Chico Enterprise Record – 3/28/05
By Ari Cohn, staff writer
Under blue skies Saturday, about 20 people turned out to tour Bidwell Ranch's wildflowers and wetlands.

With each step, their feet sank a few inches into the damp soil. The perfect weather, abundance of green grass and yellow, blue and white flowers might have led them to feel far-removed from a decades-old controversy over developing the property. But that was not the case.

For the tour served not only as a lesson in the dynamics of the land's fragile ecosystem, it also was meant to rally the troops for an April 5 Chico City Council meeting on the future of the 750-acre site, which sits adjacent to the northern edge of the entrance to upper Bidwell Park.

The Butte Environmental Council, Friends of Bidwell Park and the Bidwell Ranch Conservancy formerly called Stop Bidwell Ranch sponsored the tour, said Hilary Locke.

"We're just using this opportunity to let folks explore the land," she said. "It's a good time for wildflowers."

She asked those in attendance to show up for the City Council's discussion about the land.

"We want to let them know we want to keep Bidwell Ranch wild," Locke said.

Biological and botanical consultants Josephine Guardino and John Dittes served as the tour guides. The pair hammered home how rare and valuable are the seasonal wetlands called vernal pools on Bidwell Ranch. They also stressed that the pools are not solitary pinpoints that need to be fenced-off, but are part of a larger ecosystem that could be jeopardized by nearby development.

It was an argument that the one city councilor in attendance, Ann Schwab, found convincing.

From the Ice Age

Bidwell Ranch's vernal pools likely were created during the Pleistocene Era, which spanned from about 1.8 million to about 10,000 years ago, Dittes said.

"Vernal pools generally get a bad rap because most of the year they look like dried flats. Some people think they're just mud puddles but they're not. They're highly evolved ecosystems unto themselves," he said.

The land was formed by a series of volcanic flows and now sits on a fan of alluvial soil deposited by erosion from stormwater and flooding. It can be characterized as grassland and savannah.

Bidwell Ranch nominally is open to the public, but is surrounded by barbed wire and access is blocked by a locked gate. Visitors are supposed to ask the city's Parks Department for a key to get in.

Most of its green grass is exotic, and probably came over with the Spanish, Dittes said. Some of the invaders have a deleterious effect. For instance, medusa head grass forms dense mats that choke out native species, he said.

Nevertheless, many native species call Bidwell Ranch home. One is rosy meadowfoam, which is more common than its cousin, the endangered Butte County meadowfoam. Both varieties are found at Bidwell Ranch.

"In expansive areas it looks like fluff or laundry detergent spread across the plains," Dittes said.

The vernal pools support rare animals as well, like the spade foot toad and the California tiger salamander.

"They tend to have a lot of rare species in them," Dittes said. "Most of these plants aren't found outside of California and many are found only in small regions of the state."

He pointed out how plant species group together depending on how far they are from standing water. Coyote thistle puts out a spike-like leaf when its growing in the water, but the leaves branch out when the pools dry up, he said.

"Some species have to live inundated part of the year and terrestrial part of the year," he said. "You have to picture this in July and August to really appreciate the extremes through which this system cycles."

Around the edges of the pools one can find flowers like goldfield, yellow carpet, white popcorn flowers and tidy tips, whose blooms are about the size of a half-dollar and have white fringes around a yellow center.

"This is a classic assemblage of vernal pool species," Dittes said. "Every species has its own little zone or niche."

Guardino said Bidwell Ranch is part of a system of vernal pools stretching up and down the Sierra and Cascade mountain ranges. It's part of the Pacific flyway for migrating birds, she said.

"They stop along these vernal pools," Guardino said. "These pools are absolutely necessary for the ducks to fuel up and make the journey. They're so rich with food sources."

Dittes said 90 percent of California's vernal pools already have been destroyed.

"Landscapes like this are rare and they're becoming more rare," he said.

Unintended Consequences

Dittes and Guardino oppose a plan unveiled last week by developer Rick Coletti to develop about 200 acres of the property. Coletti has offered the city of Chico $30 million for the land, and has suggested that the city use the money to help bridge the $25 million to $43.8 million gap needed to complete a network of community and neighborhood parks.

Coletti's proposal would allow him to build up to 1,000 homes on the site.

Last week, Coletti said he envisions a high-density residential development similar to the Doe Mill neighborhood, as well as a commercial area, at the subdivision's center. The homes would transition into larger lots moving outward, and would terminate in a 550-acre buffer zone of open space between the subdivision and upper park. The open space could be placed into a conservancy so it could never be developed.

But builders have been throwing out development plans for Bidwell Ranch since the 1980s, and so far none have been successful. In 1986, a public vote halted a proposed 4,500-unit development called Rancho Arroyo. The city of Chico bought the land in 1997 for about $4 million.

More recently, city officials have debated a proposal from resident Bob Best to sell about 305 acres to developers.

Last October, the City Council split 3-3 on whether to change Bidwell Ranch's zoning from residential uses to open space. The land remains zoned for residential use. But two new city councilors Schwab and Andy Holcombe have been elected since then, and both have expressed interest in changing the land's zoning to open space.

City officials received Coletti's offer after directing city staff on Jan. 25 to solicit bids for the purchase of the property. Two other offers, one made by a group of investors including Dan Kohrdt and another by Chico State University, involve turning the land into a mitigation bank.

That is, when an entity intends to develop another property with environmentally sensitive areas, that entity can buy into the mitigation bank to offset the loss of those areas.

Guardino said buildings and pavement do not absorb stormwater runoff, which could be flushed down into the vernal pools, overwhelming them and "blowing them out." Development also could introduce contamination by heavy metals and other pollutants, she said.

One has to look at the vernal pools as a large network, not as isolated ponds, she said. Building 1,000 houses nearby will have an effect on that system, she said.

"Even though we draw a line around these vernal pool complexes down here, will we affect the ecology of it? Will birds still want to use it? Will we affect the hydrology?" Guardino said.

Dittes used the role of solitary bees as an example. The bees don't form colonies, but burrow into the ground in the drier uplands, a possible area of development. There, they make ball of nectar from flowers around the vernal pools and lay egg on it. The bees are important for spreading genetic material between pools, Dittes said.

"If you build up there to protect the wetlands, how will it affect other species important to the ecosystem like the bees?" he said. "If you take the bees away, what's going to happen to the vernal pool flora?"

The point, he said, is that the city can't simply rope off the pools themselves and build around them without creating harmful effects.

"As development encroaches, places like this will become incredibly valuable," Dittes said. "If you're going to value that ecosystem, you're going to have to protect it in its entirety."

City Councilor Schwab said she had been convinced.

"This is an incredible resource that the city needs to make sure remains as it is. It's clear to me that you can't preserve one piece of it because of the impacts on the ecosystem," she said.

"This land is disappearing and this is one of the last chances we have to preserve this system. I don't think you can develop part of this property and not affect the rest of it." #

Oroville, Butte County -- From the intersection of state Highways 149 and 99, Dove Ridge appears to be just an average stretch of the upper Sacramento Valley -- almond orchard surrounded by well-grazed pastureland.

Dove Ridge's real wealth, however, can be found on the five spots where the threatened meadowfoam plant grows and in the 233 acres of shallow pools inhabited briefly during the year by tiny fairy shrimp. The 1/2-to-1 1/2-inch- long crustaceans with antennae and 11 pairs of paddlelike legs live in shallow sheets of brackish water, known as vernal pools, and also occupy a spot on the threatened species list.

"I fell in love with them," said Angi Orlandella, who ran a tanning salon before joining Dove Ridge as its director of technology and landscape applications.

The tiny shrimp are worth big money to Dove Ridge, which sells credits for $70,000 apiece to developers in Butte and eastern Tehama counties to fulfill their requirement that their projects minimize harm to the two species.

