There is a massive campaign underway to “turn on the pumps” and deliver additional water to corporate agribusiness in the western Central Valley. Agribusiness interests and their allies claim environmental and water activists care more about fish than people and are demanding more water, now!

Corporate agriculture’s campaign is being run by Burson-Marsteller (B-M), the astroturfing Public Relations firm that has been hired by the California Latino Water Coalition. MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, in a March telecast, called B-M “the PR firm from hell” and said it had been hired to improve the “image” of AIG, the company that has received $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money. B-M has also represented the private security firm Blackwater, Union Carbide in the Bhopal India incident, and Babcock & Wilcox, manufacturers of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant.

Central Valley Congress members are calling for an exclusion from the Endangered Species Act of the delta smelt (a small fish that gets killed in the pumps), more dams, a peripheral canal (which critics say will be as large as the Panama Canal), and a bond initiative in 2010 that will result in taxpayers subsidizing water for large corporate farming operations.

Read more | Peripheral Canal: Panama Canal North? | People Before Water Barons: Stop the Peripheral Canal Water Bond! | Myths, Lies and Damn Lies about Impact of Drought on San Joaquin Valley Agribusiness | Salazar Announces Aid to Valley Agribusiness, Doesn’t Endorse Canal | Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar Holds Town Hall in Fresno

Michael Steinberg writes, "On Saturday the third annual Bicycle Music Festival in San Francisco was kicked out of two sites in Golden Gate Park, and then threatened with expulsion in Dolores Park, before finally partying on pedal power late into the night on the SF waterfront."

"It’s a very simple proposition. People get together with their bicycles, musical instruments and other fun stuff. Some stationary bikes are connected to an electrical generator, and a handful of folks pedal away, thus producing enough juice to power amplification for bands to play. No fossil fuel is expended, no pollution created, and a good time is had by all on a sunny day in a city park. But that would be too simple, wouldn’t it? After all, the parks don’t belong to the people, but to the authorities who run them." Read more

Bicycile Music Festival

The demolition of the Bevatron, a.k.a. Building 51 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL), is scheduled to begin in July. Demolition will include the removal of radioactive, hazardous, and non-hazardous waste totaling an estimated 4700 truckloads. Removal of waste will begin with 5 trucks a day, leading up to a planned 20 trucks a day by the end of July. Waste removal will take an estimated 3.5 years. According to the LBNL website (lbl.gov), 1000-1200 truckloads of the 4700 "may contain hazardous or radioactive material."

Activists and concerned citizens are leery of the possible public health repercussions of demolishing and transporting such a large amount of hazardous and radioactive material right down the middle of Berkeley via University Ave on its way to the freeway and disposal sites. Not to mention the fact that the City of Berkeley, since 1986, has prohibited all activity related to nuclear weapons and energy through the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act.

According to resident Pamela Sihvola, cited in a June 29th, 2006 SF Chronicle article, the Bevatron was "the very first nuclear lab established in the country" and "played a significant role in the development of nuclear weapons." This would not be the first time the City of Berkeley has reneged on the NFB Act. In February, the City allowed the library to grant a contract to 3M, a notorious nuclear-weapons-supporting company, for the maintenance of its checkout machines.

A press conference will take place on Tuesday, June 23rd at 6:30pm in front of Berkeley City Hall in order to draw attention to this further blatant disregard for city statute.

Daily Planet: Bevatron Demo Underway | SF Chronicle: Bevatron's future being debated | Daily Planet 3M Article

Previous Indybay Coverage: Bevatron Research Facility To Be Demolished | Berkeley Rally Against Bevatron Structure Pulverization

If approved by the state legislature, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget plan will close 220 of 279 State Parks and Beaches, including each and every State Park and Beach in Santa Cruz County.

The proposed Santa Cruz County State Park and Beach closures are Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Castle Rock State Park, Castro Adobe State Historic Park, Coast Dairies State Park, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Lighthouse Field State Beach, Manresa State Beach, Manresa Uplands State Park, Natural Bridges State Beach, New Brighton State Beach, Palm State Beach, Rio Del Mar State Beach, Santa Cruz Mission State Historic Park, Seabright State Beach, Seacliff State Beach, Sunset State Beach, The Forest of Nisene Marks, Twin Lakes State Beach and Wilder Ranch State Park.

