This winter is likely to be a moderate-to-severe El Niño season, according to the National Weather Service.

The Mercury News says that an El Niño makes it likelier we’ll have a wet winter:

The El Niño now under way doesn’t guarantee that California will receive drenching winter rains. But the stronger the conditions and the warmer the water, the greater likelihood.

Since 1951, there have been six winters with strong El Niño conditions. In four of them, rainfall between the Bay Area and Bakersfield was at least 140 percent of normal. Some of California’s wettest winters, including 1982-83, when Coyote Creek burst its banks, flooding Alviso under eight feet of water, occurred during those strong El Niño winters.

In 1983, severe rainfall led to the collapse of Highway 1 over Martini Creek in Montara, and the closing of the Devil’s Slide for 84 days.

The Mercury News story is accompanied by a nice chart showing the the rainfall in moderate and severe El Niño years.

Gulf Of The Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is holding its Advisory Council meeting at Dance Palace, Church Space 503 B St, Point Reyes, CA 9:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, August 13. Click below for the agenda.

State regulators are proposing a new approach to regulating fishing: creating no-fishing zones in critical habitat, reports the County Times.

The proposal to be considered by the state Fish and Game Commission would establish 22 marine protected areas limiting or banning fishing in 20 percent of state waters from Half Moon Bay to Point Arena. The goal: to help boost beleaguered populations of everything from rockfish to Dungeness crab to abalone by essentially leaving their habitat alone.

Rather than traditional rules that set fishing rules for individual species, like salmon, the idea is to set aside important areas such as kelp forests and underwater rock formations where all species can rebound and grow larger, away from nets, traps and hooks. ...

California has jurisdiction in the ocean out to three miles off shore.

Within that area, the proposal would ban fishing in 11 places, including: off Montara along the coast of San Mateo County; in state waters around much of the Farallon Islands; near Point Reyes National Seashore; off parts of Sonoma County, including Bodega Head and much of the northern Sonoma coast; and off Point Arena in Mendocino County.

Fishing also would be limited in 11 other areas, including near Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in San Mateo County, small parts of the Farallon Islands, waters further off shore from Point Reyes National Seashore, Bodega Bay and areas north of Gualala. The rules would affect commercial and recreational fishing.

Paul Perkovic is MWSD Board President but his letter expresses his individual opinion, not official Board or District policy. He’s running for re-election this year. Coastsider welcomes letters from all candidates for public office on the Coastside.

The risks resulting from San Mateo County allowing private wells without adequate groundwater studies are highlighted in the article “Midcoast water policies blamed for failing well” in last week’s Half Moon Bay Review and Pescadero Pebble.

Montara Water and Sanitary District, not the County, initiated Local Coastal Program changes to give existing homes priority for new public water connections when their wells fail. Coastal Commission action on that LCP amendment has been postponed again. Meanwhile, rather than moving other existing homes with wells to public water supplies before their wells fail, the County wants to reserve priority water for even more “affordable housing” – beyond the hundreds of units already proposed – before allowing new connections.

Contrary to the claim in the HMB Review article, MWSD has never “bailed out a private household well.” MWSD has operated the Montara / Moss Beach water system only since August 2003, during which time the District has developed a major new source of low-cost, high-quality drinking water, among many other improvements. The Review’s reporter asked me about an alleged case from the early 1990s, but that would have been considered by the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the prior corporate owner of the Montara water system, Citizens Utilities Company of California. I explained that I did not know the details of any exceptions to the moratorium considered by the CPUC.

Public water wells, as opposed to wells for single-family homes, must go through extensive environmental studies and monitoring to ensure they do not have adverse impacts. I support development of a groundwater management plan for the Midcoast that would determine safe yields from each of our many Coastal aquifers as a pre-requisite for permitting further private wells. As indicated in the recent Kleinfelder report to the Board of Supervisors, the cumulative effects of the County’s current policy could leave many homeowners with private wells in the same situation as the family in your article, if aquifers are overdrawn during an extended drought. The County has not studied the interactions of many wells in close proximity.

MWSD is working to bring existing well-based homeowners onto the public water system as soon as possible. Everyone in our community should enjoy adequate supplies of safe, reliable, high-quality water sufficient to meet their needs.

The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District is holding a public meeting in Half Moon Bay August 12 to consider purchasing the uplands area of Elkus Ranch, located south of Half Moon Bay.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009
6:30 p.m.
Elkus Ranch Retreat Center
1500 Purisima Creek Road
Half Moon Bay, CA. 94019
   
The District’s board of directors will consider purchase of this 450-acre property from the University of California, who would retain the 150-acre lower portion of the property including buildings that house a retreat center, environmental education and 4H programs.  The District’s purchase of the uplands would help sustain these programs, which provide hands-on environmental science, California history, animal care and agricultural education to over 6,000 youth and adults from the greater San Francisco Bay Area each year.

San Francisco’s Seal Rocks are covered with an unusually large number of seals these days.  This El Niño year is kicking off with a surge in sea lion population that has resulted in the wave of dead sea lions we’re seeing on the Coastside, reports the Chron.

A bumper crop of 59,000 California sea lions born last year means more animals along the coast. And scientists say El Niño is sending warmer water to the California Current, the band of water that stretches from British Columbia to Baja California, bringing more sea lions to Central and Northern California. ...

The animals are moving farther north, perhaps following fish that are seeking colder water. On San Miguel Island in the Channel Islands, where they’re born, there has been a higher-than-normal mortality rate for pups and yearlings, she said.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists are still watching to see whether there will be a full-blown El Niño this year, bringing tropical rain to the western United States from October to July.

