By Miriam Hernandez, Student Leader with Californians for Justice in Fresno and Senior at Roosevelt High School.
As I wake each morning, I tell myself, "Thank you God for another day, may I encounter smiles on people's faces." I walk to school and I run into a lot of students. Sadly, I can tell some are hurting inside. I wonder about their story and if they receive help at school rather than just being taught.
Lately, there have been many articles in the news media about school dropout and truancy rates. Schools have improved, but some issues remain. Programs are also being implemented to solve the problems, but what about the students' opinion? After all, we know what it's like in school, what is and isn't working. Rather than just hearing us out, why can't actions include our opinions?
I have been in the shoes of these students, wondering and asking myself questions daily. In elementary school, I wondered why students were given different resources and why some didn't receive any at all. I also wondered why some students would constantly get in trouble and suspended continuously, and why there wasn't much done to help them stay in school and improve.
Years passed as I transitioned to middle school. The issues and disagreements became physical, harmful fights. The faces of students I once knew in elementary school drifted away. I had no clue who my old classmates had become. I wondered if they were OK, if they attended school and if they were accomplishing their goals.
Now, as a senior in high school, I have seen a great number of students drop out for various reasons. Watching this happen not only affected me, but it made my community unhealthy.
I see so much talent in these students. Some students are unable to know their talents in school because they feel there is no point in going to class if they are just going to be sent out of the classroom. Of course, it may be reasonable to send out a student for acting up, but it is also reasonable to find out why the student is acting up in the first place.
Since freshman year, I have been involved with groups like Californians For Justice, a racial justice student-led organization working for better schools and lower dropout rates. I have also become involved in Building Healthy Communities, a campaign of the California Endowment whose goal is to support the development of communities where kids and youth are healthy, safe and ready to learn.
In BHC, I participate in Project S.U.C.C.E.S.S. (Students United to Create a Climate of Engagement, Support and Safety) where our focus is to ensure that schools provide a supportive environment and reach out to help students stay on target to graduate. Whether it is listening to the issues happening at home, hearing the reasons that lead students to fight or helping students think of better ways to solve conflicts, we should see more students staying in school, not more students suspended or expelled. We need to keep students in school and see them move on to graduation instead of watching them fail.
These programs have helped me build the skills I didn't know I had inside. Most of all, they help my voice grow and be heard.
The youth voice is worth listening to. We are the most affected by these issues, and we must build a voice with several ideas to find solutions.
We might be portrayed as just "kids," but they always leave out the fact that we are "just kids with answers." Why else would we give up our Friday nights, our weekends and even our holidays to discuss how we can help improve education and keep our peers in school? Our voices must be heard, too.
Today, Republicans in Washington D.C. held a hearing on increasing the amount of land dedicated to oil shale extraction. Oil shale is a rock that contains a waxy substance called kerogen. When kerogen is heated to extremely high temperatures, it releases a substance that can be turned into crude oil. As with so many things, however, the devil is in the details when it comes to oil shale.
It takes a lot of rock to create oil shale. In fact, pound for pound, oil shale has about the same amount of energy as a baked potato. Given that, in many cases the amount of energy recovered from oil shale is less than the amount of energy used in the extraction process. If that wasn't enough, the technology to develop oil shale is not commercially viable and could likely depend heavily on already scarce water in the West.
So it's with great concern that today's hearing highlighted legislation that would give away millions of acres of public land for oil shale extraction and provide oil companies with more taxpayer subsidies. I hope that California's voice on the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources - Central Valley Congressman Jim Costa - will stand strong against these attempts by House Republicans to sell off our country's natural resources.
Congressman Costa represents an area that's been hard hit by environmental challenges - from air pollution that is among the worst in the country to lead and contaminates in the water. The Central Valley knows firsthand the cost of dirty air and water - high asthma rates in our children and many health issues in pregnant women and the elderly.
Given this, I hope that Congressman Costa will speak up on behalf of other communities that may suffer a similar fate if increased oil shale extraction is allowed.
After all, are we willing to sell our health, our children's well-being, and clean air and water for a source of energy that's worth as much as a baked potato?
Pablo RodrÃguez is the Executive Director of Communities for a New California (CNC), a statewide civil rights advocacy organization. Prior to CNC, Pablo worked as a Public Policy Consultant as well as serving as Director of the Dolores Huerta Community Organizing Institute. Pablo is committed to achieving public policy that is socially, economically, and environmentally just for California's families.
The city of Chico is a little blue(-ish) Oasis in the sea of red that is the rural Northstate. Similar to California in regards to the rest of the nation, Chico has resisted the ever rightward surge around it. Home to Chico State University and a thriving arts community, Chico and its city council stubbornly maintain the "Green Line", which prevents further sprawl onto agricultural and park lands, insist on spending a small portion of the city's budget on the arts, and on artistic projects, (wasted money, say the Tea Party hypocrites. We'll get to that shortly,) and on public safety measures other than more policemen.
The local Tea Party hasn't taken that lying down, of course. They spent gobs of money to try and elect three candidates to the city council last year. They got one elected, and got the other by browbeating the Council into appoint one of the others (who finished fourth in the election which was for three seats,) after another councilman left office. That councilman was previously the lone right-winger on the council, so all that money managed to increase their minority from 1 to 2 on the 7-seat council.
