Jeff Crumley

Posts Tagged ‘environment’

by Dan Bacher

In the most absurd episode in the bad action flick that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has starred in since being elected Governor in 2003, the “Fish Terminator” on Saturday morning spouted off about the need for “transparent” government in his weekly radio address.

“Ever since I became Governor, I have pushed to make California government more transparent,” Schwarzenegger claimed. “Now, I don’t have to tell you that this is a time of deep recession, all around the world.”

“It is more critical than ever that government be held accountable for every dollar it spends, that it live within its means, and that it show total transparency at all levels: at the local level, the state level and the federal level,” said Schwarzenegger.

This is coming from the guy who has demonstrated more of a penchant for secrecy than any other Governor in California history. This is coming from the corporate-controlled political hack who was a keynote speaker on July 30, 2010 at the highly secretive Bohemian Grove near Monte Rio on the Russian River (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100728/ARTICLES/100729459).

The Bohemian Grove is an exclusive, men’s only club where the heads of global corporations, select politicians, bankers and the elite members of the ruling class from throughout the globe “relax” and network to devise their schemes to pillage the world’s resources, launch wars and control the population while making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

On the first night of the annual encampment, the members of the club perform a bizarre ritual called the “Cremation of Care.” “This ceremony involves the poling across a lake of a small boat containing an effigy of Care (called ‘Dull Care’). Dark, hooded figures receive from the ferryman the effigy which is placed on an altar, and, at the end of the ceremony, set on fire,” according to wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cremation_of_Care). “This ‘cremation’ symbolizes that members are banishing the ‘dull cares’ of conscience.”

Many believe that the elite, meeting at Bohemian Grove, picked Schwarzenegger to run for Governor in order to plunder the California economy and resources through increased privatization of public trust resources to benefit the super-rich.

On July 21, 2003, Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, “From what we’ve heard, the Republican hierarchy — especially those close to former Gov. Pete Wilson — would favor Schwarzenegger. At least that’s the word that came out of the Bohemian Grove this past weekend, where a number of state and national GOPers, including presidential adviser Karl Rove, happened to have gathered at a club getaway.”

However, we’ll never know exactly what transpired in Schwarzenegger’s annual appearances at the Grove because all proceedings, events and speeches are kept secret, even though the lives of billions of people throughout the world are greatly impacted what is discussed behind close doors at the annual event.

Schwarzenegger’s speech on “transparent” government then devolved into an attack on the Senate for refusing to pass a bill that would require them to post their salaries and expenditures online, followed by a shameless rant praising all of his alleged initiatives for “transparency” in Government.

“I opened my own calendar to the public,” Schwarzenegger gushed. “No other sitting Governor has ever done that.”

Schwarzenegger sure didn’t open his calendar to the public on July 31, when he spoke along with Rupert Murdoch, media magnate and owner of Fox News, to the gathered elite at the Bohemian Grove! In fact, he didn’t even disclose what topic he was speaking about.

According to Mary Moore, an organizer of yearly protests in front of the Grove’s gates, Schwarzenegger’s appearance was described as follows on the Grove’s program: “Friday, July 30: Topic undisclosed: California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger” (http://dailycensored.com/2010/08/06/speakers-at-the-2010-bohemian-grove-include-rupert-murdoch-david-gergen-and-arnold-schwarzenegger/).

My experience with covering water and environmental politics under Schwarzenegger administration is the exact opposite of his claims that he is the “Transparent Governor.”

In contrast with the Governor’s claims of “transparency” in government, Schwarzenegger’s Delta Vision and Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) officials went out of their way to exclude the input of California Indian Tribes, anglers and environmentalist justice communities, the groups most impacted by the Governor’s plan for a peripheral canal and new dams, from these rigged fiascos. Only after an action alert went out complaining about the lack of tribal and recreational fishing representation was one lone tribal representative and one lone recreational fishing representative appointed to Delta Vision Stakeholders Group.

Likewise, the Governor, the Legislative leaders, Westlands Water District, the Metropolitan Water Agency and corporate environmental NGOs met in secret, back door negotiations last year to craft the water policy/water bond package that creates a clear path to a peripheral canal and new, unneeded dams. The Governor and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg did everything they could to ram this package through the Capitol without input from California Indian Tribes, fishermen, Delta farmers and residents, and environmental justice communities.

Fortunately, the massive opposition by the public to the water bond forced the Governor to go to the Legislature and get the bond delayed until November 2012. However, the Governor is still pushing his plans to build the canal and new dams through the BDCP process and the Delta Stewardship Council created by last year’s legislation.

