[env-trinity] Suit Challenges Delta Pumping Restrictions

[Thomas P. Schlosser]

Here's the complaint that SLDMDWA filed.

Tom


On 7/12/2016 10:08 AM, Tom Stokely wrote:
> https://www.newsdeeply.com/water/articles/2016/07/12/suit-challenges-delta-pumping-restrictions
>
>
>   Suit Challenges Delta Pumping Restrictions
>
> SACRAMENTO BEE: Another legal dispute has erupted over the regulation 
> of water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a group of water 
> agencies has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
> WRITTEN BYRyan Sabalow 	PUBLISHED ON Jul. 12, 2016 	READ TIMEApprox. 
> 2 minutes
>
> A lawsuit filed Friday challenges restrictions to the federal 
> government’s pumping plant on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta near 
> Tracy, California.U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
>
> IN A FAILED effort to protect endangered fish, the federal government 
> decided without proper study to default to restricting the giant pumps 
> at the bottom of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
> So argues a lawsuit filed Friday at the U.S. District Court in 
> Sacramento by a powerful consortium of water agencies. They’re hoping 
> for a larger share of Delta water. It’s the latest salvo in a 
> political and legal dispute over how to manage the competing demands 
> on the fragile estuary.
> Friday’s suit, filed by the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, 
> alleges that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation failed to seek 
> alternatives other than cutting water supplies to people when it 
> adopted its operations plans for the massive Central Valley Project in 
> 2008 and 2009.
> Jason Peltier, the authority’s executive director, said in an 
> interview Friday that in spite of the pumping restrictions, fish 
> populations continue on a precipitous decline.
> Peltier said that before that happened, Reclamation failed to ask a 
> critical question: “Are there actually going to be benefits to the 
> dramatic cuts in water supply?”
> Reclamation spokesman Shane Hunt said his agency doesn’t comment on 
> pending litigation.
> The Central Valley Project includes Shasta and Folsom lakes and a 
> massive federal pumping station near Tracy. From there, Delta water is 
> channeled along canals to 2.1 million acres (850,000 hectares) of 
> farmland in the western San Joaquin Valley, and to urban water 
> districts in San Benito and Santa Clara counties.
> San Joaquin Valley farmers say they’ve had to let tens of thousands of 
> acres of farmland go fallow in recent years due to the pumping 
> restrictions. But environmental groups counter that recent economic 
> analyses show the state’s farming economy continues to do well – even 
> adding 30,000 new jobs last year 
> <http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/article66693797.html> – 
> in spite of the ongoing drought.
> Environmentalists have long argued that excessive human demand for 
> Delta water is the primary reason why native Delta fish are dying. Two 
> species in particular, delta smelt and winter-run Chinook salmon, are 
> hovering on the edge of extinction.
> In April, a trio of environmental groups sued in federal court 
> alleging 
> <http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/delta/article73459082.html> that 
> regulators repeatedly relaxed water quality standards – that would 
> have protected the fish – to keep Central Valley water flowing to 
> farms and cities.
> /This //story 
> <http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/delta/article88512547.html> first 
> appeared in the Sacramento Bee./ /For more coverage of the California 
> drought and water issues, please visit the Sacramento Bee 
> <http://www.sacbee.com/news/state/california/water-and-drought/>./
>
>
>
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> env-trinity at velocipede.dcn.davis.ca.us
> http://www2.dcn.org/mailman/listinfo/env-trinity

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