I think it was that last action that gave the Tea Party their "best" idea yet. For all the sturm and drang that goes with the Tea Party, they're absolutely awful at convincing anyone who doesn't already agree with them that they're right. So, elections aren't their strong point. But what if fewer people voted?
The San Joaquin River Group Authority, a group of water contractors including Central Valley agribusiness interests and the city of San Francisco, is suing the federal government to block the commercial salmon fishing season off the California coast.
They filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in Fresno May 5, just four days after the first normal commercial season in four years began.
The Pacfic Fishery Management Council (PFMC) opened the commercial season this year, based on a predicted ocean abundance by federal fishery biologists of over 700,000 fish.
The growers claim that allowing the commercial salmon harvest could impact their irrigation water supplies -and criticized the federal government for allowing the full season, in spite of a history of "over predicting adult spawning escapement.
"Approving high levels of SRFC (Sacramento River Fall Chinook) harvest while the overfishing concern continues, and in light of significant uncertainty, admittedly high bias in the forecasting and a recent history of significantly over-predicting adult escapement, was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with the law," the lawsuit states.
Dick Pool, administrator of http://www.water4fish.org., after reading the lawsuit, countered that "it is time to get some facts on the table."
"We agree there is substantial risk to the San Joaquin River Group Authority and everyone else who depends on Delta water if the fall run salmon populations are not recovered," said Pool. "Between 2002 and 2009 the fall run crashed 97% to an all time low of only 39,500 fish returning to spawn. Absent emergency action, this means future trouble for everyone."
However, Pool emphasized that the "problem is not fishing" - and that closing salmon fishing will not do anything to address the problems that the caused the salmon collapse in the first place.
"Cutting fishing will not solve anything and neither will this lawsuit," said Pool. "Science clearly shows that the fall run crash was caused by unregulated Delta pumping between 2002 and 2008 and for the wild fish, the impact pumping had on the upriver flows and temperatures that wild salmon need to survive."
The three most productive areas for wild fall run salmon reproduction before the crash were the upper Sacramento River, American River and Feather River, according to Pool.
"Seventy-four percent of all the wild fish spawning took place in these areas," said Pool. "They have all been devastated by water management practices designed to provide water for the pumps with no consideration of salmon."
Pool said water releases from Shasta Dam are run "up and down like a yo-yo," leading to heavy mortality of incubating salmon eggs.
"Incubating salmon eggs in the upper river are frequently left high and dry to rot or are washed away by heavy releases," he stated. "High water temperatures in the upper river spawning areas are often lethal to fall run egg survival and take a heavy toll on these fish."
He described the American River - where the Bureau of Reclamation still hasn't adopted temperature and flow standards that it agreed tentatively to in 2006 - as probably "the biggest disaster zone of all."
"In recent years all the cold water behind Folsom Dam that salmon need to spawn in is run to the pumps in the summertime," stated Pool. "When fall run salmon return to spawn in the late summer, the river temperatures are lethal to both adults and eggs. The result has been one of the largest salmon die offs in history. The toll from all of these along with huge losses of fall run fish in the Delta has brought the run to an unsustainable level."
Pool said that absent changes to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the fresh water salmon habitat conditions, the populations are going to continue to collapse until the government must take "draconian actions" to avoid extinctions.
"Instead of lawsuits, we think it would be far more productive for the San Joaquin River Group Authority to join the state, the federal government, the salmon industry and the farm groups who are all working to find the best way to implement the co-equal goals of Delta and fishery recovery along with reliable water deliveries," concluded Pool.
While the fall run chinook salmon run is on the rebound, according to federal fishery scientists, the Sacramento River spring run and winter run Chinook salmon populations continue to decline. Their decline parallels the collapse of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, young striped bass, threadfin shad and other "pelagic" - open water - species on the Delta, due to increased water exports, declining water quality, invasive species and other factors.
Kevin McCarthy is a Republican Congressman from the 22nd district, which includes Bakersfield, most of Kern County, and most of San Luis Obispo County (except for SLO itself). Kern County voted for Prop 1A in November 2008 - it was a close vote, with about 1600 votes separating yes and no, but it IS a clear sign than Kern County residents want high speed rail.
And it makes sense that they would. Bakersfield is a fast-growing city, with population growth of 41% over the last decade. That's faster than any other city in California. But Bakersfield is isolated. It's not on the coasts and the economic powerhouse of Los Angeles is a long 2 hour drive away - and in the winter, storms sometimes make the trip a lot longer if the Grapevine is closed. With gas prices soaring, Bakersfield is going to find itself in dire economic straits if it can't get itself better connected to the rest of the state.
That's where high speed rail comes in. As most Bakersfield residents seem to understand, by providing fast and affordable service to Southern California, Bakersfield's future becomes very, very bright. The city would be less than an hour from downtown LA, which is a far better commute than for many people even in the Los Angeles basin itself. Combined with affordable housing costs, Bakersfield could legitimately become a bedroom community for LA - or it could tap LA talent for businesses based in Bakersfield. As with other mid-size cities along HSR lines, such as Ciudad Real or Zaragoza in Spain, Bakersfield would be poised to experience significant economic growth from high speed rail. So it's no wonder that residents and local elected officials support the project.
