Action Alert! Call Governor Newsom – Weekly

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Action Alert

Repeated calls are needed once a week, every week until the Governor keeps his promise to sue the Trump Administration over plans to increase water exports from the Sacramento River watershed and Delta. Please select a date and time every week to keep pressure on the Governor.

(916) 445-2841

The message points are:

  • We need Governor Newsom’s leadership to sue the federal government over the biological permits issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service as he promised to do last November. This is in keeping with the 65+ times the state has already challenged the Trump administration.
    Summary – Sue the federal government over the biological permits issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service as the Governor promised to do last November.  
  • We need Governor Newsom’s fortitude to stand up to known bad actors like Westlands Water District that have already destroyed the San Joaquin River and its groundwater basin. The Delta is in free-fall. Secret discussions to reach so-called “voluntary agreements” are a ploy to string along the Newsom administration like it did with past administrations while ecosystems, communities, and hundred-year old family farms suffer.[1]
    Summary – Stand up to known bad actors like Westlands Water District. The Delta is in free-fall. Secret discussions to reach so-called “voluntary agreements” are a ploy to string along the Newsom administration.
  • We need Governor Newsom to leave California with a new water legacy that turns away from exploitation and manipulation for the benefit of very few people/companies/corporations and toward regeneration, protection, and health that benefits over 99% of Californians, the majority of whom treasure the environment.
    Summary – Give California a new water legacy. Turn away from exploitation and manipulation for the benefit of very few people/companies/corporations and toward regeneration, protection, and health that benefit over 99% of Californians.

Background

It has been three months since, “…since Gov. Gavin Newsom promised to sue the Trump administration to block stepped-up federal water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to agribusiness and urban areas further south.”[2] New federal permits will allow increased exports despite what federal biologists confirmed: the elevated exports will be a disaster for salmon, steelhead trout, and even killer whales, which rely in part on salmon for food. Nothing, of course, is said about where the water will actually come from – which can only be NorthState groundwater basins.

The new rules would allow additional exports of 600,000 acre-feet of water from our region[3] and potentially kill every single salmon in the upper Sacramento River for three years in a row. The Feather River would also be seriously affected, allowing Oroville Dam to reach what is called “dead pool” where there is so little water that none can be released – what will that do for fish and local economies?

Westlands Water District is the puppeteer pulling the strings of state and federal politicians and agencies. It has been a devilish player in the water world for decades, but now it has an added benefactor: Westlands’ former lobbyist, David Bernhardt is now the Secretary of the Interior. It is under his leadership that the Interior Department engineered the new destructive water diversion plan and pumping permits. To do this he corralled fish agency management to rewrite the draft permits written by biologists that demonstrated how devastating increased exports from the Sacramento Valley and Delta would be to fish.

In November 2019 Newsom pledged to join fishing groups in court to challenge this latest Trump administration attack on California’s environment. Westlands was furious, threatening to abandon voluntary negotiations with the state to restore the Bay-Delta ecosystem. Westlands has toyed with voluntary agreements for years, but never produced a credible proposal. The discussions have inhibited state action to require for more flows in NorthState rivers and the Bay-Delta to rebuild our salmon and other species. [4]

Californians are in danger of witnessing species extinctions and permanent damage to NorthState rivers and groundwater.

[1] Sabalow 2019 December 21. Sacramento Bee “Now, one of the nation’s most powerful farm irrigation districts says it will back out of the agreements completely if Newsom follows through with a pledge to sue President Donald Trump over a federal plan to pump more water to farmers from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the fragile estuary on Sacramento’s doorstep.”  https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/environment/article238511218.html

[2] LA Times Editorial 2019. Newsom can’t have it both ways on California water. December 24, 2019.

[3] REMINDER – 600,000 acre-feet is the same amount the feds sought in the 10-Year Water Transfer Program. In 2018 AquAlliance’s litigation stopped the Program.

[4] The state hasn’t updated flow standards for the Sacramento River and Bay-Delta in 25 years although by law it is required every three years.