California Coastkeeper Alliance

CCKA In The Press: Reznik: The future of Indirect Potable Reuse

2010-03-10T12:00:00+00:00

Indirect Potable Reuse sounds technical, doesn’t it? Referred to as IPR, it a process that recycles wastewater into water so clean that it can augment our reservoirs and help increase our drinking water supplies.

This means that in non-technical terms, it’s recycling water we’ve already used.

At San Diego Coastkeeper, we believe in the old adage “reduce, reuse, then recycle,” and that’s how IPR fits into the equation of where we get our water. First, the less water we use in San Diego, means the less water we have to import. Given that more than half of the residential water use goes to landscapes, watering your lawn less can make a difference.

Reusing will also help decrease demand for water that currently travels more than 400 miles to get to your tap. Simple steps like installing rain barrels at your home and capturing shower water to give to your plants, reuses water in a second application and decreases the amount of water the region needs to import (currently, we import more than 80 percent of our water).

Then we should recycle water. IPR in San Diego means taking wastewater that would be discharged into the ocean through the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Facility, and treating it to drinking water standards before it is used to recharge our local reservoirs. If your first reaction to this concept is “yuck,” you’re not alone. But most people aren’t aware that we safely drink “toilet to tap” presently, as 400 million gallons of treated sewage are discharged into the Colorado River before it becomes our drinking water. And numerous cities already use similar projects, including Orange County, which currently produces 70 millions gallons of IPR water daily, enough for 500,000 residents.

In late 2008, the San Diego City Council approved a water rate increase to fund a pilot project demonstration facility to test whether IPR can successfully augment our water supplies. Already paid for, this pilot project is currently underway, and if successful, will ultimately provide up to 16 million gallons of advanced treated water per day from the city’s existing reclamation facilities that currently provide water for non-drinking uses like irrigation. A second study is also underway exploring opportunities to build new plants that could reclaim 50 or 100 million gallons or more of water daily, which could meet half of the city’s water needs.

Headline: Another water project could divide the state

2010-03-09T12:00:00+00:00

Harvey Bailey was 11 when Friant Dam started spitting the San Joaquin River into an irrigation canal the size of a freeway.

His father and other growers laid bets on when the river's cool waters would reach their little farm town on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, promising an end to the region's irrigation woes. Life magazine published a big photo spread on the canal's opening.

"It was a huge event," recalled Bailey, 72, president of the Orange Cove Irrigation District.

Now he hopes another dam will rise on the San Joaquin, at a narrow spot seven miles upriver from Friant, called Temperance Flat.

Backed by the Schwarzenegger administration and Central Valley farm interests, the $3.3-billion dam and reservoir at Temperance Flat would be the biggest water storage project in California in more than three decades.

But amid a deep recession and an endemic budget crisis in Sacramento, some are questioning whether it's worth the investment and whether taxpayers should keep subsidizing water projects that primarily benefit California agribusiness.

"Let's spend it where it would have the biggest effect: conservation and efficiency," said Pacific Institute president Peter Gleick. "It's a fallacy to believe all we have to do is build a couple of big dams and our problems will be over."

Bailey and his brother Lee grow oranges, lemons and olives on 1,100 acres they own and 900 more they manage in the citrus belt that runs in a shiny green grid along the flanks of the Sierra Nevada.

Orange Cove gets its name from the hills that embrace it, sheltering groves from the cold.

"Family been here since '10," Bailey said, meaning 1910.

Like most other Central Valley settlers, his grandparents pumped groundwater to irrigate fields or grew crops that could survive on the valley's scant rainfall.

But aquifer levels nose-dived in the years before World War II. Citrus groves were abandoned. "You could see across 10 acres because there weren't any leaves on the trees," Bailey said.

The federal government came to the rescue with the Central Valley Project, the nation's biggest irrigation operation, which erected Friant Dam in the pine-flecked Sierra foothills about 40 miles northwest of Orange Cove. It was completed in 1942.

Two monster canals guzzled water from Millerton Lake, the reservoir formed by the dam. The Madera ran north and the Friant-Kern snaked south, feeding the east side's myriad irrigation ditches.

The river's Chinook salmon soon vanished and some 60 miles of riverbed downstream from Friant turned to desert in all but the wettest years.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation knew when it planned the dam that it would rob the lower San Joaquin, which meanders north to meet the Sacramento River and forms a sprawling delta leading to San Francisco Bay.

Drying up the San Joaquin was a problem for the corporate descendants of the 19th century cattle empire amassed by two San Francisco butchers, Henry Miller and Charles Lux. They held rights to the lower river, which they used to green 250,000 acres on the valley's baking west side, running from Mendota north to Patterson.

To keep them happy, the Bureau of Reclamation built the Delta Mendota Canal to ferry supplies 117 miles upstream from the delta to a spot near Mendota, where the water was dumped into the desiccated San Joaquin for use by the Miller-Lux successors, known as exchange contractors. Their rights predate the Central Valley Project, so they pay nothing for an annual allocation of water greater than the city of Los Angeles uses in a year.

Not only are their supplies free, the exchange contractors are at the head of the line. If there isn't enough delta water to fill their allotments, the bureau has to give them river water from Millerton, raiding other irrigators' supplies.

That has yet to happen. But as the delta's environmental problems grow and its fish populations teeter on the edge of extinction, the state and federal water projects that draw from it have been hit with increasingly severe pumping restrictions.

Sometime soon, the exchange contractors may have to take supplies from Friant, stirring unrest on the San Joaquin that could threaten their deal. Build more storage, they reason, and peace will reign.

"When the dog isn't hungry, he doesn't go out hunting," said Steve Chedester, executive director of the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors Water Authority.

The push for another reservoir on the San Joaquin is not new. The concrete had barely set on Friant when grousing began: It was built in the wrong place. Millerton was too small to capture all the high flows of Sierra snowmelt.

"They made a boo-boo," said Mario Santoyo, assistant general manager of the Friant Water Authority, which represents districts supplied by Millerton.

Santoyo, 53, is the son of Central Valley farmworkers. His father, who laid irrigation pipes in other men's fields, was politically invisible.

Not Santoyo. A veteran water manager, he helped found the 4-year-old California Latino Water Coalition, which is allied with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and is a vocal proponent of building more dams and reservoirs.

Santoyo said he worries that Friant farmers are being squeezed both by the delta's environmental restrictions and by a 2006 court settlement that requires them to release some of their water into the river to revive a once-bounteous Chinook salmon run.

"Things are only going to get worse," Santoyo said.

In his campaign for Temperance, Santoyo may encounter opposition broader than the expected environmental groups: urban taxpayers and budget guardians.

In 1960, California voters approved a big bond to build the State Water Project, a network of dams and aqueducts that captures Northern California water and ships it through the delta to the south's subdivisions and cities.

The primarily urban water agencies, and ultimately their rate-payers, are repaying most of the bond, with interest. They also shoulder almost all of the system's annual operating costs.

Bailey and the other irrigators in the Central Valley Project have, in contrast, enjoyed the equivalent of a 60-year, interest-free loan. They have so far repaid about 19% of their $1.2-billion share of the federal project's capital costs. And under reclamation law, the government charges them no interest.

Though as much as three-fourths of Temperance Flat's releases could go to growers, they say they can't afford to take on that proportion of the dam's costs.

Standing in a newly planted citrus grove, Bailey does some budget calculations and shakes his head. "There's no way you could pay $1,500 an acre for water," he says flatly.

Temperance, which would boost the state's annual water supply by a small fraction of California's total demand, could win a big chunk of state taxpayer funding through the $11-billion water bond measure slated for the November ballot.

But the bond, which would set aside $3 billion for unspecified surface and groundwater storage, can pay no more than half of any project's total cost. So dam backers would still have to turn elsewhere for money -- most likely to the federal government or urban Southern California.

Headline: Let's use the water we have

2010-03-09T12:00:00+00:00

On a camping and rafting expedition gone haywire, Homer Simpson, Flanders and Bart were stranded at sea with only one canteen of water. Unfortunately, Homer used the water to wash his socks. San Diego’s use of water is similarly inefficient.

Per capita, the U.S. uses more water than any other nation on earth, but our costs of water are among the lowest. However much we complain about our water bills, the cost of water does not incentivize us to act in an economically rational manner or find alternatives to the current use of potable water.

