Free Market Water

One of the blogs that I follow daily is Aquanomics run by David Zeitland. Zeitland frequently makes that point that water problems will not be solvable unless we put a price on its use such that using too much becomes un-economic. He favors market solutions for water management.

I mention this after reading a new editorial, Water policy should be comprehensive in the Visalia CA Times Delta this week. This begins by stating a fact not well publicized unless you are really following water.

Sacramento lawmakers are preparing to take action to prevent water transfers from agriculture users to urban users. A bill in the Legislature would prevent sale of water from an ag user to an urban user for a contract that lasts more than 10 years.

We know that this has been going of for a long time, not much, but enough to make a few people richer.

I am much more concerned about the level of thought that did not go into one of the comments.

The $74 million purchase price set the price of the water at $5,250 per acre-foot, anywhere from 15 to 50 times more than a farmer would pay for water."
Guess what? This is a "free market" example at its best. Demand outstrips supply and the price goes up. There is little or no regulation and the profit makers have a field day. Everyone better get ready for more and more expensive water in CA because the supply is finite and the demand isn't.

Where people are taking water secured at a steep discount from market rates, and then reselling that on the open market, they are getting rich off the tax payers of California and taking no risk themselves. Yet, this seems to be another part of the Conservative mantra about free markets. This is not a free market. There is already massive intervention by government, both state and local, to support the ag industry. You have to be like a lame brained Glenn Beck not to understand that much.

Zeitland gave a glimpse into just how much that water is worth when he posted this letter about the value, and use, of additional water allocation being given to the Westlands Water District now that we have a normal rainfall year.

How growers elect to "spend" that is anybody's guess:

1. Plant more acres (Cotton?)
2. Substitute for Supplemental water (no acreage change; lower input costs; shift to capital spending?)
3. Substitute for Well Water (no acreage change; lower input costs; add margin to financing package?)
4. "blend" all water costs; farm more acres (NOTE: +35% = 0.8925 AF/acre)

Do we need a new Howard Jarvis to save CA taxpayers?

What does selenium taste like?

Californians first learned about the effects of selenium in their water when Lloyd Carter was writing about death of the wildlife at the Kesterson Reservoir. That was back in the 1980's when Lloyd was a reporter. He was still writing about this in 2007, as mentioned in this Badlands Journal post. The entire story, long version, can be found in Carter's 2009 paper for Golden Gate University's Environmental Law Review: Reaping riches in a wretched region: Subsidized industrial farming and its link to perpetual poverty.

I suggest that you read enough of the items above to understand what is heading for Los Angeles.

The situation is really untenable right now. Westland Water District farmers need to irrigate, but along with the irrigation comes the accumulation of salts, borax and selenium in the groundwater. Eventually, it ruins the land. Since they can no longer dump the drainage into Kesterson, their new plan is to drill wells to pump out the contaminate groundwater and run it through the California Aqueduct. The overview of this plan is posted on the Westland Water District Web site. Even the project name seems to be designed to make it look benign, or to confuse the reader, or both. The "Conveyance of Nonproject Groundwater from the Canalside Project using the California Aqueduct" Project

One key question is that of what happens to the Nonproject contaminated Groundwater. The project description would make you believe that they will just use it elsewhere.

WWD is proposing to pump groundwater from land near the California Aqueduct and convey it through the aqueduct for distribution on other land within the district.

Yet, the aqueduct does not stop here. It is 444 miles long and the Edmonson Pumping Station lifts it over the Tehachapi Mountains to LA. I guess that Westlands assumes it will all be so mixed out with other water that no one individual will get very much of it.

There is an announced plan to have an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and Westlands is soliciting public input.

Public comment is an integral part of the EIR process. The “scoping” process, which we are currently conducting, is a period in which WWD asks the public to recommend additions to the scope of the document by identifying problems that may arise as a result of the project or resources that may be significantly affected. The scoping period for this project lasts from February 1, 2010 to 5 p.m. on March 5, 2010. You can send your comment letters to:

Westlands Water District
Attn: Russ Freeman
3130 North Fresno Street
Fresno, CA 93703

Before you do, as I hope you will, you might also want to ready what Restore the Delta says about this: A little salt will bring out the flavor. (2nd topic).

