State of the State: peripheral canal won't 'mend' anything

State of the State: peripheral canal won't 'mend' anything

by Dan Bacher

In his State of the State Address on January 18, Governor Jerry Brown emphasized his commitment to fast-tracking the construction of the peripheral canal under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP), a Nineteenth Century "solution" to Twenty-First Century problems.

Brown said that water is a “huge issue we must tackle” – and then greenwashed the BDCP process by claiming it will somehow “restore” the Delta ecosystem and create “new habitat for spawning fish and other wildlife.”

Brown proclaimed, "Last week, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar - met here in Sacramento with those in my administration who are working to complete the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.

Together we agreed that by this summer we should have the basic elements of the project we need to build. This is something my father worked on and then I worked on—decades ago. We know more now and are committed to the dual goals of restoring the Delta ecosystem and ensuring a reliable water supply.

This is an enormous project. It will ensure water for 25 million Californians and for millions of acres of farmland as well a hundred thousand acres of new habitat for spawning fish and other wildlife. To get it done will require time, political will and countless permits from state and federal agencies. I invite your collaboration and constructive engagement."

Ironically, the theme of his speech was “California on the Mend.” Delta advocates oppose the construction of the peripheral canal because it will lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, green sturgeon and other fish species.

This canal won't “mend” imperiled Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations; it will only exacerbate the ecosystem collapse caused by record water exports from the Delta in recent years!

The plan will not only greenwash the destruction of Delta fish, but will remove vast tracts of Delta farmland, some of the most fertile on the planet, from production in order to increase water exports to corporate agribusiness interests farming drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

Again, removing good land from production in order to irrigate bad land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, land that should have never been irrigated, is hardly “mending” California!

Not only would the canal be environmentally destructive, but it would be enormously expensive. A draft economic report by Steven Kasower of the Strategic Economic Applications Company, released to the California Legislature in 2009, revealed that the costs for the construction of a peripheral canal around the California Delta or a tunnel under the estuary would be much higher than previously estimated, ranging from $23 billion to $53.8 billion depending upon the type of conveyance facility. (http://yubanet.com/california/Op-Ed-Dan-Bacher-Peripheral-Canal-Would-Cost-23-to-53-8-Billion.php)'

“The peripheral canal will only cause more destruction,” summed up Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe at a Tribal Water Summit in November 2009. “Our efforts should be instead focused on cleaning up the water to the point where we can drink the water in our rivers and streams."

Record Delta exports and fish kills aren't 'mending' the ecosystem

In his address, Brown claimed, "California is on the mend," touting his "accomplishments" in 2011.

"Last year, we were looking at a structural deficit of over $20 billion," Brown stated. "It was a real mess. But you rose to the occasion and together we shrunk state government, reduced our borrowing costs and transferred key functions to local government, closer to the people. The result is a problem one fourth as large as the one we confronted last year."

However, the "mending" Brown spoke of doesn't appear to apply to the Brown administration's management of Delta fisheries and California water.

The Brown and Obama administrations authorized the export of a record amount of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in the 2011 water year. The water export total, including water diverted by the Contra Costa Canal and North Bay Aqueduct, was 6,633,000 acre-feet in 2011 – 163,000 acre-feet more than the previous record of 6,470,000 acre-feet set in 2005, according to DWR data.

The record pumping from the Delta in 2011 - used to fill billionaire Stewart Resnick's Kern Water Bank and southern California reservoirs - resulted in a huge, unprecedented fish kill at the Delta pumps. Agency staff “salvaged” a total of 11,158,025 fish in the Delta water pumping facilities between January 1 and September 7, 2011 alone. Scientists estimate that the actual amount of fish lost in the pumps is 5 to 10 times the "salvage" numbers.

Approximately 9 million Sacramento splittail, the largest number ever recorded, were "salvaged" during this period. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006.

These unprecedented water exports and fish killed in the Delta pumps hardly can be described as "mending" the Delta. By exporting a record amount of water and killing a record number of fish, the Brown and Obama administrations surpassed even the Schwarzenegger and Bush administrations in their total disregard for the Delta ecosystem and the public trust.

With a record like this, how are we to possibly believe that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will "restore" the Delta ecosystem and create "new habitat for spawning fish and other wildlife?"

The BDCP Management Committee that oversees the plan has completely excluded Delta residents, family farmers, Indian Tribes, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, conservationists, environmental justice advocates, elected officials and business owners.

At the same time, the Department of Water Resources has hired two employees of powerful water contractors, Laura King Moon of the State Water Contractors Association and Susan Ramos of the Westlands Water District, to help develop the plan to build the peripheral canal (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/12/14/westlands-official-working-for-dwr-on-delta-plan). If this isn't an overt conflict of interest, I don't know what is.

MLPA Initiative doesn't 'mend' the ocean

While presiding over record water exports and pushing for the construction of the peripheral canal, Governor Jerry Brown has also continued the abysmal environmental legacy of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger by forging ahead with the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative process. The MLPA Initiative is a parody of "protection," since it creates "marine protected areas" that fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, pollution, military testing, wind and wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other human impacts other than fishing and gathering.

The illegitimacy of the privately funded process is demonstrated by the alarming fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, chaired the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to create "marine protected areas" on the South Coast. Reheis-Boyd, a strong supporter of new oil drilling off the West Coast, the Keystone XL Pipeline and the gutting of environmental laws, also served on the North Coast and North Central Coast MLPA panels. What is a big oil lobbyist doing overseeing the creation of "marine protected areas" in California? (http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/02/the-oil-industrys-marine-reserves)

Brown's claim that "California is on the mend" is false when you review his 2011 environmental record, including his forging ahead with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's BDCP and MLPA Initiative fiascos, record Delta water exports and record fish kills in the Delta pumps.

For the full text of Brown's address, go to: http://gov.ca.gov/home.php

For more information about the campaign to stop the canal, go to: http://restorethedelta.org.