California, it is oft-noted, has a larger economy than all but a handful of countries in the world. And the ongoing state budget deficit suggests the government could use more tax revenue. Yet the economic development bills that lawmakers introduced this year are a motley collection. Many of the bills are in “spot” or “intent” form, meaning that the details are yet to come, or that the bills might be amended easily to address another subject. None of the legislation appears to propose broad policy changes. If there is a common theme, it is a call for better accountability of existing programs and tax breaks. Lawmakers want to know if the government is getting its money's worth from existing economic development programs, which has been a concern of the State Auditor and the Legislative Analyst's Office for some time (see , May 2003). One of the more interesting proposals is SB 552 by state Senators Elaine Alquist (D-San Jose) and Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria). The bill would suspend the gross receipts sales tax now paid by manufacturing and R&D companies - but only if the state budget is balanced. Furthermore, cities and counties would have the option of reinstating the tax in their jurisdiction. The bill is intended to provide incentives to manufacturers, and it already has a bi-partisan list of Assembly co-authors from areas with large technology or manufacturing bases. However, one state Capitol analyst questioned how far the bill would go this year, and how effective the program would be if cities and counties could exempt themselves. While SB 552 would have statewide consequences, two other potentially important economic development bills are targeted at specific areas. Assembly Bill 350 by Tracy Democrat Barbara Matthews would authorize the formation of infrastructure financing districts (IFDs) within designated jobs-housing opportunity zones. The legislation would apply to the “interregional partnership” area that consists of Alameda, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties. Similar to redevelopment agencies, IFDs issue bonds to pay for infrastructure. The bonds get paid off with tax increment. Under AB 350, the financing plans in the jobs-housing opportunity areas would need approval of the Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank. That level of state oversight would work as a tradeoff of sorts for the lack of a blight requirement. Last year, a similar Matthews bill failed in the Senate. Assembly Bill 1330 (Karnette) is an even more direct intervention in local activities. The bill names Los Angeles's Harbor District Development Authority as a redevelopment agency and specifies that conditions at the harbor district qualify as blight. Like all redevelopment agencies, the Authority would have the ability to adopt a redevelopment plan. However, under AB 1330, the Harbor District redevelopment plan would receive an exception to California Environmental Quality Act requirements. The Authority would still have to certify an environmental impact report - but could do so up to 18 months after the redevelopment plan's effective date. The bill also carves an exception in redevelopment law to permit the Authority to pay for normal maintenance and operations of public facilities with redevelopment funds. This bill is almost certain to run into resistance at the committee level. Among other economic development bills alive in the Legislature this year are these measures: o AB 31 (Parra) calls for the creation of the Interagency Task Force for the Economic Development of the Central San Joaquin Valley to coordinate local, state and federal economic development efforts. o AB 37 (Torrico) calls for creation of the Quality Job Creation Tax Credit to encourage employers to create high-paying jobs. o AB 199 (Tran) increases the maximum number of enterprise zones - which provide tax and regulatory incentives to relocating, new and growing businesses - from 42 to 52. o AB 251 (Haynes) creates the New Markets Venture Capital Program, under which the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency would help the private market invest in low- and moderate-income areas. Investors would receive tax credits as incentives. AB 285 by the same author states a similar intent. o AB 623 (Gordon) authorizes cities in Los Angeles County to spend redevelopment tax-increment revenue on a Los Angeles Air Force Base retention program. The Air Force Base amounts to a large office complex in El Segundo (the bill's author, Democrat Mike Gordon, is a former mayor) that directly employs about 7,500 people and indirectly affects thousands of other jobs. Cities in the area have been fighting for years to prevent the base from closing (see , September 2003, April 1992). o AB 732 (Leslie) creates the California Neighborhood Initiative, under which 25 “renewal communities” would be designated for preference in receiving state and federal resources. o AB 735 (Arambula) requires the Legislative Analyst's Office to report every two years on tax breaks for businesses. o AB 1139 (Dymally) requires the Department of Finance to present an annual “unified economic development budget” that lists all tax breaks and economic development expenditures. Additionally, county assessors would be required to report annually on any real property that receives tax reductions. The bill also sets up a new process for granting a “development subsidy.” o AB 1497 (Baca) requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to designate an enterprise zone in a specific part of the City of San Bernardino. o SB 6 (Ducheny) permits enterprise zones created since 1990 to request five-year extensions. Only pre-1990 zones have this ability now. Without extensions, enterprise zones expire after 15 years. AB 1361 (Dymally) would permit enterprise zones in Los Angeles County to seek five-year extensions. o SB 593 (Alarcon) requires a city or county that receives an application from a “superstore retailer” to prepare an economic impact report. The provision would apply to stores of more than 130,000 square feet that generate at least 10% of total sales from nontaxable items. Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a nearly identical bill last fall. Thus far, none of the economic development bills has received a committee hearing.