If this has not yet gotten you motivated to do something, take a little more time to read this letter directed to Tom Birmingham (Head of Westlands and the lawyer who defended the Metropolitan Water District's use of Mono Lake Water) and Congressmen Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, both Democrats. The important fact to note here is that these farmers, the ones who went on 60 Minutes to bemoan their plight and had Sean Hannity do a full segment about farmers vs. fish, those same farmers are going to make an additional $140,000,000 this year from increase water supply and have more what then they know what to do with. That is our money. Ours, the tax payers of CA. Time for action folks. But then, I always knew that these Westlands farmers were the salt of the earth.

Stop the Water Pirates

Take some good information presented in a new light, add a bit of entertainment and you have the Water Pirates, a newly released (YouTube and Vimeo) video from Salmon Water Now.

You might ask why we should pay attention to Salmon Water Now when San Joaquin Valley Congressman Devin Nunes is making a big deal over fish vs. people? If you can't answer that question, then you need to pay attention to Bruce Tokars's Water Pirate production. It has all of the villains you need: Stewart Resnick, Sen. Diane Feinstein, State Sen. Darrell Steinberg. The heroes are those who watch the video and spread the word.

This is the a shot across the bow on the Nov. 2010 Water Bond. It will not be that last that we see nor will it be the last time that I comment here. In case you had any doubt about just how much the deck has been stacked against the public, you only need to read my previous post.

Note: the appearance of Fresno Green Lloyd G. Carter in this video.

Interior Secretary. Salazar comes of CA.

The following is Dan Bacher's view of the town meeting in Fresno. This will be a significant event for the media in the battle over California Water. Who will have the people there? Hopefully some will be wearing Green. Full story by clicking Read more!


Secretary Salazar to Speak at Town Meeting on Drought in Fresno

Valley Politicians Perpetuate the Myth of "Fish Versus People"

by Dan Bacher

Bowing to pressure from Representatives Jim Costa (D-Fresno) and Dennis Cardoza (D-Merced), the Department of Interior will hold a "town hall meeting on the drought in California" on Sunday, June 28, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. at the Fresno State Satellite Student Union, 2485 East San Ramon Avenue in Fresno.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is expected to announce new stimulus monies for the Central Valley and talk about the Bay Delta Conservation Plan process. Salazar, Deputy Secretary David J. Hayes and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor are also expected to field complaints from corporate agribusiness interests that they are not receiving enough water from the Central Valley and California Water Projects.

You can expect San Joaquin Valley agribusiness representatives to blame all of their economic problems, real or imagined, on Delta smelt and the recent NMFS biological opinion to protect Central Valley salmon stocks. You can also be sure that Westlands and other agribusiness interests will put intense pressure upon Salazar and the other Interior officials to support the peripheral canal and dams proposal that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Senator Dianne Feinstein are campaigning for.

Since President Obama took office in January, Congressmen Cardoza and Costa have requested that the incoming Interior Secretary come to the San Joaquin Valley, according to a joint press release from Cardoza and Costa that falsely portrays the battle to restore the California Delta and the thousands of jobs that depend on it as a "fish versus peoples" scenario. They claim that unemployment is the result of a "regulatory drought" caused by relatively modest court-ordered restrictions on pumping to protect Delta smelt and Sacramento River winter run and spring run Chinook salmon.

"The San Joaquin Valley has been especially hard hit by drought in the past few years," their joint release opined. " Additionally, water deliveries to Valley farmers from the San Joaquin Delta have been curtailed by regulators who have placed an undue amount of blame on famers for declines in fish populations to the north."

“The Central Valley simply cannot continue down its current path," claimed Cardoza. "This regulatory drought is destroying our farmers, our families and our local economy. Further, we are facing a genuine risk of having to import additional food to supply our nation. I look forward to providing Secretary Salazar with as much insight as possible about the extreme hardship in our agricultural community and look forward to the assistance that he is capable of providing.”

