Restore the Delta Voices Opposition to Peripheral Canal at Congressional Hearing

Want to really save the delta ecosystem? How about reducing those excess agua exports to the agribusiness plantations? Dare we say, "Shut down the delta pumps!!"??

The source issue is excess water exports from out of the delta via already exsisting canals. So why then would Dan Bacher do an about face and support the construction of a new peripheral canal that would enable futher saltwater intrusion into the delta and additional net water export loss from the delta??

We are in agreement that the pumps are also responsible for the near extinction of the delta smelt, and protection needs to begin there. However, endorsing the construction of a new canal in the delta would worsen storm flooding by degrading the delta..

Salt water intrusion during droughts may indeed be natural for the delta, though extra salt water intrusion from a peripheral canal would degrade delta habitat beyond the capabilities of drought, or worsen the effects of drought induced salt water intrusions..

We need to remember the degrading effects of continued (petroleum transport) canal construction on the wetlands that previously protected New Orleans from storm surge flooding. For decades the presence of petroleum transport canals around the New Orleans region enables oceanic intrusions into the wetlands buffer zone that could have protected residents of New Orleans from storm surge. Over time of continued oceanic exposure from canal construction the disruption of protective wetlands habitat increases salinity inland and results in net wetlands habitat losses. This loss of wetlands leaves interior residents vulnerable to storm surge from sea level rise witnessed during hurricane Katrina..

"Compounding the problem, a labyrinth of canals, dug largely to exploit and export petroleum reserves, crisscrosses huge swaths of south Louisiana. By providing seawater easy access to inland marshes, these canals have killed vast amounts of salt-intolerant vegetation. Dead and dying plants in turn provide a weak storm buffer, giving waves an opportunity to wash away the soil.

Among the most destructive canal projects is the 70-mile-long Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet, known locally as Mr. Go, dredged by the Corps to provide a shortcut for ships heading down the Mississippi to the Gulf. Constructed in the 1960s, the outlet is so shallow that it quickly grew obsolete as ships got bigger; now an average of just 1.3 ships pass through it daily.

But even underused, Mr. Go wreaks havoc, spawning so much erosion that its width has expanded from 500 feet three decades ago to 2,000 feet today. Without the marshes that have succumbed to erosion, even the Corps fears the levees lining Mr. Go are inadequate to protect surrounding communities from big storms. Says Pete Savoye, president of the St. Bernard Sportsmen's League and a tireless crusader against the outlet: "We're living in a bowl. If the levees break, we'll drown like rats in a bucket of water."

Together, levees, canals and subsidence, along with draining and development, continue to take a tremendous toll. Coastal scientists estimate that Louisiana loses between 25 and 30 square miles of marsh and swamp a year, 80 percent of total annual wetlands loss nationwide."

article cont's @;
http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/printerFriendly.cfm?issueID=42&articleID=467

Under the GW bush/Cheney regime, this info of a realistic potential severe flooding event was deliberitely ignored and New Orleans residents were left vulnerable in hurricane season. One could also claim that certain individuals residing in the GW bush/Cheney regime financially benefitted from the NOLA flooding disaster after Katrina by the massive relocation of lower income 9th ward residents to indefinite detentions at FEMA camps and reconstruction for wealthier clients by Halliburton and other reconstruction contract bidders (see Iraqi petroleum privatization, 9/11 warnings ignored, etc..). This falls under the category of domestic crimes that require inpeachment of GW bush/Cheney regime!!

In addition to wetlands loss from canal construction, every single Wal-mart parking lot constructed over the last few decades in Louisiana counts as wetlands infill, thus increasing the pressure on levees allowed by GW bush to remain in disrepair prior to Katrina. Protection for wetlands was also denied under GW bush regime and developers had a field day filling in previously protecting wetland buffer habitats for suburban sprawl development..

Returning to the Sacto/SanJo valley delta ecosystem, we're in the same position for future flooding events under Arnold "Bad Actor" SSchwartzenegger. Handed a script by developers, he refuses to heed the warnings of hydrologists who warn of CA valley flooding potential. Many low lying cities like Natomas, eastern Sacramento (flood prone housing projects also), Woodland, etc.. are also at risk in our rainy season "pineapple express" southern storms that increase flooding from snow melt runoff, ground saturation and loss of protective wetlands buffer zones (besides the crucial Yolo bypass) to channel off excess water flow..

ANY development in the delta region is doubly foolish and we can only say to potential home buyers "BEWARE!" DO NOT fall for the smooth talking developers who ensure safety behind levees or other artificial constructions, get out ASAP or have your life raft & first aid kit ready for some winter flooding action!!

