Conservation News
Miscellaneous News Bits
By Dougald Scott
Miscellaneous News Bits
By Dougald Scott
Wild and Scenic Rivers in Our Backyard
Many locals are surprised to learn that we have a world class wilderness area within 100 miles of Santa Cruz! It is the Ventana Wilderness Area; 285,000 acres nestled in the Santa Lucia Mountains, bordered on the west by the Big Sur coast and the Salinas Valley to the east. This is rugged country is best defined by the six rivers that carve their way out of the mountains. Fortunately, these watersheds are largely undisturbed and the streams run clear and cold. They are the last refuge of the South-Central California Coast steelhead population that is listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
Although much of the Santa Lucia Range is protected as Wilderness, the rivers deserve the additional protection provided by the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The Wilderness system prohibits roads, motorized use, and logging, but the Wild and Scenic system helps even more. It requires federal managers to actively preserve the free flowing nature of the rivers and their unique qualities. It specifically protects the rivers for future generations. A good first step was taken toward this important goal in 1992, when the upper portions of the Big Sur River were added to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System. When Congress protected the Big Sur River, it directed the U.S. Forest Service to study additional rivers for possible protection.
The Forest Service completed its study in 2005 and recommended parts of the Arroyo Seco River, North Fork Little Sur River, and the San Antonio River were eligible for Wild and Scenic protection. Yet it recommended that Congress protect only the Arroyo Seco. Friends of the River, the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, and other conservationists who were heavily involved in this process were disappointed by the scant protection proposed. They are convinced that the following rivers and streams draining the Santa Lucia Mountains are eligible for federal protection because they are free flowing and possess outstanding values: the Arroyo Seco River and its tributaries, Tassajara Creek and Church Creek, Big Creek, Carmel River and Miller Fork, the North and South Forks Little Sur River, Nacimiento River, San Antonio River and its tributaries, San Carpoforo Creek, and Willow Creek.
Two conservation organizations, Friends of the River and the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, are working with community leaders, local business owners, and other organizations to develop a proposal to include these rivers in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. To obtain more information visit: www.ventanawild.org or www.friendsoftheriver.org, or contact Hannah Schoenthal-Muse, at hannah@friendsoftheriver.org. This is a worthwhile effort and I will try to keep you up to date on its progress.
San Joaquin River Restoration
Funding for the San Joaquin River restoration settlement that I reported on last October is underway. With overwhelming bipartisan support, legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress in early December. It would authorize the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to implement the agreement to restore water flows on the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam. Senator Diane Feinstein and Congressman George Radanovich and others shepherded the year-long negotiations that led to the settlement, as well as the talks to hammer out settlement legislation differences.
In addition to approving river channel and water flow improvements, the reintroduction of salmon and water management opportunities for current water users, as agreed to in the settlement, the bill authorized $250 million in new federal appropriations to help pay for the project. Additional funding would come from Friant water user payments and at least $100 million from the Proposition 84 water and parks bond that was approved last November by California voters.
Like the settlement itself, the bill seeks to restore the San Joaquin River so it can again support historic spring-run Chinook salmon population, which is the southernmost Chinook salmon population in North America. Since Friant Dam became fully operational in the early 1950s, parts of the river have been dry except for flood releases or infrequent operational spills. Salmon are no longer present above the river's confluence with the Merced River.
The bill did not come to a vote in either house in the last session but was reintroduced in both houses January 4, 2007 in virtually the same language. It continues to have broad bipartisan support and its chances for passage look good.
New Central Valley Dams Planned
Although not specifically spelled out in his State of the State speech, Governor Schwarzenegger is proposing to build two new dams in the Central Valley to increase offstream water storage capacity. The Sites Valley Reservoir would be located about 10 miles west of the town of Maxwell on Interstate 5 in Colusa County. It would primarily be filled with diversion water from the Sacramento River during times of peak flow and inundate most of the Antelope Valley and the community of Sites. It will also require the construction of an additional diversion dam in the Sacramento River.
The second reservoir would be located east of Fresno on the San Joaquin River just above Millerton Lake (the reservoir formed by Friant Dam) at Temperance Flat. It would provide and additional 250,000-700,000 acre feet of storage capacity to the upper San Joaquin system. It's worth noting that the increase is in storage capacity only, not the total amount of water in the San Joaquin.
The Governor justifies the new dams by noting that global warming will probably reduce the amount of water in the state, requiring aggressive measures. According to some forecasts, the state's snowpack could decrease by 25 percent by 2050, and more reservoirs are needed to boost supply. There were no budget proposals put forward to fund water conservation programs or research on how to better utilize the resource. Conservation programs have been very effective in extending a finite amount of water to an increasing number of households.
The price tag is steep. The Governor's budget includes $6 billion for flood control, water supply and conveyance, of which about $5 billion will go toward dam construction. "While we would like to hope that these storage projects would not have a negative impact, to our knowledge the only way to put more water in reservoirs is to take more water out of rivers," according to Dave Steindorf, of American Whitewater. Steindorf goes on to say "In an era when we are just beginning to repair some of the harm caused by dams built over the last hundred years, it seems odd to be discussing building new ones."