danbacher “We ask that you not finalize or formally announce this framework until a far more detailed description is made available for review,” the 12 northern California Representatives wrote. ”We do not believe it is wise to commit to massive new water pumping stations and conveyance tunnels while sustainable solutions to the problems of water quality, fish and ecosystem restoration, local impacts, and water flows are made to wait.”
Photo: George Miller and 11 other Representatives called for a delay in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel.
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by Dan Bacher
Twelve northern California lawmakers called on Obama administration officials Friday to delay the “imminent announcement” of what they described as an an “expensive and potentially damaging water diversion project” until more details of the plan are made available.
The California Democrats warned that the unpopular plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel – as described in a recent briefing in Washington and public meeting in Sacramento – “raises far more questions than it answers, and appears to turn the maxim of ‘policy before plumbing’ on its head.”
In a Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) public meeting held in Sacramento Wednesday, Jerry Meral, Deputy Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, said the state and Department of Interior were “hoping to release” the revised conveyance plan by the end of July. Meral also said the draft EIR/EIS will be available “this fall.”
“I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder, but certainly in terms of cost savings and local impacts, it’s going to be quite an improvement,” claimed Jerry Meral, in reference to the revised plan.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan proposal recently developed by state and federal officials would allow for the construction of massive tunnels – capable of draining the Sacramento River at a rate of 15,000 cubic feet per second – but delay any decisions about the uses of the project for as many as fifteen years, according to a statement from Congressman George Miller’s Office.
The members of Congress wrote that a poorly designed plan for the Bay Delta Estuary “could increase water exports from the Bay-Delta estuary — while failing to restore the Bay-Delta ecosystem and rebuild salmon and other California fisheries as required by law.”
“Recent reports have described the water diversion project as capable of filling 10 Olympic-size swimming pools with Sacramento River water every minute, but the twelve members of Congress warned that the plan’s potentially damaging impacts on northern California cities and counties, the state’s economy, and the health of the Bay-Delta estuary are currently impossible to evaluate,” according to the statement.
The members of Congress called on Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank to release “a far more detailed description” of the proposed new framework before Gov. Jerry Brown and Secretary Salazar make any public announcement about the plan.
U.S. Representatives George Miller, Jerry McNerney, Anna Eshoo, Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, John Garamendi, Mike Honda, Lynn Woolsey, Jackie Speier, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren and Pete Stark signed the letter to Salazar and Blank.
“We ask that you not finalize or formally announce this framework until a far more detailed description is made available for review,” they said. “We do not believe it is wise to commit to massive new water pumping stations and conveyance tunnels while sustainable solutions to the problems of water quality, fish and ecosystem restoration, local impacts, and water flows are made to wait.”
“There is too much at stake in the BDCP for the federal government to announce a plan that defers important decisions while an expensive and potentially damaging water diversion project is allowed to proceed,” they concluded.
The full letter is available at: http://georgemiller.house.gov/6-22-12%20congressional%20BDCP%20letter.pdf
The first comprehensive economic benefit-cost analysis of the water conveyance tunnels at the center of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), released on June 14 by the University of Pacific’s Eberhardt School of Business, Business Forecasting Center, reveals that peripheral canal doesn’t make any economic or financial sense.
“We find the tunnel is not economically justified, because the costs of the tunnel are 2.5 times larger than its benefits,” the UOP report states. “Benefit-cost analysis is an essential and normal part of assessment and planning of large infrastructure projects such as the $13 billion water conveyance tunnel proposal, but has not been part of the BDCP.”
For the complete report, go to: http://forecast.pacific.edu/articles/BenefitCostDeltaTunnel_Web.pdf
If built, the peripheral canal or tunnel would hasten the extinction of Central Valley chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species, according to both agency and independent scientists. This project, now being fast-tracked by Brown and Obama administrations, would result in the destruction of the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.
In my opinion, everybody who cares about the future of the Delta and California should applaud Representatives George Miller, Jerry McNerney, Anna Eshoo, Mike Thompson, Doris Matsui, John Garamendi, Mike Honda, Lynn Woolsey, Jackie Speier, Barbara Lee, Zoe Lofgren and Pete Stark for standing up against the economically and scientifically unfeasible plan by the Brown and Obama administrations to “save the Delta” by draining it.
danbacher It appears that Governor Jerry Brown, his Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and Deputy Secretary Jerry Meral are engaged now in a fierce competition with Schwarzenegger and his former lackeys to earn the “coveted prize” of “worst administration for fish and the environment in California history.” Brown, Laird and Meral have made it clear in their support of the peripheral canal, MLPA Initiative and massive Delta fish kills that they don’t serve the people of California, but only corporate agribusiness, ocean industrialists and the Wall Street 1 percent.
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by Dan Bacher
Delta advocates today dismissed claims made by the Brown administration that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral canal or tunnel is being “downsized.”
“The chunnel has not been downsized,” challenged Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta (RTD) executive director. “While three intake pumps may only pump 9,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of Sacramento River flows, the chunnel pipe itself – according to Resource Agency claims – will be sized to carry 15,000 cfs, nearly the entire flow of the Sacramento River.”
“What is to stop project operators from simply adding a few more intake pumps, especially after they ‘configure’ the science to justify taking more water away from the Delta?” she asked.
In a Bay Delta Conservation Plan public meeting held in Sacramento Wednesday, Jerry Meral, Deputy Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, said the state and Department of Interior were “hoping to release” the revised conveyance plan by the end of July. Meral also said the draft EIR/EIS will be available “this fall.”
“I guess it’s in the eye of the beholder, but certainly in terms of cost savings and local impacts, it’s going to be quite an improvement,” said Jerry Meral, in reference to the revised plan.
Restore the Delta slammed the administration for issuing a revised plan to construct a peripheral canal or tunnel without a cost-benefit analysis and without completing scientific studies in order to provide unsustainable water exports for the benefit of a few huge corporate agribusiness interests.
“Two-thirds of exports from the Delta serve corporate irrigators on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, which accounts for less than half a percent of California’s economy and population. Less than a third of the water goes to urban areas that make up half of the state’s population and economy,” she stated.
RTD said the administration has “repeatedly refused to consider reasonable alternatives that don’t involve massive infrastructure. The water demands that would be served by this conveyance are unrealistic and the flows exporters want are out of line with reliable supplies. The operation would worsen water quality for fisheries and agriculture. It will devastate the economy of the Delta itself and northern fisheries that depend on adequate flows through the Delta.”
Administration refuses to do cost-benefit analysis
Jane Wagner-Tyack, research director for Restore the Delta, criticized the plan for “defying common sense.”
