Coverup Charged in DC Salmon Hearing

West Coast lawmakers blast federal fishery officials over salmon losses
By David Whitney

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats on Thursday angrily accused federal fishery officials of using scientific reports to cover up the depth of the risks to salmon populations from the diversion of river water to farming on the West Coast.

The result, they said during a hostile hearing, was that salmon stocks collapsed, forcing state and federal authorities to ban salmon fishing earlier this year.

"We're devastated, and our communities are devastated," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif. "They haven't been using good science. It's sophomoric. People are losing their livelihoods."

Capps' comments came during a break in a House Natural Resources fisheries subcommittee hearing at which a dozen or so West Coast Democrats showed up to grill Rodney McInnis, administrator of the National Marine Fisheries Service's regional office in Long Beach, Calif.

The hearing came a day after the House approved a huge farm bill containing $170 million in economic disaster funding for commercial fishermen and fishing communities as a result of the recent closure of the salmon season because of perilously low numbers of fish returning to the Sacramento River to spawn.

The closure followed a sharp reduction in the season two years ago because of low returns to the Klamath River and continuing problems with Columbia River salmon.

Common to all three river systems are NMFS biological opinions some of which federal courts later rejected as failing to use the best available science or otherwise failing to look broadly at the health of the fish in deciding the impacts of diverting river water for farming.

One such report supported a Bureau of Reclamation plan to divert water to farming interests from the Klamath River on the California-Oregon border. But the plan allowed the river's level to drop so low and its water to become so warm that more than 30,000 salmon died in 2002, the largest fish die-off in U.S. history. The full result of that die-off wasn't felt for years, however, when fisheries had to be closed because the fish that had died had not laid eggs and reproduced.

Democrats charged that the failure to predict the impact of such water diversions was part of a pattern of abuse of science by the Bush administration.

"Along with a fishing failure, this is the failure of an agency," declared Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif.

"I worry that science is used to justify a decision," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif.

"I assure you, this is not the situation," said McInnis.

Idaho Rep. Bill Sali, one of the few Republicans attending, charged that Democrats were "using the closure of the Pacific fishery to further a (political) agenda."

But McInnis acknowledged that there had been problems with his agency's work and insisted that steps are being taken to correct them.

Outside, independent scientists are now reviewing the agency's opinions, he said. The agency also is looking more deeply at what it takes to recover endangered stocks.

McInnis said the first results of this broader consultation should appear in September, when the agency releases its draft opinion on California's Central Valley Project and the vast irrigation system's impact on salmon.

"How will they know we've fixed the problems?" McInnis said during a brief interview. "An intermediate step is what the courts will say about us doing our job. But ultimately we've got to get the fish to come back."

The cause of the Sacramento River salmon collapse is still a matter of dispute, with some thinking it relates to water quality and agriculture diversions from the San Francisco Bay Delta. McInnis said his scientists believe the cause is related to poor ocean conditions for the fish.

Source: LInk

The Final Wake-Up Call: Planet Earth

A United Nations panel of scientists and experts is releasing a report that they are labeling the 'Final Wake-up Call' to the international community on population, resource consumption, climate change, and the extinction of life on the planet.

The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage on the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report issued Thursday by the United Nations.

Climate change, the rate of extinction of species and the challenge of feeding a growing population are among the threats putting humanity at risk, the UN Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.

"The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns," Achim Steiner, the executive director of the program, said in a telephone interview. Efficient use of resources and reducing waste now are "among the greatest challenges at the beginning of 21st century," he said.

The program described its report, which is prepared by 388 experts and scientists, as the broadest and deepest of those that the UN issues on the environment and called it "the final wake-up call to the international community."

LINK TO ARTICLE

Pollution, predicted fresh water shortfalls (drinking water shortages), threatened species including some that are critical to the food chain (in our oceans)...consumption of resources on a scale that is unsustainable...do we really need to change the way we live, consume, and interact with our environment? the air, the water, the oceans, the forests?

Accountability for our part in the current state of the world is not something that it seems large sections of the population care to consider. It is what is right in front of them that matters, and perhaps that is part of our human nature. Denial is, however, becoming a luxury that we can all ill afford.

Extinction rates currently are 100x as fast as previous periods of mass extinction found in the fossil record. Those mass extinction periods came as results of major shock to the planet such as massive volcanic activity. What is our major shock? certainly many believe it is CO2 levels, along with our other pollutants that kill off biodiversity, over fishing the oceans to unsustainable levels, over killing of mammal species for food medicine and trade, and the wiping out of entire habitats.