(Remember the military style martial law video game with scores being tracked by military recruiters that Gary Webb covered prior to his two bullet suicide was named LA/Natomas? Why did they ever choose Natomas over all other places? Possible location of a future west coast Katrina sytle FEMA evacuation to detention centers??)

Gary's article found @;
http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Archive?category=oid%3A36562 - 245k

To endorse futher saline oceanic intrusions via a new canal construction is invitation for disaster in these times of rising sea level. The part that Dan may be correct in is that the delta islands are not suitable for futher farming and need to be converted into protective wetlands habitat ASAP. There are not many people living there, only a few stubborn delta agribusinesses that choose to ignore the subsiding of their farmland to beneath sea level at the expense of others..

The state of CA themselves recognize the risks of delta island subsidence and publicly post it, though are unable to act. Why??

"Prior to Captain Pedro Fages visit to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in 1772, the Delta was a tidal wetland that had been populated for at least 4,000 years by several Native American groups that inhabited the natural levees and sand dunes. Farmers settling in the Delta during the California Gold Rush of the 1850’s constructed levees to protect their crops and homes from flooding. A network of ditches later drained the soils and the island-surface elevations began to decrease due to subsidence of the peat soils.

Drainage of the Delta islands was essentially completed by the1930’s when it assumed its present configuration of about 65 island surrounded by 1,100 miles of man-made levees and over 700 miles of waterways.

Subsidence of the peat soils has caused the tidally influenced islands to become holes in which the land surfaces are now 10 to 25 feet below sea level. This large decrease in land-surface elevation has made the islands more susceptible to flooding. When most of the existing levees were constructed, the difference between the water level in the channel and the island surfaces was less than 5 feet. Because of the decreasing island-surface elevations, the levees are now required to hold back substantially more water than when they were originally constructed. The resulted increase in hydraulic pressures on levees that were constructed on foundations of sand, peat and organic sediments has caused about 35 levee failures since the 1930Õs. The primary reasons for levee failure are levee instability, seepage, and overtopping."

article @;
http://www.dfm.water.ca.gov/dsmo/levees/subsidence.html

Nobody wants to be pushed off their landspace (just ask any indigenous North American "Indian") by arrogant state government scientists ((Oh, you mean the ones from Board of Reclamation Flood Control that got fired by Arnold SS because they warned of potential valley flooding? Or should we ask the opinions of their more developer friendly replacements??)) who talk about "unproductive" concepts like riparian ecology, though when the flood event happens and people resort to floating around in inner tubes looking for a place to shit AND safe water to drink we're not gonna come around with the "told you so's" to the unaware residents left ignorant because we understand that inaction and miseducation from government officials in the face of impending ecological disaster is the norm here in the states, EH? How did the Natomas planning councils change their location's development status from a potential floodplain to a non-floodplain category? We were not aware that financial incentives from developers were able to physically alter a region's elevation above sea level!!

Once again the problems of flood prone regions AND endangered delta smelt can be solved by wetlands restoration AND riparian habitat protection. That means cease and desist massive aquifer drawdowns and agua exports by agribusiness plantations!! People are indeed learning to grow their vegetables with less water (& less toxic petrochemical pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc..) input by converting to intercropping polycultura farms (see LA's southcentral campesino farm) that practice WATER CONSERVATION!! Agribusiness plantations are ineffective at conservation of precious rio agua and need to be dismantled ASAP Jose Bove style!!

"We wanted to do this protest in broad daylight, with a large group of people, a non-violent action, but symbolically very strong, and up front with the authorities. We were careful to explain ahead of time to the police that our objective was to dismantle the McDonald’s. They informed their superiors and the police chief. Then an officer from the police department called us to say that he was going to ask the manager at McDonalds for a sign of some kind so we could destroy that, that it be more symbolic. We told him: “Are you kidding? That’s nuts. We’re going to dismantle the doors and windows.”
"

read on @;
http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/june01bove.htm

As far as the construction of ANY sort of canal through the delta ecosystem, here's a "over my dead body" shout out to Arnold SS and his canal building team of ecologically insensitive psuedo-scientists..

To the delta island farmers; Please consider packing your bags, doublecheck the patches on your life raft, cuz the next pineapple express storm comes ya'll are gonna be swimmin'!!

How 'bout that for compromise!!

Yours truly,

One Very Disgruntled Sacto/SanJo Valley Earth First!er

To One Very Disgruntled...

