Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 4

A4 Arizona Daily Star Friday, February 9, 2001 News from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast California power crisis OMOSTna West Judge orders 3 suppliers not to pull plug during peak hours of the day, if those facilities will be operating by summer, Davis said. The governor asked President Bush to direct federal agencies to also issue permits for small plants within the same time frame. "We will demonstrate that California can cut red tape, build more power and protect the environment," Davis said at a news conference in Yuba City, about 45 miles north of Sacramento, where a new 545-megawatt power plant is expected to be operating by July. The state Energy Commission estimates California could fall 5,000 megawatts short during the hottest periods this summer, enough power for roughly 5 million homes, the amount provided by July under Davis' plan. By Jennifer Coleman THE ASSOCIATED PRESS YUBA CITY.

Calif. Citing an energy crisis of "catastrophic proportions," a federal judge ordered three major suppliers yesterday to sell electricity to California despite their worry that two cash-strapped utilities won't pay for it. The reprieve for California energy regulators came as the governor announced he will dramatically accelerate power plant construction to try to stave off summer blackouts. U.S. District Judge Frank Damrell extension of a temporary restraining order he issued Tuesday ensures the suppliers will not pull about 4,000 megawatts off the state's power grid.

That's enough for 4 million homes. The state of California is con Gray Davis is unwilling to do that because he believes Reliant wants to drive up prices by locking the state into purchases on the costly spot power market, a spokesman said. California faced a Stage 3 power alert for a record 24th straight day yesterday. No repeat of the rolling blackouts that darkened large parts of Northern and Central California for two days last month was expected. Davis, looking ahead to a summer energy crunch expected to be even worse than the winter's, issued an executive order he said will add enough electricity for 5 million homes by July.

The state will provide $30 million in bonuses and speed up the approval process for small natural-gas or renewable-fuel power plants that run only Reliant had been under a temporary restraining order issued by the Sacramento judge Tuesday night, shortly before the midnight expiration of a Bush administration directive requiring suppliers to continue selling to California despite utility solvency concerns. The other two companies had voluntarily committed to keep supplying the state pending yesterday's ruling. Houston-based Reliant, responsible for about 9 percent of California's energy, has balked at selling the Independent System Operator emergency power to send to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. It fears it will never be paid by the cash-strapped utilities. Reliant has asked the state to stand behind the utilities' purchases.

Cov. fronting an energy crisis of catastrophic proportions," he wrote. The loss of the power the suppliers provide "poses an imminent threat of blackouts." The grid's manager, the California Independent System Operator, sough't the order, warning that the electricity's removal would disrupt the region's power supply so severely that outages would spread beyond California. "This would be a serious impact on the safety, health and welfare of not only Californians, but everyone in the Western U.S.," said Jim Detmers, the system's managing director of operations. The order, in effect at least until a hearing next Friday, names Reliant Energy Services AES Pacific Inc.

and Dynegy Power Corp. Returning wolves, bears find some easy meals Wyo. moose learn predator lesson By Paul Recer THE ASSOCIATED PRESS I oose that had never seen wolves or griz-I zly bears didn't try 7 Regional Briefing ARIZONA Homeowner groups are missing money PHOENIX Thirty Phoenix-area homeowners associations say they are missing at least $500,000 from accounts managed by a firm that has filed for bankruptcy. Some say they are out $40,000. Numerous others are owed more than $20,000, court records show.

The associations are hiring new management companies but don't know whether they'll recover the missing money. Residents' fees could be increased if they don't "Some of these homeowners associations, everything they had was gone," said Phil Schlecht, president of the Breck-enridge Townhomes Homeowners Association in Gilbert, which lost $44,000. Five, including Breckenridge, have sued the company, Star-point Management Systems, in Maricopa County Superior Court CALIFORNIA Reporters at trial being fingerprinted FRESNO Reporters covering the upcoming state trial of convicted Yosemite Park killer Cary Stayner are being required to undergo fingerprint checks by authorities concerned about security. The move surprised editors, news directors and First Amendment experts. "This is the first thing I've heard about it," said Charlie Waters, executive editor of the Fresno Bee.

"This is absurd." Waters said he would have fought the measure had he known of it. He didn't know if his reporters were fingerprinted. Stayner is serving a federal life sentence for beheading a Yosemite naturalist in 1999. From wire reports to get away when the predators returned to parts of the Yellowstone region of Wyoming, but it took only a few bloody encounters for the animals to wise up, researchers say. Wolves and grizzlies are back in parts of the sprawling Yellowstone ecosystem, where they had been absent for more than 50 years.

Wolf packs were reintroduced, while the bears have naturally colonized the Grand Teton National Park and adjacent forest areas. The wolves and bears immediately feasted on the innocence of the moose in the areas, easily catching, killing and eating animals that had never known such predators. At first, said Joel Berger, first author of a study appearing today in the journal Science, the wolves and bears merely had to walk up to a moose. There was little attempt by the moose to run, he said. "We were like forensic scientists" in studying the kills, said Berger, a professor at the University of Nevada at Reno, and a researcher for the Wildlife Conservation Society.

