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By Leslie Stewart
“Our California tradition on water issues is to lurch from crisis to crisis,” said state Senator Lois Wolk. “And then we fight!”
As keynote speaker for the League of Women Voters of the Bay Area’s annual Bay Area League Day symposium — this year entitled “Water: California’s New Gold” — Wolk addressed a capacity audience in Oakland’s MetroCenter Auditorium on January 31, 2009. She summarized California’s current crisis: a protracted drought and an increasingly fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta at the heart of the state’s water delivery system.
“There is no magic bullet or easy fix,” she cautioned.
The Delta suffers the impact of massive water exports, invasive species, and runoff from both agriculture and growing urbanization. To manage this situation going forward, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force recently concluded that a healthy ecosystem and a reliable water supply should be equal goals. “This sounds simple but is radical,” commented Wolk.
She suggested that the Delta Protection Commission, in place since 1992, should develop a long-range plan and be given the authority to review all actions affecting the Delta for consistency with the plan. A second authority, such as a stewardship council or the state water commission, should be charged with making the final decisions. “It’s essential to have an independent body with secure funding and the ability to approve spending, planning, and water export levels,” Wolk said. She called for a balanced approach that takes into account the interests of many longstanding Delta communities as well as statewide needs, “but it has to be a mechanism that’s action, not gridlock.”
“All Californians have a vested interest in the heart and soul of our California water system,” she concluded.
The Science of the Delta
Despite the fact that the Delta is an essential link in the state water system, “many people who live in California have no idea where the Delta is or what it is,” said Christina Swanson, executive director of the Bay Institute.
Swanson described the Delta ecosystem as water plus the landscape, plants, and animals. Both the Delta and the larger watershed that feeds it have changed significantly since the 1800s, when the Delta was a huge tidal marsh and ships had difficulty finding channels to go upriver to Sacramento. Levees have been built, creating islands for farming and altering habitat. The islands are now much lower than the water level in the Delta, and often flood due to levee breaks.
There are dams on 9 of 10 major rivers feeding the Delta, and the rivers are managed for the purpose of sending water to the Delta for export to southern parts of the state. The dams release rainwater during the winter, but retain snowmelt during the spring for release in summer, making summer flows unnaturally high. Salmon habitat upstream of the dams is greatly decreased, putting additional stress on this species.
Meanwhile, other species have made massive invasions. Some of these species are a major problem, such as the Asian clam. “Calculations indicate that Asian clams in Suisun Bay can filter the entire volume of water in two days,” said Swanson, explaining this removes the food needed by native fish species.
New reservoirs indirectly impact the Delta. “They used to fill up San Luis Reservoir and then couldn’t export more because there was no place to put it,” said Swanson. But with more storage built, the exports increased to fill those reservoirs, and exports over 6 million acre-feet have a major impact on the ecosystem.
Swanson said that while the Delta has been permanently altered by levees and subsidence, it can still retain a healthy habitat through the restoration of marshy and open water areas; this restoration would change the amount and timing of water flows, and remove stressors such as pollution and invasive species.
Unfortunately, drought makes many of these habitat improvements harder. For example, Asian clams like dry conditions. Moreover, low freshwater flows during droughts bring the salty Bay water farther inland to the confluence of the rivers, limiting the area that is hospitable to freshwater species. This keeps these species closer upriver to where reverse flows will pull them into the export pumps and kill them.
Management of the Delta ecosystem and water supply are almost totally disconnected, according to Swanson, who furthered, “It would be good not to have entities in an adversarial relationship controlling both of those things.” She said managing the Delta to achieve the dual goals set by the Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force would probably mean subordinating water supply to the ecosystem. The Delta is five percent of the state’s water supply, and water is both limited and variable. “You cannot continue to take out this much water and find any way to meet the ecosystem goal,” she said.
Agricultural Questions
California agriculture has benefited from predictability of both climate and water supply, according to A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Water has been capable of being turned on or off as needed. As a result, California provides half the nation’s supply of specialty crops (such as nuts and fruits), and almost a quarter of the nation’s dairy products.
California farmers need improved water supply infrastructure to maintain predictability, because factors such as urbanization are changing agriculture. “When we build predictability into the systems that we have, that’s how you avoid collapse,” said Kawamura. According to the state Department of Water Resources, agriculture now uses only 41 percent of state water, down from 80 percent, with urban users at 11 percent and the environment using 48 percent. Limited water supplies are leading farmers to reassess their crop choices.
