Cars (Not Cows) Bigger Problem For Our Air

News Analysis by John Lindt

Tulare County - Our neighbors, the cows, may be a visible target when we glare into the morning sun looking at our stinky air. Usually we’re looking at it wondering where all this stuff comes from as we peer through the front windshield driving to work. Out of sight is our own tailpipe. That’s probably why they put in the back. As they say in the funny papers - we have met the enemy and it is us.

We live in a basin - on a smaller scale the Tulare Lake basin and from a larger perspective the 250 mile long San Joaquin Valley. Our airshed is all connected. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that looking at just one figure - the number of registered vehicles in Tulare County - we can sense why the air may be one-third grayer than it used to be.

From 1980 to this year Tulare County has gained 100,000 registered vehicles - a one-third jump in 23 years according to the Department of Transportation. By 2020 - when your little one is in high school - we will approach 400,000 vehicles in this county alone. Now multiply by 8 - our entire air basin - 8 counties strong - is 25,000 sq. miles.

While the good news is that more recent model cars pollute less than pre 1980 vehicles, the bad news is that we are traveling more - at a faster pace than the population is growing.

More Miles

According to the Air Resources Board the valley’s population increased from 2.1 million to 3.2 million from 1981 to 2000. During this same period the number of daily vehicle miles traveled more than doubled from 35 million miles a day in 1981 to 136 million in 2000 - a 136% increase. This is the biggest reason our air doesn’t get better despite the fact vehicles are cleaner than they used to be, says the ARB (see chart).

Population growth, new households who increasingly commute and make multiple trips to shopping centers and drive-thrus - are adding to the load.

According to the State Water Resource Board the population of the greater Tulare Lake Basin that includes both the Fresno and Bakersfield metro areas as well as Tulare and Kings - the population in 2000 was 1.88 million people. By 2030 that population is projected to be 3.4 million - almost double.

The huge increase in the volume of people here, the buildings, stores, cars and delivery trucks it takes to supply them - the sprawl of homes that depend on cars to get to work and the work environment itself - all are far bigger factors than farm based pollution.

In fact, argues farmer advocate Manuel Cunha, the issue is simply urbanization of the valley vs the continued survival of agriculture. “Look at the entire valley in 2020 and imagine 7 million people - cities spreading across the landscape and few farms left. America will get their food shipped from other countries in containers and farms won’t be here to help scrub the air as they do today.”

Truck Caravans

Cunha says just the endless volume of truck traffic that speeds through the valley - some 6 million miles a day of big rigs belching diesel smoke motoring through the valley is an example of pollution we have to live with but pollution we don’t make.

Cunha says the new Port of San Diego expected to open soon - will mean a huge increase in truck traffic unloading containers in San Diego to ship product across the state. He says our truck caravans will increase by 3 times “because of the opening of the port.”

Cunha fears the loss of profitability for valley farmers will mean it will be more likely farms will be replaced by housing subdivisions and other urban uses. “Look what replaces farms?” Asphalt and concrete take the place of topsoil and green plants.

Cunha has USDA figures that show that more farmers are part time holding down urban jobs to make ends meet. The number of farms in California in all sizes went down by 3500 from the census of 1992 to 1997. Fewer farms equal more sprawl, says Cunha. That’s what is impacting our air.

160 Acre Lesson

Kings County farmer Tony Oliveira - who teaches an economics class at West Hills offers a dramatic example of the choice the valley has in the cows vs cars debate. He says they modeled the numbers gathered from a number of sources. “Consider 160 acres of alfalfa hay - grown to feed the cows. We figured that to grow, cut, rake, band and deliver that hay to the dairy it will require 4200 gallons of diesel fuel over one year’s time. Now take that same 160 acres - now planted to single family homes. Not only will that acreage no longer absorb ozone - scrub the air - it means that the cars associated with that 160 acre subdivision will use 2.2 million gallons of gasoline in a year’s time.” It’s not even close.

As this example proves out - land use matters. Cows may mean air pollution and manure on one hand, but they also mean thousands of acres of feed crop land needs to be planted - i.e. the cows sustain the field crop land surrounding them and that crop land helps clean the air. Conversely, the conversion to urban uses generates - by a factor of 50 - more bad air days.

