Delta Described as “Toilet Bowl” in Ad
by Tim Daly
News10/KXTV
Copyright 2009 / All Rights Reserved
To read the article on-line click here.
To see the interview click here.
STOCKTON, CA – Readers of the Stockton Record received a four- page ad in Monday’s paper which steps up the state’s water war.
The ad was paid for by an organization called Families Protecting The Valley. The group is made up of farmers from south of Merced County.
Although the group’s goal seems to be reducing the amount of treated wastewater that goes into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from cities like Sacramento, Stockton, and Fairfield, critics aren’t buying it.
“It’s very cleverly put together. We give them credit for being clever, but not for accuracy. What they’re going to do is harm the delta,” said San Joaquin Farm Bureau Director Bruce Blodgett.
Blodgett said the real effort of farm groups in the southern half of the state is the creation of a peripheral canal. He accused groups like Families Protecting the Valley of claiming fish kills in the delta are due to pollution rather than exports. He claimed, as did Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of the group Restore the Delta, that if those groups can make exporting water seem harmless, that clears the path to export even more via a canal.
“Their ultimate goal is to build a canal. They want to divert attention from how exports affect the delta,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.
She and Blodgett both claimed a canal around the delta would severely harm that body of water.
“This has always been a freshwater system. They want it to be a saltwater marsh. That will harm the entire state when that happens,” said Blodgett.
“It (canal) would take our last fresh source out of the delta, leaving us with stagnant polluted waters that would never meet standards,” said Barrigan-Parrilla.
A spokesman for Families Protecting the Valley denied the group’s main goal was a canal, but instead a cleaner delta. The group also put newspaper ads on the issue in the Contra Costa Times newspaper last week.
by tdaly@news10.net
News10/KXTV
Copyright 2009 / All Rights Reserved
RESTORE THE DELTA Calls on Phony Astroturf Group to Stop Using Its Materials
“Residents and advocates of the Delta region have a right to know when they’re being hoodwinked,” said Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director for Restore the Delta. “The use of our material to further a cause that is completely counter to our mission is repugnant and must stop now. With ‘Friends of the Delta’ like these, who needs enemies?”
The so-called “Friends of the Delta” has inserted materials from Restore the Delta in a briefing packet it is distributing http://www.friendsofthedelta.org/images/Complete%20Briefing%20Packet.pdf in what may be an effort to deceive readers into believing they share a common goal with Restore the Delta and other Delta advocates.
Based on initial investigation, the phony “Friends of the Delta” appears to be headquartered in the offices of the Sheldon Group, a public relations firm representing Southern California water interests and developers interested in seeing a peripheral canal built to divert water from Northern to Southern and Central California.
Fake coalitions are nothing new in water politics. Earlier this year, news accounts exposed the Latino Water Coalition as another “Astroturf” group “formed as a nonprofit and registered by influential Sacramento lobbyist George Soares, whose A-list of about three dozen agricultural clients include the California Rice Commission, the California Cotton Growers and Ginners Associations, the Friant Water Authority, the Nisei Farmers League and The Grape and Tree Fruit League, among others. The group has been billed as the protector of the jobs of Latino farm workers, although labor leader Dolores Huerta and others have denounced it as a front group.” (Capitol Weekly, 10/01/09)
Restore the Delta is calling on the counterfeit “Friends of the Delta” to cease and desist using RTD material in its propaganda. In addition, RTD calls upon this front-group to reveal their true patrons in the “About Us” section of their website and all collateral material.
What Others Are Saying About the Water Package
Senator Mark DeSaulnier (D- Antioch): “I’m against the peripheral canal. Spending that money on conveyance is the height of stupidity… There is a lot this water package could’ve accomplished for the Delta that it didn’t… Now, Californians will have to consider whether they can afford an $11.14 billion bond that would primarily benefit big cities and big agribusiness in Southern California. I don’t think we can, or should afford it. Delta residents have everything to lose, and nothing to gain if this bond passes.” (“Controversial water bill awaits Governor’s signature,” Martinez News-Gazette, November 5, 2009)
Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis): “Shame on all of us.”
