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Mormon Olympics: will ski jumps be target of airliner bombs?

McInnis: Payback "will be horrible"

McDonald's Fire Claimed by ALF

LA Times: Tribes Say Injustice Flows With Water for Farmers

LA Times: State Faces Electricity Costs

LA Times: Power and Policy in a State Thirsting for Water

LA Times: Bills Tying Housing to Supply of Water OKd

Jane's-Olympics

ICT: Leading on energy and environment is proper for tribes

Groups oppose plan for 2 EISs on San Juan-Chama water

Gas burning persists despite illness

Fresno Bee: Valley differences mar Cal-Fed bill

France's Chirac condemns GM crop protests

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: Mormon Olympics: will ski jumps be target of airliner bombs?

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Worst Games scenario is now worse

By Derek Jensen
Deseret News staff writer

Utah's Olympic security planners said Tuesday the attacks on the
country's financial and political capitals highlight the potential for an
airborne attack on Utah's capital during the 2002 Winter Games.

"Does this change an airborne threat during the Olympics?" said
T.J. Kennedy, who is in charge of Utah's aviation security plan for the
Games. "The answer is yeah, it probably does. . . .

"I don't think you can predict whether this will happen in February
or not," Kennedy said. "I think we've put together an excellent plan to
detect if it will happen."

But Tuesday's attacks still raise the stakes on Olympic security.
Where in the past, many Olympic planners tried to downplay such a threat
striking the Olympics, the possibly was suddenly pushed to the forefront.

"Such a notion is not nearly as remote today as it was yesterday,"
said John Powers, who served as executive director of the President's
Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection from 1996 to 1998.
Powers was one of several speakers at the Jane's Facility Security
Conference at the West Coast Hotel on Tuesday in Salt Lake City.

"The thing that surprises me is that this was not picked up by our
intelligence agency," Powers said.

Powers said Tuesday's tragedy had to have a huge number of people
involved. He said he doesn't know how that many people were able to
penetrate national and local security systems and why they weren't
detected.

While terrorist attacks can't be 100 percent prevented, Powers said
it was the magnitude of this attack that surprised him.

Powers said the nation should expect to see a huge increase in
security. Particularly, he said it will probably take a lot longer to get
on an airplane in the future.

Roger Davies, director of Hazardous Management Solutions Ltd. in
the United Kingdom, said Tuesday morning at the conference it is too
early to learn any lessons. More needs to be learned about what happened
and how before solutions can be made and lessons learned, he said.

Davies isn't as quick to point a finger at the intelligence
community for not foreseeing the attack. But he believed they will be
concerned. "They don't need to be told what happened."

Terrorism affects democracy across the world, Davies said. It would
be wrong for the United States to "batten down the hatches," he said.
Society should not become less free because of today, Powers said.

Conferencegoers hovered around television sets Tuesday morning
watching news coverage of the attacks. Many at the conference, scheduled
for Tuesday and Wednesday, questioned the nation's ability to gather
intelligence for preventing such devastating attacks.

"The failure of intelligence right now is phenomenal," said Ernest
Lorelli, senior explosive ordnance disposal engineer for a private Las
Vegas company, who is also a retired Air Force chief master sergeant.

Whether the existing Olympic security plans - and their budget -
will balloon because of Tuesday's incident remains to be seen.

"I don't know that it would balloon," said Salt Lake Police Chief
Rick Dinse, Utah Olympic Public Safety Command vice chairman. "I don't
know that it would go up at all. There are things in my mind that we
would look at."

Dinse said he believes more electronic security equipment and
increased security on the ground at airports are essential elements to
ensuring the Olympics don't become the target of another terrorist attack.

"From my perspective I do not see the Olympics being canceled,"
Dinse said.

As news of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon
unfolded Tuesday morning members of UOPSC were meeting to discuss the
implications on security for the Games, which are less than six months
away.

At a Capitol news briefing, Gov. Mike Leavitt assured reporters
Tuesday the Games will go on as scheduled. "This is a sobering reminder
there are evil people in the world who will do evil and unthinkable
things," Leavitt said.

"Our federal partners are fully engaged in intelligence gathering,"
Leavitt said. "We'll do all that's humanly possible to assure it is
avoided. . . . I feel confident our Games will be conducted in a safe
(manner)."

State Olympic Officer Lane Beattie agreed.

"We feel comfortable with the preparation we have made," Beattie
said. "We think we're just absolutely right on course."

Long before Tuesday's airplane attacks, planners had established
Olympic no-fly zones around Games venues to ensure planes aren't flying
over secured areas.

The restricted zones around Olympic venues, called Temporary Flight
Restriction airspace, extend outward 1 1/2 miles to 3 miles. Along the
Wasatch Front, restricted aircraft will not be allowed below 10,000 feet
inside Olympic airspace. The Wasatch Back will have a 12,000-foot
barrier. The flight restrictions will begin Feb. 4, 2002, and continue
until Feb. 24, 2002. The Olympic Village will remain a restricted zone
until Feb. 26.

For now, Dinse has increased the number of officers in Salt Lake
and placed officers in sensitive security areas around the city.

"I don't have at this point any information regarding a risk in
Salt Lake or in Utah for that matter," Dinse said Tuesday morning. "Even
with that we are going to heighten our capacity."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

E-mail: djensen@desnews.com
Contributing: Pat Reavy

© 2001 Deseret News Publishing Company

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:42 PM
Subject: McInnis: Payback "will be horrible"

Most of his constituents called for retaliation, he said, except for one.
"I informed that constituent that she was probably a minority of one in
the entire country and she hung up on me."

___________________________________

McInnis: Payback "will be horrible"

By GARY HARMON
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Retaliation for the destruction Tuesday in New York and Washington, D.C.,
of two American symbols will be devastating, said U.S. Rep. Scott
McInnis, R-Colo.

"There will be a Judgment Day," McInnis said Wednesday after members of
Congress received a classified briefing. "We can't rush to judgment, but
there will be a Judgment Day and it will be horrible."

Officials in New York and Washington still were counting the dead left
after jetliners crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center and
the south side of the Pentagon.

American retaliation for the attack, assumed Wednesday by many to be
pointed at terrorist Osama bin Laden in Afganistan, will remind Americans
of the image of a "terrible, swift sword" in the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic," he said.

The delivery of American might will come as soon as possible, McInnis
said, but only when leaders are absolutely sure of their target.

"It's not determined yet," he said. "But once we make a determination of
the target, you can assume it will be more than enough to eradicate the
target."

There might be more than one target, McInnis said.

The target of retaliation "could be a group or a country or both," said
Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., after the briefing.

Certainty is necessary, Allard said, and once officials are certain of
the guilty party or parties, "We need to keep in mind that (Tuesday's
attack) was an act of war and we need to respond accordingly, without
delay and forcefully."

Whether the American response might be nuclear, he said, "Not at this
point in time."

Sorting out the details was still difficult Wednesday, Allard said,
noting that the classified briefing he received included no information
about the discovery of Arabic propaganda in a car in Boston. Yet
information about the car was all over the media when he emerged from the
briefing, he said.

