officials recently learned that the canal may be subsiding because of modern groundwater pumping. As land subsides, the canal drops with it. This slashes the canal's water capacity by creating low spots, which reduce flow rate. It also could crack the structure.
"There's incomplete data that shows subsidence during periods when there is increased groundwater pumpage," Steele said. "It's still occurring."
He said California Department of Transportation land survey data shows Highways 198 and 152 near Fresno have subsided "a number of feet" in four decades. How much the canal has subsided is unclear.
To find out, DWR hired USGS to monitor the canal by satellite.
The new USGS study includes a mathematical modeling tool that can help water officials manage groundwater. This could help target the best locations for new groundwater banking projects and prevent land subsidence.
Officials could use the model to determine where and when groundwater pumping most threatens the canal. The state could then manipulate surface water delivery in those areas to prevent groundwater pumping.
One option might be to stop farming in threatened areas.
MID also should quit poorly planned power line project...Editorial
http://www.modbee.com/editorials/v-print/story/779832.html
The Turlock Irrigation District is on the verge of joining the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District in pulling out of a partnership that planned a huge electrical transmission line from Lassen County down through the valley and into the Bay Area.
The Modesto Irrigation District should follow suit.
The TID staff announced Friday that it will recommend withdrawing at the board's regular meeting Tuesday.
Some day such a line may be needed -- but not until there are assurances that a business or utility is going to build solar and-or wind farms in the northeast corner of the state.
Even so, whether the MID needs to be a major player isn't clear. What is clear, though, is that if and when such a project is undertaken, it needs to be done in a way that is far more open.
The current proposal, referred to as TANC (for the Transmission Agency of Northern California), has created more ill will in a few months than anything we can recall in recent times.
Property owners were justifiably angry when they learned -- at or near the initial deadline for public comment -- of the massive project that would run high-voltage lines across their property, with huge towers spaced accordingly. Many of them aren't within the five jurisdictions that would be getting the solar or wind power.
The MID was about a one-fifth partner in the overall project, and the TID was a 50 percent partner with the MID in one segment. Despite SMUD's withdrawal, the "scoping process" is continuing, although a public meeting was cancelled last week in Redding.
This experience offers two worthwhile lessons:
- For the utility leaders: Don't undertake something of this magnitude without being fully up front about it. Following the letter of the law in notifying local government officials and landowners is not enough.
- For the public: This push to "go green" comes with a high price, financially and environmentally. The utilities promoted this line as necessary to meet an expected state mandate that more of their power come from renewable sources. As appealing as that sounds, the public and legislators need to examine what the rush to renewable really means.
It isn't enough to put this project on the back burner or to slow down the process. As long as the alternative routes exist on paper, the affected owners will be hampered in their ability to sell or change the uses of their property.
Both the MID and TID boards have regular meetings at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
While the TID staff will recommend withdrawing from the project Tuesday, the MID agenda doesn't include the TANC project, although it could come up during a discussion on electrical resources.
The TANC commissioners are scheduled to meet next on July 22 -- a date that should signal the death of this fiasco.
Fresno Bee
WALTER A. SHUBIN: Different look at farm, water issues...Walter A. Shubin...7-10-09
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/wo/v-print/story/1527532.html
Twenty years ago, I testified before the House Committee on Agriculture that federal farm policy was driving family farmers off the land, enriching commodities traders and large food processing corporations and undermining America's ability to produce healthy food.
Time, sad to say, has proven me right. Since I testified, a half-million American farmers have vanished.
While national agriculture policy continues to destroy the family farm, the biggest problem in the San Joaquin Valley -- world capital of farming -- is not water, as many believe, but continuing low prices due to surpluses.
Does anyone seriously believe another 100,000 acres of almonds or another 50 mega-dairies are going to help almond farmers or dairymen?
As a raisin farmer the past half-century, I remember a few years back when we were getting only $400 a ton, lower than the cost of production. Many raisin farmers went under. Our Valley raisin industry pulled out 100,000 acres of vines, and today the price is back up to $1,300 a ton.
The Valley's dairy industry went through a painful government buyout program in the late 1980s because of low prices and, lo and behold, it is going through the same thing now with plans to kill tens of thousands of milk cows to lower production and bring the price back up.
