"On June 6, 2011, the Fort Calhoun pressurized water nuclear reactor 20 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska entered emergency status due to imminent flooding from the Missouri River. A day later, there was an electrical fire requiring plant evacuation.
Then, on June 8th, NRC event reports confirmed the fire resulted in the loss of cooling for the reactor's spent fuel pool. The discussion includes specific details of the technical failures at Fort Calhoun, the risks of coolant loss at overcrowded "spent" fuel pools, and the national hazards of nuclear facilities along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, and other water sites during the current period of floods and climate change."
While much of America enjoyed an extended holiday, it wasn't a seamless weekend for everyone in the region. San Diego CityBeat notes that at the San Onofre Nuclear Station, 70 gallons of sulfuric acid were spilled -- the fifth spill in just over two years. As CityBeat notes, there was a hydrazine spill in February 2011 ("Hydrazine is highly toxic and dangerously unstable"), and two much worse spills of sulfuric acid -- two spills in the same July 2010 day, and another spill in April of 2009.
The spill comes one month to the day after hundreds of locals attended a public meeting to voice concerns about safety at San Onofre, where an on-site safety inspector from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told the crowd that despite limited progress recently, "San Onofre is the leader still in safety concerns reported to the NRC."
Forty years after passage of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), it's become fashionable to bash the landmark law as a 1970's relic that is ripe for reform. Those who would limit the effectiveness of CEQA argue that the law is a "job killer" and an impediment to economic growth. Overhaul CEQA to limit public participation, as a Republican-led business group recently demanded of Governor Brown and the legislature, and California's economy will miraculously recover.
They couldn't be more mistaken.
As President of the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California and Chair of California Unions for Reliable Energy (CURE), no one is more interested in creating jobs for Californians than I am. But I'm not interested in creating just any jobs. I want the kind of safe, sustainable and skilled jobs that will support workers and their communities over the long-term, and that are critical to the State's future.
Since 1997, when a coalition of building trades and utility unions came together to establish CURE, we have done more to improve the safety and reduce the environmental impacts of new power plants than anyone in California. Through the CEQA process, CURE has helped to cut smog-forming pollutants in half, increased the use of recycled water for cooling systems and pushed for groundbreaking controls on toxic air pollution as the standard for all new power plants.
In America, today, there are three kinds of drivers: those who look at the other gas pumps down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much that guy's spending on gas", those who look at their own pump down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much I'm spending on gas" - and those who are doing both at the same time.
Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?
What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?
To put it another way: why isn't all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
I just bought a new car and will never need to buy gasoline again. The reason I have been able to happily drive past increasingly expensive gas stations isn't because I haven't been driving the car, it's because the car I bought runs entirely on electricity.
My decision to purchase an electric car was driven by a variety of reasons, but the simplest reason was this: The cost of filling up with gas is just too much. I'm not just writing about the price we're paying at the pump; I am also referring to the cost to our future generations, our national security, and our economy. As a veteran, I have seen the toll these costs take and I am doing what I can to stop contributing to the problem.
As one might expect with a screen name of "California Condor" I am a nature lover, and a user of the California State Park System. (I am an amateur nature and wildlife photographer who has been fortunate enough to have had some of my photographs published. One of these was of one of our parks: http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2003... ) The threatened closure of these parks causes me personal anguish.
The California park system is extensive, and I can't profess to having visited even half the parks in the system, or on the closure list. Personally, I have a preference for mountains over beaches, but believe in protecting as much as we can.
Statement of Warner Chabot, CEO, CA League of Conservation Voters
The California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV), rejects the latest round of the misleading campaign mail that questions Debra Bowen's integrity, her commitment to the environment and the public interest.
These attacks are unfair and unwarranted. Bowen has fought for the public interest, the public's full involvement in our democracy, and the environment her entire career. She's never given in to special interests of any kind, and has always stood up to big polluters like the oil industry.
That's why Debra Bowen is the only candidate to receive the endorsement of both the Sierra Club and CLCV.
Bowen earned a 96% lifetime score from CLCV's Environmental Scorecard on environmental issues while serving in the state legislature. Of all the candidates, Bowen brings the greatest depth of experience and achievement on a wider range of environmental issues. She fought for laws to oppose offshore drilling, fight climate change, promote alternative energy and to clean up the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach. With now-Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, she passed a landmark environmental justice bill to protect poor communities from becoming environmental dumping grounds.
We believe Debra Bowen's experience and integrity will make her a highly respected and effective environmental champion and leader in Congress.