It wasn't that difficult to sort out the American mood, McInnis said.

Most of his constituents called for retaliation, he said, except for one.
"I informed that constituent that she was probably a minority of one in
the entire country and she hung up on me."

President Bush might have established a doctrine for dealing with
terrorists when he declared that the United States wouldn't differentiate
between terrorists and the countries that harbor them.

"The time has passed when renegade nations can give safe harbor to
terrorists with impunity," Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell said in a floor
statement released to the press. "The president and the U.S. military
have my full support to strike and strike hard when the perpetrators and
their accomplices are identified and found."

Gary Harmon can be reached via e-mail at gharmon@gjds.com.

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: McDonald's Fire Claimed by ALF

Frontline Information Service - News 9/11/01
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

McDonald's Fire Claimed By Anti-Globalization Activists
_______________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 11, 2001

North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office
Contact: David Barbarash, 250-703-6312

Tucson, AZ - Late Monday evening the A.L.F. Press Office received an
unsigned
statement from activists who are claiming responsibility for the
half-million
dollar fire that destroyed a Tucson-area McDonald's early Saturday
morning.

Sent through an anonymous email remailer (remailers are used to make it
impossible to trace back the source computer or location of the letter
being
sent), the activists say that they burned down the McDonald's "to serve
as a
warning to corporations worldwide." The document goes on to rail against
globalization and it's negative effects on humans, animals, and the earth.
Across the world, McDonald's has been constantly targeted for acts of
property
destruction at every anti-globalization protest since (and before) the
anti-WTO
demonstrations in Seattle.

According to local media reports, the initials "ALF" and "ELF" were
spraypainted on the walls of the burned-out building. Traditionally, this
has
been the "calling card" left behind for both the Animal Liberation Front
and
the Earth Liberation Front, who typically will sign their initials at the
scene
of their actions. In this instance, because the Communique was received
unsigned, the A.L.F. Press Office cannot confirm whether or not either
group is
taking credit for this fire.

"The message here is that ordinary people are taking action against some
very
destructive corporations," comments David Barbarash, A.L.F. spokesperson.
"Whether or not it was people acting on behalf of the Animal or Earth
Liberation Fronts, the end result is the same. Non-violent property
destruction
("economic sabotage") has once again been successfully employed."

The text of the Communique follows:

"On Friday night, 9/7/01, activists working in the interest of both the
Animal
Liberation Frontline and the Earth Liberation Frontline torched a Tucson,
AZ,
McDonald's, causing more than $500,000 in damage. The fire raged from 3 am
until roughly 5:30 am, and left the building completely unusable. This
action
is meant to serve as a warning to corporations worldwide: You will never
be
safe from the people you oppress. Globalization is nothing more than the
government sanctioned rape and murder of the earth's resources, and we,
the
people, will never stand for it. As long as this country continues to
cater to
the greed of corporations and ignore its responsibilities concerning human
rights, animal rights and the environment, we will work in opposition. As
long
as the president supports free trade and pushes for "fast track" trade
authority, we will act in opposition. As long as corporations enslave
workers
in other countries, waste our natural resources and torture animals, we
will
unite and stand in opposition. We are NOT a select few; we are the
majority.
The workers and the poor are strong, and we will no longer accept your
inexcusable transgresses. We call upon you to pay it all back.

In support of all of those fighting for freedom on the frontlines- we will
never compromise."

===================================================
North American Animal Liberation Front Press Office
***** The Voice of the A.L.F. *****

Spokesperson: David Barbarash
Email: naalfpo@tao.ca
Phone: 250-703-6312
Fax: 419-858-9065

Mailing Address: P.O.Box 3673,
Courtenay, BC
V9N 7P1 Canada

[Note: Due to interference with our mail service,
please advise us by email or phone when you send us
a letter or donation so we know to expect it.]

URL & PGP Key:
http://www.animalliberation.net/media/naalfpo.html
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===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: LA Times: Tribes Say Injustice Flows With Water for Farmers

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-000073085sep10.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dpe%2Dcalifornia

Tribes Say Injustice Flows With Water for Farmers

Dispute: Klamath Indians blame irrigation project for many of their woes.
Current cutoff of supplies is fair, they insist.

By BETTINA BOXALL
LOS ANGELES TIMES STAFF WRITER

September 10 2001

KLAMATH BASIN -- Just shy of the Oregon border, not far from fields of
dust and weeds, someone has planted a homemade sign. "Call 911, some
sucker stole our water."

It is one of the angry jokes of this angry season in the Klamath Basin,
where the needs of two endangered species of suckerfish, along with a
threatened downstream salmon, have forced shut federal irrigation gates.

The joke isn't funny to Allen Foreman, the chairman of the 3,300-member
Klamath Tribes. The big fish with the inglorious name fed his people for
thousands of years. Suckers were once so thick and plentiful in the
basin's rivers and lakes that their backs formed silver blankets in the
water. Now the basin's Klamath, Modoc and Yahooskin Snake Indians catch
only one sucker a year, in the early spring. They cremate the fish in a
religious ceremony, returning its ashes to the river to encourage
plentiful runs.

Spurred by drought and the requirements of the federal Endangered Species
Act, this summer's water cutoff has often been portrayed at its most
simplistic: bottom-feeding fish versus farmers.

But for the tribes of the high desert basin straddling the
California-Oregon border, the water issue is part of a crusade to regain
some of their former natural riches.

When irrigators sued last spring to stop the water shut-off, the tribes
intervened, arguing for it. "We've got to undo the damage of the past 100
years," said Foreman.

The Endangered Species Act is like a gas gauge, he said. It's an
indicator. You can throw it away but that won't fill up the tank. It
won't restore a once-thriving system of lakes, marshes and rivers that
has for a century been drained, dammed and diverted for irrigation and
flood control.

The tribes' support of the water cutoff has enraged the basin's farmers,
who raise hay, cattle and potatoes in small family operations.

"I think the tribe has created a tremendous amount of ill will within the
agricultural community that will not be forgotten for a very long time,"
observed Debra Crisp, executive director of the Tulelake Growers Assn.
The greeting on her home answering machine makes her feelings clear.
Crisp invites callers to leave a message--as long as they are not radical
environmentalists, spineless bureaucrats or tribal council members.
"Right now, the [tribes'] position--whether they realize it or not--is to
eliminate the ag community," she said.

Pointing out that only a portion of basin farmers lost water deliveries
this year, tribal leaders say that is not their aim.

Tribes Also Lost Resources

Moreover, they say they can appreciate the farmers' lament of ruin. Basin
tribes are painfully familiar with the language of dispossession. The
federal water project on which the farms depend helped destroy their way
of life, they say.

With irrigation came farms and the loss of wildlife that had sustained
the tribes.

"We've lost resources for years and years and years," said Foreman, who
at 54 is old enough to remember when sucker runs filled the basin's small
rivers.
His voice carries a hint of bitterness when he notes the millions of
dollars in federal disaster aid flowing to basin farmers whose fields
were left cracked and dry this summer.

"When we lost our salmon fishery we didn't get any compensation," Foreman
said. "When we lost our sucker fishery we didn't get any compensation."

