Stockton Record on Bad Water.

Mike Fitzgerald, a featured columnist at the Stockton Record, was one journalist who attended the Restore the Delta session this past week. I have long appreciated Fitzgerald's commentary. At times it is the best thing in the Record. I even consider his characterization of Richard Pombo as "taker in chief" as being the last nail in Pombo's electoral coffin.

Fitzgerald's column today (09/32/07) is essentially a report on that session. Like Kamran Alavi's comments on the GP Cal Forum list, he was impressed by Winnemem Wintu speaker Mark Franco.

Franco's fresh take on the peripheral canal, on the dams proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and on water in general arises from a world view radically different from the European. But his spiritual view meshed with Nomellini's legal analysis.

"They look at water as a commodity to be bought and sold - water 'rights,' not water responsibility," Franco said of big Delta water users, "with no regard for the place that may be left dry."

Fitzgerald goes on to call attention to the great coverage by the San Diego Union-Tribune, What's Killing the Delta. That ends with a reminder from UC Davis Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Mount of what we are really doing, defining our future.

"This is not a static landscape," Mount says. "It is constantly evolving. The delta is going to be something different. And we’re in the process of deciding that."

I can not think of much that is as important to this state as getting things right on Water. It is our future life. It is our future economy. It determines how much we will pay for the food we eat and whether or not we have to get it from Chile or New Zealand.

For once, most of the main stream media seem to be getting it right. The Union-Tribune article and Fitzgerald's column linked above are right on. Mike Taugher told the unpleasant truth about our water bureaucracy in the story I linked yesterday. The LA Times Editorial on Coping with Drought was excellent. Why then, are the politicians all getting it wrong?

If there were ever a time for politicians who truly had a green ethic, that time is now. What we appear to have with Schwarzenegger and Nuñez is green-washed astroturf.