It's no secret that Wal-Mart is running into resistance from communities all over California. But is Wal-Mart getting discouraged? Far from it. The nation's largest company has plans to open a half-dozen “supercenters” (200,000+-square-foot stores that sell groceries) in California this year, and another 30 in the years ahead. The chain is honing political and economic arguments about why Wal-Mart is good for communities and why opponents represent a threatened “special interest.” More important for planning and development, Wal-Mart is also experimenting with the “Urban 99” store - a 99,000-square-foot superstore designed to fit on smaller urban sites and circumvent many local ordinances that prevent retail/grocery combinations of more than 100,000 square feet. In other words, Wal-Mart is going to counter attacks on “big boxes” by becoming a “small box” retailer. In fact, Wal-Mart is so eager to get a foothold in California that the company is paying a premium to do so. According to a Morgan Stanley analysis presented at a recent retail conference in Long Beach, Wal-Mart is now spending more money per incremental square foot to open stores than its archrival, Target. The cost per incremental square foot simply means how much money a retail chain spends for every new square foot of store that is opened. According to Morgan Stanley, Wal-Mart is now spending $275 per incremental square foot, compared with $250 for Target. Why is Wal-Mart hanging in there - and why is the world's most efficient cost-cutter willing to pay a premium to do so? The answer is simple: In order to keep growing, Wal-Mart has no choice. According to retail analyst Greg Melich of Morgan Stanley, almost one-third of all retail spending in the nation occurs in two concentrated areas - the Northeast Corridor and California. With 23% of its overall sales in these two areas, Target has good penetration. But Wal-Mart, with its rural “red state” base, does not. Only 8% of Wal-Mart's sales occur in California and the Northeast Corridor. Of 1,700 Wal-Mart supercenters, only seven are in California or the Northeast Corridor. “There is no part of California we are not looking at,” Bob MacAdam, Wal-Mart's head of corporate affairs, said at the Long Beach retail conference, which was sponsored by the International Conference of Shopping Centers. The potential payoff is staggering. Maybe Wal-Mart has only seven supercenters in these areas, but the ones that exist are extremely successful. Three of the four highest-grossing supercenters in the chain are in California. The one in Hemet, for example, ranks third. And as the nation's largest retailer, Wal-Mart is not about to surrender the richest retail markets in the nation to Target. The bottom line: Wal-Mart will pay any price to open lots of stores in California. In the wake of Inglewood voters' rejection of a supercenter and Los Angeles's adoption of an ordinance that requires economic impact reports for certain big-boxes (see , September 2004, May 2004), Wal-Mart has shifted to a more political strategy. The company has clearly spent a lot of time on what political consultants call “message.” The emerging message is that Wal-Mart is good for the typical community, and that Wal-Mart's opponents - most particularly unions - are simply special-interest dinosaurs trying to stop change that is good for most people. Here are some aspects of the message Wal-Mart is sending: o Wal-Mart is really just a “commission buying agent” - a kind of co-op representing a vast number of consumers. It protects them against manufacturers, unions and others who seek to keep retail prices high for their own purposes. o Wal-Mart helps average folks have more money for other things. Spend less on retail products and you can spend more on tuition, medical care, and the other things that are so expensive. o Wal-Mart aids mom-and-pop stores by creating an enormous amount of retail traffic that adjacent businesses can feed off of. o By dominating the bottom of the market, Wal-Mart is creating niche opportunities for other businesses that provide specialized products and services Wal-Mart doesn't provide. (It's pretty clear that as Wal-Mart gets into the grocery business, the big chains such as Albertsons and Safeway/Vons are going to cede the bottom of the market and go upscale instead.) o Wal-Mart's presence is a boon to other California companies that supply the chain with products. The chain claims that it buys $16 billion in merchandise annually from 4,600 suppliers in the state. So that's the political message, and Wal-Mart can be expected to get more and more aggressive in pushing the message throughout the state. But there's more to the Wal-Mart strategy than message. In addition to being the biggest retailer in the country, Wal-Mart is also one of the biggest and savviest real estate developers in the United States. Wal-Mart has clearly concluded that its real estate ace-in-the-hole is a more flexible store model. Hence the “Urban 99,” Wal-Mart's small box solution. Retail analysts say Wal-Mart might build as many as 1,000 small boxes in the next decade - and that by 2013 or so, virtually all new Wal-Mart supercenters will be small boxes, not big boxes. The Urban 99 - which has not yet been seen anywhere in California - has both an economic and a political rationale. The economic rationale is obvious: A supercenter takes 20 to 25 acres of land, which in most parts of urban California (and the Northeast) is both vastly expensive and hard to find. An Urban 99 is less than half the size of a classic supercenter. It's a way to take the basic Wal-Mart product - think of it as a huge Target plus a big Albertsons with really low prices - and squeeze it into a more urban location. The political rationale is obvious too. Many anti-Wal-Mart ordinances function by limiting the size of retail stores that also sell non-taxable merchandise (groceries) to less than 100,000 square feet. So the Urban 99 model gets around the typical anti-Wal-Mart ordinance. It also opens up lots of opportunities, especially as Wal-Mart picks up 100,000-square-foot sites in existing urban areas from K Mart and other troubled retailers. Wal-Mart opens a store identical to the one that was there before - and then later on converts it to an Urban 99. What does all this mean for local planners struggling to deal with large-scale retail? In the inland areas, especially the Central Valley, it means more conventional Wal-Marts and lots of supercenters. However, in crowded urban areas, the small box trend is good news for local planners in many ways. It will not blunt the social and economic opposition from unions and community activists who don't like Wal-Mart's business practices. But it will give local communities more leverage. The small box trend means that Wal-Mart clearly expects to build a store in every town. This means that the chain won't be able to play adjoining jurisdictions against each other. It also means - like many in retail chains before them - Wal-Mart's architects and real estate folks will have to become more flexible in site planning and design. The small box's guts will look the same everywhere. But on the outside, the Old Town Pasadena Wal-Mart is going to look very different from the City of Orange Wal-Mart or the Rancho Cordova Wal-Mart. That is not to say that Wal-Mart is going to start building Urban 99s in downtown parking garages with apartments on top - at least not tomorrow. But if Wal-Mart wants to build a store in every town, then Wal-Mart will have to go native. And that's good news for local planning.

WASHINGTON _ The U.S. Supreme Court appeared unreceptive in late February to arguments by property-rights advocates to rein in the use of eminent domain by municipalities that take land and turn it over to private companies for economic development. Most of the justices who participated in questioning during a closely watched test case sharply challenged a lawyer representing a group of homeowners in New London, Conn., who are fighting condemnation actions by a city-chartered corporation. The New London Development Corporation wants the 15 parcels in question to make way for planned residential and commercial development to create jobs and add to the financially distressed city's tax base. Representing the homeowners, lawyers from the Washington-based Institute for Justice, a libertarian litigation center, say that the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause allows the government to take property by eminent domain only for a “public use,” not a private use. “Every city would like to have more tax revenue,” Scott Bullock, a senior attorney with the institute, told the justices, “but that cannot be a justification for taking private property.” Justices ranging from moderate-conservative Sandra Day O'Connor to liberals David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer all voiced doubts, however, about court-imposed limits on eminent domain. O'Connor noted that the high court's most relevant precedent - upholding slum clearance in Washington, D.C., in 1954 - treated as “virtually conclusive” a legislative determination to take property. “What kind of standard are you suggesting we get into to second-guess the legislative determination?” O'Connor asked with evident skepticism. “There have to be limits,” Bullock answered - only to be sharply contradicted by Breyer. “Why does there have to be a limit?” Breyer asked. “Virtually any taking has public benefit.” Representing the city, Hartford, Conn., attorney Wesley Horton played on the justices' doubts during his turn to argue. “There is no principled basis for a court to make an essentially legislative judgment” about the value of a specific use, Horton said. Among the seven justices on the bench, only conservative Antonin Scalia was vocally supportive of the property owners' efforts to block the condemnations. “This lady doesn't want to move,” Scalia said of the lead plaintiff, Susette Kelo. “That's an objection in principle that the 'public use' requirement seems to be addressed to.” O'Connor, Breyer and moderate-conservative Anthony M. Kennedy, however, raised the possibility of paying homeowners compensation above market value when forced off their properties for private development. “It does seem ironic that 100% of the premium goes to the developer and the city, and not the owner,” Kennedy said. Two members of the court were absent for the argument: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has thyroid cancer, and Justice John Paul Stevens, whose flight from his home in Florida was canceled. Stevens has generally supported municipal governments in land use cases in the past. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, who was customarily silent during the argument, have been supportive of property rights claims in earlier cases. But adding their presumed votes to Scalia's would still leave the New London homeowners short of a majority. The case has its origins in the 1998 decision by Pfizer pharmaceutical company to locate a new global research facility on reclaimed brownfields bordering the Thames River and the New London harbor. City officials saw the move as an opportunity to develop high-end residential and commercial developments in the adjoining Fort Trumbull neighborhood, a densely-packed working-class neighborhood. The City Council approved a seven-part plan in January 2000 calling for construction of a hotel, office buildings, 80 residences and some public spaces. With $70 million in state funding, the development corporation carried out various planning and preparatory activities and acquired most of the 115 parcels slated for the site. Horton acknowledged to the justices that the “voluntary” transactions were “facilitated” by the threat of eminent domain. Homeowners from six families and a private company challenged the condemnations in late 2000. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled for the city in March 2004, saying that any private benefit was incidental to the public use. The Supreme Court's decision to hear the case brought forth about three dozen amicus briefs from property rights groups and others supporting the homeowners, and municipal and planning groups backing the city. A decision is due by the end of June. The case is , No. 04-108. .

