8-1-09

 
8-1-09
Chowchilla News
20 Unknown Facts About Water...Water Damage Team...7-29-09
http://www.thechowchillanews.com/100/v-print/story/7383.html
Every human needs water to survive, however water can also cause flash flooding and cost thousands of dollars in water damage restoration fees. But how much do we really know about it?
"Every person on this planet needs water to survive. We use water to shower, cook food, and there's nothing more refreshing then jumping into a pool on a hot summer afternoon," claims David Beavers, owner of the Water Damage Team. "But water can also kill millions and water damage can cost thousands in repair costs. But what do we really know about water? Below are 20 water facts about water that were collected by my water extraction and repair experts."
1. The average American uses at least 80 gallons of water per day.
2. 75 % of the earth's surface is made up of water.
3. 97% of the earth's water is in the oceans, 2% is frozen in glaciers, while only 1% is considered drinkable. This 1% supplies water to all the humans in the world.
4. 75% of earth's available fresh water is frozen in the polar ice caps.
5. Humans can live without food for over a month, but a person can not live without water for more then a week
6. Showers, bathroom faucets, toilets, and kitchen sinks use up to 5 gallons of water per minute.
7. An average dishwasher uses about 25 gallons of water for cycle.
8. An average washing machine uses about 30 gallons of water for every load of laundy.
9. It takes 2 gallons for the average American to brush their teeth, 5 gallons to flush a toilet, and between 25 and 50 gallons to take a shower.
10. If everyone in the United States used just one less gallon of water per shower every day, we could save at least 85 billion gallons of water per year.
11. If everyone in the United States flushed the toilet just one less time per day, we could save enough water to fill a mile long lake full of water.
12. On average, it takes about a gallon of water to process a quarter pound of ground beef.
13. On average, it takes 2,072 gallons of water to make four new tires.
14. The farming industry is a major source of water pollution, specifically fromfertilizer and agricultural run-off.
15. Ancient Egyptians treated water by siphoning it out of the top of huge jars filled with water from the Nile River.
16. Hippocrates, also known as the Greek father of medicine, was the first person to recognize the importance of purifying water when he told people in Greece to boil and strain water before drinking it.
17. It wasn't until the 1950's that scientists began to suspect that water could carry diseases. Water had been treated before, but always for taste or smell, this was when water began to be treated for safety.
18. The first American water plant with filters was built in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1872.
19. For each glass of water you drink in a restaurant another two glasses of water were used to properly wash and rinse the glass. If one out of every four people declined a glass of water we would save 26 million gallons per day.
20. The Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 was the first time in the United States that public drinking water supplies were protected on a federal level.
About the Water Damage Team
The Water Damage Team is a nation wide disaster restoration company, with years of experience in water removal and water drying. As well as storm damage clean up, contaminated water removal of all levels, structural drying, debris removal and mold remediation. Our water damage restoration specialist are trained and certified in all of the industries standards and techniques. At the Water Damage Team we understand that rapid response is key to preventing any additional loss, so our specialist are available to answer calls and response 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Call 1-800-533-0626 for immediate assistance.
Modesto Bee
Welcome to the bottom: Housing begins slow rebound
By ADRIAN SAINZ, DAVID TWIDDY, DANIEL WAGNER, ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press Writers. Adrian Sainz reported from Miami, Alex Veiga reported from Los Angeles, Daniel Wagner from Washington, and David Twiddy from Kansas City. AP Data Specialist Allen Chen contributed to this report.
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/802256.html
It was - note the past tense - the worst housing recession anyone but survivors of the Great Depression can remember.
From the frenzied peak of the real estate boom in 2005-2006 to the recession's trough earlier this year, home resales fell 38 percent and sales of new homes tumbled 76 percent. Construction of homes and apartments skidded 79 percent. And for the first time in more than four decades of record keeping, home prices posted consecutive annual declines.
A staggering $4 trillion in home equity was wiped out, and millions of Americans lost their homes through foreclosure.
Now take a deep breath and exhale. The worst is over.
By every measure, except foreclosures, the housing market has stabilized and many areas are recovering, according to a spate of data released in the past two weeks. Nationwide, home resales in June are up 9 percent from January, on a seasonally adjusted basis. Sales of new homes have climbed 17 percent during the same period. And construction, while still anemic, has risen almost 20 percent since the beginning of the year.
Even home prices, down one third from the top, edged up in May, the first monthly increase since June 2006.
"The freefall is over," says Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
The problem is that, Baker, like many economists, expects the housing market will "be bouncing around the bottom" for the second half of the year.
There are also real threats that could poison this budding recovery. The unemployment rate, which is 9.5 percent, is expected to surpass 10 percent, leaving even more homeowners unable to pay their mortgages. Mortgage rates could rise, making homeownership less affordable. And the federal tax credit for first-time homebuyers, which as lured many into the market, is set to expire on Nov. 30.
"As long as jobs are being lost, regardless of all the federal programs out there to help the borrowers, you're still going to have problems in the housing market," says Steve Cumbie, executive director of the Center for Real Estate Development at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School.
True, but when you've got bidding wars for foreclosures in places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles, it's time to call the bottom.
- Northeast
Nobody knows the power of a dollar like New Yorkers.
After home on Long Island sat on the market for four months recently, the sellers' real estate agent told them to drop the price from the mid-$600s to $599,000. The house sold the next weekend.
In Merrick, about 30 miles east of New York City, homes are starting to sell "as long as they're priced right," the agent said.
In January, with the ground and financial markets still frozen, few would have believed that the worst of the housing crisis in the Northeast would turn around within six months.
But the evidence is clear: home resales in the region in June hit a seasonally adjusted pace of 820,000, up 28 percent from the beginning of the year. Sales of new homes were also up slightly and construction in the region more than doubled.
Even the median sales price of $249,400 in June was up 10 percent from January and was off just 6 percent from year-ago levels, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"We certainly had our share of problems, but overall the severity of what happened here was far less" than what happened elsewhere, says Michael Lynch, an economist with IHS Global Insight.
Pittsburgh has the region's strongest home market in terms of sales and prices because the city saw less of a housing bubble and the area has 7.7 percent unemployment rate that is below the national rate.
One of the weakest markets, by contrast, was Providence, R.I., where a jobless rate of 12 percent exacerbated the city's foreclosure crisis. Too many residents took out risky subprime loans they couldn't afford when the interest rates spiked within a few years. Today, more than one in 10 homeowners with a mortgage in the state is at least one month behind or in foreclosure.
The Northeast, more than any other region, felt the full force of the credit crisis that reshaped Wall Street. Manhattan's real estate market, long immune from price declines, tanked this year as tens of thousands of people lost their jobs.
Prices of for-sale apartments plunged in the second quarter by the largest amount in decades. Prices have fallen, on average, between 13 and 19 percent, according to four reports published recently by real estate firms.
Northeast states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont
Data compares June vs. January and June vs. June 2008:
Home resales: up 28 percent; down 5 percent
Median price: $249,400, up 10 percent from January; down 6 percent
New home sales: up 3 percent; down 11 percent
New home construction: up 113 percent, down 68 percent
Mortgage delinquencies as of March: 10.4 percent
Regional outlook: The region should experience "a nice rebound in home construction" over the rest of the year, according to IHS Global Insight, an economic research firm. Sales for new and existing homes are likely to rise. Just don't expect your home's value to shoot up. Rising unemployment will lead to more foreclosures, and that will keep a lid on prices.
- South
The real estate market in the South remains one of extremes.
On one end, are oil-rich cities in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma that nearly skirted the housing recession altogether. Tipping the scale on the other side are foreclosure-ridden areas in Atlanta and swaths in Florida where prices are still falling annually by double digits.
Taken as a whole, home resales in the 17-state region rose 10 percent in the first half of this year on a seasonally adjusted basis, and are off just 4 percent from June of last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"Generally speaking, the rate of decrease, both in sales and prices, has started to bottom," says the University of North Carolina's Cumbie. "But that doesn't mean it's going to come roaring back."
Mass layoffs at Bank of America and Wachovia, for example, have taken their toll in their home state of North Carolina. Home price declines in Charlotte accelerated this year, and home resales in June were off nearly 30 percent from last year.
Home and apartment construction, a key economic engine, will also vary widely across the region. Parts of the South, notably Florida and Atlanta, were vastly overbuilt during the housing boom. So construction in the region rose a meager 7 percent in the first half of the year, the lowest of the four regions, according to the Commerce Department.
There was little reason for builders to start laying new foundations. New home sales fell 2 percent from January to June, the only region in the country to post a decline.
"In the longer term, I'm confident that the real estate market is going to shift where buyers are coming out not only because of attractive interest rates and low prices, but because more people are getting jobs," says Les Simmonds, president of L.G. Simmonds Real Estate Corp. in Longwood, Fla. an Orlando suburb. "But, as we speak, it's not right. It's going to take more time."
Southeast states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia
Data compares June vs. January and June vs. June 2008:
Home resales: up 10 percent; down 4 percent
Median price: $163,200 up 14 percent; down 12 percent
New home sales: down 2 percent; down 34 percent
New home construction: up 7 percent; down 44 percent
Mortgage delinquencies as of March: 12.7 percent
Regional outlook: The southern market has several characteristics that could help it recover, Cumbie says. The population continues to grow and businesses continue to move into the region. But the weight of foreclosures and job losses stretching into next year could delay any meaningful recovery.
- Midwest
It's no surprise that the housing market and the auto industry are intertwined in Detroit, though, this is the first time anybody can remember that you can buy a home for less than the price of a new car.
But step out of devastated towns in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and the housing market in the Midwest is showing some of the strongest signs of recovery in the country.
Thanks to places like the Dakotas, Iowa and Nebraska, the median sales price in the region rose almost 20 percent to an affordable $157,000 in June from January levels.
Sales of new homes jumped almost 38 percent in the first half of the year, which encouraged builders to get out their hammers. Construction, which was at a standstill in some communities, rose 86 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, which accounts for typical variations in weather and other factors.
"New construction has been a good indicator for us in the past of what the general market is doing," says Chris Collins, president of the Kansas City Regional Association of Realtors. "Our new market is not what we've been used to but it's substantially better than other parts of the country."
