While Mr. Pombo is out organizing hearings around the country to
dismantle the Endangered Species Act, the San Francisco Bay-Delta which runs through his home district is facing ecological collapse. And Pombo could give two shits about it.
Luckily Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez is calling him to task for ignoring the situation.
Here is the letter sent Wednesday.
Lawmaker urges Delta hearings; Fish protection issue would come before Pombo's resources panel
Stockton Record - 7/29/05
By Dana Nichols, staff writer
STOCKTON -- Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, has asked Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, to direct the powerful House Resources Committee Pombo heads to hold hearings on the environmental crisis killing fish populations in the Delta, which is in Pombo's district.
Pombo has been largely silent on the catastrophic decline in fish species near his home even as many of his peers from the Bay Area call for investigations. Pombo has been an activist on other endangered-species issues, especially advocating for the rights of property owners and seeking to reform the Endangered Species Act.
Resources Committee staffer Brian Kennedy said Pombo was busy Thursday with various conference committee negotiations on major bills and was not available to comment on Miller's request.
Late last year, state and federal biologists sounded an alarm over the decline in fish species in the Delta, including the endangered Delta smelt, threadfin shad and young striped bass.
Environmentalists have long accused federal agencies of caving to political pressure and ignoring factors choking the Delta, including massive exports of water, pollution from farms and cities, the invasion of exotic species, and dredging and shipping projects.
In October, for example, the National Marine Fisheries Service gave its blessing to increasing water exports from the Delta, saying that struggling San Joaquin River steelhead and salmon populations would not be hurt if more water is shipped south.
Similarly, the Fisheries Service last week gave its approval to the Port of Stockton's plans to expand shipping here. The Fisheries Service said in its report that increased shipping would kill hundreds of thousands of young salmon each year but that destroying the San Joaquin River population is not a problem because the species should be able to survive in the Sacramento River.
Now, Miller and other Democrats are also asking why the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies failed to protect fish. Miller is a former chairman of the Resources Committee and remains a member.
"These disturbing developments in California necessitate increased committee oversight at this time, given the committee's jurisdiction over the CALFED Bay-Delta Program," Miller said in the letter he sent Wednesday.
Stockton Record
More on the fish decline...
Delta smelt dwindling to record low numbers
By Mike Taugher
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
The ecological crisis in the Delta may have taken a turn for the worse based on results of a summer survey showing the population of one of the region's key fish species has hit a new record low.
Delta smelt are one of several open-water fish and food organisms that scientists say are in a steep and unexplained decline that goes back at least to 2002 and continued at least through last fall. The results of the summer fish survey show the ecological freefall appears to be continuing this year and might even be worsening, at least for Delta smelt, the most closely monitored fish in the Delta.
Contra Costa Times
- Thank you Rep. Miller. Please continue to kick this fool in the ass until he wakes up to his responsibility to protect the ecological and recreational heart of his own district.
If Pombo does nothing about this situation he should be thrown out of office. I hope the National Democrats are seriously considering a run against Pombo, a Radical Republican Gas Bag in an emerging Democratic district near the San Franciso Bay Area.