7-28-09

 
7-28-09
Merced Sun-Star
Atwater city councilman Gary Frago gets an earful from angry constituents...JONAH OWEN LAMB
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/972928.html
ATWATER -- Gary Frago, the Atwater city councilman who sent a series of racist e-mails to city staff and others in late 2008 and early 2009, faced a chorus of outrage on Monday evening as protesters and angry citizens lambasted him at a special council meeting in Atwater's community center
The more than 250 people filling the auditorium included local activists, who picketed outside of the city hall and then marched down Bellevue Avenue, members of the local chapter of the NAACP and residents from across Merced County.
While the City Council voted only to issue Frago a letter of disapproval, the majority of speakers at the heated special meeting asked for Frago's resignation.
But Frago was not without supporters who accepted his apology and said he was not a racist -- just a man who made a mistake.
Tensions were high.
In anticipation of a raucous gathering, Mayor Joan Faul said to the crowd, "Please, no catcalls or anything like that."
Frago read a brief statement of apology. "I have made a mistake, I should have known better," he said in part of the statement.
Most of the speakers at the gathering did not accept his apology and asked for his resignation.
Shirley Vaughn-Hulbert, a 17-year Atwater resident who now lives in Merced, called for Frago's recall. "What kind of models are we setting for our children?" she asked Frago.
The president of Merced's NAACP chapter, Napoleon Washington, echoed the group's sentiment, condemning Frago's actions and calling for his resignation.
Joe Fontella Jr. said the whole episode had disappointed him. He expected the City Council to stand for higher principles and its failure to act quickly and decisively had not done that. "I want you to be leaders and I don't think that's happening," he said.
Others showed a personal and emotional reaction to the e-mails.
Mary Jones, a Merced resident, said that when she read the Sun-Star's story about Frago's e-mails she was in shock.
"I was frozen where I was standing. You wounded me that morning when I opened that paper," she said to Frago.
In all, 25 people spoke against Frago's actions.
While Frago supporters were less in number, they were a vocal minority.
Todd White, of Atwater, said he accepted Frago's apology and asked him to stay in office despite all the calls for his resignation.
"Please do not resign," he said. He said that everyone in the room was an American and the sooner people left behind their divisive hyphenated identities, the better.
Barbara Riis-Christensen said that the e-mails had been blown out of proportion. "Let's not allow the protesters to manipulate our fears," she said.
Jack Lancaster, one of the eight people who spoke in support of Frago, said he accepted the man's apology. "Gary Frago I forgive you," he said. "Gary Frago is a wonderful person."
After listening to more than 40 people speak, the council voted unanimously to write a letter of disapproval for Frago's actions.
Aside from that the council disagreed on how the issue was handled.
Councilman Nelson Crabb, who apologized for the e-mails even though he did not send or receive any, said he had to fight other council members just to make sure the meeting was held in the community center where it could accommodate the large crowd.
Councilmen Joe Rivero and Jeff Rivero, who had until Monday night been silent on the matter, publicly stated their disapproval of the e-mails.
Jeff Rivero said that the e-mails were wrong, but he also attacked Faul for sending out a letter condemning Fargo's e-mails without consulting the other council members. "I am not running to the press," he said, adding that he would have like to send a press release from the council instead of positions from individual members.
His brother Joe Rivero also mentioned that the e-mails were wrong. But he added that the Sun-Star had acted irresponsibly when the paper published the jokes sent by Frago.
The City Council also decided to hand over additional e-mails requested by the Sun-Star.
A Sun-Star story on July 17 revealed that Frago sent at least seven racist e-mails to city and county officials from October 2008 to February 2009. The e-mails denigrated President Obama and the first lady and black people in general.
While Frago has apologized, at first he said he did not regret sending the e-mails. "I don't see where there's a story, I'm not the only one that does it," he told the Sun-Star in a story July 21. "I didn't originate them, they came to me and I just passed them on."
Sacramento Bee
State stops issuing gold dredging permits...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/latest/v-print/story/2063454.html
In response to a court order, state officials today stopped issuing any new permits to allow suction dredging to extract gold from California riverbeds.
A lawsuit charges that the Department of Fish and Game has been subsidizing more than half the cost of permitting with state general funds, as opposed to having permit fees pay for the program. The Alameda County Superior Court on July 9 banned new permits, but Fish and Game apparently interpreted the order differently and continued issuing permits.
The court on Monday clarified that it wants no more new suction dredging permits while the case is pending.
"While the order is to remain in place until further notice, permits issued prior to the order remain in effect," Fish and Game said in a statement.
Suction dredging, largely a recreational practice, uses gas or diesel-powered engines mounted on floating platforms to vacuum riverbed sediments and filter out gold. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, including fishing and environmental groups and American Indian tribes, claim the practice disrupts gravels critical to salmon spawning and may disperse toxic mercury deposits left behind by historic mining practices.
An earlier lawsuit resulted in a 2006 court order requiring Fish and Game to conduct an environmental impact report on suction dredging and amend its regulations by June 2008. But that report has not yet begun, prompting the current lawsuit.
Indybay.com
Court Orders Ban on Dredge Mining in California...Dan Bacher