The home resale market, however, remains weaker than the nation as a whole. That again can be blamed on the economy. The jobless rate in the Midwest is 10.2 percent compared with 9.5 percent nationally. And if you don't have a job you are not buying a house.
William Strauss, a senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, cautioned that job cuts are still high in the region, and loss of income is the No. 1 reason homeowners default.
"We never got as bad as (other) states but nonetheless we still took a hit," he says, and the market remains "soft in the Midwest."
Midwest states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin
Data compares June vs. January and June 2008:
Home resales: up 7 percent, down 2 percent
Median price: $157,000, up 20 percent, down 9 percent
New home sales: up 38 percent, up 6 percent
New home construction: up 86 percent, down 21 percent
Mortgage delinquencies as of March: 11.5 percent
Regional outlook: "Before we can even talk about the housing sector materially improving, we're going to have to see these job losses get down quite a bit," said William Strauss, a senior economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Financial markets must also improve, he said, so more homebuyers can qualify for a mortgage.
-West
For years Las Vegas symbolized the boom, as mile after mile of desert gave way to three-bedroom homes and swimming pools. Then came the crash and it symbolized something else: a decade of speculation and excess.
Now, Las Vegas is one of the hottest housing markets in the region again. This city has always profited from others' misfortune, and the same can be said of the current housing market.
In Clark County, Nev., home to Sin City, one in every 11 homes had received at least one foreclosure-related notice in June, according to RealtyTrac. The glut of deeply discounted foreclosures has almost doubled sales activity for most of this year.
"In January the market was busy, and since that time, it's gone a little haywire," says Brad Snyder, an agent with ZipRealty in Las Vegas. "There's (sales) activity now that we haven't seen even since '04."
The situation is similar in California's Riverside, San Joaquin and San Bernardino counties, where one out of every 14 homes was in foreclosure.
After falling 18 percent in the second half of 2008, monthly home prices were flat in the first half of this year, on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Markets like these have seen a surge this year in all-cash buyers, many of them investors, scooping up the sharply discounted properties. It's not uncommon to see multiple offers on a single property, and that's helped slow the rate of price declines a little. The demand also has helped whittle down the inventory of homes for sale to the lowest level since the boom.
"We have seen such a steep decline in supply right now, that when a home comes on the market it's first day there could be seven or eight or 10 people there in a matter of hours," Snyder says.
To lure buyers away from foreclosures, homebuilders have slashed prices or are simply tearing down vacant homes. New home sales jumped almost 59 percent in the first half of the year, while construction in these grossly overbuilt markets slid 12 percent.
In the Pacific Northwest and states such as Utah, by contrast, housing markets are on a different timer than the rest of the West. Home sales and values held up better and longer while markets in the Southwest were already in decline. These markets also haven't seen as many foreclosures wreaking havoc with home prices.
States in the region: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
Data compares June vs. January and June 2008:
Home resales: down 1 percent, up 12 percent
Median price: $214,800, flat, down 25 percent
New home sales: up 59 percent, down 10 percent
New home construction: down 12 percent, down 42 percent
Mortgage delinquencies as of March: 12 percent
Regional outlook: The recession remains the region's wild card. Unemployment is at 10.2 percent in the West, but that could go higher if the economy worsens. If that happens, expect more foreclosures and a slower turnaround.
Governor to senator: 'Put up or shut up' on Yucca...SANDRA CHEREB, Associated Press Writer
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/801710.html
CARSON CITY, Nev. -- Gov. Jim Gibbons challenged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday to "put up or shut up" about working to stop Yucca Mountain from being used as the nation's nuclear repository.
Gibbons wrote a letter to Reid, D-Nev., asking him to use his influence in Congress to repeal the Nuclear Waste Policy Act that designates Yucca Mountain as a high-level nuclear dump.
"Sen. Reid should make Nevada safer by working to immediately repeal the NWPA and kill Yucca Mountain once and for all," Gibbons said in a written statement.
Jon Summers, a spokesman for Reid, dismissed the criticism.
"Jim Gibbons has done very little as governor to advance the state's fight against Yucca Mountain," he said.
Thursday, Reid said he had been assured by the Obama administration that it will seek to eliminate funding in 2011 for a review needed to open the nuclear waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Obama opposes the use of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste dump, and Energy Department officials have said it's the administration's policy that Yucca Mountain would never be used. But the licensing process continues.
On Wednesday, the Senate voted to cut funding for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's review to $29 million in 2010. The president had requested $56 million.
The Obama administration has said it will appoint a commission to find alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
"I'm convinced that for the foreseeable future, for the next 50 to 100 years, we'll simply store the spent fuel rods on site," Reid told reporters this week in Washington, D.C.
The statement did not satisfy Gibbons.
"Every few weeks or months we hear from someone in Congress that Yucca Mountain is dead, yet the project and the licensing process continue," Gibbons said.
The governor himself has come under fire for sending mixed messages on Yucca Mountain.
In his budget proposal to the 2009 Legislature, Gibbons sought to cut staff at the state's Nuclear Projects office, citing the state's revenue shortfall
In 2007, he backed a decision by the state engineer for a monthlong extension allowing the U.S. Department of Energy to use the state's water to drill bore holes near the mountain.
Scientists checking Nevada Test Site groundwater...KEITH ROGERS, Las Vegas Review-Journal. Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
http://www.modbee.com/state/v-print/story/802118.html
LAS VEGAS -- Radioactive groundwater laced with the remnants of Cold War nuclear weapons testing is inching its way beyond the Nevada Test Site boundary, where scientists expect to soon find it for the first time.
The concentration of tritium is much higher than safe drinking water guidelines, but Department of Energy officials note it will still be contained within the surrounding Nellis Air Force Base test and training range, in an area not accessible by the public.
A pad and sump, or pit, for what's labeled Well EC-11 are being completed, with the first samples to be collected as drilling proceeds in the next three months, the federal scientist in charge of the project said.
"Under our strategy we don't do any remediation. The only thing we can do at this point is adopt a long-term monitoring plan," said Bill Wilborn, director of the drilling and monitoring project.
Water from a recently completed upstream well, near a cavity of the powerful Benham nuclear test of 1968, has found tritium levels 3,000 times above the safe drinking water limit, Wilborn said.
The effort outlined in a 687-page report is to determine where the tainted water is traveling. It relies on plugging data from a network of wells in Nye County into a sophisticated computer model.
A state official said that if the contamination appears to be heading toward a public water well, the Department of Energy will be required to provide water to affected residences and communities.
"Obviously we're not close to that," said Tim Murphy, federal facilities bureau chief for the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.
Murphy said there is no current technology to clean up the contamination. But authorities want to know where and how fast it is flowing to protect the public.
"Then when it gets to this point we're going to have to figure out options," Murphy said.
"What do we do if the model shows this is streaming downhill? We're going to have to direct the Department of Energy to provide another (water) source," he said.
Wilborn, the Energy Department geologist, said preliminary indications are the contamination won't reach Beatty, a Nye County community of about 1,000 residents some 115 miles from Las Vegas and midway between the test site and Death Valley National Park.
Instead, perhaps hundreds or 1,000 years from now it will head between Beatty and Yucca Mountain, where the Department of Energy had planned to dispose of the nation's spent nuclear fuel until the Obama administration declared the site not an option for building a repository.
Drill rigs in a remote area of Pahute Mesa more than 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas have been working to confirm what computer modeling predicts about the tritium contamination moving slowly through water layers about 1,500 feet beneath the surface.
If or when it will reach Coffer's Ranch windmill, the nearest long-term public monitoring well 15 miles southwest, is a guess.
"It's a complicated answer. We have mostly conceptual models of when contamination will be off the test site and how far down-gradient it will go," Wilborn said.
"It's going to be more probabilistic. There will be more uncertainties and unknowns down-gradient," he said.
The time frame for reaching Coffer's Windmill, he said, is 50 years on the low end and 1,000 on the high end.
The tainted water is emanating from Pahute Mesa where devices for the Benham and Tybo nuclear tests were exploded. Benham, the more powerful of the two, produced a yield equivalent to detonating 1.15 megatons of TNT, much larger than the yields from the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Tybo was conducted in 1975 at less than 1000 kilotons.
In a microsecond burst, scientists believe contamination from the Benham detonation, including trace amounts of plutonium and isotopes that take much longer to decay to safe levels than tritium, were injected through bedrock and into groundwater layers.
Tritium is used to enhance the power of nuclear bombs. Some is created when special materials explode in the chain reaction. It has a half-life of more than 12 years, meaning that's the time it takes for half of its radioactive atoms to decay.
Other isotopes with much longer half-lives such as those from chlorine, iodine and technetium have dissolved and are moving along with the water. In addition, traces of plutonium have been found.
"We're fortunate that the groundwater flow up there is very slow," Murphy said.
Based on a range of rates between initial wells, tritium travels in the water about nine feet per year. Scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico will analyze sample results next year to link the contaminants to particular nuclear tests.
In all, 82 underground nuclear tests were conducted in Pahute Mesa out of at least 828 throughout the Nevada Test Site from 1951 to 1992, plus 100 above ground tests.
Under an agreement with the state, the Energy Department is required to collect very high levels of radioactive-laced water from the wells in a lined sump or vessel.
Each well costs $5 million to $7 million, including costs for road-building, constructing pads, sumps and drilling.
The project will cost $33 million this year and $35 million next year.
In all, nine wells will be drilled over the next three years using $12.1 million in government stimulus money to augment part of the effort, Wilborn said.
Tracy Press
Power companies eye region as perfect plant location...Jennifer Wadsworth
http://www.tracypress.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Power+companies+eye+region+as+perfect+plant+location%20&id=3072370Power+companies+eye+region+as+perfect+plant+
location&instance=home_news_lead_story
Conditions west of Tracy make the area a magnet for power companies that have proposed building electricity plants that could spew nearly 3,000 tons of pollution a year into the skies.
Cheap land and proximity to major electrical substations, gas lines and water sources have attracted Calpine Corp., Florida Power & Light and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to the swath of land west of Mountain House on the far eastern edge of Alameda County. The area is centrally located, too, said Jim Swaney, permits manager for the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.
“It’s between that Bay Area, Sacramento and Stockton-Tracy-Modesto area,” Swaney said. “There’s just less distance to the customers who use that energy.”