In this arid climate--our manufactured oasis--only 3 to 5 percent of the total water used is recycled water. This is despite the fact that we use 60 percent of all our water on outdoor uses, and 80 percent of all our water on non-potable uses. In California, 20 percent of the energy we burn is used to transport water, so that we can sprinkle potable water on our lawns.
In our region, the recycled water we do use is dedicated to landscape irrigation. Approximately 98 percent of our recycled water is used for landscape irrigation, but no recycled water is used for agriculture because we lack the pipes to take the water uphill.

San Diego North City Reclamation Plant treats water to the point where it can be recycled, but then dumps the water back into the sewage system so the water is discharged into the Pacific. North City recycles more than enough water to irrigate Balboa Park, but we don’t use it because Caltrans won’t provide a corridor for purple pipe along Highway 163. Our missing infrastructure is the wiring needed between our ears.

We continue to blame Mother Nature and the Delta Smelt, but when it comes to matters within our own control our decision-making is poor.

The latest Clean Water Act waiver for the Point Loma Wastewater Treatment Plant was approved with a firm understanding that the costs the city of San Diego saves by not upgrading to secondary sewage treatment will be used to reduce the discharge –and recycle the water. If Indirect Potable Reuse is achieved by City of San Diego, an average of 16 million gallons per day could be removed from the Point Loma waste discharge and used to augment the San Vicente Reservoir. This would satisfy approximately 20 percent of the water demand at the City of San Diego Alvarado facility. Other reuse projects in Lake Hodges and Otay Lakes could provide an average of 6.5 million gallons per day for source augmentation.

In 2009, 29 local wastewater agencies treated approximately 105,000 acre-feet of wastewater to provide approximately 55,000 acre-feet of recycled water. The monetary savings are substantial when using recycled water. The cost for recycled water is $0.80 per hundred cubic feet of water--compared to the current potable water rate charged to irrigation customers, which is about $3.66 per hundred cubic feet. The cost of desalinated water is even higher due to the energy demands. The ultimate reduction in wastewater discharge could be greater if groundwater basins are augmented with recycled water.

Storm water is considered the most crucial issue impacting water quality, but we should consider storm water as a resource rather than a source of pollution. As to water quality -- our children should be able surf during a storm. This goal should go hand-in-hand with our use of rainwater to cut our demand for potable water.

Though rainwater harvesting has existed for millennia, it is painfully obvious and woefully underused. By simply collecting rainwater from rooftops and hardscapes and routing it through downspouts to cisterns and vaults, we can store, treat and use rainwater. Rainwater harvesting system components are simple: gutters, roof washers, cisterns or storage vaults, piping, labeling, inspections and maintenance. So long as we avoid cross-contamination with potable water and contact with bacteria, we can use rainwater.

We must establish specific codes and regulations for rainwater harvesting. Building and plumbing codes are largely silent on rainwater harvesting. Consequently, requirements for gray water—wastewater generated from domestic activities such as dish washing, laundry and bathing— are often used to govern rainwater harvesting systems, resulting in requirements that are more stringent than necessary.

Laws should define rainwater harvesting and establish it as an acceptable storm water management and water conservation practice. Codes should identify acceptable end uses for rainwater and set treatment standards. Rainwater is most commonly used for non-potable applications, and it is segregated for indoor (toilets and HVAC) and outdoor uses (irrigation and vehicle washing).

Non-potable uses typically require minimal treatment. Outdoor uses normally need only prescreening to limit fouling of the collection system. Indoor non-potable uses do not necessarily require treatment beyond screening, although some municipalities have adopted a conservative approach and require filtration and disinfection prior to reuse.

An example of this process, with an emphasis on reducing storm water runoff, is the Saddleback Meadows development in Orange County. This project includes four water storage systems in addition to storm water retention vaults for overflow in large storm events. Homes will be equipped with a rooftop runoff collector and infiltration devices to reduce runoff and allow homeowner capture and use of water that typically goes to the street.

We should integrate wastewater recycling and rainwater harvesting in the future. Strategic implementation of both recycled water and storm water harvesting and use would prevent duplication of efforts where we may be able to afford only one approach. For example, getting pipes designated for transmitting recycled water to Balboa Park may be cost prohibitive, but collection of runoff in vaults could be achieved especially as the park is updated and improved.

CCKA In The Press: Coastkeeper hires water-pollution expert

2010-03-08T12:00:00+00:00

SAN DIEGO — One of the region’s largest environmental groups announced Friday that it had hired veteran water pollution expert Clay Clifton to expand its watershed monitoring efforts.

San Diego Coastkeeper conducts monthly sampling in nine out of 11 watersheds in the county and assesses some water bodies that no other organization tracks. A team of trained citizen volunteers collects the data according to state-approved quality control standards.

Clifton brings a new level of expertise to the initiative. He has worked on water pollution issues for more than a decade, most recently directing the Ocean Recreational Water Program for San Diego County’s Department of Environmental Health.

Headline: Growers await chemical decision

2010-03-08T12:00:00+00:00

In a fourth floor state office overlooking Sacramento City Hall, Mary-Ann Warmerdam must make a contentious choice about how farmers grow one of America's favorite foods – the strawberry.

In classic California fashion, her decision as head of the Department of Pesticide Regulation, or DPR, represents an environmental showdown being watched nationally, even globally.

Warmerdam, chief farm chemical regulator in a state that grows nearly 90 percent of U.S. strawberries, will decide in weeks whether growers can use a soil fumigant known as methyl iodide.

That's the controversial new substitute for methyl bromide, an effective but notorious soil sterilizer being phased out across the globe for depleting the ozone layer. Long employed by California strawberry growers to rid soil of insects and pests, the use of methyl bromide has dwindled to less than half the state's 37,000 strawberry acres, and none in the capital region, industry sources say.

But strawberry and nursery stock growers are hankering for a replacement, and what's being proposed – methyl iodide – may be just as bad or worse, environmentalists and some scientists now contend. They say methyl iodide will potentially contaminate groundwater even as it removes a threat to Earth's ozone layer.

A panel of eight scientists assigned to review DPR's evidence left no doubt about its consensus in a report last month: methyl iodide's environmental track record is too short to take chances. Farmworker advocates also express fears for those who will handle the fumigant, and for those who live nearby.

"This will be loaded into the groundwater amid a population that has no health insurance," said Martha Guzman, a lobbyist for California Rural Legal Assistance, at a recent state Senate hearing.

Methyl iodide is a colorless liquid that can be injected directly into dirt below the ground surface or absorbed into soil through drip irrigation.

The liquid kills weed seeds that compete with the crop and eliminates worm-like organisms called nematodes that attack roots and plants. It also eliminates soil pathogens that spread disease and rot in plants.

Tests have linked inhalation of the toxic liquid to fetal death in pregnant rabbits and degeneration of nasal tissue in rats. The U.S. EPA mandates respirators for workers who come into contact with it. But the DPR's scientific review panel fears that predictable human error will make the substance difficult to control and expose the public to risk.

Citing environmental studies, Arysta LifeScience Corp. says its product leaves no detectable residue in soil, doesn't impact groundwater quality when used properly and isn't transmitted to plants or food.

Despite the controversy over its potential use here, 47 other states (the other exceptions are Washington and New York) and the federal government have given a green light to methyl iodide.

The product is already in use on 15,500 acres in the United States, and has been approved by Japan. Its use is pending in New Zealand, Australia, Turkey, Morocco, Mexico, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina.

Backers of methyl iodide fear a rejection in California could prompt the Obama administration to review and cancel the EPA's 2007 Bush-era approval, and even suspend the chemical's use in states like Florida.

"We've been watching what's going on in California," said Dan Botts, a senior executive with the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. "We do think it will impact our ability to use the product in the future down here."

Botts, like methyl iodide's manufacturer, Tokyo-based Arysta, contends the product has proved effective and safe when handled properly. Arysta's Mike Allen, global business development manager, said, "We are roughly in our second full year of fumigation and there have been no reported incidents or issues with the product in handling and safety."

But a wide range of environmental groups, such as the Pesticide Action Network, have condemned methyl iodide as a toxic newcomer and threatened lawsuits to block its use in California. State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, who chairs the Senate Food and Agriculture Committee, firmly opposes registering the new farm chemical.

