D.A. Tuma: We've Heard No Complaints

About 50 people gathered at the Stanislaus County Agricultural Center on June 21, 2000 to participate in a workshop hosted by the staff of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Central Valley Region (RWQCB). The staff presented proposed action to improve water quality in the Lower San Joaquin River (LSJR) as measured by salt and boron concentrations.

This was the first of three workshops the RWQCB scheduled "...to gather input from the public on alternative Regional Board control actions that would improve salinity and boron levels in the LSJR from Mendota Dam to Vernalis," according to a May 26 notice signed by Harley H. Davis, Agricultural Regulatory and Planning Unit. Workshops are also scheduled for July 19 and August 16 at the same location.

The workshop was a series of four presentations, each followed by audience comments. It concluded with an audience evaluation of the workshop itself. I expressed my appreciation, "You have presented an excellent example of socialist central planning, which is why I am using this program as an example to explain how all socialist planning has impoverished us."

The fourth presentation was devoted to explanation of a concept called "real time management". This involves actually monitoring stream flow and forecasting what the assimilative capacity of that flow might be for the solute load of modulated (regulated) discharge of drains. In effect, it is the same operation management intended by the designers of the San Luis Drain (SLD), an incomplete and politically plugged feature of the federal San Luis Unit of the Central Valley Project (CVP), possibly the largest irrigation project in the world.

Real time management acknowledges the existence of variable assimilative capacity associated with variable stream flow. Duh! Government regulators seem to have just discovered it. And now they are putting on workshops to "explain" it to the proletariat. Previously, the only thing they could figure out was to limit drain inflow to the lowest assimilative capacity recorded. Since rivers in deserts (including California's Central Valley) often go dry, so too does assimilative capacity. So regulators plug up everybody's drainage all the time, even when a river is flooding and can assimilate large loads of solutes without exceeding maximum concentration standards.

Regulators have tried limiting drainage discharge by load (as in tons) per year instead of load per volume (concentration, as in parts per million or milligrams per liter). But in some years, rain falls on the San Joaquin Valley enough to wash lots of solutes into the LSJR from the watershed beyond the irrigated farms. This natural runoff is beyond the capacity of anyone to control. It carries selenium rich clay from the Coastal Range and deposits it in San Francisco Bay. It has done so millions of years before mankind discovered agriculture. It will continue to due so long after mankind is gone.

But government has decided selenium deposition in San Francisco Bay from the San Joaquin Valley must stop because the Bay concentrations exceed the amount shown to cause deformities in bird embryos. So government limits agricultural drain discharge to the LSJR because earth worshipers have been led to believe the LSJR flows into the Bay all the time. Actually, it flows into the Bay only when it exceeds the diversion of the Delta export pumps, which happens only during floods and when the pumps are shut down.

The LSJR seldom floods. But the pumps are shut down more often now as directed by biologists trying to save an "endangered" minnow called the Delta smelt and subspecies of salmon smolt, identified as separate subspecies by the time of year they pass through the Delta.

So the annual load limits set by government for the LSJR might be exceeded ("violated") by natural runoff, leaving no assimilative capacity for solute loads from agricultural drains.

"Government is not reason..." It is stupid. It is arrogant. When we are forced to comply with stupid, centrally planned socialist programs, we are impoverished by the mismanagement of natural and human resources wrought by government hubris.

The SLD discharge to sea water in San Francisco Bay was to be modulated by regulated storage in Kesterson Reservoir. Completion of the SLD has been stalled primarily by Rep. George Miller, CD07, pandering his legislative influence to environmental lobbies. From 1980 to 1986, Kesterson was left with drain inflow, but no outflow, much like the evaporation ponds currently used by all farms that lost drainage rights when the federal government took the assimilative capacity of all surface water. This uncompensated federal taking of private property rights resulted from the passage of the Clean Water Act, subsequent to the Congressional authorization of the San Luis Unit.

The federal government gave CVP irrigation districts renewable long term water supply contracts for water rights it purchased and developed, and then took the right to drain the solutes from the applied irrigation water, leaving farms to wither in fields of accumulated salt. After passing a bunch of more laws to "save the environment", Congress reneged on its promise to renew the contracts. Asked if the federal government was obligated to renew the contracts, the federal Supreme Court saw no such obligation. It reasoned the federal government can't be sovereign if it can't break promises.

Federal biologists framed farm drainage for "contaminating" Kesterson Reservoir, a facility with Congressional authorization to provide disposal for farm drainage. Environmental defense lawyers persuaded justices to fabricate superior water rights for new "environmental" uses by expanding a "public trust" doctrine, previously limited to commerce, fishing, and navigation on navigable waterways.