The planet is one massive system and everything is interlocked. We cannot change one thing without affecting the whole, without ultimately affecting ourselves. It is in our best and own interests to find, cultivate, or return to better ways of living that take into account the cycles and systems that we influence and are dependent upon. It is in our interests to use resources in better ways, to expect industry to share these values, to find ways to live cleanly without pollution. It is in our best interest to be, and act, as stewards of the earth and of the multitude of life forms upon it. We are the species on this earth that has the ability to effect change on massive scales. And we have. Now it is time for us to cultivate the responsibility and stewardship that comes with that ability.

Yangtze River Beyond Repair?

Well, this shows little faith in the ability of Nature, or the planet, to heal itself. Now, in our lifetimes? well that could be very well stretching it. Until then, this is the reality on the ground...

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China's massive Yangtze river, a lifeline for tens of millions of people, is seriously polluted and the damage is almost irreversible, a state-run newspaper said Monday.

More than 370 miles of the river are in critical condition and almost 30 percent of its major tributaries are seriously polluted, the China Daily said, citing a report by the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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"The impact of human activities on the Yangtze water ecology is largely irreversible," Yang Guishan, a researcher at the institute, was quoted as saying.

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The Yangtze accounts for 35 percent of China's total fresh water resources, the report said.

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The Yangtze is about 3,860 miles long and runs from the Tibetan plateau to the sea near Shanghai, passing through some of China's major cities, such as Chongqing and Nanjing.

Privatizing a Public Resource: WATER

Full Article and Further Info

Water, like air, is a necessity of human life. It is also, according to Fortune magazine, "One of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th."

In the past ten years, three giant global corporations have quietly assumed control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent of the world. A 12-month investigation by journalists in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America shows that the results range from questionable to disastrous. And it shows how well-meaning municipal governments in the U.S. and Canada can become vulnerable to the persuasive techniques of these high-powered corporate giants.

Dolphins in Texas

Mysterious deaths of Dolphins washing up on Texas shores...

Article Source

The stranding deaths of about 60 bottlenose dolphins on Texas beaches over the past three weeks has puzzled researchers and is a cause for concern during the calving season, a senior scientist said on Monday.

"This is the calving season so we often have strandings at this time of the year. It's tough to be an air-breather born in the water," said Dr. Daniel F. Cowan, professor of pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and director of the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.

"But over the last few weeks we have had about 3 to 4 times the usual mortality," he told Reuters.

Most of the carcasses were in an advanced state of decomposition, suggesting that they were carried to Texas beaches from areas further off or up the shore.

Suspected causes include parasites, an outbreak of infectious diseases or red tide, an algal bloom prompted by fertilizers or other excess nutrients.

Most of the dolphins have been too decomposed for a necropsy -- the animal version of an autopsy -- and so volunteers have been burying them on the beaches.

Several of the dolphins which have washed up on shore have been young with umbilical cords still attached.

Rivers Lifesblood Threatened for People All Around The World

Many of the major rivers in the world are in danger of drying up and/or ceasing to be the critical supply of fresh water and food for people all over the globe.

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Climate change, pollution, over extraction of water and development are killing some of the world's most famous rivers including China's Yangtze, India's Ganges and Africa's Nile, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday.

At the global launch of its report "World's Top 10 Rivers at Risk," the Geneva-based group said many rivers could dry out, affecting hundreds of millions of people and killing unique aquatic life.

"If these rivers die, millions will lose their livelihoods, biodiversity will be destroyed on a massive scale, there will be less fresh water and agriculture, resulting in less food security," said Ravi Singh, secretary-general of WWF-India.

The report, launched ahead of 'World Water Day' on Thursday, also cited the Rio Grande in the United States, the Mekong and Indus in Asia, Europe's Danube, La Plata in South America and Australia's Murray-Darling as in need of greater protection.

Rivers are the world's main source of fresh water and WWF says about half of the available supply is already being used up.

Dams have destroyed habitats and cut rivers off from their flood plains, while climate change could affect the seasonal water flows that feed them, the report said.

Fish populations, the top source of protein and overall life support for hundreds of thousands of communities worldwide, are also being threatened, it found.

The Yangtze basin is one of the most polluted rivers in the world because of decades of heavy industrialization, damming and huge influxes of sediment from land conversion.

Climate change, including higher temperatures, also means devastating consequences for fishery productivity, water supply and political security in Africa's arid Nile basin.

The Ganges basin makes up almost a third of India's land area and one in twelve people in the world depend on this river for activities such as fishing and farming, the WWF said.