Restore the Delta: Be careful what you ask for!

"Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear [costly] to you."
--Thomas Jefferson

Dealing with the Devil (Be careful what you ask for)
by Brett Baker

In the June 15 edition of the Restore the Delta newsletter, we reported that Senator Feinstein was introducing federal legislation to create a National Heritage Area (NHA) in the Delta.

Early this year, the Delta Counties Coalition (representing the five Delta counties) sent a group of representatives to Washington, D.C. They went to request $2.5 million in technical assistance to keep track of the planning processes in the Delta and to provide increased local input. Counties need to closely monitor and provide feedback on the BDCP, the DSC, and the DPC, and that takes a lot of staff and resources.

While in D.C., the coalition representatives visited Dianne Feinstein's office and requested some help from their Senator.

This NHA bill being drafted by Feinstein is the result of that request. National Heritage Area Designation was not specifically requested.

Delta people question Senator Feinstein's actions. We've seen her efforts to suspend the ESA and to facilitate water transfers for export contractors. That is why we don't have much confidence that she has the Delta's best interests in mind when she proposes a NHA for the Delta.

If Senator Feinstein wanted to build local support for her Legislative proposal, she should have engaged the local interests and started this process months ago with the public workshops and outreach that I am told are a prerequisite for National Heritage Area designation. She should have found out what locals hoped to get in the way of assurances and protection. That should have happened before she released bill language.

Instead she has gone ahead with her legislative agenda, understanding there are procedural deadlines to be met and four months left in the current legislative session. This legislative timeline, however, should not be the driving force behind completing and/or pursuing terms of agreement.

The legislation has been brought up at several County Board of Supervisors meetings lately and has received the nod on for staff to pursue talks with Federal staff and give input as the proposal moves forward. It was obvious from talking with staff that the Counties are conceptually in favor of this legislation; however, when asked about designation, oversight and management of a National Heritage Area, the staffers seemed to have little understanding of what exactly the designation meant for local landowners. The typical response was that local statutory control would be maintained through the Delta Protection Commission.

County staff members view a NHA as an opportunity to establish a much-needed "conduit for federal funding." The fiscal pressures on local government are intense, and counties eager for funding assistance may be open to some compromises that people in the Delta wouldn't like.

For this reason alone it is important to engage, and maintain clear lines of communication with our local representation on this matter and many others, as they will be doing the negotiating on our behalf. We need to let our Supervisors know where we stand on the concept of a NHA and what we consider an acceptable amount of local oversight.

Conceptually, I too support the idea of a National Heritage Area Designation, one of the main purposes for such a designation being economic development. There are many examples of how a NHD has protected regions and communities in a way that benefited and protected local interests. But it must be done slowly and carefully to ensure that the NHA designation does not result in "legacy towns" protected by ring levees - a ghost of their former selves surrounded by a vast expanse of federally owned or operated habitat that provides no income to county coffers and further reduces their effectiveness in representing the interests of their constituencies.

Does the Delta warrant recognition as a national treasure?

Is a NHA the way to get us there? Is this how the process should take place?

Can a NHA provide the protection and assurances the Delta needs and its people deserve?

I urge you to contact you local supervisor's office and your federal representatives as well, and speak with someone regarding this effort and your concerns. After all, we will be the ones living this on the ground day-to-day.

Editor's Note: What exactly is an NHA?

According to a 2007 report by the Congressional Research Service, Congress has designated NHAs to:

"recognize and assist efforts to protect, com memorate, and promote natural, cultural, historic, and recreational resources that form distinctive landscapes...[and has] established heritage areas for lands that are regarded as distinctive because of their resources, their built environment, and the culture and his tory associated with these areas and their res idents. A principal distinction of these areas is an emphasis on the interaction of people and their environment. Heritage areas seek to tell the story of the people, over time, where the landscape helped shaped the traditions of the residents. In a majority of cases, NHAs now have, or have had, a fundamental economic activity as their foun dation, such as agriculture, water transporta tion, or industrial development."

NHA proposals are usually initiated at the local level.

In the case of the NHA Senator Feinstein is proposing, Delta representatives didn't ask for another process to participate in. They asked for resources to participate in the processes already underway. Could funding for technical assistance be held hostage to Delta support for a NHA?

Other concerns are being raised by people in the Delta. Is a NHA a way of generating public awareness and stimulating tourism, or is it a backdoor attack on property rights? Possibly both.

The entity managing the NHA is not supposed to regulate land use or buy property using federal dollars. But critics say that infringements of property rights do occur. NHAs can't use eminent domain to acquire property, but they can use restrictive zoning, controlling land use for aesthetic and other purposes.

And we always have to wonder: Is this NHA designation a backdoor way for non-government entities from outside the Delta to profit from the situation in the Delta?

CSPA, AquAlliance and CWIN Sue U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Press Release

Today, AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) and California Water Impact Network (CWIN) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). The action, filed in federal District Court, alleges the USBR failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the transfer and export of almost 400,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water to subsidize urban sprawl and irrigate crops in the desert. The USBR issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and refused to conduct the required analysis under NEPA that would have analyzed and identified impacts and alternatives.

The proposed new water transfers come at a time when the fisheries and aquatic ecosystems of northern California rivers and the Delta estuary are in a state of collapse.

"The Bureau's fallacious claim that massive serial water transfers from the Sacramento Valley to irrigate the southern desert have no significant impact on the farms, communities, fish and wildlife of the Sacramento Valley and the Delta Estuary evidences either a breathtaking incompetence or a flagrant contempt for the law, the environment and the people of the Sacramento Valley and Delta," said CSPA executive director Bill Jennings. "We sue to compel compliance with that most basic of all environmental laws; i.e., the requirement to adequately analyze and disclose the impacts of a project," he said.

For more information contact Bill Jennings at the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance , 209-464-5067

In This Issue
Dealing with the Devil
Editor's Note: What exactly is an NHA?
CSPA, AquAlliance and CWIN Sue U.S. Bureau of Reclamation








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Restore the Delta is a grassroots campaign committed to making the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta fishable, swimmable, drinkable, and farmable to benefit all of California. Restore the Delta - a coalition of Delta residents, business leaders, civic organizations, community groups, faith-based communities, union locals, farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists - seeks to strengthen the health of the estuary and the well-being of Delta communities. Restore the Delta works to improve water quality so that fisheries and farming can thrive together again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Sincerely,
Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla
Restore the Delta
Email: barbara [at] restorethedelta.org
Web: http://www.restorethedelta.or