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FEBRUARY 2009
- GOV. SCHWARZENEGGER DECLARES DROUGHT EMERGENCY: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
on Friday declared a state emergency due to drought and said he would consider mandatory water rationing in the face of nearly $3 billion
in economic losses from below-normal rainfall this year.
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| Click on photo to be taken to the O.W.L. web site |

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| Click on photo to be taken to the O.W.L. web site |
The water supply for Sonoma and Marin county is at risk! From the O.W.L. Foundation of Sonoma County comes proof positive from a disinterested third party ( an international team of geophysicists) that
the aquifer in the Rohnert Park area, which includes the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria's casino building
site, is in serious overdraft. What the information below means is that any further pumping of groundwater in this area, especially
on the scale the casino project would demand, would most likely result in the collapse of the aquifer. Once this happens,
the aquifer is lost forever.
Both STC101 and the O.W.L.
Foundation have for years, attempted to warn the tribe, the federal government and the state government about the danger of
building the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria's casino on the Rohnert Park-area site. With the state’s
water crisis that is expected to continue and even worsen in the future, this depletion of the Santa Rosa Plain aquifer, as
well as the serious traffic concerns, many of which were voiced in Senator Migden’s letter to the editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria's casino is clearly a
regional issue. FROM THE O.W.L. FOUNDATION: "The O.W.L. Foundation has learned that data from the European InSAR Satellite reveals
that Rohnert Park is sinking due to excessive groundwater pumping. The joint American-Italian study described the depression
as a: "" . . . deformation . . . consistent with land subsidence due to groundwater extraction, perhaps enhanced
by weak fine-grained floodplain sediments upon which Rohnert Park is built. "
The subsidence was noticed during a 10-year seismological study,
"Creep on the Rodgers Creek fault . . ." published on October 10, 2007 by the American Geophysical Union. It confirms
what the O.W.L. ("Open Space, Water and Land") Foundation and the California Department of Water Resources have
long suspected, that the massive drop in the water table has removed underground support and the aquifer is collapsing in
a dangerous process called "land subsidence."
When land
sinks due to groundwater extraction the underlying aquifers collapse. Once an aquifer collapses, that storage space is permanently
lost thereby reducing already constrained future water supplies. Whatever damage has been or will be caused to existing aquifers
is permanent, and the threat to local water supplies is very real and very serious.
Land subsidence would explain why homeowners in Rohnert Park complain of houses that tilt or otherwise fall out of plumb.
The sinking land mass would also explain why Rohnert Park suffered unprecedented flooding in January 2005 and boats were needed
to navigate the streets. It could also explain why a massive underground sewage pipe broke during that storm. Rohnert
Park relies in part on groundwater for its water supply, Of serious concern to the O.W.L. Foundation are Rohnert Park’s
plans for six ambitious specific projects and the 729,000 square foot Graton casino that comes with a federal water right,
and which plans to sink multiple 1,000 to 2,000 foot wells to provide water to its estimated 15,000+ patrons per day.
"More pumping will guarantee more subsidence", said H.R.
Downs, President of the O.W.L. Foundation. "Now that subsidence is an established scientific fact, the big question today
is will the city continue to sink with these projects? " To view the
InSAR satellite data, CLICK HERE Also see How InSAR Works
The O.W.L. Foundation is a California non-profit
corporation devoted to educating the public and government agencies about the water crisis, sensible land use policy and open
space issues. Visit their web site at www.owlfoundation.net

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| FIGR Chairman Greg Sarris |
It's time for Chairman Sarris to keep his 2005
promise: In a meeting in the Governor’s office in March, 2005, Federated Indian of Graton Rancheria
Chairman Greg Sarris promised a delegation comprised of Pastor Worthington, Linda Kelley, Renn Vara and Larry Dahl that
if the tribe’s project would take water away from any of the neighbors, they would not build it. This statement was
made in the presence of Daniel Kolkey, the Governor’s chief negotiator at the time. Both STC101
and the O.W.L. Foundation have for years, attempted to warn the tribe, the federal government and the state government about
the danger of building the Graton casino on the Rohnert Park-area site. With the state’s water crisis that is expected
to continue and even worsen in the future, this depletion of the Santa Rosa Plain aquifer can no longer be ignored. It's time for Chairman Sarris to keep his promise In light of the information on the ground subsidence and the current drought conditions, the Federated
Indians of Graton Rancheria casino project is certainly "fatally flawed", and is also inconsistent with State water
law and public policy. Going forward with this casino project puts Sonoma COunty's water supplies at risk, and threatens
harm to Sonoma COUnty residents.

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| H. R. Downs, President of the O.W.L. Foundation |
HERE'S THE REAL PROBLEM WITH THE CASINO:
The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria enjoy preferential, federal water rights. There is an inherent danger to the citizens
of the region and their governments from the establishment of a federal water right on lands already demonstrated in court
to be in substantial groundwater overdraft. If the project goes forward, and if its water supplies go dry or the tribe is
drawn into any legal action pertaining to water, then every single person, corporation and agency in Sonoma County faces the
very real threat of losing their water rights, as has happened elsewhere in California and the Nation. There is inadequate water at the Rohnert Park site to support this project,
and the project, if built, would adversely and seriously affect area wells and regional water supplies for Marin County and
Sonoma County, an the propsed mitigation measures in the FEIS are completely inadequate. Going forward with this project would create
an inherently unstable legal climate and jeopardize the water rights of every single stakeholder in Sonoma County, including
the Sonoma County Water Agency. The tribe would certainly be drawn into any subsequent legal action over water issues, such
as have taken place in this particular region of Sonoma County over the last four years. If
that happens, then the U.S. Attorney General will be constrained to appear to defend the tribe’s federal water right.
Federal involvement will dramatically increase the chance that the entire County is thrown into water adjudication. This aquifer
is too important to the region to run that risk.
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Stop the Casino 101 Coalition, Rohnert Park, CA
FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted
material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material
available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific,
and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair
use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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