danbacher Press Release from Restore the Delta: http://www.restorethedelta.org.
September 30, 2010
Delta and Fishing Activists Disrupt Secret Delta Meetings
For Immediate Release — September 30, 2010
Bill Jennings – 209-464-5067
Dan Bacher – 916-685-2245, ext. 224
Brett Baker – 916-719-6586
A Thursday morning meeting of Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) principals was disrupted by a fisherman, two environmentalists, and a Delta farmer protesting the closed process.
The Department of Water Resources has told legislators that they’re not welcome at meetings of signatories to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the plan that state water exporters have undertaken to secure their water supplies.
The meetings have been going forward behind closed doors since August in what Resources Secretary Lester Snow told lawmakers was “a key procedural component of the public BDCP Steering Committee process.”
Showing up this morning at the meeting convened at the California Farm Bureau Federation in Sacramento were Dan Bacher, fisheries activist, researcher, and editor of The Fish Sniffer; Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA); Jim Crenshaw, President/Treasurer of CSPA; and Brett Baker, sixth generation pear farmer from Sutter Island in the Northern Delta.
Speaking seats at the meeting had been reserved for “principals,” representatives of the entities who have financed the planning process. Bacher, Jennings, Crenshaw, and Baker were asked not to report the names of any of the participants or attribute quotes to them. They refused.
When asked to leave, the four asked whether they would be arrested if they refused. In response, Secretary Snow disbanded the meeting.
In an interview last week, Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League told the Central Valley Business Times that exporters had withdrawn from the public BDCP process when confronted with overwhelming scientific evidence that exports from the Bay-Delta would have to be reduced to save the Estuary.
Said Minton, “They’ve been frantically trying to come up with some kind of agreement that could be signed before this Governor leaves office.”
A similar push by the Governor has driven the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process going forward in coastal Northern California.
The MLPA process, like the BDCP process, has been characterized by attempts to bypass open meeting laws. In that case, MLPA officials have limited media coverage of their “work sessions,” which they distinguish from public meetings. At least one independent journalist was arrested for trying to film “work session” proceedings.
Newspaper industry and civil liberties attorneys say the process violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act and the 1st Amendment.
The Delta and fishing activists involved in disrupting today’s meeting are available for interviews.
Delta advocates view the BCDP as a thinly-veiled attempt by the Governor to put in place the plans for a peripheral canal/tunnel before he leaves office.
danbacher Commissioner Dan Richards Calls Governor A ‘Fork-Tongued Devil’
by Dan Bacher
In the secrecy and corrupt politics that have characterized the administration of Governor Arnold Schwarnenegger, the lame-duck Governor on Monday removed Michael Sutsos, a member of the California Fish and Game Commission who had just been recently appointed, and selected a new Commissioner.
Members of fishing groups, California Indian Tribes and grassroots environmentalists believe that Sutsos was removed to make sure that the Commission votes down a request to extend the public comment period for the South Coast Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIR) for the Governor Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in a special Fish and Game Commission meeting to be held in McClellan, CA. on Wednesday, September 29 from noon to 5 pm.
In his first and only Commission meeting during his 18 days as a commissioner, Sutsos was one of three Commissioners to vote favorably for holding the meeting to consider the comment period extension.
Jack Baylis, a public member of the Coastal Conservancy, will be sworn in tomorrow as a Fish and Game Commissioner, Then, in a gross miscarriage of justice, he will go straight to the Commission meeting at McClellan to vote on the extension! He will resign as a Coastal Conservancy member.
Baylis, 52, is apparently a corporate Schwarzenegger stooge appointed to greenwash the Governor’s ocean and other environmental policies before he leaves office.
Baylis has worked as AECOM Technology Corporation since 2006 and currently serves as the US group executive for strategic development. Prior to that, Baylis worked for CH2M Hill, where he served in a variety of positions including senior vice president and vice president from 2000 to 2006. From 1996 to 2000, he served as the president and chief operating officer for Linabond and, from 1994 to 1995, Baylis was the vice president and corporate officer for Brown and Caldwell Engineers.
He serves as vice chair of the Heal the Bay Board of Directors – a group that adamantly supports Schwarzenegger’s fast-track MLPA Initiative – and is a founding member and strategic planning committee chair of the Clean Water America Alliance. Baylis is also a member of the California State Parks and Recreation Commission. Baylis is a Republican.
“Sutsos’ dismissal is no surprise,” said Vern Goehring of the California Fisheries Coalition. “The Governor doesn’t want to sit idly and watch his MLPA process be delayed over to the next administration. The MLPA proponents are trying to shut down down the public comment period to keep important information off the official record. If the project was warranted, it could withstand the change of Administrations.”
“An extension of the DEIR is completely warranted and necessary given the importance and complexity of this report,” said Paul Lebowitz, director of the Kayak Fishing Association of California and member of the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO). “Mr. Sutsos felt that all of the issues and controversy surrounding the DEIR were worthy of further consideration. Obviously that did not jive with Governor Schwarzenegger’s agenda to railroad the process through before he leaves office, so the Governor now will appoint a more politically compliant commissioner.”
“From the outset, the MLPA process has been plagued by a rush to meet arbitrary deadlines while science, data and transparency have been lacking,” noted Steve Fukuto, president of United Anglers of Southern California, also a PSO member. “Unfortunately we have seen these concerns consistently pushed aside in an effort to meet politically-based deadlines. The termination of Mr. Sutsos’ appointment is further proof of the Governor’s true intentions.”
Sutsos’ removal was confirmed today by Ed Zieralski of the San Diego Union-Tribune in an interview that he conducted with Dan Richards, Fish and Game Commmissioner (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/28/fish-and-game-commissioners-removal-raises-doubts).
Richards told Zieralski that he received a call about Sutsos removal on Monday. Ironically, Sutsos was appointed after the California Senate refused to confirm the appointment of Don Benninghoven, a Schwarzenegger stooge, after a flood of letters and phone calls in opposition to his confirmation by fishermen and environmental justice advocates.
Last August Schwarzenegger appointed Benninghoven days before a key Commission meeting in Woodland to impose so-called “marine protected areas” on the North Central Coast, in spite of massive opposition by fishermen, Indian Tribes, seaweed harvesters and North Coast environmentalists. In an egregious example of racism and elitism, the new closures removed the Kashia Pomo Tribe and other Indian Tribes from their traditional ceremonial and subsistence fishing and gathering areas.
Fortunately, an historic “blessing ceremony” held by the Kashia Pomo elders at Stewarts Point in protest of the closures and pressure by tribal leaders and lawyers led to an exemption for tribal members and recreational users on a small section of the reserve. However, the Commission and the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force have yet to fully recognize tribes as sovereign nations and respect tribal fishing and gathering rights that they have no jurisdiction over.
In the interview, Richards, who has consistently stood up for fishermen and tribes with fellow Commissioner Jim Kellogg in votes on the MLPA Initiative, had very harsh words for Schwarzenegger and the MLPA fiasco.
“This just shows how corrupt this process is,” Richards said. “This process, the Marine Life Protection Act, is so corrupt, so offensive it’s unimaginable. Gov. Schwarzenegger is a forked-tongue devil.”
“The reason I have such a problem with (Sutsos) getting taken off the Commission is that this denigrates and disrespects every person who worked on the MLPA process,” Richards told Zieralski. “Many of the people who worked on the stakeholder groups weren’t paid, certainly weren’t hired guns. That’s why this is so offensive to me. These people don’t care about what the science says, what the reality is, or how what waters they close will affect people’s livelihoods.”
Well-funded corporate environmental NGOs including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Ocean Conservancy and California League of Conservation Voters are pushing the Commission to reject the proposed extension in order to greenwash Schwarzenegger’s abysmal environmental legacy before he leaves office.
