Delta? Who dat?

About once a year I am reminded that the Stockton Record columnist, Mike Fitzgerald, is really good at what he does. Since most of that involves writing about San Joaquin County, I don't follow too closely until something sends me back and I am reminded yet again. This week it was this column on the Sacramento / San Joaquin Delta.

I am not sure how many times I have posted about the Delta. I know that there are 7 labels for posts that begin with "Delta". A search of this blog for the labal "Delta Vision" will get at least 10 posts. So, I was a bit surprised, as Fitzgerald seemed to be, that some 78% of California don't know who, where or what it is. I wish that I could deal with that as well as Fitzgerald does.

In the latest installment of "Invisible Valley," the saga of a region nobody pays attention to, a survey shows 78 percent of Californians don't know what the Delta is.

Or where it is. Or who it is.

Mind-boggling.

Seventy-eight percent of the lotus-eaters in this state haven't got a clue the Delta even exists.

Even as they drink it, fill their swimming pools with it and live on food that couldn't have grown without it.

"Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true." -Demosthenes

I really wish that every Green reader of this blog were part of the 28% who know a bit about where we get our water, and so, learned reader, I will continue to believe it.

What bothers me most is that it is just so damned difficult to make any progress at all toward a comprehensive negotiated settlement of CA's Water Wars and this lack of public awareness, or knowledge, is allowing that power brokers to continue doing what they have been doign for years, screwing the rest of us for relatively short term economic advantage. Even such an Green sounding organization as the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta is now what it purports but, according to activist Dan Bacher...

Three executives of Stewart Resnick's Paramount Farms in Kern County founded the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta. Resnick is the politically connected Beverly Hills billionaire who has made tens of millions of dollars annually from buying and reselling water back to the public for a big profit.

Then, Kern County isn't exactly part of the Delta either, is it.

It is fast becoming too late to do anything to stop the process currently under way, one that is aimed at giving the current Gov. Brown a legacy of building CA's infrastructure to match that of his Father. Unfortunately for us, if he succeeds, there will be hell to pay, and pay, and pay for years to come. We will be in bonded servitude to debts of a failed project.

In one more reminder of just how far things have gone awry and how little the bureaucrats care, I suggest your taking the time to read this post by Jane Wagner-Tyack at Restore the Delta.

Just to be clear here: Delta levee improvements, including seismically-resistant levees, were found to be less costly than conveyance and to have greater risk reduction benefits. So the risk-reduction benefits were misrepresented in both reports, and the seismically-resistant levees disappeared altogether from the second.

Oh yes. The fix is in and all the Good Dems will continue nodding to Gov. Brown's planned Big Dig.

PPIC Report Moves the California Water Debate Forward

The recent publication, MANAGING CALIFORNIA’S WATER: FROM CONFLICT TO RECONCILIATION by the Public Policy Institute of California has created a stir of late. There are concerns expressed in regards to the role of Bechtel Corporation in funding the process that brought the report together. Recently, a forum for discussion by PPIC being held in San Francisco was denounced as a “Greenwashing Event”. The writer, Dan Bacher chooses to dismiss the PPIC with accusations of “elitism” and “institutional racism”. This was based on the lack of representation on the presentation panel of Delta residents, tribal members or fishermen. In point of fact, there is no real representation anywhere in California’s water management system of users, advocates and stakeholders.

What Mr. Bacher omits is the significance of the structural reforms being proposed by the PPIC in the MANAGING Report. It is one thing to criticize Bechtel for its record in Cochabamba and elsewhere around the world. It is quite another thing to summarily dismiss the PPIC report with its proposals in regards to California water. The Report constitutes a change in direction and proposes significant structural reforms long overdue in California. (see MANAGING CALIFORNIA'S WATER, FROM CONFLICT TO RECONCILIATION, Chapter 8, Effective and adaptive Governance, p. 365 "To further encourage integration of water resource planning, the California legislature could create an affirmative structure for regional integrated planning and management. We propose creating nine regional stewardship authorities, coinciding with the jurisdictions of existing regional water quality control boards. As discussed below, the authorities would develop and manage integrated basin plans.")


