7-1-09

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wednesday, 1 July 2009

7-1-09
Badlands Journal
The PR Firm from Hell, Part 1...Lloyd Carter
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/2009-07-01/007297
THE PR FIRM FROM HELL
As published in the June 30th, 2009 edition of the Fresno Community Alliance newspaper
(First of two parts)
By Lloyd G. Carter
http://www.lloydgcarter.com/content/090629251_the-pr-firm-from-hell
    Cesar Chavez knew the power of a good march. He led by
    example and he never stopped trying until he found a
    way. And this is exactly what we are going to do. We never
    will stop until we find a way, find a way together here,
    because this is the right thing to do, because we need
    water, we need water, we need water, we need water
    [chanting with crowd].--
    Gov. Schwarzenegger, on April 17, at the San Luis Reservoir, following a four-day grower-funded march in which non-union farmworkers were paid to walk 50 miles from Mendota. Chavez’ United Farm Workers union did not participate. UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta called it shameless exploitation of the late labor leader’s legacy.
    The masters of “astroturfing” are trying to convince you, the media, California and Washington, D.C. that San Joaquin Valley farmworkers’ new best friend is Big Agribusiness, the same industry that has exploited them for decades. Say what?
    Campaigns & Elections magazine defines astroturfing as a "program that involves the manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them." In other words, rich people with a lot of money but no popular support for their cause (getting richer), will create the illusion of broad public support by half truths, manipulation, disinformation, spin doctoring, creating false impressions, and cash. It also involves ghost writing op-ed columns and letters to the editor from little people, to generate the perception there is widespread public support for the client’s position. Grassroots is bottom up. Astroturf is top down.
    The late Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, a vice-presidential candidate and a lobbyist, is credited with coining the term "astroturf lobbying" to describe the synthetic grassroots movements conjured up by powerful lobbying and public relations firms. Astroturfing is specifically prohibited by the code of ethics of the Public Relations Society of America, the national association for members of the public relations profession.
    But that hasn’t stopped the spin doctors at Burson-Marsteller (B-M), the astroturfing PR firm that has been hired by the California Latino Water Coalition (created around 2006-2007), headed by comedian Paul Rodriguez, and Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez, co-chairs of the coalition, and technical advisor Mario Santoyo, assistant general manager at the Friant Water Users Authority, which represents federal irrigation districts on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley from Madera County south to Bakersfield.
    B-M has been helping the Friant growers for three years, trying to derail the lawsuit settlement to restore a living San Joaquin river to 60 miles of dry riverbed on the San Joaquin Valley floor. Republican Rep. Devin Nunes has been the most outspoken of the settlement critics and has called for the Governor’s resignation for failing to push new water projects hard enough. (Nunes seems blissfully unconcerned California is facing a $24 billion budget deficit.)
    MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow, in a March telecast, called B-M “the PR firm from Hell” and said it had been hired to improve the “image” of AIG, the company which has received $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money. (You can see Maddow ripping B-M on YouTube below.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xVsYc-y7IY
    How much B-M is being paid by the growers who fund the Latino Water Coalition - if it is being paid - is not publicly available. No one in the mainstream media has inquired about the financing, except the New York Times, which noted in a story on the mid-April, four-day “March for Water” that farmworkers were paid to participate. Classic astroturfing tactics.
    Founded in 1953, B-M is now one of the largest public relations firms in the world, and in 2000 was the first PR outfit to hit $300 million in revenues. In 1999, Harold Burson was named by PR Week magazine and website as the PR industry’s “most influential person of the 20th Century.” The PR Watch website has considerable material on B-M’s past and present outrages. Big name employees include George W. Bush’s first press secretary, Karen Hughes, and his last press secretary, the acid-tongued, irritable Dana Perino. However, the agency is not just staffed with Republican mudslingers. Spinmaster Mark Penn, the staunchly anti-union polling consultant and former chief strategist of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, is the current Chief Executive Officer of B-M.
    B-M’s client list includes a who’s who of corporate scoundrels and tin horn dictators, including:
    1. Blackwater USA - After the private security firm killed 17 Iraqi civilians, they turned to B-M for “crisis management.” Former B-M executive Robert Tappan, who had been a State Department official, worked at the PR firm’s lobbying subsidiary, BKSH & Associates. Tappan helped Blackwater founder and head Erik Prince prepare for his testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. (In February, Blackwater, purportedly on the advice of B-M, changed its name to the mysterious Xe, pronounced Zee.)
    2. Babcock & Wilcox, manufacturers of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, hired B-M to “manage” public perception after the 1979 meltdown.
    3. Nigeria’s brutal regime employed B-M in the late 1960s to counteract allegations it was committing genocide in the breakaway province of Biafra. “Crisis management” was also provided the Indonesian regime accused of abuses of its citizens.
    4. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, at the behest of the Argentinian military dictatorship, headed by General Jorge Videla, B-M organized a campaign against Argentinian human rights organizations which were contending a “Dirty War” against the populaton was taking place, including the murder and disappearance of thousands of people. In her book “The Shock Doctrine”, Naomi Klein wrote:
    “Victor Emmanuel, the Burson-Marsteller public relations executive who was in charge of selling the Argentine junta's new business-friendly regime to the outside world, told a researcher that violence was necessary to open up Argentina's "protective, statist" economy. "No one, but no one, invests in a country involved in a civil war," he said, admitting that it wasn't just rebels who died. "A lot of innocent people were probably killed," he told author Marguerite Feitlowitz, but, "given the situation, immense force was required." ”
    5. Saudi Arabia’s medieval royal government has employed B-M for more than 30 years to promote its interests and image. B-M prepared U.S. advertisements for Saudi Arabia following the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center, due, in part, to the fact 15 of the 19 airplane hijackers were Saudi citizens.
    6. B-M handled public relations for Union Carbide Corporation following the 1984 explosion and disaster at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India which killed 2,000 employees and neighbors and injured or blinded thousands more.
    7. B-M set up the National Smokers Alliance on behalf of Philip Morris to fight tobacco regulation in the early 1990s.
    8. Bromine Science and Environmental Forum (BSEF), which Burson-Marsteller created on behalf of chemical companies from the U.S., Israel and Japan who wanted to avoid an EU ban on bromine flame retardants suspected to have serious environmental and health impacts. For years the BSEF (lobbyists from the Brussels offices of Burson-Marsteller) lobbied against the EU ban on these substances, without clearly disclosing the nature of the group and the clients.
    Major companies in the finance, pharmaceutical and energy industries currently utilize B-M’s services, according to B-M’s own website. In 2006, the company gave 57 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates.
    B-M, according to the May 17, 2007 issue of The Nation magazine, is owned by an even larger PR empire called the WPP Group. The decision to hire Mark Penn as the head of B-M was heavily influenced by Howard Paster, President Clinton's chief lobbyist to Capitol Hill and an influential presence inside WPP. "Clients of stature come to Mark [Penn]constantly for counsel," claimed Paster, who informally advised Hillary Clinton. The press release announcing Penn's promotion noted his work "developing and implementing deregulation informational programs for the electric utilities industry and in the financial services sector." (Italics added.)
    Both these PR and lobbying efforts - to deregulate energy and financial services - led to the California electricity crisis and manipulation of the state’s energy supply by Enron, the 2003 blackout in the Northeastern U.S. and the current collapse of the financial services sector.
    So, what then does B-M expect to do for the California Latino Water Coalition? B-M’s Patrick George, who works out of B-M’s Sacramento office is listed as the media contact on the Latino Water Coalition press releases. The B-M website boasts that it has won the last nine California statewide initiative campaigns it has been involved in and it was expected to be involved in a $10 billion water bond issue in 2008 before the economy collapsed. There will undoubtedly be an effort to put another water bond on the 2010 or 2012 California ballot.
    Some Western San Joaquin Valley growers acknowledge they are contributing to the Latino Water Coalition. It is clear the poverty-stricken farmworkers aren’t paying the tab, and that it is agribusiness bankrolling the operation. The coalition website (www.gotwater.org ) and KMJ radio commentator Ray Appleton, a major supporter of the Coalition, both solicit donations from the general public. Appleton does it on air. Mario Santoyo said on former Fresno Mayor Alan Autry’s radio show that Comedian Rodriguez is not being compensated for any of his efforts. In an interview with the Yuma, AZ newspaper Rodriguez called himself the “poster boy” and claimed Cesar Chavez was “like an uncle” to him. Presuimably, the Friant growers were paying B-M big bucks before the PR firm got involved in the Latino Water Coalition.
    The transparent objective of B-M’s astroturfing is to put a “human face” on efforts to get more multi-billion dollar water projects built with taxpayer funds to: (1) meet the water needs of industrial farming operations of the western San Joaquin Valley, and (2) halt (or replace) the loss of water by southeastern San Joaquin Valley growers in Tulare and Kern counties due to the restoration of the San Joaquin River.
    These are among the public relations objectives:
    1. Conflate the interests of growers who want water with the needs of farmworkers who need jobs, so that it appears the largely Latino farmworker population fully supports the efforts of growers to get more taxpayer-financed cheap water, even while the basic needs of the farmworkers, such as decent wages, clean drinking water, and decent housing and working conditions, continue to go unmet.
    2. Make it appear as if the entire San Joaquin Valley is threatened with reversion to desert because of a “two-inch bait fish” instead of revealing that it is only the junior water rights holders who are suffering irrigation cutbacks and that thousands of growers with senior water rights are getting a full allotment this year. Emphasize a “man-made drought” as the problem, not the real drought which is occurring (according to state officials). Some growers are making fat profits selling water at extortionate prices to their fellow water-short farmers.
