Local Cities Look to Roundabouts to Move Traffic
Tulare County - Three Tulare County cities are looking to traffic circles or roundabouts to help ease congestion, reduce automobile pollution and cut accidents. Seen in Europe, roundabouts allow traffic to enter an intersection and exit without stopping - instead slowing to travel in a circle until the exit they want is available. Cars don’t spend time idling at red lights helping to speed circulation while reducing the emissions that come from idling motors.
Last week the City of Visalia took a hard look at construction of two roundabouts at their Lovers Lane freeway interchange - one large one to the south of the freeway plus a smaller circle further to the north. The plan was devised by Visalia engineers Omni Means.
The Visalia city council appeared impressed by the presentation by the engineering firm since it was the only option offered that showed it could accommodate growth in vehicle traffic in coming years while keeping the so-called level of service high - considered a level B rating.
As it is, Gary Mills of Omni Means says the Lovers Lane interchange at peak time reaches a level F as drivers must navigate a series of lights and turning movements to get where they want resulting in long waits that can back up onto the freeway. “CalTrans doesn’t like that,” Mills told the city council. “They don’t like it, how about us who have to live here,” quipped council member Don Landers.
Members Collins and Kirkpatrick said “roundabouts are the way to go once you get used to them,” a short learning curve.
A roundabout to solve the Lovers Lane freeway interchange problems has another benefit over two other options the city council considered last week. It requires no right-of-way acquisition. In other options the city would have to buy someone’s going business to make room for onramps with signals.
Interchanges in the county are a big problem, says city engineers, because TCAG doesn’t fund interchanges and the state is concentrating on Highway 99. “198 is way down the list,” says Mills.
Roundabouts may qualify for extra funding because they cut emissions.
Visalia is already installing a smaller roundabout at the intersection of Santa Fe and Houston as Houston is to be widened later this year.
Besides Visalia, the City of Lindsay is planning 4 roundabouts says city manager Scot Townsend. Two of the sites are located at the most important intersections in Lindsay’s Downtown including Mirage and Honolulu. Two smaller ones are in new home subdivisions. The city manager expects the traffic circles will be going in next year. Townsend says the city got funds to put in the street features with federal and state funds allotted to the county’s cities.
Roundabouts can dress up a community, provide a place to display art or a water feature like a fountain in the middle even as they guide car traffic through Downtown, says Townsend. “We think it will help people come into our Downtown.”
Besides Visalia and Lindsay, Porterville is also considering a roundabout.
Some cities have gone big time for roundabouts including Colorado Springs where there are 40 roundabouts and plans for 20 more. “They are safer, more efficient and prettier” than a normal intersection, says a Colorado Springs city official. Many fatal accidents occur when someone runs a red light which just doesn’t happen in traffic circles. You can get rid of the millions spent on signals as well as the high cost of maintenance. Maintaining a roundabout costs one-third the cost of maintaining a signal.
Visalia mayor Jesus Gamboa reminded everyone that Visalia already has a roundabout at the Oval. Part of the secret to a roundabout compared to a traditional intersection is that everyone slows down to get in the flow of traffic.
Besides cities here, Long Beach, Santa Maria, Goleta and Palo Alto have traffic circles that seem to work well. A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found a 38% drop in accidents at 24 intersections that had been converted to a roundabout and an 89% decline in serious accidents.
Water Storage May Trip Up State Bond
Tulare County - Negotiations over a $49 billion bond issue continued Wednesday, March 15 even as this paper goes to press. The deadline to put the issue on the June 6th ballot has dragged on for the past few days - hung up over whether surface water storage funding should be a part of the massive infrastructure bond.
Sources say three dam projects are on the table including some or all of $500 million for a future reservoir - Temperance Flat above Millerton Lake - a key source for the restoration of the San Joaquin River.
Many Democrats oppose spending money on new dams even though these same dams, built in the state 50 years ago, continue to bring major cities their drinking water in both the Bay Area and the southland. Critics say instead that farm interest should pay for the project. Farmers represented by Friant Water Users and the environmental group NRDC are nearing a final settlement of nearly 19 years of court battles over the future of the river.
