Lloyd Carter's blog

"The problem in California is not that we don't have enough reservoirs. It's that we don't have enough water in them. It wouldn't help to build any more (reservoirs.)"

     Dr. John Holdren, White House science adviser

    By Lloyd G. Carter

   All you need to know about Wednesday's (March 19)  drought field hearing in Fresno of the House Committee on Natural Resources is that salmon were never mentioned and the GOP pols knew how to throw red meat to the farmers in the packed city hall chambers. It speaks volumes that there were seven Republicans and only one Democrat (Rep. Jim Costa) at the hearing chaired by Rep. Richard N. "Doc" Hastings, who is retiring after his term ends.

    Hastings said he invited all 21 Democrats on the Natural Resources Committee to participate in the hearing but only Costa, who had no explanation why no other Democrats showed up, was in attendance. Committee members Jared Huffman and Grace Napolitano, former chair of the house subcommittee on water, were among the no shows.

     Hastings also said he was "very, very disappointed" that State Water Resources Control Board chairwoman Felicia Markus failed to appear despite being invited.  Marcus, who previously worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) as western regional  director, also served as EPA director for Region 9 and was appointed by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger to the Delta Stewarship Council.  READ MORE »

Editor's Note: Greenwire news service has released the article below showing repeated scientific misconduct by two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supervisors pushing for approval of the controversial Keystone Pipeline project. It is clear to see from the agency's press spokesman, Chris Tollefson, that Fish and Wildlife is still stonewalling on this.  I blogged about Tollefson sometime back.  Type his name in my website search engine box (upper right corner of home page) and read the story about two-headed fish.  Does President Obama have a clue what's going on in his wildlife protection agency?

(Thursday, February 6, 2014)

By Emily Yehle, Greenwire reporter

Two supervisors at the Fish and Wildlife Service purposely ignored staff concerns in order to shrink the habitat of the endangered American burying beetle, committing scientific misconduct of a "serious and intentional nature," accordingto newly released internal documents. The documents provide new details on the scientific integrity cases against Dixie Porter and Luke Bell, who worked in the Oklahoma Ecological Services Field Office. Porter was the field supervisor, while Bell was the branch chief of threatened and endangered species and contaminants.  READ MORE »

January 17, 2014

NOTICE OF SURFACE WATER SHORTAGE AND POTENTIAL FOR CURTAILMENT OF WATER RIGHT DIVERSIONS

        With California facing water shortfalls in the driest year in recorded state history, Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. has proclaimed a State of Emergency and directed state officials to take all necessary actions to prepare for these drought conditions.

         The State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) administers California’s water rights system and is closely monitoring water availability. The water rights system is designed to provide for the orderly allocation of water supplies in the event that there is not enough water to satisfy everyone’s needs. In the coming weeks and months, if dry weather conditions persist, the State Water Board will notify water right holders in critically dry watersheds of the requirement to limit or stop diversions of water under their water right, based on their priority.  READ MORE »

"The case has lately turned into a mud-slinging-fest that, despite the legal verbiage necessary of court documents, reads like a soap opera scandal."

Denver Post July 3, 2013 article on
bankruptcy case of insider trading
suspect Roger "Mr. Fast Lane" Parker,
business associate and client of 
Westlands Water District
lobbyist/lawyer Norman Brownstein

By Lloyd G. Carter

                                In every American city there is at least one, and usually more than one, power elite group which wields great influence and power over civic, economic and political affairs.  There are at least two types of individuals in those power elites: People who inherit or marry into great wealth, and self-made multi-millionaires or billionaires.   In Fresno, that elite is centered around dynastic agribusiness clans and real estate developers, who have no problem plowing up productive orchards and vineyards to make way for cookie cutter subdivisions.  READ MORE »

Bakersfield Californian columnist Lois Henry has written a brilliant explication of how a water deal goes down in Kern County, home of the Kern County Water Agency and water bank of Beverly Hills billionaires Stewart and Lynda Resnick. Go to www.Bakersfield.com and type in the words Lois Henry, Stewart Resnick and Root Creek. It's eye-opening.     

  I was saddened today to learn of the passing of Russian hydrologist/oceanographer/fisheries biologist Dr. Michael Rozengurt.  Dr. Rozengurt, who lived in the Los Angeles area, was 79.  I was contacted by his son Vadim, who thanked me for writing about his father on this website last July. (Just type Rozengurt in the website search engine box and you can read the whole story.)  Dr. Rozengurt, who fled Russia after sounding the alarm that Russian water officials were destroying the Aral Sea in a desert cotton farming scheme, came to America to see the same destruction happening to America's rivers and estuaries.

  He wrote Gov. Brown in 1980 warning that the proposed Peripheral Canal would destroy the San Francisco-San Joaquin Estuary fishery.  More than 30 years later he was railing against the proposed twin tunnels project, which he said would also destroy the Delta fishery.  His message was simple:  take too much water out of a river or estuary and you kill them, including the fish and other biota. 

  Dr. Rozengurt was a prophet in his native Russia and in America.  Leaders in both Russia and America ignored his warnings but he never gave up trying to talk sense to the water buffaloes.  He will be dearly missed.

By Lloyd G. Carter

               Westlands Water District directors Wednesday (Nov. 20) hosted a workshop on the controversial Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and were told by California Department of Water Resources (DWR) officials the big federal water district in western Fresno and Kings counties may have to pony up $162 million over the next three years for pre-construction planning.

               DWR Director Mark Cowin told Westlands directors DWR will need $500 million over the next three years to finance pre-construction engineering and other studies while the BDCP undergoes expected court challenges by environmentalists and Northern California/Delta farming interests.  The BDCP document now runs over 30,000 pages.  Westlands directors should decide by January 2014 if they wish to opt in, Cowin said.  READ MORE »

Presidential Documents

3853

Federal Register

Vol. 66, No. 11

Wednesday, January 17, 2001

Title 3—

The President

Executive Order 13186 of January 10, 2001

Responsibilities of Federal Agencies To Protect Migratory

Birds

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the

laws of the United States of America, and in furtherance of the purposes