CSPA Advisory - 2.8.07
Delta and Klamath Actions Provide Some Encouragement
There's good news and bad
news out on a key Delta decisions and the fate of the Klamath
River. Regarding the Delta, the National Marine Fishery Service
has rejected DWR's application for a permit to begin the
building of barriers in the South Delta - part of the first
phase of the "South Delta Improvement Project" the
Department of Water Resources spin doctors would have us believe
that building barriers and increasing exports will improve the
ecology of the Delta along with its collapsing foodweb and
fisheries, but NMFS put at least a temporary stop to this
misrepresentation due to the agency’s inept modeling of
potential environmental impacts. We applaud the Service's clear
thinking and acknowledgment of their legal responsibilities!
They play a key role in upholding the federal Endangered Species
Act which provides some protection for Winter-run salmon and
steelhead.
The good news for the
Klamath is that NMFS bit the political bullet and aimed a stake
at Pacific Corps heart for hard balling the negotiations to find
a workable settlement on dams Pacific Corps want to relicense
for up to fifty years. Since it cost more to provide the fish
passage facilities to get fish up and down the river past the
dams than it will cost to remove them, maybe Pacific Corps will
honor their previous commitment to let the public buy the
project out!
On
the down side, the Governor has appointed a "Blue Ribbon
Delta Vision Task Force" that is to is to develop a
“Delta Vision” to provide a sustainable management program
for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta and sustainable water
exports out of the Delta. The Task Force will prepare an
independent “public report” and submit it to the Delta
Vision Committee and the Governor that sets forth their findings
and recommendations on the sustainable management of the Delta
by January 1, 2008. This is to be followed by a Strategic Plan
to implement the Delta Vision by October 31, 2008.
Looking through the list
of those appointed has left me wondering why the term "Blue
Ribbon" is being used in this context? With the possible
exceptions of Phil Isenberg and Sunny McPeak, the appointments
don't appear to have significant qualifications in the field of
restoring the estuarine ecology, water quality or fisheries --
the three critical areas that must be addressed if the Delta
Vision Process is not to turn into a continuation of the CALFED
Delta Nightmare Process. Perhaps the real disappointment here is
the failure of the administration to appoint anyone from the
fishing community with genuine knowledge of the fish and their
habitat the require to be a sustainable resource.
The articles that follow
should shed more light on these issues.
Plan
to get more out of Delta denied; Agency that protects fish
rejects permits for tide gates that
state planned to build before seeking OK to increase capacity
Contra Costa Times – 1/31/07
By Mike Taugher, staff writer
Federal regulators have pulled the plug on permits needed to
build new tide gates in the south Delta, undercutting plans to
ramp up the capacity of pumps that deliver water to Central and
Southern California.
The decision by the
federal agency charged with protecting threatened and endangered
salmon, steelhead and sturgeon suspends work on the permit but
leaves the door open for the state to get permission for the
tide gates later. The gates would replace temporary rock
barriers that are installed each year and, by raising and
lowering to let water in and out, the gates are meant to improve
water quality for farms, improve circulation and accommodate
fish passage.
In essence, the agency, NOAA Fisheries, said it would not
approve California's water management puzzle one piece at a
time. Instead, the agency says it is legally required to look at
the big picture first.
And the big picture is in
so much flux that environmentalists contend the regulatory
decision likely kills plans to increase the pumping capacity.
The state had planned to build the tide gates, then get approval
for higher pumping rates in a controversial two-phased program.
"It is probably the death knell for the South Delta
Improvements Program proposal," said Jonas Minton, water
policy adviser to the Planning and Conservation League, an
environmental group. "Their opportunity to slip this
through has most likely passed."
The increased pumping plan
was already foundering because of an ongoing ecological crisis
in the Delta that many scientists say is partly attributable to
the pumps."We're not having any discussions on increasing
the pumping limit," said Kathy Kelly, chief of the
Bay-Delta branch of the Department of Water Resources.
NOAA Fisheries' decision
also puts state water officials in a bind because they are under
a cease-and-desist order from a state regulatory agency, the
State Water Resources Control Board, to begin improving water
quality by 2009.
"Obviously, we
consider salinity in the South Delta to be a real water quality
problem and it needs to be solved," said State Water
Resources Control Board spokesman William Rukeyser.
