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Pacific Legal Foundation: Favorable ruling in the Delta smelt case

Posted by: Maven on May 28, 2010 at 2:22 pm

From the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty Blog:

“Yesterday evening, the court issued its ruling on the preliminary injunction motion filed in the Delta smelt consolidated cases. Below is a quick resume of the decision. Bottom line, however, is that the cutbacks are illegal, but the court is not yet prepared to order immediate relief.

1. The baseline issue. To determine whether a proposed action will jeopardize the continued existence of a listed species, the Fish and Wildlife Service must identify the environmental baseline, i.e., the way the world looks without the project. Once that’s been determined, the Service can then analyze the effects of the project. In the Delta smelt cases, the plaintiffs argued that the Service misused computer modelling programs to determine what the Sacramento Delta would look like without the water projects operating. On this argument, Judge Wanger sided in favor of the defendants.

“This highly technical dispute was not raised before the agency, and there were legitimate concerns about comparing Calsim modeling runs to other Calsim runs. This choice of competing methodologies is not sufficiently clear error to justify the court’s intervention.

2. Other stressors. … “

Read more from the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Liberty Blog by clicking here.

May 28, 2010 · Filed Under Delta Issues, Wildlife & Endangered Species

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