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Put a hold on water transfers out of the area. That's the proposal being made by Tony St. Amant, a citizen who follows Sacramento Valley water closely. He's bringing the idea to the newly formed Northern Sacramento Valley Integrated Regional Water Management Group (www.nsvwaterplan.org). The regional water planning board, with members from six counties, has no authority to make rules on water transfers, St. Amant states in his letter. But it could ask water districts, including two planning transfers this year, to halt those deals until regional guidelines for water transfers are developed.

Already, the Butte Environmental Council has drafted a letter (http://goo.gl/gFU5r) to the regional planning group, urging the members to adopt St. Amant's plan.

I was happy to see the Enterprise-Record's Friday editorial about the proposed delta water tunnels. These tunnels, if built, will drain the water in our north state rivers and aquifers, and will change our landscape and lifestyle forever. Like Lake Oroville and the California Aqueduct, once built there is no going back. It's critical that we, the citizens of the Northern California counties, take action to prevent the construction of these tunnels and the destruction to the north state that they will cause. A great deal of information has already been learned about the impacts of sending more of our water south. That information can be found on the websites of two excellent organizations in Chico. Both have been monitoring water policy in California for years and have been working to protect our water supplies. They are Aqualliance (www.aqualliance.net) and the Butte Environmental Council (www.becnet.org). Aqualliance was formed by local citizens, ranchers and farmers who realized the risk to our water supplies and who have been fighting to protect our water. BEC advocates for our natural resources and is actively working to inform citizens about current water plans and fighting powerful Southern California interests.

Pay attention, learn the facts, find out what you can do, and support the groups that are working very hard for us. A great deal is at stake but by working together, we can

protect our water and our way of life in Northern California. — Nancy Praizler, Chico

Toxic education Environmental group shines light on Oroville By Tom Gascoyne tomg@newsreview.com This article was published on 11.21.13.

The Butte Environmental Council has launched an educational campaign in Oroville to help alert citizens to the dioxin contamination that has plagued the southern part of town for decades. Billboards demanding action and a series of public forums have been funded by grants from Ventura-based outdoor-clothing company Patagonia Inc. and the Clif Bar Family Foundation. Mark Stemen, president of BEC’s board of directors, said Clif Bar and Patagonia both have campaigns aimed at helping low-income communities deal with the toxic problems they may face. “They were very inspired by the issues and the work we’ve been doing in south Oroville,” Stemen said.

But in the northern half of the Central Valley, most people want the tunnels stopped. They say it will suck the Delta dry, destroy farming business in the Delta and the Sacramento Valley, devastate the river’s ecosystem and lead to overuse of groundwater supplies. “This is one of the rare times when farmers and environmentalists can agree that a project is going to be devastating for both their interests,” said Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council. DiFalco notes that the tunnels will not only increase Southern California’s dependence on Northern California’s water, but “they will also make it easier for [Southern California] to get it.”

Many critics of the BDCP have described the tunnels as a means of transferring away the wealth of Northern California to powerful water agencies to the south, which will be paying for a great deal of their enormous cost.

John Merz, executive director of the Chico-based Sacramento River Preservation Trust, says he has little faith in the components of the BDCP intended to restore the Delta’s health. He recognizes that there will be legal limits to how much water the tunnels can remove from the river. “But we don’t think those limits will be enough to protect the river,” Merz said. He added, “Frankly, when it comes to restoring the health of the Sacramento River, we just don’t trust the Brown administration to do the right thing.”

When the White House recently released its third National Climate Assessment, the basic findings didn’t surprise anyone who’s stepped outside on a regular basis. The Southwest portion of the U.S., including California, has been decreed in the report as “the hottest and driest region.” What isn’t so obvious, of course, is exactly what the future will bring. But the outlook is not positive.

Ironically, as officials grapple with storage and shortage issues, they also have to deal with flooding. As Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, explains, shifts in precipitation patterns throughout the country, but even in California, can mean more intense rain and snow in places not accustomed to such levels, and warmer winters mean greater—and earlier—ice melts in California mountain areas.

Water may be a prime concern, but it’s not the only concern. BEC has a three-pronged approach to environmental advocacy: land, air and water, and the interrelationship between the three. As explained by Chico City Councilwoman Tami Ritter, a member of the county’s Air Quality Management District, dry land breeds a greater risk of wildfires, which breeds greater air pollution. As a result, DiFalco says her organization is pushing all three elements as Chico and Butte County implement climate action plans, and the recent reports haven’t shifted BEC’s priorities.

In spots around Butte County, particularly in south Chico and south Oroville, ecological hazards threaten health and safety. Some residents know; some don’t. Polluters tend not to advertise when they’re breaking the law, and residual toxins from decades past represent some of the biggest risks.

According to Robyn DiFalco, executive director of the Butte Environmental Council, “a clean and healthy environment versus dirty, unhealthy, polluted environments really have a lot connected with geography.” Wealthy neighborhoods don’t have to deal with these problems because residents there tend to “squawk very loud if dirty industrial sites were in their backyard—and they would prevent them from going in, and choose not to live near those sites.” Lower-income individuals don’t always “have those opportunities to speak out and prevent those sites from going in,” she continued, and neighborhoods with less expensive housing often are located “near these sites that are visually less attractive and have these health problems that their families may be affected by. “So, to be able to see a geographic dispersion of contamination sites, environmental and public health issues, is very telling,” DiFalco continued. “That’s why it’s so important to give visibility to that—that’s why it’s so important to have the EJSCREEN tool and the one that California does … otherwise, a lot of these communities are out of sight, out of mind.”