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Ruben Mena From:

Ruben Mena

Sent:

Monday, April 12, 2004 9:30 AM

To:

Fernando Macias, Norte; Javier Cabrera, Bravo

Cc:

Donald Hobbs; Felix Arenas; Liliana Chavira; Gonzalo Bravo; Myriam Cruz

Subject: Western Governors Mull Energy Solutions; Presas del norte; Six-year drought reigns across much of West; Alertan de posibles inundaciones en el norte de México

Posted on Mon, Apr. 12, 2004

Western Governors Mull Energy Solutions BARRY MASSEY Associated Press SANTA FE, N.M. - Governors from Western states will gather with leaders from Mexico and Canada for a summit on how to meet future energy needs in a region rich with natural resources, from oil and natural gas to opportunities for wind, solar and geothermal power. Touted as a "North American Energy Summit" by the Western Governors' Association, the three-day meeting opening Wednesday in Albuquerque will bring together governmental and tribal leaders with energy company executives, environmentalists, researchers and other experts to consider an ambitious agenda of energy issues. Among the topics to be explored: the future of oil production, gasoline and natural gas prices, reliability of the Western electricity grid, the role of nuclear power, renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency and cross-border collaboration on energy policies. A goal of the meeting is to "develop clean energy plans for the West to help meet our national energy needs and strengthen our economies," according to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, WGA chairman and a former energy secretary during the Clinton administration. The summit takes place against the backdrop of a presidential campaign and consumer complaints about skyrocketing gasoline prices at retail pumps. Other energy problems simmer. Not quite a year ago, the nation experienced its worst electricity blackout when all or parts of eight states and sections of Canada went dark. A U.S.Canadian task force this month called for quick congressional approval of mandatory reliability rules governing the electric transmission industry. And in California, scene of an electricity market meltdown three years ago, there are warning of energy shortages that could hit as soon as 2006 because the state lacks enough power plants to satisfy future power demands. "I expect the summit will produce a plan for the Western Governors' Association to initiate a 4/19/2004

Page 2 of 8 two-year clean energy project for the West, with targets for clean, renewable energy production and energy efficiency," Richardson said. "Such a plan will greatly diversify our energy sources, assist in reducing consumer gasoline and home heating oil prices, prevent unpredictability for state governments and institutions because of spiking energy prices like what has happened this year." The West, the fastest-growing region during the past decade, accounts for slightly more than a fifth of the nation's population, according to the Census Bureau. Historically, Western states have been leading energy producers through extractive industries - oil and gas production and coal mining. The summit also will look at improving energy efficiency, which is the "cheapest, quickest and cleanest" way to deal with future energy needs, according to Sheryl Carter, director of the Western energy program for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Presas del norte, excedidas; piden gobiernos a CNA abrir compuertas Juan Cedillo / Finsat Lunes, 12 de abril de 2004 * Riesgo de desastres por el sobrecupo almacenado. * Una parte podría destinarse a pago de deuda a Estados Unidos. * Se esperan más lluvias y en dos meses la llegada de huracanes.

Elevado cauce del Río Bravo. (Foto: Juan Cedillo) MONTERREY, NL, 11 de abril.- Ante el pronóstico de que las lluvias continuarán, el gobierno de la entidad solicitó a la Comisión Nacional del Agua (CNA) que libere líquido de las presas del estado que se encuentran a su máxima capacidad, informó Jorge Camacho, titular de Protección Civil de Nuevo León. Diversas presas de Coahuila, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas se encuentran con sobrecupo de agua, por lo que algunos especialistas advierten del peligro de desastres. Cifras de la Comisión Internacional de L ímites y Aguas (CILA) señalan que El Cuchillo, la principal presa de Nuevo León, tiene mil 785 millones de metros cúbicos, 166 por ciento de su capacidad. Reportes de la CNA precisan que los otros dos diques del estado también están excedidos. La presa Cerro Prieto contiene 342 millones de metros cúbicos, 114 por ciento de su capacidad, y La Boca 38 millones, 93 por ciento. Debido a los excedentes en esas presas, la CNA propuso a la Secretar ía de Relaciones 4/19/2004

