Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 8, 2009
1. Top Items–
Delta supporters rally at Capitol's doorstep
Stockton Record
Capitol rally protests delta canal plan
Fresno Bee
Delta canal plan protested
Sacramento Bee
Farmworkers demand clean water
The Desert Sun
We might need salmon czar, too
Sacramento Bee
Will we empty the oceans?
The Christian Science Monitor
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Delta supporters rally at Capitol's doorstep
Stockton Record-7/8/09
By Alex Breitler
It seems all the attention has gone to the south San Joaquin Valley, where marches, public demonstrations and news conferences have highlighted the cry for water there.
Tuesday it was the Delta's turn.
More than 200 farmers, fishers and Delta residents turned out for a rally at the steps of the Capitol, inside of which negotiations on a series of water bills continue even while the budget takes center stage.
While advocates condemned a peripheral canal - the "Panama Canal North," as some now call it - Tuesday's event was more about demanding a voice in the proceedings. Advocates say they're worried behind-the-scenes legislative maneuvering could alter existing water bills, authorizing and funding a canal with little opportunity for the public to comment.
"You can't fix the Delta without the people of the Delta as your partners," said state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, who argues that water officials in their endless debates have largely forgotten the unique people and features of the largest estuary on the West Coast. Her 5th Senate District includes portions of San Joaquin County.
She described the canal, which would divert Sacramento River flows around the Delta to state and federal pumps near Tracy, as a "100-lane freeway" cutting through Delta farmland; a 2006 report described the canal as anywhere from 500 to more than 700 feet wide at its top. The state has estimated the cost at $4.2 billion to $7.4 billion.
"It will not provide one drop of additional water," Delta fly fisherman Robert Johnson said. "All this while we're firing teachers and furloughing state workers."
A number of politicians weighed in at Tuesday's rally, including Delta resident and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, who called for public hearings on the water legislation and said in a statement that "any discussion of a peripheral canal must follow a solid guarantee that protects (the Delta)."
At this point, he said, the canal should not be part of any legislation.
Supporters believe a canal will safeguard the state's largest water supply source by shipping flows around the Delta, avoiding its fragile levees and decreasing the number of fish sucked into the giant pumps. Opponents call it a water grab that will allow greater exports from the Delta.
Rumors have circulated for two weeks that the negotiations were moving rapidly, prompting the hastily arranged rally. Water hearings originally scheduled for this week were canceled because of the budget crisis.
Alicia Trost, a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said at least five public hearings have been held on this year's water bills, and she said that once the budget is decided, the bills will go before committee, offering yet another opportunity.
"It's a process, and it's not over yet," she said.
Still, Delta interests worry that it will indeed be over all too soon if they don't speak up. Those interests include San Joaquin County supervisors, who did not attend the rally because of their regularly scheduled meeting.
"I feel that we'll be on the outside with our face pressed against the candy store window," Supervisor Larry Ruhstaller said.#
http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090708/A_NEWS/907080314
Capitol rally protests delta canal plan
Fresno Bee-7/7/09
By E.J. Schultz
In a counter-punch to recent Valley water rallies, environmentalists and fishermen gathered at the Capitol on Tuesday to protest a proposed canal to divert water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The “peripheral canal” is an old idea that’s enjoyed new life as state water planners search for ways to stabilize supplies for San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California cities. The plan got a boost last year with an endorsement by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision Task Force.
At Tuesday’s event, delta advocates charged that legislators were ignoring their input as they consider the canal and other water proposals behind closed doors.
“In a time where the budget is spiraling out of control ... it makes no sense to move forward with a multibillion boondoggle idea like a peripheral canal and new dams,” said Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River, an environmental group.
Residents near the estuary — including farmers who rely on its freshwater supply — fear the canal is a water grab by the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. Canal supporters say the project could protect fish endangered by delta pumping, while keeping water flowing to south-state users. The canal would siphon Sacramento River water upstream of the delta and send it to the pumps near Tracy.
So-called “working groups” of lawmakers have examined multiple water proposals in private meetings. Multiple bills have been authored calling for water bonds in the range of $9.8 billion to $15 billion. Proposals also include new government agencies to promote the “coequal goals of restoring the delta” and “creating a more reliable water supply.”
But so far no consensus has emerged on any of the proposals as most of the attention in Sacramento is on the state’s budget woes.
In the Valley, water events have focused on court-enforced environmental rules that farmers blame for dwindling supplies from the delta. In marches and rallies, residents often frame the debate as “people vs. fish” as they call on the government to increase pumping from the delta.
The dozens of delta supporters at Tuesday’s event pushed an alternate message: that “fish is food” and the fisherman who rely on the delta are hurting too. One sign called for “Fewer water exports, not fewer delta fish.”
