Hanford Ethanol Plant Gets Green Light

Hanford - Officials from Great Valley Ethanol, LLC have announced their plan to construct a 60-million gallon per year ethanol plant in Hanford.

Great Valley Ethanol has secured a 110-acre site in the Kings Industrial Park south of downtown Hanford. The company is submitting its application this week for a Conditional Use Permit in the park which is zoned for heavy industry. They will also recommend that the City of Hanford prepare a Full Environmental Impact Report on the plant in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act.

“We are excited and eager to move forward in Hanford,” said Edward Settle, President/CEO of Great Valley Ethanol. “We have received a very warm reception and significant community support for locating the plant in Hanford. Our project will provide a clean-burning, homegrown biofuel for cars in the Central Valley, produce a high-quality feed for local dairy and cattle farmers, and generate substantial economic benefits to the community.”

John Lehn, President/CEO of Kings County Economic Development Corporation, said, “We have been very impressed with the thoroughness and efficiency of Great Valley Ethanol and believe this project of state and national importance is a perfect fit for Kings County.”

Increasing biofuels consumption to reduce California’s dependence on petroleum and address global climate change is at the forefront of Governor Schwarzenegger’s initiative. The Governor recognizes that production of biofuels in California is crucial. Further, President Bush announced in his January 23 State of the Union address the goal of replacing 35 billion gallons of gasoline consumption per year with alternative domestic fuels like ethanol.

The company has selected Delta-T Corp. of Williamsburg, Virginia for plant and process design engineering, and has signed a project development agreement with general contractor W.M. Lyles Co. of Fresno, California. “Our analysis determined that Delta-T is providing the most efficient and clean ethanol plant design for the California environment. One of our core values is to meet and exceed expectations for Air District criteria, water consumption and discharge, and other environmental considerations,” said Brian Pellens, Vice President of Operations for Great Valley Ethanol. “In addition, with a successful ethanol plant under their belt and a 61-year history of construction leadership in the Central Valley, Lyles is the clear choice for construction.”

Plant construction is anticipated to begin later this year and will take approximately 15 months to complete. When completed, the plant will process more than 20 million bushels of corn annually, produce 60 million gallons of fuel, and provide nutrient-rich feed for 200,000 head of cattle. Additionally, the plant will employ approximately 40 highly-skilled full time workers.

Great Valley Ethanol is majority-owned by Californians, predominantly residents in the Central Valley.

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By Miles Shuper and John Lindt

Tulare County - With at least one more night of freezing temperatures forecast, area citrus growers and other farmers continued to scramble to save what they can of their crops.

With freezing temperatures ranging from 19 to 26 degrees Monday some growers whose citrus apparently had survived Saturday night and Sunday morning killer freeze, suffered damage.

With an estimated 70 percent of the expected $1 billion citrus crop still on the tree, the industry has suffered millions of dollars in damage and state, local and industry officials have been working around the clock to protect the fruit and assess the damage. There is no doubt the damage will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars but it will take a few more days, perhaps weeks, to determine the full extent.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was expected to issue a disaster declaration by midweek and industry and agricultural officials already have asked for a voluntary hold on fruit harvested on or after Jan. 12 to allow fruit damage inspections before any citrus is shipped. In addition, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has directed that all state and county inspectors increase their levels of the vast citrus distribution system and those caught attempting to move damaged fruit will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Joel Nelsen, president of California Citrus Mutual, has been adamant that the industry is committed to doing whatever is necessary to insure high quality citrus is being marketed to consumers.

Growers continue to pick as much as possible and are scrambling to find enough crews to do the job.

Bob Blakely, director of Grower Services for Cal Citrus, said pruning crews and other orchard and field workers are being shifted to picking crews. Many growers who have lost their oranges already have started sending their fruit to juicers in an attempt to get some return on their investments.

Packing houses around Tulare County and in neighboring areas have been extremely busy with bins of fruit being delivered for processing and trucks taking earlier packed fruit to market. Space has been at a premium in cold storage where packed fruit is kept prior to shipping. Industry officials and growers say they expect that oranges and lemons already harvested will bring premium prices depending on the extent of damage.

Big Costs

The cost of protecting the citrus crops, as well as others, is staggering.

Citrus Mutual officials estimate the industry has spent nearly $85 million in protection efforts since the frost season began in November. That figure could grow if the temperatures continue to plunge below freezing.

Pumping of water and the running of wind machines can run into the thousands of dollars even for smaller growers. Wind machines can use five gallons per hour and electric rates are high considering the amount used for pumping water nearly around the clock.

Meanwhile some workers who had been pruning and other industry workers are shifting to picking crews to get as much fruit from the trees as possible.

The devastation of this winter's freeze will be great with economic impacts felt in all sectors. Not only will field and orchard and packing house workers be out of work, but those who depend on the money generated by those workers will suffer. The last major freeze in the valley had lasting effects such as in the city of Lindsay which eventually made an economic comeback as the result of numerous efforts.

