IN TODAY’S HOME

Where it’salways 1949Cambria home goes retro

THE TRIBUNEFriday, February 16, 2007For home delivery: 781-7878 S a n L u i s O b i s p o C o u n t y , C a l i f o r n i a

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Newspaper of the Central Coast • SanLuisObispo.com

Business C1

Classifieds E1

Comics C6

Crossword E7

Calendar B3

Dear Abby C5

Horoscope C5

Lottery A2

Movies C4

Nation A5

Obituaries B2

Opinion B4

Sports D1

State A4

TV Listings C5

World A7

Your guide to this newspaperWeatherMostly sunny skies todayaround the county. Highs of 69at the coast, 77 inland and 74in the North County.

Full forecast, Page D6

Local home sales,median pricedrop againALSO, grape harvest wasway down from record 2005

>> ON PAGE C1

TOP BUSINESS STORIES

Today’s vote on Iraq putsRepublicans under pressure>> ON PAGE A3

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

TOP NEWS STORIES

CALIFORNIA: Twoaccused of burningwoman to death A4

FOSSILS: Even 6,100years ago, people cravedchili peppers’ sizzle A7

TOP LOCAL STORIES

Parks panel backsveterans memorial

ATASCADERO

>> ON PAGE B1

ARROYO GRANDE

Local womanrememberedthrough dance

>> ON PAGE B1

High school performancewill celebrate the lifeof a young cancer victim

The city Parks and Recreation Commission votes tosupport the statue proposed for Atascadero Lake Park

Mousetrapsthat go zoom>> ON PAGE B1

BE LIKEEMMITT

STYLE & TRENDS | IN LIVING, C8FOOTBALL SCHEDULE UPDATE | INSPORTS, D1

WHO WILL POLY PLAY?

Coming this week in The TribuneSATURDAY: PEOPLE

Focus on CouricHow Katie Couric is puttingher stamp on the ‘CBSEvening News’

SUNDAY: SPECIAL SECTION

Guide to the raceEverything you need toknow about the Tour ofCalifornia’s visit to SLO

MONDAY: PERSONAL TECH

Kids rejoice!Why video games couldactually be good — andeducational — for your kids

SUDDENLY, REGULAR GUYS AREGIVING DANCE LESSONS A TRY

By David Whitneydwhitney@mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON — A deal between federal wa-ter officials and several irrigation districts in theCentral Valley may keep selenium-tainted waterthere instead of allowing it to be pumped througha pipeline and into the ocean near Cayucos.

The Federal Bureau of Reclamation has

worked for years to determine how to dispose ofbillions of gallons of water with high levels ofthe naturally occurring mineral. One proposalthat surfaced in 2002 and was reinvigorated lastyear called for the water to be dumped in theocean off San Luis Obispo County.

But federal transfer of a big piece of the Cen-tral Valley Project to irrigators so they can pay

for disposing the drain water in their area, andnot the coast, was floated on Capitol Hill onThursday. Initial reactions ranged from skepti-cism to outright praise.

The collaboration involving the federal Bureauof Reclamation and 10 irrigation districts (led bykingpin Westlands Water District) would transfer,at no cost, the federal portion of the CVP’s San

Luis Unit — reservoirs, pumping plants, about100 miles of canals and possibly even power plants— to a joint-powers authority that irrigators wouldcreate to pay for cleaning up the drainage mess.

The San Luis Unit is in the west San JoaquinValley.

Deal could keep tainted water from coast

M a r d i G r a s—————————

Please see SELENIUM, Back Page

Electrifying education: Kids get a charge out of demonstration

Local krewes are celebrating quietlyamid a crackdown on rowdy revelers

By Sally Connellsconnell@thetribunenews.com

Mardi Gras of San Luis Obispo has not pickeda king and queen this year, and there will be nomasked ball full of costumed revelers.

In fact, organizers report, the only publicgathering where regular folk can rub shoulderswith Mardi Gras krewe members is at a craw-fish boil Sunday at Frog & Peach Pub in SanLuis Obispo.

It’s a far cry from the days when there was afestival, a parade and a ball.

But those festivities stretch back to a time be-fore 2004, when San Luis Obispo’s Mardi Grasbecame synonymous with rowdy, rioting youngpeople and subsequent crackdowns by police.

This year, the folks at SLO Mardi Gras havebeen partying — feathers and all — but in amuch less visible way.

The three major krewes, the Krewe ofSybarites, the Krewe of Beleza Sol and theKrewe of Bon Temps, have thrown themed pri-

The state Coastal Commission wants to meetwith state parks officials to talk about how to bet-ter protect threatened and endangered speciesat the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular RecreationArea.

The commission is not satisfied with the sur-vival rates of young snowy plovers, one of two rarespecies of shorebird that nest in the park.

On Thursday, the commission considered pro-tections now in place for threatened and endan-gered wildlife at the park.

For more on how Coastal Commission staffwill proceed with the panel’s wishes, see Page B1.

By Seth BorensteinAssociated Press

WASHINGTON — It may becold comfort during a frigid Feb-ruary, but last month was by farthe hottest January ever.

The broken record was fueledby a waning El Niño and a gradu-ally warming world, according toU.S. scientists who reported thedata Thursday. Records on the

planet’s temperature have beenkept since 1880.

Spurred on by unusually warmSiberia, Canada, northern Asia andEurope, the world’s land areaswere 3.4 degrees Fahrenheitwarmer than a normal January, ac-cording to the U.S. National Climat-ic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.That didn’t just nudge past the oldrecord set in 2002 but broke that

mark by 0.81 degrees, which mete-orologists said is a lot because suchrecords often are broken by hun-dredths of a degree at a time.

The temperature of the world’sland and water combined — themost effective measurement —was 1.53 degrees Fahrenheitwarmer than normal, breaking theold record by more than one-quarter of a degree. Ocean tem-

peratures alone didn’t set a record.In the Northern Hemisphere,

land areas were 4.1 degreesFahrenheit warmer than normal forJanuary, breaking the old record byabout three-quarters of a degree.

But the United States was aboutnormal. The nation was 0.94 de-grees Fahrenheit above normalfor January, ranking only the 49thwarmest since 1895.

No parade,no ball — onlya crawfish boil

TRIBUNE PHOTO BY JOE JOHNSTON

Electricity filled the air of the gymnasium at CentennialPark in Paso Robles on Thursday morning as demonstrationsof a Tesla coil, a high-frequency transformer, excited highschool and middle school students. The equipment andpresentation by Terry Schwalk of the Santa Cruz Institute of

Particle Physics was the second annual Tesla event in PasoRobles. High school teachers Ralph Lewis, shown here, andMark Fairbank earned applause from the students afterdonning metal suits and putting themselves in contact withthe 1 million volts of electricity emitted from the coil.

Please see MARDI GRAS, Back Page

Panel wants to discussshorebird safety at Dunes

Central Valley’s selenium-fouled water may not be pumped into the ocean near Cayucos after all

Cold snap aside, January was world’s hottest ever