There seems to be a bit of confusion at Oversight Headquarters as to what Friday's field hearing in Bakersfield is going to be about. Last Friday, the hearing was "Pathways To Energy Independence: Hydraulic Fracturing And Other New Technologies." By Monday, it had changed to "Can New And Safe Oil Extraction Technologies Help Address Gas Prices?" And yesterday, it was back to "Pathways To Energy Independence: Hydraulic Fracturing And Other New Technologies." The renewed focus comes with word that the witness lineup for Issa's hearing will be Bakersfield's Republican state assemblymember and four representatives from oil and gas companies, including major Republican donors and representatives from Big Oil front groups.
Back in December, Darrell Issa sent his now-infamous letter to corporate lobbyists and industry groups asking them to recommend hearings for the Oversight Committee. Among the recipients were Big Oil groups with benign names representing a wide range of notorious organizations. For example, the Independent Petroleum Association of America. In its response, the IPAA focused on rolling back EPA regulations and streamlining the permitting process for both offshore and onshore drilling. Who is the IPAA?
In the midst of over a year of energy disasters around the world, Californians have been given a reason to celebrate and look forward to a safer energy future. Today Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a historic mandate that will put California back at the forefront of the clean energy movement.
Senate Bill X1 - 2 (Simitian), better known as SB 2X, mandates that providers of electricity in California increase their supply of renewable energy to 33 percent by the year 2020. Iterations of the bill limped along the past three years, once making it all the way to former Governor Schwarzenegger's desk where it fell victim to his veto pen; other times it didn't even round up enough votes of support to pass out of the legislature.
Its never good news to hear a state has a budget deficit. But this recent article in The Economist made me a little happy for a couple of reasons. One, I was really tired of hearing conservatives (like Meg Whitman in 2010) praise Texas as a model for California. So hopefully that won't happen again. Two, its a vindication that California is not broken just because were lazy or some other variety of insults hurled our way from the other 49. It shows that regardless of the economic system, the bipartisan consensus was over-reliance on a massive bubble.
Many, if not all, will argue my view that the left's model of government-as-charity is unsustainable. But the the progressive case against the conservative model of government-as-corporation has been proven with the demise of Texas's "economic miracle." So there are a few lessons here, and most demonstrate why Texas and California can't be compared now or in the future.
1) The Dutch Disease. California is the third largest oil producer but due to our economy and size we are not an energy exporter. An oil tax exactly modelled on the one in Texas would generate revenue but cannot be a large enough cash stream to support our state. Texas is still over-reliant on its energy sector. It will receive a windfall with the current mideast crisis of the day. Don't be surprised if this contributes to a recovery and is used as proof that the Texas Model "works." California conversely will suffer economically due to high gas prices. People should be aware that the ups and downs of the energy market don't demonstrate which system is better only that both systems are not properly buffered for it.
2) Environment. An issue conservatives cringe at in California and abhor in Texas. But the thing is, our mild climate and natural beauty can't be found or replicated in Texas. As oil is to that state, the environment is a resource to us. Its a strong enough resource in fact that the wealthy will continue to live here regardless of the tax situation (much like they live in France).
3) Taxes. Our environment opens the door to higher taxes on the wealthy as long as its packaged as the price to live here. But it doesn't open the door to high taxes on ALL corporations. Companies that are high tech and want to attract people that want to live the California lifestyle can afford those taxes. Companies that require low-cost labor and are face stronger market competition (the non-Apples) cannot. Texas does grow more low-cost labor jobs and manufacturing. Granted there is not a high margin on that production but high-end producers that California is known for cannot employ all of us. Both no-taxes Texas and higher taxes California are too broad brush. A more nuanced corporate tax code may be needed.
4) Education. As the article points out, Texas aims to entice intellectual talent with no income taxes and more jobs instead of growing it natively with its education system. Its definetely a cheaper way to go, but is it sustainable? California's education system currently relies on its upper institutions to draw talent and hopes that its lifestyle and environment will keep them after graduation. I think California is the model to bet on, not (just) because of state pride, but Texas opens itself up to a race to the bottom situation.
5) Jobs. The Texas Model trumpets no income taxes and uses this to draw talent from across the nation. California, often called (incorrectly) the highest taxed state, uses taxes to provide services that higher educated/higher income people come to expect - well maintained roads, good schools, beautiful parks etc. The Texas job numbers were high last year but it appears that those were primarily lower-income jobs (some numbers said 2/3rds of all jobs created). Of course those are important jobs but not revenue generators or economic growth contributors like high tech. Bottomline, Texas plans to attract the lowest bidder (those that don't want to pay taxes). Like Wal-mart shoppers they don't expect frills or high quality products and services. California is like (insert expensive store of your choice, I won't play favorites) it gives you high end stuff and you expect to enjoy the experience not get the deal and rush out. But unquestionably its expensive, Californians need to decide which "store" do we want to be?
