Badlands Journal

We presume that UC Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory would also be indemnified if deadly toxins escaped the biowarfare laboratory it is proposing to build at Site 300 outside Tracy, or if depleted uranium from its experiments with bombs on Site 300 contaminate the groundwater.

What does a million-dollar fine for security violations that endanger the population mean if the violator has an indemnification agreement that lets it get off without paying the fine?

Maybe it's a symbol or an allegory or a metaphor.

Badlands Journal

2/28/07
Los Angeles Times
UC cited for safety violations at Los Alamos
By Ralph Vartabedian, Times Staff Writer
February 27, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-fine27feb27,1,7704783.story?coll=la-news-a_section

The Department of Energy on Monday cited the University of California for 15 violations of safety rules in 2005 involving nuclear weapons research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, including a case of mishandled materials where low levels of radiation were spread across several states.

The violations would have carried a $1.1-million fine, but federal law waves such penalties for certain nonprofit contractors. UC's contract to run Los Alamos expired last year, but it is the lead contractor in a consortium that operates the lab.

It is the largest number of violations in UC's history of running Los Alamos. The fine, even though it won't have to be paid, ranks as the largest civil penalty in the history of the Department of Energy's nuclear safety program, the agency said.

The action is a preliminary notice. UC will have a chance to respond.

A spokesman for the lab declined to comment. UC officials were not available.

A history of security and safety breaches led the department's National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, to put the Los Alamos contract up for competition last year, leading to the consortium arrangement.

But the lab, which dates to the Manhattan Project in World War II, continues to land in the center of controversy.

Its poor performance was the subject of two investigative hearings in the House last month, prompting calls by lawmakers to transfer some of Los Alamos' research to other labs.

Tom D'Agostino, acting chief of the NNSA, said in a notice to UC that the "large number of violations" reflected continuing "performance deficiencies over the last few years."

Five of the 15 violations were classified as Level 1, the most serious.

Department of Energy officials said they tried to let the lab correct some of its problems after a March 2005 violation, when several workers were exposed to radioactive materials while performing decontamination operations.

Another serious breakdown occurred in July 2005, the department said, when employees improperly handled radioactive americium and contaminated their work areas, homes and buildings in other states.

Special crews were dispatched to contain the radioactive contamination, which the Department of Energy said was below its limits. The violation notice said the lab management was putting emphasis on "mission accomplishment to the detriment of safety."

The other violations cited by the department involved improper safety procedures, training and record keeping on a wide range of issues, including combustible and radioactive materials.

Having gone to a war that is ending up as "Vietnam in the desert," and getting ready to start another one that could end up being "Waterloo in the sand," against nations accused of thinking about developing weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration in collaboration with UC Lawrence Livermore and UC Los Alamos national laboraties is set to fund development of a new generation of nuclear bombs. Although billions more of American taxpayers' money will flow toward California, removed from life-supporting programs into this weapons of mass destruction program, only an idiot would crow about it. Wiser eyes would weep at the state's public research university taking advantage of the administration's might-makes-right policy to enrich itself with this deadly work. The press covers the routine mechanics of empire.

This program is the ultimate pork barrel of fear and hatred. But it will provide UC with money, power and prestige, which we are told is a good thing. Somehow, because the Bush administration selected UC's Livermore lab over UC's Los Alamos lab, California is somehow a bigger, stronger, better province within the home states of the empire than puny little New Mexico.

Locally, we can be exceedingly proud that the Livermore lab got the contract to build the next generation of nukes because the most tangible connection the new UC Merced has to the greatest public research university in the universe (just ask them) is its memorandum of understanding with Livermore lab. Put that together with UC Livermore's plans for a biowarfare lab just outside Tracy to handle the most deadly toxins known to man and the recent increase in bomb testing going on at the same site, and the San Joaquin Valley is really moving up in the world. Our congressional leaders, who fought so valiantly so long against such overwhelming odds to bring us this lethal pork deserve our respect and highest praise. Maybe we didn't make it as the new Silicon Valley, but, by God and the United States of America, we got bombs and all the defense contracts behind them.

Success is right around the corner for the Valley. Our arrival on the Big Stage will be celebrated later this spring by the UC/Great Valley Center's annual conference. Now that UC has taken over the Center, gone are those conferences where local people were caught awkwardly in the act of stumbling through the mental effort of thinking and planning for the Valley future, coping with those tedious old-style problems like idiotic, unplanned development, air and water pollution, loss of farmland, ranchland and natural resources. This year, the new UC/GVC will present the vision of Dr. Carol Channing, keynote speaker of the conference, one of the most remorselessly positive entertainers on the face of the earth. Her most famous song, "Hello Dolly," was a ubiquitous, nauseating act of happy-happy-happy flak adopted by the Democratic Party to persuade the public to forget the Vietnam War.

Channing is expected to speak about her foundation's program to rebuild the rubble of arts programs in California's public schools, colleges and universities caused by 30 years of rampant growth that did not pay for itself. Now that we have the new nuke program, more depleted uranium and ebola on the way, I guess our leaders feel safe enough to promote an art class or two in high school.

Valley provincials might have preferred Lola Montez or at least Rose Maddux. The wigs of Dr. Channing, the world's most famous living blonde, remind us of the "atomic" beehive hairdos promoted by Las Vegas casino gangster flaks back in the days when the gambling tourist could actually watch a real nuclear bomb test in real time, out on the desert.

However, despite the mesmerizing power of "Hello Dolly," a few lyric fragments managed to sneak through at the time, for example:

There's somethin' happening here,
What it is ain't exactly clear.
There's a man with a gun over there,
Tellin' me I gotta beware.
I think it's time we stop,
Hey, what's that sound,
Everybody look what's going down...

- For What It's Worth, Stephen Stills, Buffalo Springfield, 1966

Badlands
--------------

3-2-07
San Francisco Chronicle
Bush administration picks Lawrence Livermore warhead design...Scott Linklaw, AP
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/03/02/state/n091011S16.DTL
The Bush administration selected Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's design Friday for a new generation of atomic warheads, advancing a plan to update the nation's arsenal amid criticism from nuclear weapons opponents. The Lawrence Livermore design beat one submitted by Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico because it can be built with more certainty in the absence of underground testing, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. If approved by Congress, the new weapon would be much larger than Cold War-era ones...

US to Develop New Hydrogen Bomb
by Ralph Vartabedian
Los Angeles Times
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0302-02.htm

The Energy Department will announce today a contract to develop the nation's first new hydrogen bomb in two decades, involving a collaboration between three national weapons laboratories, The Times has learned.

The mushroom cloud of the first test of a hydrogen bomb is seen in a 1952 file photo. The Bush administration is planning to develop a new hydrogen bomb - undermining efforts to stop nuclear proliferation. (Handout/Reuters)

The new bomb will include design features from all three labs, though Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area appears to have taken the lead position in the project. The Los Alamos and Sandia labs in New Mexico will also be part of the project.

Teams of scientists in California and New Mexico have been working since last year to develop the new bomb, using the world's most powerful supercomputers.

The weapon is known as the reliable replacement warhead and is intended to replace aging warheads now deployed on missiles aboard Trident submarines.

The contract decision was made by the Nuclear Weapons Council, which consists of officials from the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department. Plans were underway Thursday to announce the award this afternoon.

The nuclear administration will issue the contract and run the program.

The cost of the development is secret, though outside experts said it would cost billions of dollars — perhaps tens of billions — to develop the bomb, build factories to restart high-volume weapons production and then assemble the weapons.

If Livermore does become the lead laboratory, confidence in the facility is likely to be bolstered, and political suggestions that its role in weapons development is unnecessary could be quelled.

A lead role by Los Alamos would help extract that facility from deep political problems growing out of security breaches.

The program is not expected to create a surge in employment at any of the labs

The program marks the first time the military has fielded a nuclear weapon design without an underground test. The last time scientists set off a hydrogen bomb was in 1991 under the Nevada desert.

President Clinton ordered a testing moratorium, and it has been continued by President Bush.

Since the reason for building the new bomb is to maintain confidence in the nation's nuclear deterrent, experts say, the Nuclear Weapons Council will want the most conservative design, which gives Livermore the upper hand.

The design details are secret, but Livermore's version utilizes major components that had been tested — though not produced — for a Navy bomb about two decades ago.

By contrast, Los Alamos selected a design that involved an atomic trigger and a thermonuclear component that had been tested individually.

However, the two elements were never tested together, said Philip Coyle, who serves on scientific advisory committees and formerly was deputy director at Livermore.

The Los Alamos design is said to contain highly attractive features, including innovative mechanisms that would prevent terrorists from detonating the bomb should they gain access to it, experts said. Those use controls were cited by military officials as a key factor in developing the weapon.

Proponents of the effort say that the nation's existing nuclear stockpile is getting old and that doubts will eventually grow about weapons reliability. They say the new bomb will not have a greater nuclear yield and could not perform any new military missions beyond those of existing weapons.

So far, those arguments have attracted bipartisan support, including from Democrats who have long played a leading role in nuclear arms issues.

Critics say the existing stockpile is perfectly reliable and can be maintained for decades. The new bomb will undermine U.S. efforts to stop nuclear proliferation, they say. In addition, a recent study showed that plutonium components in existing weapons were aging much more slowly than expected.

3-3-07
New York Times
New Design for Warhead Is Awarded to Livermore
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

The Bush administration announced yesterday the winner of a competition to design the nation’s first new nuclear weapon in nearly two decades and immediately set out to reassure Russia and China that the weapon, if built, would pose no new threat to either nation.

If President Bush decides to authorize production and Congress agrees, the research could lead to a long, expensive process to replace all American nuclear warheads in the next few decades with new designs.

The first to be replaced with the new Reliable Replacement Weapon would be the W-76, a warhead for missiles deployed on submarines.

Officials said the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California would design the replacement warhead based on previously tested components, allowing the administration to argue that no new underground tests would be necessary before deploying the new weapon.

Officials said, however, the Livermore design might eventually draw on technical contributions from a more novel approach on the drawing boards at Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, Livermore’s longtime rival.

The surprise choice of a single laboratory reversed a tentative decision, reported in January, to combine elements of the Livermore and Los Alamos designs. In a behind-the-scenes debate over the last two months, nuclear experts inside and outside the government faulted the hybrid approach as unusual and technically risky, with some calling it a “Frankenbomb.”

Administration officials said the Livermore design had won primarily because its main elements were detonated beneath the Nevada desert decades ago, making it a better candidate under the nuclear test ban treaty, which the United States has signed but not ratified.

Thomas P. D’Agostino, acting administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration at the Energy Department, told reporters that the Livermore design was “the most conservative approach.”

Administration officials said the hybrid had been rejected after senior members of the Navy, which will manage the W-76 replacement, worried that members of Congress would perceive it as more likely to require explosive testing.

