danbacher by Dan Bacher
California’s privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, opposed by fishermen, grassroots conservationists, environmental justice advocates and supporters of democracy and transparency in government, has “friends in high places.”
Leon Panetta, the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and President Barack Obama’s current Secretary of Defense, has been a huge supporter of the corrupt MLPA Initiative.
On August 30, 2008, prior to his appointment as CIA Director, Panetta wrote an editorial, “Protect Our Oceans,” in the Silicon Valley Mercury-News that touted the “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA process.
“California has always been on the cutting edge of policy protecting our coastline and ocean,” wrote Panetta. “In 1999, an unprecedented state law, the Marine Life Protection Act, required the creation of marine protected areas down California’s coastline. These areas are vital to restoring a sustainable fishery. Californians are forging ahead to create marine-protected areas through an inclusive, regional public process that involves sport and commercial fishermen, marine scientists, conservationists, divers, kayakers and educators.”
“In California alone, our ocean supports a $42 billion economy, dependent on the health of fish and wildlife, tourism and recreation. It is crucial to our health, our nutrition, our economy and our spirit. President Kennedy once said that the oceans are the ’salt in our veins.’ By protecting our oceans, we will protect life itself,” Panetta concluded.
The words from Panetta, who served as chair of the Pew (Sunoco Oil Company) Oceans Commission, could have come right out of an MLPA Initiative, DFG or corporate environmental NGO news release.
It is no surprise that the controversial “marine protected areas” that Panetta gushed about don’t protect the oceans and “life itself” from the impacts of military testing, pollution, oil spills and drilling, wind and wave energy projects and all other human impacts other than fishing.
After being appointed as Defense Secretary by Obama last summer, Panetta has been pursuing al Qaeda, waging multiple wars, urging global support for tough economic sanctions against Iran – and gearing up for military exercises off the West Coast that threaten marine mammals and the ocean ecosystem.
As a Congressman in the 1980s and 1990s, Panetta voted against U.S. military intervention in different countries, but he has become a “hawk” in recent years.
“Some of the wars that I voted against, I didn’t think that that was — you know, that they were not — they did not make the case,” Panetta told the New York Times on October 24, 2011. “But after 9/11, there was no question in my mind that we were dealing with a group that attacked America, killed a lot of Americans, and that it was important for us to take action.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/us/leon-panetta-in-his-own-words.html)
Who supports the MLPA besides Former CIA Director and current Secretary of Defense Panetta? The corrupt process, touted as “open, transparent and inclusive” by Wall Street environmentalists, is backed by “green” organizations and corporations such as the Western States Petroleum Association, Safeway Stores, the Walton Family Foundation (Walmart) and the shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation.
The so-called “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California on January 1, 2001 were created under the “visionary leadership” of Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum and chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast. Now that fishermen have been kicked off large areas of the South Coast, Reheis-Boyd has been relentlessly lobbying for new oil drilling off the California coast, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the evisceration of environmental laws. Could there be an agenda at work here?
Apparently, it’s OK for the military to conduct exercises in and around “marine protected areas” and for cities, agribusiness and the oil industry to pollute, but it’s not OK for a person to catch and release fish from a kayak or a mother and father to take their children fishing in these bizarre parodies of “marine protected areas.”
The failure of the MLPA Initiative to comprehensively protect California marine waters occurs at a time when the military is planning to expand its training exercises in West Coast waters. A broad coalition of conservation and tribal organizations on January 26 sued the Obama administration for failing to protect thousands of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals, and sea lions from U.S. Navy warfare training exercises along the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington.
Earthjustice, representing the InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the San Juans, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), and People For Puget Sound, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern California challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s approval of the Navy’s training activities in its Northwest Training Range Complex.
“These training exercises will harm dozens of protected species of marine mammals—southern resident killer whales, blue whales, humpback whales, dolphins, and porpoises—through the use of high-intensity mid-frequency sonar,” said Steve Mashuda, an Earthjustice attorney representing the groups. “The Fisheries Service fell down on the job and failed to require the Navy to take reasonable and effective actions to protect them.” (http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/01/30/groups-sue-over-navy-sonar-impacts-on-marine-mammals-94811)
One of the reasons why this and similar lawsuits are so necessary is because the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative creates so-called “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from military testing and all other human impacts on the ocean than fishing and gathering.
“If Defense Secretary Panetta really is concerned about the health of the ocean and people, he should order a halt to destructive military tests in the ocean, help us keep fisheries open to sustainable ocean food providers, and join the world outcry for peace conversion,” said John Lewallen, North Coast environmental leader, co-founder of the Ocean Protection Coalition and North Coast Seaweed Rebellion and independent candidate for U.S. Congress in California’s Second Congressional District.
Ironically, a survey boat mapping the sea floor for the MLPA Initiative, supposedly a process to protect marine life, struck and killed an endangered blue whale off Fort Bragg in October 2009, outraging fishermen, tribal members and environmentalists.
The California State Lands Commission (SLC) that December found that Fugro Pelagos, the company contracted to conduct the survey, violated the terms of its permit when it struck the whale. The company didn’t notify the State Lands Commission prior to its survey activity and failed to have marine wildlife observers on board, as required. (http://yubanet.com/california/Dan-Bacher-The-Whalegate-Scandal.php)
There is no doubt that the MLPA Initiative is corporate/oil industry/military greenwashing at its very worst.
danbacher California has the lowest exploitation rate of groundfish stocks in the world
By Dan Bacher
A groundbreaking study published in the July 31, 2009 issue of Science magazine revealed that the California Current ecosystem has the lowest groundfish fishery exploitation rate of any place in the world examined by co-authors Ray Hilborn and Boris Worm and 19 other scientists.
“The drastic reductions in harvest in California have been designed to rebuild the overexploited rockfish stocks,” said Hilborn. “At present the community of groundfish is now at about 60% of its unfished biomass, far above the 30-40% level target for maximum sustained yield.”
Dr. Hilborn, a professor at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences at the University of Washington, and the other authors of “Rebuilding Global Fisheries” say that efforts made to reduce overfishing are succeeding in five of ten large marine ecosystems studied, including those in California, New Zealand and Iceland. Their study puts into perspective recent reports predicting a “total collapse” of global fisheries within 40 years.
The conclusions by the 21 international scientists with widely divergent views effectively counter the spurious arguments by Governor Arnold Schwarzengger and his staff for the urgent “need” to fast-track the controversial Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process because of the “dire condition” that rockfish, lingcod and other groundfish stocks are supposedly in along the California coast.
