Thursday, October 26, 2006

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LAUSD School System update...

LAUSD school system faces tremendous pressures...much like our stressed natural resources. Our youth are our human resources for the coming generation in power.


Los Angeles Unified's new superintendent, Adm. David Brewer III , and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa vow to put politics aside and unite in building world-class schools for the district's 708,000 students.

The mayor said he and Brewer will meet once a week to discuss issues including the dropout rate, which is estimated at between 24 percent and 50 percent.

Villaraigosa said he would work with Brewer to select three clusters of schools that the mayor will directly oversee.

And Brewer said he embraced the partnership and called for the community to be involved in improving schools.


Reform of urban education faces much the same challenge as reform of our living in harmony with our natural capacities. Reform will require conservation, home and community respect, investment in new techniques and technologies, and a vision of where we want to go, as well as a thorough understanding of the natural systems in place and their capacity to contribute to the whole.

That natural system is the heart of the youth themselves! And heart is like a watershed -- everything that flows into it accumulates and provides either a nutrient rich system or polluted runoff.

What can environmentally-aware people contribute to this reformation process to create a more sustainable society?

- The first question to ask is: How do we give 708,000 youth access to nature in a meaningful way?

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SoCal Beach Water Quality report has been released


Heal the Bay's newly released Beach Report Card
for summertime water quality, which looked at more than 450 beaches along California's 1,100-mile coastline.


Excluding Long Beach and a number of beaches in the northern part of Los Angeles County, statewide water quality at California beaches this past summer was good, with 91% receiving A and B grades. In fact, most of the California coastline earned “A” grades, including San Diego, Ventura County, San Luis Obispo County, Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Mateo, San Francisco, Sonoma and Humboldt counties.

Santa Barbara County beaches saw a marked decline from last year.

Orange County saw 90% of its monitored beaches receive an A grade, with surprisingly good water quality seen at multiple Doheny Beach locations this summer.

Los Angeles County - The Worst
Overall statewide water quality at California beaches this past summer was good. However, Los Angeles County once again had the worst beach water quality in the state.


Proposition 84 — A Critical Statewide Measure

Los Angeles County's poor summer grades makes Proposition 84 a critical measure on the November 7, 2006 ballot. Endorsed by Heal the Bay, Prop 84's $5.4 billion will help solve some of California’s worst water quality problems and it’s the first proposition in the nation to provide dedicated funds—$540 million—to help maintain the health of our California's coastal waters. $180 million specifically will go towards cleaning up coastal storm water and beach pollution, and $225 million to clean up the Santa Monica, San Diego, San Francisco and Monterey bays, watersheds, and major rivers that drain into those bays.

The nonprofit environmental group, based in Santa Monica, gathers and interprets data on beach water quality as a public service. It issues the summertime survey and a more comprehensive annual report card, both of which are widely praised as accurate by public-health officials.

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Calabasas hosts award winning composting facility


Las Virgenes Municipal Water District and Triunfo Sanitation District Receive U.S. EPA Award Honoring Community Compost Program

October 24, 2006 - CALABASAS, CA) –

The JPA was honored for its public outreach efforts promoting the Community Compost program that has resulted in a steady increase in the amount of Grade A soil amendment used by the communities served by the Districts.


“Community Compost” is produced at the Rancho Las Virgenes Composting Facility in Calabasas. Opened in 1994, the facility transforms biosolids recovered from the wastewater treatment process into a beneficial soil amendment, rather than disposing of it in landfills or trucking it out of the area.

The Joint Powers Authority (JPA) comprised of Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (LVMWD) and Triunfo Sanitation District (TSD) has been named a winner in the 2006 National Clean Water Act Recognition Awards Program for “outstanding biosolids management” by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA).

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Central Basin gives $350 water sprinklers to homeowners

Central Basin water Districe.

Huntington Park, CA gives away "smart sprinkler controllers" to residents of the Central Basin service area. Participants receive a free “smart” controller valued at $350 and
attend a training on the installation and operation given by the product manufacturer, Weathermatic.

Residents who missed out are invited to attend the next event. Controllers will be given away on a first-come, first-served basis.

Saturday, November 4, 2006
At 10am
The Oldtimers Foundation
3355 Gage Ave.
Huntington Park, CA
(323) 582-6090 ext. 242

Visit Central Basin’s web site at www.centralbasin.org or contact the District’s Conservation Coordinator at 310-
436-2609.

