RoguePundit

A Lack of Conservation Penalty

Sometimes one's lack of conservation is indicative of illicit activities.

After nearly 10 months, two people have been sentenced for running a major pot growing operation in a number of properties around Arcata.

Following a plea agreement, Arcata residents John Devoe, 42, and Clare Holmes, 36, were sentenced Wednesday to felony probation and 30 days in jail for commercially growing marijuana in four Arcata properties.

Maggie Fleming, a Humboldt County deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said the two owned the titles to six properties raided in August 2007 by agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force after an anonymous tip.

Of the six properties raided, two of them -- one in Trinidad and another in Arcata -- were found to be clean, Fleming reported.

All together, officers found 234 plants and 24 pounds of marijuana. As part of the pleas, the defendants agreed to forfeit $66,000 from bank and stock accounts, and from money found at a residence.

...

Agents used PG&E records for the properties to obtain search warrants. Those records showed the homes used more than 18,000 kilowatt hours during a 16 month period prior to the search.

It varies by state whether our utility bills are a matter of public record.  Speaking of that, remember last year when Al Gore was being slagged for how much energy he was using in his mansion (embarrassing him into installing some expensive solar panels)?

...according to the Tennessee think tank, while the average American household consumed 10,656 kilowatt-hours last year, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 – more than 20 times the national average.

In other words when it comes to home electricity usage, 18,000 kilowatt-hours over 16 months isn't that much over the national average.  But, that and an anonymous tip was evidently enough to get a warrant for the six properties in question.  Small homes, I guess... 

Conservation Penalties

The public is being bombarded with various strategies for conserving resources.  For instance...

Better insulation at home, less use of the car and even giving up an electric toothbrush can help people in rich nations halve emissions of greenhouse gases, a U.N. report said on Thursday.

"Adopting a climate-friendly lifestyle needn't require drastic changes or major sacrifices," according to the 202-page U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) book entitled "Kick the CO2 Habit: the U.N. Guide to Climate Neutrality".

But what if you're already doing a good job of conserving, and then something like the following happens?

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's statewide drought declaration Wednesday was hardly news to north state water suppliers, who already are coping with cutbacks and calling on customers to conserve as sizzling summer temperatures loom.

The Bella Vista Water District has been most draconian, imposing a "drought surcharge" on customers who fail to cut their consumption by 25 percent compared to last year. The district--which serves a host of agricultural customers along with northeast Redding residents--will charge residential users an extra 10 cents per hundred cubic feet of water they use beyond the threshold.

Bella Vista officials learned in April that the district would get only half its typical share of federal Central Valley Project (CVP) water. The district avoided mandatory rationing this year only because it was able to get supplemental water from the Clear Creek Community Services District in Happy Valley.

My parents--ever frugal--lived through the drought in San Jose during the late '80s - early 90s.  The concept there for driving water conservation was similar--take a percentage of one's average consumption and assess a stiff surcharge on any usage above that amount.  They really worked to avoid that surcharge.

But, they already shut off the shower while sudsing, didn't run the water when brushing, rarely ran the dishwasher, didn't have a water feature, rarely washed vehicles, etc., so there was little to save there.  My mom would stop the washing machine and siphon the dirty wash water so they could use it to flush the toilets...and they only flushed because of solids.  They lost fruit trees and perennial vegetables (like asparagus) because those crops suffer without summer water.  Et cetera. 

In other words, because my folks always conserved, they suffered more than most during the drought.  Had they deeper pockets, they could have just paid to consume as desired.  Lesson learned...if the weather begins to look ominously dry, start wasting water. 

Unsuprisingly, my folks enjoy the greater independence of living on a well nowadays.

Downsizing the Proposed Bottled Water Plant

Nestle has been working to site and build the nation's largest water bottling plant near McCloud CA (close to Mt. Shasta).  The plant would provide jobs to a rural area that's suffered with the decline of the timber industry.  However, there are a range of concerns about the possible impacts on the watershed, environment, local roads, etc. 

The McCloud Community Services District board (the town is unincorporated) agreed to sell spring water to Nestle in 2003.  Yet here we are and still no plant.  So, Nestle has decided to scale back its plans.

Monday's press release from Nestle states that the company wants to reduce both the physical size of the plant and the amount of water it would use each year by 60 percent.

