Distilled critique of DWR’s latest escapade at its public transparency charade

By Patrick Porgans, Solutionist

Dan Bacher’s article regarding “First Amendment Project: barring public from filming a BDCP public meeting is illegal”, makes interesting reading, along with the First Amendment Project’s legalese as to whether a person can video-tape a public meeting.

The Department of Water Resources' (DWR) Public Information Officer, Nancy Vogel, did precisely what she is paid to do -- damage control. DWR's hyperbole, it is all about “transparency”, is simply public-relation rhetoric. When it comes to accepting meaningful public input DWR officials have a long track record of operating in a vacuum. Anyone that has had dealings with DWR officials see right through Vogel’s and her predecessor’s revolving-door 1970s “pantyhose one-size-fit-all” stretch the truth phenomenon; i.e., if one simply ignored the historical facts and DWR's lack-luster performance, and is mindful that to government employees like Vogel, it is just a job that pays the mortgage, then, perhaps this critique will assist in clarifying the department’s interpretation of transparency.

DWR's blatant disregard for meaningful public input is a well established fact; it is all a matter of public record. A classic example of how DWR welcomed public input was exemplified in the County of Butte, the major source of the SWP supply, wherein DWR officials and their water contractors treatment of citizens that opposed DWR's SWP Oroville facilities relicensing program was despicable. During those proceeding DWR told public participants that they were legally required to sign a “confidentiality agreement” that they would not discuss certain issues pertaining to its relicensing project. Planetary Solutionaries and Porgans & Associates were participants in the relicensing process, and challenged DWR to provide the legal basis for such a requirement. As it turned out, DWR just made it up.

It is general knowledge that DWR is rife with conflicts of interest, as a water purveyor and as a trustee of the public’s water project, and the manner in which it conducts the public's business and disdain for meaningful public input has and remains DWR’s modus operandi (MO). DWR will undoubtedly continue its MO, unless, someone steps up to the plate and take action to hold it accountable, which is exactly what Planetary Solutionaries have and will continue to do.

Brown administration bars reporter from public meeting on tunnels 

by Dan Bacher 

On March 2, 2012, California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird and Deputy Secretary of Interior David Hayes committed themselves to making sure that the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels was an “open and transparent" process. 

“Our agencies are taking actions to ensure a fair, open and transparent process, and the opportunity for input by all interested parties in the development of this plan to address the future of California’s Bay Delta and water supply,” they wrote in a letter to then State Senator Michael J. Rubio, who in February resigned from office in order to take a “government affairs” position at Chevron. (http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/Libraries/Dynamic_Document_Library/Resources_Agency_and_DOI_Letter_to_Legislature-BDCP_MOA_3-2-12.sflb.ashx) 

Yet, the Brown and Obama administrations have gone in the exact opposite direction from the one they committed to on that date, going so far as to bar members of the news media from recording a public meeting to answer Delta residents’ questions and concerns about the controversial project to build twin peripheral tunnels. 

Restore the Delta on Friday released a video shot by a business reporter who attended the BDCP "office hours" the Brown administration held at the Brentwood Library on September 3. 

The "office hours" were public meetings advertised as an opportunity to get answers to Delta landowners’ concerns, according to Restore the Delta (RTD). For more information, go to http://www.restorethedelta.org http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/brown-administration-bars-reporter-from-public-meeting-on-tunnels/

State Water Boards and Health Department runs afoul of Clean/Safe Water Acts

by Patrick Porgans and Lloyd Carter
Wednesday Sep 4th, 2013 5:35 PM

The following is Part Two of a story posted at http://www.lloydgcarter.com on May 22. This part concerns California's abysmal efforts to meet goals set by the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act. For more information, contact Patrick Porgans pp [at] planetarysolutionaries.org.

Forty-one years ago, a united Congress overrode President Nixon's veto of the Clean Water Act (CWA), which ordered states to limit pollutants in the nation's waterways. Coupled with subsequent amendments, the CWA required all states to assess and establish Total Maximum Daily Limits (TMDLs) of pollutants for lakes, creeks, rivers, estuaries and ocean shorelines. If the states wouldn't do it, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) “could” step in and impose safety limits.

Some 41 years down the road and California still has a long ways to go in assessing and establishing TMDLs statewide. EPA’s latest published report indicate that only 16 percent of the State’s rivers and stream were assessed; 84 percent classified as “water-quality impaired”. Ten percent of those rivers and streams were classified as “good”, the remainder 90 percent impaired.
Source: http://iaspub.epa.gov/waters10/attains_state.control?p_state=CA#APRTMDLS

“California has some of the most magnificent rivers, lakes and coastal waters in the country. However, of its 3.0 million acres of lakes, bays, wetlands and estuaries, 1.6 million acres are not meeting water quality goals, and 1.4 million acres still need a pollution clean-up plan, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). Of the 215,000 miles of shoreline, streams and rivers, 30,000 miles are not meeting water quality goals, and 20,000 miles still need a TMDL. The most common contaminants in these waterways are pesticides and bacteria, followed by metals and nutrients,” according to EPA. [Refer to Part I: Dirty little secrets about CWA.]