"The Secretary knows about the hundreds thousands of acres of fallowed fields, the high unemployment and the possibility of a fourth year of drought,” said Costa. “The lack of water has rippled into every facet of our economy. We now have those who normally sow and reap our nation’s food, standing in food lines to feed their own families. As part of this important visit, I will be explaining to the Secretary the need for both short and long term water solutions in California, which include repairing the Delta, improving water supply and quality, and environmental restoration.”

Valley Democrats Cardoza and Costa have formed a de facto unholy alliance with far right Republican Congressmen Devin Nunes and George Radinovich as they bow down before Westlands Water District and corporate agribusiness. While falsely blaming modest regulatory protections for "fish populations to the north" for the Central Valley's problems, Cardoza and Costa neglected to mention the impacts that massive water exports out of the California Delta have had upon the thousands of people that have been employed in the commercial and recreational fishing industries and the coastal and Central Valley communities that depend upon healthy fisheries for their economic health. The closure of recreational and commercial salmon fishing season off California and Oregon this year and in 2008 has had a devastating impact upon coastal communities in both states.

"While they are bitching about fish protections robbing them of water (not true!), the Bureau of Reclamation is preparing now to ship 40,000 acre-feet of Central Valley Project water to Southern California – swimming pools and golf courses," noted Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations.

Cardoza and Costa were two of the 40 Democrats that voted for an amendment to HR 2847, sponsored by Representative Nunes, that would have yanked funding for a court-ordered federal plan to prevent the extinction of Sacramento River spring run and winter run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales (orcas). The orcas depend heavily on Sacramento River chinook salmon, including the imperiled fall run, as a food source. The odious amendment was defeated in a close vote of 208 ayes to 218 nos in Congress on June 19.

To see an outrageous rant by Devin Nunes falsely blaming the San Joaquin Valley's economic woes on a "three inch minnow," go to this video of the debate in Congress over the Nunes amendment: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/library/includes/templates/library/flash_popup.php?pID=287094-101&clipStart=16632&clipStop=17481

It is crucial that recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian tribal members, Delta family farmers, Delta farmworkers and environmental justice advocates suffering from the devastating impact of increased Delta water exports in recent years show up at the meeting in Fresno to counter the "fish versus people" lies of Valley politicians and corporate agribusiness. After all, what about OUR JOBS?

For more information including the place where the town meeting will be held, contact Kendra Barkoff at (202) 208-6416


The Real Facts about Unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley

Meanwhile, Dr. Mark Rockwell of the Northern California Federation of Flyfishers has compiled revealing data covering unemployment figures in the San Joaquin Valley and around California that counters the Nunes/Costa/Cardoza/Radanovich allegations of a "regulatory drought," the false "people vs. fish" argument that is now being pushed by agribusiness, Central Valley legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Is it really 'fish vs. people' as the Governor and Representative Nunes say?" asks Rockwell. "To listen to all of the rhetoric these days you’d think that people are suffering only because a federal judge and the federal wildlife agencies decided to protect fish. Representative Nunes and our Governor are calling it a regulatory drought and families are suffering as a result. Articles in the L.A. Times and many other papers in California have picked up the story without really checking on data available from the state Employment Development Department records."

Here is a link that shows the data pretty clearly: http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/?pageid=133

However, the raw data doesn’t tell the full story unless you dig into it, as Rockwell has done. "So, here are some of the facts from the data that brings some clarity to the issue," said Rockwell. "Make no mistake; unemployment is a problem in Mendota and Fresno County. However, it is a problem in almost all of California’s agricultural counties, and Fresno is by far not the worst. If you take the numbers as given for all counties in California for May 2009, and then look at the 9 previous years as well it is quite revealing."

• For Mendota, the town portrayed as the worst and where the Governor has visited twice to rail against the Endangered Species Act and his claim of regulation caused unemployment, it shows 38.8% unemployment for May 2009.

