water

By Will Parrish - Counter Punch, July 31, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In a decision bursting with symbolism, the California State Water Resources Control Board recently announced its intention to draw down the main water supply reservoir for a the half million people who live just outside of the state capital to only 12% of capacity by September 30.

Lake Folsom on the American River - the main water source for Roseville, Folsom, and other Sacramento suburbs - will plummet to 120,000 acre-feet by that date, according to a forecast by the water board, which announced the plan at an unusually lively Sacramento workshop on 24th June.

The artificial lake will therefore be only months away from turning into a dreaded 'dead pool', a state in which a reservoir becomes so low it cannot drain by gravity through a dam's outlet.

Such an outcome would leave area residents scrambling for water - if recent predictions of an El Niño weather pattern fizzle and rain fails to appear later in 2015. If that were to happen, then Folsom could be a harbinger for the rest of California.

Indeed, as the American West lurches through its fourth summer of an historic drought, numerous major reservoirs are at or near historic lows relative to the time of year. New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties, which was only 16% full as of last week, appears likely to meet the same fate as Folsom this year.

A study by UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2008, three before the current drought began, warned that the nation's largest reservoir, Nevada's Lake Mead (which supplies much of Southern California), has a 50-50 chance of running dry by 2021.

Natural diasaster or human mismanagement?

So far, a consensus of state and federal officials is that this state of emergency has come to pass due to a natural disaster beyond their control. Water board member Steven Moore has called the drought "our Hurricane Sandy".

In April, after Jerry Brown stood on a Sierra summit barren of snow and announced the state's first-ever mandatory water restrictions, an official press release from the governor's office asserted that for "more than two years, the state's experts have been managing water resources to ensure that the state survives this drought and is better prepared for the next one."

But according to critics, the opposite is true. The main reason California's reservoirs have plummeted to nearly cataclysmic lows, they say, is that federal and state water managers sent enormous quantities of water in recent years to senior water rights holders, especially water districts that supply agribusinesses in the dry San Joaquin Valley.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, July 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• Reports of capitalism’s death have been greatly exaggerated - By Kate Aronoff, Waging NonViolence, July 22, 2015
• Capitalism, Green or Otherwise, Is "Ecological Suicide" - By David Klein, TruthOut, July 21, 2015
• Ecological Crisis and the Tragedy of the Commodity - By Stefano B. Longo and Brett Clark, CounterPunch, July 21, 2015

Bread and Roses:

• Slave in the Fields: A Reporter Goes Undercover in the San Quintin Valley - By Kau Sirenio Pioquinto, Truthout, July 25, 2015
• For Illinois Farmers, Damage From Coal Mines Can Span Decades - By Lizz Giordano, TruthOut, July 22, 2015
• New report reveals retiring toxic farmland would save water, money - By Dan Bacher, IndyBay, July 20, 2015
• Imagine farming that actually heals the earth - By Sami Grover, Tree Hugger, July 21, 2015; and Could better soil management reverse global warming? - By Sami Grover, Tree Hugger, February 12, 2015

An Injury to One is an Injury to All:

• Mining, militarization and criminalization of social protests in Latin America - By Cesar Padilla, Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, July 23, 2015
• Talvivaara Mine Environmental Disaster - By Mike O'Brien, Environmental Justice Organizations, Liabilities, and Trade, July 23, 2015
• An Open Letter to Warren Buffett: Put Public Safety Before Profit and Prioritize Oil Train Regulation - By Mike O'Brien, Huffington Post, July 22, 2015

Carbon Bubble:

• Anglo American to axe 53,000 jobs, put 15 assets up for sale - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, July 24, 2015
• Weatherford takes “brutally realistic” approach to U.S. job cuts - By Jordan Blum, FuelFix, July 23, 2015
• Weatherford to boost job cuts to 11,000 - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, July 22, 2015

Just Transition:

• Don’t leave clean energy tax credits blowing in the wind - By Staff, BlueGreen Alliance, July 24, 2015
• The EPA’s Clean Power Plan, Jobs, and Labor - Labor Network for Sustainability, July 24, 2015
• Yancoal job cuts follow expansion approval: systemic adjustment needed - By Georgina Woods, Lock the Gate Alliance, July 24, 2015
• What Happens After the Coal Plant Closes? - By Christopher Flavelle, Bloomberg View, July 22, 2015
• The Problem With the Fight for 15 - By Boots Riley, Creative Time Reports, July 20, 2015
• Cooperative/Solidarity Economics and Advancing the Development of Worker Co-ops - By Michael Johnson, Grassroots Economic Organizing, July 2015

Other News:

• Inspectors find dozens of rail bridges need repair - By Dan Gunderson, MPR News, July 23, 2015
• Kropotkin on the Hudson - By Polly Howells, In These Times, July 22, 2015
• We may have already committed ourselves to 6-meter sea-level rise - By Systemic Disorder, Systemic Disorder, July 22, 2015

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC; Hashtags: #greenunionism #greensyndicalism #IWW

By Felice Pace - KlamBlog, July 22, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The Klamath Falls Herald and News got the headline just right: House passes Walden’s plan to help protect Klamath Project water users (emphasis added). The article goes on to report that "the proposal would confer applicant status on those irrigators, ensuring that they are included in Endangered Species Act consultations that could affect operations of the water project they rely upon." Republican Congressman Greg Walden was able to add the provision to the "Western Water and American Food Security Act" which passed the House with "bipartisan support". The legislation now goes to the U.S. Senate.