    A May 15 letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein from Lester Snow, head of the California Department of Water Resources, indicated that Westlands Water District, through Delta deliveries, carryover, groundwater, transfers and exchanges is actually getting 86 percent of its normal water supply this year. The groundwater, of course, is of low quality in many cases and cannot be quickly replaced.
    3. Demonize environmentalists and brand them as elitists from San Francisco who care more about a “minnow” (i.e., the Delta Smelt) than they do about human beings, especially the tens of thousands of farmworkers who will lose their seasonal jobs which now pay an average of $8,000 a year.
    4. Reduce the crisis in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to a black and white issue of “fish versus farmers” or “fish versus food” and avoid the complexities of Delta restoration and the hierarchy of water rights. Rarely or never mention salmon (much less the commercial salmon industry), or steelhead, or killer whales, or sturgeon in simplifying the issue. Make it the smelt - a bait fish - versus human beings.
    5. Ignore the concerns of the United Farm Workers union and the Teamsters union (which represents farmworkers in the Valley) and ignore or demonize environmental justice advocates. Don’t get involved in supporting bills in the state legislature to improve the lives and working conditions of farmworkers. Big Ag routinely opposes those bills and the governor vetoes them.
    6. Stage marches and rallies in the tradition of Cesar Chavez, and invoke Chavez’ name where politically expedient, and conceal the fact that the marchers are being paid to participate. In a slickly-produced YouTube video, Comedian Rodriguez said when he was a boy he had marched with Cesar to help unionize farmworkers and was now asking people to participate in the mid-April “March for Water” to help growers in Cesar Chavez’ memory. Dolores Huerta shakes her head at this tactic.
    7. Because growers, particularly large corporate operations, billionaire farmers like Stewart Resnick, and wealthy family mega-farms (like the Woolfs of the Westlands), have never been particularly sympathetic figures in the news media, the decision was made to make Latino farmworkers the “human face” of this astroturfing campaign, perhaps to sway urban Latino state legislators.
Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” frequently runs a montage of video clips showing Republican (or Democrat) politicos mouthing the same sound bite of the day, which usually comes from a talking points paper prepared by a PR firm. That’s what has been occurring the last two years with the “human face” buzz phrase.
    For example (the italics are mine):
    July 2, 2007 - Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson, who represents the Westlands Water District area, and allows his public office phone number and staff to be utilized by the Latino Water Coalition, told a House Subcommittee that cutbacks of irrigation water to protect the Delta Smelt was causing hardship among farmworkers, stating, “There is a very human face to the decisions that are made.”
    July 24, 2008 - Fresno Bee Capitol correspondent E.J. Schultz, writing about a grower-financed rally in Sacramento, in which busloads of farmworkers were at the Capitol building to show the “human face” of water politics, wrote:
    “Wednesday's rally was designed to give a human face to the state's water woes. At least 300 farmworkers, most from the Valley's parched west side, marched and carried homemade signs declaring "agua es vida," or water is life, and "agua = trabajo," or water equals work.”
    April 14, 2009 - Laura King Moon, Assistant General Manager of the State Water Project, which represents the mega-farms of the western Tulare Basin, including the 150,000 acre J.G. Boswell cotton empire, issued this statement: “Today, the California Latino Water Coalition began the first day of a four-day march across the San Joaquin Valley to highlight the severe water shortage that grips the Valley's farms, cities and jobs, as well as our broader
state. Their goal is to raise statewide and national awareness of the water crisis that faces them and to put a human face on one of the most important issues facing California today.”
    April 14, 2009 - A column by Fresno Bee writer Bill McEwen carried the headline
“March to put Human Face on Water Crisis.” McEwen wrote that with a “recession and a third year of drought intensifying the state’s troubles – and putting a human face on our water problems - solutions might be coming. This human face will be shown to the nation and the world when the California March for Water begins this morning in Mendota.”
    April 17, 2009 - Tim Quinn, Executive Director of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), appeared at the conclusion of the March for Water and stated to a crowd estimated at 3,000 people (Coalition officials put the estimate at 10,000) that the water crisis highlighted “the human face of the misery evoked by water shortages.”
    KMJ broadcaster Ray Appleton has repeatedly said on his noon hour show the purpose of the Latino Water Coalition is to put a “human face” on the campaign.
    It must be admitted B-M’s astroturfing campaign in the San Joaquin Valley has been remarkably successful. The “human face” of the new water projects campaign is now that of the downtrodden farmworker, not the rich grower.
    But Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, is not fooled and calls the Latino Water Coalition an obvious front group for the growers which is exploiting Cesar Chavez’ legacy. She said Cesar was an ardent environmentalist and would never have participated in the April March for Water or demonized the environmentalists. She also notes the Latino Water Coalition has not lobbied for bills to make it easier for farmworkers to unionize nor has the coalition demanded a living wage, decent housing and clean drinking water for farmworkers before any new dams are built. The governor, she notes, has vetoed bills to help farmworkers unionize.
    The Valley’s newspaper and television coverage of the Latino Water Coalition has been extensive and, at times, almost fawning. No hard questions are being asked about where the money is coming from or why the Latino Water Coalition is not lobbying in Sacramento and Washington for improved working conditions, decent housing and clean drinking water for the farmworkers they claim are part of their coalition. However, outside the Valley, the sales job has been tougher, particularly in the Nation’s Capitol.
Thus, more “marches” are being planned, including a protest outside the new Fresno federal building on July 1, and the air transport of an unspecified number of farmworkers to Washington, D.C. to show lawmakers the “human face” of failing to build more multi-billion dollar water projects to primarily benefit agribusiness. Presumably, non-union farmworkers will have to be recruited and paid to participate in this latest stunt. The astroturf needs a mowing.
-------------------
Part Two of this series will focus on the roles of Comedian Paul Rodriguez, Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez, growers’ employee Mario Santoyo, KMJ radio commentators Ray Appleton and Inga Barks, Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson and others in the B-M astroturfing campaign. Lloyd G. Carter has been writing about San Joaquin Valley water issues for 40 years, including 20 years as an award-winning reporter for United Press International and the Fresno Bee. He has a website, www.lloydgcarter.com.
Statement at Salazar Town Hall Meeting, June 28, 2009...Badlands Journal editorial board
http://www.badlandsjournal.com/
My name is Lydia Miller. I live in Merced. I am president of the San Joaquin Raptor Wildlife Rescue Center. I am here today representing the Center, Protect Our Water, Central Valley Safe Environment Network, and South California Endangered Species Habitat Alliance.
The Raptor Center was a petitioner on the 22-year-old San Joaquin River Settlement.
We would like to thank Secretary Salazar and Valley congressmen for convening this meeting. We thank congressmen Cardoza and Costa for their recent plea in Congress to declare Cardoza's district an economic disaster area. Merced County, despite receiving 100 percent of its irrigation water, has a higher unemployment rate than the counties where Westlands operates. So does Stanislaus, also in Cardoza's district. We take this opportunity to applaud Congressman Cardoza for his belated recognition that his pro-growth policy during the speculative housing bubble has led to immense misery in his district, which has the highest foreclosure rate in the nation. We regret the congressman has moved his family to Annapolis Maryland. His wife, a physician, was badly needed in our community.
There are six other CA counties that have higher unemployment rates than Fresno, Kings or Kern. Farm labor employment in Westlands counties has gained during the drought. This unemployment propaganda is just another grower argument for depressing wages.
The meeting today is about two sources of surface water: the San Joaquin River and the San Joaquin Delta and west side groundwater, full of heavy metals and salts, which for 60 years has turned the 100-mile-long western reach of the San Joaquin River into a toxic drainage ditch. Last year, a federal court decision restricted some pumping from the Delta to protect endangered species.
Westlands use of water jeopardizes the public trust in water, fish and wildlife in the Central Valley. It jeopardizes small farmers from here to Trinity County. It jeopardizes cattle land. All of this came to bear at the Kesterson Wildlife Refuge in Merced County, where toxic agricultural drainage from Westlands poisoned and deformed migratory birds protected by international treaty, poisoned cattle and created a human cancer cluster. Westlands has created other cancer clusters on the west side of the Valley, in McFarland, for example. Its "economies of scale" have driven countless small farmers off the land.
We thank Westlands for making this an environmental justice issue by tying it to unemployment rates, at least in Mendota, and by extension to health and safety issues their farmworker employees have lived with since the beginning of Westlands. We regret that because of a series of special-interest deals by the federal government, it is impossible to openly discuss farm labor in our communities today. However, we will say that the largest beneficiaries of these deals have been agribusiness and the greatest victims, in addition to farmworkers, have been the Valley's natural resources, its wildlife, the public health and safety of all Valley citizens.
Westlands Water District has been a bad neighbor since it first began receiving Delta water. This current propaganda campaign is in league with outside urban interests intent on gaining a peripheral canal on the Delta. Westlands should be taken off the table of the Delta debate. It should receive no more surface water to irrigate its alkali flats at the expense of the Public Trust.
Mr. Secretary, we won’t tolerate any more Julie MacDonalds in California.