“Much of the motivation for the MLPA was concern about the state of the groundfish stocks – there is clear evidence that these can be rebuilt without MPAs resulting from the MLPA that have only recently begun to be implemented,” Hilborn said. “The benefits of the MPAs established under the MLPA will be primarily to have some areas of high abundance of species with limited mobility.”
This is not the first time that Dr. Hilborn has criticized the MLPA process. In 2006, Hilborn and others reviewed the MLPA model for size and spacing of MPAs and found: “It appears to us that those prescriptions were pulled out of the air, based on intuitive reasoning.”
Jim Martin, West Coast Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, said the new study confirmed what North Coast environmentalists, anglers and seaweed harvesters have known all along – that efforts to restore groundfish populations through the highly restrictive Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) process are working.
“The conclusion that California has the lowest rate of groundfish exploitation of any place examined in the study demonstrates that the idea that we must rush into the MLPA process or there won’t be any fish left in the ocean is completely false,” said Martin.
MPLA Process: A Resource Grab, Not Marine Protection
A broad coalition of grass roots environmentalists, seaweed harvesters, Native American activists, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, and elected officials on California’s North and North Central Coast is opposing the fast-track process for being an egregious case of corporate greenwashing rife with conflicts of interests, mission creep and the corruption of the democratic process. Many believe that Schwarzenegger and his allies are trying to kick sustainable fishermen and seaweed harvesters off the water to clear a path for corporations to install offshore oil rigs, wave energy projects and aquaculture facilities off the northern California coast.
As Judith Vidaver, chair of the Ocean Protection Coalition (OPC), said so eloquently in June 2009 at a groundbreaking meeting held by environmentalists, fishermen and seaweed harvesters in Point Arena to oppose the corrupt MLPA process, “What I see here is a resource grab. The first thing that the corporations want to do before grabbing public trust resources is to get rid of the people who live or subsist on the land and ocean.”
Likewise, Ann Maurice, Sonoma County Native American activist, put Schwarzenegger’s fast-track MLPA process in the larger context of cultural genocide by the state and federal governments against American Indian nations in California since the Gold Rush.
“Native Americans have been systematically deprived of the right to sustainably fish and harvest intertidal food,” said Maurice, who has worked for years to stop MLPA closures from taking away traditional ocean harvesting areas vital to the survival of Kashaya and other tribal cultures. “Now the same thing is being done to you.”
There is nothing “green” about Schwarzenegger’s fast track MLPA fiasco except for the Packard Foundation money that is funding a supposedly “public” process. At the same time that Schwarzenegger and his collaborators are ramrodding the MLPA process through the California Fish and Game Commission at the expense of coastal communities, he is pushing for a peripheral canal and more dams that will result in pushing collapsing Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon, Delta smelt and the southern resident population of killer whales over the edge of extinction.
While coastal groundfish populations are rapidly rebuilding under the current fishery management process, Schwarzenegger is trying to impose more unneeded closures on the most heavily regulated coastal fishery in the world. Meanwhile, rather than supporting efforts by fishermen, Indian Tribes and environmentalists to restore anadromous species including salmon, steelhead and sturgeon, he has done everything he can to make these fish populations extinct by fighting a court-ordered plan to restore the fish and relentlessly supporting efforts by corporate agribusiness to increase water exports from the California Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.
In a stunning case of reverse logic, Schwarzenegger and his staff are ruthlessly opposing fish restoration measures for anadromous species that are on the verge of extinction while imposing redundant area closures on groundfish stocks that are the least exploited of any fishery in the world examined in the landmark study published in Science!
At the same time, the California Game Wardens Association, fishing groups and grassroots environmental groups are pushing for a suspension in the MLPA process, in light of the state’s unprecedented economic crisis, numerous conflicts of interests by MLPA decision makers and the questionable “science” behind the process.
The data about California fisheries disclosed in the Science magazine article makes it even more clear that the Marine Life Protection Act process must be suspended, since the “science” behind the process needs to be completely re-examined.
The Global Perspective: Fish Stocks Need Rebuilding
While California and other regions have seen the rebuilding of groundfish stocks through the implementation of strict regulations, that is not the case everywhere examined in the study.
“In 5 of 10 well-studied ecosystems, the average exploitation rate has recently declined and is now at or below the rate predicted to achieve maximum sustainable yield for seven systems,” according to the study. “Yet 63% of assessed fish stocks worldwide still require rebuilding, and even lower exploitation rates are needed to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species. Combined fisheries and conservation objectives can be achieved by merging diverse management actions, including catch restrictions, gear modification, and closed areas, depending on local context. Impacts of international fleets and the lack of alternatives to fishing complicate prospects for rebuilding fisheries in many poorer regions, highlighting the need for a global perspective on rebuilding marine resources.”
The abstract for Rebuilding Global Fisheries is available at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/325/5940/578. A subscription is required to read the full article on-line.
danbacher “This is definitely a win for us,” said Robert C. Fletcher, the former president of the Sportfishing Association of California, “since the Attorney General’s Office, representing the Commission, has repeatedly tried to block our appeal.”
Map of North Central Coast “marine protected areas.” The Coastside Fishing Club in December filed an appeal with California’s 4th District Court of Appeal in its challenge of the North Central Coast MLPA regulations
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by Dan Bacher
“We just received good news from the Court of Appeal — it denied the Commission’s motion,” according to a statement from the Coastside Fishing Club. “Coastside’s appeal may therefore go forward and be heard on the merits.”
“This is definitely a win for us,” said Robert C. Fletcher, the former president of the Sportfishing Association of California, “since the Attorney General’s Office, representing the Commission, has repeatedly tried to block our appeal.”
“If the court finds merit to Coastside’s arguments, they will vacate the Commission’s adoption of the North Coast MLPA regulations and force them to go back to the drawing board. This will have implications not only for the North Central Coast, but for the South Coast as well,” said Fletcher.
In October 2011, Coastside, United Anglers of Southern California and Robert C. Fletcher in October suffered the first setback in their legal campaign targeting ocean fishing closures imposed under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. The unpopular initiative is privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.
Ronald S. Prager, San Diego Superior Court judge, rejected arguments that the Commission exceeded its authority when it approved new “marine protected areas” on the North Central Coast from Pigeon Point in San Mateo County to Alder Point in Mendocino County that went into effect on May 1, 2010.