Heather Cooley, a senior research associate at the Pacific Institute, also focused on sustainability. The Pacific Institute recently released a report with four scenarios that could lead to less water use by agriculture:
1. Shifting a fraction of the crops now irrigated by flood irrigation to sprinkler and drip systems;
2. Using weather stations to advise farmers how and when to apply water;
3. Employing a technique called “regulated deficit” to apply water at strategic intervals to crops that can tolerate more extended dry periods (such as vines, almonds, citrus, and pistachios); and
4. Shifting a small percentage of lower-value, water-intensive crops (such as cotton, alfalfa, rice, and wheat) to higher-value, water-efficient crops (such as fruits and nuts).
Cooley cautioned that not all of these practices can be used at once, or in all situations.
Answering audience questions, Kawamura stressed that over-irrigation is inefficient and costly. Farmers will therefore conserve because they are extremely sensitive to the bottom line, and have very sophisticated tools available to help them determine the costs of water and fertilizer. Cooley noted that reduced water use also results in less energy use for pumping, as well as the environmental and water quality benefit of minimizing fertilizer runoff.
Faced with impending drought, farmers will probably choose to fallow acreage in the short term, Cooley predicted. However, she and Kawamura agreed that in the long term farmers would look at changes in overall operations. Both Cooley and Kawamura also supported diversifying approaches to agricultural water use. Kawamura noted that sustainability requires education and innovation (with new technology like desalination, or perhaps considering salt-tolerant plants). “We can’t afford in agriculture globally to make mistakes from this point out,” he said. “When we get into a survival state, the choices disappear.”
Levee Security
The fragile Delta ecosystem is accompanied by a fragile man-made infrastructure. “Levee security becomes an issue forced on us by our history and our development,” warned Raymond Seed, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. Failure of New Orleans levees in Hurricane Katrina is the most vivid example, but California has miles of vulnerable levees along rivers and throughout the Delta. More people are moving to the Central Valley, many into new developments in areas that will be hard-hit by flooding if levees fail.
“Levees in the Delta fail a lot,” said Seed. More extreme climate conditions and sea-level rise will add to the risk, as will the increasing threat of a major earthquake. In a 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, 11 miles of well-built levees failed because underlying sand liquefied and spread. The Delta has 1,100 miles of levees, two thirds of which are subject to liquefaction. Liquefaction can be prevented, but at a high price. About 70 percent of Delta levees are privately owned. While bond measures for levee improvements may be feasible for urban and populated regions, it may be necessary to protect the channels across the Delta and let the other levees go.
Failure of levees throughout the Delta would rapidly create a salty inland sea, drawing Bay water upstream to fill the many islands below water level. According to Seed, there is a one percent chance each year of an earthquake that would topple so many levees that the Delta would need at least a year to recover, with water deliveries from the Delta interrupted for two to five years. Damage estimates have been set at $50-100 billion, but Seed cautioned these estimates are usually low. He also noted that attempts to fix the damage faster than the two to five year time frame could risk losing the total ecosystem.
The state can rely less on the Delta as a water source, or the water source can be protected and stabilized. Meanwhile, Seed warned, “We are at great risk and more risk than ever in the history of California.”
Conveyance Issues
Regional conveyance of water is not new in California, said Katherine Kelly, Bay-Delta chief of the Department of Water Resources, citing aqueducts such as Hetch Hetchy. Unlike an aqueduct, however, realistically planning a conveyance facility for water through or around the Delta isn’t as simple as drawing a straight line.
One consideration is who owns the water. Under California law, water belongs to the people of the state. Water rights, for use of the water, are subject to the public trust doctrine and the reasonableness doctrine.
State and regional water boards have created plans that protect the beneficial uses of water, including a Bay-Delta plan. The State Water Resources Control Board must operate under the terms of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, as well as the decisions it has made regarding the Bay-Delta. Decision 1641 is the most current one and governs water quality standards that are measured daily by stations in the Delta. There are also agricultural water quality requirements that affect areas north and south of the Delta, as well as flow requirements and toxicity requirements. Court opinions on biological needs such as fish protection can require additional measures that modify water rights.
