Latest in California water scams, shenanigans and boondoggles
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Badlands Journal editorial board
7-30-09
lloydgcarter.com
THIRSTY DOWN IN NOBAMA COUNTY
http://www.lloydgcarter.com/content/090730277_thirsty-down-in-nobama-county
The following article, "Thirsty down in Nobama County", was published in the August 2009 issue of the Fresno Community Alliance Newspaper. It is the second part of a two-part series examining the California Latino Water Coalition, its key players, and the major international public relations firm guiding the Coalition. If you have not read Part One, click here.
Editor’s note: 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 II examines the roles of the Coalition’s prominent personalities.
By Lloyd G. Carter
Act One of the California Latino Water Coalition – six months of marches, rallies, lobbying of state and federal officials, an effort to halt traffic on Interstate 5, and a physical encounter by the Coalition leader with a dairy farmer spokesman caught on TV cameras - is over.
Act Two 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 underway and will focus, say Coalition leaders, on comedy. That’s right, comedy. Fortunately, 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 One was a failure and contend they are now broke. But they are fired up for Act Two.
Now I personally find Rodriguez to be a very funny guy – hilarious in stand-up - 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 not clear.
Here is an example. On Fox Network’s Sean Hannity TV 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 fire wood 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?
RODRIGUEZ: Yes . . . (Italics added.) (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 percent 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, i.e. the Westlands Water District, which is many miles away. And only about a quarter of the Valley’s farmland is suffering the 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-farm land 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. He never mentioned nectarines on the July 15 KMJ radio Ray Appleton show 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 fresh water 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 July 10 to explain why the Latino Coalition is going to try the new comedy tactic. Rodriguez and Appleton admitted that Act One 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 revenues), 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 or 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 congressmen, 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 Coalition campaign which is supposed to be bipartisan. Appleton’s recent target has been Rep. Jim Costa (who represents 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 Rep. 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, “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 long-time 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 farm worker 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 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 Two of the Latino Coalition.
Paul Rodriguez
Rodriguez, son of immigrant farmworkers, who went on to fame and fortune as a stand-up 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 chairman of the coalition, he is not entirely comfortable with the role and he freely admits his shortcomings in the Byzantine manuevering of California water politics.
Rodriguez was born in Sinaloa, Culiacan, Mexico in January of 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 website, 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 on stage 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 Fabian Nunez 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 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 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 he has participated in.
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 very 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 forty people in my house [crowd laughs]. “
He closed his remarks to the Republicans (without revealing whether he had joined the GOP; Ray Appleton says he’s 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 website 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 on his blog at the website: “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 Two gets underway, “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 of Contra Costa County 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 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. 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 Paul Rodriguez and loves to entice his listeners with tidbits about Rodriguez but says he cannot say everything he knows. He told listeners recently Rodriguez had recently been fired from the movie “Family Wedding” starring America Ferrara, 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 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 non-profit 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 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 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 Paul 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 which 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 travelling 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 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 salesman, 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, Paul 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, Paul Rodriguez is a funny guy.
Larson has offered his county office and secretarial services to the Latino Coalition, a private non-profit 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. Stirling was hoping some of that federal stimulus money will flow to Fresno. According to Stephen Smith, a member of the Fresno County Democratic Party 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. Rep. 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 website. 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 is what 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 bread basket.
But, hey, it’s right wing talk radio, right?
As Mrs. 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 website, includes 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 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 man of the Coalition 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 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 Coalition may face in the next year is not finances, or a coherent message that resonates nationally, or being pulled apart by partisan political bickering. An El Nino weather pattern is forming in the Pacific Ocean and forecasters are predicting 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.
8-4-09
Top officials in the Interior Department say Endangered Species Act will not be suspended to aid Westlands Water District
from: http://www.eenews.net/
Obama admin won't relax ESA to aid Calif. farmers -- Interior official…Colin Sullivan, E&E reporter
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Obama administration won't ease enforcement of the
Endangered Species Act to help California farmers struggling with three
straight years of drought and decades of water mismanagement, a top
Interior Department official said yesterday in an interview.
Deputy Secretary David Hayes, Interior's point person on California water
issues, said the administration's commitment to the law is firm despite the
intense pressure from the San Joaquin Valley to lift pumping restrictions
ordered to protect salmon and the delta smelt in Northern California.
"Compliance with the ESA is obviously something that's required," Hayes
said.
In a recent town hall-style meeting in Fresno, a farming community hit hard
by the recession, Hayes' boss, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, told
frustrated workers that rolling back the law would be "admitting failure" (
Greenwire, June 29).
But farmers, water districts and some members of California's congressional
delegation have continued taking shots at the law, given the state's tough
economic conditions, the drought and limited pumping in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta region to restore salmon runs and protect the delta smelt.
