Is Jerry Brown Running Scared?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/10/21/is-jerry-brown-running-scared/?utm_source=rss 

Governor Fails to Show for Environmental Award Under Pressure From Protest

Is Jerry Brown Running Scared?

by DAN BACHER

Over 60 people, including indigenous leaders, environmentalists and labor activists, gathered at the Le Parc Hotel in San Francisco on Thursday, October 17 from 5:30 to 7 pm to protest the Blue Green Alliance’s honoring of Governor Jerry Brown with its “Right Stuff” Award.

Faced with the protest condemning his anti-environmental policies, Brown apparently decided to back out from receiving the award. In particular, the protest focused on Brown’s support for fracking, a massive twin tunnels project and his emissions trading scheme.

A video of the protest is available here.

The protest was organized by a group of individuals unaffiliated with national environmental organizations who were galvanized by Brown’s most recent assault on the environment: the green lighting of fracking in California.

“Jerry Brown ignored the majority of Californians and the rank and file of the Democratic Party who support a moratorium on fracking,” said organizer Damien Luzzo. “He signaled that he would not sign any of the moratorium bills and only signed the already weak SB4, after he gutted it at the 11th hour at the behest of Big Oil.”

According to organizer Lauren Steiner, “When I worked on Jerry Brown’s presidential campaign in 1992, he was an uncompromised environmentalist. Now he will support any industry, including polluting ones, if he thinks it can bring jobs and tax revenues. In 1992, the old Jerry Brown limited his campaign contributions to under $100, so he wouldn’t be beholden to special interests. The new Jerry Brown has accepted $2.5 million over the past few years from the oil and gas industry.”...

“It is ludicrous for Blue Green Alliance to give the Governor an award. Attacks on the environment or workers will not save our planet,” said Ongerth.

As attendees of the dinner were arriving, protesters also handed an alternative program for the event featuring the 10 worst environmental policies of Governor Brown. 

These include: the twin tunnel plan; plans to weaken the California Environmental Water Quality Act (CEQA); record water exports out of the Delta in 2011; record Delta fish kills; the signing of Senate Bill 4; clear cutting in the Sierra Nevada; pro-oil industry appointments to the Department of Conservation; the support of “theme park” wetlands; the failure to abide by the fish doubling provisions of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) and support of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation).  

The program also included the list of groups and individuals who should have received an environmental award this year instead of Jerry Brown.

Dan Bacher is an environmental journalist in Sacramento. He can be reached at: Dan Bacher danielbacher@fishsniffer.com.

For more information about Jerry Brown’s abysmal environmental record, go to: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/12/jerry-brown-worse-than-schwarzenegger-on-environment/

Industrial Toxin Selenium May Be Killing Off Honey Bees

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Selenium, a chemical element that is both naturally occurring and often found near mining and industrial activities, can delay the development of or even kill honey bees, according to new research in the October issue of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

Researchers from the University of California, Riverside found that the four primary forms of the anthropogenic pollutant – selenate, selenite, methylselenocysteine and selenocystine – can cause mortality and developmental delays in the insects, which are important agricultural pollinator both domestically and abroad. The authors believe that the bees could become contaminated through the biotransfer of the metal from selenium-accumulating plants.

“Metal pollutants like selenium contaminate soil, water, can be accumulated in plants, and can even be atmospherically deposited on the hive itself,” explained lead author Kristen Hladun a postdoctoral entomologist at the university. “Our study examined the toxic effects of selenium at multiple life stages of the honey bee in order to mimic the chronic exposure this insect may face when foraging in a contaminated area.”

According to the university, selenium contamination is a global issue that originated from naturally contaminated soils as well as sources that are human in origin, including coal-fired power plants, petroleum refineries or factories. Low concentrations of the element can be beneficial to many creatures – in fact, the authors noted that it is a critical component of an antioxidant enzyme. Higher levels of the metal can be toxic to several different types of insects, however.

Honey bees ingest selenium through contaminated pollen and nectar, Hladun and her colleagues discovered. Organic forms of the metal can alter protein conformation, causing developmental issues, while inorganic forms can lead to oxidative stress. Hladun said that additional research is required to determine if selenium can damage the bee’s internal organs, or if the insect is able to somehow detoxify the compounds.

Read morehttp://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-technology/2013/10/industrial-toxin-selenium-may-be-killing-off-honey-bees-2641822.html

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.