Currently the plans for a conveyance facility have several possible alignments, either east or west of the Delta, or through the Delta by reinforcing existing channels. Water could be exported from the south part of the Delta and also moved around the Delta in a dual conveyance plan. At the same time, planners are proposing “a great deal of habitat restoration,” according to Kelly, possibly changing the Yolo Bypass near Sacramento to rear salmon, or developing tidal marsh habitat in the Suisun Marsh. “Something will probably be built but it may not be an isolated conveyance — also the habitat restoration will be built,” she said.
A key issue is how the system will be operated if it is built. The State Water Resources Control Board will have a great deal of influence. The schedule calls for a public scoping meeting to be held this spring and a draft EIR/EIS to be in place by the end of 2009. The final EIR/EIS would be certified in 2010 and construction would begin in 2012.
The Regional View
Kathleen Van Velsor, a senior planner with the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), said that ABAG has developed a Bay-Delta-centric view to guide regional decisions. Many of the Delta’s roles — as a close-in agricultural center, an economic engine, a vital watershed, and a biological resource — need to be preserved and enhanced. Van Velsor noted that “water source” is not first on the list. ABAG’s challenge is to match these Bay/Delta values to values developed by other groups and to government investment plans based on differing sets of values. One task is to coordinate with the many working groups implementing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
“Our Delta has been exhausted and is now reviving,” said Van Velsor, despite the many stresses it faces. Many of these — such as salt intrusion and an altered flood regime — have happened because of a priority shift from controlling salinity to moving a large amount of water south. Southern California is still growing and it is a “demanding neighbor.” Solving the water crisis will mean that the planning context will need to shift to fully engage regional and local government, according to Van Velsor. “The table needs to widen and lengthen to find balance and reduce conflict,” she said, contending that councils of government such as ABAG have a role to play in the process.
Visit http://lwvbayarea.org/documents.html#BALD to view the January 31, 2009 presentations of Christina Swanson, Heather Cooley, Katherine Kelly, and Kathleen Van Velsor, as well as an event report by LWV Southwest Santa Clara Valley.
By Deirdre Newman
The momentum gained since voters passed a $9 billion bond initiative to jump-start the state’s high-speed rail project may be snuffed out if state funding is not provided soon. The project’s forward progress is now contingent on the state’s Pooled Money Investment Board, which will consider in mid-April whether to loan the project the approximately $29.1 million necessary for the California High-Speed Rail Authority to continue operating through the end of June.
Quentin Kopp, chairman of the Authority, is confident that it will get this lifeline. If not, the Authority will shut down and all 75 existing contracts will be canceled, Kopp said.
Design engineering for the first phase of the project, from San Francisco to Anaheim, is progressing nonetheless. The first phase entails eight sections of track encompassing approximately 530 miles, which could be traversed in two and a half hours as the train whistles along at 220 miles per hour. In November, voters passed the bond measure that serves as a down payment on the project, which will be funded by a combination of public and private financing.
In addition to the $9 billion approved by voters, other sources of funding for the project, according to Kopp, include: $2 to $3 billion from local and regional agencies; $12 to $16 billion from federal grants, including the recently-passed stimulus bill; and $6.5 to $7.5 billion from private sources. Interest from private sources is strong, Kopp said. A year ago, the Authority solicited private interest and 28 firms responded in writing. Twenty-three of these expressed interest in supplying construction, operations and/or equipment, and five proposed supplying capital. The Authority’s consulting firm in Washington, D.C has reverified continuing interest from 12 of the 28 entities, Kopp said.
Federal funding sources include an anticipated portion of the $8 billion allocated for high-speed rail in President Barack Obama’s stimulus package and an expected piece of the recommended $1 billion for high-speed rail projects across the country in the 2010 fiscal year budget. In fact, Obama has recommended $1 billion funding for five years, Kopp said. Also, renewal of the Surface Transportation Act, which expires at the end of the year, is expected to provide between $9 and $15 billion for high-speed rail nationally. And, $1.5 billion is anticipated for high-speed rail projects around the country from the Federal Railroad Safety Improvement Act. This measure was adopted last October, but hasn’t been appropriated yet. The Authority also anticipates seeking funding from the renewal of another federal transportation bill set to expire at the end of September, known as the SAFETEA-LU bill. Kopp estimates the Authority will apply for about $3.5 billion, which will include funding for projects under the auspices of local entities, such as the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board and Metrolink, in Los Angeles and Orange counties. Some of these projects include grade separations, which have been environmentally cleared, and electrification of the Caltrain system, which has not received environmental approval yet, Kopp said. The Authority hopes to qualify to start this electrification process by September, 2012, he added.