Of course, this will drive prices down for the beef industry for flooding the market with cheap milk cow meat.
Valley peach, plum and apricot producers, according to a recent article in The Bee, are also pulling up orchards because of overproduction, foreign competition and resulting low prices, not lack of water.
The Valley's cotton industry, even with massive government aid the last few decades, has dropped from a million acres 15 years ago to 100,000 acres today.
If we idled half the land in this Valley, prices for all commodities would jump dramatically and there would be plenty of water. We could even sell some of our water to our friends in Los Angeles and use the profits to modernize our irrigation systems. Flood irrigation in a desert, which is still widespread in this Valley, is no longer defensible.
The other long-term problem affecting the health of our Valley's family farms is the influx of non-farming people -- doctors, lawyers, business investors -- who hire "custom farming" companies to operate their ranchlands, often as tax shelters.
The Wall Street Journal two years ago reported on how outside non-farmer investors in the Valley's almond industry had driven prices down from near $4 a pound to $2 a pound. Today's prices are a little over $1 a pound.
Our Valley congressmen keep trying to get California taxpayers or American taxpayers to spend another $20 billion for dams and a Peripheral Canal around the Delta, but what they really ought to do is propose new farm policies that will actually keep family farmers on the land, discourage investor farming, stabilize the wild fluctuations in prices due to surplus and slow or reverse the increasing corporatization of the Valley's premier industry.
Two years ago, Beverly Hills billionaire Stewart Resnick, who already owns 150,00 acres of farmland in Kern County and controls vast amounts of water in that county, bought the 12,000-acre Columbia Ranch in Madera County with gold-plated water rights (the so-called Exchange Contractors). He's planting -- you guessed it -- almonds and pomegranates.
If Delta water supplies are permanently cut back, he can demand San Joaquin River water. East-side growers need to also start worrying about guys like Resnick, instead of the Delta smelt.
Asthma study finds seasonal surprises...Mark Grossi
http://www.fresnobee.com/local/v-print/story/1530125.html
A new study confirms that lung problems get worse for Fresno asthmatics in winter when soot pollution increases. But, strangely, the same is not true during the worst summertime smog.
Surprised researchers say they think asthmatics simply stay indoors on hot, smoggy days. But on pleasant winter days when soot pollution sometimes spikes, people spend more time outside.
People with lung problems seem more aware of summertime pollution, said lead researcher Tim Tyner of the University of California at San Francisco-Fresno Medical Education Program.
"I think it means we should educate people more about particulate matter so they will know when it's wise to stay inside," said Tyner, associate director of clinical studies.
Over the last 18 months, Tyner and pulmonologist Jose Joseph, associate professor of medicine at UCSF-Fresno, intensely studied the effects of pollution on nine Fresno residents who have asthma.
Chemist Alam Hasson and biologist Mamta Rawat, both from California State University, Fresno, also participated in the study. The research included a battery of physical tests to identify changes in lung functions and chemicals found in the asthmatics after air-pollution exposure.
The $250,000 study, underwritten by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, sheds light on a chronic lung problem in one of the nation's worst air basins.
Fresno County is California's asthma capital: Nearly one in three children -- or about 75,000 -- have it, according to one statewide health survey.
Researchers monitored the nine Fresno asthmatics during fall, winter and summer. In warm weather, asthmatics carried portable ozone monitors, so researchers would know how much pollution individuals experienced.
The portable monitors showed personal exposure was much lower than the ozone readings shown by the official air monitors in Fresno, largely because people were indoors much of the time.
But in winter, urine samples showed chemicals related to tiny specks of pollution, called PM-2.5, which are linked to reduced lung function. The chemicals triggered
lung inflammation, Tyner said.
The chemicals come from vehicles, wood burning and meat cooking, according to the air district.
"The district is already moving in the direction of better controls of these chemicals," said David Lighthall, district health science adviser.
The district has enforced more wood-burning restrictions on polluted winter days, and new charbroiling rules for restaurants are under consideration. The district also is working on improving a program to retire high-polluting vehicles.
Tyner said researchers were unsuccessful in recruiting men for the study. But he said it was more important to find asthmatics who did not suffer allergies from pets, pollen, mold and dust, which are additional triggers for the ailment. Allergies would have created too much complexity in the study.
