[env-trinity] Is Jerry Brown Breaking His Prop. 1 Campaign Promise? (Revised)

[Dan Bacher]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/22/1379382/-Is-Jerry-Brown-Breaking-His-Prop-1-Promise

Is Jerry Brown Breaking His Prop. 1 Campaign Promise?

by Dan Bacher

During the fall election, Governor Jerry Brown and advocates of  
Proposition 1, the state water bond, constantly claimed that the  
measure was "tunnels neutral."

In photo opportunity after photo opportunity, Brown and Prop. 1  
backers, including corporate environmental" NGOs, promised the people  
of California that water bond funds would not be used for the BDCP,  
but for dealing with the drought.

Now, Restore the Delta (RTD) is charging that Brown is breaking his  
promise after Richard Stapler, the spokesman for the Bay Delta  
Conservation Plan, admitted to Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco  
Chronicle that they could use money from Proposition 1 to pay for  
"habitat mitigation" for construction and operation of the tunnels.

RTD Executive Director Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla said, "It is  
outrageous that the governor would break the promise he made to the  
people of California that their taxes would not be used to mitigate  
damage from the tunnels. Now he is signaling that bond monies will  
support mega-growers like Stewart Resnick, who plans to expand almond  
production by 50% over the next five years."

“It's time for Governor Brown to drop the 19th century tunnels plan,  
and embrace water technologies that will serve the world we live in  
now, and our children will live in in the future," she said.

According to the Chronicle, Stapler "acknowledged that the money could  
conceivably come from Proposition 1, the $7.5 billion water bond that  
California passed last year.”

Here is a link to the San Francisco Chronicle story including this  
startling admission: http://bit.ly/1QgcJc3

“The science has demonstrated that habitat without water for fisheries  
fails in the Delta. The tunnels project cannot restore the Delta  
because it takes the necessary water out of the Delta,” said Barrigan- 
Parrilla.

“California experiences dry or drought conditions 40% of the time  
historically, even before climate change. That means that in at least  
four out of ten years exporters will have astronomical fixed costs to  
pay for no water," Barrigan-Parrilla concluded.

On Monday, a coalition of environmentalists blasted Beverly Hills  
billionaire Stewart Resnick and other corporate agribusiness interests  
for continuing to plant thousands of acres of new almond trees during  
the drought while Governor Jerry Brown is mandating that urban  
families slash water usage by 25 percent.

Barrigan-Parrilla said Stewart Resnick, the owner of Paramount Farms  
in Kern County, uses as much water for his almonds as the amount of  
water 38 million Californians are now required to conserve.

“While farmers make their own decisions on what to plant, the public  
is paying the price for poor decisions made by greedy mega-growers,  
who plant permanent crops where there is no water,” Barrigan-Parrilla  
told reporters in a news conference  about the “tunnels only” version  
of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) that Governor Jerry Brown is  
now pushing. “That is not sustainable and the tunnels would subsidize  
unsustainable agriculture.”

For the complete details on the news conference, go to: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/04/21/1379102/-Resnick-increases-almond-acreage-as-city-dwellers-forced-to-slash-water-use

Proposition 1, California Governor Jerry Brown’s $7.5 billion water  
bond, sailed to easy victory on November 4, 2014. The election results  
show how the power of millions of dollars of corporate money in the  
corrupt oligarchy of California were able to defeat a a grassroots  
movement of fishermen, environmentalists, Indian Tribes and family  
farmers opposed to Prop. 1.

The Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Winnemem Wintu and Concow Maidu Tribes, the  
defenders of California’s rivers and oceans for thousands of years,  
strongly opposed Prop. 1. because of the threat the bond poses to  
water, salmon and their culture.

Caleen Sisk, chief and spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe,  
said the water bond, peripheral tunnels, Shasta Dam raise and other  
water projects now being planned by the state and federal governments  
are in reality “one Big Project” that will destroy salmon, rivers and  
groundwater supplies.

“It does not make sense that people are separating the water puzzle  
into individual pieces, such as: the raising of Shasta Dam,  
Proposition 1, the Delta tunnels, BDCP, Sites Reservoir, Temperance  
Flat, CALFED, Delta Vision, BDCP, OCAP, the Bay Delta, Trinity/Klamath  
Rivers, the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin River, and water  
rights,” said Chief Sisk. “It is all one BIG Project.”

She emphasized, “You have to look at the whole picture and everything  
in between from Shasta Dam to the Delta estuary. We need to ask what  
is affected by our actions and who is benefitting from them? These are  
not separate projects; they are all the same thing that the State is  
asking us to fund – California water being manipulated for the  
enrichment of some and the devastation of cultures, environments, and  
species all in the name of higher profits.”

Prop. 1 proponents, including a rogue’s gallery of oil companies,  
corporate agribusiness tycoons, Big Tobacco, health insurance  
companies and billionaires, dumped over $16.4 million into the  
campaign, while Prop. 1 opponents raised around $100,000 for the  
effort. Resnick, the Beverly Hills billionaire “farmer” who has made  
millions off of reselling environmental water to the public, donated  
$150,000 to the Yes on Prop 1 campaign. (http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/californias-prop-1-passes-power-big-money-overcomes-power-people/ 
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