Measuring the damage will come more into focus once the onslaught of frigid temperatures passes. In addition to the vast orange crop, less than 30 percent of the lemon crop has been picked and mandarin oranges harvest has been slight. Valencia oranges, the summer orange, are not harvested and the amount of damage to the crop and the trees is being carefully watched.

Besides citrus, there are expected major losses in avocadoes, nursery stock and vegetables, according to ag industry leaders. Particularly hard hit were the smaller Asian farmers who cater to roadside and farmers markets buyers. Asian farmer lettuce, vegetables and strawberries took a beating.

Nisei Farmer League President Manuel Cunha also noted reports of building and equipment damage from frozen pipes, sprinklers, spray rigs, engine blocks and cracker radiators.

“I feel especially bad for the workers who will be out of a job for months now,” says Cunha, and all the impacts on businesses in the small towns of the central valley that depend on that revenue and farm worker paychecks that won't be there.

On the plus side, cold weather brings additional chill hours necessary for fruit and nut trees as well as knocks down the bug population that overwinters here. As for citrus, the big chill brings out better flavor really “making the sugar run” says one, if the cold doesn't do damage.

Crop Insurance Factor

Congressman Devin Nunes says farmers here have told him that the freeze is not as bad as 1990 but close to it. Many farmers do have crop insurance unlike 1990 when very few did or even 1998 when just 14% had crop insurance, according to the congressional research office.

Nunes says his understanding is that today “80 to 90% of farmers have crop insurance” enabling them to better withstand the disaster.

That's not the case for workers and the small businesses in farm towns across the valley most of “who will be out of a job for extended periods and not be able to put food on the table for their families.”

Nunes says he believes Governor Schwarzenegger is declaring a disaster in California as this paper goes to press on January 16 and the federal government will follow up with a declaration. That will set in motion tax benefits and direct aid for both farmers and businesses.

But Nunes says he expects an extension of unemployment benefits for farm laborers will be needed to help the thousands of workers who will be out of a job in the central valley now.

Cutler citrus farmer Tokkie Elliott told the Voice that the damage he has seen so far is spotty depending on a lot of factors. “The county inspectors cut fruit at our place and it looked ok and then went across the street to cut some and the crop looked shot.”

Elliott says his gut speculation is that the industry “has lost about 50% of the fruit out there.”

One factor Elliott counted on that only some areas could count on the availability of groundwater a good 10 degrees or more warmer than surface water. He ran the water in furrows helping to warm the roots of the fruit trees a much more important factor than wind machines, he claims.

Drip irrigation doesn't carry the same punch to warm the root of the tree, he says.

Elliott reports the loss of a 10-acre block near Traver early in the freeze when thieves stole copper wire from irrigation pumps that had been set to water the trees not warm them. But the thieves struck the night before the first tough freeze.

Ironically, Elliott says the many nights of below freezing temps, 25 or so, have toughened up the fruit that it can withstand cold, he believes.

Frozen stems on oranges will mean as soon as a little rain hit them “lots of oranges will fall to the ground” and the remaining oranges may be ok, he speculated.

“We really won't know the extent of the damage for a week or so.”

Elliott says the big impact on Tulare County will be the factor that “the pickers won't be on the ladder across Tulare County this winter having returned from construction jobs that have slowed in the past year.”

“We had no problem finding pickers in Cutler Orosi” before the freeze, he says. “There is no worker shortage.”

Dry Weather Pattern

Like the 1990 freeze, the 2007 freeze occurred during a dry winter providing no inversion layer to hold warm air. This January five or six nights below 25 degrees continued to add damage and as the arctic chill seemed to just sit over the area.

Just how many workers will be affected by the freeze and the resulting lack of jobs isn't clear. In 1990 20,000 to 40,000 workers losing their jobs as a result of the big freeze and adding dependents to the number of people affected was more like 80,000. At that time 58% of the unemployment claims were from Tulare County residents.

Speaking to us at deadline Porterville weathercaster John Hibler says there were six consecutive days of sub freezing temps in Tulare County and for every day in the New Year so far there has been below freezing temperatures in the Tulare County citrus best a trend that will not apparently dissipate even now as it is warming up a bit. So far, there have been 26 nights of frost, he says. Some parts of the area have been hit harder than others with six nights of temps in the teens in some parts of the citrus belt including Terra Bella, Orange Cove and Madera County. He found a 13 degree temp one night in Stratford in Kings County an area not in the citrus belt. Comparing the temps to 1998 Hibler says we've been hit just about as hard as then with some more extreme temps than 1998.

As for the rest of January, it looks like it will stay colder than usual with no sign of rain through the month, he notes. “It will make working out in the fields tough considering the extent of the disaster we have been dealt.”

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By Steve Pastis

Visalia - We are working on a provision of our board policy that would authorize the president of the college to designate certain areas for smoking and prohibit smoking on other areas of the campus,” said Bill Scroggins, superintendent/president of the College of the Sequoias in Visalia. “Part of that policy is that we would not promote the sale of tobacco-based products.”