"We go from methyl bromide to methyl iodide when we really should be talking about integrated pest management methods that aren't harmful to humans," the Kern County lawmaker said.

Florez has scheduled a March 16 hearing to hear more from scientists, Arysta and Warmerdam.

California's strawberry industry, which annually produces more than $1 billion worth of the juicy red fruit sold at roadside stands, grocery stores and farmers markets, hasn't taken a stand on methyl iodide. Most strawberry consumers remain unaware of the fierce background fight over their food favorite, often cited as a "superfood" loaded with vitamin C and antioxidants that help prevent chronic disease.

"We're just waiting for DPR to do the process. We don't even know if it will be registered," said Carolyn O'Donnell, spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Commission in Watsonville. Statewide, nearly 95 percent of strawberries are grown in Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.

O'Donnell said the commission budgeted $12 million in recent years to help research alternatives to methyl bromide. All show mixed results, farm groups say. The California Farm Bureau Federation said it favors a DPR decision to allow methyl iodide.

"We support any alternative that can be used safely as a replacement for methyl bromide," said Farm Bureau spokesman Dave Kranz.

"Only methyl bromide works, along with its drop-in substitute, methyl iodide," said Robert Dolezal, executive vice president of the California Association of Nurseries and Garden Centers. Dolezal, testifying last month before Florez's committee, said it's the only way his $4 billion-a-year industry can meet California's "no-tolerance" pest requirements for nursery stock.

"Methyl iodide is the silver bullet," he said. "When used correctly it's safe to the public, farmers and nurseries."

Arysta, with its North American headquarters in North Carolina, has a 12-year history with methyl iodide. It licensed the product in 1998 from inventors at the University of California, Riverside, Allen said. It's been seeking DPR permission to sell it in California since 2002. Much of that time has been occupied by requests for more information and a formal, unprecedented "risk assessment" review backed by a secondary review of that assessment by a scientific panel.

Headline: Developing a Way to Monitor the Nation’s Groundwater Resources

2010-03-08T12:00:00+00:00

Groundwater supplies a majority of the nation’s community water systems and almost half of its irrigation, but there is currently no system that can provide a nationwide assessment and evaluation of the conditions, availability or water-quality trends of the country’s groundwater resources. To respond to the need for better knowledge of this valuable resource, five pilot projects have been chosen to test the concept of a National Ground Water Monitoring Network.

“It’s like having a bank account and not knowing how much money you have and whether you are losing or gaining money over time,” said Robert Schreiber, P.E., co-chair of the Advisory Committee on Water Information’s Subcommittee on Ground Water, which developed the conceptual Network. “But instead of money, you have groundwater, which supplies 78 percent of community water systems, provides water for nearly all of rural America and accounts for 42 percent of the nation’s irrigation water.”

“Water has increasing importance in local, regional and national policy decisions,” said Matthew C. Larsen, Associate Director for Water at the U. S. Geological Survey. “With population growth, shifts in development, land use, irrigation and growing concern with the effects of climate change on water resources, it’s essential for scientists, resource managers and policymakers to have access to sound information as a basis for decisions on ways to meet human and ecosystem water needs.”

Federal, regional, state and local governments monitor groundwater resources, but the data are neither easily compiled nor readily accessible across political boundaries. Data are also not gathered in some areas. That’s where the pilots come into play.

“Watershed-based decision-making is a complex and challenging process,” said Mike Shapiro, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Office of Water and EPA's representative on the Advisory Committee on Water Information. “Significant demands exist on our nation’s water resources. State groundwater monitoring pilot projects are an excellent first step in understanding the efficacy of assembling a national groundwater data set to support watershed decisions on a more comprehensive basis.”

The USGS, the EPA and pilot partners from Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey and Texas will collaborate to assess currently available data, review methods of data collection and storage, pinpoint data gaps and test data-sharing feasibility.

“Montana has more than 900 routinely monitored wells, and the potential to easily share our data with others to improve national-scale assessments is exciting,” said Thomas Patton of the Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology and Montana’s pilot project leader. “Additionally, by working together, federal support may eventually become available to assist state-operated networks with some of their costs to provide data consistent with national interests.”

The pilot phase kicked off January 28, 2010, and the final pilot report is anticipated to be completed in March 2011. Although many states submitted quality applications to be pilots, existing resources allowed the Subcommittee to select only five partners. The pilot phase will provide valuable lessons learned, so, if funding becomes available in the future, the project can grow into a truly nationwide network.

“The Ground Water Protection Council appreciates the opportunity to help design and participate in initiating the pilot phase through several of our state members,” said Mike Paque, Ground Water Protection Council Executive Director. “Our states all realize that groundwater is one of their most valuable resources and is critical to meeting future water supply needs.”

John Jansen, the National Ground Water Association’s Subcommittee representative, captured the essence of the pilot projects: “This is the next logical step toward responsible stewardship of the nation’s water resources and the ecology and economy that depend on them.”

Headline: Growing low-oxygen zones in oceans worry scientists

2010-03-07T12:00:00+00:00

WASHINGTON — Lower levels of oxygen in the Earth's oceans, particularly off the United States' Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign of fundamental changes linked to global climate change, scientists say.

They warn that the oceans' complex undersea ecosystems and fragile food chains could be disrupted.

In some spots off Washington state and Oregon, the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of potentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions.

Areas of hypoxia, or low oxygen, have long existed in the deep ocean. These areas — in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans — appear to be spreading, however, covering more square miles, creeping toward the surface and in some places, such as the Pacific Northwest, encroaching on the continental shelf within sight of the coastline.

"The depletion of oxygen levels in all three oceans is striking," said Gregory Johnson, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.

In some spots, such as off the Southern California coast, oxygen levels have dropped roughly 20 percent over the past 25 years. Elsewhere, scientists say, oxygen levels might have declined by one-third over 50 years.

"The real surprise is how this has become the new norm," said Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University. "We are seeing it year after year."

Barth and others say the changes are consistent with current climate-change models. Previous studies have found that the oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

"If the Earth continues to warm, the expectation is we will have lower and lower oxygen levels," said Francis Chan, a marine researcher at Oregon State.

As ocean temperatures rise, the warmer water on the surface acts as a cap, which interferes with the natural circulation that normally allows deeper waters that are already oxygen-depleted to reach the surface. It's on the surface where ocean waters are recharged with oxygen from the air.

Commonly, ocean "dead zones" have been linked to agricultural runoff and other pollution coming down major rivers such as the Mississippi or the Columbia. One of the largest of the 400 or so ocean dead zones is in the Gulf of Mexico, near the mouth of the Mississippi.

However, scientists now say that some of these areas, including those off the Northwest, apparently are linked to broader changes in ocean oxygen levels.

The Pacific waters off Washington and Oregon face a double whammy as a result of ocean circulation.

Scientists have long known of a natural low-oxygen zone perched in the deeper water off the Northwest's continental shelf.

During the summer, northerly winds aided by the Earth's rotation drive surface water away from the shore. This action sucks oxygen-poor water to the surface in a process called upwelling.

Though the water that's pulled up from the depths is poor in oxygen, it's rich in nutrients, which fertilize phytoplankton. These microscopic organisms form the bottom of one of the richest ocean food chains in the world. As they die, however, they sink and start to decay. The decaying process uses oxygen, which depletes the oxygen levels even more.

Southerly winds reverse the process in what's known as down-welling.

Changes in the wind and ocean circulation since 2002 have disrupted what had been a delicate balance between upwelling and down-welling. Scientists now are discovering expanding low-oxygen zones near shore.

"It is consistent with models of global warming, but the time frame is too short to know whether it is a trend or a weather phenomenon," Johnson said.

Others were slightly more definitive, quicker to link the lower oxygen levels to global warming rather than to such weather phenomena as El Nino or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a shift in the weather that occurs every 20 to 30 years in the northern oceans.

"It's a large disturbance in the ecosystem that could have huge biological changes," said Steve Bograd, an oceanographer at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Southern California.

Bograd has been studying oxygen levels in the California Current, which runs along the West Coast from the Canadian border to Baja California and, some scientists think, eventually could be affected by climate change.

So far, the worst hypoxic zone off the Northwest coast was found in 2006. It covered nearly 1,200 square miles off Newport, Ore., and according to Barth it was so close to shore you could hit it with a baseball. The zone covered 80 percent of the water column and lasted for an abnormally long four months.

