Kesterson: a Microcosm of Government Corruption [5] by D.A. Tuma

How to expose fraud

The legitimate purpose of government is protect us from foreigners and neighbors who would murder, rob, rape, kidnap, steal or defraud us. Our federal government has failed to protect us from Kesterson fraud. As evidence of this failure, Kesterson fraud permeates Porgans' complaint. From page 2:

It is also important to note that in spite of the fact that a quarter of a billion dollars, most of which are taxpayers money, has been expended in the San Joaquin Valley over the last 20 years, on drainage and drainage-related problems: however, there is still no identifiable solution to resolve the self-imposed drainage dilemma, except for the ludicrous "out-of-valley" solution via the "all purpose valley-wide drain" to the Delta!!!

All the fraud in this statement has been nurtured by State water regulatory board actions. Actions which have failed to expose obvious conflicts of interest in testimony. Rather than protecting us from fraud, our government enables it as long as agencies remain silent on factual deceptions.

Let me suggest three elements of fraud to help people know when they are being hoaxed.

* exclusion of natural context
* unverifiable claims
* faulty reasoning

If all three elements are present in a petition for initiation of force on others, as is Porgans' petition for punitive law enforcement action on Grasslands farms, I presume such petition to be the substance of fraud. If the petition is a product of collaborative effort, I presume it to be evidence of conspiracy to commit fraud. If some of that collaboration is encouraged and enabled by government action, I presume such government assistance is complicity in conspiracy to commit fraud.

Natural context of taxes

The natural context of taxes includes government coercion. Those who try to evade taxes risk pursuit by government agents with guns, punitive damages, and the discomfort of incarceration. Taxes are equivalent to loot collected by protection racketeers and robbers. Which makes government hoopla over a "surplus" truly ludicrous.

The natural context of tax expenditures on "drainage and drainage-related problems" includes government enforcement of statutory law. The context of tax expenditures on drainage problems includes the taking of drainage relief from farm owners for the benefit of breeding waterfowl in accordance with enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act. This taking of property value is the consequence of the federal EPA's interpretation of the law as a prohibition of waste transport as a beneficial use. And state government blindly follows this federal statute interpretation that usurps a property owner's right to claim natural drainage advantage relative to adjacent land, as intrinsic to his land as fertility and climate, by virtue of the natural law of gravity and its unrelenting force that accelerates fluid water downhill.

Farm field drainage is property right

San Joaquin Valley farm field drainage is a property right taken without compensation, a violation of the Fifth Amendment of the federal government's Constitution. Government's failure to protect private property rights deflates property value, depleting capital assets available as collateral for loans. This in turn depresses productivity, diminishing consumer wealth, and limiting capacity for individual charity, including environmental protection.

Hunger and exposure

The natural context of "drainage and drainage-related problems" from farms includes hunger and exposure. To satisfy defense against these unrelenting environmental demands on human life, we consumers choose produce and fabric from competitive lines of production which manage to stay in business by seeking more efficient and reliable methods and sources of material.

Intent of commerce clause

To the extent that industries competing for common resources, such as agriculture and wildlife refuges, abuse government's monopoly on legitimate violence by getting subsidies and prohibitions in their favor, we consumers lose. Our choice of value received for payment is usurped by government central planning, an ultimately stupid redistribution of wealth from one industry to another. In effect, government interference with markets violate the intent of the commerce clause of the federal government's Constitution.

Taxes enslave

The natural context of tax expenditures and government meddling with agricultural drainage is enslavement of us consumers to a brutal, stupid, and corrupt government. If Porgans had not excluded this context, his statement might read as follows.

It is also important to note that in spite of the fact that a quarter of a billion dollars, most of which... [was robbed from enslaved] taxpayers..., has been expended in the San Joaquin Valley over the last 20 years, on drainage and drainage-related problems: however, there is still no identifiable solution to resolve the self-imposed drainage dilemma, except for the ludicrous "out-of-valley" solution via the "all purpose valley-wide drain" to the Delta!!!

