WATER SUPPLY

Irrigation district wants to expand groundwater banking for drought years at cost of $50-$60M
Story
From Hanford Sentinel – Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Phil Desatoff can’t stop thinking about the problem.

Like turning off a tap, farmers are slowly but surely using up underground water supplies. They’re sucking more well water out of the aquifer than they are replenishing with rain and snowmelt runoff.

Butte near final water deal that could bring $12 million to county in next decade
Story
From Chico Enterprise-Record – Wednesday, July 4, 2012
A deal that could open a new relationship between the Department of Water Resources and Butte County and could net the county about $1.2 million a year for the next decade is all but signed, sealed and delivered.

Water agencies see bond vote delayed again
Story
From Whittier Daily News – Wednesday, July 4, 2012
As state Democrats scramble to better the chances for Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax hike proposals, a bond measure to pay for much-needed local water projects is being moved to the back burner.

California lawmakers likely to vote to postpone $11 billion water bond… again

Radio news
From KPCC – Tuesday, July 3, 2012
California state lawmakers are expected to vote this week to postpone a multi-billion-dollar water bond slated to be on the November ballot.

Supervisors extend drought declaration

Story
From Hanford Sentinel – Tuesday, July 4, 2012
From KFSN/30 – Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Kings County supervisors on Tuesday extended a drought emergency declaration for at least another month, putting growers, ranchers and local agencies in the position to receive possible federal and state aid.

Water, infrastructure, CEQA reform critical to State’s economy, report says

Story
From ACWA – Tuesday, July 3, 2012
A new report by the California Economic Summit identifies water reliability and investment as critical to the future of the state’s economy.

RIVERS

Federal officials delay Calif. salmon restoration

Story
From Sacramento Bee – Monday, July 2, 2012
Federal officials say they are delaying for three years the restoration of salmon runs in the San Joaquin River.

Delta

Is the Peripheral Canal imminent?

Blog
By Brian Leubitz
From Calitics – Tuesday, July 3, 2012
California has always been fractuous, coastal versus inland, north versus south. But many of the issues tend to be about water. Where it is (NorCal), where it isn’t (SoCal), who has a guaranteed supply(SF and its Hetch Hetchy reserve, etc) and who is chronically looking for more (LA and agrobusiness). Yet nothing really draws ire (and desire) like the Peripheral Canal.

Coalition response…The writer makes three fundamental mistakes in this biased screed against sensible water use. First, alternative conveyance is actually intended to improve the health of the Delta by returning flow to a more natural east-to-west pattern. That will help species, such as the Delta smelt, that are in decline precisely because the current system doesn’t work.

Second, water supplies to farmers may only go directly to 0.5% of the population but those people use it to grow food that the rest of us buy at the grocery store. There’s an absolute connection between farm water and the food we find in the grocery store.

And last, claiming that Southern California was never a very good place to grow crops demonstrates a lack of knowledge of California’s agriculture industry. Los Angeles was the top agriculture county in the nation during the first half of the 20th Century before widespread development pushed farming out.

Cutting off water supplies to the farms in other parts of the state will have the same effect on consumer food choices. There will be fewer fresh California fruits and vegetables in the stores, costs will rise and we will be more dependent on food supplies from other countries that do not have the same food safety and production practices that we have here in California.

Rivers

Merced River water bill abandons values, promises

Viewpoint
By Ralph Mendershausen, Michael Martin and Rob Webster
From Modesto Bee – Wednesday, July 4, 2012

“It’s a small step,” Rep. Jeff Denham said. “We need thousands of jobs in the Central Valley, and we need many more projects like this.” With these words Denham, R-Turlock, praised the passage of Merced Irrigation District’s House Resolution 2578 in the House. The congressman took the occasion to demonize “environmental extremists” who seem to him to not care about things like jobs and clean energy.

Coalition response…The concerns expressed by these authors are exaggerations that misrepresent HR 2578. This legislation provides an increased supply of water for people, farms and businesses in years when the water is available, which may not be every year. Claiming that this proposal would “blow a big hole in the National Wild and Scenic River system” is rhetoric that ignores reality. Instead, it corrects an unintended encroachment of the Wild and Scenic Rivers designation on the Merced River, which included an area previously defined within the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) MID boundary upstream of Lake McClure. Debate is a healthy discourse but facts are needed.