Walden's effort to "protect" federal irrigators from the Endangered Species Act implements one of the main objectives of the KBRA Water Deal: to provide "relief" to Klamath Project Irrigators from requirements of the federal Endangered Species Act. That relief will also come in the form of wink-and-nod approval of Habitat Conservation Plans that KlamBlog predicts will remove ESA constraints on irrigation within the sprawling federal irrigation project. KlamBlog has previously written in depth about what we call the KBRA's "wink-and-nod" approach to implementing the ESA. The newer Upper Basin Comprehensive Agreement extends the same ESA "relief" to irrigation interests above Upper Klamath Lake.   

In the news report Walden states that the provision he championed formalizes what is already the practice: the US Bureau of Reclamation  routinely involved organizations representing irrigators in consultations with the US Fish & Wildlife and National Matrine Fisheries Services. Those consultations focus on impacts the 200,000 acre irrigation project has on Kuptu, Tsuam and Achvuun (Shortnose and Lost River Suckers and Coho salmon).

Walden's move may be in response to an investigation being conducted by the Department of Interior.  A former employee has alleged that Reclamation misspent funds which were appropriated to benefit fish and wildlife in order to pay for private growers to pump groundwater for irrigation. Involving a private entity in agency-to-agency government consultations may violate rules designed to protect such consultations from private interest influence. That may be why Walden is pushing the provision now, that is, to legalize what is otherwise an illegal practice. Whether it is legal or not, commercial interests should not be part of ESA consultations which by law are supposed to be based on the best available science and the scientific opinions of expert agencies.

Of course Reclamation does not include all those to whom it supplies water in those ESA consultations. Instead, the Klamath Water Users Association (KWUA), which is controlled by a handful of large and powerful growers, is given a seat at the table while smaller irrigators are left outside.

And what about the tribes, fishermen and others who have a vital interest in how Klamath River water is managed? Why doesn't Mr. Walden want to give them a seat at the ESA consultation table too? With so many of us dependent on Klamath River water, why is just one interest singled out for special treatment with respect to those ESA consultations?

By That Green Union Guy - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, June 26, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

By Dan Bacher - Indybay, June 1, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

In 1982, Jerry Brown called his unpopular scheme to divert more water to corporate agribusiness and Southern California water agencies the "peripheral canal." The voters of the state overwhelmingly rejected the canal proposal in the November election.

After Brown was inaugurated for his third term as Governor in 2011, he described the reincarnated "conveyance" plan proposed under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) as the Delta "tunnels."

Now the Governor, in his fourth term, wants to change the name of the widely-opposed project to "pipes."

In addressing Sacramento business leaders at the 90th Annual "Sacramento Host Breakfast" on May 28, Governor Jerry Brown said that he is now going to call the Delta tunnels, "pipes," because pipes are more popular.

"Instead of a tunnel, were going to call it a pipe. That seems to be more popular," he said to laughter from the crowd, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Apparently, Brown has been not watching the media coverage of the massive Santa Barbara oil spill. The disaster is the result of a rupture in one of these “ever-popular” pipes, owned by the Plains All-American Pipeline corporation, on May 19 off Refugio State Beach. The "pipe" concept is so "popular" off Santa Barbara now that a "Stand In The Sand" protest yesterday drew over 500 people!

By Dan Bacher - Indybay, March 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Environmental and human rights activists, holding plastic “torches” and “pitchforks,” formed human barricades at both entrances to the Nestlé Waters bottling plant in Sacramento at 5:00 a.m. on Friday, March 20, effectively shutting down the company's operations for the day.

Members of the “Crunch Nestlé Alliance" shouted out a number of chants, including ”We got to fight for our right to water,” “Nestlé, Stop It, Water Not For Profit," and “¿Agua Para Quien? Para Nuestra Gente.”

The protesters stayed until about 1 pm, but there were no arrests.

Representatives of the alliance said the company is draining up to 80 million gallons of water a year from Sacramento aquifers during a record drought. They claim Sacramento City Hall has made it possible through a "corporate welfare giveaway."

“This corporate welfare giveaway is an outrage and warrants a major investigation,” Coalition spokesperson Andy Conn said. “For more than five months we have requested data on Nestlé water use. City Hall has not complied with our request, or given any indication that it will. Sacramentans deserve to know how their money is being spent and what they’re getting for it. In this case, they’re getting ripped off.”