I have some thoughts on the issue but open it to all, what is California to do next?
Evan Low is one of a rare breed-a true public servant and a progressive leader we all need to start paying attention to.
For those who don't know him, Evan is a local boy done good. A Silicon Valley native, Evan graduated from De Anza Community College and San Jose State before graduating from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. While attending college, Evan served on the Santa Clara Commission on Senior Care, and also worked with the Volunteer Center of Silicon Valley and the Campbell Chamber of Commerce.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of a CEQA rollback would be Chevron, formerly Standard Oil of California. Chevron owns many oilfields throughout the state, and has been seeking to expand the company’s Richmond refinery to allow processing of heavier, dirtier crude oil, yielded by increasingly depleted oil fields.
The refinery expansion was halted in 2009 after a coalition of community and environmental justice groups used CEQA to successfully sue over public health impacts. In 2010, Chevron lost the appeal.
Got a simple little story for you today of a multinational corporation that wants to build a great big cement plant in North Carolina really, really, bad, and the local opposition to what appears to be a corrupt and distorted decision process.
Two local activists in particular have drawn the ire of Titan Cement, the Grecian corporation who seeks to build the plant-and because the Company doesn't like what the activists have been saying about what the impact of that plant will likely be or how the deal's going down...they're suing Kayne Darrell and Dr. David Hill, residents of North Carolina's New Hanover County, and the two folks who are doing the complaining the Company dislike the most.
The Company further claims that they were slandered and defamed by the damaging statements that were uttered by the two at a county commissioners' meeting and that they have lost goodwill and the chance to do business with certain parties as a result of these statements.
But what if everything the Defendants said was not only true...but provably so-and the Company was, maybe...just looking to shut people up by sending teams of lawyers after them?
As I said, it's a simple story today-but it's a good one.
(Cross-posted from Groundswell, the California League of Conservation Voters blog.)
We are so close to ensuring a clean energy future for California. Later this week, the California State Assembly will vote on Senate Bill (SB) 2X, which would increase renewable energy in California. With the help of nearly 700 emails and calls from California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV) members, the State Senate passed SB 2X two weeks ago. Now we need you to take action to get the bill to Governor Brown's desk.
Because this bill is so important, CLCV launched a new tool this week to help you contact your legislators. Our new "click to call" feature makes calling your assemblymember simple. Just enter your phone number, and our system will dial your assemblymember for you. We provide a suggested script to make it easy. The whole process takes 2-3 minutes, and is so important since phone calls have a more powerful impact than emails to legislators.
SB 2X will put utilities on a path to 33% renewable energy by 2020. The mandates set by SB 2X will result in a reduction of global warming pollution from natural gas, oil, and coal power plants, and in improved air quality for California’s families.
A 33% renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for all utilities would continue to expand California’s renewable energy market and its clean technology industry, creating new green jobs for Californians.
By 2020, a 33% RPS will result in 13,000 megawatts of new renewable power—enough to meet the electricity needs of 6 million typical homes. Action is needed now to make sure the opportunity doesn’t pass us by so please take a couple minutes and call your assemblymember today to urge support for renewable energy requirements.
Ray Hiemstra, the associate director of Orange County Coastkeeper, has written an article," MLPA's Public-Private Partnership Protects Oceans During Lean Budget Times," that includes a number of false claims in his attempt to extol the virtues of the private foundation funding behind Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative (http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/taxonomy/term/638).
First, he claims, "Of course, the foundations involved do support the MLPA and the idea of setting aside a network of protected waters to ensure the long-term health of our ocean and marine life. So yes, they have an agenda: they want to implement the law."
That is simply not true: the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation and MLPA advocates have gone out of their way to NOT implement the law.
He completely fails to address the essential problem with the privatized MLPA Initiative: the process has taken water pollution, oil spills and drilling, military testing, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction, wave energy projects and all other impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in its bizarre concept of marine protection. The MLPA Initiative doesn't "protect" the ocean!
Hiemstra and other MLPA Initiative advocates should actually read the law. The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a comprehensive, landmark law that was signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999. The MLPA, as amended in 2004, is very broad in its scope.
