Save the California Delta Alliance (STCDA)

The House Bill for Farm aid (food stamps) has been revised to include provisions to to start the Delta pumps and stop the San Joaquin River Restoration flows – both of which reverse the little progress made to-date to save the salmon and protect the Delta from total demise.

We don’t want their surprises! The Central Valley farm representatives are urging everyone to contact Feinstein and Boxer and ask them to pass the “Farm Bill”. They are very “pleased” that they are sneaking in these trick provisions – see Pass the Farm Bill! It Has Some Surprises!

The House Bill is similar to the Senate Jobs Bill Sen. Feinstein sponsored in Feb 2010 where she slipped in a measure to remove restrictions for endangered salmon. She withdrew that part after public outcry. The Bill is now going to the Senate.

We need public outcry again. Contact the senators and complain that the right answer isn’t to send more water to Westlands for Almonds to Asia. As Bill Jennings with the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance explains, “We entered 2013 with Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs at 115 percent, 113 percent, and 121 percent of historical average storage. In April, they were still at 101 percent, 108 percent and 96 percent of average. With no rainfall and little snowpack, the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau (of Reclamation) notified their contractors that water deliveries would be reduced. But they didn’t reduce deliveries. Instead, they actually exported 835,000 acre-feet more water than they said they would be able to deliver.”

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/26/6097073/viewpoints-better-solutions-for.html#storylink=cpy.

Here’s what I entered in both of the Senator’s on-line comment forms (kind of rushed – not sure how good a job it was):
————
Revise the Farm Bill:
The House has added the emergency drought relief package to start the Delta pumps and stop the San Joaquin River Restoration flows to the Farm Bill which includes needed food stamps. This is a very bad trick. Those actions will put Northern California cities and farmers at even more risk due to the lack of water in the North.

We entered 2013 with Shasta, Oroville and Folsom reservoirs at 115 percent, 113 percent, and 121 percent of historical average storage. In April, they were still at 101 percent, 108 percent and 96 percent of average. With no rainfall and little snowpack, the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau (of Reclamation) notified their contractors that water deliveries would be reduced. But they didn’t reduce deliveries. Instead, they actually exported 835,000 acre-feet more water than they said they would be able to deliver.”

– Reservoirs serving the Metropolitan Water District in Southern California are filled to 90 percent
– It’s the reservoirs in the North that are at an all-time low due to earlier releases for unsustainable farms
– The answer isn’t to release more water for farming in the desert or building tunnels.

The answer is to cut back on unsustainable farming in the arid desert. Powerful corporate agribusinesses have been expanding farmlands, especially water-thirsty almonds to ship to Asia, without regard for how much water actually exists that is needed by Northern California farmers, communities and the environment.

This bill’s hidden provisions and the BDCP Delta Tunnels only make the matter worse. Please protect my community and surrounding Delta communities and remove the offensive clauses from the Farm Bill.

Contact Dianne Feinstein:

E-Mail (Contact form): https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me

San Francisco
One Post Street, Suite 2450
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 393-0707
Fax: (415) 393-0710

Contact Barbara Boxer:

Email (Contact Form): http://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm

Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
70 Washington Street, Suite 203
Oakland, CA 94607
(510) 286-8537

Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
2500 Tulare Street, Suite 5290
Fresno, CA 93721
(559) 497-5109

Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
312 N. Spring St. Suite 1748
Los Angeles, CA 90012
(213) 894-5000

Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
501 I Street, Suite 7-600
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 448-2787

Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer
112 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
(202) 224-3553

Here’s the Good

Good News/Bad News: Here’s the good – December 19 Sierra Club issues a White Paper opposing the Tunnels and offers common sense alternatives that should be pursued instead: “Sierra Club offers alternatives to the governor’s giant tunnels”.

Here’s the Bad

Sen Feinstein in the past has bent to the request of Resnick and big Agribusiness when she tried to add legislation in the Senate Jobs Bill to remove protection for endangered salmon.

Boxer’s reputation in the past has been to want to aid the environment, not abandon it.

Sacramento Bee Cartoon – December 12, 2013

From the Redding Record Editorial Tuesday Dec 10:
“The documents — the plan itself and its draft environmental impact report — released this week for public review and comment weigh in at some 33,000 pages. That’s not a doorstop, it’s a barricade. For comparison, the last print edition of the venerable Encyclopedia Britannica — all 32 volumes of it — totaled almost exactly the same size at 32,640 pages.”

“But the staggering complexity of the plan, along with its $25 billion cost, reflects either a 21st-century marvel of engineering and organization — or an act of extraordinary hubris doomed to collapse under its own weight.”

The Sacramento Bee Editorial today points to three huge flaws with the BDCP Plan:
(1) Who will finance it? The basic financial framework, for example, remains unresolved.
(2) What would be the role be of the Delta counties?
(3) How much water needs to flow through the Delta. The report also fails to define what future water flows would be through the Delta.

The SacBee Editorial concludes: “It is time to consider alternatives seriously, something the 34,000-page draft study just doesn’t do.” Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/12/12/5993202/editorials-two-tunnel-study-leaves.html#storylink=cpy

Assembly members Jim Frazier and Mariko Yamada joined the Restore The Delta protest on the steps of the Sacramento capital building to voice strong displeasure with the BDCP and process to-date. The sentiment was echoed by Sacramento Assemblyman Roger Dickinson in the guest article “Viewpoints: When it comes to re-plumbing the Delta; trust is a two-way street”. It’s great to see how vocal the Northern California legislators are becoming in opposition to the plan. For years they’ve tried to compromise and stay at the bargaining table. It appears they recognize that has failed and are now on attack mode.

The only pro-BDCP media I’m reading this week is from the Farm Water Coalition, Fresno Bee editorial by a farmer there, and other stakeholders who want the water. Or some writers that “buy” what the BDCP is selling.