danbacher by Dan Bacher
Only in Governor Arnold’s Schwarzenegger’s California would an official entrusted to “protect” marine resources call for new oil drilling off the California coast.
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association and the chair of Governor Arnold Schwarzengger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Task Force for the South Coast, recently affirmed her support for new offshore oil drilling in her commentary, “Gulf Oil Spill Comments,” on the association’s website, http://www.wspa.org.
Not only is Reheis-Boyd chair of the South Coast panel appointed by Schwarzenegger to design “marine protected areas” (MPAs), but she served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Central Coast and now serves on the Task Force for the North Coast.
“The tragic Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in California Governor Schwarzenegger’s withdrawal of his support for limited offshore oil development near Santa Barbara,” lamented Reheis-Boyd.
“WSPA has not taken a position on specific offshore projects,” she stated. “But we have been vocal about our views that California businesses and consumers would benefit from development of the huge reserves of petroleum off the California coast, in both state and federal waters.”
Reheis-Boyd then goes on to tout the offshore oil operators in California for their exemplary “record of safety” and for being “sensitive” to environmental issues, attempting to portray them as some sort of modern day John Muirs of the Sea.
“The record of safety established by offshore operators in California over the past 40 years has been excellent,” she gushed. “But we recognize an incident on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico accident is going to influence the public policy debate on offshore oil.”
“We don’t yet know what caused the accident in the Gulf of Mexico and whether or not there are any lessons to be learned that are applicable to the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf where most offshore oil production in California takes place today,” she admitted. “We are waiting for the investigations to be completed.”
She also claimed that “The petroleum industry on the West Coast has demonstrated a very high level of sensitivity to environmental issues associated with operating in a marine environment. We are committed to constant improvement in those operations.”
“According to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, in the past 40 years, more than 1 billion barrels of oil have been produced off the coast of California. During that time, less than 850 barrels of oil have been accidentally spilled into the ocean,” she continued.
“The platforms off the California coast produce approximately 36 million barrels of oil per year – about 15 percent of our in-state petroleum production,” she said. “Without those important sources of energy, we would need to import more crude oil in tankers. In many cases, that oil comes from less stable foreign sources and with resultant adverse economic consequences for California consumers.
“Oil exploration and production in California ranks among the most closely regulated activities in the world. There are literally hundreds of laws and regulations that govern petroleum industry activities in California. More importantly, though, is the fact that the men and women who work in the industry are committed to doing everything they can to ensure that workers, near-by communities and the environment are protected,” Reheis-Boyd concludes.
Unfortunately, fishermen, environmentalists and the general public witnessing the largest oil spill in U.S. history devastate fishing communities throughout the Gulf of Mexico know that Reheis-Boyd’s words are hollow in the wake of the BP Deepwater Horizon tragedy. We were repeatedly assured by oil company, state and federal officials that the Gulf oil spill was “under control.” The oil industry in the Gulf is also regulated by federal and state laws, but these did nothing to stop the current disaster from taking place.
How can we believe anything that Reheis-Boyd or other representatives of the oil industry say after the BP Oil spill, which still continues unabated?
And what the heck is an oil industry official, who is now calling for new oil rigs off the California coast, doing on three task forces that are kicking fishermen, Indian Tribes and seaweed harvesters, the staunchest defenders of the ocean and the most vocal opponents of offshore drilling, off the water? Anybody with a modicum of reason, intelligence and common sense has got to realize there is something very, very wrong here!
Environmentalists, Indian Tribes and fishermen have blasted the MLPA Initiative for its numerous conflicts of interests, corruption and open violation of indigenous religious, cultural and subsistence fishing and gathering rights. There is no doubt that Schwarzenegger appointed Reheis-Boyd to safeguard the oil industry’s interests in the MLPA process.
There is also no doubt that we need to support a complete ban on new drilling off the U.S. coastline to make sure that Reheis-Boyd doesn’t get her way in opening the West Coast to new oil drilling.
“The tragic catastrophe spewing oil in the Gulf of Mexico offers a rare opportunity to achieve long-term protection from this nightmare for the rich upwelling ecosystem off the Pacific Coast of Washington, Oregon and California,” according to John Stephens-Lewallen, one of the North Coast’s most respected environmental leaders and a foremost opponent of Schwarzenegger’s MLPA corporate greenwashing process.
He said companion bills to “permanently” ban new offshore oil and gas drilling off the Pacific Coast of the three states have been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
The “West Coast Ocean Protection Act of 2010″ is a one-page bill with only one effective provision: “…the Secretary of Interior shall not issue a lease for the exploration, development, or production of oil or natural gas in any area of the outer Continental Shelf off the coast of the State of California, Oregon, or Washington.”
“My wife Barbara and I are asking organizations of ocean food providers to formally endorse this simple and powerful bill, and work to get it signed into law this year,” he emphasized.
Congressman John Garamendi, who appeared last July at a rally at the State Capitol to speak out against the construction of the peripheral canal and the destruction of the California Delta when he was still Lieutenant Governor, is spearheading the bill in the House, with Representatives Mike Thompson and Lynn Woolsey of Northern California among 35 initial co-sponsors.
Group endorsements can be emailed to Marcus Woodson in Congressman Garamendi’s office; or by phone at (202)225-1880.
“For ocean food providers, the stark simplicity of this drilling ban is its beauty,” emphasized Stephens-Lewallen. “In one simple statement, it removes the great threat we all face to the purity of the Pacific Coast Upwelling Ecosystem and its renewing abundance of food. Bills with similar wording have been introduced, with heroic pronouncements, in the last several annual sessions of Congress, only to languish in committee without any legislative action.”
The Stephens-Lewallens are urging the fishing community and others to “help make this year different” by contacting your federal representatives, and friends throughout the country, in support of the West Coast Ocean Protection Act of 2010.
