by Bill Hatch
In spite of this winter’s rains, California is still going into its fourth year of drought and its second year of high-powered water warfare. The state now lives in a state of perpetual water anxiety. We even have a monthly religious rite at the top of Echo Pass, near Lake Tahoe. A shaman from the [...]
by Daniel Mintz
The Friends of the Eel River (FOER) has filed a petition asking the State Water Resources Control Board to “protect public trust resources on the Eel River and prevent unreasonable use of water” by reducing or eliminating PG&E’s water rights. And after hearing requests for the county to become involved as a supporting party, supervisors showed interest in doing so.
A current controversial federal law allows product manufacturers to withhold the identity of untested chemicals from the public if the manufacturer has reason to believe that such public knowledge could harm business — and even if the manufacturer and the feds know that a chemical poses a considerable risk to public health. It’s crazy, and [...]
by Dan Bacher
John and Barbara Stephens-Lewallen, Mendocino County’s leading environmental activist couple, demanded that the Schwarzenegger administration stop the corrupt, fast-track Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative in a letter they presented to the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast Study Region on March 1. Their plea to halt the process was made the [...]
by Dan Bacher
Delta advocates fear that campaign contributions from Stewart Resnick and other big water interests could heavily influence Jerry Brown, the potential winner of the gubernatorial race in the November election, and his positions on the construction of more dams and the November $11.1 billion water bond. They also fear Resnick could pressure Brown to support legislative and administrative attacks on federal plans protecting Delta smelt and Central Valley salmon.
by Dan Bacher
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC), a quasi-governmental body that manages West Coast fisheries, on February 11 released alarming numbers showing that California’s once most abundant salmon run collapsed to an all-time record low in 2009.
Most everybody in Anderson Valley knows that, because of the exponential growth of water diversions over the last 20 years, the native Salmon and Steelhead are facing extinction. That we would passively allow that to happen is, to me, unconscionable.
by Anna Birkas
This summer Arnold Schwarzenegger mandated the legalization of greywater under emergency drought measures (his best deed ever). The Department of Housing and Community Development wrote the new emergency code. With a few changes it has just been made permanent.
by Dan Bacher
Arnold Schwarzenegger used his state of the state address yesterday to push his insane campaign to build a peripheral canal and more dams.
A day may come when ordinary people — who earnestly care about nature — will come to realize that we’ve lost control of our shoreline.
Let’s consider the MLPA, the Marine Life Protection Act, passed by a predominately progressive state government, and signed into law by a once conservative actor who has learned to dance with [...]