The announcement of the research path had been expected in early January but was delayed, officials said, because of last-minute Navy concerns over control of financing and dividing the scientific labor.

The potentially expensive initiative faces an uncertain future and has generated much criticism from skeptics who argue that a new design for the nuclear arsenal is unneeded and is a potential stimulus to a global nuclear arms race.

“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a group in Washington. “There is an urgent need to reduce these weapons, not expand them. This will keep the Chinese, the Russians and others on guard to improve their own stockpiles.”

Among lawmakers who declared their opposition was Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California.

“What worries me,” Mrs. Feinstein said, “is that the minute you begin to put more sophisticated warheads on the existing fleet, you are essentially creating a new nuclear weapon. And it’s just a matter of time before other nations do the same thing.”

Critics had ridiculed the hybrid approach as a compromise dictated by the politics of survival for the nuclear laboratories, rather than technical merit. In an unusual move, even senior arms designers spoke out publicly against what they called serious risks of merging differing designs from different laboratories.

“A hybrid design by inexperienced personnel, managed by committee, is not the best approach,” John Pedicini, technical head of the design team at Los Alamos, said last month in a public blog entry.

Mr. Pedicini conceded that the Livermore design had features “that are an advance over ours, and if we get the assignment, I would incorporate them in our design.”

“If this is what is meant by hybrid,” he said, “then the outcome would be good.”

The goal is to replace the arsenal of aging warheads with a generation meant to be sturdier, more reliable, safer from accidental detonation and more secure from theft.

The replacements will have the same explosive yields and other military characteristics of the current weapons, officials said, a point that senior administration officials have made to Russia in arguing that the new weapons do not represent an expansion of the American arsenal.

Mrs. Feinstein cited a report in December saying plutonium pits have a lifespan of at least 85 years, leading critics to question whether the new weapons are necessary.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

“My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a plane. His son will ride a camel.”
- Anonymous Saudi Sheik – 1982

March 7, 2007
CommonDreams.org
Ghawar Is Dead! The Wide-Spread Use of Advanced Extraction Techniques are Killing the Mother of All Oil Fields, by Matthew S. Miller

“In order to fight each other, the chicks born from the same mother hen put colors on their faces.” -- Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, founder of study centers and active in working for peace during the war in Vietnam.

"You don't know who's swimming nekkid till the tide goes out." -- attributed to Warren Buffett, NPR Marketplace, March 9, 2007

This site has been critical of local leadership for some time. Although at times individuals have been singled out, there has been more criticism of the entire leadership institution, or cult, in the Valley, than of any individual. Experience arguing with government about its policies and direction demonstrate quite vividly that the individuals are nearly completely interchangeable by the time they have been selected for leadership.

It has been the direction, most of all, that has been so disturbing, although the means by which the direction has been achieved are not above reproach. These means, involving much corruption of existing law and public process will continue to be challenged because they must be challenged.

However, the leaders, egged on by a remorselessly personalizing media that tends to present a story involving the most general principles of law and ethics as gossip, take personal affront when they are caught just doing another deal, business as usual. They ought to spare the public their sensitivities; most people know somehow that our individual leaders, whatever their strengths and attractiveness may be, are no match for the special interests whose profits are the true guides of the direction the town and county have taken.

The problem is neither personal or local. There are many regional influences in the same direction. For example, the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District proposes a negative declaration for its new ozone plan. Having drawn even with the worst air pollution basin in the nation, the district doesn't want an environmental impact report on its plan. Regional councils of governments, also appointed boards, pretend to have some concern for air quality but in fact function as legally suitable recipients for federal highway funds based on their transportation plans that promote even more urban growth. These COGs and CAGs are responsible for a series of county measures to increase sales taxes to create matching funds that, they hope, will attract more highway funds. San Joaquin County, which has had such a sales tax increase for several years, just discovered that this particular form of bribery doesn't work -- either because the state transportation department doesn't think the county's plan is that good or because other counties had more political muscle.

Some might take this message from CalTrans to San Joaquin County as a nearly divinely inspired excuse to slow Valley growth. But those people are not members of the Valley leadership cult, for which more growth is the only solution to all problems.

At the level of the state Legislature, nobody but a shrinking group who will never see sixty again can even remember when developers didn't control the important legislation, despite the environmental posturing of elected officials, which has grown positively theatrical with the arrival of Our Hun in the governor's office.

Beyond the state Legislature, our region in particular has been visited by the Pomboza, a bipartisan partnership between representatives Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, and Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced, which introduced numerous bills to gut the Endangered Species Act on behalf of developers building in their adjoining north Valley districts. Although Pombo was defeated by outraged environmentalists from around the country in the last election, he has joined an anti-environmental lobbying firm, so we imagine the Pomboza is alive and well behind the scenes, where Pombo may prove an even more environmentally
destructive politician than he was as the chairman of the House Resources Committee, since November restored to its earlier title, Natural Resources Committee.

Further examples of the federal approach to the San Joaquin Valley include: the Bureau of Reclamation's latest scheme to avoid responsibility for the selenium disaster on the west side: privatize the San Luis Reservoir; and the full-court attack of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, against the Fraint Dam/San Joaquin River Settlement. The precedent of environmentalists, farmers and water districts coming to an agreement (albeit under warning from federal court that a settlement would be better than a judge's decision strictly by the law), must not be allowed to see the light of day or the world will end, according to Nunes -- willing to skewer his fellow Republican, Rep. George Radanovich of Mariposa in the process.

California's senior US senator, Dianne Fienstein, is the wife of investment banker, Richard Blum, presently chairman of the UC Board of Regents. This power team has rendered the term "conflict of interest" meaningless in California.

In a war began as the result of lies the administration told, the US military, the most powerful, best armed, most highly technologized and expensive miltary in the world, "is in danger of being driven back by a few tens of thousands of lightly armed irregulars, who have developed tactics capable of destroying multimillion-dollar vehicles and aircraft." The American military reaction in Iraq is characterized as "unadorned state terrorism." There is no doubt that denial historical knowledge goes straight to the top of US government. Bush now has been caught so thoroughly in his web of lies that drumbeats for impeachment keep growing.

Obviously, it won't do to blame local leaders for the general dysfunction and atmosphere of lies and destruction. However, given the topography and climate of the San Joaquin Valley, its leaders' growth policy for the profit of national and international finance, insurance and real estate interests at the expense of the public health and safety in the agricultural heartland of the most productive farming and ranching state in the nation, is, in a word, absurd, upside-down, backwards. However, if you stand on your head, it all comes clear: the leaders aren't actually leaders, they are just a select group of strong personalities trained in a cult to follow business, the bigger business the better. What they call "the real world" in authoritative tones designed to crush all question or criticism, is in fact a materialist fantasy of a hierarchy of wealth. This theory of leadership that is actually followership begs the lamentable question: who will be found nekkid when the tide goes out? We would prefer leadership that addresses the real, organic problems of the Valley and find means of improving things. Paving it over simply denies the responsibility of maintaining one of the most vital agricultural areas in the nation.

Any appeal to giantism finds a vigorous response in the Valley, however, because the Valley produces veritable Leviathans of corporate agribusiness and public works: Gallo Wine, Hilmar Cheese, Boswell Cotton, the largest public irrigation projects in the world, etc. This form of economic development has produced tremendous riches for a few and the lowest standard of living in the state for the many and has created a population dislocation in Mexico that has damaged both sides of the border and become a chronic, uncontrollable "hot-button" issue for the authoritarian racist crowd.

One of the major problems of thinking about the Valley is that its leadership denies the history of the Valley. Elites constantly form, rise, and morph between outside-funding cycles. A good example is the Great Valley Center, founded by a former pro-growth Modesto mayor on grants from a young, aggressive charitable foundation based in Silicon Valley and a group of the proper national environmental non-profits with completely self-serving agendas. As far as GVC was concerned, history began when it got its non-profit status and first grants. Its agenda was based on the idea that growth is inevitable and it produced numerous "smart growth" fantasies in a series of workshops and conferences noting for the declining quality of thinking and of sandwiches. Finally, it has joined in a win-win, private-public partnership with UC Merced, a public corporation convinced that absolutely nothing existed in the Valley before Itself arrived. The idea that history is nothing but the chronicle of the current leadership cult has been as thoroughly discredited as the flat-earth theory.

Despite high concentrations of wealth in a few agribusiness fortunes, there is relatively little philanthropy beyond projects that advertise their funders. Support for glamorless programs that get youth started in the right direction, shelter the homeless and care for the e;derly poor who honestly labored here and in general helps the community rise according to invaluable local knowledge about how resources should best be spent, was more evident 50 years ago than it is today. And UC Merced has made the situation worse by ripping off enormous tax-deductible contributions from regional plutocrats. UC Merced should not be blamed for this. The Valley has not had real charitable-spending leadership. The results of the lack of it are all around us. We have not been charitable where it matters. This must remain a mystery if one is not to indulge in futile blaming.

Nor can one blame Christianity for Valley churches that spend more time bashing gays than supporting the poor. We can see where an attitude of denial of reality greed and hypocrisy ends, but it is harder to see where it began. Perhaps, as some thoughtful religionists suggest, there is simply a loss of soul in America. Perhaps the prices paid for power and wealth were too high. Psychologist Erich Fromm noted 40 years ago:

The very picture of mid-twentieth century capitalism is hardly distinguishable from the
caricature of Marxist socialism as drawn by its opponents."

An article last week in the Merced Sun-Star, describes a quandary a Detroit-based developer and the city find themselves in:

Bellevue Ranch is the second largest development the company is currently working on.
Navigating endangered species and wetlands laws marks new territory for city officials too, who find themselves dealing with fairy shrimp for the first time within the city limit.

We begin with the Bellevue Ranch as a regulatory/development problem, with no reference to what it was, no reference to the lawsuit that produced the EIR on the project, and city officials are presented as having known nothing about the endangered species present on the land. This is deceit, not journalism.

The article echoes statements about vernal pools and fairy shrimp (endangered as are 11 species of plants found only around vernal pools) made from the earliest planning stages of UC Merced. It represents the earlier outrage, voiced by the various local Mr. and Ms. UC Merceds of their moments, that the fairy shrimp and the vernal pools in which they live are the greatest enemy Valley civilization has faced since Estanislao broke out of Mission San Jose. Once again, local business and political leaders, following the profit needs of outside developers, line up against an embattled federal resource agency charged under the Endangered Species Act with protecting endangered species that only live a few months a year and rarely exceed two inches in length. Yet their range in Merced County includes the eastern and western watersheds, the pastures where percolation takes place. By protecting fairy shrimp and vernal pools, local leaders would be protecting air quality and water quality and quantity for existing Valley residents. But local leaders didn't become local leaders by listening to any interest but business, which in the Valley regards all land in farming and ranching as fair game for more subdivisions. If it sounds as if I am excluding the farming and ranching business, like they say, there is no parcel of land in the Valley not for sale at a price. Agricultural organizations have fallen into a state of political autism, paralyzed by their dual position as both producers and landowners. Large landowners, like Mike Gallo and the Kelley family, become developers while smaller farmers suffer the steady degradation of their districts by encroaching urban development. In the battle between the farm and the subdivision, development always kicks the teeth out of "right to farm" policies.