The law was intended to not only restrict or prohibit fishing in a network of "marine protected areas," but to restrict or prohibit other human activities including coastal development and water pollution.
"Coastal development, water pollution, and other human activities threaten the health of marine habitat and the biological diversity found in California's ocean waters," the law states in Fish and Game Code Section 2851, section c.
The law also broadly defines a "marine protected area" (MPA) as "a named, discrete geographic marine or estuarine area seaward of the mean high tide line or the mouth of a coastal river, including any area of inertial or sub tidal terrain, together with its overlying water and associated flora and fauna that has been designated by law, administrative action, or voter initiative to protect or conserve marine life and habitat" (Fish and Game Code 2852, section c).
Furthermore, the law also defines a "Marine life reserve," as "a marine protected area in which all extractive activities, including the taking of marine species, and, at the discretion of the commission and within the authority of the commission, other activities that upset the natural ecological functions of the area, are prohibited. While, to the extent feasible, the area shall be open to the public for managed enjoyment and study, the area shall be maintained to the extent practicable in an undisturbed and unpolluted state" (Fish and Game Code 2852, section d).
Unlike the original language of the MLPA, "all extractive activities" are not prohibited under Schwarzenegger's MLPA Initiative - just fishing and gathering. Neither are "other activities that upset the natural ecological functions of the area" prohibited under the current fake marine protected areas.
In addition, the MLPA Initiative, in violation of the original law, does nothing to maintain "to the extent practicable" the marine protected areas "in an undisturbed and unpolluted state." Again, the implementation of the law under the MLPA focuses exclusively on fishing and gathering.
Fake marine reserves are not "Yosemites of the sea"
Second, Hiemstra states, "California is working to create the nation's first science-based, statewide ocean park system as part of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA). A group of non-profit foundations is helping to pay for the public planning process to ensure the state can move ahead with critically needed ocean protections during these tight times."
His claim that the MLPA aims to create "ocean parks" is without any basis in fact. In actually, these are not "parks." Recreational fishing is allowed - and in most cases encouraged - in regional, state and national parks. The fake marine protected areas set up under the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history, Arnold Schwarzenegger, are no-fishing zones - that is essentially all they do.
The MLPA Initiative does not create "Yosemites of the Sea," as corporate environmental NGO representatives constantly claim. You can fish in Yosemite and other national parks, but you can't fish in the initiative's "no take" zones.
Also, oil drilling, wave energy projects, military testing, energy development and water pollution and other extractive activities are prohibited in the National Parks and other parks, unlike the fake marine protected areas created under the MLPA Initiative.
Natural science or political science?
Third, the claim that the initiative is "science-based" is also highly questionable. If it was "truly science based," why were no tribal scientists ever invited to serve on the MLPA Science Advisory Teams in the seven years since the MLPA process was privatized?
Mike Belchik, fisheries biologist and head of the Yurok Fisheries Program, criticized the "flawed assumptions and flawed science" underlying the MLPA during the California Fish and Game Commission meeting in Sacramento on February 2. "The idea that to get a natural baseline you subtract humans has been largely discredited," emphasized Belchik.
Showing their utter disregard for science, MLPA officials turned down a request by Yurok Tribe lawyers and scientists last August to make a presentation to the MLPA Science Advisory Team. The Yurok Fisheries Department alone has a staff of over 70 people. Among other data, they were going to present data of test results from other marine reserves regarding mussels.
"The data would have shown that there was not a statistical difference in the diversity of species from the harvested and un-harvested areas," wrote John Corbett, Yurok Tribe Senior Attorney, in a letter to the Science Advisory Team on January 12. "The presentation would have encompassed the work of Smith, J.R. Gong and RF Ambrose, 2008, 'The Impacts of Human Visitation on Mussel Bed Communities along the California Coast: Are Regulatory Marine Reserves Effective in Protecting these Communities.'"
During the historic direct action protest by a coalition of over 50 Tribes and their allies in Fort Bragg, Frankie Joe Myers, Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition activist, exposed the institutional racism and refusal to incorporate Tribal science that underlies the fake "science" of the MLPA process.
"The MLPA process completely disregards tribal gathering rights and only permits discussion of commercial and recreational harvest," he said. "The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism. It doesn't recognize Tribes as political entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists."
Also, if the process is truly "science-based," why does the initiative discard the results of any scientists who disagree with the MLPA's pre-ordained conclusions? These include the peer reviewed study by Dr. Ray Hilborn, Dr. Boris Worm and 18 other scientists, featured in Science magazine in July 2009, that concluded that the California current had the lowest rate of fishery exploitation of any place studied on the planet (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5940/578.abstract).
