Warren Buffett, Central Valley Board Take 2006 'Cold, Dead Fish' Awards

One of the most fun articles for me to write every year is the “Cold, Dead Fish” awards. Just as I acknowledged the “heroes” of conservation in the “Leaping Steelhead” awards last time, this edition I will give these awards to acknowledge the folks on the “other side” that did their most to destroy our fish populations and suppress our fishing rights.

The conservation battles I covered in these “bad guys” awards focus around three major areas: (1) state and federal attempts to increase water exports from the Bay Delta estuary at the same time that the food chain was collapsing, (2) restoring the Klamath River and taking PacifiCorp's dams down and (3) the move by the Schwarzenegger administration to implement a series of “marine protected areas” along the California Coast under the Marine Life Protection Act.

The "Pelagic Organism Decline in the Delta" (POD) was a big topic among anglers and other conservationists in 2006. The 2006 Summer Townet Survey index for young-of-the-year striped bass, released on August 18, was the lowest on record in the survey's 47 years. Delta and longfin smelt have also declined to their lowest historic levels.

However, in spite of the fact that water exports were the number one reason for the decline of the Delta food chain, the state and federal governments continued to push the South Delta Improvement Program (SDIP) process - a scheme to redesign the Delta “plumbing” to export more water - forward, In addition, with little notice to the affected parties, the Bureau of Reclamation announced a “fast track” process for developing an “Intertie” between the state and federal government export pumps in the South Delta to facilitate.

The Bureau of Reclamation held two abysmally attended “open house” style “scoping” meetings on the Intertie project on August 1st in Sacramento and August 3rd in Stockton; I attended the one in Sacramento.

The Bureau and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority, the lead agencies pushing this project, had planned to construct the Intertie in February 2006, but the Planning and Conservation League filed litigation and halted those plans. Now the Bureau continues to move forward with the Intertie scheme, but this time it's being forced through the lawsuit to complete a comprehensive Environmental Impact Statement (EIS).

It is outrageous that the Bureau and California Department of Water Resources (DWR) have not completely dropped their plans in light of the precarious state of the California Delta's fisheries and ecosystems. For continuing to go forward with their wacky “Intertie Project” and “SDIP” schemes to provide for the export of more water when we actually need less water exported from the Delta, the Bureau of Reclamation and DWR receive the deplorable “Kill The Delta” award.

While DWR and the Bureau were plotting their rampant environmental destruction, Senator Joe Simitian (D. Palo Alto) Chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, in December revived an insidious bill, now labeled SB 27, to construct a peripheral canal that would supposedly “address” environmental degradation in the Delta.

His alleged goals are to give people who use Delta water assurances of water reliability and water quality, as we face climate change, sea level rise, and seismicity; provide a reliable source of funding to reverse environmental degradation of the Delta; and protect the interests of Northern California.

However, the idea of a peripheral canal is one that the voters rejected in 1982 and it has been defeated by a coalition of fishermen and conservationists every time it was been reintroduced. It completely fails to deal with the main problem - stopping wasteful water exports by corporate agribusiness that are the main cause for the Delta decline. For introducing this bill in 2005- and having the cluelessness to reintroduce the same tired scheme after fishing groups had fought against it last year - Simitian is bestowed the “Extinct Delta Smelt” award.Marine Protected

Marine Protected Areas were a huge topic that anglers had to contend with last year. In spite of the excellent presentation of a peer reviewed “Fisherman's Package” by Dr. Carl Walters of the California Fisheries Coalition that would address conservation needs while allowing recreational anglers and commercial fishermen to fish, the California Fish and Game Commission in August voted through a more restrictive MPA package under apparent orders from Arnold Schwarzenegger. The proposal includes 29 marine protected areas (MPAS) encompassing approximately 204 miles of ocean, 18 percent of state waters along the Central Coast, and will ban fishing at many popular areas, such as Ano Nuevo Island and Point Sur.

However, the Governor and the MPLA Blue Ribbon Task Force that he appointed to administer the process did not include all of the stakeholders in the process. The illegitimacy of the MPLA Process was highlighted when Rudy Rosales of the Esselen Indian Tribe, representing the indigenous people of the Monterey Bay area, said that his 535-member tribe had never been consulted about the MPLA “stakeholder” process. “Nobody ever got hold of us regarding this process and we have 4 sacred sites in the region,” Rosales stated.