Late Monday, just before the Senate approved the bond, Senator Lois Wolk, D-Davis, said “the bond would not come close to the total cost of the Delta fix – upward of $50 billion, at the high end – and told lawmakers that their constituents, the ratepayers, would be stuck with the bill.” (“Delta council bill is OK’d,” Stockton Record, November 4, 2009)
Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-San Ramon): “There’s no more fat left to cut out of the budget.” (“California Legislature passes long-awaited water reforms, San Jose Mercury News, November 4, 2009)
Assemblymember Alyson Huber (D-El Dorado Hills): “I opposed the water package because it creates a new layer of bureaucrats who will make decisions on water that will impact the communities I represent, without allowing us to have a voice. I opposed the bond, especially because of the billions in pork for LA. This dead of night pork giveaway is exactly why voters give us low marks.” (Statement from Assemblymember Alyson Huber, November 4, 2009)
Assemblymember Mariko Yamada (D-Davis): “I voted ‘NO’ on the whole bill package because of insufficient recognition of senior northern California and Delta water rights, imbalanced and non-elected representation in Delta governance, the lack of clear language explaining the interrelationships among a revamped Delta Protection Commission, the new Delta Stewardship Council and Delta Conservancy, and the remaining question as to what role a new Delta ‘Watermaster’ would play.”
” This is not the time to put an $11.14 billion bond before the voters. It’s fiscally irresponsible in my opinion. The general fund is basically bankrupt, and we’re going to have to make additional reductions in services to vulnerable Californians.” (Statement from Assemblymember Mariko Yamada, November 4, 2009)
Assemblymember Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine) : “I believe this measure is so bulked up with pork that it is going to sink under the weight of its own pork when voters are asked to vote on it next year.” (“Legislature passes water-system overhaul,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 5, 2009)
Jim Metropulos, Sierra Club California: “This mad rush to do something symbolic gives the Legislature even less credibility.” (“California Legislature passes long-awaited water reforms, San Jose Mercury News, November 4, 2009)
Jim Metropulos, Sierra Club California: “We have a governor with only one year left on his term, yet his appointees, who basically must have no qualifications in experience, stakeholder or geographic representation, are going to affect water policy for the next six years.” (“Environmental Groups Battle Over Water Legislation,” Truthout blog, November 5, 2009)
Jon Fleischman, publisher, Flash Report.org Website: “Capitol Democrats should be ashamed of themselves, as should those in the water industry with a voracious appetite to get all Californians to pay for their ‘Projects of Regional Koncern’ (PORK). If it were not for the insistence of Sacramento liberals, the bond facing voters would be billions of dollars smaller than the one approved in the early hours of this morning. In the end, we now have a proposal that is so large, and contains so much obvious pork spending that is not related to the water crisis that it’s passage next year is in serious doubt, as it should be.” (Statement from Job Fleischman, November 4, 2009)
Jason Dickerson, director of state administration at the Legislature’s nonpartisan analyst’s office, said “voter approval of the water bond would add to California’s massive debt, which could soon require 10 percent of state revenue to pay down. Debt service on the water bond alone would likely cost between $725 million to $809 million a year after all the bonds have sold, he said”. (“Calif. voters have final say over $11B water bond,” Associated Press, November 4, 2009)
Willie Pelote Sr., a lobbyist with the California branch of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill for a bond that benefits farmers and Southern California cities: “It’s absolutely wrong and irresponsible.” (“Calif. voters have final say over $11B water bond,” Associated Press, November 4, 2009)
Allen Davenport, Union Lobbyist: In a letter sent to lawmakers Monday, the lobbyist for the 700,000-member Service Employees International Union California said it was unacceptable to cut education and social service programs to pay the debt that will be incurred by the water bonds.”As yet, SEIU has seen no water system improvement financing plan that it would not oppose.” (“California Lawmakers Pass Historic Water Package,” Sacramento Bee, November 5, 2009)
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Campaign Director for Restore the Delta: “The water package that passed in the dead of night epitomizes the dysfunction that has gripped our legislative process. The package lost any semblance of rational debate and turned into a pork festival.” (“California Lawmakers Pass Historic Water Package,” Sacramento Bee, November 5, 2009)
Restore the Delta’s Take On The Water Plan Radio Interview on Forum — KQED, San Francisco
Click here to go to Forum Radio Show for November 4, 2009. Then hit play button for segment on State Water Plan.
