Large Agribusiness Threatens States Rights, West Coast Fisheries

By Dr. Mark Rockwell

California Representative

Endangered Species Coalition

California Bay Delta

This week Congress is voting on a dangerous bill that would turn upside down 150 years of Western water law. House Resolution 1837 (HR 1837), the so-called San Joaquin Water Reliability Act, removes all environmental protections for the Delta and Central Valley rivers of California and allows destructive exports of water from California’s beleaguered Bay-Delta to politically connected San Joaquin Valley farmers.

If enacted, H.R. 1837 would set an unprecedented standard of state preemption, environmental disregard, and the privatization of a public resource for the benefit of a select few.  It would prohibit California from adhering to its own water code and State Constitution when managing its water resources (Section 108(b)).  Additionally, it would deem that all requirements of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) would be met through a 1994 Bay Delta Accord agreement, ignoring the last fifteen years of science demonstrating the negative effects of this accord on fisheries. (Section 108).

Chinook Salmon courtesy FWS.gov

Of great importance here is that this law is not limited to only California. All states are open to the precedent established in this bill.  Hence, several states have filed letters of opposition to HR 1837 - Oregon, Wyoming, Colorado and California.  Hundreds of letters have been filed with the House of Representatives asking them to vote against this bill.  This is simply a bad bill - for states rights, for environmental quality, for privately negotiated local agreements on water.  

California is a state with nearly 38 million citizens, 2/3 of which live in the southern 1/3 of the state.  Water has historically been the center of controversy since William Mulholland dried up the Owens valley in the eastern Sierra and shipped the water to Los Angeles in the early 1900s.  this started what has been known since as the “California Water Wars.”

In recent years because of increasing water demands south of the state capital in Sacramento, the central California Bay-Delta, the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas, has been under siege.  Fish and other wildlife have all declined in population, and many have been placed on the state and federation Endangered Species Lists.  Since 2001 the efforts to save the Bay-Delta fish and wildlife has been pitted against large economic interests in other areas of the state.  Seemingly forgotten are the tens of thousands of lost jobs in the north state due to closures of both the recreational and commercial salmon fishing industries in 2008 and 2009, and minimal openings in 2010.

California Bay Delta

During this time California was in a 3 year drought, and suffering from the global economic collapse.   Unemployment was high throughout the state, including the central valley farming regions.  Some large farmers in the San Joaquin valley started blaming the water cutbacks to protect fish as the reason they were not able to farm, forgetting the drought or economic problems.  A report from the Economic Forecast Center at the University of the Pacific clearly states:  “We estimate the San Joaquin Valley has lost 8,500 jobs from reduced water exports in 2009 with roughly 2,000 of these attributable to the endangered Delta Smelt, and the rest to the natural drought.” 

In June, 2011 House members Nunes, McCarthy and Denham introduced HR 1837, a bill that would undermine more than 100 years of California water law.  This legislation repeals existing law regarding the use of water from the Bay-Delta and its tributaries,  and reallocates that water in a way that elevates agricultural uses above all other water needs, including cities, fisheries and environmental uses.

In reality this is a huge water grab by economically advantaged large agribusiness landowners and developers in the southern parts of the state.  Proponents try to ride the emotions around job loss and family farms, and blame all the problems in the valley on government regulations.  Facts are hard to avoid, however, and while helping themselves to public trust water, they risk further destruction to the salmon fishery that has supported thousands of fishing families and coastal communities since the 1800s.  Data shows that 23,000 jobs were lost in 2008 and 2009 in the fishing industry, and a loss of $1.4 billion each year to California’s economy.  These are all truly “family” business, and many are gone today because they could not weather the closures resulting from impacts from mismanagement of the Bay-Delta.

If we are really concerned about the economy and jobs, there is much more to be gained by recovering the Bay-Delta through cutbacks in water diversions.  Families are important.  Fish and wildlife are important.  Our children and grandchildren will benefit from a restored Bay-Delta, its fisheries and its wildlife.  California is a great place because we have such fish and wildlife diversity.  We need to protect it for future generations.  Its part of what makes California a great place to live.

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Take action! Call your Representative and ask them to vote NO on HR 1837.

Please follow up with an email after your call.  

Mussel Atrophy

This is a guest post from John Motsinger, a Communications Associate at Defenders of Wildlife.

How coal is killing America’s freshwater mussels

Mussels act as a water filter, keeping our rivers clean and healthy. But species like the tan riffleshell can no longer keep up with coal pollution. More than a third of freshwater mussel species are critically imperiled or already extinct.

