Truth about stipers?? GGSA disagrees...

[Bob Loblaw]

Mike,

An ecosystem is much bigger and more complex than the listed species list. If the jsry is still out on Striper impact on salmon or steelhead smolt, I have no issue with that and am happy to wait and see difinitive research.

But you can't argue that introducing millions of completely alien apex predators into an ecosystem does not have a huge harmful impact to that system. The Striper population consumes huge amounts of biomass, shrimp, fish, scud, and other species. They are voracious feeders and have altered the original delta ecosystem in ways we will never know or understand.

Just because there's no brightline connection between Stripers and predation on other sports fish does not mean that they aren't causing harm all over the food chain and to species we don't care much about. Like I said earlier, "harm" is in the eye of the beholder. If the fishing is good, fishermen see no harm caused.

[Mike McKenzie]

But Tracy even if you reduce the ag demand to a trickle, if you chop down all the nut trees and plow under all the cotton and rice, you'll still have 22 million people dependent on drinking water that flows through the very vulnerable delta. Forget ag for a moment and focus on people. If the delta fails you'll have a human disaster. For this reason alone, nothing to do with ag needs or demands, we need a safe water conveyance system around the delta.

Bob, here's a couple of thoughts...There are several geologists who will argue the conception of massive levee failures in the Delta, if as you posted in another place, it was the result of a " cataclysmic event" we would have far more to worry about than water.
The fact is, that the whole issue is not about water for people south of the Delta, it's about wrangling to privatize ownership of a public trust resource and selling water bought with subsidized rates at Market rates. If it were truly about water for people, I would agree with your premise that a Delta By-pass facility should be built and every fisheries biologist would also agree.

Again, if were truly about water for people then build the canal or tunnel as it might be but build it so that there could be NO MORE than 5000 cfs pumped through it. That would be plenty of water for the folks and enough for most agriculture (the real family farmers) What shows the "project" up as nothing more than a water grab by the Kern Water Bank for private gain is the blind insistence that it be built with 15,000 cfs capacity and then trust them to operate it in a fish friendly fashion.....Yeah! Like that would ever happen!

Mike

[Bob Loblaw]

Mike,

I agree with you 100%. This is not just about water and never has been. Water and water rights in California are as valuable as gold bullion and if you have enough political clout you can raid the commons, sieze the water, move it to your dry patch of dirt and create gold bars out of dry dust.

Subsidies are at the core of the problem. If people had to pay fair market value for the water that the taxpayer stores and moves around at great expense, we'd see a whole new attitude to it as a resource.

We need to completely blow up the system of inherited waterr rights and water economics in California. Water that is collected in public watersheds behind taxpayer funded dams and moved around in public conveyance systems, is public property. It belongs to you and me not some Westlands farmer because he has a 130 year old deed that his great grand pappy won in a saloon poker game. If farmers want our water we ought to set the price or auction it. You'd see rice disappear overnight if a policy like that was instituted.

If you look back at one of my previous posts, I made the case that you are making right now. This should not be a debate about whether or not we need a peripheral conveyance, rather it should be about the capacity of that conveyance and whose hand controls the valve.

If we reduce consumer demand and reduce ag demand by regulating what farmers can grow and prohibit flood irrigation, those two steps alone would mean that the peripheral canal would be a small one...at least much smaller than the one currently proposed.

The best way to skin this cat is by reducing overall demand, not by fighting over how water is moved around the state.

[Darian]

I've been wondering about how the subject matter of our debate/discussion kept wandering around throughout three threads and always kinda drifted back to one or two points.... Then it dawned on me. "You don't need double talk, you need Bob Loblaw." (Google the name for the clarification/reference) Can you say distraction

[Tracy Chimenti]

Hey Mike--- That wasn't me that said the stripers are cuasing the problem. I'm on your side buddy. I love my stripers. I want more of them!

Bob-- Do we have 22-million down there now? If this is the case, that's 11-million a.feet. I think we have enough water if desal was included on a large scale. Build those facilities with the nuke plants to power them if necessary. Subisdize it. We can have great fisheries and a more natural environment.

[Ed Wahl]

I've been wondering about how the subject matter of our debate/discussion kept wandering around throughout three threads and always kinda drifted back to one or two points.... Then it dawned on me. "You don't need double talk, you need Bob Loblaw." (Google the name for the clarification/reference) Can you say distraction

Darian that's geat. I kept trying to remember why that name sounded so familiar.
Ed

[Tracy Chimenti]

for not noticing that!

[Mike McKenzie]

Hey Mike--- That wasn't me that said the stripers are cuasing the problem. I'm on your side buddy. I love my stripers. I want more of them.

Tracy ...I wasn't quoting you...I was quoting your quote!
Mike

[Mike McKenzie]

I've been wondering about how the subject matter of our debate/discussion kept wandering around throughout three threads and always kinda drifted back to one or two points.... Then it dawned on me. "You don't need double talk, you need Bob Loblaw." (Google the name for the clarification/reference) Can you say distraction

Spoiled all the fun...



Mike