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State Legislature Fails to Crack Down on Developer Use of Polluted "paper" Water Supplies

Tainted water still counts for land developers: Amendment to count only clean water struck down in Sacramento

The Santa Clarita Signal- 6/3/08
By Jim Holt, Senior Writer
http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/2178/

Local water activists are saddened today now that a proposed law promising to slow development through tougher conditions set on groundwater assessment has been struck down in Sacramento. Assembly Bill AB2046 requires water suppliers such as the Castaic Lake Water Agency to submit to the state the quantity and quality of groundwater being assessed in relation to supplying that water ultimately to an identified group, such as a 500-unit housing development. If a water supply is contaminated, the suppliers are required to detail for their local governments how they would treat the contamination. Once those conditions are met, the supplier can count the water in its plans.

Proposed amendments to the bill would have precluded water suppliers from relying on groundwater in calculating their water supplies. Specifically, the amended AB2046 would have precluded the supplier from relying on groundwater as a supply earmarked for any proposed development project (such as a 500-unit housing development) if the groundwater did not meet applicable state standards - such as the standard set for safe drinking water - on the date the water supply assessment is prepared.

On Thursday, members of the Assembly's Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee voted five to two in favor of amending two sections of the state Water Code, thereby removing the proposal to stop counting untreated groundwater. Cam Noltemeyer, a Santa Clarita resident concerned about how water is obtained and disseminated locally, appealed to members of the Newhall County Water District last month to endorse the recommended bill changes. "I went before the Newhall board to see if they would endorse the changes," she said Monday. "Now they're going to go back to paper water."

"Paper water" is the term used to describe groundwater assessed before it's tapped - water that appears only on paper. The proposed bill would have recognized water that had been treated first, before being counted. Noltemeyer, who does not drink Santa Clarita tap water and would "prefer not to bathe in it," fears the legislative setback will stall water cleanup efforts. "It's appalling to me that they wouldn't count it until it's clean. It's going to affect how they (water agency) look at cleaning up the Whittaker-Bermite site," she said, referring to the agency's ongoing efforts to remove the chemical perchlorate from groundwater on the former company's land.

Dan Masnada, general manager of the water agency, says the amended bill in no way alters how the agency continues to bring a clean, drinkable, uninterrupted supply of water to the residents of Santa Clarita. "It makes the bill more practical and workable for us," he told The Signal Monday. "Most importantly, we will continue to do our job as we have been doing it."

Bill Allayaud, senior consultant to Assemblyman Dave Jones, D-Sacramento, who authored the bill, said the bill would not have passed if it included the controversial groundwater clause. "The bill now basically asks for more transparency on the part of water suppliers," he said. "They must show the amount of water you have and the plans to supply that water." Allayaud said the state heard from a number of interested parties in the reading of the bill, including the Association of California Water Agencies, the California Building Industry Association, and various chambers of commerce. "Basically, we felt that Mr. Jones wasn't going to get the votes needed to carry the bill," Allayaud said, adding that talk about the "predictability of future water supplies" was all the buzz at the state legislature. "This is the time people are starting to pay attention to urban water management plans," he said.

http://www.the-signal.com/news/article/2178/

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California Coastal Trail Hikes Calendar is Posted:

http://coastwalk.org/Events/dayhikes.htm

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Bay Area Ridge Trail Council News

5/20/2008


New Carquinez Strait Scenic Loop Trail Collaboration

The Council is thrilled to announce a new collaboration with our “sister” San Francisco Bay Trail Project: a 50-mile Carquinez Strait Scenic Loop Trail.

We have long envisioned an intertwined loop around the Strait as part of our regional network. The Ridge and Bay trails share an alignment between Vallejo and Benicia on the northern side of the Strait, and across the toll bridges. South of the Strait, the Ridge Trail winds up onto the ridgelines before heading south into the East Bay hills, while the Bay Trail hugs the shoreline.

