9-28-08

 9-28-08Badlands JournalLetter to Rep. John P. Sarbanes, D-Maryland…Badlands Journal editorial boardLink N/ADear Congressman Sarbanes,We are writing from Merced, CA, one of three top foreclosure-rate counties in the nation. Our congressman, Dennis Cardoza, Shrimp Slayer, now resides in the 3rd Congressional District of Maryland, which you represent. Therefore, since you represent our congressman, we are petitioning you to help with our foreclosure-rate problem. The Ol' Shrimp Slayer does not seem up to the task, although he boasts to us of being a very Important Man in Washington, on the Rules Committee and chair of a subcommittee of the Agriculture Committee dealing with fruits and nuts. The Shrimp Slayer is a shy man, so shy he moved to Maryland to avoid seeing his constituents at the local grocery store, so he probably will be unable to bring himself to write you on our behalf. He is ethically disadvantaged, which frequently makes his public utterances difficult to understand if you don't know what's been going on in the backroom with the few local special interests he's protecting at the moment. However, we beg you, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by that ferocious moralist, Henry Waxman, D-CA, who thunders about things like 'moral hazard' that the Shrimp Slayer would find incomprehensible, to consider our petition to get some help for the poor, misguided and hoodwinked recent homeowners, the shrill sound of whose shattering lives fills our streets and police blotters.We understand that you are on the House Natural Resources Committee, now chaired by Nick Rahall, D-WV, so you may have heard some stories about your new constituent, the Shrimp Slayer. As your committee continues to delve into corruption in the Interior Department, certain unsavory facts may surface regarding the behavior of members of the former House Resources Committee, chaired by former Rep. Richard Pombo, Buffalo Slayer-Tracy, who represented the district immediately north of Cardoza's. During the height of the speculative housing boom in these two congressional districts, this bipartisan duo, strolled about arm-in-arm counting the loot they collected from developers to pursue their single-minded aim of gutting the Endangered Species Act so that developers could completely destroy the natural habitat for a number of endangered species struggling to survive in what's left of habitat in the northern San Joaquin Valley. At the time, we called them the Pomboza, a term coined by the Azorean dairymen they menaced, and they cast a huge shadow over what is now the foreclosure-rate capital of the nation -- Merced, Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties. Although we were critical of the Shrimp Slayer in his Pomboza days, we urge you to discount our outbursts during Boom Time (we thought a bust might come) and to forgive your new constituent. Although in politics, he is ethically warped by his love of power and money, he is by all accounts a fine family man. He exercised his 'congressional voucher rights' by removing his children from the wretched school system here to put them in the finer schools of your district, which will give them a distinct advantage over their former classmates. Surely, a man of your commitments, who sits on the House Education and Labor Committee, subcommittees on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education and Healthy Families and Communities, can understand a father's simple yearning for a better education for his children and a healthier family, by shortening the paternal commute. Nor should you overlook what the Shrimp Slayer has done for his wife's medical career by removing her from the desperately short-handed medical system (at least according to the Shrimp Slayer and other boosters of UC Merced) of the San Joaquin Valley and getting her a job teaching at the U. of Maryland, while simultaneously calling for the establishment of a medical school right here in Merced.We understand that, by your obvious progressive, even liberal standards, you might have some difficulty hearing our plea. But your new constituent, our congressman, has been wagging his little Blue Dog tail at Republicans ever since he got to Congress and he can't even get a decent community development block grant (that funky CDBG money) out of HUD to help on our foreclosure situation although Merced County is poorer than any of the surrounding counties -- Fresno, Stanislaus and San Joaquin -- that raked in $57 million in pure CDGB. So, we figure maybe a forthright progressive Democrat might do better than the rear end of the Pomboza.We're not saying our congressman is ill, by Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders standards anyway. He is a good family man and the prognosis is positive for his recovery in the congenial atmosphere Maryland's 3rd congressional district. Here, things aren't so congenial. But we figure the Shrimp Slayer will disprove the old saw that a person can't run away from his problems. We confess we have never found anything beneath the Shrimp Slayer's public pomposity but