Friant’s general manager, Ron Jacobsma, said Wednesday morning he held out hope that Temperance Flat would be part of the package. “It’s not just the farms but the entire economy of the central valley that needs additional water supply,” says Jacobsma noting that we are the fastest growing region in California.
Assemblyman Bill Maze told the Voice a recent report suggests the state would have enough water for the future but that prediction depended on 10% of farms idling land in the state.
“We’ve had four bond measures and not one drop of water.” Maze says suggesting predictions show the state needs 3 to 4 million acre feet of water to make up for what we haven’t done in the past 43 years “building any new infrastructure.” He notes it could take 15 years to build new storage. “If I can’t swim in it I won’t support it” referring to other plans to get more water through conservation efforts.
The valley needs the so-called infrastructure bond to fix Highway 99, expand school classrooms, plant parks, and shore up the levees and any delay in the bond passage will delay all those efforts as well.
The valley’s 10 member delegation - both Democrat and Republican - refuse to sign onto the bond without some help for Temperance Flat making it harder to reach the two-thirds threshold to place this issue on the ballot.
Without surface water coming into our area, Tulare County would simply dry up and blow away. Tulare County is the largest beneficiary of the Friant Kern canal.
While few complained that the draft bond contained $100 million for soccer fields, Bay Area and LA Democrats complained about any money going to new dams. “I’d say surface water storage is at least as important as some new soccer fields,” says Jacobsma.
To get more support from those areas two other dam projects are included including Perris Dam in the southland and Sites Reservoir in Colusa County.
“We’re going to have to give up water up front to restore the river without any way to get that water back,” he says. He notes the benefit to the public as well as the environment in restoring the river. Increased storage above the Friant Dam would provide that supply long term.
The valley delegation has been steadfast in supporting the Friant position as has been the governor, says Jacobsma. But faced with Sacramento political pressure Jacobsma fears “we may not make it” when the dust settles.
If the plan approval is delayed beyond some date in the next few days there would be no way to make the June ballot and legislators will have until August to craft a plan for the November election.
Council OK’s Zone Change for New Orthopedic Center
Facility to Be Visalia’s Second- Largest Medical Complex
By George Lurie
Visalia - In a split vote last week, city council members OK’d a ‘change in zoning’ request from a group of area doctors who want to build a $17 million regional orthopedic center on a 13-acre site off Highway 198 at Plaza Drive.
The move, which also required passage of an amendment to the city’s general plan, signals a shift in direction on the part of council members, who up to now, have tried to focus Visalia’s medical-related growth around the downtown hospital district.
The Council voted 4-1 in favor of the zoning change and 3-2 to approve the amendment to the city’s general plan. In 2004, a similar application by the orthopedic group for the zoning change was tabled by the council at the request of city planners.
Project backers requested the zone change because the site off Highway 198 and Plaza, which the physician group is in the process of purchasing, was zoned as a business research park (BRP). Under current general plan guidelines, medical offices are not allowed in parcels zoned BRP.
At last week’s meeting, Councilman Greg Collins voted against both the zoning change and the related amendment to the city’s general plan.
Collins is concerned that the new orthopedic center, which will be adjacent to the Josten’s Printing plant, could create traffic problems at the Highway 198 and Plaza Drive interchange and may also impact the city’s ongoing efforts to bolster the hospital district and revitalize downtown.
“I was really hoping that the council would be more willing to look at alternative sites in the core of the community, whether it’s in the downtown or east Visalia area,” Collins said after the vote.
“Next to the hospital, this is going to be the biggest medical facility in the area,” Collins added. “I think it’s a fairly major change in direction for the council to OK this.
I have some concerns about the impact on the medical community and whether this is going to set a precedent. Are we sending a message that’s its now OK to decentralize our medical facilities?”
At the public hearing held during last week’s council meeting, Visalia planner Andy Chamberlain pointed out that approval of the zoning change was contrary to an agreement among council members formulated at a retreat earlier this year to try to keep all new medical development centered in the core downtown area.
