The Reporter editorial: Delta Plan misses main point

Posted on August 30, 2013 by nickbuxton

Vacaville’s The Reporter printed the following editorial that reinforced some of the arguments we have been making against the ill-conceived Bay Delta Plan,, although the proposed solution of desalinization is not a good one:

Editorial: Delta Plan Misses Main Point

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan took a dramatic turn last week, acknowledging some of the concerns of Delta farmers by re-routing a proposed massive tunnel system to affect a smaller area and stay mostly on public land.

That the concerns of those who live in and rely on the Delta are being acknowledged as valid is a welcome change of pace. But the whole process still sidesteps the main point: It is folly to keep trying to take water from where it occurs naturally and send it to places where it doesn’t.

Southern California and the Central Valley are, by nature, deserts. Trying to keep them lush and fertile by relying on dwindling supplies of Delta water disregards the lessons of Mother Nature.

For a prime example, look no further than the Owens Valley, which decades ago was raided of its water by Los Angeles. Today, Owens Lake has become a lake bed and Mono Lake is a mess because more water continues to be taken out than can be replenished.

If less snow in the Sierras and less rainfall in general is a trend, it seems probable that the Delta will have less water flowing into it than in the past. The idea that it can be tapped in the same way as it has been — or even more so — bodes badly for its ecological health.

It’s time to stop trying to siphon off Delta water and start focusing on other ways of getting water where it’s needed. Start with conservation. Those who live in a desert shouldn’t expect to have grassy green lawns or grow water-intensive crops.

Desalinization — removing salt from seawater — is another promising option, given the state’s long coastline. Yes, it’s still prohibitively expensive, but if more effort were put into developing it, the price would come down.

And what about developing more water storage, so that the rain that does fall can be captured before it runs into the ocean? In recent years, some have proposed building underground storage systems rather than dams, and that seems like a great idea. But building a pair of 30-mile-long, $25.7 billion tunnels to divert water around the Delta does not.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg was right on Friday when he said that the new route for the tunnel system announced last week doesn’t get at the fundamental problem.

“What really needs to be discussed and resolved are the operating conditions for the Delta over the next five decades,” Steinberg said.

The Legislature needs to re-engage, he says, and make sure all of the key players have a voice in what happens.

It’s also critical to have the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office study the project. It’s the public’s best chance for an objective assessment of costs and benefits — if there are any.

Nestle CEO argues that access to water is not a human right

Posted on August 30, 2013 by nickbuxton

Nestle’s CEO Peter Brabeck argues that water is not a human right but another foodstuff that needs to be priced and then goes on to say the overriding responsibility of a CEO is to make profits. And then he wonders why non-profit groups don’t want to leave decisions about our water the hands of profiteers?

Acid joins water as contaminants in planned fracking boom

Posted on August 30, 2013 by nickbuxton

An article by David Baker in the San Francisco Chronicle, Acidizing could rival fracking in the Monterrey Shale, has pointed to a growing practice of using powerful acids to dissolve rock and free petroleum within. In addition to the high volume of water that is frequently used, it poses yet another dangerous risk to groundwater from contamination. As usual the companies refuse to reveal what acids are used and how. Continue reading →

Peak water in the American West

Posted on August 30, 2013 by nickbuxton

In an excellent blog on scienceblog.com, Peter Gleick argues that the plethora of stories of droughts, dropping reservoir levels and irrational water engineering projects point to the need to:

acknowledge that we’ve reached peak water in the American west. We have promised more water to users than nature provides. Until demand and supply are brought back into balance, groundwater levels will continue to drop and our rivers will continue to run dry, destroying natural ecosystems.
Agree that there are limits to new supply and that we must turn to the demand side of the problem. This means figuring out how to use water more efficiently and productively, and thinking about moving some water-intensive activities and products to more water-abundant regions. Maybe it is time to grow less rice, alfalfa, cotton, and pasture with flood irrigation. It is past time to retire the green lawn as an acceptable landscape option in arid climates. All toilets and washing machines should be water- and energy-efficient.
Stop assuming that the water available for future use is the same as in the past. Climate change ensures that it won’t be, but until politicians start to heed the warnings of climate scientists and the on-the-ground evidence of the current water situation, our water problems in the west, and elsewhere, will worsen.