Who cares about some little mussel that inhabits a few rivers in eastern Tennessee and southwest Virginia? Well, if you happen to live in the area, news that the tan riffleshell is on the verge of extinction could mean that your water isn’t safe to drink. For the rest of us, it’s yet another sign that pollution is taking a very serious toll on the environment.

These endangered mussels are the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” for Appalachian rivers, and they’re just one of 10 species identified in a new report released today called Fueling Extinction: How Dirty Energy Drives Wildlife to the Brink.

Like all freshwater mussels, the tan riffleshell makes its living by eating small particles in the water. These so-called “filter feeders” remove sediment and other pollutants, thereby keeping our streams healthy enough to support other plants and animals, including ourselves. So when these little shellfish start disappearing, that means one of nature’s vital water filters is broken and can longer keep up with all the pollution being dumped into the river.

North America once boasted some 300 species of freshwater mussels, according to the Freshwater Mollusk Conservation Society. But as a result of land development, over-harvesting and chronic pollution over the last 200 years, 38 mussel species are already thought to be extinct and another 77 are considered imperiled.

Today, the greatest threat to mussels comes from various by-products of coal mining and coal-burning power plants. These pollutants contaminate our waterways with heavy metals and other environmental toxins that can kill mussels as well as countless other plants and animals.

Mussels aren’t the only ones threatened by fossil fuel development, however. More familiar imperiled species include:

• Bowhead Whale: The remainder of the endangered bowhead whale population is at risk from contaminants and noise from off shore oil drilling and deadly collisions with ships. An oil spill could easily wipe out the small population of whales, which exists only in Arctic waters.
  
  
• Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle: According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Kemp’s ridley is the most seriously endangered of all sea turtles, and they only breed in Gulf waters. In the immediate aftermath of the Gulf oil disaster, 156 sea turtle deaths were recorded – most of them Kemp’s ridleys.

• Whooping Crane: There are just 437 whooping cranes in the wild today, after overcoming near extinction in the 1940s. But the proposed Keystone Pipeline would run along the crane’s entire migratory path from Canada to Texas, and could destroy the flock with toxic waste , collisions and electrocutions from power lines, and the risk of oil spills.

Drilling in the Arctic. Spilling oil in the Gulf. Building a pipeline across the country. Removing mountaintops to get at more coal. All of these actions have dire consequences for our land and wildlife. Fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous, and they’re pushing many at-risk plant and animal species toward extinction. Oil company executives take home millions of dollars every year while the rest of us have to clean up the mess. It’s time to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and rescue these species from the brink.

To learn more about the top 10 U.S. species threatened by fossil fuels, visit http://fuelingextinction.org.

Read more about the importance of freshwater mussels on Defenders blog and in our magazine.

Watch the interview below with “mussel man” Monte McGregor, a malacologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources:

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Take action for the tan riffleshell!
Ask the Obama administration to close the mining waste loophole!

Buried For Cheap Coal

This is a guest post from Tierra R. Curry, M.S. a Conservation Biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Photo credit Conservation Fisheries, Inc

The Kentucky arrow darter is literally being blown up and buried for cheap coal. The darter is a handsome brightly colored fish that is found in only six counties in the Appalachian Mountains in southeastern Kentucky. Unfortunately for this newly discovered species, its entire range is within an area that is being devastated by mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal is a radical form of mining where coal companies dynamite the tops off of mountains and then dump the waste directly into nearby streams, permanently filling in the stream and poisoning downstream wildlife. More than 2,000 miles of streams and 500 mountains have already been destroyed. The pollution from mountaintop removal is toxic for aquatic animals and has been linked to cancer and birth defects in humans. In some counties in eastern Kentucky, nearly one-quarter of the total land area of the county is under open permit for surface mining.

Coal mining has already extirpated the Kentucky arrow darter from more than half of its range. It is a candidate for protection under the Endangered Species Act, but this status does not provide real protection for the fish or its habitat. The headwater streams that are home to the Kentucky arrow darter are biologically rich and are a source of drinking water for people.

Darters are exceptionally interesting fish. During the mating season male arrow darters become showy, and change from pale yellow and green to bright colors with blue, green, orange and scarlet spots and stripes. They undergo elaborate courtship rituals involving dashing, nudging and quivering. Parental care is generally rare in fish, but male darters establish territories and then defend their nests until the eggs have hatched.

The Environmental Protection Agency has recently taken some steps to attempt to reduce water quality degradation caused by mountaintop removal in Appalachia, but the agency’s efforts to curb the practice are under political attack in Washington. The coal industry and their politicians claim that mining is essential to the economy of Kentucky, but the bleak reality is that the counties with the most mining remain among the poorest counties in the nation. The highly mechanized mining employs few people and keeps the region locked in poverty. Mountaintop removal caused the loss of thousands of mining jobs and prevents a sustainable economy from developing. Mountaintop removal threatens the survival of the Kentucky arrow darter as well as the health and culture of mountain communities.