As things stand, the plain fact is that California’s water politics are polarized and the main arena of battle is the State Legislature. The politics of water are rural (Republican) vs. urban (Democrat) with the result that localities are isolated in regards to diversions from one region to another. Further, the political landscape is skewed towards the urban users in the context of the large metropolitan areas in the state and the resulting Democratic majority in the State Legislature. This was seen in the debate around the peripheral canal in the Delta, in the Hetch-Hetchy diversion and in the Owens Lake diversion.

The point is that this is NOT simply a function of the Democratic Urban Machines that dominate the cities of California. It is a product of a water system that is diffuse and not designed to function in the context of sustainable regional uses. This is a point brought out in the PPIC Report as well. Two key elements remain unaddressed in regards to the future of water management in California:

1. How can sustainable water allocations in California’s regions be planned and implemented without depending on diversions; and

2. How can regional planning processes assure the open input and transparency needed to make fair and equitable decisions.

When one reads the PPIC Report one cannot help but be impressed with its recognition of the need for restructuring water management in California. The dilemma is: California has disregarded the consequences of actions that have increased the stressors on public infrastructure throughout California. The peripheral canal proposal is one more log on that fire. Big Ag and Big Urban are fighting over Big Water. Now that the drought is over everyone has some breathing space to re-structure the entities making the decisions. The water management system of California is a fundamentally flawed process, and the PPIC report is premised on this. This alone makes it a report worthy of consideration.

Offshore drilling wins another round

Thanks to an alert from Sacramento Progressive Activist, Dan Bacher, I learned just how far the drill-baby-drill oil lobby will go to advance their cause, especially as it relates to offshore drilling along California's coast.

The Board of Directors of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) on October 16 announced that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, chair of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force, will assume the role of President of the oil and natural gas industry trade association January 1, 2010.

That is just what we don't need, an oil industry lobbyist developing marine life protection guidelines. And the tone-deaf, NY based national media continue to refer to Schwarzenegger as a "green governor." He is about as green as the Austrian flag.

It is time that we find some creative ways of expressing our opinion. My co-blogger Alex has long been asking asking "Where is the outrage?." It seems that the progressives have quietly swallowed the hemlock and the outrage has moved to the teabaggers. How have we allowed this to happen? Perhaps we have forgotten the principles that Charlenet Spretnak and Fritjof Capra outline in Green Politics.

There is only one world and one nature. It is all we have to live in. We destroy it searching for some golden fleece, or the Ponzi dream of perpetual growth. If the time for change has come, the make sure it is really change. Challenge Schwarzenegger and his oil industry friends. Point out that it makes no good sense to try and control fossil fuel driven climate change while helping the oil industry spoil what good we have left in our natural ecology.

Astroturf Arnold hates fish.

I have, more than once, cited material from Dan Bacher, the editor of The Fishsniffer magazine. I know of no one who is working more diligently on both the environmental and economic issues of fish anywhere. I would like to reference two new items: one from the Environmental New Service and the other a new release by Bacher, but you will have to click read more to get it all and here is the scare quote to get you to do that.

Fishes that once were abundant in North American streams, rivers and lakes are now disappearing, with nearly 40 percent of all species in jeopardy, according to the most detailed assessment of the conservation status of freshwater fishes in the last 20 years.

The Environmental New Service sent out a release on 9/11/08 headlined North American Freshwater Fishes Fading into Extinction. Then they go one to cite a new study in the journal Fisheries that says 40% of all freshwater fish species are in jeopardy in the US.

The fish at greatest risk are the salmon and trout of the Pacific Coast and western mountain regions.

That is both an environmental and an economic issue, as the government is forced to suspend fishing and then to pay the fishing boats to stay in the harbor. It does not stop there, as the economic pinch flows from there, to the shippers, fish markets and to your local restaurants.

In California, Astroturf Arnold makes a great show of being the Green Governor, and then, according to Bacher, he turns around and vetoes a bill that would help protect fish in the delta from that acts of man. Last year, I showed pictures of the Prospect Island Fish Kill, where a rescue was attempted in the Delta, and the results of not being able to move quickly enough.

Bacher sent out a release today that nails the situation.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, hailed as the “Green Governor” in his news conferences and photo opportunities touting “green jobs” in recent weeks, showed his true anti-environmental credentials today when he vetoed the Fish Rescue Plans Bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk.