On December 15, 2011, the Club filed a Notice of Appeal, appealing the trial court’s denial of Coastside’s claims that the Fish and Game Commission “lacked statutory authority and failed to follow required procedures” in adopting the North Central Coast marine protected areas (MPAs) and MPA regulations.
All of the remaining claims brought by United Anglers and Fletcher, including the South Coast regulatory authority and CEQA claims, as well as the Coastal Act claims, are still pending in the trial court. A trial date has not yet been set.
On January 9, 2012, the Commission filed a motion in the Court of Appeal to dismiss Coastside’s appeal, arguing that Coastside must wait to appeal until all of the remaining claims still pending in the trial court have been resolved.
Grassroots environmental leaders fighting the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative applauded the Appeal Court’s decision.
“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.”
The initiative, overseen by a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, coastal real estate executive, agribusiness hack and other corporate operatives with many conflicts of interest, is a process that directly parallels the equally corrupt and corporate-controlled Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal.
The MLPA Initiative creates so-called “marine protected areas,” supported by Safeway Stores, Walmart and the Western States Petroleum Association, that fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, wave and wind energy projects and all other human impacts on the ocean than fishing and gathering.
In an overt conflict of interest, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the “august body” that designed the “marine protected areas” that went into effect on the Southern California Coast on January 1. Reheis-Boyd, a big oil industry lobbyist advocating for new offshore drilling off the California coast, the Keystone XL pipeline and the gutting of environmental laws, chaired the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast, as well as “serving” on the North Central Coast and North Coast Task Forces.
While MLPA advocates have claimed that the initiative is “open, transparent and inclusive,” it is instructive that MLPA and state officials refused to appoint any tribal scientists to the MLPA Science Advisory Team (SAT). This was in spite of the fact that the Yurok Tribe alone has a Natural Resources Department with over 70 staff members, including scientists. The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force also didn’t include any tribal representatives until 2010 when one was finally appointed to the panel.
For more information about the litigation against the MLPA, go to: http://www.oceanaccessprotectionfund.org.
danbacher DFG Director Chuck Bonham should call for an investigation into the record “salvage” of 11 million fish, including 9 million imperiled Sacramento splittail, during 2011, a export record pumping year, and direct staff to find a way to stop or at least reduce the carnage at the predatory state and federal export pumping facilities in the South Delta.
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by Dan Bacher
In a January 18 press release, the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) proudly announced a new marine and coastal map viewer, called MarineBIOS.
Located at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/gis/viewer.asp, the DFG touts the website an “in-depth source of information” about California’s MPAs (marine protected areas), “as well as some of the more common spatial planning data that was used to create those MPA regulations.”
“This map viewer marks a significant milestone in our effort to manage and make available planning data for marine and coastal constituents,” DFG Director Chuck Bonham gushed. “It’s also cost-effective as it was done in-house, using existing department technology and expertise.”
Of course, the release failed to mention that the majority of these so-called “marine protected areas” were created under the “visionary leadership” of a big oil lobbyist, real estate executive, marina developer and other corporate operatives under Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, a corrupt and unjust corporate greenwashing process privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation.
I just wonder how much this DFG staff time and dollars this “MarineBIOS” program cost. While I love the idea of new technology at the DFG, what the DFG really needs now is firm leadership to defend and restore our fish populations.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
My opinion is that if Director Bonham really cares about California fish, water and the environment, he should show some courage and take the following crucial actions:
1. He should call for an investigation into the record “salvage” of 11 million fish, including 9 million imperiled Sacramento splittail, during 2011, a export record pumping year, and direct staff to find a way to stop or at least reduce the carnage at the predatory state and federal export pumping facilities in the South Delta. Scientists estimate that the actual amount of fish lost in the pumps is 5 to 10 times the “salvage” numbers.
2. Bonham should support the call by anglers, grassroots environmentalists and advocates of openness and transparency in government to suspend the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, including the so-called “marine protected areas” created under the leadership of South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force Chair Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association. The initiative creates so-called “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The DFG wardens would be very happy to hear that they don’t have to enforce new “marine protected areas” when they don’t have enough staff or boats to patrol the existing ones. That’s why the California Fish and Game Wardens Association has repeatedly called on the Fish and Game Commission not to approve any new marine protected areas until the Department has enough staff and money to enforce the existing MPAs.
3. He should urge the Brown and Obama administrations to halt the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral canal, a project that will lead to the deaths of more Central Valley chinook salmon, steelhead, striped bass, American shad, Sacramento splittail, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, largemouth bass, white and green sturgeon and other species than all of the poachers in the state combined could possibly kill.
Not only would this canal lead to the destruction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations, but it would cost an estimated $23 billion to $53.8 billion to build, according to economist Stephen Kasower, at a time when California is in its greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
As Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, said, “The peripheral canal is such a tremendous destroyer of water systems. There is no one making more water, and there is very little protection to prevent water pollution and little resources targeting cleaning up water, just more greedy building plans to get the little water that is trickling down the Sacramento Valley. It time for Gov. Brown to get rid of those little thinkers and design off the grid projects.”
It is no surprise that the Resources Legacy Fund and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, two of the largest funders of studies by UC Davis and the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) to promote the construction of the peripheral canal, are also the biggest funders of the MLPA Initiative fiasco. Neither the MLPA Initiative nor the plan to build the canal aim to “restore” the ecosystem – their goals are to greenwash the privatization of public trust resources and conservation in order to benefit powerful corporate interests.
I’ll conclude with another quote from Martin Luther King Jr: “The time is always right to do the right thing.”
danbacher It seems that Governor Jerry Brown is intent on making the peripheral canal a reality. ”It won’t surprise you that Salmon Water Now, and many other groups concerned about the fiscal and environmental health of California, think building a canal or tunnel isn’t such a great idea,” said Bruce Tokars of Salmon Water Now. “We think it is important that people understand what is going on, who it benefits, and what it means if it gets built. So to help focus debate on the subject we offer a three-minute video, Kill the Canal. The information about the video is below.”
As is always the case, sharing and embedding is encouraged. Please, join us in making some noise about this important subject.
Watch Kill the Canal here:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDs7tZyPbo8&hd=1
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/32264180Photo: In his State of the State address, Governor Jerry Brown went out of his way to promote the construction of the peripheral canal to export more water to corporate agribusiness and southern California. Brown is continuing the abysmal environmental policies of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on the peripheral canal and the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas.” Photo by the Governor’s Office.
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The march to build a system to move massive amounts of water around the Delta continues. The goal is to build a “peripheral canal” (also referred to as a tunnel or conveyance) so that fresh water will be available to meet the seemingly never-ending needs of big agriculture and Southern California real estate interests.
