I suggest that the same impulses towards sprawl and development were no less relevant in NM than they are here. At issue is a strategy that can unite with a base beyond the urban users. It is not an advocacy group that I seek to represent. I am proposing regional elected authorities of stakeholders. The acceptance of diverse users in proportion to their use of the resource, not the size of their wallet, is the principle. It is just as easy to be suckered into a water war by municipalities claiming environmental principles as it is to be railroaded by developers and agri-businesses.
 
The politics of water is based on allocations and establishing priorities for those allocations that are in the public welfare. A regional water plan, a water budget and a Public Welfare Statement developed by stakeholders are better instruments of determining allocations then the exclusion of particular users. Adaptive governance is a mode of political decision-making that establishes stakeholder buy-in and engagement without predetermined results.
 
Mato Ska

 
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:20:44 -0700
From: brookse32@aim.com
To: sustainactive@sfgreens.org
CC: active@sfgreens.org
Subject: Re: [SFGP-A] Hetch Hetchy Water Dynamics

The California water system and the corporate forces wheeling around it are completely different from the ecosystem and political dynamics in the New Mexico water system. They simply cannot be compared.

And the last time we took advice from the corporate front group NRDC, we foolishly deregulated our electricity system...

This stuff has much more powerful corporate interests involved in it than you are aware.

In California big suburban developers and ag giants control the water,  to all of our detriment, and our battle has always been to stop these interests from trashing our state.

Recently our main problem has been big real estate developers who seek to vastly and unnecessarily expand the capacity of the Hetch Hetchy system to fuel a suburban building boom. We have had to fight hard to keep them from getting away with it, even here at the San Francisco Utilities Commission. If more voting power were given to the more conservative suburbs, those developers would simply waltz in, buy off all of the politicians in those suburbs and badly bleed the system, and therefore the Tuolumne watershed. Sierra river activists and already struggling fisheries would get squashed like a bug.

cheers

Eric B

Martin Zehr wrote: 

Eric,

 

I am also familiar with the experience of Owens Lake and the consequences of urban demand. Urban political elites do not represent all the stakeholders inherently engaged in water issues. The progressivism of San Francisco does not extend to to grasping water planning in the context of water that they take from others. This is a political debate, not simply an issue of who is more progressive. Structural reform for a Green political party goes beyond the positions of the interests of one group of stakeholders. I personally believe that the urban progressive perspective has lost itself in the politics of advocacy groups and has lost rural context and a holistic approach. NM had a much better model of water planning then California ever constructed. http://www.waterassembly.org  I fully understand your position and consider it as one that needs an open debate. I do not presume to believe in sacrificing ou
r Core values. I am at heart a water planner. I fully grasp the conflicts between urban users and rural users. I see that many wine growers are supportive of the NRDC efforts and look to other constituencies as supportive of Green values. A political party needs to address the political and structural reforms that address the diversity of water users. 

 

Mato Ska

 

 





Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:11:09 -0700 
From: brookse32@aim.com
To: sustainactive@sfgreens.org
CC: active@sfgreens.org
Subject: Re: [SustainActive] [SFGP-A] SFPUC Appointee Anson Moran On Water/Environment

Mato Ska, you simply need to dig deeper into the water wars that have dominated California.

I grew up in it and know it well.

It is urban cosmopolitan elites who lean toward environmental sensibilities who have served as a counterweight (although just barely) to developers and factory farms to keep them from hogging so much water that they destroy rural communities, small farms, fisheries, and mountain and desert watersheds.

For example, without our appeal to the urban dwellers of L.A., Inyo and Mono County, where I grew up, would have been completely devastated, and the precious and unique Mono lake ecosystem would no longer exist.

Keeping decision making weighted in the much larger and more environmentally progressive urban population in San Francisco -protects- the system and the watersheds from overexploitation by rich capitalists who would otherwise buy up and control all of the water for their own selfish gain. It's not precisely democratic, but it's reality.

Eric B

Martin Zehr wrote: 

That is an issue of regional planning, not of private (or corporate, if you want to) ownership of farms. Agriculture always accounts for the majority of consumptive use. Urban political power is always greater than rural influence. When we accept the urban vs. rural parameters we really fail to acknowledge the potential of agricultural integration in local urban economic development. When we fail to see the distinction between Green urban users and other urban users we fail to present the holistic bio-regionalism that can unify urban and rural users. California Greens are aggressively anti-ag, and often use the expression "agribusinesses" inappropriately without analysis. it is an URBAN impulse, not a Green impulse that acts out this conflict. 

 

Mato Ska



 


 

  
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:44:09 -0700
From: brookse32@aim.com
CC: active@sfgreens.org; sustainactive@sfgreens.org
Subject: Re: [SustainActive] [SFGP-A] SFPUC Appointee Anson Moran On Water/Environment

Another important point here is that the corporate agribusiness we are 
talking about uses over 80% of the system's water, much of that very 
wastefully when it could make small improvements to preserve the water base.

done7777@sbcglobal.net wrote:
    
Of course bioregionalism is an organic process for providing accountable political representation based on protecting the watersheds.

