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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/10/08/">http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/10/08/</a><br>
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<h1><a
href="http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2010/10/08/secret-meeting-participants-flee-from-delta-residents-fishermen/"
rel="bookmark">Secret Meeting Participants Flee From Delta
Residents, Fishermen</a></h1>
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<p>Photo: Participants in the closed door Bay Delta Conservation
Plan meeting convened by the California Department of Water
Resources chose to leave rather than allow four Delta
advocates stay in the room. Here we see some of the meeting
participants conferring before moving to an undisclosed
location. Photo by Dan Bacher.</p>
<p><a
href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2010/10/07/img_0403.jpg"><img
style="" src="cid:part1.02040802.03030808@aim.com"
alt="640_img_0403.jpg original image ( 3456x2304)"
width="640" height="426"><br>
<strong>640_img_0403.jpg</strong><br>
</a><a
href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2010/10/07/img_0403.jpg">original
image ( 3456×2304)</a></p>
<p>Secret Meeting Participants Flee From Delta Residents,
Fishermen</p>
<p>by Dan Bacher </p>
<p>The 50 participants in a secret meeting deciding the fate of
the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta on September 30 decided
to leave rather than to allow four Delta advocates to listen
to the proceedings. </p>
<p>Bill Jennings, chairman/executive director of the California
Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA); Jim Crenshaw,
president of CSPA; Bret Baker, a Delta pear farmer, biologist
and Restore the Delta board member; and I disrupted the
meeting of Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to protest the
closed process. </p>
<p>We arrived at the meeting of “principals” of the BDCP at the
Farm Bureau office in Sacramento just as the meeting was
getting started. You could feel the tension and sense the
surprise by the federal and state agency officials, water
agency leaders, corporate agribusiness officials and others
gathered there as we walked into the back of the room. </p>
<p>The Department of Water Resources has told legislators that
they’re not welcome at meetings of signatories to the BDCP,
the plan that state water exporters have undertaken to secure
their water supplies. Many advocates view the BCDP as a
thinly-veiled attempt by the Governor to put in place the
plans for a peripheral canal/tunnel before he leaves office. </p>
<p>The meeting facilitator, Betsy, announced our unexpected
arrival. “We have guests in the room. Would you please
identify yourselves?” </p>
<p>We all introduced ourselves and then the meeting stopped. The
facilitator talked to us about the process and why they had to
meet in secret so there would be no “attribution” of comments
by participants. </p>
<p>“We have had to say no to other people who wanted to come to
the meetings,” she stated. “This is not a definite plan we’re
coming up with. This is a temporary process to give advice to
the permanent process. </p>
<p>We were asked not to report the names of any of the
participants or attribute quotes to them. We refused. ‘ <br>
She emphasized, “The policy of non-attribution governs
everything said in this room. We don’t let anybody from the
press come to these meetings since in the past the newspaper
has served as the vehicle of negotiations – and we don’t want
that to happen.” </p>
<p>Jennings responded that “the state and federal agencies are
sending the wrong message here. I have worked on protecting
the estuary for 3 decades, but I have no representatives here.