Because of upwelling, some of the most fertile ocean areas in the world are found off Washington and Oregon. Similar upwelling occurs in only three other places, off the coast of Peru and Chile, in an area stretching from northern Africa to Portugal and along the Atlantic coast of South Africa and Namibia.

Scientists are unsure how low oxygen levels will affect the ocean ecosystem. Bottom-dwelling species could be at the greatest risk because they move slowly and might not be able to escape the lower oxygen levels. Most fish can swim out of danger. Some species, however, such as chinook salmon, may have to start swimming at shallower depths than they're used to. Whether the low oxygen zones will change salmon migration routes is unclear.

CCKA In The Press: San Mateo County cities forced to address sewage overflows

2010-03-07T12:00:00+00:00

Cities across San Mateo County are suffering from a variety of problems resulting from waste water overflows. The overflows, also known as sanitary sewer overflows or SSO's, have been occurring with alarming regularity within the county. So much so that the independent watchdog group San Francisco Baykeeper has initiated a number of lawsuits against the city governments in order to force infrastructure upgrades.

Sanitary sewer overflows occur when untreated sewage is discharged before it reaches a water quality treatment control facility. The main causes of SSO are heavy rainfall, blockage of sewer lines, pumping station malfunctions and human error.

In February, the city of San Carlos agreed to pay a settlement of $350,000 for overflows of untreated sewage into the San Francisco bay. As part of the lawsuit brought on by the San Francisco Baykeeper, San Carlos also agreed to spend millions upgrading its sewer system.

Similar lawsuits have been filed against the cities of San Bruno and Millbrae. San Bruno, already threatened with a $630,000 fine from the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, is accused of spilling 1.9 million gallons of sewage on 58 separate spills from 2004 to 2009. Millbrae is aggressively protesting the number of violations claimed in its lawsuit, though the city has plans spend $34 million dollars renovating its 50 year old waste water treatment facility.

San Mateo, after receiving a cease-and-desist order last year to control the excess flows in the system during the winter, is slated to install two new pipes this summer in order to control the flow of waste water. San Mateo deputy director Darla Reams said, "We'd been working on a plan for 10 years,..We knew we were having overflows in the winter, which is bad. It just became a high priority".

According to a press release from the San Francisco Baykeeper, the lawsuit...

Headline: Stuart Leavenworth: Feinstein says she's no Westlands 'shill,' but ...

2010-03-07T12:00:00+00:00

You know you've struck a nerve with an editorial when, on the very next business day, California's senior senator rings you on the telephone.

That's how I found myself spending an hour on Monday, engaged in an animated but civil exchange with U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Feinstein, calling me from her home near the nation's capital, was responding to a Feb. 27 editorial on her efforts to secure more water for the Westlands Water District, an agricultural giant in the San Joaquin Valley.

Westlands, a federal water contractor that lacks secure water rights of its own, has found itself vulnerable to cutbacks in supplies. Such cutbacks are the result of drought and court decisions aimed at protecting smelt and salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Three weeks ago, it was learned that Feinstein was drafting legislation to override federal biological opinions that limit water pumping from the Delta on the behalf of fish. She came under a fair amount of criticism for that move, not just from us, but other newspapers, too.

"I've been crucified by editorial boards up and down the state," said Feinstein.

For the record, I would not describe either of our two recent editorials on Feinstein as a crucifixion. The first one, on Feb. 14, began with these lines: "In her long and mostly distinguished career, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein has championed many environmental causes. At times she has also challenged environmentalists to consider interests other than their own. That's good."

Then it went on to suggest that Feinstein had made a serious error by drafting her measure – one she later dropped.

Feinstein's main reason for calling was to complain that I hadn't made an attempt to obtain details of her bill language before publishing our editorials.

I acknowledged we hadn't sought that information, assuming she (like other senators) wouldn't provide details of a bill that hadn't yet been filed.

In the spirit of openness, I then asked her to go public with the language of her amendment. She declined.

"What's the point?" she asked.

The conversation went on from there.

I asked her why she was devoting such singular attention to Westlands and not some of the other interests hurt by California's water crisis – such as salmon fishermen.

Feinstein responded that she regularly visits the west side of the San Joaquin Valley during harvest time. During her last visit, she said, "It was the closest to civil insurrection that I have ever seen."

Undoubtedly it's tough for certain farmers around Fresno, my hometown. Many have had to fallow land. Some have had to rip up orchards.

On the other hand, as I noted to Feinstein, scores of Fresno farm operations spent the last decade planting almond orchards, even though they lacked secure water rights or adequate groundwater. Is it the government's duty to help farmers who have made such risky decisions?

Feinstein's only answer was that the Central Valley is a major exporter of almonds, and the state should do all it can to protect the industry.

From our conversation, it was clear Feinstein has bought into many of the talking points of Westlands – that smelt in the Delta are being wiped out by predators more than water pumps, that the Delta is being poisoned with ammonia from sewage treatment plants in Sacramento and elsewhere.

Several times, Feinstein made the claim that the state is in a "wet water year," and thus should be able to spare some for farms. Water, she said, was spilling from Shasta Lake.

When I challenged her on that point, she responded. "Want to bet?"

I could then hear her rustling through some papers before conceding that Shasta was well below its capacity.

Why is Feinstein going to bat for Westlands is this way?

Politics is one answer. Farm water is a huge issue for Valley Democrats trying to keep their seats this year. By putting pressure on the Obama administration to favor farmers over fish, Feinstein provides cover for vulnerable Dems, such as U.S. Reps. Jim Costa and Dennis Cardoza and U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Headline: New visions for the Delta: A national park, perhaps?

2010-03-06T12:00:00+00:00

The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is one of the world's unique landscapes, but unless you own a boat or part of an island, its natural wonders are simply hard to access.

One reason is that the Delta's 1,100 miles of levees are mostly private, and their owners are concerned about public access that may damage levees or cause liability.

As a result, "No Trespassing" signs in recent years have sprouted on levees faster than than cattails.

"It's certainly been underappreciated and underutilized as a place," said Matt Kondolf, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, who prepared a 2007 study to "re-envision" the Delta. "There's actually tremendous potential for tourism and other kinds of open-space recreation."

A variety of new efforts are under way to tap that potential.

The most ambitious is a purely academic plan to create a national park in the Delta. Developed by John Bass, a professor of landscape architecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, it exists only on a Web site he created, deltanationalpark.org.

The plan contains controversial elements, but is intended to be thought-provoking.

Bass proposes a public buyout of the levees to ensure access for recreation.

Flood-resilient housing would be built atop the strongest levees. Some would be tourist accommodations.

Revenue from development would fund park projects, including large setback levees to improve flood protection and riverside habitat where needed, and light-duty ferries to carry hikers and bicyclists between islands.

Farmers would retain ownership of island interiors to continue growing crops, the area's main economic activity.

"This is not about the kind of national park where it's thought of as a wilderness," said Bass, 50, who formerly taught at UC Berkeley and Harvard and has visited the Delta many times.

"To some extent the 'national park' title is a provocation. But why not imagine it as a new kind of national park?"

Already under way is a plan to declare the Delta a "national heritage area." This is a National Park Service status – without the park and its rules.

One of the water bills signed last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger charged the Delta Protection Commission, a state agency based in Walnut Grove, with applying to Congress for the designation.

The commission obtained a $10,000 grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation to prepare the proposal. A consultant has been hired, and Executive Director Linda Fiack said the proposal should be complete next year.

If approved, the Delta would become the state's first national heritage area. The designation highlights unique historic or cultural features, and allows a region to use the National Park Service "arrowhead" logo and signage.

"No land uses would change as a result of getting that designation," said Alex Westhoff, a project specialist at the commission who developed the idea while a graduate student at UC Berkeley. "It's not exactly a park in the traditional sense, and we're sort of sensitive about not using that term, because … people are resistant of designations that have strings attached."

The status would enhance the area's identity as a unique destination, and would provide an official status that could help obtain grant funds for recreation and restoration projects.

Fiack said one option is to limit the designation to the stretch of Sacramento River waterfront towns, from Freeport to Benicia, which have a rich history in farming, transportation and recreation.

Another new project would create a regional trail system.