Read the full blog here: http://scienceblogs.com/significantfigures/index.php/2013/08/19/peak-water-in-the-american-west/
Photo by flickr user (cc) TimPearce.

Clean Water or Clearcuts for Oregon?

Posted on August 28, 2013 by nmatela

Big decisions are looming for management of 2.8 million acres of Oregon’s public forestlands – an area covering the size of more than eight Crater Lake National Parks. Because legislation concerning management of the so-called O&C lands could end up undermining some of our nation’s bedrock environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, Oregonians aren’t the only ones with a stake in the issue.

Congressman Peter DeFazio (D-OR) is proposing legislation that would increase clearcut logging closer to streams, on steep slopes and unstable soils, and would allow the use of toxic herbicides, which would compromise clean drinking water for 1.8 million Oregonians.

The proposal also threatens several thousand miles of habitat for endangered salmon and steelhead in iconic river systems like the North Umpqua, Illinois, Rogue, McKenzie, and Nestucca.

Conservation groups including American Rivers, Pacific Rivers Council, and the Wild Salmon Center are urging Oregon Senator Ron Wyden to craft an O&C lands bill with stronger protections for clean water and salmon.

This short video, Forests to Faucets: Clean Water or Clearcuts? provides a great overview of what’s at stake for Oregon’s clean water. I was happy to participate in the creation of the video (I’m the mom at the end) because clean drinking water is so fundamental to our well-being, and I want my kids to be able to swim, float, catch fish, and experience the wild beauty of places like the North Umpqua and the Rogue.

Watch the video and learn more about the need to protect clean drinking water on Oregon’s O&C forest lands.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SiUOO3fPF3I

Let the river flow: victory for indigenous people and salmon

Posted on August 27, 2013 by nickbuxton

By Terry Winckler: There are few victories sweeter and more dramatic than the one just wrested by Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman and his tribal allies in a Fresno, California courtroom last week. They did nothing less than save an entire run of chinook salmon from a corporate grab of the water needed by those fish to survive their spawning run up the Klamath/Trinity rivers system.

The drama–and believe me, it was a mix of theater, unexpected turnarounds, and life-or-death arguments–climaxed late yesterday when a judge agreed that these salmon need the water more than the mega-farms which wanted it as a hedge against next year’s bottom line.

Dozens of Native America tribal members demonstrated outside the courtroom as U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O’Neill heard the warning of what happened 12 years ago during a drought year like this on that same river system. That year, a water grab authorized by the Bush administration left as many as 70,000 salmon dead in the rivers, with the next generation rotting in their bellies.

Years later, those rivers were empty of salmon, as were the larders of tribes along the river, and the future of the commercial/recreational fishing industry that depends on healthy salmon runs. The collapse of the fishery was so severe that California and Oregon declared formal states of emergency, and Congress appropriated $60 million in disaster relief for fishermen.

The spectre of the 2002 disaster and scientific testimony that showed it could happen again this year convinced Judge O’Neill to let the Trinity River flow into its natural bed, rather than allow its diversion hundreds of miles south to Central Valley mega-farms.

If it sounds like a no-brainer, consider what Hasselman, the tribes and the fishing industry were actually up against. The courtroom in Fresno is right in the heart of corporate farming territory. Those business interests, which are politically powerful in California and pretty omnipotent in that particular part of the state, are what Hasselman faced off against. They wanted that Trinity water to ultimately flow through Fresno County into their back pockets–and initially the judge sided with them last week by granting a temporary restraining order on releasing water.

But here’s the real bottom line…Hasselman et al prevailed, and because of that, in the next few weeks one of the biggest chinook salmon runs on record will race up the re-invigorated Trinity/Klamath rivers with a much-better chance of giving life to the next generation.

The case will continue to wind its way through the courts, with important implications for the government’s authority to protect salmon in other years and in other places. Nor are this year’s salmon assured of success. So stay tuned as we follow the fish home.

