Schwarzenegger's Drive to Privatize: from Fort Ross to the MLPA

Schwarzenegger's Drive to Privatize: from Fort Ross to the MLPA

by Dan Bacher

A visit by a Russian president and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative may at first not seem to have much in common, but both represent the Governor's relentless drive to privatize the state's public trust resources.

On June 22, Schwarzenegger welcomed Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev on a historic visit to California. During Medvedev's trip, Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, head of the Renova Group of Companies, signed an agreement with Schwarzenegger to provide "substantial financial support" to keep Fort Ross State Historic Park open.

"Operating hours have been reduced at the park as a result of the state’s fiscal crisis," according to a news release from the Governor's Office. "The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) confirms that a charitable foundation created by Renova will provide financial support for Fort Ross. Renova’s foundation also plans to be involved in programs and activities at Fort Ross and intends to help make Fort Ross a center for cross-cultural exchange between Russia and California,"

“This agreement highlights the diverse history of California and the importance of the Russian culture to our state,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “It is exciting to see Renova get involved in preserving this important park and create a public-private partnership to increase the services at Fort Ross at no cost to taxpayers.”

Renova is Russia's "leading private business group" that consists of asset management companies and direct and portfolio investment funds owning and managing assets in metals, mining, oil, machine building, mining , construction, development, energy, telecommunications, nanotechnologies, utilities and financial sector in Russia and abroad, according to the group's website, http://www.renova.ru/osnova-eng/index.html.

The value of Renova Group assets as of January 2008 was $24.77 billion. Renova invests in Russia, Switzerland, Italy, South Africa, Ukraine, Atvia, Kinghzia, Mongolia and other countries. The Strategy of Renova Group is targeted "at the acquisition of assets in industries with a significant growth and consolidation potential."

If this "public-private partnership" goes the way of another privatized process, the MLPA Initiative, it is likely to be a complete disaster for Californians and our public trust resources.

On the day after the MOA between Vekselberg and Schwarzenegger was signed, a joint press release issued by the MLPA Initiative and the Department of Fish and Game announced the holding of five "open house" events for the Northern California community from July 6 to 8.

These MLPA open houses have been scheduled in northern California for the public to “review and provide input” on four draft proposals for the MLPA North Coast Study Region, which covers state waters from the California/Oregon border to Alder Creek near Point Arena in Mendocino County, according to Annie Reisewitz, MLPA Initiative spokesman.

The five open houses are scheduled for:
• Tuesday, July 6, 2010: 5:00-7:30 p.m., C.V. Starr Community Center, 300 South Lincoln Street, Fort Bragg, CA
• Wednesday, July 7, 2010: 8:00-10:00 a.m., The Octagon/Beginnings, 5 Cemetery Road, Briceland, CA
• Wednesday, July 7, 2010: 5:00-7:30 p.m., Humboldt Bay Aquatic Center, 921 Waterfront Drive, Room 211, Eureka, CA
• Thursday, July 8, 2010: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m., Redwood National and State Parks, South Operations Center, 121200 Hwy. 101, Orick, CA
• Thursday, July 8, 2010: 5:00-7:30 p.m., Elk Valley Rancheria Community Center, 2332 Howland Hill Road, Crescent City, CA

"We are seeking additional input from the local community to help re-design California's marine protected areas into a cohesive coastal network that adequately protects diverse marine life and their habitats," gushed Ken Wiseman, executive director of the MLPA Initiative. "These events offer members of the public one-on-one conversation opportunities with stakeholders and staff with regard to the draft MPA proposals and to directly provide their input."

Unfortunately, what Wiseman and Reisewitz failed to tell you is that this “cohesive coastal network” does very little to “adequately protect diverse marine life and their habitats.”

That’s because when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger privatized the MLPA process in 2004 by allowing a private corporation, the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, to fund the process, true marine protection was completely taken off the table.

The MLPA, a landmark law passed by the Legislature and signed by then Governor Gray Davis in 1999, is very broad in its scope. The law was intended to not only restrict or prohibit fishing in a network of “marine protected areas,” but to restrict or prohibit other human activities including coastal development and water pollution.

“Coastal development, water pollution, and other human activities threaten the health of marine habitat and the biological diversity found in California’s ocean waters,” the law states in Fish and Game Code Section 2851, section c.

