danbacher Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, responded, “The water bond is a tool to move forward with the Delta Reform Act of 2009. If the water package was doing what it was supposed to do, the voters would be happy to vote for the bond. But the bond can’t move forward because it is filled with pork and won’t solve California’s water problems.”
Photo of Delta residents protesting the water policy/water bond legislation before it was pushed through the Legislature by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg in the fall of 2009. Photo by Dan Bacher
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by Dan Bacher
The California Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildlife voted 6 to 0 on July 2 to approve legislation that delays the controversial water bond until November 2014.
A.B. 1422 is authored by Assemblyman Henry Perea (D-Fresno) and coauthored by Assemblyman Conway and Senators Fuller and Rubio. It is an “urgency bill” that requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass.
State Senators Pavley, La Malfa, Cannella, Fuller Kehoe and Wolk voted to re-refer the Legislation to the Appropriations Committee. No vote was recorded for Senators Evans, Padilla and Simitian.
The vote followed a motion by Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) to repeal the water bond.
“My first choice would be to scrap this bond altogether and start over,” said Wolk. “It is still as unaffordable and pork-filled as ever. What California needs is a more sustainable proposal that focuses on our core needs while taking the state’s fiscal limitations into consideration—a proposal developed with all stakeholders at the table.”
“But if this bond is to be put before the voters, it is critical that it not be this November, when it would steal focus from the Governor’s tax proposal. There is no greater priority than the state budget,” Wolk emphasized.
Delta advocates have blasted the pork-laden $11.14 water bond for funding questionable “habitat restoration” designed to greenwash the construction of Governor Jerry Brown’s peripheral canal or tunnel, an environmentally destructive and enormously expensive project to export more Delta water to southern California and corporate agribusiness.
According to a quote from coalition of water, business and corporate agribusiness interests in the Senate Analysis, “Although voters do agree that investments in water infrastructure and environmental restoration enhancements are needed, 2012 is not the year to pass a water bond. This is in part because of the current state of the economy. The key is to pass a simple bill to delay the bond to 2014.”
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, responded, “The water bond is a tool to move forward with the Delta Reform Act of 2009. If the water package was doing what it was supposed to do, the voters would be happy to vote for the bond. But the bond can’t move forward because it is filled with pork and won’t solve California’s water problems.”
“The bond has a significant amount of money – over $3 million – set aside for ‘restoration’ of the Delta. Yet the DFG Director has admitted that he doesn’t understand the link behind the proposed Delta ‘habitat restoration’ and the restoration of fish populations,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.
Delta advocates say the water bond, by including funds for questionable Delta “restoration,” will help clear the path for the construction of a peripheral canal or tunnel under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. They point out that you can’t “save” or “restore” the Delta by draining it.
Governor Jerry Brown has called for a delay and changes in the bond, entitled the “Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2012.” Brown fears that the presence of the bond on the November 2012 ballot would make the voters less likely to approve his sales and income tax initiative.
If Perea’s measure passes, it will be the second time the bond has been delayed. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg in 2010, fearing defeat of the unpopular measure by the voters, delayed the vote from November that year to November 2012.
danbacher Missing from Natural Resources Secretary John Laird’s comments and the mostly fawning corporate media “coverage” of the completion of the “nation’s first statewide open coast system of marine protected areas” was any mention of the key fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), served as the Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force that created the “marine protected areas” on the South Coast.
Photo: The 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was an unprecedented disaster for fish, wildlife, fishing communities and the entire ecoystem. Unfortunately, the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” in southern California was chaired by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association and an ardent advocate of new oil drilling off the West Coast. What type of marine “protection” is overseen by a big oil lobbyist?
burning-oil-rig-explosion…
‘Marine guardian’ lobbies for offshore oil drilling, fracking
by Dan Bacher
On June 6, Natural Resources Secretary John Laird celebrated the California Fish and Game Commission’s adoption of regulations for so-called “marine protected areas” on the North Coast created under Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
“This is a great day for California’s ocean and coastal resources,” claimed Laird. “As promised, we have completed the nation’s first statewide open coast system of marine protected areas, strengthening California’s ongoing commitment to conserve marine life for future generations.”