The representatives from two Senate offices weren’t allowed
here either.” </p>
<p>Baker and Crenshaw agreed with Jennings and myself that we
had the right to stay in the meeting. Betsy went back to the
group and they said they wanted to take a break to decide how
to deal with our presence. </p>
<p>After a long delay, Betsy came back and stated, “The group as
a whole has asked you to leave.” </p>
<p>Jennings, after asking under whose authority or jurisdiction
we were being asked to leave, said, “Are you prepared to have
us arrested?” </p>
<p>Betsy received word from Natural Resources Secretary Lester
Snow that rather than having us arrested, they would not
continue meeting in that room unless we left. The participants
then began leaving from the room, disbanding the meeting. </p>
<p>After the meeting was disrupted, Jennings said, “I’m
astounded that four people involved in Delta issues for
decades walked into a room and had everybody walk out from
continuing the discussion about the future of the Delta.” </p>
<p>“What I’m really disturbed by is the corruption of this
public process and how the participants are deciding the fate
of the Delta behind closed doors.” </p>
<p>Jim Crenshaw noted, “I find it incredulous that these
meetings are not open to public.” </p>
<p>Bret Baker added, “Today I feel like a proud American. I
understand the meaning of Margaret Mead’s statement that
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful people could
change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever
has.’” </p>
<p>Representatives from the California Natural Resources Agency,
California Department of Water Resources, California
Department of Fish and Game, Westlands Water District,
Metropolitan Water District, federal agencies, environmental
NGOs and other organizations attended the closed-door session
at the Farm Bureau before the four of us disrupted it.</p>
<p>Sandy Cooney, deputy secretary for communications for the
California Natural Resources Agency, was critical of our
effort to attend the secret meeting in the Central Valley
Business Times on September 30. </p>
<p>“There’s a lot of discussions that are happening in the
course of developing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan that will
go into the public process of how the plan is eventually
developed,” Mr. Cooney claimed. “No decisions, not a single
decision, is going to be made if it doesn’t eventually go
through the public process and the steering committee of the
Bay Delta Conservation Plan.” </p>
<p>“Mr. Cooney insists that plans for the Delta, the largest
estuary on the west coast of the western hemisphere, will be
done in a transparent way,” the article added. </p>
<p>Mike Wade of the California Farm Water Coalition also slammed
our attempt to attend the BDCP closed-door meeting. </p>
<p>“The action taken by these four individuals have probably
done more to set back efforts to resolve California’s water
crisis and protect the Delta than any one action in recent
memory,” Wade stated. “What a shame.” </p>
<p>In reaction to Wade’s comment, Jennings quipped, “I don’t
know whether to take a bow or to open the champagne.
Unfortunately, the principals convened their secret session at
another location after we left and then again at an
undisclosed location the following day.” </p>
<p>These meetings have been going forward behind closed doors
since August in what Resources Secretary Lester Snow told
lawmakers was “a key procedural component of the public BDCP
Steering Committee process.” Speaking seats at the meeting had
been reserved for “principals,” representatives of the
entities who have financed the planning process. </p>
<p>I observed representatives from the California Natural
Resources Agency, California Department of Water Resources,
California Department of Fish and Game, Westlands Water
District, Metropolitan Water District, federal agencies,
environmental NGOs and other organizations at the closed-door
session at the Farm Bureau.</p>
<p>Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League noted
that exporters had withdrawn from the public BDCP process when
confronted with overwhelming scientific evidence that exports
from the Bay-Delta would have to be reduced to save the
Estuary. “They’ve been frantically trying to come up with some
kind of agreement that could be signed before this Governor
leaves office,” said Minton. </p>
<p>A sharply worded letter sent on September 16 by Members of
Congress and the California legislature urging Lester Snow and
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to open the BDCP talks to the
public and include Delta representation preceded our visit to
the secret meeting. </p>
<p>State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis), Senate President Pro Tem
Darrell Steinberg, and Congressional Representatives John
Garamendi, Doris Matsui, Jerry McNerney, George Miller and
Mike Thompson officially requested that the meetings be more
inclusive and transparent. State Senator Mark DeSaulnier and
State Assembly Members Bill Berryhill, Joan Buchanan, Alyson
Huber, Tom Torlakson and Mariko Yamada also signed the
letter. </p>
<p>A similar push to the BDCP by the Governor has driven the
Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) process going forward in
coastal Northern California, noted Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla,
campaign director of Restore the Delta. </p>
<p>“The MLPA Initiative, like the BDCP process, has been
characterized by attempts to bypass open meeting laws,” said
Barrigan-Parrilla. “ In that case, MLPA officials limited
media coverage of their ‘work sessions,’which they distinguish
from public meetings. One independent journalist was arrested
for trying to film “work session” proceedings.” </p>
<p>Newspaper industry and civil liberties attorneys protested,
saying the process violated the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act
and the First Amendment. Under political pressure, MLPA
Executive Director Ken Wiseman opened up the “work sessions”
to videographers and photographers. </p>
<p>For more news coverage of the meeting, go to: <a
href="http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=16448">http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=16448</a>.
For more information about Restore the Delta, go to: <a
href="http://www.restorethedelta.org/">http://www.restorethedelta.org</a>.</p>
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