While an oil industry lobbyist and “marine guardian” like Reheis-Boyd calls for new oil drilling off the California coast, real environmentalists and defenders of the ocean like the Stephens-Lewallens call for support of Garamendi’s bill. I join with the Stephens-Lewallens in urging everybody concerned about the fate of our public trust ocean waters to support Garamendi’s bill – and at the same time to call for an immediate suspension of the widely-condemned MLPA Initiative.
Garamendi’s simple bill contrasts with Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life “Protection” Act Initiative, a privately funded process that does absolutely nothing to protect the California coast from oil spills, water pollution, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing. The initiative, led by executive director Ken Wiseman, is funded by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, headed by Michael Eaton, the foundation’s executive director.
The MLPA, a landmark law passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, has been hijacked by oil industry, real estate, marine development and other corporate interests under the Schwarzenegger administration. Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative has openly violated numerous state, federal and international laws, including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
For more information about the violation of indigenous subsistence, cultural and religious rights under the MLPA, go to:http://www.fishsniffer.com/forums/content.php?r=221 and Violet Wilder’s facebook page, “KEEP THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BEACHES ACCESSIBLE FOR THE COASTAL TRIBES” (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105945012781743).
danbacher Offshore Drilling Ban Needs Support of Fishing Groups
–by John Lewallen, Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company, May 27, 2010
The tragic catastrophe spewing oil in the Gulf of Mexico offers a rare opportunity to achieve long-term protection from this nightmare for the rich upwelling ecosystem off the Pacific Coast of Washington, Oregon and California.
Companion bills to “permanently” ban new offshore oil and gas drilling off the Pacific Coast of the three states have been introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
The “West Coast Ocean Protection Act of 2010” is a one-page bill with only one effective provision: “…the Secretary of Interior shall not issue a lease for the exploration, development, or production of oil or natural gas in any area of the outer Contintntal Shelf off the coast of the State of California, Oregon, or Washington.”
My wife Barbara and I are asking organizations of ocean food providers to formally endorse this simple and powerful bill, and work to get it signed into law this year.
Congressman John Garamendi is spearheading the bill in the House, with Representatives Mike Thompson and Lynn Woolsey of Northern California among 35 initial co-sponsors. Group endorsements can be emailed to Marcus Woodson in Congressman Garamendi’s office ; or by phone at (202)225-1880.
For ocean food providers, the stark simplicity of this drilling ban is its beauty. In one simple statement, it removes the great threat we all face to the purity of the Pacific Coast Upwelling Ecosystem and its renewing abundance of food.
Bills with similar wording have been introduced, with heroic pronouncements, in the last several annual sessions of Congress, only to languish in committee without any legislative action.
We’re asking the fishing community to help make this year different by contacting your federal representatives, and friends throughout the country, in support of the West Coast Ocean Protection Act of 2010.
–Barbara and John Stephens-Lewallen, Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company
danbacher Photo of dry Scott River bed courtesy of the Klamath Riverkeeper.
dry-scottriver-aug-23-09-…
by Dan Bacher
The water wars really heated up this week in both the Klamath River and Sacramento River watersheds as agribusiness interests continued their campaign to squeeze every drop of water they could out of two systems where native salmon populations are on the verge of extinction.
On Thursday, May 27, a broad coalition of conservationists, California Indian Tribes and commercial fishing groups slammed a California Farm Bureau attempt to block resource agency requests that irrigators report water use and potentially obtain permits to withdraw water from the Shasta and Scott rivers, two of the Klamath River’s major tributaries.
“The Farm Bureau seems to have adopted a scorched-earth policy here,” said Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), representing commercial fishermen devastated by recent salmon fishing closures. “Water is a public resource that also supports California’s valuable salmon fisheries and all the jobs those salmon support. It only makes sense for a public agency to keep track of the public’s water, and to take steps to minimize the impacts of water diversions on fisheries and other public resources.”
The Farm Bureau alleges in its lawsuit that the DFG recently reinterpreted a law enacted in 1961, in an attempt to create a “fundamental change” that would give it broad new authority to oversee water rights—a function already performed by a separate state agency, the State Water Resources Control Board. “The Department of Fish and Game began following the new interpretation,” the Farm Bureau says, “as it pursued a recovery strategy for coho salmon in the two rivers, which are protected under the state Endangered Species Act.”
“Farmers and ranchers understand that Fish and Game has a legitimate role to play in protecting fish, and the department already has many other ways to do that,” claimed Chris Scheuring, managing counsel of the California Farm Bureau Natural Resources and Environmental Division. “Farmers along the Scott and Shasta rivers have taken a number of steps to benefit the salmon. But we do not believe Fish and Game has blanket authority to regulate every farmer’s water rights, and that’s what it’s trying to do.”
Contrary to what the Farm Bureau claims, the DFG has the legal responsibility to stop the killing of endangered salmon and steelhead by the irrigators who drain a river, just as it has the responsibility to cite an angler for killing an endangered coho salmon. Unfortunately, while an angler who catches a coho salmon will have to pay a hefty fine for breaking the law, irrigators who kill coho salmon by dewatering a river have got off scott-free for years.
The Bureau’s action came a day after new court filings by the groups accusing the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) under the Schwarzennegger administration of violating landmark state laws protecting struggling salmon in both watersheds.
The action also took place the same week that federal Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno allowed the state and federal water projects to increase the pumping of Delta water to corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, threatening imperiled Central Valley salmon and steelhead populations and Delta smelt. West Coast fishermen, shut out of fishing for the past two years altogether and granted a 2010 commercial fishery so tiny that most will simply sit it out, fear that Wanger’s rulings on the salmon and Delta smelt biological opinions could be a serious disaster for the Sacramento River’s fall-run chinook salmon and other fish populations.
