[env-trinity] SF Chronicle Monday, December 13

[Byron]

EDITORIAL 

A water giveaway

Monday, December 13, 2004

 


*
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/1
3/EDGD99EPCQ1.DTL&type=printable> Printable Version 

*                                 Email
<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/12/1
3/EDGD99EPCQ1.DTL&type=friend&emailcolor=%23BF766C&origin=http://www.sfgate.
com/cgi-bin/article.cgi%3Ffile%3D%2Fchronicle%2Farchive%2F2004%2F12%2F13%2FE
DGD99EPCQ1.DTL>  This Article 





 <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/> Health


.Main Opinion Page <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/> 
.Chronicle <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/artlist.cgi?key=IN&directory=Pink>
Sunday Insight
.Chronicle <http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/chroniclecampaigns/>  Campaigns 

SF Chronicle Submissions
.Letters to <http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#letters>  the
Editor
.Open Forum <http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#open> 
.Sunday <http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#insight>  Insight

WHO OWNS California's water? That issue, which has shaped California's
history, is at the heart of a legal battle that could gut implementation of
the Endangered Species Act in California and place insurmountable hurdles in
the state's ability to manage its water. 

The controversy dates back to the extended California drought in the early
1990s, when the federal government held back water from two San Joaquin
Valley irrigation districts to protect the Chinook salmon and delta smelt
populations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. 

A private law firm, Marzulla & Marzulla, sued the federal government on
behalf of the irrigation districts -- which in turn represent 285 growers in
the area. The suit claimed that withholding the water represented an illegal
''taking'' of property, prohibited by the U.S. Constitution. 

In 2001, John Wiese, a judge in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in
Washington, D.C., ruled in the grower's favor. The ruling effectively
overturned decades of California law. For years, it had been accepted that
our water is owned by the people of California, and not by those who have
signed contracts to use it. ''You can acquire rights to use water, but you
can never acquire ownership of water in the same way you can a piece of
land, or an automobile,'' said Joseph Sax, a UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School
of Law professor who helped prepare a brief against the water districts'
claims. Wiese in effect ruled that the users of the water, through their
local water districts, owned the water. He ordered the federal government to
pay the growers $14 million in damages, which, with interest and attorneys'
fees, has grown to $26 million. ''This could have a devastating impact on
regulating water in the public interest in California,'' Sax told us. 

But instead of appealing the case to a higher court -- which the federal
government typically does when it has to pay out large sums of money - - the
Bush administration is reportedly on the verge of reaching a settlement with
the growers, to the alarm of state officials. 

On Dec. 1, California's Water Resources Control Board, representing the
Schwarzenegger administration, urged the Bush administration to appeal
Wiese's decision and to consider having the case transferred to the
California Supreme Court. In a letter to three Bush cabinet secretaries,
water board chairman Arthur Baggett Jr. wrote that Wiese's ruling could
''fundamentally change the way water resources are managed in California.'' 

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer has made a similar request. Even the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, charged with managing the
nation's fisheries, has urged the administration to appeal the ruling,
arguing that ''liability was wrongly decided.'' 

All Californians should be concerned about the Justice Department's apparent
eagerness to go along with a flawed ruling in a single court that could have
a disastrous impact on the environment, as well as determine who controls
water in California for decades to come.. 

Urge Attorney General John Ashcroft to stand up for taxpayers and the
environment by appealing this ruling. E-mail him at askdoj at usdoj.gov. 

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

Consultant, California Trout, Inc.

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 519 4810 ce

415 383 9562 fx

bwl3 at comcast.net

 <mailto:bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org> bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org
(secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://www.caltrout.org

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20041214/f840b07d/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image004.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 73 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20041214/f840b07d/attachment.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image005.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 669 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20041214/f840b07d/attachment-0001.gif>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image006.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 70 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20041214/f840b07d/attachment-0002.gif>