CapitalPress.com
6
April 14, 2017
Editorials are written by or
approved by members of the
Capital Press Editorial Board.
All other commentary pieces are
the opinions of the authors but
not necessarily this newspaper.
Opinion
Editorial Board
Publisher
Editor
Managing Editor
John Perry
Joe Beach
Carl Sampson
opinions@capitalpress.com Online: www.capitalpress.com/opinion
O ur V iew
Now’s the time to limit the Antiquities Act
I
t’s probably not high on the
list of its priorities, but we’d
like to see Congress revise the
Antiquities Act to give legislative
oversight to the creation of national
monuments.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 has
been used by presidents starting
with Teddy Roosevelt to create
national monuments.
The authority comes with few
restrictions. The president, “in his
discretion,” can designate almost
any piece of federally owned land
a national monument for “the
protection of objects of historic and
scientific interest.”
Although the act makes
mention of protecting historic and
prehistoric structures, there is no
statutory definition or limit on what
may be found to be of historic or
scientific interest. Presidents have
used the act to preserve wild areas.
It’s easier than establishing
a wilderness area, or a national
park — both of which require
congressional approval — but can
impose similar restrictions on how
the land can be used.
Local residents and their elected
representatives have no say in the
process. At least, they don’t in 48
states.
The creation of the Jackson
Hole National Monument by FDR
in the 1940s so rankled Wyoming
pols that when legislation was
proposed to merge most of it with
Grand Teton National Park the
Congress amended the Antiquities
Act to prohibit the president from
establishing monuments in that
state without its approval.
After President Jimmy Carter
created 56 million acres of
monuments in Alaska, Congress
amended the act to require it also
approve Alaskan monuments of
5,000 acres or more.
We would not argue that the
Antiquities Act has not preserved
O ur V iew
Trump ag adviser offers
farmers reason for hope
T
he cool breeze of reason that
recently swept across the
nation’s farms came from — of
all places — the White House.
President Donald Trump’s top
adviser on agriculture recently spoke
at the National Press Club. During his
presentation, he talked about the need
for less regulation of farming.
“We have to halt the regulatory
onslaught,” said Ray Starling,
former general counsel for the North
Carolina Department of Agriculture.
“The administration will never lose
sight of the fact that the number one
farm preservation tool we have is
farm profitability, not buzzwords,
not catch phrases, or a federal grant
program.”
He also voiced Trump’s support
for a reliable ag workforce and trade
agreements that offer “open and
equitable access to foreign markets.”
His comments on the
Environmental Protection Agency-
funded What’s Upstream smear
campaign against farmers were
equally welcome.
He promised that such a campaign
will never be repeated.
“This administration will not allow
the EPA to give taxpayer dollars to
activist groups who then turn around
and put up billboards that attack our
farmers and ranchers,” Starling said.
Finally, What’s Upstream has
forever lost its federal Sugar Daddy,
the EPA. The agency had bankrolled
the Swinomish Indian Tribe and
several environmental groups for five
years in their efforts to push a 100-
foot buffer zone requirement through
the Washington State Legislature.
As “proof” of the need for the
buffer zones, the What’s Upstream
billboards, bus ads and website
showed cows standing in streams
— in England and the Midwest. The
Courtesy of ZimmComm New Media
President Trump’s special assistant on agriculture Ray Starling speaks March 21 at the
National Press Club in Washington, D.C. He said the new administration won’t allow the
EPA to fund more attacks on farmers, a reference to the What’s Upstream campaign.
website also implied that salmon
died as the result of some farmer-
miscreants, even though the fish in
the photos had spawned and died
naturally.
But what the lobbying effort
lacked in its knowledge of geography
and fisheries biology the Obama
administration’s EPA made up by
injecting $655,000 into it. The effort
was so bad, so unfair and so wrong
that members of Congress called the
EPA leadership on its poor judgment
and reckless use of public funds.
