[env-trinity] Save the American River Association: Vote No on Prop. 1!/Judge rejects agribusiness lawsuit over Trinity River flows - Tribes disagree about decision's implications

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/save-the-american-river-association-vote-no-on-prop.-11/  





Photo of Nimbus Fish Hatchery Weir on the American River by Dan Bacher.

640_img_0665_1-1.jpg

SAVE THE AMERICAN RIVER ASSOCIATION: VOTE NO ON PROP. 1!

by Dan Bacher, October 3, 2014

The Save the American River Association (SARA) Board of Directors has issued an action alert urging all of their members and supporters to Vote NO on Proposition 1, the water bond measure on this November's ballot. 

SARA listed the following reasons for voting No on the water bond: 

• Prop. 1 does nothing to address drought relief in the near future. 

• Prop. 1 adds $7.12 billion to California's debt, debt that will cost taxpayers $14.4 when the principal and interest is paid. 

• Prop. 1 dedicates only 13% of its funding forconservation, stormwater capture and treatment, and recycling. 

• Prop. 1 allocates $2.7 billion for three dams that would increase the state's water supply by only 1%. The money would flow under the provision that allows "continuous funding," meaning there would be no legislative oversight. A number of dam projects that had been abandoned because of low water yield or would not be cost-effective are now being revived. 

• When the State Water Project was approved in 1960, it provided that beneficiaries of water projects -- not taxpayers statewide -- would pay for new projects. Prop. 1 reverses that principle. Taxpayers would pay the lion's share of new projects. Taxpayers, for example, would pay 73% of the cost of the proposed Temperance Flat Dam on the San Joaquin River while the beneficiaries -- agribiz and the City of Fresno -- would pay most of the balance. 

• Prop. 1 requires taxpayers to buy water the public already owns to protect fish. It's a retread of programs in force for years that allow speculators who reap huge profits by selling the public's water back to the public. And it will have the additional impact of making more water available to export from The Delta. 

• Prop. 1 does nothing to address factors that have worsened the water crisis in California during the current drought: the overdrafting of major reservoirs in Northern California, inequitable distribution of limited water supplies and the failure to balance the Public Trust. 

• Prop. 1 contains $1.5 billion for "conservancies" without any language governing how the money is to be spent. Nothing would prevent the conservancies from spending the money on projects that have no impact on water supplies such as bike trails or administrative costs. Critics are calling it "pork." 

• Promoters of Prop. 1 note that about 6.9% of the bond will spent to provide safe drinking water and clean water programs to disadvantaged communities. That long overdue initiative should have been presented to the voters years ago as a standalone proposition. It is shameful that California government has never addressed the water problems of disadvantaged communities. 

There are more reasons to vote NO ON PROP. 1. As Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance has said, Prop. 1 "is a poster-child of why California is in a water crisis: it enriches water speculators but accomplishes little in addressing the drought, solving California's long-term water needs, reducing reliance on The Delta, or protecting our rivers and fisheries." 

Organizations and Tribes opposing the water bond include the following:
AFSCME District Council 57
Ballona Institute
Butte Environmental Council
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
California Striped Bass Association
California Water Impact Network
Coast Action Group
Center for Biological Diversity
Central Delta Water Agency
Concerned Citizens Coalition of Stockton
Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC)
Environmental Water Caucus 
Factory Farm Awareness Coalition
Friends Committee on Legislation of California
Friends of the Eel River
Friends of the River
Food and Water Watch
Foothill Conservancy
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations
Potrero Hill Democratic Club
Pulga Rancheria Concow Maidu Indians
Restore the Delta
Sacramento River Preservation Trust
San Francisco Crab Boat Association
Save the American River Association
Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fishermen’s Association
Sherman Island Duck Hunters Association
Sonoma County Conservation Action
South Delta Water Agency
Southern California Watershed Alliance
Tar Sands Action
Wetlands Defense Fund
Wild Heritage Planners
Winnemem Wintu Tribe

BECOME A SARA MEMBER: 
SARA realizes that we must strengthen our base by increasing our membership, not only to maintain our visibility, but to fund our Parkway outreach, education and advocacy efforts via membership donations. If you are reading this and are not a member, please join SARA now by going to: http://www.sarariverwatch.org/how_to_help.php. SARA is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

For more information about the No on Prop. 1 campaign, go to: http://www.noonprop1.org/



2. Trinity and Klamath River Court Decision Article


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/02/1333865/-Judge-rejects-agribusiness-lawsuit-over-Trinity-River-flows

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2014/10/01/18762297.php 
Photo of Lewiston Dam on the Trinity River by Dan Bacher.