Another process that the Governor and his collaborators claim is “open, inclusive and transparent,” the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative, is anything but. It was only after outrage by First Amendment advocates and the Newspapers Publishers Association over the arrest of David Gurney at an MLPA “working session” in April that MLPA Executive Director Ken Wiseman was forced to allow the sessions to be photographed and filmed, as is required by the Bagley-Keene Public Meetings Act.

The Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, a shadowy organization that is totally unaccountable to the public, has funded this illegitimate process since Schwarzenegger launched the MLPA Initiative in 2004. Schwarzenegger has appointed oil industry, real estate, marina development and other private operatives with conflicts of interest to the MLPA’s Blue Ribbon Task Forces that choose the marine reserve proposals that are submitted for approval by the Fish and Game Commission.

If the MLPA is such an “open, transparent and inclusive” process, why did 300 Tribal members, fishermen, immigrant workers and environmentalists feel so left out of the process that they had to organize a march and direct action to take over a MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force meeting in Fort Bragg on July 21 so their voices would be finally heard?

Schwarzenegger’s regular appearances at the Bohemian Grove and his pushing of rigged processes including the Delta Vision, BDCP, MLPA and the water policy/water bond fiascos show that his call for “transparency” in government is a hypocritical lie. His claim that he is the “Transparent Governor” rings just as hollow as his claim that he is the “Green Governor.”

Schwarzenegger’s 2-minute, 52-second radio address is available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fb0yv_5rS8.

By Steve Rebuck

Mrs. Carol Fulton-Yeates, representing Friends of the Sea Otter, appears to have it all figured out: just ban one more Central Coast fishery and all will be well for the sea otter in California. After all, we are only talking a few fishermen, right?

In 1971, the U.S. Congress held hearings on what would become the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). One of the articles used to “educate” Congress was titled “Sea Otters Ambushed.”

Discussing illegal shooting of sea otters, the article states: “The otters killed have been sacrificed to the mistaken belief that they threaten a minute fishery for a luxury food we could well do without. The town of Morro Bay, population 8,500, is the self styled abalone capital of California and center of the abalone-otter dispute. Despite this prominence in the matter, only 25 families in Morro Bay make their living fishing for abalone or processing them.”

My parents moved to Morro Bay in the early 1950′s to fish abalone. As I remember it, there were a lot more than 25 families involved in this unique enterprise. I remember well how it was all of us who were blamed for many years for the decline of abalone and Pismo clams. In recent years, published scientific studies have vindicated the commercial abalone and recreational clambers.

Who gives Friends of the Sea Otter the right to declare what foods are a luxury and unnecessary? When I was a youngster, fish, abalone, and clams were a staple. Some of us even traded our abalone sandwiches for peanut butter and jelly at Morro Bay Elementary School, the children of the more affluent people having the peanut butter and jelly.

Sea otters were listed as a threatened species in 1977 due to the risks posed to them by oil spills. Yet, we have seen the sacrifice of one fishery after another, in order to protect sea otters from harm. This makes no sense. It appears to me that Friends of the Sea Otter is engaged in a vendetta against fishermen. But there is much more to it.

Two years go, sea otters entered a “no otter” zone south of Pt. Conception. This zone was negotiated by Friends of the Sea Otter, commercial and recreational fisherman, the state of California, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Congress. We on the fisheries side thought we were negotiating in good faith.

Recently, after years of frustration and additional lost fishing grounds in Santa Barbara County, the Commercial Fisherman of Santa Barbara, California Abalone Association and California Aquaculture Association sued the Department of the Interior for not living up to agreements they make in regards to federal law PL 99-625. This law made it legal for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to capture and relocate sea otters from San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties to San Nicholas Island in Ventura County. It also required them to protect the commercial and recreational fisheries of the other islands. Since 1993, this has not been done.

A Sept, 11, 1986, article in the Morro Bay Sun-Bulletin cites Mrs. Yeates as saying she felt fishermen should be pleased with the selection of San Nicolas Island. “Otters wandering south will be halted at Pt. Conception. In essence, no sea otter will be found south of that point. It seems then a fair trade-off with the shellfish industry,” she said.

The downside of all of this is that Mrs. Yeates and her organization have been cheerleaders to the Fish and Wildlife Service in recent years, encouraging them to break the law. It’s shameful that fishermen now have to pay for an expensive lawsuit in order to get a federal agency to live up to its commitments and promises.

