danbacher For this reporter, it is clear we have a problem. The only public process that Kearns and West was engaged in was the process of turning public resources over to private interests, during which they violated the public trust, and the democratic process itself.
Photo of banner over bridge in Fort Bragg on July 21, 2010, the day of historic direct action protest organized by the Coastal and Klamath Justice Coalitions against the violation of tribal rights under the MLPA “Initiative.” Photo by Klamath Media Collective.
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by David Gurney
see: http://noyonews.net
Noyo News has learned that Kearns and West was involved in the “public process” for P.G.&E.’s attempted ocean resource takeover in 2008-2009. According to an announcement posted by P.G.&E. public affairs rep Ian Caliendo in April, 2009:
“We are working with Kearns & West, a public involvement firm, to design and facilitate an appropriate public participation process. In an effort to better understand the questions, concerns, and interests of the public, and especially those of you involved thus far, Kearns & West will be conducting some informal interviews. You may be contacted by Kearns & West to schedule a confidential interview at a time of your convenience.”
What’s interesting here, is the fact that almost immediately after helping garner public support for P.G.&E. to control hundreds of square miles of ocean for wave energy projects in 2008-9, Kearns and West was back, with the MLPA “Initiative” – to end fishing, gathering and public access – on huge ocean tracts.
During Kearns and West’s most recent “public process,” questions from the public about MLPA protections against industrialization and oil drilling and were strictly prohibited.
Whenever someone asked about oil and gas drilling, mining, wave energy, or Navy testing within MPAs – they were quickly marginalized and silenced by the privately contracted Kearns and West facilitators. These topics were deliberately kept off the table during the MLPA “Initiative.”
So why is it, that the same private firm running public meetings, to throw fishermen and the public off the ocean, has as its main paying clients – energy interests, primarily electricity and natural gas interests?
Just a coincidence? Can the same outfit that represents natural gas and energy interests on the one hand, say they are working to “protect” the ocean on the other?
Noyo News will let the reader draw their own conclusions.
For this reporter, it is clear we have a problem. The only public process that Kearns and West was engaged in, was the process of turning public resources over to private interests, during which they violated the public trust, and the democratic process itself.
We are calling for an immediate and thorough investigation by the Attorney General, into Kearns and West’s conflicts of interests, and the illegal manipulation of the public during the MLPAI process. We are demanding that the many public questions about conflicts of interest and corruption within the MLPAI be addressed, and that the entire MLPAI process be investigated by appropriate legal entities.
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danbacher More than 11.5 million Californians rely on water from suppliers that experienced at least one violation of State Drinking Water Standards as reported to the Department of Public Health in 2004, according to Debbie Davis, Policy Director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water. As many as 8.5 million Californians rely on supplies that experienced more than five instances of unsafe levels in a single year.
The severely contaminated New River flows from Mexicali, Mexico across the U.S. border into Calexico in the Imperial Valley. Photo courtesy of the California Department of Public Health.
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by Dan Bacher
The Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee, in a special hearing in the State Capitol in Sacramento on July 7, passed AB 685, the Human Right to Water bill.
This landmark bill would establish in law a state policy that every Californian has a “human right to clean, affordable, and accessible drinking water for their basic human needs,” according to a joint news release from the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water (EJCW) and Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC).
“After hearing moving testimony from safe water advocates and residents of California communities without access to safe drinking water, the committee voted 5-3 in favor,” said Debbie Davis, Policy Director of the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water. “A broad-based coalition of faith-based, human rights, environmental, consumer rights and environmental justice groups celebrated the latest legislative victory for the human right to water package moving through the legislature.”
The vote was on party lines, with the 5 Democrats present voting for the bill and the 3 Republicans voting against it. Democratic Senators Fran Pavley, Noreen Evans, Christine Kehoe, Joe Simitian and Lois Wolk voted yes, while Republican Senators Doug LaMalfa, Anthony Cannella and Jean Fuller voted no. Democratic Senator Alex Padilla was absent.
“California is one step closer to being the first state in the nation to establish this historic policy which would help everyone have access to clean, affordable water at their tap,” stated Davis.
AB 685, introduced by Assemblyman Mike Eng, is the lead policy bill in package of six Human Right to Water bills. Four of the five other bills in the package — AB 938 (V.M.Perez), AB 983 (Perea), AB 1221 (Alejo) and SB 244 (Wolk) have also won support in their house of origin and received bipartisan support in the latest round of policy committees votes, according to Davis.