An appellate court has thrown out a decision by a City of Los Angeles planning commission because of the activities of a planning commissioner prior to a public hearing. Before considering an appeal of a proposed five-house project, South Valley Area Planning Commissioner Tony Lucente wrote an article for a neighborhood association newsletter about the project, and he introduced at an association meeting a property owner who had appealed the project. Those activities, the court ruled, gave rise to an unacceptable probably of actual bias, and Lucente should have recused himself. At issue was development of five lots on 3.8 acres owned by Nasha LLC on Multiview Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Nasha sought permission to build five three-story houses of 5,173 to 6,648 square feet on the existing lots. In late 2000, city planners issued a proposed mitigated negative declaration for the project. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and some neighbors complained that the project would interfere with wildlife habitat and a migration corridor. Planners added a new mitigation measure and the project went to the Mulholland Design Review Board, an advisory panel. The Design Review Board recommended disapproval of the project because the proposed houses were too big and incompatible with the environment. The board also recommended that an EIR be prepared. The project then went to the planning director, who was the decision-maker. The planning director (a deputy, actually) approved the project and certified the mitigated negative declaration in March 2001. The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and Mark Hennessy, who lives next to Nasha's property, appealed the project approval and environmental document to the planning commission. While the appeal was pending, Lucente wrote an unsigned article in the June 2001 edition of the newsletter for the Studio City Residents Association, of which Lucente was president. Among other things, he wrote that the site “is an absolutely crucial habitat corridor” and suggested that people contact either the Conservancy or Hennessy. Also in June 2001, Lucente introduced Hennessy at the neighborhood association's monthly meeting. Hennessy spoke against the project, although Lucente said he left the room during Hennessy's presentation. At the start of the appeal hearing on June 28, 2001, Lucente said that his association's newsletter contained information on the project. Lucente said had not “had any direct contact with the appellants.” At the end of the hearing, the planning commission voted 3-1 (a bare majority) to uphold the appeal. One week later, Nasha filed a request for reconsideration based on new information regarding bias by Lucente. Nasha filed another request a week later. The planning commission did not reconsider and in October 2001 adopted findings for overturning the planning director's decision on the project and the mitigated negative declaration. Nasha then sued, seeking to overturn the planning commission's decision. Nasha argued that Lucente's role in the newsletter article (which Lucente conceded during a deposition that he wrote) and his introducing Hennessy reflected a reasonable appearance of bias. Nasha also challenged the planning commission's findings and the application of a specific plan to the project. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Yaffe ruled that Nasha had failed to raise the issue of bias at the administrative level, so he dismissed it. Later, Yaffe found that evidence in the administrative record supported the planning commission's decision. The landowner appealed, and a unanimous three-judge panel of the Second District Court of Appeal, Division Three, overturned the lower court. The appellate panel ruled only on the issue of bias. The court found, contrary to Judge Yaffe's decision, that Nasha had raised the question of bias at the administrative level when the landowner twice requested a rehearing. Besides, the appellate court ruled, when the issue is whether a hearing was fair, the trial court may consider evidence that is not in the administrative record. The proceeding before the planning commission was quasi-judicial in nature because it involved the application of facts peculiar to an individual case, the court noted. “Accordingly, procedural due process principles are applicable,” Presiding Justice Joan Klein wrote. Still, administrative decision makers are not held to the same standard as judges. Thus, Nasha had to establish “'an unacceptable probability of actual bias on the part of those who have actual decisionmaking power over their claims,'” Klein wrote, citing , 81 Cal.App.4th 1205, 1236 (see CP&DR Legal Digest, August 2000). The court found that Nasha had made its case. “Contrary to the position taken by Lucente, the newsletter article was not merely informational. The article clearly advocated a position against the project, which it characterized as a 'threat to wildlife corridor,'” Klein wrote. “Lucente's authorship of the newsletter article gave rise to an unacceptable probability of actual bias and was sufficient to preclude Lucente from serving as a 'reasonably impartial, noninvolved reviewer.' ( , (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 213, 219). Lucente clearly should have recused himself from hearing this matter. His participation in the appeal to the planning commission requires the commission's decision be vacated.” The court directed the planning commission to conduct a new hearing. The Case: , No. B167071, 2004 DJDAR 15369. Filed December 29, 2004. The Lawyers: For Nasha: Robert Glushon, Luna & Glushon (818) 907-8755. For the city: Steven Blau, deputy city attorney, (213) 978-8233.

