by Dan Bacher 

The Oakdale Irrigation District and South San Joaquin Irrigation District, in an apparent attempt to pit river salmon enthusiasts against reservoir kokanee and trout anglers, went to a Tuolumne Board of Supervisors meeting in December claiming that a biological opinion protecting Central Valley salmon would result in the “draining” of New Melones Reservoir. 

County Supervisor Dick Pland warned the Board that the biological opinion would result in New Melones being “drained” below 500,000 acre feet of water, imperiling the lake’s popular salmon and trout fisheries. 

“They’re (NOAA and NMFS) doing this because under their biological opinion, they need all that water to help with the Delta issues,” stated Pland, as quoted by B.L. Hansen in http://www.mymotherlode.com/news/loc…Reservoir.html. “This is a huge issue that I think not many people really know about. This is draconian.” 

During that week, Oakdale Irrigation District (OID) General Manager Steve Knell made a number of speaking engagements before Tuolumne County political leaders claiming that New Melones would go dry 13 times during an 80-year period, based on an OID analysis of the federal biological opinion. 

Knell also said the OID study shows New Melones would drop below 500,000 acre-feet 22 times and downstream irrigation districts could lose 300,000 acre-feet or more of water per year. 

“The lake is being drained because of the biological opinion protecting Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, green sturgeon and killer whales,” said Knell. “This will be devastating to our natural resources. The biological opinion is based on false science – the belief that more water translates into more fish. However, fish populations are not solely on water, but on other factor including predation.” 

In a similar vein, the Lake Tulloch Alliance (wwwl.laketulloch.org), castigated what they called “an attempt by environmentalists to force the United States government to begin draining as much a one million acre feet of water from New Melones and perhaps other lakes three times a year.” 

The alliance used the rhetoric spun by agribusiness Astroturf groups such as the Latino Water Coalition that last year claimed that “radical environmentalists” were making the San Joaquin Valley into a “dust bowl” by favoring “fish over people.” 

“The environmentalists contend basically fish are more important than people! This action would destroy tourism and real estate values devastating an already struggling economy,” the group claimed. 

However, fish advocates and the federal government officials said claims of New Melones or Tulloch lakes being “drained” to provide water for salmon and steelhead have no basis in fact. 

“New Melones is not going to be drained,” emphasized Pete Lucero, spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation. “There are demands on that reservoir and the watershed hasn’t lived up to expectation. It’s a 2.42 million acre feet reservoir – and the current storage is 1.4 million-acre feet of water, 88 percent of the 15-year average. It was 1.15 million acre feet this time last year, so we actually have more water at this time than we did than last year.” 

“New Melones has a lot of competing needs and we try to balance the use of the water with competing users,” he added. 

Melanie Lewis, the owner of Glory Hole Sports in Angels Camp, agreed, and noted that the water districts are falsely using claims about the imminent “draining” of New Melones as an excuse to “move more water.” 

“The claims that New Melones will go down to 500,000 acre feet is a worst case scenario of this year’s preliminary water outlook by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation,” said Lewis. “Each month the projection of the amount of available water supply changes – and radically changes by February.” 

New Melones Lake is full at 1,085 feet above sea level – and the lake has only been full once, in 1998, according to Lewis. The lowest level was in 1992 when the lake was 728 feet. 

“The horror story that the biological opinion is turning the lake into a mud puddle – and will wipe out the lake’s trout fishery – is simply not true,” said Jerry Cadagan, environmental lawyer and longtime advocate for the Stanislaus River. He emphasized there are five purposes of New Melones – power generation, flood control, fisheries enhancement, water quality and recreation. 

“The 844 page biological opinion in question is neither ‘draconian’ nor something that no one ‘really knows about, as asserted by Supervisor Pland,” said Cadagan.

Cadagan noted that the National Marine Fisheries Service, pursuant to the provisions of the federal Endangered Species Act, publicly issued the opinion on June 4, 2009. 

The opinion, initiated under the Bush administration and finished under the Obama administration, was a court-ordered rewrite of the previous document. The previous plan, under political manipulation by Bush administration officials, claimed that Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River winter run and spring run chinook salmon, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales weren’t in immediate jeopardy under by the operation of the state and federal water projects.

The rewritten document, contested by the irrigation districts, Westlands Water District and other wealthy water contractors, said the survival of the five species was in imminent jeopardy unless changes in project operations, including reducing Delta water exports, providing fish passage over dams and providing releases down rivers at times needed for fish migration, were initiated. 

Cadagan characterized the attempt by agribusiness to spread a “doom and gloom” scenario about Tulloch and New Melones being drained as a “publicity stunt.” 