In over 27 years of covering California environmental and water issues, the MLPA initiative is the most corrupt process I have ever researched. The Initiative, funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, has taken water pollution, oil drilling, wave energy projects, military testing, habitat destruction and all other human uses of the ocean off the table in its perverse conception of “marine protected areas.”
The Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversee the MLPA Initiative are dominated by oil industry, marina development, real estate and other corporate interests that have many conflicts of interest in the implementation process. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, was the chair of the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force and now serves on the North Coast panel.
The MLPA and the removal of Sutsos must be seen in the context of the worst-ever administration for fish, the environment, tribes and fishermen in California history. Schwarzenegger and his collaborators including Resources Secretary Lester Snow have presided over the unprecedented collapse of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other fish populations, spurred by record water exports out of the California Delta.
Rather than address these problems, the Governor and his collaborators have gone out of their way to aggravate the collapse by campaigning to build a peripheral canal and new dams to facilitate increased water exports to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies. In addition, the Governor has allowed agribusiness on the Scott and Shasta River valleys to de-water these Klamath River tributaries every year at tremendous peril to endangered and threatened coho salmon, chinook salmon and steelhead populations.
I agree entirely with Richards that Schwarzenegger is “a forked-tongue devil.” While Schwarzenegger has grandstanded at endless photo opportunities and press conferences about “green energy” and “climate change,” he has waged a relentless war against fishermen, Tribes and the state’s fish populations. There is nothing “green” about Schwarzenegger other than the toxic “green” of corporate money that he and his collaborators worship.
danbacher by Dan Bacher
The California Fish and Game Commission will hold a special meeting on September 29 in McClellan, CA. to discuss and consider a potential extension to the public comment period for the South Coast Region Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
Fishing and conservation groups are supporting a 90 day extension of the controversial MLPA process to provide the public with sufficient time to review and comment on this report, while some environmental NGOs are opposing the delay in their effort to keep the initiative on its fast track. The initiative is privately funded by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, led by executive director Michael Eaton.
The DEIR, released on August 18, analyzes the potential environmental impacts of the marine protected area (MPA) proposals currently under consideration for this area. The DEIR was given a 45-day review and comment period. The DEIR is a 548-page document that addresses a number of complex environmental issues that require careful consideration.
“Decisions made under the MLPA process, including the DEIR, will have significant and long-lasting consequences for angling and boating in the region,” according to a statement from Keep America Fishing. “The public deserves enough time to carefully review and provide input on the DEIR to ensure it is as comprehensive, informative and accurate as possible and is not driven by a need to meet arbitrary deadlines.”
In contrast, an action alert from the Santa Barbara Channelkeeper (http://www.independent.com/news/2010/sep/20/channelkeeper-asks-help-protecting-socal-coast) claimed, “Delaying plans for Southern California could threaten the historic Marine Life Protection Act—one of our state’s most important ocean protection laws that calls for the creation of a statewide network of marine protected areas.”
“Half of this network already exists along the California coast from Point Conception to Point Arena, where MPAs are already working to restore ocean health in breathtaking biodiversity hot spots like the Channel Islands, Point Sur, and Point Reyes,” the Channelkeeper stated. “But it’s up to the Fish and Game Commission to complete the statewide network of protected areas, starting with Southern California.”
Unfortunately, the Channelkeeper and other MLPA advocates fail to acknowledge that the so-called “marine protected area” network is a grotesque parody of real marine protection being used by Schwarzenegger to greenwash his abysmal environmental legacy. This is the same governor that has presided over the collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail, young striped bass and other fish populations while campaigning for a peripheral canal, new dams and increased water exports out of the California Delta.
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA), a comprehensive, landmark law signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, is very broad in its scope. The law was intended to not only restrict or prohibit fishing in a network of “marine protected areas,” but to restrict or prohibit other human activities including coastal development and water pollution.
“Coastal development, water pollution, and other human activities threaten the health of marine habitat and the biological diversity found in California’s ocean waters,” the law states in Fish and Game Code Section 2851, section c.
In contrast with the intent of the original law, the MLPA Initiative under Schwarzenegger has taken oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy development, habitat destruction, military testing and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in its bizarre concept of “marine protection.” The MLPA would do nothing to stop another Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon oil disaster from devastating the California coast.
The Channelkeeper and other MLPA advocates also fail to acknowledge the rampant corruption and conficts of interest that have proliferated under the process. The Governor has installed an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate interests with numerous conflicts of interests as “marine guardians” on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces to remove Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters from the water in these fake marine protected areas.
In fact, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, served as the chair of the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) for the South Coast, as well as a member of the task forces for the North Coast and North Central Coast. This oil industry superstar has in recent months repeatedly called for new oil drilling off the California coast. How can there be any justice under this initiative when Schwarzenegger’s head MLPA official for the South Coast is the head oil lobbyist for the Western United States?
On July 21, over 300 people, including members of 50 Indian Nations, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, immigrant seafood industry workers, environmentalists and seaweed harvesters, peacefully took over a meeting of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force in Fort Bragg to protest the violation of tribal gathering rights and the corporate greenwashing that have proliferated under the initiative.
“This is the largest demonstration on the North Coast since the Redwood Summer of 1990,” Dan Hamburg, former North Coast Congressman and current candidate for the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors, told me as we marched through the streets of Fort Bragg on the way to the meeting.
“Whether it is their intention or not, what the Marine Life Protection Act does to tribes is systematically decimate our ability to be who we are,” said Frankie Joe Myers, Yurok Tribal ceremonial leader and organizer for the Coastal Justice Coalition. “That is the definition of cultural genocide.”
The privatization of ocean conservation management under the shadowy and unaccountable Resources Legacy Fund Foundation is at the core of everything that is wrong with the MLPA process. The time has come for a suspension of the privately-funded initiative, and for state and federal investigations of the conflicts of interests and violations of state, federal and international laws that have bloomed under the MLPA process.
I urge everybody to send a letter to the Fish and Game Commission urging them to extend the comment period on the DEIR to 90 days by going tohttp://www.keepamericafishing.org. The FGC needs to hear from you before the upcoming meeting!
You should also attend the commission meeting on September 29. The FGC will be receiving public comment during this meeting. This is your chance to convey to the FGC – in person – the importance of allowing an extension.
The meeting will be held from Noon – 5 p.m. PDT at the Lion’s Gate Hotel & Conference Center, 3410 Westover Street, McClellan, California. For more details regarding the September 29 FGC meeting, visit http://www.fgc.ca.gov/meetings/2010/2010mtgs.asp
For more information on the MLPA Initiative, read my piece, “The questions that Arnold’s MLPA proponents don’t want to answer,”http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/31/18657284.php.
danbacher 
salmon-closeup-sxc1-300×2…
Consumer Group Slams ‘Flimsy Science’ in Franken-Salmon Approval Process
by Dan Bacher
Hauter urged the FDA to halt the approval of AquaBounty’s AquaAdvantage salmon until the agency could do its own studies regarding the long-term effects of human consumption of genetically engineered (GE) meat.
The 11-member FDA advisory panel did not vote or make a recommendation on whether to approve these “franken-salmon” for human consumption after holding Monday’s public hearing
“In light of the flimsy science debated in yesterday’s FDA hearing on genetically engineered (GE) salmon, the labeling discussion today is wholly inappropriate,” said Hauter. “Yesterday, even members of the Veterinary Medicine Advisory Committee, who are generally in favor of biotechnology, raised serious concerns around some of the science, citing the poor methodology and construction of the studies, which were provided by AquaBounty.”