While the area is not widely visited, it boasts dramatic bluffs with spectacular vistas and fascinating natural and human history. Stunning sections of the Carquinez Loop are already open, including Crockett Hills Regional Park, Benicia State Recreation Area, the Al Zampa Bridge path, Mt. Wanda in the John Muir Historic Site, and the Pinole Watershed trail, opened last November.

This year, in addition to support from the Coastal Conservancy, we are grateful to have received a generous grant from the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund for this special collaboration. Our goals are:

• To close as many gaps as possible in time for the fall 2009 opening of a new bicycle pedestrian path on the Benicia Martinez bridge; and
• To reach out with trail events and activities to build awareness of our trails, especially among youth.

New trail priorities include (moving clockwise around the Strait): Vallejo Bluffs, Glen Cove Waterfront Park, a path over I-780 to Benicia State Recreation Area, Martinez Regional Shoreline, the historic Feeder Trail, Fernandez Ranch, and community connections in Benicia, Martinez and Crockett.

Check out a special feature in your next issue of RidgeLines and http://ridgetrail.org for more details, as they take shape.

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Sierra Nevada Forests Protected; Yosemite Road Construction Halted; Sacramento River Fish Lawsuit Continues

May 2008--EarthJustice Legal Foundation Legal Brief
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/e-brief/may-2008.html

June 6 trial set in delta salmon case

Earthjustice attorneys are gearing up for a June 6 trial to determine how steelhead and salmon will be protected in the Sacramento River under terms of a ruling they won in April. The ruling disallowed a state water management plan for pumping water out of the Sacramento delta.

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/judge-tosses-biological-opinion-for-salmon-and-steelhead-in-california.html

Yosemite road construction halted

In response to a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice last month, Mariposa County, California has cancelled a permit that would have allowed a private developer to construct two alleged county roads within Yosemite National Park. The roads would have been bulldozed near the Merced Grove of giant sequoias.

Sierra forest plan nixed by federal court

A U.S. Forest Service plan to greatly increase logging in Sierra Nevada national forests was struck down by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Earthjustice had challenged the Sierra Nevada Framework management plan on behalf of Sierra Forest Legacy, Sierra Club, and The Wilderness Society.

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/ninth-circuit-rules-to-protect-sierra-forests-faults-usfs-plan.html

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Judge Halts Mojave Desert Sewage Sludge Composting Plant

For Immediate Release, April 29, 2008

Contacts:

Norm Diaz, http://helphinkley.org, (760) 963-3585 Kassie Siegel, Center for Biological Diversity, (760) 366-2232 x 302 Ingrid Brostrom, Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, (661) 720-9140 x 302

Hinkley Residents Win Challenge to Open-Air Sludge Compost Facility;
Community Activists Convince Judge to Order
Further Environmental Review for Proposed Project

HINKLEY, Calif.— A group of residents in Hinkley, the rural California town Erin Brockovich made famous in a landmark case against a utility for contaminating the local water supply, has won another environmental case, this time against the county, for its approval of a proposed open-air sewage sludge compost facility.

HelpHinkley.org and the Center for Biological Diversity argued that the proposed Hawes Composting Facility Project, to be located near the former Hawes Airport, about 8 miles west and upwind of Hinkley, posed potential environmental risks because it would ferment human sewage sludge and other waste products in the open air. The plaintiffs charged that San Bernardino County failed to adequately consider mitigation measures — in particular, enclosing the proposed facility — that would reduce potential environmental impacts before it approved the Environmental Impact Report by Nursery Products LLC, the company to build the facility.

San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge John Vander Feer agreed, ruling that the county must conduct further environmental review and consider the feasibility of enclosing the proposed facility.

“It is extremely gratifying to know that our concerns were validated and the judge sided with us,” says Norm Diaz of HelpHinkley.org. “We understand the need to compost and deal with waste responsibly. But our communities are not the producers of the majority of sewage sludge in Southern California that would go to this proposed facility. If we are forced to deal with other areas’ waste, we should be protected from any possible effects with the use of state-of-the-art technologies.”