Some groups, however, would like to see the COS campus completely smoke-free. The California Health Collaborative is such an organization and Daisy Lopez is a health educator and program assistant in its Dinuba office when she isn't attending classes at COS. “Dinuba is the only one that works in tobacco prevention,” she said.

She is a health educator and program assistant in Central Valley Regional Advocates Countering Tobacco (REACT) and also works with Campuses Organized and United for Good Health (COUGH), two groups that are actively involved in changing the smoking policies of colleges and universities statewide through the UC and CSU systems, as well as at community colleges.

Current California state law prohibits smoking on college campuses 20 feet from doorways or windows, but Lopez says that “doesn't make that much of a difference. How does that protect us from second hand smoke?”

She also takes issue with smokers who say that the harmful effects of second hand smoke are just a theory that has not been proven. “I don't believe it's just a theory,” she said. “About 53,000 people a year die from it.

“I don't think that smokers have the right to violate other people's right to breathe clean air,” Lopez said. “My dad used to say he had the right to smoke, but your right goes away when you hurt other people.”

Lopez says that the effects of second hand smoke hurt her and her three brothers when they were growing up. “We all had asthma,” she said. “We couldn't do PE because we had asthma. We had doctor's notes. My father would say, 'Oh, no, it's the air quality here.' I knew it wasn't because he'd go away to work somewhere and we'd be fine. When he came back, we'd be sick again.”

She also blames her father's smoking for her parents' divorce. “They would start arguing about that,” she said. “All their problems had to do with my dad's smoking.”

Since joining anti-tobacco groups, Lopez has been actively working on a smoke-free policy at COS. “COS could do it small steps,” she said. “We want COS to have designated areas for smoking,” explaining that this would be a good start.

“For a small campus, totally-free may work for them,” she said. Currently, only two colleges in California are completely smoke-free, Santa Rosa Junior College and Woodland Community College. “Designated areas are one of the easiest ways to go. After time they could be completely smoke-free.”

Scroggins disagrees, however. “I think that the total elimination of smoking is probably not feasible,” he said. “One of our challenges is that we don't have leverage to enforce something like that, so it's better to restrict it than eliminate it. It's more likely to achieve the goal of reduction to second hand smoke if we have designated areas.”

The most likely smoking areas would be an area next to the theater, a covered area with good ventilation next to the Math/Fine Arts Building and an as yet undetermined area on the west side of campus “with enough ventilation and enough reduced traffic.”

Scroggins expects to finalize the new smoking plan in the spring and have it in place by the fall. He credits groups like REACT and COUGH for helping to bring the issue to the board's attention, but he singled out the efforts of Merrilyn Mauer-Brady, coordinator of health services at COS for her influence in changing the policy.

If the policy is changed, Lopez will concentrate her efforts on making sure students follow the new rules. “We will look for students with passion for tobacco enforcement and prevention,” she said.

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Tulare County - Momentum is building here to push for legislation in Congress that will create more certainty over plans to recapture water that will be sent down the San Joaquin River to restore a fishery beginning in 2009.

“We're going to Washington January 29 through the 31st to lobby for our lost water,” says chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Allen Ishida. “We think Feinstein is the key” seeing companion legislation following the introduction of the legislation in both houses early this month in support of the settlement over the river.

“We are in the early stages of forming some concepts that could lead to legislation,” says Friant general manager Ron Jacobsma, “but we don't want to jeopardize the settlement agreement,” he cautions.

Indeed, it's been Congressman Devin Nunes concerns over the potential economic impact on the district of water lost through the settlement agreement that prompted him to say he would not support the settlement agreement that ended 18 years of litigation.

Now Friant sources tell the Voice that the potential trailer legislation that Feinstein may agree to support would in turn push Nunes to support the settlement agreement or at least that is the intention.

Ishida says “we fear for our groundwater” with loss of surface water that comes into Tulare County each year via the Friant Kern Canal. Without that surface water, the county groundwater level will drop further and foothill areas that have little groundwater anyway could dry up. “I am not so worried about the big cities but the small towns like Tooleville, Tonyville, Allensworth and Alpaugh” that would be hardest hit. He says he fears groundwater contaminates like arsenic will worsen in the rural areas. “We need a way to mitigate our potential water losses.” Going to Washington will be fellow supervisor Steve Worthley, county officials as well as the mayors and vice mayors of Lindsay and Porterville.

As soon as he returns, Ishida will make his state of the county address February 6 with the water issue likely to be right up there with news this past week of the freeze. Ishida is a part time orange grower in Lindsay.

Besides the county, the cities of Visalia, Tulare and others are sending the same message to Washington. The area needs a mitigation plan that will make up for a potentially significant part of the water lost to the river restoration plan.

Next Few Weeks

“I would expect something pretty concrete will be passed around in the next few weeks,” says Congressman Devin Nunes who likens the proposed legislation to a “safety net for Tulare County” if as much as 200,000 acre of water “doesn't come back.”

“I understand representatives of Feinstein and Boxer are meeting with farmers in Tipton today (Tuesday) to go over the ideas. This will fall on Feinstein to move this forward,” Nunes says, even if such safety net legislation companion legislation some are calling it is produced he still can't support the settlement but will continue to move the process forward “if they are hell bent on passing it” and work with Feinstein on the safety net legislation.