"We were profitable in our first year," said Steve Mardigian, manager of Loafer Creek LLC, which owns the 2,400-acre Dove Ridge spread and its 466 development credits.

Dove Ridge is a conservation bank that seeks to turn a profit by protecting habitat and threatened species.

Conservation banks allow developers to fulfill their requirement to mitigate the effect their projects have on sensitive habitat by purchasing "credits'' at off-site locations where similar habitat is preserved in perpetuity. For developers, it's often less expensive to buy the credits than to try to save the habitat on the project site.

The banks are playing a bigger and bigger role in development throughout California -- commercial, residential and public works.

In most cases, mitigation banks can reduce the cost of residential housing -- even in high-priced places like the Bay Area.

"If your property has wetlands or a threatened species, there is less space available for construction because those things must be protected. Less homes built means prices go up," said Nathan Botwinkel, a Santa Rosa real estate broker and owner of Vernal Pool Technologies. "Off-site mitigation usually protects more pristine wetlands and often at a cheaper price."

Meadowlark Homes came to Botwinkel with a small project in Santa Rosa on property with some wetlands on it. Without a conservation bank, he said, the developer probably would not have attempted the project because protecting the wetlands on-site would have taken too much property out of use.

California leads the country in mitigation banks -- a similar method of restoring wetlands -- and conservation banks with more than 100 scattered from Redding in the north to San Diego in the south. The vast majority are privately owned and operated.

More than 4,000 acres in California are in wetlands mitigation banks and 38,000 acres in other types of conservation banks. More than 300 of the banks operate nationwide according to the National Mitigation Banking Association.

"The goal is to find a good spot in the landscape or the watershed to site your bank to assure long-term sustainability and help people who need mitigation," said Craig Denisoff, senior vice president of Wildlands Inc., which created California's first private mitigation bank near Sheridan in Placer County in 1994.

Wildlands now has 70 employees, three regional offices and 19 banks -- one in Washington state -- either established or proposed.

Credits aren't cheap. In the Bay Area, with its sky-high land prices, a credit can cost $200,000 for an expensive venture like wetlands conservation, Denisoff said. A percentage of the credit purchase price is used to create a trust fund that will preserve or restore the bank's acreage in perpetuity.

The rationale behind the banks is that larger protected areas should offer better species protection than small, isolated patches left surrounded by new development.

"All your eggs are in one basket -- that's the downside -- but there are enough banks, and they're spread out enough that there shouldn't be a problem," said Susan Hill, who coordinates conservation bank approval for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Sacramento office.

Mitigation banks have been around since the 1980s, but in 1995 the federal government issued guidelines on establishing privately owned banks and, by doing so, created a new industry.

"The industry was developing organically before that, but people were struggling with the fact there was no clear regulatory authority or agreement among federal agencies," said Chris Kelly of the Conservation Fund in Larkspur.

Previously, most of the banks had been operated by public agencies like Caltrans, water districts or local governments.

There was just one private commercial bank in the nation in 1992, according to a 2002 study in the National Wetlands Newsletter. Of the 214 mitigation banks in operation when the study was conducted, 135 were privately owned.

In 1996, California began promoting conservation banks as a better way to protect the state's 250 endangered species of plants and animals. It isn't easy setting up a conservation bank. Like its financial counterpart, it takes time and money.

For Dove Ridge, mapping the site took 2 1/2 years.

Mardigian said he and Orlandella had "walked along 4 square miles looking for needles in haystacks" to find fairy shrimp, tadpole shrimp and meadowfoam -- the threatened species that the conservation bank intends to protect.

The tedium of that experience -- and re-examination of the acreage by several federal and state agencies -- pushed Dove Ridge to invest in creating a new mapping technology using lasers and monitors.

Dove Ridge's silver, two-story, shed-shaped headquarters now holds millions of dollars in monitoring, mapping and computer equipment. A Bell 407 helicopter is parked outside near several all-terrain vehicles.

Four state and federal agencies also had to be satisfied before the conservation bank could go into operation. The Army Corps of Engineers has jurisdiction over wetlands. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had final say over species protection. The state Department of Fish and Game was involved. So was the Environmental Protection Agency.

"It can take years sometimes to get a bank approved,'' Denisoff said.

In December 2003, after more than three years, Dove Ridge won final approval to sell credits. It's first big sale was 89 credits to Caltrans, which is doing a road-widening project nearby.

Said Botwinkel: "I call it the Kevin Costner 'Field of Dreams' theory -- if I build a mitigation bank and spend thousands of dollars before anyone comes, will they come?" #

The judgment this week effectively halts the town of McCloud's plans to sell water to Nestle for a proposed $120 million water bottling plant that supporters said would revitalize the village at the base of Mount Shasta.

The deal would have given Nestle, the world's largest food and beverage company, up to 521 million gallons of the town's drinking water for as little as $300,000 a year. The 50-year deal could be extended for a century with little control by the unincorporated town.

A group called Concerned McCloud Citizens sued the McCloud Community Services District to block the deal after learning of its terms. Siskiyou County Judge Roger Kosel ruled Monday that the district abused its discretion by not performing a review of the project's environmental impact before sealing the deal.

"I think it says you can't kind of try to come in under the radar and negotiate a deal without really informing the public and doing the required environmental review before the deal is finalized," said attorney Don Mooney, who represented the citizens group.

A spokeswoman said the district did not have a comment on the ruling. Nestle said it would move ahead with its environmental review of the project.

Mooney said the district and Nestle could strike a new deal once environmental reviews are conducted.

Nestle proposed tapping into natural springs that bubble up on the side of 14,162-foot Mount Shasta and bottling the waters under its Arrowhead label at a plant that would be built on the grounds of the sawmill that closed two years ago.

Critics of the water sale said they felt blindsided when they learned details of the pact, although public officials said they disclosed outcomes of the negotiations and followed the proper rules.

"There are many, many people in McCloud now who will not take their eyes off of this precious resource," said Diane Lowe, one of the women who formed the citizens group. "We have a major battle to continue, but we've passed a small hurdle."

The deal has divided the town of 1,300 people, a former company town that once provided everything from housing to Christmas gifts for children.

Supporters point to the lack of jobs and an unsteady economy since the McCloud River Lumber Co. sold out in the 1960s. They see Nestle Waters North America, the nation's biggest water bottler and a division of the Swiss multinational, as a savior of sorts. The company had expected to open the plant next year and said it would eventually employ 240 workers.

Critics have questioned whether a provision letting Nestle drill wells would dry up aquifers or whether wildlife would be harmed downstream in the McCloud River, a popular fishing spot.

Others wonder if the town is getting enough money from a company that stands to profit by selling the community's own precious resource.

"If they gave us our fair share it wouldn't be bad," said Alice DeBon, an innkeeper in town. "They can't just take us to the cleaners." #

Redding Record-Searchlight – 3/24/05
By Don Thompson, Associated Press staff writer

SACRAMENTO -- The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said Wednesday it will not renew its license to operate the Kilarc-Cow Creek hydroelectric project in eastern Shasta County, dedicating the water instead to threatened salmon and steelhead trout.

"You'll see a great increase in fish life," said Mike Berry, senior fishery biologist at Redding's state Department of Fish and Game office.

State and federal wildlife officials and environmental groups praised PG&E's agreement, which they hope will spur similar decisions by other utilities as several hundred dams come up for re- licensing in the next few years.

In the spring, the Whitmore-area dam diverts up to 50 cubic feet per second from tributaries of Cow Creek, Berry said.

Unless a third party takes an interest in the expiring project, that water will again flow into 3.8 miles of Old Cow Creek and 3.9 miles to South Cow Creek, Berry said.

