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Wednesday’s top of the scroll: Feds reduce Calif. water pumping to protect fish; Request for TRO filed

Posted by: Maven on February 10, 2010 at 8:33 am

From the Fresno Bee:

“The federal government said Tuesday it will reduce pumping in the delta this week because a threatened fish could be killed by the equipment, a decision that follows two years of limited deliveries that left fallowed fields across the Central Valley.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation intends to shut off one of its five pumps beginning Thursday because adult delta smelt swam into the area, said bureau spokesman Pete Lucero.

The restrictions to protect the smelt, a finger-sized fish, primarily affect Central Valley farmers and could last until June 30.

The federal government had been pumping at full capacity since Saturday. That was the day after a federal court judge lifted separate federal pumping restrictions that had been in place to protect salmon. … “

Read more from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.

Pumps on, pumps off, it’s hard to keep track … Alex Brietler has more on the action:

” … The pumping shutdown will begin after 5 p.m. Wednesday, according to court documents filed by Ignacia S. Moreno, U.S. assistant attorney general.

This is “necessary for the Central Valley Project and State Water Project operations to avoid jeopardizing the continued existence of the delta smelt and adversely modifying its critical habitat,” the document says.

Attorneys for the water users promptly requested a restraining order and asked that a hearing be held in Judge Wanger’s courtroom on Wednesday. The water users say they are in “immediate danger of irreparable harm.” Their request says that less than one week ago, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife attorney told the court that the smelt had turned left into the north part of the Delta and were out of the influence of the south-Delta pumps. … “

Read this post from Alex Brietler on his blog by clicking here.

But if you really want lots of details, check out this post from the Bay-Delta blog:

” … on February 8, Fish and Wildlife determined that negative OMR flows had to be reduced anyway — but now it was to protect the delta smelt, in accordance with Fish and Wildlife’s own biological opinion. FWS issued a 48-hour Notice of Implementation that would take effect by 5:00 p.m. on February 10, thereby reducing Delta pumping activity in spite of February 5 TRO.

But of course the story cannot end there. For unless Wanger also enjoins implementation of the FWS BiOp as he did the NMFS BiOp, Westlands and other contractors will have substantially lost out on the benefit of their favorable February 5 ruling — particularly because SLDMWA has the option of extending the 14-day TRO for an additional 14 days, if it could show that the extension would not jeopardize fish or critical habitat. And sure enough, SLDMWA has indeed filed a motion for a TRO against the FWS BiOp (PDF), specifically the part of the RPA that Fish and Wildlife plans to implement (Component 1, Action 2). This is actually the second time the contractors have sought a TRO against this BiOp, but it was denied the first time because Component 1 had not actually been implemented. Now that FWS has given notice that Component 1 will be implemented after 5:00 p.m. on February 10, the contractors will take another crack at it. … “

Read this post from the Bay-Delta blog by clicking here.

This story’s changing fast, so stay tuned… I’ll try and post any developments today as promptly as I can….

February 10, 2010 · Filed Under Delta Issues, Wildlife & Endangered Species

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