“We still have no public trust analysis for this plan, and supporters of the plan have strongly resisted a cost-benefit analysis,” stated Wagner-Tyack. “But a report published last week by University of the Pacific’s Business Forecasting Center shows that for every $2.50 spent on this project, the state can expect to see $1 in benefits.”
“And if costs are allocated on a per capita basis, Metropolitan Water District ratepayers will be responsible for 75% of the project costs, not the 25% that would be proportional to the amount of water they get,” she stated.
The BDCP public meeting included an update on the BDCP planning process, proposed changes to conveyance facilities, and an update on the economic analysis being prepared by Dr. David Sunding.
Dick Pool, President of the Water for Fish and Secretary of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, blasted the “economic analysis” prepared by Sunding.
“If you were ones that funded this study, you should be ashamed of yourselves for accepting only one side of the equation,” Pool told Meral and Dale Hoffman, Deputy Director of DWR. “You represent the state and I don’t know how you can accept such a one sided argument. Jerry and Dale, you need to get some economists and consultants to do a complete analysis.”
The first comprehensive economic benefit-cost analysis of the water conveyance tunnels at the center of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), released on June 14 by the University of Pacific’s Eberhardt School of Business, Business Forecasting Center, reveals that peripheral canal doesn’t make any economic or financial sense.
The UOP report states, “We find the tunnel is not economically justified, because the costs of the tunnel are 2.5 times larger than its benefits. Benefit-cost analysis is an essential and normal part of assessment and planning of large infrastructure projects such as the $13 billion water conveyance tunnel proposal, but has not been part of the BDCP.”
For the complete report, go to: http://forecast.pacific.edu/articles/BenefitCostDeltaTunnel_Web.pdf
Restore the Delta last week released a powerfully-worded letter from 38 environmental, fishing, consumer, Native American and other groups alerting U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of the enormous environmental and economic perils posed by the Obama administration’s support of the peripheral canal.
Brown and Laird support ocean greenwashing, massive Delta fish kills
Unfortunately, the campaign to build the peripheral canal is not the only abysmal environmental policy of Governor Arnold Schwarzengger that Brown has continued and expanded.
Brown has forged ahead with Schwarzenegger’s privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas” in California waters. These “marine protected areas,” created under the oversight of a big oil lobbyist, real estate developer, marina operator and other corporate hacks, fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, wind and wave energy projects, military and seismic testing, corporate aquaculture and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
Brown also presided over a record fish kill and water exports at the Delta pumps in 2011. The DFG recently released a report documenting the “salvage” of tens of millions of fish including 42 species in the state and federal water export pumping facilities in the South Delta in 2011.
A total of 11,817,051 fish of all species were “salvaged” in the state and federal pumps in 2011, a record year for water exports, according to the report that appeared in the Interagency Ecological Program for the San Francisco Estuary Newsletter, Fall/Winter 2012 edition. (http://www.water.ca.gov/iep/newsletters/2012/IEPNewsletter_FinalWINTER2012.pdf http://www.water.ca.gov)
The splittail salvage was 7,660,024 in the federal facilities and 1,326,065 in the state facilities, a total of 8,986,089 fish, nearly 9 million splittail and a new salvage record for the species. The fish, a native member of the minnow family found only in the Central Valley, was formerly listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but is no longer listed. The total chinook salmon salvage in the state facilities was 18,830 and the federal facilities was 18,135, a total of 36,965 fish.
However, salvage numbers are only the “tip of the iceberg” of the total fish lost in the pumping facilities.
“Salvage numbers drastically underestimate the actual impact,” according to a Bay Institute report, “Collateral Damage,” documenting decades of fish kills at the pumping facilities. “Although the exact numbers are uncertain, it is clear that tens of millions of fish are killed each year, and only a small fraction of this is reflected in the salvage numbers that are reported.” (http://www.bay.org/publications/collateral-damage)
One study of “pre-screen loss” estimated that as many as 19 of every 20 fish perished before being counted (Castillo, 2010). Other studies estimate that the actual loss of fish in the pumping facilities is 5 to 10 times the “salvage” numbers.
It appears that Governor Jerry Brown, his Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and Deputy Secretary Jerry Meral are engaged now in a fierce competition with Schwarzenegger and his former lackeys to earn the “coveted prize” of “worst administration for fish and the environment in California history.” Brown, Laird and Meral have made it clear in their support of the peripheral canal, MLPA Initiative and massive Delta fish kills that they don’t serve the people of California, but only corporate agribusiness, ocean industrialists and the Wall Street 1 percent.
danbacher 
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by Dan Bacher
The recent adoption of so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAs) on the North Coast has resulted in a vast network of no-fishing zones along California’s coastal waters being put into place.
While MLPA advocates falsely tout these zones as “Yosemites of the Sea” and “marine parks,” they in fact fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, seismic and military testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.
However, the legal status surrounding how these controversial no-fishing zones were established remains a question. Coastside Fishing Club (http://www.coastsidefishingclub.com), a member of the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO) that represents the recreational fishing and boating community, has announced that legal efforts against the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative that established the no-fishing zones continue.
Coastside recently filed an opening brief in its appeal of an October 2011 ruling that upheld the regulations created through the MLPA process.
“While anti-fishing groups have celebrated the adoption of MLPA regulations throughout the state, we remain confident that these regulations were enacted without legal authority,” said Coastside Fishing Club’s President Rick Ross. “We are hopeful that through this appeal, the serious flaws in the MLPA process will be recognized by the court and, subsequently, overturned.”
Coastside Fishing Club, along with United Anglers of Southern California and California citizen Robert Fletcher, filed a lawsuit in January 2011 against the California Fish and Game Commission to invalidate regulations established through the MLPA process. The lawsuit cites a “lack of statutory authority” for the California Fish and Game Commission to adopt the closure regulations.
“The Commission relies on a statute that was enacted as part of the Marine Managed Areas Improvement Act. This Act has certain prerequisites to regulatory action, which the Commission admittedly did not satisfy,” according to Coastside.
Despite this, a judge in the San Diego Superior Court ruled against Coastside Fishing Club in October 2011, upholding the MLPA regulations. After a careful review, Coastside concluded that the ruling is inconsistent with the mandates of the law as established by the legislature, and initiated the appeal process. A ruling from the appellate court is expected by year’s end.
On January 30, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego denied a motion by the Fish and Game Commission to dismiss Coastside’s appeal regarding the imposition of so-called “marine protected areas” on the North Central Coast of California under the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.
The lawsuit is supported not only by fishermen and boaters, but by grassroots environmental environmental leaders on California’s North Coast.
