Dan Bacher's blog

Marine Protected Areas – Or Paper Reserves?

by Dan Bacher

There is considerable consensus among Californians that the ocean ecosystem in the state's coastal waters must be protected and managed in a sustainable and responsible manner.

Where the disagreement comes is the type and scope of protection that will be provided. The essential problem is that the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, privatized under the administration of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, doesn't provide the comprehensive, holistic protection that is now needed to preserve marine ecosystems.

MLPA Initiative proponents falsely portray representatives of fishing groups and other critics of the process as “opponents of ocean protection” and proponents of “overfishing."

Nothing could be further from the truth. Recreational fishing groups that I have worked with led the charge to restrict gillnetting, trammel netting, longlining and other fishing methods along the coast to protect rockfish, halibut and other species, as well as working with Tribes, environmentalists and commercial fishermen to restore salmon and Delta fish populations.

Water contractors sue to block commercial salmon season

by Dan Bacher

The San Joaquin River Group Authority, a group of water contractors including Central Valley agribusiness interests and the city of San Francisco, is suing the federal government to block the commercial salmon fishing season off the California coast.

They filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in Fresno May 5, just four days after the first normal commercial season in four years began.

The Pacfic Fishery Management Council (PFMC) opened the commercial season this year, based on a predicted ocean abundance by federal fishery biologists of over 700,000 fish.

The growers claim that allowing the commercial salmon harvest could impact their irrigation water supplies –and criticized the federal government for allowing the full season, in spite of a history of “over predicting adult spawning escapement.

The Protect Glen Cove Commitee is encouraging people to show up at Sogarea Te Thursday and Friday to support the Native American occupation to protect the ancient burial site from desecration by the City of Valley and the Greater Vallejo Recreation District (GVRD).

Wounded Knee DeOcampo and the rest of the committee are also asking all of their supporters to please take a moment to send emails and letters to the Native American Heritage Commission, to make it clear to them that there is widespread support for our efforts to protect their ancestors at Glen Cove by preventing the current development plan from proceeding. Below are all of the details:

GVRD is not only still refusing to meet with the Protect Glen Cove Committee, they are also declining to sign the agreement produced from an initial meeting on April 18th, in which some basic understandings between GVRD and the Committee were established regarding the vigil at Sogorea Te, according to the Protect Glen Cove Committee.

*** DAY 14 UPDATE - Supporters requested Thursday-Friday

A contractor came by today who told us that his job is to paint a poison chemical treatment on the stumps of waterfront trees at Glen Cove, once the Atlas Tree Service cuts them down.

Grassroots Advocates Created Momentum in Packed Hearings

by Dan Bacher

Tuesday, April 26 was a great day for the future of safe drinking water in California, where many rural and urban communities lack drinkable water.

Safe water advocates from across the state hailed the passage of AB685, the Human Right to Water bill, by an overwhelming margin in the Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee and the passage of four additional bills in the Human Right to Water bill package - AB938, AB 983, AB1187 and AB1221 - in the Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee.

Representatives of impacted California communities who testified at the bill hearings include Mark Franco, headman of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe; Susana De Anda and Laurel Firestone of the Community Water Center, with Coachella and Tulare County residents; and Debbie Davis from the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, with Maywood residents. Reverend Lindi Ramsden, Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry of California, and Shelley Moskowitz, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, also testified in support of the legislation.

Congress Defunds Wasteful Catch Shares Program

by Dan Bacher

Washington, DC – In a big victory for commercial and recreational fishermen, the U.S. Congress on April 14 voted to defund the "catch shares" program, a controversial and wasteful fisheries management fiasco.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, said the program has been "blocking access to fish for thousands of smaller scale fishermen, destroying eir livelihoods and our coastal and fishing communities."

The widely-contested "catch shares" program on the East and West Coasts, a pet project of Dr. Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator, serves to privatize public trust resources by concentrating ocean fisheries in a few corporate hands.

This amendment, offered by Representative Walter Jones of North Carolina, is part of the FY2011 budget that President Barack Obama signed into law on April 15.

Sacred Site Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes (SSP&RIT)

For Immediate Release:

As Bulldozers May Arrive Any Day at Ancient Burial Site,
Native Americans To Occupy Sacred Land at Glen Cove in Vallejo
Spiritual Ceremony and Occupation Beginning Friday, April 15, 2011 at 8 am

Vallejo, California (April 14, 2011) – Faced with the imminent arrival of bulldozers at the Native American sacred burial site at Glen Cove, Vallejo, members of the local Native American community will hold a religious ceremony to commence an occupation of Sogorea Te, otherwise known as Glen Cove, in the City of Vallejo beginning at 8 am on Friday, April 15, 2011. Native Americans and their supporters have vowed to physically block bulldozers or any other work that would desecrate the burial site.

Native American activists consider this to be the last stand in a struggle that has been going on for over a decade, since the Greater Vallejo Recreation District (GVRD) first proposed plans for a “fully featured public park” including construction of a paved parking lot, paved hiking trails, 1000 pound picnic tables and a public restroom on top of the 3500 year old burial site.

Group reminds McClintock: Delta farmers are excluded from water discussions

by Dan Bacher

For the past several years, corporate agribusiness Astroturf groups and their political allies have falsely claimed that protections for Central Valley salmon and Delta smelt have caused “massive unemployment” in the San Joaquin Valley.