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Take action for the Kentucky arrow darter!
Ask the Obama Administration to close the mining waste loophole.

Fueling Extinction

Just as we were putting the finishing touches on a new report, Fueling Extinction, the Obama administration delivered some really big news--the State Department rejected TransCanada's request to build the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Whooping crane credit fws

As we've written here previously, the Keystone XL Pipeline could have been catastrophic for one of our nation's most endangered species, the whooping crane.  This now-rejected pipeline is a tragic illustration of a simple fact: Fossil fuels are killing wildlife and putting the planet at unprecedented risk. 

In continuing to use dirty fossil fuels, we are fueling extinction. 

In the report, Fueling Extinction, the Endangered Species Coalition and participating member organizations highlight the top ten U.S. species threatened by fossil fuels in addition to the activists choice of the polar bear.  These species range from a bivalve (tan riffleshell) to a rare wildflower (Graham's penstemon) to the bowhead whale.

Bowhead whale credit FWS

These diverse species all have at least one thing in common. They're being driven closer to the edge of extinction by our nation's continued reliance on energy sources produced in the age of dinosaurs.   

Polar bears are seeing their habitat melt from beneath them, while facing a new threat in the form of Arctic drilling. Endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles still recovering from the Gulf spill, are uniquely vulnerable to threats from oil and gas development. Greater sage-grouse have seen their range-wide abundance decrease between 69-99 percent from historic levels due in large part to habitat loss from oil and gas development.

Please take a few moments and read the entire report, Fueling Extinction, to learn more about the impacts of dirty fossil fuels on our nation's most imperiled plants, birds, fish and wildlife.

Welcoming Wolves Back To California

OR7 Photo Credit Allen Daniels

On December 29th,  2011 the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) announced that an endangered gray wolf wandered into California from southern Oregon. For anyone who appreciates wildlife, or has followed the very successful recovery of the gray wolf in the northern Rockies, this is an historic event because it marks the first confirmed gray wolf in our state since the last wild gray wolf was killed in Lassen County in 1924.

OR7's travels

The wolf is OR7, a 2 ½ -year-old male gray wolf fitted with a Global Positioning Device (GPS) collar by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. He has been on quite a walkabout since early Fall when he dispersed from the Imnaha pack in Northeast Oregon. It is estimated he has covered more than 700 miles on his trek through Oregon’s protected and unprotected landscape- a journey which now includes a visit into our state.

My own interest in wolves began in 2003 when I was a volunteer with the Nez Perce Tribe/US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on the gray wolf reintroduction project in central Idaho. Working with an agency biologist I would spend the long summer days in Idaho’s vast backcountry attempting to locate established wolf packs, confirm reproduction, and occasionally attempt to trap and radio collar individual animals. We observed wolves very infrequently but when we heard their howls or had an occasional glimpse, it was an unforgettable moment. OR7’s mother, B300, was born in Idaho where she dispersed from the Timberline pack in 2008. She swam across the Snake River to reach Oregon and establish the Imnaha pack. It is thrilling for me to know wolves are reclaiming their rightful place in the landscape of the Pacific Northwest.

Barry Braden releasing
Mexican Gray Wolf in 2006.

The recovery of wolves, California condors, bald eagles, grizzly bears, and so many other critically endangered animal and plant species, would not have been possible without the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA is not just a strong environmental law - it also articulates a noble vision. In it, for the first time in world history, the legislators of a great nation said that it would do everything in its power to prevent the extinction of any species within its border. The ESA was originally passed by Congress in 1973 with overwhelming bipartisan support, including a 92-0 vote in the Senate, and was signed into law 38 years ago on December 28th by President Richard M. Nixon. The strength of this commitment represents the best of who we are as a people. Unfortunately, the current political climate brings ongoing challenges to the ESA- and many of the other laws designed to protect our environment- from the fringes of both major political parties. The Endangered Species Coalition and our 400+ member groups are one hundred percent dedicated to ensuring the ESA remains the law of the land and maintains the noble vision of a Congress and President united almost 40 years ago to stop extinction.

No one knows where OR7’s travels will take him next. He is likely in search of a mate but it is unlikely he will find a female wolf on our side of the border. However, it is certain that others will eventually follow his path. OR7 has made it possible for us to imagine a day when viable wolf packs inhabit areas of California where suitable habitat remains, restoring ecological integrity to some of our state’s best wild places. I know I speak for all who are represented by the Coalition when I say “Welcome to California OR7”!

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This post was written by Barry Braden, a member of the Endangered Species Coalition Board of Directors.