With the inclusion of the slavery context for taxpayers, Porgans' fraud is partially exposed. The inclusion of slavery should raise a question to lovers of liberty who may not yet recognize taxation as slavery. If avoidance of slavery is our ultimate priority, why would we let slavery be used as a means to solve some problem of lesser priority, like a "drainage dilemma"?

We might if our attention is diverted to a red herring, malformed bird embryo, or any abstraction raised to an obsession, like "drainage dilemma". We might be baited and hooked while our priorities are switched. We might be hoaxed into serving the command of a king or communist. We've done it before. Can we fault Porgans for following precedence? Yes. As much as we fault any common thief.

The words "in spite" falsely imply that tax slavery might have solved the "drainage dilemma". And by not condemning taxation, Porgans protects it as a means for further problem solving.

Final solution: source control

Porgans' assertion "there is still no identifiable solution" is an apparent mistake of unqualified certainty. Within the context of his petition, this absolute and all-inclusive denial of "identifiable solution" seems inconsistent with his "solution" identifiable in the seven WRCB actions he requested on page 12.

1. Rescind the Regional Board's actions to approve the WDRs.

2. Schedule and conduct a "formal hearing" that will provide the public with adequate time to participate in the hearing process as full participants in an evidentiary proceeding.

3. Immediately order the cessation of operation of any drainage discharge that is in violation of either state or federal water quality standards.

4. Require the dischargers to provide data beyond any reasonable doubt that a long-term plan to limit selenium loads is viable and economically feasible. Such a plan has not been submitted to date, however, it is scheduled to be released in September 1998. This plan should also be a part of the discussions at a formal hearing before the State Board.

5. Mandate the State Board to assess whether the waters of the state are being used in a "reasonable" manner as prescribed by law of Article X, Section 2, of the California Constitution, which are being irrigated within the Grassland Bypass Project Area.

6. Cease delivery of water to lands that have and continue to destroy public trust resources and those agricultural operations that are shown to be economically unsustainable

7. The State Board to make a determination as to whether the language and/or water quality compliance objectives and load limits contained within the WDRs are consistent with the water quality objectives/standards contained in the 1995 Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan.

Action item No. 6, stopping water delivery to farms to stop drainage is called "source control". It is the kind of control governments use to execute final solutions. All the other action items are designed to support No. 6.

Porgans' solution would cut a comparatively productive human energy food and fiber source in a global setting-the San Joaquin Valley desert-with comparatively benign adverse consequences on global species density and diversity. What exactly the benefits are from the "public trust" resources such a cut would protect, we will never know. They will never have an impartial, unbiased value, because there is no market for those resources as long as they remain in "public trust". But we can be sure the replacement crops for abandoned Grasslands farms will not come from as productive land and will have more severe consequences on global species density and diversity as long as tropical rain forests are falling to new farm development. Porgans' solution is a product of faulty reasoning.

Natural context of dilemma

If source control can be applied to farms, it can be applied to government by filling public offices with Libertarians. As government regulation shrinks, so shrinks the conflict between opportunistic special interest groups competing for prevailing influence over government command and control. As government control recedes, people regain voluntary management of their own property. When our eyes are kept on the prize of freedom, we have no dilemma.

Porgans' claim "there is still no identifiable solution to resolve the self-imposed drainage dilemma" implies that self-imposed dilemmas can not be self-unimposed. I emphatically object to any implication that forecloses opportunity for people to help themselves from illegitimate constraints. Porgans' implication that we are helpless is just plain wrong. The difference between being human and being tissue is the difference between being able to help ourselves and not.

Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1983, includes this definition for the word dilemma.

1. in logic, an argument which presents an antagonist with a choice between equally unfavorable or disagreeable alternatives.
2. any situation necessitating a choice between unpleasant alternatives; a perplexing or awkward situation.

A strong dilemma in a desperate case!
To act with infamy, or quit the place.
-Swift.

on the horns of a dilemma; faced with a choice between alternatives which are equally undesirable or dangerous.