That is why I initially liked the idea of elected boards to oversee issues relating to water and land use. But politics is corrupted by money and developers and agribusiness have a lot of it, and control things in eastern California.

I see a difference between agriculture and agribusiness. Monoculture in almonds alone in the state challenges bees to survive.

Of course agriculture needs access to water. But they need to stand in line like everyone else, behind what it takes for the natural processes of the watershed to maintain themselves, but well ahead of the needs for suburban lawns.

I said we own the spigot. Good thing it's not Bechtel. 

Don

--- On Mon, 6/15/09, Martin Zehr <m_zehr@hotmail.com> wrote:


      
From: Martin Zehr <m_zehr@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [SustainActive] [SFGP-A] SFPUC Appointee Anson Moran On Water/Environment
To: "Don Eichelberger" <done7777@sbcglobal.net>, "Eric Brooks" <brookse32@aim.com>, "SF Active Greens" <active@sfgreens.org>, sustainactive@sfgreens.org
Date: Monday, June 15, 2009, 6:24 PM



#yiv1123256795 .hmmessage P
{
margin:0px;padding:0px;}
#yiv1123256795 {
font-size:10pt;font-family:Verdana;}



"They want water, we own the spigot." Don

"San Francisco would be given majority representative
numbers" Eric



You and Eric have said it all. You doth presume too much.
Agriculture is the supplier of food. You do not support
bio-regionalism by denying the integral role of agriculture
in the region.



Mato Ska







"In theory you are absolutely correct. These
decisions, in a just world, should be made democratically by
all citizens throughout the region.

However, what Moran was doubtless angling for (and would
put in place if he gained real power) is a selective Joint
Powers system which would be very easy for developers and ag
giants to dominate and manipulate, by bribing and donating
to suburban and valley legislators, who would have the
majority of votes on the Authority.

I would be all for a regional decision making body with
four strict conditions:

1) The communities and indigenous peoples in the Sierras at
the source of the Hetch Hetchy water would be given veto
power over all system decisions.
2) San Francisco would be given majority representative
numbers on the joint authority to protect residential
customers from the undue ag and developer theft of water
(theft the likes of which for example so long dominated the
Los Angeles water system)
3) a caucus of local independent Salmon fisherman were
given strongly weighted representation on the authority
and
4) As part of establishing the Authority, San Francisco was
forced to switch to a public power system for its
electricity customers, as has always been the requirement of
the Raker Act which gave San Francisco the legal authority
to build Hetch Hetchy in the first place.

cheers

Eric B











        
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:33:14 -0700
From: done7777@sbcglobal.net
To: brookse32@aim.com; active@sfgreens.org;

          sustainactive@sfgreens.org

        
Subject: Re: [SustainActive] [SFGP-A] SFPUC Appointee

          Anson Moran On Water/Environment

        
Mato-

I agree that all parties need to be made a part of the

          decision-making process. But as we diversify our process, we
need to accommodate without becoming dominated by a faction.


        
Deep pocketed developers want to plant more lawns in

          suburbia. And monoculture control of agribusiness is driving
the planting of more almonds and grapes, threatening bee
populations.

        
They want water, we own the spigot. Seems like a

          bargaining chip there that could help open dialogue around
sustainability issues if there were an appropriate forum.
What is more sustainable than assuring a stable water supply
and efficient use?

        
At the time Moran was calling for some type of common

          watershed authority, I was thinking that sounded alright,
and maybe a good way to organize at the grassroots.

        
But agribusiness and developers are the big gorilla in

          most of the watershed's area, and their big money and
media access capabilities would need to be countered. This
could only be done by sheer numbers of activists going to
regional watershed meetings, setting up accountable and
democratic processes and running as commissioners.

        
I had wanted to give this more organizing priority as

          a model for bioregional organizing. But in 1999, I took over
as Co-Coordinator of the Green Party of California Energy
(soon to become Green Issues) Working Group, and I never
followed through and the SFPUC and SF government acted
relatively quickly to fund HH upgrades and keep SF the sole
proprietor.

        
Then 911 happened....

Don


--- On Sun, 6/14/09, Martin Zehr

          <m_zehr@hotmail.com> wrote:

        

From: Martin Zehr <m_zehr@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [SustainActive] [SFGP-A] SFPUC

            Appointee Anson Moran On Water/Environment

        

To: "Eric Brooks"

            <brookse32@aim.com>, "SF Active Greens"
<active@sfgreens.org>, sustainactive@sfgreens.org

        

Date: Sunday, June 14, 2009, 3:23 PM

Eric,



help me out here. How is the City of San

            Francisco making

        

the decisions on Hetch-Hetchy water NOT a corrupt

            set-up?

        

Why is failing to represent agricultural users in

            the region

        

NOT a corrupt set-up? How does bio-regionalism

            exclude

        

diverse users, including agricultural

            users and those

        

with water rights from engaging in the

            decision-making

        

process?



Mato SKa


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