Leadership gap hinders federal drought response

WASHINGTON 

The federal response to the Western drought has been hindered by high-level vacancies, bureaucratic caution and political calculations that have thrown sand in the gears.

Put another way: With more than 70 percent of California now classified in a state of “exceptional” or “extreme” drought, Uncle Sam is floundering.

The 100th Meridian cuts through the Great Plains and divides America, wet from dry. To the east, annual rainfall averages more than 20 inches; to the west, less than 20. More than ever, in this time of drought, the 100th Meridian also separates how people think about water. This occasional serieswill look at the economic, environmental and political pressures behind the demand for water.

“We need leadership from the federal government,” pleaded Cannon Michael, a politically engaged farmer from Los Banos in California’s acutely dry San Joaquin Valley.

But so far, dynamic federal leadership has been lacking. Some of that is inevitable. Western water use poses too many inherent conflicts to unify all factions. Some people refuse to be led, and the drought is, at bottom, a state matter. Certain federal shortcomings, though, seem like self-inflicted wounds. Consider:

NATIONAL STRATEGY TO ASSIST CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST WITH THE DROUGHT.Dan Beard, former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner

– The Obama administration lacks confirmed leaders in key positions. Four top water-related jobs at the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have remained vacant for months, at least in part because of resistance from Senate Republicans.

– Lawmakers remain mired in partisanship and power plays. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives has passed three California water bills, each crafted by the GOP with minimal Democratic input. Republicans counter that Democrats won’t support anything that provides real relief.

– President Barack Obama has not used his bully pulpit to persistently drive a Western water agenda. He has visited California 28 times during his presidency, but his lone trip to the state’s San Joaquin Valley, ground zero for the drought, occurred 18 months ago.

“I think the Obama administration is missing a golden opportunity to provide leadership,” Dan Beard, a Democrat and former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, said in an interview. “So far, we’ve had nothing but radio silence from them on the drought.”

542,000Acres of California farmland idled because of drought.

Some definite efforts are underway.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article31523159.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article31523159.html#storylink=cpy

CALIFORNIA TO SEIZE FARMS FOR JERRY BROWN’S WATER TUNNELS

The State of California is planning to use eminent domain law to acquire hundreds of farms in the Delta for a controversial, multi-billion-dollar underground water tunnel project proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

According to documents obtained by environmental group Restore the Delta, state water exporters and the Delta Design Construction Enterprise (DCE) division of the Department of Water Resources are planning to acquire 300 pieces of land from Delta farms to ensure right of way for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan tunnel project.

The $15 billion project, under development for the last eight years, has long been favored by Brown, who wants to use the twin underground tunnels to move water from the northern part of the state to the south by diverting it around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

But the project has faced stiff opposition from environmental groups like Restore the Delta and others who say the tunnels are not environmentally sustainable.

In a statement, Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parilla blasted the “arrogance” of state officials for using eminent domain to acquire farmers’ land.

“While Delta and good-government activists are busy mobilizing comments in a democratic process, we discover state agencies view public oversight as simply a distraction,” Barrigan-Parilla said. “These documents arrogantly envision groundbreaking ceremonies as early as July 2016. Bulldozers and cement trucks are ready to roll! Red ribbons are budgeted! All for a $60 billion boondoggle without even one permit. Clearly, water officials under the Brown Administration view the Delta as a colony.”

Brown has tussled with environmental groups over the tunnels before. In May, the governor told critics of the proposal to “shut up, because you don’t know what they hell you’re talking about.” Brown said that “millions of hours” had gone into poring over every aspect of the tunnels, and has called the project an “imperative” that “must move forward.”

Yet despite the governor’s enthusiasm, the tunnel project has not yet been approved.

Water exporters and some agricultural interest groups support the tunnels. Californians for Water Security, a group made up of the California Chamber of Commerce and various farm and labor groups, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television and radio advertisements in support of the project.

But California’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire the land has created an increasingly rare moment of unity between environmental groups and Delta farmers.

“It is wrong and premature that the Department of Water Resources has a unit creating a secret land acquisition plan to take 150-year-old farms, like ours, through condemnation,” Courtland farmer Richard Elliott said in a statement, noting that his family has never sold any of its land. “The entire plan doesn’t make for sustainable food policies, smart land use practices, or even common sense.”

According to the documents, the state would make Delta farmers one offer to purchase their land, after which the farmers would have 30 days to accept or reject a deal. But after those 30 days, the state could still plan to force the owners to sell using eminent domain law.

The plan also calls outright for minimal “external” oversight.

“All transactions are conducted, reviewed and approved internally by DCE staff and managers to maintain control and avoid unnecessary delays to schedule,” the documents state. “DCE shall seek to minimize external review and approval requirements.”

Tony Francois, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who specializes in water and property rights, tells Breitbart News that the use of eminent domain does not allow for a proper system of “checks and balances,” even for controversial state infrastructure projects.

