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Court upholds Southern California storm water runoff standards

12/15/10

A state appeals court ruled Tuesday that Los Angeles and Ventura counties can enforce water-quality standards designed to protect the region's beaches from polluted runoff, regardless of the cost to local governments and contractors.

The Fourth District Court of Appeal overturned a 2008 ruling in favor of Arcadia, 20 other Los Angeles County cities and a building industry association, who sought to overturn the storm-water pollution regulations by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board because the agency did not consider their economic impact on construction projects.

Several environmental groups -- Natural Resources Defense Council, Santa Monica Baykeeper and Heal the Bay -- intervened to challenge that ruling. This week they celebrated its reversal as a victory for the health of Southern California beaches, where fouled storm water is a major source of pollution.

"This decision will protect millions of people who use local beaches and water resources throughout Southern California and assures that science remains the focus when these standards are developed,” said David Beckman, water quality program director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The consortium of cities, including Arcadia, Carson, Claremont, Downey, Glendora and Whittier, joined the Building Industry Legal Defense Foundation in 2005 to file suit against the State Water Board and the L.A. regional board, saying the treatment control structures to meet its storm-water quality regulations for metals, bacteria, trash and other contaminants were prohibitively expensive to install.

In the 29-page opinion issued Tuesday, the appeals court found the state was required to adopt measures to control water pollution under the federal Clean Water Act.

Richard Montevideo, attorney for the plaintiffs, said he was disappointed by the ruling, which he said was "cursory and did not do justice to the case."

"Our position was and remains that they have to consider whether these standards can reasonably be achieved -- what the economic impacts are," he said. "A lot of these requirements are just not feasible. In some cases it doesn’t matter how much money you spend."

Montevideo said he would confer with the cities in the suit to determine whether they would ask for the case to be heard by the California Supreme Court.

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Wild coho salmon run in Marin County renews hope

12/17/10

One of the last runs of wild coho salmon in California has surged into the Lagunitas Creek watershed in western Marin County , bringing renewed hope to fisheries experts, watershed managers and those who have devoted their lives to salmon procreation.

The endangered fish had all but disappeared over the past two years, creating fear among biologists that the species was in the midst of a death spiral. Then, during rains this past week, the fish arrived and began laying eggs in the creek and tributaries, which wind through the lush San Geronimo Valley.

Biologists with the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network, or SPAWN, the Marin Municipal Water District and the National Park Service counted 55 coho and 30 egg nests, or redds, in Lagunitas and San Geronimo creeks and in Devil's Gulch over the past week.

"That's the most that we've seen in a single week in three years," said Eric Ettlinger, the aquatic ecologist for the water district. "After two terrible years for coho, it's a relief to have more fish returning to Lagunitas Creek, so I'm cautiously optimistic that we've seen the worst of the population decline."

Largest wild run

The Lagunitas watershed, which winds 33 miles through the picturesque redwood- and oak-studded valley on the northwest side of Mount Tamalpais, supports the largest wild run of coho salmon along the Central Coast and is considered a model for fisheries restoration around the state.

It is unique in that the primary spawning grounds are in the middle of developed communities. Some 40 percent of the coho in the watershed are hatched in tributaries surrounded by homes, golf courses, roads and horse corrals in the 9-square-mile San Geronimo Valley

Coho in Central California were listed as endangered in 2005 under the Endangered Species Act. The Lagunitas is considered by fisheries biologists to be the last true refuge for wild coho on the Central Coast. There are bigger runs elsewhere - especially after the dramatic decline over the past two years - but many of the coho in other places were raised in hatcheries.

Run still below average

Marin's wild coho took their time this year - they usually swim up the creek during the first rains - and even though their undulating figures can be seen over the gravel beds, the numbers are well below average for this time of year.

Last winter, 67 live fish and 51 redds were spotted during spawning season. The year before that, 43 fish and 26 redds were counted. Those two years are the worst on record.

In 2004-05, 1,342 coho were seen in the watershed. Those fish left 496 egg nests. The average since 1995 is 524 fish and 217 redds in Lagunitas Creek and its tributaries.

While the fish now in the creek are encouraging to water and fisheries managers, not everyone is so optimistic.

"We are down to the end of the line," Todd Steiner, the executive director of SPAWN, said. "Despite better than average rainfall and early rainfall, which is normally good for coho, we didn't see fish until about two weeks ago. The National Marine Fishery Service is saying we're in an extinction vortex. We're at the now-or-never point."

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State should follow San Jose's lead on plastic bag ban

12/17/10

San Jose's ban on plastic bags will help our local creeks, estuaries, parks and highways, which now are littered with billions of bags that never make it to the recycling plant. But what we really need is a statewide law.

The 10-1 City Council vote Tuesday makes San Jose the largest city in the nation to implement a ban. Starting in 2012, single-use plastic bags will be allowed only in restaurants. Stores will have to charge 10 cents for a paper bag, although shoppers on public assistance won't have to pay.