“The corrupt and illegal MLPA Initiative process will be exposed and overturned eventually,” said John Lewallen, North Coast environmental leader and co-founder of the Ocean Protection Coalition and North Coast Seaweed Rebellion. “The brave fishermen and fisherwomen of Coastside Fishing Club are protecting ocean access and government by the people, now under assault by private corporate interests.”
Ali Hussainy, president of BDOutdoors.com, urges anglers to contribute to the legal battle against the MLPA Initiative.
“The legal effort against the MLPA is our best chance to stop these burdensome closures from continuing to negatively impact California’s fishing community,” said Hussainy. “The best way for anglers to help fight for their fishing rights in California is to visithttp://www.SaveCAFishing.org and make a contribution. All anglers need to stand together and fight for our right to fish before it’s too late.”
Along with the PSO, BDOutdoors launched http://www.SaveCAFishing.org to raise awareness of the legal challenge against the flawed MLPA process and to provide an opportunity for all anglers, boaters and anyone interested in fair legal process to contribute to the effort.
The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative are not only legally dubious, but are based on highly questionable science, according to critics.
The Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, believes the science behind the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative developed by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally flawed.”
“While we appreciate the Brown administration’s support and the Fish and Game Commission effort to recognize tribal traditional harvesting rights, there is more that needs to be done in order to protect our culture and our resources for present and future generations,” said Yurok Tribal Chairman Thomas P. O’Rourke Sr. prior to the Fish and Game Commission meeting on June 6 that approved the controversial North Coast marine protected areas. “We also have serious questions about the science, developed under the Schwarzenegger Administration, which the process relies upon. We believe it requires a truly impartial external review and revision in order to work for our region.”
For more information, go to: http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2012/06/08/yurok-tribe-challenges-mlpa-initiatives-terminally-flawed-science/.
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, seismic 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, served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the Keystone XL Pipeline and the weakening of environmental laws, also chaired the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012.
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).
danbacher by Dan Bacher
Sacramento, CA – With the recent adoption of so-called “marine protected areas” (MPAs )on the North Coast, a vast network of no-fishing zones along California’s coastal waters is now in place.
While MLPA advocates falsely tout these no fishing zones as “Yosemites of the Sea” and “marine parks,” they in fact fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, seismic and military testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.
However, the legal status surrounding how these controversial no-fishing zones were established remains a question. Coastside Fishing Club, a member of the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO) that represents the recreational fishing and boating community, has announced that legal efforts against the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative that which established the no-fishing zones continue.
Coastside recently filed an opening brief in its appeal of an October 2011 ruling that upheld the regulations created through the privately-funded MLPA process.
“While anti-fishing groups have celebrated the adoption of MLPA regulations throughout the state, we remain confident that these regulations were enacted without legal authority,” said Coastside Fishing Club’s President Rick Ross. “We are hopeful that through this appeal, the serious flaws in the MLPA process will be recognized by the court and, subsequently, overturned.”
Coastside Fishing Club, along with United Anglers of Southern California and California citizen Robert Fletcher, filed a lawsuit in January 2011 against the California Fish and Game Commission to invalidate regulations established through the MLPA process. The lawsuit cites a lack of statutory authority for the California Fish and Game Commission to adopt the closure regulations.
“The Commission relies on a statute that was enacted as part of the Marine Managed Areas Improvement Act. This Act has certain prerequisites to regulatory action, which the Commission admittedly did not satisfy,” according to Coastside.
Despite this, a judge in the San Diego Superior Court ruled against Coastside Fishing Club in October 2011, upholding the MLPA regulations. After a careful review, Coastside concluded that the ruling is inconsistent with the mandates of the law as established by the legislature, and initiated the appeal process. A ruling from the appellate court is expected by year’s end.
On January 30, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego denied a motion by the Fish and Game Commission to dismiss Coastside’s appeal regarding the imposition of so-called “marine protected areas” on the North Central Coast of California under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
The lawsuit is supported not only by fishermen and boaters, but by grassroots environmental environmental leaders on California’s North Coast.
“The corrupt and illegal MLPA Initiative process will be exposed and overturned eventually,” said John Lewallen, North Coast environmental leader and co-founder of the Ocean Protection Coalition and North Coast Seaweed Rebellion. “The brave fishermen and fisherwomen of Coastside Fishing Club are protecting ocean access and government by the people, now under assault by private corporate interests.”
Ali Hussainy, president of BDOutdoors.com, urges anglers to contribute to the legal battle against the MLPA Initiative.
“The legal effort against the MLPA is our best chance to stop these burdensome closures from continuing to negatively impact California’s fishing community,” said Hussainy. “The best way for anglers to help fight for their fishing rights in California is to visit www.SaveCAFishing.org and make a contribution. All anglers need to stand together and fight for our right to fish before it’s too late.”
Along with the PSO, BDOutdoors launched www.SaveCAFishing.org to raise awareness of the legal challenge against the flawed MLPA process and to provide an opportunity for all anglers, boaters and anyone interested in fair legal process to contribute to the effort.
Under the “Donate” section of the site, individuals can contribute $5.00 or more a month on a recurring basis, or make a one-time donation. All proceeds will directly support legal action to keep California’s healthy and abundant coastal waters open to recreational fishing.
For more information, go to: www.coastsidefishingclub.com
danbacher “The current fuels policies will have significant unintended consequences on California’s refiners, and consequently their employees, consumers and the state,” claimed Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, who served as Chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast. “California can and should continue to play a leadership role on climate change polices but we need to begin now to chart a new course for securing our emission reduction goals without unnecessary fuel market disruptions.”
by Dan Bacher
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, a big oil lobbyist who served as the Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast, has been very busy lately.
After overseeing the implementation of so called “marine protected areas” that now ban kayak anglers and other sustainable fishermen from large areas of Southern California waters, Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, has been relentlessly lobbying for new offshore oil drilling off the West Coast, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, the expansion of the environmentally destructive practice of hydraulic fracturing (hydro fracking) and the evisceration of California’s landmark environmental laws.
In her latest assault on environmental laws, Reheis-Boyd’s Western States Petroleum Association today released a so-called “independent study” conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) that argues for weakening California’s climate change regulations. (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wspa-releases-new-study-market-impacts-of-california-fuels-policies-2012-06-19)
“California’s multiple climate change regulations will have serious unintended consequences for the state’s transportation fuel markets, including significant job losses, disruptions to fuel supplies, and higher costs for businesses and consumers,” according to a news release from the Association.
BCG employed its “proprietary modeling expertise and experience as a leading energy consultancy” to analyze the cumulative impacts on refiners and fuel markets from several California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations that are at or nearing the implementation phase, including the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) and the current design of the state’s cap and trade program, the news release noted.