AB 1896, spurred by the fish kill at Prospect Island last fall, would require the Department of Fish and Game to develop a set of protocols to evaluate the need for fish rescue and relocation plans within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

“While I am disappointed that AB 1806 was not signed, I want to express my thanks to the fishing community for their strong support in this effort,” said Assemblywoman Wolk, Chair of the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee. “The fishing community took up the challenge to help restore the state’s fisheries and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and has proven a force to be reckoned with. When thousands of striped bass and other sport fish dying on Prospect Island last year, it was fishermen who mounted the rescue operation that saved thousands of fish--and their advocacy helped send AB 1806 to the Governor’s desk."

While all eyes are on the Olympics...

Georgia and Russia decided to start a war that they thought no one would notice.

The California State Legislature can't come up with a budget and it hardly makes the news. Michael Phelps is much more important. Then, when was the last time our legislature passed a budget on time.

While attention is diverted elsewhere, politicians know that they can do whatever they want and the results are not pleasant. To see the list, click read more below.


To begin with, SB 1806, Lois Wolk's proposal to protect the California Delta and it's fisheries, died in the State Senate by an 18 - 2- vote. According to a release from Dan Bacher (Ed. The FishSniffer) the failure was devastating.

The bill would have required fish rescue contingency plans in the event of future fishery disasters like the one that took place at Prospect Island in the northern Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in November 2007. During last year's fish kill, thousands of striped bass, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail, black bass, bluegill, catfish, threadfin shad and other species perished after the Bureau of Reclamation drained the island during a levee repair operation.

There is much more on this at Water4Fish.org.

The Governor Ahnuld is rightfully keeping some focus on the lack of a State Budget. However, we need to watch this carefully. Real problems will arise when we begin to unravel the compromises that were reached in order to get on approved. Since Republican votes are needed, it would not be unlikely that those Republicans from the Central Valley will only vote for one if they get the new dams that they want, along with the Peripheral Canal that the Governor wants.

My problem is that we don't need new dams and the peripheral canal is the right solution to the wrong problem. If we allow the problem to be defined solely in terms of protecting our future water needs, then the battle is over, the Salmon fisheries are dead and the only thing that smells worse than a dead salmon is a back room deal in Sacramento.

Restore the Delta has a new action alert out today that lists the reasons we should reject the peripheral canal and the water bond that seems to be destined for our next election.

1. The peripheral canal will not solve the crisis in the Delta or make more water for California.
2. There are bond funds left from previous to begin doing the work needed to protect Delta levees.
3. The Department of Water Resources, while working on projects on behalf of the State Water Contractors, fails to answer for the people of the Delta "How much fresh water is required for the health of the Delta estuary?"
4. The peripheral canal will not restore fish populations.
5. Theperipheral canal will destroy the $ 2 billion Delta agricultural economy.
6. This water bond will not help to protect the lives and property of the 400,000 people living in the Delta.
7. We want a water bond that would support aggressive water conservation measures, regional ground water clean up and desalinization projects, ground water banking in historic floods plains, regional reservoirs to support ground water banking, water recycling, and projects making use of storm water runoff. Employing new technologies, rather than clinging to outdated methods, will give us more water to work with in California for people and fish.

What can this out of power Green Party do to prevent this? We can start by calling Arnold, Sen. Diane Feinstein and your own state legislators.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger State Capitol Building Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: 916-445-2841

Senator Diane Feinstein:

• San Francisco One Post Street, Suite 2450 San Francisco, CA 94104 Phone: (415) 393-0707 Fax: (415) 393-0710

• Los Angeles 11111 Santa Monica Blvd., Suite 915 Los Angeles, CA 90025 Phone: (310) 914-7300 Fax: (310) 914-7318

• San Diego 750 B Street, Suite 1030 San Diego, CA 92101 Phone: (619) 231-9712 Fax: (619) 231-1108

PPIC Report on the Delta - Words Fail Me.

When words fail me, I should get professional help. In the case, the professional help is from Dan Bacher, Editor of Fishsniffer. I quote an early copy on the jump as the Fishsniffer does not have it up on the web site yet.


Stephen Bechtel Jr. Funds Peripheral Canal Report!

by Dan Bacher

The people and foundations who fund "scientific" reports and studies often reveal what is the real agenda behind the publishing of any document.