The research also included nine other women who did not have asthma. Tyner said the healthy women had fewer problems with PM-2.5 pollution, but they still suffered some narrowing of small airways in their lungs.
To confirm and expand on the findings, the researchers are planning a larger follow-up study involving 80 people -- 40 with asthma, and 40 otherwise healthy individuals.
Professors' plot on UC Merced earns a quick 'F'...Bill McEwen
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/v-print/story/1529385.html
Today's Lord of the Flies state-budget moment is brought to you by 23 professors at the University of California at San Diego. Not only have the professors turned against their own, they want to eat the young, too.
The professors -- all of them department chairs -- floated a novel proposal for sparing their campus the inevitable pain that comes with an economy in tatters: shut down the new kid, UC Merced.
This is a terrible idea. The Merced campus is a godsend to the San Joaquin Valley, where students attend UC schools at about half the rate of other high school graduates in the state. Since opening in 2005, Merced has had the system's highest percentage of low-income freshmen.
In addition, the university's environmental focus is a perfect match for the Valley, which has some of the nation's worst air pollution and a natural laboratory in the Sierra. University scientists have gotten off to a strong start by winning numerous grants and awards.
Finally, the campus already is planting seeds for the Valley's first medical school. Our region -- which has 31% fewer primary care physicians and 51% fewer specialists than the rest of the state -- hopes to capitalize on the fact that medical-school graduates tend to stick around in the locales where they were trained.
Although faculty at more well-established UCs may pooh-pooh Merced, it is vital to the Valley and, as the first research university built in the 21st century, important to all of California and the country.
Perhaps these were among the reasons that UC President Mark Yudof immediately dismissed the professors' proposal to mothball Merced.
And even though the idea died on arrival, there is another point to make.
The UC system claims to be world class. Its professors are supposed to be learned and wise. They're also supposed to be participants in a mission much larger than the mere realization of personal ambitions.
So, faced with the challenge of making do with less -- as millions of Californians are doing -- what did some of the purportedly best and brightest at UC San Diego come up with?
Close down the newest UC serving some of the poorest towns in America, a region where thousands of bright, industrious youngsters are working to someday become the first college graduates in their families.
I've got a better idea.
That campus they've got down there in tony La Jolla, where some two-bedroom condos -- I kid you not -- list for $2 million?
Shutter the university, sell everything off and start all over in Brawley.
Stockton Record
Stockton seeing fewer ships, lower income...Reed Fujii
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090713/A_BIZ/907130301
STOCKTON - Ship traffic to the Port of Stockton has fallen along with the world economy, leading to lower revenues and belt tightening at the maritime agency.
"The port is not immune to the economy; in fact, in my opinion, the port is on the front line of the economy," port Director Richard Aschieris said.
In wrapping up the port'sfiscal year on June 30, he reported that from Jan. 1 to June 22 this year, the Stockton port served 60 ships and five barges and handled 757,561 metric tons.
Compare that with 79 ships, nine barges and 926,587 metric tons handled by the port in the same period of 2008. It represents a more than 18 percent decline in cargo volume alone.
That has taken a toll on the port district's bottom line.
"Going into last year, we had projected revenues of $34 million," Aschieris said. "We actually, because of the slowdown, we actually ended up showing revenues of about $30 million."
That led to port layoffs of seven employees and the elimination of one unfilled position, he said.
Looking forward, Aschieris said he expects port revenue to hold at about $30 million annually through mid-2011.
"I'm anticipating this year and next year to be break-even years," he said. "I'm thinking that we've hit bottom and probably are going to just skip along the bottom."
In the longer term, port officials expect shipping to recover, as well as interest in further development on Rough and Ready Island, the 1,400-acre former naval base that the port acquired in 2000.
The agency is building a $5 million electric substation on the island to serve future commercial and industrial activities, Aschieris reported.
The Vacaville Reporter
Arnold should call in the God Squad...Brandon M. Middleton and Damien M. Schiff. The authors are attorneys with Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento, a legal watchdog for property rights and a balanced approach to environmental regulations. Visit www.pacificlegal.org.
http://www.thereporter.com/ci_12820503?IADID=Search-www.thereporter.com-www.thereporter.com
Thousands of Californians are suffering from a severe water shortage, and the Obama administration has added insult to injury.
