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SACRAMENTO, Jan. 30 (UPI) — A snowy winter has been good news for California water managers, although they warn the snow pack in the Sierras has not solved the state’s problems.

The most recent measurements, released Friday, put the snow pack at 115 percent of normal for this time of year, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Saturday. A year ago it was at 69 percent.

Sue Sims, chief deputy director for the state Department of Water Resources, said she felt “cautious optimism” at the news. But with most reservoirs well below normal for mid-winter, managers say the state needs a lot more precipitation.

In 2008, the Sierras had their driest spring on record.

“In years past, we have seen the storm tracks change and the rainfall drops off the end of the table,” said Keith Lewinger, general manager of the Fallbrook Public Utility District near San Diego. “We are never more than a year away from drought and restrictions.”

The state is also struggling with court orders requiring water diversions to keep ecosystems healthy and a network of aqueducts, reservoirs and canals that needs work. One of the biggest problems is in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a vital node in the California water delivery system.

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SUINING CITY, China, Jan. 31 (UPI) — A 5.0 magnitude earthquake rocked China’s Sichuan Province Sunday, killing one person and collapsing numerous buildings, officials said.

The early morning quake damaged more than 100 homes in Moxi town in Suining City, which has about 3.8 million residents and is about 140 miles from Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, Xinhua, China’s state-run news agency reported.

Seismologists said there was a possibility the quake was a late aftershock from the 8.0 magnitude quake in Sichuan that left nearly 87,000 people missing or dead on May 12, 2008.

The epicenter of Sunday’s tremor was between Suining and Tongnan County at a depth of 6.2 miles at 30.3 degrees north latitude and 105.7 degrees east longitude, the Sichuan Provincial Earthquake Administration said.

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ITHACA, N.Y., Jan. 28 (UPI) — Cornell University scientists say a deadly fish virus first discovered in the Northeastern United States in 2005 has spread across the Great Lakes.

The viral hemorrhagic septicemia virus — which is untreatable and causes fatal anemia and hemorrhaging in many fish species, but poses no threat to humans — has for the first time been found in fish taken from Lake Superior. That, said the researchers, means the virus has now been documented in all of the Great Lakes.

“People come from all over the eastern United States to fish the Great Lakes,” said Bowser, noting that the virus has also been found in a few inland waters as well, including lakes, streams and a family-owned earthen pond. “The economy of many of these areas ebbs and flows with the season and perceived value of outdoor recreational opportunities.”

No significant fish mortality due to VHSV has been observed and Bowser said scientists don’t fully understand the lack of recent mortality, but the potential presence or absence of stressors on the fish may be playing a role.

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LONDON, Jan. 28 (UPI) — A British university whose scientists are accused of manipulating climate data broke the law by refusing to show the raw data for review, a British agency said.

The University of East Anglia violated Britain’s Freedom of Information Act by refusing to fulfill requests for data supporting claims by university scientists that human-made emissions were causing global warming, Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office said.

But while the public research university in Norwich, England, may have broken the law, it will not be prosecuted because a six-month time limit for prosecutions elapsed, The Times of London reported the independent regulatory office under the justice ministry as saying.

Breaches of the act are punishable by an unlimited fine, the Times said.

The controversy stems from hundreds of e-mails stolen from the university’s Climatic Research Unit that indicated university climate scientists supported the cause for global warming by manipulating data and interfering with the peer-review process of scientific papers to keep contrary information out of scientific journals.

The university described the computer hacking that came to light in November, shortly before the Dec. 7-18 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, as an illegal taking of data. Police are conducting a criminal investigation of the server breach and subsequent personal threats made against some scientists mentioned in the e-mails.

Research unit Director Phil Jones, who stepped down after the “climategate” scandal broke, had told staffers to delete FOI request e-mails from climate change skeptics, the Times said.

One e-mail involved a much-publicized 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the Himalayan glaciers would “very likely” disappear by 2035 if current warming trends continued.

That report, by the United Nations scientific advisory body, is currently under fire for gross exaggeration.

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DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 28 (UPI) — International support for combating climate change has slipped only slightly during the recession, a report presented in Davos, Switzerland, said Thursday.

The unexpected resilience in funding was partly the result of economic stimulus programs that leaned on green energy initiatives and partly the result of the Copenhagen Accord of December 2009 in which the international community pledged $100 billion to help developing countries, a statement issued by the World Economic Forum said.

Funding to combat global warming fell 6 percent from $155 billion in 2008 to $145 billion in 2009, said the report entitled “Green Investing, 2010: Policy Mechanisms to Bridge the Financing Gap.”

A separate report said there was still a huge gap in funding needed to restrict global warming to an average temperature increase of 2 degrees Celsius.

The report, “Green Investing: Toward a Low Carbon Energy Infrastructure” said $500 billion per year would be required to keep climate change below that target.