Central Basin is a public agency that wholesales imported water to cities, mutual water companies,
investor-owned utilities and private companies in southeast Los Angeles County, serving a population
of more than 2 million. In addition, Central Basin provides the region with recycled water for municipal,
commercial and industrial uses.

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Desalination is sprouting in Southern California

Monterey is the latest region that is proposing a desalination plant.

In the EIR stage, the desalination plant would pump 25,000 acre-feet of fresh water a year into the Monterey Peninsula's water system.

Public comments are being solicited to identify issues the public wants included in the environmental impact report.

Cal Am must find a way to replace the water it is drawing from the Carmel River to comply with an order given 11 years ago by the state Water Resources Control Board.

The idea of building a new dam on the Carmel River was rejected by voters. Cal Am is now proposing a Coastal Water Project that includes a desalination plant at Moss landing or Marina; an ocean water intake system; a brine discharge sytem; a distribution pipeline and an aquifer storage and recovery reservoir...and an injection well on Fort Ord.

Aquifer storage involves injecting extra water into the ground to refill the aquifer and store water underground as a hedge against the summer dry season.

Goals of the Coastal Water Project include:
- Satisfy the state WRCB order on Carmel River water
- Create a reliable, drought-proof water supply for Cal Am customers
- Protect the Seaside Basin aquifer's long-term water suply
- Protect public resources -- the Carmel River
- Protect area economic effects from uncertain water supplies
- Minimize water rate increases.

One of the options being looked at by the PUC and Cal Am is whether a regional desalination plant should produce only enough to comply with Order 95-10 or if it should add enough water to the system to supply future needs within the water company service area -- or even augment water supplies to the Marina Coast Water District and Fort Ord, and the Pajaro-Sunny Mesa Community Services District that provides water for North County.

Information about the Coastal Water Project and its process of complying with the California Environmental Quality Act is available at www.CWP-EIR.com.

The project proponent's environmental assessment is available at www.coastalwater project.com, and information and documents related to the PUC's rate case proceedings concerning Cal Am can be found at www.cpuc.ca.gov/ proceedings/A0409019.htm.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

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California beaches are tested for water quality

San Diego October 24, 2006 - Regulators are monitoring the water quality of more U.S. beaches than ever before, but nagging questions remain about the accuracy and timeliness of the testing procedures.

In late July a mysterious surge in bacteria levels prompted government officials to close 18 miles of Mission Bay beaches for five days.

The source of contamination was never pinpointed through testing methods that take 24 to 96 hours to complete. This lag time between collecting water samples and receiving test results – caused mostly by old-fashioned ways of incubating bacteria – often means that beaches are posted with contamination warnings long after the pollution has dissipated.

Breakthroughs in science and technology – partly the result of federal spending to combat bioterrorism – are leading to techniques that can detect polluted water in several minutes or a few hours. Researchers are trying to fine-tune them for eventual use nationwide.

In addition to being slow, testing currently used by public-health agencies cannot detect viruses and other pathogens that cause illness. The tests can only indicate the presence of certain bacteria such as E. coli and enterococcus, which are tracers for pathogens found in raw sewage.

Many of these bacteria are benign, and they're often deposited by birds and animal droppings. So testing for them can lead to false scares, in which water-quality regulators post contamination warnings at beaches that actually are safe for swimming and boating.

A recent study conducted at Mission Bay concluded that beach visitors weren't getting sick even though the water and shoreline were full of the so-called tracer bacteria.

In 1997, about 1,000 public beaches nationwide were tested regularly for bacteria. Today, more than 3,500 shoreline segments from Maine to California are monitored for bacteria during all or part of the year.

California leads the country in the number of beaches tested. Last year, its public-health departments took nearly 29,000 water samples at 562 beaches from Crescent City to Imperial Beach. San Diego County has 104 spots that are monitored weekly between April 1 and Oct. 31, and roughly 50 sites tested weekly from November to March.

The expansion of beach monitoring began in 2000 with passage of the federal Beach Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act, also known as the “beach bill.” The legislation was the brainchild of Encinitas attorney Gary Sirota, a former legal adviser to the Surfrider Foundation. The law created grants for states that adopt water-quality standards and tell the public about violations of those standards.

Denise Keehner, an EPA official who oversees the national beach monitoring program, indicates the goal: “Today, more than ever before in history, local citizens are able to understand what the water quality is at their beaches,” she said. “Our long-term goal is not merely to prevent people from swimming in dirty water, but to get the water cleaned up."