A fourth-generation Bakersfield native, McCarthy said Tuesday that California and the federal government would both be wise to avoid spending billions of dollars on a train he predicted would become a money sink.
"In today's world, is that the best place to put the money? The answer is no," McCarthy told reporters. "I don't think it's a smart investment."
Echoing other critics, McCarthy on Tuesday characterized the initial planned 123-mile route from Bakersfield to tiny Borden in rural Madera County as a "train to nowhere." He said the train would be poorly used and would inevitably leave taxpayers on the hook for endless subsidies.
"Look at where California is (financially)," McCarthy said. "They don't have enough money to build it now."...
"If you can't prove it's viable from a business plan, it's not a (project) the government should be funding," McCarthy said Tuesday.
All of this is ignorant nonsense. First, the initial construction segment would connect Bakersfield to Fresno, not Borden - a key detail both McCarthy and the reporter left out. More importantly, it starts the process of connecting Bakersfield to the Bay Area and ultimately to Southern California. Anyone in Bakersfield who doesn't think that's important simply does not have the best interests of Kern County in mind - and wasn't paying attention when Kern County voters said yes to high speed rail in 2008.
Second, California does have enough money to pay for our portion of the train costs. In that same election that McCarthy apparently didn't notice, Kern County voters joined the rest of the state in approving a $10 billion bond. The private sector has shown great willingness to fund it. So too has the federal government - except Congressional Republicans, and McCarthy just so happens to be the #3 man in the House GOP hierarchy. More on that in a moment.
Third, as I explained on Monday, the idea that high speed rail would be a "money sink" is a lie that has no basis at all in the evidence. The Amtrak Acela train, just barely a high speed system, isn't a money sink at all - it covers its own costs. Same with virtually every other HSR line in the world.
Finally, McCarthy claims that the project doesn't have a viable business plan, which isn't true. But as we've seen with many other HSR critics and opponents, any business plan that the Authority publishes isn't good enough for them. These opponents won't be satisfied until the trains are actually showing a profit, and even then they'll find some way to argue that they're still a money sink.
And that gets us to what's really going on here. McCarthy is not representing his constituents, who want high speed rail and the thousands of jobs and other economic benefits it will bring. No, McCarthy is representing the oil companies, including the notorious Koch Brothers, who are now calling the shots in national Republican politics. Charles and David Koch, not the people of the 22nd district, are McCarthy's real constituents. They're the ones he cares about.
And the Koch Brothers, along with the other leaders of the right-wing movement, have clearly set their sights on high speed rail. In the last couple of weeks the attacks on HSR from the right have been noticeably more intense, and the conservative pundit class have all been taking their turns attacking it, which suggests strongly to me that someone sent out a memo explaining that now is the time to attack high speed rail.
McCarthy is therefore just following orders - but they're not the orders of his own constituents. If he were listening to Kern County, he'd know that they want this train badly, and they won't be happy if he tries to kill it.
Do you easily recognize these names? Mary Kenny O'Sullivan, Rose Schneiderman, Helen Marot? How about these women, Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt or Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Without these brave women going before us, we would not be where we are today.
Some historical perspective:
Mary Kenny O'Sullivan was from a working class Irish background who became a dressmaker and then worked in a printing and binding factory in Missouri and several binderies in Chicago. She helped organize the Chicago Women's Bindery Workers' Union. What year was that? It was before 1892 - yep that's right 1892. Because of her work in the union, in 1892 she was appointed the first woman general organizer for the American Federation of Labor. That same year she helped form the Union for Industrial Progress to help study factory working conditions. She went on to organize rubber makers, shoe workers, laundry workers and garment workers. (Continued after the flip...)
The California Fish and Game Commission, during a joint hearing with the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast in Sacramento on February 2, adopted the unified proposal crafted by local recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, environmentalists and business owners.
The proposal would create marine protected areas in approximately 13 percent of the North Coast state's waters. It was the first MLPA proposal to acknowledge tribal gathering rights on the ocean since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger privatized the MLPA process in 2004.
Michael Sutton, Fish and Game Commissioner, made the following motion, supported by Commissioners Dan Richards, Jim Kellogg, Jack Baylis and Richard Rogers.
"The Fish and Game Commission, consistent with the direction we received this morning from Secretary Laird, requests staff to work closely with the MLPA Initiative and Department of Fish and Game to:
1. Develop a revised MPA network proposal for the North Coast Study Region, based on and consistent with the Unified North Coast proposal from the RSG and BRTF, that accommodates the stakeholders' expressed intent to allow for traditional, non-commercial subsistence, ceremonial, cultural and stewardship uses by Tribal people;
2. Bring that revised proposal to the April Commission meeting so that we can adopt a preferred alternative and move forward with both the CEQA and regulatory processes;
3. In developing this revised proposal, address to the extent practicable, the shortcomings identified in the Department's Feasibility Evaluation dated January14, 2011."
