<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Verdana" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><i><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/resources-secretary-uses-snow-survey-to-rush-corporate-water-grab/">http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/resources-secretary-uses-snow-survey-to-rush-corporate-water-grab/</a></span></div><div><br></div>While asking Californians to “fix that leaky faucet,” Laird failed to acknowledge the millions of acre feet of water that the peripheral tunnels will waste on irrigating drainage-impaired corporate agribusiness operations on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and on fracking for oil and natural gas in Kern County and coastal areas.</i></span></font></span><br> <br><img src="cid:54A6F7EA-CC54-46B5-AD94-123849532545@local"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 12px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#111111" style="font: 10.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><b>john_laird_photo_2.jpg</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 13px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 24px; ">Resources Secretary uses snow survey to rush corporate water grab </span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">by Dan Bacher </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird cynically used the release of the latest Sierra Nevada snow survey on March 28 to campaign for the construction of the peripheral tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, just as he has done every spring since being appointed by Governor Jerry Brown. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Snow surveyors reported Thursday that water content in California’s snowpack is only 52 percent of normal, with the spring melt season already under way, according to the Department of Water Resources. After a record dry January and February in much of the state, DWR has decreased its water delivery estimate from 40 to 35 percent of requested amounts from the State Water Project (SWP). (<a href="http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/032813snowservey.pdf"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://www.water.ca.gov/news/newsreleases/2013/032813snowservey.pdf</u></font></a>) </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“With today’s snow survey, the table has been set for yet another very dry year,” gushed Laird, who presided over record water exports and a record fish kill at the Delta pumps in 2011. “Add to that pumping restrictions imposed this winter because of vulnerable smelt and salmon populations, and it is clear that the security of California’s water supply is threatened.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“The realities of nature point to the urgent need to continue work on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, the Brown administration’s effort to secure the water supply for 25 million Californians and reverse over a century of environmental degradation in the Delta,” Laird claimed. “Advancing this large-scale public investment will provide long-term security for our economy and environment.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Without a hint of irony, Laird said, “We also ask that every Californian do their part by conserving water every day. Take a shorter shower, be mindful of how long your sprinklers run, and fix that leaky faucet!” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">While asking Californians to “fix that leaky faucet,” Laird failed to acknowledge the millions of acre feet of water that the peripheral tunnels will waste on irrigating drainage-impaired corporate agribusiness operations on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and on fracking for oil and natural gas in Kern County and coastal areas. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Laird and Governor Jerry Brown are fast tracking the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to drain the Delta in spite of massive opposition by fishermen, family farmers, tribal leaders, grassroots enviromentalists, elected officials and the vast majority of Californians. The peripheral tunnel plan is proceeding forward without any approval by the voters because the Brown administration knows that the project would be overwhelming defeated by the voters just like the peripheral canal was in 1982. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The tunnel plan is simply a corporate water grab by agribusiness, oil companies and Southern California water agencies. The "habitat restoration" in the plan is added as an afterthought by state officials to green wash the destruction of the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The construction of the North Delta intakes for the tunnels will spread the carnage of Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead and other fish species north to the Sacramento River while the massive fish kills at the state and federal water pumping facilities will continue. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">How can we trust the state and federal governments to construct state-of-the-art fish screens on the new intakes, as they have claimed they will do, when they have failed to install them, as required under the CalFed process, at the existing pumps in the South Delta? </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">And how can we possibly trust an administration that presided over record exports and massive fish kills at the Delta pumps to suddenly transform itself into a "green" administration that cares about fish, the Delta and the public trust? </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Between 2000 and 2011, more than 130,000,000 fish were "salvaged" in the massive state and federal pumps diverting water south, according to a white paper written by Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). Considering that recent studies point out that 5 to 10 times more fish are lost than salvaged, the actual number of fish lost could be 1.3 billion or higher. (<a href="http://www.restorethedelta.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/CSPA-BDCP-Fish-Screens-Revised.pdf"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://www.restorethedelta.