Badlands Journal

The finance, insurance and real estate oligopoly in California has bought itself a Congressional bill to destroy the San Joaquin River Settlement. The settlement, which took 18 years in court and three years in Congress to reach accord on how to put water back into a 80-mile  reach of the San Joaquin River diverted by the FRiant-Kern Canal. The bill, H.R. 1837, passed the House Resources Committee last week.

A great wrong, set right again, could be set wrong again.

We thought we would revisit some of the most basic policies and laws governing California in light of this current attempt to return to the spirit of primitive accumulation.

The two poles of water rights in California are riparian rights and prior appropriation rights.

Riparian rights came from the Middle Ages through English Common Law to the American Colonies. Under the riparian rights doctrine, only people owning riverbank land had rights to use river water to drink, water their crops and livestock. People living away from rivers and streams used wells. Riparian rights did not imply any ownership of the river. Rivers were conceived of as belonging to God or to themselves. The riparian right was a seen as a use right, not a property right.

1-11-12

Merced Sun-Star

Dry January raises concern over drought in northern California…Matt Weiser

http://www.mercedsunstar.com/2012/01/11/v-print/2186343/dry-january-raises-concern-over.html

The dreaded D-word – "drought" – is back on the tongues of many Californians now that a dry December has crawled into a dry January.

A dry December is not that unusual. But a dry January – well along into winter and usually the state's wettest month – is another matter.

"What is unusual is that it just hangs on and on and on," said Maury Roos, chief hydrologist at the California Department of Water Resources, noting it will be hard to recover from the missed January storms.

"It's not impossible, but it's quite unlikely we'll make it back to normal before the end of the season," Roos said.

Sacramento has had no rain since Dec. 15, and only a trace on that day: 0.07 inches.

Lake Tahoe – so dependent on snowfall for its winter economy – has fared just as badly. South Lake Tahoe has seen no measurable precipitation since Nov. 20, according to National Weather Service data.

"It's been explosive growth for them," he said in a telephone interview. "The economics on it are staggering." -- Bloomberg, 12-12-11

12-12-11

Bloomberg News

Dark Side of Fracking Makes Heckmann a Takeover Target: Real M&A…David Wethe and Tara Lachapelle, ©2011 Bloomberg News. Editors: Michael Tsang, Daniel Hauck.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/12/12/bloomberg_articlesLW3TAV6K50Y6.DTL&type=printable

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The need to reduce the environmental risk from shale-oil drilling is boosting the allure of Heckmann Corp. and Poseidon Concepts Corp. as takeover targets.

Local and federal regulators are raising questions about pollution after demand for so-called hydraulic fracturing, which uses millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals to unlock oil and gas in shale rock, more than tripled in the past five years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said in a report last week it found evidence of chemicals used in the process in a drinking-water aquifer in Wyoming.

IF you don't read another article on the environment over the holidays, we suggest you might read this terrific piece on Alternet by Tara Lohan about the five most toxic energy companies.

The basic scenario in the "free" market on energy supplies is that huge energy corporations, mining and pumping increasingly scarce raw energy materials, which command escalating market prices producing astronomical profits, have now bought a culture in which it is expected that regulatory agencies, legislators and judges in the highest courts are bought and sold. We have seen how these companies have created something so much larger than the individual acts of corruption that compose it, that we must call it the culture itself -- the plutocracy, a culture in which society, economics and government are all arranged for the primary benefit of the rich, with less and less apology as the plutocracy matures and putrifies, giving off a stench that is the reason for the occupation movement from Wall Street outward across the country. The economy created by the rich stinks so much it cannot even employ the people of the host nations it seeks to suck dry of all wealth.

We urge everyone to read this excellent survey of these energy companies at work on the ground killing their employees and destroying the environment and in the halls of Congress killing laws to protect workers and the environment. The posting here is just the first page.

Badlands Journal editorial board

11-06-11
LA Times
There's too much pork on the table
Gov. Brown and the Legislature need to trim the fat from the water bond and serve it to voters...George Skelton
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-cap-water-20111107%2c0%2c7667745.column?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+GeorgeSkelton+%28L.A.+Times+-+George+Skelton%29

Gov. Jerry Brown recently said, "I've got a lot on my plate." One item is a big slab of pork — formally called a water bond proposal.

The plate is shared with the Legislature.
 
Together, they must decide whether to serve up the bond whole to voters, trim it down first or shove it back in the fridge.

