In Ventura, a retreat in the face of a rising sea

1/16/11

Higher ocean levels force Ventura officials to move facilities inland, an action that is expected to recur along the coast as the ocean rises over the next century.

At Surfers Point in Ventura, California is beginning its retreat from the ocean.

Construction crews are removing a crumbling bike path, ripping out a 120-space parking lot and laying down sand and cobblestones. By pushing the asphalt 65 feet inland, the project is expected to give the wave-ravaged point 50 more years of life.

The effort by the city of Ventura is the most vivid example to date of what may lie ahead in California as coastal communities come to grips with rising sea levels and worsening coastal erosion. As the coastline creeps inland, scouring sand from beaches or eating away at coastal bluffs, landowners will increasingly be forced to decide whether to spend vast sums of money fortifying the shore or give up and step back.

State officials say the $4.5-million project in Ventura is the first of its kind in California and could serve as a model for threatened sites along the coast.

"Managed retreat, as it's called, is one of the things that we're going to have in our quiver to deal with sea-level rise and increasing storms," said Sam Schuchat, executive officer of the California Coastal Conservancy, which helped fund the Surfers Point project.

Sea levels have risen about 8 inches in the last century and are expected to swell at an increasing rate as climate change warms the ocean, experts say. In California, the sea is projected to rise as much as 55 inches by the end of the century and gobble up 41 square miles of coastal land, according to a 2009 state-commissioned report by the Pacific Institute.

For years, the preferred solution to an eroding shoreline has been to build sea walls or dump imported sand to serve as a buffer. About one-third of the Southern California coastline and about 10% of the shore statewide have been fortified with sea walls and other hard structures.

Although artificial barriers may protect property in the short term, they often intensify the effect of waves, leaving beaches stripped of sand until they narrow or disappear, permanently altering surf patterns.

As a result, beach-armoring projects are increasingly out of favor with environmentalists and coastal regulators.

At Surfers Point, Ventura officials first knew they had a problem about two decades ago, when storms started chewing away at the oceanfront bike path a few years after it was built.

When heavy storms hit, waves ate mounds of sand, washed away chunks of asphalt and exposed rebar, car parts and junk that had been underground for decades.

Officials at the Ventura County Fairgrounds, which is on a 62-acre site next to Surfers Point, initially suggested a buried sea wall. But environmentalists and surfers fiercely objected, saying that armoring the shore would protect a parking lot at the expense of the beach and destroy the point break near the Ventura River that generates the distinctive, surfer-friendly waves for which the site was named.

After extensive debate, the fairgrounds agreed to give up some of its property for a plan that would provide room for the sand to shift. It is based on the idea that beaches are constantly in flux, growing as the summer's gentle waves bring sand ashore and shrinking when winter storms scour it away.

"It was the right thing to do for all of the residents of the county," said fairgrounds Chief Executive Officer Barbara Quaid, who prefers not to view it as sacrificing land but as redirecting its use. "Coming down to the beach and seeing it beautified is a lot different than coming down and seeing a bike path that's falling into the ocean."

The "managed retreat" marks a reversal with profound implications for a state that has for more than a century crammed its most valuable homes and businesses on the edge of the ocean.

"There's the old-school mentality that when nature threatens you, you fight back," said Paul Jenkin, Ventura campaign manager for the Surfrider Foundation and a longtime advocate for the project. "So this idea of retreating and moving back was really quite a radical proposition."

In the near term, there are a number of publicly owned sites, from a weathered parking lot hugging a narrow strand at Cardiff State Beach in San Diego County to a lifeguard station within a few steps of the surf in San Clemente, where planners might soon have to consider moving structures out of harm's way.

Such a decision would be far tougher for private property owners, but they too could eventually be in the position of giving up billions of dollars of desirable real estate.

"The challenge is we have built most of our civilization within a few feet of sea level or right at the edge," said Gary Griggs, a coastal geologist at UC Santa Cruz who co-wrote the book "Living With the Changing California Coast." "It's either going to be managed or unmanaged, but it's going to be retreat."

