BERKELEY, California, December 15, 2008 (ENS) – Climate change is affecting the Sierra Nevada’s high elevation lakes and the imperiled yellow-legged frogs that depend on them, according to scientists with the U.S. Forest Service and the University of California, Berkeley.

The Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog once was common in these high elevation lakes and slow moving streams at altitudes ranging from 4,500 to 12,000 feet. But its range has decreased more than 80 percent in the last 90 years.

In a long-term study funded by the Forest Service, the researchers found that the combination of the shallow lakes drying up in summer and predation by introduced trout in the larger lakes limits the frog’s breeding habitat, and can cause its extinction.

These lakes and streams were not inhabited by fish until the hybrid trout were introduced.

“Environmental factors that increase summer drying of small lakes are likely to bring further population decline because the larger lakes are off limits to breeding,” said study co-author Kathleen Matthews a Forest Service scientist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station.

The researchers studied lakes in Kings Canyon National Park’s Dusy Basin that are mostly fed by snowmelt. Climate change models suggest one of the effects of climate change on Sierra Nevada water balance will be a decreased snow pack, with more than half of the current snow water equivalent gone by 2090.

Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog (Photo by
Gary Nafis courtesyCalifornia Herps)

Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs need two to four years of permanent water to complete their development, so repeated tadpole mortality from lakes drying up in summer leads to population decline. The warmer and drier the climate, the more the frogs would be affected, the scientists concluded.

In addition, they believe it was unlikely the frogs were historically restricted to small lakes in Dusy Basin as they are today. Larger lakes free of introduced fish would have provided refuge for the frogs and tadpoles in dry years.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that listing of the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog as an endangered species is warranted but precluded by the need to complete other listing actions of a higher priority.

Matthews co-authored the 10-year study with Krishna Feldman, another Pacific Southwest Research Station scientist and Igor Lacan, of the Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

Their findings appear in the current issue of the journal “Herpetological Conservation and Biology.”

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BERKELEY, California, August 6, 2008 (ENS) – In the near future, large California cities can expect more frequent heat waves because of climate change, warn scientists at universities in California and Texas.

This could mean increased electricity demand to run air conditioners in the densely populated state, raising the risk of power shortages during heat waves, said Norman Miller, an earth scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and geography professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Katharine Hayhoe, a climate researcher at Texas Tech University.

If the electricity to run those air conditioners is generated using fossil fuels, this also could mean even more emissions of the heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide that causes climate change.

“Electricity demand for industrial and home cooling increases near linearly with temperature,” said lead author Miller, a climate scientist and a principal investigator with the Energy Biosciences Institute in Berkeley.

“In the future,” he said, “widespread climate warming across the western U.S. could further strain the electricity grid, making brownouts or even rolling blackouts more frequent.”

Surface temperature image of a
California heat wave, 2006.
(Image courtesy NASA)

When projected future changes in extreme heat and observed relationships between high temperature and electricity demand for California were mapped onto current availability of electricity, the researchers discovered a potential for electricity deficits as high as 17 percent during peak electricity demand periods.

Climate projections from three atmosphere-ocean circulation models were used to assess projected increases in temperature extremes and day-to-day variability, said Hayhoe.

Before the end of the century, projected increases range from about twice the current number of extreme heat days for inland California cities such as Sacramento and Fresno up to four times the number of extreme heat days for previously temperate coastal cities such as Los Angeles and San Diego.

This year, California experienced an unusually early heat wave in May, when 119 new daily high temperature records were set, including the earliest day in the year in which Death Valley temperatures reached 120 degrees. That occurred on May 19, beating the old record of May 25 set in 1913.

A second major heat wave in late July broke high temperature records for several more California cities and increased fire and health risks.

In the future, the authors say, the state should be prepared for summers dominated by heat wave conditions.

Similar increases in extreme heat days are likely for other urban centers across the Southwest, including Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as for large cities in developing nations with rapidly increasing electricity demands, the authors said.

Risk of electricity shortages can be reduced through energy conservation, said Hayhoe, as well as by reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases in order to limit the amount of future climate change that can be expected.

Miller and Hayhoe contributed to the Nobel Prize winning assessments of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Miller is currently leading the BP-funded Energy Biosciences Institute project on biofuel productivity potentials, including biofuels’ impact under changing climate conditions.

The Institute is a collaboration between the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab working towards the development and analysis of the impacts of biofuels.

Their study was published in the “Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology” online.

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SACRAMENTO, California, August 4, 2008 (ENS) – The State of California will challenge the environmental plan for a bottled water plant that Nestle Waters North America intends to build in Siskiyou County if the company does not revise its contract to pump water from the McCloud River, says the state’s top lawyer.

“It takes massive quantities of oil to produce plastic water bottles and to ship them in diesel trucks across the United States,” said California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr.