A rally to save State Parks and Beaches took place on June 1st at Natural Bridges State Beach. On June 2nd, Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks took a bus to Sacramento for the only public hearing on this proposal before the Legislative Budget Conference Committee. Read more

Rally at Natural Bridges to Save State Parks & Beaches

On Saturday, May 2nd, Crafts Not Carbon gathered at Embarcadero Center to provide a safe space that fosters creativity and realistic conversation about climate politics; the group is affiliated with Rising Tide Bay Area. The event was held at 2PM, near the farmer's market and lasted till 5:30PM. While the group met in San Francisco for this event, its future intentions are to reach all regions of the bay area, as well as use the forum for strategic occupation.

Crafts Not Carbon is open to all crafts. For example, at this last event people knitted, cut hair, sewed, and read. Crafts Not Carbon looks forward to all the different types of crafts, anything practical that encourages sustainable practices for everyday life, which will be an inspiration for society as a whole.

Crafts Not Carbon was created around the idea that practical and creative crafting expresses the potential for a more just and sustainable world. Through an accessible forum, Crafts Not Carbon promotes community-building, skill sharing and the imaginative reuse of all materials that will shape a realistic climate politic. Read more

Bank of America Targeted by Rising Tide, an Environmental Group

The Home Depot in Capitola was targeted on May 3rd with hundreds of stickers and handbills to publicize the company's involvement in a controversial development project in Patagonia, Chile.

The HidroAysen project involves three dams on the Pascua River and two dams on the Baker River that would flood globally rare forest ecosystems and some of the most productive agricultural land in the Aysen region. Electricity from these dams would be sent thousands of kilometers north to serve Chile’s biggest cities and its mammoth copper industry. More than 1,500 miles of transmission lines would require one of the world's longest clearcuts--much of it through untouched temperate rainforests found nowhere else on the planet. US retailer The Home Depot is the largest buyer of timber products from the main Chilean interest promoting the dams. The Home Depot has been asked by thousands of people, including socially responsible investors, to stop buying timber from suppliers that plan to destroy the rivers and forests of Patagonia. Read more and view photos

At Earth Day festivals in Sunnyvale and Santa Cruz, participants celebrated the pleasures of life lived simply and locally for the sake of the planet. On the Albany waterfront in the East Bay, children and parents searched the beach for trash and treasure, created art with found objects, and thanked the earth as they cleaned up the shoreline. At these and other venues in northern California, environmental pollution was a top concern.

Meanwhile at Stanford University, the role of globalization was raised at a fundraiser for water wells in Africa. The Raging Grannies sang "How Far to the Well, Sister" and encouraged students to continue their work addressing poverty brought on by the lack of safe, reliable sources of water in Kenya, Malawi, and many other parts of Africa.

At the Stanford event more than 60 students carried water in buckets across campus to bring attention to their cause. According to a World Health Organization/UNICEF joint monitoring project of 2004, daily clean water access is not a reality for 1.1 billion people in the world. Women suffer inordinately when water is not readily available, as the task of obtaining enough for household needs generally falls to them. The senior activist Grannies urged students to question globalization and institutions like the World Bank and IMF, and the effect of their policies on poverty in the world future generations stand to inherit.

Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | Nuru International

Captain Paul Watson, founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, writes: The Oceans are like the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg. As long as it was alive it laid a golden egg each day but then the greedy farmer decided to kill it to get all the gold inside and found nothing and the Goose laid no more golden eggs because it was dead. For centuries, the oceans have fed humankind. But in the last century, human greed has raped and pillaged oceanic eco-systems remorsefully with an ecological ignorance that is staggeringly insane. I don't eat fish because I am an ecologist and I have seen the diminishment of fish in the seas all of my life.... We humans have waged an intensive and ruthless exploitation on practically every species of fish in the sea and they are disappearing. If we don't put an end to industrialized fishing vessels and heavy gear very soon, we will kill the oceans and in so doing, we will kill ourselves.... We are feeding fish to cats, pigs, and chickens, and we are sucking tens of thousands of small fish from the sea to feed larger fish raised in cages. House cats are eating more fish than seals; pigs are eating more fish than sharks; and factory-farmed chickens are eating more fish than puffins and albatross.

Read More | Sea Shepherd

Previous Related Indybay Feature: Sea Shepherd Returns From the Whale Wars

The Obama administration was in San Francisco on Thursday, April 16th, to hold a day-long public hearing on Bush's offshore oil and gas proposal, which would open most of the outer continental shelf of the US to offshore drilling. The plan would allow new drilling for the first time in decades in Northern California's Point Arena Basin as well as three offshore basins in Southern California.

A coalition of environmental groups, including Ocean Defenders Alliance and Surfrider Foundation, organized an all-day rally featuring music and speakers outside the hearing on the UCSF Mission Bay Campus. Live webcasts of the hearings were available online, including an audio webcast at EarthCycles.Net.