----------------------
Julie MacDonald
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_MacDonald
Julie A. MacDonald (born July 14, 1955) was a deputy assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the United States Department of the Interior appointed by former Secretary of the Interior. MacDonald was appointed by Gale Norton on 3 May 2004^[1] and resigned on 1 May, 2007^[2] after an internal investigation found that she had violated the Code of Federal Regulations under Use of Nonpublic Information and Basic Obligation of Public Service, Appearance of Preferential Treatment, although the investigation found no evidence of illegal activity….^[3]
…Biography
MacDonald graduated from University of California, Davis in 1978 with a degree in civil engineering.^[4] She joined the Department of the Interior in 1979 as a hydraulic engineer with the Bureau of Reclamation. Starting in 1987, MacDonald worked as a government administrator, including at the California Resources Agency.^[5] MacDonald returned to the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2002 as an aide to the assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, the official who oversees the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Parks Service, two of the eight bureaus in the Department of the Interior. On 3 May 2004, Interior Secretary Gale Norton promoted MacDonald to be deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks in the Department of the Interior.^[1]
…Events leading to resignation
On 30 October, 2006, the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group that advocates scientific integrity, alleged that McDonald had "personally reversed scientific findings, changed scientific conclusions to prevent endangered species from receiving protection, removed relevant information from a scientific document, and ordered the Fish and Wildlife Service to adopt her edits."^[6]
That year, the Department of the Interior Inspector General Earl E. Devaney undertook an investigation into the allegations against MacDonald. In March 2007, Devaney issued his report of that investigation, leveling charges of misconduct against MacDonald.^[5] The two chief conclusions were that MacDonald had repeatedly violated the Code of Federal Regulations (C.F.R.), Use of Nonpublic Information and Basic Obligation of Public Service, Appearance of Preferential Treatment by giving nonpublic, internal government documents to oil industry and property rights groups, and that MacDonald had manipulated and undermined scientific findings in order to favor the George W. Bush administration's policy goals and assist land developers.^[7] According to the Inspector General, "MacDonald has been heavily involved with editing, commenting on, and reshaping the Endangered Species Program's scientific reports from the field."
MacDonald resigned on 1 May, 2007, one week before a House congressional oversight committee was to hold a hearing on the Inspector General's findings.^[2] MacDonald was not given an opportunity to respond to the Inspector General's report until after it was leaked to media. MacDonald commented that she resigned due to public pressure.^[8] In November 2007, a followup report by the Inspector General found that MacDonald could have benefited financially from a decision to remove the Sacramento splittail fish from the federal endangered species list.^[9]
The Washington Post called the events leading to MacDonald's resignation "the latest in a series of controversies in which government officials and outside scientists have accused the Bush administration of overriding or setting aside scientific findings that clashed with its political agenda."^[10] In the aftermath of her departure, many endangered species decisions issued during her tenure were reversed.
…Aftermath
The Inspector General's findings led the Fish and Wildlife Service to reopen endangered species decisions made under MacDonald's supervision. The agency's director H. Dale Hall, formerly a wildlife biologist, called MacDonald's conduct "a blemish on the scientific integrity of the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior."^[11] Hall reopened the agency's assessment of the southwest willow flycatcher after alleging that MacDonald had told field personnel to reduce the bird's natural nesting range from 2.1 miles to 1.8 miles.^[12] Hall also told the inspector general that MacDonald had altered range estimates for the willow flycatcher because a critical habitat designation might impact family property in California. However, MacDonald maintained that the property is nearly 300 miles from flycatcher habitat, and that her alteration of the bird’s range was approved by agency experts, including Hall.^[8]
Eight other endangered species decisions were reopened, including the white-tailed prairie dog, Preble's meadow jumping mouse, arroyo toad, California red-legged frog, and the Canada lynx.^[13][14] In November 2007, the FWS announced that of the eight species reviewed, seven had been returned to endangered status after finding that their prior reviews had been "tainted by political pressure".^[15] In December 2007, the US District Court for the District of Idaho overturned the FWS rejection of a petition to list the sage grouse as threatened and endangered,^[16] citing misconduct by MacDonald. In its decision, the court wrote that "The FWS decision was tainted by the inexcusable conduct of one of its own executives...who was neither a scientist nor a sage-grouse expert, had a well-documented history of intervening in the listing process."
In September 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to more than triple the habitat of the California red-legged frog. The 2008 decision ignored that which was reached under MacDonald, due to "the involvement of Department of Interior personnel which may have inappropriately influenced the extent and locations of critical habitat".^[17] According to the LA Times, "The agency revisited the original habitat designation, citing scientific miscalculations and political manipulation by a former Interior Department official, Julie MacDonald."^[18]
A December 2008 report by Inspector General Devaney found that MacDonald had interfered with 13 of the 20 endangered species rulings that were reevaluated.^[3][19] In a letter to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Devaney said, "MacDonald injected herself personally and profoundly in a number of ESA decisions. We determined that MacDonald's management style was abrupt and abrasive, if not abusive, and that her conduct demoralized and frustrated her staff as well as her subordinate managers."^[3] Wyden, who commissioned the report, said "This report makes it crystal clear how one person’s contempt for the public trust can infect an entire agency...[MacDonald caused] significant harm to the integrity of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and...untold waste of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars."^[20][21]
…References

^ ^a ^b MacDonald Named Deputy Assistant Secretary
^ ^a ^b Matthew Daly (May 1, 2007). "Embattled Interior official resigns post". Associated Press. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/05/01/interior_official_quits_ahead_of_hearing/.
^ ^a ^b ^c Investigative Report of the Endangered Species Act and the Conflict Between Science and Policy Redacted
^"Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists". New York Times. March 29, 2007. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/washington/29environ.html.
^ ^a ^b REPORT OF INVESTIGATION: Julie MacDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Fish, Wildlife and Parks
^"Systematic Interference with Science at Interior Department Exposed Emails and Edited Documents Show Evidence of Inappropriate Manipulation". Union of Concerned Scientists. October 30, 2006. http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/systematic-interference-with.html.
^Report: Interior official blasted for twisting environmental data
^ ^a ^b"More to Julie MacDonald case than meets the eye". September 6, 2007. http://www.gazette.com/opinion/MacDonald_26957___article.html/report_esa.html.
^U.S. Endangered Species Program Burdened by Political Meddling
^"Bush Appointee Said to Reject Advice on Endangered Species". Washington Post. October 30, 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/29/AR2006102900776_2.html.
^ Broder, John M (2007-07-21). "U.S. Agency May Reverse 8 Decisions on Wildlife". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/21/washington/21interior.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin.
^"Report Faults Interior Appointee; Landowner Issues Trumped Animal Protections, Inspector General Says". Washington Post. March 30, 2007. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/29/AR2007032902003.html?nav=rss_nation.
^ Lewis, Paul (2007-07-20). "Agency to review species decisions". Washington Post. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003799211_endangered21.html.
^ Heilprin, John (2007-07-23). "Endangered Species Rulings Under Review". Philly.com. http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/nation/washington/cabinet/8636542.html.
^"Agency reverses endangered species ruling". CNN. 2007-11-28. http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/11/28/endangered.species.ap/index.html.
^"Western Watersheds Project v. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Case No. CV-06-277-E-BLW" (PDF). December 4, 2007. http://www.westernwatersheds.org/legal/07/sagegrouse/greater_sage-grouse_sj_decision.pdf.
^"Service Proposes 300% Increase In California Red-legged Frog Critical Habitat; Comment Period Opens for Proposal Based on Entirely New Analysis". September 16, 2008. http://www.fws.gov/news/newsreleases/showNews.cfm?newsId=6C023432-D700-0E3C-FB101DD28AA17E4A.
^A California frog may be about to get room to stretch its red legs
^New Report Finds More Than a Dozen Endangered Species Rulings Compromised by Former Interior Department Political Appointee
^Wyden-Requested IG Report on Interior Corruption Uncovers "Contempt for the Public Trust" and "Untold Waste" - Senator praises Devaney's investigation into political interference in ESA decisions.
^Report Finds Meddling in Interior Dept. Actions

Merced Sun-Star
HUD secretary to tour Merced neighborhoods to get firsthand look at foreclosure damage...SCOTT JASON
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/928554.html
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan will tour Merced's foreclosure-stricken neighborhoods Thursday to see the area's devastation.
This will be the second Valley visit from a top federal leader in the past week. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar held a town hall meeting Sunday in Fresno to discuss the San Joaquin Valley's water shortage.
Donovan's visit comes at the request of Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, who's been trying to focus federal aid efforts on the Valley, which has some of the highest foreclosure and unemployment rates in the country.
"The message I've been trying to convey for two years got through," Cardoza said Tuesday.
Donovan's visit comes at a time when the median home price is just above $100,000, causing lots of buyers to enter the market in search of good deals. Another round of foreclosures is expected soon. Cardoza said he's heard that up to a tenth of his constituents may be vulnerable.
The congressman's latest plan is to write legislation that would allow President Barack Obama to designate certain parts of the country as economic disasters.
Under legislation, which has yet to be introduced, those regions would be eligible for more Community Development Block Grant funding, which is controlled by Donovan's agency.
The current program funnels upwards of $5 billion annually to communities nationwide. The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act included a $1 billion boost for the current block grant program.
The money could be used for job training, economic development and housing.
A week-and-a-half ago, Los Banos Mayor Tommy Jones testified before the House Financial Services Committee about how efforts to rejuvenate the Valley's economy have fallen short.
For instance, last summer Congress approved the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, which directed $4 billion to areas with high foreclosure rates. Merced still hasn't received the money.
One in 78 Merced County homes has fallen into foreclosure, the fifth-highest rate among the country's metropolitan areas, according to RealtyTrac. Stockton has the second-highest rate at one in 68 homes. Modesto is at No. 3 with one in 71 homes falling into foreclosure.
Donovan will tour two Merced neighborhoods, one in the southeast end of the city and one in the southwest.
Both neighborhoods are emblematic of Merced's rise and fall. They're areas where prices skyrocketed during the housing bubble. When it popped, values came tumbling down. The houses are now appraised at less than $100,000.
Whether or not Donovan's visit brings the aid, more attention will be seen in the coming year.
"I do expect him to have fire in the belly when he leaves here," Cardoza said.