So central were the waterways to basin Indians that the native name for
the Klamath tribe meant "people of the lake" or "people of the marsh."

They used marsh tule reeds for baskets and clothing, hunted the abundant
waterfowl with arrows designed to skip across lake surfaces, gathered
water lily seeds and caught salmon and suckers, which they called C'wam.

Salmon were gone from the basin by 1920, the victim of dams, overfishing
and irrigation. The decline of the Lost River and short-nosed sucker took
longer.
Settlers called them mullets--though they are not related. A 1909 local
newspaper account tells of Indians catching them by the wagonload to dry
for winter eating. A commercial fish plant operated on the Lost River in
the early 1900s.

By 1986, their numbers had fallen so low that the Klamath Tribes stopped
fishing them. Two years later the two sucker species were placed on the
endangered species list.

The current size of the population is debated. "We don't have any good
estimates," said Ron Larson, fisheries biologist for the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service in Klamath Falls, Ore. Indeed, a private biologist who
analyzed data for local irrigators says there are enough suckers to take
both species off the endangered list.

But there is no dispute that Upper Klamath Lake--where the bulk of the
suckers live--and other water bodies in the basin are in bad shape.

"Everything you can think of that's not good for a watershed or lake is
happening to Klamath Lake," Larson said.

The shallow remnant of a huge ancient lake, the Upper Klamath has lost
many of its wetlands. Rivers that feed and drain it have been dammed and
diverted. Runoff from farming and cattle grazing has pushed up nutrient
levels.

As a result, the lake is plagued by a blue-green algae that clogs the
water with grass-like filaments, increasing the lake's alkaline levels.
When the algae decays it gobbles up oxygen, creating lethal conditions.

"This lake is close to killing these fish about every summer," said Larry
Dunsmoor, research biologist for the Klamath Tribes.

Along with wetland and river restoration projects, the tribes and
environmentalists say the amount of irrigation water taken from the
system has to be reduced to protect lake levels and river flows.

Water users say they support ecosystem restoration efforts. But their
biologist, David Vogel of Natural Resource Scientists Inc. in Red Bluff,
Calif., says the 7-foot water level the federal government is maintaining
for the suckers in Upper Klamath Lake is unnecessarily high.

A federal judge, after refusing to stop the irrigation shut-off, ordered
the government, farmers and tribes into mediation, which so far appears
to be fruitless.

Water Plan Could Alter Distribution

Looming in the background is a complicated state adjudication of water
rights predating 1909. The process has been going on for years and could
dramatically alter the pattern of water distribution in the basin.

The tribes are among the pre-1909 claimants. Courts have previously ruled
they have rights to enough water to protect fishing and hunting rights
guaranteed in their 1864 treaty with the U.S. government. It is now up to
Oregon to decide how much water that involves.

In the 1950s, the federal government ended formal recognition of the
Klamath Tribes. The U.S. Forest Service took over much of their roughly
1-million-acre reservation. The tribes, who say the termination was the
product of a misguided assimilation policy, regained federal recognition
in 1986--but not their homelands.

"We'd like to get it back," Foreman said of the former reservation lands.
"It's more than just about economics," he said. "There's a spiritual
connection. In order to heal the people we need to heal the land."

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:43 PM
Subject: LA Times: State Faces Electricity Costs

September 10, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-000073098sep10.story
?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dpolitics%2Dcalifornia

THE STATE

State Faces Crunch Time to Deal With Electricity Costs

Energy: With one week left in the legislative session, lawmakers and
regulators want to resolve questions on how California will recoup its
expenditures during power crisis.

By TIM REITERMAN, TIMES STAFF WRITER

After a summer of delays, California regulators and legislators are
aiming in one final week to resolve issues crucial to millions of
electricity customers and the financial stability of the state and its
utilities.

The energy crisis that caused blackouts early this year has receded, but
it has left behind a potential fiscal crisis. The state needs to recoup
more than $8 billion that it has spent on power, and it has signed $43
billion in long-term
electricity contracts.

Final plans for meeting these financial obligations--and spreading the
pain of paying them off--have been debated for months. But the decision
time has come: Legislators are scheduled to recess for the year on
Friday, and the state Public Utilities Commission is under pressure to
act on several long-pending measures at a meeting on Thursday. "What's
before the state, both at the PUC and the Legislature, is how are we
going to provide power to people in the years to come," PUC President
Loretta M. Lynch said in an interview. "Are we going to have a healthy
utility to provide the power, or are we going to rely on the state?"

The PUC, which approved the biggest rate increase in history earlier this
year, now faces another tough choice: Should it surrender its formerly
ironclad authority over electricity rates to the state Department of
Water Resources, an agency that has come under fire for alleged conflicts
of interest and the cost of its contracts? Or should it balk and
jeopardize the state's planned sale of bonds to replenish the treasury
and repay loans?

Legislation on Related Issues

Legislators are grappling with two complicated and highly contested bills
on related issues. One seeks to repair the finances of Southern
California Edison through a $2.9-billion aid plan backed by Gov. Gray
Davis. The other would
limit the powers of the Department of Water Resources, which has been
buying electricity for 10 million customers of Edison, Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric since January.

The state law that authorized the Department of Water Resources to buy
power exempted the purchases from PUC reviews designed to protect
consumers from unreasonable charges.

Now, the department is seeking a formal agreement with the PUC that would
guarantee that its cost of supplying power to utility customers will be
fully covered. Critics say the accord is a blank check for future rate
increases, but the department says no increases will be necessary in the
foreseeable future.

State officials say the PUC has little choice but to sign the agreement,
which they see as necessary to reassure Wall Street bankers that the
Department of Water Resources will be able to repay $12.5 billion in
bonds the state plans to sell to cover power costs. The money from those
bonds will go, in part, to repay the state treasury for money laid out
for power.

Top state officials, including the governor and treasurer, want the bond
sale to go without a hitch, but the date of the sale already has been
pushed back several months, and threatened litigation could further delay
it.

The urgency over the bonds comes about because the state already has used
$6 billion from the treasury and has taken out a $4.3-billion loan to
cover power costs.

State Treasurer Phil Angelides said that if the bonds are unsold and the
economy slows down next year, the state could be revisiting the fiscal
crisis of the early 1990s.

"People ought to be laying down their arms over their energy agendas and
asking the question: What is the best and fastest way to repay the state
general fund to ensure critical programs such as education and health get
their funding?" he said.

Lynch, one of three Davis appointees on the five-member PUC, finds
herself in a particularly difficult position. She sees the value of PUC
reviews of the reasonableness of power purchases. But, Lynch said, "If we
do not enter into a rate agreement, the bonds do not issue and that could
affect the state general fund."

"The thing I care about most," she added, "is ensuring the general fund
is repaid."

Earlier this month, Lynch issued a draft decision that would have the PUC
essentially rubber-stamp any future revenue requests or rate increases
sought by the Department of Water Resources. But she also has publicly
endorsed a bill by state Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco) that the
Davis administration opposes.