P.S. Read our press release for quotes from the court and our allies on this great day for Pacific Northwest salmon: http://action.earthjustice.org/site/R?i=DwHxMw48m3ikK_RDBz8MzA

Feds give away fish water to same growers suing over Trinity releases

Posted on August 24, 2013 by nickbuxton

Post by by Dan Bacher cross-posted from fishsniffer.com. Over 60 members of the Hoopa Valley Tribe rallied in front of the federal courthouse in Fresno on August 21 as U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill held a hearing regarding the temporary restraining order obtained. by Westlands Water District and the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority to block a plan to increase flows on the Trinity River.

They and members of the Klamath Justice Coalition held signs proclaiming, “Westlands Sucks the Trinity Dry,” “Remember the Fish Kill 2002,” “Save the Trinity,” Save the Fish – Release the Dam Water,” and “Un Dam the Klamath.” Wearing bright green shirts stating, “Save the Trinity River,” the Tribal members traced chalk outlines of salmon and people on the pavement showing what would happen to fish and people if the flows aren’t released.

“When the fish are gone, we will be gone too,” explained Dania Rose Colegrove, Klamath Justice Coalition organizer and member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Continue reading →

Do Oregon’s clear-cut and pesticide buffers protect drinking water from creeks, rivers?

Posted on August 21, 2013 by nmatela

By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
on August 20, 2013 at 4:34 PM, updated August 20, 2013 at 5:35 PM

ROCKAWAY BEACH — From her front porch, Nancy Webster has a clear view of the hills just east of the coast highway, a western hemlock forest that’s home to Rockaway Beach‘s water supply.

The retired social worker, who grew up in a Northwest logging family, worried when she saw patchwork clear-cuts expanding in 2011.

Last summer, she and a friend hiked into the watershed during a storm and saw the creek that feeds Rockaway Beach’s water treatment plant “running chocolate brown.” In September, she spotted helicopters spraying herbicides, catching distinct whiffs at her house a half-mile away.

Just like that, the latest highly motivated critic of Oregon’s Forest Practices Act, which governs private timberlands, was born.

“You can just see the mud washing off the slopes, and then a 20-foot buffer on logging along the creek,” Webster says. “It just seems like there is very little protection for the watershed.”Timberlands are easier on water quality than cities and farms. The timeline between harvests runs for decades, and herbicides typically get sprayed only in the first years after a cut, until new trees are established.

But when it comes to stream buffers and herbicide applications, Oregon’s rules for private forests are less stringent than in neighboring Washington and far less stringent than in national forests.

After years of complaints, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying whether Oregon’s regulation of nonindustrial sources of water pollution, including timberlands, is good enough.

Oregon’s Forest Practices Act was the first in the nation to regulate private lands when the state adopted it in 1971. But disputes over it have bubbled up around the state.

In southwest Oregon, much of the congressional delegation favors applying the more lenient rules on 1.5 million acres of federal forests, raising concerns about the effects on rivers and drinking water.

Residents of Triangle Lake, west of Eugene, complain of drift from spraying on private timberland — and point to herbicides found in their urine. And the EPA and others question the effects on streams and salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act.

Along the coast, drinking water is a top concern.

Tom Merrell, manager of the Arch Cape Service District, says Oregon’s no-cut zone of 20 feet along significant streams doesn’t protect drinking water from herbicides and mud runoff, or “turbidity.” Washington’s no-cut zone is 50 feet. Turbidity adds to filtering costs and can boost harmful byproducts that arise when chlorine, a disinfectant added to kill bacteria, hits organic matter bunched in the water.

On Oregon’s north coast, 11 of the 18 public water systems fed by rivers or creeks have received alerts over the years for high levels of disinfection byproducts — trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids.

“These rules are archaic, and they’re weighted against anybody but the landowner,” says Merrell, who adds that the district has some of the costliest water rates in the state. “I’ve pleaded with (Oregon Department of Forestry) and landowners for years and years and years to strengthen these buffers, and I’ve just run up against the wall.”