• For Mendota, the 9 year previous average is 28.1%. Mendota has led Fresno County in unemployment for the past 10 years.

• Fresno County, (Representative Nunes country, including Mendota) shows 15.4% unemployment for May 2009, with a 9 year average of 10.5%.

• Of the 18 most agriculture dependent counties in California the average unemployment rate is 15.6% for May 2009. Seven other counties have worse unemployment than Fresno (Imperial, Sutter, Alpine, Colusa, Merced, Yuba and Stanislaus), with the highest in Imperial County in the Southern California desert at 26.8%.

• Six of the seven counties with greater unemployment than Fresno are not heavily affected by the Central Valley Project water cutbacks - and many are able to compensate via groundwater and use cutbacks.

• Lastly, when looking at the 2008 unemployment figures and averages, Fresno County has the eighth highest increase in unemployment (2008 to May 2009), meaning seven other counties have a greater increase in unemployment over the last year than Fresno- Imperial, Colusa, Merced, Sutter, Yuba, Stanislaus and Tulare. Six of these have limited impact from Central Valley Project reductions or are not affected at all by them.

"What this data clearly shows is that unemployment is chronic in Mendota (28.1% average), worsened by the drought, as with all other agriculture dependent counties," disclosed Rockwell. "The owners of the big farms there are certainly not sharing their profits well with the labor community that serves them. There is much to be done to improve their plight, and it should not include disaster relief from the tax payers (as requested by the Governor and our Senators)."

DWR director Lester Snow testified before Congress nearly two months ago, essentially saying if there was no court order to protect fish, there would only be a 5% increase in CVP water to the San Joaquin Valley. "This shortage is drought caused, not regulation caused," noted Rockwell.

"Who really gets left holding the proverbial bag?" questioned Rockwell. "Of course, it is the federal taxpayer and the public trust. It is time agribusiness took more responsibility for the problem and started to work for a solution, not for the drought but to help the farm workers they sometimes employ."

Rockwell's conclusion? "This isn’t 'fish vs. people,', it is 'fish and people.' Both are suffering in this is the third consecutive low water year," said Rockwell.

The irony of this situation is that the same San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness interests that are claiming to speak out for farmworkers have kept farmworkers in poverty and misery for many decades. They have ruthlessly suppressed the right of farmworkers to organize, denied them decent housing, refused to provide them with safe and clean drinking water and sprayed fields with dangerous pesticides that sicken their children and threaten their lives. As documented in the books of Carey McWilliams and others, the big growers' grip on power in the Valley was based on a particularly vicious form of "Farm Fascism" that didn't hesitate to employ guns and clubs to suppress farmworkers' rights.

As during the 1930's when "Farm Fascism" reigned supreme in the Valley, corporate agribusiness continues to control the politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties. Schwarzenegger, Costa, Cardoza, Nunes and Radinovich are doing everything they can to please their masters - corporate agribusiness giants - at great expense to fish, fishermen, family farmers and farmworkers and the California economy.

Note: Rockwell provides an interesting side note regarding subsidies to these farms: In 1978 the taxpayer subsidy to the Federal San Luis Unit of the CVP (which supplies water to the west side San Joaquin) was estimated at $770 million or about $1,540.00 per acre (United States Bureau of Reclamation figures).

Today that value would be about $5,227.00 per acre using the Cost of Living Calculator for 2007. Another interesting fact is that people in Madera, Merced and Fresno Counties received about $132 million in farm subsidies in 2006. People in Trinity County, where the water for the Western San Joaquin Valley comes from, received $585.00 (United States Department of Agriculture figures on the Environmental Working Group’s Website Feb 16, 2009).

California Water Emergency

Within the past 24 hours, Governor Schwarzenegger has yet again declared a drought emergency for the State of California. The Federal Government has joined in with the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture issuing a joint statment to the effect that they have formed a California Drought Action Team.

While both of these actions are necessary, they both also mislead the public in that they treat the current situation as an abnormal weather event and fail to consider that they could be only the beginning of a significant shift in climate, a shift that would make permanent the restrictive measures that are now being implemented.