To ensure a dedicated, consistent source of high-speed rail funding from Washington, the Authority — along with other entities overseeing high-speed rail projects across the country — are lobbying for a permanent funding mechanism so that they can enter into full funding agreements with the U.S. Department of Transportation, Kopp said, likening the proposal to a “high-speed rail trust fund.”
As far as the stimulus bill is concerned, capturing a piece of the $8 billion pie depends on several Bay Area transportation agencies collaborating to create a viable plan that all can agree on. While this is no easy task, entities such as the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Caltrain, and agencies in San Francisco and San Jose are actively engaged in this process, said Randy Rentschler, director of legislation and public affairs for MTC.
“How much the Bay Area gets is a subset of how much California gets,” Rentschler said. “California could get a lot of money and the Bay Area could get none. We don’t want that.”
The discussions among the Bay Area agencies involve the scope of the package of improvements that need to be made to get the high-speed rail to the anticipated terminus of a new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco, Rentschler said. The size and dimensions of the terminal are all part of the discussion, he added.
The Department of Transportation has some options as to how it allocates the money, Rentschler said. The department could make a series of improvements on the East Coast that would expedite existing trains. It could also use the money to lay the groundwork for high-speed rail that could be built at a later time, as with California’s project. Or it could find a proposed high-speed rail line and deliver the whole enchilada — the line, the train, and everything that goes with it. In California, that’s an expensive proposition, Rentschler said, since the route is so long and traverses urban areas like the Bay Area and Los Angeles.
“The kind of money we’d spend on [just] the Peninsula and in San Francisco is the kind of money they could spend on the entire line [somewhere else], including a whole train set, because it wouldn’t go through a heavily industrialized area,” he said.
But the need for high-speed rail is precisely in urban areas like the Bay Area, Rentschler emphasized.
Regarding state funding, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recommended $123 million for high-speed rail projects across the state for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, according to Kopp. The Authority’s urgent need for the $29.1 million loan is due in part to the freezing of funds resulting from the state budget crisis, according to Joe de Anda, a spokesman for State Treasurer Bill Lockyer. Whether the loan will be provided hinges on the state’s cash flow, which in turn, depends on a $6.5 billion bond sale that took place in late March.
The bond sale was a huge success, according to Tom Dresslar, another spokesman for Lockyer. The state went to market expecting to sell $4 billion in bonds, but there was so much demand, the amount was increased. Of the total proceeds generated, $2.6 billion will be distributed directly to projects, Dresslar said. And, he is cautiously optimistic that the Authority will get its loan from that amount.
“I think it’s safe to say that the success of this sale makes it more likely that the loan will be approved when the board meets next,” Dresslar said.
If the Authority does not receive the loan and shuts down, it would ultimately reopen, along with the contracts, whenever money becomes available, Kopp said. If it does receive the loan, design engineering of the first phase will continue. It will likely take about two years to complete the complicated design and accompanying environmental analysis, Kopp said. The project will open to the public section by section as early as 2014. The first phase will be completed between 2018 and 2020.
Public meetings regarding the environmental review process started in late January for the San Francisco to San Jose section, and are continuing for the other seven sections until the end of March. The public comment period ends in early April. A general program environmental report was certified by both the Federal Railroad Administration and the Authority — the two sponsoring agencies — last July. Now, the environmental review is taking place on a more specific project level, Kopp said.
Visit www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov for future updates.
This article was produced with the help of Spot.Us, an open source project that supports community-funded reporting. Visit www.spot.us for more details.
By Chris Ingraham
This spring, Bay Area shorelines and waterways are home to a most diverse range of wildlife. The Black-Bellied Plover, the Hooded Merganser, the American Avocet. They’re beautiful, if you can spot them. But maybe you’ve seen some more common species: the Long-Neck Bottle, the Double-Handled Plastic Bag, the Styrofoam Cooler, the Stinky Diaper? Spring may be in the air, but trash is in the water.