Clear-cuts in watershed

The watershed that feeds Rockaway Beach runs 1,200 acres, with Jetty Creek the main conduit. On a steep hike along forest roads with Webster and other members of Rockaway Citizens for Watershed Protection, the part of the creek closest to U.S. 101 and the water plant is heavily forested and shaded.Within a mile, clear-cuts emerge, scrabbly ground bumping into strips of trees along the creek. The citizen group’s analysis of Google satellite photos and harvest notices show that about fourth-fifths of the watershed was clear-cut since 2004, the majority since 2010.

As a drinking water stream, Jetty Creek gets some protection. But Oregon’s smaller, non-fish-bearing streams — which can be 80 percent of a watershed — get no buffer from cuts or spraying under the law. Washington, by contrast, extends its 50-foot, no-touch buffer to at least half of its small-stream network.

Stream buffers for aerial herbicide spraying are also smaller in Oregon than in Washington. And Oregon’s notification system is solely on paper and costly, with windows for potential sprays as long as six months.

The hikers pass tributary creeks still trickling in late July, with trees cut to the edge. Judy Coleman, Webster’s friend, compares it with the Portland-owned Bull Run watershed near Mount Hood, where logging has been prohibited since 1996.

“If this happened in the Bull Run, there would be an uproar,” says Coleman, a former water quality analyst for Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality.

Ideally, she and Webster say, Rockaway Beach would buy this land, or at least an easement along streams. Another potential solution: Swap land with federal agencies, which use relatively little herbicide and have buffers of 150 feet on small streams, with only thinning allowed.

Since January 2011, Rockaway Beach officials have warned residents eight times about excess disinfection byproducts after quarterly testing. The byproducts can diminish liver, kidney and nervous system function, and increase the risk of bladder cancer, health officials say.

The district, which supplies 2,300 water hookups, spent $600,000 on a membrane filter two years ago for its new treatment plant, but that didn’t solve the problem. Now it’s spending $120,000 for an upstream sand filter to try to capture more silt.

A 2002 evaluation identified clear-cuts as a potential source of contamination. But Luke Shepard, Rockaway Beach’s public works director, says it’s not certain that logging is to blame. Treatments have changed, he says, and supplementing with well water has stopped, expanding reliance on Jetty Creek.

He shuts down the plant for 24 hours when turbidity runs high or after timber companies tell him an herbicide spray is coming.

“We’re kind of feeling the pressure from both sides,” he says. “Logging’s a pretty important industry around here, and there are a lot of conflicting interests with the watersheds.”

At this point, it’s unclear if logging contributes to the byproducts, says Kari Salis, a manager for the Oregon Health Authority’s drinking water program.

Organic material can flow in naturally. Treated water can hang out in coastal systems longer — demand drops when tourists depart — increasing chlorine contact with organics. And the state has no data on how much logging contributes organic matter to the water. Since protection of source waters is voluntary, Salis says, there’s “no regulatory hook.”

DEQ studies of coastal drinking water watersheds have pinpointed turbidity as a concern, but haven’t determined what causes it.

This fall, the agency will monitor Jetty Creek to try to catch potential impacts from herbicide spraying. Statewide, tests of treated drinking water rarely find herbicides.

Washington’s streamside protection rules are “considerably stronger,” DEQ officials say. Generally, studies show that clear-cuts increase water flow, powering streams to erode bank sediment or stir up streambeds, says Joshua Seeds, a DEQ drinking water program specialist.

But the connection isn’t specific enough to ask forestry officials to tighten rules.

“If we had direct analysis that said these practices equal this water quality impact, we would take (it) to ODF (Oregon Department of Forestry) and they would take it to their board,” Seeds says. “It is something we need to do more work on.”

Stewardship defended

The two timberland owners in the Rockaway Beach watershed — Stimson Lumber and Olympic Resource Management — say they often exceed state requirements.Scott Gray, Stimson’s western resources manager, said company officials put more than minimum buffers along drinking water streams and work with local water managers to address concerns.

“We take our land stewardship responsibilities very seriously,” Gray said in an email.

Tim Raschko, Olympic’s director of timberland management, said the company cut 500 acres from 2010 to 2012, and spent $357,000 on logging road maintenance in 2011, four times the industry average per acre.

Runoff from roads is considered a prime source of sediment in streams long term, particularly during log hauling. Raschko said workers set up silt fences and sediment traps and monitored the creek for sediment.