Telling members of the California Fish and Game Commission "the North Coast Unified Plan is unprecedented and deserves to be supported," First District Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro (D-Arcata) testified in support of the local unified proposal.
"The North Coast Regional Stakeholders Group accomplished what no other region has been able to do - generate a single Unified Array proposal," Chesbro said. "The Unified Array is an unprecedented accomplishment and provides a wonderful opportunity for this Commission to also act in unity. On behalf of the overwhelming consensus on the North Coast, I urge you to support our community's request."
Yurok Chair Says Tribe Doesn't Endorse Proposal, But Accepts It
Chesbro also told Commissioners that additional concessions must be made to protect the traditional fishing and gathering rights of North Coast tribes.
"These tribes are willing to work with you to administratively resolve these issues in order to provide support for the Unified Array," Chesbro said.
The Yurok and other North Coast Tribes did not endorse the proposal, but accepted it, providing that the state formally acknowledges the sovereign rights of Tribes to gather along the coast as they have done from thousands of years.
"There is no evidence that tribes have had a negative impact upon the ecosystem," said Thomas O'Rourke, Chair of the Yurok Tribal Council. "They have been part of the ecosystem since time immemorial. Science needs to recognize people as part of the ecosystem. If you don't include people, the proposal will fail. Our rights are not negotiable."
He emphasized, "The Tribe doesn't endorse the unified proposal, but it accepts the proposal."
"Nothing is final until it's final," O'Rourke said after the meeting, in responding to the Commission's decision to move the unified proposal forward. "We are as comfortable as we can be in this stage of the process."
In reference to the recent lawsuit filed by United Anglers of Southern California, Coastside Fishing Club and Bob Fletcher against the MLPA Initiative, O'Rourke stated, "If the state doesn't listen to us and tries to impose regulations on the Tribes, the fishermen's lawsuit is possibly one of many they will have to deal with."
Tribal members indicated they were willing to engage in civil disobedience if tribal rights weren't protected. "When grandma wants mussels, it will take a lot more than Wild Justice to prevent me from doing this," quipped Sammy Gensaw Jr., Yurok Tribal Member.
Option Zero Supporters Felt Short-Changed
The Commission also heard from supporters of Option Zero, who felt short changed because they were only given one minute each to comment at the end of the public comment period. This was done in spite of a letter from Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro and Senator Noreen Evans urging the Commission to "allow for a briefing from Option Zero supporters."
Tomas DiFiore, longtime North Coast environmentalist, asked to be read into the record supporting statements for Option Zero and the CEQA Analysis, supported by 1200 signatures, to be considered by the Commission.
"Option Zero is an opportunity for the North Coast to develop an alternative plan that reflects the knowledge base and commitment to conservation and use of marine resources of North Coast communities and produce a timely, well informed consensus plan to bring back to the Fish & Game Commission and the MLPA Initiative process," he stated.
Option Zero proponents, including environmentalists, recreational anglers, and commercial fishermen, support managing fisheries on the North Coast through existing regulations - and criticize the MLPA process for setting up marine protected areas that fail to protect the ocean from water pollution, oil spills and drilling, military testing, wave energy projects and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering.
MLPA critics also slam the process for its many conflicts of interest, including the domination of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces by oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corporate interests.
The MLPA process was privatized in 2004 when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger directed the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, a private corporation that North Coast environmental leader John Stephens-Lewallen described as a "money laundering operation for corporations," to fund the controversial process through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Fish and Game.
Since then, the MLPA Initiative has violated numerous state, federal and international laws, including the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the California Public Records Act, the State Administrative Procedure Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Illegal Private Meetings of MLPA Exposed
During the public comment period, George Osborn, spokesman for the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO), presented a 25 page document documenting illegal private, non-public meetings of Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative officials to the Commission.
The Coastside Fishing Club, United Anglers of Southern California and Bob Fletcher filed suit in San Diego Superior Court in late January, seeking to overturn South Coast and North Central Coast MLPA closures, alleging violations of the State Administrative Procedure Act.
During his brief public testimony, Osborn exposed the corruption and violations of law by the MLPA's Blue Ribbon Task Force (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7_04BC1acA).
"After reviewing the documents turned over to us, which previously the BRTF had improperly withheld from the public, we now have evidence, indicating that the public meetings of the BRTF have been an elaborately staged Kabuki performance, choreographed and rehearsed down to the last detail, even to the crafting of motions, in scheduled private meetings held before the so-called public meetings of the BRTF," said Osborn. "Clearly, this has not been the most open and transparent process, as it has so often been described."
"The BRTF's behavior taints the regulations that are the end product of its work, and these regulations must be reversed," he emphasized. "The PSO respectfully requests that the Commission begin the process to un-do these wrongs committed against California's recreational anglers and all Californians, see that the MLPA is implemented properly, and reverse actions that unnecessarily close areas to fishing."
"Let's work with Governor Brown and direct California's meager resources to solve real problems that harm the ocean we love," he concluded.
Commissioner Dan Richards asked Osborn for proof about the secret meetings that PSO has accused the privately funded MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force of conducting.