A new Public Policy Institute (PPIC) report recommending the construction of a peripheral canal on the California Delta, "Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," was released yesterday with wild acclamation by the Governor and the state's water contractors, since it "scientifically" justifies the destruction of the West Coast's largest estuary by building a canal.

Little noticed in the media reports was where the funding came from. According to the PPIC's press release: "The new report, Comparing Futures for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, builds on the findings of a 2007 PPIC study by the same team, which concluded that the need for a new Delta strategy is urgent. The new report was funded in part by Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation."

Stephen D. Bechtel, Jr. (born 1925) is, with his son Riley, co-owner of the Bechtel Corporation. He is the son of Stephen David Bechtel, Sr. and grandson of Warren A. Bechtel who founded the Bechtel Corporation, the world's largest engineering firm.

Bechtel Corporation, one of the world's largest engineering and construction firms that is instrumental in the "reconstruction" of Iraq, is a leading advocate throughout the world of the privatization of water systems. It was Bechtel that sued the country of Bolivia for canceling a contract there sponsored by the World Bank.

A CorpWatch report, "Profiting from Destruction," provides case studies from Bechtel's history of operating in the water, nuclear, energy and public works sectors. These case studies reveal a legacy of unsustainable and destructive practices that have reaped permanent human, environmental and community devastation around the globe. Letters from "Bechtel affected communities" included in the report provide first-hand descriptions of these impacts, from Bolivia to Native American lands in Nevada. The report reveals a 100-year history spent capitalizing on the most brutal technologies, reaping immense profits and ignoring the social and environmental costs. For more information, go to http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6975

Another CorpWatch report, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6670, details "Bechtel's Water Wars" in Bolivia. Fortunately, the people of Cochabama rebelled against Bechtel's scheme to privatize their water system and won.

The role of Stephen Bechtel, Jr. in funding the PPIC report must be exposed. Are the scientists who authored this report aware of Bechtel's record of devastation across the globe? And will Bechtel profit from the destruction of the California Delta fish, farms and people if a peripheral canal is built? These are both questions that must be asked!

Central Valley chinook salmon and Delta fish populations are in a state of collapse, largely due to massive increases in water exports from the Delta in recent years. A broad coalition of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Delta farmers, Indian Tribes and environmentalists is opposed to the peripheral canal because it would result in the diversion of more water from the Delta and further exacerbate the current fishery collapses.

The PPIC report amounts to being an "elaborate sales brochure" for the peripheral canal, quipped Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. I completely agree, especially when you consider who is funding the report!

Restore the Delta and Dan Bacher

Two of my sources for information on what is really going on in the California Delta are Dan Bacher, editor of The Fish Sniffer magazine and Barbara Barrigan-Parilla, Campaign Director for Restore the Delta. If you read this blog, you see them each mentioned more than once.

In a press release today, Bacher presents his Leaping Steelhead Conservation Awards for 2007, and here is his citation for Barrigan-Parilla.

Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta campaign coordinator, was a key leader in anti-canal efforts by issuing regular “Delta Flows” updates pointing out how a canal and increased exports weren’t the answer to the Delta’s problems. She convened a number of forums on the Delta, including superb presentations by Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, and Dante Nomellini, a water rights attorney and Delta farmer, in opposition to the canal. For her great activism, she receives the “Stop the Peripheral Canal” award.

Dan got this one right.

Events and need for action

do not take a holiday. While we might kick back, eat a festive dinner and take a leisurely walk that allows us to think that we got rid of a few holiday calories, events continue to unfold, as Dan Bacher reminded me this morning with a press release and sad picture.


The fish in this picture have been stranded by levee repair. Better to let Dan's words tell the story.


Bureau of Reclamation Strands Thousands of Fish on Prospect Island

by Dan Bacher, November 21

I just got back from investigating an impending massive fish kill at Prospect Island in the northern section of the California Delta between Miner Slough and the Sacramento Deepwater Channel. Bob McDaris, owner of Cliff's Marina in Freeport, Bob Boffitt, a KFBK Radio reporter, and another KFBK reporter and I went by boat to the area where the levee is being repaired by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

We slogged through the mud in waders and saw large schools of stripers with their dorsal fins, backs and tails out of the water as they struggled to survive. I saw a dozen dead striped bass, along with one dead bluegill and a couple of dead pike minnows. Of course, we walked through just a tiny fraction of Prospect Island - McDaris estimated that there were thousands of fish stranded in a larger area that he pointed to after we took photos and videos.