wannabe-shrewd backroom calculations that boil down to moments of political psychosis. Mind you, just moments, just moments and geographically specific to a region about which the Shrimp Slayer has, as the psychologists would say, 'conflicts.' In a word, Rep. Sarbanes, your new constituent is basically a fugitive from his congressional district. He hates it. While this is no doubt not unknown in the annals of Congress, and in light of the foreclosure crisis here the least of our worries, nevertheless it ought to cause some concern among the Shrimp Slayer's colleagues -- the guy is bonkers. Possibly, you could find a place in a small parochial school in your district where he could teach political science. He might bloom in such an environment. However, with respect to the moral development of the children of your district, if you could just find the Shrimp Slayer a berth in a local Trappist monastery for a few years, perhaps under discrete lock and key, you would be doing your district and ours genuine service. It is hot here in the San Joaquin Valley, there is a drought, there are the imperious demands of demented agribusiness, there is not enough water to supply the absurd over-population of the state and so we have water wars,  and the Shrimp Slayer is just not up to water warring. We have the most polluted air quality in the nation, our state government is captured by developers as surely as it was once captured by The Railroad, and developers continue to target this dismal air-pollution region for more growth and more corruption of a rather good law we once wrote, the California Environmental Quality Act. As humane, educated people, we have some sympathy for the Shrimp Slayer. He displays the attributes of perpetual adolescence we often find in college professors and we believe his great, corrupt acts on behalf of locating a University of California campus in Merced (where it became the anchor tenant for growth, speculators including UC regents) were motivated by the desire to never grow up. Unfortunately, water wars, like those real wars you boys and girls in Congress fund, which claim so many young people from regions like ours, are hopelessly beyond the comprehension of perpetual adolescents like the Shrimp Slayer, who seek 'balance,' and are 'troubled' by governmental and financial barbarism. Congress should realize that you are driving our congressman insane because its deeds do not accord with his reading of the texts of political science at his alma mater, the U. of Maryland. And so, Rep. Sarbanes, we address you as citizens of a district represented in Congress by a boy fleeing the consequences of his actions, who is trying to be a good father -- always a noble aim. We address you as an Eastern gentleman and as a cultivated Greek-American, hopefully not in the financial thrall of our local plutocrats buying classics departments throughout the nation to promote the line that Makedonia was always Greek and that Aristotle's ethics and politics support the designs of Sacramento real estate developers. Your new constituent, the Shrimp Slayer, is just a coward -- no more, no less. His district has always been too much for him. Perhaps the tender mercies of your hospitable and civilized congressional district will give him a chance to find his manhood. Personally, we desire this for him. A man should be a man, at least once, as Hemingway said. He lacks any of the guts of a foreclosed burglar, and the current situation, which lacks any nuance at all, is highly distressing -- possibly incapacitating -- to a soul as sensitive as our Shrimp Slayer's.To conclude, regarding the HUD CDBG funds, supporters and contributors to the Shrimp Slayer in Merced County will steal every penny of them they do not funnel to their friends. So, do not listen to pleas for support from your new constituent regarding pork for his pals. He is, as we have said, ethically disadvantaged. We are a fairly hardy lot. One way or another, we'll make it. A little help from other sources than the CDBG mother of pork would be welcome. We need camping gear, rations, tarps for shelter, comfortable, long-wearing shoes and the sturdiest baby strollers you can find. It would be easier to recover if we were spared Cardoza’s inane babbling during the process. Find him a cell in Baltimore and take care of his family.   