Starling’s comments were in
stark contrast to recent decisions
by the Washington state attorney
general’s office and Public Disclosure
Commission. They were responding to
a complaint from a group called Save
Family Farming, which argued that
huge buffers along every river, stream
and lake would needlessly take large
swaths of land out of production and
may put many farmers out of business.
In spite of that, the attorney
general’s office and the disclosure
commission decided that What’s
Upstream is OK with them. Their
reasoning: If no specific bill is being
pushed, it’s not lobbying.
Our reasoning is if they are pushing
legislation specifically requiring 100-
foot buffers, it is lobbying, whether
the idea has been given a bill number
or not. What’s Upstream was clearly
seeking support for specific legislation
by soliciting letters to lawmakers.
An interesting bit of logic was
included in the attorney general’s
decision. It said that because the
money didn’t come from the tribe,
former EPA Regional Administrator
Dennis McLerran or the public
relations firm Strategies 360, they
cannot be held accountable.
But that logic is fundamentally
flawed. While they didn’t use their
own money to smear farmers, what
they did was far worse. They used
taxpayers’ money.
We look forward to the upcoming
report on What’s Upstream by the
EPA’s inspector general. Hopefully,
misuse of public money has meaning
to that office.
O ur V iew
A missed opportunity to press
for more water storage
L
ast week Gov. Jerry
Brown declared
California’s five-
year drought over while
proposing new long-
term water conservation
measures that must be
passed by the Legislature.
All Californians can be
relieved that the drought
has finally passed.
Unfortunately, the state’s
arid climate and its history
all but ensure that it
will return, so continued
conservation measures
are not unwarranted. But
Brown let pass a perfect
opportunity to remind
legislators and the public
at large about the urgent
need to build more water
storage in the state.
It was ironic that
Brown’s announcement
came a few days after our
colleagues at the Wall
Street Journal published
a lengthy editorial
excoriating the Golden
State for failing to store
more water in the wet
times for use in the dry
times. The Journal pointed
out that California’s
population has increased
70 percent since 1979, but
storage has not expanded.
California voters in
2014 passed Proposition
1, a measure providing
$7.12 billion in bond
funding for various water
projects. The measure
calls for just $2.7 billion
for water storage projects,
dams and reservoirs.
It’s interesting to note
that Brown’s father,
former Gov. Pat Brown,
was largely responsible
for the California Water
Project, the massive
system of canals, tunnels,
pumping stations and
dams that captures and
moves water from the
relatively wet north to the
dry south.
The senior Gov. Brown
clearly appreciated the
need for adequate water
infrastructure. To be fair,
his son is not expressly
against building more
storage as long as it’s part
of a more comprehensive
plan that includes
extensive conservation
and groundwater
management practices.
We’re all for a holistic
approach to water
management in California.
However, the state’s
population continues to
grow, and just asking
more Californians to
use less water isn’t the
answer.
There is strong
opposition to new
dams among the state’s
environmentalists. All
the more reason for the
current Gov. Brown to
beat the drum whenever he
has the chance.
legitimate cultural treasures. We
might not have the Grand Canyon
in its current state had TR not
protected it by making it first a
national monument.
But that was a different time.
The restrictions that can be placed
on ranchers and timbermen
throughout the West by these
declarations require oversight.
They should have at least the
same consideration afforded the
people of Wyoming and Alaska.
How hard work resulted in
collaboration on groundwater
By NORM GROOT
and KIM STEMLER
For the Capital Press
S
omething great is hap-
pening in Monterey
County, Calif. Working
together with a broad and
diverse coalition of local
stakeholders, we took a state
mandate that first appeared
to be lemons and made lem-
onade.
As background, in 2014
California adopted the Sus-
tainable Groundwater Man-
agement Act, or SGMA for
short. The law requires that
each groundwater basin
deemed as critical establish
a groundwater management
agency to develop a local sus-
tainable management plan.
This state mandate came
without funding, only with a
requirement and deadlines.
The first requirement is the
formation of a new ground-
water sustainability agency,
due by June 30, 2017.