State says shopping center shouldn't have chopped down trees...JONAH OWEN LAMB
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/928535.html
ATWATER -- When the owners of the Applegate Ranch Shopping Center cleared away the trees and shrubs near their property running along Highway 99, they may not have known how much it could cost them in the end.
That's because the vegetation was owned by the state of California.
Now the Golden State is suing the owners of the shopping center, Regency Centers Corp., for allegedly trespassing on state property near Applegate Road and for the malicious destruction of state property.
On June 10, Caltrans, the arm of the state that owned the roadside flora, filed suit against Regency Centers for chopping down trees and shrubs along Highway 99, according to filings in Merced County Superior Court where the lawsuit was filed.
The state not only wants money for the loss of five mature trees -- $10,000 a tree -- but the suit also demands damages for removing the stumps as well as replanting. The total damages amount to more than $50,000.
The suit described the action as "intentional and despicable conduct."
Chantel Miller, spokeswoman for Caltrans, said she could not discuss the lawsuit.
Bonnie Hayslick, spokeswoman for Regency Centers, a Jacksonville, Fla.-based shopping center owner with nearly 450 properties, did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Beyond the lawsuit, it seems Caltrans has been dealing with illegal tree cutting across the state. Earlier this month, according to a report in the Los Angeles Daily News, a line of trees along Highway 405 in Los Angeles was cut down, apparently so that a billboard could be seen better from the road.
These tree trimmings are troublesome, Caltrans says, since the department attempts to reduce freeway noise by planting trees and vegetation along highways.
Arborists say that too few people appreciate what urban forests and roadside trees do for them.
Bryan Tassey, parks and urban forestry manager for Atwater, said that too often people just think of trees as things that get in their way. But trees, says Tassey, cool neighborhoods, raise property values, clean the air and provide habitat for birds.
UC Merced tapping into solar power...Danielle Gaines
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/167/v-print/story/928542.html
A planned 1.1-megawatt solar array at UC Merced is one of two California projects that will be financed under a new program from SunPower and Wells Fargo, the companies announced Tuesday.
Under the financing program SunPower will enter into a power purchase agreement with UC Merced, and Wells Fargo will finance the solar power systems that SunPower will design, build, operate, and maintain.
UC Merced will buy the electricity from SunPower at prices that are competitive with retail rates, providing a long-term hedge against rising power prices and the ability to take advantage of a solar power program with no initial capital investment, according to a news release.
The other program being financed is a 1-megawatt solar power system for the Western Riverside County Regional Wastewater Authority.
Scheduled for completion before the end of the year, UC Merced's solar array will be the first structure to break ground outside of the campus' initial 104-acre footprint. The array will include ground-mounted solar panels that will follow the sun's path throughout the day.
The solar field is expected to cover nine acres and produce up to 20 percent of the campus' yearly electrical supply.
Our View: More action needed on water issues
Salazar offers relief, but it is really up to the Legislature to fix state's problems.
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/181/v-print/story/928554.html
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar offered some federal assistance to ease the California water crisis, and that at least shows the Obama administration finally has put this emergency on its radar screen.
But this problem is too complex for quick fixes, and it will take state and federal action to resolve it.
So far, lawmakers in California have not offered a comprehensive water solution and that's another failing of the state Legislature.
But Salazar responded to the pressure of agriculture and farmworker groups with several key announcements Sunday.
This action would not have come without the intense pressure they put on the Obama administration the past few months.
At a town hall in Fresno, Salazar said $160 million in Recovery Act funds will go to the Central Valley Project, which manages the dams and canals that move our water around.
Salazar also named Deputy Interior Secretary David J. Hayes as the "water czar" who will coordinate solutions between federal agencies and state officials.
The interior secretary also reminded farmers that today, pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will be turned on and will operate for the rest of this year. That will help some, although the action should have come sooner.
Farmers have targeted environmentalists and the Endangered Species Act as the villains.
But it's the Legislature and governor -- both past and present -- who have failed to meet the growing water needs of the state.
California's population has doubled since the last major water project was built in the state.
But state lawmakers continue to dodge this issue, fearing that they'll anger one of the many interest groups involved in the issue.
We believe that agricultural, urban and environmental water needs can be accommodated with a comprehensive water plan. There would have to be compromises by all parties to the water debate.
The solution must include building dams, expanding underground storage through water banking and dramatically increasing water availability through conservation efforts.
The local congressional delegation, especially Reps. Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, played a big role in getting Salazar to Fresno. But much more must be done.
Modesto Bee
Construction spending falls more than expected...MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
http://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/766369.html
WASHINGTON -- Construction spending fell more than expected in May, a sign the problems facing the nation's builders are far from over.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that construction spending dropped 0.9 percent in May, nearly double the 0.5 percent decline that economists expected. Adding to the signs of weakness, activity in the past two months was revised lower.
Construction rose 0.6 percent in April, down from the 0.8 percent increase originally reported. A March increase of 0.4 percent was replaced with a decline of the same amount. That left the April gain as the only increase in the past eight months.
For May, the only strength came in nonresidential activity. Residential construction dropped sharply, and spending on federal, state and local projects also declined.
Residential building fell 3.4 percent after a flat reading the month before. Spending on private home building dropped 33.9 percent from a year ago amid the steepest slump in housing in decades.
Nonresidential construction rose 0.5 percent with spending on transportation, power projects and manufacturing all growing.
Total public construction dropped 0.6 percent, the biggest decline since a 1.7 percent fall in January. Spending on federal projects fell 0.3 percent, while spending on state and local projects dropped 0.7 percent.
The changes left total construction spending at a a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $964 billion, down 11.6 percent from a year ago.
A collapse in the housing market and the worst financial crisis in seven decades have hurt construction firms and helped push the country into the longest recession since World War II. Builders slashed spending on residential projects at the steepest pace in the first three months of this year since the spring of 1980.
The overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, shrank at an annual rate of 5.5 percent in the first quarter after a 6.3 percent drop in the final three months of last year, the steepest six-month decline in more than a half-century.
But economists believe the economy's nosedive has moderated to a drop of around 2 percent in the April-June quarter, and will begin to rebound in the second half of this year.
Los Angeles-based KB Home last week reported a loss of $78.4 million, or $1.03 per share, for the three months ending in May. But company officials said they expect a rebound in the fourth quarter of this year that will carry into next year.
Pending home sales up 4th straight month in May...last updated: July 01, 2009 07:10:27 AM
http://www.modbee.com/business/v-print/story/766370.html
WASHINGTON -- A private group says pending home sales rose in May for the fourth straight month, fresh evidence that the housing sector may be recovering.
The National Association of Realtors says that its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales increased by 0.1 percent to 90.7. Analysts expected no change, according to Thomson Reuters.
The NAR attributes the increase to lower home prices and the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit that was included in the Obama administration's stimulus package.
The pending home sales index, which tracks signed contracts to purchase previously occupied homes, is now 6.7 percent higher than in May 2008, when it was 85.
Modesto-area rainfall was far below average for 2008-09 season...John Holland
http://www.modbee.com/local/v-print/story/766024.html
It's a new year for water watchers, one they hope will be wetter than the past three in California.
The 2008-09 rainfall year ended Tuesday with 8.78 inches recorded by the Modesto Irrigation District at its downtown headquarters. That was 72 percent of the historical average of 12.17 inches.
It was not quite as bad in the central Sierra Nevada, where late storms boosted the snowpack. The Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers, which supply the MID and a few other irrigation districts, are expected to flow at 83 percent of average during the peak snowmelt of spring and early summer, the California Department of Water Resources reported.
The districts have not had the sharp cutbacks that have hit parts of the western and southern San Joaquin Valley, which are under pumping restrictions aimed at protecting fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Still, the MID and its neighbors are watching the supply. The Modesto district capped river water at 3½ acre-feet per acre for the 2009 growing season, though growers can use groundwater where it's available.
"We sent out a pretty strong conservation message with the allocation that was set, and it seems to have been taken to heart," said Walt Ward, assistant general manager for water operations at the MID.
He noted that growers and canal workers are working together to reduce spills and other waste.
Modesto's city water system also is making it through, thanks to adequate river and groundwater supplies. Residents face the usual rules — they can water outside just three days a week, and never in the afternoon — but the drought has not brought tighter controls.
The new water year begins amid a blast of heat, something that was missing for much of June. And with that comes a boost in air conditioning. Electricity demand among MID customers peaked at 620 megawatts Monday, district spokeswoman Melissa Williams said.
Modesto's high temperatures will stay at least in the upper 90s through Friday, then dip slightly heading into the Independence Day weekend, according to the National Weather Service.
Something else is heating up: the Pacific Ocean off California. Scientists have detected early signs of the El Niño phenomenon, a warming of seawater that might presage a wet winter.
"It certainly is something we'll be keeping an eye on as we get into the fall," Ward said.
Fresno Bee
DAVE COGDILL: Two Gates can help Valley...Dave Cogdill
http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/wo/v-print/story/1507867.html
As if the water crisis weren't exacerbated enough by a system built a half century ago meant to serve a fraction of our current population, the federal government and the courts continue to act in the best interest of fish rather than people.
As I drive through the Valley, it pains me to see crops dying on the vine, causing thousands in our communities to lose jobs because we lack a reliable water supply. It's unacceptable that the farmers and workers who feed the world are going hungry because of the drought.
While the "man-made" aspect of our drought could be eased by a federal emergency declaration -- or better yet, a federal mandate to turn on the pumps, there's action the state can take both immediately and in the long term.
The perpetual battle over water pits the environment against the economy. But the two are not mutually exclusive.
Through effective management of our water resources, such as my comprehensive water reliability legislation, we can protect species without devastating the economy.