The companies have each applied for state permits to build a power plant, including two that would be among the largest energy suppliers in the state, according to the California Energy Commission.
The Mariposa Energy Project, Tesla Power Plant and East Altamont Energy Center range in size from 200 to more than 1,100 megawatts. A megawatt powers roughly 750 to 1,000 homes, according to the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state electrical grid.
Add to those the fourth full-fledged power plant slated for the area, the GWF Tracy Combined Cycle Power Plant.
GWF Energy LLC — corporate owner of the 7-year-old Tracy Peaker Plant — is poised to begin construction in 2012 to expand from a 169-megawatt station to one with a second turbine that could feed 314 megawatts into the grid.
Together and at maximum permitted capacity, the proposed plants would release more than 700 tons of nitrogen oxide every year, among other pollutants. The combined plants would release about 1,500 tons a year of carbon monoxide, 157 tons of organic emissions, 455 tons of small particulates and nearly 60 tons of sulfur dioxide.
Excluding the GWF Energy expansion project, the proposed power plants would sit in a sparsely populated stretch of Alameda County, which would reap the benefit of millions more dollars in property taxes every year.
But because the prevailing winds blow east, according to the National Weather Service, San Joaquin County residents would bear the brunt of the impacts in the form of thousands more tons of pollution every year, especially over Tracy and Mountain House.
Also, San Joaquin County officials have little control over the Mariposa, Tesla and East Altamont project approvals, because the plants would be in another county’s jurisdiction. Though a Tracy-area irrigation district could turn some profit from their construction by selling recycled water to cool the energy-generating turbines.
Powering up and down
The power plants would likely run at much less than their full annual capacity, according to the state energy commission. And though all the power companies applied for the permits to build around Tracy, some might not follow through with those plans.
Calpine, which filed for bankruptcy in 2005, halted construction last year on 33 plants nationwide, including the East Altamont Energy Center poised to sit on 44 acres bordered by Kelso, Mountain House and Byron roads.
In October 2008 year, the state granted Calpine a five-year extension on a 2003 permit to build the 1,100-megawatt energy center. A company spokeswoman contacted this week refused to publicly comment on the project, because plans have yet to be finalized.
Tesla also got a five-year permit extension this year, so it can delay construction until the company is in better financial shape.
GWF Energy has made the most progress in its plans to construct a full-fledged electricity plant on its land a few miles southwest of Tracy. Because it already owns 40 acres on which a part-time, single-turbine power plant sits, it has a little more momentum, according to GWF vice president Doug Wheeler.
The only thing left for GWF Energy to do before construction begins is to work out a few details, like how to use landscaping to disguise the facility from immediate neighbors without violating the California Fish and Game’s restriction on planting trees, because they could attract raptors that prey on the endangered kit fox.
The energy company also has to get its plans in closer alignment to the Clean Air Act’s provisions on carbon offsets, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. A final report about the peaker plant’s expansion plans is set to be released sometime in late summer or early fall.
Once that’s approved, the state would hold evidentiary hearings on the project before it could finally grant a permit to build. GWF Energy spokesman Riley Jones said he expects that to happen early next year.
The Mariposa project is the newest among those proposed for the land west of Tracy. The single-turbine, 200-megawatt peaker plant would lie about 7 miles northwest of Tracy and 2½ miles west of Mountain House on a 10-acre chunk of a 160-acre parcel just south of a PG&E substation. The land is on the very eastern edge of Alameda County at the intersection of Bruns and Kelso roads.
PG&E just applied for the state permit to build Mariposa in June, so construction is at least three years away, according to company officials. Of all the proposed plants, San Joaquin County Supervisor Leroy Ornellas said he thinks Mariposa is moving along the fastest.
“The other two, we’re not sure we’ll ever see those,” he said.
To build Mariposa would require a new 580-foot natural gas pipeline and a new 1.8-mile canal to supply water to the plant from the nearby Byron-Bethany Irrigation District.
Tracy activist Bob Sarvey, who keeps a close eye on Bay Area and San Joaquin Valley energy projects, said he worries that the area west of Tracy seems destined to become a corridor for massive power plants.
“The ironic part is that all this power plant development is being licensed in an area known for its renewable energy potential, with massive wind farms dominating the skylines,” he pointed out.
San Francisco Chronicle
Get rid of your clunker: More on inefficient washing machines (and toilets and irrigation systems)...Dr. Peter Gleick, President, Pacific Institute
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/gleick/detail?blogid=104&entry_id=44717
Some readers of my last post, on inefficient washing machines, got a bit testy. I've blogged on water as a human right, climate change, improving efficiency of water use in agriculture and cities, international conflicts over water, and more. But what post led to the most, and the rudest comments? My recommendation that people replace inefficient washers with efficient washers? So, in response to the "push back," let me push back again with more facts. [And be civil: if you can't have a polite discussion about washing machines (or toilets or irrigation systems), what hope do we have for healthcare?]
Let me say right off the bat that if you don't want to replace your inefficient washing machine, fine. Don't. It's a free country, which means you're also free to waste money and resources if you want. But know your options, and pay for your waste by paying the full cost of water, energy, and environmental damages. The good news is we have good options for efficient machines.
Some people love their old top-loaders because they think the old machines are more durable. Ok, believe that. Actual studies show they are equally reliable, though front-loaders are actually less complicated mechanically. And for every one of you with an old machine that still works, there are 10 others whose machines died years ago because they just gave up the ghost or they were pieces of %!*$#*!.
Some people believe that new efficient machines don't clean as well. There is no evidence to support that either, and plenty of evidence to contrary, including Consumer Reports and other reviews. Can you buy a badly made front loader? Or a lemon? Sure. But do your research and buy a good one and operate it properly. You can buy a crappy toaster that burns your toast and breaks quickly too.
A couple of people complained that their backs hurt bending over to put clothes in the front. Holy cow, either get the little stand that the companies make to raise the machines up a little higher or get more exercise. Ironically, I used to hurt my back bending over to dig the heavy wet clothes out of my old top-loader all the time.
A few people noted that front-loaders seem more susceptible to mold than top loaders. There is a good forum on this at Consumer Reports, but the bottom line is that these are rare problems and easy to either avoid or fix.
Some commenters complained that front-loaders are more expensive than top-loaders. First, over their lifetimes, front-loaders are cheaper, and that's what counts. You have to count the savings in energy, water, and detergent, or you're only counting part of the costs. But even more importantly, the cost difference is disappearing. Again, Consumer Reports notes that front-loaders are not necessarily even more expensive to buy anymore. Shop around. And many water utilities and electric utilities offer rebates that cut the cost even more. Here is a cool website to help you find these rebates.
Some people complained that they shouldn't be asked to replace an old inefficient machine before the end of its natural life -- what a waste of materials, money, and so on. In fact, California banned dumping old appliances in landfills as of January 1994, and old appliances are recycled for their metal. But if you want, go ahead and wait until your old one dies and then buy a new efficient one. But inefficient machines that haven't broken down yet should be replaced early if they are old enough or inefficient enough. Just because it still works, doesn't mean you won't save money by buying a new one. That is the entire purpose of the hugely successful voluntary "cash for clunkers" program for old, polluting, and inefficient automobiles. Congress just added $2 billion in emergency funding to continue a program to get old, inefficient automobiles off the road in their "cash for clunkers" program. The first $1 billion disappeared incredibly fast because the program was so popular. Getting rid of these cars saves energy and air pollution and it probably does more to save the car industry than any other part of the stimulus.
So my Water Number today: $2 billion. I urge Congress to provide $2 billion for an emergency "Cash for Water Clunkers" program for inefficient washing machines and toilets and other water-using appliances. The money should go to homeowners who replace and recycle certain truly inefficient things -- the oldest and most wasteful models -- with Energy Star and Water Sense rated models. And a comparable program should be put in place for farmers who want to replace old inefficient irrigation systems, but can't find the initial capital to do so. We made this recommendation in our new agricultural efficiency study.
Finally, if you just have to have a top-loader, for whatever reason, that's fine too: even the new top-loaders are more efficient than the old ones.
Indybay.com
Thirsty Down in Nobama County...Lloyd Carter ( c/o editor [at] fresnoalliance.com ). Lloyd Carter has been writing about Valley water issues for 40 years. His Web site is http://www.lloydgcarter.com.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/2... 
In part one of this two-part series, Lloyd Carter looked at the notorious international public relations firm of Burson-Marsteller, which is providing advice and guidance to the California Latino Water Coalition, headed by comedian Paul Rodriguez and a handful of local Latino leaders in the San Joaquin Valley. Part two examines the roles of the Coalition's prominent personalities. Photo below: The Latino Water Coalition organized a march and rally for water at Fresno City Hall in July 2009. Fresno City officials estimated the crowd at 3,500–4,000. Farmers, farmworkers and politicians rallied to turn on the pumps in the delta to irrigate the farms in the western Central Valley.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/01/18613597.php
Act I of the California Latino Water Coalition-six months of marches, rallies, lobbying of state and federal officials, an effort to halt traffic on I-5, and a physical encounter by the Coalition leader with a dairy farmer spokesperson caught on TV cameras-is over.
Act II of the Coalition's drive to suspend the Endangered Species Act, drain the Delta, and obtain $20 billion in publicly funded water infrastructure for San Joaquin Valley agriculture is now under way and will focus, say Coalition leaders, on comedy. That's right, comedy. The group is headed by comedian and actor Paul Rodriguez, who owns some farmland near Orange Cove and was recruited into the 200-member Coalition more than two years ago by Orange Cove Mayor Victor P. Lopez. Coalition leaders admit Act I was a failure and contend that they are now broke. But they are fired up for Act II.
Now I personally find Rodriguez to be a funny guy-hilarious in standup-but he's been stretching the truth a lot when he speaks out on water issues. Whether he is doing this deliberately or is being fed bad information by the people orchestrating the water campaign is unclear.
Here is an example. On Fox Network's Sean Hannity Show, which aired nationally on June 19, the following exchange occurred between Hannity and Rodriguez. The exchange followed a biased Fox news report implying water was being shut off to the entire San Joaquin Valley:
RODRIGUEZ: You know, we're not going to be farmers any longer. We're going to be selling firewood because our trees won't last another six months without water. It's really a sad situation that those of us who choose to farm, my mother and my family in the central San Joaquin, perhaps the most fertile soil in the world, are now just sitting there ready to go on welfare or some other kind of support because we can't farm.