The groups filing the litigation to protect the Scott and Shasta rivers include the Klamath Riverkeeper, Earthjustice, Environmental Protection Information Center, Northcoast Environmental Center, Sierra Club, Quartz Valley Indian Reservation, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and Institute for Fisheries Resources.
“Scientists have recently reported alarming declines of threatened coho populations in these two key salmon spawning tributaries of the Klamath River,” according to a statement from the groups. “Last summer, the Scott and Shasta garnered headlines statewide after irrigation withdrawals caused record low flows and dewatered stretches of both rivers as thousands of salmon swam upriver to spawn.”
Peer-Reviewed Science Backs the Groups
Peer-reviewed science shows that steadily increasing irrigation withdrawals are largely to blame for no-flow and record low-flow conditions in these rivers. Despite the ongoing ecological collapse, water use along the two rivers has remained almost wholly unregulated due to “irrigator opposition and CDFG inaction,” the groups stated.
“It’s disappointing that the Farm Bureau is opposing even the most minimal, initial efforts by CDFG to introduce some accountability for public resource use in these two watersheds,” said Erica Terence of Klamath Riverkeeper. “If we want to have any hope to reverse the decline in coho, we need to leave behind this kind of irresponsible opposition to any real resource management in the Shasta and Scott.”
She added that “This sort of bullying is a big reason why the state has failed to limit the water diversions as well as the excessive, unregulated groundwater pumping that fragment salmon habitat, cause poor water quality, and block access to food sources for fish.”
Only eighty-one coho returned to the Scott River, while in the Shasta a mere nine coho returned, reportedly all of them male, according to preliminary data from video fish counts on the Scott and Shasta rivers conducted by the DFG in 2009.
“Biologists also reported that two out of thee classes of coho in the Shasta River are functionally extinct,” the groups said. “These devastatingly low returns continue an alarming population decline in watersheds that once provided some of the best habitat anywhere in the Klamath Basin.”
In April, DFG staff began to rescue what few endangered coho salmon could still be found in the Scott and Shasta, transplanting them dozens of miles down the mainstem Klamath River to supposed safety, since water conditions on the two rivers are expected to become so inhospitable to salmon this year.
The coalition, represented by Earthjustice, went to court last year to oppose the DFG’s efforts to issue Watershed-Wide Incidental Take Permits (ITPs) for the Scott and Shasta. This week, the groups added new complaints in the case, alleging the agency violated the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) and California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) while undertaking the controversial program providing blanket permits for agricultural practices that kill salmon or destroy habitat in these watersheds.
The groups said the ITPs at issue would provide “legal cover” for continued de-watering of the Scott and Shasta while allowing illegal dams, water withdrawals, and livestock grazing in stream beds to continue unchecked. ITPs for coho salmon are required under law because the species is listed as threatened with extinction. Coho populations in the Klamath Basin have declined to approximately one to two percent of their historic abundance, with the Scott and Shasta rivers among their most important remaining habitat.
“The DFG’s findings that these permits will not jeopardize the continued existence of coho salmon lack any rational support,” said Wendy Park, attorney for Earthjustice. “And when new information arose concerning the population and viability of coho within these areas, the DFG failed to prepare a supplemental analysis taking the new information into account. We believe both of these actions violated the law.”
A 2004 National Academy of Sciences report suggested that curbing agricultural water use and habitat degradation in the Scott and Shasta watersheds are critical for restoring Klamath River coho salmon. The Shasta River was once the most productive salmon stream, for its size, in the state of California.
“Instead of acting constructively to address the unsustainable practices driving coho to extinction, the Farm Bureau is just trying to stall and tie things up with lawsuits,” said Scott Greacen of the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC). “They are playing games while our salmon disappear.”
Greg King, prominent North Coast environmental leader and executive director of the Siskiyou Land Conservancy, applauded the coalition’s recent actions to save Scott and Shasta River salmon.
“As we watch one of the world’s most important marine ecosystems being destroyed in the Gulf of Mexico by the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it behooves us to redouble our efforts to protect our own aquatic species here on the North Coast,” said King. “These groups are doing just that, working to save the last salmon runs on the Scott and Shasta Rivers, critical anadromous tributaries to the Klamath.”
I completely agree with King. Everybody should support the efforts of these groups to save coho salmon, steelhead and chinook salmon from becoming extinct on the Shasta and Scott rivers because of inaction by the Obama and Schwarzenegger administrations. Earthjustice attorneys have continually stood up for conservationists, fishermen and Indian Tribes in defending our public trust waters against attacks by agribusiness and other corporate interests.
Schwarzenegger Wages Unprecedented War on Fish and Fishermen
While Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, has issued press release after press release falsely portraying him as the “Green Governor” for his “green energy” and carbon credit trading scams, he has allowed irrigators to dewater the Shasta and Scott rivers, threatening the very existence of the river’s remaining salmon runs.
He has presided over the collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales by allowing record water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
He has campaigned for the peripheral canal around the Delta, a $23 billion to $53.8 billion fiasco that is expected to lead to the extinction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations.
He has fast-tracked his Marine Life “Protection” Act (MLPA) Initiative, a process infested with conflicts of interests, mission creep and corruption of the democratic process that does nothing to protect the ocean from water pollution, oil drilling and habitat destruction.
Yesterday the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board under the Schwarzenegger administration, in spite of strong opposition by environmental and fishing groups, voted unanimously to grant a 10 year extension of a selenium pollution waiver to west side San Joaquin Valley growers in the Grasslands Water District.
Also yesterday, the DFG, under pressure from the “Green Governor,” issued a determination under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) to allow the State Water Project (SWP) to kill more threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead.
There is no doubt that Schwarzenegger is the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history and has, like the Farm Bureau, adopted a “scorched earth policy” against imperiled fish populations. There is also no doubt that fishing groups, Indian Tribes and conservation organizations will be very glad to see him leave office next January.