In June, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued an Endangered Species Act "biological opinion" on the effects that state and federal water projects have on Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon and killer whales.
The service's action puts these species well above humans on the totem pole and threatens to impose new and drastic cuts in water deliveries to municipalities and farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.
The administration's decision could not come at a worse time. A number of San Joaquin Valley communities are already experiencing staggering unemployment rates -- as high as 40 percent in some cases.
Some farmers have been forced to idle farmland as a result of receiving only 10 percent of their historic contracted water supplies. Water deliveries will be cut back even further under the new biological opinion -- the fisheries service projects a total water loss of 330,000 acre-feet per year (enough to meet the annual water needs of nearly 1 million people), but other agencies, such as the California Department of Water Resources, consider that a low estimate.
The latest federal biological opinion comes on top of a December 2008 decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that resulted in cutting water deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California, as part of regulatory efforts to help a small fish, the delta smelt. In other words, federal environmental restrictions and regulations are jeopardizing the livelihoods of thousands throughout California, and food for millions of American consumers.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger clearly understands the absurd nature of the Endangered Species Act water cutbacks. "This federal biological opinion puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world's eighth largest economy," he said, noting further that the federal government's fish-before-people policy is "killing our economy and undermining the integrity of the Endangered Species Act."
In April, the governor took time to join farmworkers, farmers and community leaders in a march for water, and he was quick to point out at the march that Washington needs to listen more carefully to the concerns of California. Indeed, he concluded by stating, "I will not quit until we get water, because we need water."
The governor can and should put powerful action behind those words, by appealing to the Obama Administration for immediate relief. The longer this latest biological opinion is allowed to stand, the more likely some of the world's most productive farmland will become a government-created wasteland.
Fortunately, the Endangered Species Act allows for such an appeal. State governors have authority to ask the Secretary of the Interior to convene a special committee. This Endangered Species Committee, also known as the "God Squad," can determine whether to exempt a project from the burdens of the Endangered Species Act. The God Squad would be able to exempt California's water projects from newly proposed restrictions.
The situation is desperate. By formally requesting the Obama administration to convene the God Squad, the governor would be following through on his promise to fight on behalf of California farmers, farmworkers, businesses and all water consumers.
Mercury News
Federal judge to weigh constitutionality of animal rights anti-terrorism law...Howard Mintz
http://www.mercurynews.com/localnewsheadlines/ci_12825570?nclick_check=1
A federal judge in San Jose will weigh arguments today over whether a 2006 law designed to stem violent animal rights protests is unconstitutional, marking the nation's first legal showdown involving a Justice Department crackdown on activists accused of threats against medical researchers and others.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte is considering a legal challenge to the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which was invoked for the first time in an indictment earlier this year against four activists charged with threats and vandalism against University of California medical researchers in Santa Cruz and Berkeley.
In motions to dismiss the indictment, civil liberties groups and lawyers for the defendants argue that the animal terrorism law is unconstitutional on its face, saying it is overbroad because it covers legitimate free speech and so vague that citizens cannot determine if they're committing a crime.
In response, Justice Department lawyers defend the constitutionality of the law, saying it applies to "criminal conduct, not protected speech."
Congress enacted the legislation in 2006, in large part pushed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the wake of a number of violent protests at California research facilities. Those incidents included a string of attacks at UC-San Francisco between 2001 and 2005, and the 2003 bombing at biotech firms Chiron in Emeryville and Shaklee in Pleasanton.
Federal prosecutors in March unveiled an indictment charging Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo under the animal terrorism law, alleging they "conspired to use force, violence or threats to interfere with the operation of the University of California" and its animal research programs.
Among other things, prosecutors allege the four activists were responsible for a series of threatening protests at the homes of UC-Santa Cruz and UC-Berkeley researchers, including one incident in which demonstrators shook doors and hit a professor's husband with thrown objects.
The defendants, all in their early- to mid-20s and labeled the "AETA 4" by supporters, have pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In court papers, their lawyers say the new law is designed to squelch legitimate protests over animal rights, and could criminalize even a sidewalk picket outside a fur store.