Governor Jerry Brown, in his recent State of the State address, seemed to go out of his way to justify building a peripheral canal. He emphasized his commitment to fast-tracking its construction.
The Governor even personalized the pitch by saying that “this is something my father worked on and then I worked on—decades ago. We know more now and are committed to the dual goals of restoring the Delta ecosystem and ensuring a reliable water supply.”
Dan Bacher, who has been reporting on water, fish, and ecosystem issues for years, pointed out in a recent story that “ironically, the theme of (Brown’s) speech was “California on the Mend.” Delta advocates oppose the construction of the peripheral canal because it will, among other things, lead to the extinction of Central Valley fish species including Sacramento River Chinook salmon and many others.
Salmon Water Now agrees with Bacher that the canal won’t “mend” imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations. It is very hard to see how it would not exacerbate the ecosystem collapse caused by record water exports from the Delta in recent years.
But those pushing for ever more amounts of water want what they want.
Kill the Canal, a new video from Salmon Water Now, is a three-minute look at the canal and what we believe are very good reasons to stop it from being built.
The canal would be a massively expensive construction project at a time when California is suffering from huge budget problems. It does not seem that the current plans will help the Delta or help the people and communities who depend on having healthy runs of wild salmon. But it will help the Westlands Water District, billionaire “farmer” Stewart Resnick, and plenty of real estate developers. If they get their way, they’ll be very happy.
A little sarcasm never hurts.
Salmon Water Now is one of many voices that would like to put the brakes on the march to build a peripheral canal. We’d like to see a spirited discussion about this issue and there is plenty to talk about. We encourage the sharing of our Kill the Canal video as a way to stimulate a lively debate.
Watch Kill the Canal here:
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDs7tZyPbo8&hd=1
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/32264180
Bruce Tokars
http://www.salmonwaternow.org
danbacher “Although my Delta protection bill, AB 550, was unsuccessful, it succeeded in getting support from the Water Parks & Wildlife Chair, Jared Huffman, and bipartisan support from 4 other committee members,” said Assemblymember Alyson Huber.
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by Dan Bacher
Assemblymember Alyson Huber’s bill to prohibit the construction of a peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta without a full fiscal analysis and a vote of the state legislature failed in committee on Tuesday, January 10.
The bill vote in the Assembly Water Parks and Wildlife Committee was 5 ayes and 7 nos, with 1 member not in attendance.
However, Huber, a Democrat from El Dorado Hills, noted that the bill made significant progress over last year when the same bill, SB 550, failed to get a second to the motion to vote on it.
“Although my Delta protection bill, AB 550, was unsuccessful, it succeeded in getting support from the Water Parks & Wildlife Chair, Jared Huffman, and bipartisan support from 4 other committee members,” said Huber. “We have made great progress from last year and I am still committed to pressing for a full fiscal analysis and a vote of the legislature before any Delta water conveyance program can move forward.”
AB 550 would “prohibit the construction and operation of a peripheral canal from diminishing or negatively affecting the water supplies, water rights, or quality of water for water users within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed, or imposing any new burdens on infrastructure within, or financial burdens on persons residing in, the Delta or the Delta watershed,” according to the bill text.
Tracy Chimenti, a Penryn mandarin farmer and recreational angler who attended the hearing, said, “I supported the bill because it gives the Legislature a chance to analyze the fiscal impacts and true cost of the project so a rational decision can be made in the open.”
“I oppose the canal because from the economic standpoint, it is a multi-billion dollar boondoggle,” said Chimenti. “As a small farmer, I try to use the most cost effective way to grow fruit.”
He also opposes the canal because of the dramatic impacts it would have on fish populations and the environment.
“Taking more water from the Delta in an alternate flow regime will simply damage the sport fishery and native fish populations,” emphasized Chimenti. “On top of that, the many fishing businesses that Delta and Central Valley fisheries support would go down the tubes with the construction of the canal.”
Supporters of the bill included Restore the Delta, Food and Water Watch, the California Delta Chambers, Central Delta Water Agency, City of Lodi, City of Stockton, the Rio Vista Chamber Commerce, South Delta Water Agency, Wilson Farms and Vineyards and numerous other groups and individuals.
“Restore the Delta maintains that the people of California deserve to know that due process will take place before tax payers and rate payers are asked to spend billions of dollars on a peripheral canal,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta. “It is imperative that our state’s Legislature continues to oversee large-scale projects and does not delegate its authority to unelected bureaucrats who are not held accountable by voters.”
The Association of California Water Agencies, Westlands Water District, the State Water Contractors, Kern County Water Agency, Santa Clara Valley Water Agency, Metropolitan Water District, County of Los Angeles and numerous others receiving water exports from the Delta opposed the bill.
In a letter to Huber, these agencies stated, “We view AB 550 as a threat to achieving the co-equal goals of ecosystem restoration and reliable water supplies in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Most importantly, your legislation will undermine water supply reliability throughout California and will threaten jobs and the economic health of three quarters of the state’s population residing south of the Delta. AB 550 is a blatant repeal of the historic Delta/water management legislation enacted in November 2009 that created a path towards new Delta conveyance.”
The Brown and Obama administrations are currently fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal in order to export more Delta water to southern California and corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Delta advocates believe the construction of peripheral canal or tunnel would result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other imperiled fish species.
Advocates of openness and transparency in government believe that the BDCP, like the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create so-called “marine protected areas” on the California coast, is a corrupt process filled with numerous conflicts of interest. For example, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association and a strong advocate for new offshore oil drilling, chaired the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force that developed the “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California ocean waters on January 1.
Likewise, an employee of the Westlands Water District is currently working “on loan” for the Department of Water Resources (DWR) on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the plan initiated by state and federal water contractors to allow them to build a peripheral canal or tunnel.
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 “personnel exchange agreement” between the Department of Water Resources and Westlands Water District from November 15, 2009 through December 31, 2012. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/12/14/westlands-official-working-for-dwr-on-delta-plan)
The news of Ramos’ hiring followed the alarming disclosure that DWR hired Laura King Moon, the Assistant General Manager of the State Water Contractors, to assist in the completion of the BDCP. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/10/25/state-hires-water-contractor-rep-to-help-oversee-bay-delta-plan/)
“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,” summed up Michael Preston, spokesman for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and a UC Berkeley Junior studying Society and the Environment and Native American Studies.