800_lewiston_dam.jpg
original image ( 5184x3456)

Judge rejects agribusiness lawsuit over Trinity River flows 

Tribes disagree about decision's implications 

by Dan Bacher 

A federal judge in Fresno Wednesday dismissed almost all claims in a lawsuit brought by a coalition of corporate agribusiness interests seeking to block the protection of salmon in the Trinity River, but the Yurok Tribe, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA) disagree with the Hoopa Valley Tribe over the implications of the decision. 

The Yurok Tribe, PCFFA and Earthjustice issued a joint news release stating that Judge Lawrence O’Neill "largely upheld" the Bureau of Reclamation’s ability to provide additional flows in the Trinity, the largest tributary of the Klamath, to prevent harm to salmon, but at the same time indicated that "different legal authorities need to be invoked." 

"Straight up, if the Bureau of Reclamation did not make the decision to augment flows on the Klamath, we would be right now cleaning up thousands of salmon carcasses on the river,” said Thomas P. O'Rourke, Sr., Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. “We applaud Judge O'Neill's decision. We need to do everything possible to ensure in-basin fish needs are met and to prevent another heartbreaking tragedy on the Klamath River." 

On the other hand, the Hoopa Valley Tribe said that the judge's decision actually "cut off water needed for salmon in the Klamath River." 

"If the decision stands, it will gut a 60-year old federal law that protected Trinity River water use for tribal fisheries,” said Mike Orcutt, Hoopa Fisheries Director. 

The San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority and Westlands Water District, representing agribusiness interests that irrigate drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, brought the case last year against the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that controls water releases from the Trinity Reservoir to the Trinity and Lower Klamath rivers. 

These rivers support huge runs of Chinook salmon that the commercial fishing industry and the Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes depend on for sustenance. These salmon runs also support an economically vital recreational fishing industry in the ocean and on the Klamath and Trinity rivers. 

The water districts brought the case after the Bureau proposed in 2013 to increase flow levels in the Trinity to avoid another massive fish kill in the Lower Klamath like the one that took place in September 2012, when over 68,000 salmon perished.
 The PCFFA, represented by Earthjustice, and the Hoopa and Yurok Tribes intervened in defense of the Bureau to protect salmon and the local fishing industry. 

After an evidentiary hearing in August 2013, Judge O’Neill rejected the irrigators’ request to block the flow program. Judge O’Neill rejected a similar request with respect to the 2014 program. "Today’s ruling represents the final resolution of the legal issues in this case," according to Earthjustice. 

"Ultimately this case is also about preserving the California salmon fishing industry,” said Glen Spain, NW Regional Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, which represents commercial fishing families coastwide. “It makes no sense to sacrifice thousands of fisheries jobs over 700 miles of coastline to provide just a little bit more water to a voracious California Central Valley agribusiness system that has already sucked up far more than its share in a major drought." 

Spain said this ruling will impact the salmon populations, coastal fishing communities and tribes who rely on salmon. During drought, the Bureau’s water releases from the Trinity River to the Lower Klamath are critical to the survival of salmon as thousands of them return to the river to spawn in late summer. 

“Any second-grader can tell you that fish need water,” said Jan Hasselman, an Earthjustice attorney based in Seattle. “The court largely affirmed the government’s ability to manage water in the basin to protect fish and the people who rely on them. We will continue to work to ensure that good science is the touchstone of water management in the Trinity basin.” 