So, we are in for another round of smart-growth fantasies as the air quality deteriorates and the water quality and quantity diminishes unless the nationwide speculative housing boom, particularly egregious here, produces a national recession that stops economic growth. Leadership by developer feeding frenzy halted by national recession is not our idea of leadership. The local followership cult is outrageously irresponsible, greedy, and it grovels before outside finance, insurance and real estate special interests.

Badlands editorial board
---------------------------------

Notes:

3-6-07
Merced Sun-Star
Tiny shrimp blocking builder...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13354476p-13977705c.html

3-7-07
Merced Sun-Star
Building permits decline...Leslie Albrecht
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13357619p-13980593c.html

2-22-07
Central Valley Business Times

California housing remains nation’s least affordable, despite cooling prices
LOS ANGELES
http://centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=4411&ref=patrick.net

2-26-07
Modesto Bee
Vacant and costly
Empty homes leave owners on the hook
By J.N. SBRANTI
http://www.modbee.com/business/story/13300377p-13929065c.html

'Smart' rebels outstrip US
Top American generals make shock admission as Iraq leader pleads with neighbouring

countries to seal off their borders
Paul Beaver in Fort Lauderdale and Peter Beaumont
Sunday March 11, 2007
The Observer
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2031172,00.html

Surge and Destroy
The Brutality Escalates in Iraq
By Michael Schwartz
Tomdispatch.com -- March 11, 2007

Marx's Concept of Man, Erich Fromm, Ungar, New York, 1966.

Factories in the Field, Cary McWilliams, Peregrine Press, 1971 (originally published in

1935)

I know that the people of California will demand a better university for themselves, because without it, their options for a survivable future, let alone a future they might desire, are dim. -- Ignacio H. Chapela, Associate Professor UC Berkeley – March 2007

Meanwhile, however, the UC Board of Regents will undoubtedly rubber-stamp the BP-UC deal to produce more uncontrollable genetically engineered organisms. Among the other grave distortions of language surrounding California’s “greatest public research university in the world,” is the term conflict-of-interest. The present chairman of the Regents is Richard Blum, husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Together, they have extracted all meaning from the term.

Badlands editorial staff
-------------------------

Remarks Prepared by Invitation of the Chair of the Academic Senate University of California, Berkeley

On the Berkeley-British Petroleum Proposition:
Things are Often Not what they Appear.

Presented on the Floor of the Academic Senate of the University of California, Berkeley Division.

In eight minutes.

by
Ignacio H. Chapela
Associate Professor

Things are often not what they appear.

This Session

This session, for instance. It will be portrayed as the latest expression of the vibrant democratic system of shared governance for which Berkeley was once known. Far from it, this session is a last-minute hurried afterthought by a leadership caught asleep at the wheel, a session convened only because of the rising outrage and opposition to the presence of British Petroleum on our campus.

May nobody claim that eight minutes of my clumsy words represent any kind of reasonable and legitimizing discussion. May nobody leave this room thinking that there is anything like a legitimate process in place to guarantee that this Faustian deal with the British transnational corporation is not what it portends, the last - and I believe final - coup de grace to the very idea of a university that can represent the best interest of the public.

The Technical Value of the Premises

I have tried for size the word Prostitution as best describing that for which the Chancellor and his associates would like us to sign.

When faced with this concept, I have heard the proponents of this deal simply shrug and say: "But at least we can agree that it IS a lot of money - and even perhaps some science may come out of it!" So leaving prostitution aside, why not glance at the science?

What would certainly come out of the BP-Berkeley facilities would be a large number of genetically altered, reproducing, LIVING organisms to be released in the public environment.

In Berkeley, in the Midwest and around the world. Genetically-modified (or "GMO") grasses, trees, algae, bacteria, viruses destined for intentional, large-scale release in the public environment.

These organisms do not represent Science. If anything, they may represent our failure as scientists to assume the deep inadequacies of our understanding about living organisms and the ecology of our planet. I do not need to dwell on it: read it in the front pages of your newspapers.

Despite a third of a century and more than $350 billion dollars invested in the trinket, a hurricane remains more predictable, and a wildfire remains more controllable than GMO organisms. Meanwhile, they have proven to be a disastrous economic proposition, not to speak of their environmental and social consequences.

Cognizant of this reality, BP-Berkeley proponents would wish to rename everything in their trade to give it a fresh face of novelty: GMOs should now be called "DNA circuits", pieced together from "Biobricks" through a craft not called transgenesis, but "Synthetic Biology"; decomposition, the process which has defeated many better minds in the past may be more tractable - they suggest - if it can be renamed "depolymerization". And so on.

In the BP-Berkeley spirit I would suggest we rename "science" what used to be called "magic" in my childhood: addressing a question by drawing a cloak of confusion and secrecy over it, only to extract a pre-arranged answer to the pre-arranged question.

We hear that the magic of "DNA-circuits" should also produce some science in the physics departments. BP-Berkeley proponents wish to deny it, but the proposition that more energy can be extracted from a process than what is invested into it does not follow the phoney rules of the stock market or the wild-eyed predictions of venture capitalists. Biofuels may be convenient because they shove the tragic aspects of our insatiable consumption to the invisible corners of the Third World, but they will not change the laws of thermodynamics, nor - I suspect - will they succeed in the medieval quest for perpetual motion machines.

Do we need a solution to the crazed consumerism binge of the short two centuries we have spent burning our fossil-fuel accounts?

Certainly. If we do not find it soon, the solution itself may come and get us, and we may not like it. But does the BP-Berkeley proposal address any of the questions necessary to find that solution? I believe not. At least there are very legitimate and reasonable concerns, growing by the day in the last few weeks here and abroad, that the idea of Biofuels embodied in the BP-Berkeley proposal is not only short-sighted, but fatally flawed:

For a measure, Indonesia without Biofuels used to be close to 20th in the world as producer of CO2 in the atmosphere. In a few years with biofuels it is now third, only behind the US and China.

Signing the contract with British Petroleum would yoke the university to a flawed and potentially very dangerous route at least for the next decade. Because of the investments and commitments made and because of the roads not taken, most probably much longer.

The evidence keeps coming in about the inadequacy and dangerous nature of the proposal, but we cannot afford to even see or acknowledge it, even before signing the contract, for fear of scaring the money away.

If we signed that contract, can anyone seriously imagine that Berkeley would be in a position to undertake significant research to show the problems with the BP strategy? Can anyone believe that after signing the contract we could be working on alternatives that do not involve patents, immoral profit margins, economies of scale and command-and-control governance? Look at the subservient motions of this very Senate, and answer these questions truthfully, at least to yourselves (at night, in the bathroom?).

After signing the contract with BP, will anyone ever believe our objectivity and advice as we move into the most difficult part out of the social and environmental decomposition that we live in?

Chancellor Berdahl, while signing with one hand the predecessor of the BP-Berkeley agreement, the Novartis-Berkeley deal, was writing with the other hand:

"The issue is not that Novartis may direct the research exclusively to topics that may yield profits for the company; it is, rather, that the perception of the objectivity of our faculty may be compromised and with it the confidence that their research is dedicated to the public good. Few would put a great deal of confidence, I suspect, in the objectivity of lung cancer research funded by tobacco companies."

The evidence is in, and we cannot afford to see it?

We already missed the opportunity of listening to the best advice of our faculty. In addition to Berdahl's, the following names, and what they could have contributed are but a sampler of the many important campus voices that are clearly not represented here:

Clark Kerr - the dangers of the university-industrial complex.
Nancy Peluso - probable consequences of the BP deal in Indonesia.
Miguel Altieri - ditto for the Amazon basin, plus the many non-patent alternatives to global disaster.
Michael Watts - ditto for Asia
Claudia Carr - ditto for Africa
Gordon Rausser - the difference between first right of refusal and first right of negotiation. Basics of negotiation strategies.
Bob Buchanan - the limits of microbial transgenesis
Bob Berdahl - the possible limits to privatization
Laura Nader - the impossibility of unlimited power through knowledge
David Hollinger - the unsustainability of using the university as a political workhorse
Tad Patzek
Urs Cipolat
Gray Brechin
Bob Brentano
Jennifer Miller
Iain Boal
Louise Fortmann ... the list goes on

Can we call this a "Berkeley"agreement when these and many other voices are not here?

Things are often not what they appear: there are other names.

This agreement, which many fear as an unacceptable private-public partnership, is very much a private-private partnership. Attention faculty in English, Music or Rhetoric: do not hold your breath for the financial crumbs to fall from the party table for your programs, because the chickens are all counted, and they carry name-tags around their necks.

I mean to say: the reason why you have not heard mention of even the concept of Conflict of Interest is precisely because nobody in the partnership seems to recognize the idea.

To my knowledge the last time Conflict of Interest was considered worth visiting, again involved the Novartis-Berkeley deal. One of the overseers of that Deal, Prof Jasper Rine, stated in his legal declaration on conflict of interest caused by his simultaneous involvement in private and public science-making:

" … the possibility of conflict of interest is non-existent, since the science happening in my lab at Berkeley is exactly the same as the science happening in [my outside company]" A curious but clearly faulted definition of the concept, I should point out.

It is not surprising then to see that conflict of interest levels that would have been considered unthinkable even a decade ago would not deserve even a note in the BP-Berkeley designs. The conflicts and mutual-self-serving dealings are many, large and very complex, but once again in eight minutes we are reduced to a mention of a few examples.

BP-boosters propose to focus on grasses and other "DNA circuits" controlled by a company in Walnut Creek called Mendel Biotechnology. Mendel is thus a major, little-mentioned partner in this deal. Mendel has an alliance with Monsanto, the world’s monopoly of transgenic seeds, for more than $40 milllion dollars. This long-term relationship includes a Vice President of Monsanto on Mendel’s board; in their words, their reciprocal interests are "highly aligned". So it stands to legal reason --by some standard I suppose-- that there would be no conflict of interest between BP, Berkeley, Mendel, Monsanto, and the deployment of their products for profit over more than 200 million acres of transgenic (excuse me, "Synthetic Biology") crops? In this proposal, Berkeley is nothing but a business partner with these corporations, professors entrepreneurs and students simply cheap labor, paying high fees for the privilege of giving their work to the right corporation.

