Friends of Gualala River Protecting the Gualala River watershed and the species living within it
| This article was published in the Independent Coast Observer on June 7, 2002. |
Courtesy Independent Coast Observer, Gualala, CA
Foes of the multinational scheme to take water from the Gualala and Albion rivers for shipment south in water bags heard from two speakers the encouraging message that they have many allies. About 75 people gathered at the Gualala Arts Center recently for a meeting of Friends of the Gualala River.
Forest Hydrologist Fred Euphrat gave a Sonoma County perspective on the water bag issue. He said the county supervisors are allies against water export, and Assemblymember Pat Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa) is committed to fighting the water bag proposal.
Euphrat used an overhead projector to display notes, and conducted a lively dialog.
Water export is nothing new in Sonoma County, which imports 120,000 acre-feet per year from the Eel River that would otherwise flow to Humboldt Bay, he said. An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre of land to the depth of one foot. The international consortium proposed to take 20,000 af per year from the Gualala and 10,000 af per year from the Albion.
Euphrat said the comment period just closed for the Sonoma County Water Agency draft policy statement, and the Sonoma County General Plan Update is still under way. He asked for a show of hands and found that half a dozen attendees were involved; he advised more people to participate in such processes.
There is now no Sonoma County policy on water imports or exports. Santa Rosa is also working on a huge policy on waste water and what to do with it, said Euphrat.
Water bag proponent Ric Davidge is interested in this area because “there is a lot of water in the Gualala relative to other places,” Euphrat said. “If they are spending millions of dollars to construct this facility they are not doing it based on a rumor.”
Sea Rancher Jim Jordan says the bag size they propose to use here is 40 acre feet, which would mean 500 bags per year from the Gualala, maybe in four months of high water.
The Davidge consortium plans no water treatment, Euphrat went on. “The belief is that there is clear water underneath the gravels,” he said, but he thinks there may be a high clay content in the water in the high flow season. North Coast rivers have some of the highest suspended solids in the world. Clays suspended in water take a long time to settle out. Euphrat advised people to take a glass of river water and see how long it takes to settle.
He showed charts of the flow of North Coast rivers. They all have sharp peaks and swift declines. Euphrat said there is a lot of sediment on the rising limb which on the Gualala River is October – February. The falling limb is February – June.
Salinity is another question. Some scientists say estuaries are the most biologically productive environment in the world, in part because they have a mix of salt and fresh water, Euphrat said. He showed a hand-drawn chart of fresh water and salt water in an estuary and its underlying gravel. Water in gravel is not moving as fast as water above gravel.
Water in gravel would move in tens of meters per day, and the salt water line would not be in the same place as it would in the surface flow. Because salt water is heavier than fresh water, the salt water in the gravel would extend farther upstream.
The Sonoma County Water Agency pumps 60,000 af per year from a gravel aquifer under the Russian River. They use collectors with radial arms. Their pumps pull so much that water is pulled down from surface, and SCWA has to keep scraping gravel away, he went on. The Davidge application terms its collector a cistern. Euphrat assumes the water would collect in a sunken cylinder with a pump at the bottom.
An attendee asked if that could be a 100,000-gallon cistern? If so, as long as there is any flow, the cistern will have water in it because it is at the bottom of the river, he said.
“I would be concerned about the ocean and the life of the estuary,” Euphrat resumed, since ocean fisheries are dependent on estuarine life to provide the food chain.
“This water is worth building permits in San Diego.” That, he thinks, is the goal they are seeking.
His solution: Export Santa Rosa’s wastewater. They have 20,000 af to get rid of, Euphrat concluded.
Jamie Dunn from the Ottawa staff of the Council of Canadians was the second speaker and provided an international perspective.
The Council of Canadians is concerned about globalization. Its 72 chapters and 100,000 members in Canada work on several issues, including the health care system. The group gets no government funding, and works with coalitions, Dunn said.
Destruction of aquatic ecosystems is a worldwide problem, while water consumption is doubling every 20 years, twice the rate of population increase, primarily due to more corporate use of water.
By 2025, two thirds of the world’s people will not have access to fresh water, Dunn went on. To corporations this means a doubling of their market.
Meanwhile we are reducing, depleting and polluting water. Many of the world’s rivers are so diverted that their waters do not reach original outflows. Wars that seem ideological are actually fought over water, Dunn said.
In the past 50 years there were many proposals, as yet unrealized, for massive amounts of water to be exported from North America. One was a diversion of James Bay, south of Hudson Bay. Another would have diverted the Yukon and other rivers to flood 10 percent of British Columbia, where five licenses were issued for super tankers to take water.
Another proposal involved sending Great Lakes water to the Sun Belt, pitting one North American region against another.
It is only price that is keeping many of these huge schemes at bay. In the US, the Jones Act which requires coastwise shipping to be done in US vessels, is keeping costs high. There are water bags on drawing boards seven football fields long, four football fields wide and with a draft of 22 meters.
Bottled water companies seek to put water on supermarket shelves instead of in natural ecosystems. Clearly Canadian had a huge fight with farmers in the Okanagon Valley over water. For the same price as a one-liter bottle of water, 3,000 liters can be sent through a public water system.
Trade agreements put water in jeopardy. Under international law and trade agreements countries have to give the same access to foreign companies as to domestic ones. Once a country starts exporting water, lower supply has to hit citizens at the same level as it hits a foreign company. The treaties provide protection of profits forever.
Snowcap, now Global H2O, had signed a contract with Sun Belt; when the five BC tanker licenses were canceled, Sun Belt, located upstairs over a barber shop in Santa Barbara, sued BC for $10 billion. The suit is still in process.
A suit over the gasoline additive MTBE, for $970 million, was brought against California for banning the Canadian product because it was found to pollute aquifers.
Water is proposed as a good by the World Trade Organization, as “all water natural or otherwise and all ice and snow.” Trade sanctions would then be allowed under GATS, the General Agreement in Trade and Services. Foreign companies have the right to set up a business and recourse to international law.
“That’s globalization,” said Dunn.
Farmers, trade unions and environmental groups are joining together to fight globalization. There has been no water export from Canada because of political opposition. The Canadian government is under pressure from GATS.
The Council of Canadians proposes a treaty to protect water as part of the global commons. It calls upon nations and indigenous peoples to declare water of their territories a public good.
“We will see the result of our work in 20 years,” Dunn said, adding that local mobilization will make a difference. He gave examples from Brazil, Bolivia and India, and an event opposing globalization of water that was held in Katmandu.
Videographer Jane Jarlsberg asked “Can you tell us what [Davidge] may be up to?”
Dunn said that Davidge’s background is in policy, moving things through government bureaucracies, and this is his medicine show. Davidge worked for the federal Department of the Interior, and he worked for the state of Alaska.
“He’s taking people out to lunch, because that’s what lobbyists do,” said Dunn.
Because Davidge has an international consortium, the Japanese, Norwegian and Saudi companies that are his foreign investors can assert trade rights and can go after the US, Dunn said.
Floyd Cotton asked if Davidge and his investors would have the right to sue even if the state permit were denied. Dunn said they would if an international standard is set for water. These international standards can override state and national standards.
Euphrat had a reprise. “One reason the global community is going after the water here is that it is so good.” He said the local community should stay united and not develop schisms.
“The truth is, we are a small town with long streets.”
The Friends of the Gualala River web address is www.gualalariver.org.
The Council of Canadians web address is www.canadians.org. It has materials in Spanish, French and Potuguese as well as in English.
Davidge’s web site is www. worldwatersa.com.
