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ByGaranceBurke TheAssociatedPress SAN FRANCISCO A judge has ruled that state wa- ter managers in drought- stricken California must consider the environmen- tal impacts of running one of the nation's largest wa- ter banks. The Department of Wa- ter Resources never looked at the full ecological effects of running the Kern Water Bank when the state trans- ferred the bank to private hands in 1997 and must redo its environmental analysis, Sacramento County Supe- rior Court Judge Timothy Frawley ruled Thursday. California is in the midst of a withering drought, and those who have water stored in the vast underground bank have been tapping those supplies since most above-ground reservoirs are far below their normal levels. A group of environmen- talists and farmers sued the bank and the state near the end of the last major drought, in 2010, saying that running the bank was caus- ing lasting damage to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and would spur unsus- tainable urban growth. They also accused California offi- cials of backing a deal that allows private companies to control and profit from the bank's reservoir, which orig- inally was built with public funds to store water for use during dry spells. The judge said he would not make a ruling about the transfer and gave no specific timetable for when the department should fin- ish its new analysis. In the meantime, the bank will be allowed to keep operat- ing as usual. "We appreciate that the court agreed with us that the environmental review was faulty," said Adam Ke- ats, a San Francisco-based attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "The bank gets to keep on doing what they are doing, which is really troubling, so we in- tend to appeal." The Department of Water Resources and officials with the bank did not immedi- ately respond to requests for comment Friday. Major water users in ag- ricultural Kern County gained control of the Kern bank in the mid-1990s, af- ter a round of negotiations with the state. Their posi- tion was that the state had shorted rural areas in al- lotting water in a previous drought. To avoid potential litiga- tion from unhappy water users, state officials ceded ownership of the Kern Wa- ter Bank — developed with $74 million from the de- partment and $23 million in taxpayer-approved bonds — to a local water agency. In return, water users gave back 45,000 acre-feet from the amount they contracted to receive each year. Ownership of the bank ultimately was transferred to a joint powers authority including the local water agency, and numerous pow- erful water districts. DROUGHT Judge:Californiamustweighwaterbank'simpact By Brian Melley The Associated Press LANCASTER A pit bull owner whose dogs fatally mauled a woman taking her morning stroll was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in prison for second-degree murder. The case against Alex Donald Jackson was one of the few where a dog owner has been charged with murder for failing to con- trol pets they knew were dangerous. He will be eli- gible for parole after serv- ing 15 years. Pamela Devitt, a 63-year-old retiree, was on the home stretch of her daily walk in the high desert town of Littlerock in May 2013 when four of Jackson's dogs leaped a fence and attacked her in the street. She was alone, didn't have a phone and no one was nearby. By the time help arrived, she had been bitten 150 to 200 times from head to toe and an arm was severed. She died from blood loss. "Her story shouldn't have ended in such a hor- rific way," her husband, Ben Devitt, said as he over- came emotion to deliver a statement in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Devitt said he didn't think sending Jackson away for life would change anything in his life but he wanted to let other dog owners know they "can't be terrorizing their neigh- bors." Jackson, 31, was initially arrested when deputies searching for the dogs dis- covered a marijuana-grow- ing operation in his house. He was later charged with murder when Devitt's DNA was found on his dogs' bloody fur. The dogs were put down. Jackson did not speak during sentencing. De- fense lawyer Al Kim, who said Jackson will appeal, argued that the judge should consider probation because of Jackson's nonvi- olent criminal record. Judge Lisa Chung, citing Jackson's arrest record and probation violations, re- jected that argument. She also rejected a prosecu- tion request to tack on an additional nine-year sen- tence for drug convictions and a firearms charge. In- stead, she sentenced Jack- son to seven years for those crimes to run concurrent with the murder term. A murder conviction for a killing by dogs is rare. The mauling of Diane Whipple in the hallway outside her San Francisco apartment in 2001 led to her neighbor's second-de- gree murder conviction. A Michigan couple is facing trial on second-de- gree murder charges for the mauling death of a jog- ger in July by two cane cor- sos, an Italian mastiff-type breed, near their home outside Detroit. COURT Dog owner sentenced to prison in fatal mauling By Ellen Knickmeyer The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO State and federal wildlife officials are resorting to installing gi- ant water chillers in some of California's fish hatch- eries, as drought, over-al- location of water and cli- mate change all combine this year to make temper- atures too warm for some baby salmon and other fish to survive. U.S. Fish and