Sac Bee editorial: A fox in the smelt house

From the Sacramento Bee, this editorial:

State and federal water contractors are undisputed experts in the mechanics of moving water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But are they experts on how to avoid impacts to the Delta smelt? The record suggests otherwise.

Last year, the contractors tried to convince federal Judge Oliver Wanger that there was no credible evidence that state and federal pumps in the Delta were harming smelt. Wanger wasn’t persuaded. In a landmark ruling, he sided with environmental groups and their biologists that water diversions could well be harming these threatened fish. He ordered federal and state agencies to cut back pumping and prepare a new biological assessment to govern water shipments in the near future.

Wanger’s ruling rocked the water world, further reducing the reliability of supplies to two-thirds of California’s population and millions of farm acres. Yet apparently it has altered the practices of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies, which need to avoid further showdowns over the Endangered Species Act.

As The Bee’s Matt Weiser has reported, these agencies have asked state and federal water contractors to help write the new biological assessment – a blueprint that describes how the pumping system will be operated. These contractors, which have a vested interest in maximizing water diversions, weren’t involved the last time the Bureau of Reclamation prepared such a document. So it is highly curious they are involved now.

Read the rest of this editorial from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

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