In a letter to California Governor Jerry Brown, Catherine Reheis-Boyd said, “WSPA and its members are convinced the fuels policies now in place and those proposed to be implemented for the purpose of achieving greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction have set California on a course that cannot be sustained but can be corrected.”
“The current fuels policies will have significant unintended consequences on California’s refiners, and consequently their employees, consumers and the state. California can and should continue to play a leadership role on climate change polices but we need to begin now to chart a new course for securing our emission reduction goals without unnecessary fuel market disruptions,” Reheis-Boyd’s letter continued.
“Our hope is this report will be an important tool to begin a serious conversation in California about how we can achieve the desired greenhouse gas emissions reductions while minimizing impacts on California fuel producers, consumers, employers and the economy,” said Reheis-Boyd.
“This is the first comprehensive analysis of the cumulative effect of CARB’s climate change policies. Our hope is that in sharing this research with policymakers and the business, labor, environmental and consumer sectors we can begin a process to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in realistic and practical ways without hampering California’s economic recovery. We are already reaching out to these important groups to start that conversation now,” she said.
The BCG study, “Understanding the Impact of AB 32,” was unveiled today at the Low Carbon Fuel Standard Symposium sponsored by Fueling California. A copy of the full report is available at http://www.CAFuelFacts.com .
Reheis-Boyd not only chaired the panel that developed the so-called “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, but she served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
The “marine protected areas” that Reheis-Boyd helped to implement fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military and seismic testing, wind and wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering. They constitute one of the most egregious examples of corporate greenwashing in California history.
“Marine protected areas can in some instances be beneficial for specific areas, species or ecosystems,” said Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “However, the problem we have here is that these ‘marine protected areas’ are in essence no fishing zones and they don’t protect for water quality and other types of development or insults to the environment from activities such as seismic testing.”
While Reheis-Boyd today argues for “minimizing impacts on California fuel producers, consumers, employers and the economy,” she cared nothing about “minimizing impacts” to sustainable recreational and commercial fishermen when it came to kicking them off the water through the creation of questionable “marine protected areas.”
The key role that Reheis-Boyd played as an MLPA Initiative official in closing fishing and gathering over large areas of California ocean waters while doing nothing to stop ocean industrialization, pollution and other threats to the environment is one of the “most censored” California stories of recent years.
Inexplicably, state officials have rejected requests for an investigation into conflicts of interest posed by Reheis-Boyd in her role as “marine guardian,” as well as conflicts of interest posed by a marina operator and real estate executive that served on the task forces.
John Lewallen, longtime North Coast environmentalist, seaweed harvester, the co-founder of the North Coast “Seaweed Rebellion” movement and staunch opponent of offshore oil drilling, the clearcutting of forests and corporate greenwashing, believes that Reheis-Boyd’s position as an “oil industry superstar” was a conflict of interest with her position as chair of a task force charged with developing “marine protected areas.”
“Reheis Boyd is moving right on up, really advancing the cause of the oil industry,” commented Lewallen in 2009. “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. Twenty-three percent of the nation’s offshore oil reserves are off the coast of California.”
One of the most shameful things about the creation of these alleged “Yosemites of the Sea” and “marine parks” is that representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs refused to oppose Reheis-Boyd’s leadership role in the MLPA process, although many grassroots environmentalists including Lewallen repeatedly slammed the big oil lobbyist’s position as a “marine guardian.”
Not only was the MLPA Initiative ridden with numerous conflicts of interest, but it is based on questionable science. The Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, believes the science behind the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative developed by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally flawed.” For more information, go to:http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2012/06/08/yurok-tribe-challenges-mlpa-initiatives-terminally-flawed-science/ .
For more information on Reheis-Boyd’s lobbying efforts for the Keystone XL Pipeline, hydro fracking and offshore oil drilling, go to:http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2012/02/17/marine-guardian-lobbies-for-keystone-xl-pipeline-fracking/ .
danbacher While a diver who took a giant sea bass will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by the DFG, the state and federal governments are allowed to kill tens of millions of fish every year with impunity in order to export massive amounts of Delta water to wealthy corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water agencies.
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by Dan Bacher
A California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) warden cited a southern California man for an illegal take of a giant (black) sea bass on June 1, according to a DFG news release.
Scott Andrew Carlton, 30, of Corona Del Mar was spear fishing at approximately 7:30 p.m. at Salt Creek Beach at Dana Point in Orange County when he harvested a state protected giant sea bass, commonly called a “black sea bass.”
“A concerned citizen took a photo of the man and his catch, then notified a nearby CHP officer,” the DFG stated. “The CHP detained Carlton, and notified DFG dispatch. Warden Justin Sandvig arrived and cited Carlton, who claimed ignorance of the law. Take of giant sea bass is a misdemeanor.”
The DFG said that prior to the 1950s, a large numbers of giant (black) sea bass could be found in the waters off of southern California, but most of these large creatures were harvested for their value as photographic trophies. Known for their docile behavior, the slow moving black sea bass resides mostly near the shoreline in deep rocky environments and can grow up to 500 pounds and be seven feet long.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse especially when poaching state protected species,” said Capt. Dan Sforza of DFG’s Law Enforcement Division. “Giant (black) sea bass are endeared by many ocean enthusiasts because of their size and docile nature.”
I’m glad the DFG warden cited Carlton for the illegal take of a giant (black) sea bass. Protected fish like giant sea bass must be protected from poaching – and people who illegally catch them must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I also agree with Capt. Dan Sforza that “Ignorance of the law is no excuse especially when poaching state protected species.”
However, the DFG leadership refuses to enforce the law when it comes to the biggest poachers of fish in California – the Department of Water of Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
The DFG recently released a report documenting the “salvage” of tens of millions of fish including 42 species in the state and federal water export pumping facilities in the South Delta.
A total of 11,817,051 fish of all species were “salvaged” in the state and federal pumps in 2011, a record year for water exports, according to the report that appeared in the Interagency Ecological Program for the San Francisco Estuary Newsletter, Fall/Winter 2012 edition. (http://www.water.ca.gov/iep/newsletters/2012/IEPNewsletter_FinalWINTER2012.pdf http://www.water.ca.gov)
The splittail salvage was 7,660,024 in the federal facilities and 1,326,065 in the state facilities, a total of 8,986,089 fish, nearly 9 million splittail and a new salvage record for the species. The fish, a native member of the minnow family found only in the Central Valley, was formerly listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but is no longer listed.
“Splittail were the most salvaged species at both facilities,” the report said. “Threadfin shad (591,111) and American shad (100,233) were the 2nd and 3rd most salvaged fish at TFCF. American shad (558,731) and striped bass (507,619) were the 2nd and 3rd most-salvaged fish at SDFPF.”