A 2006 law by Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, requires the Delta Protection Commission to plan the "Great California Delta Trail." It likely would be a network of trails, and not necessarily limited to hiking and biking. Routes could also serve kayaking and farm tourism.

The commission received a $100,000 Coastal Conservancy grant to plan the Solano and Contra Costa county portions. It will seek a $180,000 Caltrans grant for the Sacramento and Yolo county routes. Each county would then have the duty to establish the routes within its boundaries.

The water laws adopted last year also created the Delta Stewardship Council to manage restoration in the 740,000-acre estuary. The only local government member will be whoever holds the chairman's seat on the Delta Protection Commission.

Headline: Humans must be to blame for climate change, say scientists

2010-03-05T12:00:00+00:00

Climate scientists have delivered a powerful riposte to their sceptical critics with a study that strengthens the case for saying global warming
is largely the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases.

The researchers found that no other possible natural phenomenon, such as volcanic eruptions or variations in the activity of the Sun, could explain the significant warming of the planet over the past half century as recorded on every continent including Antarctica.

It is only when the warming effect of emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere from human activity is considered that it is possible to explain why global average temperatures have risen so significantly since the middle of the 20th century.

The study updates a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on climate Change and has discovered several new elements of the global climate which have been influenced by humans, such as an increasing amount of water vapour evaporating from the warmer oceans into the atmosphere and a corresponding increase in the saltiness of the sea.

"There is an increasingly remote possibility that climate change is dominated by natural rather than anthropogenic [man-made] factors," the scientists concluded in their study, published in the journal Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews of Climate Change.

Scientific observations based on temperature recordings on every continent, as well as thermometer readings on, in and above the oceans, leave "little room for doubt" that the earth is warming, but trying to attribute a cause for this global warming is not possible unless man-made activity in the form of carbon dioxide emissions is taken into account, the scientists said.

The review, led by Peter Stott of the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, found the "fingerprints" of human activity on many different aspects of climate change, including the overall warming of the Antarctic recently documented for the first time by other researchers.

"The observations cannot be explained by natural factors," Dr Stott said. Since 1980, the Earth has warmed by about 0.5C and is now warming at a rate of about 0.16C per decade, with even higher rates at higher latitudes such as in the Arctic.

"The fingerprint of human influence has been detected in many different aspects of observed climate change. We've seen it in temperature, and increases in atmospheric humidity, we've seen it in salinity changes. We've seen it in reductions in Arctic sea ice and changing rainfall patterns," Dr Stott said. "What we see here are observations consistent with a warming world. This wealth of evidence we have now shows there is an increasingly remote possibility of climate change being dominated by natural factors rather than human factors."

He dismissed suggestions that variations in solar activity – the intensity of the Sun – could explain warming patterns over the past few decades. If the Sun was responsible then both the upper and lower atmosphere would be getting warmer, instead of just the lower atmosphere as predicted by computer models of greenhouse gas warming.

Headline: Plastic bags only add to California's fiscal woes

2010-03-05T12:00:00+00:00

Californians have clearly stated in polls they want government to cut waste. Yet, given that opportunity last year, in one of the worst economic times, the state missed its chance.

California can slash both wasteful spending and plastic waste, save millions of dollars in annual clean-up costs and protect its valuable tourist industry by reducing its reliance on single-use plastic bags. It’s a bold step — too bold for some people who fear making a small change in their daily routine. But, a growing number of communities are embracing the challenge.

Last year, at least six municipalities, including Monterey and Palo Alto, passed or enacted ordinances to ban or limit the use of certain types of plastic. Other cities such as Malibu and Santa Monica had already banned Styrofoam take-out containers and targeted plastic bags for elimination.

Despite warnings that regulations on plastic would lead to economic downfall, these municipalities are doing just fine. Now it’s time for the state to get on board!

California has a lot to protect. Blessings of natural beauty from the ocean to the mountains to the desert require stewardship by those fortunate to live here. Our coastline is a pillar for tourism and ecology, which contribute $43 billion a year to our economy and provide 408,000 jobs.

We put it all at risk when we request a plastic bag at checkout. Between 60 percent and 80 percent of all trash found in the ocean is plastic. It has injured or killed at least 267 species worldwide, primarily through ingestion, entanglement and suffocation.

The infamous “Pacific Garbage Patch,” a toxic soup of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is the best known example of plastic pollution, where plastic confetti gathers, sucking up toxic chemicals and spreading them to the fish we eat. We use plastic bags and containers for 5 minutes, at most 5 hours, yet they can float in our oceans for 500 years. In California, less than 5 percent of all plastic is ever recycled.

While plastic pollution is a global problem and the result of our throwaway culture, California is no small offender. As a state, we use 165,000 tons of polystyrene each year for food packaging, and 19 billion plastic bags. Of all the plastic found in the ocean and on beaches, 80 percent come from land-based sources.

Last year, multiple bills were proposed to reduce the flow of plastic to the oceans. These included Assembly Bill 68, which I introduced to give consumers a choice to bring a reuseable bag for groceries and for supermarkets or to pay a quarter for each plastic bag they request.

Other measures would have banned single-use, polystyrene take-out containers, and required the caps on plastic bottles be attached so they are less likely to wind up in the ocean. While those two bills were put on hold, the plastic bag bill was defeated. It was seen as too expensive during a bad budget year, even though the poor would have been exempt from the bag fee and grocers have started giving away reuseable bags.

Unfortunately, the cost of keeping the status quo may be higher. Supermarkets can spend $1,500 to $6,000 a month just to provide single-use bags for their customers at checkout. The cost to taxpayers to recycle, collect and dispose of bags is an estimated 17 cents per bag. State agencies in California spend $25 million a year to clean up plastic single-use bags that end up in our waste stream. And this does not include the costs associated with Styrofoam containers, bottle caps, plastic film and other plastic trash that finds its way to the ocean.

We have long passed the point of simply cutting our six-pack rings to save marine life. Photos abound of turtles eating plastic bags — cute until you learn they died — and autopsied birds stuffed like piñatas with bottle caps.

Headline: N.J. environmental coalition urges Oyster Creek nuclear plant to stop damaging Barnegat Bay

2010-03-04T12:00:00+00:00

A coalition of environmental groups, fishing interests, and members of the public concerned about the health of Barnegat Bay and the Jersey Shore's livelihood are all calling on Exelon, the owner of the Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station, to stop harming the Bay with continued operation of antiquated "once-through cooling" technology.

Continued mass destruction of marine life and water pollution caused by the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant is threatening our entire Jersey Shore economy. We cannot allow the greed of one company, Exelon, to put a natural resource at risk that generates $4 billion dollars annually for our state. This permit is right on the money, and we're calling on NJDEP Commissioner Martin to understand this and adopt the permit.

On January 7th, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection issued a draft Clean Water Act permit that requires the company to install a closed loop cooling system on the plant. This technology upgrade would greatly reduce the major effects of the plant on the Barnegat Bay including its massive intake of over 1.4 billion gallons of water a day. Billions of fish and shellfish - like blue crabs, striped bass and flounder - are killed each year, along with their eggs and larvae. And each year endangered sea turtles become stuck on intake screens, and many have been injured or killed by the plant. The water that is returned to the Bay is over 40 degrees hotter than it came in, harming the overall ecology of the Bay and hurting marine life.

"This issue is a test of the whether the Department and the Christie Administration intend to give Barnegat Bay any chance at all to recover. If they allow 2.8 percent of the volume of the bay to be strained of life every day, the decline of the bay can only continue," stated William DeCamp, Chairman of Save Barnegat Bay.

"The Barnegat Bay is suffering multiple problems, and the plant is one of them. No one single fix will bring the Bay back to life. We need to act on them all," stated Helen Henderson, Atlantic Coast Project Manager for the American Littoral Society. "Multiple federal and state agencies including the USEPA, the National Marine Fisheries Service, two different divisions of the NJDEP (the Land Use and Water Quality Divisions), and the Barnegat Bay National Estuary Program have concluded that closed loop cooling is both cost effective and necessary at the plant to limit impacts on the Bay."

The economic benefit of upgrading the plant greatly overshadows the projected cost to Exelon Corporation. The Shore area generates $4 billion in economic activity every year and supports 70,000 jobs. Recreational and commercial fishing and tourism are the largest revenue generators.