In February, a meeting of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board determined that 26 “trash-impaired” areas of San Francisco Bay are in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. Some areas included in the Water Board’s recommendation are the Petaluma River, Santa Clara County’s Guadalupe River, Berkeley’s Strawberry Creek, Colma Creek in San Mateo County, and a score of others. Only Oakland’s Lake Merritt had ever been designated accordingly before.
Under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, states are individually responsible to report instances in which, for certain bodies of water, the state’s current legal limitations “are not stringent enough to implement any water quality standard applicable to such waters.” In this case, the Water Board recommended action to enforce a reduction of human refuse in area waterways, with the hope of significantly reducing the amount of trash flowing into San Francisco Bay.
The Water Board’s Naomi Feger believes this first step is an important one. “Before you can solve a problem,” she said, “you have to acknowledge you have one.” Feger points out that the Water Board adopted municipal regional permits with trash provisions on the same day it approved its new 303(d) list. The Water Board is also putting together a statewide framework for addressing trash. Once all California regional water boards have finished their integrated reports and 303(d) lists, these reports will go before the State Water Resources Control Board. This should happen in the next several months. Then, probably by the end of this year, the State Board’s compiled report will go to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for approval. If approved by the EPA, the region will soon be required to regulate trash-flow into the specified waterways more vigilantly, or face the threat of heavy fines.
Water pollution is no new problem to the region. The Monitor has reported more than once on the many “invisible” contaminants — mercury, DDT, etc. — that endanger the Bay. Sometimes such contaminants are visible to the untrained eye (and sometimes to the unwelcoming nose), but to understand and remove them can require a Ph.D. Trash is different. We cause it; we see it. And we can stop it.
Yet, for years cities in the nine-county area have neglected the macroscopic pollutants everyone can see. The Water Board’s recent action marks the first comprehensive and direct address of the serious trash problem affecting our waterways and their wildlife. Other California regional water boards — Los Angeles, San Diego — have acted more decisively and quickly to staunch trash pollution in their region. The Water Board here now hopes it’s not too late.
Last year, volunteers for Save the Bay, an Oakland-based organization devoted to restoring a healthy, vibrant Bay, cleaned tens of thousands of pounds of trash from area shorelines. Just on the statewide Coastal Cleanup Day alone, volunteers collected 125 tons of trash from the area. David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay, calls the trash problem “pervasive.” But many cities and counties in the Bay Area still actively oppose trash restrictions. Lewis warns: “Unless [cities] begin to enact serious prevention measures now, the quality of life and economy in the Bay Area will suffer.” What’s more, the problem is so severe that aggressive shoreline cleanups will not suffice to solve it. So what can be done?
The Water Board’s forthcoming Municipal Regional Storm Water Permit (MRP) hopes to incorporate measurable, enforceable actions to reduce trash pollution. During its five-year lifespan, the permit would regulate the amount of trash that cities and counties can emit into the Bay. The Water Board will meet again on May 13 to discuss the latest revisions to the MRP, which would cover Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, and San Mateo counties, along with Fairfield-Suisun and Vallejo. Together, these areas account for thousands of storm drains and some 75 percent of the Bay Area’s population.
Presently, the City of San Francisco uses a widespread network of storm drains to capture trash before it enters the Bay. This system seems to be working. Storm water systems throughout the East Bay, however, are in disrepair and designed for obsolete needs. During big rains, for instance, it’s common for sewage overflows to spill into the wastewater system and overwhelm them. Trash accumulates, and eventually this trash reaches the Bay. Unfortunately, the short-term cost of overhauling wastewater infrastructure is even greater than the expense of mitigating its periodical problems.
But inclusion on the Clean Water Act’s 303(d) list provides some hope. If officially listed by the EPA, regional municipalities would be eligible for increased funding assistance through a range of federal and state programs. The recently approved national stimulus package could also bring some $50 million to help offset the cost of improving the underground wastewater system’s efficiency at capturing trash.
Still, the creative models of other cities throughout the state and country may provide the best examples of other possible approaches to help reduce the trash. Awareness may be the first step, with an eye to change policy such that more attention is given to addressing the trash problem. Los Angeles has adopted a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for trash in the L.A. River Watershed, effectively requiring that nearby cities, Los Angeles County, and Caltrans stop trash from surpassing storm drains and entering waterways or beaches. The result has been increased vigilance and a sudden implementation of superior “full capture systems” to stop trash where it belongs.
