In CA water wars: Suit Filed: Groups Seek Return of Kern Water Bank to Public Control

[annm4peace]

http://lists.sunnydayonline.com/filestore/cwin7-8-2010/...


For Immediate Release, July 2, 2010

Contact: Adam Keats, Center for Biological Diversity, [phone]

Bill Jennings, CSPA, [phone]

Carolee Krieger, C-WIN, [phone]

Suit Filed to Reverse One of the Biggest Ripoffs in California
History:

Groups Seek Return of Kern Water Bank to Public Control

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.— A coalition of farmers, sportfishing interests
and environmentalists filed suit today seeking to have the Kern Water
Bank returned to state control. The water bank, a massive underground
reservoir in Kern County built by the state’s Department of Water
Resources, was illegally gifted to powerful corporate agribusiness
interests and real-estate speculators as part of the controversial
"Monterey Plus Amendments" to the State Water Project system.

"The Kern Water Bank is an integral part of our State Water Project
and crucial to the future health of our farms, our cities and our
environment," said Adam Keats, urban wildlands program director at the
Center for Biological Diversity. "It was built and paid for by the
people of California and should remain the property of the people of
California, not handed over to a small group of powerful private
interests."

California's state constitution expressly forbids any agency giving
away or "gifting" of state assets to private interests. The current
lawsuit asserts that the Kern County Water Agency gifted the Kern
Water Bank to the Kern Water Bank Authority, a public-private joint
powers authority controlled by Paramount Farming Company (one of the
world's largest agricultural and holding companies) and Tejon Ranch
Company (the massive landholding corporation seeking to develop
several new cities north of Los Angeles including the largest
development ever proposed in California).

The suit is the coalition's second in the last month over the State
Water Project. The first targeted the Department of Water Resources
for approving the "Monterey Plus Amendments" a huge set of structural
changes for how the State Water Project is managed. In one of those
changes, the department transferred the Kern Water Bank to an entity
called the Kern County Water Agency. That agency then quickly handed
over the water bank to the newly formed Kern Water Bank Authority. The
latest suit seeks to bring the Kern Water Bank back into state
control.

"We're not going to stand aside and allow a few very powerful and
wealthy water barons to illegally privatize a publicly funded facility
worth hundreds of millions of dollars so they can reap vast profits
from growing nut trees in the desert and building thousands of
speculative McMansions in the wilderness,"” said Bill Jennings,
executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
"All while our rivers and streams are dewatered, farms fallowed, and
fish and wildlife plunge toward extinction."

The sportfishing and environmental groups are joined in the suit by
two delta water agencies, the Central Delta Water Agency and the
Southern Delta Water Agency, whose constituents are dependent on
in-delta flows to irrigate their farms.

"A properly managed Kern Water Bank could benefit the entire state,
providing backup water during drought years for farms and urban areas,
while helping to ensure that water is available to keep the Delta
ecosystem healthy,”" said Carolee Krieger, executive director of the
California Water Impact Network. “"But instead, as a result of this
giveaway, both the State Water Project and the Delta ecosystem are on
the brink of destruction while the water barons hoard water they
don’t own and use it for their own maximum profits, no matter what
the consequences."

###

For more information on the Monterey Plus Amendments, see
http://lists.sunnydayonline.com/lt.php?id=Zh8BCg1QCUsFC...
and
http://lists.sunnydayonline.com/lt.php?id=Zh8BCg1QCEsFC...
.

The California Water Impact Network promotes the equitable and
environmental use of California's water, including instream uses,
through research, planning, public education, and litigation.
http://lists.sunnydayonline.com/lt.php?id=Zh8BCg1QBksFC...

California Sportfishing Protection Alliance is a nonprofit
conservation and research organization established in 1983 for the
purpose of conserving, restoring, and enhancing the state's water
quality and fishery resources and their aquatic and riparian
ecosystems. http://lists.sunnydayonline.com/lt.php?id=Zh8BCg1TAUsFC...

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit
conservation organization with more than 255,000 members and online
activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild
places. http://lists.sunnydayonline.com/lt.php?id=Zh8BCg1TAEsFC...

[NYC_SKP]

1. Recommended. nt

[annm4peace]

2. Please share this press release with others in CA

People need to support this group or more water will be privatized