COPS CHOPPED… After getting threatened with six officer layoffs, the Salinas Police Officers Association agreed to give up a 5 percent raise and pay 2.5 percent in health benefits to help offset the city’s budget deficit. The police union last month rejected the pay concessions by a narrow vote. City Manager Artie Fields says the nine vacancies in the department will remain frozen, although the city hopes to backfill the positions with federal stimulus money. [ZS]

COOLING OFF… The U.S. Supreme Court early this month ruled the federal Environmental Protection Agency may consider the costs and benefits of once-through cooling systems in power plants, rather than mandating the switch to more fish-friendly closed-cycle cooling systems. As the Weekly reported in January, environmentalists have criticized once-through cooling, which kills marine animals sucked through industrial intakes. The concerns have prompted state and federal agencies to look closer at California American Water’s bid to use the technology in a proposed desalination plant next to the Moss Landing Power Plant. The court decision opens the door to debate over the power plant’s re-licensing, which was delayed during litigation. [KA]

BANDANAS AS WEAPONS… Farmworker advocates last week launched the Bandana Project to raise awareness about sexual violence in the fields and encourage women to report misconduct to their employer. Sexual harassment is pervasive in the agricultural workplace, advocates say, and often tolerated because supervisors threaten to fire or deport women who speak up. Through the month of April, the decorated bandanas will be on display in various Salinas locations. [ZS]

MUSHROOMS AS FILTERS… Polluted runoff sucks for the ocean, and last fall we reported stormwater management problems in Seaside and Salinas. But local institutions, from the cities of Seaside and Pacific Grove to Carmel and Chualar schools, have proven creative solutions are out there. On April 8, Surfrider Foundation held a mushroom-bag filter workshop at its one-year-old headquarters, the Green Spot in Pacific Grove. Trained volunteers will place the biodegradable bags – made out of edible oyster mushroom spores, burlap, sawdust, woodchips, newspapers and straw – in local creeks and road drainages, where they’ll filter out pollutants headed to the sea. [KA]