My multi-pronged proposal, SB 371, invests $10 billion in our aging water infrastructure -- focusing on storage, conservation and environmental protections. It includes $3 billion for the public benefit portion of environmentally responsible water storage.
This will help reserve excess water in wet years to help us weather the dry years and will allow the state to leverage more than $20 billion in funds from other sources. My proposal builds supply in the short term through $520 million in water conservation and efficiency programs.
The plan also contains more than $2 billion to preserve the Delta and other fragile ecosystems -- including restoration projects for rivers, the ocean and fish barriers.
Another added benefit is that these projects in the Delta will improve conveyance. These important and vitally necessary changes will take time and that's a luxury the farmers, particularly on the west side, simply do not have.
Recently, the governor moved forward with my request to expedite a project called Two Gates. This project will bring the two things the Valley needs most: water and jobs. It could be paid for with existing bond and federal funding and would help continue pumping in the Delta. It's shovel-ready and could be operational by the end of the year.
There's another project, the South Delta Bypass, that I'm asking the governor to speed up in order to provide additional relief in the Valley as the Legislature completes a comprehensive water proposal.
Critics may argue that now is not the time to invest in our water infrastructure. However, we simply cannot afford to continue to neglect the state's water supply.
Nothing is more important to California's economic prosperity than a reliable and safe water supply. We have a crumbling infrastructure built for 18 million people and the state's population is expected to nearly triple that number in the next decade. We are at a breaking point with the current unsustainable system.
Building for our water future also means job creation and retention. Improvements to the state's water delivery system will create and protect jobs in the construction industry, a sector that has been hit hardest by the current economic slump.
In the Valley, the impacts of the third drought year during the biggest economic slowdown since the Great Depression are painfully clear: a dust bowl that was formerly the salad bowl of the world and long lines at unemployment offices and food banks. These agonizing realities are precisely why I'm committed to rebuilding our state's water infrastructure with immediate solutions and long-term improvements.
It's a win for the Valley and a win for the state as a whole -- and the victory will last for generations to come.
Places Left Behind...David Mas Masumoto...6-28-09
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/masumoto/v-print/story/1500204.html
I drive country roads, past farms and houses that look and feel old.
Abandoned peach orchards dot the landscape. Branches droop low, bent over, straining under the pressure of neglect. Their fate is sealed, only a matter of time before they die. Piles of dead grapevines sit ready to be burned; no rush to clear the land because the field has been vacant for years without plans for what will be next.
A brown, wood sided farmhouse -- more like a shack -- sits unoccupied, the untreated slats have weathered the decades and numerous recessions and depressions but is now doomed. The nearby barn lists badly to one side.
I've watched this structure over the years gradually deteriorate, wondering when the roof would cave in and the sides tumble down. The structure could trap someone inside as it tumbles to the earth and create a huge liability. I realize that the farmer had passed away years ago, the heirs left the land decades before and have no inclination of the pending collapse.
But mostly I see open spaces: land no longer farmed, fields cleared save for dried weeds. Fifty years ago, you farmed all of your land, squeezing out as much production as possible, even along driveways and ditch banks, planting an extra row of plums or walnuts. Today they are abandoned, left behind and forgotten. The ruthless realities of economics and time have altered the landscape.
These places once belonged to a vibrant agrarian community of small farmers and ranchers, a 20- or 40-acre place that could support a family, small towns surrounded by their vibrant network of small producers. This landscape was filled with homes, a visible sign of life and thriving social networks.
Now, the world has left behind these places. Many have been sold to larger farming operations, and families left the land. Others could not adapt to the new environment, owners hung on as long as they could, then change swept through leaving behind farms without farmers. Passing by, I can almost hear the land saying, "It's no fun getting old."
Today, the farms migrate. Near our farm south of Fresno, new fields of oranges appear each year. The citrus is moving out of the foothills into prime farmland once occupied by high value stone fruit and grapes.
In the past 50 years, similar patterns evolved in the tree fruit industry as it moved from Placer County to Fresno; oranges left Orange County and resettled in the Central Valley; dairies that were pushed out of Chino and Southern California relocated in Tulare County; cotton dispatched from the west side of the San Joaquin Valley to overseas, especially China.
Despite the image of agriculture as slow moving, rural life has discovered it is not immune to rapid change: Nothing is eternal. As I drive through the countryside, the evolution is very visible, yet subtle. It helps to know the story behind the empty farmhouse or abandoned orchard.
I have fond memories of good, seemingly innocent times. Growing up in a vibrant rural family farm community, we worked summers, laboring the whole week in our family packing shed in anticipation of a Saturday night rendezvous with friends. Bowling was a viable and popular option. So was cruising. We then anxiously anticipated the start of school in the fall, a chance to get off the farm and renew friendships.
Communities had their special celebrations, especially ethnic festivals and gatherings. For Japanese Americans, the summer Obon -- dancing in the streets to honor ancestors -- meant traveling from "village to village" throughout the month of July, starting with the big festival in Fresno, then the small rural communities of Fowler, Parlier, Reedley and Visalia held their own gatherings, staggered by a week.
But with the recession and economic downturn, places are being left behind, people abandon them both physically and in spirit. They become relics of the past, forces around them changing too rapidly.
Some places refused to accept the new. Other farms were destined to be left vacant because of poor soil or water rights. Lands that never grew lush vines or orchards will revert to a natural state of emptiness. Farms without futures. Towns with only a past.
Rural communities are entering a new era: Much of our futures are framed not by the individual, but the group. Gone are the days a lone farmer can do as he or she pleases. Rural communities that want to remain isolated and reactionary will wither and eventual fade.
We are no longer collections of individuals but part of larger systems whether we like it or not. Communities that creatively respond to change -- such as broad based efforts to keep farms farming -- will weather depressions, maintain a viable economic and social based and hope for the future.
Part of me remains nostalgic and melancholy. As I drive past abandoned fields I feel a loss, as if a dear friend or neighbor passed away and will never return.
Judge overturns Bush administration logging rule...JEFF BARNARD, AP Environmental Writer
http://www.fresnobee.com/641/v-print/story/1507882.html
GRANTS PASS, Ore. A federal judge has struck down the Bush administration's change to a rule designed to protect the northern spotted owl from logging in national forests.
U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ruled from Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday that the U.S. Forest Service failed to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of changing the rule to make it easier to cut down forest habitat of species such as the spotted owl and salmon on 193 million acres of national forests.
"I am hopeful that this is the last nail in the coffin to (President George W.) Bush's assault on our public forests," said Pete Frost, an attorney for the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, which represented plaintiffs in one of two cases challenging the rule.
At stake was a provision of the National Forest Management Act that required maintaining viable populations of species that indicate the health of an ecosystem, such as the spotted owl. The Bush administration changed the rule last year so it required a framework of protection, rather than maintaining viable populations of wildlife.
The ruling marked the third time federal courts have turned back attempts to change the 1984 version of what is known as the viability rule within the National Forest Management Act.
The judge wrote that an environmental impact statement done by the Forest Service "does not evaluate the environmental impacts of the 2008 rule," and the agency failed to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to consult with other federal agencies on whether the rule changes would jeopardize the survival of endangered species.
Instead, the Forest Service argued that the rule changes themselves had no direct environmental impact until they were applied to specific projects.
The judge admonished the Forest Service for simply copying legal arguments already rejected in two court rulings into their latest justification for the rule change.
Forest Service spokesman Joe Walsh said in an e-mail that he could not immediately comment on the ruling.
Andy Stahl, director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics in Eugene, said until the National Forest Management Act was enacted in 1976, the Forest Service had wide latitude to do as it pleased with little oversight - a situation the Bush administration hoped to recreate.
After President Bush was elected in 2000, his administration systematically worked to increase national forest logging by changing the rules for enforcing environmental laws, but was consistently turned back by federal court rulings.
"This court decision sends the Forest Service back to square zero and upholds the promise ... that forest plans be meaningful and they actually protect forests," he said.
Washington state farmers sue to stop feedlot plan...SHANNON DININNY, Associated Press Writer
http://www.fresnobee.com/559/v-print/story/1508441.html
YAKIMA, Wash. A group of Washington state farmers have joined two environmental groups in filing a lawsuit to block a proposed feedlot from using a well that is exempt from requiring state permits to water up to 30,000 cattle.
Easterday Ranches Inc., a longtime cattle company and one of the largest feedlot operators in the Northwest, wants to build the region's first new feedlot in years on dry land near the small town of Eltopia, about 25 miles northeast of Pasco.
As proposed, the feedlot would be home to up to 30,000 additional cattle. The company already operates a 30,000-head feedlot in the area near Pasco in central Washington.
Easterday bought a water right for dust control and cooling cattle at the new feedlot, and the state Department of Ecology approved that water right transfer on June 11.
However, Easterday would use a well that is exempt from a state water permit to draw drinking water for the cattle.
Under a state law passed in 1945, some wells may be drilled without a permit, as long as water usage is limited to 5,000 gallons per day. They include wells for livestock watering, small industrial uses, domestic use or noncommercial watering of a small lawn or garden.
Conservation groups have long complained the law opens the state's limited water resources to unlimited use. But a 2005 opinion by state Attorney General Rob McKenna barred the state from limiting the amount of water that ranchers draw daily for their livestock.
Neighboring farmers contend the additional water drawn from underground by Easterday could dry up their own wells. The area is made up of rural homesteads, where farmers plant dryland wheat and draw drinking water for their homes from deep, underground wells.
"After over 100 years of conservative farming on some of the driest land in Washington, our lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy from this huge industrial feedlot," said Scott Collin, a fourth-generation dryland wheat farmer and member of the group Five Corners Family Farmers.