Preston’s tribe is now engaged in an ambitious campaign to reintroduce McCloud River winter run chinook salmon from the Rakaira River in New Zealand to the McCloud above Shasta Dam.
danbacher Walmart Chairman Rob Walton, who has dumped millions into groups supporting the MLPA Initiative and similar efforts to privatize the oceans worldwide, was no doubt very pleased also with the implementation of this network of 50 MPAs.
So-called “marine protected areas,” created by a task force chaired by a big oil industry lobbyist, went into effect on the Southern California coast on New Year’s Day. They will do nothing to stop oil spills and drilling – nor curb the pollution that plagues our waters.
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by Dan Bacher
So-called marine protected areas (MPAs), created under the leadership of a big oil lobbyist, went into effect today, January 1, in Southern California ocean waters from Point Conception in Santa Barbara County to the U.S./Mexico border.
Representatives of the Department of Fish and Game, corporate “environmental” NGOs, the Western States Petroleum Association, Safeway Stores and other supporters of the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative have reason to celebrate the beginning of the New Year with the implementation of these questionable “marine protected areas.”
You know that there is “something fishy” about these “marine protected areas” when corporate giant Safeway, the target of boycotts over the years by a multitude of groups ranging from the United Farm Workers Union to the Recreational Fishing Alliance, praises the MLPA Initiative. In an official statement, Safeway proclaims, “In California, Safeway is a proponent of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPA), which balances the use and conservation of living marine resources through a statewide network of MPA’s.”
Walmart Chairman Rob Walton, who has dumped millions into groups supporting the MLPA Initiative and similar efforts to privatize the oceans worldwide, is no doubt very pleased also with the implementation of this network of 50 MPAs. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/30/the-worst-of-the-one-percent)
This network includes 13 pre-existing MPAs retained at the northern Channel Islands and two special closures covering approximately 354 square miles of state waters and representing approximately 15 percent of the region.
In contrast, fishermen, grassroots conservationists, environmental justice advocates, civil liberties activists and those who care about openness and transparency in government and oppose the privatization of the public trust view January 1, 2012 as a dark day in California history. Unlike representatives of Wall Street-funded NGOs, respected environmental leaders including John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen fiercely oppose the privatized MLPA Initiative overseen by ocean industrialists and corporate operatives.
There are five points that are key to understanding the truth about the alleged “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters today.
First, these “marine reserves” were created by the MLPA “Blue Ribbon Task Force” for the South Coast chaired by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association. Reheis-Boyd is a big oil industry lobbyist with an egregious conflict of interest in the designation of MPAs, considering that she has repeatedly called for new oil drilling off the California coast and the weakening of environmental regulations, as well as supporting environmentally destructive Canadian tar sands drilling (http://business.financialpost.com/2011/12/19/oil-sands-crude-will-face-obstacles)/ She was the proverbial “fox” in charge of the “hen house.”
Second, the MLPA process was overseen not only by an oil industry lobbyist, but by a marina developer, coastal real estate executive and other corporate operatives and political hacks with numerous conflicts of interest.
Third, in a parody of true marine protection, these fake “marine protected areas” fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military testing, corporate aquaculture, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
Fourth, the MLPA Initiative that created the MPAs is privately funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, setting a bad precedent for the privatization of conservation and the public trust in California. (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/02/18/the-corporate-money-behind-the-mlpa-initiative)
Five, the California Fish and Game Wardens Association has opposed the creation of new marine protected areas until sufficient funding to patrol the existing ones is found. This is why rank-and-file game wardens refer to the MPAs as “Marine Poaching Areas.”
Jeff Krieger, avid Southern California kayak angler and conservationist, sadly noted two weeks before today’s closure, “I’m going to kayak fish and visit the Point Dume area this weekend and say goodbye, since this area closes on January 1. This not a victory for the 99%! It is more like a water grab by the 1%, in my mind!”
“People need access to sustainable ocean food for nutritional health and our livelihood,” commented John Stephens-Lewallen, the North Coast environmental leader who co-founded the Ocean Protection Coalition and North Coast Seaweed Rebellion and has been a vocal critic of the MLPA process. “We can’t let these areas, closed by a corrupt private process, keep us from exercising our fundamental rights and duties to have access to sustainable food from the ocean.”
“The MLPA is the beginning of the privatization of our natural resources in California where, in an underhanded and illegal way, the decisions have been taken from the people and put into the hands of the ocean industrialists,” said Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, John’s wife and co-owner of Mendocino Sea Vegetable Company.
Those who believe in environmental justice, democracy and true, wholistic marine protection – as opposed to privately funded green washing – are committed to fighting the MLPA Initiative through litigation and exposing the numerous conflicts of interest and violations of state and federal laws.
A recent appeal of an unfavorable court ruling gives California’s fishing and boating community renewed hope for overturning regulations imposed under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. Coastside Fishing Club, one of the three petitioners in litigation before the San Diego Superior Court challenging MLPA regulations adopted by the California Fish and Game Commission for the North Central Coast, filed an appeal with California’s 4th District Court of Appeal on December 15.
Coastside’s appeal arises from the denial by Judge Ronald Prager on October 17, 2011 of its request for a Writ of Mandate voiding MLPA regulations adopted by the commission for California’s North Central Coast in 2009 based on legal defects in implementing California law. After a careful review, Coastside concluded that Judge Prager’s ruling is inconsistent with the mandates of the law as established by the legislature.
“It’s in the best interests of all Californians that our state’s laws be implemented in a fair and even-handed manner as the legislature directs,” said Rick Ross, Coastside’s president. “Coastside intends to pursue this legitimate goal through all available legal means. We strongly believe in the merits of our case, and the appeal process provides a fresh opportunity to have our claims considered in a different forum.”
The outcome of the appeal of Judge Prager’s ruling on the North Central Coast regulations would likely influence the resolution of a similar challenge to the validity of the South Coast regulations brought in the same lawsuit by Coastside’s co-plaintiffs, United Anglers of Southern California and Robert C. Fletcher.
To donate to the litigation against the MLPA Initiative, go to: http://www.SaveCAFishing.org.
danbacher “Based on what we know about the effects of crude oil on early life stages in fish, we expected to find live embryos with abnormal heart function, so it was a surprise to find so many embryos in the shallow waters literally falling apart,” said Dr. John Incardona, a toxicologist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and lead author of the study.
Pacific herring photo courtesy of NOAA Fisheries.
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by Dan Bacher
Pacific herring embryos in shallow waters died in unexpectedly high numbers following the Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay in November 2007, according to NOAA scientists and their collaborators in a study published in the scientific journal PNAS on December 26.