The company notifies neighbors within 1,000 feet of spraying of herbicides, Raschko says, and tries to post more precise spraying dates, neither required under Oregon law. It also skipped herbicides in the clear-cut closest to the water plant, he says.

Raschko says he can’t answer whether Oregon’s forest rules — set by compromise as much as science — are adequate.

“But there’s science going on and we need to get answers on that quickly, so if things are inadequate, we can adjust,” he says.

The state Forestry Department is working with timber companies, university experts and other agencies on three studies to better gauge the effects of logging on streams.

The first report, on Hinkle Creek near Roseburg, found significantly more sediment from logging. A Coast Range study along the Trask River should show whether greater protection of headwaters would benefit water quality.

Lena Tucker, deputy chief of the department’s private forests division, says the state has adjusted rules often over the years, and will again if science supports it. After studies indicated runoff problems from log hauling during storms, for example, the state restricted it. The state also plans online notification of pesticide spraying by late 2014, replacing cumbersome paperwork.

The Oregon agency also bears in mind that forests generate better water quality than subdivisions or other uses, she says.

“Overall,” Tucker says, “our mission is to keep those working forestlands working.”

— Scott Learn

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2013/08/oregons_rules_for_logging_priv.html

Ocean fracking should be no surprise

Posted on August 20, 2013 by nickbuxton

(Edited version of article by Dan Bacher, crossposted from Daily Kos and Fishsniffer.com). The California Coastal Commission, under intense pressure from legislators and environmental activists, pledged Thursday, August 15 at its meeting in Santa Cruz to investigate reports of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) for oil in ocean waters in the Santa Barbara Channel.

“Blindsided by revelations of fracking in waters off the coast of California, the state’s Coastal Commission on Thursday vowed an investigation into the controversial practice, including what powers the agency has to regulate it, “ according to Jason Hoppin, Santa Cruz Sentinel reporter.

“We do not yet understand the extent of fracking in federal or state waters, nor fully understand its risks,” said Coastal Commission Deputy Director Allison Dettmer, who will lead the investigation.

“Blindsided” by “relevations” of fracking? How can that be possible when the Coastal Commission, Fish and Game Commission and other state regulators failed to question the leadership role of a big oil lobbyist, nicknamed the “Petro Princess” by anti-fracking activists, in the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative to create alleged “marine protected areas?”

State officials and representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs shamelessly embraced Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), as a “marine guardian.”

Reheis-Boyd, who lobbies relentlessly for increased fracking in California, the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the evisceration of environmental laws, served as the CHAIR of the MLPA Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called “marine protected areas” in Southern California. She also served on the MLPA task forces for the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast.

She oversaw the creation of questionable “marine protected areas” that fail to protect the ocean from fracking and oil drilling, pollution, military testing, wind and wave energy projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than fishing and gathering.

“We take our obligation to protect the marine environment very seriously and we will be looking at this very carefully,” claimed Charles Lester, executive director of the Coastal Commission.

If the Commission wants to really show that they take their obligation “very seriously,” they should include in their fracking investigation a probe of Reheis-Boyd’s role in creating so-called “marine reserves” that fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution and all other human impacts on our coastal waters than sustainable fishing and gathering.

Burdick’s concerns over the push by the oil industry and others to industrialize the California coast were echoed by environmentalists including Judith Vidaver, then Chair of the Ocean Protection Coalition (OPC). (http://yubanet.com/california/Dan-Bacher-Environmental-Leader-Calls-For-MLPA-Official-s-Resignation.php)

“For over 25 years OPC, with our fisher and seaweed harvester allies, has protected our ocean from threats such as aquaculture projects, nuclear waste dumping, offshore oil development and recently, wave power plants,” Vidaver stated. “We are requesting that final Marine Protected Area (MPA) designations include language prohibiting these industrial-scale commercial activities.”

“Oil and water do not mix—as we are being reminded daily by the disaster spewing in the Gulf,” she stated. “Mrs. Reheis-Boyd’s position as President of the Western States Petroleum Association and her lobbying efforts to expand offshore oil drilling off the coast of California are a patent conflict of interest for which she should recuse herself from the BRTF proceedings which are ostensibly meant to protect the marine ecosystem.”