“The belated, inaccurate and misguided cries in Tuolumne County (instigated by Oakdale Irrigation District” that the ‘sky is falling” happened to come just a week before yet another hearing in the Fresno courtroom of Federal Judge Oliver Wanger, who is hearing all the complex litigation involving the biological opinions and related endangered species and Bay-Delta matters,” he stated. “The OID is party to that litigation.” 

Ron Stork, senior policy advocate at Friends of the River, said much of the pressure for increased water deliveries was actually the result of a court ruling a decade ago in favor of the Stockton East Irrigation District. The judge ruled that the Bureau had to provide Central Valley project water to the district even in periods of drought. 

“This is a case of the water users trying to get out of the consequences of delivering more water to their fields – and blaming it on a biological opinion protecting fish,” Stork quipped. “The water diverters, who stole the water ‘fair and square,’ are upset that the small amount of water given to fish downriver competes with the watering of their fields.” 

The Oakdale Irrigation District and South San Joaquin Irrigation District have also filed a lawsuit in opposition to the biological opinion and have set up a website, “Save the Stan,” to attack it. The districts are blaming the striped bass for the decline of steelhead and salmon on the Stanislaus even though the two species have coexisted for over 120 years. 

“The real problem is predation, not water flow,” claimed Jeff Shields, General Manager of South San Joaquin Irrigation District. 

However, fish advocates emphasize that stripers, rather than being a “cause” of the Delta smelt and salmon population declines, are victims of the same massive water exports and water pollution that have resulted in the Central Valley salmon and Delta pelagic fish collapse. 

The Department of Fish and Game has documented record low population levels of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, young striped bass, Sacramento splittail and threadfin shad in its trawl surveys on the Delta in recent years. In fact, the DFG fall midwater trawl survey results released at the end of December document the lowest ever numbers of young striped bass and Sacramento splittail ever recorded. 

The federal-state Pelagic Organism Decline (POD) team has pinpointed water exports, toxic chemicals, invasive species and more recently, ammonia pollution as the key factors behind the crash. 

Meanwhile, corporate agribusiness, southern California water agencies and corporate environmental NGOs led by the Nature Conservancy are pushing for the construction of a peripheral canal/tunnel to facilitate the export of more water from the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to west side San Joaquin Valley agribusiness and southern California. Fishing groups, California Indian Tribes, conservationists, family farmers and Delta residents contend that the peripheral canal/tunnel will lead to the extinction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish species. 

“The peripheral canal is a big, stupid idea that doesn’t make any sense from a tribal environmental perspective,” said Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe at a rally at the State Capitol in Sacramento in July 2009. “Building a canal to save the Delta is like a doctor inserting an arterial bypass from your shoulder to your hand – it will cause your elbow to die just like taking water out of the Delta through a peripheral canal will cause the Delta to die.” 

For more information about the battle to restore the Delta, go to: http://www.restorethedelta.org.

by Dan Bacher 

Jerry Brown took office as Governor on January 3 after Arnold Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history, departed from the position at midnight. One of the major issues that Brown will have to address is Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. 

During his campaign and after being elected for his third term on November 2, 2010, Brown has remained silent, in the face of questions from reporters, about his plans for the controversial Schwarzenegger program. Will he continue, suspend or cancel the MLPA process? Nobody at this point really knows. 

However, you can bet that there will be a big push by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation that funds the initiative and representatives of corporate environmental NGOs to pressure Brown to continue the MLPA on its fast track of environmental injustice. 

Since Schwarzenegger privatized the MLPA process in 2004, MLPA officials and their supporters constantly repeated the mantra that the process is “open, transparent and inclusive” and “science-based” as part of a well-funded propaganda campaign to greenwash Schwarzenegger’s abysmal environmental legacy. 

The proponents of the process refuse to address the many criticisms that advocates of true ocean protection have leveled against the MLPA Initiative. I have challenged MLPA proponents to answer a series of hard questions that cut to the core of the current MLPA process. 

However, no MLPA proponents have responded yet to my specific questions, but only continue to repeat their unsubstantiated claims that the Initiative is “open, transparent and inclusive” and that anybody who criticizes the initiative is an opponent of “ocean protection.” 

I also challenge Brown and the person who is expected to become the new Natural Resources Secretary, John Laird, to carefully read these questions before making any decisions about the future of the MLPA process. 

The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a comprehensive, landmark law that was signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. The MLPA, as amended in 2004, 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. 

The law also broadly defines a “marine protected area” (MPA) as “a named, discrete geographic marine or estuarine area seaward of the mean high tide line or the mouth of a coastal river, including any area of inertial or sub tidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora and fauna that has been designated by law, administrative action, or voter initiative to protect or conserve marine life and habitat” (Fish and Game Code 2852, section c). 