Laird is a curious type of “environmental protector,” since he presided over a massive fish kill in the Delta pumps in 2011, spurred by record water exports to corporate agribusiness and southern California, and is a steadfast promoter of the peripheral canal or tunnel, a project that will hasten the extinction of Central Valley salmon, steelhead, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and a myriad of other species.
Missing from Laird’s comments and the mostly fawning corporate media “coverage” of the completion of the “nation’s first statewide open coast system of marine protected areas” was any mention of the key fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), served as the Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force that created the “marine protected areas” on the South Coast.
Nor was there any mention in the LA Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News or other mainstream outlets that oil industry lobbyist Reheis-Boyd also served on the task forces that created the North Central Coast and North Coast marine protected areas.
Nor was there any mention in the corporate media that this “marine guardian” has been 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.
For example, Reheis-Boyd, in “A Message from WSPA” on the oil industry group’s website in early 2010, gushed about all of the oil and natural gas that could be extracted from California coastal waters if the oil industry was just given a green light by the state and federal governments.
“There are more than 10 billion barrels of crude oil reserves located off the California coast and huge reserves of natural gas. Our industry has demonstrated over the past 40 years it can and does operate safely in the marine environment,” she claimed.
Reheis-Boyd then told the Santa Rosa Press Democrat on April 1, 2010 that she was “disappointed” by Obama’s decision to continue excluding California’s “resource-rich” waters from energy development. “Without added offshore oil development, the state would have to bring in more oil by tanker, and ‘we don’t want that,’” Reheis-Boyd said, according to the Press Democrat (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100401/NEWS/4011015
Of course, the Press Democrat article made no reference to her leadership role in the MLPA process to create alleged “marine protected areas.”
On January 4, 2012, just four days after the “marine protected areas” on the South Coast went into effect, Reheis-Boyd wrote an article on the Western States Petroleum Association website extolling the “virtues” of building the Keystone XL pipeline and expanding hydraulic fracking in order to “put the unemployed to work.”
“I know it’s customary to start the New Year off with an upbeat assessment of the many blessings and opportunities we share,” she wrote. “But with more than 3 million people unemployed in the six states WSPA covers, it’s hard to find much to celebrate. In California alone, 2.1 million men and women who want to work can’t because the economy remains stuck in neutral.” (http://www.wspa.org/blog/index.php/wspa-message/lets-make-job-growth-for-all-americans-our-top-priority-in-2012/)
“Take the Keystone XL pipeline, for example,” Reheis Boyd gushed. “We continue to debate and delay a project that would bring more of Canada’s vast oil resource to U.S. consumers, improve our nation’s energy security, and put an estimated 20,000 Americans to work immediately. And while California and other western states won’t directly benefit from the Keystone pipeline, it’s a project with such obvious and urgently needed benefits that it should have been approved and embraced long ago.”
Reheis-Boyd then went on to tout how “green” the environmentally devastating practice of hydraulic fracturing is. “In California, we’re hearing more and more discussion about hydraulic fracturing, a technique used to release oil and natural gas from shale formations deep underground. Hydraulic fracturing has been controversial in other parts of the country but in California, where it is used to produce oil, not natural gas, it has never been linked to any environmental harm,” she claimed.
“Yet we’ve seen a growing chorus of groups and individuals call for more regulation and even outright bans on hydraulic fracturing in California,” she complained.
The failure of the corporate media to even mention one of the most egregious conflicts of interest of environmental regulation in California history makes the saga of Reheis-Boyd, “marine guardian,” a prime candidate for one of the “Most Censored Stories” in California politics in recent years.
Reheis-Boyd’s latest attack on California environmental laws
In her latest assault on environmental laws, Reheis-Boyd’s Western States Petroleum Association on June 19 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 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.