The massive stranding of fish came to McDaris' attention when he and a local hay farmer, John Soto, went out prospecting for ducks on the island on Tuesday. Instead of finding ducks they found a fish kill in progress.

"We saw thousands of striped bass, two sturgeon, hundreds of bluegill and two 15 to 18 pound salmon stranded in the remaining water," said McDaris. "We also saw two steelhead and lots of carp. I was amazed by the number of fish that were stranded on the island and I figured that somebody should do something about it."

McDaris contacted Bob Simms, host of the KFBK Outdoor Show, Mark Wilson, striper angler, Matt Weiser of the Sacramento Bee, members of the California Striped Bass Association (CSBA) and this reporter to see what we could do about rescuing the fish. Over 35 people, including CSBA members, met McDaris at Cliff's Marina this morning to investigate this latest fishery disaster and see if they can do anything about it.

Unfortunately, the brush, tules and terrain make it very difficult for anglers to carry fish out in buckets or ice chests to be released into Miner Slough, as CSBA members and DFG staff did several years ago when the water out of flooded Jones Tract was being pumped out. I assisted in that rescue.

While I was there today, I spoke to a DFG warden, Carolyn Djody, who was there to assess the extent of the fish stranded on the island. At that time, she hadn't examined the area where the fish were located.

"We had a call that there were fish dying on the island," she said. "This is a federal project, so the proposal to pump water out was reviewed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It's not our project."

McDaris and other anglers are very concerned about the delta smelt and other endangered and threatened species that may be impacted by further pumping of water off the island without the initiation of some sort of fish rescue.

Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, said the agency, after being alerted by anglers and other about stranded fish, ordered the pumping suspended. "The Bureau and the U.S. Fish and Wildife Service will reevaluate this situation to see if we can salvage the fish," he said. "At issue is whether there are Delta smelt stranded on the island."

However, he noted that probably no decision about this would be made until Monday because of the absence of many personnel over the Thanksiving Holiday weekend.

The levee broke in 1998, flooding the island, and then was repaired. The levee broke again in January 2006 and the Bureau of Reclamation authorized the current repair operation this year.

"After the levee break in 2006, CalFed said to leave the levee like it was and nothing happened," said McCracken. "However, then five boats capsized when entering the levee break. Two of them required Coast Guard assistance. Also, there is a lot of vegetation and trees that created hazards to boats."

Because of the public safety and liaibility issue, the Bureau decided to go ahead with hiring a contractor to repair the levee break and pump the water off the island back into Miner Slough.

"We consulted with the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about what to do," he said. "They said that because of all of the trees and brush found on the island, there was no effective way to do fish salvage."

The two fishery agencies gave the Bureau the go ahead to repair the levee, with the stipulation that the contractor pump at the lowest tides so as many fish as possible would be able to move off the island as it drained.

Meanwhile, as we wait for a decision by federal officials about how, when and if the fish will be salvaged, thousands of fish, including an unknown number of endangered delta smelt and other endangered and threatened species, are expected to perish.

I was appalled by witnessing the spectacle of hundreds of striped bass thrashing in their final hours on the surface of the water at Prospect Island. The stripers, because of their size and schooling nature, were the easiest to see in the muddy water.

I wonder how many stranded delta smelt, sturgeon, king salmon, steelhead and other species will die and go belly up as the remaining oxygen in the water is used up. After we witnessed a disaster two weeks ago when the Cosco Busan dumped 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel into San Francisco Bay, it's horrible to see yet another man-made environmental catastrophe take place, courtesy of the federal government.

I urge people concerned about the stranding of thousands of fish on Prospect Island to call or write to the following officials and urge the federal and state governments to do something about saving the fish:

Ron Milligan, Operations Manager
Central Valley Operations Office
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
3310 El Camino Avenue, Suite 300
Sacramento CA 95821
916-979-2180
fax: 916-979-2494

Richard B. Rogers, President
California Fish and Game Commission
1416 Ninth Street
Sacramento CA 95814
916-653-4899
email: fgc@fgc.ca.gov

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
916-445-2841

You can call also call the Bureau of Reclamation, Public Affairs Office, 916-978-5100