Well, at least for another year. The Sac Bee reports that the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, chaired by Yolo County’s own Lois Wolk (D- Davis), just killed SB 27 until next year. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) would have established a committee to build a peripheral canal diverting water around the Sacramento Delta for export south, although it called it a “conveyance” in a modest feat of bureaucratic obscurantism.

Wolk, whose 8th Assembly District represents the northern half of the Delta, and who is running for the 5th State Senate district, which encompasses most of the eastern half of the Delta, recently spoke about Delta issues in a three part interview (1, 2, 3) in the Davis Vanguard:

We’ve asked the Delta to do many things and many of them are incompatible with each other. We want it to supply an unending or increasing supply of water to Southern California and to the Bay Area. We want it to be an extraordinary estuary to breed and facilitate fisheries. We want it to be the repository of agricultural and urban runoff. We want it to, I don’t, but it has become an area of increasing urbanization. We’ve asked it to do far too many things and it is dying, it is absolutely dying. Of course it is surrounded by levies that are basically 19th century piles of dirt, and they are failing. And it is seismically at risk. You can’t imagine an area that is of more significance and at risk.

What can we do? We can do a number of things. The people of the state of California voted for a bond in 2006 to repair the levies and to begin the process of improving the water quality in the Delta, and the fisheries, the habitat, and the agriculture. What we can do is to try to raise the profile of the delta. Most people know where the coast is and know why it’s important to protect it. Most people know about the Sierra Nevada, and they will protect it. They know about Yosemite and they will protect it. They know about their local parks and they want to protect those. But the Delta has very few people in it and very little political clout. So we need to be able to raise the profile of the Delta so that it takes its place as the key water and environmental issue for California.

Then we need to put in place structures that will protect it. It needs are steward. There is no steward-no body, no agency-whose sole purpose is to protect the delta. And if I’m elected to the Senate, that’s what I’ll spend many years trying to accomplish. It won’t be easy, but there has to be a body like the Coastal Commission that focuses exclusively on the Delta and has responsibility for all water decisions and all environmental decisions that affect it. That won’t be easy to do, but I am convinced that has to occur.

Of course, the Delta has to be preserved long enough to get such a commission to – ironically – preserve it, so it’s great news to see this bill killed in committee. Gov. Schwarzeneggar and San Joaquin vallley agribusiness were pushing to get this on the November ballot along with a $4 billion bond, as part of that whole extra special emergency session intended to ram through a bunch of dams funded with public bond money. Having this off the ballot may make the High Speed Rail Ballot measure, which also stands to be a boon for the Central Valley (even if the Altamont Pass route that was rejected would have been even better for the Delta commuter cities), more likely to pass, so this is good all around.

The Delta is dying, for a host of reasons, ranging from So Cal and the San Joaquin Valley stealing too much of its water, to a network of static 19th century levees that work at direct cross-purposes with the innately dynamic hydrological structure of a river delta, to cities and farms dumping all manner of pollutants into the water, to sprawl in the floodplain, (and that’s just the beginning), but the way to save the Delta isn’t draining it. The Delta is a stark example of the way that modern society ignores the hidden values of things just because they don’t overtly cost money to use. Until the state learns to see that incredibly complex ecosystem and hydrological system as something more than just a channel where a valuable commodity flows to the sea, and thus wasted, the Delta will continue to be in danger from hare-brained ideas like peripheral canals.

But for this year, it’s safe. And that’s worth remembering in November, when Wolk runs against San Joaquin Republican  Greg Aghazarian to represent the Delta.

(h/t to Aquafornia for the link to the Bee story)

originally at surf putah

(Crap… What’s going on in our institutions of higher learning? – promoted by atdleft)

In their ever-continuing quest to turn California’s public higher education into a de facto private institution, the University of California, not content with jacking up graduate student tuition yet another 10% (and nearly doubling fees since 2002), is now trying to stiff TAs, readers, and research assistants in the latest series of contract negotiations by freezing fee remissions and health insurance premiums:

The UAW Local 2865 bargaining team met Monday, April 16 with university representatives to discuss changes the university would like to make to our contract.

Unfortunately, the bargaining team was alarmed by the uncooperative, antiunion tactics of the university. The university is proposing to cut a number of critical benefits and roll back several groundbreaking union victories. Not only would these cuts and rollbacks have a negative financial impact on all our members, they would also undermine the ability of UC to continue to be competitive, encourage diversity, and attract the best and brightest.

FEE REMISSIONS
At the same time that we are proposing to expand the types of fees covered and who is eligible to receive remissions, the university is proposing to end full fee remissions for graduate-student employees, proposing instead to cap remissions. What this would mean is that whenever fees increase-which is the unfortunate trend-we would end up paying that increase out-of-pocket.

HEALTH INSURANCE
Additionally, under the current contract, many of us have our health insurance premium fully covered. Again, while we are proposing to expand the types of fees covered and who is eligible to receive remissions, the university is proposing to cap our health insurance premium remissions at a fixed dollar amount, thus transferring the rising cost of health care onto us. Given that the health plans at many campuses are already inadequate and steadily deteriorating, this proposal is unacceptable.

