9-25-09

 
9-25-09
Merced Sun-Star
Deep cuts, fee increases spur UC Merced professors, students to stage protest...DANIELLE GAINES. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/1077530.html
Single strands of red ribbon hung like bloody streamers from T-shirts and button-downs across the UC Merced campus Thursday. Students scattered about the quad passing out fliers. "When you cut education, we all bleed," their handout read. -- 
Single strands of red ribbon hung like bloody streamers from T-shirts and button-downs across the UC Merced campus Thursday.
Students scattered about the quad passing out fliers.
"When you cut education, we all bleed," their handout read.
Some 25 to 30 UC Merced students, professors and other employees turned out Thursday during a systemwide University of California rally to protest deep budget cuts that have led to layoffs, furloughs, course reductions and higher fees.
"Even if our classes weren't canceled, I think we would have walked out anyhow," 21-year-old senior Alisen Boada said as she handed out fliers. "The legislature has let education funding fall to the wayside. The affordability of higher education here is what made California the economic and cultural powerhouse it has become."
Irving Pineda, a fellow political science major, agreed.
"Affordable education for everyone was supposed to be the goal of the UC system," he said.
Rallies, teach-ins and class walkouts were expected during the systemwide protest Thursday, which was the first day of classes at eight of UC's 10 campuses.
A union representing thousands of university technical employees is holding a one-day strike because they have been working without a contract for 18 months.
Protest organizers say they're angry about the university administration's handling of the budget crisis.
"Our union represents working class families, and we're also putting our kids through UC," said Brad Neily, a local representative from the University Professional and Technical Employees union. "So we cannot accept that this is the only solution to a structural funding issue that has gone on for decades."
Neily said he wished to compel university administration and state lawmakers to work in collaboration to redefine how state public university systems are funded.
"If you want to invest in a public education, put your money where your mouth is!" Neily shouted to a crowd of spectators during a noontime assembly.
Paola Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco, a graduate student and teaching assistant in World Heritage, spoke with fellow protesters before heading into the Classroom and Office Building to lead a class.
"I want to support the cause of public education because I think it is at risk," she said.
While Di Giuseppantonio Di Franco couldn't cancel her class because of an upcoming midterm, she planned to dedicate part of the freshman-level course's discussion time to the events of the day.
"It's really important that students understand what's going on," she said.
UC officials say the fee hikes and job cuts are needed as the university grapples with a massive budget shortfall caused by an unprecedented reduction in funding.
To address rising costs and a steep reduction in state funding, UC campuses have laid off hundreds of workers and forced most of their 180,000 employees to take furloughs and pay cuts of up to 10 percent.
Next month, the UC Board of Regents is expected to vote on reducing undergraduate enrollment and raising tuition by 32 percent for most students. That hike would follow a 9.3 percent fee hike approved in May.
More than 1,200 faculty members from all UC campuses signed a letter supporting the walkout.
Merced area ranchers get help in green ways...CAROL REITER...9-24-09
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/494/v-print/story/1074999.html
Farmers and ranchers who want to be good land stewards can get a little monetary help from Uncle Sam.
The Natural Resources Conservation Service is offering a program called the Conservation Stewardship Program. It will pay ag producers to adopt conservation activities on their land.
"The program was designed to reward people for conservation activities that they are already undertaking, and encourage them to do even more," said Malia Hildebrandt, the district conservationist for the NRCS.
The program is part of the new 2008 farm bill, Hildebrandt said, but not too many people have taken advantage of it yet.
"We're hoping to get more growers signing up," she said.
The program is only open until Sept. 30, but Hildebrandt said there will be more programs in the coming months.
Growers who choose to put their land into the program will get money from the government, ranging from $5 to $10 an acre for rangeland up to $22 an acre for cropland.
Ways that growers can qualify for the program are many, according to Dwayne Howard, branch chief of the stewardship programs for the NRCS.
"There are 81 different enhancements that are considered conservation activity," Howard said.
One example is an owner of an orchard who puts his land in the program. "They can put in a hedgerow and a cover crop that would provide habitat for beneficial insects, which would decrease their spraying," Hildebrandt said.
The program allows more than 12 million acres to be in the program, and growers are held to earning no more than $40,000 a year.
"What growers get will depend on how many people sign up, and how much money we get for it," Hildebrandt said.
Lands that are qualified for the program include cropland, rangeland and pasture. Tribal land and non-industrial forest land are also covered by the program, but Hildebrandt said those don't apply to Merced.
"We are encouraging people to sign up for the program," Hildebrandt said. "California has air and water quality issues, and this program can help with those problems."
Fresno Bee
School drinking water contains toxins...GARANCE BURKE, Associated Press Writer
http://www.fresnobee.com/641/v-print/story/1650764.html
CUTLER, Calif. Over the last decade, the drinking water at thousands of schools across the country has been found to contain unsafe levels of lead, pesticides and dozens of other toxins.
An Associated Press investigation found that contaminants have surfaced at public and private schools in all 50 states - in small towns and inner cities alike.