Sincerely,Badlands Journal editorial boardModesto BeeDam demands shouldn't hold up levee repairs...Editorialhttp://www.modbee.com/opinion/story/445190.htmlMore than 1,100 miles of levees curve through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta -- a set of fortifications comparable in length to one-fourth of the Great Wall of China.Unlike the Great Wall, most of the delta's levees are built on unstable peat soil -- which is good ground for growing things, but horrible for sustaining any kind of structure. The foundations of many levees are below sea level. If an earthquake were to strike this region, many levees could crumble at once, allowing salt water to rush into an estuary that serves as the conduit for the drinking water of 22 million people in California.Geologists say it's not a matter of "if" such a disaster will occur, only when. That means the state can't just make long-term plans for coping with temblors and sea level rise in the delta. It also needs a short-term plan for a disaster that could happen tomorrow.During this session of the Legislature, lawmakers passed Senate Bill X2 1, a bill that would allocate nearly $821 million in bond funds approved through Propositions 84 and 1E and previous bond measures.About $135 million of this money would go to safeguarding the delta's most vulnerable levees and financing an emergency response. For instance, the state Department of Water Resources needs to stockpile rock and gravel in key locations so that contractors can quickly respond and repair any breach.Authored by Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, SB X2 1 would fund a range of projects -- some with less urgency than delta levee protection. Overall, however, the governor should sign this bill.Money from SB X2 1 could be used immediately to clean up polluted groundwater basins, making them fit for storage. It would fund collaborations between farms and urban areas to conserve water, providing immediate relief from the drought.It would build salinity barriers and improve habitat in the delta, reducing conflicts between fish and water pumping. Lastly, it would fast-track needed studies of water storage projects, allowing the public and policy-makers to know if such projects are cost-effective or even feasible.Last year, Gov. Schwarzenegger vetoed a version of this bill, largely because big water interests wanted to hold it hostage for an agreement on proposed new reservoirs. Those same San Joaquin Valley water interests are at it again, trying to block expenditures of voter-approved water bonds so they can pressure lawmakers into a larger deal.These are separate issues. While we need to move forward in building additional storage -- especially at Temperance Flat near Fresno -- we also need to protect those living near the delta from possible catastrophe. If a severe earthquake were to strike the delta tomorrow, the Department of Water Resources and local agencies would be unprepared to respond. Not only could it produce localized flooding from Manteca to Sacramento, it would make our water situation much worse.We have failed to adequately prepare for drought conditions in this state. We shouldn't let that failure stop us from preparing to deal with other possible -- even probable -- disasters such as earthquakes. Schwarzenegger should sign this bill.Invasive snail found in North Coast waterway...Times-Standard, http://www.times-standard.comhttp://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/444935.htmlWildlife officials say an invasive snail from New Zealand has been found in an area of Big Lagoon, north of Eureka.U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Greg Goldsmith says the New Zealand mud snail can blanket whole areas and effect a lake's ecosystem.As of now, there is no way to eradicate the snail. Goldsmith says experts will try to prevent the snail's spread and says boaters and fisherman will have to take better care to thoroughly wash their waders and boats of the invasive pests.The snails were first found in Big Lagoon in early September. The snail was first identified in the U.S. in the 1980s in Idaho's Snake River. It has since spread to at least 10 states.Fresno BeeFresno developments push the boundariesNumerous projects passed through zoning changes are undermining a goal of Fresno's general plan -- reducing sprawl...Brad Brananhttp://www.fresnobee.com/263/v-printerfriendly/story/898409.htmlA 2002 master development plan for Fresno has failed to make good on promises to curb urban sprawl, public records and interviews show. Experts say sprawl -- poorly planned development scattered far from the city's heart -- could add to some of Fresno's biggest problems by creating more traffic and air pollution, depriving core neighborhoods of development and straining the city's budget for road maintenance. The city's latest general plan, a blueprint approved in November 2002 for growth through 2025, brought promises to control the problem, which has been a concern for decades. Mayor Alan Autry said at the time that the plan was a "defining moment in the history of our city," marking "the day when our city's leaders said 'no' to continuing urban sprawl."But experts say the plan was flawed from the beginning, allowing construction of housing projects on agricultural land on the city's fringe, isolated from jobs and shopping.In addition, the City Council has routinely approved developer requests for exceptions to the plan or the city's zoning code, city records show. Experts say such case-by-case tinkering with development plans only worsens sprawl.From January 2003 through June 2008, the council approved about 400 zone changes or general plan amendments and denied just four. The approvals included more than 300 projects around the city's edges -- in most cases allowing more intense development. The Bee analysis excluded zoning