“It is shocking that in California we have communities where the sole water supply is contaminated, and where families unable to afford treatment are left entirely without safe water,” said Assemblyman Eng, in explaining why he authored his bill. “It is critical that we help communities throughout the state gain access to clean, affordable water.”
Eng said declaring the human right to water as official policy will set a goal for California agencies so that state policies will change to enable Californians to gain access to clean, affordable water. “I am proud to author AB 685, part of a package of bills that will help bring California closer to a day when everyone will have access to clean, affordable water,” he stated.
“Although this latest vote was on party lines, we hope that the bill proceeds to the Senate Floor and receives bi-partisan support,” said Reverend Lindi Ramsden, Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry. “We have collected over 1,000 letters of support from people of a variety of political perspectives across the state from Humboldt County to San Diego County.”
“While billions of dollars have been spent on water projects in California, we have still much work to do to make sure that everyone has access to clean water to drink,” emphasized Ramsden.
More than 11.5 million Californians rely on water from suppliers that experienced at least one violation of State Drinking Water Standards as reported to the Department of Public Health in 2004, according to Davis. As many as 8.5 million Californians rely on supplies that experienced more than five instances of unsafe levels in a single year.
“The Human Right to Water bill passed the Legislature and was vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009,” added Davis. “We are hopeful that with Brown’s experience on California water issues, we’ll have a different outcome this year.”
Co-sponsoring organizations include the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Community Water Center, Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry, Food and Water Watch, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, Southern California Watershed Alliance, Winneman Wintu Tribe, Urban Semillas, Catholic Charities Diocese of Stockton and Clean Water Action.
This bill is opposed by the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), the Western Growers Association and several other water service providers, who contend the bill “may lead to a requirement that water agencies provide water service without consideration to affordability, thereby increasing water bills and have other unintended consequences,” according to the Legislative Analysis.
While the state and federal governments continue to promote the construction of a peripheral canal (”conveyance”) through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to facilitate the export of northern California water to corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water agencies, many rural and urban communities have to rely on surface and groundwater supplies contaminated by fertilizers, toxic chemicals, sewage and other pollutants.
In July 2010, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution recognizing access to clean water and sanitation as a human right. The vote was 122 for and 0 against, with 41 countries, including the United States, abstaining. Over 884 million people throughout the word lack access to safe drinking water.
For more information, contact: Debbie Davis, EJCW, (916) 743-4406, or Shelley Moskowitz, UUSC, (857) 222-8824.
danbacher As recently as June, Jerry Meral, who has been given charge by the Brown Administration to lead the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, assured public participants that all processes underway through the BDCP were “open and transparent.”
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by Dan Bacher
Representatives of the Metropolitan Water District, State Water Contractors Association and San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority are holding closed-door meetings with Brown and Obama administration officials to create a finance plan for construction of the peripheral canal or tunnel, Restore the Delta revealed today.
This canal/tunnel, a key component of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), will divert Sacramento River water away from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water agencies. Schwarzenegger relentlessly campaigned for the canal through the BDCP and Delta Vision processes while he was Governor – and the Brown and Obama administrations have decided to continue Schwarzenegger’s abysmal environmental legacy.
In a public meeting of the BDCP in Sacramento on April 25, John Laird, Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, committed the agency to making the BDCP more inclusive of all of the stakeholders – and acknowledged the problems with the Schwarzenegger administration’s requirement that participants sign an agreement agreeing to support the construction of the peripheral canal/tunnel.
“I believe that we cannot move forward without listening to the stakeholders around the state,” said Laird. “The status quo on the Delta is unsustainable. There is no one from any group that believes in the status quo.”
As recently as June, Jerry Meral, who has been given charge by the Brown Administration to lead the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, assured public participants that all processes underway through the BDCP were “open and transparent,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta.
However, video from the June 28, 2011 Metropolitan Water District Special Committee on the Bay Delta confirms that water contractors, including Metropolitan Water District’s General Manager Roger Patterson, are already working with Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation officials to create the finance plan for new conveyance, said Barrigan-Parrilla. The meeting can be heard athttp://mwdh2o.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=12&clip_id=1630 , minute 36.