More information, references, photo galleries, and photos for download of the de-watered Scott and Shasta Rivers are available athttp://www.klamathriver.org/tribs/ITP.html
danbacher
Fishing families and communities along a thousand miles of coast hard hit by the closure of the West Coast salmon fishery fear that Judge Wanger’s decision to allow increased pumping out of the imperiled California Delta could be disastrous for Central Valley fall-run chinook salmon.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 27, 2010
Contact:
Zeke Grader, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (415) 606-5140
Dick Pool, Water 4 Fish, (925) 963-6350
Larry Collins, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (415) 585-5711
Fishermen Fear Delta Pump Ruling May Decimate Fall Salmon Run
Fall-Run Chinook Are the Mainstay of California’s Salmon Fishery
San Francisco — West Coast fishermen, shut out of fishing for the past two years altogether and granted a 2010 commercial fishery so tiny that most will simply sit it out, fear that a Tuesday night ruling by Fresno-based judge Oliver Wanger could be a serious disaster for the Sacramento River’s fall-run chinook (‘king’) salmon resource.
Sacramento River fall run chinook are the backbone of California’s 150-year-old salmon fishery and a large contributor to Oregon and Washington ocean fisheries as well. Strong runs of Sacramento River fall-run chinooks returned to the Central Valley earlier in this decade – 768,000 adult fish up to 50 pounds each found their way back to Valley streams in 2002.
By 2009 that number had crashed to 39,530 fish, driven down in large part by heavy increases in State Water Project pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
While the Sacramento River’s spring-run chinook juvenile fish have nearly finished their migration through the Delta, the fall-run salmon and endangered species act-listed steelhead will be migrating downstream through most of June, as will those hatchery salmon released upstream.
The California Department of Water Resources is already ramping up its Delta pumping, taking quick advantage of Wanger’s ruling, from 1,500 cubic feet per second to nearly 6,000 cubic feet per second.
Dick Pool, a Bay Area sportfishing advocate and the administrator of water4fish.org, is concerned that this high level of pumping from the Delta will not only suck baby salmon into the pumps, but will trap thousands of others trying to reach San Francisco Bay in the central Delta where their chances of survival are slim.
“There is no cover, little food and there are many predators in the central Delta channels,” said Pool. “Studies show that most young salmon never make it to the pumping plant. Most of them fall to predators or perish before they make it to the State Water Project pumps.”
Under the Endangered Species Act, Wanger is only required to consider the impacts of increased pumping on the critically low winter- and spring-run chinook salmon and steelhead, a close chinook salmon relative.
Fishing families and communities along a thousand miles of coast have been hard hit by the closure of the West Coast salmon fishery. “Salmon were about 60% of my income,” said Larry Collins, a San Francisco-based fisherman.
Collins has also seen a dramatic decline in fish in San Francisco Bay. “The herring fishery collapsed, and everything else is way down – likely due to the over-pumping in the Delta,” he stated.
The collapse of the salmon runs and the declining health of the Bay fisheries impacts everyone from fish brokers to Bay Area restaurants unable to serve local salmon to residents and tourists. Total ocean salmon fishing closures resulting from past problems in the Sacramento-Bay Delta in 2008 and 2009 shut down ocean salmon fishing all the way up to nearly the Oregon-Washington Border.
More than 50% of the salmon harvested commercial in Oregon typically come from the California Central Valley. Even ocean commercial fishing in Washington can be curtailed when California Central Valley stocks are too weak to allow any fishing impacts, as they were in 2008 and 2009.
One 2009 study indicated that California’s salmon fishing shutdown has cost the region 23,000 jobs and $1.4 billion in annual income. The study found that full recovery of just California’s salmon fisheries would create 94,000 new jobs and provide $5.6 billion annual economic gain.
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danbacher The decision Tuesday in Judge Oliver Wanger’s Court is going to be critical for the future of the salmon fishing industry in California. As you know, the fall Chinook run is not listed, and so it is not covered by the federal biological opinion protecting salmon, green sturgeon and killer whales.
On May 11, the Nimbus Fish Hatchery released three million baby salmon in the American River, instead of trucking them to theSan Pablo Bay, so they will be migrating through the Delta in the next few weeks. If they turn the pumps on full blast, most of the fish will not survive. Wanger’s ruling from last week makes reference to claims by Westlands that are false and misleading.
Westlands is claiming that 250,000 acres of land were fallowed because of the BIOP. But that number includes 97,000 acres of retired land so impaired by salinity that it cannot grow anything.
Wrong! Westlands claim about water shortages are also bogus. Because of improved CVP deliveries, and the transfers that Feinstein arranged, they have 885,000 acre feet of surface water coming in. With their expected pumping of 225,000 acre feet of groundwater, they have 97% of their contracted water!
This is NOT a crisis. We have GOT to get the real facts out.
If your group hasn’t yet signed on to our Myths and Facts letter, please do so. To read Myths and Facts, go to: http://www.scribd.com/doc/31955936/Myths-and-Facts-About-Land-Fallowing
danbacher by Dan Bacher
Passed by both houses of Congress, AIRFA became law on August 11, 1978, spurred by the American Indian Movement’s Longest Walk from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. that year. The act recognized the “inherent right” of American citizens to religious freedom; admitted that in the past the U.S. government had not protected the religious freedom of American Indians; proclaimed the “indispensable and irreplaceable” role of religion “as an integral part of Indian life”; and called upon governmental agencies to “protect and preserve” for American Indians their inherent right to practice their traditional religions.
AIRFA states, “it shall be the policy of the United States to protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonials and traditional rites.”
The MLPA process has violated this historic law by banning the Kashia Pomo Tribe from practicing their religion by gathering seaweed and shellfish and conducting ceremonies at their sacred site, Danaka, in northern Sonoma County. In the Kashia Pomo’s creation story, Danaka (Stewarts Point) is the place where the tribe first walked on land.