Osborn then submitted to the Commissioners the copies of emails and correspondence by MLPA officials documenting private, non-public meetings. Secret meetings of the Blue Ribbon Task Force were held in April 2007 and on November 3, 2008, December 10, 2008, February 25, 2009, October 20, 21 and 22, 2009.
The documents included correspondence by Ken Wiseman, MLPA executive director, Don Benninghoven, former Fish and Game Commissoner, Melissa Miller-Henson, program manager of the MLPA Initiative, Meg Caldwell, BRTF member and others.
The documents also include the email by Fort Bragg City Council member Jere Melo on November 5, 2009, regarding his resignation from the MLPA Statewide Interest Group (SIG) for its failure to obey state laws.
"I cannot continue on a body that advertises its functions as 'public' and then provides very little or no public notice of its meetings," said Melo. "There is a real ethics question for a person who holds a public office."
The Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) on February 14, Valentines Day, released the first draft of the Delta Plan and posted it onto the DSC website.
For those fighting against the construction of the peripheral canal and the export of more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the release of the document was anything but a "Valentine."
The document is the first of four drafts that will be developed and released over the next three months before the plan, part of a thinly veiled process to build a peripheral canal/tunnel around or through the Delta, goes under an environmental review in June.
Although the canal/tunnel was not mentioned specifically in the initial recommendations, the document is based on achieving the co-equal goals of water supply and ecosystem restoration. The objectives of achieving these goals include building a peripheral canal/tunnel - "improved conveyance" - as noted in the draft plan.
The plan "is designed to put the key issues on the table for the Council to discuss and receive input from stakeholders and the public," according to a statement from the DSC. "It's expected that three subsequent drafts will be released following the environmental review, according to a statement
"This is just the beginning of the process and it is expected the final Delta Plan will be considerably different," said Joe Grindstaff, Executive Officer of the Delta Stewardship Council. "The final Delta Plan will be released on Jan. 1, 2012 as directed by the Delta Reform Act of 2009. It will be a major step toward furthering the coequal goals that will be used in guiding actions impacting the Delta."
"'Coequal goals' means the two goals of providing a more reliable water supply for California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem. The coequal goals shall be achieved in a manner that protects and enhances the unique cultural, recreational, natural resource, and agricultural values of the Delta as an evolving place," according to CA Water Code 85054.
The document has four preliminary staff draft findings, according to Grindstaff.
1. "California's total water supply is oversubscribed. California regularly uses more water annually than is provided by nature." This reality makes the management of our limited surface water supplies and the Delta even more critical. When water exports from the Delta are reduced, the unintended consequence is increased demand on an already overused and unsustainable groundwater system.
2. "California's water supply is increasingly volatile. Precipitation and runoff patterns are changing, increasing uncertainty for water supply and quality, flood management, and ecosystem functions." We must adapt our management practices in order to protect ourselves against present and future risk and if we are to achieve the coequal goals.
3. "Even with substantial ecosystem restoration efforts, some native species may not survive." Best available science indicates that some stressors are beyond our control and the system may have already changed so much that some species may never be able to recover.
4. "There is no comprehensive state or regional emergency response plan for the Delta." In spite of all the analysis that says that we have greater risk than New Orleans, all we have at the state and regional level are plans to develop plans.
"On the positive side, I do believe the Delta Plan finally offers California an opportunity to address some of the Delta's most vexing problems, specifically, achieving the co-equal goals," claimed Grindstaff.
While I agree with the draft plan's conclusions that California's water supply is oversubscribed and that there is no regional emergency plan for the Delta, I take strong issue with the co-equal goals that the document is based upon and the claim that some native species may not survive, in spite of restoration efforts.
First, these same co-equal goals are precisely the ones that doomed the CalFed process, a joint federal-state Delta "restoration" plan, to failure. The state and federal governments, by making the delivery of subsized water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies on equal par with fish and ecological restoration, helped to engineer the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, young striped bass and other species by allowing record water exports from 2003 to 2006.
These increased exports, combined with declining water quality and poor ocean conditions, set in stage the unprecedented Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon collapse that resulted in the closure of commercial and recreational salmon seasons off the California and southern oregon Coast in 2008 and 2009 and in limited seasons in 2010.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and Delta Vision processes and the legislative water package, passed in a special session called by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in November 2009, enshrined the co-equal goals just like the CalFed process did.
Amidst some pseudo-environmental language to give the plans to build the environmentally destructive and costly peripheral canal/tunnel a green veneer, the real goal of the legislation that created the Delta Stewardship Council is revealed in the legislation's language that is included in the Chapter 6 of the draft plan document.
In the "inherent objectives" to achieving the co-equal goals in Water Code Section 85020, section (f) states, "Improve the water conveyance system and expand statewide water storage."
"Improving the water conveyance system" is a euphemism for the peripheral canal, a project that was overwhelming voted down by the voters in November 1982. Recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, Indian Tribes, family farmers and Delta residents oppose the construction of the peripheral canal because they believe is will lead to the extinction of Central Valley salmon and Delta pelagic (open water) species and the degradation of Delta water quality.