Other policies range from local bond measures to state resource bonds. For instance, Oakland’s Measure DD, from 2002, and Los Angeles’s Prop O, from 2004, have dedicated millions of dollars to clean pollution, including trash, from their respective city’s watercourses and coasts. Statewide, efforts are being made to designate a portion of funds from California State Proposition 1E exclusively for trash reduction. The Ocean Protection Council has also put forward ordinances to address the trash problem along the coast.
Some state propositions are less helpful. Proposition 218, known as the “right to vote on taxes” initiative, has severely limited the fees associated with garbage collection and cleanup, attenuating the government’s resources for trash abatement. Following the lead of Santa Cruz, Bay Area cities might circumvent Proposition 218’s obstacles by creating special districts to legally assess the fees of storm water treatment. Charging fees for excess trash, banning plastic bags, and taking other creative initiatives on a state level might discourage excess waste. If revenue from such statewide initiatives could then return to local entities to help address the trash issues regionally, a sustainable framework might be in place to solve the problem for the long run.
Although a trash-free Bay is still a long time away, the Water Board’s recommendation is a significant first step. In any case, it gives a different meaning to “spring cleaning.”
By Alec MacDonald
Faced with a massive budget shortfall through June 2010, state legislators on February 19 pushed through a set of 33 bills in an attempt to close the $41 billion deficit. As a whole, the package hinged on spending cuts ($15 billion), taxes ($12.5 billion), borrowing ($5 billion), and federal stimulus funding ($8.5 billion) to keep California out of the red.
Lawmakers burned the midnight oil to devise this solution, but sleep wasn’t the only thing lost in the process. Countless programs and services took a hit; among the casualties was State Transit Assistance (STA), which helps train, bus, and ferry agencies pay both capital and operating costs. These agencies were originally due $306 million for this fiscal year, but now will receive just $153 million. For Bay Area transit, this means missing out on a collective $55 million through June. Things only get worse after that, with STA slated for complete elimination in the next fiscal year.
Yet even with all this belt-tightening, the state continues to face an uphill financial battle. The full realization of the Legislature’s budget package relies upon voter approval in a special May 19 election; $6 billion still hangs in the balance, and will require the passage of propositions 1C, 1D, and 1E. What’s worse, less than a month after the budget deal went through, the Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that the state will likely come up $8 billion short on the revenue side.
Fare Increases Ahead
Shortfalls abound in tough economic times, and California transit agencies have been squeezed by more than just the STA reduction. As a result, there’s been much discussion about fare hikes for Bay Area systems.
Caltrain has cast the first stone; since the first of January, its passengers began paying an additional 25 cents on top of base fare. SamTrans followed suit starting in February, as did the Central Contra Costa Transit Authority in March. In July, the cost of riding AC Transit will go up, and both BART and Muni have been considering increases as well, while also mulling over the possibility of offering less frequent service.
Regional Transportation Plan Postponed
Another effect of the downturn was to delay the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) in adopting its Regional Transportation Plan, the blueprint for investing $226 billion projected to be available for Bay Area transportation over the next 25 years. Citing the STA cuts as reason for adjusting the plan prior to finalization, MTC also identified the need to accommodate new information coming out of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, which recently revised its own financial forecasts.
The revised plan will be available for public review starting March 25, and copies may be obtained by contacting MTC at library@mtc.ca.gov or (510) 817-5836. MTC will accept comments on the plan through April 8; the agency’s Planning Committee will then assess it on April 10 before passing it on to the full Commission on April 22.
And on the Topic of Plans...
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is preparing its 2009 Bay Area Clean Air Plan. The plan will offer a comprehensive strategy to attain air quality standards and protect public health by reducing air pollution from both stationary sources (such as factories and refineries) and mobile sources (such as cars, trucks, and construction equipment).
The plan will update the Bay Area 2005 Ozone Strategy and review progress in improving air quality in recent years. The plan will comply with the requirements of the California Clean Air Act to implement “all feasible measures” to reduce ozone. In addition to reducing ozone, the plan will also consider the impacts of control measures on particulate matter, air toxics, and greenhouse gases, and provide an integrated plan to address multiple pollutants.
The District will hold public workshops to discuss potential control measures in late April. Additional workshops will be scheduled as the District progresses toward adopting the plan in fall 2009.
Visit www.baaqmd.gov for more information.