Originally published Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 8:00 PM

Vicki Nomura, the special agent in charge of law enforcement for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, has been removed from her position while internal government investigators look into the operations of her office, sources say.

By Craig Welch

Seattle Times environment reporter

The special agent in charge of federal fish cops in the Northwest has been removed from her position while internal government investigators pore over documents from her Seattle office, sources say.

Vicki Nomura, who has overseen law enforcement for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle for a decade, was abruptly replaced in mid-May by an official from the agency’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.

Her office was the subject of attention earlier this year when it was disclosed that one of her agents had paid $300,000 for a luxury boat without following proper bidding procedure, then used the boat for social outings with friends and family.

Officials at the Fisheries Service declined to comment on the latest investigation. An email written by the agency’s new director of law enforcement, Bruce Buckson, to his staff said Nomura “has been temporarily detailed to HQ staff for an undetermined length of time.”

But several sources with knowledge of the situation said the agency’s head of law enforcement told staff in Seattle that the U.S. Commerce Department’s inspector general was conducting an internal investigation of Nomura and of operations in Seattle.

The focus of the review was not clear, but staff members were told to avoid contact with Nomura.

One former agent, now retired from government service, even called the agency’s headquarters last week to share information about his tenure in Seattle. He was put in touch with internal investigators who agreed to pass his contact information to the inspector general conducting the investigation.

A spokesman for the inspector general’s office said the agency could neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.

The Fisheries Service is a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Nomura’s section of the agency is a law-enforcement branch that employs 111 special agents with most of the same police powers as FBI agents.

Fisheries agents police commercial fishing and the illegal trade in fish and marine mammals, from poaching of endangered species to international smuggling of everything from whale teeth to shark fins. There are 12 special agents in Seattle.

In the last two years, the Fisheries Service’s national law-enforcement program has been the subject of several scathing audits, focused primarily on leadership in its Maryland headquarters and on issues in New England, where agents were accused of bullying commercial fishermen, conducting heavy handed raids on fish markets and mismanaging an asset-forfeiture fund.

The reviews criticized agents for threatening fishermen cited for violating fishing rules with extravagant fines — sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of dollars — if the fishermen contested the citations.

The agency’s previous top law-enforcement officer, Dale Jones, was shifted to a new job after he was accused of shredding documents. His superiors have said the shredding was part of a routine paperwork purge.

Read more:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018571362_noaacop01m.html

For our children

http://youtu.be/VuCaWYvpVZg?hd=1

New study shows finances likely to be worse than planned and poll shows voters not happy with high speed rail spending

(SACRAMENTO) – As more bad news mounts for California’s high speed rail plan, Senator Doug LaMalfa (R- Richvale) continues to push for a re-vote on the project. A new report from California Common Sense found that with expected cost overruns, the revised and smaller project would likely cost over $99 billion. The report also found that California would need to make annual payments of $6.5 billion for the project if the state shoulders the burden alone. That is more than the state currently spends on the California State University, the University of California and state-sponsored childcare combined. The federal transportation bill passed last week prohibits future federal funding for the project, virtually assuring that California alone will carry the costs.

“Costs for high speed rail will continue to rise even as public support plummets,” said Senator LaMalfa.  “California doesn’t have the money for this project.  We are cutting the school year, releasing violent felons early, and the governor wants to increase taxes on every Californian while spending billions we don’t have on a project citizens don’t want.”

Additionally, a Field Poll released today indicates voters who support Governor Brown’s tax increase are less likely to support the measure if the state continues with high speed rail spending.  The poll shows voters support Governor Brown’s taxes 54-38%, but 21% of those who support the tax would oppose if the state uses the money for high speed rail.

“Voters simply aren’t buying the line that we need to cut education and public safety but have ample money for high speed rail, and they’re right not to,” continued LaMalfa. “It seems clear to most voters that these tax increases will pay for high speed rail and other government boondoggles, not education or public safety.”

A vote in the State Senate on $8 billion in high speed rail funding is expected tomorrow. However, the Senate Budget Committee did not schedule a vote on the proposal today, instead holding an informational hearing.

