(Yes, we need to do something! – promoted by atdleft)

I once saw a sticker saying “Save California’s Water. Drink Coors.”

robertinmonterey posted a quickie that said:

SoCal to face “extreme drought” (Robert in Monterey) the worst on record, in fact. NorCal and the Central Coast aren’t far behind..

If you believe that, then the time for action is now.  The canary n the coal mine for California Water policy is the delta smelt and the population has crashed precipitously. I posted California Greening with an action alert from the Planning and Conservation League (I also got the same alert from Restore the Delta and the Fish Sniffer magazine.)  The text follows…

ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS IN THE DELTA

DELTA SMELT ARE on the BRINK of EXTINCTION

Results from a just completed survey by the Department of Fish & Game:

–Scientists failed to find any smelt in 30 of 36 stations in the Delta

–The survey found only 25 smelt overall; a 93% drop from 2006

–This is the worst return in the history of this survey, in fact these numbers are ONE TENTH of previous record lows

NO RESPONSE TO SAVE THESE FISH

–Even though SEVERAL Delta species have been collapsing for SIX YEARS, the State has refused to commit to actions to avoid extinction

–Last year the State and Federal water projects exported near RECORD amounts of water through massive pumps in the Delta Smelt?s habitat

–The State pumped 55 BILLION gallons of “EXTRA” water in January even while they were telling the Judge there was no problem with smelt

MORE DELTA FISH ARE HEADED TOWARD EXTINCTION

Severe declines in multiple fish populations show that the Delta ecosystem is collapsing. Since 2005 the State and Federal governments have known about the problem, but have failed to commit to actions to save the Delta.

WHAT MUST BE DONE TO SAVE THE DELTA SMELT?

Scientists’ recommendations to help the Delta Smelt must be immediately implemented (see attachment below).

Call the Governor and tell him to commit to actions to save the Delta Smelt before its too late!

Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Phone: 916-445-2841
http://www.govmail.c…

More information:

Tom Philp of the Sacramento Bee?s Blog provides a link to the Delta Smelt Working Group’s recommendations to respond to the delta smelt crisis:

http://www.sacbee.co…

Hank Shaw’s blog on this issue:

http://blogs.recordn…

During May 2007, pumps have taken more smelt (84) than the Delta survey (8):

http://www.usbr.gov/…

Department of Fish and Game

20 mm survey: http://www.delta.dfg…

Notes from Delta Action Team (State and Federal Agencies)

http://wwwoco.water….

See how this year’s most recent DFG survey of Delta Smelt compares to similarly-timed surveys in years past: (click here to view).

You can the conservative out of the Republican Party but…:

FBI agents carrying out a criminal investigation searched the City Hall office of San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew on Friday and several other properties tied to the rookie lawmaker.

Federal authorities familiar with the probe refused to discuss what the FBI was looking for, but Jew told The Chronicle that agents questioned him about $40,000 in cash he had accepted from a group of businessmen who had sought his help with city permit problems.

With the FBI apparently having multiple pages listing the serial numbers of specific $100 bills, Jew replied something about, “an unorthodox way of paying.”

[Jew] is a former local Republican Party vice chairman but changed his party affiliation to Democrat before running for office in 2006.

As you know Take Back Red California
works with rural counties and districts to elect Democrats. I am a member of the co-ordinating council of TBRC.  Our friends in red California need for you to phone and email Speaker Pelosi asking her to bring her leadership to bear on the reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act (HR 2207) for five years.  The rural counties in northern California and other western states are facing a funding crisis for their schools and roads that only Congress with the leadership of Speaker Pelosi can remedy.  must be reauthorized for five years.

By a House vote on May 10th  the Act has been extended for only one year.  It is attached to the Supplemental Bill on Iraq funding.  Some might call this “pork”, but these funds are critical to schools and transportation in the northwest.

But, one year is not enough.  The Act has been extended twice before for five years and must be again.  Furthermore, every time Bush vetoes the Supplemental Funding Bill, the inclusion of the Secure Rural Schools Act is threatened.  No school superintendent nor county road department can operate efficiently with funding as insecure as it currently is.  This is certainly an extra price rural counties are paying for the Iraq war.

Contact information for Speaker Pelosi:  phone: (202) 225-0100 and http://speaker.gov/….. .  Thank you for encouraging our Speaker do the right thing.  And, please circulate this information widely within the next few days.

The following is a synopsis of the funding history with respect to the decrease in the timber harvest from John Rapf in Trinity County, John is also a TBRC council member.

 

  In California, the counties from Mendocino and Lake Tahoe including foothill and mountain counties, all the way up through Oregon and into Washington and Idaho have significant amounts of Federal Timber lands.  Most is National Forest, some is BLM.  Here in Trinity County, 90% of the land is owned by the Federal Government.  When Congress created National Forests about 100 years ago, they realized that they needed people to live here in order to harvest the timber, but that the counties would lack the tax base to support local government. So they instituted the Payment-In-lieu-of-Taxes (PILT) system whereby counties received a percentage of receipts from the sale of timber harvested.  In Trinity County approximately 40% of the Public School budget and 60% of Road Department budget comes from PILT.

  This worked fine (unless you were a forest ecosystem) until late the 1980’s and harvests began to decline as a result of the enforcement of various environmental laws.  The timber harvest is now about 10% of what it was in 1988, with a corresponding loss of income to County Government.  There has been a corresponding loss of jobs as well.

  Recognizing this problem, the Clinton Administration and Congress instituted a series of temporary funding measures intended to fill the funding gap.  That is what the Secure Rural Schools and Communities Self-Determination Act does.  We are trying to get Congress to reauthorize for a third 5-year period.

More background http://www.wildernes… 
The Wilderness Society 

This is such a serious matter for rural counties in a post-timber world. 
It should not have come to the point that it is tangled up in Iraq.