In the meantime, fishermen are catching sardines - the sea lions’ favorite food - as well as white sea bass and mackerel that have migrated in with the warmer water.

The governor signed a budget today that takes an additional $6 million out of the state parks budget and eliminates Williamson Act funds to give landowners tax breaks for keeping their land as open space, reports the Sacramento Bee. The Bee says that as many as 100 of the state’s 279 parks could be closed in October.

To eliminate the $156 million deficit and create the $500 million reserve, Schwarzenegger made $489 million in additional cuts, borrowed $50 million from one of the state’s special funds and found about $117 million in savings from money not spent in the last fiscal year.

The biggest single cut was $80 million in funds allocated to counties to finance programs that investigate and remediate cases of child abuse and neglect. Administration officials said the program had been spared in earlier rounds of budget cuts.

"The situation has just gotten to the point we can’t exempt them anymore," said Mike Genest, Schwarzenegger’s finance director.

Other cuts include:

• $60.6 million from funds used to pay for Medi-Cal eligibility workers at the county level. Aid to recipients was not cut, but they will likely have to wait longer for service.

• $50 million from the Healthy Families Program, a 12-year-old program that provides low-cost medical insurance to low-income families that don’t qualify for Medi-Cal. New enrollments were frozen two weeks ago due to budget cuts; officials say that unless other funding is found, some families now on the program will be disenrolled.

• $52.1 million from the Office of AIDS Prevention and Treatment. Officials said the cut means the elimination of all services except providing drug assistance and monitoring the number of cases.

• $27.8 million from the Williamson Act program, which provides money to counties that give tax breaks to landowners who keep their land as open space. Because the governor couldn’t unilaterally abolish the program, he cut the budget to a token $1,000.

• $6.2 million from state parks. Coupled with earlier cuts, the added reduction could mean as many as 100 of the state’s 279 parks could close in October. But officials cautioned that local governments with nearby parks, or public-private partnerships, might save some parks.

Although the final numbers aren’t known, $62 million of the $70 million taken from the state parks budget could be restored when the budget bill is finally passed, reports Capitol Weekly.

This means that there some state parks will close, perhaps one out of every five or six parks.

That leaves California’s state parks to handle a budget gap of $8 million.

This means that about 30 to 50 of California’s 279 state parks may have to close. The question now is which ones? That list is being put together. ...

Along with the proposed park closures, parks that do remain open will have to undergo significant management steps to save money. Park employees are already furloughed three Fridays out of the month, hours and days of operations will need to be shortened, and visiting fees will most likely increase. ...

In the unlikely event that California is completely unable to keep its parks open, some parks like San Francisco’s Angel Island, Point Sur State Historic Park and Fort Ord Dunes, could be taken back as federal land. ...

"If the land is reverted, it would revert to federal land reserves for re-disposal," said Siegenthaler, "and it would not necessarily remain a park."

For now, State Parks is working closely with the National Parks Service to make sure that land reversion does not happen.

CORRECTION: The original SF Gate story is out of date. We’ll post the correct, final list when it becomes available.

San Mateo’s state beaches, and the Montara lighthouse, are on the list for closure by the state, along with a host of parks in Santa Cruz county, as part of its current budget deal. From the Tom Stienstra in the Chron:

San Mateo County

Half Moon Bay State Beach: Protected beaches span four miles north, with the Coastside Trail extending all the way to Pillar Point Harbor.

Butano Redwoods State Park: Campsites nestled in redwoods, including the least-known trail camp in the Bay Area, along with outstanding hiking (redwood trails) and mountain biking (Butano Rim) make this one of my personal top favorites.

Others of note: Portola Redwoods State Park, Gray Whale Cove State Beach, Montara State Beach, Pescadero State Beach, Point Montara Light Station, Pomponio State Beach, San Gregorio State Beach, Bean Hollow State Beach.

Santa Cruz County

Año Nuevo State Natural Reserve: This is home of the largest mainland breeding colony of elephant seals on the Pacific Coast. One of the best easy wildlife walks in the state.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park: Here is the No. 1 year-round hiking park in California, with the prettiest series of waterfalls outside of Yosemite, outstanding campgrounds, including backpack sites, and the heart of the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail. Again, there’s no way anybody is going to keep me out.

Castle Rock State Park: Add it up: Goat Rock’s climbing and views, Castle Falls, Trail Camp, trailhead for Skyline-to-the Sea, picnic sites, views of Big Basin Redwoods and beyond to Monterey Bay. What more could you ask for?

Wilder Ranch State Park: This is the best mountain biking park in California, with a terraced foothill landscape that provides flat spots amid climbs (along with trail along ocean bluff). Access extends to UC Santa Cruz.

Others of note: Año Nuevo State Park, Burleigh H. Murray Ranch, Castro Adobe (Rancho San Andres), Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Lighthouse Field State Beach, Manresa State Beach, Natural Bridges State Beach, New Brighton State Beach, Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park, Seacliff State Beach, Sunset State Beach, the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, Thornton State Beach, Twin Lakes State Beach.

Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) has transferred three properties totaling 374 acres to the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD) for permanent management and protection. The properties include 32 acres in the hills east of Half Moon Bay, Bluebrush Canyon (seven miles southeast of Half Moon Bay along Purisima Creek Road), and a strategically located parcel east of Lexington Reservoir, near Los Gatos.