The shallow, approximately 5-acre Kilarc Reservoir used by fishermen would no longer collect water for the project. Instead, anglers will find more fish in their native habitats, the nearby creeks, Redding Fish and Game fishery biologist Randy Benthin said.

"There's several miles of streams that will be rewatered, and the trout population will respond accordingly," he said.

In winter, the reservoir would likely diminish to a few inches deep, creating a seasonal wetland for migrating ducks. In spring and summer, it would dry out, Berry said.

Abandoning the 5-megawatt Kilarc-Cow Creek project 30 miles east of Redding makes unique sense both financially and environmentally, company and wildlife officials said.

It's one of the few hydroelectric projects that aren't upstream from other state dams or federal water projects, so removing the dams, powerhouses, aqueducts and forebays would revive fish habitat by restoring the natural flows currently diverted from South Cow and Old Cow creeks. The creeks flow directly into the Sacramento River, giving the chinook and trout the ocean access they require.

"Dams block 90 percent of the former historic habitat for salmon and steelhead in the Central Valley," Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River, said from Sacramento.

"It's the main reason why so many salmon and steelhead runs in the Central Valley are endangered or threatened," he said.

And the numbers pencil out for electric customers and investors, said Randy Livingston, PG&E's senior director of power generation.

The utility's operating permit expires March 27, 2007, and its renewal application was due this Friday. But the company said it became clear new licensing requirements would drive up the cost beyond the benefit of the power the complex produces, enough for about 5,000 homes.

The utility approached wildlife officials and environmental groups a year ago offering to remove the hydroelectric facility, the first time any of the officials could recall such a proposal.

Some other company could seek to buy the facility and renew the license, but the officials said that is unlikely to make economic or environmental sense.

"If PG&E can't operate it at a profit, I don't see how anybody else could," Evans said.

PG&E would operate the facility until its license expires, then seek to operate year-to-year until the two powerhouses and their associated water diversions are decommissioned, under the agreement signed Tuesday between the utility and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Game, National Park Service, California State Water Resources Control Board, National Marine Fisheries Service, Trout Unlimited and Friends of the River.

The 3.2-megawatt Kilarc Powerhouse was built in 1904 on Old Cow Creek, while the 1.8 megawatt Cow Creek Powerhouse on South Cow Creek was built in 1907.

More than 30 other 50-year hydroelectric licenses will expire in the next few years across California, encompassing several hundred dams, said Michael Hoover, deputy assistant field supervisor at the Fish and Wildlife Service Sacramento office.

Usually, licensing decisions before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission spawn battles between the operators of the water or hydroelectric projects and wildlife agencies and organizations.

That's why the usual critics lined up Wednesday to laud what they termed PG&E's historic agreement, one they hope will be repeated as the licenses come due.

"It is a smart business and ratepayer decision. How cool is that?" said Chuck Bonham, director of Trout Unlimited's California Water Project. #

It targets costly measures for plants and animals listed currently listed as endangered
Inland Empire Press Enterprise – 3/23/05
By Jennifer Bowles, staff writer
A private-property rights group filed a lawsuit against the Bush administration Tuesday, seeking to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-examine dozens of endangered species in California to determine if they remain threatened with extinction.

The lawsuit, hoping to cut costly protective measures for species that don't need them, names 193 species in the state -- including 33 plants and animals across Riverside and San Bernardino counties -- that have yet to undergo five-year reviews as required by the federal Endangered Species Act.

"The (Act) should be protecting only those species that actually need protecting," said Robin Rivett, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based group that represents farmers, cattlemen and timber companies.

"The government may be wasting millions of taxpayer dollars on species that don't need protection, instead of using those dollars to protect the species that are truly at risk," Rivett said.

Jim Nickels, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman, said he couldn't comment on the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. The lawsuit names as defendants Interior Secretary Gale Norton, Matthew Hogan, acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the agency itself.

But Nickels said only a handful of species in California have had five-year reviews. "Like everything else, it's a workload issue," he said. "So much of our work is driven by lawsuits, some tasks get pushed to the side."

A founder of one of the Inland region's leading environmental groups said while he believes the Pacific Legal Foundation is legally correct in its lawsuit, he'd rather see the money spent on buying and protecting habitat.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service presents a review of endangered species to Congress every two years that tells lawmakers whether the species are improving, declining or stable, said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which has an Idyllwild office.

The lawsuit names several Inland species, including the desert tortoise and two birds -- the least Bell's vireo and the coastal California gnatcatcher.

Inland developers, who are partly saddled with costly fees to protect the species, welcomed the lawsuit's goal as a way to know the true status of the species, often the subject of tense battles between builders and environmentalists.

"It's a two-way street of keeping both sides honest," said Borre Winckel, executive director of the Building Industry Association's Riverside County chapter.

"We feel like the biennial review is a good back-stop that makes up for the lack of five-year reviews," he said. #

"That's right," said Scott Hamelberg, project coordinator at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hatchery near Anderson. "We had tagged adult steelhead show up in our holding pen."

Each of the planted fish, some longer than 30 inches, carried a tiny plastic tag, which U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials asked anglers to return. It was hoped this first plant of surplus adult steelhead into Keswick would bolster fishing opportunities at the reservoir, where there's already an excellent rainbow and German brown trout fishery.

The last thing officials expected was for some of the steelhead to show up back at the hatchery.

"We had to discontinue that operation," Hamelberg said. "It was a great opportunity to get more chances for anglers out there, but based on what we've seen in the Sacramento River, it's not an alternative anymore."

Hamelberg said anglers on the lower Sacramento turned in a couple of tags, as well as one tagged fish that died, and its carcass counted during a spawning survey. Only one Keswick angler has turned in a tag, he added.

Steelhead are anadromous fish, meaning they spawn in freshwater, but mature in saltwater. Like salmon, the fish have an inherent drive to return to the exact waterway where they were spawned -- even if that place is Coleman National Hatchery.

Unlike chinook salmon, which die after spawning, many steelhead do not die (although a number of the fish, especially males, don't survive the harsh natural spawning process). Fish from Coleman -- the hatchery started raising steelhead in 1947 -- usually have been deposited downstream of the hatchery after spawning. Excess pre-spawn fish have been planted in cold-water fisheries, like the ponds at Anderson River Park, according to a Coleman employee. The fish planted into Keswick were in spawn condition, meaning the hatchery did not extract eggs or milt from the fish before their release.

According to the hatchery Web site, about 1 percent of all fish reared and released at the facility -- Coleman spawns 13 million fall-run and late fall-run king salmon and 600,000 steelhead yearly -- return to Battle Creek, with some natural spawning happening in the creek. This year, 1,443 steelhead returned to Coleman, including the 176 that were trucked up to Keswick.

Those planters had a second return rate of 8.5 percent.

That's tenacity.

"It's just a matter of luck that the fish make it through," said Larry Ball, an operations division chief with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation at Keswick. "It certainly makes a case for the waters where they're imprinted."

Keswick Dam is part of the massive Central Valley Water Project-Shasta/Trinity Diversions and is nine miles downriver from Shasta Dam. Outflow from Keswick regulates the flow along the lower Sacramento River.

Keswick has three power generating units, which have a maximum flow per unit of 5,000 cubic feet of water per second, Ball said. Currently, Keswick has one unit operational, with releases at 3,792 cfs.

Even before the fish passed through the turbine, Ball said, they had to get through a trash rake, a grate that keeps logs and other large debris from reaching the turbines.

Keswick's slippery steelhead aren't the first fish to pass through a hydroelectric plant unscathed -- and certainly won't be the last.