Nearly seven years ago, state Sen. Byron Sher wrote what turned out to be a prophetic commentary for the San Francisco Examiner about the pending resolution of one of the most bitter, drawn-out and violent disputes over forest management in California history. "Look beyond the hype over the deal to save the Headwaters Forest," he wrote in June 1998, "and you'll see that taxpayers may not be getting their money's worth." Last month, with the key partner in that agreement warning that it would declare bankruptcy if not allowed to disregard key environmental safeguards, the words of the veteran legislator, termed out in December, seemed uncannily prescient. The renewed debate over Headwaters also finds Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a distinctly awkward position of his own making. He campaigned as a staunch supporter of the business community, but has also pledged to fight hard to defend California's environmental assets. And now, with those interests on a collision course in the redwoods, the governor is being pressed to take sides. This would be a delicate balancing act under any circumstances but it is made much harder by the fact that former timber industry lobbyists and executives occupy key positions in his administration. The 1999 Headwaters purchase, through which the state and federal governments paid a combined $480 million to acquire about 7,000 acres of old-growth redwood forest on the North Coast from Pacific Lumber Co. (PALCO), remains the single most expensive conservation acquisition in California history. The deal included a commitment by the company to adopt a habitat conservation plan for its remaining Humboldt County property, limiting logging to protect such species as coho salmon and the marbled murrelet. As Sher suggested in 1998, the breathtakingly high price tag dwarfed the commercial value of the land and the trees. "This huge expenditure is justified only if the public can be assured that the side agreement - a giant string attached to the purchase, known as a habitat conservation plan - won't imperil the future of endangered species on the rest of Pacific Lumber's 200,000 acres nearby," he wrote. After PALCO signed off on the HCP, it went to work cutting every tree it could. Since September 2004 alone, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) has approved 40 of the company's timber harvest plans and continues to process more applications. The board has jurisdiction over the plans because logging can expose slopes to erosion, contaminating waterways with sediment. In January, PALCO sought RWQCB approval for 11 additional timber plans, asking the board to relax restrictions on streamside logging in the Elk River and Freshwater Creek watersheds so the company could cut more trees. Board staff concluded that the plans would not adequately protect waterways from contamination, and noted that the company had repeatedly violated provisions of it previous permits, ruining drinking water supplies. Company executives met privately with the governor and his top advisors to plead their case, threatening to declare bankruptcy, close mills and lay off hundreds of employees unless granted more lenient logging permits. Bankruptcy, the company warned, would effectively dissolve the HCP agreement, removing most restrictions on logging. It is an odd time for Pacific Lumber to declare financial hardship. The western timber and wood-products industries are experiencing a record boom. The Portland-based Western Wood Products Association reported that U.S. lumber demand in 2004 soared to 59.7 million board feet, the highest level ever and the sixth record-setting year in the past eight. Consumption is being driven by the red-hot domestic housing market and by the falling value of the dollar, which has made imported lumber more expensive. For many timber companies, the result has been fat profits. Plum Creek Timber, for example, posted a 27.8% increase in sales from 2003 to 2004, and saw net income rise a whopping 88.5% . Weyerhaeuser's net earnings more than doubled from 2003 to 2004. Environmentalists have long regarded PALCO with loathing, and were quick to dismiss the bankruptcy threat as a ploy to evade its legal obligations. "They are using their employees as human shields," said a Sierra Club representative. Once a model of sustainable forestry, the family-owned company was acquired in 1996 through a hostile takeover by corporate raider Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Inc. promptly began liquidating old-growth redwoods to retire the bonds used to finance the takeover. As the chainsaws buzzed ever deeper into the remaining stands of old growth, protestors by the thousands began to block logging roads, chain themselves to gates, and occupy individual trees to thwart the loggers. One activist died when a tree cut by a logger fell on him. Although the company says it has become a model environmental citizen since the HCP was negotiated, its behavior continues to draw criticism. One Headwaters watchdog, the Garberville-based Environmental Protection Information Center, says it has documented hundreds of violations of the company's HCP agreement, including logging too close to streams and improper use of herbicides. In 2003, the Humboldt County district attorney filed a fraud case against PALCO, alleging that it had lied about the number of landslides caused by its logging practices; the company responded by bankrolling an expensive but unsuccessful recall campaign against him. As illustrated by the recall campaign, the company remains a divisive element in the local community, where it provides a significant share of the jobs but also is suspected of contributing to mudslides and floods that have damaged homes and farms. Further evidence of split public opinion came earlier this year, when the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted - without prior public notice, possibly violating the state's open meeting law - to send a letter to the RWQCB supporting PALCO's request to expand logging. Scores of angry residents confronted the board at its next meeting to decry the maneuver and criticize the company. If he decides to intervene in the dispute, Schwarzenegger risks inflaming suspicion about the sincerity of his environmental commitment, already rendered suspect by the prominence of former industry representatives in his administration. For example, PALCO's former director of external relations, James F. Branham, is the number two administrator in the California Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the state's regional water quality control boards. Melinda Terry, deputy secretary for legislation in the Resources Agency, was a lobbyist for the California Forestry Association when the governor hired her earlier this year. Contacts North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board, (707) 576-2220. Pacific Lumber Company, (707) 764-2222. Environmental Protection Information Center: http://www.wildcalifornia.org . Western Wood Products Association: http://www.wwpa.org .

The San Joaquin Valley will likely lose a considerable amount of farmland to urbanization over the next 40 years no matter what policies the region adopts. However, different policy scenarios can substantially reduce the amount of farmland loss, according to a new report that I helped prepare for the Public Policy Institute of California. The report plays out four different scenarios for how the eight-county region will urbanize in order to accommodate a doubling of population - to about 7 million people - by 2040. The most likely scenario is that the amount of urbanized land will triple, from about 600,000 acres in 2000 to about 1.7 million acres in 2040, while the amount of agricultural land will be reduced by about 15%, from 5.7 million acres to about 4.9 million acres. Based on a GIS urbanization model developed at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the scenarios were not meant to serve as realistic future alternatives. Rather, these speculative scenarios show how several different sets of broad policies might affect the region's growth. And while the scenarios described the geographical extent of urbanization, they did not seek to describe the texture or the character of new urban development. The four alternatives were: 1. An “accommodating urban development” scenario, which assumed that the urban development patterns from 1940 to 2000 would be replicated from 2000 to 2040. 2. A “prime farmland conservation” scenario, which assumed that all land categorized as prime farmland by the Department of Conservation was protected but all other private land was available for development. 3. A “high-speed rail” scenario, which assumed that most development would occur within a 20-mile radius of the planned stops for the proposed high-speed rail line. 4. An “automobile-oriented managed growth” scenario, which assumed that most growth will cluster around a series of highway improvements, mostly on east-west corridors up and down the Valley. All scenarios were based on the same population assumption - an increase from 3.3 million to slightly more than 7 million people, or about 116%. Broadly speaking, the “accommodation” scenario showed that urbanization would quadruple, from 600,000 acres to about 2.4 million acres. The rail and automobile scenarios showed a tripling of urbanization, to between 1.7 million and 2 million acres. The farmland preservation scenario showed an increase in urbanization of 134%, to about 1.4 million acres - only slightly higher than the percentage of population increase. Significant farmland loss would occur under all scenarios except farmland preservation. The “accommodation” scenario showed a loss of 1.5 million acres of farmland - 26%. The rail and auto scenarios showed losses of 800,000 to 1.1 million acres - 15% to 20%. The farmland preservation scenario preserved all prime farmland but showed a loss of almost half a million acres of non-prime farmland. The scenarios had some different effects on the northern counties, which draw many Bay Area commuters, as opposed to the southern counties, which are still rooted in agriculture. The prime farmland scenario actually led to less urbanization in the “Bay spillover” counties, such as San Joaquin and Stanislaus, because they have more prime farmland. The high-speed rail scenario led to more urbanization in these counties because they are slated to have more rail stops than the other counties. Perhaps the biggest surprise was that the auto-oriented scenario was similar, in the aggregate, to the rail scenario. In some cases, the auto-oriented model proved even easier on agriculture because the assumed transportation improvements drew development to the transportation corridors at fairly high densities. Furthermore, the high-speed rail scenario would cluster development around existing cities on Highway 99 - and, therefore, on prime farmland - while the auto scenario would disperse more development to the west, where there is less prime farmland. We concluded that the San Joaquin Valley is not well prepared to deal with problems on a regional basis. We also raised questions about whether the urbanization scenarios would foster further urban and social decay in poor areas, especially in the southern agricultural counties. The report, “Urban Development Futures in the San Joaquin Valley,” was written by Michael Teitz, a former UC Berkeley planning professor and a senior fellow at PPIC, along with Charles Dietzel, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Geography at UCSB, and myself. It is available at www.ppic.org .

