Dan Bacher's blog

Twenty-one marine protected areas (MPAs) - dubbed "Marine Poaching Areas" by many game wardens because of the lack of enforcement staff to patrol new reserves - will take effect May 1, 2010 along California's north central coast.

Schwarzenegger's North Central MLPA Closures Begin May 1

by Dan Bacher

Twenty-one marine protected areas (MPAs) - dubbed "Marine Poaching Areas" by many game wardens because of the lack of enforcement staff to patrol the new reserves - will take effect May 1, 2010 along California's north central coast.

The regulations for the controversial marine reserves between Alder Creek near Point Arena in Mendocino County to Pigeon Point in San Mateo County were adopted by the California Fish and Game Commission in August 2009 and approved by the Office of Administrative Law in April 2010.

Supporters of AB 1594 are very disappointed that such a simple, straightforward bill, designed to stop Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's peripheral canal from being built without legislative oversight and a fiscal analysis, didn't receive a second motion from the Committee members.

Bill to Stop Peripheral Canal Killed In Committee

by Dan Bacher

A bill introduced by Assemblymember Alyson Huber to require a full legislative vote to approve any proposed peripheral canal around the California Delta was killed in its first policy hearing today for lack of a second motion to take a vote.

“Today, California lost the opportunity to ensure accountability and oversight of any proposed peripheral canal," said Huber. "The intention of AB 1594 was not to reopen the debate about last year’s water package, but to add a critical piece missing from the process - legislative oversight and a fiscal analysis of any conveyance proposal."

The bill, heard in Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife, was supported by Senator Mark DeSaulnier (Co-Author) Assemblymember Wes Chesbro (Co-Author) Assemblymember Paul Fong (Co-Author), Assemblymember Ted Gaines (Co-Author), Assemblymember Tom Torlakson (Co-Author) and Assemblymember Mariko Yamada (Co-Author).

Commission Delays Approval Of Limited Central Valley Salmon Season

by Dan Bacher

The California Fish and Game Commission today voted to delay the approval of a limited recreational salmon fishing season on Central Valley rivers until the next Commission meeting on May 5, but unanimously approved a recreational season on the Klamath River and the ocean salmon season adopted by the Pacific Fishery Management Council on April 15.

During the teleconference in Sacramento, Neil Manji, Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Fisheries Branch Chief, said the delay in adoption of regulations for the Central Valley rivers was necessary to simplify the regulations as much as possible and to incorporate the late fall run Chinook salmon season into the regulations.

The PFMC decided on April 15 to allow the harvest of 8200 fish in the Sacramento, American and Feather rivers in a limited season, based on a projection of 245,000 ocean abundance of Sacramento River Chinook this year by federal fishery scientists. The 8200 fish allocation includes 1,000 from the Feather, 1,000 from the American River, 3600 from the lower Sacramento below Knights Landing and 2600 from the upper Sacramento from Knights Landing to the Deschutes Road Bridge.

Huber Reintroduces Bill To Stop The Peripheral Canal

by Dan Bacher

Assemblymember Alyson Huber (D-El Dorado Hills) has reintroduced a bill, AB 1594, that would prevent construction of a peripheral canal around the California Delta without a full fiscal analysis and a vote of the legislature.

Huber's bill prohibits the construction of a peripheral canal - defined to include any facility or structure that conveys water directly from a diversion point in the Sacramento River to SWP or CVP pumping facilities south of the Delta - unless expressly authorized by the Legislature. It further requires the Legislative Analyst's Office to complete an economic feasibility analysis prior to the enactment of a statute authorizing the construction of a peripheral canal, according to Jane Wagner-Tyack, Policy Analyst for Restore the Delta.

The bill would also require that the construction and operation of a peripheral canal "not diminish or negatively affect the water supplies, water rights, or quality of water for water users within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed."

"Last November's water package completely omits legislative oversight, merely leaving it to the Delta Stewardship Council to decide whether the BDCP is consistent with the co-equal goals of water supply and ecosystem restoration for the Delta," said Wagner-Tyack.