changes requested before 2003. Over those 5 1/2 years, the city let developers convert more than 11 square miles around Fresno's edges for residential, commercial and other types of development. That includes two of the biggest projects approved in recent years: Copper River Ranch subdivision, which added a square mile to Fresno's northern tip, and the Fancher Creek development, which converted almost a square mile on the southeastern side.Despite the promises of 2002, "It looks like business as usual," said Hal Tokmakian, a former Fresno County planning director and professor emeritus of planning at California State University, Fresno. Tokmakian and several other planning experts reviewed the city's land-use decisions at The Bee's request.Nick Yovino, Fresno's recently retired planning director, disagrees with their assessment. Most of the land-use changes were rezones allowed under the general plan, said Yovino, who wrote it. Plan amendments have made for more "judicious use" of land, he said. "The plan is working exactly as it should," Yovino said. But Tokmakian and other critics said the plan was flawed to begin with -- and that the repeated amendments prove the point. Among similar-sized cities in California, the few that amend their plans more than Fresno have decided to start over and make new development plans. In Fresno, the "plan is cockeyed," said Tokmakian, who taught Yovino when he was a student at Fresno State. The plan fails because it doesn't work well with the city's zoning code, which is based on planning ideas from the 1950s, he said. Others contend that sprawl is a sign that Fresno's traditionally cozy relationship with developers has not changed. Fresno completed the development plan the same year federal authorities were wrapping up cases from Operation Rezone, which ensnared former City Council members for accepting bribes for land-use decisions. Since then, critics contend, legal money from developers -- service fees and campaign contributions -- has continued to tilt the system in their favor. Crowded edges... City defends record... Paying for sprawl... Sprawl and smog... ... and poverty... What went wrong?... Plan problemsPlanning experts provide another reason for the city's failure to better manage growth -- flaws in the development plan and the zoning code.Plan amendments have contributed to fringe growth. Of the 110 amendments approved through June, 82 were for projects around the city's edges.The Bee surveyed planning departments in the state's 20 largest cities, except Los Angeles. In an average year, only Sacramento, Bakersfield and San Jose approve plan amendments more often than Fresno. In its guidebook on development plans, the state Governor's Office of Planning and Research says "frequent piecemeal amendments" to a plan can indicate "major defects." Cities should consider plan revisions in such cases.Sacramento, Bakersfield and San Jose are all updating their development plans, and expect to approve them in the next two years. "If you amend the plan too much, it loses its meaning," said McDonald, the Sacramento planner. "It encourages people to come in and amend the plan." Fresno's plan needs to change, said Tokmakian, the former Fresno County planning director. The plan tries to be too specific about what kinds of development should be built on individual pieces of property, he said.The plan should regulate development through policy, not a map, he said. Almost all of the plan amendments were needed because proposed development differed from the plan map, Yovino conceded. But having a detailed map allows the city to better plan for infrastructure needs, he said. The city's zoning code also needs updating, Tokmakian said, because it was approved in 1960 and likely doesn't "translate the goals of the plan effectively." The zoning code is the law cities use to regulate land use. Yovino said the city has made many amendments to the zoning code since adopting the development plan. Holding up the development plan for a new zoning code would have taken too long.The result, according to Tokmakian, is that Fresno uses a system incapable of bringing promised change. Instead, the city continues "the same pattern of piecemeal changes on the fringes, concentrating on open space," he said. TWO VIEWS: Movie should spur talk of need for revising NAFTA...Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Researchhttp://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/wo/v-printerfriendly/story/896792.htmlWASHINGTON -- The long-awaited "Battle in Seattle" opened Sept. 19 in movie theaters across the country. It's a rare combination of high drama and history-making events as they actually happened when thousands of protesters shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle nearly nine years ago. And it has an all-star cast including Oscar-winning beauty Charlize Theron, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Rodriguez, Ray Liotta and Andre Benjamin. Perhaps most unusual for a feature film, it gives the protesters credit for what they accomplished: They changed the debate over what has