An animal shelter project in the City of Long Beach that was partially funded by the city was not subject to the prevailing wage law for public works projects that was in effect at the time, the state Supreme Court has ruled. Although local governments and the development industry were on the winning side of the case, the ruling appears to have minimal implications. That is because the Legislature in 2000 amended the prevailing wage statute to ensure that it covered precisely the sort of pre-construction activities that Long Beach funded. Under the prior version of the law, the court said in a 6-1 ruling, the prevailing wage law did not extend to preconstruction activities such as architecture and design, project management, surveying, insurance and legal counsel. And the court declined to address the question on many minds - whether the prevailing wage law applied to a "municipal affair" of a charter city. Government agencies and developers have long griped about having to pay prevailing wage, which is set by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and typically reflects big-city, unionized pay levels. Still, state law since 1937 has required the payment of prevailing wage for public works construction. In 2000, the Legislature approved an amendment that changed the definition of "construction," and in 2002 the Legislature went further to put almost any construction project that receives any sort of public assistance (including fee waivers or discount real estate) under the prevailing wage requirement. These changes have plagued some local economic development efforts. However, it was the law in effect in 1998 that the state Supreme Court interpreted. That was the year Long Beach signed a contract with the SPCA of Los Angeles. The city agreed to pay $1.5 million toward the SPCA's $10 million animal shelter. The project would be built on land leased by the SPCA from the city, and the city would house its animal control operations in part of the facility. The city limited expenditure of its $1.5 million to preconstruction items. Acting on an inquiry from a labor union, DIR in 2000 investigated and determined that the project was a public work that was subject to prevailing wage requirements. The city sued DIR, arguing that the project was not a public work and that, even if it were, the city's status as a charter city prevented the application of the prevailing wage law. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David Yaffe ruled for the city. The Second District Court of Appeal disagreed and ruled for the DIR. Finally, the state Supreme Court sided with the city. The case turned on the 1998 definition of "construction" in former Labor Code § 1720, subdivision (a). The DIR argued that construction encompassed planning, design and other pre-building phases of the project. The city argued that the term had a more limited meaning. Both sides pointed to the 2000 amendment for support. The city contended that the amendment was a prospective change in the law that expanded the definition of construction. The DIR argued that the 2000 amendment only clarified the existing law. The state high court agreed with the city. In reaching its conclusion, the court cited the legislative history, including a letter from the bill's author, state Sen. John Burton, that said the change would "operate prospectively." Additionally, the Legislative Counsel's digest spoke of a revision in the definition of public works and the imposition of new costs on local government. The history suggests the 2000 amendment was more than a restatement of existing law, the court concluded. The court also cited dictionary definitions of construction, and the U.S. Secretary of Labor's definition, which does not cover work done by surveyors, lawyers and project managers prior to the start of actual building. " nder the law in effect when the contract at issue was executed, a project that developers built solely with funds on land leased from a public agency remains private," Justice Ming Chin wrote for the majority. "It does not become a work subject to the PWL merely because the city had earlier contributed funds to the owner/lessee to assist in defraying such 'preconstruction' costs or expenses as legal fees, insurance premiums, architectural design costs, and project management and surveying fees." In a dissenting opinion, Justice Joyce Kennard said that when the Legislature does not define its terms, the court should defer to DIR as long as the DIR's decision was made by senior agency officials and was consistent with previous DIR decisions, which was the case here. She further noted that the contracts for construction management and architecture extended to all phases of construction. The extensive argument over the meaning of the 2000 statutory amendment was irrelevant, Kennard added. " he intent of the 2000 Legislature has no bearing here. What is at issue is the intent of the Legislature back in 1937,when it first used the word 'construction' to define public works in former § 1720(a)." Kennard said the project was a public work subject to prevailing wage. She urged the court to then consider the other issues in the case: Whether the project was a "municipal affair" of a charter city that was exempt from prevailing wage requirement, and whether the prevailing wage law was a matter of statewide concern that would override such an exemption. Instead, the court majority said it would leave those questions - on which many government, labor and development groups had provided input - for another day. The Case: , No. S118450, 04 C.D.O.S. 11142, 2004 DJDAR 15029. Filed December 20, 2004. The Lawyers: For the city: Robert E. Shannon, city attorney, (562) 570-2205. For the DIR: John Rea, chief counsel, (415) 703-4240.

The state Supreme Court has accepted for review an unusual Subdivision Map Act case from the City of Goleta. Last year, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that the Goleta City Council had the discretion to reject a final subdivision map (see , November 2004). Ordinarily, approval of a tentative map is a discretionary action, while approval of the subsequent final map is a ministerial matter. But a 1998 amendment to the Subdivision Map Act gave a newly incorporated city discretion over a final map in instances where the county had approved the tentative map. At issue is a 109-unit housing project proposed by Oly Chadmar Sandpiper General Partnership. The Santa Barbara County Planning Commission approved a vesting tentative map and development plan for the project six days before Goleta voters approved incorporation. On appeal from project opponents, the Board of Supervisors approved the project two weeks before incorporation became effective - and over the objection of the mayor-elect. When the final map was ready for approval, however, it went not to the county but to the city, which refused approval. That prompted the developer's lawsuit. In accepting the case, the state Supreme Court outlined two questions for itself: Must a newly incorporated city approve a final subdivision map if the county previously approved a tentative map? Is a newly incorporated city barred from disapproving a tentative map previously approved by the county if the city adopted the county ordinance requiring approval of the final map, exempted the project from a development moratorium, and worked with the developer to clear conditions? The case is , No. B175054.