"For the past 40 years, since the development of the Oyster Creek Power Plant we have seen a drastic decline in our clam and crab harvest in the Barnegat Bay. The state's commercial fishermen and seafood lovers for too long have paid the price for the profit of this power plant," said Scot Mackey of the Garden State Seafood Association.

"The Barnegat Bay serves as a nursery for the fish species that are valuable to our sport including striped bass, bluefish, fluke, weakfish and winter flounder. These species are incredibly important to the recreational sector and its attendant industries such as marinas, bait and tackle stores, boat dealers and others," stated Sharon McKenna, Operations Manager for the Jersey Coast Anglers Association. "Jersey Coast is not opposed to the Oyster Creek plant. Jersey Coast is, however, opposed to the impact that the current water intake system is having on Barnegat Bay."

Construction of cooling towers would cost a small fraction of Exelon Corporation's annual profits. The upgrade would cost the company an estimated $50 to $300 million, according to the Jeffries Consulting Company, a small fraction of the company's annual profits (less than 2%). Exelon earned over $4.43 billion in profit in the last quarter of last year alone. Over the 10 years that the company has owned and operated the plant, the plant has earned more than $1 billion in profit. Yet, Exelon Corporation has threatened to close the plant if the water permit is finalized, arguing it would be uneconomical to run the plant if the investment in a closed loop system is required.

"Exelon claims to be a good and responsible corporate neighbor. But their threat to close the plant if they're forced to upgrade it pulls the mask off that sham and shows they're just trying to pit workers against the citizens, environmental groups and fishermen who want the Bay protected. The Bay belongs to us all, and Exelon must be a better steward of this resource they so recklessly abuse," said Paula Gotsch of GRAMMES (Grandmothers, Mothers & More for Energy Safety).

"Sometimes, you've just got to give up some of those corporate profits for the greater good, and right now, the greater good is Barnegat Bay and all the fishermen who depend on a healthy bay for their livelihood and all the business people who depend on tourism," said John Hall, a 41 year member of the United Steel Workers 943.

"This is not about closing the Oyster Creek Plant it is about saving the Bay. Barnegat Bay is in serious trouble and the largest single source of the Bay's pollution problems comes from overheated water coming out of Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station," said Jeff Tittel, Director of the NJ Sierra Club. "We need to require cooling towers in order to protect the Bay and save this jewel of New Jersey and the thousands of jobs that the Bay provides to our economy."

The NJDEP will be taking comment on the draft permit through March 15th and it will make a decision to adopt the permit or not soon after. While the draft permit calls for the right remedy for the Bay, it must be strengthened. The draft would allow Exelon as much as 10 years to install a closed loop cooling system. Construction of a closed loop cooling system sooner would have the added benefit of bringing an estimated 300 new ‘green' construction jobs to New Jersey at a time when unemployment is the highest its been in 15 years.

"The draft permit is long over due. To allow another 10 years for the installation of cooling towers is unacceptable. Barnegat Bay has waited long enough and it is on the brink. The permit must be strengthened by requiring cooling towers be operational within a few years. This will have the added benefit of creating good jobs for New Jersey now," said Cindy Zipf, Executive Director of Clean Ocean Action.

Headline: Dirty secrets of farmed salmon

2010-03-04T12:00:00+00:00

Rebecca Stewart, owner of Spice Creek Café in Chico, lived on Vancouver Island for years. There, she operated a restaurant for a decade in the city of Victoria. She sold locally farmed salmon in the early days, but Stewart says dirty industry secrets emerged while the product’s quality visibly deteriorated, and she eventually became unwilling to buy it.

“Now they pack them into the cages like sardines and they feed them coloring and antibiotics,” said Stewart. “I would never feed someone that stuff.”

These days, others are catching on, too. Retail giant Target, for example, recently pulled farmed salmon from its shelves, though that gesture of environmental awareness may be more symbolic than effective. Target stores sold only 250 tons of farmed salmon in 2009, whereas farmed salmon exported to the United States from British Columbia alone totals more than 60,000 tons each year—80 percent of the province’s production. Chile and Norway are two other major suppliers of salmon for the United States market, and countless retailers and restaurants throughout America remain strong supporters of the controversial farmed-salmon industry.

Salmon farms, where parasites called sea lice breed in profuse densities and can smother juvenile wild salmon that pass close to the cages, have led to wild salmon extinction in British Columbia, Norway and other northern nations, according to many experts. On Vancouver Island, the epicenter of the West Coast’s 30-year-old farmed-salmon industry, the damage allegedly caused by open-ocean fish farms has been especially severe. Many streams in the region have seen rapid declines of their wild pink salmon runs since local farming operations began, and several runs have gone extinct.

The worst may still be coming, according to a December 2007 article in Science by Marty Krkosek, who concluded that by 2016 pink salmon will be entirely absent in the waters and rivers of the region’s Broughton Archipelago. Problems are just as serious on the mainland of British Columbia, where the once-mighty sockeye salmon runs of the Fraser River collapsed disastrously last year. Twenty million fish returned annually to the Fraser in recorded history, and while fisheries managers expected to see 10 million spawn in 2009, a record-low 1 million turned up. Biologists have said that salmon farms crowding the waters just north of the river’s mouth likely are at fault. Meanwhile, voices in the salmon-farming industry have denied responsibility.

Ultimately, though, Americans may be the culprits. We create almost insatiable demand for the product, usually treated heavily with chemicals and coloring, and wild salmon runs in regions near the farms are paying the price. Locally, Canadian farmed salmon appears at large grocery chains like Safeway and Costco. At the restaurant level, The Rawbar serves sashimi cuts of salmon farmed near Vancouver Island.

Others have quit serving Canadian farmed salmon for health and environmental reasons.

Most salmon farms are known users of a multitude of antibiotics, sea lice treatments and synthetic dietary supplements. Some chemicals previously used are now prohibited, recognized as dangerous poisons. For example, dichlorvos, a pesticide and a known carcinogen, was found at relatively high levels in the flesh of farmed salmon and was phased out of use through the 1990s and early 2000s.

Emamectin benzoate, marketed as Slice, is still a mainstay of the industry, used almost ubiquitously to reduce levels of sea lice within fish pens. Its effects on native crustaceans, like lobsters and crabs, in the surrounding environment are not fully understood though are suspected to be negative. Worse, perhaps, Slice is losing effectiveness around the globe as sea lice develop genetic resistance to the agent, posing potentially huge problems for the future of salmon farms and the wild salmon that share the same waters.

Nearly all farmed salmon is colored artificially via astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, coloring agents blended into the fish’s feed. Without these compounds, the salmon’s flesh would remain a dull, pasty gray. Canthaxanthin at high dosages has been linked in humans to retinal damage, partial loss of vision and a serious blood disorder called aplastic anemia.

Such issues associated with salmon farming have swayed many buyers toward fish from a farm called Loch Duart, located in Sutherland, Scotland. Spice Creek Café, Red Tavern, and S&S Produce and Natural Foods all serve Loch Duart salmon from time to time. Throughout the world, Loch Duart thrives on a reputation for producing “sustainable” and “artisanal” salmon and has been commended by some of the most esteemed chefs in the world. Stewart at Spice Creek Café says her wholesaler, American Fish in Sacramento, has assured her the product is “organic.”

It is not, however. According to records from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Loch Duart treats its fish with Slice, Panacur and Excis, all common parasite treatments, and the farm is not certified organic. When the CN&R contacted representatives of Cleanfish, a San Francisco seafood distributor that formally represents the Scottish farm, they did not respond to repeated requests to discuss whether the farm uses Slice or artificial coloring in the fish’s feed, both standard applications in nonorganic salmon-farming operations.

Stewart, who has been serving Loch Duart’s fish for several years, knew the salmon was farmed.

“But I had thought it was a controlled, clean environment without any chemicals. I remember thinking, ‘Great! Someone is taking salmon farming back to what it should be and producing a sustainable product.’ I hate to think that they might be tricking people,” she said, upon hearing from this reporter that the company appears to use the same methods as other farmed fisheries.

Stewart, who said she will no longer purchase Loch Duart’s fish, acknowledged that restaurant staff and chefs often put their trust in their fish vendors. “You take their word for what’s sustainable and where something comes from, but maybe they don’t even know.”