I explore the impacts of this failure to communicate but you need to click "Read more!" to read them/


To begin with, the precipitation situation in California is, like always, a mix. According to Accuweather, some reporting stations are well above normal for this year with Fullerton being at 124 per-cent of normal (PON). But a large majority of reporting stations are below normal with Paso Robles at 51 PON while not far away Salinas is at 100 PON. Thus, the public perception of the severity of the situation will vary across the state based on local experience.

This is not just a California phenomenon. Arizona is also experiencing conditions that range from abnormally dry to moderate drought.

It is clear that there is a disconnect between those with the most need and those who have the most power. The Central Valley agricultural interests are going to be affected more than any other sector of our population. Urban / suburban uses are not generally for agriculture and the lack of water is an inconvenience for most, but will not put them out of business. For the farmer, especially the smaller family farm that produces specialty crops, this may be the end of the road. Coming at a time when economic conditions may make it impossible to get a loan to survive until the rains return, many farms may not survive, selling out to large scale corporate agribusiness.

California's Agriculture is a $30 Billion plus industry. For some crops (almonds) California produces as much as 80% of the world wide market. The loss of any significant portion of California's Agricultural production would be felt all over the world. At least the coverage in Capital Press is about as factual as you can get on this issue and Capital Press's California Editor, Hank Shaw, is one of the more knowledgeable journalists on water issues.

The economic impact in California means that the budget deal which the state legislature is now congratulating itself for having reached is already a failure. With the ongoing drought and the loss of employment (I saw one estimate this AM that it would be 95,000 jobs) state revenues will be further depressed and societal needs will increase.

I used the links from Aquafornia this AM to survey the stories triggered by Schwarzenegger's declaration. Most of them miss what is going on behind the scenes. Water is the most politicized issue in California. It always has been and it will continue to be.

The San Jose Mercury News coverage provides one of the few glimpses into the direction of the political pressure.

In an interview with the Mercury News on Friday, Schwarzenegger said the water crisis is "self-inflicted, it's not mother nature's fault" and said he hopes to convince opponents of new dams and reservoirs that "the emergency presents an opportunity," including creating jobs. He also said the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, which supplies water to much of the state, must be repaired.

There are many who feel that the Governor's declarations of drought emergencies have been part of a push for more dams and a peripheral canal. This, in spite of the fact that the idea of peripheral canal positions the small scale, specialty crop farmers of the Delta against the big corporate farms of the Westlands Water District. It is farmer against farmer fighting of the rights to use water. Westlands and it's political friends, especially Congressmen Radanovich, Costa, Nunes and Cardoza will try to make it into an issue over the Endangered Species Act, but that is just a charade to disguise their resource grab.

In reality, the massive expenditures for infrastructure are not affordable now. There is not stimulus effect when no construction will be able to commence for years. Even it these facilities are built, the benefit of these new facilities has not been demonstrated. If we do not now have enough water to fill the reservoirs that we have, how will we benefit by building new reservoirs for a dwindling among of precipitation. It just does not make sense.

Greens need to be the one party who is putting forward rationale solutions to these problems, solutions that recognize the true impacts of climate change. For some reason, probably political expediency, these ideas are not connected; not in the rhetoric of politicians, not in the coverage from the press and definitely not in the perception of the public. We must change that.

The Green Issues Working Group of GPCA needs to re-establish a presence, put together of team of knowledgeable people and start demonstrating to the people of California that only Greens can show them the way out of our troubles.

Do not just read this post and walk away. This is one battle that we need everyone to join. Take our story to every media outlet that you can contact, TV, radio (and not just Pacifica station where the listeners probably agree anyway). Schwarzenegger is going to push us to spend $ billions on a 19th century solution to 21st century problems and we can not afford to let that happen... not from an ecological viewpoint and not from an economic viewpoint.