HANNITY: Paul, this is so serious, and it's almost mind-numbing that this could happen. All right. So we showed the little Delta smelt, this little minnow fish that is now on the endangered species list. Now, they literally have shut down-you are getting and farmers are getting zero percent water. Their trees and their farms are dying. Is that right? [italics added]
RODRIGUEZ: Yes... (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,528113,00.html)
Now that's a touching story, but it's erroneous. Rodriguez's 40 acres of oranges, lemons, persimmons and olives near Orange Cove and Dinuba on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley is definitely not going dry. Farmers in his neighborhood get their water from the San Joaquin River via the Friant-Kern Canal, or from the Kings River, with groundwater as a backup supply. He had plenty of water available this year (about 90% of normal according to federal officials).
Harvey Bailey, chairman of the Orange Cove Irrigation District and chairman of the Friant Water Users Authority, proudly said at the July 1 Fresno City Hall water rally that Rodriguez gets his irrigation supply from the Orange Cove District. In any event, Rodriguez's property is on the opposite side of the Valley from where the major cutbacks in Delta water deliveries were occurring, that is, the Westlands Water District, which is many miles away. And only about a quarter of the Valley's farmland is suffering significant water cutbacks, a fact Rodriguez always ignores. Normal pumping from the Delta to the West Side resumed July 1. If Rodriguez has acreage in Westlands, he hasn't told anyone about it. He did say in a 1998 interview with the Los Angeles Times that (at that time) he owned about 800 acres. Rodriguez also developed a shopping center in Orange Cove and owns non-farmland in the area.
Rodriguez's orchards are not dying, according to a drive-by inspection last month. Not surprisingly, Rodriguez has not invited news crews to his farm to see his "dying" trees. Surprisingly, no Valley newspaper reporters or TV news crews, to my knowledge, have even asked to see his orchards. If he's trying to create the impression that his own farm has suffered drastic cutbacks in water, he's not being candid. Strangely, at the July 5 Fresno meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Rodriguez indicated he had to buy store nectarines for those attending the meeting because his own nectarine trees were not producing, inferably because of water cutbacks. Yet he never mentioned nectarines in a July 15 interview by KMJ's Ray Appleton when Appleton asked him what crops he farms.
Rodriguez also joked on the Hannity show that he had never seen a killer whale on the freeway. Recent government reports have reported plummeting populations of salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and killer whales as a result of the ecological crisis in the Delta, caused in part by massive exports of freshwater from the fragile estuary. Not everyone thinks the disappearance of killer whales or salmon is funny. Especially the thousands of people in the commercial salmon industry who have been out of work for two years.
Rodriguez was on Appleton's noon hour show on July 10 to explain why the Latino Water Coalition is going to try the new comedy tactic. Rodriguez and Appleton admitted that Act I of the two-year-old Coalition's campaign, including the April 14-17 March for Water from Mendota to the San Luis Reservoir and the July 1 Rally for Water at Fresno City Hall (that cost the cash-strapped city $10,000 in lost parking revenue), has failed to attract the national attention they feel they need to force state and congressional lawmakers to 1) suspend the Endangered Species Act, 2) resume full water deliveries to the western San Joaquin Valley despite the concerns of Northern California and (3) spend billions of taxpayer dollars on new water storage reservoirs and a highly controversial Peripheral Canal (also called a conveyance facility) around the beleaguered Bay-Delta Estuary.
Rodriguez's new comedy tactic, enthusiastically endorsed by Appleton, is to gather 50,000-100,000 signatures demanding that Fresno County be renamed "Nobama County" which, he believes, will generate so much national publicity it will force President Obama to visit the Valley and order the exports of water from the Delta be returned to maximum historic levels, apparently even if it causes the ecological crash of the Delta estuary. Rodriguez said the nation needed to be reminded that "Nobama County" is where "farming is illegal." I suspect this tactic will be about as effective as the boycott of First Lady Michelle Obama's speech at the UC Merced graduation by the Valley's five Congressional representatives, Democrats and Republicans. Apparently the collective thinking there was that if you want something from the President it's a good idea to insult his wife. The Nobama County name change is equally feckless if they think the President will respond positively to personal insults. There is another reason the Coalition is changing tactics. "We're broke," admitted Appleton on his July 15 radio show. He then asked listeners for more donations.
Rodriguez also told Appleton on the air, "I don't know if people want to be led by a fool. I'm no leader." But he added that God intended the San Joaquin Valley to be farmed. Appleton agreed, saying, "We can't depend on the politicians anymore. We've got to drop the serious stuff. We've got to go silly for awhile." Rodriguez added the news media was only interested in "novelty and shock" and said he thought it would also be a great publicity stunt to get 5,000 people to lie on the ground and spell out the word "help." Predicted Appleton, "The national media will jump on it."
KMJ callers then began offering their own possible slogans: "Barack-as-field" instead of Bakersfield, said one. Another caller suggested that the camel be named the Fresno County mascot. Another suggested "Merdead County" instead of Merced County, even though much of water-rich Merced County farmland received near normal irrigation supplies this year. One caller suggested Rodriguez do a "Nobama Comedy Tour" to raise awareness of the issue. One suggested bumper stickers that read "Where ever [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi goes, nothing grows." Then, as it frequently does on Appleton's show, the comments from Appleton's conservative listeners turned into trashing of Rep. Jim Costa, Democrats in general, liberals and "radical" environmentalists. Democratic members of the Coalition must be uneasy with this.
There is a certain naive Children's Crusade character to the Latino Water Coalition campaign, which is supposed to be bipartisan. Appleton's recent target has been Costa (who represents the Westlands Water District and has been targeted by the Republican National Committee in next year's elections). Republican Rep. Devin Nunes of Visalia, who has screamed loud and long in Congress that the Endangered Species Act must be suspended and that "radical" environmentalists have taken over the Democratic Party, must be gleeful about the attacks on Costa, although he claims to be Costa's friend. Costa and Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza, representing the Northern Valley, struck back in a July 15 Fresno Bee article accusing Nunes of "grandstanding" in trying repeatedly in various House committees to introduce amendments to various bills to suspend the Endangered Species Act.
"This is baloney, to be doing this sort of thing," Cardoza told the Bee. "I have had a number of colleagues tell me they are fed up with it." Appleton responded, on air, that Cardoza's statement was "one of the most foolish statements I've ever heard." Appleton added that "the sniping has begun," ignoring his own persistent sniping at Costa.
The most vicious attacks, of course, are reserved for "radical" environmentalists (is there any other kind in the eyes of growers?). Former Fresno Mayor Alan Autry, who clearly misses the spotlight, went even further at the July 1 water rally and branded the Endangered Species Act as terrorism (and, inferably, environmentalists as terrorists).
Other than Mario Santoyo, the longtime employee of the Friant Water Users Authority, who is clearly knowledgeable on water issues, the Coalition is essentially composed of front men Rodriguez and Appleton, some Latino business owners in Los Angeles, water and irrigation districts, and a handful of Latino mayors or council members from small towns in the San Joaquin Valley. It is overwhelmingly male.
While the "human face" of the coalition (this is the astroturfing tactic proposed by the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller, which was discussed in part one) is supposed to be the downtrodden farmworkers, the actual field hands participating in the marches and rallies are often either paid or threatened with job loss if they don't participate. The Associated Press reported on the July 1 Fresno City Hall rally that one female farmworker admitted being paid to attend and another was told if she didn't attend she would lose her job.
It seems to matter little to Rodriguez and Appleton that Obama cannot unilaterally void a federal court order, restructure the California water rights priority list and suspend the Endangered Species Act. Nor do they ever discuss the plight of Delta farmers who are farming 500,000 acres, Trinity River Indians, commercial and recreational salmon fishermen or the fact that the water they want restored to the western San Joaquin Valley must come from the people of Northern California. They stick to the simple-minded slogan "Fish versus People."
It is useful to take a brief look at the major characters in Act II of the Latino Water Coalition.
Paul Rodriguez
Rodriguez, son of immigrant farmworkers, who went on to fame and fortune as a standup comedian and actor, calls himself the "poster boy" of the California Latino Water Coalition, an ethnic group funded by agribusiness groups in the San Joaquin Valley. As chairperson of the Coalition, he is not entirely comfortable with the role and he freely admits his shortcomings in the Byzantine maneuvering of California water politics.
Rodriguez was born in Sinaloa, Culiacan, Mexico, in January 1955, the youngest of 10 children, and came to America with his family in 1957, he told the Los Angeles Times in a 1998 interview. They were migrant farmworkers, picking cotton in Texas, sugar beets in Minnesota, apples in Washington and grapes in the San Joaquin Valley. In the mid-1960s, Rodriguez's father broke his back in a tractor accident and the family moved to San Pedro. Rodriguez said his mother cleaned fish at Terminal Island but later lost her job because of phlebitis. They then moved in with an aunt in Compton, and Paul attended Dominguez High School in Compton, graduating about 1973. (In a posting on the Coalition Web site, http://www.gotwater.org, Rodriguez said he grew up in Orange Cove.)
He attended community college near his home, enrolled at Cal State University, Long Beach, and then joined the Air Force. In 1979, he became a doorman at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles and got to fill in onstage when a comedian called in sick or failed to show up. He quickly became popular and by 1984 had his own network sitcom, A.K.A Pablo, the first TV show in America about a Mexican-American family, which lasted six episodes.
He has done a lot of charity and benefit shows, from USO tours with Bob Hope to performances at San Quentin Prison. He has done lots of fund-raisers for many Democrats who he feels have turned their backs on him when he needed their help. He says former Assembly Speaker Fabi n N£¤ez rebuffed him and told him to keep his day job when Rodriguez asked for help on the water issue.
In the 1998 LA Times interview, Rodriguez admitted that he voted for a controversial statewide ballot initiative that year to prohibit bilingual education in California, angering some of his Latino friends. He said his parents influenced his decision to vote for the measure, which many considered anti-immigrant.
"My father actually took the time to go to the school and insist that none of his children have bilingual education, which is not a popular view among Hispanics," Rodriguez told the Times. "My father said, 'You're not going to get a job in this country because you know Spanish. You're going to get a job because you know English.' From my point of view, the hearts of Hispanic leaders are in the right place, but in terms of practicality, bilingual education does not work."