Vice Mayor Greg Kirkpatrick, who sided with Collins in voting no on the amendment to the general plan, tried to convince his fellow council members that there were better potential development sites closer to Kaweah Delta District Hospital.
Kirkpatrick said that he would also like to see additional analysis of “the environmental impacts” associated with the project.
But at the public hearing, even Kaweah Delta District Hospital CEO Lindsay Mann lobbied for the new orthopedic center, which Mann stated, will be “key to attracting quality physicians to the community.”
While refraining from voicing an opinion about the center’s location, Mann noted that three orthopedic surgeons have left the area recently and that two more are either retiring or also leaving this year. Visalia’s “thin” supply of orthopedic specialists, Mann added, is worrisome to health officials, who believe the area should have at least 10 to 12 practicing orthopedic specialists.
“This is a really important matter,” Mann added. “We need to make sure we do everything we can to attract and retain qualified orthopedic surgeons to the area. We see this as a complimentary facility to the hospital.”
Orthopedic surgeon Bruce Le, who is part of the physician-ownership group pushing for the new center, said of the group’s current Willis St. facility: “Our major office is 30 years old and approaching obsolescence. We’re very spread out, the parking situation’s horrendous and it’s difficult for patients to find our office. We need this facility right now.”
Mann said that while physicians in the orthopedic group would retain their operating privileges at the hospital, Kaweah Delta “has no plans to acquire” the orthopedic group’s current Willis Street facility once the orthopedic center is built.
The new “state-of-the-art” orthopedic center has been designed to include four campus-style buildings encompassing a total of 150,000 square feet and will also include rehab facilities built around an outdoor running track.
Project proponents claim the facility will draw patients as many as 40,000 patients from throughout Tulare, Kings and Kern counties.
Needing only 85,000 square feet for the orthopedic center, the doctors and other investors involved in the project are reportedly in talks with several major corporations, including IBM and Aetna, that have expressed an interest in leasing space in two of the buildings to be constructed on the parcel.
Plaza Drive Gets Developer Attention as
City Focuses on Ag Zone to the East
Visalia - In the past few weeks the Visalia city council confirmed their interest in keeping much of the land between Roeben and the city golf course - some 1100 acres - as an ag enterprise zone characterized by scattered farm-related businesses and plenty of crop land and open space as a permanent feature of the entryway into Visalia.
But a few parcels to the west - on Plaza Drive - a rush of new development interests has surfaced on long vacant land north of the interchange all the way to the industrial park.
Next week a consultant will be hired to flesh out just how an ag enterprise zone might look and function on the county land west of Akers even as the city tries to get the county buy-in on the concept so property owners can’t play one jurisdiction against the other.
The masterplan for the corridor will go forward in coming months while most development proposals won‘t be accepted.
This stretch of highway a majority of the council wants to keep “soft” to use mayor Jesus Gamboa’s phrase as opposed to fears of intensive development of the corridor that got Greg Collins back in a city council seat after 14 years. Collins, Greg Kirkpatrick - a former representative of American Farmland Trust - and Gamboa make up a green majority on the council that are pushing for the ag-based plan for the corridor that will be an ag enterprise zone at least on a large portion of the acreage.
But Collins could not stop a recent rezoning approval brought by Orthopaedic Associates just west of Jostens last week as the council voted 4 to 1 to allow development of an office park on 13 acres zoned BRP (Business Research Park) that would allow medical uses. Orthopaedic Associates Dr. Bruce Le made the case for the location on Plaza where he and 5 partners have plans for an 80,000 sf medical campus and walking track on about 6 acres. (See other story)
But on this proposed campus there are 2 other large buildings to be sold off to other major office users to help finance the Orthopaedic’s venture, says Dr. Le “that’s the only way we can do this project.”
Council heard about physician shortages and the need for such a major facility to attract new orthopedic doctors to the central valley and noted that the city’s argument that there is a policy of keeping major medical in Downtown didn’t seem to work in reality considering all the medical office space on Akers that has been approved in recent years.
Aetna and IBM?
This week Dr. Le told the Voice a partner in Fresno Dr. Robert Mochizuki is working with Aetna Insurance and IBM to locate in two major 50,000 sf buildings on the new Plaza Dr. campus. He expects to begin construction on the project in 6 to 8 months.
