Delta Flows May 25, 2010
Souls for sale?
On the surface, the Nature Conservancy’s “compatible development” seems like a good idea, pragmatically accommodating the needs of both business and environmentalism. But can you really preserve land and resources by partnering with profit-driven corporations?
Maybe not.
On May 23, The Washington Post reported that one of the Nature Conservancy’s business partners is British Petroleum , the oil spill people. TNC says they partner with BP for wind energy, not for oil drilling. But according to The Post, TNC “has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years.”
TNC chief executive Mark Tercek is quoted as saying, “The oil industry is a major player in the gulf. It would be naïve to ignore them.” Someone commenting on the article pointed out that this is a false dichotomy. You can recognize BP as a major player without allying your organization with them.
What is naïve is believing that corporations will let any consideration trump their bottom line.
Some Nature Conservancy members are not happy about this level of “pragmatism.” They think TNC has taken “non-confrontational” too far. It’s time to confront.
Here in the Delta, we’ve watched the Nature Conservancy’s “pragmatism” win it a seat as a token environmental organization at the BDCP table, advising on restoration programs from which it will surely profit. We’ve watched it go along with the 2009 Comprehensive Water Package that takes big steps toward dismantling water and property rights in the Delta and small steps toward addressing California’s unsustainable water habits.
Now Governor Schwarzenegger is turning to the TNC yet again for green washing, appointing Michael Eaton to the Delta Conservancy and Anthony Saracino to the Water Commission. (The Water Commission is the resuscitated agency that will oversee the Water System Operational Improvements – dams – that get 27% of the funding that will become available if voters approve the water bond in November.)
Eaton was senior project director for the Nature Conservancy from 1995 to 2007. Saracino has been director of the California Water Program at the Nature Conservancy since 2005.
Following the dotted line of influence, we find that since leaving the Nature Conservancy in 2007, Michael Eaton has been executive director of the Resources Legacy Fund, which is funding the Governor’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
The MLPA called for an evaluation of the current state of California’s coastal waters and the creation and management of a network of marine protected areas along the California coastline. Critics say the MLPA process is effectively privatizing public trust ocean resources to pave the way for offshore oil drilling, wave energy projects and corporate aquaculture.
If Eaton’s work with the MLPA is any guide, we shouldn’t expect much ecosystem restoration or local economic vitality to come out of the Delta Conservancy. We shouldn’t expect much transparency, either. The MLPA has openly violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, banning video and photo journalists from its work sessions.
So how does all this apply to the Delta? TNC and the Resources Legacy Foundation, working with the creators of the water legislation package passed last November, the Delta Vision Blue Ribbons task force, the new Delta Conservancy, the Delta Stewardship Council, and the BDCP, have played a major part in the script to push forward its version of ecological restoration for the Delta onto California voters. They are selling it in support of the water bond as the pragmatic approach of the “co-equal goals” of restoring the Delta and managing water supplies for all of California. We cannot help noticing how this pleasant sounding phrase of environmental responsibility, “co-equal goals,” mimic’s TNC’s promotion of “compatible development” in the Gulf.
And as we all know in the Delta, these government appointed task forces, and the professional meeting attendees from groups like TNC who are appointed repeatedly to carry forth the official party line of water management in California, ignore existing Delta communities. They have actively worked to exclude Delta stakeholders in the decision making process by consistently saying that ideas brought forth from the Delta are not worthy of consideration. This is what happened with the Delta Vision process, CalFed, and is happening with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. (Government processes that include stakeholder meetings in which recommendations made for protecting the Delta by Delta people are written down and filed away in a drawer because they aren’t the answers officials want to hear, is not dialogue or true engagement.)
Thus, as seen with the Marine Life Protection Act, local communities have been alienated and local knowledge ignored in order to superimpose the new environmental model for California’s water future onto the people already here.
And this is exactly why the TNC/Delta Vision/Delta Conservancy/Delta Stewardship Council/BDCP model for water management for California fails. It doesn’t acknowledge the relationship between the environment and the people of its commons – the people who are the stewards of the Delta. It doesn’t meet the needs of environmental justice communities that need access to clean drinking water. It doesn’t make more water for the system. It doesn’t protect Delta fisheries. But, through the bond that TNC and friends are promoting, our general obligation debt will increase by $800,000,000 annually for thirty years.
Second, this model for managing the Delta, diverting even more water from the Delta with new engineering, all under the guise of new management standards for flows, letting islands go (which will put Delta urban populations at risk), and promoting a return to predominately Delta wetlands (which will require even more surface water than Delta diverters use presently and very well could increase methyl mercury production for fisheries), has never been implemented successfully anywhere in the world. We have yet to find a river system that has been improved by diverting water from it. But we are supposed to trust the TNC model and vote for an $11.4 billion water bond to fund implementation of the model, even though California is broke.
As we have seen with BP in the Gulf, people running highly engineered systems that take from the environment promise a lot, but can fail in major ways to deliver on those promises. While the Nature Conservancy did some great work a generation ago, and still manages some worthy projects in the present, they and their employees who move into related government appointed positions, are too willing to allow for the sell out of communities to corporations which desire to control natural resources – like in the Gulf of Mexico, on the California Coast, and in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
This type of corporate environmentalism –heavily engineered systems that are mismanaged by regulatory agencies that fail to respect, engage, and protect local communities — has little to do with protecting the Earth. It’s about protecting corporate profits and giving the corporate status quo a green appearance.