Barrigan-Parrilla points out, “The BDCP website describes work on project financing as not beginning until the fall of 2011 after determinations are made regarding benefits of new water deliveries for State and Federal Water Contractors. However, as we have always suspected, those who want to take additional water away from Northern California and the Delta are crafting a finance plan without California tax payer and/or rate payer input.”
“How much more are urban water users in San Diego and Los Angeles willing to pay for water in order to finance this project?” asks California Delta Chambers Executive Director Bill Wells. “Can Central Valley farmers afford to farm if the price of water triples and quadruples to pay for a canal? And how much of the financial burden will be shifted to tax payers to cover the astronomical costs for environmental mitigation to the Delta?”
Barrigan-Parrilla maintains that Californians are being “hit very hard with cutbacks in education and essential services due to budget cuts.” Therefore, Californians should have a say when it comes to large expenditures like building a canal or tunnel through the Delta – even if they will be asked only to finance a part of the project.
“The conflict between the Brown Administration’s assertion that the Bay Delta Conservation plan is an open and transparent process and the real ongoing practice of dealing with the most important aspects of the BDCP in private is alarming,” she states.
Barrigan-Parrilla asks, “Shouldn’t these types of meetings on financing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan be noticed and open to the public? Why the secrecy if there is nothing to hide?”
As an independent investigative journalist who has uncovered conflicts of interest and violations of numerous laws under Schwarzenegger’s BDCP, Delta Vision and Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative fiascos, I concur with Barrigan-Parrilla. If the water contractors indeed have nothing to hide, they should abide by Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the Brown Act and other state laws and open all of their meetings to the public.
A broad coalition of recreational and commercial fishing groups, Indian Tribes, grassroots environmental organizations, family farmers, environmental justice advocates and Delta residents oppose the construction of the peripheral canal – “Arnold’s Big Ditch” – because it would likely lead to the extinction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations.
“Most Delta farmers and residents oppose the BDCP not only because it would devastate fish populations and the fishing industry, but because it puts ALL of the burden on the Primary Zone of the Delta and Sacramento River watershed for habitat restoration and mitigation for Southern California’s diversion of water,” added Karen Medders, a resident of Clarksburg in the North Delta and peripheral canal opponent.
The BDCP process to build a peripheral canal is a parallel process to the MLPA Initiative to create a network of controversial “marine protected areas” off the California coast. The promoters of both processes claim that they are “open and transparent” – when they are anything but.
The Brown and Obama administrations are going ahead with Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plans to build a peripheral canal/tunnel by meeting with water exporters in closed-door meetings. Meanwhile, the Brown administration continues to forge ahead with the MLPA Initiative, in spite of the violations of state, federal and international laws that have occurred under the process, funded privately by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.
George Osborn, spokesman for a coalition of recreational fishing organizations, presented a 25 page document documenting illegal private, non-public meetings of Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) officials to the California Fish and Game Commission during its meeting on February 2 in Sacramento. United Anglers of Southern California, the Coastside Fishing Club and Bob Fletcher, members of the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO), filed suit in San Diego Superior Court in late January, seeking to overturn South Coast and North Central Coast MLPA closures, alleging violations of the State Administrative Procedure Act.
During his brief public testimony, Osborn exposed the corruption and violations of law by the MLPA’s Blue Ribbon Task Force (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7_04BC1acA).
“After reviewing the documents turned over to us, which previously the BRTF had improperly withheld from the public, we now have evidence, indicating that the public meetings of the BRTF have been an elaborately staged Kabuki performance, choreographed and rehearsed down to the last detail, even to the crafting of motions, in scheduled private meetings held before the so-called public meetings of the BRTF,” said Osborn. “Clearly, this has not been the most open and transparent process, as it has so often been described.”
In both the case of the BDCP and the MLPA, we are definitely seeing a classic case of, “Meet the new boss – same as the old boss,” as The Who sang many years ago.
As these two controversial processes proceed, the carnage continues at the state and federal water export pumps on the Delta. An alarming 8,538,859 Sacramento splittail and 35,202 Central Valley chinook salmon were “salvaged” in the Delta pumping facilities from January 1, 2011 to June 26, 2011. The number of splittail, a native minnow, “salvaged” to date is greater than in any previous years since the federal and state governments started keeping records on splittail in 1993.