At the April 11 field hearing in Fresno, entitled “Creating Jobs by Overcoming Man-Made Drought: Time for Congress to Listen and Act, Representative Tom McClintock (R-Rocklin), Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Subcommittee on Water and Power, attempted to make the case that a “man-made drought” is the reason behind record unemployment in the Central Valley.

In doing so, McClintock echoed the rhetoric of agribusiness Astroturf groups, including the Latino Water Coalition and Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, claiming that Delta pumping restrictions to protect Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt and other imperiled species have created a “New Dust Bowl” that has caused “massive unemployment” in the San Joaquin Valley.

Help protect fish and waterways from agricultural pollution!

by Dan Bacher

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger squandered two big opportunities to improve water quality in California during his term in office.

First, his Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, in violation of the letter and intent of the original law, took water quality, oil spills and drilling, corporate aquaculture, military testing, wave energy projects, habitat destruction and all other human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering off the table in its bizarre concept of "protection." This resulted in the effective evisceration of the Marine Life Protection Act, a landmark law designed to provide comprehensive protection through the creation of a network of "marine protected areas" on the coast.

Second, as his privately funded MLPA Initiative moved forward, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board under the Schwarzenegger regime in 2006 ceded administration of the state's water quality law to industry advocacy groups that will continue to shield agricultural dischargers.

The Planning and Conservation League (PCL) has issued an urgent action alert to protect California's premiere environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In February, Senator Canella introduced SB 241—a measure that would allow 125 projects to receive immunity from CEQA. Now he is working as part of the "GOP Five" on a more sweeping proposal attempting to attack CEQA from all angles.
Urgent Action Alert from the Planning and Conservation League (PCL):

Take Action to Protect California’s Premiere Environmental Law

Ask Gov. Brown to stop the GOP Five from gutting CEQA TODAY

March 24, 2011

Exploiting the hardships caused by the economic climate and the state budget crisis, special interests are redoubling their efforts to pass legislation that would dismantle the Golden State’s premiere environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Developers and business groups are spinning California’s high rates of unemployment to claim an inherent conflict between job creation and the protection of our environment and public health.

by Dan Bacher

The California Fish and Game Commission will discuss the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative on the North Coast, recreational salmon fishing regulations for the Klamath-Trinity River system and recreational salmon fishing regulations for the Sacramento River and tributaries during its meeting in Folsom April 6 and 7.

The meeting will be held at the Lake Natoma Inn, 702 Gold Lake Drive, Sierra Ballroom, Folsom.

On Thursday, April 7 at 9:30 am, John Laird, Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency is scheduled to provide an update (item 15A) regarding North Coast marine protected areas under the MLPA Initiative.

That will be followed by an update (item 15B) on the Department Fish and Game (DFG) feasibility analysis regarding North Coast marine protected areas under the MLPA Initiative.

Sacramento winter and spring run chinook salmon numbers plummet
by Dan Bacher

The National Marine Fisheries Service forecasts an ocean abundance of 729,893 Sacramento fall chinooks this year, based on modeling derived from a 2010 jack (two-year-old) salmon escapement to Central Valley rivers in 2010, while the winter and spring runs continue to decline.

Due to the increased fall salmon abundance, recreational and commercial fishermen will see more liberal salmon seasons on the California and southern Oregon coast this year. The recreational salmon fishing season will open on Saturday, April 2 in ocean waters from Horse Mountain in Humboldt County to the U.S./Mexico border.

Below is a short article by Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), posted on their website (www.calsport.org) regarding Wanger’s approval of the striper lawsuit settlement. On the website, he also attached the Moyle, Bennett and Ostrach’ letters on striped bass predation and Moyle’s blog article on the issue.

DFG Caves Yet Again; Capitulates on Striped Bass Protection

by Bill Jennings

On March 17, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger approved a settlement agreement between the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta (Coalition) regarding the Coalition’s lawsuit over DFGs striped bass fishing regulations.

Marine Protected Areas – Or Paper Reserves?

by Dan Bacher

Warner Chabot, in his article in the California Progress Report on March 16, affirms that we have “a responsibility to ensure” that the ocean “is managed sustainably and responsibly.”

Just about everybody can agree that we need to manage the ocean “sustainably and responsibly.” Where the disagreement comes is the type and scope of protection that will be provided. The essential problem is that the MLPA Initiative doesn't provide the comprehensive, holistic protection that is now needed to preserve marine ecosystems.

Chabot, the CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters, and other MLPA Initiative proponents falsely portray representatives of fishing groups and other critics of the process as “opponents of ocean protection” and proponents of “overfishing."

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indigenous peoples and fishermen fighting California’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative are part of an accelerating global movement against what activists say are thinly disguised attempts to fulfill the agenda of corporate globalization and the privatization of public trust resources.

In California, fishermen, environmentalists and Indian Tribes are pitted against MLPA officials and corporate environmental NGO representatives who are imposing marine protected areas along the coast from the Oregon border to the U.S.–Mexico border.

The rights of indigenous people and fishing families are rarely considered in the creation of these no-fishing and -gathering zones, be they installed in the Chagos Islands by the United Kingdom, the Sea of Cortez by the Mexican government or along the California coast under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s MLPA.