In 1988, the Department of Fish and Game planted 400 1-pound, 14-inch sturgeon into Lake Shasta for anglers. All 400 fish were tagged, similar to Keswick's steelhead. In 1989, an 18-inch sturgeon passed downstream through the Red Bluff Diversion Dam viewing area. In 1993, anglers caught a 48-inch, 40-pound sturgeon on the lower Sacramento River near Red Bluff. Both fish -- and no one knows how many more from the class of 1988 --had managed to breach both Shasta and Keswick dams.

"Any place in California that you have hydroelectric, you'll have fish make it through," said DFG senior fisheries biologist Randy Benthin. "It's a fairly interesting occurrence." #

Red Bluff Daily News – 3/18/05
The Tehama County Resource Conservation District are conducting two studies of the westside tributaries of the Sacramento River in Tehama County, a watershed assessment and a comprehensive fire plan.

This Monday and on Monday, March 28, TCRCD will host meetings to describe the studies and to seek input from Tehama County residents.

The first presentation will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m. this Monday at the USDA Service Center, 2 Sutter St., Red Bluff, and will focus on the watersheds from Oat Creek north to Cottonwood Creek.

The second meeting will be from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Monday, March 28, at the Independent Grange Hall on Corning Road in Corning, with an emphasis on the county's south western watersheds.

Wendy L. Johnston from Vestra Resources, Inc. stated, "This is a local team approach to resource management. We want landowners and stakeholders to be involved with the entire watershed assessment process."

The Tehama West Watershed areas include over 921,823 acres (1,440 square miles) from Cottonwood Creek to Stony Creek. The Tehama West Watershed Assessment is a necessary step for development of clear guidance for future resource conservation and land management activities. The assessment process will identify current conditions and data needs.

The Tehama West Fire Plan will provide TCRCD and other agencies involved in fire management with information about wildfire potential, assets at risk, safety and fuel loading. It will include information needed to identify and seek funding for fuels reduction and safety projects.

Vicky Dawley, TCRCD District Manager says, "Input from the public is a vital part of each of these important studies. Landowners may have knowledge or information that is not readily available to staff and consultants conducting the studies. They may also wish to inform TCRCD and its consultants about important issues or areas of concern in these watersheds."

A special district of the state of California, TCRCD is committed to working with landowners and agencies to maintain, or improve, county watersheds as healthy and functional ecosystems for fish, wildlife and humans. Input from the residents of the county is vital to managing the land for future generations.

TCRCD is governed by a board of five volunteer landowners: Ernest White, Jack Bramhall, Anne Read, Shirley Davis and Ryan Sale. Funding for TCRCD activities is from grants, contracts and fund-raising activities.

Landowners are encouraged to join TCRCD on one of these evenings to learn more about the watershed and to help direct these critically important studies. Information and a flyer with a map to the event is available at TCRCD at 527-3013 extension 3. #

Modesto Bee – 3/15/05
By Eric Sterm, staff writer
SACRAMENTO — Conservation groups are bracing for an assault on a landmark state environmental law they say has helped ordinary citizens fend off encroaching development since 1970.

They're rallying behind the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, that calls for a public review of how construction projects will affect the air, roads, wildlife and water supply. The law also determines ways to offset the consequences of building — in some cases by setting aside an acre for conservation for every acre developed.

Legislative leaders and Gov. Schwarzenegger's administration have targeted the CEQA review process as they push to streamline regulations to make it easier to build more housing.

Ideally, they want to increase the supply of housing so much that prices drop.

Home builders long have complained that the CEQA has been abused by "not-in-my-back yard" opponents who try to drag out projects in costly court battles to scare away developers.

Environmentalists disagree. The CEQA is "the one really effective way to give people a voice in their community" when developers have better access to policy-makers in city halls and the Legislature, said Karen Douglas, acting executive director of the Planning and Conservation League.

"What we're really trying to do is issue a wake-up call and tell people what's at stake," she said.

The group is issuing a report today with the California League of Conservation Voters about "everyday heroes" who have fought plans like building a toxic waste incinerator in Los Angeles and a major housing development on Contra Costa County farmland.

Eliminating requirements

"We need (CEQA) now more than ever to fight back against powerful builders and developers who are eager to find a way around this popular law," said Susan Smartt, executive director of the California League of Conservation Voters.

A push at the Capitol would eliminate some CEQA requirements on a project-by-project basis in urban areas, replacing them with an upfront environmental review for a wider region and making it harder to thwart future projects in the region.

Environmentalists say they are open to changing the CEQA to better fill in urban areas with housing and avoid sprawling development. But they are concerned that proposals to weaken the CEQA, if not restricted to true urban cores, could encourage developments on the outskirts of cities.

Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman for the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency, said Monday that the governor's plan to expedite housing is still taking shape. "Nothing's been finalized yet," he said.

Senate Democratic leaders, who unveiled their own housing plan recently, have vowed not to "gut" the CEQA, although their proposal does call for changes to the law.

Tim Coyle, a lobbyist for the California Building Industry Association, said environmental groups are jumping too fast.

"This is a classic position, that any modification or any change to CEQA is somehow defined as gutting the law," Coyle said Monday. "CEQA is not the problem; it's the people who abuse CEQA that are the problem."

Environmental advocates warn that moving too quickly on projects will short circuit the public's role in shaping land-use decisions.

"With the public participating, you can always get positive changes," said Lydia Miller, of San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, who has been involved in CEQA battles over farmland development in Merced and Stanislaus counties. #

Growers who haven't followed runoff rules being contacted
Chico Enterprise-Record – 3/13/05
By Heather Hacking, staff writer

A new water discharge monitoring program is being organized in the Central Valley and the state Water Board is contacting landowners who haven't signed up to be a part of it. All businesses that discharge into waterways are required to have a permit. However, for two decades agriculture was exempt.

That has changed for the Central Valley. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Board agreed that if waterways were monitored, growers and irrigators could avoid individual permits by joining a watershed coalition.

Property owners were supposed to sign up by Nov. 30, 2004. But not everyone did.

Friday the state Water Board sent letters to Agricultural Commissioners in Fresno, Madera and Yolo counties stating that 88 growers in those counties had been sent letters saying they had not joined a watershed group. Public information identified 13 growers in Yolo County, 16 in Fresno County and 59 in Madera County, the letter stated.

Recipients of the letters are required to fill out a form with the description of their irrigated land and whether they had done anything to comply with the California Water Code requirements.

It's unknown at this time how many property owners in the north Sacramento Valley are also not in compliance.

Liz Kanter, spokeswoman for the state Water Board, said water regulators are indeed also looking at who is in and who is out in of the Butte/Yuba/Sutter Water Quality Coalition.

Eventually, those who didn't sign up will get a letter similar to the one sent to farmers farther south.

Kanter didn't know exactly when that would be nor why those areas were looked into first.

"What we're hoping for is compliance," Kanter said. "We really want to make this program successful.

"We've been working with the coalition groups for months now. We're really encouraged by their willingness to participate," Kanter said.

"We're encouraging all the growers to join the coalitions. That's what the letter is meant to do, to work with us rather than against us."

She said it is still undecided how most of the groups will charge fees to pay for water monitoring. Some might charge a flat fee for participation. Others might allow waivers for low-threat properties. Others might charge a fee per acre.

Its also possible to come up with other options and ask for board approval, Kanter said.

The Legislature has said the fees need to raise $1.9 million annually to pay for the new water monitoring. #

San Joaquin Record – 3/2/05
Associated Press

A federal appeals court ruling in New York may force tighter regulation of water pollution from dairies and feedlots in the Central Valley and across the nation. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that new federal clean-water regulations aren't protecting the nation's waters from the manure coming off animal farms.

The court in Manhattan said Monday that it agreed with environmentalists who claimed in lawsuits that the rules failed to provide meaningful review of plans developed by the farms to limit the pollution. The appeals court said the rules imposed in February 2003 by the Environmental Protection Agency were arbitrary and did "nothing to ensure" that each large farm was complying with requirements to control the pollution.