“Nestle will face swift legal challenge if it does not fully evaluate the environmental impact of diverting millions of gallons of spring water from the McCloud River into billions of plastic water bottles,” Brown warned in a letter to the company July 28.

On the same day, the company issued a press release agreeing to a study and evaluation of the intended primary source of water for the project, Squaw Valley Creek, a tributary of the McCloud River.

Nestle has contracted with North State Resources to conduct the study, while scientists from the University of California-Berkeley and UC Davis will supply data and oversight of the evaluation.

Data on the existing hydrology and biology of the Squaw Valley creek watershed will be used to develop baseline information to improve understanding of the watershed.

Squaw Valley Creek (Photo courtesy
Mt. Shasta Fun Guide)

“Nestle Waters is committed to ensuring that our projects are consistent with the sustainability and long-term availability of water in the communities in which we are located,” said Nestle project manager Dave Palais.

“We are excited to get this important work started to help us better understand the watershed. The combination of North State Resources understanding and expertise in Northern California with the knowledge of some of California’s leading scientists from the University of California will result in the development of valuable data that will benefit the McCloud Community for years to come,” said Palais.

The press release states that Nestle will conduct further studies on air and water quality, traffic conditions, hazardous materials and also will explore the potential impact of climate change on water supply which will be included in a new draft environmental impact report.

Nestle, the biggest food company in the world, signed a water supply contract with the town of McCloud in 2003, but many residents oppose the deal, which they contend was signed without public participation.

The attorney general said the company’s draft environmental impact report, DEIR, “fails to address in any meaningful way the project’s likely environmental impacts.”

“The DEIR fails to analyze the global warming impacts of the project even though bouling and transporting water are highly energy-intensive,” wrote Brown. “Nor does the DEIR adequately examine the impacts of the project on air quality, water quality of the McCloud River and its tributaries, biological resources, or solid waste.

The McCloud River is unique among California’s larger rivers in that most of its water derives from springs and underground lava aquifers rather than from rainfall or snowfall. The river and its associated riparian area provide habitat for over 200 wildlife species. The Lower McCloud has been designated a Wild Trout Stream by the state Department of Fish and Game.

As originally proposed. the project would allow Nestle to bottle 520 million gallons of spring water, and potentially unlimited groundwater, from the McCloud River watershed each year for the next 50 years for sale and distribution. Nestle would construct a one million square foot water bottling facility on the site of a former lumber mill, where it would bottle spring water and other beverages.

Nestle recently indicated that its revised proposal will reduce the size of the facility to 350,000 square feet and the annual water take from 1,600 acre fect per year to 600 acre feet per year – a reduction of approximately 60 percent

In a letter sent to Siskiyou County Planning Department Interim Planning Director Terry Barber on July 28, the attorney general said that “the environmental review for the previously proposed project had serious deficiencies.”

Brown said “the suggested changes would require significant revision of the contract between Nestle and the McCloud Community Services District, a new, formal project proposal, and circulation of a new Draft Environmental Impact Report.”

Brown also said the environmental analysis fails to consider the global warming impacts of producing and transporting millions of gallons of water including greenhouse gases from producing the plastic bottles, electrical demand for the project, and diesel soot and greenhouse gas emissions from trucks transporting the bottled water to market.

The attorney general has asked Siskiyou County to revise its environmental impact report and circulate a new draft of the environmental impact report.

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BERKELEY, California, June 19, 2008 (ENS) – Both sides are claiming victory in a lawsuit over construction of a gymnasium complex next to UC Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium that has had tree-sitters occupying a grove of oaks on the site for the past 18 months. The activists have been living in the Memorial Oak Grove to protect it from destruction while awaiting a court decision.

An Alameda County Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that further environmental review is required before the University of California-Berkeley can build the gym, so the trees will remain standing – for now.

Judge Barbara Miller decided that three features of the planned gym violate the Alquist-Priolo Act governing construction on or near earthquake faults. The current stadium, which is adjacent to the oak grove, stands on the Hayward earthquake fault. She rejected the university’s argument that the law does not apply to it.

One of the tree-sitters in the Memorial
Oak Grove at UC Berkeley
(Photo courtesy IndyBay)

The judge also ruled that the approval of the gym by the University of California Regents did not adequately consider earthquake risks and noise and traffic from special events planned at the university.

One of the attorneys suing the university, Stephan Volker, called the judge’s ruling as a victory for his clients, the Panoramic Hill Association.

But Judge Miller upheld most of the university’s arguments, and UC Berkeley officials said Wednesday night that the campus has prevailed on virtually every challenge in legal action that sought to halt construction of the planned Student-Athlete High Performance Center.