By Dan Bacher

Political satire in the United States will officially die tonight, April 14.

That’s when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Chief Prosecuting Attorney for the Hudson Riverkeeper, will honor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history, for his “environmental advocacy.”

Schwarzenegger will be honored at the “Riverkeeper’s Annual Fishermen’s Ball” at Pier Sixty on the Hudson River in New York City at a dinner fundraiser that will begin at 6:30 p.m. Spike Lee will also present an award to HBO during the event (http://www.riverkeeper.org/news-events/events/rvk-events/the-fishermens-...).

No late night comedian, inflammatory radio talk show host or other practitioner of political satire could come up with a scenario this bizarre no matter how they try. Reality, particularly in Schwarzenegger’s California, has become a self-parody, a living satirical comedy that knows no bounds.

In an interview with Dan Wiessner of the Tarrytown-Sleepy Hollow Patch, an unnamed Riverkeeper official "shrugged off" criticisms by environmentalists and fishermen that the Hudson Riverkeeper is greenwashing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's abysmal environmental record by honoring him for his "environmental advocacy" at the "Fishermen's Ball" in New York City on April 14.

“The governor’s work speaks for itself. He’s recognized across the world for his work in combating global climate change,” the official said.

The Riverkeeper is honoring Schwarzenegger in spite of the fact that he is the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history. Schwarzenegger has presided over the unprecedented collapse of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, threadfin shad, Sacramento splittail and striped bass populations. He has continually attacked the biological opinions protecting salmon and Delta smelt while campaigning for a peripheral canal and new dams that is likely to result in the extinction of many of these species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas.

Judge Wanger Affirms Flows to Protect Central Valley Salmon

by Dan Bacher

Environmentalists, fishermen and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe scored a legal victory on March 31 when a federal judge affirmed restrictions on Delta pumping to protect imperiled Central Valley salmon populations.

In a rebuke to junior water rights holders, Judge Oliver Wanger of the Eastern District of California refused to grant the Westlands Water District and its co-plaintiffs a temporary restraining order on the biological opinion of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The opinion includes seasonal water flows required to protect Sacramento River endangered spring-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead in the California Delta, according to the Planning and Conservation League (PCL).

Despite claims to contrary from the plaintiffs, the Judge found that the NMFS opinion, expressed in written comments to the Delta Flow Criteria Proceeding as the absolute "…minimum flows necessary to avoid jeopardy," was based on the best available science and takes the human impacts of seasonal flow regimes into account.

The Salmon Summit was a huge success and now you can see it in this new Salmon Water Now! video. This is the first of a few videos that will feature what happened at Fort Mason in San Francisco on April 1st. Future videos will show the panel discussions and media coverage. The video is only available on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/10663392

Salmon Summit: Listen to Us! from Bruce Tokars on Vimeo.

The Salmon Summit: Listen to Us!

by Dan Bacher

Commercial salmon fishermen, recreational anglers and business owners who have been devastated by more than two years of no salmon fishing came from throughout California and Oregon on a beautiful spring day to participate in the Salmon Summit at Fort Mason in San Francisco on April 1. More than 500 men, women, and children showed up to demand that the state and federal governments take action to restore collapsing populations of salmon, according to Bruce Tokars of Salmon Water Now!

Agency Says In Spite Of Threat of Extinction, It’s Business As Usual!

by Dan Bacher

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on April 2 that it is uplisting the Delta smelt, an indicator species found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, from “threatened” to “endangered” status.

However, in spite of the higher level of protected status, the agency appears to be saying that no further actions will be taken beyond those that are being done now.

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced that, based on accumulated scientific data, the delta smelt warrants uplisting from ‘threatened’ to ‘endangered’ under the Endangered Species Act but that uplisting at this time is precluded by the need to address higher priority species first,” a news release from the service's Sacramento office stated.

What the heck? The fish is right on the abyss of extinction, but there are other “higher priority” species that need to be addressed first? What species are these? Westlands growers or Southern California water agency officials?

by Dan Bacher

An oil industry lobbyist who chairs a panel in charge of developing controversial marine reserves on the Southern California Coast this week called for new oil drilling in California ocean waters.

Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), told the San Francisco Chronicle that she hopes the Obama administration “will eventually allow new drilling off the California coast." (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/03/31/MNU41CO3O4.DTL)

"We are disappointed," Reheis-Boyd said, in response to Obama’s announcement Wednesday that the U.S. will begin drilling for oil in the waters off the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. "When you look at the resources here, they're considerable."

Reheis-Boyd is chair of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast. She also sat on the MLPA Task Force for the North Central Coast and now sits on the task force for the North Coast.

Critics of her appointment to the panels believe that she has been placed there to protect the oil industry’s interests – and to make sure that so-called “Marine Protected Areas” don’t conflict with the operation of existing offshore oil rigs or the installation of new rigs if the Obama administration lifts the ban on oil drilling off the California coast.

North Coast Tribes Pressure MLPA Officials to Address Tribal Use Policy

by Dan Bacher

The issue of tribal rights and uses of ocean resources is now coming to a head in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's fast track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process.

The MLPA initiative, after being suspended for lack of funding, was reinitated with private funding by the Resource Legacy Fund Foundation in 2004. MLPA officials until recently refused to address and respect traditional cultural subsistence, ceremonial and other customary uses of marine resources by California Indian Tribes.

The Schwarzenegger administration has already imposed no-take reserves in the North Central Coast and Central Coast regions without proper consultation with Indian Tribes living in both regions. For example, the California Fish and Game Commission on August 5, 2009 voted for a marine reserve package that will ban the Kashia Pomo Tribe and others from harvesting abalone, mussels and seaweed off Stewarts Point as they have done for centuries.

Fishermen, Congressional Leaders to Rally at Salmon Summit

by Dan Bacher

Fishermen and Congressional leaders will rally to demand action to rebuild the West’s iconic salmon industry at the First Annual Salmon Summit on Thursday, April 1, from 10 am – 2 pm at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.

The summit will feature a hearing about the devastating costs of the closure of the last two salmon fishing seasons, spurred by record water exports from the California Delta, on families along 1,000 miles of America’s coast. It will provide a forum to discuss long-term solutions to better manage the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary, the backbone of fishing for Chinook salmon in California and Oregon.

Winnemem Wintu Leaders in New Zealand to Call McCloud Salmon Home

by Dan Bacher

Two dozen members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe are now on a spiritual mission in New Zealand to ask Chinook salmon native to the McCloud River, a tributary of the Sacramento River, to return home to northern California.

Tribal representatives will gather on the banks of the Rakaia River, in Canterbury, on Sunday, March 28 to apologize to the winter run Chinook salmon - a species that was introduced to the river over 100 years ago. The winter Chinook is also known as "quinnat" in New Zealand.

At the culmination of a four-day ceremony, tribal members will perform the "nur chonas winyupus" or middle water salmon dance, according to a news release from Tourism New Zealand.

It's hard to believe, but the Hudson Riverkeeper is honoring Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the "Fish Terminator," for his "environmental advocacy." What wacky parallel universe does the "leadership" of the Riverkeeper inhabit?

Riverkeeper Greenwashes Schwarzenegger's Abysmal Environmental Record

by Dan Bacher

The Hudson Riverkeeper is honoring Arnold Schwarzenegger, the worst Governor for fish and the environment in California history, for his "environmental advocacy" at the "Riverkeeper's Annual Fishermen's Ball" on April 14. " This is absurd as Henry Kissinger receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, it's akin to giving Pol Pot an award for his human rights record!

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro – Hunter S. Thompson

Schwarzenegger’s MLPA Initiative Officials Can’t Ever Get It Right

By Dan Bacher

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process is an absurd parody of marine "protection" that provides journalists like myself with bizarre stories that almost write themselves.

Over the past year, a contract boat mapping zones for the MLPA killed a blue whale off Fort Bragg, the Governor appointed an oil industry superstar to chair the Blue Ribbon Task Force for the South Coast, and numerous examples of corruption and conflicts of interests have been emerged in the process.