The main issue is the way dairies and feedlots handle manure. The court said the EPA failed to require operators to have plans for keeping the waste out of waterways and to follow those plans.

Environmentalists hailed the ruling.

"This decision is a significant step toward insuring that large dairies will be required to stop their pollution from flowing into waterways," said Bill Jennings of DeltaKeeper, the Stockton-based chapter of Baykeeper and part of the alliance of Waterkeeper groups that were part of the lawsuit.

In California, regional water boards operated by the state government enforce EPA water pollution rules. Central Valley farmers and environmentalists have been tussling for years over how the local water board should regulate dairy water pollution.

For decades, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board had a policy of waiving pollution permits for small- and medium-sized livestock farms. Faced with legal challenges from environmentalists, the Valley water board in 2003 decided that it would regulate animal operations by requiring them to get permits.

The board this year is still developing its system for issuing pollution permits to dairies. The current draft of the local permit proposal was based on the EPA rule that was partially overturned Monday.

Polly Lowry, a senior engineering geologist at the regional board, said Tuesday that board staffers were still reviewing the court decision.

"We haven't really figured out how it is going to affect us yet," she said.

California farm representatives have defended the status quo, saying that farms are still required to comply with pollution rules even if they are not required to get formal pollution discharge permits.

Dairy waste that reaches waterways may contain bacteria, antibiotics, pesticides and other materials in addition to being high in nitrogen and other nutrients that can cause algae bloom.

Dairy industry groups were still studying the decision Tuesday.

"It's a 65-page decision," said J.P. Cativiela, spokesman for the Dairy Community Alliance for Responsible Environmental Stewardship. "I don't think anybody has the full analysis yet."

Dairy CARES is made up primarily of dairy industry groups. It works to educate dairy farmers on complying with environmental regulations.

Cativiela said he's wondering what the ruling will do to the years of work so far on developing a local dairy-
permitting system.

"We're wondering what sort of a bump in the road this all is going to be."

He said his group works closely with various regional water quality control boards to help them develop rules for dairies.

This week's ruling requires the EPA to make changes so it can ensure compliance by the farms with the Clean Water Act, which includes "the ambitious goal" that water pollution be eliminated. It also said the agency must provide a process that "adequately involves the public" as it creates a new system.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of the Waterkeeper Alliance, an international grass-roots organization connecting 129 local water protection programs, said he was grateful that the court had rebuked "the government and the barons of corporate agriculture."

A telephone message for comment left with the EPA in Washington, D.C., was not immediately returned Monday.

The appeals court noted that large farms can generate each year millions of tons of manure, which carries potentially harmful pollutants including pesticides, bacteria, viruses, trace elements of arsenic and compounds such as methane and ammonia.

When properly applied, manure can be spread on fields and serve as fertilizer. But improperly applied, the court said, it can pollute.

The EPA rules require large confinements -- defined as having at least 1,000 beef cattle and 2,500 swine -- to obtain water pollution permits every five years. Some medium ones - with 300 beef cattle and 3,000 swine under 55 pounds -- may be required to get one. Different head count thresholds are set for livestock operations including sheep, chickens and turkeys.

Any farm required to have a permit also must have a plan spelling out how it will manage manure. Farmers are required to file annual reports summarizing their operations.

The Waterkeeper Alliance was among several groups that challenged the rules with lawsuits, which were consolidated in a single action in New York. Other groups included the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Farm Bureau Federation, the National Turkey Federation, the National Pork Producers Council and livestock groups. #

Monterey Herald – 3/1/05
By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press

GRANTS PASS, Ore. - Fisheries managers say ocean salmon fishing seasons for Northern California and Oregon face sharp cutbacks this year to protect low projected returns of Klamath River wild chinook, a perennial weak spot in efforts to rebuild West Coast salmon runs.

Federal fishery managers for the West Coast -- who are meeting in Sacramento next week -- will also have to wrestle with forecasts of low returns of hatchery coho from the Columbia River and Oregon Coast, which are likely to prompt sharp cutbacks for recreational fishermen off Oregon and Washington.

Forecasts based on returns of sexually immature adults known as jacks call for a record 1.7 million chinook returning to California's Central Valley this year, double last year's returns.

But sport and commercial fishermen may not be able to take full advantage of them, to avoid catching too many of the fish headed back to the Klamath River. Fishing seasons last year resulted in Klamath returns falling 10,000 short of the goal of 35,000 natural spawners.

''Everybody has gotten spoiled the last few years,'' said Dave Bitts, a Eureka commercial salmon fisherman who is also vice president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. ''We think that it's normal to be able to go fishing.''

Overall, seasons are likely to be good between San Francisco and Monterey, a little tighter than last year off Washington, and a lot tighter between Fort Bragg and Newport, Ore., said Chuck Tracy, salmon staffer for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which sets ocean salmon seasons.

The council will adopt options for commercial, recreational and tribal fisheries March 11, and set final seasons April 8 in Tacoma, Wash.

Good returns in 2003, even in the Klamath River, allowed the most bountiful ocean salmon fishing seasons in 15 years, and in 2004, commercial fishermen saw prices rise with an increased public demand for ocean-caught salmon after years of farmed salmon driving down the market.

However, ocean conditions began going sour last year, accounting for the drop in hatchery coho numbers, said Curt Melcher, ocean salmon fishery manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Fishermen will have their best chance for chinook off Oregon when sport and commercial seasons open March 15, because Klamath fish are generally out of the area. However, commercial closures are likely as summer progresses and Klamath fish move into the area, said Melcher.

Quotas for coho, which account for most of the fish caught by Oregon and Washington sport anglers, could be cut in half, said Melcher. The specifics depend on information being developed in the next few months.

Numbers for wild Oregon coho, which must be released, are slightly up, from 150,900 in 2004 to 152,000 in 2005, but hatchery coho numbers are projected to be down, from 777,900 in 2004 to 542,900 this year, according to the preseason report for the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Efforts have been under way since 1986 to rebuild Klamath River chinook returns, which have declined due to a combination of dams, overfishing, and habitat loss to logging, agriculture, and mining.

Forecasts call for 239,700 chinook to return to the Klamath this year, enough to meet the required 35,000 wild fish surviving to spawn in the river if fishing is cut back. The overall number is slightly higher than last year's return, but sharply lower for 4-year-old fish, considered the most important age class for natural spawning success.

California Department of Fish and Game biologist Neil Manji said the 2002 fish kill that left tens of thousands of adult fish rotting on the banks of the Klamath after succumbing to disease in low warm water is not a likely cause of the low projections. A more likely one is the increasing numbers of young fish succumbing to parasites as they migrate to the ocean. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates up to 40 percent die from an intestinal parasite, and 80 percent are weakened by a kidney parasite.

The Yurok Tribe, which fishes at the mount of the Klamath, is likely to see their 25,000-fish allocation from last year cut in half, said tribal fisheries director Dave Hillemeier.

''This is going to be a major hardship not just for tribes, but also all the communities that revolve around in-river fisheries and revolve around ocean fisheries, basically from the Columbia River down to the San Francisco area,'' he said. #

A plan to raise Shasta Dam could help ease California's water crisis, but a band of California Indians says the project will obliterate their culture and way of life. The dam proposal is a centerpiece strategy of CalFed, the joint federal and state agency empowered to distribute the state's water to its various stakeholders.

The idea is to raise the dam 16 feet or more, vastly increasing the holding capacity of Shasta Lake -- and the state's water supply -- for a relatively small investment. Raising the dam by even 16 feet could boost Shasta's storage capacity by 300,000 acre-feet -- enough to supply 900,000 families with water for a year.

Agriculture and municipalities are bullish on the proposal. California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who was instrumental in securing recent key authorizing legislation for CalFed, is supporting feasibility studies for the plan.