The university also made several proposals which would prevent teaching assistants, readers, and tutors from being informed of their rights, and which would limit our rights to express solidarity with workers in other campus unions.

The university is proposing to take us in the wrong direction. This is unacceptable. As bargaining continues, we will keep you informed of developments at the bargaining table and opportunities to participate in winning a great fourth contract.  If you have questions or would like to get more involved, please reply to this message or contact your campus office.

In solidarity,

UAW Local 2865 Bargaining Committee

This is not the first time that the university has tried this, but it is pretty bad news that they’re looking to freeze remissions while the fees continue skyrocketing this way. For most UC graduate students, fee remission and health care coverage when working for the university are the only way to make ends meet, and often their value is far greater than the actual pay that the work provides.

I have heard many fellow grad students wonder  aloud what the point of paying those union fees is. Here is my answer: the only reason why we even have health insurance and fee remissions when we work is that grad students organized and were willing to strike to make the point that the University of California does not run without our labor. The Regents do not just pay us out of the goodness of their hearts, and they will not continue to respect what gains we have negotiated in perpetuity, out of the goodness of their hearts. Only by organizing and demonstrating the value of the work that we do by being willing to deny it if need be, will we get the kind of pay and benefits that allow us to scratch out a public graduate school education.

Academic student employees are not asking for an unreasonable amount of pay or benefits here. The University of California has been utterly unreasonable in raising fees over the past several years, far beyond the rate of inflation and at the same time that executive and administration salaries and compensation have skyrocketed. This latest attempt to further wring more money out of already-indebted graduate students is unconscionable. I would hope that our elected representatives would take notice, in particular Davis’ own Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, and Lt. Governor John Garamendi, who is a Regent for the UC system (and whose son, John Garamendi, Jr., is an administrator at UC Merced, and reportedly considering challenging Lois Wolk for the 5th State Senate Seat). There are a lot of academic employees here in Yolo County, and we do vote.

If you are a grad student and interested in getting involved on any of the UC campuses, bookmark the Academic Student Employee union page. If this negotiation continues in this direction, we’re going to need as many students working together as we can to turn things around.

originally at surf putah

(This is better than the quick diary that I wrote. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Well, it’s not exactly a surprise, but the entry of Chris Cabaldon – West Sacramento five-time mayor and runner-up to current Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Davis) in 2002 – into the race officially begins the campaign to succeed Wolk in 2008, who is term limited and will be running for State Senate to replace Mike Machado (D-Linden) in the fifth district. Ah, you gotta love the term limits-induced merry-go-round in Sacramento.

The 8th district includes most of Yolo and Solano Counties, minus the city of Vallejo and the rural parts of Yolo County north of Woodland; in a nutshell, the I-80 corridor. The district is strongly Democratic, ad the winner of the Democratic primary will be heavily, possibly prohibitively favored to win the general.

Cabaldon’s announcement, interestingly enough, was in Davis in front of the train station, not West Sacramento, and he was flanked by Democratic officeholders from all over Yolo County – from Davis, County Supervisor and former Assemblywoman Helen Thompson, City Councilman Don Saylor, and Mayor pro tem Ruth Asmundson; From Woodland, County Sheriff and mayor Dave Flory, Vice Mayor Skip Davies, and City Councilman Jeff Monroe; From West Sacramento, County Supervisor Mike McGowan, Vice Mayor Oscar Villegas and City Councilmen Wes Beers and Mark Johannessen. One notable absence was outgoing Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, who has not yet announced who she is endorsing, if any, in the race to replace her. Republican County Supervisor Matt Rexroad, while not endorsing anybody in the race (claiming that his endorsement would be “the kiss of death” anyways), looks to me to be endorsing Cabaldon between the lines in this post (which is currently down; I’ll re-link it when his site gets back up and running). Clearly, Cabaldon is trying to get himself out there early as the Yolo County candidate, before anyone else announces.

Cabaldon’s supporters and detractors tend to cite the same thing – building in West Sacramento – to support their opinions. Supporters tend to point to his bringing Ikea to West Sac and contruction of condo housing as part of the recent revitalization of the port city; detractors tend to view him as excessively pro-corporate and pro-sprawl, and Cabaldon’s current campaigning on the issue of controlling urban sprawl to be hypocritical. Not really ever having set foot in West Sacramento before or after Cabaldon’s tenure, I can’t really say one way or the other whether it helped or hurt the city, but that’s the discussion. I don’t suspect that Cabaldon’s having come out last year as gay will affect the race much either way, since the district and most of his competitors are pretty socially liberal.

Those rumored to be considering a run are Steve Hardy (D-Vacaville), a City Councilman from Vacaville who came in 3rd in the 2002 primary, and Yolo County Supervisor Mariko Yamada (D-Davis), who was involved with the short-lived Davis DFA meetup and is generally considered to be the progressive candidate in the race. Having gotten to know Mariko a bit during the Dean campaign (over before it began, sadly), I hope she runs.