The council action appears to open the door for more medical uses on Plaza and there are other major projects to add to the Orthopaedic plan in the works.
Westland’s Plans
Just north of the orthopedic campus, Westland Development is working on a 30 acre BRP zoned project expected to yield about 250,000 sf - 25 buildings and 3 separate pads on both sides of Plaza. Developer Craig Mangano filed a site plan on the big project this week with the city planning department.
BRP zoning requires large 50 ft setbacks and the filing of a specific plan to get approvals to build. “It’s about an 8 month process,” says Mangano. Mangano says most of the complex will be office mixed with some retail uses.
The Westlands site is right across the street from the Visalia Auto Plaza being promoted by Craig’s brother Andy.
27 Acre Project
Also on the front burner is a 27 acre piece being marketed by realtor George Ouzounian to an out-of-town developer. The site - also BRP - has been zoned Highway Commercial since the 1980s but never developed. Ouzounian says there is strong interest by a developer and a site plan is expected to be filed in the next few weeks.
All these development proposals are happening on BRP zoned land within the Visalia city limits, a zoning designation pushed in the 1990s by none other than councilman Greg Collins.
Although he found it hard to keep the auto mall from being developed just west of Plaza - land that needed a zone change and change in the general plan, these lands along Plaza - over 70 acres are zoned for intensive development. Now that the land to the east of there is out of play for some types of development anyway - it seems clear Plaza Drive will be the new development hot spot.
Besides all the projects we’ve mentioned - about 1 million sq ft of warehousing is planned just to the north of these projects by Fresno based Diversified Development with the first 500,000 sf building expected to break ground in coming weeks.
Craig Mangano says the city has made it clear since the days that Fresno developer Ed Kashain tried to put a major retail shopping center on the same 27 acres, that the council doesn’t want major retail or big box on Plaza. Instead look to the BRP zoning to attract upscale office complex like these being proposed even as the acreage between Plaza and the rest of the city remains farmland and its future - a question mark.
Pro Cyclists Spin Into South Valley
Visalia / Exeter - Professional bicycle racing returns to the South Valley this week with hundreds of riders competing in the Quad Knopf Sequoia Cycling Classic scheduled to roll through the area beginning Friday.
With a full slate of events taking place March 17-19, highlights of this year’s classic should come in the Exeter 30K Time Trial and the Visalia Criterium.
The popular bicycling event, at one time the country’s fifth-largest pro race, hasn’t been run since 2003 when the Allen Group pulled out as lead corporate sponsor.
A local group led by Southern Sierra Cyclists and Tri-Sport bicycle shop convinced veteran rider and former race director Mark Purnell to bring the Classic back to the South Valley. Purnell raced in the 1998 and 2002 Classics.
Quad Knopf, an engineering group with corporate headquarters in Visalia, signed on this year as title sponsor of the race, which was formerly known as the Sequoia Cycling Classic.
“This is an event that’s been very popular,” said Bernie Siben, marketing director at Quad Knopf. “We have a lot of bicycling enthusiasts in our company. This race struck us as beloved by folks in this area and we thought it would be a very good event to try to help bring back.”
The Classic kicks off with a “Ride with the Pros” event open to the public in which members of the Visalia and Exeter city councils, along with pro riders and other sponsors, will test the downtown Visalia criterium route in a slow-paced “social ride” beginning and ending at the Lamp Liter Inn.
Racing kicks into a higher gear Saturday with the Exeter 30K Rocky Hill Time Trial, which will begin at 8am.
This year’s showcase event, the Visalia Criterium, will be run through downtown Visalia on Sunday. Events start at 8am.
Pro women racers will jump on their pedals at 1:25pm and pro men begin racing at 3pm.
For a complete event schedule, visit or call Purnell at (559) 469-9154.
Farmers Lobby for Ag Jobs Bill in Washington
Tulare County - Some 250 California and U.S. farmers lobbied in the halls of the U.S. Senate this week promoting immigration reform that would allow a guest worker plan. The Senate is trying to craft a bill that improves security at the U.S./Mexican border, cuts illegal immigration yet allows the workforce that is here illegally already to continue to work in agriculture. President Bush has said he could support some sort of guest worker provision.