This should encourage the use of reusable totes and stop at least a small portion of the 90 billion plastic bags Americans use every year -- 3.8 billion in the Bay Area alone -- from choking wildlife and fouling public spaces. It's estimated that 1 million bags a year end up in San Francisco Bay.

San Francisco, Oakland and Palo Alto, among others, have passed bans, while Sunnyvale, Fremont, Marin County, Santa Clara County and others are considering similar laws. Good for them -- but a statewide ban is what we need.

It would do the most for the environment, but it also would conserve local government resources and save businesses the expense of complying with a patchwork of regulations. That's partly why grocery stores got behind AB 1998 earlier this year. It passed the Assembly in the summer but died in the Senate after an intense lobbying campaign by the plastic bag industry.

Given the power of lobbyists in Sacramento, local laws may be the best we can do for now. But, fortunately, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't giving up. He's encouraging the Legislature to pass a ban before he leaves office. A lame duck governor doesn't have much sway, but he's right on this.

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San Jose City Council approves plastic bag ban

12/14/10

SAN JOSE, Calif.—Paper or plastic?

That's a question shoppers won't hear in San Jose starting in 2012, when plastic bags will be banned in California's third largest city.

KTVU-TV reports that the San Jose City Council voted 10-1 Tuesday to ban single-use plastic bags and bar retailers from giving away paper ones.

The ordinance requires stores to charge 10 cents for paper bags in 2012 and 25 cents in 2013 to encourage shoppers to use reusable sacks.

San Jose joins San Francisco and several other California cities in banning plastic bags, which environmentalists say clutter the environment and harm wildlife.

But some shoppers say plastic bags are useful and they can't afford to buy reusable or paper bags.

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Navy shelled over training plans; big crowd voices frustration over harm to environment

12/16/10

Local residents sounded off at a Wednesday night meeting about the U.S. Navy's plans to boost the frequency of training off the West Coast, accusing the military of downplaying the potential damage to marine life.

Eureka's Wharfinger Building was packed with people looking to air concerns about how sonar might affect marine mammals and fisheries and the potential effects of ordnance that includes depleted uranium used as part of the training exercises. An environmental impact statement on the increased exercises was completed in September, but local worries prompted Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, to ask the Navy to hold the meeting.

Westhaven resident Sylvia De Rooy called the environmental analysis repetitive, obscuring the truth behind sonar use. She said the poor success rate of spotting whales from ships means they are exposed to sonar more frequently than is represented.

”If whales are dying at sea, do they know?” she said.

The Navy's Northwest Training Range Complex has been in use since World War II. It is about 122,000 nautical square miles, stretching from the Olympic Peninsula in Washington to approximately the northern border of Mendocino County. The Navy plans to increase the frequency of training in those waters but not expand the range.

Project Manager John Mosier said that the exercises are small, with single ships or small groups of ships and airplanes, the vast majority of which takes place off Puget Sound. There are some land-based activities in Puget Sound. All training in the southern part of the range occurs out beyond 12 nautical miles. The Navy uses the areas off that part of the range only about four times per year, Mosier said.

Training with active sonar is critical to being able to detect modern submarines, and while sonar operators use simulators to train as well, that is not enough, Mosier said. He compared it to pilots who use simulators in flight training.

”Eventually, they have to fly the airplane for real,” Mosier said.

Sonar would be used for a maximum of 108 hours a year, he said, about a 10 percent increase over previous years. The Navy is not permitted -- per regulations through the National Marine Fisheries Service -- to kill any marine mammals, he said. When challenged on that issue, Mosier said that 13 incidences of injury to whales are expected each year, while 99 percent of the effects of sonar would disturb their behavior.

When Navy lookouts spot whales within 1,000 yards of a ship using sonar, the sonar is required to be powered down, and if whales come within 200 yards, it must be turned off immediately.

But several people in the audience said that the Navy should avoid the use of sonar altogether during the migrations of humpback and gray whales along the West Coast, and not operate in marine reserves and sanctuaries.

Former Arcata City Councilman Dave Meserve asked what would happen if the Navy found that it had killed a whale using sonar -- would it stop using it altogether?

”When does the preservation of life become a part of national security?” he asked.

Speakers also began to question whether their concerns would amount to anything, as the project has already been approved by the assistant secretary of the Navy. Mosier said that there are adaptive management elements of the plan that could potentially be influenced by public concerns but that the Navy personnel at the meeting were not the ones making decisions.

When Beth Werner of Humboldt Baykeeper urged people to continue writing to Thompson, one man said the Navy was there as a red herring and didn't intend to change anything. That man even asked the Navy panel what would happen if the crowd were to detain them there nonviolently.

Ali Freedlund with the Mattole Restoration Council said that there needs to be a much closer look at the Navy operations' effects on other marine life like salmon, which have declined in numbers in recent decades.

”You are jeopardizing everybody's fish by doing what you're doing,” Freedlund said.

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