But the problem has gone largely unmonitored by the federal government, even as the number of water safety violations has multiplied.
"It's an outrage," said Marc Edwards, an engineer at Virginia Tech who has been honored for his work on water quality. "If a landlord doesn't tell a tenant about lead paint in an apartment, he can go to jail. But we have no system to make people follow the rules to keep school children safe?"
The contamination is most apparent at schools with wells, which represent 8 to 11 percent of the nation's schools. Roughly one of every five schools with its own water supply violated the Safe Drinking Water Act in the past decade, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency analyzed by the AP.
In California's farm belt, wells at some schools are so tainted with pesticides that students have taken to stuffing their backpacks with bottled water for fear of getting sick from the drinking fountain.
Experts and children's advocates complain that responsibility for drinking water is spread among too many local, state and federal agencies, and that risks are going unreported. Finding a solution, they say, would require a costly new national strategy for monitoring water in schools.
Schools with unsafe water represent only a small percentage of the nation's 132,500 schools. And the EPA says the number of violations spiked over the last decade largely because the government has gradually adopted stricter standards for contaminants such as arsenic and some disinfectants.
Many of the same toxins could also be found in water at homes, offices and businesses. But the contaminants are especially dangerous to children, who drink more water per pound than adults and are more vulnerable to the effects of many hazardous substances.
"There's a different risk for kids," said Cynthia Dougherty, head of the EPA's Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water.
Still, the EPA does not have the authority to require testing for all schools and can only provide guidance on environmental practices.
In recent years, students at a Minnesota elementary school fell ill after drinking tainted water. A young girl in Seattle got sick, too.
The AP analyzed a database showing federal drinking water violations from 1998 to 2008 in schools with their own water supplies. The findings:
- Water in about 100 school districts and 2,250 schools breached federal safety standards.
- Those schools and districts racked up more than 5,550 separate violations. In 2008, the EPA recorded 577 violations, up from 59 in 1998 - an increase that officials attribute mainly to tougher rules.
- California, which has the most schools of any state, also recorded the most violations with 612, followed by Ohio (451), Maine (417), Connecticut (318) and Indiana (289).
- Nearly half the violators in California were repeat offenders. One elementary school in Tulare County, in the farm country of the Central Valley, broke safe-water laws 20 times.
- The most frequently cited contaminant was coliform bacteria, followed by lead and copper, arsenic and nitrates.
The AP analysis has "clearly identified the tip of an iceberg," said Gina Solomon, a San Francisco physician who serves on an EPA drinking water advisory board. "This tells me there is a widespread problem that needs to be fixed because there are ongoing water quality problems in small and large utilities, as well."
Schools with wells are required to test their water and report any problems to the state, which is supposed to send all violations to the federal government.
But EPA officials acknowledge the agency's database of violations is plagued with errors and omissions. And the agency does not specifically monitor incoming state data on school water quality.
Critics say those practices prevent the government from reliably identifying the worst offenders - and carrying out enforcement.
Scientists say the testing requirements fail to detect dangerous toxins such as lead, which can wreak havoc on major organs and may retard children's learning abilities.
"There is just no excuse for this. Period," said California Sen. Barbara Boxer, Democratic chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "We want to make sure that we fix this problem in a way that it will never happen again, and we can ensure parents that their children will be safe."
The problem goes beyond schools that use wells. Schools that draw water from public utilities showed contamination, too, especially older buildings where lead can concentrate at higher levels than in most homes.
In schools with lead-soldered pipes, the metal sometimes flakes off into drinking water. Lead levels can also build up as water sits stagnant over weekends and holidays.
Schools that get water from local utilities are not required to test for toxins because the EPA already regulates water providers. That means there is no way to ensure detection of contaminants caused by schools' own plumbing.
But voluntary tests in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Seattle and Los Angeles have found dangerous levels of lead in recent years. And experts warn the real risk to schoolchildren is going unreported.
"I really suspect the level of exposure to lead and other metals at schools is underestimated," said Michael Schock, a corrosion expert with the EPA in Cincinnati. "You just don't know what is going on in the places you don't sample."
Since 2004, the agency has been asking states to increase lead monitoring. As of 2006, a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found nearly half of all schools nationwide do not test their water for lead.
Because contaminant levels in water can vary from drinking fountain to drinking fountain, and different children drink different amounts of water, epidemiologists often have trouble measuring the potential threats to children's health.
But children have suffered health problems attributed to school water:
- In 2001, 28 children at a Worthington, Minn., elementary school experienced severe stomach aches and nausea after drinking water tainted with lead and copper, the result of a poorly installed treatment system.
- In Seattle several years ago, a 6-year-old girl suffered stomach aches and became disoriented and easily exhausted. The girl's mother asked her daughter's school to test its water, and also tested a strand of her daughter's hair. Tests showed high levels of copper and lead, which figured into state health officials' decision to phase-in rules requiring schools to test their water for both contaminants.
Many school officials say buying bottled water is less expensive than fixing old pipes. Baltimore, for instance, has spent more than $2.5 million on bottled water over the last six years.
After wrestling with unsafe levels of arsenic for almost two years, administrators in Sterling, Ohio, southeast of Cincinnati, finally bought water coolers for elementary school students last fall. Now they plan to move students to a new building.
In California, the Department of Public Health has given out more than $4 million in recent years to help districts overhaul their water systems.
But school administrators in the farmworker town of Cutler cannot fix chronic water problems at Lovell High School because funding is frozen due to the state's budget crisis.
Signs posted above the kitchen sink warn students not to drink from the tap because the water is tainted with nitrates, a potential carcinogen, and DBCP, a pesticide scientists say may cause male sterility.
As gym class ended one morning, thirsty basketball players crowded around a five-gallon cooler, the only safe place to get a drink on campus.
"The teachers always remind us to go to the classroom and get a cup of water from the cooler," said sophomore Israel Aguila. "But the bathroom sinks still work, so sometimes you kind of forget you can't drink out of them."
abc30...KFSN-TV Fresno, CA
Restoring the San Joaquin River...Gene Haagenson...Video
http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?section=news/local&id=7031751
Fresno, CA (KFSN) -- The first major step in restoring the San Joaquin River is about to get underway. Flows out of Millerton Lake, through Friant Dam will begin October first. Michael Jackson, of the Bureau of Reclamation's Fresno office says it will start small.
"I don't know that they will notice anything substantial with this relatively minor increase."
The initial increase in the flow out of Friant Dam may not be enough to push water into the 60 mile stretch of dry riverbed West of Fresno. But a bigger release in November should do that. Flows will be increased gradually over the next few years to help restore the natural river environment.
"The goal would be to reintroduce Steelhead Salmon into the system and have a natural functioning system that would have fisheries and habitat and those type of things throughout the year." Jackson said.
But water that stays in the river stays out of valley farms. Growers like Kole Upton, of the Friant Water Users Authority fear the deal is shaping up to be a big blow to agriculture.
"The consequences long term of this in the Friant Service area 2 to 3 hundred thousand acres will have to be fallowed."
The government expects farm water supplies to be cut no more than 15% and the settlement of a 20 year legal fight to restore the river contains provisions to protect agriculture and give growers back some of the water.
"Restoration was one of the goals in the settlement. The other goal was a water management goal so one of the things we're going to be looking at is how much of this water can we recapture and bring it back to areas where it's coming from." Jackson said.
But Upton says the settlement contains no guarantees and fears recent biological opinions to protect fish will take the water farmers were supposed to get back. He says the fight is not over.
"The bright side it's now a law so if you have a major change in congress and you get some folks who actually listen to the people then maybe we can get a law change and get some common sense into this situation." Upton said.
The conflict over the San Joaquin River is the result of a settlement of a Federal Court ruling in 2006. That ruling held that the construction of Friant Dam violated the law because inadequate steps were taken to protect fish species. The dam was completed in 1949.
Sacramento Bee
Delta restoration plans are on town hall agenda...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/v-print/story/2207051.html
State officials on Saturday offer a town hall meeting in West Sacramento to inform the public about plans to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is a massive effort to restore habitat and improve water delivery in the Delta, the West's largest estuary, which is imperiled by water diversions, pollution and habitat destruction. The plan includes a diversion canal and other elements that are controversial among Delta residents.
Saturday's meeting is from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at West Sacramento City Hall, 1100 W. Capitol Ave. A second meeting will be from 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Ryde Hotel in Ryde, 14340 Highway 160.
The meetings will cover the plan's draft conservation strategy. Participants will be able to share their views on the plan and participate in one of three workshops on habitat, water operations and other Delta stressors.
The conservation plan is designed to secure approval under state and federal endangered species laws for major new water projects and habitat restoration. State, local and federal water agencies are drafting the plan along with environmental and agriculture groups. A draft of the entire plan is expected early in 2010.For more information, visit http://wwwbaydeltaconservationplan.com.

Daily Democrat

Mike McGowan Represents Delta counties in D.C....Published By Daily Democrat
http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_13418226
Yolo County Board of Supervisors Chairman Mike McGowan will attend a meeting with Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, along with other federal and California officials, to discuss strategies for California's Delta next Tuesday.
McGowan will be representing the Delta Counties Coalition, which includes Yolo, Solano, Sacramento, Contra Costa and San Joaquin counties, encompassing the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta) formed to represent Delta communities in the myriad state proposals for change in the Delta.
Among the challenges to be discussed with Salazar are federal and state plans to address California drought affects in 2010, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, levees, climate change and adaptation possibilities, and federal and state actions.
"This region is fully aware of how fragile the Delta is and of its significance to California for water supply," said McGowan. "The Delta Counties have worked very hard to make sure that the Governor and Legislature know that they need to include us in solutions to the Delta's problems, that they need our involvement for these plans to be successful. We are still working with the Legislature to improve the existing water package. The federal government will play a significant role in those solutions and I want to make sure they get the same message.
"The hard part is that making this trip means I will have to miss a Board of Supervisors meeting - nearly unheard of in my 16-year tenure on the Board," McGowan stated.
"But the Delta counties face enormous challenges in working with the state and federal governments as we try to restore the Delta's ecosystem and ensure a reliable water supply. Preserving the Delta's vibrant economy and protecting the four million residents of the Delta counties is of the utmost importance to Yolo County, the Delta counties, and to California and the nation. With this much at stake, I'm very willing to go to Washington to deliver that message."
This is the second public meeting on California water challenges jointly held by Interior and California officials. The meetings are part of ongoing federal and state efforts to develop collaborative strategies to address major water resource challenges in California.
Delta Counties Coalition principles
The five members of the Delta Counties Coalition (Contra Costa County, Sacramento County, San Joaquin County, Solano County and Yolo County) have all adopted resolutions advocating their mutual interests as follows:
n Protect and improve water quality and water quantity in the Delta region and maintain appropriate Delta outflow for a healthy estuary;
n Protect the existing water right priority system and legislative protections established for the Delta;
n Respect and safeguard Delta Counties' responsibilities related to land use, water resources, flood management, tax revenues, public health and safety, economic development, agricultural stability, recreation, and environmental protection in any new Delta governance structures;
n Represent and include local government in any new governance structures for the Delta;
n Protect the economic viability of agriculture and the ongoing vitality of communities in the Delta;
n Support rehabilitation, improvement and maintenance of levees throughout the Delta;
n Support the Delta pool concept; in which the common resource provides quality freshwater supply to all delta users, requiring mutual responsibility to maintain, restore and protect the common resource;
n Support immediate improvements to through-Delta conveyance;
n Require that any water conveyance plan for the Delta be aligned with the principles established by this resolution and supported by clearly demonstrated improvement to the entire state's water management;
n Protect and restore the Delta ecosystem, including adequate water supply and quality to support it in perpetuity; and
n Include the study of storage options and implementation of conservation, recycling, re-use, and regional self sufficiency as part of a state-wide improved flood management and water supply system.
San Francisco Chronicle
Federal poultry pollution trial starts in Okla....JUSTIN JUOZAPAVICIUS, Associated Press Writer...9-24-09
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/09/24/financial/f010548D43.DTL&type=printable
Tulsa, Okla. (AP) -- Attorneys for Oklahoma and the Arkansas poultry industry traded barbs in federal court Thursday, disputing whether the companies knew for decades that over-application of chicken waste on farmland was polluting the Illinois River watershed.
"They have been aware of these problems, and the evidence pointing in their direction for years," said Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who presented the first part of the state's opening remarks in its pollution lawsuit against 11 poultry companies. As he spoke, photographs of poultry litter piled high near barns and river banks flashed on monitors.
Robert George, an attorney for Tyson Foods Inc., one of the defendants in the case, responded in his opening statement that Oklahoma was launching an attack on "hardworking farmers" and defended the use of poultry litter as a valuable resource.
"Poultry litter is not on trial," George told a packed Tulsa courtroom, filled with industry executives and dozens of attorneys. "Growers want litter. They will use it or sell it, but either way, it's a valuable commodity to them."
Oklahoma sued the industry in 2005, claiming the hundreds of thousands of tons of bird waste it spreads on fields on the Oklahoma-Arkansas border is one of the major causes of pollution in the 1 million-acre river valley.
The case is being closely studied by other states thinking about challenging the way Big Poultry does business. The trial will resume Wednesday.
To illustrate the harm caused by massive amounts of poultry litter in the river valley, state attorney David Page set two glass jars filled with dark brown waste on a table before U.S. District Judge Gregory K. Frizzell.
"What's in this waste?" he asked before ticking off its contents: phosphorus, nitrogen, arsenic, estrogen, antibiotics and harmful pathogens.
For decades, farmers in northeastern Oklahoma have emptied litter from their chicken houses and spread the droppings on their fields as a cheap fertilizer to grow other crops.
The state argues runoff from the fields has polluted the Illinois River with harmful bacteria that threatens the health of the tens of thousands of people who raft and fish there each year.
But George countered that Oklahoma failed to take into account the waste from cattle operations and municipal water treatment plants, among other sources. The industry also argued that Arkansas and Oklahoma have sanctioned the practice of spreading chicken waste on farmland by issuing farmers permits to do it.
In a six-year period, Page claimed, nearly 942 million birds were raised in the watershed, which spans portions of Oklahoma and Arkansas, producing an estimated 2.7 million tons of waste in that time.
Edmondson has said the industry took the easy and cheap way out when it came to properly disposing of the waste, rather than burning it as energy, processing it into pellets or composting it.
He also accused the companies Thursday of placing the burden of handling the waste on the farmers who raise birds.
"The Illinois River watershed is ... a huge asset to the state of Oklahoma and to the nation," he said. "We have the legal tools at our disposal to fix it.
"This precious asset belongs to our children and grandchildren. It belongs to the future," he told the judge.
The other defendants named in the lawsuit are Cargill Inc., Cal-Maine Foods, Inc.; Tyson Poultry Inc., Tyson Chicken Inc., Cobb-Vantress Inc., Cargill Turkey Production L.L.C., George's Inc., George's Farms Inc., Peterson Farms Inc. and Simmons Foods Inc.
Thousands protest fees, cuts at UC campuses...Nanette Asimov, Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writers. Chronicle staff writer Kelly Zito contributed to this report.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/25/MNVU19SBEV.DTL&type=printable
Thousands of students, professors and workers at University of California campuses across the state poured out of classrooms Thursday to rally against deep cuts to public education and aim their frustration squarely at UC leaders' handling of its budget crisis.
Even students outside of UC - at San Francisco State University and at City College of San Francisco - held demonstrations in support of the UC walkout.
About 5,000 people showed up at noon at UC Berkeley's Sproul Plaza in a massive gathering - the largest of the 10 campuses - that began as a teach-in about the budget crisis and morphed into a vast student march through downtown Berkeley that blocked traffic for nearly two hours.
"Education should be free! No cuts, no fees!" chanted the protesters, marching shoulder to shoulder and carrying signs reading, "Stop the cuts - they hurt!"
The systemwide walkout reflected frustration and anger as UC lays off hundreds of workers, imposes unpaid employee furloughs and reduces courses to close a budget gap of more than $750 million - the result of dramatically reduced funding from the cash-poor state and higher operating costs.
45% tuition hike
The regents are also expected to raise next year's tuition to $10,302, a 45 percent increase over last year's tuition, which many students say will put a UC education out of their reach.
UC leaders said they shared the protesters' frustration over deep cuts to public education, but that the anger should be focused on state government.
"While we understand there's some anger and angst spread across our campuses, our hope is that it will be directed more precisely toward Sacramento, where the heart of the problem lies," said UC's interim provost, Larry Pitts.
Lawmakers, in turn, turned it back on UC.
"The state is facing an unprecedented fiscal crisis," said Julia Brownley, a Santa Monica Democrat who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. "The students are protesting how the university cut its budget. The Legislature left that up to the university."
Screaming interest group
Asked about his cuts to education during a Commonwealth Club appearance in San Francisco, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dismissed the protesters as a screaming interest group.
"They're all screaming," he said. "Everyone has to tighten their belts."
Key among the protesters' concerns is that the cuts will damage UC's role as an economic engine in California that produces top graduates doing the most innovative work in their fields.
Cal officials and protesters said the rally at UC Berkeley was the largest gathering in recent memory, except the night of the Obama inauguration, and was the largest turnout among all UC campuses.
"This is extraordinary," said Shannon Steen, an American studies professor with a faculty group called Save the University. "This so far exceeds anything we thought would happen."
Protests systemwide
At other UC campuses - many of which began fall semester Thursday - crowds estimated at several hundred to 1,000 gathered on quads and at flagpoles to vent their anger, often under a scorching sun.
"It's exciting," said Keith Danner, a lecturer in English who helped organize the rally at UC Irvine. "To have 1,000 people standing for an hour in 95-degree heat just shows the depth of feeling against these devastating cuts."
Lacking tenure, Danner had to be careful about skipping class. So, like many untenured lecturers, he turned the rally into a lesson.
"I did a writing lesson about 'purpose and audience' and had them interview people at the rally," Danner said.
UC has about 19,400 faculty members, but only about 9,000 have tenure, said spokesman Pete King.
Most classes met as scheduled, campus administrators said, though some were held in professors' living rooms and even on picket lines.
Joining the walkout were thousands of nonfaculty employees from the University Professional and Technical Employees union who picketed to highlight a labor dispute with UC.
Indybay
Nestle Announces Sacramento as Replacement for McCloud - Take Action...Save Our Water
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/24/18623047.php
Nestle announced they are pulling out of McCloud and moving to Sacramento...
On September 10, Nestle announced that it was abandoning plans for its controversial McCloud bottling plant after 6 years of fierce opposition. The McCloud plant received its final blow last year when Attorney General Jerry Brown wrote a letter telling Nestle that their environmental review was deficient and that they had to study environmental problems created by water bottling such as green house gas emissions, the use of petroleum and plastic trash (http://ag.ca.gov/cms_attachments/press/pdfs/n1591_ag_comments or 808-5300 (the phone number only works during the day).
At the Sacramento City Council meeting on September 4, District 6 Councilmember Kevin McCarty expressed concerns about the Nestle bottling plant and asked the city manager to report back to him on the water and environmental issues. If you live in council district 6, contact Kevin McCarty and let him know you oppose the Nestle bottling plant. 916-808-7006 or
_mccloud.pdf). Now they plan to build a bottling plant in Sacramento with no public meetings, no environmental review and unlimited access to our municipal water. On August 9th, Mayor Kevin Johnson was quoted in the Sacramento Bee as saying, “We’re going to have to learn to use water smarter, which is a new way of thinking in our city where residents have tapped into two major rivers for generations… We need to light a fire under the city’s efforts to save water so we can be a shining example of how to use water more efficiently instead of being a showcase of waste and inefficiency.” This is in stark contrast to statements Johnson made in response to Nestle moving into Sacramento. Johnson trumpeted Nestle’s arrival by saying “During these tough economic times, this company will not only bring jobs to the city, but it is also nice to have a reaffirmation that many firms still see Sacramento as such a desirable location.” Nestle stated in their press release that Sacramento will be a better site for them because their Northern California customers are mostly located in Sacramento and the Bay Area. It’s time to let them know that people in Sacramento and the Bay Area completely oppose this project.
Call factory manager Chris Kemp and tell him you plant to boycott all of Nestle Waters’ products if this plant is built: 682-472-3040
If you live in Sacramento, contact Mayor Kevin Johnson and let him know you support his commitment to water conservation and that the Nestle bottling plant is the wrong way to do it. Contact him at  KMcCarty [at] cityofsacramento.org mayor [at] cityofsacramento.org
Schwarzenegger Celebrates 'Green' Policies As He Wages War On Salmon...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/24/18623059.php
As Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger continues to wage a relentless war on Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt populations, he today participated in another cynical photo opportunity celebrating his "leadership role" in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to promote the false notion that he is the "Green Governor."
Schwarzenegger Celebrates 'Green' Policies As He Wages War On Salmon...Dan Bacher
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today engaged in another cynical photo opportunity celebrating his "leadership role" in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to promote the false notion that he is the "Green Governor" as he continues to wage a relentless war on Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt populations.
Schwarzenegger commemorated the third anniversary of the signing of AB 32, a bill that he touted as "the world’s first comprehensive law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," in a carefully choreographed appearance at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.
“Every year it becomes more apparent that no single issue threatens the health and prosperity of our world, or provides a greater opportunity for economic success than climate change – and that is why California has stepped up to take the lead," Schwarzenegger gushed. "Three years ago I signed the world’s most comprehensive global warming law and since then our emissions have been reduced, our green economy has grown and our policies have influenced the world."
AB 32 mandates a reduction of California’s greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and calls for an 80 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.
"But that was only the first step," he claimed. "Global warming is a global problem that requires a global solution and I am committed to working toward that solution so our children and grandchildren are left with a clean environment and a strong economy.”
Schwarzenegger's speech today is a prelude to more "green" posturing by the "Fish Terminator" next week. Schwarzenegger will be supposedly "furthering California’s leadership and the fight against global warming" next week from September 30 to October 2 at the Global Climate Summit 2" at the Hyatt Regency Century in Los Angeles
"Leaders from around that world will come together and collaborate on efforts to further the global fight against climate change and to help build momentum to climate talks in Copenhagen this December," explained a release from the Governor's office.
I'm sure that the corporate media and some "Big Green" groups will be falling over themselves to applaud the Governor's "leadership" role in promoting "green energy" scams. However, for those of thus who have actually examined the Governor's environmental record towards fish and water, it is an unprecedented disaster. Schwarzenegger praises himself for working for a solution that will lead to a "clean environment and a strong economy" for future generations, but the "clean" environment that he envisions is apparently devoid of fish and fishermen.
Schwarzenegger has presided over the collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, green sturgeon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, striped bass, and other fish populations, caused by record water exports from the California Delta and declining water quality in recent years. Rather than try to reverse the collapse of these imperiled fish populations, Schwarzenegger has gone out of his way to fight court ordered federal plans to protect smelt, salmon, sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales (orcas) and to promote a peripheral canal and more dams at the service of corporate agribusiness on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.
Governor Schwarzenegger last Thursday appeared on a FOX TV "News" show by neoconservative talk show host Sean Hannity that falsely portrayed the battle to restore Central Valley salmon and the Delta as an issue of "fish versus jobs." Like Hannity and Congressman Devin Nunes, Schwarzenegger blamed structural unemployment in the Valley on the federal biological opinion protecting Delta smelt and chinook salmon - and failed to acknowledge that the collapse of Central Valley salmon alone has led to the loss of 23,000 recreational and commercial fishing jobs in California and Oregon in 2008 and 2009.
"We have a terrible crisis on our hands," said Schwarzenegger. "And this is a crisis, not because of some disaster. It's a crisis self-inflicted. This is something that the federal government is doing to us. We have done, like you said, everything in the book to convince them otherwise and to turn on the water. So, we are being handicapped here by federal judges, and this is the terrible thing about it."
Schwarzenegger shamelessly used his interview as an opportunity to campaign for new water "infrastructure" - a peripheral canal and more dams that fishing and most environmental groups are opposing. "In the meantime, I think it's also important for you to note that we're moving ahead here in Sacramento, because we have been negotiating for years to create a water infrastructure, to bring our water infrastructure up to date, because we have now 38 million people in California," said Schwarzenegger. "And the last infrastructure that you see now that was done was done when we had around 18 million people."
Schwarzenegger's attack on the federal biological opinions and his campaign to build a peripheral canal and dams are just two in series of measures that Schwarzenegger has launched to seal the doom of California's fish populations and the environment. His many attacks on fish, the environment, and working fishermen and fisherwomen include the following:
• His administration did nothing to prevent or alleviate the largest fish kill in the history of the California Delta in November 2007. Tens of thousands of striped bass, Sacramento blackfish, Sacramento splittail, largemouth bass and other species perished when the Bureau of Reclamation repaired a levee in the North Delta at Prospect Island and the fish were left stranded in drying pools of water. When a group of volunteer sportsmen organized a large crew to rescue some of remaining fish, the Schwarzenegger administration did everything they could to discourage the highly successful fish rescue - and it was only because of the hard work of Jeff McCracken of the Bureau of Reclamation that the rescue was able to take place.
• His appointees on the Central Valley Water Control Board have consistently voted against holding agricultural polluters to the same standards that industry and municipalities are required to observe, resulting in declining water quality in the Delta.
• He has made the DFG into an agency joined at the hip with the Department of Water Resources (DWR), the agency responsible for much of the destruction of Delta and Central Valley fisheries.
• His abysmal leadership resulted in the state opting to appeal a decision by Alameda County Court Judge Frank Roesch requiring the DFG to get an incidental take permit from DWR for killing Delta smelt, winter run chinook and spring run chinook in the Delta pumps.
• While doing everything he can to serve corporate agribusiness in the destruction of Central Valley and Delta fisheries, Schwarzenegger has fast-tracked the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative. This racist, elitist and corrupt process will remove Pomo Tribe members from their traditional seaweed, abalone and mussel harvesting areas in Sonoma and Mendocino County, as well as deny sustainable recreational and commercial fishermen and seaweed harvesters their right to access their traditional harvesting areas. This process is being falsely promoted as "marine protection" when it does nothing to stop threats posed to marine ecosystems by pollution, oil spills and plans to build offshore oil rigs and wave energy projects off the northern California coast.
• His administration has done nothing to stop this summer's de-watering of the Shasta and Scott rivers, tributaries of the Klamath River, by irrigators, putting imperiled runs of coho salmon, chinook salmon at tremendous risk.
This afternoon, the Klamath Riverkeeper reported that high numbers of fall Chinook salmon returning to the Shasta River are coming home to record low flows and extremely hot weather this week, creating "ideal conditions for a large-scale fish kill in the Shasta River." Biologists and water managers with state and federal agencies are monitoring the situation closely as irrigators continue to maximize water withdrawals through the late September heat wave.
“We need to get more water in the river immediately,” said Erica Terence of Klamath Riverkeeper. “Unfortunately, the fish are moving much quicker than the resource managers on the Scott and Shasta Rivers this year.”
As I have asked before, when will corporate environmentalists and the mainstream media stop praising the governor for his "environmental leadership" and develop the courage to challenge Schwarzenegger's scorched earth policies in his war on California's fisheries?
Inside Bay Area
PG&E power plant extension denied...Jeanine Benca, Contra Costa Times
http://www.insidebayarea.com/news/ci_13413718
The state's energy commission on Wednesday rejected a request by PG&E that would have given the utility more time to build a power plant just west of San Joaquin County.
Any attempt to resurrect the project, which at least some local residents argued would have hurt the environment, would now require a whole new round of costly permits, PG&E spokesman Blair Jones said.
Jones called the commission's 4-0 vote to deny the extension "disappointing," adding that the company will "investigate what options are available" with respect to the project.
A ruling in PG&E's favor would have extended until 2014 the company's existing permit to build a 1,120-megawatt plant, "preserving the option for PG&E or a third party to construct the project in the event it is needed to meet customer needs," he said.
PG&E in 2008 bought the Tesla Power Project from Midway Power LLC, a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light. The company had applied in 2001 to build the plant just across the Alameda County border, west of Mountain House.
In April, PG&E asked for a five-year extension of the construction deadline, which was scheduled to end in July. The company argued the extension was necessary because it did not acquire Tesla until the end of 2008 and could not meet such a fast deadline.
PG&E had also hoped to leave open the possibility of downsizing the plant to 560 megawatts — one of the factors in the commission's denial, energy commission spokesman Percy Della said.
In its rejection of the extension, the commission argued that the Tesla project had become ambiguous and "undefined," and was not what the commission agreed to in 2004.  
Los Angeles Times
State senators' travel plans delay special session
In the next 19 days, seven legislators will be studying Spain's national water system and Scandanavian environmental programs. A session on water and schools is pushed back to mid-October....Patrick McGreevy. Times staff writer Evan Halper contributed to this report.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-junket25-2009sep25,0,3367803,print.story
A flock of state legislators is winging it to Denmark and Spain during the next 19 days to see how Europeans govern, further delaying long-promised action back home on California's water-supply problems and help for cash-strapped schools.
Seven state senators are heading overseas this week, some having left Thursday, on a trip that includes stops in Copenhagen, Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona. They plan to study Spain's national water system and Scandinavian environmental programs, and to promote trade between California and Catalonia, according to a statement from the Senate Office of International Relations, which is organizing the trip.
Six other legislators are hoping to visit China and Korea to discuss business issues, but they are likely to wait until after the special session wraps up, aides said.
With nearly a fifth of the upper house heading out of the country, Senate leader Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) has put off a special session on water and schools until Oct. 13.
The timing of the trip, just weeks after the Senate seemed on the verge of a water deal for California, has some Capitol watchers baffled.
"They ought to stick around until they find a solution to California's water problem, at the very least," said Lew Uhler, head of the National Tax Limitation Committee. "Action is needed now."
He also challenged the position that traveling overseas is an important part of a legislator's job. "They don't need to go abroad to learn how a dam is made or a pipe is laid," Uhler said.
Several members of the Assembly just returned from a lobbying trip to Washington, but spokeswomen for the leaders in that house said they were not aware of any planned overseas trips by their members during the next month.
Steinberg downplayed the exodus of his colleagues, saying legislative leaders will use the time to try to work out details on the pending issues.
"I don't need them all here right now. In fact, frankly it can be a distraction," Steinberg told The Times' editorial board Thursday. "I need to be able to finish the work with the governor and leaders and stakeholders and a few members who are more intimately involved with water. The timing will work out just fine."
Lawmakers planning to head to Europe include Sens. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach), Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), Robert Huff (R-Diamond Bar) and Christine Kehoe (D-San Diego). DeSaulnier and Pavley are going only to Spain, according to the international relations office.
Those hoping to make a trip to Asia include Sens. Louis Correa (D-Santa Ana) and Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), aides said.
The European trip includes the spouses and guests of some of the lawmakers. Lawmakers pay for most of their travel expenses by tapping their political accounts.
The purpose of the trip, according to a statement by the Senate office, is "to strengthen legislative ties with these two countries and to pursue positive economic, governmental, cultural and educational bonds between our regions."
Legislators are defending their travel plans, saying they hope to learn some things that can help California.
Cedillo, for instance, wants to engage officials on shipping issues in Denmark, because that country's ports do a lot of business with the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, said chief of staff Dan Savage.
"He is also looking at the tunneling technology in Spain," Savage said, noting that the senator has proposed a tunnel for the extension of the 710 Freeway.
Anti Corruption Republic
Four Take the Fifth?...9-24-09
http://anticorruptionrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/09/four-take-fifth_24.html
On September 3, the ACR Blog noted that David and Laura Ayres intended to invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination if the defense called them to testify in USA v. Kevin A. Ring. Mr. and Mrs. Ayres formally asserted the Fifth Amendment on September 17.
As a result of a report from our Washington correspondent, the ACR Blog is comfortable enough to name two other people who have indicated they will assert their Fifth Amendment rights if called by the defense. Both are staffers to former Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.): Former Chief of Staff David Lopez and former Legislative Director Peter Evich. (You may recall that Mr. Evich recently decided that he is no longer proud of his association with Mr. Doolittle.)
The ACR Blog is admittedly puzzled as to why Mr. Lopez feels the need to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights. In August, we learned that Mr. Lopez has received immunity. The only plausible explanation the ACR Blog can come up with is that Mr. Lopez received some sort of limited immunity and that Mr. Lopez feels he is criminally liable for some acts not covered in the limited immunity agreement. Of course, that is just speculation.
U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle suggested today that it doesn't make a lot of sense to fly Mr. Lopez into Washington from his home in Northern California if he intends to plead the Fifth. That means, at least in Mr. Lopez's case, that he may not have to formally invoke his Fifth Amendment rights.
Mr. Evich lives in the Washington, DC area and works for the lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates. Like Mr. and Mrs. Ayres, Mr. Evich may formally assert his Fifth Amendment rights in open court.
Our Washington correspondent also tells us that the government says it won't grant immunity to any more scandal figures. Justice is now playing hardball. Other scandal players ought to strongly consider a plea deal before the lawyers at Justice lose any more patience.
Justice Department: Former Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) is a Conspirator...9-24-09
http://anticorruptionrepublican.blogspot.com/2009/09/justice-department-former-rep-john.html
Headline only ... more later
In a court filing today, the Justice Department named 12 public officials as co-conspirators in the Kevin Ring trial:
1. John Albaugh¹
2. Laura Blackann²
3. Ann Copland¹
4. Robert Coughlin¹
5. John Doolittle²
6. Julie Doolittle
7. Peter Evich²
8. Jennifer Farley
9. Will Heaton¹
10. David Lopez²
11. Greg Orlando²
12. Ryan Thomas
¹ Pled guilty
² Worked in the Congressional office of Mr. Doolittle
.... more to come ....
U.S. District Judge Ellen S. Huvelle apparently asked the Justice Department to produce a list of public officials identified as co-conspirators. The DoJ complied with this request in today's Government's Answers to Court's Questions. There is also a whole lot of legal strategy and legal theory in the document. Words, words, words. If any reader likes that kind of stuff, please read the document yourself. Also feel free to post interpretations in the comments -- even if you're not a lawyer.
We've got a lot of facts to present to everyone. Even though we have not yet written a dedicated post to Mr. Ryan Thomas, we know enough to. We even think we know why the DoJ has identified him as a co-conspirator. Also, two of the four Doolittle staffers have something in common that is quite interesting. It's going to take several posts. Bear with us as this may take a day or two.