That post ( a supposed "reply" to my post: Restore the Delta Voices Opposition to Peripheral Canal at Congressional Hearing) wasn't done by me, obviously. Somebody posted under my name to contradict the post that I had just put up regarding Restore the Delta's position on the peripheral canal.

I absolutely oppose the Governor's decision to support the peripheral canal because it would destroy what's left of the Bay-Delta Estuary. The Governor and his staff are probably hoping that the Delta smelt goes extinct so they can go ahead increasing water exports to their corporate agribusiness buddies involved in a web of water marketing schemes.

Whoever posted that idiotic and fantasy-based post knows nothing about the Delta ecosystem and its imperiled fish. Not only were they afraid to post their real name, but they could not even post an original web name, instead having to post my name - as the responder to my own post! How bizarre!

Thanks for all of the information that you compiled on Katrina - and the potential for martial law in this country when another disaster or series of disasters like Katrina hits.

Also, I knew Gary Webb and find it strange that he "committed suicide" right after that article was written in News and Review. That was one strange "suicide" - especially since he "shot himself" twice in the head.

Hey Dan,

Thanks for explaining that, it seemed like it wasn't really you who wrote that comment. Maybe one of the costs of free speech on imc? Either way, the content of the writing is usually my guide, though i enjoy reading your articles about the Klamath..

Am personally remaining anonymous for various reasons, one being the ease of duplication of a name. The tragic trail of accidents and suicides of recent activists is another. When we make comparisons with Bush regime and Hilter, we're really not joking around. Prison time and unfortunate accidents are a price of expressed dissent that i do not desire for myself. All i can say is the last few years have increased my distrust of the U.S. government to the point that i will remain anonymous until the duration of the GW bush regime ends. If you would like to call me a name, try "oak moth" as i am told i can be quite a pest at times!!

Either way the mysterious comment endorsing Arnold's delta canal written by the person who is not Dan Bacher was removed from the above article so now just some extra info by a disgruntled Earth First!er about Sacto valley flooding is available..

One of my goals is to participate in a voluntary Central Valley Earth First! organizing campaign around the specific ecological issues of any community, given the great geographical distances across the entire San Joaquin and Sacramento Valley. The Earth First! concept of ecosystem restoration combined with exposing abusive corporate pollution of the bioregion are needed in this valley of dos rios. Another name could be Dos Rios Valley Earth First! We're only limited by our imaginations..

The central feature of the dos rios central valley is of course the dominant agribusiness corporations and their plantation style agriculture. Sprawl and suburban development are also threatening the central valley ecosystem with additional pollution runoff, aquifer capping by pavement/concrete, etc..

We cannot ignore how our food is grown and/or processed and the prevalence of pesticides and herbicides in the central valley waterways is alone to great an issue to leave to the Blue Dog Democrats or even worse, Arnold SSchwartzenegger, the Bad Actor who reads the script handed him from agribusiness..

Water loss from the Trinity River also effects the salmon populations on the Klamath, the same practice of allowing plantation agribusinesses to take agua from the delta are also doing this with the Trinity in the northen valley..

After having witnessed several polyculture farms in isolated locations throughout the valley, evidence has indicated numerous times (see Cuba, organic permaculture) that there exsists enough land space for campesino farms that are inclusive of valley oaks, riparian ecosystems, seasonal floodplains, polycropping, symbiotic planting (three sisters; maize, beans, squash) and other water conservation methods that also provide people with ample crop yield AND nutritional diversity..

By finally practicing water conservation on our collective campesino farms, the rios will be less burdened with water withdrawals and the salmon, sturgeon and other migratory native fish species can indeed increase their population 6-8 X over the next few decades, providied that those Klamath dams come down and the central valley agribusinesses are converted into campesino farms with polycropping and other conservation methods listed above..

All these ideas are fine and dandy on the computer, though if the land remains under control of corporate agribusiness plantations these practices can never be even attempted, let alone put into action..

The agribusiness plantation's percieved yield surplus is a direct result of our petroleum dependency for the manufacture of the industrial chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers) that are required by the monocultura system of plantation agriculture. The migrant workers are the first in line to be exposed to the carcinogenic pesticides/herbicides that bring the agribusiness plantations their yield. In addition we need to factor in the cost of petroleum extraction from the Middle East, as the source of these pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers is a petroleum dervided chemical base..

If the migrant farm workers were given a choice, then they would most probably choose their location of employment on an organic polycultura farm that does NOT spray their crops with toxic carcinogenic pesticides. Organic polycultura farms depend on a healthy surrounding ecosystem for beneficial predator insects, thus decreasing the dependecy on toxic petrochemically derived pesticides..


