October 2007

Public minutes of the East Merced Resource Conservation Board of Directors meeting, September 26, 2007

Abbreviations:

RCD=East Merced Resource Conservation District
MRS=Merced River Stakeholders
MRA=Merced River Alliance
NRCS=USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service
DOC=state Department of Conservation
DWR=state Department of Water Resources

#1. Introductions

Merced River property owner/stakeholder viewpoint on East Merced Resource Conservation District September board meeting

This is a letter from a Merced River stakeholder/river landowner that provides another viewpoint on the recent East Merced Resource Conservation District board meeting. -- Badlands Journal editorial board

CESHA Comments on Proposed New UC Merced Footprint

Press release: For Immediate Use !! ******* Press release: For Immediate Use !!

California Endangered Species and Habitat Alliance

Butte Environmental Council * California Native Plant Society * Defenders of Wildlife * Protect Our Water * San Joaquin Raptor and Wildlife Rescue Center * San Joaquin Valley Conservancy * VernalPools.Org

October 5, 2007 Contacts:

(916) 452-5440 Carol Witham, VernalPools.Org

Public comments on public minutes of EMRCD board meeting

Below, find two comment letters on the public minutes of the last East Merced Resource Conservation District board of directors meeting. The Badlands editorial board has received several comments, actually, but declined comparison with 1950s French theater of the absurd. We wish to point out to the second correspondent that Lydia Miller has never conducted a "circus" at any Merced River Stakeholder meeting and one credible witness to that is Pat Ferrigno, representing the Bettencourt family ownerships on the river. Nor have river property owners created circuses at the MRS.

The following is a report on a meeting held between top US Fish & Wildlife Service officials in Sacramento and representatives of non-government organizations concerned with California water issues and public employee responsibility for the environment. It was written by Felix Smith, retired USFWS fish biologist, representing the Save the American River Association.

Sense of the Meeting

Kuttner: 1929 and 2007

Testimony of Robert Kuttner
Before the Committee on Financial Services
Rep. Barney Frank, Chairman
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
October 2, 2007
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee:

Shameless demogoguery

Fresno Bee
9-7-07
Ruling will damage region's water future...Mike Villines Rep. 29th Assembly District

A recent ruling handed down by a federal judge in Fresno places a significant portion of the water our region receives from the San Joaquin Delta in jeopardy, which could devastate our region's economy and public health.

Victory for SB 719: expansion of the Valley air board

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the bill to expand the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District board from 11 to 15 members on Oct. 14. The board would add two more city council members to the three already included and would add two members with expertise in the health issues of Valley air pollution, to be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the state Senate. Eight county supervisors, one from each of the Valley counties, would continue to sit on the board.

For shame

The Valley has always been a hard place, no doubt of that. Merced County probably hasn't been better than the fifth hungriest county in the state at the best of times in the last decade (given poverty statistics on California counties), but now, in the wake of the greatest building boom in its history, it ranks as the third hungriest county in the state and its foreclosure rate is tops in the nation. One in ten go to bed hungry and one in 68 are in some stage of home foreclosure.

The importance of care

Care, writes one of our best environmental journalists and activists, is at the basis of civilization. Yet, here we sit in a valley, one of the world's richest agricultural places, still largely rural, and its leaders spend their boundless energy figuring out how to replicate the mindless slurb to the south and to the north of it for the profits of finance, insurance, real estate, large landholdings and themselves.