The total chinook salmon salvage in the state facilities was 18,830 and the federal facilities was 18,135, a total of 36,965 fish.
However, salvage numbers are only the “tip of the iceberg” of the total fish lost in the pumping facilities.
“Salvage numbers drastically underestimate the actual impact,” according to a Bay Institute report, “Collateral Damage,” documenting decades of fish kills at the pumping facilities. “Although the exact numbers are uncertain, it is clear that tens of millions of fish are killed each year, and only a small fraction of this is reflected in the salvage numbers that are reported.” (http://www.bay.org/publications/collateral-damage)
One study of “pre-screen loss” estimated that as many as 19 of every 20 fish perished before being counted (Castillo, 2010). Other studies estimate that the actual loss of fish in the pumping facilities is 5 to 10 times the “salvage” numbers.
So while a diver who took a giant sea bass will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law by the DFG, the state and federal governments are allowed to kill tens of millions of fish every year with impunity in order to export massive amounts of Delta water to wealthy corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water agencies.
Yet the DFG, rather than protecting the largest and most significant estuary on the West Coast and doing its job, has been a willing party to the destruction of an ecosystem and fish populations. The state and federal governments kill more fish in the Delta pumping facilities every year than all of the poachers in the state combined.
State and federal officials who have increased water exports and increased fish kills in recent years are the worst poachers in all of California, yet they go unpunished because they are the servants of Stewart Resnick, Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District.
This is similar to the case of where a bank robber gets prosecuted to the full extent of the law while the bank CEOs who have ripped off billions of dollars and destroyed millions of lives not only go unpunished, but are bailed out and rewarded for their crimes.
Meanwhile, Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and Governor Jerry Brown are fast-tracking the construction of the peripheral canal or tunnel, a boondoggle that will lead to the extermination of Central Valley chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, striped bass, largemouth bass, white sturgeon, green sturgeon, American shad, threadfin shad and other fish populations on the Delta.
The DFG should do its job of protecting fish and oppose the construction of the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history, the peripheral canal, not support it!
danbacher The Yurok Tribe said it has attempted on numerous occasions to address the scientific inadequacies with the MLPA science developed under the Schwarzenegger administration by adding “more robust protocols” into the equation, but was denied every time. This denial of consideration of the Tribe’s scientific data flies in the face of false claims by MLPA advocates that the privately funded initiative creates “Yosemites of the Sea” and “underwater parks” based on “science.”
Members of the Yurok and other North Coast Indian Tribes and their allies took control of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg on July 21, 2010. Photo by Matt Mais, Yurok Tribe.
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by Dan Bacher
The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) on June 16 publicly announced the first phase of its new “Science Institute,” available for viewing at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/Science.
The question is: will the so-called “Science Institute” include all of the science, including studies compiled by the Yurok Tribe and others disputing the false assumptions and questionable data behind the so-called “marine protected areas” created under the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative?
Or will there be a continued disregard for any science that conflicts with the controversial “science” behind processes like the MLPA?
“This website is the first part of a multi-phase approach intended to highlight the exceptional work that DFG scientists have been doing for many, many years and support our scientific future,” said Charlton H. Bonham, Director of DFG. “Our goal is that this Institute will help develop our current scientists professionally, by increasing skills, resources, collaboration and notoriety, as well as attract new scientists to help us plan for the years ahead.”
Bonham said the website launch is “phase one” of the Institute. Future phases will include an archive of scientific presentations, professional development tools, better access for DFG scientists to outside science and scientific literature, a science symposium and much more.
The new DFG website proclaims, “At DFG, sound science is a crucial foundation for the day-to-day work we do to maintain California’s fish, wildlife and natural communities. Reflecting the diverse natural resources of our State, science in DFG spans numerous disciplines, species, habitats, and geographic areas. It also involves many collaborators, including universities, non-profit organizations, and other agencies. DFG’s Science Institute is part of a new initiative to expand and enhance our scientific capacity and to provide the public with opportunities to see and learn about the important science we do in support of the mission of DFG.”
Director Bonham prepared a video message for this website launch that can be viewed at http://youtu.be/S2Injj4sWx8.
In my opinion, consolidating science into one location on the DFG’s new “Science Institute” website sounds like a good idea. The question is how comprehensive and inclusive the scientific studies and data featured will be, considering that much of the “science” currently touted on the DFG website is often lacking in its “soundness,” particularly in reference to data compiled regarding the MLPA Initiative.
Tribe questions “terminally flawed” MLPA Initiative “science”
On June 6 before the California Fish and Game Commission voted to approve a network of so-called “marine protected areas” for the North Coast, the Yurok Tribe issued a statement outlining several serious concerns with the final proposal. These included questions about the so-called “science” used under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create the MPAs and concerns over the protection of tribal harvesting rights at Reading Rock and False Klamath.
“While we appreciate the Brown administration’s support and the Fish and Game Commission effort to recognize tribal traditional harvesting rights, there is more that needs to be done in order to protect our culture and our resources for present and future generations,” said Yurok Tribal Chairman Thomas P. O’Rourke Sr. prior to the meeting. “We also have serious questions about the science, developed under the Schwarzenegger Administration, which the process relies upon. We believe it requires a truly impartial external review and revision in order to work for our region.”
The Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, believes the science behind the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative developed by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally flawed.”
For example, in a reversal of scientific logic, the MLPA provides for more regulation of highly abundant species such as mussels – and no harvest limits on fish such as the threatened Pacific eulachon.
“Under the MLPA each marine species is assigned a certain level of protection,” according to the Tribe’s statement. “Species like mussels are given a low level of protection, which in MLPA-speak, translates to more regulation.”
“To date, there has been no scientific data submitted suggesting that mussels on the North Coast are in any sort of danger or are overharvested. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The readily available quantitative survey data collected over decades by North Coast experts shows there is quite an abundance of mussels in this sparsely populated study region,” the Tribe explained.
The Tribe said species like Pacific eulachon, also known as candlefish, are given a high level of protection; or in other words, their harvest is not limited by the proposed regulations. Eulachon are near extinction and listed as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
“Both of these marine species are essential and critical to the cultural survival of northern California tribes,” said Chairman O’Rourke Sr. “However, under the proposed regulations they would be summarily mismanaged. It’s examples like these that compel our concerns.”
MLPA officials suppress studies challenging false assumptions, questionable data
The Yurok Tribe said it has attempted on numerous occasions to address the scientific inadequacies with the MLPA science developed under the Schwarzenegger administration by adding “more robust protocols” into the equation, but was denied every time. This denial of consideration of the Tribe’s scientific data flies in the face of false claims by MLPA advocates that the privately funded initiative creates “Yosemites of the Sea” and “underwater parks” based on “science.”
