August 14, 2001

Environmental Watch: BPA funds 7 fish projects

PORTLAND -- The Northwest Power Planning Council has approved seven projects to help offset the environmental and wildlife impacts of this year's emergency hydropower operations. The seven projects are valued at $7.4 million and would be funded by the Bonneville Power Administration.

The projects are: $4.9 million to buy prime spawning habitat along Desolation Creek, a tributary of the John Day River in Oregon, $1.6 million to screen irrigation pump intakes in the Yakima River in Washington's Kittitas County, $75,200 to monitor and evaluate a salmon production project in the South Fork Clearwater, Selway and Salmon river basins of Idaho, $300,410 to improve upstream fish passage in the Birch Creek -- a Umatilla River tributary -- watershed of Oregon, and $528,000 to install stream flow gauges in the Entiat, Okanogan and Wenatchee rivers of Washington.

Because of this year's power crunch and drought, the BPA has reduced water spills at many of its electricity generating dams. These projects are meant to help the fish, especially endangered chinook salmon, effected by the reduced spill.

Environmental hotline catches offenders

SEATTLE -- Created last year to respond to alleged off-hours violations, King County’s hotline for environmental emergencies (1-888-437-4771) recently received an achievement award from the National Association of Counties.

Operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the hotline has responded to 20 complaints, resulting in three stop-work orders. One recent call involved a report of a contractor dumping paint into Juanita Creek in Kirkland. The contractor was cited by the local fire department, the county’s Department of Development and Environmental Services says.

USDA to start using biodiesel

BELTSVILLE, Md. -- Promoting the use of farm-grown energy sources, Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman said that some of her department's fleet of vehicles will switch to biodiesel and ethanol fuels.

Veneman said that as supplies become available and if the costs are reasonable, USDA would try to start using a vegetable oil-based biodiesel fuel in about 800 vehicles, including some boats. Some of the vehicles are based in U.S. national forests.

Another 700 vehicles and all gasoline fueling facilities maintained by the agency will use blended fuels with at least 10 percent domestically produced ethanol if possible, she said.

"Agriculture can help us solve our energy problems through the production of domestic liquid fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel," Veneman said.

Sharon Holcombe, who is overseeing the fuel-use transition for the Agriculture Department's more than 36,000 vehicles, said the agency expects to double its annual use of 80,000 gallons of biodiesel next year and be using 360,000 gallons a year by 2005.

Peanut oil was the first type of fuel used by Rudolf Diesel to power his first engine in 1895. Fuel distributors say the modern soybean oil-based biodiesel, generally used as a mix of 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent petroleum diesel, typically costs up to 25 cents more per gallon than traditional diesel fuel.

Prices have come down partly because of a federal subsidy for soybean biodiesel producers. The federal government estimates sales of the fuel in the United States reached 6.7 million gallons in 2000 and could reach 20 million gallons this year.

With public demand growing, the first public pumping stations for biodiesel fuel opened in May in San Francisco and Sparks, Nev.

At the Agriculture Department's research center in Maryland, 150 diesel-powered vehicles -- including tractors, snowplows and a visitors' bus -- are running smoothly on a biodiesel blend without any modification, officials said. Because the blend also increases lubrication for moving parts, it has added to the life of the vehicles' engines, the officials said.

$373,000 fine for sewage leak

PORTLAND (AP) -- The owner of a mobile home park near Seaside said he plans to appeal a $373,000 fine for letting sewage leak into a river the city sometimes uses for drinking water.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced last week it issued the fine last month against Dr. Caleb Siaw of Boring for failing to fully replace an outdated sewage system at the Forest Lake Resort mobile home park.

The park has about 40 mobile home slots and sits near the banks of the Necanicum River upstream from a spot where the city of Seaside occasionally draws water.

The DEQ has documented at least two cases of sewage discharge into the river.

Siaw was fined $10,600 in 1999 after pleading guilty in Clatsop County Circuit Court to water pollution violations. He agreed to install a new treatment system.

DEQ officials say the new system isn't enough to handle all the park's waste.

The penalty is the largest issued by the department since a $480,000 fine in 1994, and the third largest ever.

Protection urged for Arizona clam

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Stark salt flats cover millions of acres of the Colorado River delta in Mexico where jaguars and bears once prowled jungle-like forests and lagoons.

Now two environmental groups want to protect a unique clam found there and, indirectly, obtain increased water that could help the delta recover as well. Doing so might be at the cost of water now used by cities and farms.

Scientists reported last week that the 6-inch clam -- the Mulinia coloradoensis -- is being pushed toward extinction in the delta south of Yuma, Ariz. They said it is found nowhere else in the world and therefore warrants protection.

Its numbers have plummeted 95 percent since Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s, said University of Arizona researcher Karl Flessa, who wrote the study with a Mexican colleague.

The environmental groups that commissioned the study say they will ask U.S. officials to list the clam under the Endangered Species Act. If approved, the clam would join five other endangered species in the delta -- two fish, two birds and a porpoise-like mammal.

Sending more water to the delta could mean less water for the Southwestern crops and cities dependent on the dams and aqueducts that divert nearly all of the Colorado's flow before it reaches the Gulf of California.

Federal officials have fought previous efforts to use the Endangered Species Act to protect Mexico's environment.

However, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is "on record as wanting to address these ecosystem issues in the Mexican delta," spokesman Bob Walsh said.

A host of agencies already have begun devising a plan to restore habitat and help threatened species on the lower Colorado while meeting the water needs of humans.

However, biologists say the clam plays a crucial role in the Gulf of California's ecology, serving as an "umbrella" species that indicates the overall system's health.

"Species like clams and other mollusks in the ocean often form the primary basis of marine and adjacent food chains," said David Hogan of the Center for Biological Diversity, which commissioned the study with Defenders of Wildlife.

Hogan said that loss of such a basic food material often results in significant reduction of such other species as shore birds, ospreys and predators.

A 1944 treaty guarantees Mexico about 10 percent of the river's historic flow, but nearly all of that is diverted for agriculture. Recent wet years have allowed more fresh water to reach the delta, but in dry years the river which carved out the Grand Canyon is exhausted before reaching the gulf.

The clams live in the brackish estuary between it and the river.

Flessa said the lack of nutrients and fresh water from the Colorado is responsible for the near disappearance.