The sacred site is located in a so-called “marine protected area” that was part of a package of reserves that the California Fish and Game Commission voted 3 to 2 for on August 5, 2009, in spite of vocal opposition by the tribe, fishermen and environmental justice advocates.
“They’re interfering with our religion, the food that we lived off before the white man came,” said tribal elder Violet Chappell during a blessing ceremony off Danaka on April 30, the day before the May 1 closure, hosted by landowner Arch Richardson.
The gathering on a bluff overlooking the ocean drew 145 people, including members of the Kashia Pomo and other California Indian Tribes, recreational anglers, seaweed harvesters and environmental justice advocates to thank and bless the ocean for the food it has provided to native peoples for thousands of years.
“We used this food every day – we call it health food,” Chappell stated. “The food was created by our creator – we treated it with care and respect. We are here to say respect us for our food – don’t close this area down because it’s part of our religion.”
“I don’t think the Fish and Game Commission would be allowed to close down a Catholic Church, would they?” she asked.
Article 32, Section 2, of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People mandates “free prior and informed consent” in consultation with the indigenous population affected by a state action (http://www.iwgia.org/sw248.asp).
It also says, “States shall provide effective mechanisms for provention of, and redress for: Any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing them of their lands, territories or resources.”
Ken Wiseman, MLPA Initiative executive director, and the California Fish and Game Commission violated the UN declaration by never consulting with Kashia Pomo and other tribal leaders over the closure of a sacred site. They also provided no mechanism for redress of this grievance.
The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) in October 2009 passed a strongly worded resolution blasting the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process for failing to recognize the tribal subsistence, ceremonial and cultural rights of California Indian Tribes.
“The NCAI does hereby support the demand of the tribes of Northern California that the State of California enter into government to government consultations with these tribes; and that the State of California ensure the protection of tribal subsistence, ceremonial and cultural rights in the implementation of the state of Marine Life Protection Act,” the resolution stated.
The MLPA, a law passed by the Legislature and signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, has been hijacked by oil industry, real estate, marine development and other corporate interests under the Schwarzenegger administration. MLPA officials have completely taken water pollution, oil drilling, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing in this bizarre parody of marine “protection.”
Wiseman and his collaborators constantly claim that the MLPA process is “open and transparent” but the only thing “open” about the initiative is how it has openly violated the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Not only has it broken these federal and international laws, but until recently MLPA officials openly defied the state of California’s Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act and the First Amendment of the U.S.Constitution by barring reporters from covering “work sessions” of the process with video and audio recording equipment.
It was only after an outpouring of outrage by civil liberties advocates and journalists over the arrest of David Gurney, independent journalist, as he filmed an MLPA “work session” that Wiseman decided to finally obey the law.
For more information about the violation of indigenous subsistence, cultural and religious rights under the MLPA, go to: http://www.fishsniffer.com/forums/content.php?r=221 and Violet Wilder’s facebook page, “KEEP THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA BEACHES ACCESSIBLE FOR THE COASTAL TRIBES” (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105945012781743).
danbacher by Dan Bacher
If Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative has done nothing else, it has united one of the most diverse coalitions of people ever assembled in California history against it.
The conflicts of interests, corporate greenwashing, cultural genocide and violation of state and federal laws that have occurred under the privately funded initiative have spurred people from a wide variety of political perspectives from left to criticize the unjust process. Those slamming the initiative have ranged from Earth First environmental activists to rednecks, from elders of California Indian Tribes to commercial fishermen, and from sustainable food activists to city councils up and down the North Coast.
Prominent Democrats including State Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez of Shafter and Assemblyman Wesley Chesbro of Eureka and Green Party leaders such as former North Coast Congressman Dan Hamburg, now a candidate for the Board of Supervisors of Mendocino County, have challenged and questioned the inequities of the MLPA process.
Now Senate Republican Leader-elect Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) has joined the growing chorus of leading Democrats and Greens in their criticism of the MLPA. In a May 19 letter to the DFG Director John McCamman, Dutton asked McCamman how he can justify the implementation of Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative at a time when the state is in dire economic crisis.
“It has come to my attention that the Legislative Analyst has recommended ’suspension of state support’ to implement the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA),” said Dutton. “ Further, the LAO recognizes that there is no long-term comprehensive plan to finance enforcement or management of marine protected areas once established. The LAO cites existing state fishing statutes such as the Marine Life Management Act and traditional fishing restrictions that could be used to enforce fishing restrictions as an alternative to this proposal.”
“While the MLPA may be cast as an ‘ecosystem approach’ to protecting the ocean environment, it appears, according to the California Attorney General, that the only thing that the MLPA can actually do is to restrict commercial and recreational fishing,” Dutton said.
Attorney General Jerry Brown, in a September 25, 2009 letter to the Assistant Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency clearly states on page 9 that “The State Water Resources Control Board maintains primary jurisdiction over water quality and pollution discharges.” And, “[the MLPA … does not grant DFG or DPR new powers to enforce water quality regulations within marine reserves.”
After careful analysis, the LAO’s conclusions therefore say, in summary, the following, according to Dutton.
1.The state does not have the resources to enforce the MLPA.
2. The state does not have the resources to manage and scientifically monitor the MLPA.
3. Current fishing statutes are working to protect California fisheries and, therefore, the MLPA is an unnecessary program.
“Given California’s long-standing budget crisis where we face difficult cuts to health and safety programs, please justify for me why the Department should continue with implementation of the MLPA,” concluded Dutton. “As the Legislature is required to pass a balanced state budget by June 15,2010 please provide your response to me by June 1, 2010.”
Dutton joins a growing chorus of political leaders, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, environmentalists and tribal leaders that have blasted the MLPA process. The MLPA Initiative is led by Ken Wiseman, executive director, and funded by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, a shadowy organization headed by Mike Eaton, executive director.