The BCG study, “Understanding the Impact of AB 32,” was unveiled at the Low Carbon Fuel Standard Symposium sponsored by Fueling California. A copy of the full report is available at http://www.CAFuelFacts.com .
Marine protected areas that don’t protect the ocean
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 outrageous 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 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 makes this news story a definite contender for one of Project Censored’s “Most Censored Stories” of 2012 (ww.projectcensored.org/) – and for the number one “Most Censored” Environmental Story of 2012.
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.”
Big oil lobbyist’s position just the tip of the iceberg
Unfortunately, Reheis-Boyd isn’t the only “marine guardian” overseeing the implementation of the MLPA process with inherent conflicts of interest. MLPA critics have charged Bill Anderson and Greg Schem, members of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force, with operating corporations that have an opportunity to personally profit from where marine protected areas are or are not located.
William (Bill) Anderson has been president and chief operating officer of Westrec Marinas since 1989. Westrec Marinas is the nation’s largest owner and operator of waterfront marinas.
Gregory F. Schem is president and chief executive officer of Harbor Real Estate Group, specializing in marina and waterfront real estate investments, including a marina, fuel dock, and boat yard in Marina del Rey, in addition to other California assets. (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp)
However, the MLPA conflicts of interest are just the tip of the political iceberg. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel, a parallel process to the MLPA Initiative, is also ridden with numerous conflicts of interest.
For example, an employee of the Westlands Water District, considered the “Darth Vader” of California water politics by Delta advocates, is currently working “on loan” for the Department of Water Resources (DWR) on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/12/14/westlands-official-working-for-dwr-on-delta-plan/)
Documents obtained by this reporter under the California Public Records Act reveal that Susan Ramos, Deputy General Manager of the Westlands Water District, was hired in an inter-jurisdictional personal exchange agreement between the Department of Water Resources and Westlands Water District from November 15, 2009 through December 31, 2010. The contract was extended to run through December 31, 2011 and again to continue through December 31, 2012.
“Susan Ramos’ hiring by the Department of Water Resources is a classic example of the revolving door between government agencies and water districts controlled by mega-corporate farms such as Westlands,” said Tom Stokely, Water Policy Analyst for the California Water Impact Network. “It further erodes public confidence at a time when distrust of government is at an all time high. We can be sure the public’s interests will not be protected.”
The news of Ramos’ service on loan from Westlands followed the alarming disclosure that the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) hired Laura King Moon, the Assistant General Manager of the State Water Contractors, to assist in the completion of the controversial Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/10/25/state-hires-water-contractor-rep-to-help-oversee-bay-delta-plan/)
In yet another example of corruption in California water politics, the California Fair Political Practices Commission in May 2010 fined Katherine Hart Johns, Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board member, $600 (wow – a whole $600?) for failing to report her husband’s separate property interest in his firm, California Resource Strategies, Inc., on her 2006, 2007, and 2008 annual Statements of Economic Interests. (http://fppc.ca.gov/press_release.php?pr_id=714).
“It’s outrageous that these conflicts of interests have become normalized,” commented Michael Preston, spokesman for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and a UC Berkeley Senior studying Society and the Environment and Native American Studies. “People have come to accept these political moves, without any consideration for the Tribal, fishing, small farming and other communities impacted by these processes, as normal.”
Advocates of openness and transparency in government contend the cases of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, Bill Anderson, Greg Schem, Susan Ramos, Laura King-Moon, Katherine Hart Johns and numerous others exemplify how corporate interests completely dominate environmental politics in California at tremendous expense to the public trust.
MLPA science: “incomplete and terminally flawed”
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.”
“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.
“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,” O’Rourke concluded.
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/.
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 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 “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 The article fails to mention that 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.
Yurok Tribal Member Richard Myers cleans mussels inside of Patrick’s Point State Park. Members of the Yurok, Hoopa Valley, Karuk and other Tribes on June 18, 2011 gathered seaweed, mussels and clams at three beaches on the North Coast to protest proposed restrictions on coastal gathering proposed under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. Photo by Matt Mais, Yurok Tribe.