For those interested, there are a couple good discussions simmering on over at The Davis Vanguard on Cabaldon (here and here), as well as potential challengers here.

If the California presidential primary is moved to February, the state races will be the second in a series of three elections in ’08, and will likely end up with pretty low turnout. Who this helps is anybody’s guess this far out.At any rate, it should be fun to watch, and if the rumored Wolk-Garamendi, jr. race in the 5th State Senate district also pans out, 2008 could be a very exciting year for Yolo politics.

related websites:

Christopher Cabaldon for Assembly
Mariko Yamada’s County Supervisor page
Steve Hardy’s City Council page (scroll down)

—–

originally at surf putah

(The levees should see some money out of the bond packages. Problem is that we have to wait for the legislature and governor to allocate those funds. That must be the top priority. Also, check out wu ming’s blog, Surf Putah – promoted by SFBrianCL)

An article in yesterday’s Chronicle suggests that we could be in for another nail-biter of a winter storm season. While the bond measures thankfully passed, the funds won’t be available until next June, while repairs on last year’s erosion damage are still ongoing, and running out of time before the rains start:

More than one month into California’s flood season, engineers are scrambling to repair 71 deeply eroded spots that water officials worry could lead to collapse of the delta’s levee system, which protects more than 500,000 people and property valued at $47 billion.

The nearly unprecedented repair efforts — such work is generally not done this close to winter, when weather is bad and water levels high — come after the state spent the summer and $176 million strengthening 33 other sites it feared could lead to levee breaches when battered by winter storms.

“I expected at this point in time to be patting everybody on the back saying we solved the erosion problems for the year,” said Les Harder, deputy director for public safety for the state Department of Water Resources. “Instead, we now have another 71 to do. We’re actually further behind than when we started.”

High floodwater levels in both the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds lasted well into the late spring, making both surveys below the waterline and repairing storm damage difficult. To make things worse, we still don’t really know what the levee system is actually made of, although the state hs begun frantically taking core samples from urban levees (the government of West Sac had the sense earlier this fall to start doing the job on its own, instead of waiting for the state to get around to it).

At least Lois Wolk is looking a bit ahead to dealing with the root cause of the problem (ie. sprawl in the floodplain), with land use restrictions:

Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, whose district includes major parts of the delta, favors a similar distribution formula where areas of highest population and risk get first attention. But she also insists land-use rules need to change.

“We need to create good policies that don’t put more people at risk,” Wolk said. “Development continues where it should not be — behind these eroding piles of dirt. No one should be under the illusion that everything is fine.”

Of course, the Water Reclamation Board got fired by Schwarzeneggar last summer when they made the same suggestions on reining in development in the floodplain, and were replaced with developer-friendly types. Here’s hoping Arnold v. 5.0 will pay attention a little better than v 3.0 did, before Natomas or Rio Vista looks like this:

In related news, the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency is considering charging fees on urban development and using the revenue to purchase development rights on adjacent ag land in Yolo and Sutter counties to prevent development in the floodplain, in hopes of preserving the current hydraulic system in a manner similar to the Yolo Bypass. By preserving ag land adjacent to the Sacramento River, floodwaters past a certain level would be drawn away by weirs and other waterworks, and allowed to flood fields in exchange for payments to farmers. The idea sounds good, and the fact that Sacramento is pursuing it is great news for Yolo County, which as a small county simply doesn’t have the resources to fund the same sort of easements or flood protection. In the future, if we’re smart, government will do more of this sort of thing, thinking in terms of hydrological watersheds instead of artificial county boundaries.

In his book The Retreat of the Elephants about Chinese premodern environmental history, Historian Mark Elvin makes a strong case for the dangers of relying upon massive levee systems to defend urban centers, and the problems that occur when manmade defenses against water encourage more development behind  levees, when combined with the inevitable decline of those hydraulic systems over time, and the natural propensity for rivers to silt up, change course, erode their banks, etc. Before an area is developed and levees established, it is easier to set aside open areas such as the Yolo Bypass to lessen water bottlenecks during a flood, but that once those areas are built in, the whole economy ends up locked into a system that is expensive to maintain, and which tend to get underfunded and neglected until the next disasterous system failure.

We cannot change the way that the Sacramento River drains through the Central Valley, and we can’t do much about the cities that already exist, but getting smarter about developing on higher ground, concentrating growth in well-defended urban centers, and hardening the levees we have, are well within our grasp, should there be the political will to resist selling out to developer interests for short term political gain. While “no growth” is not a reasonable solution, smart growth, especially in a region so vulnerable to flooding, should be a no-brainer.

Now let’s all cross our fingers and hope that this winter doesn’t send us a pineapple express to rain on the snowpack, like has happened in past El Niño years.

Originally posted at Surf Putah