This independent streak extends to the Latino Water Coalition. In one of his first appearances on Ray Appleton's radio show, he said he was uncomfortable with the word Latino in the Coalition name and thought it should be just the California Water Coalition. He also has refused to permit Mexican flags or symbols in any of the Coalition events in which he has participated.
Rodriguez, although a lifelong Democrat, has been flirting with the idea of becoming a Republican. In a May 3 speech before the Bakersfield convention of the California Republican Assembly, a very conservative GOP organization, he said he was thinking about switching parties. The audience was almost entirely white and when Rodriguez saw a Latina waitress in the room he joked that he felt he should be working the tables too.
Regarding the delicate question of why there should even be a race-based water lobbying group, Rodriguez told the Republican conservatives gathered in Bakersfield:
"When I say Latino Water Coalition a lot of you automatically say, 'Why Latino? Doesn't everyone need water, Paul? Why just you Latinos, and as a Caucasian person I take offense to that, why does everything have to be segregated?' I don't know. I don't know but we're using this. We're using this race card in a positive manner, a cloak. You know everybody's welcome to this. The reason why we call it the Latino Water Coalition [is] because it gives them a pause. 'Better not attack these Latinos, we don't know.' If we call it the Caucasian Coalition, you bet they would already be attacking us. Because Caucasians, sadly to say, who is defending you? I am. You know, just to put that to rest, there's no division."
In his speech to the Republicans, Rodriguez said he had been friends with Cesar Chavez and had hosted the labor leader on his Spanish-language television show, which was, Rodriguez said, later cancelled when grocery chains complained about Chavez's appearance. Rodriguez added he had been disappointed that the United Farm Workers Union had not joined the Coalition to help the growers get more water.
"When I was a young man I was indoctrinated with the belief of the evil, incarnate evil white farmer who mistreated his workers and cared more about his John Deere than Juan," Rodriguez told the Bakersfield crowd. "Although I never met that person, although if we ever received kindness it was from a farmer, who treated us decently with respect. That's what I can remember. I never heard my father complain. I'm not defending or kissing up or becoming a coconut or whatever label you want to put [on] me. I'm simply telling you as I, and what happened to me. I'm not speaking for the other 40 people in my house [crowd laughs]."
He closed his remarks to the Republicans (without revealing whether he had joined the GOP; Ray Appleton says Rodriguez is still a Democrat) by saying: "I don't know what I'm going to do next. I'm going to do something because I'm not going to sit there and see a canal with plenty of water go right by my property and my property has no water. I'm not gonna sit there and see my family suffer needlessly. And if it's illegal for me to take a backhoe and open up and make a canal, then I've already been accused of being illegal once before."
Again, Rodriguez doesn't need to worry about a canal carrying water by his farm while his trees die. The current problem involves the West Side of the Valley, not the East Side where his farm is. It was a good story but not true.
Ray Appleton
Appleton, in addition to being on the air from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m., is the host of a two-hour weekday show from noon to 2 p.m. on KMJ, Fresno's most popular AM radio station. KMJ General Manager Patty Hixson farms several hundred acres in Fresno County and is clearly sympathetic to growers. In addition, KMJ is flooded with pesticide commercials during Appleton's morning and noon shows, so there is also an economic reason to champion the cause of the West Side growers.
The KMJ Web site section on Appleton shows pictures of him taken earlier this year purportedly sneaking into the Delta export pumps and turning them on. While no doubt intended as a humorous stunt, if Appleton actually did this it would be a criminal act, probably a felony. Some of his grower callers are threatening civil disobedience.
His erratic behavior on the show, raging one day, confident and predicting victory the next, is typified by a July 10 posting in his blog on the Web site: "Many of you ask me how I can handle all the pressure from the Water War. I get this all the time. I'm surprised that many of you feel that I am pressured. Yes, I know I've have had my moments on the air where I have been a bit out of control. Yeah, that's always a lovely 'bit' for live radio when it's real and I assure you this, for me, has never been more real."
Here is a sampling of Appleton's inflammatory comments on the air in recent weeks:
On July 7, the House Appropriations Committee rejected an amendment by Rep. Nunes to suspend the Endangered Species Act and restore water exports from the Delta at "historic maximum levels." Appleton, on his show the next day, excoriated the Democrats on the committee and said Rep. Sam Farr (D-Monterey) was "a weasel." He has called Rep. Costa a "traitor" on the air. He told listeners that Congress was "terrified" of Rodriguez and that, as Act II gets under way, "we are now deferring everything to him [Rodriguez]. From now on, he's going to be calling all the shots [for the Coalition]."
Appleton has called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi "the Antichrist" and slandered Rep. George Miller (D-Contra Costa) in similar terms. Appleton claimed that "law enforcement" had estimated the July 1 City Hall water rally crowd at 11,000 people, without naming which law enforcement agency or officer had made this alleged estimate. In contrast, the Fresno Bee and the local TV stations said Fresno police had estimated the crowd at 4,000.
Appleton has called the United Farm Workers Union the "enemy" of farmworkers and claimed if Cesar Chavez were alive he would be in the radio booth with Appleton advocating for more water for growers.
Appleton continues to claim that the Delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) is not indigenous to the Delta, that it is only on the Endangered Species Act Threatened List and that smelt are plentiful throughout much of America. He is right that the Delta smelt is only on the Threatened List but wrong about it occurring elsewhere in the United States. The Delta smelt are members of the Osmeridae family (smelts) and, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Delta smelt is found only from Suisan Bay upstream through the Delta in several counties. Once abundant, their numbers have plunged in recent years, in large part due to reductions in freshwater outflow (i.e., water exports), and being ground up ("entrained") at the massive Delta export pumps near Tracy. Other causes in the population decline include pollutants, competition and predation from non-native fish. There are other species of smelt in the Osmeridae family in other parts of America (some grow to eight inches in length), but they are not Delta smelt. Using Appleton's logic here, the analogy would be that it is okay if polar bears go extinct because there are eight species of bear (black and brown bears for starters) in the bear family (Ursidae) and because if you've seen one bear you've seen them all, right?
Appleton takes considerable pride in being the "new best friend" of Rodriguez and loves to entice his listeners with tidbits about Rodriguez but says he cannot say everything he knows. He told listeners recently that Rodriguez had recently been fired from the movie Family Wedding starring America Ferrera, even after Rodriguez had completed shooting for his part, but said he couldn't talk about it on advice of both Rodriguez's lawyers and KMJ's lawyers. The inference was that Rodriguez was fired because of his political activism for the Coalition. When Rodriguez came on Appleton's show a few days later, Appleton never asked him if he was fired from the movie. If Rodriguez was, in fact, fired for exercising his free speech rights, that was wrong.
He told listeners on July 7 that Rodriguez had become so disheartened over the Fourth of July weekend he was thinking of quitting the Coalition but later changed his mind. Appleton also told listeners Rodriguez was feuding with his agents. "Well, Paul is having a little bit of a crisis with his agent right now, so he's got that on his back as well because the agents are having a cow because he's not fulfilling some of his commitments," Appleton said. "Paul is getting it from all sides, and I'm trying to be protective of him."
Appleton appears unconcerned that blabbing to listeners that Rodriguez is not keeping his business commitments might be a bad idea. Appleton later told listeners Rodriguez had fired his agents and retained new representation. When Rodriguez was next on the show, Appleton never mentioned any of this.
Mario Santoyo
Mario Santoyo is the assistant general manager of the Friant Water Users Authority and one of the highest ranking Latinos in California's water world. He is probably more responsible for the creation of the California Latino Water Coalition than anyone else. According to a February 27, 2009, article in the Fresno Bee, the Coalition was formed in 2006 after Santoyo and other Valley Latino leaders met with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and asked what they could do to help increase agriculture's water supply. Santoyo said the governor "encouraged us to put together a coalition and spread the word" focusing on pleading their case to the legislature's Latino members.
The incorporation papers for the nonprofit Latino Water Coalition were filed on December 29, 2008 (two years after the organization was formed), by Sacramento lobbyist and attorney George H. Soares, who owns a dairy farm in Hanford. Ruben Guerra of Rosemead, head of the Los Angeles-based Latin Business Association, is listed as the chief executive officer of the Coalition and spoke at the July 1 City Hall rally. Curiously, Paul Rodriguez and Mario Santoyo are not listed as officers or named anywhere in the incorporation documents.
Santoyo admitted in the February 27 Bee article that there are few Latinos in positions of influence in California's water world, either in government or agribusiness, lamenting "the water world has not been a world where there's been a great diversity of people. There's only a few Latinos in that world. I always felt kind of lonely."
However, the United Farm Workers and the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, among others, have complained that the Coalition has focused on getting irrigation water for agriculture while ignoring the campaign for clean drinking water and decent housing for farmworkers, who are the poorest working people in America. The Coalition has yet to speak out on farmworker health, safety and drinking water issues.
Orange Cove Mayor Victor P. Lopez
Lopez is credited with luring Rodriguez to head the Latino Water Coalition two years ago. He had brought Rodriguez to Orange Cove in 1990 to help raise funds because of a freeze that damaged much of the citrus crop and threw the town's predominantly farmworker population out of work.
Lopez has been a controversial figure in the small farm town of Orange Cove, 40 miles southeast of Fresno, for more than three decades. When he was elected to a fifth four-year term as mayor in 2006, his opponents claimed he had disgraced the city by hiring relatives and traveling the world on city funds, ostensibly on "official business."
A November 8, 2006, Fresno Bee article said Lopez's critics and opponents accused him of squandering $174,000 in city funds on travel to China, South Korea, Mexico and elsewhere in the five years previous to the 2006 election. Lopez brushed off his critics by claiming they were merely jealous of him and noted he had brought tens of millions of dollars of state and federal grant money to Orange Cove.
Fifteen years ago, Lopez called a community meeting to discuss graffiti, vandalism and gang problems. "It's a major issue," Lopez told the Fresno Bee in a January 27, 1994, article. "We have complaints about gang activity, graffiti, vandalism, and we have to deal with it." Lopez said then that there were four gangs in Orange Cove, and officials wanted to find the root of the problem. "We will do whatever has to be done to remedy the situation," Lopez predicted.
