State's water quality, fisheries in jeopardy with proposed bill
Zeke Grader
The Sacramento Bee
07/23/2011
California's clean water is about to take a major hit. If you think the state's so-called "water wars" are creating disastrous public consequences, then brace yourself for what Congress is trying to inflict on the rivers and streams that provide us with this irreplaceable life source.
Last week, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, introduced a measure that would block enforcement of any protections needed to keep our endangered species safe from even the most toxic of pesticides. What this measure and other dangerous proposals being considered aim to do is to gut the Endangered Species Act. What it ignores is the impact of pesticides on human health.
The EPA estimates that more than 1 billion tons of pesticides are used each year in the United States. These poisons, which include broad-spectrum killers dating back to World War II, pose serious threats to human health, especially the health of young children. While pesticides in our waterways and air affect everybody, local communities and farmworkers are often at the greatest risk. Under the Endangered Species Act, the EPA must consult with federal wildlife experts to avoid and lessen the harms that registered pesticides pose to threatened and endangered species, including salmon, frogs, birds and sea turtles. And in protecting these fragile and critical components in the web of life, it also protects humans from poisonous chemicals.
If Congress succeeds in passing this giveaway to the pesticide industry, tacked on to the 2012 House Interior/EPA appropriations bill, it will be a devastating blow to California's water quality and fisheries. Such a legislative maneuver would allow pesticide applications next to streams – including those that support endangered fish – without any of the needed protections or guidance from fisheries experts.
In California, this would put hundreds of miles of fish-bearing streams at risk. More to the point it would put hundreds of miles of salmon-bearing streams at risk – a gamble that commercial fishermen, recreational anglers and the industries they support cannot afford to take. West Coast salmon are already on the ropes because of massive and unchecked water diversions and dam operations. The discharge of more pesticides into their spawning streams could knock them out. This is not an insoluble dilemma: we can assure the survival of our salmon along with agricultural prosperity simply by requiring and enforcing streamside buffer strips where applications of particularly harmful pesticides would be restricted. The National Marine Fisheries Service has proposed this solution, and my organization supports it.