Senator Dean Florez last March said he planned to conduct a Senate Oversight Hearing about conflict of interest and “mission creep” in the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process during his keynote address at the Coastside Fishing Club Dinner in San Mateo. Unfortunately, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg squelched the investigation.
On July 10, 2009, Senator Wesley Chesbro stated that he had heard from numerous constituents who had expressed “strong concerns” regarding the development and implementation of MLPA plans for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
“Because of this strong constituent concern, I am skeptical of the process that has been followed in developing proposed plans for these regions,” said Chesbro. “The process must be based on sound science. I have been saying, ’show me the science.’ So far I’m not satisfied with the answers I’ve been getting.”
As a state senator in 1999 who voted for the MLPA, Chesbro said it was his belief that “the MLPA will be a failure if the plans are implemented without the full involvement of all participants, especially local community members and stakeholders. The economic health of local fishing communities must be balanced with the need for habitat protection.”
In the recent Legislative Fisheries Forum in Sacramento, Chesbro said he plans to hold a hearing on the MLPA Initiative this year.
Dan Hamburg, the current Green Party candidate for the Board of Supervisors of Mendocino County, has also blasted the privatization of public trust resources that has occurred under the MLPA.
“We will work with Humboldt and Del Norte Counties to stop privatization efforts such as the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI) – a private-foundation takeover of marine life that threatens local coastal businesses that harvest the ocean for food,” vowed Hamburg.
danbacher
This photo shows the fish weir and fish ladder entrance at Nimbus Fish Hatchery in Rancho Cordova. The weir stops the upstream migration of fish because of the limited spawning area between this spot and Nimbus Dam. The rack also guides fish to the ladder entrance. Photo courtesy of California Department of Fish and Game.
nim_weir.jpg
by Dan Bacher
The California Department of Fish and Game released three million young Chinook salmon (“smolts”) at the mouth of the American River during the week of May 10 as part of an effort to improve the return of adult salmon to the American – and prevent the fish from straying into other systems.
The DFG raised all of the fish at Nimbus Fish Hatchery on the lower American in Rancho Cordova. The new release site was selected based on new information and studies that show “young salmon released near the mouth of their home river are more likely to return to that river two to five years later to spawn,” according to Harry Morse, DFG spokesman.
“Our goal is to increase the spawning returns to the lower American River of fish reared at Nimbus Hatchery,” said Senior Environmental Scientist Joe Johnson of the DFG’s Central Region. “Last year more than half of the salmon returning to the American River originated from the Mokelumne, Feather or Upper Sacramento rivers. This year we’re taking clear steps to ensure that more fish return to the waters where they were raised.”
The release of fish occurs at a time when Central Valley salmon are in their greatest crisis ever, due to a variety of factors led by increased water exports out of the California Delta in recent years. Only 39,530 adult fall chinook salmon returned to the Sacramento River and its tributaries in 2009, the lowest run on record, spurring the closure of ocean recreational and commercial fishing in 2008 and 2009.
A total of 5,756 chinook adults and 1,126 jacks returned to Nimbus Fish hatchery in 2099. This is much better than the 3,300 adults and 453 jacks that came back to the hatchery in 2008, but pales in comparison to the runs of previous years.
For example, 24,723 adults and 3,437 jacks returned to the facility in 2005, while 15,493 adults and 21,390 adults came back the previous year.
The DFG will track the journey of salmon down the river through the use of coded wire tags that show when and where they were tagged and released. Starting in 2007, 25 percent of 32 million salmon smolts released in the Sacramento River system were imbedded with these minute tags.
“A major goal of river releases is to improve the genetic integrity of each river’s salmon populations,” noted Morse. “DFG biologists are working to decrease straying rates between rivers, where adult salmon return from the ocean and spawn in a different river than the one they were born in.”
Based on the coded wire tag retrieval data, 72 percent of the fish that returned to Nimbus were from other hatcheries, according to Morse. The crews who went out in boats on the river to count carcasses found that 73 percent of the fish were from other hatcheries.
“We’re talking about a very high percentage of strays,” said Morse. “To ensure the highest survival rates of the smolts on their down river migration, DFG and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) are coordinating release timing, flows and closure of the Cross Channel Gates operated by BOR during the short migration period.”
The Jibboom release site, located slightly down stream of the mouth of the American River at Discovery Park, was selected after biologists reviewed release and return data from numerous sites. They found that a large number of smolts released from the Jibboom site in previous years were returning to the American River, according to Morse.
Dick Pool, administrator of http://www.water4fish.org, agreed that straying is a problem on the American, but said he was surprised that the DFG had released them at the mouth of the American rather than at another location.
“I am concerned that they released 3 million at the mouth and while only 1 million are going into the acclimation pens in San Pablo Bay,” said Pool. “Maybe San Pablo Bay is too far to release the fish from the American, but they need to take the fish somewhere beyond the reach of the Delta pumps.”
Pool noted that several years ago there was a problem with substantial straying of Mokelumne River hatchery fish, so the DFG started releasing the fish at Jersey Point on Sherman Island. This way, the fish were released away from the reach of the pumps but were still put in their natal water in the San Joaquin River system.
“By releasing the fish at the mouth of American, the salmon still have to go past the Delta Cross Channel Gates and Georgiana Slough,” said Pool. “Even when the Cross Channel gates are closed down, Georgiana Slough is a big problem, since the fish that go into the interior Delta via the slough eventually end up in the pumps.”
Twenty percent of the Sacramento River Chinook salmon are drawn into Georgiana Slough on their downstream journey, according to the federal salmon biological opinion. “There is virtually no survival once they are pulled into the Central Delta, where there is little cover, little food, loads of predator and poor water quality. This water flows straight to the state and federal pumps,” he said.
