<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:st1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11 (filtered medium)">
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><o:SmartTagType
namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" name="place"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="City"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceName"/>
<o:SmartTagType namespaceuri="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
name="PlaceType"/>
<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{margin:0in;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
h1
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:24.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-weight:bold;}
h2
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:18.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-weight:bold;}
h3
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:13.5pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
font-weight:bold;}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:purple;
text-decoration:underline;}
p
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
span.EmailStyle17
{mso-style-type:personal-compose;
font-family:Arial;
color:windowtext;
font-weight:normal;
font-style:normal;
text-decoration:none none;}
p.moreimgs, li.moreimgs, div.moreimgs
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
p.simgcap, li.simgcap, div.simgcap
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
p.simg, li.simg, div.simg
{mso-margin-top-alt:auto;
margin-right:0in;
mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
margin-left:0in;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";}
@page Section1
{size:8.5in 11.0in;
margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1026" />
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1" />
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple>
<div class=Section1>
<h1><b><font size=6 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:24.0pt'>Sinking
Delta<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<h2><b><font size=5 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:18.0pt'>Where
tules replace corn, they grow soil. It's no quick fix, but it could save
levees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h3><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:13.5pt'>By
Matt Weiser - Bee Staff Writer<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h3>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Last
Updated 9:20 am PDT Wednesday, October 17, 2007<br>
Story appeared in MAIN NEWS section, Page A1<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/436685.html">http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/436685.html</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/436685.html">Print</a> | <a
href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-email/story/436685.html">E-Mail</a> | <a
href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/436685.html#comments_here"
id="comments_jump"></a>| <a
href="http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/436685.html"
id=diggStoryLink>Digg it</a> | <a href="http://del.icio.us/post"
id=deliciousStoryLink>del.icio.us</a> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><img border=0 width=320 height=209 id="_x0000_i1025"
src="cid:image001.jpg@01C810A5.1A09FE90"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Robin
Miller of the U.S. Geological Survey checks plant material on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Twitchell</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Island</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
near Rio Vista last week. An experiment there that duplicates how soil was
originally made in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could help reverse its
decline. Randy Pench/Sacramento Bee<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=moreimgs><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><a href="http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/436685.html#more_images">See
additional images</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on"><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>TWITCHELL</span></font></st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">ISLAND</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> – A stretch
of dirt road cutting through this 3,500-acre island near Rio Vista offers a
stark look at two different futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One side
of the road is a farm field, with corn stretching in orderly and silent rows
across hundreds of acres. It sits at least 5 feet lower than the road, a result
of decaying peat soils that have made many Delta islands into deep bowls
through a process called subsidence.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>On the
other side is a soggy marsh, its floor nearly level with the road. The marsh is
thick with tules and cattails reaching 10 feet overhead. Songbirds and
waterfowl rise between pockets of open water. The air is filled with chirping
and quacking. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This side
of the road was once a subsided bowl, too, and filled with corn. But 10 years
ago, the U.S. Geological Survey converted it to marshland, allowing tules and
other native plants to grow and die back with the seasons as they once did.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
experiment has revived the process that created the Delta's peat soils in the
first place. Over 10 years it has slowly raised the ground surface more than 2
feet in places, and it could restore generations of decline in the Delta, the
West Coast's largest estuary.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"I'm
standing on 2 feet of accumulated material, and it didn't just squish
down," said Robin Miller, USGS project chief at the Twitchell site, as she
stepped off a plywood platform into a jungle of tules and cattails. A decade
earlier, she would have dropped into thigh-deep water.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"When
I first started doing this project 10 years ago ... I didn't expect the
reversal to be so startlingly enormous."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Delta
islands have been sinking below sea level ever since the first levees were
built. Peat soil is fertile farmland, helping to make farms the Delta's
economic heart.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But
conventional farm practices have helped sink many Delta islands, which now
survive only thanks to increasingly fragile levees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Peat soil
slowly decays when drained and exposed to air, especially when it's plowed over
and over for farming, as it has been for more than 100 years.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Many
Delta islands are now more than 20 feet below sea level, and continue to
subside up to 1 inch per year. This slowly weakens surrounding levees, creating
what scientists say is at least a 20 percent chance that multiple islands will
flood in an earthquake within the next 25 years.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>After
such a quake, rebuilding at least some of these islands and forcing out seawater
drawn in from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">San Francisco</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Bay</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> could take years.