He said it was clear from tracks and other evidence that the predators at first made easy kills. "We got direct evidence of grizzlies killing 10 adult moose," Berger said. An adult moose can weigh almost 1,000 pounds. Other evidence was found of younger moose standing almost still as they were approached and killed by the wolves that ate them. But that quickly changed.

The Associated Press A young moose sits out a storm in Grand Teton National Park, Wyo. Wolf and grizzly encounters have given moose a rude awakening. About half of the American animal species weighing more than 100 pounds including camel, horse, mammoth and some types of sloth became extinct after man's arrival. Researchers now are studying the reaction of elk, caribou and deer in areas where predators have been introduced in recent years. Berger said the elk is now the major menu item for wolves in Yellowstone, but it, like the moose, seems to be learning either to avoid or to fight the wolves.

then nonchalantly return to their feeding. After the predator attacks began, however, recorded wolf calls caused the moose to become alert and restless. Often they left a feeding site and retreated from the sounds. Moose mothers that had lost calves to wolves, for instance, became five times more alert, as measured by the time spent looking for danger, than unmolested moose mothers. The reaction of the mothers that had lost calves was very much like that of Alaskan moose that have never known Within a season after the killing began, moose became alert and wary, reacting to wolf howls and quickly moving on when they sensed danger.

Berger and his colleagues tested the predator alertness of the Yellowstone moose and compared it with that of moose in Alaska, where the wolf and bear have been historic predators. Before the Yellowstone moose had developed their wariness, Berger said, the animals would pause for only 30 seconds when researchers played recorded wolf calls, the absence of predators. "Wyoming moose that have lost even one of their offspring to predators may become as savvy as their Alaskan cousins within a single generation," Berger said. The finding is reassuring for conservationists who worried that the reintroduction of predators could lead to the extinction of whole herds of prey. Such an eradication, called the "blitzkrieg theory," is what some researchers believe happened when humans first arrived in North America some 50,000 years ago.

Proposed 520 area code split ACC decision is due Tuesday on who will keep 520 area code Telephone customers in Tucson and surrounding areas would retain their existing 520 area code if regulators approve this latest proposed geographic split. i i 602,480, 623 area codes Proposed 520 area code Remainder of state will be assigned new area code 1 Aaache GILA i I -jJ Phoenix ouiiwiuii Globe I SiT-i VSunarinr'tw I Lfv1 Florence 1 MARICOPA- r1. casa f)ayden Cnft.A bioy 1 i narow Mammoth K. Oraciex JunctionY. SaddleBrabke Marai that: The full commission will decide at 10 a.m.

Tuesday whether to accept the way the lines are drawn and whether to draw lines at all. There is some sentiment to instead use "overlay" zoning, letting all in the 520 zone keep their current numbers, while assigning the new area code to new customers, no matter where they are located. Exception for cell phones And the staff suggests an exception for cell phones. Deborah Scott, director of the commission's utilities division, said it might be appropriate to allow those with cell phones to maintain their 520 area codes, even if they are in sections of the state assigned to the new area. She said that is because mobile phones, unlike regular ones, need to be reprogrammed to accept a new area code, something that costs mqney.

Whatever plan is approved will take effect on June 23. But customers would be able to con tinue dialing the old area code until Jan. 5 before being cut off. Scott said there is a cost to adding a new area code, no matter which route the commission chooses. Aside from the cell phone question, she said businesses located in the areas getting the new code will have to change everything from stationery and business cards to the phone numbers painted on the sides of their vehicles.

Alarm systems linked by phone lines also will have to be reprogrammed. With an overlay zone, businesses that don't include the area code in current advertising would have to reprint and repaint Customers would otherwise have no way of knowing which of the two area codes in the community to use. Lots of digits to dial The other inconvenience in an overlay zone is that everyone has to dial all 10 digits, even in the same town. With a geographic split 10- Staff proposal would change rural lineup By Howard Fischer CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES PHOENIX Most Southern Arizona residents and businesses won't have to change area codes again at least not yet But their counterparts in the rest of rural Arizona may not be so lucky. The staff of the Arizona Corporation Commission is recommending that the existing 520 area code be split, geographically, into two zones.

Pima, Cochise and Pinal county customers would get to keep their existing numbers. Those from Yuma through Kingman, Flagstaff, Springerville and down through Globe and Saf-ford would be assigned a new and yet-to-be determined area code. The recommendation is only VTucson "IX vNav Benson AjO ,1 ARIZONA Detail 0 miles 20 Green Valley -NjTombstonfe Sonoita A Douglas ogales SOURCE: Arizona Corporation Commission digit dialing is necessary only when calling someone with a different area code. Commissioner Bill Mundell said he likes the geographic split. He said, though, it might be appropriate to adjust the lines based on where the state is expected to grow.

That said Mundell, might help delay the next split. But as the 1995 split of the old 602 area code shows, it might not take long..