But fisheries advocates and environmentalists generally are opposed to the project, saying it would provide no benefit for downstream fisheries and wildlife.

And for the Winnemem Wintu -- a tribe of about 125 members that historically occupied the McCloud River drainage -- a higher dam would be an unmitigated catastrophe.

Raising the dam would submerge several sacred sites permanently, tribal members say. And because these sites are essential to the tribe's religious ceremonies, the project, they say, amounts to cultural genocide.

"We feel like Catholics would feel if it was decided that flooding the Sistine Chapel was a good public works project," said Caleen Sisk-Franco, the tribe's leader. "To us, the project would be the worst kind of sacrilege."

Sisk-Franco made her comments at Kaibai, an ancient Winnemem village site on the McCloud River arm of Shasta Lake. According to a U.S. Forest Service archaeologist in the area, the Winnemem may have lived here for more than 2, 000 years.

Typically, Kaibai is underwater for much of the year, appearing only after the reservoir has been drawn down in the summer. But due to unusually heavy releases from Shasta Dam, the tribe has had access to Kaibai for months. The McCloud is running free and clear past the ancient village site. If Shasta Lake is raised by 16 feet, Kaibai probably will disappear forever.

Sisk-Franco gently placed her hand on a large rock cratered with numerous mortar holes for grinding. "We hold the puberty rites for our kids here," Sisk-Franco said. "We use this rock every year for grinding medicinal plants -- just as our ancestors have done, for hundreds of years." She pointed to a huge boulder across the river and downstream from the grinding rocks. "That's Children's Rock," she said. "Our children are taught to climb there in our initiation ceremonies, to gain confidence for later observances, when they have to climb -- that." She turned, and nodded at a steep, rocky peak looming over Kaibai.

"That's Hamaleokus," she said. "Our boys are taken up there to fast when they come of age. When the white men came into the McCloud drainage, we flew a flag at the top of Hamaleokus, to say, 'We're still here.' "

Mark Franco, a tribal member and Sisk-Franco's husband, said the tribe has tried to contact CalFed, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Feinstein about its concerns, but have received little substantive feedback. "It's clear they don't really want to be bothered with us," Franco said.

But representatives of the agencies involved in the dam proposal say they have no intention of ignoring the Winnemem. Keith Coolidge, a spokesman for CalFed, said raising Shasta Dam is one of five new surface water storage projects contemplated for the state. "The participating agencies will look at the comparative merits (of the different projects) and should arrive at a decision by the end of 2006," Coolidge said. "I'm sure the concerns of the Winnemem will be addressed as the Shasta Dam proposal goes through the process."

Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the agency that administers the Shasta Dam and reservoir, said all stakeholders will be heard before a decision is made. "Where the Winnemem are concerned, we will do cultural surveys and look at the impacts that could arise," McCracken said. "This isn't 50 years ago, when whole towns were moved for water projects without a second thought."

But Franco said the Winnemem generally have found government agencies unresponsive to their concerns over sacred sites -- not just the Bureau of Reclamation and CalFed, but also the U.S. Forest Service. He cited one recent point of conflict: Dekkas, a steep hillside site near the McCloud River used by the tribe for a variety of rites, including a spring ceremony honoring Winnemem elders who have survived the winter.

On a tour of Dekkas, Franco and Sisk-Franco pointed out a large number of brush piles that had been stacked recently, a fuel reduction effort carried out by the Forest Service. The brush was all old-growth manzanita, Franco noted, and had been part of a grove sacred to the tribe. "This is where we get our wood for our ceremonial fires," he said. "Now - - it's all gone." Franco shook his head, visibly upset. "This has completely desecrated Dekkas," he said. "We had explicit agreements with the Forest Service that they would stay away from this site."

Next to a gate blocking a rutted road that led to Dekkas, Sisk-Franco pointed out a rock that had been covered by manzanita, and was now ringed by stumps. "There was a rattlesnake that lived there," she said, "the guardian to Dekkas. I doubt he's there now -- it's too exposed. Dekkas is unprotected."

Jennings Sharon Heywood, the supervisor for the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, said contract crews working for the agency cut the brush around Dekkas.

"Our original information told us those bushes were far enough away from the ceremonial site to have no impact," Heywood said. "That said, it seems to me this was an obvious error, and I don't know why the tribe wasn't contacted, but we intend to get out there and work this out with them."

Some government representatives suggest the tribe's problems could be solved if members were more responsive to federal procedure. Most significantly, they say, the tribe has refused to pursue official recognition from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the federal agency that deals with tribal issues.

Howard Gantman, a spokesman for Feinstein, said the senator's office has written to the bureau seeking a clarification of the Winnemem's status. "They informed us the tribe had provided insufficient documentation for recognition," said Gantman, who added that Feinstein understands the concerns of the Winnemem and wants to help.

Franco said the tribe is not actively seeking recognition from the bureau. The federal government, he said, recognized the tribe in 1851, when Winnemem representatives signed the Cottonwood Treaty, an agreement that granted the tribe a 35-square-mile reservation on their traditional lands. Federal Indian agent O.M. Wozencraft, representing the United States, also signed the treaty. But the treaty was left unratified by Congress at the behest of the California delegation, Franco said.

Tribal members ultimately received some land allotments in the McCloud River area, Franco said, but the holdings were condemned under later legislation that ultimately allowed for the construction of Shasta Lake.

"We can document a history of federal recognition followed by broken promises," Franco said, "so we're standing by the original 1851 treaty. It's a valid document, and it's unrealistic to think we would get through any new process before our sacred sites go underwater forever." #

DUNSMUIR -- Some fish turned belly up, floating away with the current. Others beached themselves on shore in a suicidal attempt to escape the suddenly toxic Sacramento River. People like Bill Berry, a retired attorney from Sacramento who owns a vacation home here, aren't likely to forget the Cantara Loop train derailment and chemical spill.

But even though 14 years have passed since that July evening, the rules haven't changed much for trains passing through this scenic area. And the derailments continue -- 43 accidents in the river canyon since the Cantara spill, according to the conservation group California Trout.

"The railroad operates without any real oversight," Berry said. "It's pretty much up to them." A flurry of other recent derailments across the country has focused new attention on the transportation of hazardous materials by train -- and whether new rules are needed to make the practice safer.

At any moment, thousands of chemical-loaded railroad cars are traveling the rails nationwide. At least a dozen trains chug through the upper Sacramento River canyon each day.

That area's most recent derailment took place last month, spilling 30 gallons of diesel, according to Union Pacific. California Trout put the total at 700 gallons.

Whatever the number, some say derailments like these may become more frequent as demand for chemical products increases.

"It's startling," said Mount Shasta resident Curtis Knight, who represents California Trout. "Union Pacific has described it (the track through the canyon) as their I-5, and it's going to get busier."

Union Pacific won't disclose what each of its cars contains, citing terrorism concerns. It is the nation's largest chemical hauler, carrying petroleum, fertilizer, plastics and sodium compounds, among other things.

The company says it's far safer to transport these materials by train than by truck. "Hazardous materials transportation is a necessity," said Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis in Omaha, Neb. "It's things that we've become accustomed to, many of the products you find under your sink." The company says it spends $1.9 billion a year to improve its infrastructure, and nationwide the number of accidents is declining.

But after a deadly derailment and chlorine gas leak in South Carolina last month, some groups say cities and towns like Dunsmuir should have advance warning when dangerous materials pass through. Others feel hazardous loads should be detoured around sensitive areas.

The railroad says notifying authorities ahead of time would be an overwhelming task. And diverting trains on an alternate route around Dunsmuir or any other town would add hundreds of miles to the trip and endanger other communities.

