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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
The state Department of Water Resources held the first of five manual snow surveys for the 2007-08 winter season on Thursday near Echo Summit off Highway 50, on the way to Lake Tahoe.
Thursday's readings showed the statewide snowpack averaging 60 percent of normal, only one percentage point above this time last year, according to Water Resources.
Electronic sensor readings show Northern Sierra snow water equivalents at 64 percent of normal for this date, Central Sierra at 53 percent and Southern Sierra at 69 percent, Water Resources reported. That's compared with 68 percent, 55 percent and 52 percent, respectively, compared to the first survey in January 2007.
Water Resources hydrologists use the readings to forecast the state's water supply in the coming year.
Although the readings show the season isn't off to a great start, Water Resources officials cautioned that it's still early, and pointed to rain, snow and wind that started arriving Thursday.
Forecasters called for the Central Valley to receive several inches of rain, while at least 5 feet of snow is expected in high Sierra elevations.
In Lake County, Thursday's rains gave area creeks a charge, with the US Geological Survey's stream gauges showing dramatic upsurges in water levels.
Arthur Hinojosa, chief of Water Resources' Hydrology Branch, said in a Thursday statement that Sierra snow levels are expected to begin at 6,000 feet and drop to below 4,000 feet through the weekend with another weaker system forecast across Northern California early next week.
“The pending storms should provide the state with a much needed helping of snow,” said Hinojosa. “We hope to get close to the January average precipitation for the Northern Sierra over the next week.”
Officials said the surveys are particularly significant this year because last year’s snowpack yielded only 30 percent of the normal water content.
Reservoirs are low, as well, with Lake Oroville holding only 35 percent of its 3.5 million acre foot capacity, 55 percent of average for this time of year, according to Water Resources.
Because less-than-normal water supply conditions exist, the initial State Water Project allocation for 2008 was placed at 25 percent of water contractors’ requested amounts, Water Resources reported.
Snowpack monitoring is coordinated by the Department of Water Resources as part of the multi-agency California Cooperative Snow Surveys Program.
Surveyors from more than 50 agencies and utilities visit hundreds of snow measurement courses in California’s mountains each month to gauge the amount of water in the snowpack.
The next survey will take place in early February, Water Resources reported.
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The California Highway Patrol reported that a single vehicle collision was reported at 2:50 p.m. on Highway 29, one mile south of Twin Pine Casino in Middletown.
The vehicle was 15 feet over the roadside, with three people trapped inside, the CHP's incident logs reported.
Cal Fire and CHP responded, with “extensive extrication” needed to get the people out of the car. Highway 29 also was reportedly closed for a time – reopening shortly before 5 p.m. -- while the crash victims were removed.
CHP Officer Adam Garcia, spokesman for the Clear Lake CHP Office, said late Thursday afternoon that he had no information on the people who were involved.
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California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. sued the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on behalf of the State of California Wednesday, saying the EPA was “wrongfully and illegally” blocking the state's landmark tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions standards.
Brown's lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, challenges the EPA's refusal to allow the state to implement its emissions law, which Brown's office reported requires that motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions be reduced by 30 percent by 2016.
Fifteen other states or agencies have pledged to join the suit as intervenors, according to the Attorney General's Office.
Brown's office reported that cars generate 20 percent of all human-made carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, and at least 30 percent of such emissions in California.
To go into effect, California's new emissions standard required a waiver from the EPA, which the agency's administrator, Stephen Johnson, refused to grant.
In a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dated Dec. 19, 2007, Johnson denied California's request for the waiver.
That same day, Johnson's office released a statement in which he said new federal energy legislation would set mileage standards.
"The Bush Administration is moving forward with a clear national solution – not a confusing patchwork of state rules – to reduce America’s climate footprint from vehicles," Johnson said. "President Bush and Congress have set the bar high, and, when fully implemented, our federal fuel economy standard will achieve significant benefits by applying to all 50 states.”
Johnson's Dec. 19 statement also noted that EPA “has determined that a unified federal standard of 35 miles per gallon will deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks in all 50 states, which would be more effective than a partial state-by-state approach of 33.8 miles per gallon.”
EPA reported that it held two hearings on California's waiver request and reviewed more than 100,000 written comments and thousands of pages of technical and scientific documentation received during the public comment period, which lasted from April 30 to June 15.
The agency's conclusion: Because greenhouse gases are fundamentally global in nature, EPA did not conclude that California's request met the Clean Air Act's criteria of meeting “compelling and extraordinary conditions.”
Brown shot back that the EPA's finding reversed decades of agency practice and ignored the dangerous consequences of global warming to California – including a severely reduced snowpack.
Brown also said Johnson's letter was “shocking in its incoherence and utter failure to provide legal justification for the administrator's unprecedented action.”
He added that under 1963's federal Clean Air Act, California is “expressly allowed” to impose environmental regulations that are more strict that required by the federal government because of the state's “compelling and extraordinary conditions” – which include unique topography, climate, and high number and concentration of vehicles.