The bill would ensure that the PUC has the right to scrutinize the
revenue needs of the Department of Water Resources and hold public
hearings. It would not, however, give the PUC the power to disallow
department expenses. To reassure Wall Street, the bill would dedicate a
portion of the money that utilities collect from their customers to
repaying the bonds.

At a PUC meeting last Thursday, PUC commissioners Richard Bilas and Henry
Duque, appointees of former Gov. Pete Wilson, voiced support for the
Burton bill, saying it would let the PUC shed additional light on the
Department of Water Resources' power-related expenditures.

The Davis administration opposes the bill's present form but is seeking
amendments. One concern is that energy providers would sue out of fear
that if money runs short, bondholders would be paid before they are.

The bill's passage could be a "deal breaker" for the bond sales, said
contractor Joseph Fichera, a financial advisor to Davis.

At the least, contentious debate surrounding energy-related issues could
drive up the price of floating bonds, Fichera said.

"Wall Street does not like risk. Conflict implies risk. So the more we
create, the more we are costing ratepayers," he said.

The Legislature also is considering a bill that would allow Edison to
sell bonds to pay off about three-quarters of the debt it accrued during
the energy crisis. The utility would have to handle on its own about $1
billion owed to large energy companies. Consumer activists have
threatened a ballot initiative to block the bill, which they call a
bailout.

The PUC on Thursday is scheduled to vote on several items designed to
ease the sale of the Department of Water Resources' bonds. One is a rate
increase for SDG&E customers. Another measure would suspend the right of
businesses and other electricity customers to stop buying electricity
from their local utility and choose their own power provider.

The Alliance for Retail Energy Markets, an organization that includes
many large California businesses, said its members would be forced to sue
if the PUC goes ahead with plans to retroactively void the right of
customers to choose their own energy providers.

But the most controversial item has been the proposed PUC agreement with
the Department of Water Resources. Consumer groups and utilities alike
have called for public examinations of the department's contracts and
revenue requirements.

"The plan would allow a state agency to operate behind closed doors while
it negotiates with ratepayers' money," said Douglas Heller of the
Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica. "Secrecy in
DWR leads to conflicts of interest and that leads to higher rates."

Concerns about the Department of Water Resources' lack of independent
oversight have been heightened by recent developments:

Energy experts have questioned the qualifications of the trading team the
department assembled, and several traders were fired for alleged
conflicts of interest.

Critics seized on reports that the department sold surplus power at a
loss of $46 million in July, although officials say surpluses are bound
to occur with long-term power contracts.

And the department's projections of its revenue needs for future power
purchases have been updated and amended twice, prompting utilities and
others to question the reliability of the figures.

PG&E Threatens to Sue Over Revenue

The utilities want the department to be subject to the sort of reviews
that have rankled them for years. If the PUC does not provide for that,
lawsuits could be coming.

PG&E, which already is in bankruptcy, has threatened to sue if the
Department of Water Resources' revenue requirement doesn't leave the
utility a sufficient share of the rate increase adopted by state
regulators in March.

PG&E recently asked a Sacramento County Superior Court judge to require
the Department of Water Resources to hold public hearings on its revenue
requirements. The company has reacted angrily to a draft PUC decision to
shift $600 million of the state's cost of buying power from Edison to
PG&E, saying the plan was illegal and discriminates against PG&E
customers.

Davis aides have defended the Department of Water Resources and its power
purchases, saying the department's long-term contracts helped cool the
energy crisis.

"They look overpriced now," Fichera said. "But four months ago they were
underpriced [compared with the spot market]. They are an insurance
policy" against market volatility.

Having the PUC review actions of another state agency would be redundant
and would serve no purpose, Fichera said, because the contracts already
are in place.

"You can't break contracts," he said. "You've got to pay them."

Even some critics acknowledge it is difficult to evaluate the Department
of Water Resources' performance to date. One reason is that the
department has closely guarded details about its contracts and its spot
purchases, arguing that release of too much information would place it at
a competitive disadvantage.

Another reason is that market conditions have changed and natural gas
prices have declined since the department entered into contracts amid the
energy crisis.

"We all have 20-20 hindsight," said PUC Commissioner Bilas. "When DWR
entered into contracts, the state was over the barrel. Now we can say
that they are not as good as [the department] thought . . . and that DWR
does a lousy job of
negotiating contracts. But that's unfair."

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: LA Times: Power and Policy in a State Thirsting for Water

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-000071592sep05.story

Power and Policy in a State Thirsting for Water

By JONATHAN KIRSCH
Los Angeles Times
September 5 2001

Zanja Avenue is a quiet side street in Venice, but the name is a reminder
of a once-crucial feature of the California landscape-- zanja madre , the
so-called "mother ditch" that provided water to Los Angeles when it was
till just a provincial backwater of Mexico.

By coincidence, I happened upon Zanja Avenue at the same time I was
reading "The Great Thirst: Californians and Water, A History" by Norris
Hundley Jr. (University of California Press, $65, hardcover; $24.95,
paper; 800 pages), the definitive history of how water has been used and
abused in California, both before and after the days of the zanja madre.

Water has always been something elusive but indispensable in California,
as Hundley shows us, and the people who dwell here have always struggled
to find it, master it and use it. Long before the first Spanish
conquistador appeared in the New World, for example, the Paiutes had
fashioned their own primitive irrigation system in what is now called the
Owens Valley. And the zanja madre of old Los Angeles can be seen as a
slightly more sophisticated example of the same kind of waterworks.

More recently, as Hundley explains in fascinating detail, water
development in California has been carried out on a far grander scale. It
is the
handiwork of "a new kind of social imperialist." During the last century
or so, the vision and will of the developers, and the genius of the
engineers who served them, have transformed what the author calls the
"waterscape" of California and created an agricultural, commercial and
residential megalopolis that sprawls across the state.

"More can be done to nature with dynamite, a bulldozer and reinforced
concrete than with the Indians' digging stick," Hundley observes. For the
"social imperialist," as he puts it, the goal was "to acquire the water
of others and prosper at their expense, a goal that catapulted California
into a modern colossus while also producing monumental conflicts and
social costs."

"The Great Thirst," first published in 1991, has been fully revised by
Hundley, professor emeritus of American history at UCLA, and he has
brought the saga of water politics and water technology fully up to date.
While Hundley's self-appointed mission is to demythologize the history of
water in California, he brings such grace and majesty to his book that
some passages achieve the grandeur of a frontier saga.

Still, Hundley always comes back to the cutting-edge of water policy. He
reminds us, for example, that the water needed to supply the suburbs of
Southern California is a fraction of what is needed to irrigate the
fields and orchards of the Central Valley. Some 77% of California's water
goes to agriculture, and a 1984 study cited by Hundley suggests that a
10% reduction in farm use "would have met California's suburban needs for
the next 20 years."

He points out, too, that the fight over water is vastly more complicated
and more volatile than depicted in such movies as "Chinatown" or "Erin
Brockovich."

"To outsiders, California is the feared water hustler nonpareil," Hundley
concedes, but he insists that the conflicts among "water seekers" within
the state are the most ferocious of all: "Los Angeles versus Owens
Valley/Mono Basin, San Francisco versus Hetch Hetchy and the
preservationists, Army Corps of Engineers against the Reclamation Bureau,
[and] the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California versus San
Diego and the Imperial Valley" are among the rivalries he explores.