Page 3 of 8 Exteriores (SRE) destinar alrededor de 600 millones de metros cúbicos de agua de Nuevo León para pagar la deuda pendiente con Estados Unidos, informó Doroteo Treviño Puente, subsecretario Técnico de la Gerencia Regional de esta Comisión. Las compuertas de El Cuchillo se deben abrir a más tardar el 1 de junio, para extraer agua y poder almacenar la que traerá la temporada de lluvias del presente año. La mejor reserva de la d écada Las lluvias caídas en la región, que generaron una creciente de más de seis metros del Río Bravo, ocasionaron que se dispararan los volúmenes de agua de las presas internacionales La Amistad y Falcón. Ambos vasos, de donde Estados Unidos toma el agua que debe entregar México de acuerdo con el Tratado de 1944, han pasado de la peor sequía de la d écada a una multiplicación de sus reservas en 309 por ciento. En 2002 juntas reunían mil 212 millones de metros cúbicos de agua, y ayer alcanzaron los tres mil 757, su nivel más alto en los últimos diez años. A mediados de 2002 la Falcón sólo tenía 7.42 por ciento de su capacidad, mientras que La Amistad llegaba a 24.9, uno de los niveles más bajos desde 1994. Con los últimos escurrimientos de agua, la Falcón alcanzó 50 por ciento de su capacidad y La Amistad 57 por ciento, indican estadísticas de la CILA. La presa de Tamaulipas, Marte R. Gómez, contiene 984.07 millones de metros cúbicos, 98.9 por ciento de su capacidad. Raúl Quiroga, asesor en Asuntos Hidr áulicos del gobierno de Tamaulipas, advirti ó que los excedentes representan un gran riesgo para las poblaciones aledañas a las presas, por lo que se debe liberar el agua lo más pronto posible. La Marte R. Gómez presenta un sobrecupo que debe ser liberado. "Con argumentos y demostraciones técnicas, le hemos advertido a la CNA que no es recomendable mantener las presas por arriba de su capacidad de almacenamiento." Jorge Camacho informó que el gobierno de Nuevo León solicitó a la CNA que libere agua de las presas del estado, principalmente de El Cuchillo. El titular de Protección Civil de la entidad indicó que en los próximos días continuarán las lluvias y en un par de meses iniciará la temporada de huracanes, por lo que se deben liberar los excedentes para poder almacenar las nuevas entradas de agua.

Six-year drought reigns across much of West By Scott Sonner ASSOCIATED PRESS 4/11/2004 10:51 pm From the brittle hillsides of Southern California to the drying fields of Idaho, from Montana to New Mexico, a relentless drought is worsening across most of the West where a once-promising snowpack is shrinking early, water supplies are dwindling and the threat of wildfires is already on the rise. "Most of the West is headed into six years of drought and some areas are looking at seven years of drought," said Rick Ochoa, weather program manager at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. Arizona faces its worst drought on record. New Mexico farmers are bracing for dramatic reductions in water supplies, and in parts of southeast 4/19/2004

Page 4 of 8 Idaho, the only farmers who will get water this summer might be those with water rights dating to the late 1800s. On the edge of the Sierra, lingering drought is pitting residents against the Reno country club that hosts a national golf tournament in a battle over water from a mountain creek. "Some part of the West has been in a state of drought since the winter of 1995-96," said Kelly Redmond, regional climatologist for the Desert Research Institute's Western Regional Climate Center in Reno. "For the last year or two, it has extended all the way from the Mexican border to Canada pretty consistently," he said. An unusually warm, dry March melted snowpack and increased wildfire threats, especially in southeast Oregon, half of Arizona, most of New Mexico and parts of Colorado. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service forecasts the potential for water restrictions and widespread crop and pasture losses in central Nevada, southern Idaho, most of south-central Montana and eastern and southwestern Utah. "Drought? What drought? It rained here a couple of years ago," said Dick Larsen, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Water Resources. He's straining for humor because most of southern Idaho is in a category the U.S. Agriculture Department calls "exceptional drought," along with parts of southwest Montana. That's a step worse than "extreme drought," which the USDA says best describes the condition of other parts of Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado. Those states are heavily dependent on melting snow for water supplies - snow that has rapidly disappeared the past month across the region. Snowpack showed half or less the normal March precipitation level in the Intermountain West, Southwest, Northern Rockies, central Idaho, Oregon and California. The driest basins were in central Arizona, where less than 70 percent of normal seasonal precipitation was reported. Most of the West was "sitting reasonably well" at the end of February, Redmond said. "A lot of places had near-average snowpack. But we had one of the warmest Marches on record across and we didn't get any precipitation almost anywhere in the West," he said. "So not only did we not add to our supply in March, which is usually a very healthy month, but the temperature was so warm that the melting started early," he said. Significant snow melt into the Merced River at Yosemite National Park in California began on its earliest date in 87 years, Redmond said. "The situation has been repeated all over the West," he said. In Idaho, "the further south and east you go, the worse it gets," Larsen said.

