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Bulletin Board
THE WETTABLE POWDER FORM OF TWO PESTICIDES used in ship holds, on manhole covers, over lawns and around building foundations is especially likely to get into surface waters, according to a new report. This "screening" report on diazinon and chlorpyrifos, two common pesticides identified as a significant cause of toxicity in California waterways by the U.S. Geological Survey, was compiled by TDC Environmental for the S.F. Estuary Project and released this May (see Now in Print). According to state pesticide regulators, Californians used a total of 920,800 pounds per year of diazinon in 1999, 366,400 pounds of it in urban areas (primarily for landscape maintenance and structural pest control). The report concluded, among other things, that the greatest potential for water quality impacts comes from application of these pesticides to impervious surfaces and in the form of wettable powders (pesticides can come in liquids, granules, powders etc.). "Two things stand out to me about our findings," says researcher Kelly Moran. "First, there's a pretty significant relationship between where a pesticide is applied and whether it ends up in the water. Everyone's talking about gardens and focusing on household gardening habits, but we found that gardens are much less important - in terms of water quality impacts - than spraying around buildings where the pavement is. Second, we found that how the pesticide is physically and chemically designed can also make a huge difference."
Contact: kmoran@tdcenvironmental.com
RESEARCHERS UNVEILED A SALT-TOLERANT TOMATO this July, a genetically engineered tomato endowed with some of the sodium management skills of the thale cress gardenweed. The gene borrowed from the weed enables the tomato to sequester the salt in its leaves, rather than its fruit, and to be irrigated with water 50 times saltier than normal.
U.C. Davis researchers are saying what they did with the tomato could be done with other fruits or even nuts, offering California farmers plagued with salty fields (due to a combination of soils and irrigation) new hope for a productive future.
Contact: eblumwald@ucdavis.edu
A PHALANX OF WATER DISTRICTS SUED EBMUD this summer, opposing the East Bay Municipal Utility District's Freeport Project to enhance its water supply reliability in dry years by tapping the Sacramento River. The project, endorsed by the city and county of Sacramento and enviros, replaces EBMUD's prior efforts to tap American River water - efforts that spawned decades of litigation. EBMUD and BurRec signed a contract to begin the Freeport project this July. EBMUD'S Charles Hardy says that though the contract allows them to divert up to 133,000 feet of water in dry years, the district only plans to draw about 21,000 acre feet of this per year. He says that all the issues raised in the suit - among them water quality, supply and use fee impacts on others drawing water from the Delta and federal Central Valley Project - will be carefully addressed in the environmental impact review process.
Contact: (510)835-3000
THE WATER WARS CROSSED THE CONTINENT THIS SUMMER, as three different CALFED authorization bills (Feinstein S976, Calvert HR1984 & Miller HR2404) and two appropriations bills (HR2311& S1171) made their way through Washington DC's hallowed halls. CALFED is the cooperative state and federal program that has spent seven years working with farming, urban and environmental interests trying to balance competing demands for California's scarce water supply. Some of the bills are supported by farmers and water districts and others by environmentalists. Two 'lightning rod' issues, according to CALFED's Daniel McCarroll, are first, provisions for surface water storage (such as offstream reservoirs) in the Feinstein and Calvert bills that enviros are concerned predispose decisionmaking in favor of such facilities, and second, provisions echoing language in the CALFED 2000 record of decision concerning water deliveries to CVP contractors in the South Delta. Water users and enviros are both "fretting about where the water for these deliveries will come from," says McCarroll, and think the duplication of the language in the bill gives it a weight that may result in further conflicts. The bills will be taken up again after the August recess.
Contact: Feinstein (202)224-3841; Calvert (202)225-1986 or Miller (202)225-2095.
AN EXPERIMENT IN COMMERCIAL FISHING FOR BAY SALMON has been put on hold by state officials for another year. This August, the California Fish & Game Commission voted not to approve a proposed one month Chinook season in San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bays this year, in which five boats would be permitted to catch a total of no more than 4,000 fish between August 15 and September 15. The proposed fall-centered season targets the healthiest of the Estuary's four annual Sacramento River salmon runs - the fall run, whose population has recently surpassed target management levels.
While commercial fishers support the new season, especially as a payback for ocean limits imposed on them to protect other more endangered runs, recreational anglers want to keep the Bay salmon to themselves. These and other concerns will be explored in further public meetings this year, say officials.
Contact: (415)561-5080
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