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by Dan Bacher
The San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, June 10 reported on the Fish and Game Commission’s approval of a network of so-called “marine protected areas” on California’s North Coast.
“A vast network of undersea reserves – which conservationists have dreamed about for years – has been completed by the California Fish and Game Commission,” Peter Fimrite wrote.“The northernmost of four marine parks was approved by the commission last week, creating an interconnected series of protected marine environments from Mexico to Oregon.” (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/06/09/BACK1OSOLF.DTL#ixzz1xXfIWJcx)
I applaud the reporter for quoting Zeke Grader, Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, who exposes the fact that these alleged “marine protected areas” do not protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, military and seismic testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all other impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
“Nobody has done the heavy lifting in terms of water quality and other effects on the marine environment,” Grader said. “You have all these groups all atwitter about fishing and gathering impacts, but they have their blinders on when it comes to other effects.”
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.
However, Fimrite neglected to mention four key “inconvenient truths” that are key to understanding the MLPA Initiative.
First, the allegedly “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.
Second, the reporter failed to mention that 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.”
Third, Fimrite inexplicably failed to note that that 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.”
Fourth, the article fails to mention that 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 Yurok Tribal leaders told the Commission they were unhappy with regulations that would prohibit them from gathering seaweed, mussels and fish at their traditional gathering areas at Reading Rock and the False Klamath – and vowed to keep gathering 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.”
Photo: Tribal members, immigrant workers, fishermen and environmentalists marched side by side through the streets of Fort Bragg in defense of indigenous fishing and gathering rights on July 21, 2010. Photo by Dan Bacher.
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by Dan Bacher
The California Fish and Game Commission on June 6 adopted regulations for the North Coast “marine protected areas” (MPAs) created under the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
Commissioners Michael Sutton, Richard Rogers and Jack Baylis voted 3 to 0 to approve the regulations covering approximately 1,027 square miles of state waters from the California/Oregon state line south to Alder Creek near Point Arena in Mendocino County. Commissioners Jim Kellogg and Richard Rogers, both critics of the MLPA process, were absent.
The decision completed the network of MPAs in California’s open coastal waters, stretching from Mexico to the Oregon state line, developed under a public-private partnership between the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.
Many fishermen, Tribal members and environmentalists were relieved that the Commission voted for the unified proposal endorsed by the stakeholders, rather than approving a DFG proposal that changed the boundary lines of the marine reserves, supposedly for easier enforcement.
“We did about well as we could today,” said Jim Martin, West Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance. “The Commission didn’t add anything to the regional stakeholders proposal. They didn’t make the regulations worse.”
The long and contentious process was marked by several historic direct action protests by North Coast Indian Tribes and their allies to defend Tribal gathering and fishing rights, including the largest protest on the North Coast since Redwood Summer of 1990.
On July 21, 2010, over 300 people including members of 50 Indian Nations, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, immigrant seafood industry workers and grassroots environmentalists peacefully took over an MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg to protest the threat to traditional gathering rights posed by the MLPA Initiative.
(http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/07/26/tribes-and-allies-take-control-of-fort-bragg-mlpa-meeting)
John Laird: a “great day” for the ocean
After the Commission made their decision, Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird said, “This is a great day for California’s ocean and coastal resources. As promised, we have completed the nation’s first statewide open coast system of marine protected areas, strengthening California’s ongoing commitment to conserve marine life for future generations. Through the process, we also established the first ever special designation allowing tribes to continue ancestral fishing practices on the North Coast.”
The public planning process for the north coast region began in June 2009 and included numerous public workshops and more than 75 days of meetings.
“Our decision today was made possible by the hard work and dedication of hundreds of stakeholders up and down the California coast,” gushed Michael Sutton, Vice President of the Commission. “California can be proud not only of its new, comprehensive network of protection for the marine environment, but of the cutting-edge public process that made it happen.”
