Water Education Foundation
This is just one post in the Uncategorized Category
Click here to view all posts

Action brings sense to muddy water issue

Posted by: Maven on July 20, 2009 at 6:54 am

From the Visalia Times-Delta, this column by Don Curlee:

It might be just a trickle, but a stream of hope for improving California’s overly regulated water supply began to flow recently. The crack in the levee occurred because of two important decisions.

Judge Oliver Wanger, a U. S. district judge in Fresno, has been intimately involved in decisions involving water and who controls its flow. He ruled against those who want to prevent water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from flowing south where farmers and 23 million people in Southern California can make good use of it.

The judge said the federal Endangered Species Act has been improperly applied as a means of shutting off the pumps that send water down the California Aqueduct. Retaining it in the Delta supposedly preserves habitat for the delta smelt. The smelt is classified as threatened in its ESA listing.

His ruling stated that the effect of the pump shut-off on the lives of citizens has not been taken into account, as the law says it must be. As many as 30,000 farm workers and others are out of work because of the lack of water to irrigate crops.

In the same week Judge Wanger made his ruling, the public service law firm Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento filed suit against the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, saying that its basis for shutting down the water flow is unconstitutional.

July 20, 2009 · Filed Under Uncategorized

Comments

Leave a Reply