It is rare for a suburban city of 50,000 people take the lead in a $440 million transportation project. The City of Placentia in northern Orange County has, though, and the effort has stirred political controversy and placed the city under financial strain. The project is known as OnTrac, short for Orange North-American Trade Rail Access Corridor. The currently preferred alternative involves building a five-mile-long trench for railroad tracks that slice though the town from west to east. The project would look and function much like the ballyhooed Alameda Corridor, which connects the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports with rail yards near downtown Los Angeles. In fact, the Placentia project is also called Alameda Corridor East because Placentia's problem is created by trains headed to and from the downtown rail yards. All 10 north-south arterials in town have an at-grade rail crossing. Three decades ago, that was no big deal because fewer than 20 trains a day went through town. But as the shipping ports have become busier, the number of trains has increased to about 70 per day. Analysts expect train traffic to more than double during the next 20 years. One hundred fifty trains per day equates to a train about every 10 minutes on average, which means more often than not there would be a train somewhere in the residential suburb's city limits. “Everybody knows this is a problem that's bad and it's going to get a whole lot worse,” Placentia Mayor Scott Brady said. “The City of Placentia must do something about the train traffic that is barreling through our community. The question is how best we should do it.” Last November's City Council election was, essentially, a referendum of OnTrac. Brady, an OnTrac proponent, narrowly won re-election, but two candidates who were critical of the project also won. Although the new council has not yet backed away from the project, there appears to be movement toward a cheaper alternative that involves a series of overpasses and underpasses. A group called Citizens for a Better Placentia has become the most outspoken OnTrac opponent. “While the train in the ditch is a good project,” said group co-founder Craig Green, “the obtaining of funds to do it didn't seem plausible. In fact, it still doesn't.” The city embarked on the project in 2000 under the assumption that state and federal funds would be forthcoming. State and federal transportation experts and elected officials recognize the problem caused by the increasing number of trains hauling cargo through metropolitan regions, especially Los Angeles. Placentia got rolling with OnTrac just as state and federal transportation funds were drying up, though. The state was supposed to supply $30 million up front, but state budget troubles have held up half of that amount, said Chris Becker, OnTrac's executive director. Placentia also got caught by Congress's failure to pass a transportation spending bill last year. In its final form, the failed bill contained $900 million for projects of national economic significance, including OnTrac. All of this means that Placentia has spent millions of its own money and borrowed funds on the project. To raise the money, the OnTrac Joint Powers Authority - which is merely the city and its redevelopment agency - has issued certificates of participation, and the city has sold surplus land and even mortgaged parkland. Altogether, the city has accumulated about $35 million in debts for the project. Some services have been reduced and other capital projects postponed. Still, the project continues to advance. In January, the first part of the project was completed - a railroad overpass at Melrose Avenue, next to the city's aging downtown. A large transit-oriented redevelopment project is proposed for the area. The OnTrac preferred alternative calls for putting the train in a 35-foot-deep trench starting just east of Melrose and running to about the eastern city limits. This would eliminate eight at-grade crossings. An environmental impact report for this part of the project is due out this summer. Becker called the project essential because the trains - mostly Burlington Northern Sante Fe (BNSF) cargo trains, but also some Amtrak and Metrolink passenger trains - cut the town in half. Emergency responses can be delayed. About 300 school buses cross the tracks daily, he said. Another part of the project is a “quiet zone.” This involves the installation of extended concrete medians, more elaborate rail crossing gates, and additional signals and signs. The $7 million, project, to which the federal government has contributed $3.4 million, will allow trains to pass through town without having to blow their whistles. In 2001, BNSF trains started sounding their horns again, leading to outrage from people who live near the tracks. Eventually, putting the train in the trench would eliminate the need for whistles and alleviate some other train noise. Although the train-in-a-ditch concept and the quiet zone are fairly new ideas, what might be most unusual about OnTrac is Placentia's willingness to go it alone. The Alameda Corridor East Construction Authority, which is dealing with the same issues in the San Gabriel Valley, has more participants. Transportation projects of this magnitude are regional in nature, observed Ray Young, a city planning professor and dean of graduate studies at California State University, Fullerton. The neighboring cities of Brea, Fullerton, Yorba Linda and Anaheim have shown little interest in joining the OnTrac JPA, despite requests from Placentia. Neighboring cities have at-grade rail crossings of the same line, but the issue has not received the same level of attention. In Fullerton and Anaheim, the tracks run through industrial areas, not large residential neighborhoods like Placentia's. Fullerton is working on one major grade separation project. “Other jurisdictions do not see it as a great community priority,” said Young. “I'm a little surprised that it gained such prominence and such a central role in Placentia's agenda over about 24 to 36 months.” Detractors say the project gained prominence because of the aggressiveness of consultants, including Becker. When he was hired to run the OnTrac project for $4.5 million over 10 years, Becker was the city's public works director. For a period, he served as both lead consultant and public works director. “How,” asked Citizens for a Better Placentia's Green, “could the city's director of public works hire himself as a consultant for $450,000?” Project opponents have demanded a criminal investigation. The city has since reworked Becker's contract at a lower rate. Becker denies wrongdoing and contends the complaints are politically driven. Contacts: Scott Brady, Placentia mayor, (714) 993-8117. Chris Becker, OnTrac, (714) 577-5819. Craig Green, Citizens for a Better Placentia, (714) 854-9100. Ray Young, CSU Fullerton, (714) 278-3602. OnTrac website: www.ontrac-jpa.org .