Five Corners Family Farmers and the environmental groups Center for Environmental Law and Policy and Sierra Club filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Thurston County Superior Court in Olympia. The lawsuit seeks a declaration that livestock operators may not draw an unlimited amount of water from exempt wells, or that an exempt well is not available to Easterday Ranches.
The lawsuit names the state of Washington, the state Ecology Department, and Easterday Ranches as defendants.
The Ecology Department estimates the average feedlot cow consumes about 18-20 gallons of water per day. At 30,000 cows, that's more than 500,000 gallons of water, or enough to nearly fill an Olympic-size swimming pool each day.
The Ecology Department asked the state Legislature to weigh in and resolve the exempt-well question last session, but lawmakers failed to address it amid the state's budget crisis. Instead, they ordered a group of lawmakers, livestock industry representatives, environmental groups and tribes to discuss the issue this year.
Dan Partridge, spokesman for the Ecology Department, said the agency couldn't immediately comment on the lawsuit. Cody Easterday of Easterday Ranches declined to comment.
Sacramento Bee
Dutch expert offers advice on saving Delta...Matt Weiser
http://www.sacbee.com/378/v-print/story/1991103.html
Tropical islands and mountain glaciers get all the attention. But the planet's river deltas are the real front lines of climate change.
Sharing that message is a goal of the Delta Alliance, a new effort by officials in the Netherlands to unite people around the world struggling to manage river delta regions. This includes Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nigeria – and California.
Scientists have advised California to prepare for 55 inches of sea level rise in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by 2100. Protecting communities and the Delta freshwater supply, which serves 23 million Californians, will be a complicated and pricey task.
The Dutch have lived below sea level for hundreds of years. They've survived by building massive levees that are the envy of the world.
Last week, a delegation from the Netherlands visited San Francisco and the Delta. One result is a planned September symposium in California on common challenges.
On Thursday, The Bee interviewed Bart Parmet, director of the Deltateam for the Netherlands Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management, during the delegation's stop in Sacramento.
Why did you form the Delta Alliance?
Already 50 percent of the population in the world lives in delta areas, and this will grow up to 80 percent maybe. The problems with the deltas, with rising sea level and changes in river discharges, are similar. That was the background to say, "Hey, why not make an alliance of places to exchange knowledge, do research together and be prepared for this rise in sea level."
We are a nation that is curious. We have a good name in water. We are a nation that doesn't mind selling things. We'd like to combine helping, and if we can benefit from it, too, it's OK.
Does the public understand that deltas may be more vulnerable to climate change than other areas?
Yes, at least in the Netherlands, that's for sure. And I think here, now, growing awareness in California as well. Maybe the Delta Alliance would help to raise awareness of this problem. Because as I understood during our visit, it's not common knowledge with Joe America.
How are deltas more vulnerable to climate change?
Because they are there where the river enters the sea. So with a rise in sea level, they are the first victims, so to say. But they are attractive areas to live in, and that's because there is fertile ground, there is water from the river, there is fish, there is everything you need.
You toured the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta today. Tell me what you thought.
I heard about the large subsidence of the soils, and that was very clear to see. And I asked myself, where will this end? How will this end?
What I saw, and what I tried to imagine, is the complex government structure you have here. In the Netherlands, all major levees are owned by the government. So it is very clear who is responsible. Here I heard that levees are privately owned. And if the state would improve them, or the Army Corps, they are liable. So: I'm a farmer, I get help from the state, they improve my levee, and after that I can even sue them if things go wrong.
Well, that's strange. So I try to imagine how to work in such a complex situation, which seems very difficult.
What did you think of the levees you saw?
These levees have a quality that would not meet Dutch standards. Although there are also levees built by the Army Corps which do, there are a lot of levees which are old levees on peat soils and those are not the most, let's say, strong levees. It would be huge work to improve them, but if you want to you can.
How do you deal with people who aren't concerned about sea level rise?
We faced the same problem. And we have one advantage, where I think you have also an advantage. If the Netherlands would not be protected at the moment, about two-thirds would be flooded now and then – without sea level rise.
What you have is not only sea level rise. There are more problems. For example, an earthquake, or a storm surge, or a maximum river flow. You already have problems that can cause inundation. You don't need the sea level rise for that. That could help to make the sense of urgency very clear.
Do you have any thoughts about what we should do?
To me, this complex situation of conflicting interests, that's something that really needs to be tackled. In the Netherlands, we are used to doing things together. If we don't do it together, we drown together. So that's simple.
In the Netherlands, there will be a delta fund that will be fed by at least 1 billion euros (about $1.4 billion) per year (from income taxes). It's not a luxury, it's a necessity. And 1 billion euros is a real bargain to protect our country. Because the public was involved, it makes it easier for Parliament (to approve this).
So my advice, modest advice for California, would be to think about a delta fund, so you don't have to argue in the political arena about funds every year. Second: Try one water act or delta act in which you combine all the things you have on water and your delta. That will be a major task.
Sit together, talk about it. Confront people if they don't want to look into interests of other stakeholders. You really have to work together because it's too big an issue to think you can tackle it in the Delta alone or in the Bay Area alone. It's an issue of all California.
San Francisco Chronicle
Feds: Frog may need protection in 19 states...AP
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/07/01/state/n092351D25.DTL&type=printable
Salt Lake City, UT (AP) -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says a spotted frog that lives in 19 Western states may need endangered species protections.
Eight environmental groups petitioned the federal government in 2006 to protect the western population of the northern leopard frog.
The federal agency said Wednesday the frog has disappeared across vast portions of its historic range in the West and parts of Canada. Officials say the frog is threatened by habitat loss, disease, nonnative species, pollution and climate change.
The Fish and Wildlife Service plans a thorough scientific review of the frog's status. The agency will then decide whether it will propose the frog for endangered species protections.
The smooth-skinned frog can be green, brown or sometimes yellowish with dark oval spots.
On the Net: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: www.fws.gov
Otter population falls as humans pollute ocean...Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/MNPA18GK8S.DTL&type=printable
Sea otters along the California coast are dying off faster than at any time since the late 1990s, a disturbing trend that experts say is partially due to human-caused water pollution, the U.S. Geological Survey reported Tuesday.
A spring census of the threatened otters found only 2,654 otters along 375 miles of coast, a 3.8 percent drop from the year before.
"We know the problem is not one of reduced reproduction. It's one of elevated mortality," said Tim Tinker, a wildlife biologist at the USGS Western Ecological Research Center at the UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab.
Lab tests show the otters are primarily dying from disease carried by bacteria, viruses and parasites. Those organisms are found in sewage as well as urban and farm runoff that contaminates creeks and coastal waters, researchers have found.
And although the animals don't seem to be suffering from lack of food due to fluctuating ocean conditions, researchers say their nutrition is limited when they can't get their fill of their preferred prey - crabs, urchins, clams, abalone and mussels.
Pollution and overfishing reduce the food supply, as does heavy feeding in popular spots by the otters themselves. When the otters aren't able to get the proper food, they are less likely to successfully fight disease, scientists say.
The largest density of otters stretches from the Monterey Peninsula to Big Sur south to Morro Bay (San Luis Obispo County). The buoyant, whiskered mammals were once found from Baja California to the Oregon coast.
Fur traders, beginning in the mid-1700s, speared and shot them for their pelts. By the 1900s, the otters were thought to be extinct. It wasn't until the 1920s that a remnant colony was discovered along Big Sur when the state was excavating for a road.
The otters' numbers have been slowly rising ever since. But in recent years, the recovery has leveled off.
Researchers pay most attention to the average population numbers over a three-year period. Each season, they average the count with the two preceding years in order to minimize any year-to-year anomalies. For example, windy weather this year could have played a part in the lower count.
Still, the three-year average ending this spring shows the first drop in otter numbers since 1999.
The average ending in 2009 was 2,813 otters, compared with 2,826 the year before, a drop of 0.5 percent.
The decrease may seem small, but scientists are concerned that the population isn't healthy and growing.
Because there is much unoccupied potential habitat in which the otters could expand, scientists are perplexed as to why the otter numbers remain small. In Washington, a population that was reintroduced as recently as the late 1960s and early 1970s has grown by 10 percent to 20 percent a year.
In an odd finding, the big groups of males typically counted at the far ends of the range at the Santa Barbara Channel and near Pigeon Point south of Half Moon Bay in the last five years weren't seen in the survey between May 4 and June 11.
To researchers, it means that the otters aren't expanding along the coast as hoped. Those groups at the range's periphery are the ones that expand into new territory, Tinker said.
But the observation doesn't alarm scientists, he said, because the expansion is dynamic, with the males moving from the periphery to the center and back.
"It's not a smooth continuum. We tend to see expansion in spurts," Tinker said.
This year, scientists who conducted the census with binoculars and spotting scopes were from USGS, the California Department of Fish and Game, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Monterey Bay Aquarium. Volunteers also helped with the count.
Allison Ford, director of the nonprofit Otter Project in Marina (Santa Cruz County), issued a statement Tuesday warning that the otters' survival is at risk from biological and chemical pollutants, a shortage of nutritious food, boat strikes, fishing gear entanglement and violence from humans.
"We used to think that a big oil spill was the only problem we had to overcome to save the otters," Ford said.
"That's still important, but in the meantime, we're constricting their range, putting them in contact with deadly chemicals, and booby-trapping the waters. It's obvious that something more needs to be done."
About sea otters
Physical characteristics:Average 4 feet long; males weigh about 65 pounds, females 45 pounds. They have webbed hind feet, strong canine teeth, retractable forepaw claws, closable ears and nostrils for swimming, and dense, waterproof fur.
Habitat:Found near shore in shallow waters, generally 115 feet deep or less. Kelp beds are the ideal environment.