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Page 5 of 8 One of the hardest hit areas is in the southeast corner of the state at Bear Lake, which provides water to parts of Idaho, Wyoming and Utah. "They are looking at historic low levels of water. It's entirely possible there will be no irrigation water available for farmers down there," Larsen said. Arizona is on the verge of its worst drought in recorded history, according to John Sullivan, associate general manager of the Salt River Project's water group. For nine years running, precipitation and runoff into the Phoenix area's reservoirs have been far less than normal, and the state has recorded four of its five driest years of the century in the past 10 years, hydrologist Charlie Ester said. Two-thirds of New Mexico is in severe drought condition or worse, said Dan Murray, water supply specialist for the USDA's conservation service in Albuquerque, N.M. "In the northern part of the state, we get our peak snowpack about April 1 but this year it pretty much peaked out about the first week of March." That could mean a shortage of the water New Mexico shares with Texas and especially hurt the city of Sante Fe which gets much of its water from the Santa Fe River, Murray said. The warmest March since 1934 was recorded in Reno, where residents have asked the state engineer to re-evaluate the Montreux Golf & Country Club's use of water from Galena Creek. They don't care about the PGA Tour and the Reno-Tahoe Open. They say there won't be enough water for their pastures. "You are going to have a new range war, the farmers and ranchers against the golf courses," Rick Taras, president of the Big Ditch Co., told the Reno-Gazette Journal last week. In contrast, some parts of the West - western Oregon, Washington and Northern California west of the Cascades and Sierra Nevada - have near normal snowpack. The overall water supply situation in California statewide is "not great, but it's OK," said Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources. There's more concern about moisture in the soils and forests and the potential for another year of raging wildfires. "In that respect, Southern California is not doing particularly well. They've had quite a few dry years in a row and certainly didn't do much catch-up this season," Gehrke said. The National Interagency Fire Center identified three areas with the greatest fire risks - Southern California, the Four Corners states of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and southern Utah, and the Intermountain region east of the Cascade Mountains across Idaho and western Montana. Big fires already have burned 10,000 acres in Arizona and 8,500 acres in Colorado. "In terms of fire, I think everybody is real nervous," said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland, Ore.

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Page 6 of 8 "We had lots of wet weather in Oregon this winter, but we had a very dry March. If we don't get some April showers, we are going to have a dry situation with a lot of fuels sitting there," he said. Parts of Nevada, California and Arizona are dependent on water from the Colorado River system and its two largest reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which together can hold about 50 million acre feet but are only about half full. "They've been really low the last five years. We thought this was going to be a decent year, but now it's starting to look like that is not going to be the case," Redmond said. Utah and Montana may have been hardest hit during March, Redmond said. "Utah has gone through four or five years of drought already and they were finally looking at a decent kind of average snow melt, but now they are looking at one of the worst on record and it all happened in a month," he said. Likewise, parts of Montana have suffered through the driest consecutive four years on record and prospects for the year aren't much above average, he said. Larsen likened the cumulative effects in Idaho over the years to "a snake starting to eat its own tail." "The snowpack went down, so we had to keep tapping the reservoirs so that last year we just absolutely emptied our reservoirs," he said. "The saddest thing about all of this is we can already see next year's train wreck coming," Larsen said. "Pray for rain. That's about all we can do."