Principals in Mendel's Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board are Prof. Brian Staskawicz, of Berkeley, and Prof. Stephen Long of the University of Illinois (the other business partner in this Proposal). Both entrepreneurs' interests inside campus and out are probably so identical that they do not need to worry about conflict of interest. Whether their students can maintain such clear alignment in their allegiance between finding out what is true and publicly desirable and finding out what is profitable might be a different question.

Chris Sommerville, CEO of Mendel, has been apparently rushed in to Berkeley through a secretive and highly irregular flash-hire process to be safely on the UC side as a professor for the signing of the agreement. His campus interviews, behind closed doors, apparently happened last Tuesday, although the Chancellor had already announced more than a month ago that he would unilaterally appoint him. Not surprisingly, there is no outward sign that the Academic Senate even knew about all this. Oh, I nearly forgot: Mr Sommerville's wife is reportedly also getting another professorial position at Berkeley through the same process - I am not sure what she does professionally.

Of course, no contract will be official without the signature of the Regents but here again, the Chair of the Regents, Richard Blum, stands in multi-million-dollar conflict of interest over his financial engagement with "development" corporations that are already signed on to begin the digging and concrete-pouring in Strawberry Canyon, as has been well documented by investigative journalist Peter Byrne.

Prof. Dan Kammen's description of the goals here is appropriate, and seems to describe the real environmental interest in the BP-Berkeley proposal: He said that the goal of the BP-Berkeley deal was "to generate an ecosystem of companies". We now have an inkling of the "biodiversity" making up this "innovation environment"; now we know that what is really meant here is a trophic web of favoritism that would have shamed the Soviet system, in an environment of profit-driven conflict of interest.

BP's Benefit

As the smell of depolymerization (British Petroleum-word for decomposition) continues to emerge from the extraordinary proposition, few stop to ask what else would BP get out of all this.

Time is short, so we are back to citing samplers from a much larger collection.

I will leave a marker here for what I think is the most important benefit to BP apart from the obvious greenwashing and the very large public subsidization of its faulty science, research development, distribution and marketing: the liability haven provided by Berkeley.

If the production of Synthetic Biology "DNA circuits" entails with it very clear risks, Berkeley is providing an unrivalled degree of protection against public scrutiny, through the abuse of the public privilege assigned to us in the Constitution of the State of California to conduct our affairs in privacy, for academic freedom's sake. This privilege can also be used, as if it were a private right to secrecy, to deflect public inquiry and to protect BP, Dow, Monsanto, Mendel, Savia, Amyris and the rest of the "ecosystem of companies" from the evident and imminent liability in Moral, Fiduciary and Legal terms associated with the release of herbicide resistant weeds, algae, all kinds of microbes, crops and the rest of it.

Thanks

It is not all bad. I want to thank the many students and faculty who are awakening to the situation of their university, the public of California and the world who understand what is at stake and will hold us accountable for it, as they are doing here tonight.

But I also want to thank British Petroleum, not for the $500,000,000.00 - which, at $600 of after-tax profit per second for last year does not represent much - but for the arrogant and reckless style with which they have come to our Campus. With this they have already helped uncover the depth and breadth of the problems with/for our university that this proposal entails. These problems were really in need of public attention, and they will get it.

I Believe that I stand here for a majority within this campus, throughout the State and in the world who also believe that the time has come to re-take control of our institutions as the only possible way forward from the enormous environmental and social catastrophe that we are already living through.

I Trust that this Academic Senate, the only legitimate body of representation for our faculty, will stand up against this last push to declare us irrelevant in the worst moment of social and environmental need.

I know that the people of California will demand a better university for themselves, because without it, their options for a survivable future, let alone a future they might desire, are dim.

Let there be light.
-----------------

Note:

Answers.com
http://www.answers.com/topic/richard-c-blum

Wikipedia: Richard C. Blum

Richard C. Blum is an investment banker and the husband of United States Senator from California Dianne Feinstein. He is the Chairman and President of Blum Capital Partners, L.P., a long-term strategic equity investment management firm that acts as general partner for various investment partnerships and provides investment advisory services. He founded the firm in 1975. He also owns 75% of the voting stock in Perini.

Educated
He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where he received his B.S. in business administration in 1958, and an MBA in 1959, both degrees coming from the Haas School of Business.

Boards

On March 12, 2002, Blum was appointed by California Governor Gray Davis to a 12-year term as one of the Regents of the University of California. Blum also serves on the boards of the following companies:

CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. (Chairman)
Newbridge Capital, LLC (co-Chairman)
Glenborough Realty Trust

Blum has a strong interest in Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism. In 1981 he attempted to climb Mount Everest from the Tibetan side with Sir Edmund Hillary. He is the Chairman and founder of the American Himalayan Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to build hospitals and schools in Tibet and Nepal.

In addition to the AHF, Blum’s not-for-profit endeavors include service as Trustee of The Carter Center; member of the Board of Trustees of The Brookings Institution; Co-Chairman of the The World Conference of Religions for Peace; Director at the World Wildlife Fund; Member of Governing Council of the Wilderness Society; and Member of the Board of Trustees of the American Cancer Foundation.

The Center for Public Integrity has reported that Blum and his wife, Senator Dianne Feinstein, are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Perini. [1] Critics have also argued that Feinstein's support of policies that are friendly to the Chinese government are because of her husband's extensive China-related business holdings.

References
Biographical sketch in the San Francisco Chronicle
Blum Capital Partners, L.P.
Blum Biography at the University of California
Richard Blum hones art of upping shareholder value. Loren Steffy; Bloomberg News; August 4, 2002.

7 a.m. The roar of the highway, elevated somewhat above us here in Merced, spreads through the old town. A siren wails. A freight train rumbles through town on the north tracks, whistle blasting. The streets are already filling with traffic. The sun is taking the winter chill out of the air.

It all sounds and feels like the hustle and bustle of a town growing in prosperity, business, commerce, all the things that common sense calls good. So what if a few hundred people lose their houses on mortgages they should never have bought into? Even a few thousand. They made bad financial decisions.

Listen to the Big Sound rumbling on the highway and the rails. The Valley is growing, prosperity is coming. That sound means more work, maybe. So what if the air’s getting worse and we’ve got water and sewer issues? And what’s a morning in the Valley without greeting a homeless person on the sidewalk? The Valley has always had a population of mobile citizens without regular addresses.

Some say we ought to try to impose some limits on our growth, if not to avoid filling towns with strangers that do not a city make, to protect the environment and respect the natural resources. Others say, No. Government, alleged to be of, by and for the people, should stay out of the way of business. Let the market impose limits (as the present housing “correction” is doing). The environment is nothing but the arena in which growth happens. How growth occurs is totally a function of the invisible hand of the marketplace. Any assertions that the environment has intrinsic value or is related to public health and safety in any way, or that local land-use authorities ought to consider the limits included in environmental law and regulation, are nothing more than but irritating grumblings of malcontents. Furthermore, these malcontents do not realize that we must speak with One Voice to persuade upper echelons of government to help fund our growth. Because the best friend the free market ever had was a government controlled by business.

“Forget all your worries!” say the diesels rumbling up and down the highway, the freight trains whistling on the tracks. “This is the Valley! We work! We produce! We are many industries based on agriculture!”

In fact there were problems then and there are problems now. Then, the invisible opposable thumb of the free market was squashing a number of small farmers overproducing one of the most perishable fruits on earth, the cling peach of ancient memory. Throughout it all, processors rose and fell. The names on those canneries are largely forgotten. It’s ancient history. Other processors survived and flourished and became giants, supporting the remaining productive farms, now much larger themselves than the old farms and dairies. Urban growth occurred to take the overflow from the Bay Area, where industries new and old boomed and property values boomed. The ominous thing was that some time in there the Sierras and the Coast Range became invisible unless it had just rained or there was a strong wind.

At some point, well past the real moment of loss of balance between the urban and the rural, the city and the environment, even dull-witted people began to notice that it is almost impossible to travel in the Valley out of sight of urban development. Now, the Valley is a region of rural parts, but it is no longer rural.

Even remembering crops like the huge tonnage of cling peaches seems more than faintly ridiculous. It is gone, and with it, a local way of life is gone. The economy adjusted. We are here, now, not there, then. The economy should have no history. It is all about now and the future, just as, in those days, it was about that now and that future, the latter of which not resembling our present at all. Who could have imagined the changes? It was always disreputable to imagine changes or to remember "ancient history."

One of the paradoxes of the Valley economy begs the question whether growth raises all ships. Is it possible to have growth and at the same time growing poverty? Observing the ever-expanding outskirts of Sacramento, we see rings of tract housing that was once owned, is now rented, and is deteriorating. The paradox is that we usually assume that poverty is not a sign of growth because we equate growth with prosperity. But are all ships rising? In the recent speculative housing boom, the ships of all homeowners rose, at least on paper. But how many bad mortgages, mortgages the lenders knew the new homeowner would be unable to cover as the rate rose, are out there in the midst of the regional housing boom, ready to explode, leaving empty homes and unfortunate lives? The speculative housing boom seems to have been about money rather than a great need for houses, as our local unaffordable housing prices demonstrate. Nevertheless, I just received a telephone message telling me that a company had checked out my credit and decided I could afford to buy one of these houses – a statement that I know to be absurd.

Apparently, the way the mortgage business operates is that the predatory lender unloads mortgages (s)he knows full well will default into secondary markets. Housing economist Dean Baker sketches how the housing bubble is bursting:

The fall thus far has been relatively modest (around 3 percent nationwide), but with prices going in the wrong direction, most new homebuyers have no equity that they could rely upon to meet their monthly payments. As a result, delinquency rates began to soar in 2006. More than 10 percent of the subprime adjustable rate mortgages issued last year (the most risky category) were already seriously delinquent or foreclosed within 10 months of issuance. This is even before any of these mortgages reset to a higher interest rate. With foreclosure rates soaring, the music is about to stop. The investors who bought up these mortgages in the secondary market are now refusing to lend more money. Credit is drying up for both the subprime and the Alt-A market, which is a notch above subprime in creditworthiness. These two segments of the housing market together accounted for 40 percent of the mortgages issued in the last two years. If 40 percent of potential homebuyers suddenly have problems getting credit, it has to have a large impact on the housing market. Throw into the mix that the inventory of unsold homes is 25 percent higher than at the same time last year. And, the number of vacant units up for sale (normally an indication of a highly motivated seller) is up more than 40 percent compared to last year. Since house prices fell by three percent last year (six percent in real terms), it looks like we have the beginnings of a serious slide in house prices. And, a sharp fall in house prices will lead to more problems in the mortgage market. That is the story of a collapsing housing bubble. It is not pretty. It was predictable.

San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced counties already rank among the top foreclosure rates and least affordable housing in the nation. It might be predictable that the housing bubble will collapse more severely here.

The bust was predicted. The information was available to Valley business and political leaders. This information was suppressed, ignored, denied and mocked. Or is it that the Valley cannot think in any economic terms but boom and bust? Is that the legacy of agriculture?

