[env-trinity] Governor Brown's drought order lets corporate agribusiness, oil companies off the hook

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/01/1375000/-Governor-Brown-s-drought-order-lets-corporate-agribusiness-oil-companies-off-the-hook

Governor Brown's drought order lets corporate agribusiness, oil  
companies off the hook

by Dan Bacher

Governor Jerry Brown today issued an executive order that he claimed  
will "save water," increase enforcement to prevent wasteful water use,  
streamline the state's drought response and invest in new technologies  
that will make California more "drought resilient."

The order follows the lowest snowpack ever recorded in California  
history, with no end to the drought in sight.

Critics of the Governor’s water policies quickly responded that  
Brown’s order lets corporate agribusiness interests, the biggest users  
of the state's water, and big oil companies off the hook.

“Today we are standing on dry grass where there should be five feet of  
snow. This historic drought demands unprecedented action,” said  
Governor Brown. “Therefore, I’m issuing an executive order mandating  
substantial water reductions across our state. As Californians, we  
must pull together and save water in every way possible.”

For the first time in state history, Brown has directed the State  
Water Resources Control Board to implement mandatory water reductions  
in cities and towns across California to reduce water usage by 25  
percent. This savings amounts to approximately 1.5 million acre-feet  
of water over the next nine months, or nearly as much as is currently  
in Lake Lake Oroville, according to the Governor's Office.

His executive order also features "increased enforcent actions,"  
including calls on local water agencies to adjust their rate  
structures to implement conservation pricing, recognized as an  
effective way to realize water reductions and discourage water waste.

In addition, the order called for "streamlining government response to  
the drought," including prioritizing state review and decision-making  
of water infrastructure projects and requiring state agencies to  
report to the Governor's Office on any application pending for more  
than 90 days.

To read the full press release and executive order http://gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=18910

After the Governor held his press conference, Adam Scow, Food & Water  
Watch California Director, released a statement blasting Governor  
Jerry Brown's Executive Order for calling for mandatory water  
reductions while not addressing the state's "most egregious corporate  
water abuses" by agribusiness and oil companies.

"It is disappointing that Governor Brown’s executive order to reduce  
California water use does not address the state's most egregious  
corporate water abuses. In the midst of a severe drought, the Governor  
continues to allow corporate farms and oil interests to deplete and  
pollute our precious groundwater resources that are crucial for saving  
water.

The Governor must save our groundwater from depletion by directing the  
State Water Board to protect groundwater as a public resource.  
Governor Brown should direct the Water Board to place a moratorium on  
the use of groundwater for irrigating crops on toxic and dry soils on  
the westside of the San Joaquin Valley. In the two year period  
covering 2014-2015, the Westlands Water District is on pace to pump  
over 1 million acre feet of groundwater - more water than Los Angeles,  
San Diego, and San Francisco combined use in 1 year. Much of Westlands  
grows water-intensive almonds and pistachios, most of which are  
exported out of state and overseas. This is a wasteful and  
unreasonable water use, especially during a severe drought.

Governor Brown should also stop the ongoing contamination of  
groundwater aquifers by toxic wastewater from oil and gas operations.  
It is disturbing and irresponsible that the Brown administration  
continues to allow oil companies to contaminate and rob Californians  
of these fresh water sources. Given that there is currently no safe  
way to dispose of toxic wastewater, the Governor should place a  
moratorium on fracking and other dangerous oil extraction techniques  
to prevent the problem from getting even bigger."

Restore the Delta (RTD), opponents of Brown’s Bay Delta Conservation  
Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels, said Brown’s proposed  
Drought Barriers on the Delta will  push the Delta "closer to  
collapse." The group said these barriers threaten salmon while the  
Governor refuses to put restrictions on "corporate mega-farms."

“Governor Brown has had two responses of opposite extremes to the  
drought crisis,” said RTD executive director Barbara Barrigan- 
Parrilla. “The first response is to place the largest burden of  
conservation on urban water users."

"His second response is to push the Delta further toward ecological  
collapse by expediting the placement of a barrier system to block  
water flows. Those barriers will decimate fisheries and leave the  
people of the Delta to suffer due to drought mismanagement by state  
and federal agencies over the last four years," she noted.