The 66-year-old Lopez is still mired in controversy. On May 24 of this year, the Fresno Bee ran a front-page story saying a BMX bike park in Orange Cove, which was supposed to be financed by a $490,000 state grant from the California State Parks Department, had run into serious financial problems. The grant application listed gang problems as one of the reasons a bike park was needed.
State auditors say the city spent lavishly for the park but funds were unaccounted for. The Bee investigation discovered the city had put Lopez's son in charge of overseeing the project in a no bid contract even though the son had no engineering experience. A Lopez grandson was given a security guard job at the bike park. Odilon Ortiz, the city's former finance manager who challenged Lopez for the mayor's job in the 2006 election, said Lopez wanted the project completed before the election and classified the project as an emergency and instructed staff to ignore normal contract bidding rules.
Lopez is also the only mayor in Fresno County paid by the county Economic Opportunities Commission. Since 1971, he has drawn a $43,000 a year salary from the EOC as a "rural development specialist."
State Parks officials say Orange Cove, with a meager budget of $1.7 million, may be forced to cover the bike park construction costs if the $490,000 state grant is withheld. Local officials also admit the bike park is rarely used. Lopez told the Bee, "I have been here for 30 years and can hold my head high. We've done nothing wrong."
In what may be a coincidence, the Fresno County Council of Governments (COG), comprised of Fresno City and 15 smaller cities in the county, approved a May 21 letter to the governor on an emergency basis (the item had not been on the agenda) recommending that Mario Santoyo be appointed to the State Parks and Recreation Commission, which sets policy for the State Parks Department. The letter identified Santoyo as the founder and president of the Latino Water Coalition. Santoyo and Lopez have worked closely together in the Latino Water Coalition. Lopez sits on the COG board.
Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson
Larson is the 75-year-old Fresno County supervisor who represents the Westlands area. He is a former pesticide/fertilizer salesperson, farmer and former head of the Fresno County Farm Bureau. After he spoke at the July 1 Fresno City Hall water rally and was leaving the podium, Rodriguez, acting as MC, wisecracked, "there goes a walking sex scandal." After Victor Lopez gave a near-shouted speech in Spanish, Rodriguez joked he should run for president of Honduras. Like I said, Rodriguez is a funny guy.
Larson has offered his county office and secretarial services to the Latino Water Coalition, a private nonprofit group, raising questions about the appropriateness of the use of his office as a fund-raising mechanism for the private organization.
Larson frequently states in TV interviews that the avowed purpose of environmentalists is to end farming in the San Joaquin Valley. Of course, he never names a single environmentalist who actually holds this view. It is clear, however, that he's looking out for the interests of the big growers as well as the small family farms.
On March 1 of this year, there was a special session of the Fresno City Council called by member Cynthia Sterling. Visiting Fresno was California Rep. Adam Schiff, who is considered to have clout in Congress about where federal economic revitalization funds might be spent. Sterling was hoping some of that federal stimulus money would flow to Fresno. According to Stephen Smith, a member of the Fresno County Democratic Central Committee, who attended the special session and took notes, Supervisor Larson showed up and wanted to know if the Obama administration's announced intention to limit farm subsidies to farms or farm companies producing under $500,000 worth of crops a year was set in stone. Larson said he had a friend and a nephew who both easily exceeded the $500,000 figure in gross annual farm receipts, which Larson considered a low figure. In essence, Smith said, Larson was asking Schiff to go back to Washington and lobby for more subsidy money for big farms. Schiff made no commitment to do so. Smith said he was astounded by Larson's comments.
KMJ Commentator Inga Barks
Barks, who hosts a daytime radio talk show in Bakersfield and a similar evening show on KMJ radio in Fresno, is a conservative who loves to bash Democrats, liberals and environmentalists, who she labels as "humaphobes," a term she coined for me, according to her blog on the KMJ Web site. She knows little about water issues but that doesn't stop her from blathering the agribusiness party line of the moment, oblivious to the fact Big Ag is awash in subsidy programs that, as a conservative, she should despise.
She doesn't have anything to do with the Latino Water Coalition as far as I can tell. However she has viciously attacked me on the air several times (as a typical environmentalist) and thus I include her here. Shortly after my controversial televised remarks about the pathology of farmworker culture in early February she posted the following comment, in part, on the Internet: "I am convinced that Mr. Carter is not a racist, but an elitist. He doesn't care about the laborer because he doesn't care about the farmer. He doesn't care about the farmer because he believes the bread basket of the world (Central California Valley) should be a desert where the blunt[-]nosed leopard lizard runs free. Regardless [of] race, he hates you, your car, your farm and your water faucet."
Come now Inga, I hate water faucets? And stop calling the Valley a breadbasket because grains, which bread is made from, are mostly grown in the Midwest. You can call the San Joaquin Valley the Fruit Basket of the Nation, or the Lettuce Bowl of the Nation, but not the breadbasket.
But, hey, it's right-wing talk radio, right?
As Barks herself put it in an April column in the Bakersfield Californian: "Talk radio also gives a voice to people who actually believe in God without harassing them like they are some kind of uneducated, back-water, snake-handling, NASCAR-watching, country music-listening, intermarrying, group of bumpkins/possible terrorists. We have a groundswell of populism every day on my show." How about a groundswell of accurate facts?
Others in the Latino Water Coalition or Supporting the Cause
Although Paul Rodriguez is listed as the chair of the Latino Water Coalition, the organization, according to its Web site, has three co-chairs including Orange Cove Mayor Victor P. Lopez, Ruben Guerra of the Latin Business Association and Tony Estremera, a director of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. Lopez and Guerra have spoken at Latino Water Coalition events along with Piedad Ayala, a farm labor contractor who has provided farmworkers to West Side agribusiness for nearly 20 years and was reportedly in charge of busing in paid and unpaid farmworkers to Coalition events.
Last of all is the Congressional point person of the Coalition, which is clearly Rep. Nunes. Nunes has taken to posting videos on YouTube of his regular diatribes on the floor of Congress, a popular astroturfing tactic employed by the big public relations firms. He is likely the person who connected the Friant Water Users and/or the Latino Water Coalition with Burson-Marsteller. After part one of my article was printed, a B-M official told a Fresno television station it was advising the Coalition but insisted the firm was donating its services. Please note, however, that Burson-Marsteller has not said no one is paying the high-priced firm. They have been advising the Friant Unit growers for three years, and they are surely being paid consulting fees for that.
In the final analysis, the biggest problem the Latino Water Coalition may face in the next year is not finances, a coherent message that resonates nationally or being pulled apart by partisan political bickering. An El Niú¤o weather pattern is forming in the Pacific Ocean, and forecasters predict we may be heading into a wet winter. It's hard to cry drought, even regulatory drought, when California's rivers are running full. Rodriguez better come up with some good jokes for that scenario.
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This was part two of a two part series about water in the Central San Joaquin Valley, written by Lloyd Carter. To read part one (THE PR FIRM FROM HELL), go to: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/29/18604574.php
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar Holds Town Hall in Fresno...Mike Rhodes ( editor [at] fresnoalliance.com )...7-29-09
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar held a Town Hall meeting on the water shortage. This meeting was held in Fresno on Sunday, June 28. Below is audio of the first 1:40 hour of the meeting. Also below are photos and an article written by Lloyd Carter, putting the “Fish vs. People” debate in context.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/29/18604574.php
Download audio: entire_town_hall_meeting.mp3 92.5MB
The PR Firm from Hell
(Part 1 of two parts)
By Lloyd G. Carter
“Cesar Chavez knew the power of a good march. He led by example, and he never stopped trying until he found a way. And this is exactly what we are going to do. We never will stop until we find a way, find a way together here, because this is the right thing to do, because we need water, we need water, we need water, we need water” [chanting with crowd].
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said these words on April 17 at the San Luis Reservoir, following a four-day grower-funded march in which non-union farmworkers were paid to walk 50 miles from Mendota. Chavez’s United Farm Workers (UFW) union did not participate. UFW Co-Founder Dolores Huerta called it shameless exploitation of the late labor leader’s legacy.
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The masters of “astroturfing” are trying to convince you, the media, California and Washington, D.C., that San Joaquin Valley farmworkers’ new best friend is Big Agribusiness, the same industry that has exploited them for decades. Say what?
Campaigns & Elections magazine defines astroturfing as a “program that involves the manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them.” In other words, rich people with a lot of money but no popular support for their cause (getting richer) create the illusion of broad public support by half-truths, manipulation, disinformation, spin doctoring, creating false impressions and cash. It also involves ghost writing op-ed columns and letters to the editor from little people to generate the perception that there is widespread public support for the client’s position. Grassroots is bottom up. Astroturf is top down.
The late Democratic Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, a vice presidential candidate and a lobbyist, is credited with coining the term astroturf lobbying to describe the synthetic grassroots movements conjured up by powerful lobbying and PR firms. Astroturfing is specifically prohibited by the code of ethics of the Public Relations Society of America, the national association for members of the PR profession.
But that has not stopped the spin doctors at Burson-Marsteller (B-M), the astroturfing PR firm that has been hired by the California Latino Water Coalition (created around 2006–2007). The coalition is headed by co-chairs Paul Rodriguez (the comedian) and Victor Lopez (mayor of Orange Cove) and technical adviser Mario Santoyo. Santoyo is assistant general manager at the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents the federal irrigation districts on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley from Madera County south to Bakersfield.
B-M has been helping the Friant growers for three years, trying to derail the lawsuit settlement to restore a living San Joaquin River to 60 miles of dry riverbed on the San Joaquin Valley floor. Republican Rep. Devin Nunes has been the most outspoken of the settlement critics and has called for the governor’s resignation for failing to push new water projects hard enough. (Nunes seems blissfully unconcerned that California is facing a $24 billion budget deficit.)
MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, in a March telecast, called B-M “the PR firm from hell” and said it had been hired to improve the “image” of AIG, the company that has received $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money. (You can see Maddow ripping B-M on YouTube. Plug in the search terms Rachel Maddow and Burson-Marsteller.)
How much B-M is being paid by the growers who fund the Latino Water Coalition—if it is being paid—is not publicly available. No one in the mainstream media has inquired about the financing, except the New York Times, which noted in a story on the mid-April four-day March for Water that farmworkers were paid to participate. Classic astroturfing tactics.