Air Pollution and Gas Prices

Pissed over high gasoline prices? Simply put, California refineries - many here in the valley - can’t keep up with demand even as we buy big, more fuel hungry vehicles. The California Energy Commission says that the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks actually declined from 36 mpg in 1988 to 24 mpg in 2000.

California consumes 16.4 billion gallons of gas every year. But that could rise to 24.2 billion gallons by 2020 says the Energy Commission. The upshot will be the valley will have to increase petroleum refinery activity to meet the demand. The Energy Commission suggests that simply increasing the fuel milage to 40 mpg would keep demand at current levels for the next 30 years. Substituting cleaner fuels and fuel cell vehicles could have a beneficial effect on our air - and our lungs.

What can you do? You can buy a hybrid Toyota Prius that gets 50 mpg in a full size vehicle coming out later this month.

Also, Congressman Dennis Cardoza has offered a bill to give to a buyer in a highly polluted region like ours a $4,000 tax incentive to buy such a vehicle. The bill is pending is Congress.

How About Those Cows?

Just what part cows play in the gloomy picture is yet to be sorted out, but studies are underway to come up with a base line answer.

No doubt farming does play a part and likely a significant part. Estimates run to 25% of our problem. Farm advocate Cunha says that farmers are actively working on it however, and if farmers don’t go out of business - there are major initiatives underway that will mean air improvements.

For now the state ARB says our air pollution problem is something like 60% mobile sources, cars, trucks and machinery and tractors. A 2000 ARB inventory of emissions by category for Tulare County for each pollution component like Nox-nitrous oxides - one of the main precursors to smog suggested the inventory of Nox emission was 54 tons per day. Of that mobile sources made up 46.65 tons per day. In the mobile category the emission inventory included about 11 - for cars and light duty trucks, 10.4 for heavy duty diesel trucks, trains at 2.5 - off road equipment at 4.15 and farm equipment at 11.5 tons per day. Dairies are not included in the emission inventory, even though the ARB thinks they should be.

That there are more cows than people in Tulare County is a factor both in the perception and reality of our air. Cows produce a lot of waste and pass a lot of gas. The massive volume has popularized estimates that cows would soon pass cars as the biggest source for one criteria pollutant, reactive organic gases. That has been an issue carried by environmental critics of the dairy industry and news media.

But as we noted in a recent Valley Voice article - current research being done by a Fresno State professor under contract with the state Air Resources Board suggests the current estimate - based on a 1938 research grossly overestimates the volume of reactive organic gases coming from methane. Dr. Charles Krauter is undertaking a two year research project to make new estimates of how much reactive organic gases come from methane and how much ammonia is given off by cows and if plants grown near dairy farms actually pull the ammonia from the air helping to mitigate the situation.

His initial study found that nearby plants, often corn or alfalfa feed, grown near the dairy cut the volume of ammonia emitted down by 80% - absorbing the emissions.

Ag supporters have argued for some time that their crops absorb many pollutants as well as giving off oxygen. Because the science is not clear, modification to legislation such as the new Dean Florez bills on dairies suggests that before there is some further regulation of dairy pollution, the scientific work has to be completed.

Two approaches appear to have promise however - methane digesters that also make electricity and scraping systems that separate manure before it gets a chance to cook in the sun in a dairy lagoon. That cuts the stink as well. The stink may be dairies biggest political problem.

Cut The Dust

PM 10 raises a huge problem in the valley, particularly in the winter months. Major culprits include vehicle travel on unpaved and paved roads, waste burning and residential fireplaces. Ag can kick up less dust in the air from ag land prep and harvesting using conservation techniques that the industry has agreed to implement with the local Air Board.

Increasingly Resource Conservation districts are working to adopt management plans that seek to both conserve water resources and cut emissions. The Pond - Shafter-Wasco Conservation District - is working with farmers to change their irrigation practices that would reduce water use by 15%, conserve wildlife habitat by 30% and cut PM 10 levels by 50% on their permanent crops - an example for others in the valley to follow.

Misting systems to keep the dust down on dairies can make a difference. In the orchards researchers are working on machinery that as it harvests makes far less dust. Some are going with a short cover crop in walnut fields that could absorb dust when harvest is underway. “We will be relying on better technology in the future,” says Cunha. “But it takes time to develop those things.”