What Is Fracking and Why Should It Be Banned? (from Food and Water Watch website: http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/)

“Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing. It’s a water-intensive process where millions of gallons of fluid – typically water, sand, and chemicals, including ones known to cause cancer – are injected underground at high pressure to fracture the rock surrounding an oil or gas well. This releases extra oil and gas from the rock, so it can flow into the well.

But the process of fracking introduces additional industrial activity into communities beyond the well. Clearing land to build new access roads and new well sites, drilling and encasing the well, fracking the well and generating the waste, trucking in heavy equipment and materials and trucking out the vast amounts of toxic waste — all of these steps contribute to air and water pollution risks and devaluation of land that is turning our communities into sacrifice zones. Fracking threatens the air we breathe, the water we drink, the communities we love and the climate on which we all depend. That’s why over 250 communities in the U.S. have passed resolutions to stop fracking, and why Vermont, France and Bulgaria have stopped it.”

Peripheral tunnels will provide water for fracking

Posted on August 20, 2013 by nickbuxton

(Edited version of article by Dan Bacher) There is growing concern that one of the key driving factors behind the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is the water that it will provide for expanding fracking operations.

Certainly the oil industry has been spending plenty of money in Sacramento to push for expansion of oil drilling and fracking across California. The Western States Petroleum Association spent the most on lobbying in Sacramento in the first six months of 2013 of any interest group, according to quarterly documents released by the California Secretary of State. The association spent $1,023,069.78 in the first quarter and $1,285,720.17 in the second quarter, a total of $2,308,789.95, to lobby legislators and other state officials. They have also been one of the biggest contributors to Governor Brown, supporting his 2014 campaign and his Proposition 20 campaign.

These contributions include the following: Aera Energy (Exxon-related), $125,000; Berry Petroleum, Denver, $35,000; Breitburn Operating, Houston, $21,250; CA State Pipe Trades Council (usually the pipeline union supports Big Oil), $100,000; Conoco Phillips, $25,000; E & B Natural Resources Management, Bakersfield, $20,000; MacPherson Oil Co., $50,000; Naftex, $10,000; Occidental Petroleum, $500,000; Plains Exploration & Production, $100,000; SoCal Pipe Trades Council, $125,000; Signal Hill Petroleum, $10,000; Vaquero Energy, $35,000; Venoco, $25,000

“A state senator has told me that Brown has cut a deal with the oil companies – he’ll push fracking in exchange for campaign contributions to his 2012 Proposition 30 and his 2014 reelected,” said RL Miller in her recent article on Daily Kos.

It may explain in part why Governor Jerry Brown, is currently fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) as it will benefit both corporate agribusiness and oil companies seeking to expand fracking operations. Against these interests the potential extinction of Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species does not swing many votes.

Nobody knows exactly how much water is used specifically for fracking in California now, since reporting by the oil companies on water utilized in fracking is voluntary. One thing is for certain – oil companies use big quantities of water in their current oil drilling operations in Kern County. Much of this water this comes through the State Water Project’s California Aqueduct and the Central Valley Water Project’s Delta-Mendota Canal, the canals that will export the water diverted through the tunnels.

“In the time since steamflooding was pioneered here in the fields of Kern County in the 1960s, oil companies statewide have pumped roughly 2.8 trillion gallons of fresh water—or, in the parlance of agriculture, nearly 9 million acre-feet—underground in pursuit of the region’s tarry oil,” according to Jeremy Miller’s 2011 investigative piece, “The Colonization of Kern County,” in Orion Magazine. “Essentially, enough water has been injected into the oil fields here over the last forty years to create a lake one foot deep covering more than thirteen thousand square miles—nearly twice the surface area of Lake Ontario.”

Because of the enormous influence exerted by the group and the oil companies themselves in the Capitol, all but one bill to regulate or ban fracking was defeated in the Legislature this year. The only bill that passed through the Legislature was the weak bill to “regulate” fracking sponsored by State Senator Fran Pavley.