ESA protections have reduced water deliveries from lakes Shasta and
Oroville through the delta into the state's aqueducts.
Hayes stressed that he is "sympathetic" with farmers and others suffering
from a water supply crisis that by one estimate has cost the state 35,000
agricultural jobs and $830 million in revenue. He is leading an Interior
task force to address the multiple problems facing the state, which is also
reeling from a collapsed salmon fishing industry to the tune of $1.4
billion, in addition to acres of fallowed fields, the prospect of rationing
in urban areas and degraded ecosystems.
"It's important to dial back the rhetoric here," Hayes said. "The major
stakeholders on all sides have recognized that the status quo is
unsustainable."
Stimulus first
Hayes, a veteran environmental attorney who worked at Interior during the
Clinton administration before taking a job at Latham and Watkins, was
handpicked by Salazar earlier this summer to plummet into the worst of the
California water maze and start fashioning a federal response.
How's it going? Until now, Hayes has focused on how to spend $160 million
from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act earmarked specifically for
the federal Central Valley Project, which is a primary source of water for
farmers and municipalities near the delta.
Interior last week released $40 million in stimulus funds for a number of
infrastructure projects, including the installation of pipelines, pumps and
water wells. Elsewhere, the Bureau of Reclamation has been busy lining up
willing buyers and sellers to move about 250,000 acre-feet of water around
the state.
"There are a lot of areas in California that are doing relatively well in
terms of water supply," Hayes said. "We've been working hard on water
transfers."
Hayes added that the department will continue to identify projects to back
financially, to include water reuse and conservation efforts. In all,
stimulus funding for California's drought-related activities is $391
million.
'Very daunting'
Looking forward, Hayes admitted that the prospect of cutting through red
tape to bring competing commercial interests, environmentalists and the
suite of government agencies involved to the table to somehow work toward a solution to California's perennial water problems couldn't be more difficult.
Add to that mix a surging population and climate change likely causing decreased snowpack in the Sierra Nevada in the years ahead.
"It is very daunting," Hayes said. "It's the perfect storm of challenging problems."
Among the solutions often cited in the state are building more dams to increase storage capacity or constructing a canal around the delta to avoid having to pump water through from reservoirs and rivers to the north. Salazar and others have been cold toward the prospect of new dams, but the canal idea may have legs, Hayes said.
"All the analytical work and evaluation work associated with [the canal] is just getting under way," Hayes said. "It's certainly premature to have a position."
Another shorter-term answer is the "Two Gates" plan, which would drop gates into the delta to prevent the smelt from getting sucked into the pumps. Members of Congress have urged Salazar to speed up an environmental review of the plan, but Hayes said the proposal needs further examination.
"That project just appeared on our radar screen," he said. "We're very interested in it, and we're analyzing it."
Looking at the bigger picture, Hayes said, Interior is working with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) to advance the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which aims to improve ecosystem health in the delta while balancing deliveries to 25 million Californians. Hayes said the priority is to "co-prioritize" and not alienate any interest.
"The point is, the system has been operated in a way that is not sustainable either for reliable water supplies or for the environment," he said. "There's a structural challenge that needs to be addressed."
8-5-09
Indybay.com
Stealth Legislation Unveiled: A Road Map to the Peripheral Canal...Dan Bacher
The stealth package of water bills proceeding through the California Legislature comprise a virtual road map to the peripheral canal, according to Bill Jennings of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/04/18614004.php
The stealth package of water bills proceeding through the California Legislature comprise a virtual road map to the peripheral canal - an obscenely expensive and environmentally destructive project that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dianne Feinstein and California Legislators have been relentlessly campaigning for over the past two years.
A broad coalition of recreational fishing groups, commercial fishing organizations, Delta farmers, American Indian Tribes and principled environmentalists is strongly opposing the canal, a bad idea that was voted down overwhelmingly by California voters in 1982.
The five bills that were gutted and passed out of Policy Committees have now been reformatted and released, according to breaking news from Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).
"They will be headed to a joint conference committee and then moved to the floor of the respective houses for a vote," said Jennings. CSPA has quickly reviewed the reformatted bills and issued the following initial reaction. An in-depth review will follow in the next day or so.
"As expected, the five bills comprise a road map to a peripheral canal," noted Jennings. "In a stunning abdication of legislative responsibility and due diligence, the package authorizes the creation of a Delta Stewardship Council comprised of four members appointed by the Governor, two from the legislature and the Chairperson of the Delta Protection Commission."
The Council would have authority to implement a peripheral canal and assess fees and issue bonds to pay for it. "In other words, our legislature proposes to allow the Governor, who strenuously advocates building a peripheral canal, the authority to appoint a majority of members to a Council that has authority to build and fund it," explained.
The five bills are: AB 39, the Delta Plan (Huffman), AB 49, Water Conservation (Feuer), SB 12, Delta Governance (Simitian), SB 229, Water Use Reporting (Pavley) and SB 458, Delta Conservancy (Wolk).