The water resources department says those standards can be met
by installing tide gates. If the gates do not get built, another
way to meet those goals would be to reduce water deliveries out
of the Delta, a controversial idea.
The Delta supplies water
to 23 million Californians and millions of acres of rich
agricultural land. But its ecosystem is in a deep crisis with
several fish species' populations at extremely low levels.
Solutions have proved elusive so far and progress on any front
has come, at best, in fits and starts.
In 2004, NOAA Fisheries
approved a new overarching plan to move more water from north to
south, but that approval came under blistering criticism. An
inspector general's report found procedural irregularities that
resulted in a relaxation of environmental conditions. And an
independent scientific panel found the permit failed to use the
best available science. Salmon anglers sued. Federal authorities
responded by agreeing last July to re-evaluate that
permit.Meanwhile, government lawyers determined that considering
the construction of tide gates without considering how they
would be used was a possible violation of law. They did not want
to defend another legally vulnerable permit.
"The last thing our
lawyers recommended was doing something that might not be
legally defensible," said Russ Strach, NOAA Fisheries'
assistant regional administrator for protected resources.
NOAA Fisheries also noted
that it was given one set of hydrologic modeling information to
evaluate the tide gates, but another set of information to
evaluate the larger plan, called the Operations Criteria and
Plan. Kelly said that to meet the water quality order, the
department hopes to convince federal regulators to allow it to
build the gates but only use them from June to November, when
concerns for fish are lower. But Strach said his agency was
unlikely to approve that plan because it fails to consider how
the gates will be used before they are built.
Minton, from the Planning
and Conservation League, said the environmental and water supply
tensions in the Delta have grown so great that he thinks water
agencies are beginning to change strategies and resurrect an
idea rejected 25 years ago.
"The water exporters
are now switching their attention to efforts to get a peripheral
canal. They don't think south Delta diversions are
sustainable," Minton said.
#
KLAMATH RIVER FISH LADDERS:
Feds demand fish ladders for Klamath dams
Eureka Times-Standard – 1/31/07
By John Driscoll, staff writer
Federal fisheries and wildlife agencies stuck to their guns in a
final demand to require Klamath River hydropower dam owner
Pacificorp to install ladders for salmon and other fish if it
wants a renewed license to operate.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service and National Marine Fisheries Service's stance on
providing ways for fish to get above the dams to spawning
grounds that have been cut off for decades changed little since
its draft report last year. The agencies also issued a scalding
indictment of Pacificorp's proposal to trap fish and truck them
above and below the dams instead.
Advocates for removing the
four dams in question believe the order may grease the skids
toward a settlement with Pacificorp that would involve tearing
the dams out. It would be the largest dam removal project in the
country.
Installing the ladders and
other infrastructure needed to allow salmon, steelhead and
lamprey to move freely up and downstream may cost $300 million.
Those costs could be passed onto Pacificorp's ratepayers,
although the California Energy Commission and the U.S.
Department of Interior, conservation groups and American Indian
tribes hold that taking out the dams and replacing the 151
megawatts by building modern power plants would be a much better
deal.
”My interpretation is
this should convince Pacificorp that they have lost this battle,
and they need to think about their ratepayers and what's best
for them,” said Steve Rothert with the group American Rivers,
a party to ongoing settlement talks.
Salmon stocks in the
Klamath have suffered in recent years and led to severe cutbacks
in commercial fishing. Water quality problems have become worse,
and diseases among fish are widespread. The Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission is now considering issuing another 30- to
50-year license for the operation.
The report issued Tuesday
says that building fish ladders will better protect several
species of fish than Pacificorp's proposal, which was modified
in December. That included some fishways to be built on some
dams, while trapping adult fish to release them both above and
between the dams to take advantage of habitat that's been cut
off.
”In short, we found that
Pacificorp's alternative was substantially less protective of
public trust resources,” said Steve Edmondson with the
National Marine Fisheries Service.
Among the concerns is that
Pacificorp's proposal only deals with fall run chinook salmon,
not the other species. Edmondson said that the company's plan
and didn't offer the certainty the agencies wanted. The problems
the agencies outlined included the likelihood of harming fish by
handling them, making existing disease problems worse, and
failing to protect red band trout that live between the dams.
