LaMalfa Announces Redding Community Coffee

(SACRAMENTO) – Senator Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) announced he will be hosting a community coffee in Redding at the Northern California Veterans Museum & Heritage Center.

“I’m looking forward to having the community coffee at the Veterans Museum.  They do a wonderful job honoring our veterans’ memory and preserving our past,” said Senator LaMalfa.  “Please come by and have a cup of coffee and let me know what issues are important to you.”

The details of the town hall are included below:

Northern California Veterans Museum & Heritage Center

Friday December 2, 2011

8 – 9:30 am

3711 Meadow View Drive

Redding

Contact: Brenda Haynes 530-225-3142

Senator Doug LaMalfa is a lifelong farmer representing the fourth Senate District including Shasta, Tehama, Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Siskiyou, Sutter, Del Norte, Placer, Trinity, Yuba and Nevada counties.

Aftermath

From California Water Wars

 “A federal judge leaving the bench to quickly turn up as the lawyer for an entity that has come before him numerous times over the years raises eyebrows.”

Former U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger, who spent two decades as a jurist deep in the Central Valley, is shaping up as something of a courtroom nemesis for environmentalists. And he’s not even on the bench.

Wanger, who has ruled on numerous water cases, retired at the end of September – but not before he blasted the government’s environmental assessments of flows and fresh water in a case involving Delta smelt protections. Wanger’s sharp language, in which he denounced experts from the Bureau of Reclamation and the Fish and Wildlife Service, drew national attention.

The Westlands Water District, the nation’s premier farm irrigation district and a major political player in the Central Valley, sought more flows south from the Delta; the government’s position would have limited them. In the end, Wanger’s decision was favorable to Westlands.

And that would have been that, except that Wanger has now surfaced less than two months after his earlier decision as an attorney in a state case representing – you guessed it — Westlands.

Wanger was listed in a routine court filing on Nov. 22 in Fresno County Superior Court as an attorney representing Westlands in a state case against pitting the district against environmental groups and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. Wanger and representatives of his law firm were identified as the new lawyers representing Westlands, replacing the district’s own staff attorneys. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is also a defendant.

There is nothing illegal or improper about Wanger entering private practice. But the perception of a federal judge leaving the bench to quickly turn up as the lawyer for an entity that has come before him numerous times over the years raises eyebrows.

As for the outspoken Wanger, he went to public events just after stepping down, including a fundraiser, and he appears to be unconcerned about the latest flap over his new role as Westlands lawyer.

“I would love to hear what Westlands would say if we had hired [Wanger],” Zeke Grader, executive director of the San Francisco-based Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations, told the Fresno Bee’s John Ellis. That would be fine with him, Wanger said.

“I’d love to work for them,” he said, including environmental groups and the federal government in his list of prospective clients.

In September, shortly before he retired, Wanger said FWS scientist Jennifer Norris “has not been honest this court. I find her to be incredible as a witness. I find her testimony to be that of a zealot. And I’m not overstating the case. I’m not being histrionic. I’m not being dramatic. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen a few witnesses testify.”

He also said the Bureau of Reclamation’s Frederick Feyrer, he showed “absolute incredibility” and “absolute unreliability,” and “finally, the most significant finding, the court finds him to be untrustworthy as a witness.”  His language – it was part of a lengthy diatribe – surprised legal observers for its intensity. The Department of the Interior, meanwhile, is investigating the judge’s allegations.

Read more:

http://calwaterwars.com/    Nov. 30, 2011

From Fresno Bee.com

November 30, 2011

Scientists: Thinner forests produce more snow runoff

Scientists are planning to thin trees and brush at an experimental plot of Sierra Nevada forest in hopes of showing that more snow runoff will result.

The experiment, led by University of California at Merced, would be the first step toward increasing Sierra runoff by nearly 10%. Trees and brush absorb a lot of water, scientists say.

The proposal was announced today as officials from the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced released a study on the possible improvements in California water supply. Such improvements would be welcomed by farmers, city officials and hydroelectric project operators.

The project could be done in the Onion Creek Experimental Forest, Tahoe National Forest, Placer County. Scientists would remove trees and brush from overgrown stands.

Much of the Sierra has become dangerously thick over the past century because many fires were extinguished before they could clean out overgrown areas. Now, in addition to absorbing more water, forests pose the risk of catastrophic wildfires.

Roger Bales, a UC Merced professor and director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute, was the lead author on the study announced today. Others involved include Yihsu Chen, Martha H. Conklin and Philip Saksa of UC Merced; Kevin L. O’Hara and William Stewart of UC Berkeley; and Eric Holst of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Read more: http://fresnobeehive.com/news/earth/#ixzz1fFt29g6g

November 29, 2011

Fresno Bee.com

San Joaquin River salmon restoration in a year? Really?

After The Bee’s story Monday about state and federal efforts to guide migrating salmon in the San Joaquin River, a Valley farmer along the river said the vast restoration of the San Joaquin is not on schedule.