Now the construction-defect lawsuits are starting. Some would say that is inevitable during an “inevitable” housing boom, when contractors are building too much, too fast, in a market driven by speculation. Toxic mold problems, which Merced has seen before, have not yet surfaced to the extent they have in class action suits in Sacramento suburbs. Already, however, there are rumors that homeowners are getting dire warnings from the developers that sold them their homes about the consequent loss of property value from disclosing defects.

The probable result is urban growth accompanied by the growth of poverty. Could this have been prevented? If so, how, in a state and region committed to the view that “growth is inevitable.” Think about the arrogance of this phrase for a moment, in terms of the huge parts of the US where growth is not happening at all -- in fact the reverse is happening. “Growth is inevitable,” our leaders say, shrugging their shoulders and collecting their cuts as the public schoolyards fill up with present-day equivalents of WWII surplus Quonset huts.

What sort of economic growth is suppressed by urban growth? Was construction, real estate sales, finance and insurance work the only kind of work? What are the economic and social costs of the steady deterioration of the quality of California public education since developers gained political control of the state? How about the costs of health care?

Why did Merced take the great plunge into housing development? Although it is still an unspeakable question, the consequences of the great speculative housing boom may make it a very pointed question by the end of the year.

Has the ideology of “raising all ships through inevitable growth” been a true guide or simply developer flak? Or, has it just redistributed income upward and caused the growth of more poverty?

How will our dear business and political leaders cover up all this, when even the local newspaper smells the story?

Bill Hatch

Notes:

3-6-07
Truthout.com
http://www.cepr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1072&Itemid=45
The Housing Bubble Starts to Burst
By Dean Baker

On March 14, the Merced Sun-Star reported that the former Cowgirl Chancellor of UC Merced, Carol Tomlinson-Keasey, was an unsuccessful finalist for a university administrative position in Hawaii,

according to Robert Bley-Vroman, the search committee's chair.

On March 15, the paper reported that The cowgirl said she'd dropped out before the final selection and is now thinking about going to Atlanta to be with her family and maybe get a job with the Carter Center, founded by former President Jimmy Carter.

Bad reporting on Wednesday, good reporting on Thursday? Or another dose of the cowgirl's patented UC Merced Bobcatflak?

Who cares? She came, she built the first phase of the campus at UC's own risk, without proper federal environmental permits. Then she left, allegedly to work on a book. Then came the Hawaii plan. Now comes the Atlanta plan.

The cowgirl has a unique place in Merced history. Her development strategy started a huge speculative housing boom, now busting about us. She railroaded public process, environmental law and regulation at the local, state and federal levels. While here, she was adored by the press and all dear local leaders, who were willing to bend and break anything to smooth the way for building the first phase of UC Merced, bulldozing a municipal golf course to do it when the public objected to the original site in one of the densest fields of vernal pools in existence. She was a perfect UC administrative front for a corrupt land boom. Merced will be sorting out the consequences of the deals in which she participated for years to come with state legislators, congressmen and lobbyists.

She claimed UC Merced would be the most environmentally friendly campus of all. She meant its buildings, not its location. She promised a high-tech, bio-tech future for Merced. UC Merced's memorandum of understanding with UC/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory suggested possible future involvement with research on weapons of mass destruction. She promised a medical school for Merced. The Valley looks like a promising site for medical research into respiratory illness, in part because of the speculative building boom for which UC Merced is an anchor tenant. UC Merced's seminal research into the contribution of cow farts to Valley air pollution confirmed many suspicions that the campus research agenda was developer- rather than scientist-driven.

The cowgirl was given a difficult task by the UC Board of Regents and our dear leaders; she did and said what was necessary to get building on the ground; she left, announcing she would write a book about the founding of the campus. She also said she would come back to UC Merced as a professor. Now, she's off to Georgia.

Noting that the excuse for the latest 7-percent tuition increase for UC students was that UC needs to pay its faculty and administrators close to what they could earn in the private sector, we thought about the cowgirl from another angle. She was the lowest paid UC chancellor at a little more than $225,000. However there were perks and a retirement package including a year's salary at a professor's grade (on which she was planning to write that book about how the campus was founded). We hope she invested wisely and flipped a few residential properties during her stay. If she didn't, she is perhaps unique among public officials of her time. The cowgirl earned the salary roughly equivalent to a mid-level manager in a development corporation -- about right for her skill set and task. She promised the moon and delivered some bricks and mortar. Only the greater footprint remains in doubt. But there are a lot of development footprints in doubt in Merced at that moment.

Like a good development corporation manager, she never conversed with the public; she announced and pronounced, ran an effective sales and propaganda campaign that was munificently funded by the California public and made her deals in the backroom.

The people of California, without whose support UC could lose its front and become nothing but a private lab full of malevolent science, don't want entrepreneurial UC scientists. We don't want university administrators who behave like corporate gunslingers. We don't want more technocrats. we want educated leaders, not crude, deceitful hustlers of educational institutions bought and sold by private corporations. No, we cannot compete with private industry for academic salaries. We expect professors that love to teach, administrators who love to provide the best institutions in which education can take place. We expect our public research university to care about education and not constantly prostitute itself for the latest corporate grant.

Will we pay for a university we can be proud of as an educational institution? We can't beat private industry. No university, public or private, ever could. To claim otherwise is nothing but cheap flak. But UC Merced immediately sold out to the agribusiness plutocrats of the Valley. Looking back on the history of UC involvement with the Valley, we cannot help thinking that was not completely by accident. In its land-grant college aspect, UC, through the cooperative extension, has at times done useful work on behalf of agriculture. Where UC has failed consistently and completely is in the area of critical thought about the Valley, blocked at every step by the same agribusiness interests that flocked to get their names on various walls of the new campus.

Nonetheless, we have never been against a second UC campus in the Central Valley. We wonder if from rotten beginnings great things can grow, but we understand the importance of manure in the growing process. Unfortunately, UC Merced continues to look like nothing more than an urban anchor tenant in a land boondoggle aiming to urbanize everything east of Highway 99 from Tulare to Placer counties, complete with its own Foothills Freeway. That is unacceptable to the public, however lucrative it may appear to the good friends of UC Merced, regents, congressmen and large landowners included.

If the Valley public does not want to become a dumping ground for toxic weapons research and residential development at the expense of health and quality of life, it must find a means of engaging this extremely arrogant, deceitful institution, which makes the most dangerous weapons of mass destruction on earth, in a long, frank conversation. Otherwise, UC will do in the Valley what it has done everywhere else in the state: lend its prestige and its research energy to economic and power elites who despise the public (for the public's own good, of course).

We're glad there will be no luau for the cowgirl in Hawaii and we trust Ol' Jimmy can see through this one in a glance. It's time California quit exporting its corruption. Unlike the cowgirl, we'll stay to fight the consequences of her "leadership."

In her suits of that particularly regal shade of blue we always suspected only certain, unnamed Berkeley tailors and dressmakers were issued from UC Central, with her golden jewelry and gold-tinted hair, the cowgirl was a real piece of work. We watched her lie in her teeth to legislative committees. We watched her corrupt newspapers. We watched her crawl into the political beds of real enemies of the public interest. All to get her job done. There is no way we can claim to have caused her as much damage as she caused our environment and our poor, complicated, struggling community. But we tried, and we got an edge in wordwise. At least (she claims) she's off to Atlanta, where the Federal Highway Authority once did suspend funds due to air pollution caused by rampant, unregulated urban growth.

However, we feel she's aiming in the wrong direction when she thinks of going to the Carter Center. Where she belongs is at the side of Newt Gingrich, when he runs for president.

Badlands editorial board
-------------

Notes:

3-14-07
Merced Sun-Star
Hawaii passes on former UC Merced Chancellor...Victor A. Patton
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13382702p-14002920c.html
UC Merced founding chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey has been eliminated from the running to become the University of Hawaii at Manoa's next chancellor. UC Davis Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw was announced Tuesday as University of Hawaii President David McClain's choice to lead the university's prestigious Manoa campus. Hinshaw and Tomlinson-Keasey were among four finalists...University of Hawaii's Board of Regents is expected to vote Thursday whether to make McClain's selection of Hinshaw official. Tomlinson-Keasey, 64, said in February that she was approached in December by consultants conducting the University of Hawaii at Manoa chancellor search and decided to apply. She left UC Merced in August, saying that she wanted to dedicate time to family and write a book about the campus. Tomlinson-Keasey guided the university's planning in 1998 as senior associate to then-UC President Richard Atkinson and was named chancellor the following year

3-15-07
Former chancellor says she took her name out of running for Hawaii job...Victor A. Patton
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13386813p-14006410c.html
Former UC Merced chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey says she opted out of the University of Hawaii at Manoa's chancellor search prior to this week's announcement by the school's president that a new chancellor has been selected. Although a story published in Wednesday's Merced Sun-Star stated that Tomlinson-Keasey has been eliminated from the chancellor search, she said in an e-mail that she decided not to pursue the position after visiting the campus. Tomlinson-Keasey also said she sent a letter last week to University...also said she sent a letter last week to University of Hawaii President David McClain informing him that she wished for her name to be removed from consideration in the chancellor search...said she made her decision "after careful deliberation." "My children are moving to Atlanta and I think I will look for something with the Carter Foundation or with the Task Force for Child Survival and Development, which is also located in the Atlanta area," Tomlinson-Keasey said in the letter.

Modesto Bee
UC Merced earns gold star for 'green' building efforts...Michelle Hatfield
http://www.modbee.com/local/story/13386424p-14006119c.html
The University of California at Merced is trying to set the standard when it comes to environmentally friendly buildings. UC Merced's central plant earned a gold certification under the category of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a prestigious distinction sought by many universities and companies across the nation...central plant is composed of three buildings — a three-story facility that includes most of the campus's power operations, a telecommunications building and a 2-million gallon water-storage tank. The LEED certification is handed out by the U.S. Green Building Council. "We want to be a model. We're trying to figure out how to set the standard without having to drain natural re-sources," said Mark Maxwell, LEED coordinator at UC Merced. The central plant was recognized for its efficient energy management, water-use reduction, recycling, waste management, lighting and landscaping. The complex earned marks for using recycled materials. UC Merced also uses its water tank to cut energy costs. The campus's ongoing construction also is environmentally minded.