Nunes believes that the Senator will have to get behind the idea since “every elected official in Tulare County” is calling for some sort of mitigation.

Jacobsma says he believes there is the ability to preserve the settlement agreement as well as provide more certainty that we can preserve our water supply. The settlement agreement calls for the Secretary of Interior to work with the district on the issue and leaves details until later to be worked out. Now with all this local pressure Friant says they hope “to expedite legislation that could advance our water management goals.”

Long term most agree the area needs more surface water storage and conveyance device to put the water where it is needed. That's the position of Metropolitan Water District (MWD) says valley representative Tim Quinn. “The world is more complicated than it was when we needed surface water just to handle growth in the state,” he says. “Now we need it to meet multiple constituents including the environment, urban areas as well as farms.” This past week the governor made it clear he will support, by way of a bond, more surface water storage including Temperance Flat on the upper San Joaquin River cheering farmers.

But there is another thing going on between Metropolitan and Friant. For several years the two water districts have been exploring a water exchange with MWD seeking better quality water from Friant in exchange for more water sourced from northern California through the state's canal system. That study has shown “some promising results,” says Ron Jacobsma. Tim Quinn from Metropolitan says the L.A. based water district could be Friant's “infrastructure partner” in developing the conveyance devices to bring more water to the south part of the valley as part of the potential water exchange plan.

Recirculating water send down the San Joaquin River for a fishery and back to Friant users is part of the mitigation plan envisioned in the settlement agreement. The upshot is that the same conveyance devices that could be put in place for the MWD/Friant water exchange could do double duty to help the Friant regain lost water.

Political Partner

On top of that, Metropolitan is a politically powerful partner as well as voters of the state weigh the need for more water storage and the valley tries to build support in the state legislature where Democrats are by in large skeptical of the idea.

Jacobsma says one plan to recirculate northern California water in the Friant district would require conveyance and pumping as far as 30 miles north of the Cross Valley Canal to bring additional water into southern Tulare County. This is one of the conveyance options being considered by Friant and Metropolitan who have state funding to study the idea.

Jacobsma continues that the district is still studying the potential impact of bringing in water from outside the district. “We're about six months away from making some decision,” he says.

A major hurdle is the fate of the Delta in such a recirculation plan that would require new conveyance canal around the Delta that many argue would have a big impact on the Delta as well as allow more water to move south.

Metropolitan's Quinn says “we have to make sure the Delta is preserved” as part of the package.

Quinn notes that Metropolitan itself is a huge supporter of surface storage having built a 3 million acre foot reservoir space as well as working with Arvin Edison district a Friant contractor at the end of the line on groundwater baking in recent years.

The benefit of all this infrastructure “we can save fish, water, cities and not take a huge bite out of the ag economy if we can move more water where we need it.” Quinn predicts “there will be some decisions made on this” on whether the Friant/Metropolitan water exchange will move forward.

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By Steve Pastis

Visalia - Visalia Police Chief Bob Carden presented a report at the January 8 meeting of the Visalia City Council based on his first eight months on the job. His talk focused on the changes that the Visalia Police Department has made and those that he proposes to make in the near future.

“Rather than coming in here and right off the bat, making organizational changes, I wanted to sit back and watch how things are running before making my suggestions based on what I see,” he explained before the meeting.

“First and foremost, we have the precincts that are going to need to be staffed,” he said. Following the passage of Measure T, the Visalia Department is growing with two new precincts and 28 new officers, as well as with a new police headquarters. The groundbreaking for the precincts was held last March. The goal is to have both new precincts fully staffed and operational by this July.

“We're going to probably look at organizational structure to make sure we have the proper coverage at both precincts while maintaining coverage at the headquarters,” he said.

Another big change will be in the way that the Visalia Police Department fights the gang problem in the city. The new approach will go after “quality” arrests rather than “quantity” of arrests.

“The main reason for that is to target those who might be the organizers of the gangs,” Carden explained. “If you disrupt the leaders of the gangs, you disrupt the overall organization. Those who might be more violent might be leaders as opposed to followers. It's a tried and true method of disrupting criminal activity. We talked about it within our own organization and felt it would be the best course of action.”

To fight the gang problem, Carden also seeks to strengthen his police department's partnership with other allied agencies, such as the Tulare County Sheriffs Department, the Tulare Police Department and other departments within the city of Visalia. The Visalia Police Department is also exploring the injunction process getting court injunctions to keep gangs from congregating in specific identified areas with Fresno law enforcement.

To improve the department's technological capabilities, Carden announced the purchase of three Digital Pole Camera Systems (with state funding) to be placed in high crime areas, as well as the purchase, installation and completion of training on the Sokkia Total Station and Software System which provides crime scene and traffic collision diagrams in 2D or 3D with animation.

Another change is the addition of a three-week orientation that is now held before the formal field training. The orientation acquaints new officers with forms, booking of evidence, policies and procedures, and even teaches them the history of the city.