The Alameda County Superior Court yesterday approved an injunction creating a moratorium on the issuance of suction dredge mining permits in California, according to a news release from the Karuk Tribe, Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Environmental Law Foundation and the Klamath Riverkeeper. The moratorium will be in effect until a claim filed by taxpayers asserting that Californians’ tax dollars are being used to illegally subsidize suction dredge mining is resolved.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/28/18612790.php
Karuk Tribe · Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations · Institute for Fisheries Resources · Environmental Law Foundation · Klamath Riverkeeper
P R E S S R E L E A S E
For Immediate Release: July 28, 2009
For more information:
Craig Tucker, Litigant and Spokesman, Karuk Tribe, cell 916-207-8294
Glen Spain, PCFFA, 541-689-2000
COURT ORDERS BAN ON DREDGE MINING IN CALIFORNIA
Court directs California Fish and Game to stop issuing permits for dredge mining until tax payer lawsuit is resolved
Oakland, CA – Yesterday, the Alameda County Superior Court approved an injunction creating a moratorium on the issuance of suction dredge mining permits in California. The moratorium will be in effect until a claim filed by taxpayers asserting that Californians’ tax dollars are being used to illegally subsidize suction dredge mining is resolved.
“It is morally reprehensible and illegal for California Fish and Game to continue to use tax dollars to subsidize the destruction of our salmon fisheries, especially so in the midst of a budget crisis,” said Glen Spain, representing the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations (PCFFA), a major commercial fishermen’s organization which is a litigant in the case. “It is great that the judge decided that the merits of our case warrant an injunction.”
Suction dredges are powered by gas or diesel engines that are mounted on floating pontoons in the river. Attached to the engine is a powerful vacuum hose which the dredger uses to suction up the gravel and sand (sediment) from the bottom of the river. The material passes through a sluice box where heavier gold particles can settle into a series of riffles. The rest of the gravel is simply dumped back into the river. Often this reintroduces mercury left over from historic mining operations to the water column, threatening communities downstream and getting into the human food chain. Depending on size, location and density of these machines they can turn a clear running mountain stream into a murky watercourse unfit for swimming.
In 2005 the Karuk Tribe sued Fish and Game for allowing the practice of suction dredge mining to occur in areas known to be critical habitat for endangered and at-risk species such as Coho salmon, Pacific lamprey, and green sturgeon. At the time, Fish and Game officials submitted declarations to the Court admitting that suction dredge mining under its current regulations violates CEQA and Fish and Game Code §§5653 and 5653.9 (the statues which authorize the Department to issue permits for suction dredging under certain conditions) because the activity causes deleterious harm to fish – including endangered fish, such as the Coho salmon.
The 2005 suit ended in a court order in 2006 directing Fish and Game to conduct a CEQA environmental impacts review and amend its regulations by June 20, 2008. Fish and Game has yet to even initiate this process, essentially ignoring the prior Court Order.
Less than half of the costs of issuing roughly 3,000 dredging mining permits each year is actually collected from permit fees. The rest is subsidized by California taxpayers, including Tribal, commercial and recreational fishermen who depend on healthy salmon runs for their livelihood or their businesses.
According to Craig Tucker, plaintiff in the suit and spokesman for the Karuk Tribe, “While legislators are cutting basic programs for our children and elders in an effort to balance the budget, DFG is subsidizing hobby mining. Miners should not be allowed to mine in critical fish habitats and they should pay their own way if they mine at all.”
Specifically, the current lawsuit charges that the suction dredge program violates: (1) the previous court Order; (2) CEQA, for failure to conduct a subsequent or supplemental EIR in order to provide protections for endangered and threatened fish listed since 1994; and (3) Fish and Game Code §§5653 and 5653.9, for failure to promulgate regulations in compliance with CEQA and for issuing permits when it has already determined that the activity causes deleterious harm to fish.
Further arguments in the case have yet to be scheduled.
Supporters of reasonable dredge mining restrictions stress that the court ordered moratorium does not mean that a recently passed bill, SB 670, is no longer needed.
SB 670 was introduced by Northcoast Senator Pat Wiggins and passed both houses of the legislature with a greater than 2/3 majority earlier this summer. SB 670 would definitively place a moratorium on issuance of dredge mining permits pending completion of a full CEQA review and revision of the rules governing where and when mining can take place.
The plaintiffs in the court case note that the court ordered moratorium has nothing to do with a science based re-evaluation of dredge mining rules, but is an argument over California Fish and Game’s budgetary proceses. Fish advocates stress that both processes – the litigation and the legislation – should both move forward on their individual merits.
SB 670 has been sent to the Governor for consideration and a decision to sign or veto SB 670 is expected within the next 10 days. Many Tribes, conservation groups along with , commercial and recreational fishermen and groups are urging the Governor to sign SB 670 to bring some legal and administrative certainty to this process.
Groups who are Plaintiffs in the lawsuit, include the Karuk Tribe, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, Institute for Fisheries Resources, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Klamath Riverkeeper, Friends of the River and the Center for Biological Diversity, as well as several individual California taxpayers. They are represented in the case by the Environmental Law Foundation.
Legislature to Consider Big Water Package After August Recess...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/28/18612770.php
A peripheral canal may or may not be included in the water bond package that emerges after the State Legislature convenes on August 17 after its summer recess, according to this article by Steve Evans featured in the recent Friends of the River e-newsletter. It has also been reprinted on the California Progress Report website, http://www.californiaprogressreport.org.