“The majority of embryos in samples from oiled sites were dead on examination in the laboratory,” the study’s authors wrote. The study suggests an interaction between sunlight and the chemicals in oil might be responsible for the unexpected deaths.
The study also potentially explains why the herring population in the bay declined to a record low in 2009, prompting the closure of the valuable commercial herring roe fishery. This was the first time a herring roe fishery closure was approved by the Commission since the fishery began in 1973-74.
The container ship Cosco Busan released 54,000 gallons of bunker fuel, a combination of diesel and residual fuel oil, into San Francisco Bay in November, 2007. The accident contaminated the shoreline near the spawning habitats of the largest population of Pacific herring on the West Coast, according to a statement from the NOAA Fisheries Service, Northwest Fisheries Science Center.
“In this study, scientists found that herring embryos placed in cages in relatively deep water at oiled sites developed subtle but important heart defects consistent with findings in previous studies,” said NOAA. “In contrast, almost all the embryos that naturally spawned in nearby shallower waters in the same time period died. When scientists sampled naturally-spawned embryos from the same sites two years later, mortality rates in both shallower and deeper waters had returned to pre-spill levels.”
San Francisco Bay has the largest herring spawning stock south of British Columbia and historically produces more than 90 percent of California’s herring catch. The bay herring population rebounded during the 2009-10 spawning season, due to a strong recruitment of the 2-year old herring (2007-08 year class) to the spawning population, as well as improved physical condition of the fish in the population, according to the California Department of Fish and Game.
“Based on what we know about the effects of crude oil on early life stages in fish, we expected to find live embryos with abnormal heart function, so it was a surprise to find so many embryos in the shallow waters literally falling apart,” said Dr. John Incardona, a toxicologist with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center and the study’s’ lead author.
“The study has given us a new perspective on oil threats in sunlit habitats, particularly for translucent animals such as herring embryos. The chemical composition of residual oils can vary widely, so the question remains whether we would see the same thing with other bunker fuels from around the world,” he said.
Two decades of toxicity research since the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill has shown that fish embryos and larvae are particularly vulnerable to spilled oil, according to NOAA. Most catastrophic spills, such as the Exxon Valdez, involve large volumes of crude oil.
“However, residual oils used in bunker fuels are the leftovers of crude oil refining, and are not as well studied as crude oils. Bunker fuel is used in maritime shipping worldwide, and accidental bunker spills are more and more common and widespread than large crude oil spills,” NOAA reported.
The study demonstrates how fragile the waters of the Bay-Delta Estuary are – and how important it is to protect the estuary, the largest on the West Coast of the Americas, from not only oil and fuel spills, but from increased water exports out of the Delta to supply corporate agribusiness and southern California. Commercial and recreational fisheries up and down the California coast depend on a healthy Bay-Delta as a spawning ground, nursery, migratory corridor and feeding ground.
Besides Pacific herring, the estuary sustains populations of Dungeness crabs, Pacific anchovies, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, striped bass, California halibut, starry flounder, leopard sharks, sevengill sharks, soupfin sharks, white sturgeon, green sturgeon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, largemouth bass, white catfish, channel catfish and numerous other species.
However, the Brown and Obama administrations are fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal, a government boondoggle that will lead to increased water exports to subsidized agribusiness and southern California. Delta residents, California Indian Tribes, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, family farmers, conservationists and environmental justice advocates strongly oppose the canal because it will lead to the destruction of many of the estuary’s fish species.
The study, “Unexpectedly high mortality in Pacific herring embryos exposed to the 2007 Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay,” was jointly undertaken by scientists with NOAA, the Bodega Marine Lab (University of California at Davis) and Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife and will be available in the PNAS Early Edition at http://www.pnas.org.
MLPA Initiative won’t protect marine waters from oil spills
The study was released as Governor Jerry Brown and Natural Resources Secretary John Laird, in the footsteps of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are forging ahead not only with plans to build the peripheral canal, but with the implementation of controversial “marine protected areas” under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
The corrupt initiative, overseen by a big oil lobbyist, marina developer and coastal real estate executive, fails to protect California marine waters from oil spills and drilling and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The questionable “marine protected areas” (MPAs) now in place on the Central Coast and North Central Coast – and the new MPAs that will go into effect from Point Conception to the Mexican border on January 1 – will do little or nothing from stopping another Cosco Busan, BP Horizon and Exxon Valdez type of disaster from taking place in California waters.
The MLPA Initiative won’t protect fish embryos and other marine life from oil spills and drilling because the corporate operatives who oversaw the initiative, funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, went out of their way to eliminate true, wholistic protection in the creation of so-called “marine protected areas.”
Missing from corporate media reports on the MLPA Initiative is the alarming fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast that oversaw the creation of the so-called “marine protected areas” that will go into effect in on January 1. She also served on the North Coast and North Central Coast marine task forces.
Grassroots environmentalists and fishermen strongly opposed the egregious conflict of interest posed by allowing a big oil industry lobbyist to oversee the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs), especially when these MPAs fail to protect the ocean from oil drilling and spills, pollution, corporate aquaculture, military testing, wind and wave energy projects and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
In contrast, representatives of corporate environmental NGOs, funded by the Walton Family Foundation and other Wall Street-funded foundations, did nothing to contest Reheis-Boyd’s appointment as a “marine guardian.” Reheis-Boyd is a vocal advocate of new drilling off the California coast, Canadian tar sands drilling and the gutting of environmental laws, curious positions for a “marine guardian” to take.
SoCal oil co. wants to expand drilling into state waters
Dave Gurney, independent journalist and publisher of the Noyo News (http://noyonews.net) recently commented on a plan by a southern California oil company, Pacific Operators Offshore LLC, to drill further east onto state property off the coast of Carpinteria, California. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said the company could drill as many as 25 underwater wells from Platform Hogan (http://www.keyt.com/news/local/Proposal-to-Expand-Oil-Drilling-136015403.html. )
“We now witness the fruit born of a Marine Life Protection Act ‘Initiative’ that was hijacked by oil interests,” said Gurney. “A southern California oil company wants to expand its operations – from 3.7 miles out in federal waters, further east, to within the 3-mile limit of California state waters. They are proposing to drill up to 25 new offshore oil wells.”
“The southern California MLPAI Blue Ribbon Task Force was chaired by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association,” said Gurney. “She was appointed to make sure these so-called ‘Marine Protected Areas’ did nothing to stop oil drilling or pollution. Public outcry over a blatant conflict of interest on the MLPAI’s ‘Blue Ribbon Task Force’ fell on deaf ears.”