But a bill in the House that passed earlier this year left out any guest worker provisions.
In Washington for the past few weeks, Nisei Farmers League president Manuel Cunha says valley farmers will parade in front of the Senate Wednesday, March 15 and California grown produce will be offered later in the day in farmers market style.
Cunha says a worker shortage in California makes it clear that the state’s farmers need guest workers. EDD figures show we typically have about 560,000 workers available to use and this year we are down to close to 317,000. “We’ve lost 220,000 workers,” claims the farm leader.
Cunha says Ag Jobs advocate Senator Larry Craig has been huddling with California Senator Dianne Feinstein this week to see if there is a way to seek common ground. Feinstein introduced her version of the bill this week, says Cunha and “while there are some good things in the bill there are also other parts we can’t live with,” says Cunha.
Feinstein has been quoted as opposing a guest worker plan because workers who come here on a temporary basis end up never leaving the US.
California has some 2.4 million residents who are illegal by one count although a far larger number work in the service and hospitality business than work in agriculture. There are some 11 million undocumented residents in the US.
Despite the controversy over the growing presence of undocumented people in the state, a surprising survey showed 7 out of 10 Californians favor some sort of guest worker program.
For farmers the strategy has been to forge a pact with labor with strong backing of the UFW for an Ag Jobs Bill.
“The only way to address our nation’s broken immigration system is through comprehensive bi-partisan immigration reform. Democrats and Republicans, business interests, labor advocates and immigrant rights advocates must all work together if we are to truly craft a solution,” said Congressman Mike Honda D-San Jose.
The fruit, vegetable and nursery sectors as they now exist would disappear, a Farm Bureau study finds. Up to one-third of these growers - who are especially dependent on hired labor - would no longer be able to compete. Instead of stocking produce and floral products grown and harvested in the United States, America’s grocers would increasingly fill their shelves with foreign-grown produce, resulting in billions of dollars currently kept in the United States being sent overseas.
Fruit, vegetable and nursery farmers already are battling competitiveness issues. Agricultural producers outside the United States access low-cost labor and operate without the same worker safety and environmental protection rules as their American counterparts.
The Senate is expected to pass some sort of immigration reform bill in late March.
What's New
Target seems to be the most aggressive big box retailer in our area with the company looking at a new store in north Visalia at Riggin and Dinuba Highway, and another location in Tulare. The company is working with a developer on a possible site at the northwest corner of Mooney and Prosperity.
Lemoore is entertaining an offer to sell their municipal golf course to a private group - West Coast Golf Associate Partners, Inc.
The City of Visalia is working with a property owner at Riggin and Plaza to complete the annexation of all the 640 acres on both sides of Plaza in coming months. The council approved annexation of 160 acres owned by Russ Doe on the west side of Plaza but now is working with property owner representative David Vargas on a masterplan to bring in the balance of the land into the city limits. Vargas in turn is working with an industrial developer who will market the property. The City of Visalia wants to add the inventory to allow room for new companies who seek a location here. While the city has some land available for companies looking to lease - they don't have the large parcels for major users who may want to buy 50 to 100 acres.
Concern over levees around Visalia were brought to the Tulare County Grand Jury recently. What did they say? Do something about the maintenance of the levees. The bottom line is that there is no financing mechanism in place. It will be up to the Board of Supervisors to propose some sort of assessment to cover the levee maintenance. Will the levee issue influence FEMA's current effort to draw flood insurance maps around Visalia? The county is expected to draw one map under the assumption the levees are not even there and one with the levees in place. The big question - which will they adopt? Now that Terminus Dam has been raised, less land around the county ought to be prone to major floods.