After allegedly helping self-appointed, self-serving protectors of birds break into the water rights queue ahead of everybody else (the City of Los Angeles) waiting to take water from the Mono Lake watershed, a California Supreme Court justice took a job as solicitor for the federal Interior Department. He stayed barely long enough to be given credit for again letting protectors of birds rush to the front of the line of everybody else (the San Luis Unit of the CVP, as authorized by the Congress of the United States of America) waiting to use Kesterson Reservoir for its primary purpose of modulating the flow in the SLD.

Instead of writing an opinion about whether continued operation of Kesterson as a regulating reservoir for the SLD would comply with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), he wrote about whether its closure would comply. He stated the obvious. Any operation that does not exist can't possibly violate statutes which regulate only real activities. But the Reagan Interior Department administration claimed this opinion as the legal justification for its closure of Kesterson, as if the opinion found that further operation would not comply with the MBTA. The Interior Department misrepresented its own legal counsel. It perpetrated fraud.

Given the misrepresentation of the legal opinion used to justify the Kesterson closure, the alleged "help" to the settlement of the Mono Lake case by the same justice deserves reevaluation.

Because of the Kesterson closure deception, all subsequent government agricultural drainage regulatory policy has since suffered from lack of legal justification. Our common weal has since been impoverished by the additional cost and lost property value resulting from unjustified drainage regulations.

The federal government and the state agency henchmen that enforce its environmental protection statutes have taken private ownership in water supply and drainage rights (management authority distributed by peaceful market trades among private property owners) to expand state ownership (management authority distributed by the outcomes of political fights among special interests to gain control of government guns). In the heat of battle, truth is trampled and suppressed when found to undermine the validity of allegations. We are impoverished by the suppression of truth in political conflicts.

Water supply and drainage are now managed by federal wildlife biologists who set the maximum contaminate levels adopted by state agencies, including the RWQCB, as standards for the beneficial use of water for wildlife habitat. These biologists believe a religious doctrine taught in government schools that rivers have been killed by subsidized irrigation diversion dams, wetlands have been lost to subsurface field drains, and remaining wetlands have been poisoned by farm drainage from greedy agribusiness corporations that also farm the federal treasury for commodity price supports.

Criticism of subsidies and price supports for distorting market signals for efficient trade of goods and services, thereby impoverishing the common weal, comes from the research and analysis of free-market economists. Criticism of environmental impacts of Western water development for irrigation comes from the spiritual experience of Luddite biologists and journalists. By merging the fact of central planning myopia with the fancy of personal spiritual revelation, this environmental doctrine has spread through mass media to corrupt decision-making in government as well as private enterprise. It is so pervasive in its acceptance that even inherently skeptical libertarians don't question it.

This environmental doctrine fails to mention (except in derisive terms) a fundamental basis for sustainable society: a strategic advantage in famine defense gained from a cheap and reliable domestic food and fiber supply. As with water not missed until a well runs dry, so too is food until it is scarce.

We may be so rich now we can't remember hunger or have respect for those who do. But we are foolish to ridicule the most efficient and reliable farms in the world as "marginal" because their drainage water quality is not good enough to support artificial wetlands with as much biological productivity found elsewhere: the so-called "environmental disaster" at Kesterson.

Federal biologists are on a crusade to "protect" wildlife habitat from possible development by private property owners. Federal determinations of what is "needed" to micro manage wildlife habitat everywhere favors the agenda of a vast ad hoc environmental protection lobby working in news rooms, courts, legislatures, and enforcement agencies.

Environmentalism has permeated the minds of government decision-making. It has converted our government into a theocracy ruled by biologists. Political science practiced by religious biologists can only lead to socialist tragedies.

Biological opinions are formed by peer pressure within the "profession" of biological "science". In effect, biological opinion makers are a guild with an agenda that is free from regulation by government or competition by markets. The biological profession is a model of guild socialism that Benito Mussolini called "fascism". In a fascist society, conflicts that might arise between guilds were intended to be arbitrated by government. But history has shown that government arbitration grows into arbitrary totalitarianism.

Of immediate concern is the fostering of unchecked fraud in fascist guilds. Immune from outside review and correction, biological opinions of what is "needed" for wildlife remain unchallenged and fraught with fraud. Hence our government, corrupted by fascist fraud, is waging a crusade against private property ownership through taxation, confiscation, and expropriation to let environmental protection priests decide how to redistribute natural resources according to the "needs" of wildlife.

Redistribution of wealth according to needs is also known as communism: the tragic attempts to fulfill the socialist dreams of Karl Marx, the threat of imperial conquest our nation has fought since the allied defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II. We have lost the war against communism to fascist fraud in government school and media indoctrination by an environmental socialist crusade.