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Thompson reintroduces bill to permanently ban drilling on North Coast

1/12/11

Congressman Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, reintroduced legislation that would permanently prohibit oil and gas drilling off the coasts of Mendocino, Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

According to a press release from Thompson's office, the congressman introduced the Northern California Ocean and Coastal Protection Act, which would protect the unique and dynamic marine environment along the Northern Coast of California's outer continental shelf (OCS) from offshore drilling. Thompson also introduced this legislation in the 111th Congress.

”It is critical that we permanently protect our coast and its vital marine life from the environmental hazards of offshore drilling,” Thompson said. “In past Congresses, this important issue has become a political dispute rather than a debate on legitimate policy. This legislation will steer the debate back to sensible, science based policy, and ensure the well-being of our oceans for future generations.”

During the 110th Congress, the ban on OCS drilling expired, which leaves the North Coast susceptible to drilling. The moratorium on OCS drilling had been a bipartisan agreement in Congress since 1982, but came under regular attack, and was not renewed in 2008.

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New law to limit lead in drinking water fixtures

“Get the Lead Out” federal law signed by President Obama

Four years ago, the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Board of Directors boldly launched a campaign to persuade California lawmakers to require manufacturers to remove lead from faucets and other water fixtures. It was given little chance of success in the face of strong opposition.

EBMUD’s Board of Directors, led by the relentless efforts of Board members John A. Coleman, Doug Linney and William B. Patterson, worked closely with Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Oakland, who sponsored California legislation AB 1953.

The federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), which determines the national lead content standard, currently allows up to 8 percent lead content for faucets and other plumbing fixtures, and limits the amount of lead that can leach from plumbing into drinking water. But health studies show that much smaller amounts of lead exposure can have serious impacts on children and adults, including kidney disease, hypertension, hearing loss and brain damage.

The new laws began with some disturbing observations by EBMUD staff in Oakland in 2004. As the District replaced plumbing fixtures in its system, engineers realized outdated state and federal laws permitted excessively high levels of lead in plumbing parts, information they shared with the Board.

This landmark public health legislation received the support of countless children’s health and public health organizations, hospitals, environmental and consumer protection advocates, in addition to state and national drinking water associations.

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New U.S. lead ban has roots in East Bay

Written by Mike Taugher for the Contra Costa Times, 1/7/11

A new federal law that bans lead in new faucets within three years is patterned after a 2006 California law that was sponsored by the East Bay's largest water district.

For the past year, California has required that new faucets have no more than trace amounts of lead -- no more than 0.25 percent, a standard 32 times tougher than the old one.

President Barack Obama this week signed a similar bill for the nation, which was carried by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto. The new law gives manufacturers three years to comply.

California enacted its standard in 2006 after workers at the East Bay Municipal Utility District realized that despite water districts' insistence on lead-free fittings and valves for its water systems, home plumbing fixtures were permitted to contain up to 8 percent lead.

"When we learned you could have up to 8 percent lead in your faucet and we knew you could make a faucet without lead, it was a no-brainer," said EBMUD lobbyist Randy Kanouse.

Lead is a health threat, especially to children. Water districts such as EBMUD are required to test drinking water for lead at both treatment plants at the tap, so the district faced the possibility that its efforts to remove lead could be reversed by lead in household plumbing.

The bill was strongly opposed and only had limited support within former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's circle of advisers, Kanouse said.

"Everyone else ... hated the bill and said veto, veto, veto," Kanouse said.

But he got a one-word e-mail shortly before the governor's deadline to act on bills in 2006. "Signed," it read.

Vermont and Maryland followed California's initiative and the faucet-making industry saw the potential for a patchwork of different standards developing.

An industry official said that while faucet makers saw the initial state legislation as unnecessary -- since they had to test to ensure lead did not leach from faucets into tap water -- it supported federal legislation.

"Once it passed in California, our goal was to harmonize the rest of the country for the sake of efficiency," said Barbara Higgens, executive director of the Plumbing Manufacturers International near Chicago.

Carmel River Will Be Diverted Around San Clemente Dam

12/29/10

The California Coastal Conservancy reached agreement in December to bypass an obsolete dam on California’s Carmel River rather than dredging and buttressing the 90-year-old structure. The $84-million reroute and dam removal project will divert the river around the 106-ft high concrete arch San Clemente Dam built in 1921. The basin has since been swamped with 2.5 million cu yds of sediment, thereby reducing storage capacity from 1,425 acre-ft to 125 acre-ft. In 1992, the California Dept. of Water Resources Division of the Safety of Dams issued a safety order because of possible failure from a maximum flood event or an earthquake.