Tracy Press
Hard Ball...John Upton
http://tracypress.com/content/view/8279/2/
Attorneys for the Tracy Press have demanded the city provide e-mails sent and received by Tracy Vice Mayor Suzanne Tucker relating to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s proposed biological laboratory and an increase in open-air explosions. Attorney Mark Connolly told city attorneys Bill Sartor and Debra Corbett in a nine-page letter Tuesday that he and San Francisco-based First Amendment lawyer Karl Olson would file a lawsuit if the city fails to hand over the e-mails by the end of next week. Tucker and city lawyers have argued that the e-mails between Tucker and the lab are exempt from California open government laws because Tucker sent and received the e-mails as a private citizen using a personal e-mail address and a personal computer. Tucker, like other council members, does not have a city e-mail address. The March 13 letter included summaries of 77 related e-mails to and from Tucker that were obtained by the Tracy Press and activist Carole Dominguez through public records requests. Connolly said in the letter that the e-mails showed Tucker “was clearly acting in her capacity as a member of the City Council on city business.” Californian Newspaper Publishers Association attorney Jim Ewert said Tucker’s claim that her e-mails are exempt from public records laws because she used personal equipment has never before been tested in court. Tracy Press publisher Bob Matthews said Wednesday it was a “cut-and-dried” decision to take legal action against the city. Matthews described government openness on the relationship between Tucker and the Department of Energy’s $1.7 billion a year weapons lab as “an important public issue.” Tucker is the only member of the council to support the proposed Department of Homeland Security bio-lab...also supports lab plans to increase the size and power of explosions at the lab’s Site 300 test site, which were last week put on hold when the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District demanded the lab analyze health impacts from radioactive dust from the test explosions, pointing to community concerns regarding the blasts. Tucker sits as mayor when the council discusses Lawrence Livermore issues because Mayor Brent Ives works for the lab and is required to step down because of conflict-of-interest laws. The Tracy Press requested, beginning in December, e-mails relating to the bio-lab and Site 300 explosions that were sent between Tucker and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; other members of the council; senior city employees; and members of Tracy Tomorrow and Beyond.

San Francisco Chronicle
UC, CSU reach again for students' wallets...Tanya Schevitz, Jim Doyle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/15/MNGSDOLLAB1.DTL&hw=uc&sn=001&sc=1000
California's 626,000 public university students got clobbered Wednesday with their fifth tuition hike in six years as the governing boards of both the University of California and the California State University agreed to raise the price of attendance dramatically. UC Board of Regents and the CSU Board of Trustees said they had no choice but to increase the costs next fall to maintain the quality of the institutions. Regents acknowledged this is probably not the end of annual increases for UC students. Since the 2001-02 school year, undergraduate tuition has climbed 92 percent at UC's campuses and 94 percent at CSU's schools. One UCLA student, 19-year-old Sarah Andrews, seemed to sum up the students' disappointment: "They are trying to tell me that they do not value ... students who come from low-income families, students of color and students who are not blessed enough to have parents to pay for a $23,000 education, students who work two to three jobs to get by, students who commute and take the bus to avoid high living costs." The fees are rising as both institutions are under fire for their compensation of executives, among other things. Abraham Ramirez, a student at Cal State Fullerton, pointed out that since 2005, CSU executives have received an average 23 percent pay increase "on top of an inflated salary." At UC, students in the professional schools, including law, business, medicine and dentistry, will take the hardest hit with an average 10 percent increase...with the new increase, the fee will be close to $23,000 for medical school and $26,000 for UCLA's dentistry program. The state Legislative Analyst's Office had recommended a 2.4 percent increase in CSU student fees, saying that amount would be sufficient to bridge the gap between state funding cuts and the university's needs. But university officials said they need not only to account for inflation but also to make up for cuts in past years. A key reason for raising fees, UC officials said, is to improve student services, such as mental health services.

Fresno Bee
Foothill highway back on the map...Russell Clemings
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/35422.html
Six years after the controversial idea was last studied, then shelved, a proposed north-south highway along the Sierra foothills may be revived as part of a state-funded master plan for the San Joaquin Valley... so-called Foothill Freeway -- a Highway 65 extension that would link Exeter to Chowchilla -- has been part of the state highway system since 1959, but only on paper. None of it has been built. Even its route remains unclear. Now, Fresno and Madera county planners are talking about the highway again. They see it as a way to ease congestion on the Valley's main north-south route, Highway 99, and to connect future growth hot spots such as southern Madera County's Rio Mesa area and Fresno County's Millerton New Town. .Opponents, in contrast, see only the specter of further urban sprawl. The state Department of Transportation last produced a study six years ago but set it aside in the face of environmental opposition and mixed reactions from local government leaders...the proposal is "still officially inactive" but could be brought back if a consensus emerges from the current San Joaquin Valley Blueprint effort, in which planners and other leaders are trying to define a vision for the Valley at midcentury. It was during Blueprint-related meetings that talk of reviving Highway 65 first arose, participants say. Meanwhile, in the same meetings, Fresno city planners are taking the idea one step further, proposing that Highway 65 be part of a beltway incorporating some form of mass transit as well as highways. The "Metro Rural Loop" would encircle Madera and the Fresno-Clovis metropolitan area. It would include land use policies to encourage high-density development on major transit corridors within the loop while preserving farmland elsewhere. The state's 1959 plan called for Highway 65 to extend from its current end north of Exeter in Tulare County to Rocklin in Placer County, northeast of Sacramento. The 2001 study covered only the area between Exeter and Chowchilla, where the new highway would connect to an eastward extension of Highway 152. It never pinpointed a route.

MERCED (March 16, 2007) -- Two local environmental groups filed suit Thursday in Merced County Superior Court against Merced County, the Board of Supervisors and Riverside Motorsports Park, LLC under provisions in the State Aeronautics Act and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center and Protect Our Water challenged the December 12 Board of Supervisors' decision to override the Castle Airport Land Use Commission and reduce the diameter of the noise/safety restricted zone around the airport sufficiently to permit Riverside Motorsports Park to built its facility nearby.

The two local environmental groups petitioned the court for a writ of mandate to set aside the Dec. 12 override on the basis that it violates the Aeronautics Act and CEQA, to make adequate findings of fact, prepare, circulate and consider legally adequate environmental review for the override, and suspend activity that could result in any change of alteration of the physical environment until the override is legally compliant.

The causes of action for the suit are Merced County's abuse of discretion under the Aeronautics Act and CEQA, including:

· Failure to make fact-specific findings required by the Aeronautics Act;

· Failure to set forth findings sufficient to bridge the analytical gap between the raw evidence and the ultimate Board decision to reduce the size of the airport noise/safety zone;

· Failure to analyze the environmental impacts of the override under CEQA;

· Failure to consider the override a project under CEQA;

· Failure to provide any findings as required by CEQA on a project.

"In a nutshell, the Board could not certify the racetrack environmental impact report without reducing the size of the airport's noise/safety zone," said Lydia Miller, president of the Raptor Center.

"We are represented by the skilled and experienced environmental law firm of Don Mooney and Marsha Burch,"Miller added.

The petition is attached.

For further information contact:

Lydia Miller

San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center

Merced CA 95341

(209) 723-9283

DONALD B. MOONEY

MARSHA BIRCH

Law Offices of Donald B. Mooney

Davis CA 95616

(530) 758-2377
---------------------

The petition:

DONALD B. MOONEY (SBN153721)
MARSHA A. BURCH (SBN 170298)
LAW OFFICES OF DONALD B. MOONEY

Telephone: (530) 758-2377
Facsimile: (530) 758-7169

Attorneys for Petitioners
San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center
and Protect Our Water

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

FOR THE COUNTY OF MERCED

SAN JOAQUIN RAPTOR RESCUE
CENTER; and
PROTECT OUR WATER
Case No.:

Petitioners,
VERIFIED PETITION FOR WRIT OF MANDATE
v. COUNTY OF MERCED; MERCED COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS; AND DOES 1-10

Respondents.

RIVERSIDE MOTORSPORTS .
PARK, LLC and DOES 11-100

Real Parties in Interest.

Code Code Civ. Proc. § 1094.5; State Aeronautics Act, Pub. Res. Code
§§ 21676.5 and 21670; and CEQA, Pub. Res. Code § 21000, et seq.