The ultimate irony is that attitudes toward water in California have come
full circle during the last 200 years. Under both tribal custom and
Spanish law, water was regarded as a public resource that must be
preserved for the benefit of the community.

Under American law and the weight of American expansion, the rights of
miners, farmers and builders trumped the public interest.

Today, however, judges and lawmakers are paying more attention to
conservationists who argue that a purpose higher than private profit must
be served when it comes to water policy.

What is required to accomplish the goal of "cooperative water
management," Hundley concludes, is a citizenry that is "informed,
vigilant and active."

If so, "The Great Thirst" is required reading for anyone who really cares
about California's most precious resource.

"California is that surplus of everything which begins with feeling good
about oneself," writes Laurence A. Rickels in "The Case of California"
(University of Minnesota Press, $18.95, 374 pages), yet another classic
study of California from the stance of a psycho-historian.

What we find at the core of California's celebration of feeling good,
according to Rickels, is a vision as dark as death itself.

"The invention of California from the 19th century to the 1950s can be
worked out in examples of mourning which prove that to go West one
must--Pac-Man-style--cannibalize some other," he quips. "This is the
Donner dinner party's primal accomplishment."

For Rickels, a professor of German literature at UC Santa Barbara,
California is not so much a place as it is a symbol and a state of mind.

That's why he draws on psychoanalysis and pop culture in equal measure to
conjure up the dismal meanings that he discerns in such California
phenomena as bodybuilding, religious cults, surf music and, of course,
Disneyland.

"California is ... where the death wish yields to the death drive," he
concludes. "California could be seen ... as the opening of a frontier;
but its simultaneous lack of future, its perpetual dread of the before,
reduces the frontier onto which it opens to the zone of a theme-park."

Not all of the musings are tightly focused on California. Indeed, many of
them do not mention California at all. And his points of reference,
deeply rooted in the arcane inner recesses of Freudian and post-Freudian
psychology, range from the Marquis de Sade and Thomas Mann to Mickey
Mouse and Marilyn Monroe, all of them invoked to explain why Rickels
regards California as "a semiotic placeholder for a vast and complex
network of contemporary phenomena."

The book is an intellectual tour de force that offers a highly eccentric
vision of a familiar cultural landscape. His insights are often
uncomfortable and unsettling, sometimes outright shocking, and always
intentionally so.

One measure of the success of Rickels' audacious enterprise is we come
away from his book with much less certainty about what we thought we knew
about California when we first picked it up.

END

West Words looks at books related to California and the West. Jonathan
Kirsch can be reached at jkirsch@kirsch-mitchell.com.

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:42 PM
Subject: LA Times: Bills Tying Housing to Supply of Water OKd

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-000073357sep11.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dpolitics%2Dcalifornia

Los Angeles Times
September 11, 2001

THE STATE

Bills Tying Housing to Supply of Water OKd

By DARYL KELLEY and MIGUEL BUSTILLO
TIMES STAFF WRITERS

SACRAMENTO -- Signaling a possible shift in how California manages its
precarious water resources, the Assembly passed two bills Monday that
would force builders of large new subdivisions to prove they can provide
reliable water supplies even during lengthy droughts.

The complementary measures, written by state Sens. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa
Monica) and Jim Costa (D-Fresno), return to the Senate for a vote on
Assembly amendments and are a step away from the desk of Gov. Gray Davis.

"I won't say it's a deal yet, but when you get positive signals from the
governor's office, I would say that's very good assurance," Kuehl said.
"For the first time this bill truly brings together land-use planning
and water-use planning in California." She said she thinks Davis will
sign the bill because after the winter energy crisis, the governor began
to focus on other looming problems and a potential water shortage
captured his attention.

Kuehl's bill, passed by the Assembly 41 to 28, would require local
governments to deny permits for housing projects of 500 units or more if
builders cannot show guaranteed supplies of water.

Costa's bill, approved unanimously earlier in the day, reflects Kuehl's
in many ways, but gives local government more latitude. It would allow
city councils and county supervisors to approve projects without firm
water guarantees if the local boards found "overriding considerations,"
such as more jobs or a housing shortage, for doing so.

While Costa's bill has sailed through the Legislature, Kuehl's tougher
measure has drawn fire from business and real estate interests, as well
as water agencies. But two weeks ago, the state Building Industry Assn.,
Chamber of Commerce and Assn. of Realtors withdrew their opposition after
Kuehl backed word changes that builders felt made the bill less ambiguous.

Tim Coyle, a vice president of the California Building Industry Assn.,
said what he liked most was Kuehl's commitment to cooperate in finding
more water for arid California.

"I think the most important thing here is that California needs to do
something about water supply," Coyle said, "and we have a commitment to
work together with Sheila Kuehl on that next year. We're finally to a
point where we're going to stop dancing around the issue of supply and
make it happen."

Kuehl has promised state help in creating larger supplies through more
underground storage in water basins and in stretching supplies through
conservation, he said.

The issue loomed large during debate over Newhall Ranch and Farming Co.'s
22,000-home Newhall Ranch project, the largest in Los Angeles County
history. Plans stalled last year when a Superior Court judge concluded
the developer had not proved it could supply enough water to support the
new 70,000-resident community.

The Newhall Ranch project has already been approved and would not be
affected by the new laws.

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: Jane's-Olympics

from an AP reporter:

>
> Speaking of shows, there's an interesting one beginning tomorrow at the
> WestCoast Hotel (161 W. 600 S.). It's a three-day conference put on by
> Jane's, a British company I have always associated with picture books of
> guns and tanks and battleships and such. Apparently they're into more
> than just books, though. The conference is about "facilities security."
> Topics include "transit terrorism", "dealing with bombings, threats and
> large crowds" and "public order and demonstrations at facilities."
>
> Olympic security folks will get lessons from Coca-Cola's security
> manager, Seattle's fire department/police and Los Angeles officials -- a
> dignified bunch!
>
> Some of the seminars are closed
> to the media (the whole thing is presumably closed to the public, though
> I'm not sure what measures they'll be taking to keep people away).
> Should be interesting. The Web site with the schedule is
> http://conference.janes.com

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: ICT: Leading on energy and environment is proper for tribes

Indian Country Today
Editorial
September 10, 2001

Leading on energy and environment is proper for tribes

http://www.indiancountry.com/?article=233&style=printable

Throughout the Americas, tribal societies produced peoples and cultures
of great restraint. The marshalling of natural resources animal, plant
or mineral was most often carefully considered.

Universally, within most Native traditions, the bounties of nature were
appreciated as gifts of the Creator. Respect for all living things, as
relatives of the human being, was inherent in cultural and spiritual
approaches that continue to the present. From our ceremonies, from our
languages, and from our histories we have known this to be a collective
guiding maxim.

This is not to romanticize either our ancestors or us. We know that
survival has sometimes required difficult decisions. We also know that
much has changed and that such deep and appreciative thinking is not
nearly always at the forefront of tribal actions.