MEDIA ALERT: Restore the Delta Blasts Legislature for Boondoggle Water Deal
Today, Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, campaign director for Restore the Delta, issued the following statement regarding the water deal that was passed early this morning by lawmakers:
“The water package that passed in the dead of night epitomizes the dysfunction that has gripped our Legislative process,” Barrigan-Parilla said. “The package lost any semblance of rational debate and turned into a pork festival with the water bond ballooning to over $11 billion dollars. With our state already facing a massive debt and more red ink on the horizon, how can we afford this?”
Barrigan-Parilla added, “In addition, the one bill that would have required a full fiscal analysis and a vote of the state legislature before the peripheral canal could be built, Huber-AB 13 7x, was killed by Legislative leadership because Southern California water interests viewed it as a ‘distraction.’ Since when is it a distraction to require fiscal analysis?”
“We will continue to use every means possible to oppose this package which sets in motion the canal and allows an unelected body to make key decisions that will impact our Delta Communities, while we are left on the sidelines,” Barrigan-Parilla concluded. “It’s no wonder Californians have such a low opinion of their elected representatives.”
Politics of Water Splits Environmental Organizations
Restore the Delta is bringing an article of interest to your attention. To read it on-line click here.
Politics of Water Splits Environmental Organizations
If you want to know more about what we should really be doing regarding water in California, you need to read Mato Ska here. here, here, or here. I want to talk about the politics. That is beginning to splinter over more than North / South, Valley / Coast or even the widening gap between Democrats and Republicans.
Let me call your attention to two things that happened today. One is the fact that the California League of Conservation Voters sent a floor alert to the members of the California Assembly giving strong support to the Steinberg proposal. In this, they join three other environmental organizations that have already taken this position: Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense and the Nature Conservancy. Each of the latter has strong ties to corporate funding and seem to be taking the corporate position. There is strong evidence that staff for Natural Resources Defense Council have been meeting behind closed doors with the water districts who have the most to gain were the the Steinberg legislation legislation enacted.
Dan Bacher, Ed. Fishsniffer magazine, has harsh words for the CLCV. NRDC, Environmental Defense, the Nature Conservancy and now the California League of Conservation Voters are giving “green” cover to policies that will lead to the death of the Delta and the extinction of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations. We must expose these corporate greenwashers for the frauds that they are!
On the other side of this issue are the Sierra Club, Planning and Conservation League, Environmental Justice,Clean Water Action, Green LA, Heal the Bay, Restore the Delta and others. Together, they have fashioned the basis of a new plan, one that is both equitable and sustainable, but it is not what the legislature is delivering.
Today, Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, weighed in on the controversy at Huffington Post.
Indeed, it’s fair to say that Sacramento is in deep denial of a fundamental reality. California’s landscapes, forests, farmlands, and cities must now be managed primarily to meet the biggest challenge of the 21st century: an adequate, secure, clean, and safe water supply for urgent human and environmental needs. Water is precious. We need to stop wasting it.
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carl-pope/is-california-really-solv_b_342848.html
The legislature met today in special session, supposedly to pass legislation that would provide new governance for the Delta and to authorize putting a new bond issue on the 2010 ballot. The governance creates new bureaucracies rather than rationalizing the existing ones and then gives the new boards and councils no enforcement authority and no funding. The bonds themselves are a give away to major water users, moving $billions of cost from the actual beneficiaries of new water conveyance… once called a peripheral canal… to the taxpayers. I am sure that the residents of Eureka or Monterey have no interest in paying for a handout to corporate agriculture.
Handout: that is what you call selling water at $70 / acre ft. for agriculture when the going rate is over $200 / acre ft and the cost of desalination water can be as high as $1000 / acre foot. And on top to that, the bond would have the taxpayers fund any and all environmental mitigation that a new canal would require. Gimme a break.
They say that water flows to toward money. There can not be any better example of this than what is happening in Sacramento this week.
Behind all of the smoke and mirrors, the legislature is doing nothing to rationalize California’s mixed up system of water right where Government has issued permits for some 5 to 8 times the amount of water that we get in a normal year. It is time for someone to pull aside the curtain and reveal the Wizard in his shambles.
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