The previously planned 1 million square-foot facility is being reduced to 350,000 square feet, and the 1,600 acre-foot per year cap on the maximum amount of water usage would be reduced to 600 acre-feet.

However, Nestle is tied by a contractual agreement with the McCloud Community Services District to build the originally agreed upon plant specifics.

David Palais, Nestle's natural resource manager and project manager for the McCloud plant, said in a telephone interview Tuesday morning that Monday's press release is actually a proposal to the MCSD for the stated changes.

Lots of renegotiations to follow.

The contract, signed in 2003, is for 50 years with a possible 50 year renewal, according to Palais. He said that if Nestle hasn't broken ground on the project by the agreed upon date in 2010, the company will be required to pay the district for extensions.

...

Under the contract, Nestle agreed to pay a negotiated set price for the amount of water used, not to exceed 1,600 acre-feet per year.

Borrowing a paragraph from the first link:

McCloud would receive about $305,000 the first year, based on residential water tariffs, which equals $191 per acre foot, or 15.5 cents per cubic meter. By comparison, Nestle is paying $2,183 per acre foot to Pure Mountain Spring in Maine for its water, according to an economic study conducted by ECONorthwest, a consulting firm.

Here's a link to the ECONorthwest study.  That price per acre-foot of water in Maine is definitely not the most expensive example in the survey (see page 32).  FYI, one of the examples is from just a few miles south of McCloud...the Dunsmuir Bottling Company pays $1,629 - $3,258 per acre-foot to the city. 

Back to the original article...

Palais said because of rising fuel and transportation costs, along with another bottling plant Nestle has built in Denver, a plant of the size first proposed in McCloud no longer makes economic sense to the company.

"Our need for the bottling capacity in this location has changed since the inception of this project five years ago," he said.

Palais said that if the proposed changes to the contract are accepted, the agreed cost of the water would have to be discussed or renegotiated. He also said that construction of the new plant would be a minimum of three years away.

He said Nestle has agreed to two years of environmental studies on Squaw Creek in order to assess the impacts the plant might have.

Nestle has 23 water bottling plants in the U.S.  Several of them are west of Denver...six in California (the furthest north being in Calistoga--Napa Valley) and one in Phoenix.  Yet, the plant in Denver is the reason for scaling back the McCloud proposal?  Sure.  Nestle is retreating, hoping to get something rather than nothing.   

Eyeing Drying

The Trinity River system feeds the Klamath River and, through diversions, the Sacramento River system.  Some folks were trying to sidestep the rules and boost the amount of water headed south this year.  Not any more.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has backed away from a proposal to take more water from the Trinity River this year, citing a 2000 Interior Secretary decision on fisheries restoration.

Reclamation was considering a shift from a normal year to a dry year, which would have stifled releases from Lewiston Dam to the river. Water managers were looking to possibly adjust the seasonal forecast used to craft the flows to reflect conditions in May, instead of the April 1 date called for in the 2000 record of decision.

”It's what the record of decision calls for,” said bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken.

Much of the state is headed for drought, and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is poor. Conditions have been dry in the northern part of the state as well, after substantial precipitation earlier in the year. Trinity River advocates protested the possible decision by reclamation, saying the river should not suffer because of what they called mismanagement of the Sacramento River delta water system in recent years.

Half of the Trinity River's water is diverted to the Sacramento, then pumped from the delta to farms and cities to the south. Flows meant to aid fisheries restoration are released beginning in April. A shift in the water year type would have crimped releases to the river.

The Shasta Reservoir is below two-thirds capacity.  And downstream, the Sacramento River can't expect major contributions from the Sierras...runoff is expected to be just 55 percent of normal.  Switching links:

Just two months ago, it appeared that Northern California was in store for a nice wet year--or at least a year of normal rain and snow levels--following a dry 2007.

But March and April were the driest months in the Sierra Nevada since records were first kept in 1922, state water officials announced Thursday (May 1).

As a result, the Sierra Nevada snowpack averaged 67 percent of normal for May 1 in the state's final snowpack measurement of the year, down from 95 percent April 1.

...

...this April and May, only 2.3 inches of rain fell in the Northern Sierra between Lake Tahoe and Mount Lassen - the lowest since 1922.

Last year, the snowpack in the Sierras was even lower.

Notice how few years the snowpack is near normal.  Volatility is normal.