Critics of Senator Florez’s approach to getting the SB 700 Air Bill passed in the state recently, says that the bitter argument over its content could have been avoided by working with locals rather than jamming it down our throat. In the end it was a compromise anyway like most legislation. SB 700 removed agriculture’s exemption from the Clean Air Act a tough argument for ag to fight. The cost for ag to get their permits will go up. But clean air is hard to campaign against. That portion of the problem that is ag’s to clean will have to be cleaned up. This will take time, but ag and dairies have to get on board. Industry itself will have to lead the way. Incentives to help the transition will help. Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel - grown from the farm - may help do it.

No Fireplaces

This winter the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Board will institute mandatory no-burn days. Also, as of January 1 of next year, new homes can’t be built with wood burning fireplaces.

Whatever the case, we can largely blame ourselves for the dust cloud over our heads. The Valley Air Board estimates that about 11% of total emissions come into the Fresno area from the Bay Area while that percentage drops to just 7% of the problem in the south valley.

While most agree the problem is ours to solve many feel frustrated by the fact valley residents can have little impact on the constant stream of trucks and cars that travel through the valley each day dumping on our airshed without controls, monitoring or near term regulatory fixes on the horizon.

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Cotton Subsidies Part Of World Trade Debate

San Joaquin Valley - Cotton subsidies to American farmers have been in the spotlight again this past two weeks. First a public interest group again published a list of US farmers who received subsidies in 2002 showing that 10% of all recipients got two thirds of the subsidies including big Valley cotton growers.

Then with a looming World Trade Organization meeting a UC ag researcher blasted cotton subsidies infuriating Valley growers. Researcher Dan Sumner, director of UC Davis Agricultural Issues Center, testified in Geneva in July at a WTO hearing suggesting without government subsidies farmers would not grow cotton and would switch to other crops.

Last week at the trade talks in Cancun Mexico the poor nations of the world ganged up on the US cotton producers charging Washington subsidies of $3 billion a year drove down the world price of cotton.

They said the effect of subsidizing 25,000 US cotton farmers was poverty for 10 million West African cotton farmers. African leaders also pointed to the devastation in the continent’s textile industry as well. For many of those farmers cotton is their only cash export crop.

Africans also complain about the impact of tons of food aid that comes to their countries from the US that take the place of those countries becoming self sufficient in agriculture. Wheat and milk powder from the valley are two such commodities sent to poor countries helping to keep surpluses from building up in the US.

Level Playing Field?

Europeans - who grow no cotton - were sympathetic to the pleas of the developing nations and called for a “level playing field” for the trade of ag products.

Joining the WTO in 2001 China has been targeting foreign markets with their vast ag production. This was the first major trade meeting for China with the developing nations talking about the dropping of trade barriers.

Ironically, it’s China that drives the cotton market worldwide. It has a huge appetite for cotton not just supplying its growing population but because it is big exporter of fashionable textiles. The Chinese want trade barriers removed so they can take a larger share of the textile market. US made textiles have been years in decline. Textile imports from China have gone up 165% since 2001. What happens in 2005 when all tariffs on textile are supposed to be history? They will supply all the shirts on our backs.

The valley exports about 80% of the cotton we produce. In a strange way taxpayers are subsidizing cotton grown to make shirts that come back to the US - but cost US textile workers their jobs.

Big Farmers

Critics of subsidies like the Environmental Working Group (EWG) who annually publishes the lists of how much tax money goes to what farmers for growing subsidized crops suggests most of the money goes to a select group. The largest recipients were corn growers nationwide. Many call for payment limits and others say the subsidies should be based on need and should favor small farmers.

In the case of cotton the EWG says 78% of the subsidies went to just 10% of the cotton farmers who got subsidies. Total subsidies to Kings County farmers from 1995 through 2002 was over $166 million, says EWG citing the figures from the Department of Agriculture. Tulare County farmers got over $252 million during the same period.

Cotton is the valley’s largest crop typically covering as much as a million acres. If they didn’t farm cotton what would hold the dust down on half the south valley, some wonder. Wouldn’t there be a glut of some other crop?

Nisei Farmers League president Manuel Cunha says calls by developing countries for a “level playing field” in ag trade doesn’t take into account that California farmers face high labor, insurance and workman’s comp costs, pesticide safety reports, endangered species regulations and clean air requirements for their equipment and a host of other regulatory burdens that are part of American life. “Let them pay their workers $6.75 per hour and then we can talk about a level playing field.”