Read more | Photos: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Event information | Fisheries Forum Questions Point Arena Closures: What Role is the Oil Industry Playing?

The U.S. Navy is facing criticism for its training operations on the Pacific coast. Environmental groups say some areas should be off limits to weapons testing, criticizing the militarization of the sea. The Navy wants to use nearly the entire U.S. coastline for weapons and warfare training. The North West Training Range Complex stretches more than 134 thousand nautical miles, from the U.S./Canadian Border to Northern California, into the waters just off Mendocino County. The Navy is claiming this entire area for its weapons training including under water bomb detonations and mining, and the use of aircraft, missiles and sonar. John Mosher, project manager for the North West Training Range, says the Navy has already claimed Northern California for its weapons training, but this is the first time they have actually mapped out the boundaries. Mosher says most of the training occurs off the coast of Washington. But environmental groups say the use of sonar and bombs will impact the marine life that makes Northern California special. Taryn Kiekow, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), says sonar has long-range effects on marine life including fish.

Read more with audio | NRDC on military sonar

The word "Bevatron" sparks images of science fiction creation, but in actuality, it refers to a very real structure just above the UC Berkeley campus. The Bevatron, which was built in 1954 to accelerate protons, now stands unused since 1993.

This is the structure that UC Berkeley now intends to demolish in order to make way for a new experimental facility. Residents of Berkeley have been pushing to make the Bevatron a landmark, but that status in itself will not hold the Lab back from demolition. The demolition will last three to eight years, take 4,700 truckloads to transport the waste, and cost $72 million.

Activists suspect that UC's disposal methods are not taking the human population and environment thoroughly into account, and point to the history of the Bevatron as a facility intended to further nuclear weapons technology. A UCB physicist says he believes that "physics for peace," in the form of a $2 billion X-ray laser, will be promoted in the new building to occupy the Bevatron site.

Read full story

Berkeley Landmarks Commission | Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission | Berkeley Committee To Minimize Toxic Waste | SF Chronicle article | Berkeley Daily Planet article | Environmental Impact Report on Lawrence Berkeley National Lab website

Since December, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has been pursuing and disrupting whaling operations by a Japanese fleet that illegally hunts whales in the waters around Australia and the Antarctic seas under the guise of "research." Confrontations included the Sea Sheperd ship, the Steve Irwin, lobbing rotten butter onto the decks of the whaling ships as well as directly ramming whaling ships on the open seas at times. The whalers in turn have used sonic weapons to retaliate against the crew of the Steve Irwin. After three months of operations attempting to prevent the illegal whaling, the Sea Sheperd crew are returning to better prepare for future battles with the whalers.

Captain Paul Watson summarizes recent events: "I have said always said that we would do everything we can short of hurting people to end illegal whaling in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. We have done everything we could with the resources available to us this year. We have shut down their illegal operations for over a month in total. We have cost them money and we have saved the lives of a good many whales. And although we are willing to take the risks required, even to our own lives, I am not prepared to do to the Japanese whalers what they do to the whales and the escalating violence by the whalers will result in some serious injuries and possibly fatalities if this confrontation continues to escalate."

Read More | Sea Shepherd Conservation Society | Indymedia.org coverage

Video: Ramming the Japanese whaling ship | Sea Shepherd collides with whaling harpoon ship | Whalers use acoustic weapon on Sea Shepherd in High Seas Confrontations
Audio: Two Sea Shepherd activists injured by whaler violence | Sea Shepherds sail out to confront whalers
Reports: Sea Shepherd Rams Harpoon ship while under Sonic Attack | The Battle for the Whales Turns Ugly in the Ross Sea | Taking on Goliath: Whaling and the Contradictions of International Conservation Law | Sea Shepherd: Whalers using Weapons in violation of Antarctic Treaty | Whalers refuse Sea Shepherd help in search for missing crew member | Whales to the slaughter as Sea Shepherd forced to Refuel | In the whale wars, the good guys wear black and fly the skull and crossbones | Ships Collide: Whalers and Sea Shepherd clash in Australian Antarctic waters | Sea Shepherd Clashes With Whaling Fleet in Australian Waters | Christmas Message from the Captain of the Sea Shepherd ship Steve Irwin | Heavy Ice Conditions Hinder Sea Shepherd Pursuit of Whalers | Sea Shepherd in pursuit of Whalers in Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary | Sea Shepherd Has the Japanese Whaling Fleet on the Run | Sea Shepherd Will Oppose Japanese Whalers Alone - Why no Greenpeace?