What the railroad does do is train thousands of emergency responders like the north state's Shasta-Cascade Hazardous Materials Response Team.

Scott Holmquist of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said a warning system wouldn't be useful unless something very unusual was being shipped.

"We have a general idea what's on the railroad," said Holmquist, who works with the hazardous materials team. "It's no different than what's on the freeway."

Regulation of the railroad industry is handled by the Federal Railroad Administration, but some say the agency isn't doing enough to monitor Union Pacific.

There may be some new federal rules in the works. Legislation introduced earlier this month would increase maximum fines for gross negligence from $27,500 to $2.5 million. Union Pacific says it paid $4 million in federal fines last year.

The law would also require more frequent inspection of rail cars.

Berry hopes the state will one day gain some regulatory power over the railroad. The California Public Utilities Commission sought some control after the Cantara spill but was ultimately denied by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals two years ago.

The issue may get more attention as the federal government ships nuclear waste to a repository in southern Nevada starting in 2010. These tracks down the heart of Northern California have been identified as one possible shipment route.

Berry says whenever he sees a tank car rumbling along the river, he wonders what's inside. And he recalls the Cantara spill, when the train's uneven weight distribution caused it to topple, spilling herbicide and killing fish for 40 miles downstream.

"You almost have to assume that the stuff is going to get hauled," he said. "The real challenge is to improve railroad safety so that there's less risk of getting a tanker into the river."

Sacramento Bee – 2/25/05
By Peter H. Gleick, guest editorialist, president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland

The federal government is on the verge of destroying for decades any chance of peacefully and economically solving California's water problems.

Unless the governor and our U.S. representatives intervene immediately, the Department of Interior's Bureau of Reclamation will push through new long-term contracts to provide heavily subsidized water to a small number of powerful irrigation districts at the expense of California's cities, family farmers, environment and economy.

The decisions are being made behind closed doors, with little or no public input or scrutiny. The consequences will be perpetuating waste and inefficiency, worsening conflict among water users and accelerating ecological destruction.

For the past 50 years, federal water policy has encouraged a few farmers to consume vast quantities of California's water. The water delivered by the federal Central Valley Project (CVP), built for and paid for by taxpayers, is sold for pennies on the dollar. The price doesn't even cover the project's operating and maintenance costs, much less the cost of building it. This might have made sense when the West was young, but in the 21st century, we know that such subsidies encourage the waste of water, lead to the production of surplus crops and hurt, rather than help, job growth and our economy.

Yet those original contracts are about to be renewed without the reforms or price increases needed to account for the new reality of water scarcity. According to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, the cost to taxpayers of renewing these subsidies is at least $500 million over the next 10 years. In some cases, the new contracts offer water that may not be reliably available to irrigation districts that cannot prove they will actually use it.

We can, and should, support a healthy and strong agricultural sector in the state but without the waste and inefficiency encouraged by these federal subsidies. We know that heavily subsidized water is wasted. This is as true in California - where we grow crops that can be grown more efficiently elsewhere - as it is in India or China or the Middle East, where inappropriate subsidies are leading to groundwater depletion and contamination and the destruction of ecosystems.

The use of 1,000 acre-feet of water in California produces 9,000 jobs in the semiconductor industry, 2,500 jobs in commercial offices, 35 jobs in grape and wine production - but only three jobs growing cotton. The use of one acre-foot of water by the semiconductor industry produces gross state revenue of nearly $1 million; one acre-foot of water used to grow cotton and alfalfa produces just $60.

This is another example of the federal government burdening California employers and taxpayers and worsening our water challenges. It has shunted onto state taxpayers the costs of fixing California Bay-Delta water problems that were caused in no small part by inappropriate federal projects built over the past century. Now, these new contracts will take water owned by Californians and use it as political patronage.

The governor and our elected representatives in Washington must step in to protect California's interests, minimize taxpayers' costs and maximize economic growth.

If the federal government pushes these contracts to satisfy special interests, they must be limited to a single renewal, as required by law. The contracts must not give away water not reliably available or truly needed. The price of water must reflect the true costs of building and operating projects as well as the costs of providing that water in order to encourage those few subsidized farmers to use water efficiently and effectively.

These are the only ways to protect our critical supplies of freshwater for now and for the future.

Peter H. Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, a MacArthur Fellow and a member of the Water Science and Technology Board of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Reach him at info@pacinst.org. #

Creek work aids trout, crop; Fish, wine pair well together
San Luis Obispo Tribune - 2/18/05
By Michaela Baltasar, staff writer

Wolff Vineyards has partnered with several government agencies on a $38,000 project to restore habitat for the rare steelhead trout.

The goal is to reduce soil loss along the San Luis Obispo vineyard's three miles of creeks. These waterways empty into Pismo Creek, which is where young steelhead spend about two to three years before they grow large enough to swim to the ocean.

But the fish -- which are endangered on the Central Coast -- won't be the only ones to benefit.

"It's a significant improvement for fish habitat," said Jean-Pierre Wolff, owner of Wolff Vineyards. "But you're also reducing farming maintenance costs."

Additionally, less sediment makes it easier for water to percolate and replenish underground aquifers, which helps vineyards, said Wolff. He hopes other growers will realize the benefits of the project and implement similar programs.

Susan Litteral, field office engineer for Natural Resources Conservation Service in Templeton, designed the project using bioengineering methods, or procedures that coincide with what is happening naturally in the environment. Her design was then implemented by a team from the California Conservation Corps.

"The practices are really a softer approach to what people have been doing in the past," said Philip LaFollette, a CCC conservationist who specializes in fisheries.

Though the project involved creating a flood-plain terrace, as well as using some rock to counterbalance the energy of the creeks, vegetation was the main method of erosion prevention.

Young plants were introduced along waterways, and logs made of coconut fibers are being used to bolster the vegetation until root systems develop. The logs will decompose after about five years.

"It's so essential to get vegetation wherever water is flowing," Litteral said. "The plant roots hold the soil. It's our No. 1 priority."

The plants also create shade and provide food for fish when insects fall off the leaves. Additionally, they serve as a "buffer zone" along the vineyard's creeks.

"Every year when it rains, it becomes very slippery," Wolff said. "So we view this as a safety factor for workers who might be out at night."

Wolff started planning the project about two years ago. Implementation began in September, and the final phase of the project will be completed in March and April. That phase will involve installing temporary drip lines to water the young plants and encourage growth.

The vineyard will serve as a demonstration site for soil-loss reduction practices.

"I believe we're stewards of the land," Wolff said. "We have a responsibility, and I want my vineyard to be ecologically friendly."

About 75 percent of the project is funded by the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, which helps family farmers pay for practices that protect soil and water. Wolff covers the remaining cost.

Other agencies involved include the state Department of Fish and Game, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board. #

SAN FRANCISCO - Legal fights over water in the West are as common as summer rains are rare. But a flurry of cases in California is attracting intense attention from scholars and state officials who see them as an extraordinary assault by agricultural interests on protections for endangered fish and other wildlife.

In a series of lawsuits, including one to be argued before the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday, farmers and water districts are pushing property-rights claims to the forefront of the debate over how to divvy up water among farms, cities and the environment.

In doing so, they are demanding compensation from the government for irrigation water diverted for environmental purposes, calling into question rules mandated by Congress under the Endangered Species Act that favor the protection of fish over the growing of food when water is in short supply.

It is an approach that has won sympathy from the Bush administration, which in December agreed to pay $16.7 million to farmers in Tulare and Kern Counties in one lawsuit over reduced water supplies. But the claims have alarmed California officials and many conservation groups, who fear that demands for payment for lost water could spread to other Western states and undermine protections for wildlife.

"This is hugely important, a growing storm cloud over the American West," said Richard M. Frank, California's chief deputy attorney general, who oversees water litigation and who opposes paying farmers for water diverted to endangered fish. "We will be seeing a lot more of these kinds of claims brought not only against the federal government but state governments."

