CP&DR

Litigation Likely Regarding New Federal Fish Regulations

Aug 1, 2000

Environment Watch, John Krist, Vol. 15 No. 08 Aug 2000

A day before his agency issued sweeping regulations to protect threatened salmon and steelhead in California, Oregon, Idaho and Washington, Will Stelle was matter-of-fact about the likely reaction: litigation. As northwest regional administrator for the National Marine Fisheries Service, he's been in the hot seat for years as the region has struggled to reverse the devastation visited upon native fish species by dams, farming, urban development, road construction, logging, water diversions, and co...

Sludge War Pits Rural Kern County Against South State Cities

Jul 1, 2000

Environment Watch, John Krist, Vol. 15 No. 07 Jul 2000

Each day, a parade of trucks heads north out of the Southern California metropolis, grinding over the Tehachapis and descending into Kern County, one of the state's premier agricultural regions. The convoy is nearly a mirror image of the truck traffic heading the other way laden with commodities grown in the fertile Central Valley. There is an important difference, however. Whereas the southbound trucks, bearing oranges, tomatoes, almonds, carrots, cotton and other valued products, are we...

Consumers Gag on L.A.'s Toilet-to-Tap Program

Jun 1, 2000

Environment Watch, John Krist, Vol. 15 No. 06 Jun 2000

For the past decade, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has been preparing to tap a significant new supply of water to help meet demand in its growing service area. Yet, after investing $55 million in a pipeline and related facilities, the DWP put the project on hold in late April, just days before it was to begin operation. The reason was a loud, albeit belated, public outcry about the source of that new water: the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant, which treats munic...

Santa Clara Watershed Planning Still Moving Ahead

May 1, 2000

Environment Watch, Paul Shigley, Vol. 15 No. 05 May 2000

A four-year-old pilot project intended to improve the quality of water flowing into the southern end of San Francisco Bay continues to move forward. Interests ranging from builders to environmentalists to regulators are participating in the Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative (WMI), and a detailed watersheds characteristics report — an important baseline document — is due out this month. Although the broad-based approach to dealing with entire watersheds is happening in an urban a...

Diverse Entity Starts Work on Sacramento River Habitat Program

Apr 1, 2000

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 15 No. 04 Apr 2000

One of the most difficult parts of making environmental changes is bringing all the parties to the table. Sometimes it takes lawsuits, sometimes it takes political pressure. In the case of the Sacramento River in California's Central Valley, it has taken 13 years of meetings among environmentalists, government officials and farmers to gain consensus and cement ties for a group to coordinate a river restoration project along a huge portion of the 373-mile river. The best-known and most conte...

Stormwater Runoff Limits Tightened by Water Boards

Mar 1, 2000

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 15 No. 03 Mar 2000

Recent actions by two water boards signal a movement in the state towards greater regulation of non-point water pollution. The new regulations could start a trend in California of tightened development standards, which have already taken hold elsewhere in the country. The biggest step was taken in Los Angeles, where the local Regional Water Quality Control Board voted in January to set measurable numerical standards for treating stormwater runoff in new development throughout Los Angeles Co...

Costly Options Presented to Remedy the Salton Sea

Feb 1, 2000

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Salton Sea, Vol. 15 No. 02 Feb 2000

The Salton Sea is sometimes referred to as Southern California's Lake Tahoe, and while efforts to save the northern lake took shape 20 years ago, officials only now are making big decisions about the future environmental health of the southern water body. The Salton Sea (which is also sometimes called a lake) has been in a downward environmental spiral in recent years. Rising salinity, warnings about eating its fish, oxygen depleting algal blooms, and the deaths of thousands of birds and fish ...

Army Corps of Engineers Changes Course in Flood Control

Jan 1, 2000

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 15 No. 01 Jan 2000

Five California waterways are in the running for federal funding in a new program to help restore and protect their environmental features while building protection against floods. A federal water bill signed by President Clinton last August listed the waterways. The program is another sign of a dramatic shift in how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approaches flood control. Instead of trying to control water flows and protect every structure from harm's way, under the new Challenge 21 (also.

Logging Rules Overhaul Angers Industry and Its Environmentalists

Dec 1, 1999

Environment Watch, Paul Shigley, Vol. 14 No. 12 Dec 1999

From the viewpoint of the timber industry, the state Board of Forestry is working on a package of rules that would significantly reduce timber harvests on private property. From environmentalists' standpoint, the board is laboring over rules that do not go nearly far enough toward protecting water courses and endangered salmon from the effects of logging. The two sides agree on one thing — state forestry regulators do not have adequate data and analysis to make new rules. "Our concern is t...

Court Makes DFG Adfd CEQA to Stream Permit Reviews

Nov 1, 1999

Environment Watch, Larry Sokoloff, Vol. 14 No. 11 Nov 1999

Forced by a lawsuit to incorporate the California Environmental Quality Act process into the way it issues streambed and lake alteration permits, the California Department of Fish & Game has issued new procedures that will require more property owners to do greater environmental review before they undertake such projects. Every permit (often called a "1600" for a section of the Fish and Game Code) will be examined to see how CEQA applies, according to Jim Steele, a DFG program manage...

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