“The world needs a substantial increase in private investment flows into clean energy and energy efficiency if we want to avoid severe impacts of climate change,” said Jack Ehnes, Chief Executive Officer, CalSTRS and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Committee.

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BRISBANE, Australia, Jan. 29 (UPI) — Iron-rich red dirt may play a key role in massive algae blooms that form off Australia’s eastern coast during warmer months, scientists say.

The algae blooms smell bad, smother seagrass and kill fish, researchers at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, said.

The researchers are studying Poona Creek on the Fraser Coast, which drains into Great Sandy Strait, a rich wetland for migratory birds, the university said in a release Thursday. The region’s soil is rich in iron, which is believed to contribute to algae blooms, though the exact mechanism has yet to be determined.

What is known is that one type of bacteria in the waterway dissolves iron, while another type of bacteria oxidizes iron, turning it into a insoluble form that settles on the bottom of the creek, researcher Lin Chaofeng said. Learning more about how the two types of bacteria interact could help mitigate the algae blooms, Lin said.

“It seems that these two bacteria usually balance each other out, but sometimes the balance is upset,” she said.

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ASTORIA, Ore., Jan. 29 (UPI) — Scores of brown pelicans that failed to migrate south have starved or been injured along Oregon’s coast this winter, biologists said.

The birds are some of the estimated 20,000 brown pelicans that live along the Oregon coast in warmer months and migrate to Southern California and Mexico for the winter to breed.

A shift in ocean and wind patterns, which could be related to climate change, provided an abundance of bait fish for the pelicans to eat through last month.

Now, the food supply has moved into deeper waters, forcing the pelicans to come ashore to hunt for food around piers, backyards and beaches, The (Portland) Oregonian reported Friday.

“This is the most (pelicans) we’ve ever seen here in January,” said Roy Lowe of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife office in Newport.

Dozens have starved to death, while an estimated 100 dying and injured pelicans were being treated at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast near Astoria.

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NEWPORT, Ore., Jan. 29 (UPI) — Oregon Coast Aquarium officials said two sea turtles rescued after washing ashore were flown to San Diego as part of their continued rehabilitation.

Jim Burke, director of animal husbandry at the aquarium in Newport, Ore., said the sea turtles’ departure Thursday ended a unique experience for aquarium staff that began nearly two months ago, The (Portland) Oregonian reported.

“These turtles are pretty rare around here,” Burke said. “It’s been a great learning experience.”

While caring for the turtles proved to be an invaluable lesson to aquarium staff, the flight served as a training lesson for the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard C-130.

“It gives pilots practice getting in and out of these small airports,” Cmdr. Todd Lightle, assistant operations officer at Coast Guard Air Station Sacramento, said of the mission at Newport Municipal Airport. “And anytime we can expose our guys to unique loading exercises, we’re increasing our toolbox of expertise.”

The Oregonian said the two turtles, who were found in poor shape late last year, will now reside at the turtle rehabilitation center at SeaWorld.

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DOHA, Qatar, Jan. 29 (UPI) — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden condemned the United States and other nations, saying Friday in a new audio tape they are responsible for global warming.

Bin Laden criticized former President George W. Bush for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions and condemned global corporations, reported al-Jazeera, which said it obtained the tape.

“This is a message to the whole world about those responsible for climate change and its repercussions — whether intentionally or unintentionally — and about the action we must take,” bin Laden said. “Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury — the phenomenon is an actual fact.”

The tape follows the release earlier this week of a tape in which bin Laden hailed a Nigerian man accused in the failed attempt to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas, the satellite television network based in Qatar said.

In his latest tape, bin Laden said industrial states were responsible for climate change, “yet the majority of those states have signed the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to curb the emission of harmful gases.”

To retaliate, bin Laden called for a boycott of the U.S. dollar, saying “we … should try to get rid of this currency as early as possible. I am certain that such actions will have grave repercussions and huge impact.”

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WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 (UPI) — The federal government will reduce its greenhouse gas pollution by 28 percent by 2020, U.S. President Barack Obama said Friday.

Hitting the pollution reduction target will reduce the government’s energy use by the equivalent of 646 trillion BTUs — equal to 205 million barrels of oil and taking 17 million cars off the road for a year, Obama said in a statement.

“As the single largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy, the federal government spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 alone,” he said.

The president said the cumulative saving would be the equivalent of $8 billion to $11 billion in avoided energy costs through 2020.

“As the largest energy consumer in the United States, we have a responsibility to American citizens to reduce our energy use and become more efficient,” Obama said. “Our goal is to lower costs, reduce pollution, and shift Federal energy expenses away from oil and towards local, clean energy.”

Federal departments and agencies can achieve greenhouse gas pollution reductions by measuring current energy and fuel use, being more energy efficient and moving to clean energy sources such as solar, wind and geothermal, Obama said.

On Oct. 5, Obama signed an executive order that set measurable environmental performance goals for federal agencies.

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