The Visalia Police Department now trains its officers with a Harley-Davidson Police Motorcycle Training Course through Northwestern University Center. Police officers had been training on Kawasaki motorcycles and there is “a significant difference,” he explained.

Carden talked about the need to establish critical incident teams to improve responses to calls involving the mentally ill. He also said that officers would receive more ethics training. “I don't think you can have too much ethics training,” he said.

The proposed changes also include the goals and objectives of the police department. “We are evaluating and going to redo our value statement and our mission statement,” he said.

“All these things will be presented to council in the very near future,” Carden said. “I'll probably be presenting that to the city manager sometime this month.”

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By Richard Houts

Visalia - Visalia school kids, like their counterparts across the nation, are not getting enough exercise. With 65% adults in the US overweight and nearly a third of this group categorized as obese, the question is how to keep another generation of young people from getting fatter and fatter. Only 23% of all adults participate in vigorous activity and another 15% in moderate physical activity. Among young people the American Obesity Association 30% of youth, ages 6 to 19, are overweight and 15% are obese.

The Journal of Pediatrics says girls 9 to 12 are likely to begin their weight gain at this time and that their condition is already affecting their arteries that are bound to cause health problems later in life.

Besides changing your diet, kids can help fix this growing problem by common play in the school yard experts suggest some 60 minutes a day of PE, recess activity, intramural sports both before and after school. But is it happening?

The state education code requires the district provide students with at least 200 minutes of PE instruction every 10 days for grades 1 through 6 and 400 minutes of PE for grades 7-12. As a practical matter, about half the kids in high school participate in team sports leaving the other half out of the picture.

With new emphasis on more academic skills, fewer students are taking PE required for just two years in high school.

Like everyone in our society these days, students don't walk as much as they used to and our busy schedules have changed the exercise patterns some of us older folks remember from our childhood.

Gone are the days one hopes when PE teachers will use physical exercise as a form of punishment that we may remember from our youth. “Take a couple of laps” was the refrain we heard from the grizzled coaches of 30 years ago when they wanted to teach us a lesson.

Whatever the case, the proof that Visalia school kids aren't getting enough exercise lies in the annual state survey that in the most recent term found that only 23.5% of VUSD fifth graders could pass all six fitness tests expected of a youth that age. That's actually worse than 2005 numbers.

Now there is a new approach at Visalia Unified that shows someone has been thinking about these problems and has a plan to deal with them. It starts with teaching the teachers how to do PE today.

Nancy Shelton, a physical education teacher for over 26 years, is currently on special assignment at the Visalia Unified School District Office. Nancy said that she has witnessed a significant change in the behavior and circumstances of our youths during her career. She said that “When I began teaching, children played outside for long periods of time, only to be called home by their parents when it was dark and time to eat dinner. It was an era when families didn't eat out very often and parents were home more to be around their children. Food was eaten at specific mealtimes with little snacking done in between meals. There also was little availability of fast foods and snack foods, therefore the foods they ate contained less fat, salt and sugar and more fruits and vegetables.”

Nancy pointed out that the students of today have working parents who are more likely to obtain fast food or prepare already processed foods for their families. She said, “The mentality has shifted to where we are more sedentary, using video games, cell phones, email, and other similar types of devices rather than get outside and run, play, or otherwise engage in physical activities. We also have become accustomed to quick fixes such as seeking pills, surgery, or fad diets to loose weight instead of accepting the fact that it took time to the gain weight, therefore it will take time to loose it. Our lifestyles changed to promote our weight gain; therefore our lifestyles must change to promote permanent weight loss and healthy weight management.”

Nancy reported that “SB 78, chaptered in September 2003, will become effective on July 2007 and will require all high school students to pass the state's physical fitness test that is given in the 9th grade. If students do not pass that test they will be required to continue participating in physical education classes through the balance of their high school career until they either pass the test or graduate.” She said that currently about 40% of students statewide fail the test.

Also of concern for Nancy is that students who are “out of shape” are less able to have the energy and alertness to effectively focus on academic learning. She said that research has shown that exercise in the morning is necessary to promote sufficient wakefulness for students to engage in active learning throughout the day. Unfortunately physical education has not always been seen as an integral part of the current emphasis on academic development and testing.

In response to such concerns, Nancy said that the Visalia Unified School District did successfully seek a three year Carol White Physical Education Program Grant in October of 2004, and Nancy was reassigned in the Spring of 2005 to implement the provisions of the grant. The goal has been to improve the quality of physical education at all grade levels within the district from K-12, as well as during after school programs offered by the Heart Program and the Boys and Girls Clubs. She said, “The focus of the grant is to make physical education fun, less competitive, more cooperative, and more individualized so that each youth would have a program that would be tailored to their needs. This will help our students begin to develop a life long plan for fitness.”

