To the Editor:
I am extremely disappointed having heard the constant rhetoric attempting to explain the cause for the last few years of drought in California. Not once have we investigated the root of the problem. Farmers are fallowing millions of acres, development of waste water use is expanding, communities are conserving everywhere, and we are being forced to over use our groundwater aquifers. We need more surface water storage if we are to meet the unnatural release, and ever increasing use of our stored water supply for fish flows directed to the ocean for unproven and over stated expected results.
Fact is, an increase in surface storage is not being pursued aggressively because of the overwhelming opposition from minority preservation and environmental organizations. Their ability to sue every state and federal agency (us the TAX PAYER) to the detriment of all, using every environmental legal loop hole they can find under the premise that the misused Endangered Species Act supersedes all as the law of the land. There seems to be no balance between man and the environment anymore.
When you look to your rivers during these past few drought years and you see those unnatural and unseasonably high flows during the summer and fall, ask yourself, when all of the creeks are dry, where is the water coming from?? It’s coming from stored water in our reservoirs that were built to hedge off the effects of DROUGHT. This water was stored, and licensed for beneficial uses including agricultural, domestic, and industrial. The fisheries and environmental concerns are entitled to a share of this water, but natural accretion flows that reflect actual season changes only. If ten cubic feet per second (CFS) is the inflow into a storage facility after the last spring rains, then 10 CFS should be the flow release from storage, NOT 200, or 140, or even 40 CFS. It must be 10 CFS to mimic natural conditions!
You want answers to the question of why our lakes are dry? Ask the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) they are a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They have a regional office in Santa Rosa. They have taken control of all water rights in the United States through their development of Biological Opinions (BO). In our area of the Upper Main Stem Eel River and the East Branch Russian River the BO was formalized in 2004. It mandates the flow releases from storage that will continue until the water is gone. Their only concern is fish, period. They are not balancing the beneficial uses or needs as directed by the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The point is, these inequities have been addressed with viable solutions, and corrections, but to date they have been largely ignored by NMFS. I believe their mismanagement of California’s water supply is unacceptable, and those responsible must be held accountable. Our legislators have proven to be less than helpful, every time. I get the impression they have an agenda and it seems to be destroying water storage in this state, not improving it…
Our elected representatives must step up. We all need to say enough is enough. We must protect the people’s share of developed water storage for all people and agricultural uses through a balanced formula that of course includes fisheries and environmental resources.
-Steven Elliott, Potter Valley
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