"Much of the motivation for the MLPA was concern about the state of the groundfish stocks - there is clear evidence that these can be rebuilt without MPAs resulting from the MLPA that have only recently begun to be implemented," Hilborn said. "The benefits of the MPAs established under the MLPA will be primarily to have some areas of high abundance of species with limited mobility."
This is not the first time that Dr. Hilborn has criticized the MLPA process. In 2006, Hilborn and others reviewed the MLPA model for size and spacing of MPAs and found: "It appears to us that those prescriptions were pulled out of the air, based on intuitive reasoning."
Ten big questions about the MLPA Initiative
Below is a transcript of my testimony before the committee in which I pose the 10 questions that proponents of the controversial, privately funded process refuse to answer. I challenge Hiemstra and other MLPA advocates to answer these questions.
The one I'm most interested in hearing the answer to is this one: Why was Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, allowed to make decisions as the chair of the BRTF for the South Coast, a panel that is supposedly designed to "protect" the ocean, when she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast? How can anybody possibly consider a process overseen by a lobbyist for big oil to be legitimate?
Here is my testimony:
Testimony before the Joint Legislative Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture at the State Capitol in Sacramento on February 17 focusing on the South Coast Study Region of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative:
Assemblymember Chesbro, thanks so much for convening today's hearing.
In my 28 years of journalism covering fish and water in California, the MLPA Initiative is the most corrupt process that I have ever covered. Here are the 10 questions I have posed to MLPA Initiative advocates and officials regarding the many flaws in the South Coast MLPA process. To date, they have failed to answer these questions.
1. Why did Schwarzenegger and MLPA officials install an oil industry lobbyist, a marina developer, a real estate executive and other corporate operatives with numerous conflicts of interest on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast to remove Indian Tribes, fishermen and seaweed harvesters from the water by creating so-called "marine protected areas" (MPAS)?
2. Why was Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, allowed to make decisions as the chair of the BRTF for the South Coast, a panel that is supposedly designed to "protect" the ocean, when she has called for new oil drilling off the California coast?
3. Why has the MLPA Initiative taken water pollution, oil spills and drilling, military testing, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in its bizarre concept of marine protection?
4. Why is a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, being allowed to privatize ocean resource management in California through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the DFG?
5. Why do MLPA staff and the California Fish and Game Commission refuse to hear the pleas of the representatives of the California Fish and Game Wardens Association, who oppose the creation of any new MPAs until they have enough funding for wardens to patrol existing reserves?
6. Why were there no Tribal scientists on the MLPA Science Advisory Team and why were there no Tribal representatives on the Blue Ribbon Task Forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast or South Coast MLPA Study Regions?
7. Why does the initiative discard the results of any scientists who disagree with the MLPA's pre-ordained conclusions? These include the peer reviewed study by Dr. Ray Hilborn, Dr. Boris Worm and 18 other scientists, featured in Science magazine in July 2009, that concluded that the California current had the lowest rate of fishery exploitation of any place studied on the planet.
8. Why did the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force hold illegal secret meetings, including those held in April 2007 and on November 3, 2008, December 10, 2008, February 25, 2009, October 20, 21 and 22, 2009, as revealed in a 25 page document presented to the California Fish and Game Commission on February 2?
9. Why did it take a lawsuit by a coalition of fishing organizations to get the emails and correspondence by MLPA officials documenting these private, non-public meetings disclosed to the public?
10. Why did it take the outrage over the arrest of an independent journalist last spring to open work sessions of the MLPA to coverage by video-journalists?
I urge you and other Legislators to think hard about these questions and begin a formal investigation into the violation of laws that may have occurred under the MLPA as soon as possible.
In a time when Lester Brown is writing about a World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse it seems that the political forces in California make for strange reading. Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose overall environmental polices were as destructive as any CA governor, made an impassioned speech this week on the need for strong action on climate change. It may be the only environmental issue that he got right.
At the same time, Representative Jim Costa was voting with the Republicans to continue subsides to the petroleum industry... subsidies that cost the US Taxpayers Billions a year. It is yet one more piece of evidence that cutting the federal budget is not really a goal, but rather a question of whose ox is going to be gored. In this case, Republicans in Congress are making sure that their ox is protected.