Pool suggested instead releasing the Nimbus salmon smolts at Rio Vista or Collinsville on the Sacramento River or in Steamboat Slough. “This way they would be kept in the Sacramento River system, but would be able to bypass Georgiana Slough and the Cross Channel Gates,” concluded Pool.
Ironically, while the DFG is trying to reduce the amount of stray salmon into the river, fish advocates say the future of American River salmon and steelhead is at risk because there are no enforceable temperature standards incorporated into the Bureau of Reclamation’s water right for the operation of the Folsom and Nimbus dams. This is in spite of a tentative agreement reached with the Water Forum, Friends of the River, Save the American River Association (SARA) and other conservation groups three years go.
“The Bureau also has no intention to voluntarily modify its Folsom Dam operations to meet the recommendations of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)) Biological Opinion (BO.),” said Felix Smith, SARA board member and the retired federal fisheries biologist who exposed the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge disaster during the early 1980s, in his recent paper, “Area of Origin Protection: Our Fisheries and Other Public Trust Interests.”
The Bureau stated in a letter on January 12, 2010 to NMFS that it would follow the flow management standard (FMS) and when additional water is needed to meet the FMS, (b) (2) water will be used. The 800,000 acre-feet of water dedicated to fish, wildlife and habitat restoration measures under the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) of 1992 is referred to as (b) (2) water.
The Bureau also said it will strive to achieve the temperature targets of 60 DF, with 56 DF as early as possible in November.
“In reality, the Bureau has not formulated base line criteria for public review and comment regarding the use of CVPIA Section 3406 (b) (2) water,” Smith stated. “In addition, temperature excursions above 67 DF to 71 DF are common on the American River during the summer months.”
“Water temperatures of 65 DF to 67 DF have extended into October and November,” added Smith. “Such temperature affects holding adult Chinook salmon. Latent embryonic mortality and growth abnormalities are associated with thermal stress when adult Chinook salmon are exposed to waters above 63.5 DF.”
Pre-spawning mortality and incidence of disease is also increased among American River salmon and steelhead, due to the failure to adopt water temperature standards.
“Temperatures above 65 DF have extended for several weeks well into the fall months,” said Smith. “Water temperatures protective of steelhead juveniles, 65 DF or less, have been exceeded 7 out of 9 years during the period 2001 through 2009.”
As the DFG attempts to reduce the problem of straying by Nimbus Hatchery Chinooks, the Bureau of Reclamation under the Obama adminstration is apparently refusing to deal with the larger issue of adopting long-needed, enforceable water temperature standards on the American River to protect imperiled salmon and steelhead.
danbacher Will the water board make a second Kesterson disaster inevitable?
by Dan Bacher
After 14 years of delay, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board is poised to grant corporate agribusiness on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side more “non‐enforcement of the law” at a public hearing in Rancho Cordova on May 27, according to a news advisory from a coalition of groups.
“Irrigators will be allowed to violate selenium water quality standards for another decade under the provisions of a pollution waiver before the Water Board,” said Carolee Krieger, President of the California Water Impact Network.
Selenium is a naturally occurring chemical element heavily concentrated in the soils of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. “But when the selenium‐laden soils are irrigated, the selenium leaches into groundwater and surface waters, discharging and spreading its toxic legacy,” explained Krieger. “Selenium‐laced contaminated water will continue to flow from Mud Slough into the San Joaquin River, the Delta, and San Francisco Bay for years to come.”
Krieger said that non‐enforcement of the law and continued delay is driving San Joaquin wetlands and waters inevitably toward a “second Kesterson disaster.”
“Who could forget those 1984 pictures of birds with twisted beaks, deformed heads and dead chicks where selenium‐contaminated agricultural drainage flowed into Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge?” she asked. “State and federal indecision and neglect killed thousands of birds.”
The selenium drainage pollution from Westlands Water District and other Westside irrigators created one of the largest environmental disasters in the state’s history. The pollution has continued as the Water Board granted pollution waiver after pollution waiver, according to Krieger.
Selenium, unlike other pollutants, bioaccumulates in the food chain and threatens migratory birds, salmon and steelhead, as well as endangered species such as Swainson’s hawks, giant garter snakes, kit foxes and other species.
During the public hearing, the board will consider an amendment to the Water Quality Control Plan for the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers that would allow these polluted discharges until the end of 2019.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s Grasslands Bypass Project collects contaminated agricultural drainage from the northerly area of the San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project through 27 miles of the San Luis Drain and discharges this pollution into a tributary of the San Joaquin River, according to Krieger. In addition, highly contaminated sediments, some classified as hazardous waste, have been accumulating in the drain with no plan for safe disposal.
“Without funding or proven treatment technology, the Bureau of Reclamation and these irrigators are requesting another pollution waiver to allow the continued irrigation of these toxic soils while sending their pollution downstream,” said Krieger. “The question is whether or not waiving the enforcement of selenium standards for another ten years will create an even larger ecological disaster, further spreading these contaminants throughout sensitive wetlands and river habitat throughout the Delta and San Francisco Bay.”
The San Luis Unit water contractors collectively receive enough water for a city of 12 million people, are heavily subsidized, and collectively owe taxpayers $497 million for reimbursement of Central Valley Project costs funded from the public trough. Reduction of irrigation deliveries and a return to environmentally compatible dryland farming were not considered as an alternative, even though the U.S. Geological Survey has stated that “Land retirement is a key strategy to reduce drainage because it can effectively reduce drainage to zero if all drainage‐impaired lands are retired.”
The USEPA has urged the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board to enact effective selenium source controls, according to Krieger. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warns that other adjacent wildlife areas and the fishery in the San Joaquin River are at risk. These selenium contaminated waters are upstream of the water supply pumps in the Southern Delta that serve Southern California’s urban population.
