{"id":952,"date":"2018-11-07T15:30:19","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T15:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tiddonpedro.com\/?p=952"},"modified":"2018-11-09T16:40:20","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T16:40:20","slug":"water-boards-concerns-dont-include-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tiddonpedro.com\/?p=952","title":{"rendered":"Modesto Bee: Water board\u2019s concerns don\u2019t include us"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Water board\u2019s concerns don\u2019t include us<\/h2>\n

BY THE MODESTO BEE EDITORIAL BOARD<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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November 07, 2018 05:33 PM<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Don\u2019t ask us to feel sorry for the people who want to act as arbiters of our fate. When members of the State Water Resources Control Board failed to deliver a \u201cvictory\u201d for Bay Area environmentalists Wednesday, their anguish was palpable. Any sympathy for a million lives possibly uprooted or ruined in the Northern San Joaquin Valley was, well, not apparent.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re happy the state water board agreed \u2013 at the written request of Gov. Jerry Brown and governor-elect Gavin Newsom \u2013 to delay a vote that would devastate our region\u2019s ag-based economy. But listening to the rants, rationalizations and disclaimers of board members who finally acquiesced to the governors\u2019 request rubbed us the wrong way.<\/p>\n

The board was scheduled to vote to implement a portion of the Bay Delta plan doubling the water flowing out our rivers into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Ostensibly a plan to help salmon, it offers no consideration for drought and no recognition of studies showing its obvious flaws. Concern for roughly 1 million people living here is minimal.<\/p>\n

After three hours of comment, the board voted to delay action until its Dec. 12 meeting. Well, most of them voted. Two were so angry they abstained, making the vote 3-0. And chairwoman Felicia Marcus needed five minutes to explain how difficult it was for her to set aside her despair over accommodating a request from two governors that they be given time to work out a\u00a0better<\/em>\u00a0plan \u2013 one people here can live with. Such a plan exists, but it discards the premise that flows alone create more fish, relying instead on river restoration and predator control.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want another month, two months or three months,\u201d proclaimed abstaining board member Tam Dudoc. \u201cI think we need to demonstrate our (dedication) to this effort\u201d and vote now.<\/p>\n

The state has been focused on plummeting salmon populations on the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced rivers since 2009. Its first plan, required 35 percent unimpaired flows. An updated plan, in 2016, demanded 40 or 50 percent flows.<\/p>\n

Knowing that would result in 100,000 acres of fallowed farmland and reduce drinking water for people in Modesto, Manteca and 23 Bay Area cities, people here were outraged. There have been protests, thousands of public comments and peer-reviewed studies refuting the state\u2019s findings. All were ignored by four members of the board.<\/p>\n

Brown and Newsom recognized there are people living here who want to help fish and restore the rivers, but who fear their lives will ruined by bureaucrats held captive by environmentalists. Through negotiations, a better plan is possible.<\/p>\n

Their request to delay the vote infuriated some environmentalists. \u201cWe don\u2019t need more studies or negotiations,\u201d said Ben Eichenberger of the San Francisco Baykeeper. Peter Drekmeier of the Tuolumne River Trust spoke of dramatic salmon population declines dating from 1944. What was \u201cthe big change,\u201d he asked rhetorically. \u201cDon Pedro Dam and then new Don Pedro cutting off the life flow\u201d of the rivers.<\/p>\n

Drekmeier and Eichenberger have no stake in this fight. Their jobs won\u2019t be destroyed, their wells won\u2019t go dry or be contaminated by encroaching salts or arsenic. And they won\u2019t be held accountable if reliance on outdated science results in no additional salmon.<\/p>\n

Marcus felt their pain. \u201cI want to (vote) today more than anyone else in the room,\u201d she said before noting the governors\u2019 desire to talk. \u201cI have to have faith he will (negotiate) on behalf of fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have to have faith, too \u2013 that we can provide a better plan for people and salmon.<\/p>\n

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