been deceptively marketed as "free trade." They were beaten and jailed, choked with tear gas and shot with rubber bullets, but they succeeded in raising awareness about what these organizations and international agreements really do.Prior to the Seattle protests in 1999, almost nobody knew that the World Trade Organization was not so much about "free trade" as about creating new rights and privileges for corporations at the expense of the environment, public health and the public interest in general. The WTO and NAFTA's provisions on "intellectual property," for example, are the exact opposite of free trade, according to standard economic analysis. They increase the cost of medicines by extending and protecting the patent monopolies of big pharmaceutical companies and stifling international free trade in generic medicines, some of which are desperately needed in developing countries.The debate has widened and now the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has proposed to renegotiate NAFTA. And why not? The original agreement was approved in 1993, before anyone knew what was in it. Among other things, it contained "sleeper" provisions that enabled corporations, for the first time, to sue governments directly for environmental regulation that affects their bottom line. We also have nearly 15 years of experience with NAFTA and it clearly did not deliver on most of its promises. It was sold as a job creator, but the United States has actually lost jobs, especially in manufacturing, as our trade deficit with Mexico has grown. Even more important, NAFTA has helped perpetuate the downward pressure on wages that have made the United States a much more unequal society over the last three decades. From 1973 to 2007, wages in the United States barely grew at all, as compared to a 74% increase from 1948 to 1973.This change in the economy is partly a result of subjecting the majority of the American labor force -- the more than 70% that do not have a college degree -- to increased international competition, while maintaining protectionism for highly paid professionals such as lawyers, doctors and upper management. It is also what standard economic theory would predict. Yet almost every newspaper editorial board in the country has someone who took an Econ 101 course and thinks they learned that increasing trade must be good because it makes "countries" better off. The late A.M. Rosenthal, a longtime New York Times editor and columnist, summed it up while NAFTA was being debated in Congress: "How they would howl, those journalistic and academic supporters of NAFTA who have shown so little care, compassion or understanding about the fears of working people who might lose their jobs, how they would howl if their own jobs were in danger."Unfortunately NAFTA does not appear to have helped Mexico either, where growth since it was implemented in 1994 has been sluggish, wages stagnant and hundreds of thousands of families displaced from farming as they were forced to compete with U.S. agriculture. NAFTA did, however, increase trade. But trade is not an end in itself; the goal is to improve people's living standards. So by all means, let's renegotiate NAFTA -- and the WTO agreement too. We're likely to end up with better agreements now that people know something about what is being negotiated. Sacramento BeeFate of Steinberg warming bill up in the air...Tony Bizjak http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/1271584.htmlFor two years, Sacramento Sen. Darrell Steinberg coaxed builders, environmentalists and housing advocates into agreement on an ambitious plan to cut global warming pollutants in California.Now, he needs one more signature to make it law, and he's got two more days to get it. But that would-be signer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, is balking.The deadline is Tuesday.Senate Bill 375 directs the state Air Resources Board to set greenhouse gas reduction targets for each of the state's 17 regional areas, including Sacramento. It offers incentives for cities and builders that turn growth inward, away from sprawling suburbs.It's inspired by the Sacramento region's recent Blueprint to reduce car commutes with more urban-style housing and more transit.Proponents call it far-reaching. Opponents say it overreaches.Schwarzenegger administration officials reportedly fear the bill could thwart billions of dollars of already planned major road projects in the state, such as carpool lanes on freeways.In a Friday meeting with administration officials, Steinberg, the state Senate's president pro tem-elect, disagreed, but promised to clear that up with further legislation, if need be.He pointed out the bill will fast-forward Schwarzenegger's oft-stated desire of leading the world in reducing greenhouse gases, blamed for global warming."This is not just another bill," Steinberg said Saturday. If the governor vetoes it, Steinberg warned it would be very hard to resuscitate next year. "The coalition is a fragile one."Administration officials declined to comment Saturday.In a Friday speech, however, Schwarzenegger