Pacificorp spokesman Dave
Kvamme said that the company believes ladders won't work on dams
like lowermost Iron Gate Dam, which he said the agencies
ignored. But he wouldn't say that Pacificorp intends to
challenge the demands in court, but would rather wait until the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission comes out with an
environmental impact statement on the project.
Kvamme said the prescriptions imposed by the agencies has not dampened
enthusiasm for a settlement among the stakeholders in the
Klamath basin.
”Settlement is still a viable option as far as we're concerned,”
Kvamme said.
#
Fate
of Klamath River dams in play; Federal officials call for
upgrades to four of them to help salmon get upriver. But it may
be cheaper to take the barriers down
Los
Angeles Times – 1/31/07
By Eric Bailey, staff writer
SACRAMENTO — Federal officials called Tuesday for
costly improvements to four Klamath River dams, a move that
could hasten removal of a hydropower system that for generations
has blocked imperiled salmon from their upriver spawning
grounds.
Interior and Commerce
Department officials said that in order to get its license
renewed, Portland-based PacifiCorp would be required to install
fish ladders and screens to ease the salmon's annual migration.
The cost of such
improvements could reach $470 million, as much as $285 million
more than the cost of removing the dams and replacing their
electricity for the next 30 years, according to a government
study.
That vast cost discrepancy
could put pressure on the power company — a subsidiary of
billionaire Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway empire — to
negotiate a truce with Indian tribes, fishermen and
environmentalists pushing for demolition of the towering
structures.
The Klamath, which emerges
from the snowmelt of the Cascade Range in Oregon and dashes
south into California before emptying into the sea north of
Eureka, once was the nation's third-most productive salmon
river, with up to 1.2 million salmon and steelhead trout joining
an epic annual migration to spawn.
Today, the river's coho
salmon are on the endangered species list, and its chinook
salmon have suffered such steep declines that the 2006
commercial season was virtually shut down on the West Coast.
Activists say
decommissioning the hydropower project, which produces enough
electricity to light 70,000 homes, could help restore health to
a river system hit by water quality problems, fish-killing
diseases, diversions for farming and other woes.
"This would represent
the largest and most ambitious dam removal project in the
country, if not the world," said Steve Rothert of the
environmental group American Rivers. "Some dams have been
taller, but these on the Klamath cast a bigger footprint on the
landscape; 350 miles of upstream habitat would be
reopened."
A spokesman for PacifiCorp
said the company plans to press ahead with its effort to win a
new license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission but
believes a settlement with anti-dam activists and federal
agencies could prove the best remedy.
"We never said we
wouldn't consider dam removal as an outcome in the settlement
process," said Dave Kvamme, a company spokesman. "But
there's no silver bullet. There's an assumption that if you take
out the dams, the fish will come. That ignores so many other
problems on the river."
Last March, federal
officials issued a preliminary call for fish ladders, boosting
hopes among anti-dam activists. In the months since then,
PacifiCorp has waged a fight to persuade U.S. wildlife agencies
to accept its alternative: a plan to trap the adult fish and
haul them around the dams. Wildlife officials concluded that the
alternative would provide less protection than ladders.
The four dams pose a big
obstacle. The tallest rises 157 feet above the river bed,
requiring a fish ladder six-tenths of a mile long. Such long
fish ladders have historically been ineffective, PacifiCorp's
Kvamme said, with salmon becoming exhausted and confused as they
attempt to climb scores of steps. Company officials are uneasy,
meanwhile, about government estimates comparing the costs of
keeping the dams with those of demolishing them.
Kvamme said it was
impossible to estimate accurately how much replacement energy
would cost in coming decades if the hydro dams were razed. Dam
removal, meanwhile, could be far more costly than anyone
imagines, Kvamme said. Dealing with the 20 million cubic yards
of sediment trapped behind the dams could cost $1.5 billion or
more, he said.
Kvamme also said the
Klamath's network of tributaries — among them the Shasta,
Scott and Salmon rivers — all suffer ecological troubles that
would not be addressed by dam removal.Though the company has
fought to win license renewal for the dams, it has also
participated in regular settlement negotiations for nearly two
years with government agencies, Native American tribes,
fishermen, farmers and other groups with stakes in the Klamath's
health.