That’s pretty much how cotton growers feel as well.

Cotton may be a big target in part because we don’t eat it. But Cunha says foreign dumping of food products on the US market - typically from China - are a major threat to the future of US agriculture.

This is the flip side to the subsidy debate that on the one hand the US tax payer may be growing tired of subsidizing US farm interests and on the other hand ag remains under attack from low cost producers who also subsidize their farmers. It’s why some have said that these are the last days of US agriculture.

Critics of our current trade policy point to a “trade shift” in our ag exports vs ag imported into this country. While we once had a highly touted ag surplus in the US, we now import about as much as we export. Since 1993 the trend has been pointing toward imports with our exports up 23% while the value of imports 64%. Especially troublesome is that imports of farm goods already grown here are up 79%. This issue points to the need for US consumers to support the domestic farmers or as they say here - “Buy California Grown.”

Cunha calls for fair trade rather than free trade worried that President Bush’s eagerness to drop trade barriers with South America “will devastate the valley’s farmers economy.” He says the US uses ag for foreign policy purposes like allowing Columbian flowers to be dumped here so Columbia can manage to keep down the drug trade. “That’s fine but what do I tell my flower growers,” he says.

Big Chinese Appetite

China has been dumping garlic on the US market and this past week the two largest producers of garlic say they would now import it from China. Cunha says in crop after crop, foreign produce is replacing US grown due to the low cost of doing business along with foreign subsidies.

“That is happening with dried fruit” because here too, South America can ship in produce here cheaper than we can do it.

Cunha singled out China as our biggest threat. “They want to control the food chain,” he says and they are targeting the crops we grow in California. Ironically, tractor makers, like John Deere, are eager to produce technology the Chinese need to harvest their speciality crops.

Cunha fears that the Chinese are targeting the California processing tomato industry as well - bad news for lots of workers in Kings County.

“For the past 4 years the Chinese have been coming into the US offering low prices for tomato paste to industrial users and food service industry. This year their tonnage may be off but we feel it’s just a matter of time,” says Bob Graf, CEO of the California League of Food Processors. “They’ve done it in garlic and done it in apples and they are targeting almonds and walnuts next,” he says. China doesn’t have the infrastructure today to do a complete frontal assault on all our California commodities, but there will come a day, he believes.

“We have watched what they did to the apple concentrate market and the destroyed it.”

Graf likens the approach that the Spanish have done to the California olive industry - attacking the bulk food service marketplace where they now dominate Tulare County grown olives.

Graf notes that “the American consumer wants to make sure food safety regulations are enforced in the US but don’t realize that all this foreign product is coming in without that regulation in place.”

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Auto Mall Opponents Half Way There

Visalia - While the world watches the California recall drama—Visalia has a little citizen vote drama of it’s own. Opponents of the West 198 auto mall say they have garnered about half the signatures they need to force a citywide referendum on the issue. “We have two weeks to go,” says Visalian Greg Collins, “and we have around 2100 signatures.” The group seeks to overturn the decision in August by the Visalia city council on a hotly contested 3 to 2 vote to allow the development of a 72 acre auto mall near Plaza and 198.

Opponents need to turn in their signatures by October 2 to meet the 30 day deadline to stay the project pending a city signature verification process. Only Visalia registered voters can be counted.

That would stop the progress of the mall until the issue is resolved.

Collins, Visalia’s former mayor, believes that the majority of Visalians would oppose the plan to place the mall along West 198 if it was brought to a vote. The city has said the opponents must turn in over 4100 valid signatures (10% of the registered voters) to qualify to be placed on the ballot. But Collins’ group, Citizens to Save Our Corridor (SOC) seek 5000 signatures to make sure. “We’re cautiously optimistic but 5000 is a lot of signatures,” he admits. “We have 350 petitions out there and about 100 people circulating the petitions.”

Leslie Caviglia of the Visalia city clerk’s office says once the petitions are turned into the city, the clerk’s office then will decide whether to turn them over to the county clerk’s office for verification - something that office is used to doing - rather than try to do it at the Visalia clerk’s office. “It depends on what other workload the county has with the recall and so on,” says Caviglia. She says the city has 30 days to determine if the signatures are valid although it is possible they could do it in less time.

If it is determined there is enough to qualify, the matter will be brought to the next city council meeting.

