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Bulletin Board
YET ANOTHER DECISION ON THE STATUS OF THE SACRAMENTO SPLITTAIL is due by March 22. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service listed the silvery-gold member of the minnow family as threatened in 1999. However, the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority and the State Water Contractors sued the Service, alleging that the Service had failed to use the best scientific and commercial data available. A federal court found in favor of the plaintiffs and ordered the Service to reevaluate the listing determination.
NATIONWIDE THE DESTRUCTION OF WETLANDS has been cut by 80 percent over the past decade because of federal laws and conservation programs protecting such areas from developers, farmers and loggers, according to a Fish &Wildlife report released in January. A net of 644,000 acres of wetlands were lost between 1986 and 1997 in the lower 48 states — an average of 58,500 acres a year, compared with 290,000 acre net loss per year in the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. The report estimates that 105.5 million acres of wetlands remain.
RAIN AND AIRBORNE PARTICLES contribute 15 to 35 percent of the nitrogen in the coastal streams that flow into U.S. estuaries, according to a new study from U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Blackland Research Center at Texas A&M University. The study is the first comprehensive evaluation of the nitrogen contribution of sources such as cars, trucks and power plants to the nation’s waterways. The study also confirmed that estuaries receive much of their nitrogen from non-atmospheric sources, including farms, pastureland, and wastewater treatment plants. Agricultural runoff contributed the largest share, more than one-third in most of the coastal watersheds studied. (See Now In Print)
HIGH BACTERIA COUNTS measured by an environmental watchdog group suggest that it may not only be unsafe to eat the Delta’s fish (because of high mercury levels), but also to swim and ski in it. Using quality controlled methods, DeltaKeeper began monitoring bacteria in Delta waterways last May, and found coliform levels in the "hundreds of thousands" in Delta waterways, and e.coli that was "way up there too," according to group head Bill Jennings. He says the results confirm all the anecdotal evidence he had of bacterial contamination (usually caused by fecal matter). "People would tell me that as soon as they started to ski at the beginning of the season, they’d get sick," he says. (209)464-5090
A SEARCHABLE ONLINE DATABASE of California’s water-related educational resources and programs, volunteer opportunities and internship possibilities is scheduled to be up and running in March. The Coastal Commission is seeking information on organizations and programs to include in the 2001 Coastal, Marine and Watershed Resources Directory. Interested organizations can complete a survey at http://www.coastal.ca.gov/publiced/directory/dirndx.html Contact: Sarah Borchelt (415) 597-5888
THE STALEMATE OVER WATER HYACINTH spraying is still going on and the weeds are winning. Last March DeltaKeeper sued the state’s Department of Boating & Waterways, saying it needed a permit and a hearing to continue its 16-year-old war against this waterway-clogging South American plant, and also that it should reexamine the merits of mechanical controls. Boating & Waterways followed up on the lawsuit this October, applying for a permit (NPDES) to spray herbicides from the Central Valley Board, who promptly tabled it. To keep things rolling—they’ve got to be able to spray by late spring—Boating & Waterways appealed the permit issue up to the State Water Resources Control Board. The appeal is scheduled to heard on March 7. In the meantime, a judge denied DeltaKeeper’s request for a summary judgement, and dismissed its complaint this January, lobbing the ball squarely back in the water board’s court. (916)263-0780
THE DISCOVERY OF HALF A DOZEN ENDANGERED RED-LEGGED FROGS in a freeway cloverleaf near Hercules has stopped construction of a luxury hotel in its tracks—for now. The frogs were found in a small perennial wetland created by the discharge of a culvert between two freeways (possibly a man-made rerouting of a branch of Refugio Creek). According to Fish & Wildife’s Don Hankins, the developer must develop a mitigation plan, but the future for the frogs doesn’t look good, with sprawl taking place throughout the area, including upstream, where there is a breeding population. The developer has proposed moving the frogs to another site or performing unspecified offsite mitigation. A golf course here, a luxury hotel there, the net result is that the frogs always lose, says Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. "To say we can always deal with the frogs by moving them—that’s a horrible precedent," says Miller.
EXPANSION AND REPAIR OF A LEAKY, RUSTED PIPELINE carrying treated sewage from the Livermore-Amador Valley to the Bay will go forward with the understanding that cities served by the Valley’s Wastewater Management Agency—Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, and part of San Ramon—come up with a Habitat Conservation Plan that would set aside criticial habitat for the red-legged frog, the Alameda whipsnake and the San Joaquin kit fox. Concerns about the project’s impacts were raised when regulators reviewed the project’s CEQA documents, and found that one purpose of the pipe was to accommodate planned growth. To make sure new development doesn’t take place at the expense of endangered species, Fish and Wildlife suggested that the cities prepare an HCP. The wastewater agency has committed $245,000 toward the HCP, although it contends that it could choose to ignore Fish and Wildife’s request for an HCP, since it has changed its original plan, which would have affected salt marsh harvest mouse habitat.
LOAN AND GRANT FUNDING FOR LOCAL STUDIES, PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS that will enhance water supply reliability and increase the beneficial use of existing supplies is now available through CALFED and Proposition 13. Applications are available online at http://wwwdwr.water.ca.gov/grants-loans/default.html
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