"Collectively, the bills are a legislative shell game that raises bureaucratic mumbo jumbo to an art form," stated Jennings. "While there are some good things to like (i.e., no new dams, conservation, and beneficiary pays principle), the total package is a bureaucratic nightmare and a Valhalla for attorneys."
"It pays lip service to fish and Delta restoration, turns the water code upside down, places a financial and water burden on the most senior upstream water rights holders and will double or triple water rates for those least able to pay - in order to subsidize the guarantee of water to the most junior water rights holders that grow subsidized crops on drainage impaired lands on the Westside of the San Joaquin Valley; lands that when irrigated leach toxic wastes back to the San Joaquin River and Delta," he emphasized.
Jennings compares the poorly-conceived, fast-tracked peripheral canal legislation to the energy deregulation fiasco that was pushed by Legislators and corporate-funded "environmental" groups under the Pete Wilson administration, resulting in power black outs and dramatic power rate hikes through unscrupulous gaming of the market by energy companies including Exxon and Reliant Energy.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), through its chief energy spokesperson Ralph Cavanagh, played a key role in drafting, passing and then defending the energy deregulation bill that passed through the Legislature in 1996, according to "Unnatural Disaster: Deregulated California Utilities are Electrocuting the Public," by Harvey Wasserman, 1/25/01 (http://www.ratical.org/ratville/dereg/#UD).
"In sum, the package reminds us of the time the Legislature panicked and rushed into energy deregulation without thoughtfully considering the consequences," Jennings concluded. "But, energy deregulation only cost us $43 billion. This package may end up costing us that much and kill the Delta, northern California fisheries and Delta farming along the way."
A water bond including a peripheral canal would cost anywhere from $10-40 billion today and much more over the thirty years trying to pay it back, according to Steve Evans, conservation director of Friends of the River. However, the cost to the commercial and recreational fishing industries and Delta farmers impacted by the building of "Arnold's Big Ditch" would be billions and billions of dollars more. And the cost of driving endangered species including Central Valley Chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales over the edge of extinction would be incalculable.
The peripheral canal would be approximately the size and length of the Panama Canal. The canal would have the capacity to transport 15,000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) from the Sacramento River around the Delta. A conveyance to transport 15,000 cfs. would be between 500 and 700 feet wide, requiring a 1300-foot right-of-way, based on an engineering report completed in August 2006 by Washington Group International for the State Water Contractors. That’s the width of a 100-lane freeway!
The length of the conveyance would be between 47 and 48 miles. By comparison, the Panama Canal is between 500 and 1000 feet wide and is 50 miles long.
The current plan for "improved conveyance" under the Delta Vision and Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) processes is for "dual conveyance," consisting of a through Delta route teamed up with the peripheral canal. Two routes for the peripheral canal are proposed - a western route and an eastern route.
The Department of Water Resources will begin drilling in river bottoms at 16 locations for proposed canal intakes on the Sacramento, Mokelumne and San Joaquin Rivers starting this month. This drilling follows land-based surveys by DWR being done under the BDCP.
Canal opponents from throughout northern California will be holding a “million boat float” from Antioch to Sacramento on August 16 and 17 to save the California Delta and stop the construction of the peripheral canal. For more information, go to: http://www.millionboatfloat.org/index.htm.
For the latest updates on the Delta stealth legislation package, go to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) website at http://www.calsport.org.
Schwarzenegger Appoints New Commissioner Day Before MLPA Vote...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/08/05/18614121.php
In an apparent attempt to "stack the deck" in a California Fish and Game Commission vote today over widely-disputed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), Governor Arnold Scharzenegger appointed a new Commissioner, Donald Benninghoven, on Monday.
Members of a broad coalition of grassroots environmentalists, fishermen, seaweed harvesters, Native Americans and North Coast elected officials believe that the decision to appoint a Commissioner should have been delayed, since the Commissioner will be making one of the key decisions the Commission will vote on this year. They are asking for a delay in the implementation of Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process, due to concerns over mission creep, conflicts of interest and the corruption of the democracy in Schwarzenegger's corrupt fast-track process.
A Republican from Santa Barbara, Benninghoven served on the Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force in the north central region from 2007 to 2009. He voted for the "Integrated Preferred Alternative" (IPA) for the region under consideration today at the F&G Commission in Woodland.
Benninghoven replaces the former President of the Commission, Cindy Gustafson, who resigned from her post on Friday. Gustafson was considered a swing vote on the MLPA and other natural resource issues. Environmental justice advocates fear that Benninghoven, having served on the MLPA panel where he voted for the IPA, will be a ves vote for the IPA favored by the Governor and his staff.