Unless we want to send our grandchildren to die for the last drop of oil in the Middle East (Iraq, Iran, etc..) so that Exxon-Mobil and them can profit form our young soldier's blood (see; Iraqi oil privatization), we can make the wise choice and evolve our collective selves away from all this petroleum dependency..

Not only does Arnold the Bad Actor reside in the Sacto capitol following a suspicious recall election, we are breathing Bad Actor pesticide chemicals everyday we emerge outside. How severe the concentration of toxic chemicals entering your lungs depends upon your proximity to the crops beings sprayed..

Here's Pesticide Action Network's (PANNA) list of CA's Bad Actors;

"California Bad Actor Pesticides: Types of Toxic Pesticides

Carcinogens: Pesticides listed as known or probable carcinogens by the U.S. EPA or the state of California.


Reproductive and developmental toxicants: Pesticides known to cause infertility, sterility, birth defects and impaired childhood development, listed by the state of California.

Groundwater contaminants: Pesticides found repeatedly in groundwater in California. By state law, use of these pesticides is severely restricted in designated areas of the state that are susceptible to groundwater contamination.

Pesticides with high acute toxicity: Pesticide active ingredients that are acute systemic poisons. These materials are lethal to laboratory animals when they eat less than 50 mg per 1 kg of body weight, inhale air containing a concentration of the substance less than 0.2 mg per liter of air, or are exposed through the skin to levels less than 200 mg per kg of body weight. In other words, for a 150-pound person, consumption of as little as one-tenth of an ounce can be fatal.

Cholinesterase inhibitors: Neurotoxic pesticides known to interfere with proper functioning of cholinesterase (ChE), an enzyme which facilitates transmission of nerve impulses. Two chemical classes of pesticides -- organophosphates and carbamates -- constitute the ChE-inhibiting pesticides. The list of ChE inhibitors was constructed based on DPR's list of cholinesterase-inhibiting pesticides.

Endocrine disruptors: Pesticides linked to the disruption of hormone function in humans and/or wildlife. These chemicals have been shown to alter levels of male and female hormones, as well as certain thyroid hormones. While it is clear that some pesticides are capable of having endocrine disrupting effects, no comprehensive list of the endocrine-disrupting abilities of pesticide chemicals has yet been compiled. In this report, we designate a pesticide as an endocrine disruptor based on multiple references. Because insufficient information exists on these chemicals to determine the extent of potential harm they might cause, designation of a pesticide as an endocrine disruptor alone does not place it on the list of CA Bad Actor pesticides.

Restricted use pesticides (RUPs): Both the U.S. EPA and the state of California restrict the use of some pesticides because they are acutely toxic to humans or beneficial insects; have been shown to cause worker illnesses, groundwater contamination, bird or fish kills; or their drift damages other crops. RUPs can be used only by applicators certified and licensed by the state, and then only under specific conditions."

resource info @;
http://www.panna.org/resources/gpc/gpc_200008.10.2.06.dv.html


Help Prevent Farmworker Pesticide Poisoning;

PAN ALERT: And AGAIN, please support AB 1530 to prevent pesticide poisoning
Last week we asked you to support Assembly Bill 1530 through the California Senate's Environmental Quality Committee. Many of you did, and the bill made it through! Now it is on to the Senate Health Committee for consideration on Wednesday, July 11. We again need your help get it through.

Act Now! Email members of the Senate Health Committee, and urge him to support AB 1539 when the committee meets on July 11.

To review: California's cholinesterase medical supervision program was implemented more than 30 years ago to test and help protect pesticide handlers from poisoning by neurotoxic organophosphate and carbamate pesticides. Unfortunately, the program does not include a requirement for reporting test results to any state agency. Without reporting, we have no information on whether it initiates workplace review or actually prevent pesticide poisoning.

AB 1530, co-sponsored by Pesticide Action Network, California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles and United Farm Workers of America, aims to improve the cholinesterase program by requiring labs that conduct relevant testing for pesticide exposure to report test results to appropriate regulatory agencies, allowing the agencies to conduct program evaluation and oversight and prevent poisoning.

Send your email as soon as possible! Help get AB 1530 through the Senate Health Committee on Wednesday, July 11, and on to the full Senate.

Note: sometimes email to one or more decision makers bounces--systems fail or are changed without notice, but we do our best to get your messages through.


For More Information about AB 1530:


http://action.panna.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=12106

home @;
http://www.panna.org/