The Clean Air Act also empowers the state to challenge the decision, said Brown.
Until the Dec. 19 decision, Brown reported that EPA had never turned down a request from California for a waiver, granting approximately 50 over the last 40 years for catalytic converters to leaded gasoline regulations.
Brown added that the National Academy of Sciences has reviewed the waiver system and strongly supports maintaining California's role as “a proving ground for new-emission control technologies that benefit California and the rest of the nation.”
According to Brown, 15 other states or state agencies — Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington — are joining Wednesday's lawsuit as intervenors.
California's auto emission rules have survived previous challenges.
In December, Brown's office reported that the U.S. District Court in Fresno rejected the auto industry's challenge to California's law, concluding that both California and the EPA are equally empowered to limit greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles
A similar effort to overthrow the law also had failed in September, according to Brown's office, when a federal court judge in Vermont ruled against an automobile industry group trying to block the state from implementing the emissions standards.
What the standards mean for Lake County
Bob Reynolds, who heads Lake County's Air Quality Management District, said that any air quality rules the state enacts are likely to fall on the district in some fashion or another.
He said many people believe the district is a county department, but it isn't. Rather, it's a state-created, regional agency which regulates stationary pollution sources – such as business and industry – and open burning, and must enforce regulations and laws imposed by the federal, state and local governments.
The emission standard, said Reynolds, “will affect us and, at the same time, it needs to affect us.”
“Global warming is very real,” he said, adding that enough scientists have signed onto the idea that the argument about its validity should be over.
The state hasn't gone into detail about how the standard will be rolled out, but Reynolds said he believes its most direct impacts on Lake County will be in the form of the fuels and new vehicles that residents will have available to them in the future.
Carbon dioxide, said Reynolds, is California's main focus when it comes to greenhouse gases. The new standard, he added, would require that new cards have reduced carbon dioxide emission, and Brown's lawsuit boils down to whether or not California can write its own carbon dioxide rules.
Air quality in California has special challenges, which Reynolds say make these heightened rules necessary.
“Our air dispersion in California is far worse than anywhere else,” he said.
In areas like California that are located east of an ocean, Reynolds said emissions don't disperse as they do in other places.
A pollutant released in California will have 10 times the air quality impact than it would in, for example, Miami, he said.
In California smoke doesn't disperse well upward because of stronger and more frequent weather inversion, which is one of the reasons for more limited burning rules, Reynolds explained.
Carbon dioxide, said Reynolds, can be especially problematic in confined spaces, where it displaces oxygen. California's dispersion issues, therefore, make the greenhouse gas more of a challenge.
Air pollution control in the United States has benefited due to California's initiatives, said Reynolds.
That, he added, is an essential argument of Brown's case against the EPA.
And although the EPA believes that California's situation doesn't justify increasing the standards, Reynolds said, “My guess is that's an argument they'll lose in court.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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Tony and Shirley Hibbs' doublewide mobile home, located at 486 Schindler, caught fire at about 4 a.m., said volunteer firefighter Eric Jones with the Northshore Fire Protection District's Clearlake Oak station.
Jones, who lives across the street from the Hibbses, said Tony Hibbs was alone at the house when the fire broke out, with his wife staying at her sister's home in Willits.
Tony Hibbs was up cooking bacon for breakfast when he briefly left the room, only to come back to find the kitchen on fire, said Jones.
Hibbs went to Jones' home to call for help, and Jones said he called firefighters. By the time Hibbs came for help, said Jones, the mobile already was fully engulfed in flames.
Fourteen firefighters – including all three Northshore Fire battalion chiefs and personnel from Clearlake Oaks, Lucerne and Clearlake, and Cal Fire – responded, said Jones, along with four Northshore Engines and a water tender and a Cal Fire engine, said Jones.
The fire was contained at about 5:30 a.m., said Jones.
The home was a complete loss, said Jones. “They basically lost everything that was in the house.”
However, firefighters were able to save two sheds on the property as well as Tony Hibbs' motorcycle, Jones said.
Jones said it was lucky that Shirley Hibbs wasn't at home. She has a back problem with resulting mobility issues, and Jones said he feared if she had been home rescuers may not have been able to get to her in time.
The Red Cross and neighbors are helping the couple right now, said Jones, adding that the Hibbses are discussing rebuilding, because they want to stay in the area.
He added that it's a particularly sad circumstance, as this isn't the first time the couple have suffered a major loss. A few years ago they lost everything in a flood while living in another area.
Jones said if anyone would like to help the Hibbses, they can forward donations to the Clearlake Oaks Fire Station, 12655 E. Highway 20, telephone 998-3294.
Over the holiday, there were no other home fires along the Northshore, said the district's fire chief, Jim Robbins.
A drier burned up in a Northshore residence on Tuesday but didn't result in a fire, he added.
Emergency personnel mostly responded to accidents and medical aid calls over the holidays, Robbins said. “We've been very busy with those.”
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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