The top 20 interest groups who spent the most money in the first six months included labor unions, the California Chamber of Commerce, Chevron and health care corporations. (http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/)

Ocean fracking expanding

The latest report on spending on lobbying emerged as the Associated Press revealed that companies prospecting for oil off California’s coast have used the controversial practice of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) on at least a dozen occasions to force open cracks beneath the seabed.

“Hundreds of pages of federal documents released by the government to The Associated Press and advocacy groups through the Freedom of Information Act show regulators have permitted fracking in the Pacific Ocean at least 12 times since the late 1990s, and have recently approved a new project,” wrote AP reporters Jason Dearen and Alicia Chang.

“Companies are doing the offshore fracking — which involves pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of salt water, sand and chemicals into undersea shale and sand formations — to stimulate old existing wells into new oil production,” they said.

“Federal regulators thus far have exempted the chemical fluids used in offshore fracking from the nation’s clean water laws, allowing companies to release fracking fluid into the sea without filing a separate environmental impact report or statement looking at the possible effects. That exemption was affirmed this year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to the internal emails reviewed by the AP,” Dearen and Chang stated.

Big oil lobbyist oversaw creation of marine protected areas

Inexplicably missing from the mainstream media and even most “alternative” media reports on this issue is any mention of one of the biggest environmental scandals of the past decade – the alarming fact that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the President of the Western States Petroleum Association, CHAIRED the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force that created the alleged “marine protected areas” that went into effect in Southern California waters in January 2012. She also served on the task forces to create “marine protected areas” on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast.

Grassroots environmentalists, Tribal leaders, fishermen and advocates of democracy and transparency in government blasted the leadership role of the oil industry lobbyist in creating these “marine protected areas,” but state officials and representatives of corporate “environmental” NGOs embraced her as a “marine guardian.” MLPA Initiative advocates refused to acknowledge the overt conflict of interest that a big oil lobbyist, who supports fracking and offshore oil drilling, had in a process allegedly designed to “protect” the ocean.

You see, the “marine protected areas” created under Reheis-Boyd’s leadership weren’t true “marine protected areas” as the language of the landmark Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 called for. Reheis-Boyd, a marina corporation executive, a coastal real estate developer and other corporate operatives on MLPA Initiative task forces oversaw the creation of “marine protected areas” that effectively allow fracking and offshore oil drilling to continue and expand.

These “marine protected areas” fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling and spills, pollution, wind and wave energy projects, corporate aquaculture, military testing and all human impacts other than fishing and gathering.

Reheis-Boyd apparently used her role as a state marine “protection” official to increase her network of influence in California politics to the point where the Western States Petroleum Association has become the most powerful corporate lobby in California. The association now has enormous influence over both state and federal regulators – and MLPA Initiative advocates helped facilitate her rise to power.

Oil and gas companies spend more than $100 million a year to buy access to lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento, according to Stop Fooling California (http://www.stopfoolingca.org), an online and social media public education and awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to mislead and confuse Californians. The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) alone has spent more than $16 million lobbying in Sacramento since 2009.
There is no doubt that the powerful oil industry and its chief lobbyist are going to use every avenue they can to divert more water forfracking, including taking Delta water through the peripheral tunnels proposed under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). The industry will also use its increased power in California politics and environmental processes to expand fracking in the ocean unless Californians rise up and resist these plans.

It is time that Californians question state officials and MLPA Initiative advocates about why they supported the leadership role of an oil industry lobbyist in creating so-called “marine protected areas” off the California coast. After all, oil and water don’t mix!
Oil lobby leads California spending as ocean fracking proceeds

Written By: Dan Bacher, August 5, 2013
Oil lobby leads California spending as ocean fracking proceeds

Some may consider California to be a “green” state and the “environmental leader” of the nation, but that delusion is quickly dispelled once one actually looks at who spends the most on lobbying in California – the oil industry.

The Western States Petroleum Association spent the most on lobbying in Sacramento in the first six months of 2013 of any interest group, according to quarterly documents released by the California Secretary of State.