Turning on the virtual river

The need for an comprehensive overhaul of our approach to water has never been clearer. While California is in the 3rd year of a drought, recent rains in the bay area have some people talking as if the drought were over and we can return to old ways.

In fact, the rains have been spotty at best, good in some areas like the Santa Cruz Mountains and still poor in others. The deficit is so great that some areas are not up to normal after five or more inches of precipitation in the past week. So, what should we do? Click Read more! to find out.


Barry Nelson runs the Western Water Project for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He did a very good job of describing our problem in his post at the Switchboard today.

There has been a Catch 22 in California's drought planning - or the lack thereof. During droughts, we are too narrowly focused on what we can do in a single year. The truth is, in a single year, our options are limited to strategies like water conservation and water transfers. After a drought ends, however, decision-makers tend to forget about water and turn to other pressing problems. What we need to do is to launch an ambitious effort to prepare for droughts and a drier future. Even in this crisis, perhaps because of this crisis, there is a great deal of agreement about the path ahead of us.

Nelson is saying that we all need to work together to fix things, and that is difficult when politicians with the power to reach the press, are pushing for yesterday's solutions to today's problems. While he describes a consensus around water, I don't see that in practice.

This takes us to the most important area of consensus - we need to be far more ambitious in our investments in a new generation of reliable water supplies. Water agencies, business leaders and NRDC agree that four tools - water efficiency, wastewater recycling, urban stormwater management and improved groundwater management - what we call the Virtual River - offer the largest, greenest, fastest and most affordable opportunities for making California's water supply more drought resistant.

If that were truly the case, then the Westlands Water District would not have their congressional lackeys pushing so hard for new dams, more canals in a time when the current level of precipitation will not even fill the reservoirs that we have.

Congressmen Cardoza, Costa, Nunes and Radanovich, make like the Big Ag Water Chorus, two Democrats and two Republicans singing from the same hymn book. They want to make this an issue of the farm economy vs. fish because that allows them to position environmentalists as the unreasonable tree-hugging bad guys, out to ruin the economy. The truth is that this is more about the small, specialty crop farmers in Delta region being forced out of business to sustain the corporate agriculture of growing cotton in the desert or pistachios on marginal lands along I-5.

The time has come when the only way to a sustainable future in the San Joaquin Valley, and through the balance of water use, for all California, is to put Green Party policies into practice. We have the solutions and need to be all over the Central Valley, talking to farmers about water, enlisting the support of Joe Sixpack who likes to fish and is wondering where he will get good food if he loses his job. They are all against the status quo and we need to be there, all the time. It is the greatest organizing opportunity that I have seen since returning to my California home in 1993.

San Francisco Chronicle Prints Anyone

We all know that the current controversy about the California Delta is one of the most important water issues in the country. We will make a decision based on the data subject to scientific analysis or we will make a decision based on ideology and the pandering to political expediency. The point of the controversy is whether or not to spend $ Billions constructing a canal to divert water around (or through) the Delta with little regard for what happens to the delta, its fish, the livelihood of its farmers, the success of commercial fish industry.

Along comes the San Francisco Chronicle with an OpEd disguised as an article written by two flacks for the Wise Use lobby. If you want to know how embarrassing it is to see this stuff in a newspaper that you frequently read, click Read more! I'll spell it out.


First let me make a couple of points about the credentials of the authors.

Craig Manson is not a scientist nor a journalist. He is a lawyer who got a political job in Washington during the Bush Administration. While he is not one of the Dept. of the Interior officials so tainted by their association with Jack Abramoff, maybe that is only because he did not need to be bribed to do the damage that he did. It was enough, however, that a more reputable magazine, High Country News called him out for being part of the problems in Interior.

A Government Accountability Office investigator testified to Congress that other Interior officials should have been examined as part of the MacDonald investigation, including Craig Manson, Brian Waidmann, Todd Willens and Randal Bowman. Though the three were never actually accused of wrongdoing, some did their part aboveboard to stick it to endangered species. Willens was once senior staff advisor to Richard Pombo, the notorious California congressman who attempted to gut the Endangered Species Act. While at Interior, he pushed to remove the Florida manatee and other species from endangered species protection. Willens left Interior in 2008 and — you don't say!? — became a lobbyist.