Just on this basis - if not on the basis of how the decision was ramrodded through the Commission without proper input from recreational anglers and commercial fishermen - the whole MPLA process should be thrown out and started over again! For pushing this proposal through without including all of the stakeholders in the process, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, his handpicked MPLA Blue Ribbon Task Force and the California Fish and Game Commission get a “Guess Who's Not Invited to Dinner!” award.

Furthermore, Commissioner Robert Hattoy conducted himself in a disgusting and out-of-control manner throughout the entire meeting, rudely interrupting other commissioners and the public giving testimony. For his display of obnoxious behavior unbecoming of any public official, Hattoy receives the “Deplorable Conduct” of 2006 award.

Then on December 22, just in time for Christmas, California Secretary of Resources Mike Chrisman announced that the next “study region” for Marine Life Protection Act implementation will move north to the region from Alder Creek, five miles north of Point Arena, to Pigeon Point in San Mateo County. For contining full bore ahead with this process at a time when the state should be instead slowing down the process and taking a long, hard look at the many mistakes it made on the Central Coast, Chrisman receives the “MPLA Grinch Stole Christmas“ award.

2006 was a flurry of activity for recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and Klamath River Indian Tribes battle to restore the Klamath River and bring down the dams.

Yet at the same time, the Bush administration, which caused the fish kill on the Klamath River in 2002 when it changed water policy to favor farmers over fish and downstream users, decided to try playing hardball, choosing to blame fishermen for causing the Klamath decline, proposing a complete proposal of commercial and recreational salmon fishing on California and Oregon coast in the spring meetings. Fortunately, a massive outpouring of outrage by anglers stopped them from completely closing the commercial season and leaving a more or less status quo recreational season.

For this underhanded attempt to punish fishermen for the crimes committed by the government, James L. Connaughton, Chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), Carlos Gutierrez, Secretary of Commerce, and President George W. Bush get the “Kill the Salmon Fisherman” award for 2006.

Connaughton also receives the “Slimy Fish Hypocrite” award for the horrendous comments he made at a salmon conference in Portland in January, blaming recreational anglers and commercial fishermen, rather than dams and habitat, for destroying salmon and steelhead populations in the northwest, even though the vast majority of federal, state and private scientists agree that habitat and dams are the main problems.

“Our goal is to minimize, and where possible eliminate, the harvest of naturally spawning fish that provide the foundation for recovery," said Connaughton as he ranted on about curtailing harvest, rather than addressing the real issues - habitat, water diversions and dams - that have decimated California and Pacific Northwest Salmon runs.

The battle to remove the Klamath dams accelerated when Billionaire Warren Buffett, the world's second richest man, announced in Fortune Magazine on June 25, 2006 that he would bequeath $37 billion, the bulk of his $44 million fortune, to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

At the same time he announced his philanthropic venture, ironically, a subsidiary of Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. continued to kill king and coho salmon and steelhead, host toxic algae blooms and put commercial and tribal fishermen out of work. “Until Mr. Buffett removes his dams which are driving our fish into extinction, I will be forced to question his sense of justice,” commented Leaf Hillman, Vice Chairman of the Karuk Tribe.

In spite of broad popular support to remove the dam, Buffett has yet to commit to removing the dams. On December 5, the same day that California and Federal Agencies released a report describing how dam removal would save Warren Buffet's PacifiCorp millions of dollars, the company proposed changes to federal agencies' mandatory fish passage plans to further throw a monkey wrench in the dam removal process.

For his refusal to listen to state and federal government biologists and a broad coalition of folks calling for dam removal, Buffett is bestowed the “Cold, Dead Fish” award of the year. However, he's not the only one worthy of this “prestigious” honor.

The Central Valley Regional Water Control Board voted on June 22 to extend waivers for discharges from irrigated farm land for five years, in spite of pleas from a broad coalition of anglers, farmworkers and environmental justice advocates to subject agribusiness to the same general discharge permit that others including municipalities and businesses have to abide by.

The 5 to 2 vote to extend the waivers will lead to the further decline of the Bay-Delta estuary and Central Valley streams at a time when the Delta is in free fall and will provide rural communities with polluted drinking water.

Board members Robert Schneider, Karl Longley, Alson Brizard, Katherine Hart, and Paul Bettencourt, who voted for the waiver, are each bestowed the “Cold, Dead Fish Award” to be shared with Warren Buffett.

“Cold, Dead Fish Award” awardees - “thanks" for going out of your way to destroy the state's fisheries and drive the fishing public off the water!