October 1, 2002

Environmental Watch: Jones & Stokes planning team grows

Grueter

BELLEVUE -- Jones & Stokes continues to add to its Northwest planning and transportation team with the hiring of Lisa Grueter.

Grueter, a certified city planner, has experience as both a consultant and in the public sector, with the cities of Renton and Sumner.

As a project manager and senior planner at Jones & Stokes, Grueter will work with clients on comprehensive planning, growth management planning, environmental review compliance, ordinance writing, policy analysis and land use permit review.

Grueter holds a master's in city planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Environmental consulting firm Jones & Stokes, based in Sacramento, has additional offices in Oregon, California and Arizona.

Wolfe joins Clayton Group Services

Wolfe

SEATTLE -- Shawn Wolfe has joined Clayton Group Services Inc. as senior project manager in its Seattle occupational health and safety practice.

Wolfe is a registered engineer-in-training in the state of Washington, and a certified Lead Risk Assessor and Lead Inspector for Washington, Alaska and Idaho. In 1993, the Environmental Information Association recognized Wolfe with a Best Asbestos Survey award.

Clayton Group Services is a full-service environmental health and safety firm with laboratory services. Clayton specializes in environmental due diligence, remediation, industrial hygiene, indoor air quality, occupational and systems safety and ergonomics. Clayton, headquartered in Novi, Mich., has 20 offices nationwide.

State has $1M to buy riparian lands

OLYMPIA -- Private landowners in Washington have until Nov. 15 to apply to the Riparian Open Space Program for the state to purchase their forested river channel islands or river meander areas.

Commissioner Doug Sutherland, who manages the Washington Department of Natural Resources, said lands eligible for purchase often contain prime habitat and are unsuitable for logging.

The Washington Legislature has appropriated $1 million for acquisition through the program. The program is designed to help implement the Forests & Fish agreement which sets parameters for forestry to minimize harm to threatened salmon species.

A new program, the Riparian Open Space Program will also compensate landowners prohibited under Forests & Fish rules from harvesting timber on riparian land isolated by river channels that have migrated over time.

After acquiring ownership or a conservation easement, the property will be managed for ecological protection and fisheries enhancement.

Blank applications can be downloaded and printed from www.wa.gov/dnr or requested from Anne Sharar, Asset Management and Protection Division, at (360) 902-1739 or by e-mail at anne.sharar@wadnr.gov.

Green construction equipment for WTC

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The state will require construction equipment that uses cleaner fuels during the rebuilding of lower Manhattan sites lost in the World Trade Center attack.

"We know that the community is extremely concerned about air quality and we also know that the community wants the redevelopment to be as `green' as possible," said Erin Crotty, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel also will be required in machinery and vehicle fleets maintained by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the state Department of Transportation and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is coordinating the rebuilding effort.

Dirtier-burning diesel emissions are blamed for nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide pollution and for increasing particulates -- soot -- in the air. The emissions have been linked to respiratory illnesses, especially in urban areas.

Crotty said the department has the authority to mandate such changes for public agencies. For private contractors, the cleaner fuel requirement would be part of the state work contracts for rebuilding at the trade center site.

The DEC also will lead an effort to identify technology that can be used to retrofit older construction equipment machinery to lower emissions.

Who's to blame for Klamath fish kill?

PORTLAND (AP) -- Months ago the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service said the Bush administration's plan to shift water from fish to farmers in the Klamath Basin would harm salmon downstream in the Klamath River. Tribal biologists agreed.

Now the adult fish are dying by the thousands.

The Bush administration claims there is no evidence showing protected fish require the water that otherwise irrigates Klamath crops, and says the cause of the current kill is unknown.

And the administration, along with some biologists, said it's still unclear whether the irrigation diversions are to blame.

On the advice of biologists and approval of Interior Secretary Gale Norton, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation began releasing a new two-week pulse of water over the weekend into the river in hopes of loosening the logjam of dying fish.

Klamath Tribes biologists said temperature gauges in Upper Klamath Lake show that the release could cool the river, aiding salmon. The water will take three days to reach the dying fish.

The Klamath River starts at Upper Klamath Lake in Klamath Falls, where farmers in the 220,000-acre federal Klamath Project draw their irrigation water. By the time gets to the Northern California coast, it is a murky mix of water rivalries, politics and environmental troubles.

Those glaring stresses may have conspired with drought and heat to cause what appears to be the largest kill of adult salmon on the West Coast.

Rains delay New Mexico water fight

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Rainfall and water already flowing downstream for the endangered Rio Grande silvery minnow will delay any release of water from Heron Reservoir for the fish for another two weeks, a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation official says.

That will buy more time for those disputing how Heron water, owned by the city of Albuquerque, should be used. The city said it has invested $47 million in the San Juan-Chama project water stored in Heron.

U.S. District Judge James Parker on Sept. 18 ordered river flows to continue at 50 cubic feet per second to San Acacia in south-central New Mexico, the area with the largest remaining minnow population. Parker ordered federal agencies to consider using water from Heron.

The state has appealed the judge's ruling and other parties, including Albuquerque and the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, plan appeals.

On Monday, the San Acacia area had a flow of 207 cubic feet per second, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

The Bureau of Reclamation has been releasing water from Abiquiu Reservoir previously earmarked for the minnow.