| Editorial: Californians must help kill sleazy Westlands water deal – Mercury and East Bay Times Editorial Boards 11/15/19 The Westlands Water District has engaged in some sleazy maneuvers over the years, but this one, which threatens the Bay Area’s water supply, tops them all. The Trump administration, led by Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt, is poised to give a massive quantity of cheap federal water to the Central Valley water district — the same district that paid Bernhardt’s firm $1.3 million over a five-year period for lobbying services before he took the Interior job. Californians should pressure the Bureau of Reclamation to kill a deal that puts the interests of wealthy, Big Ag businessmen ahead of the needs of current and future California residents who rely on a healthy Delta for their supply of fresh water. Gov. Newsom needs to give more than lip service to at-risk California native tribes – Sacramento Bee 11/18/19 We need more than lip service to California’s tribal peoples. We need to stand up to corporations, including agribusiness, to protect our water and declining salmon populations. Gov. Newsom campaigned on fighting the Trump administration’s environmental rollbacks. We need him to follow through. Words, without action, do not constitute an apology. This is a moment for concrete truth and action to protect our salmon and all that is sacred. Westlands contract shakes the waterscape – Dan Walters, CalMatters 11/17/19 The state’s water conflict now will focus on not only the Westlands supply contract but also on others that smaller federal contractors will seek under the 2016 law that Bernhardt’s law firm fostered. Environmental groups despise that law and the contracts it will spawn. The organizations see the agreements as commitments that would thwart efforts to reduce draws from the Delta via lawsuits, decrees from the state Water Resources Control Board and so-called voluntary agreements with agricultural water agencies. |