We often espouse such claims, but if we are not ready to live our values,
then what good are they? If the principles of our general philosophies do
not guide our living practice in realistic yet ethical applications for
our present-day societies, are we not just demeaning ourselves? And, are
we not helping to cheat our children of a future which, in fact, belongs
to them?

As often reported in these pages, we are aware that issues of climate
change and global warming, the poisoning of the air and water, the rapid
and all-too-wanton depletion of basic resources, are gravely important.
The majority of these environmental problems arise from humanity's need
to produce energy for cooking our meals, for heating our homes and
businesses, for transportation, and for industrial production.

That these are requirements of modern life is true enough. But we are
surrounded by a North American society where the energy created which
in whatever form remains a gift of creation is often wasted.

The United States, with 4 percent of the world's population, consumes
more than 25 percent of the world's resources. Yet, as a modern society
and this clearly includes our tribal nations we know more everyday
about how to improve by reducing this waste, how to produce energy in
ways that are not as destructive to land, water and air as past practices.

There are whole movements dedicated to finding and developing practical
solutions, many which are increasingly available, even if the predominate
leadership most often chooses to ignore them. But Native peoples should
not, not if we would hold true to our most cherished values.

There is more scientific consensus on the reality and growing problematic
effects of global warming than on any other single environmental issue.
The whole world is looking to confront this issue, including many good
and wise people in America. We know that Earth's mean temperature climbed
nearly a full degree in the past century, and that this is linked to the
fact that energy demands from fossil fuels have increased carbon dioxide
concentrations from 280 to 365 parts per million over the same period.

We know that the decade of the '90s was the warmest ever on record,
unleashing super-storms and fueling huge fires in patterns that are now
all too predictable. We know both from scientists and from Inuit hunters
that Arctic ice is melting at unprecedented rates. We know that impacts
of severe weather now routinely stimulate preparations for
"super-disasters" among relief agencies. We know there are solutions to
these problems, but we also know that these must be fought for.

In the creation of energy, in the building of homes and other necessary
structures, in the protection of resources, American Indian tribal
governments are properly challenged to lead the struggle for healthy
solutions. There are ways to do this and just a few projects and tribes
have stepped out ahead of the many more that have not. These are
developing practical applications that are consistent with the values our
ancestors understood and, indeed, succeeded against all odds in
maintaining and passing on to the generations that gave us life.

Excuses for lack of positive action are many. It is not our fault, some
say. We are among the poorest, most marginal of peoples, so why should we
be the ones to shoulder the responsibility? But these remain just that,
excuses.

American Indian tribes, who are certainly among the most impacted victims
of radioactive waste, flooded homelands and pollution, cannot afford to
merely follow those who do not see far enough to consider their future
generations.

Consider the Hopi and Navajo, who although sometimes in disagreement,
have both developed active projects in solar power for their communities.
Even in its current infancy stage, this is a hugely important effort,
where the sun's energy can supplement power to homes while lessening
demands on existing electricity generating plants.

Some say such approaches are inadequate, but they can be effective in
helping make families more energy independent while inducing policy
makers to implement needed building and energy code changes.

Consider the wind projects of several Plains tribes, organized under the
auspices of the Intertribal Council on Energy Policy (Intertribal COUP).

This visionary group is engaging in a project that can have practical and
even profitable applications. North and South Dakota have been called the
"Saudi Arabia of Wind" and for good reason. The U.S. Department of Energy
notes that the wind resources of the Great Plains could supply the lower
48 states with 75 percent of their electricity demand. COUP staff
estimate that just 12 Indian reservations in the Dakotas (most
significantly Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Pine Ridge and Rosebud)
could generate in excess of 250 gigawatts of power.

COUP's plan proposes to use this great wind power potential on
reservation lands as economic development that promotes sound
environmental policy. In contrast to nuclear power and the region's
environmentally destructive huge hydropower dams, wind power is
completely renewable and compatible with wildlife, cattle ranching and
other beneficial land-use projects. Financial partners are needed in what
would seem a natural investment for any of the big ten gaming tribes.

Then there are the more than 100 tribes fighting to gain treaty-based
rights to higher air and water quality standards. Following the
commendable leadership of Isleta Pueblo and Montana's Salish and
Kootenai, a number of tribes filed for TAS (Treatment as State) authority
under amendments to the 1986 Clean Water Act, opening a way to apply
higher water-quality levels on treaty lands.

With U.S. Supreme Court decisions to back them up, this movement opened
the door for more than 100 tribes throughout the country to press for
higher air and water quality standards. Twenty-one have been granted TAS
authorization, of which 18 have gained approval of higher standards of
water quality.

The list goes on, but it is not long enough. We say, again: to be at the
forefront of clean energy standards and of the fight for a sustainable
future is a good and proper place for American Indian tribes.

This article can be found at http://www.indiancountry.com/?article=233

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:43 PM
Subject: Groups oppose plan for 2 EISs on San Juan-Chama water

August 16, 2001

The Honorable Larry Delgado
Mayor, City of Santa Fe
200 Lincoln Avenue, PO Box 909
Santa Fe, NM 87504-0909

Attn: City Council Members
City of Santa Fe
200 Lincoln Avenue, PO 909
Santa Fe. NM 87504-0909

Attn: County Commissioners
Santa Fe County
102 Grant, Box 276
Santa Fe, NM 87504-0276

Bill Deihl, President
Las Campanas
218 Camino La Tierra
Samta Fe, NM 87506

Dear Mayor, City Councilors and County Council:

We are writing to express our opposition to the manner in which the City
of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County are proceeding to develop a regional
water management plan in order to expand existing water supplies. We
recently learned that the Bureau of Reclamation, acting on behalf of the
City of Santa Fe and the Santa Fe County, has initiated oversight of the
development
of two separate Environmental Impact Statements (EIS), each separately
analyzing the effects of developing and implementing inextricably linked
components for expanding the regional water supply.

While we have substantive concerns about the environmental, cultural and
socio-economic effects of expanding regional water supplies, especially
as they impact the endangered Rio Grande, this letter addresses the City
and County's decision to segment the analysis of its planning process
into two Environmental Impact Statements.

We strongly oppose any effort that segments analysis into two separate
planning processes. In light of the inextricable links between all phases
of the development and implementation of a new water resources management
strategy, we feel the decision to segment the analysis into two planning
processes is unwise, inefficient and illegal.

According to a June 18, 2001 letter from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation,
to state and federal water and land managers, the City and County have
decided to prepare two separate Environmental Impact Statements (EIS's)
on "the Santa Fe Region's Water Resources Management" plan. The letter
explains that the first EIS will focus on San Juan-Chama diversion in
order "to meet the immediate and urgent needs of the City/County during
drought periods" while a second EIS "will address long-term issues of
water supply and effluent management."

It appears that the City and County made this decision, at least in part,
on the basis of advice from the engineering consultant firm Camp, Dresser
& McKee, which has been advising the City on water planning issues for
much of the last decade. According to a document entitled "Water Supply
Plan, Final Alternatives Analysis, Design and Project Implementation,
January, 2001", the decision to split water development plans into two
phases and to 'fast-track' development of the City's contracted San
Juan-Chama water is advocated as a means of expeditiously providing
additional water supplies.