Losing a Few Hours of Bottled Water Production

Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water beat Nestle to the punch.  It's busily making money bottling water from a spring in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest near Mt. Shasta.  Some of that water is exported to Japan...which certainly isn't a very green thing to do with a natural product. 

Closing the plant unexpectedly for a few hours sure is expensive.

A Montague man who pled guilty to felony charges of calling in a false bomb threat while employed at the Crystal Geyser Bottling Plant in Weed was sentenced last Wednesday in Siskiyou County Superior Court.

James Murphy, 37, has been ordered to serve six months in jail, provide 200 hours of non-compensated community service, serve three years felony probation and provide a sample of his DNA for submission to the California DNA database.

On Oct. 23, 2007, an anonymous 911 call was made reporting a bomb in the plant's warehouse. The Crystal Geyser plant was then evacuated and closed for six hours while a search of the facility was conducted. No explosive device was found.

"The cost to shut down the plant for six hours was $197,070,” Siskiyou County District Attorney Kirk Andrus said. “Crystal Geyser is not seeking restitution, which they have every right to."

Murphy is a moron.

Murphy reportedly told Weed Police that he made the false threat because he wanted to go home early that day.

During the investigation, Weed Police were able to trace the 911 call to a telephone within the bottling plant.

"Weed police officer Jim Cummings wrote down what was said in the 911 call," Andrus said. "He then had each of the employees read it back to him. He was able to determine that Murphy, who was acting very nervous, had placed the call."

It was his first offense. 

Panning for Fun and Profit

With the ongoing bull market in gold, interest in gold panning is up.  Ran into a couple of articles on that subject today, the first of which is a reminder that wilderness areas aren't necessarily pristine.

A man with Grants Pass ties purchased 60 acres of patented mining claims inside the Kalmiopsis Wilderness last year, and in the fall began shuttling in customers by helicopter for recreational mining.

Oregon Gold Trips had four cabins and a kitchen constructed at the remote site, and flew in suction dredges and other equipment by helicopter, said former owner Carl Alleman of Selma. At least six trips are planned for 2008, costing $1,850 for five days, according to the company Web site, www.oregongoldtrip.com.

"He brings in groups of people, with room and board, and furnishes them panning equipment," said Alleman, who sold the property for $500,000.

Partner David Rutan of La Center, Wash., said in an e-mail he was from Grants Pass. He did write, "Gold panning is a very small aspect to the enjoyment of the property."

Rutan added that the adventure isn't all about mining, but includes rock collecting, bird watching, hunting or fishing, and watching stars at night.

The flights are evidently legal. 

We've been hearing about Alleman's battles with USFS and various environmental groups for years (examples here and here).  He wanted to build a destination resort on the property.

Alleman purchased the claims for $23,000 in 1982, patented them in 1988, and has battled the Forest Service for over 20 years over access to the property. The mining claims predate the creation of the Kalmiopsis in 1964. Patenting allows miners title to land provided mineral wealth is proven.

A $600,000 sale to the Forest Service was on the table until the 2002 Biscuit Fire burned all the timber and a cabin on the Alleman property. In 2004, the Forest Service threw out a special-use permit allowing Alleman eight motorized trips to the site because Alleman wouldn't agree to it. The trip is about 12 miles on primitive road through a locked gate near Onion Camp and Babyfoot lake.

Alleman said the Forest Service's last offer was $160,000, and he wanted at least $450,000.

...

According to Alleman, Curry County told Rutan he was in violation of two ordinances, but Rutan's attorney said he was within his rights. Curry County planners could not be reached for comment.

The government should have paid the money and been done with this.  Was it logical to pretend that the property lost nearly three-quarters of its value because of the fire?

Meanwhile, just across the border in California...

With the price of gold surging to record highs, people are flocking to Happy Camp to cash in on the treasure found in streams flowing into the Klamath River.

"It’s really good for gold prospectors and the community down here," said Dave McCracken of the New 49ers, a club in Siskiyou County that has mining claims along the Klamath River and specializes in getting gold miners access to prospecting areas. "All the RV parks in town are already booked for the season, mostly by prospectors."

...

While gold is mined in Nevada and Alaska, Siskiyou County is one of the top areas of the country for independent prospectors, who find some of the purest gold anywhere. Gold found in rivers and streams in Siskiyou County normally sells for about 80 percent of the price of pure gold on world financial exchanges.