Note the constraint on choice. Constraint on choice is constraint on liberty. In our society, which treasures liberty and abhors slavery as an obvious constraint on liberty, we should question why anyone should be compelled to face a "self-imposed" dilemma. Who exactly is this self? On page 6 Porgans states:

The drainers have had nearly four decades to resolve their human-induced dilemma, and although they have been given numerous opportunity and ample time and money to take effective measures to deal with the drainage problem, all attempts have essentially failed.

According to this statement, the self of "self-imposed" is the drainers. Did the drainers compel themselves to face a dilemma? No. They got out-voted. They are victims of out-of-control government. A democracy that voted to take their drainage rights by imposing prohibitive water quality standards for the desert channels that drain the San Joaquin Valley and not compensate that taking by completing the San Luis Drain.

And Porgans has washed his hands of this usurpation by blaming the drainers for their own misfortune of being stupid enough to depend on congress to protect their property when they bought farms in Grasslands. When they invested in America. A country now run by mob rule. A communist mob. Of which Porgans would be king.

Who exactly was the king who gave the drainers a constraint on their choice for "nearly four decades"? I haven't seen any such decree. Who gave them "numerous opportunity and ample time and money"? Who decided "all attempts have essentially failed"? Porgans?

Before the federal Clean Water Act nationalized surface water quality, plaintiffs had to prove harm before a court decided to constrain the trespass on their property. Now water quality is owned by the State, subject to approval of the federal EPA for compliance with the provisions of the federal Clean Water Act.

So for water quality control, State regulation via the WRCB and the CVRWQCB is a puppet manipulated by the federal government. California has put it's federal puppet in its executive branch and lets it act like a prosecutor, judge, and jury. The juries on its regulatory boards are appointed by the governor of the State. And for the voters of the State, the choice of governor would be a true dilemma if they could not elect a Libertarian.

Natural context of contamination

Porgans' self imposed drainage dilemma seems to be founded on a presumption of "contaminated area", "according to USEPA data" as stated on page 2. Hence, the use of the word "toxic" recurs throughout his petition, beginning also on page 2: "the continued discharge of highly toxic agricultural drainage".

The idea of "contaminated area" is a perspective of drainage as a water supply and potential harm to downstream users, like Metropolitan Water District (MWD) potable water supply customers. It excludes any benefits to upstream users, like commodity consumers supplied by Grasslands farms.

Coincidentally, many of the upstream users are also downstream users. But we, including Porgans, probably wouldn't get that impression from federal EPA reports. Nor would we get the impression that the reason why MWD is recycling the drain water from the fields from whence its customers get their groceries into their potable water has nothing to do with consumer choice and everything to do with out-of-control government.

The natural context of contamination is a perspective that looks upstream at somebody else's drainage. If the view is from a dedicated drain-water tank, like Kesterson, somebody else's drainage does not "contaminate" the purpose of the tank. If the view is from a desert slough that would otherwise be dry, somebody else's drainage does not "contaminate" the natural gravity gradient of the slough.

If the view is from a stream, river, or canal, somebody else's drainage does not "contaminate" the purposes of the receiving stream as determined by the stream's owner as long as the owner decides the stream is not "contaminated". Do we hear MWD complaining about drainage water "contamination"? No. Instead, we hear its water diverted from the Delta-which most of the time includes the entire flow of the San Joaquin River-wins taste tests against other major metropolitan water supplies.

MWD customers were not specifically mentioned in Porgans petition, but they would fit in with the "wildlife and humans" using "wetlands or water courses" receiving agricultural drainage mentioned in the quote he used on page 2 of his petition.

High concentrations of naturally occurring elements, such as selenium, may pose a hazard to wildlife and humans when agricultural drainage is discharged to wetlands or water courses. Salt imported by water deliveries, accumulation of natural salts in soils and groundwater from irrigation, and lack of a viable long-term salt management plan threaten sustained agriculture in the Valley.* [Emphasis added.]

* San Joaquin Valley Drainage Implementation Program, Manucher Alemi, SJVDMP Coordinator, Department of Water Resources, February 1998, p. 1.