“The fact that they don’t have the project approved has generally not been a bar to acquiring the property,” Francois said. “If the project is controversial, they don’t need any special approvals to acquire the property, and that starts making the project look more inevitable. [State contractors could say] ‘Hey, we’ve already spent the money acquiring the property, we better get started building it.”

Francois added that the use of eminent domain exempts the state from being subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) environmental impact reviews, which havecaused stalling on some infrastructure projects for years, or even decades.

“If these reports are correct, then we have further confirmation that the tunnels project has been a foregone conclusion,” state Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) told the Associated Presson Monday. Wolk said the environmental impact review, “which should be used to choose a project, is simply being used to justify a favored project.”

Francois says the state is on solid ground for claims of eminent domain to acquire the property, as long as it can prove the water tunnel project constitutes a “public good.” Less clear, he says, is the issue of “just compensation” for the land the farmers will be giving up.

“Are they only taking the property they need for the underground tunnels, or are they taking the surface estate as well?” Francois said. “It’s the cutting [the land] up that creates a significant problem that farmers think they are not getting properly compensated for.”

According to the AP, the tunnel project is officially in a public comment phase until October.

Via: Breitbart

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CALIFORNIA: Let's keep facts straight about drought

Over the past 18 months the misinformation regarding California’s drought has been nearly as bad as the drought itself.

From farmers use 80 percent of the state’s water supply to Mitch Brown’s gravel plant off of Road 384 causing East Porterville’s water problems, misinformation has been spread by some people.

Agriculture has taken the biggest public relations hit in this drought, yet we were encouraged to see a poll found most people support farmers getting water to grow their crops. Fact is, ag does not use 80 percent of the state’s water supply. According to the state Department of Water Resources, 200 million acre-feet of water a year on average falls in California. Of that, 100 million acre-feet flow unchecked out to the ocean. Of the 100 million acre-feet left over, roughly half of that is allowed to flow into the ocean, released from dams. That leaves 50 million acre-feet and of that, farmers use about 80 percent, with cities and industries using what’s left.

As to Mitch Brown’s quarry, it has done little to reduce the underground water table in East Porterville. What is different from 40 years ago and the last mega-drought is East Porterville now has a sewer system and instead of all water used being kept in septic lines and leech lines on every person’s property, that water and waste is collected and sent to the City of Porterville’s wastewater treatment plant. Good for the residents of East Porterville, but it means millions of gallons of water a month is no longer being put back into the ground.

There has been far too much misinformation and finger-pointing going on in this drought. Bottom line: a lack of rainfall and snowfall has taken its toll, as well as decisions made over the past eight years to reduce the amount of water sent out of the San Joaquin Delta to farmers in the Central Valley. Those hundreds of thousands of acre-feet of water would not only have kept farmers from using the underground water supply, it would have actually helped to recharge the underground supply.

We need to fact check statements made by those who have an agenda.

Via: The Porterville Recorder

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California’s Drought is a Communications and Policy Issue

Photo Credit: The International Rice Research InstituteIn the face of California’s crippling drought, public agencies will have to employ wide-ranging strategies and tactics to educate, motivate, enforce, and reinforce messages about drastic water cutbacks.

Their success or failure hinges on how they communicate to diverse audiences about managing water, a precious natural resource. In their dilemma, there are also communications lessons.

On Tuesday, California’s State Water Resources Board said residents used 13.5 percent less water against an April 2013 benchmark. This is a significant improvement over previous months, but it also shows a major gap in achieving the mandatory average 25 percent reduction in urban water use ordered by California Governor Jerry Brown. 

The drought has generated thousands of media stories and an unending stream of tweets and posts and sparked intense debate on what needs to be done. Water agencies, city managers, and other local elected officials will have to make major decisions, large and small, about how to urge residents to use much less, and conserve much more, water.

In this highly charged atmosphere, carefully developed communication strategies will be essential to get the public informed and accepting of the solutions required. Organizations will have to engage from the top down at the state level to coordinate messages and from the bottom up at the local level to make relevant, persuasive arguments.

Via: California Political Review

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OBAMA: CLIMATE CHANGE LIKELY MAKING CALIFORNIA DROUGHT WORSE

During an interview with a local California news network, President Obama said climate change was probably making the state’s devastating drought worse.

“Neither a governor nor even a president can control weather,” he explained, but pointed out that his administration was putting more emphasis on “man made contributors” to climate change.

“We’re going to have to work hard to make sure that we’re serious about the climate change issue,” he said, acknowledging that although there was no evidence showing that the drought was “caused” by climate change, it certainly didn’t make it any better.

“What we do know is, if the temperature goes up a percent or two percent or three percent, more water evaporates, it changes weather patterns, and it’s not good for California, it’s not good for the West,” he said.

Obama praised farmers for voluntarily using less water and suggested that more of them shift to drip irrigation, to save more water, calling it an example of “where we need to go.”

Via: Breitbart

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