[env-trinity] Litigation to Halt Bureau's Operating Criteria and Plan

[Byron]

SAN FRANCISCO 
Lawsuit challenges plan to increase pumping from delta

 <mailto:begelko at sfchronicle.com> Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

 


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Environmental groups sued the Bush administration Tuesday over a plan to
increase water shipments from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Central
Valley farmers, saying it would harm the delta and threaten the delta smelt
with extinction. 

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, challenges an
opinion issued in July by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that said
planned changes in federal and state water project operations posed no risk
to the smelt, listed as a threatened species since 1993. 

The opinion, the suit said, failed to take into account plans by the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation to sign new 25-year contracts with growers in the San
Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, starting as soon as this month, that would
greatly increase pumping out of the delta. It also said the population of
the delta smelt, a finger-size fish considered an indicator of the health of
the delta system, is at its lowest level in 35 years. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service opinion is "based on political expedience
rather than sound science'' and relies on speculation that unproven measures
will be taken to protect the delta, said the suit, which seeks to invalidate
the opinion and effectively block the new water contracts. 

"From delta smelt to Chinook salmon, fish in the delta and the Central
Valley are in serious trouble, and the federal and state governments are
making the problem worse,'' said Hal Candee, a lawyer with the Natural
Resources Defense Council. 

The other plaintiffs are California Trout, Baykeeper, Friends of the River
and the Bay Institute. 

Al Donner, spokesman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento, said
the federal agency considered the effect of increased pumping from the delta
in its evaluation last July. 

"We think that the biological opinion is an adequate assessment of the
impacts and it sets a reasonable and prudent standard for protecting the
delta smelt,'' Donner said. 

The suit is the latest of several related disputes over Bush administration
water policy in California. Environmentalists have accused the
administration of trying to help farmers strip the delta smelt of its
Endangered Species Act protection and criticized the administration for
refusing to appeal a ruling that required the government to pay growers $26
million for water that was held back to protect the smelt and the Chinook
salmon in the early 1990s. 

Tuesday's suit involved the impact of new operating plans for the federal
Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, which control water
storage and north-south shipments. The suit alleged that the Bureau of
Reclamation, which operates the Central Valley Project, pressured the Fish
and Wildlife Service to issue a hasty opinion that would clear the way for
renewed long-term contracts providing increased volumes of subsidized water
to major farmers. 

"This was done to push through a multitude of ill-conceived water contracts
in an arbitrary rush to appease agricultural users,'' said Laura Robb, an
Earthjustice attorney representing the environmental groups. 

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/02/16/BAGDLBBHO61.DTL 

 

 

Byron Leydecker, 

Chair, Friends of Trinity River

Consultant, Californiua Trout, Inc.

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810 ph

415 383 9562 fx

415 519 4810 ce

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://caltrout.org

 

 

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