INTRODUCTION

1. By this action, Petitioners San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center and Protect Our Water (“Petitioners”) challenge the action on December 12, 2007, by the County of Merced and the Merced County Board of Supervisors (“County” or “Respondents”) overruling a finding of inconsistency by the Merced County Airport Land Use Commission (“ALUC”) between the Merced County Airport Land Use Plan and the Riverside Motorsports Park Project (the “Override”). Petitioners allege that these actions violate the Public Utilities Code, specifically the State Aeronautics Act (Public Utilities Code §§ 21670 and 21676.5) (the “Act”). Petitioners also allege violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) Public Resources Code section 21000 et seq., as a result of Respondents’ failure to conduct environmental review of the discretionary Override decision. Petitioners seek a determination from this Court that Respondents’ action in overriding the inconsistency determination of the ALUC is invalid and void as contrary to law and/or an abuse of discretion.
PARTIES
2. Petitioner San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center is a non-profit group that works for preserving wildlife habitats and the environment in general in the San Joaquin Valley and Merced County area. To that end, it is involved in efforts to protect the resources of the Valley, including air and water quality, the preservation of agricultural land, and the protection of wildlife and its habitat. The Center also is committed to public education regarding these various issues and ensuring governmental compliance with the law of this state. The Center is composed of persons whose economic, personal, aesthetic, and property interests will be severely injured if the adoption of the project is not set aside pending full compliance with CEQA and all other environmental laws. Center members utilize and enjoy the County's and State's natural resources. The Center brings this petition on behalf of all others similarly situated who are too numerous to be named and brought before this court as petitioners. As a group composed of residents and property owners generally within the San Joaquin Valley and specifically in Merced County, the Center is within the class of persons beneficially interested in, and aggrieved by, the acts of respondents as alleged below. Members of the Center participated in the administrative processes herein, and exhausted its remedies. Accordingly, the Center has standing to sue.
3. SJRRC and its members have a direct and substantial beneficial interest in ensuring that Respondents comply with the laws relating to environmental protection, safety and land use issues. SJRRC is affected by Respondents’ failure to comply with the Act.
4. Petitioner Protect Our Water is an unincorporated association formed in 1998 for the purpose of increasing the awareness, appreciation, and preservation of the environmental resources within the Central Valley region of central California, as well as within other areas of the State of California. POW aims to protect natural resources and the environment and to uphold the integrity of environmental and land use planning and review processes. POW’s membership includes residents and property owners within Merced County and the San Joaquin Valley in general, and as such is within the class of persons beneficially interested in, and aggrieved by, the acts of Respondents as alleged below. POW participated in the administrative processes herein, has exhausted its remedies, and has standing to sue.
5. POW and its members have a direct and substantial beneficial interest in ensuring that Respondents comply with the laws relating to environmental protection, safety and appropriate land use planning. POW is affected by Respondents’ failure to comply with the Act.
6. Respondent Merced County is a political subdivision of the State of California and a body corporate and politic exercising local government power. Merced County is responsible for compliance with the Act.
7. Respondent Merced County Board of Supervisors is a legislative body duly authorized under the California Constitution and the laws of the State of California to act on behalf of the County of Merced. Respondent Merced County Board of Supervisors are responsible for regulating and controlling land use within the County including, but not limited to, compliance with California land use laws, including the Act.
8. Petitioners are unaware of the true names and capacities of Respondents identified as Does 1-10. Petitioners are informed and believe, and on that basis allege, that Respondents Does 1-10, inclusive, are individuals, entities or agencies with material interests affected by the Override. When the true identities and capacities of these Respondents have been determined, Petitioners will, with leave of Court if necessary, amend this Petition to insert such identities and capacities.
9. Real Party In Interest Riverside Motorsports Park, LLC is a California Limited Liability Company and conducting business in the state of California. RMP is the applicant for and beneficiary of the County’s general plan amendments, zoning changes, and certification of the Riverside Motorsports Project (“Project”), the subject of the ALUC’s inconsistency determination, which was overridden by Respondents.
10. Petitioners are currently unaware of the true names and capacities of Does 11 through 100, inclusive and therefore sue such unnamed Real Parties in Interest by their fictitious names. Petitioners are informed and believe and thereon allege, that fictitiously named Real Parties in Interest have an interest in the subject of this Petition. When the true identities and capacities of Real Parties in Interest have been determined, Petitioners will, with leave of Court if necessary, amend this Petition to include such identities and capacities.
BACKGROUND FACTS
9. The RMP Project is proposed for construction on 1,187 acres of agricultural land located east of the City of Atwater in the County of Merced. Castle Airport (formerly Castle Air Force Base) and the Castle Specific Urban Development Plan area are located immediately southwest of the Project site.
11. The RMP Project is proposed to include the construction of a regional motorsports recreation, entertainment and commercial business facility.
12. The Notice of Preparation (“NOP”) of the environmental document for the Project was originally circulated to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research on July 22, 2003. Following release of the NOP, revisions to the Project description were identified by RMP that required the NOP’s recirculation. The NOP was recirculated on March 14, 2005 for a 30-day comment period.
13. On October 1, 2003, the ALUC made a determination that the Project is inconsistent with the Merced County Airport Land Use Plan.
14. On December 12, 2006, the Merced County Board of Supervisors, relying upon Public Utilities Code section 21676(b), overrode the ALUC’s inconsistency determination, approving Resolution 2006-189. Resolution 2006-189 is attached hereto as Exhibit A and made a part hereof by this reference.
15. Resolution 2006-189 includes conclusory findings regarding noise impacts related to the Override, but the Resolution does not include any specific findings of fact related to safety. The findings do not include any reference to environmental review for the Override, nor do they include findings required by CEQA.
16. On December 12, 2006, the same date Resolution 2006-189 was adopted by Respondents, Respondents certified the Final Environmental Impact Report for the RMP Project.
17. On December 19, 2006, the Board of Supervisors approved the General Plan Amendment to expand the existing Castle Specific Urban Development Plan boundaries to include the Project site; approve the amendment to the Circulation Chapter of the General Plan; approve the amendment to the Merced County Zoning Code to change the existing zoning designations on the Project site from General Agriculture (A-1) and Exclusive Agriculture (A-2) to Planned Development (PD); remove the Project site from the Agricultural Preserve Area; and approve the Master Plan.
JURISDICTION AND VENUE
18. This Court has jurisdiction over the alleged violations of the Act contained in this Petition pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1904.5. With respect to the CEQA cause of action, this Court has jurisdiction over this action pursuant to sections 1085 and 187 of the California Code of Civil Procedure and section 21168.5 of the California Public Resources Code. Petitioners believe that this action is properly brought as a petition for writ of mandate under those provisions. However, should this Court conclude that this action cannot be properly be brought as a petition for a writ of mandate, petitioners request that this Petition be construed as a petition for writ of administrative mandamus (for which jurisdiction would lie pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure sections 1094.5 and 187, and Public Resources Code section 21168), or for other appropriate extraordinary relief.
19. Venue for this action properly lies in the Superior Court for the State of California in and for the County of Merced pursuant to section 394 of the Code of Civil Procedure.

EXHAUSTION OF ADMINISTRATIVE REMEDIES
AND INADEQUACY OF REMEDY

20. Petitioners have performed any and all conditions precedent to filing the instant action and have exhausted any and all available administrative remedies to the extent required by law. Petitioners timely submitted written comments on the Override.
21. Petitioners have no plain, speedy or adequate remedy in the course of ordinary law unless this Court grants the requested writ of mandate to require Respondents to set aside their Override. In the absence of such remedy, Respondents’ approvals will remain in effect in violation of State law.
22. This action has been brought within 90 days of the Override as required by Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.6.
STANDING
23. Petitioners have standing to assert the claims raised in this Petition because Petitioners and their members’ environmental interests are directly and adversely affected by the County’s Override.

ARBITRARY AND CAPRICIOUS ACTIONS
24. Petitioners bring this action on the basis, among others, of Government Code section 800, which awards Petitioners’ attorneys’ fees in actions to overturn agency decisions that are arbitrary and capricious, such as the decisions here in question.
FIRST CAUSE OF ACTION
(Abuse of Discretion)
Violations the State Aeronautics Act
Public Utilities Code section 21001, et seq.
25. Petitioners reallege and incorporate by reference Paragraphs 1 through 24, inclusive, of this Petition, as if fully set forth below.
26. Respondents committed a prejudicial abuse of discretion and failed to proceed in a manner required by law by failing to make fact-specific findings as required by the Act, and failed to set forth findings sufficient to bridge the analytical gap between the raw evidence and the ultimate decision.
27. Respondents violated the Act in failing to make findings sufficient under Public Utilities Code section 21676(b) and as required under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5.
28. Respondent’s failure to comply with the requirements of the Act renders the Override inadequate as a matter of law and requires that Respondent’s decision be set aside.

SECOND CAUSE OF ACTION
(Abuse of Discretion)
Violation of CEQA, Public Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.

29. Petitioner realleges and incorporates herein, as if set forth in full, each and every allegation contained in paragraphs 1 through 28 of this petition and further allege as follows:
30. Respondents have abused their discretion and failed to act in the manner required under CEQA with respect to the Override because they have failed to analyze its environmental impacts, and failed to make any determination at all with respect to the applicability of CEQA to the Override determination.
31. CEQA applies to “discretionary projects proposed to be carried out or approved by a public agency.” (Pub. Resources Code § 21080(a).) Approval of the Override was a “Project” under CEQA because the Override is an activity carried out, supported by, or authorized by a public agency, “which may cause either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.” (Pub. Resources Code § 21065; Guidelines § 15378(a).)
32. Respondents made no CEQA findings related to the Override. Accordingly, Respondents’ Override should be set aside.
PRAYER FOR RELIEF
WHEREFORE, Petitioners pray for judgment as follows:
1. That this Court issue a peremptory writ of mandate ordering the County to:
(a) vacate and set aside its December 12, 2006, Override on the ground that it violates the State Aeronautics Act, Public Utilities Code section 21001 et. seq.;
(b) prepare adequate findings of fact, including findings bridging the analytical gap between the raw evidence and the ultimate decision;
(c) vacate and set aside its December 12, 2006, Override on the ground that it violates the California Environmental Quality Act, Public Resources Code section 21000 et seq.;
(d) prepare, circulate and consider legally adequate environmental review for the Override;
(e) suspend all activity that could result in any change or alteration to the physical environment until Respondents have taken such actions as may be necessary to bring its determination, findings or decision regarding the Override into compliance with the Act and CEQA;
2. For Petitioner’s costs associated with this action;
3. For an award of reasonable attorneys’ fees pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5; and
4. For such other and further relief as the Court may deem just and proper.

Respectfully submitted,

LAW OFFICES OF DONALD B. MOONEY

Dated: March ___, 2007

By Donald B. Mooney
Attorney for Petitioners
San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, and
Protect Our Water

"It appears that there were no environmental reviews considered along with (that) decision," said Marsha Burch, a Grass Valley-based attorney representing the SJRRC. "It's our assertion that that violates the California Environmental Quality Act." -- Merced Sun-Star, March 17, 2007

The Sun-Star celebrated St. Patrick's Day in fine style, writing fairly about those against child sacrifice to the great god, Asthma, in the San Joaquin Valley.

Bill Hatch

3-17-07
Merced Sun-Star
RMP lawsuits mount...Corinne Reilly
http://www.mercedsunstar.com/local/story/13395685p-14013730c.html
It could be more than a year before a judge decides whether Riverside Motorsports Park can begin construction, or whether it must start over with a lengthy environmental review process...attorneys on both sides say it could take that long to resolve a handful of lawsuits now pending against the project. In January, four groups -- the California Farm Bureau Federation, the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, Protect Our Water, and Citizens for the Protection of Merced County Resources -- filed suit against Merced County to stop the racing complex, which is planned to cover 1,200 acres of farmland near Castle Airport. All the groups say the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act because it failed to adequately evaluate noise, traffic, pollution and other environmental impacts the track could bring before the Board of Supervisors approved the project in December. On Friday, the San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center announced it's adding another lawsuit to the pile. most recent suit claims the Board of Supervisors didn't provide enough evidence to support its decision to override a previous ruling that racetrack developers shouldn't be allowed to build in proximity to Castle Airport's runway. The suit also alleges the county didn't consider the environmental impacts of that decision. "It appears that there were no environmental reviews considered along with (that) decision," said Marsha Burch, a Grass Valley-based attorney representing the SJRRC. "It's our assertion that that violates the California Environmental Quality Act." County officials said they hadn't been served with notice of the most recent suit by Friday afternoon, and county attorneys hadn't read it. When the Board of Supervisors voted on the project, supervisors Deidre Kelsey and John Pedrozo voted against certifying environmental reviews of the projects, saying they believed they were not thorough. The county's three other supervisors voted to approve the reviews. Fincher said the county and the law firm representing RMP have spent countless hours compiling documents that will make up an approximately 25,000-page official record of all information the Board of Supervisors considered before voting on the project. Among the documents to be included in the record are all plans and materials racetrack developers have turned in to the county, the project's environmental impact report, transcripts and minutes from public hearings, all written feedback from the public, related e-mails, and all notices the county posted to inform the public about the project. Burch, who is representing the SJRRC in the most recent lawsuit, said portions of the record gathered for the other suits might be used to avoid duplicating efforts. Burch said she believes that if the most recent case is handled separately from the others, it will likely conclude before the rest. "Compared to the other lawsuits, this one has a fairly narrow focus," she said. "I don't see it changing the timeline of when we might expect to see all of the challenges (against RMP) resolved." Foster Farms and the Federal Bureau of Prisons -- which runs the Atwater Federal Penitentiary that borders the racetrack's planned site -- also raised concerns over the project. Foster Farms has since reached an agreement with RMP to avoid a lawsuit....the Bureau of Prisons has also reached an agreement with RMP officials... Under an agreement between RMP and the county signed before the project's approval, RMP is responsible for paying all county expenses related to the suit.

