New Loveland Updates

[Everydog]

It's funny Sweetwater never mentioned a thing about drought and neither did the Water Resources Control board in this 2021 article. They don't have any ability to refute what I am saying about San Diego having water abundance and water security in November of 2022 when Sweetwater drained Loveland completely.
However, we are supposed to accept forgiveness for Sweetwater violations and California's failure to respond to warnings based on delusions of drought from these same people.
Bullshit.

I recommend doing a word search for "drought", "Martinez", That's the Sweetwater Chairmans's name, and "Strawn", that's the San Diego Region State Waterboards employee quoted in this article. There is one word that won't come up. The two names come up three times each. The violations and plan to further them were well underway without a mention of the new coverup and escaper word "drought".


https://inewsource.org/2021/04/22/sweet ... reservoir/

[Everydog]

This is sort of related and really interesting. Academics for Anglers. https://www.ucdavis.edu/blog/curiosity/ ... he%20state

[Everydog]

Really good news,

The Executive director of the San Diego Region of the State Water Resources Control Board has agreed to meet me at Loveland.
His equal from DFW will be next. (kind of joking) Sweetwater, at the very least, went overboard revenge killing the fish.

[Everydog]

I had my meeting with this decision maker, the experienced and influential Director of the San Diego State Water Board today. He is extremely well-positioned to help and totally agrees help is needed.
It was somewhat promising. He talked about stocking threadfin shad and verifying good breed stock for all desirable species with me with the condition of some agreement from Sweetwater to allow the fish to rebound and not kill them again. That's very basic. Seems like he can come up with a California source of money if Sweetwater will pull the permit.

We discussed how the two excuses offered by California investigation caseworkers against the CalEPA complaints are really, really, really bad. Decision-makers know it's true. A bit of mixed messages about what these facts mean or how the California regulators are going to deal with them. He says we will be better off working things out than insisting on the system accepting that we are right, even though we are. That sounds kind of corrupt, missing in accountability, but I said let me see milestones, please. Next meeting Jan 9th.

[camobass]

Sounds promising!

[Everydog]

Yep.


There are guys I know who are out there working on trails including with Sawzalls and stuff! I am not in charge of that but it's cool!
A lot of potential floating around now.

[Everydog]

Apparently, when the erosion happened at Loveland something of a weaker version of this video below happened out of the Loveland dam outlet and destroyed some turtles, filled up their ponds with sand, and bummed out some government people doing a study that was being conducted on them. Have to verify this information, but I believe It's a DFW "species of special concern". The dewatering of Loveland was such a massive failure, and it just keeps adding up. There is a ton of sand waiting to go out of the conduit with the next transfer. It very likely tore up Kumeyay sites on the wet side of the dam near the Hud fishing float where huge erosion happened.

[camobass]

They might get their sand mining after all. At least some dredging. Do you know if they ever fixed the valve when they drained it?

[Everydog]

Nope, they never fixed the Valve. They told some people that's why they drained the reservoir and some people like me, who knew their contractor could do the work with water in the reservoir that the valve work had nothing to do with draining the lake! They didn't mention it in CalEPA defenses.

I sent out a big email to all the players on the turtle situation. Asking that transfers be limited and at reduced velocities until wildlife and their food sources, including recreational fish and bait fish, recover on both sides of the dam....according to where the various critters belong, of course.

[Everydog]

Another big email on the false dichotomy offered to me on being right "or getting what I want". I don't see anyone wanting to validate or satisfy either to the extent they BOTH should be. What "I want" is what my associations with Loveland anglers tell me what they want. What is right is using easily accessible California environmental law tools for some accountability on the Sweetwater Board of Directors.

[camobass]

Wow. That’s what I heard too. Had to drain it to fix the valve and that’s why it was drained.

[Everydog]

It looks like the next meeting with Sweetwater in Alpine will happen on December 11;
State Senator Jones' staff and a junior member of Issa's staff, a "field representative" are supposed to be there.