The problem is that the Legislative process regarding the creation water package has completely lacked any transparency, so it has been difficult to get any handle on the exact bill or bills that will emerge.
One particularly troubling proposal being advanced argues for bypassing the Delta by taking water out of the Sacramento River just south of Sacramento. "The peripheral canal would then deliver the water 50 miles downstream to the existing California Aqueduct, where it would be pumped south to the Westland's Irrigation District in the Central Valley and to the municipal water districts in the Los Angeles basin," said David Greenwald, editor of the California Progress Report. "One source places the price tag for this at around $20 billion, not to mention the potential environmental and economic impacts." Read more on http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2009/07/peripheral_
cana_2.html.
I encourage everybody interested in saving the Delta to participate in the Million Boat Float on August 16 and 17. For more information, go to: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/22/18612057.php
Legislature To Consider Big Water Package After August Recess...Steve Evans, Conservation Director, Friends of the River.
A Peripheral Canal may or may not be included in a package of water bills that the Legislature expects to take up after their August recess. The water package will likely address Delta governance and ecosystem restoration, as well as water conservation.
Capitol insiders are not saying whether the bill package will expressly authorize a giant Peripheral Canal to divert massive quantities of fresh Sacramento River water around the beleaguered estuary for export to the southern Central Valley and southern California.
The water package will also likely include some kind of appointed water council or water master to manage water operations in the Delta. In addition, the package will attempt to implement the Governor’s call for a 20% reduction in water use in the state. Whether this will include conservation mandates for agriculture, which uses 80% of California’s developed water, remains to be seen.
It is also unknown whether this initial water package will include funding mechanisms, either in the form of a proposed general obligation bond (essentially borrowing money in the name of the taxpayers) and/or water fees. The cost of a Peripheral Canal could be at least $10 billion and new or enlarged dams needed to supply water to the canal would be billions more. Billions are also needed for ecosystem restoration in the Delta and upstream watersheds.
Whatever the Legislature’s Democratic majority intends to do about water, you can be sure that the Republican caucus will withhold any support unless the package includes authorization and funding for new or enlarged dams. Dams on the Republican’s “must do” list include the enlargement of that Shasta Dam (which would drown the last remaining homeland of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe on the McCloud River), the Sites Reservoir (which would divert water from the Sacramento River), and the Temperance Flat Dam (which would drown the scenic San Joaquin River Gorge).
Even if the water package doesn’t explicitly authorize construction of the controversial Peripheral Canal, it is certainly intended to enable its construction. The canal was rejected by voters in a statewide referendum in 1982. Since then, many native fish species in the Delta have declined towards extinction and water quality in the estuary has suffered from the lack of fresh water flows. Water exports through the Delta have more than tripled over the last 50 years.
Southern California developers and southern Central Valley agribusiness are pushing for a canal as wide and as long as the Panama Canal, that can divert more water than the average flow of the Sacramento River. Some Legislators and even some misguided conservation organizations believe that a canal or some other form of “conveyance” could actually benefit the Delta ecosystem and its endangered fish species. But the government’s track record in operating water projects in compliance with state and federal environmental laws is less than stellar and there is no reason to assume that the canal will be operated differently.
There are serious questions about the assumption that a Peripheral Canal, or some other kind of new conveyance system, will benefit the Delta’s ecosystem, fisheries, water quality, and agriculture. The Public Policy Institute of California determined that there is only a 50% likelihood that the Sacramento River salmon population, which is the mainstay of the commercial salmon fishing industry in California and southern Oregon, will remain viable with a Peripheral Canal. The same report found only a 40% likelihood that the Delta smelt would remain viable with a canal.
A recent science evaluation of the draft Bay-Delta Conservation Plan, which is closely tied to the canal proposal, found that the benefits of Delta habitat restoration may be off-set by the negative impacts of the Peripheral Canal diversion on Sacramento River salmon. The same report indicated that the canal would do little to improve south Delta water quality or the survival of San Joaquin River salmon population.
Friends of the River, and its commercial and sport fishing allies, are working with Delta communities and farmers to ensure protections for the Delta in whatever water package that may emerge from the Legislature. Recently, we helped mobilize Delta farmers and Legislators, anglers, and the concerned public at a rally for the Delta held on the Capitol steps in early July.
Friends of the River is also pushing hard for a top to bottom revamp of water rights in California. One of the underlying problems with the seemingly intractable water issue is the fact that California has granted rights to considerably more water than is normally available in any one year. That sets up a permanent but artificial state of demand outstripping supply.
Redetermining the highest beneficial use for all existing water supplies, coupled with significant efforts to encourage regional self-sufficiency through water conservation, recycling/reclamation, and improved groundwater management, will go a long way towards solving the problem. The fact is that California has a water management problem, not necessarily a water supply problem. Look for alerts concerning this important issue when the Legislature reconvenes or visit http://www.friendsoftheriver.org for the latest information.