Lola Ellis of 99 Rise Sacramento, who spoke on the bullhorn at the protest, said, “Nestlé’s bottling of water in Sacramento is unsustainable in the current state of drought. We really don’t’ know how much water they are taking from the aquifer and that is a scary thing.”

“The water needs to be used for the local community. If there is not enough water for the local community, the Nestlé corporation should not be making a profit,” she emphasized.

The coalition protested what they call Nestlé's “virtually unlimited use of water” while Sacramentans (like other Californians) who use a mere 7 to 10 percent of total water used in the State of California, have had severe restrictions and limitations forced upon them.

The coalition is calling on Nestlé to pay rates commensurate with its enormous profit, or voluntarily close down.

Compiled by x344543 - IWW Environmental Unionism Caucus, December 31, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The following news items feature issues, discussions, campaigns, or information potentially relevant to green unionists:

Lead Stories:

• There is No Drought: California’s Twisted Water Ways - By EastWest, FireWorks Anarchist Counterinformation Project for the Bay Area, December 26, 2014

Railroad Workers, Safety, and the Environment:

• Aging Railway Infrastructure Raises Safety Concerns As Bay Area Readies To Receive Dramatic Increase Of Bakken Crude Oil, Part 1 Of 3 - By Jeffrey Shaub and Giancarlo Rulli, KCBS, December 29, 2014
• Investigation: federal railroad officials ignore regulations on fatigue - By Bill Lambrecht, CTPost.com, December 27, 2014
• Oil Trains: The Industry Speaks for Itself - By Eric de Place, Sightline Daily, December 30, 2014
• Railroads, unions to begin collective bargaining talks next month - By Russell Hubbard, Omaha World-Herald, December 26, 2014

Other News of Interest:

• [Appeal]: Help Capital Bikeshare Employees Unionize!
• Bosnian Workers who Started February Demonstrations are Leaving the Country on Foot - Revolution News, December 26, 2014
• 'Change the System, Not the Climate!' - By Asoka Bandarage, Huffington Post, December 20, 2014
• Green Neocolonialism, Afro-Brazilian Rebellion in Brazil - By Santiago Navarro F., Renata Bessi and Translated by Miriam Taylor, Truthout, December 28, 2014
• How 13 Complaints Against McDonald’s Could Help Millions Unionize - By David Moberg, In These Times, December 23, 2014
• Morton Salt facility partially collapses; further building inspections to come - By WGN Web Desk and Gaynor Hall, WGN TV, December 30, 2014
• Oil-field lodging company slashes jobs, curbs spending - By Collin Eaton, FuelFix, December 29, 2014
• Rio Tinto ‘representative of the destructive and devouring process of colonization’ - By Steven Newcomb, Papua New Guinea Mine Watch, December 30, 2014
• Trafficking, Child Labor May Be Growing In Global Chocolate Industry: Labor advocates say failure to address the root causes of poverty among cocoa farming communities may be leading to both human trafficking and child labor along the chocolate industry’s supply chains - By Carey L. Biron, Mint Press News, December 26, 2014
• Unsustainable growth can’t be wished away: When it comes to explaining destructive growth, many green writers confuse cause and effect - By Ian Angus, Climate and Capitalism, December 30, 2014
• Up to 700 jobless as Patriot Coal idles mines in western Kentucky - By Cecilia Jamasmie, Mining.Com, December 29, 2014

For more green news, please visit our news feeds section on ecology.iww.org; Twitter #IWWEUC

By Dan Bacher - Indybay, November 5, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

Proposition 1, Governor Jerry Brown's $7.5 billion water bond, sailed to easy victory on November 4, as forecasted in a number of polls.

The election results show how the power of millions of dollars of corporate money in the corrupt oligarchy of California were able to defeat a how a grassroots movement of fishermen, environmentalists, Indian Tribes and family farmers opposed to Prop. 1.

The Hoopa Valley, Yurok, Winnemem Wintu and Concow Maidu Tribes, the defenders of California's rivers and oceans for thousands of years, strongly opposed Prop. 1. because of the threat the bond poses to water, salmon and their culture. (http://www.indybay.org/...)

Prop. 1 proponents, including a rogue's gallery of oil companies, corporate agribusiness tycoons, Big Tobacco, health insurance companies and greedy billionaires, dumped over $16.4 million into the campaign, while Prop. 1 opponents raised around $100,000 for the effort. In other words, the Yes on Prop. 1 campaign outmatched the No on Prop. 1 campaign by a factor of 164 to 1.

In a state and country where corporations have the same rights as people, the political game is rigged so that Goliath is usually able to defeat David. The state's voters, responding to the avalanche of pro-Prop. 1 ads funded by corporate interests, approved the measure by a vote of 66.77 percent to 33.23 percent.