A trial is set to resume on May 1 in Tulare County Superior Court unless the city and Jerrald Harrah and Lillian Martin, former owners of the Main Street Theater, can reach an agreement on a price for the property, which the city took ownership of through an eminent domain action this past December. Commenting on the upcoming ‘valuation phase' of the ongoing trial, Assistant City Attorney Alex Peltzer said that Harrah and Martin want to be paid $650,000 for the aging 464-seat theater, located on the corner of Main and Garden streets. "We've had appraisals done and they've come in at around half that," said Peltzer. In December, the city finalized a joint ownership/joint use agreement with Restoration, Inc., a Visalia church that had been trying to buy the theater from Harrah and Martin before the city stepped in. Under terms of an agreement hammered out with the city, Restoration will share use of the facility with The Enchanted Playhouse Theater Company, which has leased the building for its productions since 1977.
California's largest biodiesel plant burned down near Bakersfield last month. The company, Green Star Products, produced about 7 million gallons of the renewable fuel in2005 perhaps 10% of US production. CEO of the company, Joseph LeStella says plans are underway to build a new plant and components are being assembled. He says he is searching for locations to put the plant, perhaps out of state where permits are easier to get. The plant burned down as a result of the mixing of sulfur with ethanol in a forklift accident. The plant site was also a fertilizer manufacturing facility.
While Valley Air offices discuss requiring dairies and hog farms to reduce their emissions one entrepreneur says he may have a way to use all those gases to power a new biofuel plant. "We could substitute the methane gas that comes off a covered lagoon instead of natural gas to fire our boilers, says Matt Schmitt of Calgren Renewable Fuels - the company that is about to build a ethanol plant on Ave. 120 at 99 in Pixley. Schmitt's idea is to enlist nearby dairymen and even Corc Pork hog farm to sell their waste gas coming off lagoons and pipe the gas down Ave. 120 to the plant site. In essence a waste product and pollutant - manure - would power the manufacture of biofuels and dairymen would get compensated for their supply. Schmitt says he is still studying the feasibility of his idea that depends on large animal confinement facilities to be near a large user of the gas like an ethanol plant - typically built in a rural area.
Visalia Industrial Park's first convenience center is going in at the corner of Goshen and Plaza with a cardlock gas station, convenience store, Subway and Vallarta Mexican restaurant.
Proteus Helps Farmworkers Get Year-Round Jobs
Tulare County - Proteus is working with employers like citrus farmer Booth Ranches to get the skilled employees they need and with farmworkers to get them full time jobs.
Dubbed the "Agri-business Collaborative Project" the current effort is a joint venture between the TCWIB, Proteus, the Employment Development Department, Tulare County Economic Development Department, and the Farmworker Institute of Educational Leadership and Development (FIELD).
The project has panned out for employer Loren Booth of Booth Ranches and for her new employee Romuald Nava. "We were searching for an employee with multiple skills," says Loren who manages the family's independent citrus ranch from their headquarters near Orange Cove.
The company owns 5500 acres in the central valley and Loren needed a worker that could drive a truck along with carrying out some of the more traditional duties needed around the ranch. The company was founded by Otis Booth in 1957 in Ivanhoe with 40 acres and is now one of the largest independent citrus growing operations in the state. Loren is the founder's daughter.
Where the collaborative came in is finding Romuald Nava who has lived in the Dinuba area for a decade. While he has driven a truck for employers in the past, for years Romuald has not had the proper license to do so. With Proteus' help, Romuald was offered a six week intensive course to get his Class A license through Visalia-based Advanced Trucking School along with 9 other classmates. Proteus paid for the training and Romuald - now with his Class A license can drive most of the trucks Booth uses.
Both parties say things have worked out well. For the first time in his life Romuald says he has a full time job as well as health insurance benefits and a 401K retirement plan. "We pride ourselves with offering this to all our full time employees," says Loren. Now Romuald stays busy doing tasks around the ranch or driving one of several different trucks to the ranches the company owns in Maricopa or Delano as well. "He's a great worker," says Loren.
Now Booth Ranches want to start up a plan to offer English to their employees says Loren. The company also works with Fresno State to help children of farmworkers learn more about different aspects of agriculture than they normally see, she says.
Proteus also offers English classes through the Collaborative to help workers gain the skills they need for a better job. Providing English as a second language (VESL) and cross crop skills training that will strengthen their ability to find employment in other crops they have not historically worked in before, as well as strengthen their English language skills.
