More Random Musings..
Submitted by lgc_admin on Tue, 05/25/2010 - 09:58.
RANDOM MUSINGS
BY BOUTRIS WITTFOGEL
- The State Water Resources Control Board heard the Once-Through-Cooling Policy this past week. This was a big item, five years in the making and garnering upwards of 9,000 comment letters, including a form letter apparently replicated 7,000 times. The list of commentators was diverse, including a letter of concern from nine legislators.
An impressive group of advocacy groups sent an alarming letter calling the draft OTC policy “...a marked step backwards from previous versions that it not only fails to meet the letter and intent of the Clean Water Act.... [and] is extremely disappointing after almost five years of hard work by all parties involved to see such significant changes, many of which ignore progress and agreements made to date.” While interests on the ‘other side’ did not exactly hail the draft policy, most like Dynergy, RRI Energy, and Pacific Gas & Electric, acknowledged ‘improvements’ to the draft policy. Translation... Score: energy companies 1, everyone else 0.
Dramatic eleventh-hour “significant changes,” on something this controversial are wholly out of character for the group-think Water Board culture. Considering the history of influence energy companies exert in California government, it would be no surprise if the “significant changes” noted by the advocacy group did not originate from within the Water Board. “Significant changes” of this nature tend to originate from the highest reaches of the Executive; think Cal-EPA or the Governor’s office.
- In another controversial action, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board adopted a total maximum daily load for control of methylmercury and total mercury in the Delta. Mercury and its evil sibling, methylmercury are complex issues; only time will tell if this was a good decision by the Regional Board. I hope it was, but disturbing letters like this one do not bode well for my hopes.
Those of us from the environmental justice communities who had been left out of the earlier processes concur with Andria comments below. The draft resolution contains language that misleads the reader and public into believing this process was a collaborative effort that included EJ communities when it was not. Various EJ communities have and continue to voice their concerns of being excluded in activities and processes with the development of the document, processes and numerous previously held meetings where we were excluded.People for Children’s Health an Environmental Justice
It is very difficult to escape the realities of decisions made by a captured regulatory agency. That is, unless you are the beneficiary of the captured regulatory agency, a notion that Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District did not dispute.
- May 18 is the supposed deadline for wastewater plants to satisfy the California Toxics Rule, is imminent. Over the past few years, the Central Valley Regional Board instituted a parliamentary gimmick of splitting permits into two parts – a permit and a compliance schedule. It is, in part, meant to delay implementation of the May 18 deadline. Apparently, we will find out after May 18if the gimmick will withstand legal scrutiny. The guess here is that only a handful of wastewater plants in the state, half a dozen or fewer, could satisfy the California Toxics Rule on May 18 if administered without gimmicks. Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District’s wastewater plant is not one of them.
- Comedian Paul Rodriguez on the California Water Commission? Now that is good for a laugh following news reports Gov. Schwarzennegger is considering Rodriguez for the commission. Rodriguez has been a front man/class clown for the Latino Water Coalition, a front group for large western San Joaquin Valley growers, but he has freely admitted on radio show interviews that he has little actual knowledge of California water issues other than he has bought – hook, line and sinker – the party line of western San Joaquin Valley agribusiness. He has also created the impression his small East Side farm near Orange Cove has been threatened with water cutbacks yet records show he had not been deprived of one drop of water from the San Joaquin River. Since much of California water politics is worth a good belly laugh, maybe putting Rodriguez on the Water Commission will lighten things up. But I doubt it. This appointment, if it happens, is a slap in the face of Delta/fishing/Northern California interests.
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