Robert Johnson, a fly fisherman from Contra Costa County, took a shot at the Valley rallies, calling them part of a “highly effective \[public relations\] campaign that seeks to make Californians believe that radical environmentalists and fisherman would put a three-inch fish before California jobs, farms and people.”
“We are farmers, we are fishermen ... and we are fighting to save our communities,” he said to loud cheers.
None of the plans circulating in the Capitol specifically authorize a peripheral canal, but delta advocates fear such a provision could be added at the last minute. The administration of Gov. Schwarzenegger believes the canal could be authorized without legislative approval and officials have taken initial planning steps.#
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/1520555.html
Delta canal plan protested
Sacramento Bee-7/8/09
Juliana Garcia of Alpaugh holds a sign in Spanish that reads, "All lives deserve clean potable water."
Garcia joined about 300 environmentalists, farmers, fishermen and residents of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta on the state Capitol's north steps Tuesday to protest proposed legislation they fear will authorize a massive canal to divert some of the Sacramento River's water directly to pumps near Tracy.
They urged the state to institute water recycling, conservation and groundwater management instead.
The measures, amended in private negotiations among key legislators, have been delayed by budget negotiations.#
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2008478.html
Farmworkers demand clean water
The Desert Sun-7/8/09
By Nicole C. Brambila
Fed up with broken promises from valley lawmakers, a handful of farmworkers petitioned state and federal legislators on Tuesday for the most basic of services: clean, safe drinking water and sewer systems.
These farmworkers, who live in some of the Coachella Valley's most dilapidated mobile home parks, delivered more than 300 letters from residents to Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego; Assemblyman Manual Perez, D-Coachella; Riverside County Supervisor Roy Wilson; and Rep. Mary Bono Mack, R-Palm Springs.
“These are not ribbon-cutting projects,” said Sergio Carranza, founder and executive director of Pueblo Unido, a community development organization formed in 2008.
“They are basically trying to address these very basic needs,” he said. “Now we're putting a human face to this issue.”
As reported on mydesert.com, Carranza intends to submit a grant request to the USDA Rural Development to run sewer lines from Avenues 66-70 in Oasis. Carranza estimated the project would cost $6.1 million. That figure does not include water lines.
The infrastructure project was identified by Desert Alliance for Community Empowerment 10 years ago, said Wilson.
Wilson, who sits on the DACE board of directors, was at a loss to explain why the project has yet to be completed.
“It should have been delivered 10 years ago,” Wilson said. “I don't know what's holding it up. We thought within five years that we'd have the project up and running.
“They finally put it in the hands of another project manager.”
Jeff Hayes, executive director of DACE, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Many of these families live in the mobile home parks on Pierce Street in Oasis. Carranza estimated about 10,000 farmworkers and their families live in the area, which include the “Duroville” and Lawson mobile home parks on the Torres-Martinez Indian Reservation and a number of “Polanco” parks built under the Polanco Redevelopment Act of 1990.
Residents worry about the arsenic content in the water, which can only be used for bathing, and aged septic tanks that have begun backing up gray water.
“It smells,” Magarita Gamez, owner of the Gamez Mobile Home Park, said in Spanish.
Gamez and Carmen Vargas, who visited with lawmakers about the water and sewer issues on Tuesday, said they got involved with the project not wanting to wait another 10 years for lawmakers to address the pressing needs.
“I don't think the government will do anything,” Vargas said in Spanish. “But this is what we're working for.”
County officials have struggled for years to rehabilitate and create safe, affordable housing in the east valley.
In 1999, the county cracked down on more than 200 illegal trailer parks following the electrocution of a 14-year-old Mecca boy. Fearing eviction, many fled onto Indian land, where county building and safety codes do not apply.
Last year, the Coachella Valley Housing Coalition estimated that more than 10,000 people were on waiting lists for affordable housing.
Although the backbone of the valley's $500 million agribusiness, farmworkers typically earn less than $15,000 a year.#
We might need salmon czar, too
Sacramento Bee-7/8/09
Editorial
Faced with a pitchfork rebellion in the San Joaquin Valley, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last month appointed a "water czar" to deliver extra water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to farmers in certain districts south of the Delta.
That prompts a question: Will the Obama administration also appoint a "salmon czar" to help bring relief to the North Coast fishing industry, which is dependent on healthy flows in the Delta so salmon can migrate and spawn?
So far, Salazar's water agenda in California has focused almost completely on Fresno-area farmers, whose wealth and clout tend to demand attention.
That's why Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes has been tasked to bring together federal agencies to expedite certain Delta projects, including a pair of gates that would block imperiled smelt and salmon from being sucked into pumps that deliver water to the south.
It's commendable that Salazar, a former congressman from Colorado, would want to wade into the swamp of Delta politics. For the last four years, the Bush administration barely got its toes wet.
Yet because they are not from this place, Salazar and Obama may not understand the need for a balanced approach to resolving conflicts over water and natural resources. They also should be careful not to fuel certain myths that make resolution more complicated.
