Today at lunch time, LandWatch Monterey County is hosting one of its regular “Around the County” meetings at Margie’s Diner, 611 Canal Street in King City. The meeting will focus on how King City might be affected by the proposed Monterey County General Plan Update. Redevelopment issues within King City are also going to be discussed. You can call LandWatch to get more information.

In what might be called a “breaking news story,” Monterey County and the City of Salinas have announced a tentative settlement of the lawsuit that the City of Salinas brought against the County, challenging the Environmental Impact Report on Rancho San Juan. Rancho San Juan is the largest development project ever proposed in the history of Monterey County. It would transform steep strawberry fields outside the City of Salinas into a golf course housing development, causing additional water problems in North County, and leading to massive traffic jams on Highway 101 around Prunedale.

You can get more information, including links to a copy of the proposed settlement, on the KUSP website. Among other things, the County proposes to share Rancho San Juan traffic fees with the City, and agrees to back the annexation to the City of Salinas of about 3,000 acres of county land, to allow increased city growth on what is now prime agricultural acreage. So, the big winners are the developers!

More Information

Contact LandWatch by calling Gary Karnes at 831-422-9390, Ext. 14. Email: gkarnes@mclw.org

LandWatch Website
http://www.landwatch.org

Monterey County General Plan Website
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/pbi/gpu/default.htm

Agenda, August 29, 2006 Board of Supervisors Meeting
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/cttb/agenda082906.htm

Supplemental Agenda for August 29, 2006
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/cttb/suppagenda082906.htm

County-City of Salinas MOU
http://www.co.monterey.ca.us/cttb/082906_citymou.pdf

The Planning and Conservation League is working on two important bills that will affect land use. AB 32, by Speaker of the Assembly Fabian Nuñez, is called the “Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.” AB 1899, by Assembly Member Lois Wolk, focuses on flood protection.

If AB 32 passes, and is signed by the Governor, it will require California to cut back its global warming pollution to 1990 levels, by the year 2020. This is not a complete “fix” for our global warming problems, but it would put California in a leadership position within the United States.

AB 1899 would require proof that there is substantial flood protection in place, before new developments are approved within floodplains. One year after Katrina, California is still letting sprawl developments go into areas without adequate flood protection, and is thus is increasing the danger to both lives and property.

Both these bills are opposed by the building industry and business interests, and Governor Schwarzenegger has indicated an unwillingness to sign either one, unless they’re watered down. I’ll keep you posted.

In the meantime, mark your calendar for September 16th, for an important presentation on global warming, to be held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Information on AB 32 (Nuñez)
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_
number=ab_32&sess=CUR&house=B&author=nunez

Text of AB 1899 (Wolk
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/asm/ab_1851-
1900/ab_1899_bill_20060627_amended_sen.html

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is working with Yale University and Sea Studios to present a series of informative sessions on global warming. In each of the five sessions held on September 16, 2006, there will be a showing of the film, “Strange Days on Planet Earth: The One Degree Factor.” The sessions will be held in Monterey, at the Aquarium’s Center for the Future of the Oceans, 100 Heritage Harbor (near Fisherman’s Wharf). For more information contact Judy Myers by telephone at 831-475-2055, or by email at: paulmy@comcast.net.

I’ve spoken before about proposed desalination projects in the Central Coast region. There are a lot of issues involved, and some of them are directly related to land use. There are energy issues, too, of course, and water rights issues, and issues about the impact that desalination projects might have on the marine environment. Finally, and this appeals to the “techie” impulse in all of us, there are very interesting technical challenges involved in any desalination project.

Tomorrow evening, August 31st, there will be a public presentation on Seawater Conversion Vessels, scheduled to take place at 7:00 p.m. in the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District conference room, located at 5 Harris Court, Building G, in Monterey.

City Managers, and the County Administrative Officer, and various water district officials have been officially invited. It should be interesting!

The presentation will be made by Skip Griffin, Sr., Vice President of PBS&J, one of the nation’s largest engineering design firms, which has partnered with Water Standard Company to try a new approach. The technology that he will discuss is an alternative to land-based desalination. It’s an exploratory meeting, which I think does appeal to the “techie” in all of us.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

A memorandum from the David A. Berger, the General Manager of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, addressed to numerous public officials, announces the August 31st presentation by Skip Griffin as a “public presentation.” For more information, contact the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District by telephone at: 831-658-5600, or check their website at www.mpwmd.dis.ca.us. For a faxed copy of the announcement, contact Gary Patton at gapatton@pcl.org.

TMDL stands for “Total Maximum Daily Load.” A TMDL is a standard established by a regulatory body (like the Regional Water Quality Control Board) to help alleviate and eliminate water pollution, and particularly pollution caused by “non point source” pollutants.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, various regulatory bodies are charged with trying to clean up America’s waterways, and the first focus for action has always been “point source” pollution. An example is a discharge pipe from a factory. Under the Clean Water Act, a permit is required to discharge pollutants, and so water quality can be improved by cleaning up point sources through that permit process.

That system only works to a degree, because a lot of pollution comes from “non point sources,” like a farmer’s field, for instance, which feeds various kinds of pollution into creeks, rivers, and ultimately the ocean. It’s a lot harder to clean up “non point source” pollution, where the permit system really doesn’t work. The establishment of TMDLs is part of the regulatory effort to eliminate “non point source pollution.”

Right now, the public can comment on efforts to clean up Watsonville Slough, which is being contaminated by non point source fecal discharges. A comment deadline has been set for September 15th.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

State Water Board information on TMDLs
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/tmdl/tmdl.html

Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (Region 3)
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/index.htm

TMDL information for Region 3
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralcoast/
TMDL/303dandTMDLprojects.htm
For specific information on the Watsonville Slough Pathogen TMDL, scroll down in the chart. Several different informational items are available.

Land use issues appear, always, in an historical context. The sprawling developments that seem “normal” to us, for instance, are really a relatively recent phenomenon. Only after the end of World War II, and the initiation of the Interstate Highway Program, did sprawl really take off. In fact, it’s almost impossible to separate housing from jobs, as sprawl does, without an extensive highway system to facilitate those long distance commutes. No one planned for the Interstate Highway Program to lead to sprawl, air pollution, the loss of agricultural land, and to put incredible strains on community and family institutions, but such has been the case. Those who focus on the negative impacts of sprawl (and this generally does not include the developers and property owners who have made so many billions of dollars turning federal, state, and local road subsidies into their own private profits) tend to bemoan not only the fact of sprawl, but the fact that it has largely been caused by public subsidies.

At any rate, this is a digression from my main point: there is always an important historical component to land use. If you’d like to hear an engaging presentation on the History of Moss Landing, then mark down Wednesday, September 6th, at 7:00 p.m., for a presentation by the Friends of the Moss Landing Marine Lab.

For KUSP, this is Gary Patton.

More Information

Questions about the seminar? Call the Friends of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories at 831-771-4100. The seminar will be held on Wednesday, September 6, 2006, beginning at 7:00 p.m., at the Moss Landing Chamber of Commerce Building, 8071 Moss Landing Road, Moss Landing.