Those tar balls washing up on Pacifica and Coastside beaches for three days this week turned out to be the result of natural oil seep carried on the current from Southern California reports the County Times.

A number of tar seeps dot the coastline of Santa Barbara County, particularly around Goleta and near Point Conception, he said. The oil seeps represent the shallowest tar deposits along the Monterey formation, an underwater ridge line of brittle rock that formed between 23 million and 5 million years ago, according to Lorenson.

The plankton that formed fossils in the rock have, over time, been exposed to pressure and pushed to the surface by the movement of the Earth.

The USGS has a "fingerprinting" test that allows scientists to distinguish between the provenance of various natural tar seeps. In this case, however, Lorenson said, they may never be completely sure of the source.

"The size of the tar balls can be rather large. That’s a characteristic of the tar balls that come from Point Conception," he said.

Pacific Fishery Management Council said in a report Tuesday that the Sacramento River’s fall chinook salmon population is headed for collapse and suggested that it may be necessary to close the salmon season entirely.

That would spell disaster for both commercial and recreational fishermen at Pillar Point Harbor, who typically depend on the salmon and Dungeness crab seasons for their entire incomes. Poor salmon returns from the Klamath River in 2006 and 2007 previously caused regulators to cut the first month and a half of salmon season, which normally starts on May 1, resulting in untold financial losses for fishermen.
...
Fishermen say they knew the Sacramento River runs were weaker than expected last year, but even they were shocked by the low number of chinook returning to the river to spawn. Only about 90,000 returning adult salmon were counted in the Central Valley in 2007, the second lowest number since 1973, according to the report.

More worrisome is that only about 2,000 2-year-old chinooks — whose numbers are used to predict returns of adult spawners in the coming season — returned to the Central Valley last year — by far the lowest number ever counted. On average, about 40,000 juveniles, or "jacks," return each year.

Some believe the losses are related to changes in the ocean linked to global warming. Others blame the troubles in California on increased pumping of fresh water from the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, which supplies drinking water to millions of people in drought-stricken Southern California, as well as irrigation for America’s most fertile farming region.

There’s more at the County Times website.

David Gans returns to Moon News Friday at 7:30pm, for an evening of solo electric guitar. Best known for his work with the Grateful Dead, Gans has a voice and a style all his own.

As KPFK’s Barry Smolin writes in the liner notes to Gans’ concert dvd Live at the Powerhouse, "In a voice that communicates at once the bliss and the heartache of being alive in the world, David Gans croons like the warmest invitation, like a soulful bear hug, but with a sardonic edge at times and the unmistakably wry gleam of the trickster: swift with allusions and wordplay yet always heartfelt and real…" This is a free event.

I’m hosting a Super Tuesday Watch Party in Half Moon Bay, on Tuesday,  Feb 5. Join fellow Coastsiders for a night of fun, food and politics. 6:30 for a potluck dinner or 7:30 to watch returns. To sign up for this event through moveon.org, please click here:

http://political.moveon.org/event/supertueswatch/42597

or contact me at 726 9234.

Gail Evenari

The League for Coastside Protection has copied us on a letter to Supervisor Rich Gordon, supporting the Midcoast Community Council. Supervisor Gordon has asked whether the MCC has outlived its usefulness.

Dear Supervisor Gordon:

The League for Coastside Protection fully supports the Midcoast Community Council (MCC).
The current MCC was only recently chosen by coastside voters, so it would be virtually unprecedented to nullify a popular vote, regardless of the jurisdictional status of the MCC. One of the decisions that came out of its second meeting was to hold a retreat to acknowledge and address some of the inadequacies that many representative bodies face.  This should help assuage concern that the MCC is unaware of some constituents’ concerns.

Touching upon the issue of "sparse" attendance, MCC meetings are televised, which alleviates some attendance pressure. Also, it is our experience that a packed room usually requires intense neighborhood issues.  Additionally, there has been an admitted lack of focus at past meetings, which the new president Leonard Woren is addressing.

The Midcoast Community Council helps provide your office with the opinions and concerns of those of us who live in your district.  This is a valuable service that should be continued and applauded. We need this advisory layer to distinguish the Coast from other districts, which do not have the land use issues we face.  Since the California Coastal Commission will be looking at the revised Local Coastal Program for the Midcoast in March, local coastside representation is a valuable, local voice for continued input into that process. 
Having monthly office hours and intermittent communications with your coastal constituents, albeit appreciated and necessary, is still not the same as having a local advisory board. We think that any attempt to dismantle this democratically elected organization is ill conceived. Since the decision was made to hold an election and not appoint council members, such an action would send the message to coastal constituents that their vote does not matter and that their local organization can be wiped away in the face of any criticism.

Thank you for the opportunity to respond to your letter to the Review.  The League for Coastside Protection endorsed all three of the newly elected council members and we know they will work hard for the residents of the coastside and your constituents.
Dana M. Kimsey, LCP co-chair                            
.