"The law is written in such a vague and ambiguous way that normal citizens cannot tell whether their conduct is on the criminal side or the legal side," said Lauren Regan, executive director of the Oregon-based Civil Liberties Defense Center.
The government argues that the indictment has nothing to do with the First Amendment right to protest animal testing.
"This case is about whether or not they can use criminal means, such as threats, intimidation, harassment, criminal trespass and property damage against researchers at their homes, to accomplish those objectives," Justice Department lawyers wrote.
To date, there is just one similar challenge to an earlier version of the animal terrorism law pending in the federal courts, but the San Jose case involves the first direct test of the new version. Legal experts say it will be difficult to strike down the new law in its entirety, although there are prospects for challenging how it is applied in particular cases.
"I would think it would be hard to do," UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh said of invalidating the entire law. "It's part of a broad regulatory scheme aimed at all sorts of constitutionally unprotected interference with animal enterprises"
Los Angeles Times
Marking the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. nuclear meltdown
A reactor in Chatsworth began leaking radioactive gas on July 14, 1959. Some area residents blame the facility for their health issues and say the site remains contaminated...Louis Sahagun
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-meltdown13-2009jul13,0,3196545,print.story
On the morning of July 14, 1959, Sodium Reactor Experiment trainee John Pace received the bad news from a group of supervisors who had, he recalled, "terribly worried expressions on their faces."

FOR THE RECORD: A headline in an article in Monday's Section A about a 1959 nuclear meltdown, the first in the U.S., incorrectly stated that the Santa Susana Field Laboratory was in Chatsworth. The field laboratory is in unincorporated Ventura County.

A reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains had experienced a power surge the night before and spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere.
"They were terrified that some of the gas had blown over their own San Fernando Valley homes," recalled Pace, who was 20 at the time. "My job was to keep radiation out of the control room."
Pace set to work sealing doors and windows with clear packing tape and scrubbing the walls with sanitary napkins soaked with special chemicals because, he said, "soap and water wouldn't do the trick."
Today, on the 50th anniversary of America's first nuclear meltdown accident, Pace will join federal regulators and former lab workers in a commemorative gathering at the Aerospace Cancer Museum of Education in Chatsworth.
The group will provide an update of recent developments, including the Environmental Protection Agency's plans to spend $40 million in stimulus funds on a comprehensive radioactive survey of the nuclear site.
"It's about time," said Holly Huff, who was 8 years old when the meltdown occurred a mile from her home.
Standing on a bluff overlooking the 2,850-acre facility, which is now owned by Boeing Co. and NASA, Huff said, "They say it will be cleaned up by 2017 -- I doubt it. We'll wait and see."
In December, Huff was diagnosed with leukemia and thyroid problems, ailments she believes are connected to having been exposed to radioactive gases as a child.
"I find it fascinating," she said, shaking her head, "that a lot of people still don't know what happened here."
In August 1959, about five weeks after the accident, the Atomic Energy Commission published a press release indicating that "a parted fuel element had been observed," a reference to damage. But it added that there was no evidence of radioactive releases or unsafe operating conditions.
"They wanted to keep it secret," Pace said.
Lab officials kept switching the reactor off and on until July 26, when it was shut down and dismantled. There was evidence of melting in a third of the reactor's fuel elements.
For about two weeks, the facility, which employed several thousand people, had been venting colorless and odorless radioactive gas into the environment.
"Radioactivity levels during the accident went off-scale," said Dan Hirsch, a spokesman for the antinuclear group Committee to Bridge the Gap. "We thus do not know to this day how much radioactivity was released."
Details of the incident were not disclosed until 1979, when a group of UCLA students discovered documents and photographs that referred to a problem at the site involving a "melted blob."
Ever since, residents have worried about downstream health risks associated with soil contaminated by years of rocket and nuclear testing.
Radioactive emissions from the accident could have resulted in 260 to 1,800 cases of cancer within 62 miles of the site over a "period of many decades," according to a study released in 2006.
Boeing officials disputed the findings, saying the study was based on miscalculations and faulty information. They cited a Boeing-commissioned study released in 2005 that found overall cancer deaths among employees at the field lab and at Canoga Park facilities between 1949 and 1999 were lower than in the general population.