Second, to say that "some native species may not survive," even with restoration efforts, appears to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. What the Council staff appears to be saying is that they're willing to sacrifice some endangered and threatened species to further the Delta's role as a water supply for subsidized corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California water privateers.Of course, if you build a canal to divert more northern California water, a number of species are bound to become extinct!
As Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu (McCloud River) Tribe, said at a protest against the canal at the State Capitol in July 2009, "The peripheral canal is a big, stupid idea that doesn't make any sense from a tribal environmental perspective. Building a canal to save the Delta is like a doctor inserting an arterial bypass from your shoulder to your hand- it will cause your elbow to die just like taking water out of the Delta through a peripheral canal will cause the Delta to die."
"If the canal is built, it will turn the Delta into a cesspool and send the remnants of Delta fisheries to the scaffold," said Bill Jennings, executive director/chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).
I wish the Legislators and the Brown and Obama administrations would heed the words of Franco and Jennings, rather than only listen to the agribusiness executives, water agency officials and corporate environmental NGO leaders that are pushing for the construction of the canal/tunnel.
The Delta Stewardship Council process:
The issues encompassed on the first draft will be discussed in public Delta Stewardship Council meetings. During the Council meetings, specific components of the Delta Plan will be discussed and debated in a workshop environment. Overall the Delta Plan addresses: 1) key findings relating to the objectives set for the in the Delta Reform Act; 2) an overview of the kinds of strategies necessary to achieve those objectives.
Following the Council meetings and workshops revisions will be made and three subsequent drafts of the Delta Plan will be released in March, April and May. An administrative draft Delta Plan will be released in June as part of the formal environmental review process. Subsequent drafts will address: 1) performance measures and targets; 2) linkages and integrations of components; 3) phasing of various components; 4) cost sharing among all interests.
A copy of the first draft of the Delta Plan and a full release schedule of subsequent draft Delta Plans can be found on the DSC website at http://www.deltacouncil.ca.gov
About the Council
Created by the legislature in 2009, the Delta Stewardship Council is composed of members who represent different parts of the state and offer diverse expertise in fields such as agriculture, science, the environment, and public service. Of the seven, four are appointed by the Governor, one each by the Senate and Assembly, and the seventh is the Chair of the Delta Protection Commission.
Hi there, Nicholas Hatten here. Ye of McNerney '06 and '08 campaigns and Stockton's Drinking Liberally. First time poster but long time lurker. What's got me so excited that I've decided to break my lurking streak? Well, the awesomeness that is San Joaquin County's LGBT community.
A year ago this month I moved back to the lovely city of Stockton after a decade long love affair with the Bay Area and re-discovering the Central Valley during my time with Team McNerney. Now I was already aware of how progressive leaders like Councilmember Susan Eggman (LGBT icon), Jerry & Carol Bailey (single payer icons), Martha Gamez (uber-grassroots icon) and others had helped change the landscape of politics in the Central Valley. What I wasn't aware of was how much the LGBT had matured and evolved into a political force during my time away.
The Central Valley Stonewall Democratic Club, the Stanislaus Democratic Central Committee, and the Progressive Democrats of Stanislaus County condemns congressional candidate Mike Berryhill for using homophobic and hate speech as campaign tools. Such diatribes only distract attention from current issues.
Water storage and all that fun stuff is nice, but if we are taking away more water than we receive in precipitation, then we are going to have to come up with some other solutions. And, according to some new data, the Central Valley may be on its way to becoming a desert.
New space observations reveal that since October 2003, the aquifers for California's primary agricultural region -- the Central Valley -- and its major mountain water source -- the Sierra Nevada -- have lost nearly enough water combined to fill Lake Mead, America's largest reservoir. The findings, based on satellite data, reflect California's extended drought and increased pumping of groundwater for human uses such as irrigation. (Science Daily)
To be more precise, the research team estimates that the Central Valley has lost more than 30 cubic kilometers of water, with a cubic kilometers roughly equivalent to the volume of 400,000 Olympic swimming pools. In other words, a very large amount of water.
Most of that water loss, over 3.5 cubic km/year, is from the Southern Central Valley. The region gets far less rainfall, and sees far more pumping for crops than the northern region of the Valley.
So, while additional storage might be necessary, we are going to have to come up with some way of reducing usage. Whether that is allowing more fields to lie fallow, or to change crops to less thirsty plants, the current usage pattern is not sustainable.
Water is at the heart of the Central Valley's daily life, and the southern part of that, the San Joaquin Valley, is always desperately looking for water. In the middle of the century, the SJ Valley received a bunch of water from the feds and a few state water projects. That allowed the groundwater to work its way back, but the last 45 years have been bad as the water projects have gradually drawn water away from the agricultural purposes and to fishing and urban water priorities.
The result was a process of tapping ground water, leaving the Valley to slowly sink. And since 1961, the results have been quite severe:
California's San Joaquin Valley has lost 60 million acre-feet of groundwater since 1961, according to a new federal study. That's enough water for 60 Folsom reservoirs.
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According to the study, groundwater pumping continues to cause the valley floor to sink, a problem known as subsidence. This threatens the stability of surface structures such as the California Aqueduct, which delivers drinking water to more than 20 million people.