Kassie Siegel, climate, air and energy program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, adds: “Our victory in this case gives the county a second chance to protect the environment and the health and welfare of Hinkley residents by requiring this facility to use today's technology, rather than last century’s.”

HelpHinkley.org and the Center for Biological Diversity were represented by the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment (CRPE) and the Golden Gate University Environmental Law and Justice Clinic. Participating attorneys included Brent Plater, staff attorney with the clinic, who supervised Golden Gate University law students working on the case, and Caroline Farrell and Ingrid Brostrom with CRPE.

to read rest of press release: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2008/hinkley-04-29-2008.html

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Two Rare Southern California Plants Get New Chance to Grow

6/20/2008

Settling a suit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bush administration agreed Wednesday to revisit two 2005 decisions that would work against the recovery of two federally protected Southern California plants. The spreading navarretia, a tiny, white-flowered plant that dwells in rare seasonal ponds, was granted just 652 acres of protected habitat -- even though it's found in a total of 18,747 acres -- while the thread-leaved brodiaea, a clay-loving lily, was left no better off with just 597 out of 4,093 acres of habitat protected. These scanty habitat designations were scientifically indefensible and just happened to take place smack in the middle of a period fraught with politically tainted endangered-species decisions made by Bush administration appointees. The Center filed a notice of intent to sue over 55 of those decisions and has moved forward with more than one lawsuit -- and the spreading navarretia and thread-leaved brodiaea are among the species likely to benefit.

Thanks to this week's settlement, the administration must go back to the drawing board and make new decisions regarding protected habitat for both plants. Final designations are due by 2010, with proposals to be made next year.

Learn about the spreading navarretia, the thread-leaved brodiaea, and our "Watchfrogging Political Corruption" campaign on our Web site.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/plants/spreading_navarretia/index.html

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/plants/thread-leaved_brodiaea/index.html

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Endangered Toad to Get New California Hopping Grounds

6/5/2008

Settling a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Bush administration last week agreed to redo a politically tainted decision that reduced the protected "critical habitat" area for southern California's endangered arroyo toad from 182,360 acres to just 11,695.

Though federal investigations revealed that this and many other decisions to strip protection from endangered species were forced upon agency scientists by high-ranking administration officials, the Center was forced to sue to have the decision rescinded. The settlement requires the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to establish a new protected area by October 2010.

Learn more about the arroyo toad, our campaign against tainted endangered species decisions, and the latest settlement.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/amphibians/arroyo_toad/index.html

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2008/arroyo-toad-06-05-2008.html

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An end to Hurwitz saga at Pacific Lumber

June 12, 2008, Houston Chronicle
COMMENTARY

By LOREN STEFFY

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/5834680.html

Charles Hurwitz and environmentalists agree.

You read that right. After two decades of bitter feuding, the war of the redwoods appears to be ending the only way it could: with Hurwitz's exit from the timber business.

Last week, a bankruptcy judge in Corpus Christi indicated he favors a reorganization plan for Pacific Lumber that would transfer ownership from Houston-based Maxxam Corp., which Hurwitz controls, to Mendocino Redwood Co., a timber company based in Ukiah, Calif.

Environmentalists favor the plan because Mendocino, owned by the billionaire Fisher family that founded the Gap retail chain, has a history of enviro-friendly logging practices. Hurwitz favors it because it preserves Pacific Lumber and its 300 jobs in the company town of Scotia, Calif.

"It's a fantastic company," Hurwitz said of Palco, as the company is known. "The guys at Mendocino are good people."

Bondholders could still derail the deal, but it appears Mendocino will prevail, paying $580 million for Palco and its 210,000 acres of redwood timberland.

Mendocino's advantages

So how does Mendocino hope to make the deal work when Maxxam couldn't?

It has a few advantages. It's a private company, so it can take a longer-term view of profitability without worrying about delivering quarterly numbers to investors.

"That's a luxury public companies don't have," Mendocino Chairman Sandy Dean said.

Second, the bankruptcy process has eliminated about $600 million in debt, easing the pressure on Palco's profit margin.