Training Teachers

As an integral part of the grant, Nancy said that she brought in a curriculum called SPARK (Sports, Play, and Active Recreation for Kids) that she has now been implemented at the K-3 level on a trial basis. Nancy said the focus was there because the state has already provided for credentialed physical education teachers for the 4-6 grade levels, but the classroom teaches were expected to provide such activity for the earlier grade levels. Nancy said, “Visalia Unified has not yet adopted the SPARK curriculum officially as the one to teach. We need more teachers trained before the school board can adopt this specific curriculum My goal would be to have enough teachers SPARK trained by this time next year so that SPARK will become the 'adopted' Physical Education curriculum.”

The direction that Nancy is taking the project appears to be rather innovative as she described searching for cutting edge curriculum for the middle schools and high schools physical education programs. She located a program that was developed by two educators in the Poway School District near San Diego. She brought them here as part of the grant and their curriculum was piloted at the Valley Oak Middle School. Nancy said that the students at Valley Oak and freshman students at Mt. Whitney and Golden West High Schools have consistently expressed enthusiasm for the program. Student satisfaction survey results include student comments like” I couldn't even do two sit ups and now I can do six.” Nancy said that the program is designed to build on our desire as people for social support and fun as a means of developing a lifelong form of physical fitness that includes and goes beyond competitive sports.

What about the food side of the ledger at VUSD?

Lynnelle Grumbles, a registered dietitian with a master's degree, is the Director of Nutritional Services for the Visalia Unified School District. There are 160 employees under her supervision that operate at four different food preparation sites that include the main kitchen and facilities on the Redwood, Golden West and El Diamante High School campuses. She manages a budget of $8.4 million, $2.5 million of which her staff must generate from food sales to students on the middle and high school campuses. She and her staff have the daunting task of providing food to almost 27,000 students daily at 34 different schools in a way that meets state and federal guidelines, meets the tastes of the students, and is prepared and delivered on time, while doing so under budget and with little or no waste. Her staff arrives daily at 5:00 AM and the food must be out to delivery by 10:00 AM every school day.

Lynnelle said, “Students must be provided with one third of their daily nutritional needs from a school lunch, and that amounts to 664 calories for elementary school students, while middle school and high school students must receive 825 calories. Every meal that is placed on the school menu is developed with the use of a computer program to ensure that it meets federal, state, and other guidelines to ensure that the food is the proper amount and contains the needed balance of nutrients.”

According to Lynnelle, 53% of the children in the Visalia Unified School District qualify for free or reduced cost school meals. That means that there are still a significant number of youths coming from families with limited incomes in this area. She receives only $2.40 in federal and state money to feed each child per day. The overhead costs of labor, facilities, and equipment take up over half of that amount, leaving a rather small portion for the actual purchase of food. The federal government does provide commodities that the districts may access, but the types and amounts are limited at times based upon what is available.

Lynnelle previously worked in the Cutler-Orosi and Kingsburg School Districts prior to coming to VUSD 2 years ago. Since her arrival she had already begun to change the types of foods provided to students well before any of the current legislative mandates. Last year all sodas were removed from the campuses and bottled water and other healthier drinks were substituted in vending machines and at snack bars. She does not provide oversight to the student stores since those are operated by the school sites.

California lawmakers recently passed a spate of legislation such as SB 12 and SB 965 that directs districts as to the type and amounts of food that they may serve. In 2005, California enacted laws to limit the fat and sugar content of foods sold on campuses and to prohibit the sale of sodas during school hours. The legislation also limits the number of calories in any entrée or a la cart item to 400. Items sold to middle and high school students can not exceed 250 calories per item. There is no limit as to the number of such items that a student can purchase. The dietary guidelines also describe the limits as to the amounts and types of fats, salt, sugars that can be included in items and in a total meal. Vendors are now modifying their products for school districts to meet the requirements.

Not everyone is greeting this increased attention by law makers nationwide to childhood obesity and school nutrition with “open arms”. In a May 2006 New York Times article, Harriet Brown believes that intervention by lawmakers into the issues of nutrition and physical fitness for youths is based upon political concerns and not on good scientific information. She states that the communication to students and parents regarding the student's height to weight ratio sets kids up to simply feel bad about themselves. She also said that a change in school nutrition has never been associated with changes in the overall health of students who simply eat the fatty, sugary foods outside of school.

Lynnelle Grumble's response to such views is that “changing the dietary habits of our youths will take time and a concerted effort. School districts can provide nutritious food to students that demonstrate what balanced meals look and taste like. However, that can be no substitute for all of the other influences in children's' lives.” She said that a recent local study did find that even when schools stopped allowing sodas to be available on the school campuses, students still reported consuming just as much since they were drinking them before or after school. Because of this, Lynnlle stated, “It will take changes at school, home, and in the media to promote healthy eating habits similar to how we collectively responded to our concerns about smoking and drug use.” One thing she wanted parents to also know is that “It takes patience to educate even our children in their culinary tastes since research has shown that we must provide them with the opportunity to sample any new type of food on at least 7 occasions before they can clearly decide if they like it or not.”

Lynnelle said that educating our children in health and wellness that includes very specific information about nutrition will help promote a change in their lifestyles, especially if those lessons are modeled by the adults around them. She said that such nutritional education has not been a consistent part of the curriculum of our schools statewide. Recently VUSD received a grant to do just that. The grant is being implemented by a Teacher on Special Assignment, Neva Wright.