The law defines a "Marine life reserve," as “a marine protected area in which all extractive activities, including the taking of marine species, and, at the discretion of the commission and within the authority of the commission, other activities that upset the natural ecological functions of the area, are prohibited. While, to the extent feasible, the area shall be open to the public for managed enjoyment and study, the area shall be maintained to the extent practicable in an undisturbed and unpolluted state” (Fish and Game Code 2852, section d).

Unfortunately, the Schwarzenegger administration has taken all other “human uses” and “extractive activities” other than fishing and seaweed harvesting off the table in the implementation of the MLPA process. The MLPA fiasco does nothing to stop water pollution, oil drilling, and wave energy projects or other activities from destroying fish and other marine life populations in California’s coastal waters. Furthermore, the law would do nothing to stop an ecological catastrophe like the Exxon Valdez in Alaska or the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from devastating the California coast.

A courageous group of fisherman and conservationists exposed the "Green Governor" for doing nothing to stop pollution and other activities other than fishing in a protest they held at the Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles on September 30, 2009.

“The Marine Life Protection Act currently being implemented in Southern California by the administration was supposed to be comprehensive, addressing all aspects that affect the ocean, like pollution, coastal development and fishing," said protest organizer Wendy Tochihara. "However, the Governor has abandoned sound science and is instead only duplicating existing fishing ban laws.”

The MLPA process under Schwarzenegger not only fails to adequately protect the ocean, but John Stephens-Lewallen, co founder of the Seaweed Rebellion and the Ocean Protection Coalition, and other North Coast environmental leaders believe that it paves the way for new oil drilling off the California coast.

Stephens-Lewallen and other opponents of the MLPAI have criticized Schwarzenegger for appointing Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, as the chair of the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast. She also now serves on the North Central Coast task force and served on the North Coast task force charged with implementation of the MLPA in one of the most overt examples of corporate greenwashing in California history.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd recently affirmed her support for new offshore oil rigs in spite of the BP spill’s devastation, in her commentary, “Gulf Oil Spill Comments,” on the association’s website, http://www.wspa.org.

“The tragic Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in California Governor Schwarzenegger’s withdrawal of his support for limited offshore oil development near Santa Barbara,” said Reheis-Boyd. “WSPA has not taken a position on specific offshore projects. But we have been vocal about our views that California businesses and consumers would benefit from development of the huge reserves of petroleum off the California coast, in both state and federal waters.”

Other corporate interests who preside over the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force include members William (Bill) Anderson and Gregory F. Schem.

Anderson has been president and chief operating officer of Westrec Marinas since 1989. Westrec Marinas is the nation's largest owner and operator of waterfront marinas.

Schem is president and chief executive officer of Harbor Real Estate Group, specializing in marina and waterfront real estate investments, including a marina, fuel dock, and boat yard in Marina del Rey, in addition to other California assets.

How can anybody possibly claim that the MLPA Initiative “protects” the oceans when the Governor has appointed oil company, real estate and marina development interests – all of whom all have a direct stake in how marine reserves are implemented and designated – to decision making positions on MLPA panels? This is a classic scenario of the Governor appointing the foxes to watch over the henhouse.

Besides failing to protect California coastal waters from other human uses than fishing in waters that already feature the largest marine protected area in the United States (the Rockfish Conservation Area), the MLPA Initiative has openly violated numerous state, federal and international laws. These include the California Public Records Act, Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, American Indian Religious Freedom Act, and UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

It's clear that public trust resources are being rapidly privatized under Schwarzenegger, whether it's state ocean waters under the corrupt MLPA Initiative, funded by the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, or the MOU with the Renova Group of Companies. The MLPA Initiative and MOU with Renova are likely to clear the way for increasing privatization of coastal lands and state ocean and bay waters unless we stop this land and resource grab.

At the same time, Schwarzenegger and his allies are campaigning for a $11.14 billion water bond that will lead to further privatization of water by rich corporate growers such as Stewart Resnick, owner of Paramount Farms. The water bond will facilitate the construction of new dams and a peripheral canal, a project that is likely to result in the extinction of imperiled Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta smelt, green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales. The canal will cost an estimated $23 billion to $53.8 billion at a time when the state is in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

For more information about the MLPA Initiative proposals and "open houses," please see http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa. For more information about the campaign against the Water Bond, go to http://www.nowaterbond.com.