Personification of doom

Most importantly, though, Mendocino doesn't have Hurwitz.

For two decades, Hurwitz has been the personification of environmental doom painted by a legion of activists in northern California.

Nothing he did, including agreeing to some of the most arduous environmental restrictions ever imposed on a timber company, could appease them. As long as they had Hurwitz, they had someone to vilify.

Hurwitz, for his part, didn't recognize until it was too late how the environmentalists could disrupt his business. By then, both sides were stuck.

Maxxam in the 1980s wasn't a long-term investor. It used junk bond financing to take over an undervalued lumber company. The playbook for such deals called for restructuring the company and selling it a few years later.

By the time Hurwitz was ready to sell, he had a full-blown war on his hands, and no one wanted to buy into it.

As part of the 1999 agreement that set aside thousands of acres of old-growth redwoods as a preserve, Hurwitz agreed to reduce Palco's timber harvest, but it didn't matter. As long as trees were cut in his name, the environmental groups kept up the fight.

That left Palco cutting far less timber than the deal allowed and unable to make enough money to pay its debt.

Mendocino claims it can make money while cutting less than a third of what's permitted under the 1999 pact.

Few companies, of course, ever truly win the support of environmentalists. Despite its sustainable logging efforts, Mendocino, too, has been the target of protests and "tree sits," and even a campaign to boycott Gap stores in the past. Nevertheless, its logging practices are less aggressive than Palco's under Hurwitz.

Perhaps Mendocino learned from Palco's plight. It has been conducting a series of meetings in California's Humboldt County, explaining its plan. It's an openness that Maxxam never had.

Ironically, though, the success of the plan environmentalists favor hinged on Maxxam itself. In bankruptcy cases, secured creditors typically rule.

It's unusual that Judge Richard Schmidt didn't simply allow bondholders to sell timberland to the highest bidder and recover the money they're owed.

Mendocino's plan gained traction after Maxxam backed it.

"It was gracious of Maxxam to support our plan," Dean said. "Their support helped improve our plan significantly."

Not a victory

The plan is far from a victory for Maxxam. It loses control of Palco, its investment withered away by two decades of timber wars. If it had to give up control, though, the Mendocino plan offers the best option for preserving Palco, which Hurwitz said was important to him.

Maxxam, which wasn't in bankruptcy itself, is left with some real estate properties and its Houston horse-racing track.

For environmentalists, the plan offers hope that a company they've long despised will change its practices, striking a balance between environmentalism and capitalism.

Perhaps it's only fitting, then, that in this, the denouement to the timber wars, they and Hurwitz finally agree.

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Another Link is Saved in the Redwoods to the Sea Park on the North Coast

Redwoods league buys Mattole land for BLM

John Driscoll/The Eureka Times-Standard
6/08/2008

http://www.times-standard.com/ci_9520620

The Save-the-Redwoods League has acquired 216-acres between Humboldt Redwoods State Park and the King Range National Conservation Area and transferred it to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The property is the latest addition to a project known as Corridor from the Redwoods to the Sea. That is nearly 10,000 acres connecting the lush old-growth redwood forests in the Southern Humboldt County park to the ocean.

”In the BLM Arcata Field Office we share Save-the-Redwoods League's vision to connect critical wildlife areas in California,” said Field Manager Lynda Roush. “This land transfer is a significant stepping stone in extending the Corridor from the Redwoods to the Sea.”

The acquired land connects habitat and provides protection for threatened species in the area, according to a league press release. Endangered coho salmon and steelhead trout exist in several streams on the property, the league said, and second-growth redwoods and Douglas fir forests protect the Mattole River from soil erosion and improve habitat for aquatic species.

The land was bought from a family for about $200,000 with funding from the league and the Resource Legacy Fund Foundation's Preserving Wild California Program, league Executive Director Ruskin Hartley said in a phone interview. Hartley said the league has been working in the Mattole River area since at least 1999, initially buying some property from Eel River Sawmills. He said it's been important since large parcels in the Mattole are becoming more scarce, and the effects on wildlife and streams have been dramatic.