He’s worried about land next to the river on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley. And he seems to have a point.

A landmark agreement signed in 2006 calls for salmon restoration to begin in late December 2012. The reviving of the long-dried San Joaquin and long-dead salmon runs is news around the country.

But small dams on the river need to be bypassed in some way. A vast stretch of the river channel may need to be rebuilt. The channel needs to be opened up in some places.

None of that has taken place, says Cannon Michael, vice president of Bowles Farming Co., based in Los Banos.

He said hundreds of millions of dollars need to be spent re-establishing a river that has been dead since the 1950s. Yet these important river projects are underfunded right now, he said.

Nothing is likely to get done anytime soon, Michael says. Without those projects, how can salmon make a comeback 13 months from now? Good question.

The schedule is outlined in the restoration agreement, which was signed by environmentalists, federal officials and east Valley farmers, who have irrigated with river water for decades.

The three groups — called settling parties — know about the schedule problem and are talking about it. But with the deadline approaching next year, nothing has been said publicly yet.

“Someone from the settling parties needs to come forward and admit that the schedule needs to be reworked and the timeline extended,” Michael says. “Acting like all is well and things are going according to plan makes those of us involved not have any trust in the process.

“We are still willing to work with the program, but we need someone to be honest at some point soon.”

It is important to note that Michael and other farmers along the Valley’s west side are not among the settling parties — even though some of their land already has been damaged by experimental flows on the river.

Understandably, they say they want to know more. I think it’s time to start asking a few more questions about the timetable, the funding and those projects.

Read more: http://fresnobeehive.com/news/earth/#ixzz1fFrxnUED

Full Committee to Hold Oversight Hearing on

Endangered Species Act Litigation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, December 6^th the Natural Resources Committee will hold a Full Committee oversight hearing on “The Endangered Species Act: How Litigation is Costing Jobs and Impeding True Recovery Efforts.”

“This hearing is the first of many that the Natural Resources Committee will hold to examine both the strengths and weaknesses of the Endangered Species Act.  It has been over two decades since the ESA was last reauthorized and it’s the responsibility of Congress to undertake a thoughtful analysis of the law to see what improvements could be made to ensure that it works for both species and people,” said Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings.  “The goal of the ESA is to conserve key domestic species, yet it’s being used by special interest groups to file lawsuits and drain resources away from real recovery efforts.  This hearing will specifically look at the impacts of ESA litigation on jobs, our economy and species recovery.”

Visit the Committee Calendar for testimony and additional information, once it is made available.  The hearing is open to the public and a live video stream will be broadcast at http://naturalresources.house.gov/live.

KLAMATH RIVER, Iron Gate Dam — Guide Scott Caldwell said river conditions below Iron Gate Dam were very good, and trout and steelhead to about 6 pounds were taking flies, drifted roe and nightcrawlers and backtrolled plugs. He’s been catching fish all the way from the hatchery down to the Shasta River.

Today the House will consider HR 822, a long-overdue measure to assure that states recognize the concealed weapons permits issued by other states.

This very simple measure has unleashed a firestorm of protests from the political left.  I noted one polemicist, who obviously has not read the Constitution, fumed that this is a Constitutional violation of states’ rights enshrined in the tenth amendment.

What nonsense.  Article IV of the Constitution could not possibly be more clear: “Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records and judicial Proceedings of every other State.  And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.”

It is precisely this article that requires one state to recognize driver’s licenses, birth certificates or arrest warrants issued by another state.  Without it we are not a union but a loose confederation.

We are told it is “dangerous” and “risky” to allow honest and law-abiding citizens to exercise their lawfully issued permits in other states.

Upon what basis do they make this claim?  Certainly not upon any empirical data.

The impact of right to carry laws – that is, laws that require the issuance of a concealed carry permit to any law-abiding citizen – has been studied extensively, with the vast preponderance finding that crime rates have fallen in those states after they have adopted such laws.  No credible study has ever found that the enactment of such laws has produced an increase in crimes, suicides or accidental deaths.

Overall, states with right-to-carry laws have 22 percent lower violent crime rates, 30 percent lower murder rates, 46 percent lower robbery rates and 12 percent lower aggravated assault rates as compared to the rest of the country.  Indeed, right-to-carry laws have been so successful than no state has ever rescinded one.
So if the left cannot make a rational case on constitutional grounds or empirical grounds, what is the problem?

Read more:

http://mcclintock.house.gov/2011/11/hr-822.shtml

Wildlife managers lure terns to Burns

 http://www.ktvl.com/articles/burns-1202798-ore-terns.html

November 30, 2011 8:58 AM

 California Trout meeting for Thursday, Dec. 1

in

Mt. Shasta, California

at the Sisson Museum & DFG Fish Hatchery

has been postponed until Jan. 19, 2012

according to  Meadow Barr, California Trout Outreach Coordinator