You can see the BDCP website description of financing at: http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/BDCPPlanningProcess/WorkingGroups/WorkingGroup-Financing.aspx.
For more information, contact: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Phone: 209-479-2053, Restore the Delta, 10100 Trinity Pkwy, Suite 120, Stockton, CA, 95219, web: http://www.restorethedelta.org, email: Barbara [at] Restorethedelta.org
danbacher The Delta leaders describe H.R. 1837 as “an attempt to prioritize junior water contracts held by a limited number of San Joaquin Valley growers over the senior and superior water rights of Delta farmers, and other farmers whose land falls within the Delta watershed.” They also criticize the bill’s “threat to increase Delta pumping without proper fish screening.”
The Delta Mendota Canal, shown here, and the California Aqueduct deliver water to corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water agencies. Water exporters are pushing for the construction of a peripheral canal to facilitate the export of Delta water to drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California water agencies. Photo courtesy of Bureau of Reclamation.
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by Dan Bacher
On July 5, Restore the Delta and sixteen other Delta community and political leaders sent a letter to Congressman Tom McClintock, Chair of the House Sub Committee on Water and Power, to express widespread and growing opposition to HR 1837, sponsored by Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA).
The Delta leaders describe H.R. 1837 as “an attempt to prioritize junior water contracts held by a limited number of San Joaquin Valley growers over the senior and superior water rights of Delta farmers, and other farmers whose land falls within the Delta watershed.” They also criticize the bill’s “threat to increase Delta pumping without proper fish screening.”
In addition, they take aim at the bill’s attempt to repeal the San Joaquin River Settlement Agreement, a ambitious plan to restore water and salmon to the river below Friant Dam.
“Attempts to reverse this promise for San Joaquin River restoration sends a bad message to Delta communities,” the letter states. “Since the inception of the State Water Project and the Central Valley Water Project, promises made regarding the export of surplus flows and proper fish screening at export water facilities have been broken repeatedly. If Congress were to break yet another promise regarding restoration through legislative action, it would signal to Delta communities the Federal Government’s sacrifice of the Delta for the benefit of another region in California.”
“It is this preference for San Joaquin Valley agriculture over Delta agriculture, fisheries and in-Delta urban uses that is the most disturbing aspect of HR 1837,” the letter continues. “HR 1837 is not a job creation bill for the San Joaquin Valley, but it very well could become a job killer bill for the Delta, and for California.”
Signees to the letter include Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, Ann Johnston, Mayor of Stockton, Larry Huhstaller, chairman of the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, Assembly Members Joan Buchanan, Assemblyman Bill Berryhill, Bill Jennings, chairman/executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and Roger Mammon of the California Striped Bass Association West Delta Chapter.
In a press release issued after the letter was released, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, said recent massive fish kills of Sacramento splittail and Central Valley spring-run chinook salmon at the state and federal water project pumps in the south Delta “highlight the folly” of H.R. 1837, Nunes’ resolution to guarantee water supplies to the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
Barrigan-Parrilla said the San Joaquin Valley Water Reliability Act would undo years of efforts to balance Delta restoration with water supply reliability and to restore the San Joaquin River.
“H.R. 1837 is an end run around California’s water rights laws,” she stated. “It puts junior rights holders ahead of Delta agriculture, Delta municipal water users, and fisheries. Forget public trust protections.”
She said recovery of the West Coast’s recreational and commercial fishing industries is threatened by operation of federal and state water projects, which create “conditions hostile to fish.”
An alarming 8,538,859 Sacramento splittail and 35,202 Central Valley chinook salmon were “salvaged” in the Delta pumping facilities from January 1, 2011 to June 26, 2011. The number of splittail, a native minnow, salvaged to date is greater than in any previous years since the federal and state governments started keeping records on splittail in 1993.
Yet, water export contractors have refused to pay for fish screens at the pumps.
Nunes, the darling of San Joaquin corporate agribusiness interests, argues that federal endangered species protections orchestrated by “radical environmentalists” have cost tens of thousands of jobs in impoverished San Joaquin Valley communities.
However, research conducted by Dr. Jeffrey Michael of the University of the Pacific’s Business Forecasting Center has shown conclusively that San Joaquin Valley job losses are lower than claimed and have been driven by the housing construction collapse. While decreases in water exports have actually had little effect on San Joaquin Valley job losses over the last few years, Delta agriculture does support over 36,000 jobs in California, according to Barrigan-Parrilla.