Federal officials are evaluating the potential environmental impacts of the project. A meeting on the proposal is scheduled for January 19 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Carpinteria City Council Chambers.
For more information on NOAA, go to: http://www.noaa.gov, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/usnoaagov, or on Twitter at @NOAA_NWFSC.
For more information on the herring embryo study, contact: Dr. John Incardona, NOAA Fisheries Service, Northwest Fisheries Science Center, office (206) 860-3347, cell (206) 708-9723, email John.Incardona [at] noaa.gov.
danbacher “We now witness the fruit born of a Marine Life Protection Act ‘Initiative’ that was hijacked by oil interests,” said Dave Gurney, independent journalist. “A southern California oil company wants to expand it’s operations – from 3.7 miles out in federal waters, further east, to within the 3-mile limit of California state waters. They are proposing to drill up to 25 new offshore oil wells.”
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by Dan Bacher
As officials and advocates of the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative are celebrating the Department of Fish and Game’s announcement that controversial new “marine protected areas” on the Southern California coast will become effective on January 1, an oil company drilling in the Santa Barbara Channel announced that it wants to expand its operations into state waters.
Pacific Operators Offshore LLC wants to drill further east onto state property off the coast of Carpinteria, California, according to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. “Federal officials say the company could drill as many as 25 underwater wells from Platform Hogan,” reported keyt.com on December 22 (http://www.keyt.com/news/local/Proposal-to-Expand-Oil-Drilling-136015403.html.
Federal officials are evaluating the potential environmental impacts of the project. A meeting on the proposal is scheduled for January 19 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at Carpinteria City Council Chambers.
Comments may be submitted by mail to Carpinteria EIS Coordinator, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Pacific OCS Region, 770 Paseo Camarillo, Camarillo, CA 93010-6064. They can also be sent by email to carpinteriaredevelopment [at] mrsenv.com.
MLPA panel chaired by big oil lobbyist
Rarely mentioned in corporate media reports on the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative fiasco is the alarming fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast that oversaw the creation of the so-called “marine protected areas” that will go into effect on January 1. She also served on the North Coast and North Central Coast marine task forces.
Grassroots environmentalists and fishermen strongly opposed the egregious conflict of interest posed by allowing a big oil industry lobbyist to oversee the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs), especially when these MPAs fail to protect the ocean from oil drilling and spills, pollution, corporate aquaculture, military testing, wind and wave energy projects and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
In contrast, representatives of corporate environmental NGOs, funded by the Walton Family Foundation and other Wall Street-funded foundations, did nothing to contest Reheis-Boyd’s appointment as a “marine guardian.” Reheis-Boyd is a vocal advocate of new drilling off the California coast, Canadian tar sands drilling and the gutting of environmental laws.
Dave Gurney, independent journalist and publisher of the http://noyonews.net, is not surprised that the oil company wants to expand its operations at the same time that the new “marine protected areas” will go into effect.
“We now witness the fruit born of a Marine Life Protection Act ‘Initiative’ that was hijacked by oil interests,” said Gurney. “A southern California oil company wants to expand its operations – from 3.7 miles out in federal waters, further east, to within the 3-mile limit of California state waters. They are proposing to drill up to 25 new offshore oil wells.”
“The southern California MLPAI Blue Ribbon Task Force was chaired by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association,” said Gurney. “She was appointed to make sure these so-called ‘Marine Protected Areas’ did nothing to stop oil drilling or pollution. Public outcry over a blatant conflict of interest on the MLPAI’s ‘Blue Ribbon Task Force’ fell on deaf ears.”
Conflicts of interest abound
Unfortunately, the MLPA task forces include other corporate operatives with numerous conflicts of interests, including a marina operator and coastal real estate executive, serving as “marine guardians.”
William (Bill) Anderson, who served with Reheis-Boyd on the South Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast task forces, 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.
Anderson’s conflict of interest arises from the fact that his business could potentially profit from where marine protected areas are or are not located.
Gregory F. Schem, who served with Reheis-Boyd on the South Coast and North Coast task forces, 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.
Like Anderson, Schem’s company and investments could also potentially profit from where MPAs are or are not located.
“Schem has had a successful career in the national real estate market as an investor, developer and manager, including the re-development of loft residential units and hotels in Los Angeles, marinas, office buildings, shopping centers and industrial facilities,” according to the DFG website (http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa/brtf_bios_sc.asp). “Schem has acquired in excess of $2.5 billion in real estate assets on behalf of private and public pension funds, banking institutions, and private investment groups.”
However, the biggest conflict of interest in the MLPA Initiative is the private funding of the process through the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. “Five non-profits, including one based in Laguna Beach, donated a total of $20 million to see the drafting process to completion since the state legislature never budgeted adequate funding for the marine-protection law, which was enacted in 1999,” according to Ted Reckas in his article, “Marine Hearings Buoyed by Nonprofits, in the Laguna Independent (http://www.lbindy.com/2011/02/11/marine-hearings-buoyed-by-nonprofits/)
A corrupt ‘public-private’ partnership
The Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, a shadowy organization that funds the MLPA Initiative through a “public-private partnership” with the DFG, received the funds from these foundations to implement the unpopular MLPA process.
The David and Lucillle Packard Foundation contributed $8.2 million to fund MLPA hearings, according to Reckas. The Packard Foundation is not only the biggest funder of the MLPA, but also funded studies to build the peripheral canal, including the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) report in July 2008 calling for the construction of a canal. The peripheral canal is opposed by a coalition of fishermen, environmentalists, Indian Tribes, family farmers and Delta residents.
Julie E. Packard, the executive director and founder of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the foundation. Carol S. Larson is the President and Chief Executive Officer, while Susan Packard Orr serves as Chairman.
The Laguna Beach-based Marisla Foundation, founded by Getty Oil heiress Anne Getty Earhart, gave another $3 million over several years, according to the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. “The most recent tax records show Marisla donated $12 million in 2008 to 50 causes, including $1.1 million towards the MLPA. A foundation spokeswoman declined comment,” noted Reckas.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation donated $7.4 million. Gordon and Betty Moore are the founders of the Foundation, and Gordon also serves as chairman of the board. Gordon Moore is co-founder of Intel Corporation and Chairman Emeritus of the Corporation’s Board of Directors. Prior to Intel, Gordon co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957.