Caviglia says if the petition is filed October 1 the city has 30 working days to finalize the names unless they determine each signature needs to be verified which could take 2 months. If they can do the job in 30 days that would put the clerk’s certification at November 13 and the matter presented to the city council November 17th, she figures.

That would be after the city council election on November 4th.

Thus the new city council would have the choice of either placing the certified petition on the ballot or withdrawing the action nullifying the zone change and general plan amendment they approved for the auto mall.

Caviglia says that once the council places it on the ballot the city can’t call an election for 88 days - either a special election date probably in late February or one to coincide with the regularly scheduled ballot election March 2.

Such a schedule clearly stalls the progress of the proposed auto mall from its planned June opening until the fall of 2004 even if Visalia supports the mall at the ballot box, something the proponents believe will happen.

Other Developments

Meanwhile, there has been some movement by local car dealers related to their expansion plans.

This week car dealer Frank Serpa says he is awaiting the outcome of the city decision on the auto mall. The completion of his new Kia dealership on south Ben Maddox, now underway, by early November will allow the existing Kia space to be occupied by VW as a stand alone. At the Daewoo showroom Serpa says he might bring in Saturn even before he builds a new showroom on West 198 now that the city has decided to approve it.

“If it doesn’t happen we’ll have to go back to the drawing board,” he says. But he would like to bring in Saturn sooner than later to be housed on north Ben Maddox.

Also this week dealer Don Groppetti met with neighbors next to his proposed Honda dealership on south Ben Maddox across from Giant Chevrolet. Feedback by those that attended - only about 10 people - was positive after Groppetti told them he planned a large block sound wall and would have lights facing away from the neighborhood and would not be operating a loud speaker system. One in the audience said he was worried that with the coming of the West 198 auto mall the dealerships buildings on Ben Maddox could be turned into used car lots which he didn’t like. Groppetti said that “that won’t happen to any of my dealerships” for the foreseeable future. Groppetti is proceeding with a plan to rezone this south Ben Maddox land for his dealership in a hearing that could be held in November in front of the planning commission.

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What's New

Sources say that the Santa Rosa Rancheria is getting closer to building a new 8-story 600 room hotel complex - big enough to be visible from Highway 198. The Palace could be transformed into a mini Las Vegas in the future if the tribe's vision to make the place a new destination come to pass. Last week the county and the rancheria agreed on a move that requires the tribe to pay the county $900,000 a year over the next 17 years to help pay for roads, police and fire services to service the resort. The tribe would like to have a police and fire substation on site. Currently the tribe pays the state millions that never return to Kings County. Road improvements to the Palace would be paid for by the annual funding as well.

An article in a recent LA Times features our own Three Rivers as an "unlikely spot, a remote hamlet in the foothills that has become a magnet for some of LA's most prominent designers, writers, architects and artists." "Just spend one day on the creek and you will know why," suggests the September 11 feature by Barbara King. The name dropping article lavished praise on the laid back lifestyle for second homes for some of the rich and famous. Among other luminaries Vidal Sassoon showed up for a massage and soak. It seems Three Rivers will be getting more investment from tinsel town to add to folks like Anjelica Huston who has a farmhouse there.

Tulare County is trying to speed up approval processes for typical private development like approval for fences and lot line adjustments. The planning commission is expected to approve a plan that would speed lot line adjustments in the county to a 45 day approval process. Currently, says commission Bill Wittlatch, a simple lot line adjustment can take up to a year.

Both former state Senator Jim Costa and Dooley staffer Lisa Quigley are running for the seat being vacated by Congressman Cal Dooley next year. The district includes Kings County and has a solid Democratic majority. Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes has suggested she is studying the race as well.

Big name: Tulare's Horizon Outlet has one large space to fill and are working to fill it with a big name - Liz Claiborne that could come in where Linen and Things vacated.

Road improvements: Work to widen East Caldwell to four lanes clear to West St. is being completed. City engineer David Jacobs says widening up to Court St. will follow and then clear to Santa Fe after that. Also the city is widening Ben Maddox to four lanes from K St. back to Caldwell in the next month. In Downtown Visalia the city will contract to work with CalTrans the west-bound Court St. exit off 198 that will be signalized and widened. The Radisson will lose its West Mineral King exit and the city will pay to improve the Court St. access to the Radisson for trucks as part of the deal since CalTrans is short on bucks.