“Even with pumping restrictions to protect salmon and other species, average exports from the Delta are now similar to what they were in the 1980s and 1990s. Several years of dramatic increases in pumping during the past decade have driven some species of fish to the brink of extinction,” she said.
Millions of tax dollars have been spent on scientific reviews confirming the adverse effects of project over-pumping.
Restore the Delta is a broad-based coalition including Delta farmers, environmentalists, fishermen, business leaders, and concerned citizens. Restore the Delta advocates for a more comprehensive and thoughtful approach to address the state’s water needs, including projects that safeguard the Bay, the Delta, the environment, and the people of California.
For more information, contact: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Phone: 209-479-2053, Barbara [at] RestoretheDelta.org. The press release and copy of the letter are available at: http://www.restorethedelta.org.
danbacher “If successful, the United Anglers lawsuit will invalidate all Marine Protected Areas created by the illegal and corrupt process financed and run by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation on California’s South Coast and North Central Coast, probably leading to the invalidation of Marine Protected Areas declared on the Central Coast and proposed for the North Coast,” emphasized Lewallen.
Barbara Stephens-Lewallen harvests the tips of sea palms on a low tide in Sea Lion Cove, an area where the Schwarzenegger administration banned sustainable seaweed harvesting and fishing. Photo by Dan Bacher.
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by Dan Bacher
John Lewallen, a longtime environmental leader on California’s North Coast, is urging everybody concerned about true ocean protection in California waters to support the lawsuit by United Anglers of Southern California, the Coastside Fishing Club and Bob Fletcher against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
“A California Superior Court lawsuit challenging the authority of the state to let the private Resources Legacy Fund Foundation operate a process of setting up Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in violation of the 1999 Marine Life Protection Act, the California Environmental Quality Act, the Coastal Act, and other state laws, deserves the support of all Californians,” said Lewallen.
“United Anglers of Southern California, et.al., versus the California State Fish and Game Commission, has an excellent legal team which has won a string of victories, and is headed for a July 11 hearing to discuss the heart of the case: whether the state has operated under the proper authority to issue the regulations that it did,” Lewallen stated.
In 2010, this legal team won a case establishing that the privatized Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) had to follow public meeting laws, specifically the Public Records Act. BRTF public records clearly showed that routine illegal private meetings were held in the process of setting up Marine Protected Areas on the South Coast and North Central Coast.
A March 10, 2011 California Superior Court ruling required the BRTF to pay all legal fees incurred by the plaintiffs in the 2010 Public Records Act lawsuit.
Early this year, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Ocean Conservancy tried to intervene on the side of the Fish and Game Commission, according to Lewallen.
On May 27 this year, Judge Ronald S. Prager of San Diego Superior Court ruled that these foundation-funded corporations “have not established they have a direct and immediate interest in the outcome of the litigation.”
“The brief our attorneys provided was exceptionally good,” said Robert C. Fletcher, a party to the lawsuit. “The result is there will not be more attorneys involved and more money being thrown into the defense of this lawsuit.”
“If successful, the United Anglers lawsuit will invalidate all Marine Protected Areas created by the illegal and corrupt process financed and run by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation on California’s South Coast and North Central Coast, probably leading to the invalidation of Marine Protected Areas declared on the Central Coast and proposed for the North Coast,” emphasized Lewallen.
Lewallen, the co-founder of the Ocean Protection Coalition and the North Coast Seaweed Rebellion, has been in the forefront of grass roots campaigns against oil drilling, the clear cutting of ancient forests, wave energy projects and military testing off the coast and other environmental battles for over three decades. Unlike some well-funded initiative advocates who support greenwashing under the privatized MLPA process, Lewallen sees the MLPA Initiative for what it truly is- a resource grab by corporate interests.
Lewallen is the author of “Ecology of Devastation: Indochina” (1971) and a handbook for environmental organizing on the North Coast (1975). He has written numerous articles on environmental issues for an array of publications since then.
“For news on this vital case, and to contribute to the excellent, but expensive, legal team defending public government in California, seehttp://www.OceanAccessProtectionFund.org,” urged Lewallen. To contact John Lewallen, call (707) 895-2996 in Philo, California.