A 2008 Dept. of Water Resources study showed that the alternative of buttressing the dam would have cost $49 million, but not resulted in improved access for steelhead trout spawning or restoration of the lower river. California American Water, which draws supplies for its customers from the dam’s diversion point, agreed to pay the cost of buttressing with the California Coastal Conservancy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration picking up the rest of the price tag.

The diversion will require careful orchestration. Engineers took possible downstream flooding issues into consideration, and decided not to allow the accumulated sediment to wash downstream. The dam’s remote location also made transporting an estimated 200,000 truckloads of sediment impractical. Instead, contractors will reroute a half-mile of the Carmel River into San Clemente Creek by blasting and ripping through a narrow ridge and using the abandoned section of the river as sediment storage after creating a diversion dike from the excavated rock to maintain the new route.

The project will move into the approval stage through the Public Utilities Commission in 2011 and could begin construction as early as 2013. The project’s third phase includes dam removal and habitat stabilization.

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EPA approves Klamath River salmon plan

1/5/10

Federal regulators Tuesday ordered major reductions in the amount of pollution that pours into the Klamath River, an action that American Indians and environmentalists touted as a milestone in the fight to restore once-thriving salmon runs to Northern California.

The U.S. EPA approved a water-quality-improvement plan that would force farmers, foresters and utilities to help clean up the main stem of the Klamath, which for years has suffered from high levels of silt, chemicals and toxic algae.

"The salmon are an indicator species for the biologically important Klamath watershed, but they are really on a precarious path downward in terms of their existence," said Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the EPA. "We want to make sure that not only are we providing fresh clean ecosystems for the fish, but also for the people."

The plan, which received final approval on Dec. 28, calls for a 57 percent reduction in phosphorus and a 32 percent cut in nitrogen, both of which are associated with polluted runoff from agriculture, diversions and the pooling of water in reservoirs. Among other things, the standards also require a 16 percent cut in what is known as carbonaceous biochemical oxygen, which is essentially a measure of wastewater in the river.

Agricultural groups, which face limits on irrigation, and PacifiCorp, which operates four hydroelectric dams on the river, were not happy with the plan, which they insisted used faulty data.

"It's inappropriate and unachievable," said Art Sasse, the spokesman for PacifiCorp, which is considering a lawsuit. "We are going to assess our options to protect our customers."

Large salmon run

The mighty Klamath, which is now a federally protected "wild and scenic" river, flows 255 miles from Oregon though California to the Pacific Ocean, draining 12,600 square miles of mountains, forests and marshlands that some have called the Everglades of the West.

It was historically the third-largest source of salmon in the lower 48 states, behind the Columbia and Sacramento rivers. Chinook once swam all the way from the ocean to Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon, providing crucial sustenance to Indians, including the Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribes in California and the Modoc and Klamath tribes in Oregon.

Water quality began to decline when four midsize dams were built along the Klamath's main stem starting in 1909, blocking miles of salmon-spawning habitat. The dams - Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle - warmed the river water, allowing destructive parasites and blooms of toxic blue-green algae to contaminate the water. Water diversions for cities and agriculture exacerbated the problem, according to fishery biologists.

Since 2004, levels of cyanobacteria and microcystin toxins at several locations on the lower Klamath have exceeded World Health Organization standards. The entire Klamath River is now listed by the federal government as "impaired."

Critical lawsuit

The EPA was forced to regulate water quality in the Klamath after a lawsuit was filed in 1997 by the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations and 12 other environmental organizations demanding that pollution limits be set.

The situation got national attention after a massive die-off of 33,000 salmon in 2002. Still, farmers and other water users were furious about efforts to limit their water rights. A tentative agreement to remove the four dams beginning in 2020 was eventually reached after salmon counts continued to drop.

The main stem of the Klamath in California is the last of 18 bodies of water in the North Coast on which the EPA set pollution limits. Similar restrictions are expected to be approved within a month along the highly polluted Oregon portion of the river.

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