If there was ever a city that needed to roll the dice and get lucky, it's Richmond. Facing problems of poverty, crime and budget deficits, the city really could use a new pair of shoes. The city's plight might explain why the City Council recently made a controversial deal with an Indian tribe to allow the development of a casino on prime real estate on San Francisco Bay. Whether the project ever gets built is questionable. But Richmond is already receiving money it can spend now, part of a $15 million option package that is to be paid over four years. The city stands to make a total of $50 million from sale of the property, as well as increase its tax base and create employment for local residents. But already, two California Environmental Quality Act lawsuits challenging the proposed $800 million development at Point Molate have been filed. Still, the developers are footing the bill for the city's legal fees, so there appears to be little downside for Richmond's gamble. Richmond came into possession of the 320-acre parcel on the bay in 2003, after the U.S. Navy closed its operations there. The Navy used Point Molate as a fuel depot and is now cleaning up environmental contamination. The Navy expects to be finished with cleanup by 2009, but developers hope to speed the effort. The parcel also sits next to ChevronTexaco's Richmond refinery. ChevronTexaco bid for the property, but the Richmond City Council chose a casino deal proposed by the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians. The Native American tribe is working in partnership with Harrah's and a group called Upstream Point Molate, headed by Bay Area developer Jim Levine. ChevronTexaco proposed light industrial development on the land, and was expected to use the land as a buffer for its refinery. ChevronTexaco offered the city $55 million up front, plus $1 million annually for 25 years. But the winning developers offered more, at least in the minds of the city council members: the promise of more than 4,000 jobs and tax revenues from a 225,000-square-foot gaming complex to be operated by Harrah's, along with four hotels containing 1,100 rooms. Expected to offer competition to Nevada's gambling industry, the project also is to include 300,000 square feet of retail space, 15 restaurants, an indoor theatre and a convention center. Upstream plans to retain existing historic buildings on the site, including an old winery building that will house the casino. Not everyone wants to see intense development on the waterfront site. Nearby plots of land are already parklands, and part of a trail envisioned to ring all of San Francisco Bay crosses the property. After the City Council approved the project in November, Citizens for East Shore Parks and the East Bay Regional Parks District filed separate but similar CEQA suits. The lawsuits claim that the city did not perform a thorough environmental review before agreeing to sell the property. “There's been no serious study of the issues,” said Robert Cheasty, president of Citizens for East Shore Parks and former mayor of the nearby City of Albany. Cheasty said community discussions at the time of the base closure never included a proposal for a casino in the old winery building, which he said would “totally dominate the waterfront.” But developer Levine said all 33 acres of the waterfront will remain undeveloped, and the proposed development will include trails, parks and open space. Only a 90-acre portion of the entire property will be developed in the existing footprint, he said. “In the development world, you get sued all the time and you keep moving,” Levine said. Point Molate is being billed as a destination resort. An existing Navy pier on the property is to be used for a proposed ferry service that would whisk passengers from San Francisco to the casino. Upstream paid the city of Richmond the first $1 million installment in December. It is money the city can use, having laid off 250 employees in 2004 due to a $12 million budget shortfall. A state audit released in December blamed the shortfall on the city's spending more money than it took in after increasing employee salaries and retirement benefits. Councilman Tom Butt was part of the 6-2 council majority voting for the deal with Upstream. He said the site's “incredible views” would make the property a destination resort. “The bottom line is they're going to pay us $15 million for options to develop the property,” he said. If the property cannot be developed as a casino, Upstream has agreed to develop the property in a mixed-use fashion that includes retail, a hotel and 800 housing units. Levine said the area's proximity to the ChevronTexaco refinery does not pose a problem because of a 500-foot hill that separates the two parcels. Ninety percent of the time, Point Molate is upwind of the refinery, he noted, and there is already housing downwind of the refinery. Butt said residents have complained about the increased traffic, crime and undesirable newcomers the casino could attract. But he said the city needs the income for $200 million in street repairs and to address its 10% unemployment rate in poorer sections. One-third of the jobs created by Upstream are to go to the city's most needy residents. The project needs to undergo environmental review at both the federal and state levels, which Levine expects to begin soon. Additionally, the Guidiville Band needs approval from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) before the tribe opens a casino, and BIA approval typically is neither quick nor automatic. The band must also complete an agreement with state officials, which could be even more problematic. The problem is that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has stated he will not allow another casino to be located within 35 miles of a casino in San Pablo, where a different tribe wants to build the largest gambling hall in the state. The San Pablo site is less than five miles from Point Molate. But Levine said the exclusivity right for the San Pablo casino does not apply to his project because the Guidiville Band has a federal court order granting the tribe a restored land claim. Although the tribe has historic ties to land in Lake and Mendocino counties, federal legislation passed a few years ago gave the tribe the right to restore their land in Contra Costa County. Further complicating the Indian gambling picture is the proposal of another tribe, the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians. That tribe has proposed building a separate casino in North Richmond with 2,000 slot machines. Contacts: Tom Butt, Richmond City Council, (510) 236-7435. Robert Cheasty, Citizens for East Shore Parks, (510) 525-1000. Jim Levine, Upstream Point Molate, (510) 652-4500. The cases: , Contra Costa County Superior Court No. MSN04-1657; , Contra Costa County Superior Court No. MSN04-1698.

In the latest setback for a proposed water project in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, a state appellate court has thrown out water permits and an environmental impact report approved by the State Water Resources Control Board. The court ruled that the water board improperly postponed decisions about end users of the Delta Wetlands project and regarding the project's environmental consequences. The water board four years ago approved permits that allowed the private company behind the project to appropriate water and store it in shallow reservoirs on two Delta islands (see , April 2001). The project calls for diverting water into the reservoirs during times of high flows and selling water during the dry season. Proponents say they could provide between 170,000 and 800,000 acre-feet of water per year. The project also includes converting two other islands from farmland into wildlife habitat. Because the Cal-Fed Bay-Delta Program has proposed similar “in-Delta” storage, many people believe the Delta Wetlands proponents were pursuing the project so they could eventually sell it to Cal-Fed. Whatever the proponents' motivation has been, the project has received substantial opposition since first proposed during the late 1980s - years before Cal-Fed originated. Only months before the case at hand was decided, the Third District Court of Appeal ruled that San Joaquin County had the authority to regulate the project ( , 121 Cal. App. 4th 128; see , September 2004). That ruling was also a setback for Delta Wetlands proponents, who unsuccessfully argued that the county's requirement for a conditional use permit was counter to state law and was discriminatory. The state water board approved the project in February 2001. Prior to that decision a number of project detractors - including the East Bay Municipal Utility District, the Contra Costa Water District, California Urban Water Agencies and the City of Stockton - signed settlement agreements with Delta Wetlands proponents. Still, the Central Delta Water Agency, the San Joaquin County Flood Control District, five reclamation districts, San Joaquin County and two farm companies challenged the water board's permits and environmental impact report in court. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Gail Ohanesian ruled for the state, but a unanimous three-judge panel of the Third District Court of Appeal overturned the lower court. The project opponents' primary argument was that the water board failed to require the proponents to specify the end uses, locations and amounts of water. Opponents further argued that without those end-use details, the EIR was inadequate. The water board had approved the project based on a number of potential areas of use, which amounted to nearly the whole state. The water board conditioned the permits to require future determinations by staff members regarding specified uses and the ability to transport (or “wheel”) the water to purchasers. The EIR did not evaluate the consequences of the potential uses of water because those uses were too speculative. Agreeing with the project opponents, the Third District said that this sort of postponement was improper. “ nder the state constitution and the Water Code, an application for a permit to impound water in a reservoir must state, and the water board must determine, that an actual, intended beneficial use, in estimated amounts, will be made of the impounded waters. A general statement of potential beneficial use is insufficient and the board may not satisfy its statutory and constitutional obligations by conditioning a permit on a particular use and in amounts to be specified at some later date,” Justice Coleman Blease wrote for the court. Citing numerous sections of the Water Code, the court ruled that the water board may not delegate such details. “Although the board may employ personnel to assist it (Water Code § 186), it may not delegate the authority to determine the merits of an application for a permit to appropriate water, except as provided by statute,” the court held. Because the permits should designate end users and amounts of water, the EIR must then include “an analysis of the environmental impacts of the project relevant to the end user,” the court ruled. The court rejected opponents' argument regarding an unmitigated significant loss of agricultural land. The court concluded the opponents' raised the argument too late - after the water board's public hearing had closed. Still, the court noted that some of the opponents have permitting authority and “a responsible agency with permit authority does reach its own conclusions whether and how to approve the project, notwithstanding the lead agency's approval of the project.” The ruling could harm the prospects not only for the Delta Wetlands project, but also for any speculative water project that assumes buyers will come forward in the future. The Case: , No. C041749, 04 C.D.O.S. 10330, 2004 DJDAR 14015. Filed November 19, 2004. Modified December 16, 2004 at 2004 DJDAR 15010. The Lawyers: For Central Delta: Dante John Nomellini, Nomellini, Grilli & McDaniel, (209) 465-5883. For the state: Clifford Lee, deputy attorney general, (415) 703-5546. For real parties in interest: Anne J. Schneider, Ellison, Schneider & Harris, (916) 447-2166.