“We are thrilled that the judge concluded that state seismic law will allow the Student-Athlete High Performance Center to be built on the site” adjacent to California Memorial Stadium, said Vice Chancellor for Administration Nathan Brostrom. “This is a major victory for our students.”

But a year and a half of direct action and coordinated support of protection for the Memorial Oak Grove nearly ended in tragedy Tuesday when about 40 University of California police officers, and a crew of privately contracted arborists with cranes began to cut cables and remove tree-sitters’ gear and structures just below Memorial Stadium in anticipation of a court ruling favorable to the university.

Oak supporters implored the arborists through bullhorns to not engage in the reckless and life-threatening removal of the tree-sitters.

Reporter Richard Brenneman of the “Berkeley Daily Planet” saw one of the cranes brush a support line, from which a treesitter was suspended between two evergreens at least 50 feet apart.

The suspended treesitter “screamed in terror,” Brenneman wrote, when the arborists placed a saw next to the line on which she was suspended.

The suspended treesitter, known as Millipede, was brought down and arrested several hours later,

“As they maneuvered a large basket crane into position, the extractors banged into her several times. Her screams could be heard all over the grove as more than a hundred supporters watched below,” wrote the “Berkeley Citizen.” She was “wrestled onto the platform” and lowered to the ground.

This incident took place although Mitch Celaya, UC Berkeley’s assistant police chief, had said no one would be forcibly taken from the trees.

Tree-sit supporter confronts UC police.
(Photo courtesy IndyBay)

“While we will not be forcibly removing any of the protesters, we are moving to bring this illegal occupation of university property to a safe but certain end,” said Celaya. “We expect that today’s action and future steps will make it far more difficult to sustain the protest. It is unfortunate that we have been forced to take this action, but the protesters leave us no choice.”

“Crews also revved up chainsaws at least five times on Wednesday, sending large branches crashing to the ground, “absolutely in violation of the court’s injunction,” said attorneys for the protesters.

Some of the trees in the Grove were planted in 1923 as part of a World War I Veterans Memorial. The tree-sitters remain aloft as both sides analyze the court’s ruling.

A preliminary injunction granted by Judge Miller in February 2007 remains in place. It constrains the university from making any physical alterations on the project site – including cutting of the oak trees.

Karen Pickett of Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters, a nonprofit group that supports the tree-sitters, said, “This ruling sends the university back to the drawing board on their project, or into appeals, but unable to proceed forward immediately, which is clearly what they intended to do.”

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BERKELEY, California (ENS) – A mud volcano which has caused millions of dollars worth of damage in East Java, Indonesia was caused by the drilling of a gas exploration well, an international team of scientists has concluded.

The two-year old mud volcano, known as Lusi, is still spewing huge volumes of mud and has displaced more than 30,000 people from their homes and businesses in Sidoarjo, East Java.

The most detailed scientific analysis to date disproves the theory that an earthquake that happened two days before the mud volcano erupted on May 28, 2006 was potentially to blame.

The report by American, British, Indonesian and Australian scientists is published this week in the academic journal “Earth and Planetary Science Letters.” It outlines and analyzes a detailed record of operational incidents on the drilling of a gas exploration well, Banjar-Panji-1.

The well is operated by the Indonesian oil and gas company Lapindo Brantas, which has confirmed that the published data is correct.

Lead author, Professor Richard Davies of Durham University’s Centre for Research into Earth Energy Systems, published research in January 2007 which argued the drilling was most likely to blame for the eruption of the Lusi mud volcano on May 29, 2006.

This theory was challenged by the company that drilled the well and some experts who argued that the Yogyakarta earthquake two days before the eruption, which had an epicentre 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the mud volcano, was the cause.

Professor Michael Manga of University of California, Berkeley and graduate student Maria Brumm undertook a systematic study to test the claims that the eruption was caused by this earthquake. They found that none of the ways earthquakes trigger eruptions could have played a role at Lusi.

Professor Manga said, “We have known for hundreds of years that earthquakes can trigger eruptions. In this case, the earthquake was simply too small and too far away.”

Site of the Lusi mudflow in Sidoarjo, East
Java. July 2006. (Photo courtesy
Wikimedia)

The new report concludes the effect of the earthquake was minimal because the change in pressure underground due to the earthquake would have been tiny. Instead, scientists say they are “99 percent” certain drilling operations were to blame.

Professor Davies explained, “We show that the day before the mud volcano started there was a huge ‘kick’ in the well, which is an influx of fluid and gas into the wellbore. We show that after the kick the pressure in the well went beyond a critical level.”

“This resulted in the leakage of the fluid from the well and the rock formations to the surface – a so called ‘underground blowout.’ This fluid picked up mud during its accent and Lusi was born.”

He said chances of controlling this pressure would have been increased if there was more protective casing in the borehole.