Two Gates Project: the Gateway to Extinction?...Dan Bacher
As if plans for the peripheral canal and more dams weren't bad enough, the Metropolitan Water District and and the state and federal governments are aggressively working to complete another environmentally destructive government boondoggle, the "Two Gates Fish Protection Demonstration Project."
Adult Delta smelt photo courtesy of the Department of Water Resources.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/27/18612658.php
The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of southern California and other water agencies have concocted a new scheme supposedly designed to “protect” the endangered Delta smelt – the "Two Gates Fish Protection Demonstration Project."
However, critics of the project consider the project to be a thinly disguised plan to export more water from the California Delta that will result in the extinction of imperiled Central Valley Chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish populations. The project is being fast-tracked at the same time that the Schwarzenegger administration, Senator Dianne Feinstein, corporate agribusiness and their allies in the State Legislature are pushing to construct a giant peripheral canal approximately the same size and length as the Panama Canal.
MWD, in a June 9 board meeting, described the Two-Gates Fish Protection Project as a “key near-term project that, according to modeling analysis, should assist in reducing entrainment of Delta smelt and other sensitive aquatic species at the state and federal Delta pumping facilities without adversely affecting Chinook salmon, steelhead, sturgeon or Longfin smelt.”
The project would be implemented by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s installation of an operable gate structure on Old River and Connection Slough in the central Delta between the cities of Stockton and Antioch. “Hydrodynamic modeling analyses have also indicated that gate operations could improve water quality in the central and south Delta,” MWD contended.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently said he was committed to fast-tracking the project to provide “relief” to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness while affirming commitment to a “water deal” that includes a peripheral canal and more dams.
“With mandatory water restrictions and crops lying fallow, it is clear that every Californian is suffering from our water shortage - and this project will provide much-needed relief,” claimed Schwarzenegger, during a break between his staged "green energy" photo opportunities and holding press conferences regarding slashing the state budget. “While I remain committed to getting a comprehensive water deal done this year, I will aggressively work with local, state and federal officials toward the speedy approval and completion of the Two Gates project so that California’s bread basket can continue to feed the world.”
In contrast, Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, after carefully reviewing the draft Biological Assessment and draft Mitigated Negative Declaration for the Two Gates project, is alarmed that this scheme is “another bullet speeding towards the Delta’s heart.”
“The stated purpose is to circumvent the export restrictions in the recent Biological Opinions (BiOp) issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) by preventing Delta smelt from entering the south Delta where they are susceptible to entrainment in the massive export pumps of the state and federal projects,” said Jennings. “The project was hatched in secrecy, but has now been handed to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation where it is on a breathtaking fast track to construction this fall.”
Jennings said Two Gates is being "merchandised as a scientific experiment" and admittedly seeks answers to a series of hypotheses that need to be verified. These include: do Delta smelt “surf” the tide, can intermittent operation of the gates affect turbidity, will subtle changes in turbidity cause smelt to avoid certain areas?
“Unfortunately, the reality is that the project is an increased water export scheme masquerading as science," stated Jennings. "Suggestions that conveyance be decoupled from the actual scientific experiment and that any positive effects serve to restore smelt abundance have been rejected. The clear intent of the project is to increase water exports over limits imposed by Judge Wanger's Delta smelt decision and the recent BiOp.”
The Recreational Boaters Association of California is also taking aim at the project over concerns that it will impede navigation on the Delta.
“At issue regarding this project is the long standing policy principle of RBOC to keep the navigable waters of California open and accessible to recreational boating,” stated Dave Breninger, 
RBOC President. “In this instance, this appears to have not been taken fully into consideration by Cal-Fed in designing the 2-Gates Project.”
He emphasized that the group is also very concerned about the speed with which the agencies are implementing the project without concern for proper public input.
“There is a very short time-line on the 2-Gates Project. It is on an extremely fast-track for installation targeted for the gates by this November!,” stated Breninger.
Roger Mammon, board member of Restore the Delta, echoed Breninger's concerns about the Two Gates Project blocking navigable waterways, as well as being part of a plan by agribusiness and southern California to increase water exports out of the Delta.
"This is just the start of Southern California and corporate agriculture telling us we cannot play in our own backyard," said Mammon. "And if we want to, we have to play by their rules. Before you know it, there won't be water for Delta residents, aquatic life in our waters, Delta businesses or Delta farms. As soon as they build their Panama Canal of the Delta, they will just wait for us to dry up and blow away."
CalFed, the joint state/federal organization that has presided over the collapse of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations while wasting billions of dollars on unsuccessful “restoration” projects, has scheduled a science panel review for 6 August 2009. Information can be found at: http://www.science.calwater.ca.gov/pdf/reviews/Final_2_Gates_
meeting_notice.pdf 


