Trigger specified in Wanger court ruling causes Delta water exports to be cut in half on Friday (28th)

Earlier this month, Judge Wanger issued a court ruling reducing water exports from the Delta in order to protect the endangered Delta smelt. The ruling specified certain situations that would require pumping operations to be reduced further, and according to the Sacramento Bee, one of those thresholds occurred on Christmas day:

Wanger’s ruling requires pumping reductions under certain conditions that affect the smelt. One of those triggers was tripped on Christmas Day when water clarity declined at a South Delta monitoring site. “It’s a belated Christmas present to the Delta smelt from Judge Wanger,” said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. “It is a historic occasion.”

DWR and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had three days to respond after the trigger point was reached. They did so Friday morning by reducing combined pumping from 5,250 cubic feet per second to about 2,400, said Carl Torgersen, chief of operations and maintenance for the state Department of Water Resources. The goal is to minimize reverse flows in the Delta to meet a threshold set by the court. The result, Torgersen said, will be about 5,600 acre-feet of water per day not delivered to users. That’s enough water for about 10,000 average households for a year.

The cutback probably won’t have an immediate effect. Torgersen said it will hinder the ability to refill San Luis Reservoir near Los Banos, a storage point for the southbound water. But there could be long-term shortages, particularly if 2008 ends up being a drought year.

The pumping reductions must continue for 10 days unless rainfall substantially boosts natural runoff through the Delta.

To read the full text of this story from the Sacramento Bee, click here.

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