But in the RWQCB workshop, all the audience heard was how real time management would require monitoring, modeling, and new government oversight to co-ordinate the actions of water and drainage districts. The audience was asked "Is the concept of real-time management clear?"

I responded, "It is very clear to me. But I think it is not clear to you or anybody else in this room. I would like to share my clarity with you."

"Real time management is a civil way to gain access to common resources." I didn't elaborate on why it was civil. I wanted to begin by indicating my support for real time management. But it is civil only in the sense that honesty is civil.

Real-time monitoring, the initial step for real-time management, reveals variable flow assimilative capacity otherwise excluded by solute load limits set by the minimum assimilative capacity established by the minimum expected flow. It does nothing to establish civil allocation of assimilative capacity. That can only be done through voluntary market trades of private property ownership of assimilative capacity, a concept not likely to be well received by government-worshiping socialists.

For this room full of socialists, I thought it best to defer elaboration on the virtues of the market and go directly to the frustrations of slavery. "It can be compared to Congressmen fighting over federal funds."

Objections to my comparison were immediately raised by a RWQCB staffer, claiming I was getting off the subject. I looked at him and warned, "This gets ugly."

The staffer suggested that instead of coming to Modesto, I should visit the Sacramento office of the RWQCB to voice my concerns since it was closer to my home. I was stunned by how easily he revealed the workshop as a sham. The request for public comments was only a charade to give this government program the appearance of having public involvement. This government central planner actually didn't want my comments to be heard. He was trying to censor them. I replied, "You invited me here. This is what you get."

The staffer suggested I send him a letter. I replied, "I sent you a letter." He acknowledged that I had.

I continued, "When congressmen fight over federal funds, it is called 'pork barrel'. Marc Reisner described the origin of the term 'pork barrel'. And here is where it gets ugly. It involves slaves fighting over the contents of a pork barrel while southern plantation owners laugh."

"You see, all of us here are slaves fighting over the contents of assimilative capacity. And we hear them [RWQCB staff] telling us, 'Use real time management and tradable discharge permits.'" The audience groaned in disbelief. It was in denial. I sat down.

Later, RWQCB staff asked for responses to the question, "Should real-time management be part of the implementation plan for the control of salts?"

When I was allowed to speak I said, "We've got lots of assimilative capacity. There is assimilative capacity in the water that comes from Hetch Hetchy [drinking water for San Francisco]. There is assimilative capacity in the water that is delivered to the East Bay [drinking water]. There is assimilative capacity in the water that is delivered to Southern California [drinking water]. There is even assimilative capacity in the Central California Irrigation District [irrigation water, but not a way to get salt out of the valley]. And there is assimilative capacity in San Francisco Bay [sea water]."

"The problem is, 'Who sets the limits on the assimilative capacity?' Who sets the limits on this pork barrel?"

This response was the only one of mine that was noted on a flip chart record of audience responses. It read "What about Hetch Hetchy and San Francisco Bay?" This is about as insensitive to diverse and specialized knowledge as central planning can get. This is why we are impoverished when government takes the fruit of our labor, but not our knowledge of how to grow fruit.

The last question about real-time management was "Can management efforts in the basin be coordinated? And if so how?"

I responded, "Yes! There is a way to allocate assimilative capacity without government involvement. It is called 'the market'. You may have heard of it."

No one responded. Apparently, there is no interest in market solutions.

RWQCB staff began the workshop by presenting technical background: "The area of concern, Current water quality objectives, Past and current water quality conditions, and Changing conditions." After the presentation they asked, "Is this an accurate representation of current water quality conditions?" And, "What can you do?"

Since this was my initial response, I introduced myself, "My name is D.A. Tuma. I'm the Libertarian candidate for Congressional District 3, which is somewhat north of here. In response to the first question, I find your presentation to be the most fraudulent I have ever seen. And in response to the second question, I will do whatever I can to expose the fraud." I sat down.

The second presentation was devoted to water quality objectives for salinity and boron: "State and federal laws, Effects of salinity on beneficial uses, Salinity alternatives, Effects of boron on beneficial uses, and Boron alternatives." After the presentation the audience was asked: "What do we need from you? Alternatives under or overly protective? Suggestions for other alternatives? Need formal comments"

During the presentation and again during the following discussion with the audience, RWQCB staff indicated that there was practically no municipal and industrial (M & I) use of the water. When I was given an opportunity to speak, I exposed this gross deception.

"The big lie in this fraud is their [RWQCB] denial that there is a M & I use of this water. They claim there is no current use by M & I. They do that by limiting the scope of their investigation to a reach of the San Joaquin River upstream of Vernalis. They don't say what happens to the water after it flows past Vernalis."

"After it flows past Vernalis, it does a left turn and is sucked up by the Delta export pumps and pumped back up into the [San Joaquin] valley where it is mixed with California Aqueduct water and delivered to Southern California where half the State's population drinks this stuff!"