Alertan de posibles inundaciones en el norte de México Coahuila, Nuevo León y Tamaulipas esperan fuertes lluvias a partir de hoy, según pronóstico meteorológico

12 de abril de 2004 MEXICO, D.F. (AFP).- El pronóstico de más lluvias en el norte de México hace temer por nuevas inundaciones como las que hace una semana causaron al menos 36 muertos en el estado de Coahuila, mientras en el sur del país se registra un fuerte calor que afecta principalmente a niños y ancianos. La oficina de Protección Civil de la secretaría del Interior y el Servicio Meteorológico (SNM) informó que a partir de hoy se prev é la entrada de un frente frío procedente de Estados Unidos, lo que causará precipitaciones intensas en Coahuila y los también fronterizos estados de Nuevo León y Tamaulipas. Tal fenómeno, en interacción con la humedad proveniente del Golfo de México, derivará en nubosidad, lluvias intensas con rachas de viento y granizadas, precisó el servicio federal de Protección Civil en un comunicado.

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Fumigan en Piedras Negras MEXICO, D.F. (EFE).- La Secretaría de Salud informó

Page 7 of 8 Existe un "riesgo creíble" de que se desborden los afluentes de la región, incluido el Río Bravo, que marca la frontera binacional, dijo un funcionario de Protecci ón Civil en Coahuila. Ante los pronósticos meteorológicos, las autoridades de Coahuila, Nuevo Le ón y Tamaulipas emitieron instrucciones a los habitantes de regiones ribereñas y otras zonas vulnerables para que tomen las precauciones y eviten desastres como el de la semana pasada en la ciudad de Piedras Negras y diversas localidades campesinas. Según el informe oficial, en Piedras Negras y pueblos cercanos murieron al menos 36 personas, entre 10 y 20 fueron reportadas desaparecidas y 3,000 perdieron sus casas, enseres y cosechas. Las inundaciones también dañaron puentes y v ías ferroviarias, y derribaron torres de alta tensión y postes del tendido eléctrico. Asimismo, las autoridades intensificaron las fumigaciones y la vigilancia sanitaria para prevenir o detectar casos de diarrea, dengue, el virus del Nilo y otras enfermedades infecciosas.

de que ha emprendido acciones de fumigación en Piedras Negras, norte de México, y descartó que "hasta el momento" haya brotes de enfermedades contagiosas en esta localidad del estado de Coahuila.

La ciudad mexicana, fronteriza con Eagle Pass, Un prominente capo mexicano del narcotráfico, Osiel Cárdenas, recluido en una cárcel de Texas, sufrió alta seguridad del centro del país, envió dos toneladas de víveres a los damnificados por hace una las inundaciones en Piedras Negras, según versiones periodísticas aún no confirmadas ni semana una desmentidas oficialmente. repentina riada causada por las Calor sureño abundantes Mientras que las lluvias afectan al norte del país, un fuerte calor se registra en los sureños precipitaciones que dejaron casi estados de Chiapas, Campeche, Guerrero, Oaxaca, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz y Yucatán, así como en la zona del valle central, donde se localiza ciudad de M éxico. 40 muertos y miles de El SMN previ ó que el termómetro marcará hoy más de 32 grados en varias de esas damnificados. Los gobiernos federal y estatal, que declararon la zona en emergencia, así como diversas entidades humanitarias, suministran ayuda a los damnificados, que se hallan en diversos albergues instalados en Piedras Negras.

regiones, aunque la tendencia será ascendente en los próximos días.

En un comunicado emitido ayer, la Secretaría de Salud informó de la campaña de fumigación y aseguró que "no se han identificado brotes de enfermedades". Añadió que en las colonias afectadas "el agua para uso y

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Page 8 of 8 consumo humano (...) se encuentra en óptimas condiciones". Los responsables sanitarios aseguraron que el agua puede ser utilizada con total confianza por la población. Las áreas fumigadas fueron 12 escuelas situadas en la zona más afectada para evitar la proliferación de mosquitos y abortar cualquier posibilidad de que los insectos puedan transmitir enfermedades. Las zonas más afectadas por las riadas del Río Escondido fueron los municipios de Piedras Negras, Nueva Rosita y San Juan de Sabines, donde fue declarado el estado de emergencia y se están realizando labores de rehabilitación.

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