For example, the MLPA Science Advisory Team, co-chaired by Ron LeValley of Mad River Biologists, in August 2010 turned down a request by the Yurok Tribe to make a presentation to the panel. Among other data, the Tribe was going to present data of test results from other marine reserves regarding mussels.
“The data would have shown that there was not a statistical difference in the diversity of species from the harvested and un-harvested areas,” wrote John Corbett, Yurok Tribe Senior Attorney, in a letter to the Science Advisory Team on January 12, 2011. “The presentation would have encompassed the work of Smith, J.R. Gong and RF Ambrose, 2008, ‘The Impacts of Human Visitation on Mussel Bed Communities along the California Coast: Are Regulatory Marine Reserves Effective in Protecting these Communities.’” (http://yubanet.com/california/Dan-Bacher-MLPA-Officials-refused-to-Include-Tribal-scientists-in-process.php)
Likewise, Mike Belchik, senior fisheries biologist from the Yurok Fisheries Program, dispelled the false notion that the MLPA is a “science-based” process when he gave a brief presentation challenging the assumptions of the MLPA “science” at the Fish and Game Commission meeting in Stockton on June 29, 2011.
“With regard to local shoreline systems, where there is access, there are no ‘unfished’ systems,” said Belchik. “People have coexisted with these resources for many thousands of years; the appropriate conceptual organization foundation is that systems have been managed, and what is seen is the result of millennia of management.” (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/07/15/tribal-science-challenges-mlpa-initiative-assumptions)
No Tribal scientists were allowed to serve on the MLPA Science Advisory Team, in spite of the fact that the Yurok and other North Coast Indian Tribes have large natural resources and fisheries departments staffed with many fishery biologists and other scientists.
During the historic direct action protest by a coalition of over 50 Tribes and their allies in Fort Bragg on July 21, 2010, Frankie Joe Myers, Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition activist, exposed the refusal to incorporate Tribal science that underlies the questionable “science” of the MLPA process. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/07/26/tribes-and-allies-take-control-of-fort-bragg-mlpa-meeting/)
“The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism,” said Myers. “It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists.”
Will the DFG and other state agencies step up to the plate and recognize Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists – and support a truly impartial external review and revision of the “science” that the MLPA Initiative is based upon?
To read a copy of the Yurok Tribe MLPA and Marine Resource Plan, go to:http://www.yuroktribe.org/government/tribalattorney/documents/2011.08.29_YurokTribe-FactualRecordtoCAFGC.pdf.
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, seismic 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, served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the Keystone XL Pipeline and the weakening of environmental laws, also chaired the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012.
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).
danbacher “We find the tunnel is not economically justified, because the costs of the tunnel are 2.5 times larger than its benefits,” according to the report. “Benefit-cost analysis is an essential and normal part of assessment and planning of large infrastructure projects such as the $13 billion water conveyance tunnel proposal, but has not been part of the BDCP.”
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by Dan Bacher
The California Legislature recently failed to pass legislation requiring a cost-benefit analysis before the peripheral canal or tunnel is built – and it is no surprise why the bill garnered so much opposition from corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies.
The first comprehensive economic benefit-cost analysis of the water conveyance tunnels at the center of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), conducted by the University of Pacific’s Eberhardt School of Business, Business Forecasting Center, reveals that peripheral canal doesn’t make any economic or financial sense.
The UOP report states, “We find the tunnel is not economically justified, because the costs of the tunnel are 2.5 times larger than its benefits. Benefit-cost analysis is an essential and normal part of assessment and planning of large infrastructure projects such as the $13 billion water conveyance tunnel proposal, but has not been part of the BDCP.”
Apparently, the members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, who rejected Assemblymember Bill Berryhill’s bill calling for an independent cost-benefit analysis of the tunnel project, were afraid of a similar result if the bill, AB 2421, had ever become law.
“This report fills an important information gap for policy makers and water ratepayers who will ultimately bear the multi-billion costs of the project. The results can be easily updated if changing plans generate updated estimates of benefits and costs, but the gap between benefits and costs is so large that it seems unlikely that the tunnels could be economically justified in any future scenario,” according to the study.
The study examined the benefits, including export water supply, earthquake risk reduction, export water quality benefits and environmental benefits, and compared them to the costs, including capital costs, operating and maintenance costs and in-Delta and upstream costs.
“We find a benefit-cost ratio of 0.4, meaning that there is $2.50 of costs for every $1 in economic benefits. When these very low benefit-cost ratios are considered alongside the inconsistent and incomplete financial plans, it is clear that the Delta water conveyance tunnel proposed in the draft BDCP is not justified on an economic or financial basis,” the report concludes.
More water for corporate agribusiness, less water for family farms
The report notes that the proposed “conveyance” is primarily an agricultural water supply project, since farms use twice as much Delta water as cities do.
“If costs are allocated on a per capita basis, Metropolitan Water District ratepayers would be responsible for 75% of the project costs (they are 18 million of the 25 million people who receive some Delta water), not the 25% that is proportional to the water they use,” the report said. “The use of financial feasibility analysis that allocates the full cost of the project on a per capita basis implies that urban ratepayers will be asked to pay large subsidies for agricultural water supplies in their bills.”
Ironically, while the Brown and Obama administrations and corporate agribusiness have constantly touted “improved conveyance” as the “solution” to providing “reliability” to agriculture in California, the project’s construction would likely do the very opposite to Delta agriculture, according to the study.
“The Delta Protection Commission Economic Sustainability Plan estimated a water conveyance tunnel would result in an average of $65 million in annual losses for Delta agriculture; including about $50 million in losses from reduced water quality, and an additional $15 million in annual crop losses from roughly 8,000 acres of farmland lost to construction impacts and the physical footprint of the facilities,” the document reveals.
In essence, the water conveyance tunnel would take large tracts of the most fertile land in California, the Delta, out of agricultural production in order to divert massive quantities of Delta water to irrigate subsidized crops on drainage-impaired, toxin-laced land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
Dr. Jeffrey Michael, Director of the Business Forecasting Center (BFC) at the University of the Pacific, is the report’s primary author. To read the full report, go to: http://forecast.pacific.edu/articles/BenefitCostDeltaTunnel_Web.pdf
So not only does the peripheral canal or tunnel pose an enormous threat to the Bay-Delta ecosystem, but it is not economically or financially feasible, according to this groundbreaking report. The taxpayers and ratepayers will foot the bill for the tunnel – at costs 2.5 times the benefits – while billionaire agribusiness tycoon Stewart Resnick, the Westlands Water District and other subsidized corporate agribusiness interests will profit.