Isenberg: still stealing the show
by Brett Baker
Delta Stewardship Council Chair Phil Isenberg has been the point man moving from appointment to appointment in the evolving Delta planning process, continually using his interpretations of California Water Law and Public Policy to shape and direct the debate over the Delta. From discussions with lawmakers behind closed doors as a lobbyist for the Irvine Ranch Water District to public forums as chair of the Delta Vision to his most recent appointment as Chair of the Delta Stewardship Council, Isenberg has been working hard to muddy the thinking of folks directly involved in the Delta planning process as well as the general public.
In November, he wrote an op-ed to provide political cover for Darrell Steinberg after the passage of the Comprehensive Water Package. He has appeared and testified before countless legislative committees to support and justify bad policy, all the while requesting increased appropriations of taxpayer dollars to fund the process and paying lip service to transparency and the public trust doctrine.
At the April 22nd meeting of the DSC, with DWR and Resources agency staff playing their supporting roles, Isenberg was in his element.
After the usual formalities, introductions and roll call, Keith Coolidge, Interim Chief Deputy Executive Officer DWR, gave a Delta briefing to set the stage. Coolidge gave an overview of Supply and Demand In California’s Water System, citing tree-ring studies. How would this council know that tree-ring studies have actually been shown to have a weak correlation with hydrologic conditions? Many factors may influence tree growth. Also there are statistical weaknesses associated with analyzing an individual organism and extrapolating conditions for an entire region, let alone a state with as much climate variability as California.
With respect to demand, Coolidge claimed that it will inevitably increase as population continues to grow. The discussion regarding supply is continually centered around increasing urban demand, while the vast majority of our state’s water, and more specifically the water exported from the Delta, is used for agricultural irrigation.
Some members of the Council have extremely limited knowledge of California water and especially the Delta, and they will most likely be making decisions based on the poor PowerPoint presentations and consultant analyses that will be continually be paraded in front of them throughout this process.
After the presentation, it was time for questions. Council member Hank Nordoff had some good questions about the willingness of ag users to sell water to urban users. Isenberg seemed to support such sales, saying they were a traditional short term strategy, but he admitted that perhaps that policy needs revisiting.
Nordoff also asked about the price per acre foot of San Diego urban water vs. ag water. This question was thrown around like a hot potato from council member to staff and back again before Executive Director Joe Grindstaff finally said there is basically no difference between what Kern County Water agency users and MWD users pay for their “raw water,” but you see, urban users have to pay all those administrative, distribution, and treatment costs. Glad we cleared that up.
Isenberg asked for any final questions and right on cue, Gloria Gray asked about water rights. Isenberg just happened to have a PowerPoint presentation of his own all ready to go on the overhead projector, and he proceeded to give a run down of California’s water rights system. He started with Pueblo Rights handed out by the Spanish Government, went on to riparian rights, and followed up with appropriative rights and a brief overview of the Public Trust Doctrine and Area of Origin assurances. Don Nottoli, Sacramento County Supervisor and Chair of the Delta Protection Commission asked Isenberg about his views on whether or not water rights should be considered property rights. Isenberg asserted that water right were “akin” to property rights and therefore might not warrant the same assurances as property in a court of law.
Such is Isenberg’s position that his opinion regarding water rights carries a disproportionate amount of weight.
There was a great deal of other discussion about technicalities and logistical issues facing the Council. They have to define the scope of their work; establish policy objectives; decide whether it is appropriate for them to take positions on bills in the state legislature; and coordinate with State agencies (DFG, DWR, and State Lands Commission-SLC) as well as federal agencies (DOI, NMFS, USFWS).
At the April meeting, the DSC also discussed acquiring an independent contract consultant to analyze the BDCP. First they had to define “independent.” There was a good deal of discussion as to excluding folks that had worked on BDCP, Delta Vision and CALFED. But excluding them would leave very few “competent” consultant agencies to choose from. Also, considering the tight timeframe for producing a Delta Plan, it would be next to impossible to crest the steep learning curve required to gain a coherent understanding of the Delta’s hydrological and ecological system.
It’s no surprise that the DSC ended up selecting CH2M Hill, even though that consultant had worked on the BDCP.
Delta interests remain under-represented and under the microscope, with in-Delta water users fighting off claims that their lands lack rights to water. Salmon fisherman continue to be demonized as environmental extremists for wanting to protect and preserve their way of life, and Delta and north state taxpayers are being forced to fund the means to their demise. Meanwhile, the pumps in Tracy keep humming along, and exporters continue to cry about allocations, throwing out percentages of water that doesn’t exist.
You can catch the DSC show this week, May 27th and May 28th at the Secretary of State Auditorium, 1500 11th Street in Sacramento. Tell Chair Isenberg and his supporting cast what you think of his Delta illusions.
3rd Annual Waldo Music Fest
The Waldo Holt San Joaquin Wildlife Conservancy will have its 3rd annual music festival Saturday June 5, 2010, from noon to 6 p.m. at 3536 Rainier Avenue.
Enjoy your favorite musicians, meet your friends, bid in the auction, have some great food, and help save our wildlife!
Musicians Dirk Hamilton; Dave Halford; Water Bros.; and Snap Jackson & The Knock on Wood Players will perform!
Salmon protections eased at request of water agencies
Contra Costa Times-5/26/10
By Mike Taugher
To read about this important ruling that could jeopordize Delta fisheries
Link:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_15161932?source=rss&nclick_check=1