The Obama administration’s fast-track campaign to approve the first genetically engineered fish for human consumption is no surprise, when you consider the enormous influence that Monsanto, AquaBounty and other bio-tech corporations have over the FDA.
Obama appointed Michael R. Taylor, J.D., as Deputy Commissioner for Foods under the FDA in January. Taylor is a former top executive, lawyer and lobbyist with biotech giant Monsanto. Taylor’s role as a promoter of “franken-foods” for years explains why his agency so easily embraced “junk science” from AquaBounty in yesterday’s hearing, rather than requiring an independent investigation of the potential threats that genetically engineered salmon pose to human health and imperiled wild Pacific and Atlantic salmon populations.
“The small data sets, the poor design, and the fact that the company killed off salmon that were deformed prior to doing a physical analysis for comparison with non-GE fish were all cited,” Hauter stated. “They didn’t test enough fish, or the most appropriate types of salmon that would be likely to end up on consumer’s plates.”
She urged that the agency develop a “more sophisticated process,” based on the latest science, for the approval of GE meats for human consumption.
“Given yesterday’s hearty debate on the flawed science before the committee, we believe that it is even more imperative that the agency develop a more sophisticated process for allowing GE meats to become part of the American diet,” emphasized Hauter. “Their regulatory regime has not kept pace with the advances in science. We are hopeful that the FDA will not act to approve GE salmon during the up-coming end of year holidays, when people are too busy to notice—which we have seen agencies do in the past on controversial issues. They need to be intellectually honest about the poor science and not bow to political pressure from the biotech industry.”
“We will continue to urge the FDA to delay approval until it can do its own independent, well-designed, long-term studies on the effects of consuming genetically engineered meat,” she concluded.
Fishing Groups, Tribes Oppose Approval of GE Salmon
The approval of GE salmon is overwhelmingly opposed by fishing, Tribal, environmental and consumer groups. A coalition of 25 fishing and salmon organizations, representing fishermen and women across North America, wrote a letter to the administration on September 16 to express their opposition to the approval of AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon (http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/09/17/18658994.php).
GE salmon opponents include the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN), SalmonAid Foundation, Salmonid Restoration Federation, Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fishermen’s Association and Water4Fish.
“We all know there is a great appetite for salmon, but the solution is not to ‘farm’ genetically engineered versions to put more on our dinner tables; the solution is to work to bring our wild salmon populations back, and to protect and maintain existing native salmon populations,” the letter read. “The approval of these transgenic fish will only exacerbate the problems facing our wild fisheries. We strongly oppose the approval of these genetically engineered salmon and urge FDA to reject GE salmon.”
The letter added, “Should FDA decide to approve the AquAdvantage GE salmon despite our opposition, clear, mandatory labeling is an absolute must to allow consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.”
Indian Tribes who fished for salmon and other fish for subsistence and ceremonial purposes for thousands of years are also opposed to the approval of GE salmon.
“The companies are creating these fish not for the environment and for the failing salmon runs, but for the same reason the hybridized African/European honey bee was created – to make a profit,” said Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “These bees were developed because they could make more honey than regular honey bees. However, these bees not only made more honey, but they also attacked and killed people. Likewise, these genetically engineered fish are designed to grow faster to make more profits.”
She is worried that if these franken-fish are approved, these fast-growing fish will wipe out entire wild salmon populations by eating other fish and competing for them with habitat, as well as by spreading disease. “The company and federal authorities claim they won’t get loose, but Atlantic salmon already get loose wherever they’re raised,” said Sisk-Franco.
On the average, 15 percent of farmed fish escape into the wild. For example, 170,000 one-year-old salmon escaped from aquaculture facilities in Machias Bay, Maine, during a winter storm in December 2000, according to an editorial in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law (http://www.vjel.org/editorials/ED10031.html).
“Who knows what these fish will do to the water and habitat?” she asked. “They shouldn’t approve these fish without the appropriate tests by independent parties on what they can actually do when they escape.”
Sisk-Franco noted how members of the Winnemen Wintu traveled to New Zealand this April to conduct joint ceremonies with the Maori people as part of an ambitious effort to bring back the eggs of winter run chinook salmon, originally introduced to island rivers from the McCloud River, to reintroduce the species into the McCloud above Shasta Dam (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/us/21tribes.html). Ironically, at the same time the federal government is moving forward with the approval of genetically engineered salmon, she said federal authorities are worried about reintroducing winter run fish to their native system!
“Federal officials know about the DNA and genetics of the winter run and they know that the New Zealand salmon are disease-free, but at the same time they don’t seem to care what will happen by approving these franken-fish that haven’t been independently studied,” Sisk-Franco concluded. “Do they know what impact the GE fish may have upon people’s health? Will they be required to label these genetically engineered fish?”
Poll Reveals Overwhelming Opposition to Approval of GE Salmon
Not only are consumer, fishing and environmental groups and Indian Tribes strongly opposed to the approval of GE salmon, but so is the American public.
In its public comments at the agency’s headquarters on September 20, Food & Water Watch unveiled the results of a recent poll it conducted with Lake Research Partners showing that 78 % of Americans believe AquaBounty’s GE product should not be approved for human consumption. Opposition grows even stronger for genetically engineered meat, with 91 % saying the FDA should not allow transgenic pigs, chicken and cattle into the food supply until the agency could perform its own safety studies.
“The FDA is on the verge of approving a product that an overwhelming number of Americans will reject unless the agency can conduct its own studies showing that it’s safe, which it hasn’t done,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch. “The FDA has publicly disclosed four studies that it considered in this process. One was nearly 20 years old, and the other three were from AquaBounty itself—that hardly qualifies as independent analysis of the safety risks involved with this untested method.”
She said that Americans are in “near unanimity “in their disapproval of genetically engineered fish and meat in the marketplace.
The unusually high number of people polled who disapprove of the FDA’s process of approving transgenic animals prompted Joshua Ulibarri of Lake Research Partners to note, “I can’t remember a time when so many people polled were of one mind on an outcome. It’s pretty clear that people are not buying what the FDA is selling here.”
To make matters worse for consumers, the FDA could put it on the market without requiring labeling. “Based on past experience with FDA’s regulation of GE food like soy, corn and other food products, there would be no way to tell real salmon from GE salmon at the supermarket,” said Hauter.
Hauter criticized the FDA for relying on the very industries that it regulates for the data that it analyzes when approving new drugs or genetically engineered animals destined for the food supply The background documents released by the agency contain multiple examples of how the limited data supplied to the agency limited the conclusions that could be drawn.
Hauter said the nutrition and allergenicity studies the FDA mentioned in its publicly released brief on the issue earlier this month looked at relatively small numbers of fish. The nutritional composition study looked at 144 fish. The allergenicity study included only six GE salmon (out of a total of 18 fish). Both studies were conducted by AquaBounty or its contractors.
“The FDA is relying on company data from only a handful of fish,” noted Hauter. “Such flimsy science isn’t good enough to assure the public that this product is safe to eat. This approval should be halted until the FDA can show the public that it has done a thorough review to make sure this product is safe.”
For more information on the poll please see: http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/release-FWW-Omnibus.pdf
Act Now to Stop the Approval of GE Salmon!
For more information and to send an email opposing the approval of genetically engineered salmon, go to http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org. orhttp://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4693
Please also visit the Center for Food Safety to send a letter to the FDA urging them to oppose the approval of AquaBounty’s GE salmon.