Some of these myths:
• The Endangered Species Act and related court rulings are the main causes of the water shortages in the San Joaquin Valley. Not true. As of the end of April, the water content in the state's snowpack was 66 percent of normal, the third dry year in a row. Drought is the main cause of water cutbacks in the San Joaquin Valley.
• All water districts in the Valley are suffering. Again, not true. Some water districts have senior water rights, meaning they get first dibs on available supplies. While holders of junior water rights, such as the Westlands Water District, have been cut back severely, other districts are close to their normal allotments.
• Central Valley salmon are suffering only because of ocean conditions. Another falsehood. Salmon runs have bounced around but have generally declined since the 1960s, even with gyrating ocean conditions. Clearly, their habitat in the Valley has degraded – a habitat that is dependent on clear, cold, abundant water.
Through improved conservation, water banking, groundwater storage and other projects, California can help its farms and cities weather the dry periods while rebuilding a healthy fishery. That will take a cooperative approach.
Yet if certain farm districts and their congressional representatives choose to point fingers and inflame myths, cooperation will be hard to come by. The challenge for the Obama administration will be to bust through those falsehoods and serve as a moderating force for a more efficient and equitable use of water in California.#
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2008146.html
Will we empty the oceans?
The Christian Science Monitor-7/6/09
By Eoin O'Carroll
Last week, Greenpeace released its semiannual seafood sustainability scorecard, which ranks US supermarket chains based on the impacts their practices have on marine life and how well they communicate these practices to the shopper.
The grades are dispiriting. While the environmental advocacy group noted progress among some stores, the top scorer, Wegmans, received only 6 out of 10. Even though the East Coast chain has worked with scientists and conservationists to develop seafood sourcing standards and has removed from its stores a number of species because of sustainability concerns, Greenpeace found that Wegmans continues to sell 15 species – including grouper, monkfish, and Atlantic salmon – that appear on Greenpeace’s Red List of fish that are unavailable from sustainable sources.
Other stores fared much worse on Greenpeace’s report card. The national chain Trader Joe’s – which generally has a good reputation among greens – scored near the bottom, prompting Greenpeace to attack them in a site called Traitor Joe.
You can check how your local supermarkets have performed on Greenpeace’s ranking here.
This is about more than just a few endangered species. After a half century of industrial fishing, a quarter of the world’s fish stocks are overfished, and another half are fished to full capacity. One study found that, if current trends continue, the world will completely run out of seafood in 30 years.
It wasn’t always like this. Here’s how the Monitor’s series on overfishing last year kicked off:
Early European explorers to the Americas encountered an astounding abundance of marine life. White beluga whales, now limited to the arctic, swam as far south as Boston Bay. Cod off Newfoundland were so plentiful that fishermen could catch them with nothing more than a weighted basket lowered into the water. As late as the mid-19th century, river herring ran so thick in the eastern United States that wading across certain waterways meant treading on fish. And everywhere sharks were so numerous that, after hauling in their catches, fishers often found them stripped to the bone.
So how did we get from that world, where the oceans teemed with marine life, to the growing aquatic wasteland we see today? The answer: One catch at a time.
Here’s where we’re supposed to dust off the hoary metaphor about boiling a frog. You know the one: Drop a frog in boiling water, and it jumps out immediately. But if you place it in cold water that you heat gradually, the frog won’t perceive the danger and will make no attempt to escape as it is gradually boiled to death.
This, of course, is utter nonsense. Dropping a frog in boiling water will almost certainly kill it, and if you heat the water slowly, the frog will jump out once the temperature gets uncomfortable. Sorry, but amphibians aren’t that stupid.
Can the same be said for humans? As Nicholas Kristof pointed out in his New York Times column last week, we modern Homo sapiens are pretty much physically identical to our hunting and gathering forebears who lived some 200,000 years ago. As a result, our minds are highly attuned to Pleistocene-style threats, the saber-toothed cat lurking in the grass, the rival eying your mate, the guy from the neighboring tribe with the big stick. When we perceive these kinds of threats – manifested today in the form of images of militants abroad or “moral values” issues at home, our bodies instinctively gear up into fight-or-flight mode
Not so much for those creeping, incremental threats like overfishing. Even though resource depletion can wipe out a species population just as surely as a terrorist attack, the threat isn’t visceral. Unless you have a very vivid imagination, contemplating lifeless oceans won’t make your eyes widen or your pulse quicken. You’re just not built that way.
But, unlike most other animals, we humans have the capacity to override our evolutionary programming and think far into the future. That’s why we save for retirement, get regular exercise, and floss. Doing these things are much harder than living for the moment, but important for our long-term viability.
The alternative is to bury our heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away, an act that – while we’re puncturing bogus animal metaphors – even ostriches don’t do. Can we be smarter than ostriches?#
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/07/06/will-we-empty-the-oceans/
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