A Boeing official said the company was committed to a timely and thorough cleanup of the site in a way that protects public health.
Half a century after the accident, nuclear cleanup operations and chemical decontamination remain incomplete.
The lab was opened on a craggy plateau in easternmost Ventura County in 1948 as the nearby San Fernando and Simi valleys were on the cusp of a postwar population boom.
Scientists at the site, originally operated by North American Rockwell, conducted nuclear research for the federal government for more than four decades before ceasing those operations in the late 1980s.
Home to 10 nuclear reactors and plutonium- and uranium carbide-fabrication plants, it has also been the site of more than 30,000 rocket engine tests, the thunderous explosions serving as a Cold War-era hallmark for nearby residents.
Old-timers still talk about being alarmed by experiments that lighted up the night sky, shook the ground and cracked windows.
Under a court order, the Department of Energy is preparing an environmental impact statement on a proposed cleanup operation.
Senate Bill 990, which took effect last year, requires Boeing, the U.S. Department of Energy and NASA to clean the property to levels suitable for residential and agricultural use.
"I have wasted three decades of my life trying to get them to clean up the mess they made," Hirsch said, "and we are still at least a decade away."
"That tells us," he added, "that a nuclear reactor can become a radioactive mess in minutes and can take decades to clean up.
"We should approach this technology with substantial trepidation."
New York Times
A Solar Land Rush...Todd Woody, Green Inc.
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/a-solar-land-rush/?pagemode=print
EPA Solar companies are vying for land leases as the federal government identifies “solar study areas.”
The Department of the Interior’s move last month to accelerate development of large-scale solar power plants on federal land in six Western states could give an edge to companies that have already staked lease claims in 24 new “solar energy study areas.”
The initiative covers 670,000 acres overseen by the department’s Bureau of Land Management in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah. During the solar land rush of the last two years, scores of developers large and small have sought the best solar sites, and the bureau is currently reviewing 158 lease applications for solar projects covering 1.8 million acres.
But the B.L.M. has yet to approve any leases and the new program is supposed to speed processing of land claims by identifying large tracts of the desert most suitable for solar development and then giving priority to projects proposed for those areas.
California’s huge electricity market and renewable energy mandates have made the state a magnet for solar developers, including FPL Group and Chevron as well as solar developers First Solar, Tessera Solar, Solar Millennium, SolarReserve and Solel as well as wind farm builder enXco, a subsidiary of French energy giant EDF.
Across the border in Nevada, Goldman Sachs subsidiary Cogentrix Energy has filed lease claims on 35,996 acres within solar energy study zones, according to B.L.M. records.
“It’ll help them compete against other projects not in the zone,” said Nathaniel Bullard, a North American solar analyst at New Energy Finance, a London-based research and consulting firm. “But I don’t think it will make a project vault past projects on private land.”
That’s because the B.L.M. process, fast-tracked or not, can still be an 18-month affair. In fact, the Interior Department said it won’t complete its evaluation of the solar zones until the end of 2010.
Still, the solar initiative appears to have sparked something of a mini-land rush. On Monday, the B.L.M. received two solar project proposals for land in that state’s study areas, according to Eddie Arreola, the Arizona renewable energy program manager for the B.L.M., who declined to identify the solar developers until their applications are deemed complete.
For smaller solar developers, lease claims in a solar zone may make them an attractive acquisition target, said Mr. Bullard.
For instance, when First Solar, a Tempe, Ariz.-based solar cell maker and power plant developer, acquired the assets of OptiSolar in March, it cited the company’s B.L.M. lease claims as a driver of the deal.
And Spain’s Iberdrola, the world’s largest wind developer, jumped into the solar business last year by quietly acquiring Pacific Solar Investments, a Henderson, Nev., start-up and with B.L.M. lease claims in Arizona, California and Nevada.
Also sitting in the catbird seat in California is Bull Frog Green Energy, a Nevada start-up co-founded by Dan Kabel, the chief executive of Spanish solar developer Acciona Energy’s American operations. Among Bull Frog’s solar lease claims are two tracts in the California solar energy study areas.

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7-13-09