This would cut off the Delta as a drinking water supply for the 23 million
Californians who depend on it, with economic damages to the state estimated at
$40 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Restoring
peat soils on some islands could avoid that catastrophe by raising the ground
surface again and bolstering levees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>But it
won't be a quick fix.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Roger
Fujii, chief of the USGS Bay-Delta Program, will present results of the <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Twitchell</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Island</st1:PlaceType>
project today at the State of the Estuary Conference in <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Oakland</st1:place></st1:City>. The USGS team learned that it can
grow peat soil an average of 1.6 inches – and up to 4 inches – per
year merely by keeping shallow water on the land all the time.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Two test
plots were started in 1997 with a few tules planted in each. Over time, plants
filled the rest of the plots on their own.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>One plot
was maintained at a water depth of 10 inches, the other 22 inches. This ensures
that as tules and other plants die, they accumulate in the water rather than
decaying, drying up and blowing away with the wind.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>New
plants grow up through dead plants each year. The cycle repeats, creating
successive layers of dead material.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Scientists
working for the state Department of Water Resources estimate that if seven
islands in the west Delta were converted to growing tules, they could be raised
11 feet by 2050.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"We're
interested in moving the technology down the path to see if this can be
implemented on larger scales," said Jerry Johns, DWR deputy director.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
expensive alternative is to keep building levees taller and wider. DWR
estimates reinforcing levees on seven Delta islands would cost $8 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Growing
peat takes longer but looks like a cheaper fix. Converting seven islands to
peat could cost $600 million. But 85 percent of that cost involves first
grading the land flat, which could be avoided if islands were planted in stages
following natural land contours.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Miller
said the benefits don't take decades to accrue. Wildlife habitat improves
immediately and grows richer each year. If an island floods early in the
process, marsh plants might buffer waves within the island that could further
damage levees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>There's
also potential to reduce global warming by storing carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere in new peat soils. If a market can be created to sell carbon credits
in peat soil, this might cover restoration costs. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Researchers
plan a larger project on <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Twitchell</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Island</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, which is partly
owned by the state, to simulate growing tules on the scale of a working farm.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fujii
said Delta farmers could be growing peat soil one day instead of corn, wheat
and tomatoes. They would be paid to store carbon in peat soil rather than to
produce food.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"The
vision is to create kind of a blueprint, so a farmer can take a corn field and
convert it," said Fujii.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Some
questions still need to be answered. For instance, drain water from the test
plots might put more dissolved organic carbon and mercury into the Delta. These
chemicals create harmful byproducts when water is treated for domestic
consumption.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
potential for storing carbon dioxide in peat soils also needs to be measured
precisely.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Fujii
said a larger test project could provide these answers within five years.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Finally,
there is a thornier question: How will growing peat affect the farm economy of
the Delta and the people who live there?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Marci
Coglianese, former Rio Vista mayor, acknowledged that farming has a mixed legacy
in the Delta: It has degraded Delta islands, but revenue from growing food is
also the primary source of money to maintain levees.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Putting
farmers to work growing peat "could be a wonderful solution," she
said, if there is an economy to support that.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>"Those
of us who are down here physically working and trying to maintain the Delta
cannot stay if there is not a local economy," she said. "So we have
to balance all of that. It is people who are the stewards of the land down here."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><img
border=0 width=320 height=385 id="_x0000_i1029"
src="cid:image002.jpg@01C810A5.1A09FE90"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=simg><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><img
border=0 width=320 height=213 id="_x0000_i1032"
src="cid:image003.jpg@01C810A5.1A09FE90"><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=simgcap><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Robin Miller of the U.S. Geological Survey inspects tules on <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Twitchell</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Island</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, where scientists are growing
peat soil on Delta islands by letting plants decay in standing water, which
stops them from blowing away. <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:place></st1:City>
Bee/Randy Pench<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
</body>
</html>