Diet:Carnivorous. They eat 20-25 percent of their body weight each day of invertebrates such as abalone, clams, sea urchins, crabs, barnacles, snails, squid, chitons, worms and sea stars.
Behavior: Use tools for feeding; spend hours grooming to keep fur waterproof by coating it with skin oil. Males and females usually stay in separate groups.
Sources: Friends of the Sea Otter; "Marine Mammals of California" by Robert Orr and Roger Helm; Oregon Coast Aquarium; Enchantedlearning.com
Forest Service must reinstate tougher guidelines...Peter Fimrite
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/MNMR18GNNM.DTL&type=printable
A federal judge in San Francisco Tuesday struck down national forest management rules devised by the Bush administration that environmentalists had denounced as a thinly veiled sop for timber companies.
U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilkin ruled in favor of a group of 14 environmental organizations that sued the U.S. Forest Service for essentially relaxing regulations in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and Endangered Species Act.
The decision means the Forest Service will have to reinstate rules protecting fish and wildlife and limiting logging in 150 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering 192 million acres, including more than a dozen national forests in California.
"It is a great victory for national forests," said Marc Fink, a lawyer for the Center for Biological Diversity, which was one of the plaintiffs. "We're hoping today's ruling is the final nail in the coffin for the Bush forest policies and that we can move forward and do what is right for the forests."
The National Forest Management Act passed in 1976 requires that the Forest Service adopt rules that restrict logging, protect streams and have guidelines to protect the diversity of plants and animals in each national forest.
The original Forest Service rules adopted in 1982 did just that, according to Fink. The Forest Service first tried to weaken the nationwide regulations in 2000. The Bush administration then tried to gut the wildlife protections, Fink said, disguising the changes as an attempt to reduce bureaucracy and increase flexibility.
The disputed new rules, first adopted in 2005 and then again in 2008, repealed the 1982 regulation requiring that fish and wildlife habitats be managed to maintain "viable populations" of fish and wildlife species, according to the lawsuit. This was the rule that led to restrictions on logging to protect species like the northern spotted owl.
The Bush administration rules also removed limitations on the clear-cutting of trees, requirements for buffer zones around streams during logging, and repealed regulations requiring formal environmental reviews and advance public notice before national forest plans are adopted.
The lawsuit said the regulations discarded the environmental standards envisioned by the 1976 act in favor of vague guidelines administered by local forest managers with little public oversight.
Judge Wilkin ordered the Forest Service to reinstate regulations from either 1982 or 2000 that had specific protections for fish and wildlife.
U.S. Forest Service representatives familiar with the ruling could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon, but Fink and others said they are confident Forest Service officials under President Obama will be more sympathetic than previous administrators, at least one of whom was a former timber industry lobbyist.
Fink said the court decision will affect the management plans for 14 Forest Service properties in California, including Tahoe, Modoc, Klamath, Stanislaus, Sierra, Inyo, Sequoia, Lassen and Plumas national forests.
Bay Area coastal projects to get $18 million...Kelly Zito
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BA4018GQV8.DTL&type=printable
Coastal habitat restoration projects in the Bay Area will receive nearly $18 million in federal stimulus money, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Tuesday.
Projects from Bodega Bay to San Francisco Bay will receive $1.5 million to $8.4 million each as part of a $31.1 million allocation for nine wetlands and fisheries improvement projects across California.
The $8.4 million will go to a Ducks Unlimited Inc. project aimed at demolishing former salt cultivation ponds near the mouth of the Napa River near Vallejo. About 50 workers will cut through levees in an effort to re-establish tidal flows over a 1,000-acre area and develop better habitat for threatened chinook salmon and steelhead trout, said Rudy Rosen, director of the nonprofit Ducks Unlimited regional office in Sacramento.
Other local projects are:
-- $7.6 million to open three former salt ponds on San Francisco Bay to tidal flow, as well as restarting removal of Spartina alterniflora.
-- $1.5 million to plant native vegetation and improve in-stream habitat for endangered coho salmon and threatened steelhead trout in Salmon Creek in Bodega Bay.
Wal-Mart backs health insurance directive...Charles Babington, Associated Press
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/01/BUPI18GIMJ.DTL&type=printable
Wal-Mart has embraced President Obama's call for requiring all large employers to offer health insurance to their workers, adding momentum to the president's push for far-reaching changes to the nation's health care system.
Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, announced its position in a letter to congressional and administration officials Tuesday. It was joined by a major labor union that sometimes has criticized Wal-Mart as stingy with employee benefits.
"We are for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage," the letter said. "Any alternative to an employer mandate should not create barriers to hiring entry-level employees."
That was a reference to some proposals in Congress to have employers pay the Medicaid costs of new hires. Critics say that would discourage the hiring of low-income people.
The letter was also signed by Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, which has more than a million members and counts more U.S. health workers than any other union. Also signing it was John Podesta, who headed Obama's transition team and is president of the Center for American Progress.
The letter could give a push to two efforts: Wal-Mart's bid to improve its image regarding worker treatment and Obama's plan to change the nation's health care system, including insuring virtually all Americans and controlling costs.
In recent years, SEIU and others have criticized Wal-Mart for charging relatively high premiums to its employees for health insurance and forcing them to wait up to two years for coverage.
Wal-Mart recently said that 94 percent of its employees now have insurance, either through the company or a family member.
The company has a legacy of backing conservative politicians and demanding strict efficiencies in every aspect of its business, including employee benefits. It has tried to improve employee relations in recent years and has hired some prominent Democrats to broaden its political base.
One of those, Executive Vice President Leslie Dach, said that Wal-Mart believes that the current U.S. health care system is unsustainable and that an employer insurance mandate is a cost that businesses should accept.
The letter suggested that Wal-Mart and SEIU's enthusiasm for an employer mandate might wane if the final legislation does not also include a mechanism to ensure cuts in the cost of delivering health care. "Support for a mandate also requires the strongest possible commitment to rein in health care costs," it said.
indybay.org
Peripheral Canal: Panama Canal North?
Proposed Government Boondoggle Would Be the Width of a 100 Lane Freeway!
The peripheral canal proposed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and corporate agribusiness will appoximate the size of the Panama Canal, according to Assemblymember Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo)...Dan Bacher
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/07/01/18605005.php
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, corporate agribusiness and other supporters of the peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have carefully avoided discussing what an actual canal would look like, as well as its enormous environmental impacts and budget-busting cost to the taxpayers.
However, in the size and scope of the project, it would be very similar to the Panama Canal, according to recent comments by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan on the floor on the floor when she and other legislators were asked to vote on a bill to fund a committee to develop a plan to implement the Delta Vision recommendations.
The recommendations call for a "conveyance" that will transport 15,000 cubic feet of water per second (cfs) from the Sacramento River around the Delta, according to Buchanan. This is smaller than the proposed 1982 peripheral canal that was intended to transport 22,000 cfs.
During drought years, the Sacramento River does not have 15,000 cfs. flow for over half the year. In 2007, the flow exceeded 15,000 cfs. in three months with the highest month at 22,500 cfs.
"Based on an engineering report completed in 2006, a conveyance to transport 15,000 cfs. would be between 500 and 700 feet wide requiring a 1300 foot right-of-way," said Buchanan. "That's the width of a 100 lane freeway! The length of the conveyance would be 48 miles. By comparison the Panama Canal is between 500 and 1000 feet wide and is 50 miles long."
"I'm not going to vote for a plan that builds a Panama Canal down the middle of the 15th Assembly District!" concluded Buchanan.
The Governor's Delta Vision Task Force and Bay Delta Conservation Plan both recommend the construction of a "peripheral canal" and more reservoirs designed to export more water from senior water rights holders in the Delta and Sacramento Valley to junior water rights holders that irrigate drainage-impaired, selenium-filled land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. Although the Delta Vision Task Force's report recommended that less water be exported out of the Delta to help the estuary's collapsing ecosystem, canal opponents note that the construction of a canal with increased water export capacity would inevitably be used to export more water out of the system.
I have repeatedly asked canal advocates to give me one example, in U.S. or world history, where the construction of a big diversion canal has resulted in less water being taken out of a river system. I have also asked them to give me one example, in U.S. or world history, where the construction of a big diversion canal has resulted in a restored or improved ecosystem. None of the canal backers have been able to answer either one of these two questions.
The push to build a peripheral canal occurs as Central Valley and Delta fish populations are in their greatest-ever crisis. Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish populations have declined to record low population levels in recent years, due to increased water exports and declining water quality. A broad coalition of Delta family farmers, recreational anglers, commercial fishermen, grassroots environmentalists and California Indian Tribes are opposing the peripheral canal because it is expected to push imperiled fish species over the abyss of extinction.
Schwarzenegger has cynically tried to link a deal to remove four aging dams on the Klamath River, owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Corporation, to a water bond including a peripheral canal and more dams. However, the Klamath Riverkeeper and other Klamath Basin stakeholders oppose tying the dam removal project to the construction of new dams in the Central Valley and a peripheral canal as a proposed general obligation water bond would do.
"California must support Klamath dam removal on its own merits," said Georgiana Myers, Klamath Riverkeeper Community Organizer and Yurok Tribal Member. “The Klamath dam removal deal has received support from Oregon with Senate Bill 76, and now we need Governor Schwarzenegger to step up."
Meanwhile, the word from the California State Capitol last week was that a combined hearing by the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and the Senate Natural Resources Committee regarding a host of water bills would take place on July 7, in Room 4202 at 9 a.m. However, now there is talk of the committee meeting being rescheduled for July 9. "Neither date has been finalized, making the date a 'moving target,' intentionally making it difficult for the public to plan to attend the hearing," said John Beuttler, conservation director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
"These committees plan to establish a 'Delta Water Package' that would lay the groundwork for a Dual Conveyance Facility to move water both through and around the Delta," said Beuttler. "Unfortunately, as of now, we haven’t been told exactly what bills will make the final package. However, it is understood that the bill or bills will contain a $15-20 billion dollar water bond to pay for infrastructure improvements that are likely to include the peripheral canal and at least two dams."
