Who can you trust? w/update

What does Baykeeper have to do with the Ecological Rights Foundation, a Garberville-based environmental group that was suing Sierra Pacific in 2002, who commissioned a toxicological study that found elevated levels of dioxin in mussels and crabs immediately adjacent to the Sierra Pacific Mill? (ncjournal 6/13/02)

The study was done by toxicologist Marc Lappe of the Center for Ethics and Toxics in Gualala, Calif

What's interesting is that The Center for Ethics and Toxics (CETOS), is a project of the Tides Center.

According to financial information compiled by activistcash.com, "The Tides Center is an offshoot of the Tides Foundation - the 800-pound gorilla of radical activist funding. Many environmental groups that now operate on their own got their start as a “project” of the Tides Center.

If an existing funder wants to pour money into a specific agenda for which no activist group exists, Tides will start one from scratch. At least 30 of the Tides Center’s current “projects” were created out of thin air in response to the needs of one foundation or another. (Tides Foundation is known to "routinely obscure the sources of its tax-exempt millions," and "makes it difficult (if not impossible) to discern how the funds are actually being used. In practice, “Tides” behaves less like a philanthropy than a money-laundering enterprise."

"By using Tides to funnel its capital, a large public charity can indirectly fund a project with which it would prefer not to be directly identified in public. Drummond Pike has reinforced this view, telling The Chronicle of Philanthropy: “Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with.”

So the activist group ERF used an activist funded Lab (CETOS) to process their data - If you ask me the toxicology study has to be considered suspect as it cannot be seen as an objective and unbiased party.

Have I got this right? The State Water Board just used that data without knowing it was suspect. "...in making its determination to list Humboldt Bay as impaired for dioxin, the state relied exclusively on 14 out of 29 tissue samples taken from testing resulting from a lawsuit filed against Sierra Pacific Industries by the Ecological Rights Foundation in 2002 over contamination concerns."

The same samples taken by "Marc Lappe, a consulting toxicologist and former director of the Center for Ethics and Toxics who was hired by Ecological Rights Foundation..."

Which brings up the bigger question - What oversight exists for the orgs - EPIC (wildcalifornia.org), ERF (ecorights.org), Baykeeper (humboldtbaykeeper.org), Humboldt Watershed Council - how are people, the general public, and the people who end up in positions on water boards and other government positions to ensure that the information brought before them - information that is to be considered say, when deciding whether or not to list Humboldt Bay as "Toxic" - how are they to ensure that that information is unbiased, that the chain of command of the samples in question can be verified, that the samples haven't been tampered with, that the results have been accurately reported? How are they supposed to know when they are being played?

And how are they supposed to KNOW that the lab whose results they trust is funded by the very same activist network that funds many of the very same orgs that are propositioning them?

It's time to start a North Coast version of ActivistCash. Follow the money trails. See who is funding who. And why.

And then it is time for some legislation requiring oversight of the orgs - because they are not just made of of grassroots citizens anymore. ERF has "SEVENTEEN attorneys working together to achieve the Foundation’s mission."

***
UPDATE:
"...Humboldt Baykeepers also comes under the umbrella of the Ecological Rights Foundation, which last year settled a federal lawsuit against Sierra Pacific Industries over chemical pollution to the Mad River Slough and Humboldt Bay. The Humboldt County District Attorney's Office filed a twin suit, and Sierra Pacific agreed to pay the foundation and the people a total of $1.5 million to settle the suits.

Fred Evanson, a board member of the foundation, is also volunteering his time with the Baykeepers, which he helped forge.

...The Garberville-based foundation also bought the Baykeepers' new 25-foot Boston Whaler, which it intends to use as a patrol boat in the bay and along the coast from the Eel River to Trinidad.

..."We're not acting like we're here to save the day," Nichols said. "We're acting like another piece in the puzzle."

Who's the parent organization? Looks like one litigious group just spawned another.