The California Common Sense study may be found at the following location: http://www.cacs.org/images/dynamic/articleAttachments/13.pdf

The Field Poll may be found at the following location: http://field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2415.pdf

Senator Doug LaMalfa is a lifelong farmer representing the fourth Senate District including Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Siskiyou, Sutter, Del Norte, Placer, Trinity, Yuba and Nevada counties.

By DAVID PITT | Associated Press – Mon, Jul 2, 2012

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Midwest ranchers have never been enamored with environmental regulators, but they really began to complain after learning that federal inspectors were flying over their land to look for problems.

The Environmental Protection Agency flies over power plants and other facilities nationwide to identify potential air, water and land pollution. It began using aerial surveillance in the Midwest in 2010 to check farms for violations of federal clean water regulations.

Ranchers who object to the program said they’re not trying to hide anything. It’s the quiet approach the EPA took with the program designed to spot illegal disposal of animal waste that they find upsetting. Most were not even aware of the flyovers until regional EPA officials mentioned it at a meeting three months ago.

“For me, it just creeps into the ‘Big Brother is watching you’ area, to where the government just feels like it’s getting more and more intrusive,” said Buck Wehrbein, who manages a cattle feeding operation in Mead, Neb., about 30 miles west of Omaha.

EPA officials explained during a meeting with ranchers in West Point, Neb., that they lease small planes that fly EPA staffers over cattle operations. The staffers take photographs as they seek evidence of illegal animal waste running off into rivers and streams.

Ranchers complained to their members of Congress, who responded angrily and then grew even more annoyed by what they considered the EPA’s sluggish response to their inquiries for information about the flights. Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns, a Republican, introduced an amendment to a multifaceted farm bill to stop the flights, but it fell four votes short of the 60 needed. Although most backers of the amendment were Republicans, 10 Democrats supported the proposal.

“EPA has been deliberately ambiguous when it comes to the size and scope of this program,” Johanns said in a statement. “EPA must be honest about this program or cease it entirely, and I will continue pressing for this information on behalf of all concerned farmers and ranchers.”

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, met June 25 with top EPA administrators to find out why the agency was flying over farms when there was no indication that regulations had been violated. He also sought more information about why the EPA flew over farms that weren’t required to have discharge permits.

“The EPA has come back with some answers, and those are being reviewed now,” Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said. The senator may go back to the EPA again for more detail, she added.

EPA Regional Administrator Karl Brooks, who oversees Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska from his Kansas City office, didn’t respond to interview requests from The Associated Press.

In response to more than two dozen questions sent by Nebraska’s congressional delegation to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on May 29, Brooks released a five-page document about the flights.

It said the agency conducted three flyovers in Iowa in 2010, five in 2011, and one this year. In Nebraska, there were six flights last year and three this year.

Two more flights are planned this year in each state.

The EPA said the flights don’t target individual farms and focus on areas with many animal feeding operations or watersheds where the state has identified streams polluted by animal waste.

As a result of the flights, the EPA said, it has taken 39 enforcement actions against Iowa livestock farmers and 14 against Nebraska producers.

Brooks said the agency uses the flights to minimize costs and reduce the number of on-site inspections.

“With one combined animal feeding operation inspection costing upwards of $10,000, and Region 7 responsible for improving water quality in about 1,800 miles of impaired Nebraska waters, across 50,000 square miles, EPA uses tools, like airplane flights, to focus our resources and compliance efforts where they are needed most,” he wrote.

Brooks’ response hasn’t satisfied congressmen such as Republican Rep. Adrian Smith, whose rural district covers about three-fourths of Nebraska. He said state inspectors already have the authority to inspect ranches and he isn’t sure the EPA’s flyovers are needed. He is co-sponsoring a bill introduced by Rep. Shelly Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, to prohibit the EPA from using farm flyovers to enforce the Clean Water Act unless the agency has written voluntary consent, provided public notice or obtained a court order.

The EPA conducted flyovers of West Virginia farms in 2010.

http://news.yahoo.com/midwest-ranchers-lawmakers-protest-epa-flyovers-080146368.html