Live site: https://secure3.convio.net/cfs/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=325
danbacher I wrote a number of articles last year and earlier this year exposing how the claims of corporate agribusiness that Delta pumping restrictions to protect salmon and smelt had resulted in a “New Dust Bowl” in the San Joaquin Valley had no basis whatsoever in fact. Mother Jones magazine joined Sean Hannity, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and agribusiness “Astroturf” groups in perpetuating the “Big Lie” about the alleged “drought” and “New Dust Bowl (http://www.c-win.org/blog/dan-bacher-doubts-westside-san-joaquin-growers-feed-nation.html).
I urge you to read and forward this excellent article in the California Progress Report by Patrick Porgans and Lloyd C. Carter, one in a series entitled “Doubts about the Drought,” that uses the latest government data to prove that California drought was very mild at best in comparison to historical droughts.
The Governor and corporate agribusiness have used these lies about the “drought” and “New Dust Bowl” to promote their plans to build a peripheral canal and new dams, as well as to attack the federal biological opinions protecting Delta smelt and Central Valley salmon.
Dan
www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/8175
News Release: For Immediate Release September 17, 2010
Wolf Cries – Howling About Drought – All Wet – No More Doubts Officials Exaggerated Severity of Drought
By Patrick Porgans and Lloyd G. Carter
Government documents support critics’ contentions that the Governor of California and his supporters exaggerated the extent of the drought as a platform to promote the passage of the $11 billion General Obligation Bond “Water Package” purportedly designed to increase the state’s water supply reliability, improve its aging infrastructure, and “fix” the broken Bay-Delta Estuary. At the last minute, before ballot were printed, the $11 billion bond act was taken off this November’s ballot for reasons yet not fully divulged and is now scheduled for the 2012 election.
Meanwhile federal and state officials still appear to be at odds as to whether the California “drought” is over. A review of the government’s own data, Figure 1, indicate that the recent California “drought” was very mild at best in comparison to historical droughts, contrary to the wolf cries of Fox, CBS, Governor and water bureaucrats.
This finding is prefaced on comparing data from the four-year period – 2006 through 2009, within which a three-year “drought” purportedly occurred – with the last four years of the drought that occurred from 1987 through 1992. Ironically, in the midst of a budget crisis, and the longest delay in adopting a state budget, the public is paying for the drought relief programs, with billions of dollars of borrowed money repaid from the $20 billion deficit-ridden General Fund, while safety-net programs, education, jobs, and day care funding have been drying up.
Data in Figure 1, extrapolated from Department of Water Resources (DWR) Bulletin 120 series – Water Conditions in California, illustrates the difference in water conditions prevalent during the 1989 through 1992 and the 2006 through 2009 drought years (using four-year periods, which includes the year before the current drought started).
During both periods, statewide water consumption remained relatively constant, supplemented by a significant increase in groundwater consumption. It is important to note, that groundwater provides about 40% of California’s annual water supply. In dry years, that percentage can go as high as 60 percent. Major surface water projects were developed to augment surface and ground water depletions and to weather drought cycles.
Figure 1 also indicates that there was a significant increase in the state’s water supply within this past “drought” period as compared to the 1989-1992 drought period. A 58 percent increase in the indices on the Sacramento Valley side and an 81percent increase on the San Joaquin Valley side. (Note: Spreadsheet data which includes the percentage increase upon which these calculations were made can be viewed at www.planetarysolutionaries.org blog.)
Based on the period of record (1906-2009), Sacramento Valley unimpaired runoff averages out at 18 million-acre-feet (MAF); the San Joaquin Valley unimpaired runoff averages out at about six MAF; in the 2006-2009 period in the Sacramento valley it was 16.39 MAF; San Joaquin Valley 5.35 MAF. The 2009 Water Year (October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009) was the third consecutive year of below average precipitation for the state.
In DWR Bulletin 120 series, Summary of Water Conditions, statewide precipitation totaled 80 percent, 85 percent, and 65 percent of average for Water Years 2009, 2008, and 2007, respectively. According to DWR’s Bulletin 120, water year 2006 was 140 percent above average. Ironically, the average of this four years is 92 percent of normal precipitation; reservoir storage for that same period would have averaged out to 96 percent. Furthermore, at the end of 2009 statewide reservoir storage was averaging 80 percent of capacity.
In addition, according to DWR’s Bulletin 120-4-10, in May 2010, statewide reservoir storage was at 95 percent, and statewide precipitation was just at 110 percent. Conversely, during the previous drought, reservoir storage capacity statewide in 1992, the last year of that drought, was at 70 percent; average for the 1989-1992 period would have been 75 percent. Those numbers indicate that the 1989-1992 period were much more drastic then the recent “drought.”
Yet, the 1989-1992 drought was not compared to the “Dust Bowl” or the Armageddon of California agriculture. Wet and dry cycles are a part of California’s climate, as is indicated by water runoff, which is illustrated in Figure 2. Precipitation varies widely from year to year. In average years, close to 200 million acre-feet (MAF) of water falls in the form of rain or snow in California. That is enough water to flood the entire state two feet deep in water.
Over half of that water soaks into the ground, evaporates or is used by native vegetation. That leaves somewhere around 82 million-acre feet of usable surface water in average years. About 75 percent of California’s available water occurs north of Sacramento, while about 80 percent of the demand occurs in the southern two-thirds of the state. There have been about 30 years out of 92 (since 1918) or about one in every three years that the state includes as part of a drought period.
The North Coast Hydrological Region produces the largest volume of runoff; however, it has limited storage capacity. The Sacramento River Basin is the second-richest water producing area, and has the largest volume of water storage capacity in California. The average annual runoff in the basin is around 18 million acre-feet of water, as is indicated in Figure 2.
As indicated on the Sacramento River Unimpaired Runoff Since 1906, California has experienced eight- notable drought cycles, four of which occurred in: 1928-1934 (pre-government water project development); 1976-1977 (post SWP and CVP); 1987-1992; 2007-2009). A similar request for unimpaired runoff for the San Joaquin River watershed and a statewide graph was also requested; however, according to DWR official, this information does not appear to exist. Water year types for the Sacramento Valley and the San Joaquin Valley can be viewed at http://cdec.water.ca.gov/water_supply.html.
MOTIVE FOR THE DROUGHT: Doubts are being raised as to why Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issue a drought proclamation at the onset of the below average conditions, and opted not to declared the drought as being over in 2010, when precipitation exceeded 110 percent of normal and statewide reservoir storage reach 95 percent of average.
Obviously, the drought proclamation opened up the floodgate to release hundreds of millions of dollars of public moneys used to fund so-called drought relief programs to a host of local water agencies and agricultural recipients http://www.water.ca.gov/lgagrant/docs/120309grant.pdf. Also, when a state-of-emergency is proclaimed it essentially sets aside many regulatory and environmental safeguards; precipitating assertions that the Governor is using excerpts from the Chinatown script.
Next in the series: Harvesting Windfall Profits from the so-called Drought – While Funds for Public Safety-Net Programs and Jobs Dry Up. Other drought-related stories, published by the authors, can be obtained at the following websites: www.planetarysolutionaries.org; www.lloydgcarter.com or Google “Doubts About the Drought”.
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Patrick Porgans and author Lloyd G. Carter are involved in publishing a series of articles, entitled: “Doubts About the Drought.” For more information you can Google Hay! Doubts About the Drought, or visit the following websites; http://www.planetarysolutionaries.org and http://www.lloydgcarter.com blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/…/hay-doubts-about-the-drought/?
danbacher by Dan Bacher
National fishing and conservation groups recently announced their support for a single, community-supported marine protected area (MPA) proposal adopted by tribal, fishing and environmental stakeholders for California’s North Coast as part of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
Jim Martin, West Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA), on September 9 announced that the RFA has endorsed a resolution in support of the “Unified Array” for marine protected areas on the North Coast.
