Once again, political backroom deals have locked out those stakeholders most affected by the proposed water legislation.  Previews are circulating Sacramento but are not made available to the people, companies and organizations who will have to live with the results.

If political cynicism is a viral disease, actions like this are the reason that it spreads so quickly.  

Below the fold, you will find that action alert from Restore the Delta.  Since Calitics has a podcast scheduled for this afternoon with Lois Wolk and John Laird, I would like to know just how much longer they expect the public to sit down, shut up and get with the program. For my part I will continue working the Restore the Delta, the Planning and Conservation League, the Sierra Club, Heal the Bay, Green LA, Clean Water Action and all of the other folks who sent a letter to our bosses, Arnold, Darrel and Karen.  

Language For Water Package Circulates Capitol:  Delta Representatives/Community Leaders Barred From Preview

When Governor Schwarzenegger began his role in office, he was quite proud of being California’s premiere salesman – selling the California economy, geography, and lifestyle to court corporations throughout the world.  Many Californians responded positively to the Governor’s ongoing overtures made to the international business community.

Unfortunately what they did not foresee, is that today in 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger would be leading a failed economy while cutting deal after to deal to create a water package that will sell off the Delta – the Pacific Coast’s largest estuary – to the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District.  This package which would place junior water rights holders on coequal footing with upstream water rights holders, all at the expense of Delta farmers and fisheries, would transform the Westlands Water District and the Metropolitan Water District into California’s permanent water brokers, who will have the rights to purchase and resell water to Southern California’s urban communities at will through  a new conveyance system – aka the peripheral canal.

With the aid of his sidekick, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Governor Schwarzenegger’s Chief of Staff  Susan Kennedy has brought in one-by-one individual water agencies and other organizations, all from outside of the Delta,  to negotiate what each individual groups wants to see in the water package.  And by bringing in corporate environmental organizations into the negotiations process, such the Nature Conservancy, NRDC, and the Environmental Defense Fund, which all stand to benefit financially either from the bond package itself or from continued funding from pro-peripheral canal foundations or corporations like Bechtel, the Governor and Senate President have given themselves green cover for policies that will turn the Delta into a stagnant saltwater marsh.

Delta leaders, both elected officials and community leaders, remain 100% left out of the process.  The only question posed to a few  has been how much money we would like to see in a water bond proposal for a project for the Delta – that would be in trade for our consent for the water package and water bond.

Our concerns about water rights protections, inflows for Delta fisheries and Delta communities, enforceable and enforced water quality standards, and a local and state partnership for Delta governance have been completely ignored.  The letter proposal for a sustainable water strategy sent out by Restore the Delta and 23 environmental organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Californian has been ignored.  Our concerns about the State taking out general obligation bonds when our State coffers are empty have been ignored.

So now, our loyal and active Restore the Delta supporters, it’s up to you!  First, we need you to sign the five petition/letters that we have created on-line to send to all of California’s legislators.  You can do so by clicking here.

Second, we need you to forward this action alert to everyone you know in California.  Third, we need you to call your state legislator’s District office and let them know of your opposition to the secret water bond and water package.  And fourth, we need you to check back on the Restore the Delta website daily for the next week to see if your presence is needed in Sacramento.

As of noon today, an Assembly Parks, and Wildlife Committee Hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Monday October, 26, 2009.  If this changes, we will send out an updated email message this weekend.  It is also our understanding that the Senate Natural Resources Committee may hold a hearing on any day next week at the will of the Chairs.  We will let you know the time and dates of the hearings as soon as we know.

I was please to read Mike Fitzgerald’s column in the Stockton Record today.  He rather showed Hannity for what we know him to be, a blithering idiot who will say anything that he gets paid to say. Here is a taste:

Where to begin? Hannity’s show was set in a cotton farm outside Huron. The farm is fallow for lack of water. The Grapes of Wrath, Part II: The Joads of Huron.

Only those ignorant of the oceanic amounts of water needed to farm cotton are oblivious to the irony. If water’s scarce, cotton shouldn’t even be farmed.

“Turn the water back on!” Hannity intoned over and over, sounding like Moses crying “Let my people go!”

In fact, the water has been “turned on” since June 30. Last Sunday – to cite a typical day – the state and federal pumps exported 13,626 acre-feet of water from the Delta.

The pumps sucked hard enough to make Old River, Middle River and the San Joaquin River at Stockton flow backwards.

Read it yourself.  It is much better in a San Joaquin Valley paper.  

I don’t often use one blog to hype another.  Tonight, I will make an exception.  I posted a longer item at California Greening today that considers just what is failing to happen regarding water in this state.  While, as you might guess, I see the current legislature incapable to taking the action necessary to fix our problems and really see this as an opportunity for Greens, or at least Green ideas on ecology.

The whole post is below the fold.  

California’s water systems are broken. In some cases, it is the physical system such as the long delayed upgrade and seismic retrofit of the Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct or the many miles of threatened levees in the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta. But mostly, it is the bureaucratic process by which water is governed, metered out, charged for and frequently fought over.

California’s Little Hoover Commission has previously issued reports on water. The most recent, in January 2009 was Clearer Structure, Cleaner Water: Improving Performance and Outcomes at the State Water Boards. It’s conclusions start with the recognition that California has an outdated system for dealing with a raft of threats to clean water, a crumbling infrastructure and a growing demand. Their solution involved a total re-structuring of the system of State and Regional Water Control Boards making them appointed by and responsible to the Governor.

Following that, the Commission has taken on the challenge to change the total governance of water in California beginning with a new hearing that was held April 23, 2009 in Sacramento. At that hearing, Phil Issenberg, Chairman of the Delta Vision Foundation, testified that the sum total of documented water rights in California is 8.4 times the average water flow through the Delta.

Even if the State Legislature were willing to undertake the task of reforming water governance, no matter what they decide to do, someone will challenge it in court. California’s bureaucracies have some 200 different agencies and boards involved in the process of managing our water resources.

Much of the power over water use is devolved into a long list of local water districts, each with it’s own set of directors and regulations. As far as I know, there are only four greens on any of these water district boards in the State of California. If there is any office that may be attainable, and which might have a long lasting effect on life in California, it is that of Director of a Water District.

The Green Party of the United States recently passed a resolution (#380) that outlines a new process of dealing with water issues. While Resolution authorizes action by the EcoAction Committee, GPUS, this will not happen without Greens everywhere becoming involved. We must all become active participants in solving California’s problems.

We have seen that the California State Legislature is incapable of coming to any hard decision regarding anything of importance. If they can not enact a budget on time, how will they be able to deal with the restructuring of priorities between Central Valley Agriculture and Southern California urban users.

The problems associated with water, it’s management and it’s governance in California cry our for Green solutions. California needs the active involvement of Greens who will take bioregional approaches to the management of water sheds, who will involve the public in the decision making rather than relying on entrenched bureaucracies and special interests to determine our future.

Join the GPCA and the GPUS EcoAction Committee in creating fundamental change. EcoAction is setting up The Green Party Water Works, a public blog where we will focus attention on bioregional solutions and water governance.

That is one place to start. Another is to contact local Green Party councils and to tell them that you are willing to help protect California’s future. It is clear that neither major political party is going to do that.

Wes Rolley – CoChair: EcoAction Committee Green Party US