Professor Davies said, “We are more certain than ever that the Lusi mud volcano is an unnatural disaster and was triggered by drilling the Banjar-Panji-1 well.”

Lusi is still flowing at 100,000 cubic meters per day, enough to fill 53 Olympic swimming pools. It appears that the flow will continue indefinitely and so far all efforts to stem the flow have failed.

Recent research in which Davies was involved showed it is collapsing by up to three meters overnight and could subside to depths of more than 140 metres, having a significant environmental impact on the surrounding area for years to come.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has declared the 400 hectare area inundated by the mud flow as a disaster-prone area unfit for human habitation.

The president authorized a flow of mud to be pumped into the Porong River where it is washed into the Java Sea. Pumping of sludge started on October 16, 2006.

On November 23, 2006, eleven fatalities were reported from the explosion of a gas pipe caused by the mud flow. The accident occurred due to subsidence of the ground, up to two meters (6.5 feet), due to the outflow of mud causing a dike to collapse resulting in the rupture of the state-owned Pertamina gas pipeline. The gas sent flames into the sky and according to the local people, the heat could be felt one kilometer (0.6 miles) away.

A network of dams and barriers has been erected to contain the mud. On September 26, 2006 a barrier failed, resulting in the flooding of more villages. Further strengthening of the dam system appeared to contain the sludge and no further reports of breaches were received until January 4, 2008 when a dike collapsed after a dispute with a landowner prevented reinforcement before the onset of the rainy season.

Professor Manga said, “While this is a most unfortunate disaster, it will leave us with a better understanding of the birth, life and death of a volcano.”

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BERKELEY, California, April 30, 2008 (ENS) – The Haste Street Child Development Center was celebrated Tuesday as the University of California, Berkeley’s first building to be certified at the Silver level under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED, rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council.

The center is also is the state’s first freestanding LEED-Silver certified child care center.

The two-story building three blocks from central campus is “green” from its energy and water conservation to the many materials used in construction, formaldehyde-free furniture, fabric carpets that don’t give off harmful chemicals, its use of green cleaning products, and recycling bins used daily. Worm bins for composting are due to arrive soon.

The LEED Green Building rating system evaluates new and existing commercial, institutional and high-rise residential buildings according to their environmental attributes and sustainable features.

To earn a silver rating, a building must score 33 to 38 points. The Haste Street Center earned 38 points, one point short of the rare gold rating, said Chris Harvey, director of capital projects for UC Berkeley’s Residential and Student Services Program.

The Haste Street Child Care Center
(Photo courtesy UC Berkeley)

The $6 million center serves 78 infants, toddlers and preschoolers of UC Berkeley faculty, staff and students, and also provides facilities for education, social welfare and psychology researchers interested in child development.

“This center shows that our campus is serious about being socially responsible and responsive to the community,” said Laura Keeley-Saldana, director of early childhood education in UC Berkeley’s Residential and Student Service Programs.

At the Haste Street center, 98 percent of the waste materials left over from construction were diverted from landfills and recycled. Twenty percent of the center’s building materials came from within 500 miles of the site.

Its system of fluorescent lights, photocells for lighting circuits, radiant heat in concrete floors and on-demand water heater enable the facility to exceed California’s mandated energy efficiency standards by 40 percent. No illumination leaves the site.

Paints, sealants and other indoor materials were selected because of their minimal emission of indoor air pollutants, and sensors monitor indoor carbon monoxide levels. Housekeeping supplies are free of toxic chemicals.

Stormwater runoff from the site was reduced by 25 percent compared to runoff from the site’s previous use as a parking lot.

Some $60,000 in funding from Stopwaste.Org, an arm of Alameda County’s Waste Management Authority and Source Reduction and Recycling Board, enabled UC Berkeley to hire a special consultant on LEED certification to help guide the center’s progress from design to initial operation and to have an engineering firm commission the building’s operating systems.

While the UC system has incorporated expectations for LEED equivalency into all of its major capital projects, it does not mandate that each project undergo a formal and often expensive certification process that can cost thousands of dollars.

Judy Chess, assistant director for green building programs at UC Berkeley, says the percentage costs of formal LEED certification generally decrease with the increasing size of a project. “It’s a function of design, not a function of size,” she said.

UC Berkeley Capital Project Manager Sally McGarrahan oversaw the center’s planning and construction. The architect was Jacobson Silverstein Winslow/Degenhardt, and Vila Construction of Richmond was the contractor.

McGarrahan said that only if LEED certification is a priority from the beginning of the process and guides design decisions throughout will it be possible to achieve certification.

“If you start thinking about it after some fundamental site and system questions are already determined, it will be almost impossible to achieve enough credits,” she said.

Keeley-Saldana says the families that use the Haste Street Center as well as the surrounding community have been excited about the movement in this environmentally sensitive direction.

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