The resolution has been submitted for the consideration of local governments, tribes and tribal communities, fishing associations and conservation groups. It asks the Governor’s MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) to approve the network of MPAs approved by the local regional stakeholder group, including the need to allow traditional tribal gathering.
“Any approved MPA array design will need to allow traditional, non-commercial, gathering, subsistence, harvesting, ceremonial and stewardship activities by California Tribes and Tribal Communities,” the resolution reads.
“In other regions of the state, there were numerous proposals moved forward for the BRTF’s consideration and they cherry-picked from these proposals to craft their own, to the great disadvantage of recreational anglers in those regions,” said Martin. “We are very pleased with the work the stakeholders achieved in the north coast region, and urge all recreational fishermen to join us in support of their work.”
Martin said RFA members throughout California volunteered for duty on each region’s MLPA regional stakeholder group.
“The entire membership thanks RFA members Tim Klassen, Ben Doane, Brandi Easter and Kevin McGrath for their tireless work on behalf of all recreational fishermen and divers on the north coast,” said Martin. “We urge all recreational fishing associations, clubs and organizations to join us in support of the ‘Unified MPA Array’ by endorsing this resolution and sending it to the Blue Ribbon Task Force.”
The RFA-endorsed resolution regarding the Unified MPA Array can be found online at: [url]http://www.joinrfa.org/press/RFAEndorsedResolution_090910.pdf[/url].
Then on September 17, the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO), which represents recreational fishing and boating interests in California, sent a letter to the Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF), the MLPA oversight group, urging them to accept the Regional Stakeholder Group’s (RSG) unified array proposal.
“The unified array is the result of immeasurable time and hard work put in by the RSG,” said Allen Sansano, director of Fisheries Affairs for NorCal Kayak Anglers, a PSO member. “A lot of tough decisions and compromises were made among the different community interests to come up with this consensus position. This is a proposal that our community can live with and will support.”
Throughout the MLPA implementation process in other regions of the state, community groups have submitted multiple proposals only to see the BRTF create its own preferred alternative.
“By abandoning the RSG-created proposals in previous regions, the BRTF wasted the time and energy of the RSG members and disenfranchised many of those involved in the process,” noted Bob Fletcher of the Sportfishing Association of California and former Chief Deputy Director of the Department of Fish and Game. “Given that the MLPA is supposed to be an open, transparent and community-driven process, the BRTF should accept the recommendations of the North Coast community instead of making its own.”
Sansano concluded, “Modifying the unified array would seriously undermine the hard work and consensus reached by the community stakeholder group. Without local support and cooperation, MPAs have been shown to be completely ineffective or even counter-productive. Given the significant potential effects that the MLPA will have on businesses, traditional user groups and the recreating public, it’s important that this process is done correctly and based on sound science with the least economic impact.”
The PSO includes the American Sportfishing Association, contributing members of the Avalon Tuna Club, Berkley Conservation Institute, Coastside Fishing Club, International Game Fish Association, Kayak Fishing Association of California, National Marine Manufacturers Association, NorCal Kayak Anglers, Shimano Sport Fisheries Initiative, Southern California Marine Association, Sportfishing Association of California, United Anglers of Southern California and Watermen’s Alliance.
I applaud the perseverance and hard work by the tribal, fishing, environmental and business community stakeholders in developing a single proposal for the North Coast under the MLPA process. The stakeholders helped minimize the economic costs to local communities and did their best to protect tribal fishing and gathering rights.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meets in Fortuna, CA on October 25 and 26 to consider the proposal. I urge you to send letters in support of the “Unified Array” via email to mlpacomments [at] resources.ca.gov.
However, the question needs to be asked – what does the Initiative really protect the oceans from? The MLPA Initiative has completely taken oil drilling, water pollution, corporate aquaculture, wave energy development, habitat destruction and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in the creation of so-called marine protected areas.
The privatization of ocean conservation management under the shadowy and unaccountable Resources Legacy Fund Foundation is at the core of everything that is wrong with the MLPA process. Oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corporate operatives with conflicts of interest in the outcome of the process dominate the Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversee the MLPA Initiative.
The time has come for a suspension of the privately-funded initiative, and for state and federal investigations of the conflicts of interests and violations of state, federal and international laws that have proliferated under the MLPA process. For more information, go to: [url]http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/08/31/18657284.php[/url].
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danbacher | by Dan Bacher
(San Francisco) The hearings to consider approval of AquaBounty’s AquAdvantage genetically engineered Atlantic salmon begin at FDA’s headquarters in Rockville, MD on Sunday September 19 through September 20, according to Marie Logan at Food & Water Watch in an update on September 17. Then on September 21, the FDA (rather pre-emptively) is planning to discuss the labeling for this fish. Food & Water Watch staff and a host of other organizations in the coalition will be providing public comment at these meetings, so stay tuned for more from this front. A coalition of 25 fishing and salmon organizations, representing fishermen and women across North America, wrote a letter to the administration on September 16 to express their opposition to the approval of AquaBounty’s genetically engineered salmon. “Meanwhile, KPIX (CBS-5) came out to the Aquarium of the Bay yesterday to capture some footage of the national day of action that we hosted to flood the White House switchboard with requests to President Obama to stop FDA’s approval process for GE salmon,” said Logan. “They took some great shots of the inflatable salmon, interviewed Tina Swanson of the Bay Institute on the environmental implications of this engineered fish and caught some of our petitioning in the act at the Embarcadero Farmers’ Market.” On a similar note, check out a blog recently written by the Western Region director, Elanor Starmer, on CA salmon and how they might be affected by GE fish: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/… Finally – check out the new FrankenFish video on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v… Below is the letter from coalition of 25 fishing groups sent yesterday to the Obama administration: September 16, 2010 Center for Veterinary Medicine (HFV3) Food and Drug Administration 7519 Standish Place Rockville, MD 20855 Division of Dockets Management (HFA-305) 5630 Fishers Lane, Rm 1061 Rockville, MD 20852 The undersigned 25 fishing and salmon organizations, representing fishermen and women across North America, are writing to express our opposition to the approval of AquaBounty’s genetically engineered, AquAdvantage salmon. On August 25, 2010, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials announced their process for making a decision on an application relating to the first genetically engineered (GE) animal intended for human consumption, the AquAdvantage Salmon produced by AquaBounty Technologies (Docket No. FDA-2010-N-0001). The genetically engineered Atlantic salmon being considered was developed by artificially combining growth hormone genes from an unrelated Pacific salmon, (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) with DNA from the anti-freeze genes of an eelpout (Zoarces americanus). This modification causes production of growth-hormone year-round, creating a fish the company claims grows at twice the rate of conventional farmed salmon, allowing factory fish farms to crowd fish into pens and still get high production rates. Genetically engineered fish pose serious risks to wild populations of fish. Approving genetically engineered salmon is a sharp contradiction to the agreements the United States has signed at NASCO, where transgenic salmonids are considered a serious threat to wild salmon. Millions of farmed salmon have escaped from open-water net pens1, outcompeting wild populations for resources and straining ecosystems2. We believe any approval of GE salmon would represent a serious threat to the survival of native salmon populations, many of which have already suffered severe declines related to salmon farms and other man-made impacts. Escape of GE farmed salmon into the wild carries the risk that genetic material from these fish will invade the wild gene pools of native Pacific salmon populations. Nature is rife with examples of such genetic introgression3 and such gene pool mixing is common among fish,4 and members of family Salmonidae are no exception.5 Indeed, Rosenfield et al. 2000 documented that the largest members of the Pacific salmon (Chinook salmon) are capable of successful reproduction in the wild with the smallest members of their genus (pink salmon). The fact that both species were introduced to the environment where the genetic introgression occurred (the Laurentian Great Lakes) and that pink salmon were introduced accidentally when eggs from an “isolated” hatchery were disposed of6 is particularly chilling in the context of concerns about the AquaBounty proposal to contain GE salmon eggs. Research on such genetic pollution resulting from what scientists call the “Trojan gene” effect published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences notes that a release of just sixty GE fish into a wild population of 60,000 would lead to the extinction of the wild population in less than 40 fish generations. 