Half a century ago, farmers cultivating the fertile plains and valleys of Ventura County sprayed their crops with the miracle pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a potent post-war product of American chemical ingenuity. Ventura County growers were not alone in taking advantage of DDT's characteristics. Because of its lethal and persistent effectiveness against a wide range of insects, the pesticide became popular with home gardeners, exterminators, timber producers, farmers and public mosquito-control agencies throughout the United States. In the 30 years it was in wide use, an estimated 675,000 tons of DDT were applied domestically, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The peak year was 1959, when nearly 80 million pounds were applied in the United States. The EPA banned DDT use domestically in 1972, following revelations that the chemical harmed wildlife and threatened human health. Yet now, more than three decades later, many California growers are about to find themselves paying a long-delayed price for the pesticide's past popularity. In just one watershed in Ventura County, the cost to growers alone could be as high as $140 million in the first year, according to an estimate released in January. That eye-popping figure is the product of an important but widely overlooked regulatory process slowly grinding its way into place in California, with potentially far-reaching implications. Growers may find themselves forced to give up large swaths of productive land to serve as streamside pollution buffers. Homeowners could face escalating sewer fees. Urban and rural agencies could end up squabbling fiercely over who should bear the bulk of compliance costs. The regulations are known as total maximum daily loads, or TMDLs. They are a way of addressing water pollution from “nonpoint sources” - the diffuse runoff from agricultural fields and urban storm drains that, unlike emissions from factories and sewage treatment plants, lacks an identifiable discharge point where pollution controls can be installed and monitored with relative ease. A TMDL is a calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still meet standards established by states and tribes to protect the identified beneficial uses of that water, such as municipal supply, recreation, and support of aquatic life. A TMDL not only sets the total amount of a single pollutant that can enter the water body, it also divides the total load among all of the sources of that pollutant in the watershed and tells each discharger how much it may contribute. Although authorized under § 303 of the Clean Water Act of 1972, TMDLs and nonpoint pollution were largely ignored by state and federal regulatory agencies until relatively recently. The EPA did not even adopt implementing regulations for TMDLs until 1985, refining those standards further in 1992. And it has only been within the past decade that enforcement has begun, largely a consequence of a barrage of lawsuits by environmental organizations seeking to force the EPA and the states to adopt TMDLs for impaired streams and lakes (see , July 2002). The EPA is under court order or consent decrees in many regions to ensure that TMDLs are established, either by the state or by EPA. One such consent decree is in place for the greater Los Angeles region, including Ventura County, where the process of developing TMDLs for the Calleguas Creek watershed - home to scores of farmers now confronting the legacy of decades-old pesticide application - is the most advanced in the state and serves as a good illustration of the program's promises and pitfalls. The process of developing TMDLs is painfully slow and complex. It starts with what regulators refer to as the “303 (d) list,” a comprehensive listing of all impaired waters within their jurisdiction that states, territories and tribes are required to submit periodically to the EPA. In California, 687 water bodies have been reported to the EPA as impaired. the largest category being streams, creeks and rivers, with 435 listed. The next largest category is coastal shoreline, with 97 areas listed. Each listing identifies the specific pollutants for which the water fails to meet health and safety standards. In the Calleguas watershed, for example, those contaminants include salt, excess nutrients such as nitrogen, pesticides and PCBs, silt, fecal bacteria, and toxic metals such as copper, mercury and zinc. Once the pollutants have been identified, researchers have to figure out where they are coming from, how much of each can be discharged into the watershed under varying hydrological conditions without posing a risk, and how much each discharger will be allowed to emit. In a large watershed containing hundreds or thousands of potential sources - and with scientific data about precise health risks sketchy for many substances - this is a daunting and imprecise task. The consent decree compelling development of the Calleguas Creek TMDLs was signed in 1999, and so far only the standards for nutrients and salt have been completed. Those for historical pesticides (including discontinued ones such as DDT, which can remain in the soil for decades and wash into streams with every big storm) and PCBs are expected to be completed this year. Bacteria and metals TMDLs are being developed. Twenty percent of the impaired watersheds in the Los Angeles region (which includes Los Angeles and Ventura counties, along with small portions of Kern and Santa Barbara counties) have TMDL plans in place or in process, said Sam Unger, who monitors TMDL programs for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. That may not seem like much, but it puts the area well ahead of the statewide curve. Only 1% to 5% of the impaired watersheds in other regions in California have done the same, according to Cindy Lin, who oversees the TMDL program for the EPA's Southern California field office. Under the 1999 consent decree, regulators in the Los Angeles region have until 2011 to complete the process. Absent a court order, the EPA has not set a deadline for other areas. Strategies for controlling contaminated runoff vary. Farmers might change irrigation practices, or turn land near streams and other drainages into naturally vegetated buffers. Cities can install wetlands or other biological filters to treat storm flows or sewage plant discharges. In many watersheds, nearly every person and activity stands to be affected. “There's no bad guys out there,” said Richard Hajas, general manager of the Camrosa Water District in Ventura County and vice chair of the group developing the Calleguas watershed plan. “In this particular case, we're all the culprit.” Contacts: Cindy Lin, Environmental Protection Agency, (213) 244-1803. Sam Unger, Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, (213) 576-6784. Calleguas Creek Watershed Management Plan: www.calleguas.com/ccbrochure/cc.htm .