More Funding Needed

Rob Stephenson, Visalia Unified School Board Member said, “Our students are not receiving enough exposure to daily physical education. There has been such a big push regarding academics but not an equivalent amount regarding the physical well being of our youth. Similar to our lack of attention to other issues such technical education and career development, our state has provided inadequate attention and money on youth nutrition, wellness, and physical education. The current grant funded program in our district has demonstrated that kids can tell us what they want and they have in turn responded well to the new curriculum that includes social, physical, and team building components. The next step is for the state to provide on-going funds to maintain such programs.”

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San Joaquin Valley - Pacific Ethanol plans to build a 60 million gallon ethanol plant at the Port of Stockton over the next year—the second company facility in the San Joaquin Valley besides Madera.

This week the Port of Sacramento approved an environmental impact statement and agreed to lease 30 acres to the company—continuing the boom in ethanol production in California in the next few years including a handful of start-ups in the south valley.

The news comes just after Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced in his state of the state address that by executive order requires fuel suppliers to lower the amount of carbon in their fuels to cut greenhouse gases implicated in global warming. The effort is supported by the legislature that passed AB 32 that requires a reduction of greenhouse gas emission by 25% by 2020.

“Let us use the freedom and flexibility of market to accomplish it,” said Schwarzenegger.

The new greenhouse standard should boost the production of renewable based fuels, says Pacific Ethanol's Tom Koehler including ethanol blended with gasoline and biodiesel blended with diesel fuel, he says. “This sends the right message to investors that the market for fuel like ethanol will grow.”

Indeed, Koehler has been lobbying the state ARB to allow the use of 10% ethanol blended in gasoline up from its current 5.7% limit. Koehler says the Air Resource Board is poised as soon as February or March of this year to announce a new standard (the predictive model) that will allow the higher blend.

Until the past few years California produced almost none of their own ethanol fuel. Today at a 5.7% blend, we use nearly 950 million gallons of ethanol blended in our gas tanks. Once a new 10% standard goes into effect, as it is in many other states, we will need an additional 700 million gallons of ethanol once the new standard went into effect a 75% increase according to a Pacific Ethanol document. With demand for more than 1.6 billion gallons of fuel per year and production in the state of only a tine fraction of that on the drawing board, ethanol companies believe they can weather lower oil prices (ethanol is pegged to oil prices) and high corn costs for the next year knowing there is a government mandated demand both in California and in the US for the product.

California Grown

The state is ensuring that a large portion of the supply comes from California. To cut greenhouse gas emissions with more biofuels and make sure California provides the fuel, the governor has ordered that “the state shall produce a minimum of 20 percent of its biofuels within California by 2010, 40 percent by 2020, and 75 percent by 2050” ensuring that out-of-state ethanol makers don't supplant in-state suppliers. This means valley ethanol makers have a ready market supplying the state's huge gasoline market.

Ethanol makers have been arm wrestling with the state Air Resources Board over the future of ethanol for a decade because of studies that showed that lower blends of ethanol with gasoline release carbon pollutants from older car hoses. The new predictive model will apparently approve a 10% blend for all California gasoline and the ARB is also being asked to speed up approval of E-85 stations that will allow the 85% blending of ethanol with 15% gasoline to boom across the state. Clearly the government is pushing hard on the ARB on both these issues.

Even on the valley level at the Valley Air District there has been little support for ethanol as a way to help clean the valley's air with district declining to assist the City of Tulare in a recent application for funds to build the valley's first E-85 station. Even the ARB says E-85 doesn't have any negative side effect for older car hoses that a lower blend of ethanol appear to have. But the Air District apparently doesn't see the benefit of supplanting tankfulls of gasoline with 85% ethanol that would clearly help cut air pollution from cars. Perhaps when the ARB model comes out, the Valley Air District might take a new look and there will be a place to fuel thousands of flex fuel vehicles already around the valley with other than more gasoline.

Already plants in the south valley include the pioneering facilities in Goshen and Madera as well as plans for one in Fomosa, Pixley, Keyes, Hanford and now Stockton. A Delano company has also expressed some interest in building a plant. All require shipping Midwest corn into the valley to make the fuel. The demand for corn worldwide to be used for ethanol has pushed the price of corn to near $4 per bushel up 100% in the past year hurting the livestock industry but cheering from farmers who grow the grain. But Koehler is unapologetic. “We've had government programs to push up the price of grain for years and now we've been successful.” Koehler expects a big spring planting by farmers of corn across the nation as a result of the huge appetite for grain corn. “Don't underestimate how much the American farmer can produce when the market signals.” He expects California farmers too will plant more corn varieties.

One local grain farmer, Ralph Friend, points out dairymen have a way to adjust the amount they get for their milk in California based on input prices like corn so dairymen will be taken care of.