The new Ranger is telegraphing that we are not getting sunrise to sunset yet. It's unlikely.
Issa's guy avoided anyone I know who tried to contact him about Loveland but did better than the first two did.
Dec. 11 isn't too far away. Let's see what it is.

I pleaded with Issa's Legislative director to communicate about his goals for the lake and meeting before it happens. This is all I got.

Hey Mr. Walsh!

Unfortunately, due to our new voting schedule, I can’t be away from DC on Dec.11.

However, I’ll be sending our very capable Field Representative, Alan, in my stead, whom I’ve briefed on the matter.

I believe all parties, especially the Congressman’s team, are acting in good faith. The Congressman and his whole staff, particularly Alan and I, look forward to a productive and congenial meeting on the 11th.



Thanks!



Respectfully,



Christopher Mika

Legislative Assistant

Office of Congressman Darrell Issa (CA-48)

[Everydog]

The meeting is going to be on Monday but seems downplayed and downscaled, and will be at the Sweetwater boardroom in Chula Vista.

[Everydog]

Back on the grind for the restoration of sunrise to sunset hours. We have the attention of Congressman Issa's staff, maybe. The Former Descanso Ranger's justification for letting Sweetwater keep short-changing the sunrise-sunset public access is that the hours they replaced it with were consistent with "some Forest Service day-use sites". That must have been the most cherry-picked thing he could have done!
First of all the obvious, which of his cherry-picked day-use facilities had a Notarized public easement earned from a land swap exchange that unambiguously states "to the shoreline for fishing from sunrise to sunset"? Holy crap. Also, Why didn't his survey find that the absolute vast majority of '" on Forest Service land Fishing', is from sunrise to sunset or longer?

Also, if he knew we were going to lose the water and fishing, why not at least give us the easement hours? He wanted all favors to go to Sweetwater....and eventually it was clear the Forest Service would lay down while Sweetwater locked us out indefinitely. If it wasn't for those meddling kids.

There is no logical or legal interpretation to connection to Forest Service Day use and shortchanging the public on hours at Loveland.

[Everydog]

The flyer for the next Loveland meeting is linked below. Some independent advocates tried very hard to get help from the senator's staff to have Sweetwater commit to sustainable water levels and fish restocking before proceeding to give them public money, but it never happened. We were told the meeting was going to be in Alpine until about a week ago. Sweetwater would get hammered if they came out here without committing to water and fish stocking and the legally documented access hours. Giving them money on top of all the damage they did here, with the knowledge they took most of the last grant money from Duncan Hunter Senior back to the Southbay, and without any commitment to do the right thing for the fishing program, maintain the minimum water levels and restore sunrise to sunset access per the only legal document controlling access hours?


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZllI7Y ... sp=sharing

[Everydog]

We protested the change from Alpine to Sweetwater Headquarters and the ridiculously short notice on the meeting for Monday. Sweetwater only announced it because I put them on the spot yesterday morning. Our local nonprofit and representatives letting Sweetwater dodge talking about restocking, decent water levels, replacing the Hud fishing pier, and sunrise to sunset.

We did win a commitment to a meeting in Alpine later.

We always need people who will write emails or even be on a list and hit reply all with a small comment of support for the message.
Email me please Russellwalsh2003@yahoo.com.

We have a good system of sending out emails to the parties with blind cc's to advocates....then the advocates hit "reply all" and break down barriers!

[Everydog]

Good meeting about Loveland last night at Sweetwater Headquarte it seems.
There are a lot of people wanting better things for the lake.
The next meeting is in Alpine in a month or two....which might mean 6 months.

[otaymichael]

keep up the great work!

[Everydog]

keep up the great work!

Thank you, Michael ! There was a new piece about it on Fox 5 morning news at 5:00 and another new article is likely to come out.

[Everydog]

Ths was recorded for East County Magazine for a possible next article...not sure about that though.