Your Presence Needed at Agricultural Waiver Hearing on Thursday!

This Thursday is the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board hearing on the issue of agriculture waivers. We now have over 100 groups opposing the proposed waiver program. We must be present to tell the Regional Board not to allow farmers to pay to pollute!

Now we need to show the Regional Board that California organizations from many different backgrounds and representing many different interests have come together, that we are adamantly opposed to Ag Waivers and adversely impacted by farm pollution.

When you get to the hearing. Look for a grey pickup, parked in front of the entrance, with the Deltakeeper banner. We'll have a sign-in sheet, talking points and comment cards ready-to-go. The press conference is at 9am--so be there by 8:30 am to help us meet critical mass.

We will have carpools going to Rancho Cordova from Stockton Thursday morning, and will be bringing signs, talking points, and refreshments. Bring extra signs and food if you can.

RSVP and call Katie for details at 209 464 5090 or, on that day, call Carrie at 916-952-2185!

Thank you! Carrie McNeil, Katie Hopkins, Dezaraye Bagalayos at Deltakeeper

Action Alert: The Regional Water Board will be voting on another waiver for irrigated agriculture which would allow 8 million acres of farmland to keep polluting our waters with pesticides and fertilizers without any accountability. We are going to the hearing in Rancho Cordova to let the Board know it is time to protect the public's interest--not just the interest of big, corporate agriculture.

We know irrigated agriculture is polluting--the Board's own studies show pesticides rampant in the Delta. We know the "waiver" program that the Board has used the last three years has been a huge failure--just as we predicted it would be.
     
Regulators can't tell where pollution is coming from, don't know the identities of the farmers in the system and so--nothing is done to make the bad actors change management practices...the result is continued, basically unregulated pollution. The new proposed waiver is even WEAKER.

We're bringing folks from Visalia to Redding from groups representing fishermen, health groups, labor, conservationists, environmental justice groups--many of whom are sacrificing a day's pay to be there. Let us know if you need help organzing your own members, or drafting comments for testimony.
  
When: Arrive by 8am so the boardmembers will pass through us on their way in. At noon, we'll break for lunch and a press conference. The hearing itself will go til at least early afternoon. If you have to leave at noon, we'll put a note on your comment card.
     
RSVP: to Katie, katie [at] baykeeper.org or 209 464 5090
     
Your participation is crucial to impacting this nationally-significant
water quality policy. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

  
Sincerely,
  
Carrie McNeil and Katie Hopkins
Deltakeeper Chapter of Baykeeper

Bill Jennings, executive director
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance

John Beuttler, spokesman
Allied Fishing Groups