Out in the Visalia industrial park and in Goshen the Betty Dr. improvement project - a $9 million federal project is well underway connecting Riggin to Highway 99 with a first class roadway.

Mimi's Restaurant on Mooney has the table set ready to serve but still lacks a parking lot and sewer connection, city engineers say. Next week the parking lot will go in but the sewer and water connection will delay the opening until October, they say.

Tulare County workers continue to wonder why the county can't figure out a way to provide more parking places at the Civic Center. Two suggestions they say - stripe Woodland with diagonal stalls instead of parallel as they've done in downtown Visalia. Secondly, consider having employees take that huge fleet of county cars home instead of leaving them in the parking lot to take up valuable parking space.

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Lindsay-based HIT Products has received approval for a $1.5 million CDBG loan through the city of Lindsay that will allow it to expand from their current 80 person workforce to about 130 over the next year, says city manager Scott Townsend. "They are up against the big boys" in the irrigation business and this company incubated right here in Lindsay," he says. The company started making ag products and moved into commercial and now residential sprinkler systems. Townsend says the company will use the funds to expand and add working capital to the company.

Tulare's US Cold Storage is looking at expansion in the west side industrial park across Levin. General manager Brian Ford says the company plans an 80,000 sq. ft. Phase 2 warehouse to complement the 86,000 sq. ft. warehouse they built a few years ago. Ford says the new unit will have some cold storage capacity and not just dry warehouse storage. Ford says interest in storage by food companies "has picked up in the past few months after a slow start earlier this year." Ford says the new project could be complete in about 15 months. The project is in addition to its huge cold storage warehouse on Continental Ave.

Ruiz Foods - Tulare County's largest private employer, is working on an expansion plan. Fred Ruiz tells the Dinuba Sentinel that expansion may not happen in Dinuba. Citing the high cost of doing business in California, Ruiz said the company, that employs over 1300, is weighing building a manufacturing facility to serve the eastern market in Texas or Tennessee. The company has room to expand in Dinuba, however, it may be cheaper to manufacture out of California, he says. City manager Ed Todd says the city is working with Ruiz and fellow food processor Odwalla on a plan to do pre-treatment of their waste water that could save money. "The big issues are cost of labor and insurance and energy," says Todd, suggesting they will be working with the industry on some ways to cut the company's huge energy bill as well. "We still need the help of the state particularly with the cost of workman's comp," says Todd. A new law will make it mandatory for the company to offer health insurance to its employees.

One major cost to business - training workers - will get easier with the new Dinuba Vo Tech school opening next year. The school just got a $250,000 donation for their technical equipment that will be used to train workers, particularly used in the food processing industry.

Call Center on Month to Month Financial Credit Network's call center at Government Plaza on Mooney has told the county they no longer want to lease their office space annually. Instead they will go on a month to month rental program beginning September 19, says county administrator Doug Wilson. The company had leased the former Nationwide Insurance space at the building for more than 3 years. They have only 8200 sq. ft. of the former Nationwide space which was nearly 25,000 sq. ft.

A ground breaking plan in Bakersfield would reduce traffic fees for home developers who build in Bakersfield's core area rather than the fringe of town. The reduced fee is justified by the fact that improvement on the outskirts cost the city more to build, say supporters. Roads and infrastructure in the city's core area is already in place. They want to support infill projects rather than the conversion of ag land says a city official. The fee in the core area would be about half per unit.

Burger King franchisee Gary Geiger has informed the city of Visalia he won't be proceeding with a new restaurant at Goshen and Ben Maddox after all. Builder Bill Miller, who works with Geiger, said economic conditions right now make the project financially unfeasible. The city hopes to attract a few small tenants to the corner of Goshen and Ben Maddox on land that used to be owned by SCE.

Tulare's Del Lago Project - part of north Tulare's rapid growth, is filing plans for more new homes in the area with the big project nearly halfway completed in terms of lot designation, says city planner Mark Keilty. When it's done the project will feature about 1200 homes. The area has been a hot one for all sorts of development including the new Foods Co. store with pads out front for Quiznoz and Panda Express. Across the street the new Tulare District Hospital's "Evolutions" fitness center is underway as well.

Another busy area in Tulare involves a proposed annexation of 265 acres at Bardsley and Mooney near a new elementary school site will accommodate more than 1000 homes. City council approved that annexation this week.