”The league's Corridor from the Redwoods to the Sea project is significant because virtually all of the remaining wild land in the lower 48 states is divided into isolated islands,” Hartley said. “Linking areas of wildlands is key to effective conservation. It allows us to protect landscapes where animals and plant species can thrive, reproduce and flourish.”

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Newhall Ranch Owner Goes Bankrupt;
One of two largest land owners in L.A. County

CalPERS-backed LandSource files for Chapter 11
From L.A. Times Staff and Wire Reports

June 10, 2008

A California real estate partnership that the California Public Employees' Retirement System poured about $1 billion into has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

LandSource Communities Development's assets include 15,000 acres of undeveloped land in the Santa Clarita Valley, among the largest land deals to falter amid the national housing glut. The land was appraised at $2.6 billion at the time of the CalPERS investment, but has dropped considerably in value since then.

CalPERS, the nation's biggest pension fund, provides pension, healthcare and other retirement services for about 1.5 million public employees. CalPERS did not immediately return calls Monday. Last month, its president, Rob Feckner, told the Los Angeles Times he hoped to forestall a bankruptcy filing but stressed that "if we incur any losses, they will be minor" because the pension fund is "very well diversified, in good shape."

LandSource issued a news release late Sunday to announce its filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.

Santa Clarita-based LandSource had been trying for months to restructure a $1.24-billion debt, the company said. It received a default notice on April 22 after missing a payment when a decline in the assessed value of that northern Los Angeles County land holding triggered an additional charge.

"LandSource believes Chapter 11 provides the most effective means for the partnership to preserve the values of its business . . . while it works with creditors to achieve a long-term restructuring," spokeswoman Tamara Taylor said in the release.

Attempts to reach Taylor and LandSource were unsuccessful.

LandSource operates in California, Arizona, Florida, New Jersey, Nevada and Texas.

The partnership announced that it had received a $135-million line of credit from a group of lenders led by Barclays Bank, allowing it to fund operations during the Chapter 11 period.

CalPERS, with $254.8 billion in assets, is involved in LandSource through its participation in MW Housing Partners, an investment fund managed by MacFarlane Partners.

MW Housing Partners acquired 68% of the Santa Clarita property, along the Interstate 5 corridor 30 miles north of Los Angeles, from home builder Lennar Corp. and LNR Property Corp., a unit of Cerberus Capital Management.

Lennar and LNR each maintained a 16% interest in LandSource.
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a comment on the Times' website reveal more:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laland/2008/06/bankruptcy-for.html

About 2 weeks ago, Standard & Poors reported that LandSource, Newhall Land's parent company, had $25 Million in cash left in their bank accounts. Standard & Poors had conducted a 'private audit' of LandSource's financial condition at the request of LandSource's mortgage lender, Barclays Bank. So the $25Million cash was real, not funny money.

Yet, in filing Chapter 11, LandSource and Newhall Land chose to royally scr*w all of their California trade creditors by not paying them, even though that $25 Million is cash was available. Now, these local companies are unlikely to ever be paid.

Adding insult to injury, LandSource and their mortgage lender have done a prepackaged Debtor In Possession financing, which is scheduled to be approved at 10AM on Tuesday 6/10, without any meaningful notice to the unsecured California trade creditors, since the bankruptcy was filed in Delaware even though the vast majority of the assets, and all the major unsecured creditors, are in California.

Showing their contempt for their unsecured creditors, LandSource also had the nerve to create a creditors notice website at www.kccllc.net/landsource and purport to provide copies of all of the bankruptcy petitions for the 21 entities, BUT they conveniently left off the most important bankruptcy petition, the one for the parent company LandSource Communities Development LLC.