This alternative will kick American Indian and other seaweed harvesters and seafood gatherers off their traditional harvesting areas in the Point Arena and other areas. It will also remove sustainable recreational and commercial fishermen, already hammered by the most restrictive fishing regulations for groundfish in the world, from their traditional fishing areas.
The Governor and his corporate-funded NGO collaborators, including the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Ocean Conservancy, are pushing for this vote just five days after a peer-reviewed report in Science Magazine revealed that the California current marine groundfish fishery is the healthiest of any surveyed in the world, due to severe fishing restrictions by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) and other measures.
Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history, is pushing the fast-track MLPA process in order to tout his "green" credentials at a time that he presided over the collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, striped bass and other California Delta fish populations. Meanwhile, the Governor, Nature Conservancy, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Schwarzenegger Democrats are campaigning for a peripheral canal and more dams that only exacerbate the imperiled state of estuary fish populations and drive them over the edge of extinction.
Real environmentalists don't support Schwarzenegger in his attempt to kick seaweed harvesters, abalone divers and fishermen off the water in order to remove the strongest opponents of corporate plans to build offshore oil rigs, wave energy projects and corporate aquaculture. Real environmentalists support the suspension or halting of the corrupt MLPA process while taking a strong, definitive stand against the Governor's relentless campaign to build a peripheral canal and more dams!
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Contact: Aaron McLear, Rachel Cameron 916-445-4571
Governor Schwarzenegger Announces Appointment
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today announced the following appointment:
Donald Benninghoven, 76, of Santa Barbara, has been appointed to the Fish and Game Commission. Prior to retiring, he served as executive director and member of the board for the City-County-School Partnership from 1998 to 2000, a cooperative venture of the California State Association of Counties, the California School Boards Association and the League of California Cities. Prior to that, from 1958 to 1998, Benninghoven held several positions at the League of California Cities including executive director. He served on the Marine Life Protection Act Blue Ribbon Task Force from 2007 to 2009. Benninghoven also previously served as secretary for the City-County-School Partnership, chairman of the California Center for Civic Renewal and a member of the Institute for Local Self Government Executive Committee. In addition, he was a member on the Governor’s Commission on Transportation Financing, vice chair of the California State Constitution Revision Commission and member on the Governor’s Commission on Local Government Financing. Benninghoven is a member of the California Game Wardens Foundation and is a lifelong outdoorsman, fisherman and hunter. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Benninghoven is a Republican.
Los Angeles Times
Democratic lawmakers introduce bills to deal with California water policy
The package would create a politically appointed council that could approve projects, such as a canal, involving the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Local farm interests are critical...Bettina Boxall
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water5-2009aug05,0,1461476,print.story
Democratic lawmakers unveiled a package of water bills Tuesday that would create a politically appointed council with power to push through projects dealing with the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the troubled hub of California's waterworks.
The legislation, which deals with issues including conservation, ecosystem restoration and water rights, aims to break the stalemate over state water policy.
But the proposals are already under fire from some interests that fear the bills are a blueprint for jamming through big construction projects, such as a canal that would carry water around the delta.
The legislation, which is to be fleshed out in a conference committee when lawmakers return to Sacramento later this month, does not specifically authorize any projects. Rather, it creates the Delta Stewardship Council, which would have the authority to pursue delta restoration work and a "water conveyance facility."
Four of the council's seven members would be appointed by the governor and two by the Legislature. The seventh would be the chair of the Delta Protection Commission.
The bills call for water conservation and delta protections. They would also set in motion a potentially explosive examination of water rights in the delta watershed.
"Neither the delta ecosystem nor the state's water needs have been well served by decades of benign neglect," said Silicon Valley Sen. Joe Simitian, author of one of five bills in the package and chair of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. "The system of governance is broken and the system of conveyance is broken."
Backers hope that a confluence of factors has created a window for action on the state's water problems, pushed into headlines this year by drought and environmental restrictions on delta pumping.
They aim to get the package to the Assembly and Senate for floor votes before the Legislature's adjournment in mid-September.
Only majority approval is required for the bills, meaning Democrats would need little Republican support. But that does not necessarily mean smooth sailing.
Delta farm interests and some environmentalists are wary of anything that could clear the way for a delta canal, a version of which was killed by California voters in the early 1980s.
"It's a fairly global, comprehensive package," said Jeffrey Kightlinger, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which imports water from the delta. "Whenever you do that, you're taking on a lot of sacred cows."
Kightlinger said he was glad the bills dealt with "most of the major issues that need to be addressed. The large 'but' is we have concerns with quite a few of the mechanics of how they want to do it."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has called for construction of new reservoirs and indicated support for a delta canal, said in a statement that "fixing California's broken water system cannot be put off any longer; we must get it done this session.
"I look forward to reviewing their proposal and working in a quick and bipartisan way toward a comprehensive water plan that focuses on water supply reliability, conservation, environmental protection and increased storage."