🚀 go-pugleaf

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Faultline News January 21, 2002 Volume 2, Number 1

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NOW PLAYING AT WWW.FAULTLINE.ORG -
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=> Banana slugs!
=> Did Klamath farmers profit from plight?
=> Charles Levendosky on Gale Norton's trail of tears
=> Sierra Nevada Framework scuttled
=> Green Noir? Hammett on San Francisco
=> A chat with San Francisco's Solar Guy
=> Lotsa news

See "New On The Site", below editor's note

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK
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"The idea of free trade comes right from the Communist
Manifesto."

Al Thompson of Shasta Lake, one of the disgruntled
Republican Activists challenging North State representative
Wally Herger for the GOP nomination in the next election.
Herger, who votes with his party 97 percent of the time, is
being called "too liberal" by Thompson and other activists.

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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
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Pombo? Oh, No.

Ever make a decision you knew you'd regret for the rest of
your life? I have.

In January 1997, a month of record flooding in California, I
was touring the affected parts of the Central Valley and
Delta with a friend, when I saw something I thought would
make a great photo. Problem was, I would have had to pull
over onto I-5's narrow shoulder, in heavy traffic in fog, to
take the shot, and I decided not to risk our lives.

What I saw was a flooded field, with what looked like about
five feet of water on it. In the middle of the field, about
chin-deep in the flood water, was a sign saying "This land
available - Pombo Real Estate."

I thought of that sign this week as I read that Richard
Pombo, Tracy Representative and scion of the real estate
family, was one of several candidates for the chairmanship
of the House Resources Committee.

Pombo is one of the shock troops of the 104th Congress, cut
from essentially the same cloth as Don Young, Helen
Chenoweth, Limbaugh and Gingrich. His family got where they
are by helping farmers buy and sell land, usually to
developers. With Central Valley land being cut up, fenced
off, plowed and paved the way it is, a huge percentage of
its native species are in trouble, so the Endangered Species
Act is going to be a major obstacle to those who would
subdivide the last acre of what was once North America's
Serengeti.

And sure enough, Pombo is a stalwart - if comically inept -
opponent of the ESA, and any other federal intrusion into
his family's God-given right to turn over real property.
Excepting, of course, the massive flood-control projects
that allow them to turn historic floodplain into eighth-acre
ranchettes.

It's one thing to be anti-environmentalist. This is still a
free country, and responsible opposition to environmental
protection - one that points out the flaws in our side's
arguments, with some measure of intellectual integrity -
benefits both sides, if only by helping us make our
arguments more airtight.

Dick Pombo is not that responsible opposition. In an
educated society, Pombo would be considered not much more
than a buffoon. It's a truism to refer to politicians as
masters of the art of dissembling. But it's hard to find a
liar clumsier than Pombo.

In March 1997, Pombo attempted to pin the above-mentioned
January flood in the Central Valley on the ESA, charging
that levee repair work had been delayed to protect the
valley elderberry longhorned beetle. The Feds had long
exempted disaster-related work from ESA considerations, and
the ESA had no effect on levee construction.

Then there's the time he testified before the Senate
Environment Committee that he had suffered untold financial
damage because his ranch had been declared critical habitat
for the San Joaquin Kit Fox. An alert reporter determined
that this had not, in fact, happened, and Mollie Beattie,
late head of the FWS, pointed this out in a public forum.
Pombo retreated a bit, saying it "may have been one of his
neighbors' ranches." Finally, after having it pointed out to
him that no critical habitat had been declared anywhere for
the fox at that point, he caved.

And then there's the celebrated case of Taung-Min Lin, a
Kern County Farmer who for a time in 1994 became a Wise Use
poster boy. Lin, accused of violating the ESA by destroying
habitat of the endangered Tipton kangaroo rat and killing
five of the rats, was paraded around as a typical victim of
jackbooted Federal environmentalism, a poor immigrant farmer
- who only wanted to introduce the United States to the
benefits of traditional Asian crops - persecuted for killing
rodents.

Unfortunately for Pombo - and the other wise users who
latched on to Lin as an issue - the feds had made every
attempt to clue Lin in as to how to farm legally, with
minimal hindrance from jackbooted federal regulations. They
sent him letters explaining how to obtain inexpensive
"incidental take" permits. They visited the farm to provide
informal warnings rather than the legally-required
citations. Lin repeatedly refused to comply.

When the case finally came to court, Lin was let off with a
$5000 fine, no admission of wrongdoing on his part, and a
six month ban from farming - at which point he'd be allowed
to kill k-rats to raise edible bamboo, if he got the
appropriate permits from the state and feds.

The case of Taung-Min Lin is illustrative, but what it
illustrates is just how easy it is to violate the Endangered
Species Act and get away with it.