Although the Sacramento River’s collapse of chinook salmon is unrelated to fish-farming practices in the Northwest, according to biologists, some California fishermen fear that a consumer base satisfied with farmed salmon will lose all interest in preserving wild runs. Kenny Belov, a part-time commercial fisherman in Marin County and the operator of Fish Restaurant, has launched a campaign against farmed salmon for this reason. More than 20 West Coast restaurants have taken his pledge to never serve pen-raised salmon again.

Headline: Initiative Would Delay Calif. Greenhouse Gas Law

2010-03-04T12:00:00+00:00

Opponents of California's greenhouse gas emissions law are trying to qualify an initiative for the November ballot that would delay implementation of the law.

Supporters of the initiative said Wednesday they want to delay the global warming law until California's economy improves.

Anita Mangels represents the California Jobs Initiative Campaign.

"The initiative calls for the unemployment rate to be at 5.5 percent or less for four consecutive quarters," said Mangels.

The rate is currently more than 12 percent.

California Sierra Club Director Bill Magavern said the four-quarter requirement has been met only three times in the past 30 years.

"This would put on hold, really in a deep freeze, one of California's most important laws to protect our air and atmosphere," said Magavern.

The initiative campaign needs to gather 434,000 voter signatures by mid-April to qualify for the November ballot.

The state law targets greenhouse gas emissions that supporters say is responsible for climate change.

Two Texas-based oil companies are reportedly funding the initiative campaign. The Los Angeles Times reported Valero Energy and Tesoro have pledged as much as $2 million for the campaign, but the companies have not confirmed the report.

Mangels, with the California Jobs Initiative Campaign, said campaign contributors will be released at a future date as required by California law.

California Sierra Club Director Magavern said the two companies would be required to make changes to the refineries they operate in Northern and Southern California.

"They should simply follow the law in California instead of coming into our state and buying signatures on petitions and trying to change the law in California," Magavern said.

But Mangels said the initiative is about jobs.

Spotlight: Klamath Dams Removal Agreement Signed

2010-02-25T12:00:00+00:00

An historic agreement to remove four dams on the Klamath River was signed last week by heads of state, local tribes, farmers, fishermen, environmentalists, and PaciCorp, owner of the dams. Klamath Riverkeeper was instrumental in pressuring PacifiCorp into signing the agreement. Removal will begin in 2020 pending Congressional approval and environmental review.

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Spotlight: Speak Out for Clean Water

2010-02-25T00:47:10+00:00

California's State Water Board is gathering water quality data and information to update its list of severely polluted waterways. Waterways placed on this list must be cleaned up to restore beneficial uses. Stay tuned as CCKA and its member Waterkeepers will host workshops to help you submit your data and information.

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Spotlight: U.S. Oceans Data Hub Launched

2010-02-05T20:02:59+00:00

The National Biological Information Infrastructure Program, coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey, recently launched a new one-stop source for accessing data and information on the nation’s key marine biological resources. The Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS) provides open access to a myriad of data on the diverse marine life that inhabit our ocean waters.

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Spotlight: Restoring Stone Canyon

2010-02-05T12:00:00+00:00

Santa Monica Baykeeper (SMBK) is leading volunteers in a community effort to restore native vegetation and wildlife to Stone Canyon Creek on UCLA’s campus. Over the years, the creek was forced underground and now only a small segment remains. Join SMBK in their efforts to restore one of Los Angeles’ natural streams.

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Spotlight: Supreme Court Weakens Citizens’ Political Voice

2010-01-29T12:00:00+00:00

On January 19th the U.S. Supreme Court granted corporations the same rights as people to weigh in on political campaigns. The dissent wrote that the decision was a “rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding” of our country.

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Announcement: Support Marine Protected Areas in California!

2010-01-29T12:00:00+00:00

The California Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) calls for the creation of a science-based network of marine protected areas (MPAs) along the state's coastline. Stakeholders in Southern California have worked for over a year to implement the MLPA; read more here. You can get involved by sending a letter to the Fish and Game Commission in support of a strong network of MPAs for the South Coast. On the North Coast, a newly-appointed group of marine stakeholders will work to integrate the diverse interests of the region’s constituents into a science-based proposal of MPAs. The success of the MLPA depends on active public participation; stay involved by attending an upcoming meeting! Scientists at this year's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science demonstrated the effectiveness of marine reserves in benefiting both fish and fishermen.

Spotlight: A Return to Dry Farming

2010-01-28T12:00:00+00:00

Until the 1960s and 70s, all grapes were dry farmed in Sonoma County. Driven by concerns over dwindling water supplies and the belief that dry farming produces better tasting grapes, some vintners are returning to this traditional technique. Russian Riverkeeper takes a look at this resurgence in their new film, A Return to Dry Farming. It premiered at the Sonoma Environmental Film Festival.

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Spotlight: Eliminate Once-Through Cooling

2009-12-31T12:00:00+00:00

California's coastal and bay-side power plants use an outdated cooling technology known as “once-through cooling” (OTC) that needlessly kills billions marine species each year. There are readily available and more efficient alternatives to OTC already in use at inland plants. You can help by emailing the State Water Board and urging adoption of a strong policy to end the use of OTC in California.

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Spotlight: Job Opportunity at CCKA

2009-12-24T12:00:00+00:00

CCKA is seeking a qualified and talented Programs Manager to help us protect and improve the health of California’s waterways and its world-renowned coast and ocean. Information about the position is detailed below; electronic mail replies are preferred. We welcome your interest in CCKA and California’s Waterkeepers!

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Announcement: Feds Move to Regulate Drugs in Drinking Water

2009-12-24T01:25:19+00:00

In recent weeks, federal regulators have changed course on regulating pharmaceuticals in public water supplies, taking a critical first step toward acknowledging that they may pose threats to human health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering pharmaceuticals as candidates for regulation in drinking water and examining drug concentrations at water treatment plants across the nation. The Food and Drug Administration is working to reduce the flushing of unused drugs and expand medicine return programs. In California, the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP) is working to provide the State with recommendations on emerging contaminants in coastal and marine ecosystems and will convene a panel of experts in public workshops on this topic in January. SCCWRP is also coordinating research with an expert panel that will answer key questions with regard to these emerging contaminants and recycled water, pursuant to the State Water Board’s Recycled Water Policy.

Spotlight: Marine Spatial Planning Report

2009-12-19T12:00:00+00:00

On December 14th, President Obama’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force released its Interim Framework for Effective Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning. The Framework includes a number of provisions that may significantly overhaul the federal government’s approach to coastal and marine planning. Comments are being accepted until February 12, 2010.

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Spotlight: Is It Safe to Eat Fish from Our Waters?

2009-12-09T12:00:00+00:00

Fish are nutritious, but some can build up toxins from polluted waters. A 2006 CCKA sponsored bill established a California Water Quality Monitoring Council to develop informative water quality reports. The Council has released its latest interactive report, including detailed maps, to answer the question, “Is It Safe to Eat Fish and Shellfish from Our Waters?”

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Announcement: CCKA Launches Interactive Water Quality Violations Map

2009-12-03T12:00:00+00:00

CCKA has developed an online interactive map to help the public and state agencies track and improve compliance with water quality laws. This tool maps all dischargers within California’s six coastal Regional Water Boards that have been issued mandatory minimum penalties (MMPs) since 2000, when the laws setting these minimum penalties took effect. MMPs are issued for “serious” and “multiple chronic” water quality violations. Using the map, you can select your Regional Water Board and click on facilities to learn more about their violation records since 2000. The map also highlights facilities that have not violated in recent years. The MMP Map complements CCKA’s regular work to improve the level, targeting, and transparency of state law enforcement activities. Firm, equitable enforcement both improves water quality and ensures fairness to businesses that follow the law. Violations related to sewage releases, industrial wastes, and contaminated groundwater most frequently caused the issuance of MMPs statewide.

Spotlight: Sewage Threatens Health, Waters

2009-11-24T12:00:00+00:00

A New York Times investigation reports that almost 40% of the nation's sewage systems illegally dump untreated or partly treated human waste, chemicals and other hazardous materials into waterways around the country. Though tens of millions of people are sickened as a result, fewer than one in five violators are ever fined or otherwise punished.