Developer Bill Wittlatch says he is working with the family who owns the old Shell station property on Noble at Court. According to Wittlatch, Shell, who closed the station some months ago, has many months cleanup related to the property. After that Wittlatch says he expects to develop the property into a new gas station convenience market or possibly a high rise building.

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Water providers in California are upset that congress is considering allowing manufacturers to get off the hook on liability for cleanup of ground water contaminated by MTBE or ethanol. HR 6 expects fuel makers foot cleanup liability in the proposed Energy Bill being discussed on conference committees. MTBE has contaminated water wells across the country.

Summer rains? Boosted precipitation totals for south valley watersheds with mountain storms in May and August on the South Fork of the Kaweah at Hockett Meadow adding nearly 7 inches of rainfall to the bucket during the usually dry summer months and boosting watershed totals to 127% of normal. On the Kings and Grant Grove they got nearly 5 inches over the summer through August boosting that measuring station to 102% of normal for the water year according to the state. On the Tule at Hossack it is at 126% of normal.

More than 50 Central Valley communities are facing new federal and state rules mandating they lower the arsenic levels in their drinking water wells to at least one fifth the current allowable levels says a Department of Water Resources report. Towns include Hanford, Pixley and Alpaugh. Water wells with levels higher than the new 10 parts per billion level to be in effect by 2006 in Tulare County include the wells listed here (see chart). Arsenic is a natural byproduct of erosion. High levels of arsenic in the water in some systems have been implicated in higher levels of various types of cancer. They city of Hanford's 15 drinking wells average 25.7 ppb currently. Officials estimate a 10% increase in the cost of water in town to assure the new contamination level be met.

If arsenic is a concern nitrates remain another problem in the Tulare Lake basin, says the state's "California Water Plan Update 2003" report. It says over 400 sq. miles of ground water in the Tulare Lake basin is contaminated with nitrates. Water supplies in Delano, McFarland, Maricopa and Taft, Hanford and Lemoore, Fresno, Clovis and Reedley and Orange Cove remain hot spots. The report says the principle source of nitrate contamination is believed to be from agricultural operations - fertilizing - and from dairy waste. The state Water Resource staff says they are no ongoing mitigation programs to assess the contamination of both types of ag operations on the ground water problem.

The report also notes that there are 800 oil fields discharging into the Tulare Lake basin of which just 250 have waste discharge requirements.

Eating reservoir fish? The report says that fish in Lake Kaweah are reported to contain elevated levels of copper, arsenic and silver and that fish tissue studies should be done in Pine Flat, Lake Success, Kaweah and Isabella to determine if the reservoirs are like some others that "serve as sinks for contamination" and have fish that may have elevated levels of mercury, pesticides or PCBs.

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The long anticipated family fun park planned for Akers and 198 will be the subject of a September 22 public hearing at the Visalia Planning Commission. The recreation center that features 2 miniature golf courses, batting cages, miniature car racing and bumper boats, plans a 20,500 ft. arcade and a laser tag room and one pizza parlor that would offer beer and wine. The company owned by a Hanford investment group led by Mike Robinson hopes to open in 2004 but is unlikely to meet their goal of a spring opening, suggests partner Darlene Matta. "They will not complete the purchase of the property until the end of the year," says Matta about the 6 and ½ acres fro the city of Visalia.

Robinson says that Adventure Park will hire 60 to 80 employees - mostly part time with an expected 25 on hand at any one time.

A matter of contention is the beer and wine license the company will apply for first seeking a conditional use permit from the city for its use. They say they will offer beer and wine in glasses only and inside the buffet only and only when the buffet is open.

City council members have been split over approval of the beer and wine licenses with Don Landers suggesting it was inappropriate selling liquor in a children's recreation center. Council member Wendy Rudy has said she can't see why the place can't sell beer and wine noting that every other pizza parlor in town including Chuckie Cheese - offers beer and wine.

Last year the Hanford fun park the price tag placed on the project is $5.3 million with the land costing $1.4 million. Unable the to come up with final financing on the project the city had told Robinson's group nearly half a million to finance the project at least until bank financing can be secured. That financing in turn depended on city approval of a conditional use permit.

Council has lauded the objective of the fun center to offer Visalia teens a fun and safe place to visit.

The project is located to the west of the new Walgreens on Akers off Cypress.

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