Pacific Ethanol also announced in recent weeks they would move their headquarters to Sacramento where “ag and government” come together, says Koehler, as well as the home of the company CEO Neil Koehler, Tom's brother. “We will continue to have a regional office in Fresno, Portland and Colorado,” he says all places the company has ethanol plants in the works. This week the company announced a fifth new site in Idaho.

Biodiesel Too

In a related development, State Senator Dean Florez announced seven air quality bills early this year to push the state to use more clean burning biodiesel in trucks and tractors. One bill, SB 70, would require fuel contain 20% more biodiesel in a blend with petroleum diesel which would cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as other pollution. There are some 88 plants that make the biofuel in the US now but no large scale plant in California. However, west of Fresno Nisei Farmer League and California Cotton Growers are collaborating to build a major pilot plant.

Biodiesel is a clean-burning diesel engine fuel made from domestic renewable resources such as vegetable oils, rendered animal fats, corn oil from ethanol production and virgin oils. It can be used in an existing diesel engine without any modifications, meaning it can be put into use now for immediate benefit.

“We have a real opportunity here to immediately cut the particulates we are putting into the air and into our children's lungs every time they ride a school bus, for example,” Florez said, adding, “With so many promising technologies for improving air quality, cost is a real barrier, but biodiesel gets us to significant emissions reductions today using existing engines without the retrofits you would expect when you change fuel sources.”

Senate Bills 70 through 76 would provide a number of tax breaks and credits to stimulate biodiesel production in California, including grants to farmers to grow the necessary crops and to researchers for the development of fueling stations to make biodiesel accessible throughout California. In addition, the measures would require the use of biodiesel in all diesel-powered school buses, public and private, in California, as well as in new state vehicles.

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Government budget director said last week that Schwarzenegger favors dropping the $10 billion high speed rail plan for now although a bond could go to voters sometime in the future. That was bad news for Visalia which is seeking a station on the line. But San Joaquin Valley Rail Committee member Ty Holcher told the Voice that he sees high speed rail as pie in the sky anyway and would rather the state spend money on upgrading Amtrak. “They've spent $25 million on studies and have nothing to show for it.” Holcher said Union Pacific has been asked to allow passenger service on their line up Highway 99 but may not cooperate and Holcher says that “politics may have to take over” to get passenger service on the east side of the valley.

The ad hoc committee studying the possibility of new aquatic facility in Visalia got cold water thrown on the notion of a 50-meter pool to house major swim meets. An expert consultant told the committee last week that all 50-meter pool complexes lose money including the highly touted complex in Clovis. Instead there was discussion at the time of building a side-by-side competitive pool, say 30 meters, with a community pool for the general public available most of the year. Right now all pools are at schools and the public has access only during the summer. The community pools do make money. Also the cost of a year round facility may be too costly forcing the complex to shut down in the dead of winter. Next issue, where to put it? Some favor the new high school location in northwest Visalia and others like it in the middle of town.

City of Visalia heard a consultant report that said Mill Creek could have a year round water supply in the new Civic Center area east of Tipton with a little hydraulic engineering. The creek could feature a large pond in the two block area as part of a planned lineal park for the area. Mill Creek will be the focal point. The council also heard the creek could be altered where desired so it meanders for aesthetic reasons if that is part of the final design. Next the consultant team—Provost and Prichard—will tackle how Mill Creek could run in the Downtown area if it was decided to daylight the creek instead of having it go only underground.

City of Visalia is selling the southwest corner of Oak and Bridge to Paloma Development—Harvey May—to build a new 2 story office complex to prospective tenants. The site is a parking lot currently next door to May's existing one-story office. “We want to build up to 20,000 square feet—either for lease or office condos for sale,” says May. Construction of the project is likely by this fall. Paloma is also building the new Buckman Mitchell building at Santa Fe and Murray expected now to break ground in April and be open in March 2008. The project will be in front of the planning commission next week. As part of the deal May will be marketing the existing Buckman Mitchell building on Main to office or retail tenants this year.

Dinuba has some good news including some 80 new jobs at a new Weyerhaeuser box plant in town and the likelihood the company will add additional square footage, says city manager Ed Todd. Also, “we're working on an RFP for our golf course to sell about 100 acres for high end housing,” he says. The idea is built the town's first upscale home subdivision that could attract a growing middle class presence in the farm community.

The ALRB's mandatory mediation law has been tested by Hess Collection Winery since 2003 after the company and the union, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), could not reach a contract despite the fact employees voted in favor of union representation back in 1999. The winery that involves 60 workers is in Napa. After three years of negotiations ALRB ordered mandatory mediation that resulted in a wage offer of $10 per hour but it was rejected by the company. In 2003 the company filed a suit claiming the law passed by the legislature was unconstitutional. In September 2006 an appeal to the state Supreme Court sided with the ALRB finding the law constitutional in a 2 to 1 court of appeal decision. Hess had until December to appeal to the US Supreme Court which sources say did not happen. The union has requested the ALRB enforce compliance and this week ALRB sources say the two sides are talking and the state's first mediated settlement may be near. Meanwhile, the UFW is seeking to enforce mediation in several long standing cases they claim have been stalled for decades.

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