1 According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (BCMAL)in Canada, the agency responsible for tracking industry-reported farmed salmon escapes, over 1.5 million farmed salmon escaped into BC waters between 1987 and 2008 (http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/fisheries/escape/escape_reports.htm); This is also referenced in a report by World Wildlife Federation [Eva B. Thorstad, Ian A. Fleming, Philip McGinnity, Doris Soto, Vidar Wennevik & Fred Whoriskey (January 2008). Incidence and Impacts of Escaped Farmed Atlantic Salmon in Nature, Technical Report to the Salmon Aquaculture Dialogue. World Wildlife Federation, p.5. (http://www.worldwildlife.org/what/globalmarkets/aquaculture/WWFBinaryitem8843.pdf) 3 Arnold, M. L. 1997. Natural hybridization and evolution.Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. 4 Hubbs, C. L. 1955. Hybridization between fish species in nature. Systematic Zoology 4:1-20; Rosenfeld, Todd and Greil (2000). Asymmetric Hybridization and Introgression between Pink Salmon and Chinook Salmon in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 129:670-679, 2000… 5 Foerster (1935), Dowling and Childs (1992) as reviewd in Rosenfeld, Todd and Greil (2000). Asymmetric Hybridization and Introgression between Pink Salmon and Chinook Salmon in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 129:670-679, 2000. 6 Kwain, W. and A. H. Lawrie. 1981. Pink salmon in the Great Lakes. Fisheries 6(2):2-6; Wagner, W.C. and T. M. Stauffer. 1982. Distribution and abundance of pink salmon in Michigan tributaries of the Great Lakes, 1967-1980. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 111:523-526. Page 2 If the FDA opens this door, GE fish will likely be among the millions of salmon that currently escape from open ocean pens every year. This could be the last blow to wild salmon stocks, and in turn the thousands of men and women who depend on fishing for their livelihoods. Additionally, if the GE fish is approved, Agency officials are undecided as to whether they will require any product labeling. Unlabeled GE salmon may force many people to fear all types of salmon, further hindering an already strained fisheries industry. According to the application submitted to the FDA, AquaBounty will raise the engineered eggs in a facility on Prince Edward Island in Canada, and then it will ship those fish to a land-based facility in Panama where the fish will be grown out and processed before being shipped worldwide for commercial sale. However, these GE fish are intended for use on a global scale, and a reliable containment regime following commercialization is just not conceivable. For example, according to a 2001 report, the Environmental Risk Management Authority in New Zealand identified flaws in the safety system of the GE salmon tanks of the private company King Salmon where GE salmon eggs could have come into contact with sperm before escaping into the environment. This example highlights the difficulties in designing safety measures which are 100% effective. Moreover, most salmon farmers in the real world ply their trade in low-lying coastal areas and competing corporations will no doubt race to produce GE fish in crowded open ocean facilities already in use for fish production. While FDA may place initial restrictions on the farming of GE fish, it is merely a matter of time before FDA is bombarded by pressure from corporations wishing to replace conventional fish in open ocean farms with the GE variety. Even if grown in contained, land-based facilities, the “farming” of fish is already harming salmon fishermen. In addition to the threat of these GE salmon displacing native salmon populations, such fish farming encourages the propagation of deadly fish diseases, the concentration of harmful wastes and industrial drugs and chemicals escaping into open waters, and the over-fishing of vast quantities of non-commercial fish to feed carnivorous farmed fish, such as salmon it generally takes three pounds of wild fish to grow one pound of farmed salmon7. Since these salmon have been engineered for fast growth, it stands to reason that their feed requirements will be even higher. Wild Atlantic salmon are already on the Endangered Species List in the U.S.; approving these GE Atlantic salmon will undoubtedly add to the burden on wild stocks. AquaBounty also says that it will only produce sterile females; however there is no guaranteed method to produce 100% sterility. FDA has difficulty tracking salmonella in hen eggs; to believe that the FDA can track whether salmon eggs are sterile or not is ludicrous. Moreover, the company will need to keep stocks of fertile fish to produce additional offspring. AquaBounty is also reportedly developing GE tilapia and trout, so this decision also sets a precedent for future GE fish approvals. 7 Naylor et al, Effect of Aquaculture on World Fish Supplies. Nature, Vol.405, June 29, 2000, pg.1017-1024 and Dr. Rebecca Goldberg, Murky Waters: Environmental Effects of Aquaculture in the United States. Environmental Defense Fund, October 1997. Page 3 FDA’s decision to go ahead with this approval process is misguided and dangerous, and is exacerbated by the lack of any publicly available data. Though this process includes two public meetings as well as a 60-day public comment period on labeling, FDA has failed to provide data on the food safety and environmental risks that this GE fish may pose. The promise that the FDA would provide the data before the hearing is not good enough, in that it affords precious little time to assess the data the FDA is reviewing. FDA has been sitting on this application for 10 years and yet it chose not to disclose any data about its decision until just a few days before the public meeting. While the lack of transparency by FDA prevents the public from submitting informed public comments at the meetings, the absence of a public comment period on the approval of GE salmon following the VMA Committee meetings prevents the public from providing the Committee with relevant scientific studies and data as well as additional stakeholder comment following the meetings and additional release of available data. Holding a comment period solely on labeling presupposes the GE salmon will be approved, without proper public comment solicitation or review. We all know there is a great appetite for salmon, but the solution is not to “farm” genetically engineered versions to put more on our dinner tables; the solution is to work to bring our wild salmon populations back, and to protect and maintain existing native salmon populations. The approval of these transgenic fish will only exacerbate the problems facing our wild fisheries. We strongly oppose the approval of these genetically engineered salmon and urge FDA to reject GE salmon. Should FDA decide to approve the AquAdvantage GE salmon despite our opposition, clear, mandatory labeling is an absolute must to allow consumers to make informed purchasing decisions. Alaska Marine Conservation Council Alaska Trollers Association |
danbacher 
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Photo: Governor Schwarzenegger touring the damage caused by the San Bruno explosion and resulting fire. For Indian Tribes, fishermen and grassroots environmentalists, the ocean and Delta policies of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have been an unprecedented disaster. Photo Credit: Joe McHugh, Office of the Governor.
World Ocean Conference Greenwashes Schwarzenegger’s Abysmal Record
by Dan Bacher
The California and the World Ocean Conference (CWO) 2010, sponsored by the California Ocean Protection Council, the California Natural Resources Agency, and the California Environmental Protection Agency at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco from September 7-10, was a festival of corporate greenwashing, injustice and exclusion.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used the event to greenwash his ocean policies, led by his widely-criticized Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. The MLPA process creates so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAs) that fail to protect the ocean from an environmental disaster like the BP Deepwater Horizon oil gusher or the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
“I am committed to protecting the world’s oceans and I know that by working together will make a difference – we already have,” said Schwarzenegger in his statement in the conference show program. “We are establishing a network of marine protected areas, unlocking the secrets of the deep, working with West Coast Governors and the Premier of British Columbia to improve the health of the coast and seeking to improve the economic and environmental vitality in the Pacific Rim through the Pacific 2020 Challenge.”