“Governor Brown vacillates between advocating for a good start on  
urban conservation and inflicting destruction on the Bay-Delta  
estuary,” said Barrigan-Parrilla. “He refuses to deal with the real  
crisis: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed has been five times  
over promised, with 70% of those water deliveries going to big almond  
growers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.  Enforcing better  
reporting by agricultural users is an important step, but we already  
know which watersheds are oversubscribed and that the only way to  
solve the problem is for adjudication of the Delta watershed.”

She said the state and federal water projects’ drought contingency  
plan for 2015 estimates that water districts relying on Delta exports  
have indicated a need for health and safety-related water supplies of  
510,000 acre-feet.

The water projects have already pumped over 739,000 acre-feet in 2015,  
about 82 percent of which was stored as of March 21 at San Luis  
Reservoir, west of Los Banos.

Barrigan-Parrilla said it is not yet known how much of these exports  
are for the "health and safety" purposes of Metropolitan Water  
District customers, who will be making sacrifices as a result of water  
rationing and participating heroically in personal responsibility  
campaigns, and how much is to satisfy industrial mega-farm demand  
south of the Delta.

“There is not enough water in the watershed to satisfy the insatiable  
demands of big agribusiness growers on the west side of the San  
Joaquin Valley and to keep enough surface water in reserve for urban  
populations,” Barrigan-Parrilla added.

Restore the Delta Policy Analyst Tim Stroshane said, “The proposed  
drought barriers project for the Delta will allow the Department of  
Water Resources and the Bureau of Reclamation to continue managing  
upstream storage so that the pain of the drought will be borne by  
Delta residents and ecosystems, and not by Delta water takers. The  
barriers will have drastic consequence on fisheries, commercial and  
recreational fishing economies, various Delta farming communities,  
recreation economies, all so that water will be made available beyond  
what is needed for health and human safety, but for what purposes we  
don’t know.”

“California must save water first through agriculture reductions on  
polluted drainage impaired land, which uses 2/3 of the Delta’s  
exported water. To protect urban areas, we need a Marshall Plan to  
implement conservation, groundwater storage, storm water capture,  
cisterns, recycling and effective drought planning. Estimates show  
that it will cost tens of billions to repair urban water systems  
alone," Barrigan-Parrilla said.

In the last 28 water years (since the beginning of the 1987-92  
drought), wet and above normal years have occurred just 11 times (39  
percent of the time) in both the San Joaquin and Sacramento River  
basins, according to Restore the Delta. This means that the premise of  
“emergency” drought barriers is false.

“Emergency” connotes an event that is short-lived and infrequent, if  
it occurs at all. But below normal to critical water years occur more  
than half the time (as they have for almost the last three decades).  
“Emergency” becomes meaningless.

“The Department of Water Resources plans to install and remove  
barriers simultaneously with when juvenile salmon would be attempting  
to rear in, or emigrate through, the Delta before they leave for the  
Pacific Ocean. The most invasive and disruptive activities associated  
with the barriers proposal occur at critically sensitive times in the  
life histories of these most magnificent and vulnerable listed  
species,” Stroshane added.

Waters upstream and downstream of the barriers within the Delta will  
stagnate. When the dilution action of flows is greatly reduced during  
summer heat, water temperatures increase, salinity is projected to  
increase, and pollutant and contaminant concentrations will increase  
as well, according to Stroshane.

With the drought barriers, Delta smelt are likely to face extinction  
this year, with barriers installed to limit flow. And the Delta itself  
will be become an even less hospitable place for the vulnerable fish  
species that remain.

“Whether it’s the barriers or the Delta tunnels, it is apparent how  
little Governor Brown cares for the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary.   
He has not insisted on the fallowing of fields during the drought by  
junior water rights holders.  He is pushing Delta smelt to extinction,  
setting up our salmon fisheries for failure, and sacrificing  
sustainable six-generation Delta farms for almonds, fracking, and  
speculative desert development,” concluded Barrigan-Parrilla.

For more information on the biggest threats to California's rivers,  
lakes, ocean waters, fish and environment, go to: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2015/02/16/meet-the-biggest-threats-to-californias-environment-the-winners-of-the-annual-cold-dead-fish-awards
  
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