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Family Farm Alliance: Scrambling for cover on smelt – Federal fish agency refuses to answer any questions

Posted by: Maven on January 13, 2010 at 8:52 am

From Earth Times:

“FRESNO, Calif. – (Business Wire) The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rules cutting off water deliveries to protect the delta smelt have cost California tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in ruined crops and fallowed fields. Those restrictions aren’t helping the smelt; recent surveys show their numbers continue to fall. And now the agency is refusing to answer questions about whether there was any scientific basis for those restrictions in the first place.

As a result, the Family Farm Alliance announced today that it is seeking an order from the court to compel the agency to follow its own regulations: http://familyfarmalliance.clubwizard.com/IMUpload/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Salazar%20Ltr%20Final%2010%20January%202010.doc.pdf

“The court has already determined that FWS violated the National Environmental Policy Act by adopting these restrictions without conducting an environmental impact analysis of the extraordinary harm they are doing to other endangered species and to the human environment,” said Dan Keppen, Executive Director of the Alliance. “The agency has twice failed to perform the kind of independent review of these regulations that federal laws require. And now they’re ducking questions about why the data on delta smelt don’t support the limits on water deliveries that they have imposed.” … “

Read more from Earth Times by clicking here.

January 13, 2010 · Filed Under Delta Issues, Wildlife & Endangered Species

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