Indeed, the State Water Resources Control Board (State Board) and the state Department of Public Health (DPH), based on their performance and track-record, are playing Russian-Roulette with citizens' lives, given that dangerous toxins and poisons continue to plague public drinking supplies and the waters of the state, decade after decade. Getting all of California's rivers, lakes, estuaries and ocean shorelines clean enough to drink or swim in may be decades away.

The goal of the CWA was to make U.S. waterways fishable and swimmable by 1983 and to achieve “zero” discharge of pollutants to waterways by 1985. The historical records and the current status of the widespread pollution of the public’s streams, rivers, lakes, reservoirs and ground water basins are a testament to the manner in which both the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) of 1972 and Safe Drinking Water Act (SDA) of 1974 are “managed” by California water officials.

Four decades and an estimated expenditure of $40 billion of federal taxpayer funds and state borrowed money under the guise of “Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking water supply”, California’s waterways remain contaminated, and, according to the data, the problem is getting worse.                                                                                                                                                             

Trends in toxicity have increased by 170 percent since 2006

Increased water monitoring data shows the number of rivers, streams and lakes in California exhibiting overall toxicity have increased 170 percent from 2006 to 2010. Source: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/F2D3C71584D71DE4852579260068780E

More of California’s waterways are toxically polluted/water quality impaired than previously known, according to a list of polluted waterways submitted by the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and finalized by the agency. The data indicate an increase in toxicity and listing of water impaired bodies will continue to rise. The State Board and regional water boards administer the provisions of the CWA under an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Read more.http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/09/04/18742716.php

Wolk introduces bond to fund state water projects

By Enterprise staff
From page A1 | August 14, 2013 | 8 Comments

State Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, introduced a $5.6 billion water bond Tuesday to provide funding for projects to address the state’s water needs.

“SB 42 is a fresh approach to this bond discussion,” said Wolk, who chairs the Senate Governance and Finance Committee and the Select Committee on Delta Stewardship and Sustainability.

“It focuses on funding the most effective, broadly supported projects that will meet the state’s most urgent water needs. At roughly half the amount of the $11.14 billion water bond currently slated for the 2014 ballot, this proposal is much more realistic.”

Senate Bill 42, The Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality & Flood Protection Act of 2014, provides funding for projects that provide safe drinking water to those Californians who still do not have access to this basic resource, improve water supply reliability while decreasing demand on the state’s most stressed watershed, advance community support ecosystem restoration and improve levees in the delta.

The projects funded by the bond will benefit all regions of the state. Specifically, SB 42 addresses needs for the following:
* Regional water supply development around the state;
* Safe and clean drinking water;
* Delta community-supported ecosystem restoration and levee enhancement in the delta;
* Funding for watershed and ecosystem projects around the state;
* Support for development of groundwater and surface water storage to the extent that those facilities
   will provide public benefits; and
* Flood protection in the Central Valley.

“SB 42 will address the needs of the more than 2 million Californians who don’t have access to clean drinking water, and the more than 1 million Californians who are not adequately protected from catastrophic flood risk, while at the same time addressing the crisis in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta,” Wolk said.

The delta is a fertile agricultural region and is the largest estuary in the Western Hemisphere, said the senator, who represents four of the five counties in the delta.

“This is a bond I believe my colleagues and voters can support,” she added.

EPA approves state's revised drinking water plan

 By Emily Foxhall

July 24, 2013

After threatening to cut off funding to California earlier this spring because the state had been so slow to improve its drinking water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved the state’s revised spending plan.

“I think as a result of this process, Californians can be more assured that their infrastructure needs are being met,” said EPA regional administrator Jared Blumenfeld.

In April, the EPA issued a noncompliance warning to the California Department of Public Health, amid complaints that funds were not being distributed promptly or efficiently. Californians in many communities have suffered from a lack of potable water while the state left $455 million in federal funds unspent and failed to pursue an additional $260 million in loan repayments, EPA officials found.

Meanwhile, many residents in low-income communities were forced to buy bottled water or drive many miles to get safe tap water.

The state submitted its “corrective action plan” on June 24. The EPA requested that the state revise and clarify various aspects, and a new plan was submitted on July 12.

Under the new commitments approved Tuesday, the state must distribute at least $878 million to projects by mid-2016. That would be more than double the amount of funding disbursed during the past four years.

In the 2013-2014 fiscal year, the department plans to distribute $200 million.

Blumenfeld said funding commitments were better spelled out in the new plan, and the state will be able to account for and track the money more closely. But the EPA’s continued support of the state’s programs depends on the department’s ability to follow through on its promises, Blumenfeld said.

