Officials with the Imperial Irrigation District have proposed a smaller plan for restoration of the Salton Sea, reducing the cost from $9 billion to $3.15 billion. That money, gained through mitigation funds from companies that emit greenhouse gases and from a $7.5 billion water bond, would fund new, shovel-ready projects and geothermal energy development around California's largest lake, which is dying due to diversions and drought. "It's a bargain compared to $9 billion, which everyone agrees has only served to impede any real discussion about what to do," Kevin Kelley, the Imperial Irrigation District's general manager, said at a board meeting. Specifically, the plan calls for $150 million in immediate funding from the $7.5 billion water bond as a stop-gap measure while local officials develop a long-term plan. That money would pay for pilot projects designed to cover parts of the lakebed with small pools, which would suppress dust and provide habitats for fish and birds. Once a prime destination for outdoor recreation, the sea has been shrinking for 12 years because of a massive rural-to-urban water transfer deal in 2003. The decline could become a public health and environmental disaster costing as much as $70 billion if nothing is done to slow sea's degradation, according to the Pacific Institute.
Cities Ask U.S. Supreme Court to Reconsider Plan to Save Santa Ana Sucker Fish
Two cities and ten water agencies have asked the Supreme Court to take up a case against a plan by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to save the endangered Santa Ana sucker by designating critical habitats. The request comes on the heels of a Ninth Circuit Court ruling holding that federal agencies can unilaterally add land to Habitat Conservation Plans under the Endangered Species Act (see CP&DR coverage 29 June 2015). The cities and agencies argued that the designation would unfairly restrict water uses on the Santa Ana River, limiting the agencies' ability to recharge groundwater aquifers with captured runoff from rainstorms in those areas and flood control operations that affect more than 1 million Southern California residents. The designation of more than 9,000 acres of land -- particularly in the northern reaches in the 96-mile-long Santa Ana River watershed-- as critical habitat requires federal agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service before they carry out, fund or authorize any local action that could destroy or alter the habitat's functionality. The Santa Ana sucker, a five-inch-long bottom-feeder, was listed as a threatened species in 2000, and since then it numbers have continued to decline because of diversions, dams, erosions, pollution, and species invasion. Opponents of the expanded HCP have said that the designation does little to help the sucker's complex life cycle.
Oakland Businesses Take Issue with Public Art Fee
A business group in Oakland filed a lawsuit against the city contesting a development fee used to fund public art. The City Council approved the fee in November 2014 to require developers of projects costing more than $200,000 either to install public art on site or to devote one percent of a commercial project's budget to public art and one-half percent for residential projects, with the ordinance stating that public art is "important for the vitality of the artist community as well as the quality of life for all Oakland residents." The two plaintiffs, the Business Industry Association of the Bay Area and Pacific Legal Foundation, called the fee unconstitutional, saying that the requirements violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against "uncompensated takings" because funding art has no connection to the effects of development. "I would interpret this lawsuit as a preemptive strike against the current administration, with the goal of preventing the upcoming development fees from being too onerous," Alex Ludlum, a land associate at Polaris Pacific who works with developers to identify building sites in Oakland, told the San Francisco Business Times.
Feinstein Introduces Federal Proposal for Drought Relief
Sen. Dianne Feinstein unveiled legislation to combat California's water crisis, introducing a $1.3 billion proposal for water storage, desalination, and other projects that will likely come into conflict with a rival proposal in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives. While the House's plan heavily favors San Joaquin Valley growers by rolling back environmental protections and pumping more water there, the two sides could come together over common provisions like storage projects and control of invasive predator species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Feinstein, who is known for deal-making and has connections to agribusiness, said she consulted with 12 environmental groups in crafting the bill after facing criticism last year from environmentalists who said that she failed to include them in negotiations with growers. Feinstein said her bill would not alter the Endangered Species Act, a key objection that environmentalists had to previous legislation."It's definitely a big boost in federal support. It's almost 10 times more than what the feds have provided so far, which is not a lot," Ellen Hanak, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and director of its Water Policy Institute, told the L.A. Times.
Comment Period Closes on S.F. Arena EIR
A proposed Golden State Warriors arena in San Francisco's Mission Bay is making progress as the ownership closed public comment on its draft Environmental Impact Report and gained the endorsement of a key medical center nearby. Despite the fact that the project will have significant, unmitigable impacts on traffic in areas like the Bay Bridge and as many as 11 key intersections in the South of Market, the University of California, San Francisco endorsed the project under the condition that the city negotiate a traffic "trigger" mechanism that would kick in during large dual or overlapping events. UCSF, which owns a six-story hospital complex across the street from the project, said that the Warriors' plan to beef up public transit and funnel arena-bound cars onto certain streets and hospital vehicles onto others created a workable plan, so long as the trigger mechanisms lead to a plan that will make the hospital accessible at all times. A powerful coalition of opponents of the project, known as the Mission Bay Alliance, said that the project is "fatally flawed," and that its effects on neighborhoods and traffic would "threaten patient access to lifesaving care and be a disaster for the Mission Bay neighborhood, the hospitals and city as a whole," as Bruce Spaulding of the Mission Bay Alliance told the S.F. Chronicle.