Schwarzenegger was originally scheduled to open Wednesday’s plenary session with a keynote address, along with John Hanke, the Vice President of Google Earth and Google Maps, and President Anote Tong of the Republic of Kiribati. Schwarzenegger cancelled out at the last minute, but Hanke and Tong both gave presentations.
Fishermen, Indian Tribal members, seaweed harvesters and environmentalists have criticized his MLPA initiative, funded privately by the Shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation, for eviscerating the landmark law while violating numerous state, federal and international laws. The initiative has completely taken oil drilling, water pollution, aquaculture, wave energy projects, habitat destruction and all uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in the creation of so-called marine protected areas.
The same Governor who constantly gushes about “establishing a network of marine protected areas” has presided over the collapse of Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, young striped bass, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other species. His administration authorized record water exports out of the California Delta to corporate agribusiness and southern California that spurred the collapse.
The conference program featured four plenary sessions, 64 concurrent sessions, and other events with hundreds of participants. The conference organizers went out of their way to make sure that Tribal and fishing community members were excluded from or marginalized on the panels. No Tribal scientists or members of California Indian Tribes were scheduled for any of the panels, although Scott Williams, a lawyer for the Klamath Basin Tribes, spoke on the Klamath River Panel.
With the exception of Melvin de la Motte of the Central Coast Fisheries Conservation Coalition, I couldn’t find any recreational fishermen invited to speak on the panels either. Likewise, only three commercial fishing representatives, including Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, were scheduled for panel presentations.
The “Fostering Effective Stakeholder Participation in the MLPA” panel, held on Thursday from 8 am to 9:45 am, was a prime example of how this conference was in reality a festival of injustice, exclusion and greenwashing, particularly when it came to the discussion of marine protected areas.
Melissa Miller-Henson, Program Manager for the MLPA Initiative, “moderated” the panel. The panel members included Bob Breen, Member of the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council; Calla Allison, Staff Director for the Orange County Marine Protected Area Council; Eugenia Laychahk, Principal of EJL & Associates; Sara Sikich, Coastal Resources Director of Heal the Bay; Matt Winslow, a student at Mendocino County High School; and Kelly Sayce, Outreach and Eduction Coordinator for the California MLPA.
The Schwarzenegger administration scheduled no Tribal, fishing or grassroots environmental stakeholders to present their perspectives on fostering “effective stakeholder participation” in the MLPA process on this panel. Is it because they might portray a view of “stakeholder participation” at odds with the Schwarzenegger administration and well-funded corporate environmental NGOs?
Tribal members, recreational anglers and commercial fishermen blasted the Schwarzenegger administration for excluding them from these and other panels in a disgusting example of institutional racism and elitism.
“This conference was done as decisions are always made by state agencies – without input from the local communities, especially from Tribes,” said Georgiana Myers, Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition organizer. “They come into our territory and homeland to impose laws, rules and regulations that most of the time have a negative impact on us.”
“The event organizers made no attempt to get any substantial representation from the commercial or recreational fishing industry, with the exception of three panels,” said Zeke Grader, who spoke on the aquaculture and offshore energy panels. “Lots of good people in the industry were ignored.”
“For those who struggle to make ends meet in the fishing industry, the Governor’s ocean policies appear to be a kind of class warfare launched by the California elite against us,” said Jim Martin, West Coast Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance.
While tribal and fishing communities were marginalized and excluded from the speaker panels, one government bureaucrat after another promoted their questionable ocean policies.
Nancy Sutley, Chairwoman of the Council on Environmental Quality, and Jane Lubchenko, the Under Secretary for Ocean and Atmosphere under the Obama Administration, spoke on “Protecting Our Ocean: A National Perspective.” They discussed the implementation of President Obama’s Executive Order on the National Ocean Policy and Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning.
Unfortunately, the ocean “protection” ‘plans of Lubchencko, the former Vice Chair of the Board of Environmental Defense, include pushing a “catch shares” policy that privatizes ocean fish resources and concentrates fisheries into fewer, more wealthy hands.
Food and Water Watch, fishing organizations and grassroots environmental groups are opposing the “catch shares” program. Marie Logan of Food and Watch, who attended the conference, noted that there is a process of quota allocation (catch shares) being implemented to West Coast groundfish fisheries in the coming months and years.
The luncheon and closing event was entitled (you can’t make this stuff up!) “Investing in Our Ocean’s Future.” The speakers were three of the biggest names in ocean corporate greenwashing and privatization: David Rockefeller, President and Founding Member, Sailors for the Sea; Michael Sutton, Center for the Future of the Ocean, Monterey Bay Aquarium; and Steve McCormick, President and Trustee of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Of course, no Schwarzenegger administration oceans event is complete without a speech from Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association. Reheis-Boyd spoke at a luncheon panel on Thursday, September 9 about “The Gulf Oil Spill: Lessons Regarding Prevention and Response.”
Reheis-Boyd was the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast and now sits on the task force for the North Coast. In recent months, she has repeatedly called for new oil drilling off the California Coast while presiding over the creation of marine protected areas that do nothing to protect the ocean from new oil drilling, oil spills, water pollution, wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture and habitat destruction. What type of marine guardian is this?
Rather than a legitimate effort to address the many problems that our oceans face, this conference served as a networking session for corporate leaders including David Rockefeller, Jr., John Hanke and Catherine Reheis-Boyd, corporate environmental “Gang Green” representatives, foundation heads and state and federal agency officials to discuss, promote and greenwash their plans to privatize ocean management and public trust resources.
danbacher by Dan Bacher
In response to news of closed-door meetings to discuss the future of the imperiled California Delta, Members of Congress and the California legislature on September 16 sent a letter urging California Resources Secretary Lester Snow and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to open the talks to the public and include Delta representation.
State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis), who represents four of the five counties in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, pressed for transparency and openness in the meetings on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) being convened by the offices of the California Natural Resources Agency and the Department of the Interior.
Many Delta advocates view the BDCP as a thinly veiled plan by the Schwarzenegger administration to build a peripheral canal or tunnel and new dams to facilitate water exports from the Delta to southern corporate agribusness and southern California. They fear that the canal would likely lead to the extinction of collapsing populations of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Central Valley salmon, Sacramento splittail, young striped bass and other species devastated by massive water exports in recent years.
Wolk, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and Congressional Representatives John Garamendi, Doris Matsui, Jerry McNerney, George Miller and Mike Thompson officially requested that the meetings be more inclusive and transparent. State Senator Mark DeSaulnier and State Assembly Members Bill Berryhill, Joan Buchanan, Alyson Huber, Tom Torlakson and Mariko Yamada also signed the letter.
“This most recent exclusion only serves to further frustrate and anger those within the Delta community who are genuinely interested in working constructively with the state and federal agencies and the newly formed Delta Stewardship Council,” the letter states. “In short, this new Delta Principals Group process represents a return to the closed-door deal-making that has historically resulted in further degradation of the Delta.”
“The meetings show a lack of commitment to achieving the coequal goals established by the 2009 legislative package on water,” commented Wolk. “As defined by that package, the state’s goals are to provide a more reliable water supply for California and protect, restore, and enhance the Delta ecosystem ‘in a manner that protects and enhances the unique cultural, recreational, natural resource, and agricultural values of the Delta as an evolving place.’ Without Delta representatives at the table, this group cannot credibly ensure that negotiations live up to these goals.”
The letter includes a series of questions of Snow and Salazar, including:
• What is the role and objectives of the Delta Principals Group? Is this a new group or a separate new process?
• Who are the principals?
• How were the principals identified and what criteria used in determining which groups/representatives would be allowed to participate?
• Are the proposals being discussed based on the best available science?
Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition supports these closed-door meetings, claiming that that they “may lead to significant understandings between various groups that might move California closer to a reliable water future and an environmentally restored Delta.”
“The result would be a benefit to all Californians,” he stated. “Yet, those who continue to hold fast to a ‘me-first’ attitude at the expense of others throw temper tantrums because they are not included. It is this type of (re)action that prevents California from moving forward.”
However, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director of Restore the Delta, said that the closed-door meetings now taking place among top water agency officials, regulatory agencies and three environmental groups “threaten every bit of progress made in the past year to curtail pumping from the California Delta and give imperiled fish populations a chance to recover.”
Lester Snow is now taking a ‘non-public’ proposal to the group, according to Barrigan-Parrilla. It includes a proposal for Delta operations and governance that allows flexibility but requires only a ‘best effort’ from agencies to avoid additional water impacts.
Barrigan-Parrilla also said the proposal also allows DWR and the Bureau of Reclamation to veto any changes to the range of operations.
“This could effectively prevent adaptive management intended to protect fish,” said Barrigan-Parrilla. “In fact, it appears that the proposal would allow the feds to gut the biological opinions.”
The proposal would also require only token funding from water users for habitat restoration, as well as exclude an analysis of the Water Board’s new flow criteria.
Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, emphasized that these latest meetings take place in the context of how the state of California has made its decisions regarding natural resources since the 1800s.
“As tribal people, we have seen the results of these closed door meetings,” said Franco, “and what has happened has never been good for the state or its people. As tribal people, we stand together to demand a just and open process so that the bad decisions over water and natural resources made in the past don’t continue on into the future.”
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone out of his way since assuming office in 2003 to exclude California Indian Tribes, Delta residents, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, environmental justice communities and grassroots conservation groups from all of the talks and meetings deciding the fate of the Delta and the California’s water plans.
These latest closed door meetings are only in one in a series of secret sessions that Schwarzenegger has used, such as the back room negotiations last year to craft the water policy-water bond package in the Legislature, to push through his plans to build a peripheral canal and new dams.
Ironically, at the same time that these secret sessions were being held, Schwarzenegger had the gall to spout off about the need for “transparent” government in his weekly radio address on September 4. “Ever since I became Governor, I have pushed to make California government more transparent,” Schwarzenegger claimed.
This is coming from the guy who has demonstrated more of a penchant for secrecy than any other Governor in California history, a corporate-controlled political hack who was a keynote speaker on July 30, 2010 at the highly secretive Bohemian Grove near Monte Rio on the Russian River (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/09/06/arnold-bohemian-grove-schwarzenegger-calls-for-transparent-government).
It is appalling that the Obama administration, in the foot steps of the Bush administration, is collaborating with Schwarzenegger’s plans to build his “Big Ditch” to benefit big corporate agribusiness magnates like Stewart Resnick, owner of the 120,000 acre Paramount Farms in Kern County, so these water privateers can sell water back to the public at an enormous profit. What type of “Change” is this?
danbacher by Dan Bacher
The fish kill at Wheeler Island was reported to authorities last week through the efforts of Jerry Neuburger, webmaster for the California Fisheries Network (http://www.calfish.net), after he received photos and an eyewitness account of hundreds of stripers dying in this area at the beginning of Labor Day weekend.
Both Jerry and I contacted Randy Imai from the DFG Office of Spill Prevention and Response about the then unconfirmed fish kill. Imai then contacted the game warden and the local DFG water quality biologist in that region.
“This case is now under investigation,” said Captain Mark Lucero, DFG game warden, on September 15. “The fish kill took place when water was siphoned from Wheeler Island in order to repair a pipe operated by Chevron.”
Lucero said the DFG is now reviewing the job description and the conditions of the stream bed alteration agreement between the Department and Chevron, including whether or not the company looked at alternative methods for performing the pipe repair project.
“All of the fish that we saw were dead – we don’t think that’s there’s any live fish left,” he stated.
Besides the stripers, carp and Sacramento splittail also perished in the fish kill at the 700-acre pond.
If criminal charges are filed in the case, some information may not be released, pending actual prosecution, according to Lucero. When the investigation reaches a stage nearing completion, the DFG will send out a press release with the full details of the case.
In a statement, Chevron said it had the proper work permits for the project. “In securing permits, and planning and executing the repair, Chevron Pipe Line Company (CPL) worked cooperatively with the water reclamation district, Department of Fish and Game, the landowner, Corps of Engineers, CA Regional Water Board, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation Development Corporation,” the company stated.
Chevron explained that the project resulting in the fish kill took place after a levee located on private land near Honker Bay was breached in 2009 and not repaired until this year. After the levee was repaired, CPL performed a “preventative repair” on its petroleum products pipeline located in the levee containment area.
The DFG and Chevron provided differing estimates of how many fish died. While the DFG said 1500 fish died, Chevron claimed that only “several hundred fish” perished.
“Several hundred fish died when water was drained from levee containment area in order to perform the repair as required under the work permit by an independent contractor working for the local water reclamation district,” said Chevron. “No petroleum products leaked from the pipeline; and no other wildlife perished. CPL is cooperating fully with authorities on this matter.”
Neuburger questioned why the public and conservation groups were not contacted promptly to conduct a rescue effort of the stranded and dying fish.
“When CFN first reported the incident, it was claimed that DFG had been notified of the draining of the pond,” said Neuburger. “The incident was also reported to be connected with the Chevron Corporation. It appears that the person reporting the incident, Biba, was correct in both statements.”
“If DFG was notified prior to the pond’s draining, why was there no effort to save the fish?,” emphasized Neuburger. “Why wasn’t the public notified? Is this another DFG screw up? We know from the Prospect Island fish kill that many anglers are willing to help in a fish rescue.”
Neuburger was also disturbed that his calls to Captain Lucero weren’t returned promptly at the same time that DFG staff informed the Associated Press (AP) of the fish kill investigation (http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_16072130?nclick_check=1.) However, Lucero did finally call Neuburger on September 15 (http://www.calfish.net/sept10/9-15-10e.htm).
In addition, Neuburger questioned why the permits weren’t better monitored by the DFG.
“If permits were issued, where was DFG’s oversight in this process?” said Neuburger. “If the Department is not providing oversight of these permits, have these permits just become a source of revenue?”
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in September 2008 vetoed the Fish Rescue Plans Bill, AB 1806, sponsored by then Assemblywoman Lois Wolk (D-Wolk), now a State Senator, to prevent fish kills like the latest one from taking place. The bill would have require the Department of Fish and Game to develop a set of protocols to evaluate the need for fish rescue and relocation plans within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/1613.)
AB 1806 was spurred by the fish kill at Prospect Island in November 2008 when tens of thousands of striped bass, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail and other species perished as a volunteer group of outdoorsman, led by marina owner Bob McDaris, struggled to get the approval from state and federal authorities to conduct a fish rescue. It was only after the anglers put intense political pressure on the authorities, amidst heavy media coverage of the fish kill, that the volunteers were allowed to conduct a highly successful rescue of over 1800 striped bass and thousands of other fish.
Schwarzenegger vetoed the bill, claiming it was “unnecessary and duplicates authority already conferred to the Department by existing laws and regulations for mitigation for fish and wildlife impacts and coordination between federal, state and local agencies. Additionally, the burdensome process that this bill would create could potentially inhibit restoration activities initiated in association with flood control projects.”
If Schwarzenegger had done the right thing and signed this bill into law, it is highly unlikely that the latest fish kill in a series of fishery disasters that have plagued California in recent years would have occurred, since the DFG would have been forced to develop a set of protocols to evaluate the need for fish rescue and relocation plans in the imperiled California Delta.
