Overly Optimistic By Tim Stroshane “Relax”—Things Will be OK | It Gets Worse | But Wait, There’s More | Gentlemen’s Agreement Mismanagement of the state and federal water projects in California’s Central Valley during the state’s four-year drought was on full display at a June 24th workshop convened by the State Water Resources Control Board in Sacramento. Extinction of winter- and spring-run Chinook salmon and Delta smelt and the threat of dead pool supplies at Folsom Lake for urban and suburban water users are likely legacies of state and federal drought actions in 2015. But by gum, the State Water Board will have also ensured exports from the Delta through it all. Much the way Congress and federal regulators gave [...]

Press Release 4 June 2015 For Immediate Release Document: Our complaint for declaratory & injunctive relief. Contact:   Bill Jennings, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance: 209-464-5067; cell 209-                  938-9053; email, [email protected]                  Andrew Packard, Law Offices of Andrew Packard; 707-763-7227                  Mike Lozeau, Lozeau/Drury LLP: 510-836-4200                  Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Restore the Delta; 209-479-2053   Groups Sue Department of Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, State Water Board and DWR to Prevent Fishery Extinctions Captive Regulatory Agencies Unable to Enforce and Comply with Laws Protecting Fisheries and Water Quality   On 3 June 2015, The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), California Water Impact Network (C-WIN), AquAlliance and Restore the Delta (RTD), collectively “Petitioners,” filed a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, under the Administrative [...]

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. And then you win.” ― Ghandi Articles • Halftime Score. Delta 7. Tunnel Proponents 0. • Getting Ready for the Second Half. • Game plan Halftime Score. Delta 7. Tunnel Proponents 0. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan is dead. Long live the Delta! That puts the people who love the Delta and who want to see REAL restoration of the estuary in the lead at halftime. When we consider that the Brown Administration and tunnel proponents threw at us 40,000 pages of convoluted and misleading documents, a quarter of a billion dollar administrative effort, and eight years of public messaging and lobbying by the deep pockets at [...]

Fishermen, Delta Leaders Protest Move to “Destroy Salmon” Push by Westlands, Feinstein to Overpump Delta will Destroy Fisheries; If Endangered Species are Extinct, No Need for Protections; Governor is Violating Clean Water Act Listen to audio: Sacramento, CA – Delta fishermen and community leaders held a news conference this afternoon outside a State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) meeting and announced they have filed protests against the State Water Resources Control Board for its January 27, 2015 Notice of Temporary Change Petitions (TUCP) because it will weaken Delta outflow and water quality standards to the point of extinction for Delta smelt and winter-run Chinook salmon this year. Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, said, “The State Water Resources [...]

“We can follow the example of those who remembered that the role of an activist is not to navigate systems of oppressive power with as much integrity as possible, but rather to confront and take down those systems.” — Derrick Jensen Articles • Navigate or Confront • How drought management plays out in the Delta • Chipping away at all watershed protections Navigate or Confront By: Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla This week, Tim Stroshane finished preparing Restore the Delta’s first Protest response to the State Water Resources Control Board, specifically the Board’s January 27, 2015 Notice of Temporary Urgency Change Petition (TUCP). The TUCP is the Board’s decision to modify D-1641 for the months of February and March, weakening Delta outflow standards, [...]

We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence. – Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species Articles Hunger and thirst Speaking of BDCP …. 2014 State of Our Rivers Symposium Hunger and thirst By Jane Wagner-Tyack UOP economist Dr. Jeffrey Michael reports in an April 7 blog post that between 2007 and 2012, despite the drought in 2009, San Joaquin Valley agriculture made a clear shift toward permanent crops. Over that period, acreage of field crops (like cotton, hay, grain, and alfalfa) increased by 2 percent. Acreage of fruit and nut crops (like almonds, pistachios and grapes, crops that can’t be fallowed in a dry year) increased by 21 percent. Meanwhile, acreage of vegetable crops decreased [...]

“Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.” – George Herbert So much has happened in the first six weeks of 2014 that anyone may be forgiven for feeling dazed and confused. To help you sort out one thread of events, we’re providing a chronology of drought-related developments, with some details about what is in the various declarations and bills. We’ll leave it to you to see some of the interesting connections. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan has been pushing forward with tightly-structured open houses around the state. Smiling acolytes display glossy foam boards and shiny brochures full of errors, and if you want to make [...]

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” – Milan Kundera Taking advantage of a crisis Most people except some overwrought San Joaquin Valley congressmen and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives realize by now that there’s no water for farming right now because THERE’S NO WATER. Even if we had twin tunnels today, there would be no water to put in them. Reservoirs serving agricultural users were in good shape earlier this year (and those serving Southern California urban users still are). But the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau of Reclamation pumped a lot of water out of reservoirs north of the Tehachapis this past summer, gambling that we would [...]

“In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.” – Czeslaw Milosz Articles [—ATOC—] [—TAG:h2—]Water pokerWithout at all minimizing the hardships that many Californians may experience if drought projections for 2014 are borne out, we want to note that as of December 18, 2013, Southern California’s Castaic Lake reservoir is at 88% of capacity, and Southern California’s Pyramid Lake reservoir is at 97% of capacity.Central Valley reservoirs, by contrast – those serving California’s agricultural heartland – are alarmingly low. Most of these reservoirs lie behind dams built on rivers that used to sustain a complex natural environment, rivers on which fish have relied from time immemorial. And aquifers, the [...]