“Given that Delta smelt are clinging to existence by a thread, is it reasonable to embark upon a rush project to alter the hydrology of their designated critical habitat simply to get around water export restrictions imposed by the BiOp?” Jennings asked.
Delta smelt, a 2 to 3 inch long fish only found in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is an indicator species that demonstrates the health of the ecosystem. The San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary is the largest and most significant estuary on the West Coast of the Americas and supports an array of species found up and down the coast, including Chinook salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, starry flounder, striped bass, American shad, herring, anchovies, California halibut and Dungeness crab.
During the presidential campaign and since taking office, President Barack Obama has repeatedly said that he is committed to “integrity” and “transparency” in the scientific process under his administration.
“The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions," said Obama in a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies on March 9, 2009. “Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions. To the extent permitted by law, there should be transparency in the preparation, identification and use of scientific and technological information in policy making.”
Those are welcome words that many would agree with, especially after 8 years of the persistent manipulation of science to the detriment of fish and the environment under the Bush administration. However, if the Obama administration is truly committed to “integrity” and “transparency” in the scientific process, why is the Bureau of Reclamation working with the California Department of Water Resources and MWD to fast-track the construction of the Two Gates Project without regard to proper public input and the impact of the project on collapsing fish species?
CSPA’s Concerns with the Two Gates Project
Here are some of the concerns of Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, with the Two Gates Project (http://www.calsport.org/7-27-09.htm):
• Environmental review has been short-circuited. A Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and Mitigated Negative Declaration is proposed instead of a full Environmental Impact Statement/Report - this for a project whose purpose is to keep an endangered species out of a part of its critical habitat.