Furthermore, the law also defines a “Marine life reserve,” as “a marine protected area in which all extractive activities, including the taking of marine species, and, at the discretion of the commission and within the authority of the commission, other activities that upset the natural ecological functions of the area, are prohibited. While, to the extent feasible, the area shall be open to the public for managed enjoyment and study, the area shall be maintained to the extent practicable in an undisturbed and unpolluted state” (Fish and Game Code 2852, section d). 

However, the implementation of the law under Schwarzenegger has become a parody of real marine protection. The MLPA process has taken oil drilling, water pollution, wave energy development, habitat destruction and other human uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table. The MLPA would do nothing to stop another Exxon Valdez or Deepwater Horizon oil disaster from devastating the California coast. 

Here are the questions: 

Why did Schwarzenegger and MLPA officials install an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate interests as “marine guardians” to remove Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters from the water by creating so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAS)? Isn’t this very bad public policy? 

Why was Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, allowed to make decisions as the chair of the BRTF for the South Coast and as a member of the BRTF for the North Coast, panels that are supposedly designed to “protect” the ocean, when she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast? Do we want to see oil rigs off Point Arena, Fort Bragg and other areas of some of the most beautiful coastline of North America? 

Why is a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, being allowed to privatize ocean resource management in California through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the DFG? 

Why do the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) and Science Advisory Team continue to violate the California Public Records Act by refusing to respond to numerous requests by Bob Fletcher, former DFG Deputy Director, for key documents and records pertaining to the MLPA implementation process? 

Why do MLPA staff and the California Fish and Game Commission refuse to hear the pleas of the representatives of the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, who oppose the creation of any new MPAs until they have enough funding for wardens to patrol existing reserves? 

Why did MLPA staff until recently violate the Bagley-Keene Act and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by banning video and audio coverage of the initiative’s work sessions? 

Why has the Initiative shown little or no respect for tribal subsistence and ceremonial rights? In fact, it was only because of massive opposition by North Coast Tribes and their allies that an amendment that would have terminated tribal fishing and gathering rights failed to pass during a special MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force teleconference meeting held in Fort Bragg, Crescent City and Eureka on December 9. 

Since the MLPA was privatized in 2004, the initiative has violated the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. 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 MLPA also violates Article 26, Section 3, that declares, “States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.” 

The unified proposal adopted by North Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force is the first MLPA proposal that acknowledges tribal gathering and fishing rights, a tribute to the hard work of the Tribal, fishing and environmental stakeholders. However, why did it take 6 years for this to happen? 

Why were there no Tribal scientists on the MLPA Science Advisory Team and why were there no Tribal representatives on the Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast or South Coast MLPA Study Regions? Isn’t this a case of institutional racism on behalf of MLPA officials? 

Why does the initiative discard the results of any scientists who disagree with the MLPA’s pre-ordained conclusions? These include the peer reviewed study by Dr. Ray Hilborn, Dr. Boris Worm and 18 other scientists, featured in Science magazine in July 2009, that concluded that the California current had the lowest rate of fishery exploitation of any place studied on the planet. 

Finally, why did 300 Tribal members, fishermen, immigrant workers and environmentalists feel so left out of the MLPA process that they had to organize a march and direct action to take over a MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg of July 21 so their voices would be finally heard? 

Proponents of the MLPA Initiative have failed to address the many criticisms of the MLPA process by Indian Tribes, recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, conservationists and environmental justice advocates. 

Real environmentalists support true, comprehensive ocean protection as the MLPA originally intended, not the facade of protection that Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative provides. 

Real environmentalists don’t support a process that has gone to great lengths to take 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 perverse concept of marine “protection.” 

Finally, real environmentalists oppose the privatization of ocean conservation that has occurred under the MLPA Initiative. 

The MLPA process must be seen in the context of the campaign by the Schwarzenegger administration, corporate media, some NGOs and political hacks to greenwash the environmental legacy of the worst Governor in California history for fish, water and the environment. This is the same Governor who presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and other fish species, relentlessly campaigned for the construction of an environmentally destructive and enormously expensive peripheral canal and new dams and vetoed numerous laws protecting fish, water and the environment. 

Governor Brown has a chance now to do the right thing – cancel or suspend the MLPA Initiative and to conduct an investigation of the conflicts of interest, corruption and violations of state, federal and international laws that have occurred under the MLPA Initiative. Will Brown listen to the many criticisms of the MLPA by Indian Tribes, fishermen and grassroots environmentalists – or will he continue the failed ocean policies of the Schwarzenegger regime?