CSPA
California Sportfishing Protection Alliance
“Conserving California’s Fisheries"

Home

More News

Your 501(c)(3) tax deductible cash donations are desperately needed if the fight for our fisheries is to continue. Read how you can donate!
Email Newsletter icon, E-mail Newsletter icon, Email List icon, E-mail List icon Enter your Email address to sign up 
for our Weekly Newsletter
For Email Marketing you can trust
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

More News

 

horizontal rule

 

 

 

The Water Pirates - New Salmon Water Now Video Exposes Water Privatization

 

by Dan Bacher

January 5, 2010 -- This is a new year, the beginning of new decade, and Bruce Tokars of Salmon Water Now! wants to kick off this year's campaign to defeat the construction of the peripheral canal, more dams and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's water bond with a new 10-minute video.
 
Salmon Water Now! has just released "The Water Pirates," (10 minutes), now available on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watchv=jwqVc8Hbmqk&fmt=18 or Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/8521134.
 
"The Water Pirates is the first of many videos that explain why it is critical to defeat the water bond that will be on Californias November ballot," explained Tokars. "The $11.1 billion dollar measure is a pork-filled, naked power grab that will enrich a small group of wealthy powerful interests at the expense of an already bankrupt California - and thats just for starters. If it passes, it will kill The Delta and be the end for the biggest and most important estuary in North and South America, San Francisco Bay. We want the water bond to die."
 
This is Tokars' best video to date, in my opinion. It features great clips from old pirate and Frankenstein movies. These are interspersed with footage of corrupt politicians such as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, who have pushed the water bond and the privatization of California water so that corporate privateers including "limousine liberal" Stewart Resnick can profit.
 
The video also compares President Dwight Eisenhower's warning about the emerging power of the military-industrial complex to the grip that corporate agribusiness and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have on public trust water in California. In addition, Tokars interviews investigative journalist Lloyd Carter and others to shed light on the dark history of Westlands Water District and other wealthy water districts.
 
The message is clear: if we are to restore Sacramento River chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, striped bass, sturgeon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt and southern resident killer whales, we must defeat the water bond in November!
 
"Stop the water pirates!" Tokars urges. "They are working hard to make publicly owned water their privately held asset. Watch and share this video. Vote NO on the water bond. Together, we can make what is wrong, right again."
 
The water bond, combined with the water policy package passed by the California Legislature in November, creates a clear path to the construction of the peripheral canal and Temperance Flats and Sites reservoirs. The canal will cost $23 billion to $53.8 billion to build at a time when California is in its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression - and the budgets for teachers, game wardens, health care for children and state parks have been slashed.
 
The push for a canal and more dams occurs at the same time that Governor Schwarzenegger is fast-tracking the corrupt Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) initiative, a privately-funded process that aims to kick fishermen, seaweed harvesters and California Indian Tribes off the ocean to pave the way for offshore oil rigs, wave energy projects and corporate aquaculture. While the water bond is a thinly-veiled move by corporate interests to privatize California water supplies and destroy California fisheries, the MLPA is a move by oil industry, real estate, marina development and other corporate interests that preside over the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to privatize and "zone" public trust resources on the ocean.
 
For more information, contact Bruce Tokars: btokars [at] pacbell.net.