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Bulletin Board

CALFED OFFICIAL In late September, the state of California made it official. The CALFED program, an $8.7 billion, multi-year plan to reform California's water use, now has its own agency. The California Bay-Delta Authority will operate under the California Resources Agency, with status equal to the state Dept. of Fish and Game and the Department of Conservation. A 20-member governing board will include 12 federal and state officials, seven members of the public, and one representative from the Bay-Delta Public Advisory Committee. The state legislature also allocated $476.7 million for CALFED's third year of operation. The program's costs are supposed to be split equally among federal, state, and local entities. But the feds have been slow to pick up their share. CALFED boosters like Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) still hope to pass a CALFED authorization bill before Congress adjourns at the end of the year, but the Bush administration has included only $15 million for all Bay Delta environmental programs, including CALFED, in its budget proposal.

The Golden State's golden trout - the official "state fish"-may soon received federal protection if a petition to list it by Trout Unlimited is granted. The trout has declined as a resulted of hybridization with introduced rainbow trout and competition from introduced brown trout as well as damage to its habitat from cattle grazing. After determining that the petition had merit, U.S. Fish & Wildlife now has 12 months to determine whether the fish should be listed as threatened or endangered or to decide that listing is not warranted.

A beleaguered foot-long bunny - the riparian brush rabbit - got a boost recently when eight captive-bred rabbits were released along the San Joaquin River near Modesto. The rabbit is the first federally protected animal native to California to be bred in captivity: to date, 44 rabbits have been bred in a facility near Sacramento; all will eventually be released. The rabbit's population was almost decimated in the winters of 1997 and 1998, when its habitat was flooded for long periods, and numbers dropped to a few dozen.

PCBs in the tissues of Largemouth bass and white catfish caught in Stockton's Yosemite Lake and Smith Canal are five times higher than the federal government's cancer-risk limit, according to a new study sponsored by DeltaKeeper. Although PCBs were no longer manufactured after 1977, the chemical - used in coolants and lubricants in electrical equipment - doesn't break down quickly and can remain in sediments for decades. The report concludes that the compound accumulated in worms at the bottom of the food chain and worked its way up to the fish. Fishing health advisories are posted along the Stockton Deep Water Channel near Smith Canal.

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