SOURCE: Signonsandiego.com
Read the full article at: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20061024-9999-1m24beaches.html

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Water systems prepare emergency operation plans for flu pandemic


Health experts generally agree
that it’s not “if” but “when” an influenza pandemic will strike, and the highly pathogenic avian flu could be the next deadly strain that leads to a global health crisis. But U.S. water and wastewater utilities aren’t waiting for a verdict: They’re taking pre-emptive measures so that basic operations will continue if a pandemic does occur.

Drawing on the experiences of past pandemics (1918, 1957, 1968), health experts know that waves of illnesses will last about six to eight weeks; should the avian flu also attack in a similar fashion, much of the country’s workforce will be sidelined and utility operations in particular will be significantly disrupted. It will be critical for water managers to provide adequate supplies of safe drinking water and to prevent water systems from becoming compromised or unavailable altogether; otherwise, nationwide outbreaks of diarrhea and waterborne disease are inevitable.

In many states, like California and Colorado, contingency plans are being coordinated on a larger scale encompassing local, regional and state agencies. California’s preparations, for example, have a dual focus: pandemic and birds-only (a major concern is protecting the state’s commercial poultry industry). Colorado State University just received $2.6 million in federal funds to study how interactions between humans and birds may lead to more widespread transmissions of avian influenza.

We are being advised by our state public health officials to expect up to 40 percent absenteeism during peak pandemic periods,” Laskey says. “Since this has never occurred in modern times, we don’t have much experience with predicting whether employees who are not ill will stay home for fear of exposure. Therefore, the real number may be higher if the 'worried well' don’t report to work.”

Key managers may be among the sick, so standard operating procedures must be kept up to date and an inventory of resources and functions readily available. A utility’s Emergency Response Plan also should establish a chain of command and include succession plans, financial plans, notification procedures and steps for contacting state agencies.

Cross-training also is essential to keep water systems up and running.

Some employees may need to stay on the job and be sequestered to avoid coming in contact with the virus.

The federal EPA Office of Water will distribute information on the virus and nominate priority water systems staff to be among the first to receive vaccines and antiviral drugs. In addition, the agency is developing emergency drills and cross-training guidance, as well as offering forums and workshops.

The federal government also has been working closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization to monitor the spread of the avian flu.

SOURCE: BCWaterNews.com

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Agricultural waterways tested for E. coli in East San Joaquin Valley



Tests have revealed high levels of E. coli and a common pesticide
in Merced and Madera county waterways, forcing nearly 1,000 farmers to grapple with potentially expensive cleanup efforts.

Officials say it's not known if the E. coli is the virulent strain that contaminated produce from the Salinas Valley in recent weeks. They also note that the bacteria have always been present to some degree in waterways.

William L. Rukeyser, spokesman for the water board, said E. coli is not necessarily something to worry about. It is "present in nature anywhere there are warm-blooded animals ... what is alarming is when you have contamination from a virulent strain."

The coalition began contacting individual landowners and pest control operators in the watersheds in August. Surveys are under way to determine how farmers are applying pesticides.

Members of the coalition — set up by the state to let farmers share costs of monitoring and problem-solving — will meet in Merced and Chowchilla this week and next to seek solutions.


The state water board began regulating discharges from irrigated farmland four years ago. The new regulations meant an end to what had been a 20-year exemption for growers from strict guidelines regulating pollutant runoff.

Klassen said the coalition's budget is about $800,000 a year. Members of the coalition pay, on average, about $1.50 per acre per year to monitor water.

If the coalition does not fix the contamination, farmers could be forced to get permits individually from the state. Permits could cost farmers tens of thousands of dollars a year, depending on the size of their operation, plus similar sums for water sampling.

Since July 2004, Duck Slough had 11 samples that showed an excessive E. coli bacteria count, Highline Canal had three excessive E. coli counts, Ash Slough two and the Merced River one, Klassen said. Ash Slough is in Madera County; the other waterways are in Merced County.

Three samples of water from Duck Slough contained chlorpyrifos, a chemical used in products that include Lorsban or Lock-On, in concentrations above water-quality standards. Klassen said the pesticide is used on alfalfa, field corn and almonds.

Tests revealed that Highline Canal has reached toxic levels seven times since July 2004, along with higher-than-acceptable chlorpyrifos levels on two occasions. The Merced River showed toxicity four times in that period.

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