For more information regarding this program, please contact Darlene Norris at 741-2085.
Landfill Limits
By Miles Shuper
Tulare County - A proposed agricultural plastics waste recycling operation at county-owned Sequoia Field could help Tulare and several other Central Valley counties get some slack in meeting land-fill requirements, County supervisors learned this week.
Supervisor Tuesday authorized the submittal of a request for a Community Development Block Grant for up to $1.5765 million to provide new construction and infrastructure improvement at Sequoia Field. Yours Sunflower, based in London, England and Beijing, China, hopes to lease 20 acres of a 40-acre former dirt and sand borrow site on the northern edge of the 300-acre site.
The grant would fund to up to $30,000 per job created. The company move to Tulare County could create from 45 to 60 new jobs, according to county officials who have been working with the firm which has five such plants in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Bill Hayter, airport manager, said Tuesday that the state's Integrated Waste Management Board is considering granting Tulare County and neighboring counties leway in meeting landfill –reduction limits.
The Tulare County Farm Bureau other entities are working to get a handle on just how much agricultural plastics there is. A survey form developed and distributed by the Tulare County Farm Bureau to Valley agriculturalists is being used by the IWMB as the model for a state-wide survey, according to Christine Flowers-Ewing, diversion planning and local assistance unit of the CWMB. According to the CWMB's web site, a 2003 study found that plastic film, packaging containers, durable goods and other plastic items make up 9.5 percent, or 3.8 million tons of the disposed waste stream in California.
But the state agency says those figures certainly are low considering so little is known about the amount of plastics used in agriculture alone.
Hayter said the IWMB is considering the Sequoia Field proposal a pilot project and thate Tulare County will be in then spotlight of agricultural plastics waste recycling once the new company become operational. Flowers-Ewing said only one other plastics recycling pilot program, shopping bag recycling project in Southern California, is operating.
Hayter said there is a good possibility that the Tulare, Kings, Fresno. Madera, Kern, counties will be given diversion credits for land-fill reduction regulations. Last year Tulare County barely met its 50 percent landfill standard and it may not meet tem the next go around. Counties which fail to meet those goals must pay penalties, Hayter explained.
During Tuesday's board meeting, Hayter assured Supervisors that the grant funds the county is seeking for infrastructure and cleanup will not interfere with the county's chances of obtaining other funds to upgrade the airport for aviation-related uses.
The county has been attempting to attract more business to the 300-acre site.
Tulare - Tulare's utility board will hear a proposal Thursday, March 16 to buy about 9000 acre feet of excess flood water that has been heading down the Friant Kern canal to help replenish the groundwater under the community. City public works director Lew Nelson says the $250,000 cost of the water would be reimbursed from a future rate hike all Tulare residents will pay to help build back up the depleted water table here.
"We need to buy the water when it is available," says Nelson. "We've had two wet years in a row and likely next year we won't have the water available even though we have the money," he notes. The utility board has already approved an increase in water rates to help fill water basins around the city. In addition, they approved a plan to assess new development to buy land from more sinking basins recently. A study underway will set just what rates to charge both residents and new development later this year.
Nelson says 9000 acre feet of water is the average decline in the watertable Tulare has experienced in recent years.
City council member David Vejvoda says he and council member Vandergrift have pushed for this idea in recent years. "The City of Tulare has done nothing to fix this problem for the past 100 years."
Vejvoda says he hopes to work with the city recreation dept. to see if existing recreation basins can be used to sink water as well. In addition, he hopes to convince planners on the wisdom of not "piping and paving over every ditch" because the community benefits from the flow of water recharging in current ditches. He says he hopes those ditches can be turned into amenities.
Vejvoda likes the idea that "new development will help us buy the land for new basins and everyone will pay for the water" that will be sunk in those basins.
Tulare Irrigation District sits on the utility board and is helping to push this new policy forward. Sources say in the past the city and the water district didn't work together as they are today. TID has the contract to move the water from the Friant Kern into the area.
The above stories are the property of The Valley Voice Newspaper and may not be reprinted without explicit permission in writing from the publisher.
March 15, 2006