Marine 'guardian' wants less regs for big oil, more for public
by Dan Bacher
Catherine Reheis-Boyd, a big oil lobbyist who serves as president of the Western States Petroleum Association, claims that the oil industry is too heavily regulated in California.
Citing President Obama's order to federal agencies to review existing regulations and to streamline or eliminate those regulations "that are not smart, unnecessary, unreasonably costly or no longer needed," Reheis-Boyd, argues for reducing "costly" regulations imposed on the oil industry in a statement, "Review of Regulations a Welcome Development," on the association's website (http://www.wspa.org).
"Few industries are more heavily regulated than California's petroleum industry," says Reheis-Boyd. "While the environment, workers, and consumers have benefited from many of these regulations, other regulations are duplicative, no longer needed or are unduly expensive. They often require costly solutions to problems that could be solved more easily and less expensively if our industry had the flexibility to do so."
"California, with an unemployment rate stuck at more than 12 percent, would do well to take a serious look at reducing the crushing load of regulations it imposes on businesses. Surely there are ways to ease that burden, promote job creation and restore economic vitality without putting the environment or consumers at risk," she notes.
However, this call for less regulation of the oil industry is extremely hypocritical, when one considers that Reheis-Boyd wears another hat as well: "marine guardian." Ex-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger made her the chair of his Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force for California's South Coast and a member of the task forces for the North Central Coast and North Coast.
During this widely-contested process, she and other task force members went out of their way to take water pollution, oil spills and drilling, military testing, wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture, habitat destruction and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in the so-called marine protected areas created under the privately funded initiative.
This unjust implementation of the law under Schwarzenegger violated both the letter and the spirit of the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999, a landmark law that aimed to comprehensively protect the ocean by creating a network of marine protected areas along the California coast.
Her attitude is to impose the burden of "protection" on recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and the public, who are more heavily regulated in California on any place on the planet, and let everybody else off the hook.
Reheis-Boyd wants new oil drilling off California coast
At the same time she oversaw the creation of fake marine protected areas in California, Reheis-Boyd repeatedly called for new oil drilling off the California coast. Reheis-Boyd told the San Francisco Chronicle on March 31, 2010 that she hopes the Obama administration "will eventually allow new drilling off the California coast." (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/31/MNU41CO3O4.DTL)
"We are disappointed," Reheis-Boyd said, in response to Obama's March 30, 2010 announcement that the U.S. will begin drilling for oil in the waters off the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico - and NOT in the waters off California. "When you look at the resources here, they're considerable."
Critics of her appointment to the panels believe that she has been placed there to protect the oil industry's interests - and to make sure that so-called "Marine Protected Areas" don't conflict with the operation of existing offshore oil rigs or the installation of new rigs if the Obama administration lifts the ban on oil drilling off the California coast.
"There are more than 10 billion barrels of crude oil reserves located off the California coast and huge reserves of natural gas," Reheis-Boyd said last year in a "A Message from WSPA" on the oil industry group's website (http://www.wspa.org/wspa-message.aspx?id=17). "Our industry has demonstrated over the past 40 years it can and does operate safely in the marine environment."
I find it beyond shameful that the "leaders" of corporate "environmental" NGOs who claim that the MLPA process is "open, inclusive and transparent" refuse to speak out against the travesty of having a big oil lobbyist chair the South Coast MLPA task force and sit on the task forces for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
Corruption, conflicts of interest taint MLPA process
The MLPA process has been ridden with corruption, conflicts of interest and institutional racism since Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger privatized the initiative in 2004 by directing the Department of Fish and Game to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the shadowy Resources Legacy Foundation, a private corporation.
The initiative, until June 2010, made no provisions whatsoever to protect Tribal gathering rights. No Tribal representatives were appointed to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force until 2010 and no Tribal scientists have ever been appointed to the MLPA Science Advisory Team, in spite of the fact that the Yurok and other Tribes have large natural resources departments that employ numerous scientists.
The MLPA officials have violated numerous state, federal and international laws, including the California Public Records Act, the California Administrative Procedure Act, the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
However, the corruption and violations of law are finally being exposed. George Osborn, spokesman for the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO), on February 2 presented the California Fish and Game Commission with a groundbreaking 25 page report containing numerous emails and correspondence documenting illegal private, non-public meetings of Marine Life Protection Act Initiative officials.
"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 Coastside Fishing Club, United Anglers of Southern California, and Robert C. 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.
To see the entire set of BRTF private meeting documents, go to the San Diego Freedivers website:http://www.sandiegofreedivers.com/MLPABRTFofflinemeetingdocumentation.pdf
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.