Or maybe they'll just toss it in the garbage. That's the most unlikely scenario. But voters might dump it for them if the bond isn't pared and recooked.

Let's back up.

After years of fighting — south vs. north, farmers vs. enviros, water buffaloes vs. fishing interests — then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature settled on an $11.14-billion water bond two years ago. It was passed by sleep-deprived lawmakers at dawn after an all-night session.

11-5-11
Modesto Bee
Editorial: West Park project has possibilities

http://www.modbee.com/2011/11/03/v-print/1932615/west-park-project-haspossibilities.html

In the last several years, discussions about the potential uses for the former Crows Landing Naval Air Station have focused on manufacturing, processing and distribution facilities that would benefit from the site's proximity to Interstate 5 and the potential for short-line rail to the Port of Oakland.

Ag exports often have been cited in the conversations, along with air cargo operations or business start-ups.

So we have to admit we were surprised — in a pleasant way — at the prospective user for West Park Logistics Center that was announced earlier this week. It's not the kind of industry we have much experience with here in the valley — an independent movie and TV studio.

Mare Island Studio sent a letter to the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors stating its interest in locating on 415 acres in West Park. It's important to remember that it's nothing like a done deal. But it definitely is an interesting possibility.

The letter from a studio executive was part of a quarterly update to the board on developer Gerry Kamilos' progress on West Park.

Below are three articles about Iran that, read together, make up a serious, informative debate -- in a time when two parties vie titles in venality and idiocy -- on the issue of whether the US should invade that country or not. While this is not the usual Badlands Journal fare, in general it is everyone's fare.

BadlandsJournal editorial board

10-17-11
Washington Post
The alarm bells behind Iran’s alleged assassination plot
By Richard Cohen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-alarm-bells-behind-irans-alleged-assassination-plot/2011/10/17/gIQAhw5YsL_print.html

A mere moment or two after the Obama administration announced it had discovered and thwarted a plot by Iran to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington restaurant, the doubters started to air their doubts. Columnists and experts, even some columnists who were not experts, said the Iranians would never be so sloppy as to commit a virtual act of war by setting off a bomb in the nation’s capital. The alleged plot was crazy, they said. I agree. But so is Iran.

19-22-11
Global Research
Fukushima: Towards the Formation of a Radioactive Graveyard in the Pacific Ocean?
Japanese Officials & Experts Late Decision to Expand Testing Around Fukushima Daiichi
by Lucas Whitefield Hixson
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27220 
 
No one wants to think about the massive aqueous deposition of radioactive materials into the Pacific Ocean, that much is now clear.
By September estimates of released contamination had risen to over  3,500 terabecquerels of cesium-137 released into the sea directly from the plant between March 11 and the end of May. Another 10,000 terabecquerels of cesium fell into the ocean after escaping from the reactors in the form of steam.
Initially reports had quieted concerns by stating that the materials would be diluted so vastly that the radioactivity would not be able to accumulate, and would not affect the environment.  The experts claimed they would track the deposition and floating radioactive debris field making its way on a trans-Pacific trip to the United States.

The three articles below make up a brief sketch of where we are with solar energy in California and the nation. Because of the initial expense, the government seems to be involved even though policies on subsidies constantly shift and only the wealthy seem able to take advantage of them anyway (what else is new?), so solar power is a political football. In his terribly fastidious way, the president, one of whose top campaign fundraisers has apparently walked away from a half-billion-dollar loan for a solar factory in Fremont, has walked away from a promise to re-install solar panels on the White House. Another broken promise from the administration that can't keep a promise? Or would solar panels on the White House be a symbol of corruption -- as if one were needed above the president's residence and offices?

Badlands Journal editorial board

10-15-11

Visalia Times Delta

What we like about this article from the Bakersfield Californian is that, with the possible exception of mentions of truck pollution being reduced by the High-speed rail system, there is no undigested propaganda in it. This is probably because for Bakersfield, air pollution is a very serious matter, in fact an “existential threat” to the elderly and to the young. In Merced, which stands to get a rail station out of the deal that would radically increase the value of downtown real estate, the official position in the press is that high-speed rail is the best thing since UC Merced, Mom’s apple pie and sliced bread (because it promises to renovate downtown Merced, which has languished for decades in the hands of greedy, do-nothing landlords.

Badlands Journal editorial board