[env-trinity] Salmon Water Now! Video Covers The Salmon Summit

[Dan Bacher]

Salmon Water Now! Video Covers The Salmon Summit

The Salmon Summit was a huge success and now you can see it in this  
new Salmon Water Now! video. This is the first of a few videos that  
will feature what happened at Fort Mason in San Francisco on April  
1st. Future videos will show the panel discussions and media  
coverage. The video is only available on Vimeo: http://www.vimeo.com/ 
10663392

The Salmon Summit: Listen to Us!

by Dan Bacher

Commercial salmon fishermen, recreational anglers and business owners  
who have been devastated by more than two years of no salmon fishing  
came from throughout California and Oregon on a beautiful spring day  
to participate in the Salmon Summit at Fort Mason in San Francisco on  
April 1. More than 500 men, women, and children showed up to demand  
that the state and federal governments take action to restore  
collapsing populations of salmon, according to Bruce Tokars of Salmon  
Water Now!

"They came to tell representatives from Congress and Sacramento that  
it is time to make what is wrong, right again," said Tokars."The  
message was clear: Junior water rights holders on the West side of  
the Central Valley must be stopped from taking river and Delta water  
needed by salmon."

The once robust runs of fall, winter and spring run Chinook salmon  
are on the edge of extinction because of abysmal water management and  
the political pressures of Westlands Water District, agribusiness  
tycoon Stewart Resnick, owner of Paramount Farms, and their powerful  
friends in Congress and Sacramento.

"The Salmon Summit's overflow crowd came to say it is way past time  
for salmon to get the water they need to spawn and ensure that they  
have healthy rivers and a healthy Delta so the fish can reproduce and  
get out to sea to live their lives," said Tokars.

Over the past year, corporate agribusiness, Southern California water  
agencies and water privateers have launched unprecedented attacks on  
the federal plans (biological opinions) protecting Delta smelt,  
Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green  
sturgeon and southern resident killer whales.

These corporate water interests are collaborating with Governor  
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Central Valley  
Representatives and California Legislators to build a peripheral  
canal and new dams and to pass an $11.1 billion water bond in  
November. The peripheral canal/tunnel fiasco would cost anywhere from  
$23 to $53.8 billion at a time of unprecedented economic crisis in  
California - and is likely to push Central Valley salmon and Delta  
fish species over the edge of extinction.

The battle to restore Central Valley salmon populations is a conflict  
between the people and a handful of greedy corporate agribusiness  
owners. Unfortunately, servants of agribusiness such as  
Representative Jim Costa (D-Fresno) are falsely portraying the  
conflict as one between "radical environmentalists and family  
farmers," even though there is no basis whatsoever to this bizarre  
contention.

To see the forces that we're up against, read Costa's blistering  
missive on http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/nov05election/detail? 
entry_id=60623. "We have stood up to the bully tactics of extreme  
environmentalists whose agenda ignores our families and our futures,"  
claimed Costa, who appears to be competing with agribusiness puppet  
Representative Devin Nunes (R-Visalia) in his histrionic rhetoric.  
"We've made progress. More water will flow to our Valley and George  
Miller doesn't like it."

This is the first of several videos documenting this historic event.  
I urge you to watch this excellent video and circulate the web link  
widely.

Here is the link to the new video: http://www.vimeo.com/10663392

For more information, go to Salmon Water Now!, http:// 
www.salmonwaternow.org. 
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