The association spent $1,023,069.78 in the first quarter and $1,285,720.17 in the second quarter, a total of $2,308,789.95, to lobby legislators and other state officials. (http://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Lobbying/Employers/Detail.aspx?id=1147195&session=2013&view=activity)

The association’s members are a “who’s who” of big oil companies, including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillip, ExxonMobil, Navajo Refining Company, Noble Energy Company, Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, Shell Oil Products US, Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company, U.S. Oil & Refining Company, Venoco, Inc. and many others.

Now regulators are investigating whether the environmentally destructive practice, one that threatens fish and wildlife populations in the state’s marine waters, should require a separate permit and be subject to stricter environmental review. (http://www.mercurynews.com/california/ci_23789784/fracking-off-california-coast-draws-call-greater-regulation)

Big oil lobbyist oversaw creation of marine protected areas

While federal regulators allowed oil companies to frack offshore, state officials have also left the door open for the expansion of fracking in California.

As I have pointed out in article after article, Reheis-Boyd apparently used her role as a state marine “protection” official to increase her network of influence in California politics to the point where the Western States Petroleum Association has become the most powerful corporate lobby in California. The association now has enormous influence over both state and federal regulators – and MLPA Initiative advocates helped facilitate her rise to power. (http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/lawsuit-filed-against-fracking-oil-lobbyist-says-its-safe)

Peripheral tunnels will provide water for fracking

Not only do the association and oil companies buy access to lawmakers, but they exert enormous control over Governor Jerry Brown, who is currently fast-tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The water destined for the tunnels will go to corporate agribusiness and oil companies seeking to expand fracking operations. The construction of the tunnels will hasten the extinction of Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species.

“In the time since steamflooding was pioneered here in the fields of Kern County in the 1960s, oil companies statewide have pumped roughly 2.8 trillion gallons of fresh water—or, in the parlance of agriculture, nearly 9 million acre-feet—underground in pursuit of the region’s tarry oil,” according to Jeremy Miller’s 2011 investigative piece, “The Colonization of Kern County,” in Orion Magazine (http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6047/). “Essentially, enough water has been injected into the oil fields here over the last forty years to create a lake one foot deep covering more than thirteen thousand square miles—nearly twice the surface area of Lake Ontario.”

Governor Brown has pursued an increasingly cozy relationship with oil companies, leading many to believe that he is going to promote the practice of fracking, in addition to pushing for the construction of the tunnels that will provide more water for fracking.

She cited as evidence for a deal the $27,200.00 that Occidental Petroleum Corporation contributed to Brown’s 2014 campaign. That’s the maximum allowable under California law.

Miller also noted the roughly $1 million that oil companies – members of the Western States Petroleum Association – contributed to Brown’s Proposition 30 campaign. These contributions include the following:

Aera Energy (Exxon-related), $125,000
Berry Petroleum, Denver, $35,000
Breitburn Operating, Houston, $21,250
CA State Pipe Trades Council (usually the pipeline union supports Big Oil), $100,000
Conoco Phillips, $25,000
E & B Natural Resources Management, Bakersfield, $20,000
MacPherson Oil Co., $50,000
Naftex, $10,000
Occidental Petroleum, $500,000
Plains Exploration & Production, $100,000
SoCal Pipe Trades Council, $125,000
Signal Hill Petroleum, $10,000
Vaquero Energy, $35,000
Venoco, $25,000

There is no doubt that the powerful oil industry and its chief lobbyist are going to use every avenue they can to divert more water for fracking, including taking Delta water through the peripheral tunnels proposed under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). The industry will also use its increased power in California politics and environmental processes to expand fracking in the ocean unless Californians rise up and resist these plans.

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Monthly Archives: August 2013

The Reporter editorial: Delta Plan misses main point

Nestle CEO argues that access to water is not a human right

Acid joins water as contaminants in planned fracking boom

Peak water in the American West

Clean Water or Clearcuts for Oregon?

Video: Clean Water or Clearcuts for Oregon?

Let the river flow: victory for indigenous people and salmon

Feds give away fish water to same growers suing over Trinity releases

Do Oregon’s clear-cut and pesticide buffers protect drinking water from creeks, rivers?

Ocean fracking should be no surprise

Peripheral tunnels will provide water for fracking