So the California unsecured creditors who were stiffed should be asking "Where did the last $25 Million go?" From the unsecured creditors schedules on the actual bankruptcy petitions, here are just some of the local companies stiffed by LandSource:

PCL Construction, Glendale, $6,060,480
Park West Landscape, Pacoima $1,245,062
Oak Ridge Landscape, North Hills $`,056,303
Hunsaker & Assoc., Valencia $905,156
Psomas & Assoc., Santa Clarita $816,033
John Burgeson Contractors, Canyon Country $800,157
RC Becker & Sons, Santa Clarita $800,151

There are many more local service providers and contractors from Ventura County, Orange County and LA County south of Mulholland also cheated out of what was due them, while the $25 Million was frittered away, or horded to pay Newhall Land's generous employee payroll and benefit package. See the schedules to the bankruptcy petitions at the website established by LandSource at http://kccllc.net/landsource

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More Details of Pacific Lumber Deal:

Marathon-Mendocino plan confirmed

by John Blakeley
Jun-9-2008

http://www.thedeal.com/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1212755507222&pagename=TheDeal%2FNWStArticle&c=TDDArticle

After weeks of contested confirmation hearings in the Pacific Lumber Co. bankruptcy, a Texas judge has confirmed a reorganization plan led by hedge fund Marathon Structured Finance Fund LP.

Marathon and Mendocino Redwood Co. LLC, a lumber distributor owned by Gap Inc. founder Donald Fisher, will pay at least $580 million cash for the 210,000 acres of timberlands owned by Palco affiliate Scotia Pacific Co. LLC

Judge Richard Schmidt of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas in Corpus Christi confirmed the plan in a Friday, June 6, order, cramming down objections from the only other plan proponent remaining in the case, Bank of New York Trust Co. NA.

In a 119-page opinion, Schmidt estimated the timberlands, Palco's main asset, to be worth no more than $510 million.

BNY, the indenture trustee for $713.8 million in notes issued by Scopac and secured by Palco's timberlands, must therefore be paid at least $510 million through Marathon's plan, according to Schmidt's order.

In its plan, BNY proposed selling Palco's timberlands and lumber mill through one or more bankruptcy auctions. Schmidt, however, seemed concerned about the plan's impact on the town of Scotia, Calif., which Palco owns, and neighboring communities.

"If confirmed, the mill would likely be shut down and liquidated, along with the town of Scotia and the debtors' remaining assets, resulting in a loss of jobs for the community and a way of life in the town of Scotia," Schmidt said in his opinion. "The noteholders were not required to propose a plan that reorganized the timberlands and the milling operations. It was no secret, however, that the citizens of California and the vast majority of creditors wanted a solution that preserves the operation of both Scopac and Palco debtors."

Under Marathon's plan, Mendocino, which operates more than 220,000 acres of timberlands in California's Mendocino and Sonoma counties, will take over Palco's commercial timberland and saw mill operations. In his opinion, Schmidt called Mendocino "an experienced, environmentally responsible operator with a proven track record."

Prepetition lender Marathon, which provided Palco a $75 million debtor-in-possession loan during the bankruptcy, will split the debtors into two reorganized corporations: one which would own and operate the 210,000 acres of timberlands and Palco's lumber mill, and one which would own the town of Scotia.

Marathon will pay Scopac's noteholders $510 million, and use at least $7.5 million of its investment to improve Palco's mill, according to the Chapter 11 plan. The New York hedge fund will also convert some $160 million in pre- and postpetition debt into equity.

Unsecured creditors will be paid through a litigation trust, for which Marathon is contributing $500,000. The official committee of unsecured creditors supported Marathon's plan.

Marathon's plan does not contemplate an exit financing facility, though Schmidt left room for approval of such a facility in his order should Marathon solicit postpetition financing.

Palco, which filed for Chapter 11 with Scopac and four other affiliates on Jan. 18, had filed its own plan.

Its plan also anticipated the sale of the redwoods, but Palco abandoned the plan in favor of Marathon's after Schmidt made it clear that it couldn't be confirmed over objections from several creditor classes.

Palco, which is a unit of Maxxam Inc., cited enhanced regulatory restrictions on its timber harvesting operations that cut into revenue when it filed for Chapter 11.