The North coast regulations include a provision for federally recognized tribal members to continue harvesting and gathering fish, kelp and shellfish as they have for countless generations. “The provision will allow non-commercial take to continue, consistent with existing regulations, in MPAs other than State Marine Reserves, where there is a record of ancestral take by a specific tribe,” the DFG said.
“We sincerely appreciate the state’s willingness to hear the concerns of the tribes and develop a plan that meets critical marine conservation and tribal cultural protection goals,” said Chairwoman Priscilla Hunter of the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, a consortium of 10 federally recognized north coast tribes based in Mendocino and Lake counties. “The start of this process was very difficult and contentious, but thanks to Secretary Laird and Governor Brown, we have ended in a very positive place with a strong framework for future tribal consultation on important conservation and environmental issues.”
Yurok Tribe leaders criticize new regulations
However, Yurok Tribal leaders told the Commission they were unhappy with regulations that would prohibit them from gathering seaweed, mussels and fish at their traditional gathering areas at Reading Rock and the False Klamath – and vowed to keep gathering 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.”
Gensaw told the Commission about the Tribe’s problems with diabetes, high blood pressure and other illnesses caused by a change in diet since the arrival of Europeans, who took many of the traditional foods from the tribe.
“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.”
The plan adopted by the Commission includes 19 MPAs, a recreational management area, and seven special closures covering approximately 137 square miles of state waters or about 13 percent of the region, according to a DFG press release.
California encompasses approximately 5,285 square miles of open coast state waters. The controversial marine protected areas are now in place on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and South Coast.
The open coast portion of the statewide network of MPAs now includes 119 MPAs, five recreational management areas and 15 special closures covering approximately 16 percent of all open coast state waters. Approximately half of California’s new or modified MPAs are multiple use areas, with the remaining in no-take areas.
The DFG said the north coast MPAs are expected to go into effect by early 2013.
MLPA process failed to incorporate tribal science
“This statewide system will benefit fish and fishermen in California for generations to come,” claimed Charlton H. Bonham, director of the DFG. “The science shows that by protecting sensitive ocean and coastal habitats, marine life flourishes and in turn, creates a healthier system overall.”
While Bonham and MLPA officials claim the MLPA Initiative was based on “science,” it is worth noting that the MLPA Science Advisory Team failed to incorporate studies from Yurok Tribe scientists that challenged the MLPA’s assumptions.
“With regard to local shoreline systems, where there is access, there are no ‘unfished’ systems,” said Mike Belchik, senior fisheries biologist from the Yurok Fisheries Program. “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)
The Initiative’s unresolved issues
Besides unresolved tribal gathering issues such as those pointed out by Gensaw and Matz of the Yurok Tribe, there are a number of other unresolved issues with the North Coast MPAs.
First, the Commission and MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force failed to include language proposed by fishermen and environmentalists to include increased protections from oil drilling and spills, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture and wind and wave energy projects in the marine protected areas.
“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.”
Second, fishermen and environmentalists also regularly criticized the presence of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast and North Central Coast. The Commission and state officials 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 force.
Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the Keystone XL Pipeline and the weakening of environmental laws, chaired the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012.
Third, the Commission and DFG have not found yet found funding for the increased number of wardens needed to patrol the new marine reserves. The California Fish and Game Wardens Association has opposed the creation of any new marine protected areas unless funding for enforcement is provided. California currently has the lowest ratio of wardens to people of any state in the nation – and is currently beset by an epidemic of fish, shellfish and wildlife poaching.
S.F. Bay process delayed until peripheral canal plan completed
The last stop on the MLPA Initiative “road show” after the North Coast process was completed was supposed to be San Francisco Bay. However, Secretary Laird and Director Bonham said on May 7 that implementation of “marine protected areas” in San Francisco Bay will be delayed until the completion of “planning efforts” for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2012/05/07/bay-mlpa-process-delayed-until-peripheral-canal-plan-completed)
“We look forward to continuing to work with all local, state and federal agencies dedicated to ensuring successful marine planning and protection for San Francisco Bay subsequent to completing planning efforts in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta,” Laird and Bonham stated.