"The purity of gold in Siskiyou County runs about 86 percent, where it’s only about 70 in Alaska," McCracken said. "It’s a real high grade of gold here."

I wonder if government statisticians count all of that RV business as tourism?

With plenty of rain this winter, more gold will be washed down streams into the Klamath River this spring and summer.

The bull market for gold will benefit Siskiyou County merchants, McCracken predicts.

"In the midst of all the bad news, this is a bright light," he said. "A lot of money is going to come into Siskiyou County this summer. People are going to come out. When they are here they are going to be spending money in the grocery stores, the hardware stores, the RV parks."

...

The New 49ers has a vast section of the Klamath, Scott and Salmon rivers for its members to mine on, thanks to claims. The club has professional miners, as well as recreational prospectors who spend a weekend in Happy Camp searching for gold.

"The biggest problem miners face today is finding a place to go," McCracken said.

Happy Camp got its name from gold prospectors in 1851.  They evidently weren't interested in the Karuk name for the location--Athithufvuunupma.

Bigger Trucks for California's North Coast

In California's North Coast--Del Norte, Humboldt, and Mendocino Counties, most of Highway 101 is like an interstate.  However, there are a few parts which are more winding, limiting the size of the trucks that are allowed to use it.  That can make transportation more expensive for certain customers...but this will soon change.

Specifically, the new law, which takes effect Jan. 1, extends the kingpin-to-rear axle length from 40 feet to 43 feet of a truck tractor-semi-trailer combination that is allowed on portions of Highway 101 at Richardson’s Grove, Confusion Hill and Big Lagoon.

A total of seven tight turns with a combined length of an eighth to a quarter of a mile on those sections of the highway have prevented North Coast livestock ranchers from using interstate cattle haulers because of the truck length restrictions.

Previously, livestock ranchers in the three counties were limited to trailers with a kingpin-to-rear axle of 40 feet, even though more than 90 percent of the equipment used to transport cattle and other livestock to out-of-state markets are trailers with a kingpin-to-rear axle of up to 43 feet, the industry standard, said Andrea Fox of CFBF’s governmental affairs division.

The length restrictions created an economic disadvantage for North Coast ranchers who often use out-of-state haulers for movement of their product.

According to reports prepared by the California Highway Patrol, fewer than 300 livestock trucks travel to and from the North Coast annually with no reported accidents.

More cattle per truck means less total truckloads.

Switching subjects but not articles...immediately to the east of Mendocino County is Lake County, one of California's top winegrape regions.  However, the following is about pears, child labor, and something the article fails to mention...that the growers there are very dependent upon the labor of illegal immigrants, who were in short supply last year.  From the original article...

Specific to Lake County, SB 319 extends an existing law that allows teen workers, age 16 to 17, to work in pear-packing plants for up to 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week during peak harvest season when school is not in session. The current law was to sunset in 2008 but has now been extended to 2012.

The extension was made to help deal with the labor shortages in Lake County's farming community during harvest time in August. The pear-packing season coincides with the county’s tourism season, limiting the available labor pool.

According to the Lake County Employment Development Department, the labor shortage in 2006 resulted in the loss of $2.5 million in lost pears and would have been exacerbated by an absence of minors working in the packing plants.

Seems rather sensible...so why is there any need for the limitation in the first place?

Federal Pen for Creepy Doctor

Someone who definitely hasn't been nice got an appropriate early Christmas present last Friday.  From yesterday's Redding Record Searchlight...

A former Alturas doctor was sentenced to three years in federal prison Friday after being convicted of using hidden cameras to film teen patients during breast and pelvic exams in his Modoc County office.

Dr. Owen Murphy Panner Jr., 60, was accused of using a microscopic camera in his shirt to film a 15-year-old patient as he gave her a pelvic examination in 2001 inside the Modoc Medical Clinic, said Rosemary Shaul, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott.

Later that year, another camera Panner hid in the air vent above an examination table captured frames of a 16-year-old girl as a nurse practitioner gave her a breast and pelvic exam, Shaul said.

He'd illicitly filmed a number of female patients of various ages and states of undress.  For a variety of reasons (previous blog here), local authorities had to settle upon him pleading no contest to two misdemeanors.  The subsequent federal charges offered a means of providing a more appropriate punishment.  As his medical board record shows, Panner surrendered his medical license in April of '06.