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/CSPA-BDCP-Fish-Screens-Revised.pdf</u></font></a>) </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Record water amounts of water were exported from the Delta under the Brown administration in 2011 – 6,520,000 acre-feet, 217,000 acre feet more than the previous record of 6,303,000 acre feet set in 2005 under the Schwarzenegger administration. The massive diversion of water resulted in the record "salvage" of nearly 9 million splittail, a fish formerly listed under the Endangered Species Act and delisted during a political scandal under the Bush administration, and over 2 million other fish. (<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/07/carnage-in-the-pumps"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/05/07/carnage-in-the-pumps</u></font></a>) </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">As Laird advises us to “take a shorter shower, be mindful of how long your sprinklers run, and fix that leaky faucet,” he and Governor Jerry Brown are fast-tracking a pork barrel boondoggle that will deliver millions of acre feet of water to corporate agribusiness, southern California water agencies and oil and gas companies while pushing Central Valley chinook salmon, steelhead and Delta fish populations over the abyss of extinction. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">While Laird and other state officials are promoting the threat of "drought" as justification to build the peripheral tunnels just as Schwarzenegger administration officials did every spring from 2008 to 2010, most key storage reservoirs are above or near historic levels for the date despite the dwindling snowpack. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"Thanks to November and December storms, Lake Oroville in Butte County, the State Water Project’s principal storage reservoir, is at 108 percent of its average level for the date (83 percent of its 3.5 million acre-foot capacity)," according to DWR. "Shasta Lake north of Redding, the federal Central Valley Project’s largest reservoir with a capacity of 4.5 million acre-feet, is at 102 percent of its normal storage level for the date (82 percent of capacity)." </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">It must be understood that the peripheral canal or twin tunnels won't create any new water - they will only take more water from senior water rights holders on the Delta, Sacramento Valley and Trinity River, at a tremendous cost to fish, fishermen, Indian Tribes and family farmers. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"If I took a cup of snow from Washington, DC back home with me and dumped it in the Delta, it would create more new water than the peripheral canal," Congressman John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove) recently quipped on his facebook page. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><i>Rather than promoting a tunnel project that could cost Californians up $60 billion while driving salmon and other fish to extinction, Laird should take a hard look at the "Reduced Exports Plan," an alternative plan to the tunnels developed by the Environmental Water Caucus. This plan demonstrates how water supply reliability can be improved while reducing exports from the Bay Delta Estuary. This plan includes a unique combination of actions that will open the discussion for alternatives to the currently failed policies that continuously attempt to use water as though it were a limitless resou</i></font><font size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><i>rce. (</i><a href="http://www.ewccalifornia.org/reports/REDUCEDEXPORTSPLAN.pdf"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u><i>http://www.ewccalifornia.org/reports/REDUCEDEXPORTSPLAN.pdf</i></u></font></a><i>) </i></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#111111" face="Verdana"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#111111" face="Verdana"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#111111" face="Verdana"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/28/1197717/-More-Bay-Delta-Conservation-Plan-Documents-Released">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/28/1197717/-More-Bay-Delta-Conservation-Plan-Documents-Released</a></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><i>Burt Wilson of Public Water News Service asks Deputy Director Jerry Meral a question about the water to used for fracking by the oil industry, water that will be delivered through the peripheral tunnels. Meral refused to answer Meral's question in the meeting where the Bay Delta Conservation Plan crashed and burned. (</i><a href="http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/22/18734066.php"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u><i>http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/03/22/18734066.php</i></u></font></a><i>)</i></font></div> <br><img src="cid:EE582AC9-2FCD-4DC4-A441-4F00D5569F1A@local"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal normal 10px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(23, 52, 92); min-height: 12px; "><a href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2013/03/28/img_2055.jpg"></a><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#17345c" style="font: 10.0px Verdana; color: #17345c"><a href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2013/03/28/img_2055.jpg"><b>800_img_2055.jpg</b><b></b></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#17345c" style="font: 10.0px Verdana; color: #17345c"><a href="http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2013/03/28/img_2055.jpg"><u>original image ( 5184x3456)</u><u></u></a></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 13px; "> </div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="6"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 24px;">More Bay Delta Conservation Documents Released</span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><i><br></i></span></font></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><i>BDCP effects analysis: justification for a corporate water grab </i></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">by Dan Bacher </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The Brown administration Wednesday unveiled three additional chapters of the preliminary draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels, including chapters on ecological effects, implementation, and governance. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The document release drew fire from Delta and fish advocates, who said the ecological "effects analysis" was nothing more than a "rationale for conveyance." </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">California Secretary for Natural Resources John Laird, who presided over record fish kills and water exports at the South Delta pumping facilities in 2011 and the fast-tracking of the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act Initiative to create oil industry-backed “marine protected areas,” claimed that the effects analysis was based on "science." </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“At the beginning of the Brown administration, we made a long-term commitment to let science drive the Bay Delta Conservation Plan,” claimed Laird. “Today, with the public unveiling of the effects analysis, we make that a reality. Science has and will continue to drive a holistic resolution securing our water supply and substantially restoring the Delta’s lost habitat.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“This project relies on 40 years of scientific study of the Delta’s ecosystem,” echoed California Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin. “It aims to change the way we divert water from the Delta to better protect fish, and it ties future water deliveries to the health of the Delta’s fish and wildlife populations.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The draft chapters released Wednesday describe the anticipated ecological effects and proposed governance structure of the BDCP. "The 50-year plan seeks the recovery of native fish and wildlife species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta while also stabilizing water deliveries for 25 million Californians and three million acres of farmland," according to a news release from the agency. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The widely contested project proposes to divert a large proportion of the Sacramento River's flow into 35-mile long two tunnels beneath the Sacramento-San River Joaquin Delta. The water would be diverted at three massive new intakes proposed near Courtland in the North Delta. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The released BDCP chapters are available at: <a href="http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/BDCPPlanningProcess/KeyAnnouncements.aspx"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://baydeltaconservationplan.com/BDCPPlanningProcess/KeyAnnouncements.aspx</u></font></a> </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><i>Plan pretends to “restore” Delta by draining it </i></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Restore the Delta (RTD), a coalition opposed to the Brown regime's rush to construct massive peripheral tunnels to take millions of acre-feet of water from the Delta, said the revised BDCP proposal for the tunnels “pretends you can restore the Delta by draining it.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Delta advocates, including fishermen, tribal leaders, family farmers, grassroots environmentalists and numerous elected officials, believe the tunnel plan is a corporate water grab by agribusiness, oil companies and Southern California water agencies – with the "habitat restoration" in the plan added as an afterthought by state officials to green wash the destruction of the largest estuary on the West Coast. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“Between 2000 and 2011, more than 130,000,000 fish were 'salvaged' in the massive state and federal pumps diverting water to corporate agribusiness, oil companies and southern California developers," said Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA). (<a href="http://www.restorethedelta.org/restore-the-delta/cspa-bdcp-fish-screens-revised/"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://www.restorethedelta.org/restore-the-delta/cspa-bdcp-fish-screens-revised/</u></font></a>) </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"Recent studies have shown that 5 to 10 times more fish are killed than salvaged, so the actual number of fish lost could be 1.3 billion or higher," Jennings stated. "The massive diversion of water under the Brown administration resulted in 2011's ‘salvage’ of nearly 9 million Sacramento splittail and over 2 million other fish." </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"Now, the Brown Administration magically declares that the peripheral tunnels will end this wholesale destruction. But there is no evidence to support this wild claim. The peripheral tunnels will destroy our fisheries," said Jennings. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, exposed the ridiculousness of Brown administration claims that massive diversion tunnels will "save" fish. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“The Brown Administration is trying to save the fish by removing them from the water," said Barrigan-Parrilla. "The proposed peripheral tunnels would have disastrous effects on the fish populations of the Delta, yet the Brown sdministration dubs the tunnels a ‘conservation measure.’ That is ludicrous and shows the entire BDCP is set up to approve draining the Delta,” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Countering Laird and Cowin’s wild claims that the BDCP is based on “science,” Restore the Delta agreed with the National Academy Science’s 2012 judgment that the effects analysis is still “nothing more than a rationale for a conveyance.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) identified fresh water flow as a critical variable affecting the health of the Delta. “Statistical evidence and models suggest that both flows (amount of fresh water) and flow paths (route through the Delta) are critical to population abundance of many species in the Bay-Delta.” (page 105). </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Restoring the Delta and fish populations requires that “exports of all types will necessarily need to be limited in dry years," the NAS panel concluded. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“The peripheral tunnels are incompatible with restoring the Delta and fish populations," Barrigan-Parrilla emphasized. "Water contractors can't prove that moving the point of diversion would help threatened fish species. The BDCP’s own February analysis showed that the amount of water they want to take would doom the species they intend to save, including Delta smelt." </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><i>Tunnels would let less water flow into Delta, increasing pollution </i></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Jane Wagner-Tyack, policy analyst for Restore the Delta, pointed out that the tunnels would divert Sacramento River water away from the Delta, leaving a larger percentage of polluted water flowing into the Delta from the San Joaquin River, designated as an impaired water body by the State Water Resources Control Board and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"The project would let less water flow into the Delta and would concentrate and increase the residence time of Delta pollution," noted Wagner-Tyack. "Because the Bay-Delta estuary contains several important fish species, including salmon and steelhead, the negative effects on the Delta that the project could create would have a devastating impact on these fish species and associated fishing and recreational jobs.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“The Brown administration’s latest attempt to justify its peripheral tunnels adds another to three previous failed Effects Analysis studies, which were savagely trashed by the National Science Academy as "nothing more than a rationale for a conveyance," Wagner-Tyack continued. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">She said the BDCP is leaving out the ‘$9 billion’ ecosystem cost that will also be largely paid for by water ratepayers, through their taxes. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"They should say the plan also depends on $9 billion in ecosystem costs paid for with tax dollars, crowding out investments in local schools, health and welfare programs, or requiring a general tax increase,” said Wagner-Tyack. “Divide that $9 billion by roughly 40 million Californians and you get $225 per capita, about $700 per household.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Inexplicably, the BDCP is not considering alternatives for meeting the “ coequal goals” of ecosystem restoration and water supply. These proposals include the Environmental Water Caucus Plan, endorsed by dozens of environmental organizations, that could be evaluated. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Rather than “save” imperiled Delta fish populations, the BDCP will spread the carnage of Central Valley Chinook salmon, steelhead and other fish north to the Sacramento River while the massive fish kills at the state and federal water pumps in the South Delta will continue. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">“Make no mistake,” emphasized Caleen Sisk, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “The peripheral tunnels will destroy river ecosystems, destroy fisheries and sentence us to a future where clean water is a luxury rather than a right.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Restore the Delta is encouraging people to attend a public meeting scheduled for Thursday, April 4, 2013 to discuss BDCP Chapters 4-7. The meeting will be held at the Red Lion Woodlake Conf. Center, 500 Leisure Lane, Sacramento from 12-6 p.m. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Project staff will be available to review Chapter 1-7 materials and discuss comments and questions beginning at 12 p.m. and continuing until 6 p.m. The presentation portion of the meeting will run from 1-5 p.m. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The meeting will be available via live video webcast and conference call. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111"><font class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><i>Peripheral tunnel water could help expand fracking </i></span></font></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">As Laird and Cowin continue to promote the destruction of the Delta through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, Delta advocates are alarmed about the role the water planned for export in the peripheral tunnels could play in increased fracking in California. (<a href="http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/peripheral-tunnel-water-will-go-to-agribusiness-and-oil-companies/"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://www.fishsniffer.com/blogs/details/peripheral-tunnel-water-will-go-to-agribusiness-and-oil-companies/</u></font></a>) </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the controversial, environmentally destructive process of injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and toxic chemicals underground at high pressure in order to release and extract oil or gas, according to Food and Water Watch. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">The oil industry, represented by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association and the former chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative Blue Ribbon Task Force to create so-called "marine protected areas" in Southern California, is now pushing for increased fracking for oil and natural gas in shale deposits in Kern County and coastal areas. </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">"The Westlands Water District and Kern County Water Agency import water for the biggest agribusinesses and oil fields in the Central Valley," explained Adam Scow, California Campaigns Director at Food & Water Watch. "Now they've gotten Governor Brown to approve a massive tunnels project to bring them even more water, which they will sell for an enormous profit. Even worse, much of this water will go to oil companies who will pollute our groundwater with fracking.” </font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Verdana; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); min-height: 15px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 16px; "><font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#111111" style="font: 12.0px Verdana; color: #111111">For information about Restore the Delta, go to <a href="http://www.restorethedelta.org/"><font color="#17345c" style="color: #17345c"><u>http://www.restorethedelta.org</u></font></a>. </font></div></span></font></div></body></html>