Manson came back to his comfort zone in Sacramento to teach law.

Manson's co-author, Brandon Middleton is an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation where a site search show his name attached to exactly one case. The Pacific Legal Foundation is key part of the Wise Use movement and has a long history of attacks on the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. Their claim is that they are "supporting freedom from environmental extremism." The reality is that they are the last desperate gasp of a 19th century mentality that saw all of nature as an abundance waiting to be exploited.

So, when these two lawyers say that

There is little science to support the notion that pumping restrictions will solve the problem of the smelt's decline.

they are not qualified to make that judgment.

What they do is to fall back on an old rhetorical trick. They demand absolute certainty that an action will produce results before any action that then don't like might be attempted.

In contrast, there is nothing close to a guarantee that increased pumping restrictions will help the delta smelt.

I will admit that they do list other problems with the delta, including contamination. Their reference to "a toxic water habitat for the smelt" seems a direct reference to the contamination of Delta waters through runoff from irrigation practices in the Westlands Water District. Just think of this. If the pumps that are referenced in this article are turned off, Westlands Water district would not have as much runoff and the water quality in the Delta would be improved. That would be a double benefit. Such goodness is too much to ask from a couple of lawyers.

It would also be much better journalistic practice for the Chornicle to have called this the the OpEd that it really is.

What does it take to become an environmental hero?

According to this article in the Sacramento Bee, it takes a lifetime.

You have to give 75-year-old Felix Smith of Carmichael credit for tenacity.

A quarter-century ago, Smith became the conscience of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when he blew the whistle on the selenium poisoning of the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge in western Merced County.

I am not sure how many of you understand exactly what is going on. This was a major story and it has, for the most part, slipped into the background and that is where the leadership of the Westlands Water District would like to see it stay. Smith is still active and still involved in this major effort.

In a Jan. 10 letter to water board Chairwoman Tam Doduc, Smith wrote, "Many of the impacts documented in my past letters/complaints continue today. In addition, there are other more ominous concerns and environmental impacts coming to the forefront."

What we really have is the grand lady of compromise, Sen. Feinstein, meeting behind closed doors with the Westlands Water District and trying to shape another compromise like her failed Cal-Fed Plan for exploiting California's Water Resources.

It amazes me that Feinstein can retain her popularity while demonstrating such a lock of integrity or concern for the people of California, that she can gain the attention of the press any time she wants and real hero's like Felix Smith can spend a lifetime fighting for us all and getting little ink.

Dam facts, dam lies

We should all admit that blogging is not journalism. To begin with, journalists often do a lousy job of fact checking... but they do it. They even love to do it regarding political campaign statements. But too often it stops there.

Bloggers, on the other hand, love to fact check politicians, journalists (ask Dan Rather), each other so they can gloat, but rarely themselves. Blogging is normally just a collection of disjointed, out of contest statements and factoids that the blogger tries to spin into a real narrative.

This time, I will give you the statements and let you play be the blogger. I read the following in a recent newsletter from Friends of the River.

Do you know that for 20 years, well, actually since the late '70s, they have not built a dam? I mean, think about that. They have not built a dam. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, July 14, 2007

California's population is growing rapidly, but our statewide water storage and delivery system has not been significantly improved in 30 years. Association of California Water Agencies, September 2007

According to Friends of the River:

In fact more that 6.2 million acre feet of water storage has been developed in California since 1990. This includes 5.3 million acre feet of groundwater storage in the San Joaquin Valley as well as 924,000 acre feet of surface storage behind the Los Vaqueros, Diamond Valley and Olivenhain Dams (all completed in the last 10 years).

What will it take to get someone to tells us what is really happening rather than just reporting what the Governor said.

Fact or not? You figure it out for the following:

About 500 farmers in the Westlands Water District in the Tulare Basin receive more water every year from the Delta than the Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco Bay metropolitan area combined.