“The common people will pay for the canal and a few people will make millions,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “It will turn a once pristine water way into a sewer pipe. It will be all bad for the fish, the ocean and the people of California.”
The peripheral canal or tunnel, if built, would hasten the extinction of Central Valley chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species, according to both agency and independent scientists. This project, now being fast-tracked by Brown and Obama administrations, would result in the destruction of the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.
Opposition to conveyance tunnel builds momentum
Opposition against the environmentally destructive and economically unfeasible conveyance project continues to mushroom. On the day before the UOP report was published, Restore the Delta released a powerfully-worded letter from 38 environmental, fishing, consumer, Native American and other groups alerting U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of the enormous environmental and economic perils posed by the Obama administration’s support of the peripheral canal.
The groups said the administration is “poised to make an enormous mistake…and potentially drag the American people along with it,” by backing “construction of a world-record-size tunnel or pipes capable of diverting 15,000 cubic feet per second from the Sacramento River – nearly all of its average freshwater flow.”
“The planning for California’s water future must return to a lawful, science-based, inclusive, and transparent process,” the letter stated. “The San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary must not be stripped of the freshwater flows upon which so many vital public trust resources and West Coast communities depend. From its inception, this plan has been crafted by, and for, South-of-Delta exporters. They have used their economic power to influence and rush this half-baked, multi-billion dollar water tunnel.”
The broad coalition sounded the alarm after the Brown administration informed them that the State intends to proceed with construction of a peripheral canal or tunnel that the groups say “would have devastating ecological impacts.”
Organizations signing the letter include the Sierra Club California, Environmental Water Caucus, Friends of the River, California Water Impact Network, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Golden Gate Salmon Association, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Food and Water Watch, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Planning and Conservation League, the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water and dozens of other groups.
“The idea that you’re going to commit to building a $50 billion tunnel around the Delta that current science demonstrates won’t protect the estuary, and only later revise the science, develop assurances and decide how to operate it simply doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Bill Jennings, Executive Director/Chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Board Member of the California Water Impact Network and Executive Committee Member of Restore the Delta. “You can bathe this pig in perfume and apply lipstick, but it still won’t fly.”
The complete letter is posted here: http://www.restorethedelta.org
The big question is: If the peripheral canal/tunnel plan is economically, financially and scientifically unfeasible, then why are Governor Jerry Brown, Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar still committed to this boondoggle?
danbacher Unfortunately, the DFG web page fails to include any of the “Inconvenient Truths”about the alleged “marine protected areas” that the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act Initiative created.
by Dan Bacher
On June 6, the California Fish and Game Commission approved and adopted regulations for the north coast “marine protected areas” (MPAs) created under Arnold Schwarzenegger’s controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. The decision completed the network of MPAs in California’s open coastal waters, from Mexico to the Oregon state line.
The DFG announced on June 13 that information regarding the North Coast “marine protected areas” is now available on line.
California’s north coast region encompasses approximately 1,027 square miles of state ocean waters, including waters around offshore rocks, from Alder Creek (Mendocino County) north to the California/Oregon border. The new network of 19 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), one State Marine Recreational Management Area, and seven special closures will cover approximately 137 sq mi, or 13 percent, of the north coast region.
The press release announcing the decision is located at http://cdfgnews.wordpress.com/2012/06/06/north-coast-marine-protected-areas-adopted-in-final-coastal-ocean-region/ .
Information about the new and modified north coast MPAs, which are expected to go into effect in early 2013, is located athttp://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/ncmpas_list.asp .
The Department of Fish and Game also claimed that it has created a “one-stop Web page for all California MPA information” athttp://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/mpa_summary.asp.
Unfortunately, the DFG web page fails to include any of the “Inconvenient Truths” about the “marine protected areas” that the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative created.
First, these alleged “marine protected areas” do not protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, military and seismic testing, pollution, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all other impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering. In violation of the letter and spirit of the landmark Marine Life Protection Act of 1999, these marine reserves fail to comprehensively protect the ocean from ocean industrialization and other threats to the marine ecosystem.
Second, the so-called “open and transparent” process was privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation. This is an inherent conflict of interest, since this foundation also funds many of the corporate “environmental” NGOs who lobbied for the creation of marine reserves with the least possible protection from all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing.
Third, the Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, believes the science behind the MLPA Initiative developed by Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally flawed.” (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2012/06/08/yurok-tribe-challenges-mlpa-initiatives-terminally-flawed-science)
The Yurok Tribe said it has attempted on numerous occasions to address the scientific inadequacies with the MLPA science developed under the Schwarzenegger administration by adding “more robust protocols” into the equation, but was denied every time. This denial of consideration of the Tribe’s scientific data flies in the face of false claims by MLPA advocates that the privately funded initiative creates “Yosemites of the Sea” and “underwater parks” based on “science.”
Fourth, the new regulations, in a great miscarriage of justice, prohibit Yurok Tribe members from gathering seaweed, mussels and fish at their traditional gathering areas at Reading Rock and the False Klamath. Two Tribal Elders told the Commission that they would continuing gathering food, regardless of the Commission’s decision.
“We are hunters, fishermen and gatherers and we have lived here since time immemorial,” said David Gensaw Sr., a member of the Yurok Tribal Council. “We have gathered on these shores forever since the Creator put us here.”
“We’re here today to tell you that we need that subsistence, and we will continue to provide our people with that nourishment,” he stated. “Hopefully, we can work this out without a confrontation.”
Yurok Tribal Elder Jack Matz emphasized, “If the regulations are implemented the way they are planned now, you will have a confrontation with a lot of elders, including myself.”
Fifth, the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of these “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, served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the North Coast and North Central Coast. Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the Keystone XL Pipeline and the weakening of environmental laws, also chaired the task force that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California on January 1.
The MLPA process is an egregious example of corporate greenwashing, as evidenced by Reheis-Boyd’s leadership role in the creation of the alleged “marine parks.”
Many grassroots environmentalists and fishermen believe that Reheis-Boyd was appointed to the task force to make sure that the oil industry’s interests were protected – and to ensure that recreational and commercial fishermen and seaweed harvesters, the most vocal opponents of offshore oil drilling, are removed from many areas on the ocean to clear a path for ocean industrialization.
The big question that remains is: why did MLPA Initiative advocates, including representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs, not oppose the appointment of a big oil lobbyist to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces, let alone her appointment as chair of the South Coast process?
danbacher The coalition letter stated, “We urge you to reject these unsustainable water demands and their high public costs, and instead invest in more efficient use of our scarce water resources through cost-effective water conservation and recycling. This will not only protect the pocket books of millions of California ratepayers and U.S. taxpayers, but will help ensure that legally-required salmon doubling goals, estuary restoration, and public trust values are honored for future generations.”