Founded in 1953, B-M is now one of the largest PR firms in the world, and in 2000 was the first PR outfit to hit $300 million in revenue. In 1999, Harold Burson was named by PR Week magazine and Web site as the PR industry’s “most influential person of the 20th Century.”
The PR Watch Web site has considerable material on B-M’s past and present outrages. Big-name employees include George W. Bush’s first press secretary, Karen Hughes, and his last press secretary, the acid-tongued, irritable Dana Perino. However, the agency is not just staffed with Republican mudslingers. Spinmeister Mark Penn, the staunchly anti-union polling consultant and former chief strategist of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, is the current CEO of B-M.
B-M’s client list is a who’s who of corporate scoundrels and tinhorn dictators including the following:
After the private security firm Blackwater USA killed 17 Iraqi civilians, it turned to B-M for “crisis management.” Former B-M executive Robert Tappan, who had been a State Department official, worked at the PR firm’s lobbying subsidiary, BKSH & Associates. Tappan helped Blackwater founder and head Erik Prince prepare for his testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (In February, Blackwater, purportedly on the advice of B-M, changed its name to the mysterious Xe, pronounced “Zee.”)
Babcock & Wilcox, manufacturers of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, hired B-M to “manage” public perception after the 1979 meltdown.
Nigeria’s brutal regime employed B-M in the late 1960s to counteract allegations that it was committing genocide in the breakaway province of Biafra. “Crisis management” was also provided the Indonesian regime accused of abuses against its citizens.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, at the behest of the Argentinean military dictatorship, headed by General Jorge Videla, B-M organized a campaign against Argentinean human rights organizations that were contending a “Dirty War” against the population was taking place, including the murder and disappearance of thousands of people. In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein wrote:
“Victor Emmanuel, the Burson-Marsteller public relations executive who was in charge of selling the Argentine junta’s new business-friendly regime to the outside world, told a researcher that violence was necessary to open up Argentina’s ‘protective, statist’ economy. ‘No one, but no one, invests in a country involved in a civil war,’ he said, admitting that it wasn’t just rebels who died. ‘A lot of innocent people were probably killed,’ he told author Marguerite Feitlowitz, but ‘given the situation, immense force was required.’”
Saudi Arabia’s medieval royal government has employed B-M for more than 30 years to promote its interests and image. B-M prepared U.S. advertisements for Saudi Arabia following the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center due, in part, to the fact that 15 of the 19 airplane hijackers were Saudi citizens.
B-M handled PR for Union Carbide Corp. following the 1984 explosion and disaster at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, which killed 2,000 employees and neighbors and injured or blinded thousands more.
B-M set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s.
The Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF) was created by Burson-Marsteller on behalf of chemical companies from the United States, Israel and Japan that wanted to avoid an EU ban on bromine flame retardants suspected to have serious environmental and health impacts. For years, the BSEF (lobbyists from the Brussels offices of B-M) lobbied against the EU ban on these substances, without clearly disclosing the nature of the group and the clients.
Major companies in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries currently utilize B-M’s services, according to B-M’s own Web site. In 2006, the company gave 57% of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.
B-M, according to the May 17, 2007, issue of The Nation magazine, is owned by an even larger PR empire called the WPP Group. The decision to hire Penn as the head of B-M was heavily influenced by Howard Paster, President Bill Clinton’s chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill and an influential presence inside WPP. “Clients of stature come to Mark [Penn] constantly for counsel,” claimed Paster, who informally advised Hillary Clinton. The press release announcing Penn’s promotion noted his work “developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector” (italics added).
Both these PR and lobbying efforts—to deregulate energy and financial services—led to the California electricity crisis and the manipulation of the state’s energy supply by Enron, the 2003 blackout in the northeastern United States and the current collapse of the financial services sector.
So, what then does B-M expect to do for the California Latino Water Coalition? B-M’s Patrick George, who works out of B-M’s Sacramento office, is listed as the media contact on the coalition’s press releases. The B-M Web site boasts that it has won the last nine California statewide initiative campaigns in which it has been involved, and it was expected to be involved in a $10 billion water bond issue in 2008 before the economy collapsed. There will undoubtedly be an effort to put another water bond on the 2010 or 2012 California ballot.
Some western San Joaquin Valley growers acknowledge that they are contributing to the Latino Water Coalition. It is clear the poverty-stricken farmworkers are not paying the tab and that it is agribusiness bankrolling the operation. The coalition’s Web site (http://www.gotwater.org) and KMJ radio commentator Ray Appleton, a major supporter of the coalition, both solicit donations from the general public. Appleton does it on air. Santoyo said on former Fresno Mayor Alan Autry’s radio show that comedian Rodriguez is not being compensated for any of his efforts. In an interview with a Yuma, Ariz., newspaper, Rodriguez called himself the “poster boy” and claimed Cesar Chavez was “like an uncle” to him. Presumably, the Friant growers were paying B-M big bucks before the PR firm got involved in the Latino Water Coalition.
The transparent objective of B-M’s astroturfing is to put a “human face” on efforts to get more multibillion dollar water projects built with taxpayer funds to 1) meet the water needs of the industrial farming operations of the western San Joaquin Valley and 2) halt (or replace) the loss of water by southeastern San Joaquin Valley growers in Tulare and Kern counties due to the restoration of the San Joaquin River.
These are among the PR objectives:
Conflate the interests of growers who want water with the needs of farmworkers who need jobs, so that it appears the largely Latino farmworker population fully supports the efforts of growers to get more taxpayer-financed cheap water, even while the basic needs of the farmworkers, such as decent wages, clean drinking water, and decent housing and working conditions, continue to go unmet.
Make it appear as if the entire San Joaquin Valley is threatened with reversion to desert because of a “two-inch bait fish” instead of revealing that it is only the junior water rights holders who are suffering irrigation cutbacks and that thousands of growers with senior water rights are getting a full allotment this year. Emphasize a “man-made drought” as the problem, not the real drought that is occurring (according to state officials). Some growers are making fat profits selling water at extortionate prices to their fellow water-short farmers.
A May 15 letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein from Lester Snow, head of the California Department of Water Resources, indicated that the Westlands Water District, through delta deliveries, carryover, groundwater, transfers and exchanges, is actually getting 86% of its normal water supply this year. The groundwater, of course, is of low quality in many cases and cannot be quickly replaced.
Demonize environmentalists and brand them as elitists from San Francisco who care more about a “minnow” (i.e., the delta smelt) than they do about human beings, especially the tens of thousands of farmworkers who will lose their seasonal jobs that now pay an average of $8,000 a year.
Reduce the crisis in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to a black-and-white issue of “fish versus farmers” or “fish versus food” and avoid the complexities of delta restoration and the hierarchy of water rights. Rarely or never mention salmon (much less the commercial salmon industry), or steelhead, or killer whales or sturgeon in simplifying the issue. Make it the smelt—a bait fish—versus human beings.
Ignore the concerns of the UFW and the Teamsters (which represent farmworkers in the Valley) and ignore or demonize environmental justice advocates. Do not get involved in supporting bills in the state legislature to improve the lives and working conditions of farmworkers. Big Ag routinely opposes those bills and the governor vetoes them.
Stage marches and rallies in the tradition of Cesar Chavez, invoke Chavez’s name where politically expedient and conceal the fact that the marchers are being paid to participate. In a slickly produced YouTube video, comedian Rodriguez said that when he was a boy he had marched with Chavez to help unionize farmworkers and was now asking people to participate in the mid-April March for Water to help growers in Chavez’s memory. Dolores Huerta shakes her head at this tactic.
Because growers, particularly large corporate operations, billionaire farmers like Stewart Resnick and wealthy family mega-farms (like the Woolfs of the Westlands) have never been particularly sympathetic figures in the news media, the decision was made to make Latino farmworkers the “human face” of this astroturfing campaign, perhaps to sway urban Latino state legislators.
Jon Stewart’s Daily Show frequently runs a montage of video clips showing Republican (or Democrat) politicos mouthing the same sound bite of the day, which usually comes from a talking points paper prepared by a PR firm. That is what has been occurring the last two years with the “human face” buzz phrase.
For example (italics added):
July 2, 2007—Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson, who represents the Westlands Water District area and allows his public office phone number and staff to be utilized by the Latino Water Coalition, told a House Subcommittee that cutbacks of irrigation water to protect the delta smelt were causing hardship among farmworkers, stating, “There is a very human face to the decisions that are made.”
July 24, 2008—Fresno Bee Capitol correspondent E.J. Schultz, writing about a grower-financed rally in Sacramento, in which busloads of farmworkers were at the Capitol building to show the “human face” of water politics, wrote that “Wednesday’s rally was designed to give a human face to the state’s water woes. At least 300 farmworkers, most from the Valley’s parched west side, marched and carried homemade signs declaring ‘agua es vida,’ or water is life, and ‘agua = trabajo,’ or water equals work.”
April 14, 2009—Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Project, which represents the mega-farms of the western Tulare Basin, including the 150,000-acre J.G. Boswell cotton empire, issued this statement: “Today, the California Latino Water Coalition began the first day of a four-day march across the San Joaquin Valley to highlight the severe water shortage that grips the Valley’s farms, cities and jobs, as well as our broader state. Their goal is to raise statewide and national awareness of the water crisis that faces them and to put a human face on one of the most important issues facing California today.”
April 14, 2009—A column by Fresno Bee writer Bill McEwen carried the headline “March to Put Human Face on Water Crisis.” McEwen wrote that with a “recession and a third year of drought intensifying the state’s troubles—and putting a human face on our water problems—solutions might be coming. This human face will be shown to the nation and the world when the California March for Water begins this morning in Mendota.”
April 17, 2009—Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), appeared at the conclusion of the March for Water and stated to a crowd estimated at 3,000 people (coalition officials put the estimate at 10,000) that the water crisis highlighted “the human face of the misery evoked by water shortages.”
KMJ broadcaster Appleton has repeatedly said on his noon hour show that the purpose of the Latino Water Coalition is to put a “human face” on the campaign.
It must be admitted that B-M’s astroturfing campaign in the San Joaquin Valley has been remarkably successful. The “human face” of the new water projects campaign is now that of the downtrodden farmworker, not the rich grower.