Poor Air Quality Plagues California National Parks
A new report by a national conservation group gives a handful of California's national parks an 'F' grade for pollution based on air quality, visibility, and climate change. The National Parks Conservation Association flunked Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Joshua Tree and Yosemite for routinely having unhealthful levels of ozone -- a lung-damaging pollutant in smog -- during the summer season, with the air quality at Sequoia and Kings Canyon rated worst in the nation as haze blocked 50 miles of scenery on average at the two parks. While levels of ozone within cities have tapered off dramatically in decades because of new regulations, parks face a different challenge as the ozone can be pushed by the wind over long distances and into high-elevation areas far from major pollution sources. The conservation group recommended strengthening federal regulation of the EPA's regional haze rule, wherein states must restore the clarity of more than 150 national parks and wilderness areas to natural levels by 2064. Many parks are off-track by several decades, including Joshua Tree, where natural visibility is not expected to be achieved until 2106.
SPUR Recommends Strategy for Downtown San Jose
Bay Area urban think tank SPUR released six recommendations for revitalizing downtown San Jose as a city center with people who live and work in walkable, livable neighborhoods. Citing decades of investment and trends of youths working and living in urban centers, SPUR consolidated six ideas to bring more people to downtown San Jose: welcoming all uses of space while holding out for jobs near regional transit, making sure that developers follow key urban design principles, promoting a larger area of Central San Jose with downtown as the core, making the area easier to get around without a car via public transportation, retrofitting the area to be more pedestrian-oriented through placemaking and road redesigns, and building downtown as a cultural and creative center of the South Bay.
Transportation Connections Considered for Burbank's Bob Hope Airport
A new study outlines potential transportation improvements to improve traffic congestion and air quality at Bob Hope Airport as it hopes to begin extensive improvements, replacing a terminal and building a high-speed rail station at the airport. The study, paid for mosty by a $5.4 million federal grant, found that the airport is ideally situated to be the "epicenter for multi-modal connectivity for the San Fernando Valley," but that it has a lack of direct connection to Metro trains, bus or light rail, and about three-fourths of airport employees and passengers drive their own vehicles to the airport. A 58-acre airport-owned property is currently being marketed for sale, hopefully making room to fund short-term improvements like increasing frequency of Metrolink trains serving the airport along with longer-term improvements like an extension of the Metro Red Line, which could likely come 20-30 years down the road.
Carlsbad Plan May Be Retooled in Favor of Cars
The Carlsbad Planning Commission recently approved an update eight years in the making to the city's 1994 General Plan, with a caveat. The commission forward the plan to the City Council with the recommendation that the council adjust it it to better accommodate car mobility and reduce housing estimates in its northeast quadrant. In particular, the Planning Commission took issue with the mobility section of the plan, which emphasized pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets in compliance with California's Complete Streets Act of 2008. "I'm tired of hearing about how everything is about the bikes," Commission Chairwoman Victoria Scully said at the meeting. "We need to keep these major streets a priority for the cars." Explaining that aspect of the update, city traffic engineer Doug Bilse said that the city had to stress additional roadway safety in lieu of driving efficiency in making car lanes smaller while widening bike lanes.
L.A. Metro Considers New Relationship with Developers
Los Angeles's Metropolitan Transportation Authority has proposed changes to its Joint Development Policy concerning the way that the agency partners with developers for development of project on the land it owns. Mostly including provisions regarding affordable housing, the proposed update increases from 31 percent to 35 percent the amount of joint development housing that would be affordable. It also would discount the price of Metro-owned land for a developer willing to build affordable housing up to a maximum of 30 percent equal to the percentage of affordable housing developed. Additionally, it would place emphasis on projects that would provide first/last mile facilities like walkways and bike parking.
Hermosa Beach Announces Plans to Go Carbon-Neutral
The Los Angeles County beach city of Hermosa Beach released plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to become carbon neutral by 2020. Specifically, the city has implemented a new app by consultant Brendle Group that can calculate the carbon output of every bit of energy the city consumes. It then plans to identify some of the cheapest, quickest routes to reducing carbon output -- including replacing all streetlights and lighting in city facilities -- to get started. The City Council also allocated $50,000 to invest in electric vehicles for parking-enforcement officers and staffers who carpool to office, a chunk of around $420,000 in carbon offsets the city would need to buy in order to become carbon neutral by 2020. "The South Bay is becoming a model for working together to create and implement programs to address greenhouse gas emissions and resource conservation," South Bay Cities Council of Governments Executive Director Jackie Bacharach told the Daily Breeze.
L.A. Officials Want to Reopen Historic Funicular
Calls are growing for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board to reopen the Angels Flight funicular, a 298-foot transportation system akin to an uphill streetcar ride between Bunker Hill and Downtown that has been shut down since 2013 because of safety issues. Seeing the system as a vital historical landmark as well as a valid form of transportation, downtown business and cultural leaders urged Metro to help fund the reopening, saying that the 50-cent fares provide an important connection between the Historic Core and Bunker Hill. Advocates say that the Metro could easily make room in its budget for the funicular's $360,000 annual operating costs. The transportation system has been variedly shut down and reopened over the past several decades. In one accident in 2001, one of the rail cars careened down from the hill and killed and 83-year-old tourist. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation following a 2013 derailment found that the operators had been using a small tree branch to override the train's emergency stop settings.