The Friends of the Sea Otters has also contacted the Interior Department and suggested that other fisheries also threaten sea otters: lobster and crab, live fish, sea urchins and abalone. Eben the lights used by squid boats were identified as threats. Must humans give up all uses of shellfish resources in order to protect otters from oil spills?

Many of the fishermen targeted by AB 2570 have actually participated in efforts to clean up offshore spills, trained by the Fishermen’s Oil Response Team. Some have even received awards for their efforts. Eliminating these fishermen seems shortsighted. Rather than making sea otters safer, it could increase risks should there be additional oil spills.

Friends of the Sea Otter have been blaming fishermen for what appeared to be a decline in the sea otter population. Evidence hasn’t been part of their claims. The otter population was up 1.7 percent last fall and is up 10.5 percent, according to recently published reports.

It appears that Mrs. Yeates  and the Friends will have to find a new scape-goat in their efforts to have sea otters in California declared an “endangered species.”

If we are to have both sea otters and human-use fisheries, we need to strike a balance between preservation of the otters and conservation of shellfish. This only happens if we can trust the environmental community, the government agencies and elected officials.

Steve Rebuck of San Luis Obispo was technical consultant to the “Southern Sea Otter Recovery Team.”

This hits the nail right on the head !

The debate over implementation of the Marine Life Protection Act of 1999 (MLPA) and Marine Protected Areas (MPA’s) has become the hot marine resource debate of the year. It seems for the past few years, each year there is a new crisis of one sort or another heaped on commercial and recreational fishermen Meeting after meeting after meeting must be attended, all over the state. And even thought the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) knows what days they allow fishermen to fish, meetings always seem to be scheduled for those few work days. It’s amazing how often this happens.

Each year, new laws are imposed, yet, time isn’t given to see how they work, before the next new law is introduced.

The State of California has approximately 90 marine parks, reserves, preserves, etc. Most have been around for decades. At Pismo Beach, for example, we have had an Invertebrate Reserve since 1977 and a Pismo Clam Preserve since 1985. DFG established these next to areas open to clam fishing to measure human use versus sea otter predation. Locals and DFG know the results: sea otters have eliminated most legal clams in both areas. While this result remains a subject of debate, DFG has published these findings by several scientists.

In the rush to impose even more restrictions on commercial and recreational fishermen, DFG, environmentalists, politicians and others seem to ignore two even larger impacts on coastal fish: pollution and marine mammals.

Commercial fisherman Tom Capen raised these issues with DFG marine biologist, John Ugoretz in Morro Bay July 17th. Mr. Ugoretz responded by explaining that DFG had no jurisdiction over water quality (pollution) and that marine mammals were protected by the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and so DFG had no authority there either. No, but what they can do is regulate fishermen.

To me, restricting sewage disposal, dog and pet waste, urban run-off, etc. would do far more to protect the nearshore marine environment. My marine reserve would run along the coast for miles and extend inland, not out to sea.

As for marine mammals, one species, California sea lions are now thought to be above historic numbers. There are probably more California sea lions now than 500 years ago. The lack of mainland predators– grizzly bears and wolves– has allowed sea lions to occupy habitat not formerly used. And, there are five other species of seals and sea lions common to California.

In 1995, DFG estimated the California sea lion population at 186,000 and consumption at 500,000 tons (1.billion lbs.) annually of squid, salmon, anchovy, rockfish and flatfish. Commercial fishing for these species in 1995 totaled 281.million pounds or 28% of California sea lion consumption. Yet, the MLPA does not address marine mammals, it only targets humans use fisheries when it can be demonstrated humans take less than some marine mammals.

If these laws are truly to address suspected declines in fish stocks, they must be holistic, meaning they address all sources of fish mortality. Unfortunately, the current examples of good intentions and wishful thinking by politicians will predictably continue to fail, just like the Pismo clam preserve failed.

No pun intended!

Boy, the junk science community sure is doing some damage control on this one. How long can they expect the fraud to last? This is what happens when decisions are made based on a null hypothesis. Wikipedia gives an excellent analogy. This has been going on for years now and the guessing that was done is now bitting at their heels. We are going to see more and more exposure of failed scientific “experiments” that you were told was based on absolute facts. I want to know what the percentage is of “junk science for money” to real science from “truth dedicated” individuals. The problem with an experiment on mother nature is… if they are wrong, we are screwed. We really need to stop the greed of this big green machine, it looks like the erosion of lies is giving way to the truth. Then we can get down to business and really help the ocean.