[Emphasis, emphasis note and italics as indicated in the petition.]

From this astute assessment of hazard and threat from lack of foresight, in other words human stupidity, Porgans turns to cite another reference without explanation why he emphasized part of the above quote. Perhaps he thought his reason is self evident.

Lack of viable plan: threat to agriculture

In the context of Porgans' petition, "lack of a viable long-term salt management plan" looks a lot like action item No. 4 on page 12. "Require the dischargers to provide data beyond any reasonable doubt that a long-term plan to limit selenium loads is viable and economically feasible." Thus a lack of plan by the agricultural dischargers could be construed as noncompliance with a WRCB order, justifying action item No. 6-source control-a definite threat to "sustained agriculture in the Valley".

Silly me. I should have recognized an implied government threat right away. But my perspective is much different.

I see the Grasslands farms as downstream users facing potential harm from their water supply that includes their own drainage. Since they also collect the benefits of upstream use, they are in a good position to decide if the harm from their water supply outweighs the benefits of their continued crop production. When the harm exceeds the benefits, they quit. Unless government cuts off their water first. Then they quit sooner.

Grasslands farms are at the mercy of government decisions. They do whatever the government tells them, because the federal government broke its promise to renew water delivery contracts and failed to provide just compensation, valley drainage infrastructure, for taking their drainage rights to existing watershed outfalls. Grasslands farm owners are government slaves.

Requiring slaves to submit any kind of plan for their master's review is like telling them to fight over scraps of pork for our own amusement. The amusement is ours because government is ours. The government does what we tell our representatives to do. So if government does something awful, we did it. But in this situation we've thrown the scraps of water left over from CVPIA and the Endangered Species Act curtailment of Delta diversions into the Grasslands farms' own drainage pit.

And Porgans asks the WRCB to require the farms to present a plan. Are we amused yet? Or are we being really stupid from lack of foresight?

When we've shut down Grasslands farms by making them drink their own drainage, where are we going to get replacement crop production? Farms the world over are mining ground water. As water tables fall, pumping costs go up until farms shut down. Population is growing. Tropical rain forests are falling to new farms.

Unless Porgans has a final solution for population growth, he aims to sacrifice tropical rain forest by whatever amount is required to replace the global demand for crops that could have been grown by Grasslands farms. That could be several times the acreage abandoned by Grasslands farms. And several times that the number of species driven to extinction.

From my perspective, we voters are responsible for a lack of long-term plan that threatens San Joaquin Valley agriculture. It was our government that took away the Valley's drainage. We are obliged to give it back. We can do it by privatizing government ownership of drainage. And the best way to do that is to give drainage rights back to those who had prior possession.

Bizarre priorities: enabled by government

Apparently, the EPA data cited is not impartial, objective observations of measured quantities, but a display of subjective judgments of clean vs. contaminated. Judgments published by federal agencies like EPA and the Service-that are sensitive to special interest political advocates-help document the reasoning or dementia of such advocates.

The question before us is whether such federal documents help us decide our choice, preferably individual choice, among alternative actions or merely report decisions based on special interest priorities we may find bizarre. A demented proposition based on a government report that documents the same demented proposition has not benefited from government protection against fraud. It has been enabled by government co-conspirators.

Even more disconcerting, according to USEPA data, is the fact that the largest single contiguous water quality contaminated area in the United States is located in the San Joaquin Valley. (Refer to Exhibit 5, EPA's "The Index of Watershed Indicators.) As stated, this phenomenon, to a great extent, is directly attributable to your agency's and the California Department of Water Resource's delivery of imported water from the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley.

The Regional Board's action to approve the WDRs essentially sanctions the continued discharge of highly toxic agricultural drainage containing selenium, boron, molybdenum, pesticides, salts and other constituents, which have and will continue to degrade the waters of the State. This discharge constitutes a violation of state and federal laws and will exacerbate and threaten the future viability of the San Joaquin River and the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, while simultaneously destroying threatened and endangered species within these water bodies.

Part 5