The revised plan will pay for water system projects of all sizes in the state, Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the state Department of Public Health and state public health officer, said in a statement Wednesday.

Safe drinking water advocates are hopeful that the state’s renewed attention to the funding problems will help smaller, disadvantaged communities, said Omar Carrillo, a policy analyst for the Community Water Center, an advocacy group that works on behalf of low-income people.

The department identified 183 small systems in 2012 that merited assistance.

Assemblymember Henry T. Perea (D-Fresno), who introduced a bill that would transfer drinking water programs from the department of public health to the state water board, said the EPA approval does not mean all problems have been solved.

In a statement, he said the drinking water program should still be under different governance to ensure increased transparency and greater public participation, among other things.

 

DWR approves funding to strengthen Delta levees
SACRAMENTO - July 24, 2013

 State stops waiting for FEMA to help

•  Will repair about 90 miles of levees

Nearly 90 miles of levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are to be rebuilt to one degree or another to provide protection against flooding, the state Department of Water Resources says.

The 14 separate reclamation district projects will receive a total of nearly $30 million under what’s called the “Delta Special Flood Control Projects’ Hazard Mitigation Plan Levee Repair and Improvement Project Solicitation Package.”

The projects include landslide levee repair, all-weather road construction, erosion repair and other improvements, along with mitigation for any habitat damage.

The largest grant is $7.2 million, the smallest $348,000. Negotiations continue with eight other districts that could add 39 miles of levee improvements and $13.9 million in grant funds to the funding package, says DWR.

Funding for these projects has been on hold since December when the Federal Emergency Management Agency withdrew from an agreement that would have assured FEMA flood assistance to reclamation districts that met FEMA’s levee criteria. These grant funds are made available for the purpose of improving levees to meet the HMP criteria.

Negotiations with FEMA for a new agreement have been unsuccessful in restoring the HMP criteria, says the state. “However, DWR considers the projects selected for funding critical to the Delta and all of California and seeks to proceed without further delay,” the department says.

Agreements with the districts sponsoring approved projects should be signed no later than December, with funding made available in time for construction to begin early next year, DWR says.

Drilldown

» A list of all applicants and their projects is here :  http://www.water.ca.gov/floodsafe/fessro/docs/special_proposed_projects.pdf

 

Environmental documents for proposed delta project criticized

Federal agencies reviewing draft for proposal to re-plumb the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta call it 'insufficient' and 'biased.'

By Bettina Boxall

July 18, 2013

Federal agencies reviewing draft environmental documents for the state's proposal to re-plumb the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are criticizing the work as "insufficient," "biased" and "confusing."

The federal comments suggest it's going to be tough for the state to meet its self-imposed deadline of releasing the draft this October for official public comment, an important step in moving the project forward.

In what would be the biggest water supply project constructed in California in half a century, the state is proposing to build a large diversion point on the Sacramento River in the north delta and send the water through two 35-mile tunnels to aqueducts serving the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

By adding the diversion point and restoring more than 100,000 acres of delta habitat, the south-of-the-delta urban and agricultural water contractors who have promised to pay for much of the project are hoping to get relief from environmental restrictions on their deliveries.

The project, estimated to cost about $24 billion, must pass muster with federal fishery agencies that oversee endangered species protections for migrating salmon and the delta's imperiled native fish.

In response to previous federal comments, the state reduced the number of river intakes and agreed to propose initial operating rules for the project that would increase flows in the delta — giving contractors less water than they want. If the restoration efforts succeed in improving conditions for delta fish, the rules could be changed to allow for more water exports under the project's adaptive management program.

But judging by the latest round of comments, posted online Thursday by the state Natural Resources Agency, federal biologists still aren't satisfied.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees protection for salmon that migrate through the delta, called the environmental draft "currently insufficient" and said it "will need to be revised."

The fisheries agency faulted the draft for arriving at "seemingly illogical conclusions" in some sections or lacking analysis to back up a conclusion.

In one part of the lengthy draft, "both the language and the content … are advocating for the project and could be perceived as biased," the fisheries service wrote.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees protections for the delta smelt and other native fish, also

spotted pro-project bias in the draft, which was prepared by a consultant and is supposed to present an objective overview of the proposal's environmental effects.

Citing one paragraph, fish and wildlife said the wording amounted to "unjustified advocacy." Other comments called the document "very difficult to read" and cited "factual and analytical errors."

Repeating earlier criticisms, federal biologists also said the assumed benefits of restoration were unproven.

In a statement, Natural Resources Deputy Secretary Jerry Meral said his agency was confident "that all the issues raised in the comments can be successfully resolved in the coming months."

"It is important to remember that regulatory agencies by their nature do not give out 'gold stars' for work, but road maps for improvement," Meral said. "We will continue to follow that map." bettina.boxall@latimes.com