The Keith Campbell Foundation’s contributed $1.2 million. D. Keith Campbell founded Campbell and Company in 1972, and currently serves as Chairman of its Board of Directors.
“Campbell and Company is now one of the largest derivative investment managers in the world. Headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, it employs more than 130 skilled professionals, and manages approximately thirteen billion dollars. Its worldwide client base includes institutions, corporation, and individuals,” according to the foundation’s website.
Finally, the Annenberg Foundation contributed $200,000. The Annenberg Foundation is a private foundation established in 1989. It is the successor corporation to the Annenberg School at Radnor, Pennsylvania founded in 1958 by Walter H. Annenberg.
Walmart greenwashes MPAs, catch shares
Wal-Mart, through the Walton Family Foundation, is another huge contributor to ocean privatization efforts through “catch shares” programs and the creation of so-called “marine protected areas” including those created under the MLPA Initiative. (http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/19/wal-marting-the-oceans)
In a August 16 news release from Walmart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Walton Family Foundation announced “investments” totaling more than $71.8 million awarded to various environmental initiatives in 2010. The foundation handed over $36 million alone to Marine Conservation grantees including Ocean Conservancy, Conservation International Foundation, Marine Stewardship Council, World Wildlife Fund and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
The five top grantees were: Conservation International, $18,640,917; the Nature Conservancy,$9,305,449; Environmental Defense Fund, $7,086,054; the Marine Stewardship Council, $4,500,000; and the Ocean Conservancy, $3,757,768.
There is no doubt that the MLPA Initiative and other similar corporate-funded efforts have little or nothing to do with protecting the ocean – and everything to do with the privatization of the public trust by the 1 percent.
“The MLPA is the beginning of the privatization of our natural resources in California where, in an underhanded and illegal way, the decisions have been taken from the people and put into the hands of the ocean industrialists,” said Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, well-respected North Coast environmental leader from Philo in Mendocino County.
danbacher Proposals to privatize state parks take place in the context of the drive by Wall Street-backed politicians and big corporate environmental NGOs and foundations to privatize the public trust.
Photo of Sugarloaf Ridge State Park courtesy of California State Parks Association.
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Occupy the state parks?
by Dan Bacher
David Gurney, independent journalist, slammed the state of California’s winter closure of Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in Sonoma County – and pondered whether state parks proposed for closure will be turned over to private interests, as some have proposed.
“In the first ring of a dismal peal that signals the death knell for our revered State Parks system, Sugarloaf Ridge Park east of Santa Rosa has now closed,” said Gurney in his latest column on his Noyo News Blog (http://noyonews.net/?p=3045).
“Some say this is the beginning of the privatization process for California public lands, as the State heedlessly closes our recreational and money-making parks,” said Gurney. “Will our publicly owned parks be turned over to private interests? Will the people be barred from their own public lands, or forced to pay private interests to enter? Noyo News asks – why?”
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, located near Kenwood, contains the headwaters of Sonoma Creek. The creek runs through gorge and canyon, across the meadow floor, beneath scenic rock outcroppings, and is surrounded at times by redwoods and ferns. A 25-foot waterfall flows after the winter rains.
According to the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, “Sugarloaf, Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa, Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen, Austin Creek State Recreation Area in Guerneville and the Petaluma Adobe are all slated to close July 1, as are several parks in Lake and Mendocino counties. Parks officials contend closing 70 parks statewide will achieve $22 million in annual savings demanded by Gov. Jerry Brown last year to help solve a $26.2 billion deficit.” (http://www.watchsonomacounty.com/2011/12/featured-articles/state-shuts-sugarloaf-ridge-park/)
On October 4, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill (AB) 42, the bill sponsored by the California State Parks Foundation (CSPF) to allow funding from non-profit corporations to keep state parks open.
This bill authorized the State Department of Parks and Recreation “to enter into an operating agreement for the development, improvement, restoration, care, maintenance, administration, or operation of a unit or units, or portion of a unit, of the state park system, as identified by the director, with a qualified nonprofit organization, as provided.”
Throughout California, some of the 70 parks slated for closure are already seeing significant portions and areas of individual parks close. All of the 70 parks on the closure list are anticipated to have service reductions enacted between now and next spring that will become permanent closures on July 1, 2012, according to the California State Parks Foundation.
Proposals to privatize state parks take place in the context of the drive by Wall Street-backed politicians and big corporate environmental NGOs and foundations to privatize the public trust.
The state of California has already allowed the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) implementation to be privatized through a Memorandum of Understanding between the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation and the Department of Fish and Game. The result is the creation of so-called marine protected areas under the MLPA Initiative that fail to protect ocean waters from oil drilling and spills, pollution, corporate aquaculture, military testing, wave and wind energy projects and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
The other result of privatization of the MLPA process is the domination of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversee the “implementation” of marine protected areas by corporate interests, including a big oil lobbyist, marina developer and coastal real estate executive.
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), served as the chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to create “marine protected areas” on the South Coast that are set to got into effect on January 1, 2012. She also served on the North Coast and North Central Coast panels to create these “marine protected areas.” Her leadership role, in and of itself, makes the MLPA process completely illegitimate.
When not chairing or serving on these rigged panels, Reheis-Boyd has been busy lobbying for new oil drilling off the California coast, tar sands drilling in Canada (http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Alberta+oilsands+green+enough+California/5530495/story.html?cid=megadrop_story), and for the weakening of environmental regulations throughout the West.
Likewise, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), another corrupt “public” process designed to construct a peripheral canal to export more water from the imperiled California Delta water to southern California and corporate agribusiness, is dominated by operatives from the Westlands Water District, State Water Contractors Association and other corporate interests who will make huge profits at the expense of the imperiled Delta.
Delta advocates believe the peripheral canal or tunnel, if constructed, is likely to lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other imperiled species. Of course, the Brown and Obama administrations have completely excluded Delta residents, California Indian Tribes, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, family farmers, environmental justice advocates and all of those who truly care about the Delta from the BDCP Management Committee.
Whether we’re talking about state parks, marine protection or plans for the Delta, privatization is horrible public policy that will result in the destruction of our public trust resources. Privatization is part of well orchestrated campaign by the 1 percent to take away public resources from the 99 percent.
Residents of Mendocino County’s Anderson Valley recently organized a three-day occupation of Hendy Woods State Park in an effort to save it from closure.
Will increasing numbers of people upset by the economic crisis engineered by Wall Street banksters and their political servants in the Obama and Brown administrations, Congress, the Senate and the State Legislature take the lead from the Occupy movement and start to occupy state parks slated for closure?