voiced reservations."It will be a huge bill," Schwarzenegger acknowledged, a follow-up to landmark AB 32 two years ago, requiring California to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically by 2020. "The important thing is, again, that it is written the right way. I'm going to look at that bill very carefully, because in principle, I love that idea."If the bill becomes law, proponents say the next generation of Californians will drive less and live closer to work and closer to each other.Call it California Condensed.The plan instructs metropolitan areas to put a belt around growth plans and cinch it up a notch or two.Sacramento transportation official Mike McKeever said the bill could put California at a historic tipping point – when it starts making as much financial and social sense to build inward as outward."It's a way new era," said McKeever, Sacramento Area Council of Governments chief.But state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, has called it a case of "authoritarians on the left" telling Californians where and how to live."Is the public ready to give up mobility in the name of greenhouse gas reductions?" added Contra Costa Transportation Authority director Robert McCleary. He fears lawsuits against major road projects.Steinberg countered the plan does neither. Instead, he said, it is an obvious next step for California to meet its self-imposed 2020 goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide from cars, which scientists say play a role in global warming.Thirty-eight percent of California's greenhouse gas emissions come from cars ferrying residents to work, stores, schools and chores, and from trucks carrying goods to market, state Air Resources Board data show.The bill instructs metropolitan areas to meld housing and transportation plans into a single document, then to estimate how much greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles that growth will produce.The Air Resources Board, in turn, will set targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions for each region.But the bill notably stops short of telling cities and counties which direction to grow. Nor does it require regions to meet ARB greenhouse gas emission targets.Instead, the bill offers what Steinberg calls a "hard carrot."Regions that blend land-use and transportation planning in a way that reduces vehicle emissions will be a step ahead in qualifying for state and federal transportation project funds.Steinberg argues his plan isn't meant to be a death knell for California's suburban lifestyle."This is not going to eliminate backyards," he said. "It's more about ensuring that people don't have to spend more time in their cars."Sacramento's early experience with its 4-year-old Blueprint plan, however, indicates old growth habits are hard to break.Sprawl in Sacramento has slowed but not stopped. Infill development is happening, but slowly, and transit remains too skeletal to give many residents reason yet to get out of their cars.To push past those problems, Steinberg says SB 375 offers additional incentives for "smart growth," including relief from certain onerous state environmental review laws for some infill projects and developments near transit stops. Richard Lyon of the state Building Industry Association said those incentives could reduce the number of projects stalled by lawsuits.The group that put the bill together – dubbed the "coalition of the impossible" by Steinberg – includes builders, environmentalists, cities, housing organizations and transportation planners."We're in a new realm," said Sacramento developer Mike Winn, head of the local Building Industry Association chapter. "The (building) model that worked in the past is broken. Even new suburban areas around fringes are going to have to be served by alternative transportation."San Francisco ChronicleNew old water...Kelly Zito...Village Green...9-25-08http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=50&entry_id=30752More old water ideas are becoming new water ideas, including one that would supply Southern California with water pumped through aquifers underneath the Mojave Desert.Last week, water developer Cadiz Inc. said it reached a 99-year lease with Arizona & California Railroad Co.'s right-of-way for an underground pipeline.When-if completed, the pipeline would transport excess Colorado River water 30 miles from the California Aqueduct to the Cadiz aquifer, allowing the company to supply up to 49 billion gallons to Southern California consumers. It's similar to a plan ultimately rejected several years ago by the behemoth Metropolitan Water District, which serves much of the Los Angeles area. This time around, amid a brutal drought and reduced pumpings through the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta, the San Diego Water Authority is expressing support for the project.In making the announcement Cadiz Inc. said the original plan was "designed to alleviate concerns raised by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D- CA), and it will maintain those principle objectives: protect the desert