In 2004, a pair of hunters found the videos in a Tupperware container buried in a sage brush-covered field.

The hunters notified the Modoc County Sheriff's Office, which filed the original charges.

...

After Panner serves his prison time, he will be required to serve three years parole, and he's ordered to stay away from the two victims. He also must register as a sex offender.

Modoc County, in the rural northeastern corner of California, has struggled to keep its small medical center viable for years.  This nasty situation certainly hasn't helped.

Fear of Dutch Bros

Our local Dutch Bros coffee chain has been busily expanding the last few years.  Now you can find them as far afield as Wenatchee WA, Coeur D'Alene ID, Fresno CA, Carson City NV, and Tempe AZ.  But I'd never noticed that the capital of our Great State of Jefferson, Yreka CA, lacked a Dutch Bros.  That will soon change...and a local espresso shop owner is not pleased. 

The proposed Dutch Brothers coffee shop, slated to be built at 205 North Main Street, is not being embraced by everyone.

Ginger Darrow, co-owner of the drive through espresso shop being displaced by the new business, voiced her concerns about it at last week’s city planning commission meeting.

"I know that Yreka is eager about attracting businesses," she said, "but, at what price?"

The Ginger and her husband, Jason Darrow, feel that incoming Dutch Bothers, a regional chain of 117 coffee shops based out of Grants Pass, Ore., threatens to dominate their Good To Go Espresso business and other local coffee shops.

"Yreka needs to focus on creating local businesses or revitalizing already existing businesses," Jason Darrow said.

The Darrows rented the property and had inquired about buying, but hadn't been willing to pay the asking price.  Obviously Dutch Bros was.  That has the Darrows sounding more like they're from Portland.

Jason said having the Dutch Brothers business come in is "a bad idea."

"Big-box stores and large chains will hurt local businesses. Period," he said.

Harper explained that work in the franchise might be offered to some ’hard-working, current employees looking to advance their careers’ but that most of the barista positions will be hired locally.

Jason expressed concern about the wages to be offered at the Dutch Brothers shop. He contends that his employees currently are paid above the minimum wage, what he termed "a living wage."

Harper doesn’t know how much employees at the new shop will be paid. He explained that franchise owners set baristas’ wages according to different criteria.

Darrow shouldn't have to guess whether big-box stores will hurt local businesses...Yreka has had a Wal-Mart for years.  And if he's really so concerned about the importance of local businesses, he should sell off his espresso shop in Weed and give up plans to expand into Mount Shasta.  Hypocrite.   

Ginger Darrow said she is also concerned that most of the money generated by the Dutch Brothers franchise "will go directly back to Oregon."

"All that local money leaving our area," she said, "is it really worth it having Dutch Brothers here?"

Harper said that one percent of the franchise’s gross income will go directly back to the community.

"It’s our policy to reinvest in the community, in our community," he said.

And finally the money paragraph...

"Progress is all well and good until it’s your business that shuts down," Ginger said. 

The Dry in South Jefferson

Thus far this rainy season, precip is running about normal here NW of Grants Pass.  The good start to the season was offset by us being a couple of inches light in November.  The skiers and snowboarders are praying that the inbound storms will put the opening of Mt. Ashland in sight.  But further south here in Jefferson, folks just want the water. 

Except for the north coast, all of California was significantly drier than normal last year.  That has helped a very dry November feel a bit spooky near Redding.

The water Friday was more than 126 feet below the high-water mark at Shasta Dam, the lowest it's been in 15 years.

FYI, Shasta Dam is 602 feet high.

Despite some rain in October, the big rainstorms needed to refill the lake haven't come yet, Harral said.

Even with flows from Shasta Dam being cut close to the minimum outflow of 4,000 cubic feet per second, the lake is dropping almost two inches per dry day.

Rain is in the forecast starting Sunday and lasting, off and on, through early next week. But the lake will need a whole series of storms to lift water levels again, Harral said.

The lake's all-time minimum level is 230 feet below the crest, set in 1977 during a severe drought.

We have a moderate La Niña this year (previous blog here), which tends to make the Northwest wet and most of California dry...as is shown in the following long-range forecast.

This will be one those winters where I'll be rooting for each storm that hits here to send some rain down my sister's direction.