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One consequence has been land subsidence over vast areas of the San Joaquin Valley. The most severe drop is about 29 feet near Mendota, which occurred before the canals were built, said Al Steele, an engineering geologist at the state Department of Water Resources in Fresno. (SacBee 7/13/09)
Of course, if the Aqueduct goes, at least the South of the state will begin to pay a lot more attention to the issue. Much of the water for SoCal comes directly through the Aqueduct.
Our use of resources over the last half century has left in a very poor position to deal with our current drought. Unless we get some rain or come up with some solutions, the future of farming, and of life in general, in the Central Valley looks increasingly bleak.
Mendota isn't really that atypical of a Central Valley town. It's not that much different than anywhere else in the region. It is slightly more dependent on agriculture than the big population centers in Bakersfield and Fresno, but so are many of the smaller towns in the Valley.
And Mendota has been hit hard. It has now come to be something of a symbol for the greater plight of the Central Valley. And all of the strange contradictions that lie at the heart of this region. The Valley is running out of water. Over the last 100 years, the Central Valley has grown to become the leading producer of fruit and vegetables in the country by using subsidized irrigated water from the state and federal governments. The water is drying up as there is pressure to conserve endangered species as well as from a powerful 3-year drought.
A few months back, McClatchy's article looked at the terrible employment numbers and the desperate situation in this small town. The LA Times returns and goes over the same grounds with this town where unemployment is nearing 40%:
Farmers have idled half a million acres of once-productive ground and are laying off legions of farmhands. That's sending joblessness soaring in a region already plagued by chronic poverty. ... Lost farm revenue will top $900 million in the San Joaquin Valley this year, said UC Davis economist Richard Howitt, who estimates that water woes will cost the recession-battered region an additional 30,000 jobs in 2009.
Desperation is rippling through agricultural communities such as Mendota, 35 miles west of Fresno, where an estimated 39% of the labor force is jobless. It's a stunning figure even for this battered community of about 10,000 people, which has long been accustomed to double-digit unemployment rates. (LAT 7/6/09)
Yet the question is always of water in Fresno County and the region. As Arnold Schwarzenegger came to find out when he held a town hall there, the farmers and the farmworkers want the water back pronto. The problem is that Mendota is situated in what used to be an extension of the California desert. The Central Valley wasn't really so green until we greened it with an intricate network of water diversions and piped in federal water. The interesting thing is that while the government was building this infrastructure in the region, a growing conflict was burgeoning: Ted Nugent style "we don't want the government to do anything" with a sense of entitlement to the water. From the Times article:
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last month asked President Obama to declare Fresno County a disaster area to boost federal aid. But that's not what the farmers say they want. At a recent town hall meeting in Fresno, while some women in the audience knitted, men in baseball caps and T-shirts shouted down officials from the Interior Department: "We don't want welfare, we want water."
Unfortunately, this has been and will be blamed on the Endangered Species Act, but even if we went through and ensured that every last Delta smelt was dead and pulverized, there simply isn't as much water as there used to be. The last 100 years were particularly wet, and as we see climate change take its toll the future is uncertain. Will rainfall revert to the norm leaving the Central Valley a desert once again? Will the snowpack dissipate to such a level as to make runoff too early to capture?
These are just some of the questions, but at the same time, while many choose to term it differently, farmers are looking for a bailout. It's not undeserved, they are hard working people who need help, but whether we put billions into their pockets or into water infrastructure it is still the government action that is the key. Sorry, Mr. Nugent, perhaps you should stick to the guitar.
But at this point the state simply doesn't have the resources to begin new massive water projects. While there are some bonds outstanding, they are insufficient and not tasked to this particular question. Those bonds focus more on serving the water needs of the urban populations. But as the far Right seeks to drown the government in a bathtub, the water they are using to fill it up is coming from the Central Valley.
For all that talk of progressive politics, I frequently wonder why no true progressive challenges Cardoza (CA-18) or Costa (CA-20). While this sits in the back of my brain, I was spurred to writing something when I clicked channel down rather than channel up on the remote this AM and landed on CSPAN where Costa was holding forth on the need to set aside the Endangered Species Act to protect the farmers in his district.
Costa predictably follows the line of the Westlands Water District. This one says that the problems of not having enough water are all the fault of putting the needs of a little minnow called the Delta Smelt ahead of the needs of people. The only problem with this is that it is a lie.
UC Merced welcomed First Lady Michelle Obama to its first graduation. The campus is still developing, with the first class fairly small. The whole campus is about one-tenth of its expected size, but this is already becoming an economic engine for the region, and holds promise to be an anchor in a region that desperately needs the development.
It wasn't enough to make 5 of the 6 regional congressman to show up. The one who did? Democratic Representative Jerry McNerney. 4 of the 5 apparently had something better to do. Interestingly, Bush Dog Dennis Cardoza wrote the legislation that began UC Merced, but apparently has other commitments. Devin Nunes had some big-time duties of being the idiot-in-chief:
A fifth, Visalia Republican Devin Nunes, says he is skipping the ceremony because he is unhappy with President Barack Obama and the majority Democrats in Congress.