A broad coalition of 18 organizations, representing fisheries, tribal and environmental interests, opposes the pollution waiver. Waste waters from the San Luis Drain are currently 10 times the level considered safe. The coalition believes the pollution should be halted at its source, not sent downstream.
“Kesterson was a wake‐up call. But no one at the State Water Resources Control Board woke up,” said Krieger. “Westlands is simply too politically powerful.”
Westlands is the state’s lead proponent of the proposed ‘Peripheral Canal II’ and one of the key beneficiaries of Sen. Steinberg’s “historic Delta protection” bill last year and this November’s costly $11.1 billion water bond. The canal, backed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, corporate agribusiness, southern California water agencies and developers and some corporate “environmental” NGOs such as the Nature Conservancy, would cost an estimated $23 to $53.8 billion at a time when California is in unprecedented economic crisis.
The federal government has documented that the continued use of federally subsidized irrigation water to irrigate 379,000 acres of selenium rich soils along the west side of the valley is causing the selenium contamination of groundwater and surface waters spreading out from Westlands Water District and the other west side farms.
“The time for ‘let’s pretend’ selenium pollution will magically disappear is over,” added Krieger. “The Water Board should deny approval of the proposed amendment to the San Joaquin Basin Plan that would give Westlands and other Wes tside irrigators another decade to avoid enforcement of the state’s selenium water‐quality standard and the federal selenium criteria for aquatic life. It should be our state policy to avoid Kesterson II.”
The hearing takes place as Arnold Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor in California history, wages war on salmon, salmon fishermen and California Delta fish populations. Not only has Schwarzenegger been the foremost political supporter of the peripheral canal, but he has continually attacked the federal biological opinions protecting Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt.
He has presided over the collapse of Central Valley Chinook salmon, delta smelt, longfin smelt, striped bass, green sturgeon, threadfin shad and other species by exporting record levels of water to agribusiness and southern California during his administration.
Meanwhile, he has fast-tracked a corrupt, elitist and racist Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process overseen by oil industry, marina development, real estate and other corporate interests. This widely-contested process, led by MLPA Initiative executive director Ken Wiseman and funded by the private Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, has violated numerous state, federal and international laws by kicking Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters off their traditional areas while taking pollution, oil drilling and habitat destruction off the table.
Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative has openly violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Article 32, Section 2, of the Declaration mandates “free prior and informed consent” in consultation with the indigenous population affected by a state action (http://www.iwgia.org/sw248.asp).
The board, as is typical under the Schwarzenegger regime, is expected to violate the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws by allowing Westlands Water District, a junior water rights holdover, to continue polluting Central Valley waterways and destroying imperiled fish and wildlife populations.
The comments of the coalition, USEPA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can be found at http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/water_issues/grassland_bypass/
Information on the public hearing and the proposed approval resolution can be found athttp://www.waterboards.ca.gov/centralvalley/board_decisions/tentative_orders/1005/index.shtml#10
Additional information on the Grasslands Bypass Project and selenium can be found on the website of the California Water Impact Network at http://www.c‐win.org/deeper‐waters.html.
Date: May 27, 2010
Time: 8:30 am
Place: Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board
11020 Sun Center Drive, #200, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670
For more information, contact: Carolee Krieger, President, California Water Impact Network (805) 969‐9565; Bill Jennings, Executive Director, CA Sportfishing Protection Alliance (209) 464-5067;Steven L. Evans, Conservation Director, Friends of the River (916) 442‐3155, Ext. 221; and Tom Stokely, Media Contact California Water Impact Network (530) 524‐0315.
danbacher by Dan Bacher
The California Fish and Game Commission, during a teleconference in Sacramento today, voted 5 to 0 to approve a limited fishing season targeting fall run chinook salmon on the Sacramento, Feather and American rivers.
The season is based on the decision by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) on April 15 to give 12.6 percent of the Central Valley fish allocation to the in river fishery, according to Neil Manji of the California Department of Fish and Game.
The PFMC set a harvest target of 8,200 fish for the three rivers. The allocation by sub-quota is 1,000 fish for the American, 1,000 for the Feather, 2,600 for the Upper Sacramento and 3,600 for the Lower Sacramento.
The Feather River season will run from July 31 to August 31 from 1,000 feet below the Thermalito Afterbay Outfall to the mouth.
The American River season will run from October 30 to November 28 from Ancil Hoffman Park to the mouth.
The Lower Sacramento season will run from September 4 to October 3 from the Highway 113 Bridge to Carquinez Bridge.
The Upper Sacramento River season will run from October 9 to October 31 from the Deschutes Rod Bridge to 500 feet above the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.
The Upper Sacramento River season targeting late fall chinook salmon will run from October 9 to December 12 from 150 feet below the Red Bluff Diversion Dam to the Highway 113 Bridge.
“The reason for closing the area right below the Thermalito Afterbay Outlet was because there is a substantial amount of illegal snagging that takes place there,” said Manji. “If we had allowed fishing in the outlet, the quota would have been reached early in the season.”
There is a bag limit of two fish in all of the open sections of the Central Valley rivers.
“There was a question of whether to do a daily creel update to see if the quota is reached, but it seemed more appropriate to close the fishing during the peak of the runs as we have done,” said Manji.
The season is controversial because it is based on an ocean abundance estimate of 245,000 fish this year by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Last year the federal biologists estimated over 122,000 Sacramento River chinooks would return, but only 39,530 fish, less than the third of the number forecasted, actually returned to the rivers to spawn.
While some anglers support the season, others oppose it, fearing that the federal government may have again overestimated the number of salmon as they did last year.
Nobody from the public spoke in support or opposition to the season during the teleconference, although Paul Weekland, a veteran Fish and Game Commission meeting attendee, questioned whether or not there would be adequate enforcement on the rivers to make sure that the quota is not exceeded.
