In a revealing commentary published by Maven’s Notebook, Eric Buescher of San Francisco Baykeeper and Chris Shutes of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance criticize Governor Newsom and other political figures’ efforts to push through the multi-billion dollar Sites Reservoir project despite extensive evidence that it would seriously harm waterways and ecosystems, a conclusion reached by the State Water Resources Control Board’s Administrative Hearings Office (AHO).
The authors describe attempts by the Governor and other powerful politicians to pressure the AHO into retracting its evidence-based findings on the project’s environmental impacts as “overt political meddling.
Buescher and Shutes note that these actions represent a troubling attempt to undermine neutral decision-making bodies and disregard impartial scientific expertise. Rather than yielding to political pressure, they argue that the Sites Project Authority should take the AHO’s findings seriously.
Read the full piece here.
Listen to a New Episode of The Climate Dispatch, the official Sierra Club California podcast featuring Restore the Delta!
In the latest episode of The Climate Dispatch, Sierra Club California’s official podcast, we take listeners inside California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, an estuary that provides drinking water to 27 million people, supports millions of acres of farmland, and serves as a critical habitat for hundreds of species.
Alongside our Director of Policy and Programs, Morgen Snyder, and our Delta Science Program Manager, Spencer Fern, this episode highlights Stockton’s waterways and the surrounding Bay-Delta to explore the complexity of the remarkable ecosystem.
Along the way, scientists, advocates, and local anglers who depend on the Delta, such as Bud Chaddock, share what they’ve witnessed firsthand: the impacts of declining water quality, harmful algal blooms, disappearing fish populations, and decades of water diversion.
Listen to the full episode here.
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