We do not believe that splitting water development plans into two phases
and fast tracking plans to divert San Juan-Chama water will be more
economically efficient moreover, we know doing so will result in a poor
analysis of the environmental, cultural and socio-economic impacts of
expanding water supplies.

As a general principle, we do not believe that any analysis of Santa Fe's
future water plans (or current for that matter), can afford to separately
analyze the effects of using the Santa Fe River, Santa Fe Basin wells,
and Buckman wells from diversions of surface water from the Rio Grande.
There is a complex inter-play between surface and ground water that must
be fully
integrated in order to honestly and accurately determine which
alternatives can best serve the cities' needs while minimizing the
environmental harm that will undoubtedly occur as a result of expanding
water supplies.

The recently proposed plan for the expeditious development of new water
supplies calls for analyzing surface diversions from the Rio Grande as if
that initiative exists in isolation from the plans to re-use effluent and
obtain return flow credits, yet nothing could be further from the truth.
The fact of the matter is that effluent re-use and return flow credits,
both of which would be the primary subject of the second proposed EIS,
have a direct bearing on the amount of surface water that could be
diverted from the Rio Grande and the construction of infrastructure
necessary to deliver new water supplies to treatment facilities.

The Water Supply Plan submitted to the City council in January recognizes
that re-use of effluent "is key to the City's long-term management of
imported water" and thus has a direct bearing on the amount of water the
could be ultimately diverted from the Rio Grande. The plan clearly states
that "discharging effluent to the Rio Grande in the Buckman area would
provide return flow credits that may allow the City to divert
significantly more than its existing Sam Juan-Chama contract rights
without additional water rights purchases or leases." (page 7-2 )

Integrating effluent reuse and return flow credits with surface water
diversions as the current water strategy no doubt envisions, would enable
the combination of the City, County and Las Campanas to divert up to
14,000 acre-feet, or nearly three times as much water as would be
possible absent obtaining return flow credits from the New Mexico State
Engineer. Thus, plans to build infrastructure to divert water from the
Rio Grande and convey it for treatment, will necessarily address the
objective of diverting far more than the approximately 5,600 acre-feet
controlled by the City and County. This can not be done piecemeal.

Of equal concern to us is that segmenting the environmental analysis of
this Region's water plans into two distinct components will undoubtedly
result in failing to accurately analyze the effects of water diversions
on the endangered fish and wildlife that depend upon the Rio Grande.

Segmenting your analysis would also violate the National Environmental
Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act both of which call for
integrated planning. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has repeatedly
indicated its opposition to piecemeal approaches to environmental
analyses of water projects throughout the Rio Grande basin.

In a similar, but somewhat less egregious example of piece-mealed
implementation of a water resources strategy, the FWS was highly critical
of the City of Albuquerque's plans to segment its Water Resources
Management Strategy into three different environmental analyses. In
response to the first of three environmental analyses the FWS responded,
saying:

"Because individually and cumulatively these projects are likely to
significantly affect the human environment, and especially the Rio Grande
ecosystem, the Service has repeatedly recommended to the Bureau of
Reclamation and the City of Albuquerque that the impacts be addressed in
a single Environmental Impact Statement. The Service maintains that
analysis
under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) should be addressed in
a single document, rather than several smaller documents."

The Service has been equally critical of the City of Santa Fe when
reviewing the environmental analysis that was completed on the Rio Grande
Infiltration Collector Well Demonstration Project (See letter of March 3,
1999 from Jennifer Fowler-Propst to Blue Earth Ecological Consultants).
In response to these comments and others, including Forest Guardians'
comments, the Bureau of Reclamation indicated that the City and County
would prepare one EIS on the implementation of their water strategy.

Further, we believe that the current decision to segment water
development plans into two phases would violate Section 7(a)(2) of the
Endangered Species Act by making "irreversible and irretrievable
commitment of resources," foreclosing opportunities by local governments
to protect and restore the Rio Grande and the endangered fish and
wildlife that are dependent upon the river system.

As you well know, the Rio Grande silvery minnow and Southwestern willow
flycatcher, are two critically endangered species that depend upon
healthy aquatic and riverside forest habitats. More than a century of
dams, water diversions and levees have severely degraded the Rio Grande
ecosystem. Growing urban demands and plans to divert surface water are
the latest in a
long line of threats to protecting and restoring this once Great River.
We believe the City, County and Las Campanas must all seriously consider
ways to ensure increased flows in the Rio Grande and other actions that
will help improve on the current poor ecological health of the river.

Finally, we believe that splitting the development of the Region's water
plans into two distinct components will result in overlooking effects on
the Santa Fe River below the wastewater treatment plan and downstream
communities who are dependent on the effluent water for irrigation. For
example, although the Santa Fe River and downstream irrigators who
currently depend on effluent for their well-being would likely not be
harmed by the
construction of a diversion facility on the Rio Grande, that would not be
the case for plans which re-allocate effluent to other uses.

Reallocation of effluent to golf courses at the Las Campanas resort and
to other municipal purposes, as envisioned under almost all water
development strategies, has the potential to result in reduced deliveries
of water to downstream irrigators on the Santa Fe River while at the same
time increasing the amount of surface water diverted at the Rio Grande.
As stated
above, there is an undeniable link between both phases of the proposed
water development strategy that necessitates analyzing the entire
strategy at one time.

The recent decision by the U.S. Forest Service to require coordinated
planning on the part of the City, County and Las Campanas also reinforces
our contention that the entire water plan should be developed and
analyzed in one cohesive way. With Las Campanas' co-equal participation
in surface diversions plans now resolved, there will be even greater
pressure on the City Council to reach agreement with Las Campanas about
the reuse of effluent. Effluent reuse by Las Campanas will require
construction of pipelines and other infrastructure that will be one piece
of an overall water resources strategy. Under the current approach the
effects of these decisions would go unaddressed.

It is important to note that these additional water uses and the
intentions to maximize effluent reuse and obtain return flow credits are
not merely speculative, but are an integral component of the draft water
strategy for the Region. The city and its consultants freely admit that
these other strategies will be implemented in the very near future.

In conclusion we ask that the City and County reconsider its current
planning approach to the development of new water resources for the
greater Santa Fe Region. Although the City and County are unquestionably
under intense pressure to develop and implement a plan to divert surface
water from the Rio Grande for drinking water purposes we believe that the
first step in this critical process is fatally flawed.

According to the June 18, 2001 letter from the Bureau of Reclamation, the
City and its likely partners are readying to issue a "notice of intent to
prepare the EISthis summer" with a series of "public scoping meeting(s)
beginning in August." We urge you not to expend any resources pursuing
this flawed path but instead pursue a plan that fully integrates all
components of a water resources strategy into one comprehensive planning
document. Doing so will enable all legitimate cultural, environmental and
socio-economic concerns to be adequately addressed and will save the City
and County from wasting precious time and resources on a plan that will
face significant opposition at its outset.