The closed-door
negotiations have in recent weeks reportedly narrowed the range
of potential solutions, prompting anticipation among
participants that a slate of solutions could be reached in a
compromise.
"I continue to
believe that a locally driven, basin-wide approach holds the
most promising hope for a comprehensive solution to the river's
problems," said Steve Thompson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service manager for California and Nevada.
#
From: Governor's Press
Office
Sent: Wednesday, February 07, 2007 8:33 AM
Subject: Governor Schwarzenegger Announces Appointments to the
Delta
Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Aaron McLear
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Rachel Cameron 916-445-4571
Governor Schwarzenegger
Announces Appointments
to the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force
Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger today announced the appointment of Monica Florian,
Richard Frank, Phillip Isenberg, Thomas McKernan, Sunne Wright
McPeak, William Reilly and Raymond Seed to the Delta Vision Blue
Ribbon Task Force.
"A safe and secure
levee system and an adequate and clean supply of water are
critical to our economy and every family in our state,"
said Governor Schwarzenegger. "The Sacramento/San Joaquin
Delta levees serve two out of every three Californians and we
must continue to support the environmental and economic
functions of the Delta that are vital to the people of
California."
Florian, 58, of Huntington
Beach, most recently served as senior vice president for the
Irvine Company from 1978 to 2004. Prior to that, Florian worked
as assistant planning director for the City of Huntington
Beach from 1973 to 1978 and was an associate planner for the
County of Riverside from 1970 to 1973. She is a former member of
the Nature Reserve of Orange County, Upper Newport Bay Watershed
Executive
Committee and the California Council for Environmental and
Economic Balance. Florian is a Republican.
Frank, 57, of Sacramento,
currently serves as the executive director of the California
Center for Environmental Law and Policy at Boalt Hall School of
Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to that, he
was the chief deputy attorney general for legal affairs at the
California Department of Justice, where he worked from 1997 to
2006.
Frank previously held the
positions of chief assistant attorney general, senior assistant
attorney general, supervising deputy attorney general and deputy
attorney general at the California Department of Justice. He is
a member of the Environmental Law Section of the California
State Bar and the Planning and Conservation League. Frank is
registered decline-to-state.
Isenberg, 67, of
Sacramento, has served as president of Isenberg/O'Haren
Government Relations since 2005. From 2004 to 2006, he was a
member of the board of directors for the 21st Century Insurance
Group. Isenberg previously served in the California State
Assembly, where he was a member of the Water, Parks and Wildlife
Committee. He served as chair of the California Marine Life
Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force from 2004 to 2006 and is a
member or the American Civil Liberties Union, Sierra Club and
the Sacramento Valley Conservancy. Isenberg is a Democrat.
McKernan, 62, of Arcadia,
currently serves as chief executive officer of the Automobile
Club of Southern California and Auto Club Enterprises, where he
has worked since 1966. McKernan is the chair of the California
Business Roundtable and serves on the board of the California
State Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the Forest
Lawn Memorial Parks Association. McKernan is a Republican.
McPeak, 58, of Pleasanton,
currently serves as president and chief executive officer of the
California Emerging Technology Fund. From 2003 to 2006, she
served as secretary of the Business, Transportation and
Housing Agency. McPeak formerly was president and chief
executive officer of the Bay Area Council, where she established
and led major regional initiatives. Prior to her time at the
Council, she served
three years as president and chief executive officer of the Bay
Area Economic Forum. McPeak is a Democrat.
Reilly, 66, of San
Francisco, is a founding partner of Aqua International Partners,
under the Texas Pacific Group, an investment company where he
has also served as a senior advisor. From 1989 to 1993, Reilly
served as the seventh administrator of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. Prior to that, he was president of the World
Wildlife Fund from 1985 to 1989 and held the same position at
the Conservation Foundation from 1973 to 1989. Reilly is a
Republican.
Seed, 49, of Walnut Creek,
has served as a professor of civil and environmental engineering
for the University of California, Berkeley, since 1987.
Previously, he was an assistant professor of civil engineering
for Stanford University from 1983 to 1986. Seed is a member of
the American Society of Civil Engineers and the International
Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineers. Seed is
registered decline-to-state.
These positions do not
require Senate confirmation and there is no salary