The BDCP is a plan to build a peripheral canal or tunnel to export more Delta water to southern California and corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. A broad coalition of Delta residents, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, family farmers, grassroots environmentalists and elected officials is opposing the peripheral canal’s construction because it would hasten the extinction of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species and take vast areas of Delta farmland out of production under the guise of habitat “restoration.”
In a classic case of corporate greenwashing, the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation and David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the key funders of the MLPA Initiative, have also funded many of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reports promoting the construction of the peripheral canal.
For more information on the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, visit http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/.
danbacher Governor Jerry Brown has appointed Mike Taugher, 49, of Benicia, to the position of assistant deputy director of communications, education and outreach at the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG).
Taugher has been a reporter for the Bay Area News Group and Contra Costa Times since 2000, according to a news release from the Governor’s Office.
Taugher is known for his extensive coverage of Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta issues, including the dramatic decline of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Central Valley salmon, threadfin shad, striped bass and other fish species in recent years, due to a combination of increases in water exports, toxics and invasive species. He also covered the scandal of agribusiness tycoon Stewart Resnick, owner of Paramount Farms, selling subsidized water back to the public for a big profit.
He is regarded by Delta advocates as one of the few mainstream reporters who has consistently and fearlessly covered the peripheral canal fiasco and the drive by corporate agribusiness interests and southern California developers to divert more water from the Delta.
Taugher was an environmental reporter for the Albuquerque Journal from 1995 to 2000, a reporter for Greeley Tribune from 1992 to 1995 and a reporter for the Tahoe Daily Tribune and North Lake Tahoe Bonanza from 1989 to 1992.
This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $90,000. Taugher is registered decline-to-state.
The appointment of Taugher takes place in a long tradition of California’s revolving door between mainstream media, state government and private industry posts.
For example, Tupper Hull, formerly a San Francisco Examiner reporter and spokesman for the Westlands Water District, now serves as Vice President of Strategic Communications for the Western States Petroleum Association.
Likewise, Tom Philp, formerly a Sacramento Bee Editor, now works as an executive strategist for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
Brown also reappointed Jordan Traverso, 36, of Sacramento, as deputy director of communications at the California Department of Fish and Game. Traverso has been deputy director of communications, education and outreach for the Department of Fish and Game since 2008 and served as director of communications for the Consumer Attorneys of California from 2007 to 2008.
She was director of communications for the California Restaurant Association from 2004 to 2007, director of public liaison for the California State Treasurer’s Office from 2003 to 2004 and assistant press secretary for Governor Gray Davis from 2000 to 2003. Traverso has been a member of the Sacramento Press Club since 2004.
This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $98,844. Traverso is registered decline-to-state.
danbacher While a poacher was fined over $20,000 and sentenced to a week in jail for poaching 47 lobsters inside a “marine protected area,” 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. There is no “Wild Justice” for the millions of Sacramento splittail, striped bass, threadfin shad, Central Valley salmon and other species massacred in the state and federal Delta pumps every year.
Photo of lobster courtesy of Department of Fish and Game.
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by Dan Bacher
An Orange County Judge fined a Riverside County man over $20,000 and sentenced him to a week in jail for poaching lobsters inside a “marine protected area” (MPA) created under Arnold Schwarzenegger’s controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
“This is the first resource crime conviction since the MPAs off the Southern California coast went into effect on Jan. 1, 2012,” according to a May 8 news release from the California Department of Fish and Game touting the poacher’s conviction.
This is the same agency that 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 contrast with the case of the lobster poacher, government officials responsible for the fish slaughter have never been prosecuted for the violation of numerous state and federal laws.
Marbel A. Para, 30, of Romoland pled guilty in Orange County Court on May 4 for violating Fish and Game Code 12013 that stipulates a minimum $5,000 fine for anyone who takes or posses more than three times the daily bag limit of lobsters.
“This diver intentionally took a huge overlimit of lobster with no regard for the current laws,” said Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Assistant Chief Paul Hamdorf. “He didn’t follow any fish and game laws, including the take restrictions within an MPA.”