If you have any questions about these concerns or would like to meet with
us to discuss them, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

John C. Horning
Conservation Director
Forest Guardians

Elaine Cimino,
La Cienega Valley Citizens for Environmental Safeguards

Steve Harris
Executive Director
Rio Grande Restoration

David Henderson
Executive Director
New Mexico Audubon

The Alliance for the Rio Grande Heritage

Copies Sent To:

Mr. Tom Turney
Office of the State Engineer
Interstate Stream Commission
PO Box 25102
Santa Fe, NM 87504

Mr. Todd Stevenson, Division Chief
NM Department of Game & Fish
PO Box 25112
Santa Fe, NM 87504

Mr. John Bruin
Santa Fe National Forest
1474 Rodeo Road
Santa Fe, NM 87504

Mr. Hal Knox
Bureau of Land Management
PO Box 27115
Santa Fe, NM 87502-0115

Dr. Joy Nicholopoulus
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Ecological Services
2105 Osuna Road, NE
Albuquerque, NM 87113

Sam Montoya, County Manager
Santa Fe County
103 Grant Ave, Box 276
Santa Fe, NM 87504-0276

Mr. Craig O'Hare
Water Program Administrator
PO Box 909, 200 Lincoln Ave.
Santa Fe, NM 87504-0909

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:15 PM
Subject: Gas burning persists despite illness

Gallup Independent
Sept. 7

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gas burning persists despite illness

Larry Di Giovanni
Staff Writer

WINDOW ROCK - Navajo citizens living in the Utah chapters of Aneth and
Red Mesa are getting sick from the flaring of natural gas and other gases
caused by a pipeline's closure, which has Navajo EPA Director Derrith
Watchman Moore and her staff highly concerned.

Aneth and Red Mesa residents living close to the oil wells operated by
Exxon/Mobil, Texaco and other oil companies are complaining of headaches,
light headedness, dryness of the throat, nausea and other problems.

Some have ended up going to the health clinic in Montezuma Creek, Utah,
said Arlene Luther of Navajo EPA. It is important for them to tell
doctors that they live close to the areas where flaring and venting of
gas is occurring, she added.

The oil companies are flaring, or burning off, the gas because of the
shutdown of a 12.5-mile pipeline that runs from the Elkhorn plant to Red
Mesa, where it connects with another pipeline. In the process of
extracting oil, natural gas and other gases are produced, which are sent
by pipeline to processing plants...

[full article not available on website]

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: Fresno Bee: Valley differences mar Cal-Fed bill

Valley differences mar Cal-Fed bill

New division between growers poses problem for lawmakers.

By Michael Doyle
Bee Washington Bureau

Tuesday, September, 11, 2001

WASHINGTON -- Regional tensions still divide Central Valley farmers,
complicating a multibillion-dollar California water plan.

The Valley's east-side farmers are pitted against the west side, with the
security of precious irrigation supplies at stake. That split poses a
big-time problem for lawmakers, who are hoping against hope for progress
this week on a mammoth water bill. But so far, progress remains elusive.

"Basically, we couldn't keep the agriculture coalition together on this
one," said Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa.

The east-vs.-west split, in turn, has reshuffled the political deck.

The conservative Radanovich, for one, now has common cause with liberal
Democratic Rep. George Miller of Martinez. Radanovich and Miller now
share anxieties over how much water new legislation might commit to
west-side farmers.

On the flip side, the working relationship between Democratic Sens.
Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer faces its own strains because of their
differences over the California water legislation.

On Thursday, a House subcommittee is scheduled to consider the water
bill, which is dubbed Cal-Fed. The plan calls for about $10 billion in
projects to help restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, secure water
storage and protect both habitat and irrigation supplies. The federal
government is supposed to pay about one-third of the total.

The Cal-Fed program enjoys widespread -- though not universal --
political support. Environmental groups worry about the effect of big
projects, and taxpayer groups worry about overall costs.

"The federal government and state agencies would turn into production
lines to develop new boondoggle water projects," Aileen Roder, an analyst
with Taxpayers for Common Sense, claimed this year.

The Bush administration is generally supportive, and the Interior
Department has hired former Central Valley Project Water Association
director Jason Peltier as special assistant for water issues.

Still, troubling details remain; and none has proven more troublesome
than proposed assurances of future water supplies.

Farmers in the politically influential Westlands Water District and
others on the Valley's west side want written guarantees of water
deliveries. The farmers seek assurances they'll receive at least 65% or
70% of their contracted irrigation supplies in typical years.

"We very definitely want those assurances in there," said Nancy
Pitigliano, who along with her family grows cotton and almonds in Tulare
County.

Lawmakers dutifully championed the assurances with language sought by
farmers.

Before his own political future became cloudy this year, Democratic Rep.
Gary Condit of Ceres insisted on the water delivery assurances during
negotiations.

As late as April, Radanovich likewise joined Condit in urging that the
west-side farmers be assured of 65% or 70% supplies -- so long as other
water users weren't hurt.

But what's very uncertain is where the guaranteed water comes from if not
from other water districts. And east-side farmers, like those served by
the Friant Water Users Authority, fear the west-side guarantees could
take a bite out of their own supplies.

Those fears are aggravated by other tensions that at times have flared
into court battles.

"Friant," Democratic Rep. Cal Dooley of Fresno said, "is not interested
in doing anything to help Westlands at this point."

Dooley wants delivery assurances included in the legislation.

Radanovich no longer does, after meeting with east-side farmers during
the congressional August recess. Radanovich might now try to get rid of
the water-delivery assurances language with a subcommittee amendment on
Thursday.

"Hopefully," Dooley said, "there'll come a point where we compromise."

The reporter can be reached at mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com or (202) 383-0006.

===================================================+

Date: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:41 PM
Subject: France's Chirac condemns GM crop protests

France's Chirac condemns GM crop protests

RENNES, France, Sept 11 (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac condemned on
Tuesday the wave of genetically modified (GM) crop protests that have
swept the French countryside, saying those responsible for tearing up
fields should be punished.

"The savage acts of destruction in recent weeks are not acceptable and
should be firmly condemned," Chirac said during a speech at a European
livestock trade show in this city in western France.

"There is no justification for people who assume the right to ransack the
property of others to assert their arguments. We cannot accept such
behaviour. They should be prosecuted and punished," he added.

Since late June, radical farmers, environmentalists, anti-globalisation
activists and others have cut down at least 10 fields of GM maize to
protest against the testing of bio-engineered plants in France.

The activists launched their campaign to destroy GM fields in June after
the French farm ministry published a list of districts in France where GM
plants were being tested.

The campaign received a boost in late July after the French food safety
agency AFSSA released a report saying it had found GM traces in several
conventional crops around the country.

GM crops are common in the United States, but France and other European
countries remain reluctant to sanction new genetic technology in
agriculture. France nonetheless grows experimental GM crops on more than
100 sites.

Chirac defended such crop tests as "normal and necessary" and said they
should proceed with full transparency. However, he urged the government
of Prime Minister Lionel Jospin to do more to provide a framework for
such tests.

Jospin, who will likely face off against Chirac in France's presidential
elections next year, has already denounced GM crop destruction as illegal
and has urged the activists to stop.

11:21 09-11-01

Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited.