The clear, loud sound of a whistle
As this Water-War year shapes up, the lies, the slurs, the gaffes -- the "air game" as the politicos call it -- heats up with the temperature.
If only the desire of the agribusiness plutocracy that things remain the same -- i.e. get better and better for the richer and richer -- could be realized, somehow. Then we could all be happy farmworkers on the west side, enjoying the sun and dust-and-pesticide free fresh air. And for excellent wages, no doubt.
But, the facts are that things are getting worse and worse and the agribusiness utopia is a pile of artificially manufactured well known substances.
The agriculture they seek to increase is increasingly salting its own soil, returning the west side to a worse desert than it was before water was added and the ground was stirred by the largest tractors in the land. Species are going extinct at 100-1,000 times the pre-industrial rate; global climate change is already beyond the tipping point for ice melt/sea rise; and we are taking 121 million tons of nitrogen out of the atmosphere by the Haber-Bosch process "when the proposed boundary to avoid irreversible degradtion of the earth system in 35 million tons per year" (The Ecologial Rift, Foster et al, 2010, p.15).
That nitrogen extracted from the atmosphere not used for gunpowder is used for nitrogen fertilizers, like the 270 tons of ammonium nitrate that blew a 10-acre hole in the middle of West, Texas, removing the town's top employer and creating as yet unknown hazard to its drinking water supply.
But, the bottom line for our own gang of Westies is that without the water they have only junior rights to, the Westlands agribusiness gang can't farm much; therefore, we the public can count on another huge infusion of rightwing propaganda, lies, slurs, threats, and BS starting soon in your local newspaper -- from the dismally blinkered tales by Felicity Barrington in the bankers' hometown paper, the New York Times, to the McClatchy Empire and the Bakersfield and Salinas "Californians."
Our agribusiness cartel is now seeking to purchase a back room so full of smoke and so sound proofed that no whistle can ever be heard.
Rotsa ruck.
While speaking with Tom Stokely of the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) at a meeting with Northern California's Native American Tribes on Monday, April 15, Natural Resources Agency Deputy Director Jerry Meral said, "BDCP is not about, and has never been about saving the Delta. The Delta cannot be saved." -- Dan BAcher, Brown official claims 'Delta can't be saved,' April 20, 2013, yubanet.com
The following is a letter written to Tom Stokely on the history of the Brown Family's hydraulic machinations by Felix Smith, former US Fish and Wildlife biologist who has had a whistle firmly clamped between his teeth since he saw the destruction from selenium to wildlife embryos at the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge 30 years ago. -- BSJ.
your reference in article in SF chronicle.
From: Felix Smith
To: Tom Stokely, Lloyd Carter
Cc: Daniel Bacher, Barbara Restore Delta Barrigan-Parrilla, Bill Hatch, Felix Smith
Hi Tom:
Saw the article in the SF Chronicle about your conversation with Gerry Meral.
I am sure his comment was not a big surprise. what was the surprise was that he Admitted it.
The following is the way I see it.
Also just what does the co-equal objective really mean?
Governor Jerry Brown and his appointee / political team are setting up a scenario to build the Delta’s peripheral tunnels similar to the same way Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, his father’s appointee / political team pushed to dam the San Joaquin River at Friant. In 1951 when Edmund “Pat” Brown was Attorney General, he, his staff and other friendly allies formulated a flawed legal opinion (Opinion No. 50-89 –dated July 23, 1951) to represent the State’s position for approving the construction of Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River with no water reserved for protecting the southern most runs of Chinook salmon. In 1958 Edmund “Pat” Brown was elected Governor. Soon taking office, Governor “Pat” Brown appointed the same political allies to positions to enforce the flawed Opinion support his political allies and kill off any opposition to Friant Dam by the then Department of Fish and Game. In 1959 Governor Brown’s political appointee to DWR endorsed the bogus opinion and his appointee as Chairman of the State Water Board rubber-stamped the give away of the San Joaquin River to the Bureau of Reclamation with no water reserved for the southern most runs of Chinook salmon and other native fishes. It has taken the public 50 years of legal wrangling to reverse what happened under the administration of Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.
The Bay Delta conservation Plan (BDCP) is Governor Brown’s pet. Has any one really explained what the so-called “co-equal objectives” really mean in practical and public trust terms? Look for Governor Gerry Brown, his appointees and political allies to push efforts to modify CEQA, and Fish and Game code section 5937 so that the need to keep fish in good condition is diluted as State Law. In this way there would be no liability upon the DWR / SWP to protect the fisheries and biota of the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta and the San Francisco Bay estuary.
Southern California development interests and southern San Joaquin Valley corporate farms are not going to agree to pay for any tunnels that, in turn, require them to take less water. They want and will take all the water they can get and time they can. The DWR / SWP administrators and those at the Bureau of Reclamation for the CVP are already aligned with that philosophy. These interests can't wait to try to pump the Delta dry. They pumped over 5 million AF with a high of 6.410, 971 AF in 2005. And this is in addition with the upstream water rights, contracts and other depletions and discharges in place. The Chinook salmon fisheries collapsed 3 years later. Delta agriculture, Chinook salmon and striped bass fisheries and other Delta resources, uses and values should be protected by the doctrine of the Public Trust. The aggregated values of associated biological resources, ecological and agricultural beneficial uses and are worth a lot more to California than the crops from the salt and selenium tainted soils and where contamination from agricultural runoff from the southern and western portions of the San Joaquin Valley impacts the San Joaquin River and Delta’s public trust resources, uses and values
Felix Smith
Governor Brown and Tunnels