Wild- life Service workers in- stalled the coolers at the Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery at the foot of northern California's Shasta Dam this summer when water temperatures hit the mid-60s — too tepid for the half-million winter- run baby salmon growing there, said Scott Hamel- berg, a federal hatchery manager. The winter-run salmon are endangered, and the coolers lower the water tem- perature to a more livable 60 degrees, he said. The big water coolers are a first for the federal hatchery, necessitated by warmer-than-normal water in California's third year of drought. At the American River hatchery east of Sacra- mento, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Cali- fornia Department of Fish and Wildlife also are in- stalling giant coolers to bring down water temper- atures for the hatchery's young salmon and trout, hatchery manager Gary No- vak said. Certain endangered spe- cies of trout at that fishery "don't really tolerate the heat too well," Novak said. Smaller coolers in tanks are cooling various other fish rescued by wildlife of- ficials after California's drought dried up their home stretch of rivers and streams entirely. The fish refrigerators are the latest unusual measure taken by fish and wildlife managers to protect fish and California's $1.4 bil- lion commercial and rec- reational fishing indus- try while most of the state remains in the most se- vere category of drought. In June, state wildlife offi- cials used tanker trucks to evacuate 2 million fish from hatcheries deemed danger- ously warm. "They need cold water to make it," said Larry Col- lins, a San Francisco-fisher- man who says he's watched California's salmon-fishing fleet fall from 5,000 boats to 500 over his career. Eighty percent of Califor- nia's water is used by agri- culture, and the legal bat- tles among fishing groups, conservationists and farm- ers are virtually unending in the state. State and federal offi- cials also are considering California's first-time try at even more intervention in the spawning season — re- moving fish eggs en masse to hold them in the cool wa- ter of hatcheries, then re- leasing the eggs to hatch in rivers later this year when the water cools. John McManus, head of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, is one of many fishermen pushing govern- ment officials to do what it takes to get California's fish through the drought. "We're looking at los- ing an entire generation" of salmon because of the hot temperatures, McMa- nus said. CALIFORNIA Giant water coolers being used to save fish ERICRISBERG—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Larry Collins of the San Francisco Crab Boat Association holds up a salmon during a protest against Proposition 1, the state water bond, at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. By Olga R. Rodriguez The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO At least 14 children in California recently have been infected with a virus that has caused hundreds of respiratory ill- nesses and possibly several deaths nationwide, public health officials said Friday. The children infected with enterovirus D68 range in age from a few months to 15 years old, and one of them, a resident of Los An- geles County, also devel- oped acute flaccid paraly- sis, but whether the germ caused the child's muscle weakness has not been de- termined, said state epide- miologist Dr. Gil Chavez. "Because EV-D68 was found in respiratory spec- imens from these patients, it is not known whether EV- D68 was a cause of paral- ysis or a coincidental find- ing," Chavez added. In their investigation, health officials identified 35 other patients with pa- ralysis and spinal cord problems since 2012, and of those, three had entero- virus D68, including two cases reported in 2012 and the child who got sick this year in Los Angeles County, Chavez said. As of Wednesday, the new cases had been de- tected in eight of Califor- nia's 58 counties. San Di- ego county has reported five cases, Alameda and Los Angeles counties have detected two each, and one case has been reported in each of the counties of Riv- erside, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Solano and Ventura. All of the patients have recovered or are recuper- ating, said Dr. James Watt, chief of the California De- partment of Public Health's communicable disease con- trol division. The 14 cases detected this year came from a pool of 140 samples turned in by doctors from through- out the state's intensive care units and tested at pub- lic health laboratories. An- other 40 samples remain to be tested for enterovirus D68 and officials expect to keep receiving specimens, Watt said. Enterovirus D68 can cause mild to severe respi- ratory illness and can at- tack the nervous system in severe cases. There's no vac- cine or specific treatment, and symptoms include fe- ver, runny nose, sneezing, cough, and body and mus- cle aches. Some children have more serious illness with breathing difficulty and wheezing, especially children with a history of asthma. More than 500 cases have been reported in 43 states. Four people with the virus have died, although it's un- clear what role the germ played. DISEASE California reports 14 cases of virus hitting kids PLEASE RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER. Thank you! PARTICIPANTSMUSTWEARCOSTUMES FOR MORE INFO CONTACT TROY AT 528-8656 TEHAMA FAMILY FITNESS CENTER 2498 S. MAIN ST. 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