• Required authorizations (i.e., 404 & 401 permits, streambed authorization agreement, consistency determinations with federal BiOps, etc.) are proceeding with reckless and unprecedented haste.


• The models justifying the project have never been peer-reviewed, are based upon questionable assumptions and exclude significant relevant information.
• There has been no effort to determine whether the hypotheses the experiment seeks to verify could be answered in other ways that don't require major structural components and altered hydrology.


• Evaluations of potential impacts to other species (salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, longfin, splittail, threadfin shad, striped bass, etc.) are cursory, if nonexistent.


• There is no evaluation of potential water quality impacts to non-conservative constituents (i.e., the suite of pesticides, industrial and household chemicals, oxygen demand, selenium, mercury, toxicity and other dissolved constituents) that are identified as plaguing Delta waterways. Indeed, the MWD modeling indicates that residence time and water quality problems in Old River at Tracy could increase. Data collection of constituents will be limited to salt, turbidity and chlorophyll.


• Potential problems that arise, like increased predation, will be addressed on the fly by the seat-of-the-pants.


• Should Delta smelt show a slight increase in abundance (for whatever reason); there will be enormous pressure to quickly ramp up exports without waiting for the scientific experiment to run its course. There can be no confidence that the Water Operations Management Team or the fishery agencies will be able to withstand that pressure.


• The recent NMFS BiOp bluntly prohibited installation of the South Delta Improvement Project (SDIP) operable barriers because of numerous fishery impacts. That project was developed over the span of a decade and subject to an EIR/EIS. If the SDIP operable barriers in Grantline Canal and Old and Middle Rivers were environmentally unacceptable, what can justify the haste to install the Two Gates operable barriers?

In sum: what can be the necessity of short circuiting the normal rigorous environmental review and permitting processes to hastily embark upon yet another hydraulic modification of the estuary when every previous effort has led to disastrous consequences? 


CSPA believes that a full EIR/EIS should be conducted and that any increased conveyance should be uncoupled from the scientific experiment. Of course, history suggests that is not likely to happen short of litigation.