Hasselman said the court "rejected a wide number of claims brought by the irrigators in the case, but did find for the irrigators that the 1955 statute that the government relied on as authority for supplemental flows did not actually provide such authority. The Bureau will need to invoke different legal authority if additional releases are required in the future." 

In contrast, Danielle Vigil-Masten, Chairwoman of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, criticized Judge O'Neill's decision for not protecting the Trinity River and vowed to appeal the ruling. 

“With the stroke of a pen the court severed the Klamath River’s largest tributary and sutured it onto the Sacramento River. The lifeblood of our people will now flow south to industrial agriculture," said Vigil-Masten. 

She said the court has "twisted the text and context of federal legislation to produce this tragic outcome." 

“But this decision cannot stand and it will not stand,” said Council Member Ryan Jackson. “We will appeal. Ten years ago the Hoopa Valley Tribe persuaded the court of appeals in San Francisco to reverse another decision of this same federal court for these same plaintiffs that would have destroyed the Hoopa fishery." 

“We fought and won then,” said Jackson, “ and we will win again.“ 

According to the Tribe, the judge blamed this outcome in part on the United States for its “refusal to invoke the trust responsibility” as a reason to provide water for our fishery, which the United States holds in trust." 

“We expect our trustee to be a much stronger advocate for our rights and resources on appeal than it was in this court,” said Hoopa Vice Chair Wendy George. 

The Tribe also said "It is terribly ironic that just days ago, the United States paid a more than $500 million to the Navajo Nation for mismanagement of tribal trust resources. It is devastating to think that while some federal lawyers were putting the final touches on that settlement, others were filing papers in our case to perpetrate the same kind of mismanagement all over again." 

“All should now be on notice,” said Chairwoman Vigil-Masten. “The Hoopa Valley Tribe will oppose any legislation that benefits the predatory and avaricious Central Valley Project contractors that brought this suit against us, including the pending California drought bill and the San Luis Drainage settlement that is expected to be introduced in the next Congress.” 

The Tribe noted, "The people on the Klamath River in Oregon also are on notice: This decision creates a dilemma for the federal government. If the government does not appeal the court’s decision and win, the Secretary of the Interior may have no more Central Valley Project water available to protect and preserve fish in California’s lower Klamath River. 

The only other sources of water now subject to federal regulation besides the CVP’s Trinity River Division are the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Irrigation Project and the federally licensed PacifiCorp Dams in Oregon and Californian. The Klamath water rights settlement now pending in the U.S. Senate will have to be revised to take water from those facilities to protect lower Klamath tribal trust resources." 

A phone call and email to Gayle Holman, Westlands Water District public affairs representative, about the district's position on the ruling hadn't been returned as of press time. 

However, Holman told the Eureka Times Standard that in "her understanding of the ruling, the claims made by Westlands had not been dismissed." 

"We are pleased that the court agreed with us that Reclamation had no authority to make these releases," she said. (http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_26647663/judge-water-klamath-salmon-legal-this-time) 

You can read the decision on the Earthjustice: http://earthjustice.org/documents/legal-document/court-decision-judge-dismisses-bulk-of-agribusiness-lawsuit-over-trinity-river-flows 

BACKGROUND: 

In 2013, there were extremely low flow conditions in the Lower Klamath occurring at the same time fisheries managers expected the second-largest run of Chinook salmon on record. Federal, state and tribal salmon biologists were concerned that the confluence of high runs and low flows would lead to another disaster like the ‘Fish Kill of 2002. 

In September 2002, Bush Administration’s water management policies in the basin that favored irrigators led to a fish kill of over 68,000 salmon in the Lower Klamath, the largest fish kill of adult salmon in U.S. history. The die-off resulted in coast-wide closures of commercial, recreational and tribal fishing, dealing a huge blow to the local economy, resulting in over $200 million in losses. 

To avoid the projected die-off, the Bureau of Reclamation developed a plan to release extra water from dams along the Trinity River, a tributary of the Klamath, to improve the Klamath’s water conditions. In response, San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority and Westlands Water District, serving the interest of powerful agribusiness, filed a lawsuit in an attempt to declare unlawful the Bureau’s authority to release water from the Trinity River.
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