And yet Richard Pombo still - seven years later, in a letter
to the Tracy Press - holds up the case of Taung-Min Lin as
as cautionary example, pointing out that "twenty armed
federal agents stormed his farm, arrested Mr. Ming-Ling
[sic] and confiscated his tractor for allegedly [sic]
running over a few Tipton Kangaroo rats." Not a word about
the months of what amounted to taxpayer-subsidized legal
counseling given Lin as he refused to comply with the laws
of the land.

I'm not in the habit of giving advice to the GOP. Still,
common decency requires that I point out that if Dick Pombo
is handed the gavel of the Resources Committee, the
Republicans will have made our job quite a bit easier.
Having been redistricted into the relatively liberal
Tri-Valley area east of Oakland, Pombo is going to have a
hard enough time holding on to his seat. Put him in a
position where we will be obligated to publicize what he
says and does, and he's history.

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NEW ON THE SITE
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2001 Not All Bad for Klamath Farmers
by James McCarthy 
Were irrigators devastated by the infamous drought? Not
necessarily.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/place/2002/01/klamathbailout.html

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Maltese Falcon Habitat
by Tim Neagle 
When it comes to writers and cities, few can match the bond
forged between San Francisco and Dashiell Hammett.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/place/2002/01/hammett.html

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Gold Mine Would Vandalize Indian Cultural Sites
by Charles Levendosky
A Faultline guest editorial.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/levendosky.html

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Solar San Francisco:
an interview with David Hochschild
by Betsy Rosenberg
A conversation with the architect of the landmark solar
initiative in San Francisco.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/hochschildinterview.html

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Stranger Than Friction
by Ron Sullivan 
With its appearance, texture, and � ahem � unusual
reproductive habits, the banana slug has something to turn
anyone's stomach.
It just doesn't get any better than this.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/place/2002/01/ariolimax.html

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Setback for Sierra Nevada Framework
by Chris Clarke 
US Forest Service to reconsider acclaimed ecosystem
management plan.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/snframework.html

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Delta Pumps Killing Protected Fish
Groups may sue to force change in pumping practice.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/deltapumps.html

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Report Calls Energy Crisis $71 Billion Hoax
Group says greed, not market forces, spurred electron
shortfall.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/energyhoax.html

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Coastal Commission Sued Over LA Projects
Enviros celebrate as judge grants stay

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/coastcommsued.html

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Settlement Reached in San Joaquin Air Suit
After long, illegal delay, EPA agrees to act to regulate
nation's dirtiest air.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/sjairsettle.html

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Legislature Swats Pro-Jetski Bills
Bills would have threatened public safety and the
environment

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/jetskibills.html

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Fix In for Stockton's Water?
Hidden agendas, conflict of interest charged in
privatization bid process.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/stocktonwater.html

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Sticking Up For the Stickleback
Suit filed in defense of little fish threatened by sprawl,
gravel mining

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/stickleback.html

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Teratogens on Tap 
Report maintains San Francisco drinking water puts 4000
women at risk of miscarriage or birth defects each year

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/trihalomethane.html

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Enviros Sue Bush Over Energy Act
Bush administration sued over noncompliance with law signed
by President's father.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/Energysuit.html

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LA Gets Two New Parks on River
Governor, community activists, TPL collaborate to restore
old industrial land.

Read it at:
http://www.faultline.org/news/2002/01/cornfields.html

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VOLUNTEER WITH FAULTLINE
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Let us know. Email editors@faultline.org and we'll put your
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COMING SOON . . .
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SUDDEN OAK DEATH: Joe Eaton surveys what we know about
Phytophthora ramosa, the scary pathogen implicated in the
deaths of tens of thousands of California's beloved oaks.

MOSTLY, PEOPLE DON'T: On the heels of its merger with
Texaco, Chevron has dropped its landmark "People Do"
Campaign. Shawn Butler casts a critical eye on
the archetypal greenwash effort.

MINERAL KING: Tom Turner describes how the Sierra Club and
its lawyers kept a disappointed Disney from Disneyfying the
southern Sierra Nevada.

CADIZ DISSES THE INDIGENOUS: Everything seems set for the
Cadiz company as it gets ready to sell age-old water from
its Mojave aquifer to the City of Los Angeles. Just one
problem remains: the company forgot to account for
indigenous rights and sentiment. How the Fort Mojave Tribe
views the newest threat to their environmental rights.

INTERVIEW WITH GERRY HASLAM: Chris Clarke chats with the
Tulare Basin's poet laureate about writing, urban sprawl,
the politics of race and what it was like to go to high
school with Merle Haggard.

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Copyright 2002 Faultline Magazine
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-- 
Chris Clarke             | Editor, Faultline
http://www.faultline.org | California's Environmental Magazine