But Huerta is not fooled and calls the Latino Water Coalition an obvious front group for the growers that is exploiting Chavez’s legacy. She said Chavez was an ardent environmentalist and would never have participated in the April March for Water or demonized the environmentalists. She also notes that the Latino Water Coalition has not lobbied for bills to make it easier for farmworkers to unionize or demanded a living wage, decent housing and clean drinking water for farmworkers before any new dams are built. The governor, she notes, has vetoed bills to help farmworkers unionize.
The Valley’s newspaper and television coverage of the Latino Water Coalition has been extensive and, at times, almost fawning. No hard questions are being asked about where the money is coming from or why the Latino Water Coalition is not lobbying in Sacramento and Washington for improved working conditions, decent housing and clean drinking water for the farmworkers that they claim are part of their coalition. However, outside the Valley, the sales job has been tougher, particularly in the nation’s capital.
Thus, more “marches” are being planned, including a protest outside the new Fresno federal building on July 1, and the air transport of an unspecified number of farmworkers to Washington, D.C., to show lawmakers the “human face” of failing to build more multibillion dollar water projects to primarily benefit agribusiness is planned. Presumably, non-union farmworkers will have to be recruited and paid to participate in this latest stunt. The astroturf needs a mowing.
***
Part 2 of this series will focus on the roles of comedian Paul Rodriguez, Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez, growers’ employee Mario Santoyo, KMJ radio commentators Ray Appleton and Inga Barks, Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson and others in the B-M astroturfing campaign.
*****
Lloyd G. Carter has been writing about San Joaquin Valley water issues for 40 years, including 20 years as an award-winning reporter for United Press International and the Fresno Bee. He has a Web site: http://www.lloydgcarter.com.
Help Stop the Assault on Central Valley Salmon!...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/31/18613511.php
The San Joaquin Valley corporate agribusiness lobby has unleashed an unprecedented assault on Central Valley salmon populations, now in collapse due to increased water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality in recent years. They are applying intense political pressure on multiple governmental targets to compel the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) to change their Biological Opinion on Sacramento River winter-run salmon so they can obtain increased water diversions from the Delta. This opinion also protects spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales from falling over the abyss of extinction.
This attack by Congressman Devin Nunes and other Representatives comes at a time when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein and some California Legislators are pushing to build a peripheral canal and more dams, a project that would doom salmon and Delta fish populations.
I urge you to circulate this action alert from the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) widely and to send your letters! For more information about the biological opinion, go to: http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content?oid=1015298.
CSPA Action Alert 7.30.09
Greetings!
This action alert will take five minutes or less for the three e-mails we're asking you to send and another five minutes to print and mail two snail mail letters. Even so, YOUR POSITIVE ACTIONS will help ensure the rapid restoration of our salmon fisheries.
Please do your part!
Help Stop the Assault on Salmon!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
by CSPA's Conservation Director John Beuttler
The Southern Central Valley Ag Lobby has unleashed an unprecedented assault on Central Valley salmon barely clinging to existence that are to be protected under the Endangered Species Act. They are applying intense political pressure on multiple governmental targets to compel the National Marine Fishery Service (NMFS) to change their Biological Opinion on Sacramento River winter-run salmon so they can obtain increased water diversions from the Delta.
NOAA and NMFS find themselves under siege from California's corporate agriculture sector. Their first overt effort came from Valley democratic Congressman Devin Nunes who made a number of unsubstantiated claims on the floor of the House of Representatives in a nearly successful bid to remove funding from NMFS budget that would have prevented them from implementing this biological opinion.
Reliable information from Washington, DC has advised that renewed attacks aimed at Congress and key federal agencies are underway to compel amending the opinion so more water can be exported out of the Delta to these corporate growers.
CSPA has done its part. We have written letters of support to the entire California Congressional Delegation and to the various heads of the Department of the Interior, NOAA and NMFS. We're asking our friends in other fisheries advocacy groups to do the same.
Now it is your turn to help put an end to this attack on our public owned fishery resources. Make your voice heard loud and clear! We need hundreds of letters of private citizens just like you to our congressional representatives telling them that this biological opinion is essential if we are to restore salmon in the Central Valley. It's easy and three of the five letters can be sent electronically.
For more information on Big Ag's attempt to influence Congress and the federal agencies, see CSPA's Hot Button Issue: Salazar's visit and Nunes' rhetoric
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Send E-mail letters to your senators and congressman: Since we must fight back politically, we as that you send an
E-mail letter asking support of NOAA and NMFS to your congressman and your two state senators!
Click on link to find your member of the House of Representatives and send an E-mail.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Click on link to send an E-mail to State Senator Dianne Feinstein
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/i...tactUs.EmailMe
Click on link to send an E-mail to Senator Barbara Boxer
http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm
Sample Letter
Once at the page, fill in the form blocks and then:
Enter this text into the topic block:
Re: Support for NMFS Biological Opinion & Saving California's Salmon
Enter this text into the body block:
Dear (Full Name),
I urge your support of NOAA and the implementation of the Nation Marine Fisheries Service "Biological Opinion on the Operations of the Central Valley and State Water Projects"(BiOp)
California's corporate agricultural industry is exerting a concerted effort to have Congress "roll back" this critical requirement of the Endangered Species Act. They want Congress and the federal government raid the small amount of water (5%) mandated by the BiOp to be held back for fisheries so they can take even more water out of the Delta, a waterway that is in a serious state of collapse!
The BiOp has been peer reviewed by two independent teams of scientists and found to use on the best science available to require essential measures to protect our state's salmon and steelhead fisheries. Clearly, these requirements are in the public's best interest.
The fisheries this document seeks to protect are in jeopardy of extinction due primarily to impacts caused by the state and federal water projects. These fisheries, when healthy, generate over $500 million annually to our state and national economy and represent valuable jobs and food for the people of our state.
Please encourage the administration and its agencies, the Department of the Interior, NOAA and NMFS to stand firm in the face of the misinformation campaign being conducted by some of the largest water districts in the world, rich on taxpayer subsidies, focused solely on their own self interests and possessing the most junior rights of any in our state.
Your positive actions on this matter will ensure my continued support.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
***********************************
Unfortunately we have NOT found a way to send E-Mails to the heads of the agencies involved. Instead we ask you to send an additional brief paper letter of support:Tell them you support their efforts in carrying out the mandates of the NMFS Biological Opinion on California's Sacramento River salmon and ask them to make restoring our salmon and steelhead fisheries a TOP PRIORITY.
Cut and paste these addresses.
NOAA Fisheries
Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator
1401 Constitution Avenue, NW Room 5128
Washington, DC 20230
U.S. Department of the Interior
David J. Hayes, Interior Deputy Secretary
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240j
Sample Letter
(Your name)
(Your street)
(Your city, state and zip)
Date
(Agency Name)
(Agency head)
(Street Address)
(City, State, Zip)
Re: Support of the NMFS Biological Opinion & Saving California's Salmon
I urge you to continue your steadfast implementation of the Nation Marine Fisheries Service "Biological Opinion on the Operations of the Central Valley and State Water Projects"(BiOp)
I realize that California's corporate agricultural industry is exerting a concerted effort to have your agency or Congress "roll back" this critical requirement of the Endangered Species Act. They want Congress and the federal government raid the small amount of water (5%) mandated by the BiOp to be held back for fisheries so they can take even more water out of the Delta, a waterway that is in a serious state of collapse!
The BiOp has been peer reviewed and seeks to protect fisheries that are in jeopardy of extinction due primarily to impacts caused by the state and federal water projects. These fisheries, when healthy, generate over $500 million annually to our state and national economy and represent valuable jobs and food for the people of our state.
I urge you to stand firm in the BiOps implementation, even the face of the misinformation campaign being conducted by some of the largest water districts in the world, rich on taxpayer subsidies, focused solely on their own self interests and possessing the most junior rights of any in our state.
I have already written my two state senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and my Congressman, asking that they support your efforts. I will continue to support your agency in the form of informing others in the state of the real facts surrounding the reasons why the BiOp needs to be carried out, without delay, and for the benefit of all Californians.
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
CNN Money
5 more banks fail
Regional banks in Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and New Jersey fall, bringing the national tally up to 69 for 2009. The closures cost the FDIC $912 million...Catherine Clifford
http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/31/news/companies/bank_failures/
index.htm?postversion=2009073120
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Regulators shut down five regional banks Friday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said, bringing the total number of banks to fail in the United States to 69 this year.
Friday's bank closures will cost the FDIC fund $911.7 million, bringing the total cost for failed banks to $15.13 billion this year. That compares with $17.6 billion in all of 2008.
First State Bank of Altus, based in Altus, Okla., was shut down and Herring Bank, headquartered in Amarillo, Texas, will take over all of the deposits of the failed bank. As of June 19, the First State Bank of Altus had total assets of $103.4 million and deposits of $98.2 million. The failed bank was the first to go down in the state of Oklahoma in 2009.
Meanwhile, Integrity Bank, headquartered in Jupiter, Fla., was shuttered and Stonegate Bank, based out of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., will assume all of the deposits of Integrity Bank. As of June 5, Integrity Bank had total assets of $119 million and total deposits of $102 million. The failed Florida bank was the fourth to fail in the state so far this year.
The third bank to go down Friday was the Peoples Community Bank, based in West Chester, Ohio. The First Financial Bank, National Association, headquartered in Hamilton, Ohio, will take over all of the deposits of the failed bank. The failed bank was the first bank to be closed in Ohio in 2009, and as of March 31, had total assets of $705.8 million and total deposits of $598.2 million.
The fourth bank to fall Friday night was the First BankAmericano, based in Elizabeth, N.J., and the Crown Bank, of Brick, N.J. will take over the deposits. As of July 16, First BankAmericano had total assets of $166 million and total deposits of $157 million. The failed N.J. bank was the second bank in the state to fall in 2009.
The fifth and biggest bank of the night to fail was Mutual Bank in Harvey, Ill., which had total assets of $1.6 billion and total deposits of $1.6 billion. Mutual Bank's 12 branches will reopen on Saturday as branches of United Central Bank of Garland, Texas, which has assumed all deposits from Mutual Bank.
The number of bank failures so far in 2009 has almost tripled last year's total of 25.
Smaller regional banks have been hammered in the downturn. Many of the banks failed because local residents and commercial real estate developers that took out loans have been unable to pay them back.