environment in and surrounding the Project area, ensure groundwater quality, and maintain the long-term yield and storage capacity of the aquifer system."Feinstein is no stranger to big water projects. She supports additional surface storage (read: reservoirs and dams) in California and she stood with Gov. Schwarzenegger in proposing a $9 billion-plus water bond for such projects, as well as recycling and some kind of improved "conveyance" system for routing water around the failing Delta, the hub of the state’s water system.However, in a striking letter to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, Feinstein said she found the Cadiz Valley Dry-Year Supply Project "very troubling." Specifically, Feinstein questioned whether the project would result in over pumping of the aquifer (whose supply of water has built up over millions of years), which could damage local habitats. What's more, Feinstein said the water may not be adequately "recharged" to the aquifer, particularly with some climate models comparing the Southwest of the not-too-distant future with the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.Feinstein said she plans to hold a Senate hearing on the matter, and will ask Kempthorne to testify.New York TimesHouse Bans Diverting Water From Great Lakes...Susan Saulny...9-24-08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/washington/24lakes.html?sq=conservation&st=cse&scp=6&pagewanted=printThe House approved a bill Tuesday to protect the vast body of fresh water in the Great Lakes region by prohibiting almost any diversion of it to places outside the lakes’ basin and requiring the eight states bordering the lakes to follow new conservation standards.The vote was 390 to 25 in favor of the bill, which has already been passed by the Senate and is expected to be signed by President Bush. The measure, the Great Lakes Compact, was negotiated by the eight states. A decade in the making, it is intended to ease longstanding fears that states outside the region, or even other countries, could tap into the lakes, possibly deplete them and do long-term damage to their basin’s natural environment and economy. Together, the five Great Lakes account for 20 percent of the world’s supply of fresh surface water, and an estimated 40 million people get their water from the lakes’ basin. Scientists and environmental advocates who backed the legislation said they considered the lakes not a regional resource but a national one, whose health and integrity, they said, are in the entire country’s interest. “If water could be exported willy-nilly without any ability of the Great Lakes states to evaluate the ecological and economic impact, you’d have to think bad things would come of that,” said J. David Allan, acting dean of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. “You’re benefiting the country by keeping water where it serves the immediate needs of millions of people.”Christy Leavitt, clean-water advocate at Environment America, agreed. “Keeping the water in the basin is critical,” Ms. Leavitt said, “and so is requiring all the Great Lakes states to develop conservation and efficiency programs.”The compact will generally prevent water’s diversion from the basin except under rare circumstances, and even then only with approval of all eight bordering states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.The House vote capped an effort, begun in 1998, to reach a multistate set of agreements on management of the lakes. Though some lawmakers posed last-minute objections that the pact was not strong enough — the export of bottled water, for instance, would be exempted from the ban — a wide range of Great Lakes advocates called the bill a powerful one whose time was overdue.“It shows that our national leaders understand that conserving water is vital for the economy,” said Cameron Davis, chief executive of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. “It signals to the rest of the would that water, the oil of the century, is a global imperative. -------------------------------------------------------------CENTRAL VALLEY SAFE ENVIRONMENT NETWORKMISSION STATEMENTCentral Valley Safe Environment Network is a coalition of organizations and individuals throughout the San Joaquin Valley that is committed to the concept of "Eco-Justice" -- the ecological defense of the natural resources and the people. To that end it is committed to the stewardship, and protection of the resources of the greater San Joaquin Valley, including air and water quality, the preservation of agricultural land, and the protection of wildlife and its habitat. In serving as a community resource and being action-oriented, CVSEN desires to continue to assure there will be a safe food chain, efficient use of natural resources and a healthy environment. CVSEN is also committed to public education regarding these various issues and it is committed to ensuring governmental compliance with federal and state law. CVSEN is composed of farmers, ranchers, city dwellers, environmentalists, ethnic, political,and religious groups, and other stakeholders.