A big turnout of people opposed to the canal and more dams is needed at the upcoming hearing. For the latest action alerts on the movement to stop the peripheral canal and more dams, go to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA): http://www.calsport.org.
People Before Water Barons: Stop the Peripheral Canal Water Bond!...Dan Bacher
    Don't let the legislature pass a $20 billion bond
     including a peripheral canal and more dams without
     public input! Here is the latest action alert from John
     Beuttler, conservation director of the California
     Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).
     There is now talk of the combined hearing, scheduled by
     the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and
     the Senate Natural Resources Committee, being
     switched from July 7 at 9 a.m. to July 9. Neither date
     has been finalized.
Delta Water Bills threaten our fisheries while 20 Billion Dollar Bond will break California taxpayer’s backs...John Beuttler, CSPA Conservation Director
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/06/30/18604881.php
June 30, 2009 -- The word last week from the State Capitol was that a combined hearing to be held by the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and the Senate Natural Resources Committee on a host of water bills would take place on July 7, in Room 4202 at 9 a.m. However, now there is talk of the committee meeting being held instead on July 9th. Neither date has been finalized, making the date a “moving target,” intentionally making it difficult for the public to plan to attend the hearing.
These committees plan to establish a “Delta Water Package” that would lay the groundwork for a Dual Conveyance Facility to move water both through and around the Delta. Unfortunately, as of now, we haven’t been told exactly what the bills will make the final package. However, it is understood that the bill or bills will contain a $15-20 billion dollar water bond to pay for infrastructure "improvements" which are likely to include the peripheral canal and at least two dams.
This political maneuvering is public policy formation at its worst - on one of our most important state issues, the management of water. It is time to let our legislators know that we want real solutions to break dependence on Delta water exports and that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan in its present form is unacceptable to the people of the Delta.
The fact that the legislature is attempting to move a bond of 15 to 20 billion dollars through the political process without public input is shameful when you consider that the state is broke and planning to issue IOU’s with thousands of teachers being laid off, class sizes increasing, health care benefits cancelled for the most severely physically disabled, Alzheimer patients, health benefits removed for over one million children, some critically ill, and senior citizens forced to eat pet food to cover rising utility bills and now unfunded transportation costs.
While this is an unusual process that’s still evolving, we do know the following:
• The public will have less than a week to find out what bills will be in the package, what they will do, and who will pay for it.
• This could be the only hearing before the bills are heard on the Assembly and Senate floors where, if passed, they would go to the Governor.
• None of these bills fund or include the restoration of our salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, striped bass or other fisheries dependent on the Delta and that are in collapse.
• No fishery restoration plans are in place to be use even if funding were made available.
• The bills fail to provide a solution to the state’s fundamental problem of over exploiting the Delta’s finite water resources.
• None of the bills provide for the significant improvements in water conservation, recycling, and management to significantly reduce the demand on the Delta’s waters needed to begin to restore the productivity of the ecosystem.
CSPA is asking that you plan to attend the hearing and show your support to demand the restoration of the Delta and its fisheries before it too late and insist that the issue of a water bond be put before the voting public! Those who can’t attend should call their State Assembly Member and Senator and ask them to stop this end run.
You can find your senator or assemblyman, their phone numbers and addresses by going to the following website:
http://192.234.213.69/amapsearch/framepage.asp
Los Angeles Times
EPA targets nitrogen dioxide emissions near freeways...Amy Littlefield, Greenspace
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2009/06/no2-asthma-air-toxics-.html
The rest of the country may be catching up to California when it comes to limiting emissions of the air toxin nitrogen dioxide.
The EPA last Friday proposed to strengthen the limits on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), an air toxin that the agency says can lead to respiratory illnesses. Nitrogen dioxide is found in emissions from traffic and industrial facilities such as power plants. Even short-term exposure can increase the risk of respiratory effects, particularly among children, the elderly, and people with asthma, according to the EPA.
California already limits NO2 emissions to 30 parts per billion on average annually, while the federal limit would stay at 53 ppb per year under the new regulations.
However, California's hourly average limit for NO2 emissions is 180 parts per billion, while the EPA has proposed hourly limits of 80-100 parts per billion, and is taking comments on hourly limits as low as 65 ppb and as high as 150 ppb. The EPA is also proposing the use of a different format for calculating hourly averages.
The hourly limits are meant to curb the concentrated short term exposures that communities near highways might experience during peak traffic hours. Concentrations of NO2 are 30%-100% higher near major roads, according to Cathy Milbourn, a spokeswoman for EPA.
The federal proposal would also require states to implement monitoring devices for NO2 emissions particularly targeted at measuring emissions around major roads in areas with large urban populations -- a key issue for Los Angeles, where dense housing and schools are crowded close to freeways.
“We’re updating these standards to build on the latest scientific data and meet changing health protection needs,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “In addition to limiting annual average concentrations, we’re preventing high NO2 levels for shorter periods of time and adding stronger monitoring in areas near roadways, where the highest levels of NO2 are often found. This will fill gaps in the current standard and provide important additional protections where they are needed most.”
California health advocates greeted the proposal with mixed sentiments. "We are pleased with the EPA proposing for the first time a one hour NO2 standard, but we do think it needs to be strengthened to protect kids with respiratory illnesses like asthma," said Bonnie Holmes-Gen, senior policy director at the American Lung Assn. of California. Holmes-Gen suggested that the EPA should follow California's example by limiting the yearly average for NO2 emissions to 30 parts per billion.
The proposal marks the first time in over 35 years that the EPA has strengthened the NO2 limits.
The proposed limits were released just days after a study found a connection between traffic-related nitrogen oxide pollution and the major birth complication preeclampsia.
A public hearing is slated for Los Angeles in August. The public has 60 days to comment on the proposal.
Unions hope to organize Inland Empire warehouse workers
A labor coalition known as Change to Win is focusing on the vast warehouse and distribution hub in the region, which handles goods from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach...Ronald D. White
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-warehouse1-2009jul01,0,5218981,print.story
The Inland Empire has become a new battleground for unions looking to organize warehouse workers and broaden labor's clout in international trade, a $300-billion industry in the Southland.
The fledgling movement is backed by a coalition of unions with more than 6 million members known as Change to Win. That's the national labor group that broke with the AFL-CIO in 2005 and includes the Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the United Farm Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, among others.
The unions' targets are warehouse and distribution centers in the Inland Empire counties of San Bernardino and Riverside, which together make up one of the nation's biggest logistics networks. The facilities handle much of the container cargo that moves through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the busiest trade gateway in the United States.
"They want to start here because there is such a large concentration of the industry here. It's a great sandbox and it would be a real coup if they do it," said John Husing, an economist who specializes in the Inland Empire goods-movement industry.
Nearly 2,900 warehouses of at least 50,000 square feet each dot the Inland Empire. The facilities, which employ nearly 113,000 people, are operated by hundreds of companies, including some of the nation's largest retailers.
The unions' strategy is to try to build broad-based community support for better working conditions for warehouse workers, much in the way that labor was able to convince businesses that janitors were being treated unfairly.
"It is a huge, monumental task. You cannot do this one warehouse at a time," Tom Woodruff, organizing director of Change to Win, said from his office in Washington. "There needs to be a general union movement. We expect to have a long-term campaign there." Retailers said the best way to raise living standards for workers is through a strong industry and a vibrant U.S. economy.
"If we are concerned, we are concerned about efforts in Washington that would change the rules for union organization," said Rob Green, vice president for government and political affairs at the National Retail Federation.
Green was referring to federal legislation backed by Change to Win that would make it far easier for workers to join unions.
The organizing effort comes at a tough time for the warehouse and distribution industry, which has long been one of the region's most dependable sources of jobs.
Warehouses in the Inland Empire added nearly 40,000 positions from 2000 to 2007, Husing said.
But international trade has been slammed by the recession, and Husing said warehouse employment has fallen 6.7% from the peak in 2007, with most of those losses coming this year.
If the organizing movement gains traction, he said, it might prompt some of the nation's biggest and best-known retailers to move their warehouses to parts of the country where costs are lower.
The unions see the economic downturn as an opportunity to make inroads with blue-collar employees, who they say haven't shared in the tremendous wealth generated by international trade.
Woodruff said retailers increasingly are outsourcing their distribution work to independent delivery companies and temporary agencies that offer low wages and few benefits.
That's hurting the livelihoods of workers such as Olga Romero, 55, of Fontana.
Since the recession took hold, Romero said, she has gone from working directly for a retailer that offered healthcare coverage and other benefits to accepting lower-paying jobs obtained through temporary-placement agencies. And even that work has dried up.
"I had paid vacation, a 401(k), but since I started working through temporary agencies, there have been no benefits and I have not been able to earn much more than $8 an hour," Romero said. "Since January, I have not been able to find any work at all."
A labor group calling itself Warehouse Workers United is handling the local organizing effort.
This year it has held a series of demonstrations. It has blocked the entrance of a Wal-Mart warehouse, organized a sit-in and picket line at a temporary-employment agency and blocked an intersection used by several warehouses in Ontario.
The group has yet to unionize a single workplace, but a spokesman said the struggle had just begun.
"We're not expecting to get these workers into the middle class this year, but we think our momentum is growing," said Nick Allen, campaign coordinator for Warehouse Workers United. "The workers are hungry."

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7-1-09