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Spotlight: Ending Destructive Strip Mining

2009-11-16T12:00:00+00:00

Russian Riverkeeper prevailed in a recent Superior Court decision upholding Sonoma County’s 2006 deadline to end Syar Industries strip mining for gravel along the Russian River. “Despite Supervisors vote to break their own rules, the law prevailed and destructive, unnecessary pit mining should now end,” said Riverkeeper Don McEnhill.

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Announcement: New Marine Protected Areas Proposed for Southern California

2009-11-14T12:00:00+00:00

The California Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) calls for the creation of a science-based network of marine protected areas along the state's coastline. Similar to national parks on land, marine protected areas set aside certain designated parts of the ocean for preservation and protection. For nearly a year, stakeholders in Southern California have been working to implement the MLPA. On Nov. 10th, the five-member Blue Ribbon Task Force unanimously passed a landmark recommendation to the Fish and Game Commission (FGC) for an updated network of marine protected areas in Southern California. On December 9th, the FGC and Blue Ribbon Task Force met to discuss the proposed packages of marine protected areas. You can get involved by sending an email to the FGC in support of a strong network of marine protected areas. The FGC is expected to make its final determination next summer or fall.

Efforts are also underway to establish protected areas in Northern California.

Announcement: Support Marine Protected Areas

2009-11-11T12:00:00+00:00

The California Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) calls for the creation of a science-based network of marine protected areas along the state's coastline. Similar to national parks on land, marine protected areas set aside certain designated parts of the ocean for preservation and protection. For nearly a year, stakeholders in Southern California have been working to implement the MLPA and have created three options for a network of marine protected areas. Proposal 3 was prepared by conservation and science-oriented stakeholders; it includes high quality habitats and areas of conservation priority, promising rapid and profound increases in the number, size and diversity of ocean wildlife. Efforts are also underway to establish protected areas in Northern California.

Spotlight: Malibu Sewage Controls

2009-11-09T12:00:00+00:00

Twenty years of failed efforts to clean up raw sewage releases in Malibu lead the Los Angeles Regional Water Board to finally ban septic systems in Malibu. This prohibition will go a long way toward protecting public and waterway health. CCKA and Santa Monica Baykeeper commend the Regional Board and look forward to cleaner Malibu!

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Spotlight: CA Legislature Passes Water Bills

2009-11-04T22:10:22+00:00

The California Legislature passed a suite of policy and bond measures on the state’s water problems. Unfortunately, the Legislature failed to pass meaningful penalties for illegal water diversions or controls on unregulated groundwater pumping. An $11 billion bond for new dams, reservoirs and other projects, criticized by some as including unneeded “pork,” will go before the voters in 2010.

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Spotlight: Aerial Survey Maps

2009-11-03T12:00:00+00:00

Santa Monica Baykeeper partnered with Lighthawk and GreenInfo Network to produce an interactive online map of vessel traffic in the Southern California Bight. This data will help to aid decision-makers develop a network of marine protected areas in the region.

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Announcement: Endangered Steelhead Face Barriers to Critical Habitat

2009-10-15T12:00:00+00:00

CCKA recently released maps of fish barriers that show how dams and road crossings create a multitude of impassible fish barriers on the waterways designated as critical habitat for Steelhead, denying these endangered native fish the cold, abundant flows they need to thrive. The health of California’s waterways depends on both clean water and healthy flows. CCKA actively works to ensure that the State Water Board and Department of Fish and Game fully implement their mandate to ensure healthy flows. Along with our member Waterkeepers, CCKA also works throughout the state to clean up severely polluted waters.

Announcement: New Task Force sets National Ocean Policy

2009-08-28T12:00:00+00:00

In January 2009 President Obama established an Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force led by the White House Council on Environmental Quality to bring cohesiveness to the many agencies involved in marine management. The Task Force is charged with drafting a national ocean policy that ensures protection, maintenance, and restoration of our oceans and coastlines. On September 17th, the Task Force held a public hearing San Francisco at which CCKA's Linda Sheehan was invited to provide expert testimony on West Coast water quality. The Task Force also released its draft Interim Report to the President for a 30-day public review period. Read the draft report, study joint comments submitted to the Task Force here, attend a future hearing, and submit your own comments to the Council on its report.

Announcement: Landmark Decision Establishes New Marine Protected Areas

2009-08-06T12:00:00+00:00

On August 5, 2009, the California Fish and Game Commission passed a landmark proposal to protect waters off California’s coast from Half Moon Bay to Point Arena by establishing 22 new marine protected areas. The proposal was the result of a two year collaborative effort by fishermen, divers, environmentalists, scientists and educators, working to find consensus on complex issues. This group was brought together through the Marine Life Protection Act, a law which calls for the creation of a science-based network of marine protected areas along the state's coastline. These new marine protected areas will help safeguard critical ocean habitats and allow all types of marine life to thrive, from the coral of the seafloor, to the fish and mammals that reach the water’s surface, and all marine life in between. CCKA and its member Waterkeepers were actively involved in this process and will continue to work to establish marine protected areas in the South Coast and North Coast regions.

Announcement: CCKA Executive Director Named California Coastal Hero

2009-07-15T12:00:00+00:00

California Coastkeeper Alliance Executive Director, Linda Sheehan was named a "California Coastal Hero" by Sunset Magazine and the California Coastal Commission. Ms. Sheehan was recognized for her efforts to clean up the waters that flow through California communities to the ocean, and to provide the public with the tools and information needed to hold government decision makers accountable. She has achieved notable success in protecting the health of coastal and marine waters by working to pass landmark legislation and policies that control pollution, improve coastal water quality monitoring, increase enforcement, and make state water data available to the public. Ms. Sheehan was honored along with eight other “Coastal Heroes” at the “Celebration for the Coast Event” in San Francisco, in honor of the 25th Anniversary of Coastal Cleanup Day. This award is a credit to the coordinated efforts of all of California’s Waterkeepers to protect and enhance the health of California’s world-renowned coast and ocean. Read the media release here.

Announcement: State Water Board Releases Once Through Cooling Policy

2009-07-08T12:00:00+00:00

California's coastal and bay-side power plants use an outdated cooling technology known as “once through cooling” that can draw in over 16 billion gallons of cold seawater per day, killing an estimated 79 billion marine species each year. Over thirty-five years ago the Clean Water Act mandated that power plants use the “best technology available” to minimize impacts on marine and Delta ecosystems. However, although newer and more protective technologies are readily available, these once-through cooling systems have been allowed to continue to devastate our coast and ocean for decades. In an effort to put an end to the needless destruction of marine life and habitat, and encourage greener energy technologies, the California State Water Board recently released a new draft policy on once-through cooling. CCKA will continue to partner with groups around the state to advocate for newer, cleaner technologies that will both increase energy efficiency and protect the health of our ocean and our coastal economies. You can get involved by attending the public hearing on 9/16/09 regarding the draft policy.

Announcement: Poisoned Waters

2009-06-01T12:00:00+00:00

America's great waterways are in peril. The PBS Frontline Special Poisoned Waters investigates new and continued waves of pollution that are killing fish, causing mutations in frogs, and threatening human health. The timing of the Poisoned Waters documentary is critical, as clean water has slipped off the national agenda in recent years. The Clean Water Act called for all of our waters to be fishable and swimmable by 1983, but we’re not even close to that. Watch the documentary, which features other Waterkeepers, to learn more, and explore our website to learn about how CCKA and its member Waterkeepers are fighting for clean, abundant water in California.

Announcement: Your Calls and Emails Needed to Protect the Clean Water Act

2009-06-01T12:00:00+00:00

Senator Barbara Boxer chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which voted on June 18th to pass the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787) out of committee. Your calls and emails were essential to this success - thank you!! With the bill moved out of committee, we now have momentum for the full Senate to take up the bill. Keep the momentum going during the upcoming Congressional recess - your calls and emails to both Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein continue to be critical. S. 787 addresses recent federal agency rollbacks regarding the number of waterways protected by the federal Clean Water Act, following U.S. Supreme Court decisions that raised but left unanswered questions about the scope of the Act. Many California waterways, particularly seasonal wetlands and intermittent streams, and even the Los Angeles River, are now exposed to significantly increased pollution because of these rollbacks. The Clean Water Restoration Act would again offer pollution protection to these California waterways. For more background, see here. Please call your local office for Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein today, and ask them to strongly support the Clean Water Restoration Act (S. 787) when it comes to the floor. Thank you!