Campbell, Joseph, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, pp. 459-473.

Some say the media is just jumping on it. Others say it's a coming disaster. Reliable sources say we won't be able the judge the true situation of America's Honey Bee population until about June, when San Joaquin Valley almond growers -- the largest employers of pollinating bees in the nation -- check the set in their orchards for nuts and mummies.

Meanwhile, the Sierra Club is following a line of scientific inquiry, nearly as old as the massive plantings of genetically engineered corn, which asks the question: is bee-hive collapse related to GMOs? Whether this will prove a fruitful line of inquiry or not, apparently it is one that has been neglected by regulators and most land-grant university scientists. The bee crisis, if there is one, may be related to a crisis of funding in land-grant universities, which have become publicly subsidized labs for rent by biotechnology corporations for lack of adequate government funding and adequate public consideration of the products of the research.

Another factor may simply be the "sorcerer's apprentice" syndrome of some biologists excited about cracking this genome and that genome and seeing what they can create, without terribly close attention to the famous "unintended consequences."

The pesticide companies that bought the seed companies and exploited the new genetic science never cared much about the consequences of pesticides, from DDT forward, except when government regulation intruded on the bottom line, causing the companies to expend enormous sums for lobbying, public relations and campaign contributions.

If, in fact, convincing scientific research appears that GMOs are the cause of a serious collapse of bee hives in America, the suppression of the science and scientists who have discovered this, the propaganda campaign from the biotechnology industry, the search for members of Congress amenable to biotech industry cash, and the controversies on campus are going to be huge events in the culture, because the stakes are so high.

It would be helpful to know if the same phenomenon is also occurring in Canada and Argentina, at least, where huge GMO plantings are present.

The connection between GMOs and bee-hive collapse would seem to have some bearing on the massive, subsidized commitment to ethanol production, which uses GMO corn varieties, raising the question of unintended -- because unresearched -- consequences of "clean" ethanol emissions. Are potentially dangerous genes incinerated in the internal combustion process? Probably just a dumb question.

Results of research showing the connection between bee-hive collapse and GMOs is going to be about as popular in the corporocracy as Rachel Carson was.

Badlands editorial staff
-----------------------------

3-13-07
Despite buzz on bees, experts disagree on seriousness of problem
By Jim Downing
McClatchy Newspapers
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/nation/16893200.htm
(MCT)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Bees are dying by the billions. Nobody knows why. And the crops they pollinate - California almonds especially - are at risk.

Or at least that's been the buzz.

In the past month, the new and mysterious honeybee ailment known as "colony collapse disorder," which seems to cause entire hives of bees to leave home and never return, has made the front page of newspapers from Sacramento to New York. Fox News and National Public Radio aired reports. A "CBS Evening News" crew spent weeks following a bee-disease investigator around the nation. Even Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took up the issue, urging investors to hoard bees.

"The fewer there are, the more they're worth," Colbert said.

Yet despite all the attention, there's little solid data on the severity of the problem.

"I'm not convinced that it's so much worse than what we saw in 2004 and 2005," said Eric Mussen, a bee specialist with the University of California, Davis.

While bees are undoubtedly in trouble this year, Mussen said, there's little evidence so far that it's anything other than the continuation of their long struggle with disease, environmental stress and the hardship of being hauled cross-country in midwinter to pollinate crops in California.

"This time the media just became much more involved in it," he said.

News accounts have cited dramatic losses of 70 percent or more reported by some commercial beekeepers from coast to coast. But because no comprehensive survey of the industry exists, it's hard to say just how many hives have been hit.

"About all we've got is anecdotes," said Troy Fore, executive director of the American Beekeeping Federation.

A clearer picture should emerge in June. That's when the U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys the developing almond crop. If the billions of bees now laboring in the almond orchards in California's Central Valley are sufficiently strong and numerous to do their work - and the weather is favorable - the trees will be laden with nuts this summer.

Bees have become big business in recent years. Each hive rents for $140 or so, and California's almond growers alone will spend roughly $200 million hiring beekeepers to let their bees loose in the orchards this year. A good chunk of the bees also are essential to the production of about $12 billion in other crops nationwide, according to a Cornell University study.

But while bees have been growing in importance as pollinators, no state or federal agency monitors them. The agencies do track honey production, but that's tied only loosely to the size of the bee labor pool, since many beehives are now managed mainly as pollinators rather than honey-makers.

What information there is on bee vigor comes mostly word-of-mouth and, lately, through the media. With the spotlight on both beekeepers and almond growers - and millions of dollars at stake - rumors have been flying.

Some beekeepers accuse others of playing down the crisis out of pride, or in hopes that their clients, the almond farmers, won't start to question the health or the value of their rented bees. Other beekeepers trumpet the die-off, calling for government relief and higher rental fees from almond growers.

The California Almond Board, on the other hand, surveyed almond farmers and issued a statement last month. While bee supplies may be fairly tight, the board said, there are enough to go around.

Years ago, Mussen said, many Central Valley counties employed a bee inspector to check the health of rented hives. That person helped resolve disputes between beekeepers and farmers and served as an informal census-taker.

Today, those inspectors are scarce. One of the few remaining is Clifton Piper, who has checked hives for the Merced County (Calif.) Department of Agriculture since 1973. He isn't sure about the big picture, either.

"It's difficult to see just how short the shortage is," he said. Beekeepers often bolster weak hives with imported packages of bees from Australia, he said. And in cold and rainy weather, it's hard to tell whether sluggish bees in a hive are sick or simply chilly.

Dennis vanEngelsdorp, a Pennsylvania bee expert participating in a nationwide research effort that hopes to better characterize colony collapse disorder, said the investigation has been somewhat hampered by beekeepers unwilling to admit that their bees are dying.

"Sometimes beekeepers are ashamed that they have a problem, so they may not be as transparent as they might be," he said.

That's not the case for Placerville, Calif., beekeeper Rich Starets. He's lost 225 of his 300 hives since November. But he places the blame squarely on his own beekeeping missteps, such as poor timing of feeding and medication. And, based on conversations with fellow beekeepers, he's convinced that the much-discussed colony collapse disorder is chiefly the result of imperfect beekeeping.

"There's plenty of guys that didn't lose two-thirds of their hives this year," he said.

While the price that a hive commands in an almond orchard has nearly tripled in just the past four years, beekeepers' costs have risen, as well. Much of the money goes to treat bees against an ever-growing variety of pests and pathogens, to feed them corn syrup and protein supplements and to pay breeders for replacement bees when hives die off.

That's a lot to keep track of, especially for a part-time beekeeper like Starets, 40, who makes most of his living fixing cell-phone towers for AT&T.

But, he said, "It's up to me ... to learn how to keep bees in a changing world."

Dozens of his now-barren hive boxes are stacked in a meadow along Green Valley Road near Shingle Springs. On a recent morning, Starets cracked one lid open, revealing a cluster of a few dozen dead bees huddled together as if for comfort. They had started to mold. A healthy hive would have 20,000 or more bees at this time of year.

Online bee discussions on sites like beesource.com and honeybeeworld.com have been brimming with speculation on the cause and extent of the die-off. There are rumors of desperate almond growers offering $300 a hive for healthy bees, and theories blaming the die-off on everything from cell-phone signals to genetically modified crops.

Researchers like vanEngelsdorp are hoping to put the speculation to rest by finding a cause or a collection of causes - aside from beekeeper error - for the reported die-off. They're currently analyzing samples from healthy and sick colonies around the country.

For his role in the race to solve the mystery of colony collapse, vanEngelsdorp has become a minor media star. He's lately been spending 70 percent of his time talking to reporters and giving radio and television interviews, he said.

"You realize that this is an opportunity to help explain how important bees are," he said.

He knew the story had reached critical mass, he said, after what he overheard during lunch at an International House of Pancakes in Florida last week.

"Across the way there were these two old ladies," he said. "And one was saying, `Did you hear all the bees are dying?'

"And I'm thinking, Wow. It made IHOP conversation."
---------------------

3-22-07
GM WATCH daily
http://www.gmwatch.org

1.Bee demise - Are GMOs the missing link?
Sierra Club press release, March 22 2007

Are honey bees the canary in the coal mine? What are honey bees trying to tell us that we should pay attention to?

One out of every three bites of food that we consume is due to the work of honeybees, serving as crucial pollinators. Yet food production may be severely impacted by the recently reported Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Beekeepers are reporting estimates as high as 80% loss of their honey bee colonies.

There's a link that's not being investigated. Highly respected scientists believe that exposure to genetically engineered crops and their plant-produced pesticides merit serious consideration as either the cause or a contributory factor to the development and spread of CCD.

Laurel Hopwood, Sierra Club's Chair of the Genetic Engineering Committee states, "In searching for the cause of massive honey bee losses nationwide, we must leave no stone unturned to find the answer. Is the release of genetically engineered organisms the smoking gun?"

This past decade we are seeing releases into the environment that we have never before seen on this planet. Genetic engineering involves the artificial transfer of genes from one organism into another, bypassing the protective barrier between species. Scientists admit that unintended consequences may occur due to the lack of precision and specificity in the DNA sites on different plant chromosomes where the inserted genes randomly end up. According to the prominent biologist Dr. Barry Commoner, "Genetically engineered crops represent a huge uncontrolled experiment whose outcome is inherently unpredictable. The results could be catastrophic."

Regulators don't look, so they don't find. The USDA and EPA have failed to adequately assess the potential for lethal and sublethal impacts of engineered crop pesticides on pollinators like honey bees and wild bees, including the larvae brood and young bees. They have failed to study the effects of the practice of feeding honeybee colonies genetically engineered (GE) corn syrup and parts of recycled hives containing additional GE food residues.

Considering that loss of honeybee pollinators can leave a huge void in the kitchens of the American people and an estimated loss of 14 billion dollars to farmers, it would be prudent to use caution. If genetically engineered crops are killing honeybees, a moratorium on their planting should be strongly considered.

In a letter sent to the Senate and House Agriculture Committees sent yesterday, Sierra Club urges our elected officials to initiate investigations to determine if exposure to genetically engineered crops or corn syrup is the missing link.
-----------------------

2.GE and bee Colony Collapse Disorder -- science needed!
http://www.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2007-03-21.asp

Contact: Sierra Club
Laurel Hopwood
216-371-9779
lhopwood@adelphia.net

Dear Senator Thomas Harkin,

We share similar concerns. The viability of a robust food supply is paramount to the American people.

One out of every three bites of food that we consume is due to the work of honeybees, serving as crucial pollinators in agriculture and farming communities. Yet agriculture and food production may be severely impacted by Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), a trend documen