After midnight on Jan. 15, DFG wardens found Para and a companion with 47 California spiny lobsters in their possession, according to the DFG. In addition to illegally taking the lobsters from an MPA, the divers were well over the legal possession limit of seven lobsters per diver, and all but five of the lobsters were undersize. Para claimed that all the lobsters were his, so his companion was not cited.
“This was a big case, but unfortunately it wasn’t the biggest even in the last 12 months. Any time you have something that has significant monetary value, there will be a small group that will exploit it, regardless of what the law says,” said Hamdorf.
“DFG has been working closely with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to combat resource crimes in the county. Para was ultimately sentenced to three years probation, seven days in OrangeCounty jail and a $5,000 fine for the DFG violation,” Hamdorf noted.
Additional fees and penalties pushed the total fines to more than $20,000. The DFG said he also had to forfeit all his SCUBA equipment and was given a “stay away” order from the Laguna Beach State Marine Reserve.
The DFG claimed, “The MPAs were created through the Marine Life Protection Act in order to simplify and strengthen existing marine reserves and fishing regulations to allow recovery of fish populations that have been in severe decline.”
It is important to note that Para would have been cited for violating bag and size limits for lobsters even if the “marine reserve” hadn’t been in place.
Wardens Association opposed new reserves without enforcement funding
Ironically, the rank and file wardens who have to enforce the new “marine protected areas,” touted as “Yosemites of the Sea” by MLPA Initiative advocates, have consistently opposed the creation of any new reserves including those created on the South Coast until funds are found to effectively enforce them.
In a superb opinion piece in the Sacramento Bee on January 31, 2010, Jerry Karnow, Legislative Liason for the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, criticized the MLPA process for proceeding forward at a time when California has the “lowest ratio of wardens to population of any state or province in North America (http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2500939.html).
“It is impossible for the warden force to effectively enforce existing regulations, much less new regulations that the Fish and Game Commission approves over our objections,” says Karnow. “Many of the regulations approved by the commission will not protect the natural resources of California. They will serve only one purpose; they will stretch the warden force ever thinner, which will eventually result in another warden’s on-duty injury or death.”
Of course, the DFG release failed to mention that the MLPA Initiative that created the Laguna Beach State Marine Reserve was privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, an organization that has also funded Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) reports promoting the construction of a peripheral canal or tunnel. The peripheral canal’s construction will hasten the extinction of Central Valley winter run chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and other fish species.
No ‘Wild Justice’ for fish killed at Delta pumps
While poaching lobsters is inexcusable and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, it is ironic that the same Department that proudly proclaims its successful prosecution of a poacher in a news release has done nothing to stop the massacre of millions of millions of fish, including Sacramento splittail, chinook salmon, steelhead and other species, in the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project pumping facilities in the South Delta over the past few decades.
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 a DFG report. The report 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. While the report says that is “relatively few” salmon, fish advocates note that this is still a lot of wild spring run and fall run salmon.
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. “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.” You can download the Bay Institute’s report, Collateral Damage, by going to: http://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).
So while a poacher was fined over $20,000 and sentenced to a week in jail for poaching 47 lobsters inside a “marine protected area,” 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.
This is similar to the case of where a bank robber gets prosecuted to the full extent of the law while Wall Street banksters 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 against humanity and the public trust!
MLPA Initiative fails to provide comprehensive protection
Grassroots environmentalists, fishermen, and Tribal members have criticized the so-called “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative for failing to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering. They have also slammed the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversee the initiative for their domination by corporate interests, including a powerful oil industry lobbyist, real estate developer and marina operator.
In the most overt conflict of interest, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force that developed the “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012.
Reheis-Boyd is a relentless advocate for new offshore oil drilling off the West Coast, the environmentally destructive practice of hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking), the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and the evisceration of environmental laws. (http://redgreenandblue.org/2012/02/20/californias-ocean-guardian-promotes-keystone-xl-pipeline-fracking/)