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by Dan Bacher
Restore the Delta today released a powerfully-worded letter from 38 environmental, fishing, consumer, Native American and other groups alerting U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar of the enormous environmental and economic perils posed by the Obama administration’s support of the peripheral canal or tunnel.
The groups said the administration is “poised to make an enormous mistake…and potentially drag the American people along with it,” by backing “construction of a world-record-size tunnel or pipes capable of diverting 15,000 cubic feet per second from the Sacramento River – nearly all of its average freshwater flow.”
The broad coalition sounded the alarm after the Brown Administration informed them that the State intends to proceed with construction of a peripheral canal or tunnel that the groups say “would have devastating ecological impacts.”
In an interview with Charlie Rose on “CBS This Morning” May 18, Governor Jerry Brown called for tax hikes to bring down a budget deficit of nearly $16 billion – while promoting the construction of a budget-busting peripheral canal or tunnel. Brown’s estimated the cost of the canal at $14 billion, up from the “over $10 billion” estimate he made in January, but well below the actual costs of the canal cited by Delta advocates.
“The $20 to $50 billion dollar, highly controversial project will primarily serve to deliver Sacramento River water, through State and Federal pumps, to provide subsidized irrigation water to corporate agricultural operations of the western San Joaquin Valley,” according to a statement from Restore the Delta.
The letter is noteworthy in placing on record a powerful, diverse coalition that could delay or defeat the proposed water-export project. The Sierra Club California, Environmental Water Caucus, Friends of the River, California Water Impact Network, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Golden Gate Salmon Association, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Center for Biological Diversity, Food and Water Watch, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Planning and Conservation League, the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water and dozens of other groups signed the letter.
“The Department of the Interior has a duty to protect the largest estuary on the Pacific Coast of the Americas,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta. “Diverting its largest fresh water source through a pipe or tunnel will destroy this amazing tapestry of fisheries and family farms.”
Barrigan-Parrilla emphasized, “Supporting the State of California in its aim of building a $51 billion canal or tunnel and then figuring out how to operate it later simply cannot be defended in the eyes of the public. Restore the Delta calls on Secretary Salazar to do the right thing and to ensure that the public trust is protected.”
In the letter, the groups urged, “We urge you to reject these unsustainable water demands and their high public costs, and instead invest in more efficient use of our scarce water resources through cost-effective water conservation and recycling. This will not only protect the pocket books of millions of California ratepayers and U.S. taxpayers, but will help ensure that legally-required salmon doubling goals, estuary restoration, and public trust values are honored for future generations.”
“The planning for California’s water future must return to a lawful, science-based, inclusive, and transparent process. The San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary must not be stripped of the freshwater flows upon which so many vital public trust resources and West Coast communities depend. From its inception, this plan has been crafted by, and for, South-of-Delta exporters. They have used their economic power to influence and rush this half-baked, multi-billion dollar water tunnel,” the groups stated.
Winnemem Wintu Tribe: canal will cause environmental destruction
“The peripheral canal will only cause more destruction,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “Our efforts should be instead focused on cleaning up the water to the point where we can drink the water in our rivers and streams.”
“The common people will pay for the canal and a few people will make millions,” Sisk told me during the Tribe’s recent War Dance on the McCloud River. “It will turn a once pristine water way into a sewer pipe. It will be all bad for the fish, the ocean and the people of California.”
The Tribe is currently fighting to stop a federal plan to raise Shasta Dam – a project designed in conjunction with the peripheral canal to export more Delta water to corporate agribusiness and Southern California. They are also engaged in a struggle to pressure the U.S. Forest Service to close a 400 yard section of the McLoud River so they can hold a Coming of Age Ceremony at the end of the month.
In addition, the Tribe is working to re-introduce winter Chinook salmon, now thriving in the Rakaira River in New Zealand, to the McCloud River above Shasta Dam.
Delta advocates believe the construction of the canal or tunnel will hasten the extinction of Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and other fish species, based on the current science.
“The idea that you’re going to commit to building a $50 billion tunnel around the Delta that current science demonstrates won’t protect the estuary, and only later revise the science, develop assurances and decide how to operate it simply doesn’t pass the smell test,” said Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and Board Member of the California Water Impact Network. “You can bathe this pig in perfume and apply lipstick, but it still won’t fly.”
The complete letter is posted here: http://www.restorethedelta.org/
Restore the Delta is a 7000-member grassroots organization committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. Restore the Delta works to improve water quality so that fisheries and farming can thrive together again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. http://www.restorethedelta.org.
For more information, contact: Steve Hopcraft 916/457-5546 steve [at] hopcraft.com; Twitter: @shopcraft; Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla 209/479-2053 barbara [at] restorethedelta.org; Twitter: @RestoretheDelta
For more information about the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, go to: http://www.winnememwintu.us
Resnicks contributed $99,000 to Jerry Brown’s campaign
It is no surprise that Brown is pushing so hard for the construction of the canal, since one of Brown’s biggest campaign contributors is Stewart Resnick, the Beverly Hills billionaire agribusiness tycoon who owns Paramount Farms in Kern County.
Resnick is a big advocate of the canal and increased water exports from the Delta – and has waged a relentless campaign to exterminate striped bass and to eviscerate Endangered Species Act protections for Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt and other species. Resnick is notorious for selling subsidized water back to the public at a tidy profit.
Resnick and his wife Lynda contributed $99,000 to Jerry Brown’s 2010 campaign (http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/brown-and-whitmans-contributions-glance-5779?appSession=772187602630348).
“It’s ironic that the Resnicks, among California’s wealthiest 1 percent, contributed $99,000, since it’s the 99 percent that will pay for the peripheral canal,” said Adam Scow, California Campaigns Director at Food & Water Watch.
The Resnicks are known not only for their inordinate influence over California water politics, but their deceptive business practices. An administrative law judge recently upheld a Federal Trade Commission ruling that the Resnicks engaged in deceptive claims promoting pomegranate benefits.
The FTC ruled that POM Wonderful LLC, its sister corporation Roll Global LLC, and principals Stewart Resnick, Lynda Resnick, and Matthew Tupper violated federal law by making deceptive claims in some advertisements that their POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and POMx supplements “would treat, prevent, or reduce the risk of heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction.”(http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=21104
For more information on the Resnicks’ contributions to political campaigns, go to: http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/02/15/big-ags-power-couple-are-banking-on-brown-feinstein/.