"The president's wife is coming to the Valley, and just five miles away you have tens of thousands of people out of work because of the policies of the Democrat Party," he said. "I'm not going to go there and make nice." (Fresno Bee 5/15/09
Shorter Nunes: I'm putting my political extremism over the people of my district.
Skipping right past the fact that he is unclear on English usage, let's focus on the insanity of this statement. This is a major milestone for bringing some sustainable economic development to the region. Nunes is all up in arms regarding the water issues, but frankly Devin, it's best we start getting used to low water.
In Nunes defense, he has already called on Schwarzenegger to resign over water issues too. He's an equal opportunity idiot. But to pile on, he also goes ahead and says there is no drought to anybody who will listen, calling it "man-made" because we won't exterminate the remaining fish in the Delta by turning on the pumps to divert the water. And oh, yeah, Devin, the coastal communities need water to drink too.
Using this event to make an unrelated political statement is offensive to the students who worked to build the community of UC-Merced. But, Nunes has never been one to avoid offense, has he?
Nothing has ever come easy to the University of California Merced and that makes this Saturday's commencement of the first four year graduating class a profound moment for the San Joaquin Valley.
When First Lady Michelle Obama honors the class of 2009 by delivering the commencement speech, it will no doubt be time to take stock of how far this area has moved forward to educate its children. I will be there to applaud the graduates and the often ignored but always tenacious Central Valley community.
UC Merced is now a 2,700-student campus. It has breathed new life and vitality into the San Joaquin Valley and given thousands of high school students a sense of purpose. This first graduating class will showcase how the Merced campus will continue to embrace San Joaquin Valley students and others who might not otherwise attend a UC campus.
As stunned as I was to hear Virginia Fox stating it was a hoax not a hate crime...just merely a person that was killed during a robbery...sexual orientation had nothing to do with it. My representative, Wally Herger, is also on the same page. But in his case, he claims HR 1913 is a bill that will "persecute." Yep...he thinks it is really just those dangerous thought police at work.
He voted against HR 1913 saying "it takes a dangerous course to criminalize thought." He stated that the bill would provide federal funding that "will lead to the persecution of pastors, bible teachers and others Christians exercising their right to free speech and expressing their religious beliefs."
He further stated that "all crimes are hate crimes" and that "all crimes should be prosecuted equally, regardless of the motivation."
He said "hate crimes eliminated through legislation is unjust and fundamentally un-American." "...HR 1913 "would afford preferential treatment to a special class of people requiring that only some people be treated equally under law." (This sentence is just plain baffling...it makes no real sense.)
He further stated that "this violated the constitutional principle of equal justice under the law and goes directly against freedom of speech and religion." Then he said, "Under this legislation, religious leaders or members of religious groups could become subject to criminal investigation or prosecutions for expressing their constitutionally protected beliefs."
And then, "the bill would separate people based on sexual orientation, gender identity and other vague terms." He continues, "the bill was written to be vague so as not to have much limitation." "It also means federal funding could be used to implement state hate crime laws and undermine First Amendment rights."
Well...Wally Herger was always a rubber stamp voter for everything Bush. Now he voted against HR 1913...a very much needed bill...by saying it will cause persecution against Christians and infringe upon First Amendment rights.
We've got to continue to expose these idiots! So, I guess he believes if you voted Yes on 8 in California, they are gonna be gunning for you.
OK, I'll admit, I haven't heard anything about Lt. Gov. John Garamendi actually considering running for the 3rd, (although there have been rumors that he's considering the recently-vacated 10th, in addition to the 2010 gubernatorial race), but I caught wind of a facebook group urging him to consider the 3rd recently, and I think it's a great idea for a couple reasons.
The customer seemed interested in a black blouse offered for $1 at the thrift store. But instead of buying it, she set it on the front counter.
Maybe tomorrow, she told the cashier, she would have the money. Or the next day. But not now.
"That is the way people are now," said the cashier, Alicia Reyes, as she watched the middle-aged woman walk out of the store. "They just come in here and look. They just come in here to kill the time. And then they take off."
Welcome to life in Mendota - the unemployment capital of California. With a 41 percent jobless rate, the town's social fabric is tearing at the seams. Alcoholism and crime are on the rise. To save money, some mothers wash and re-use disposable diapers. Unemployed men with nothing to do wander the streets and sit on benches.
The irony is obvious: In a large swath of the nation's most productive farming region, many struggle to fill their own cupboards.
There are many factors here - the economic meltdown and struggling economy, of course. But the third year of drought conditions have devastated harvests, leading to less workers needed to pick crops. This is the sad future of a dry California. With housing cratered throughout the state, the fallback option of construction is closed off as well. And as seasonal workers stay home, the businesses that support the economy have less consumers and suffer as well.
This is a disaster area, and the signs are it will only get worse. The state jobless rate is projected to grow as high as 15% before subsiding, and will remain in double digits until the beginning of 2012. The FDIC has issued warnings to at least six state banks, telling them to increase capital levels. "Two-thirds of the state's banks will be operating under cease-and-desist orders" by the end of 2009, according to one analyst. And housing prices continue to fall off the cliff.
The Central Valley is in a Depression. The rest of the state may not be as far behind as you think.