William S. Smiland, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the farmers in the Supreme Court case, Francis A. Orff v. United States, said they and farmers in the other lawsuits had long gotten the short end of the stick and were only demanding their due.

"Nobody really cares about them," Mr. Smiland said. "I don't mean to be melodramatic, but they have no political clout. So this is law against politics."

In the early 1990's, many farmers in the Central Valley had their irrigation water halved by federal officials because of severe drought. Flows that normally would have gone to crops were left in rivers for salmon and other fish struggling to survive.

The water shortage took a financial toll on the farmers, whose fields extend across an arid ancient seabed that is the country's most productive farmland thanks to a system of dams and canals that brings snowmelt from distant mountains.

Some of the farmers, including Mr. Orff of Fresno County, sued the federal government for damages. The case has undergone changes over the years, and on Wednesday the Supreme Court will consider only a narrow contract issue that focuses on whether farmers, rather than their irrigation districts, have legal standing to sue the federal government.

But the reverberations of the case are considered much broader, because a victory for the farmers could open the door to many more lawsuits of the sort that led in December to the $16.7 million payment to farmers and irrigation districts in Tulare and Kern Counties, which also had their water supplies cut in the early 1990's. That settlement was the first by the federal government in a case in which farmers claimed their property rights had been violated by the taking of water to protect fish.

Though not binding on other cases, the victory has emboldened farmers and water districts across the state, prompted similar lawsuits and panicked environmentalists and some state officials, who worry that hard-won federal protections for endangered species could be weakened. They fear that the government will not make use of protections included in the Endangered Species Act, because courts could make the protections too expensive by forcing the government to pay costly damages.

At the center of the dispute is whether farmers who have contracts through their irrigation districts to receive water from public works projects, like the federally owned Central Valley Project in the Orff case, should be paid when the water they were expecting is not delivered.

The federal and state governments have long argued that water belongs to the public, not to the farmers, and can be used as the public dictates, in this case to save wildlife. But the farmers say their contracts for water deliveries are the legal equivalent of water rights, and as with any property right, the owner must be reimbursed under the Fifth Amendment if the government confiscates the property, something known as a "physical taking."

The water cases come at a time when the property rights movement has made strides and is looking to expand. In November, Oregon voters approved a referendum that allows property owners whose investments have been hurt by environmental or zoning rules to get government compensation for the losses, or an exemption from the rules. And on Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on whether private economic development that will add to the tax base of New London, Conn., is an appropriate "public use" for which a city can exercise its power of eminent domain to condemn property.

Roger J. Marzulla, a Washington property rights lawyer who represented the farmers in the $16.7 million settlement, said that taking water from farms for fish was no different from taking someone's land to build a road. Since winning the case, Mr. Marzulla has filed similar claims totaling hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of farmers in the Klamath River basin and farmers and other customers of the Casitas Municipal Water District in Ventura County and the Stockton East Water District in San Joaquin County.

"If the government had to go around seizing people's homes and farms every time it wanted to build a road or hospital," he said, "and everybody knew they weren't going to be paid, you would have shootouts."

But until a judge in the United States Court of Federal Claims sided with the Tulare and Kern farmers in 2001, resulting in the settlement in December, the case law was on the side of the government. The judge, John P. Wiese, concluded that the water cutoff amounted to a physical taking, not a routine regulatory action as federal officials argued. He set the damages at $27 million, which was reduced in a settlement.

Judge Wiese's ruling was both unprecedented and hotly disputed, prompting a long list of government officials and agencies to recommend an appeal. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the decision could lead to large payouts in other cases and a backdoor attack on the Endangered Species Act.

"With the federal government and the State of California facing continuing deficits, the government likely could not afford to provide the water the fish need," Ms. Feinstein said in a letter to administration officials.

When the Justice Department, in consultation with the Interior Department, decided not to appeal the decision, many critics saw the political influence of conservative property-rights advocates. Mr. Marzulla worked in the Justice Department in the Reagan administration and has close ties to the Bush administration.

"It's a signal from the Bush administration that it wants to encourage these guys who are filing these cases," said John D. Echeverria, executive director of the Georgetown Environmental Law and Policy Institute, who has been involved in the Klamath lawsuit.

"It was a very extreme decision ripe for overruling," Mr. Echeverria said of Judge Wiese's ruling, "which made the decision of the United States to settle so troubling."

Bush administration officials say the settlement saved taxpayers money. The case had been in the courts for more than six years, the government had lost and by settling, the damages were significantly reduced.

Sue Ellen Woolridge, solicitor for the Interior Department, said it was unlikely that Judge Wiese's ruling would affect other water cases, because although many seem alike, the legal circumstances are different.

Nonetheless, Ms. Woolridge said she and other administration officials agreed philosophically with the farmers that all Americans, not just the few who lose water, should share the cost of protecting wildlife.

"If we have a public good which is reflected in the Endangered Species Act," she said, "it's fair that the act should be supported by all taxpayers as opposed to having only particular individuals have to pay for that public good."

Joseph L. Sax, a professor emeritus of law at the University of California, Berkeley, who was counselor to Bruce Babbitt, a Democrat, when Mr. Babbitt was interior secretary, said the Bush administration had "raised a pretty prominent flag of warning" to backers of the environmental protections.

"I am not an alarmist," Professor Sax said, "and I don't think it is appropriate to say this is the beginning of the end for regulation of water rights. But it really is a significant change." #

SAN FRANCISCO – In a series of lawsuits, including one to be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow, farmers and water districts are pushing property-rights claims to the forefront of the debate over how to divvy up water among farms, cities and the environment.

In doing so, they are demanding compensation from the government for irrigation water diverted for environmental purposes, calling into question rules in the Endangered Species Act that favor the protection of fish over the growing of food when water is in short supply.

It is an approach that has won sympathy from the Bush administration, which in December agreed to pay $16.7 million to farmers in Tulare and Kern counties in one lawsuit to compensate for reduced water supplies. But the claims have alarmed California officials and many conservation groups, who fear that demands for payment for lost water could spread to other Western states and undermine protections for wildlife.

"This is hugely important, a growing storm cloud over the American West," said Richard M. Frank, California's chief deputy attorney general, who oversees water litigation and who opposes paying farmers for water diverted to endangered fish.

William S. Smiland, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the farmers in the Supreme Court case, Francis A. Orff v. United States, said they and farmers in the other lawsuits had long gotten the short end of the stick and were only demanding their due.

"Nobody really cares about them," Smiland said. "I don't mean to be melodramatic, but they have no political clout. So this is law against politics."

The Supreme Court will consider only the narrow issue of whether farmers, rather than their irrigation districts, have legal standing to sue the federal government.

But the reverberations of the case are considered much broader, because a victory for the farmers could open the door to many more lawsuits. #

San Francisco Chronicle - 2/16/05
By Tom Stienstra, staff outdoors columnist
[excerpted]
The Trinity River will be transformed into one of the West's top rafting rivers this spring when water flows are projected to increase by five to 10 times of past years.

Instead of running at a typical 600 to 1,000 cubic feet per second (CFS), a Clinton-era plan will be implemented that jumps river flows to 4,000 to 6, 000 CFS, on the average, this spring and early summer. The high flows are expected to jump-start increased runs of salmon and steelhead later this year, help reconfigure the river bottom and increase spawning gravels.

"For rafters, the Trinity River will become to Northern California what the Stanislaus is to the Sierra Nevada and the Grand Canyon is to the Colorado River," said Bob Warren, the general manager of the Shasta Cascade Wonderland Association in Redding.

The Trinity River is created from the drops of melting snow in the Trinity Alps northwest of Redding. It flows into Trinit