With a strong desire for an
open, transparent process that
included stakeholders from all
interested sectors of ground-
water use, a neutral facilita-
tor was engaged to guide the
process. This broad group of
22 stakeholders, known as the
Collaborative Work Group,
was formed to represent in-
terests including social jus-
tice, environment, agriculture,
government (county and mu-
nicipalities), water agencies
and utilities, and other affect-
ed communities. The group
started meeting in February
2016 by laying out ground
rules.
Over the next 11 months,
meeting twice a month, the
group worked collectively to
design a new public agency;
most significant was an ear-
ly decision that one single
agency would be developed
for the entire Salinas Valley
Groundwater Basin. As with
any group with varied inter-
ests and beliefs, there were
struggles and intense discus-
sions surrounding the gov-
ernance structures needed to
oversee the agency and its
requirements under SGMA.
Ultimately, the group formed
an agreement and decided
on a board of directors of 11
encompassing many of the
stakeholder sectors sitting on
the group itself.
The group submitted its
recommendation for the agen-
cy structure to the Board of
Supervisors in December for
a thumbs-up or -down vote.
Fortunately, the result was a
big thumbs up, along with an
enthusiastic acknowledgment
from the supervisors on the
depth and breadth of engage-
ment and representation from
the various stakeholder com-
munities.
In January and February,
the selection process and ap-
proval of the 11 directors was
completed and on March 9 the
first board meeting of the Sa-
linas Valley Basin Groundwa-
ter Sustainability Agency was
convened. This was time for
celebrating the culmination of
the Collaborative Work Group
efforts over the past year.
Where’s the lemonade
in this process? Stakehold-
ers with different beliefs and
goals came together for the
greater good. In forming this
agreement, we realized that
we didn’t need to get groups
of people with different inter-
Guest
comment
Norm Groot and Kim Stemler
ests to agree on things they
don’t. Instead, we focused on
finding agreement to solve
problems, in this case, to set
up a structure that meets the
requirements of the law and
where the stakeholders have
a voice. No one stakeholder
group got all it wanted, but
no one walked away emp-
ty-handed either. There was a
true spirit of cooperation held
in the process, which started
early with respectful discus-
sions and treating each other
as equals. It took a lot of time
to make decisions this way,
and it was not always easy or
comfortable. But all partici-
pants walked away supporting
the final decision.
Eric Tynan, general man-
ager of Castroville Com-
munity Services District,
commented, “The leadership
shown by the City of Salinas,
the County of Monterey and
the Ag Caucus in working
together in developing a solu-
tion to the very complicated
and sometimes divisive water
issues should be applauded.”
Some may argue that it’s
not a perfect solution and
given that it’s a state mandate
and everyone has their inter-
ests in water, it can’t perfectly
match everyone’s satisfac-
tion. What’s important is that
diverse groups in Monterey
County came together and
produced a solution in the true
spirit of collaboration.
As this mandate came
without any state funding,
local interests have funded
a major portion of the facili-
tated process, including the
county, City of Salinas, Mon-
terey County Water Resource
Agency and the agricultural
sector of the Salinas Valley.
Everyone had a financial
stake in the success of this
process because we are all
water users.
In the spirit of cooper-
ation and respect, we will
continue to work together
to accomplish good things
for our county, whether it’s
mandated by law or social
construct. This agency for-
mation process should serve
as a model of how to get
things done locally, without
resorting to retreating into
our corners or using lawsuits
to get our way.
“The Collaborative Work-
ing Group shows how dis-
tinctly varied interests can ac-
tually work together to meet
the goal of forming the agen-
cy tasked with maintaining
the sustainability of a large
portion of the Salinas River
groundwater basin. It is an
honor to have been part of the
group,” stated Brian LeNeve,
environmental representative
on the group.
Let’s congratulate all of
those involved in this truly vi-
sionary way to find solutions
to complex problems.
Norm Groot is the execu-
tive director of the Monterey
County Farm Bureau and
Kim Stemler is the executive
director of the Monterey
County Vintners and Growers
Association.