RWQCB staff agreed: the water is pumped back into the valley and mixed with California Aqueduct water. But apparently they had no reason to keep the salty LSJR out of Southern California's drinking water because "We've heard no complaints." Of course the reason they've not heard any complaints is because hardly anyone outside the water supply industry (and a lot people inside) are unaware. They are unaware because people who know, including RWQCB staff, are careful not to tell anyone. This is fraud. Degraded water quality for M & I use has multiple adverse impacts as it gets reused for domestic water supply. Our cost of corrosion and scaling prevention, water treatment and softening, and disease prevention is increased. Our lives - prosperity, health, and taste appreciation - are impoverished.

After some discussion by others I tried to explain how the State's refusal to acknowledge current M & I use of LSJR water was shifting the burden of water quality control cost to federal taxpayers. I said, "Taxpayers across the nation are paying for the cleanup of Colorado River water delivered to Southern California, where it is mixed with California Aqueduct water containing LSJR water regulated by - [the RWQCB]. I don't know how these people are selected in this communist system. They're appointed."

RWQCB staff acknowledged its board members are appointed.

I continued, "Your beneficial uses include wildlife. You've adopted the agenda of a religion that worships wildlife. The First Amendment of the Constitution protects us from state established religion. It is time to take wildlife down from the altar and return to serving people."

Further discussion by others brought up the subject of Kesterson. One RWQCB staffer said he hoped to never see that sort of thing again. I had to comment.

"You're basing your program on the premise that Kesterson was a disaster. The fraud in that premise is in the kind of disaster. Some people have claimed Kesterson was an environmental disaster. This agency [RWQCB] has perpetuated that notion. In fact, Kesterson was a government disaster. It broke private property rights: water rights and drainage rights."

A large portion of the audience groaned disdainfully at the first mention of rights. I sat down.

The third presentation focused on an implementation program. Questions asked were, "Are there approaches to get involvement from: - Parties that divert water from the watershed - Parties that import salt into the watershed. Are the timetables appropriate? For nonpoint source dischargers, are there incentives to participate other than a Prohibition of Discharge?"

This presentation emphasized that the LSJR has been designated as "water quality impaired". They didn't say who was the designator. My guess is the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The attitude expressed was that the RWQCB had to enforce EPA requirements. In effect, this whole program is an enforcement action. And the staff asked if there were "approaches to get involvement" and "incentives to participate."

I've studied government enforcement. It is coercion. It commands compliance by threat of lethal force. I said, "We should remember the words of George Washington, one of our early leaders. He said government is not eloquence, it is not reason. 'It is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.'

"Government is gunfire. I suggest you use the photo of the INS agent pointing an assault gun at Elian." Exasperated groans and objections filled the room. A staffer said I was off the topic. I said, "This is all about politics."

The staffer retorted that this workshop had nothing to do with politics. A large, strictly business type of guy sitting near me said, "It's not about politics! Sit down!"

Well! This was a fine kettle to be in. Just try to express revulsion to growing government abuse of power and speak on behalf of others too fearful of retribution to complain and the socialist self-censor of those both in and out of government cuts me off! No forum for honest talk here! I continued, "I suggest you use that photo whenever you talk about enforcement. It may spur voters to go to the polls and vote for an alternative."

I'm sorry to report this poor audience reaction to my charges of government fraud and abuse. But this is reality. It reflects what we see at the polls. Our effort to win the hearts and minds of people so thoroughly indoctrinated with socialism is an awesome challenge. It will take personal persuasion that campaign financing can not buy.

During the lunch break one of a group of women waiting in line to order a sandwich asked if I thought people were animals too. I replied, "Yes, but I think we are more than that." She disagreed. "People are worse. We've done terrible damage to the environment. There are too many people."

I looked at a group of workmen sitting next to us in a booth and asked, "Would you tell these guys how many kids they can have?" She didn't say anything.

Another woman observed that I was an optimist, but she wasn't. She told me she thought we needed more government because people have to be controlled.

I asked, "Have you heard of the concept of self-fulfilled prophecy?" She had. I said, "I think your expectation is dangerous."

Government hears complaints that we have too many people. That we have done terrible damage to the environment. That it needs to control us. So it does. Our liberty is impoverished.

Government puts drainage in the drinking water of half the state's population because it has heard no complaints. Our health, our life is impoverished. Our cost of living is raised by socialist central planning.

If we want our government to stop abusing us, we have to complain. We should not let our pursuit of happiness, our desire to trade with others for our mutual satisfaction, be impaired by censorship. We should not let impoverished expectations go unchallenged or we will suffer the fulfillment of those expectations.

We can encourage people to vote Libertarian.

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