Point Arena summit kicked off campaign against corrupt MLPA Initiative
In June 2009, Lewallen and his wife, Barbara, organized the historic “Point Arena Sustainable Fisheries Tour” to kick off the campaign against the MLPA Initiative on the North and North Central Coasts. The summit featured talks by North Coast environmental leaders, including Judith Vidaver of the Ocean Protection Coalition and longtime salmon restoration advocate Craig Bell, as well as commercial fishermen, Native American activists, recreational anglers, seaweed harvesters and environmental justice advocates.
At the summit and many times since then, Lewallen criticized the key role that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association and an ardent advocate of new oil drilling off the California coast, played in the MLPA process. Reheis-Boyd was chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast, as well as serving on the North Central Coast and North Coast Task Forces. Lewallen believes Reheis-Boyd’s position as an “oil industry superstar” is a conflict of interest with her leadership role in developing so-called marine protected areas (MPAs).
“By setting up these no-take marine reserves and kicking fishermen, Indians, seaweed harvesters and other ocean food providers off traditional areas of the ocean, the Schwarzenegger administration is paving the way for offshore oil drilling,” Lewallen said. “Twenty-three percent of the nation’s offshore oil reserves are off the coast of California. The Point Arena Basin off Mendocino is on track now to be leased for drilling by the Mineral Management Services.”
Ann Maurice, Sonoma County Native American activist, who has worked for years to stop state-imposed closures from taking away traditional ocean harvesting areas vital to the survival of Kashia and other Native cultures, gave her complete support to the Point Arena “Seaweed Rebellion” at the summit.
“Native Americans have been systematically deprived of the right to sustainably fish and harvest intertidal food,” Maurice said at the event. “Now the same thing is being done to you. Make no mistake about it.”
Yurok Tribe: Commission fails to recognize tribal rights
More recently, the California Fish and Game Commission accepted a “preferred alternative” on Wednesday, June 29 that “failed to affirm traditional tribal gathering” in the North Coast Study Region MLPA Initiative, according to a press release from the Yurok Tribe.
According to Option 1, tribal members would have to use a state fishing license in addition to a Tribal ID for those sixteen or older and be limited by state regulations.
“I cannot accept the part about the fishing license. The Fish and Game has taken an unjust and patronizing step,” said Yurok Tribal Chairman Thomas O’Rourke Sr. “No one can separate these resources from our culture.”
Option 1 states “tribal gathering to continue in SMCAs (not SMRs), by specific tribal users, where a factual record can be established that shows ancestral take or tribal gathering practices by a federally-recognized tribe in that specific MPA (marine protected area), and by allowing only those tribes to take specified species with specified gear types.”
The Northern California Tribal Chairmen’s Association and the Inter-Tribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, which represent all of the recognized tribes in the study region, proposed a motion that would have affirmed traditional tribal harvest managed by individual Tribal governments.
The motion states: “Consistent with the tribal gathering general concepts described in Option 1…Traditional, non-commercial tribal uses shall be allowed to continue unimpeded within the proposed SMCAs and SMRMs in the MLPA’s North Coast Study Region for all federally recognized tribes that can establish that they have practiced such uses within a specific SMCA or SMRMA.”
For more information about the Yurok Tribe, please visit http://www.yuroktribe.org.
MLPA Initiative Background:
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA “Initiative” to “implement” the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.
The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of “marine protected areas” included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of interest. Catherine Reheis Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association who is pushing for new oil drilling off the California coast, served as the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast.
The MLPA Initiative operated through a controversial private/public “partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The Schwarzenegger administration, under intense criticism by grassroots environmentalists, fishermen and Tribal members, authorized the implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG).
Tribal members, fishermen, grassroots environmentalists, human rights advocates and civil liberties activists have slammed the MLPA Initiative for the violation of numerous state, federal and international laws. Critics charge that the initiative, privatized by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004, has violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, Brown Act, California Administrative Procedures Act, American Indian Religious Freedom Act and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
MLPA and state officials refused to appoint any tribal scientists to the MLPA Science Advisory Team (SAT), in spite of the fact that the Yurok Tribe alone has a Fisheries Department with over 70 staff members during the peak fishing season, including many scientists. The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force also didn’t include any tribal representatives until 2010 when one was finally appointed to the panel.