The Half Moon Bay City Council denied an appeal of a concrete crushing plant next door to the Hilltop mobile home park at its meeting on January 15. You can watch the entire proceedings below.

If you’re pressed for time, I recommend watching the eloquent testimony of the appellant [ Quicktime | Flash ] and the response of the city council [ Quicktime | Flash  ].

Not having followed this case closely, I don’t have an opinion about whether this use should have been approved. But I was startled at how little interest the council showed in the amount of noise this use would create for mobile home park residents.  CCWD commissioner Jim Larimer showed up with an SPL meter to testify that the city’s limit of 65 dB was about what he encountered in his Passat, which he seemed to think was appropriate. There was also some discussion of the noise from Highways 92 and 1.

It got me thinking about whether there should be more discussion and understanding of the issue of noise pollution on the Coastside.

• Opening | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Report out of closed session | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• City Council reports | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Oral communications | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Staff reports | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Consent calendar | Quicktime | Flash  |

 

• Appeal of Planning Commission approval of concrete crushing near mobile home park | Quicktime | Flash  | Docs |

 

• Waive permit fee for Saso Gale house at 684 Terrace Ave [moved from consent calendar] | Quicktime | Flash  | Docs |

 

• Appointment to Parks & Recreation and Planning Commissions [deferred] | Docs |

 

• Amend animal control agreement | Quicktime | Flash  | Docs |

 

• Agreement to lease Seacrest gym | Quicktime | Flash  | Docs |

Coastside fishermen may have been trained as certified oil-spill responders, but they had little opportunity to participate in the Cosco Busan oil spill cleanup, reports the County Times.

Eventually, the Port of San Francisco hired 20 San Francisco-based fishing vessels to assist the cleanup and paid them $3,000 per day for four days.

Ironically, MSRC, the private company that supplied most of the manpower, vessels, and oil-cleanup equipment in the oil spill, was also the company that provided oil-spill cleanup training to up to half the fleet of commercial fishermen along the Pacific Coast in the 1990s.

The annual training sessions ceased abruptly in 1999 without explanation, according to Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

The company conducting the cleanup is funded by the oil industry. Julia Scott has an extensive article on what happened, what didn’t, and why.

The Healthy Eating Active Living project, founded at Hatch Elementary School in 2005, will be out of money in September reports the County Times. About 650 third- and fourth-graders plant, harvest, and cook their own vegetables under the program. Farallone View Elementary joined in November and El Granada Elementary started this week.

Part of the problem is that the HEAL program only managed to raise $100,000 of the $115,000 it needed this year for its expansion (the final school, Kings Mountain Elementary in Woodside, is due to start
its project in the next two weeks). The biggest problem is that the program has only managed to secure a commitment of $21,000 so far for next year, from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. Many previous grantors, such as Kaiser Permanente, are expected to commit less money than in previous years. And several other local sources of income are drying up.

"The city can’t help us, the school can’t help us, and the small organizations that are out here certainly can’t pick up a $100,000 tab," said Hellerich, adding that she had already been turned down for $40,000 worth of grants.

The program is already getting money from the schools and parent-teacher organizations, but state budget cuts put that money at risk.

To support the HEAL project with a donation, visit http://www.cabrillo.k12.ca.us/heal/home.html, call 650-283-2920 or e-mail [email protected].

As a nine-year Coastsider, I have suffered with Comcast long enough.

The final straw? Not the loss of video—as well as sporadic audio—during the fourth quarter of the NFL Packers/Giants championship game. That is merely typical of Comcast’s shoddy service.  The final straw was when an El Granada friend called Comcast to complain during the outage and was told, "There are no outages in your area". That did it for me. Not only does Comcast offer poor service, they also lie about it!

I have installed a ‘dish’. The local channels are all crystal clear. So far, so good.

Half Moon Bay.  The Coastside Land Trust announced today the election of CLT board member Robert Rogers as board President and the appointment of Jo Chamberlain as the organization’s Executive Director.
Robert Rogers, a resident of Half Moon Bay and CFO of Sell West, has demonstrated his dedication to preservation of open space through his service as CLT board member and secretary. He is active with the Coastal Repertory Theater and in coastside Scouting.
Jo Chamberlain, a Lobitos Canyon resident and the outgoing CLT board president, is dedicated to the preservation of open space along the San Mateo County coastside. Educated at UCSC as a biologist and environmental scientist, Jo has served on several non-profit boards, including the San Francisco Zoological Society and Friends of Westwind, and has recently taught in the Cabrillo school district. With experience in corporate management, environmental education, and the non-profit sector, she brings both organizational and development skills to the Coastside Land Trust.
The Coastside Land Trust is dedicated to protecting the urban open space of the San Mateo County coast, for enjoyment now and for generations to come. Its primary focus is safeguarding scenic bluffs, open space, stream corridors and agricultural lands in and around the communities of Half Moon Bay, El Granada, Miramar, Moss Beach, Princeton-by-the-Sea, and Montara.