Coverage wrap-up: Environmentalists sue to shut down Delta pumps and retire drainage impaired land

Great coverage this morning from the state’s three top environmental writers on the lawsuit filed yesterday. Each story is well written with different angles – each is worth the click-through. From Kelly Zito at the San Francisco Chronicle:

The giant state and federal pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that funnel water to 25 million Californians should be shut down until certain Central Valley farmers retire hundreds of thousands of acres of chemical-laden farmland, according to a lawsuit filed today by a state water watchdog.

Irrigating agricultural land in the western San Joaquin Valley tainted with selenium, mercury, boron and other toxic substances constitutes an unreasonable use of a public resource protected by state laws and has contributed to the sharp decline of endangered fish species, said the California Water Impact Network.

“We think there is a simple solution to California’s water problems – to retire all of the drainage-impaired lands in the Central Valley. A second is water conservation – agriculture uses 80 percent of the developed surface water,” said Carolee Krieger, president and founder C-WIN.

The lawsuit marks the latest twist in the continuing Delta drama. The hub of the state’s 1,300-square-mile water system is also at the heart of the fight between uses for food and human needs, and those of wildlife and rare plants. In recent years, failure of the ecosystem forced legal rulings that curbed water exports – a move made more complicated this year by a drought and fears of another dry winter.

Mike Taugher of the Contra Costa Times/San Jose Mercury News focuses on the public trust doctrine:

If it succeeds, the lawsuit would shift the focus away from the worsening conflict between individual species of fish and the amount of water pumped out of the Delta to a comprehensive attempt to balance competing interests.

“The only things that are already protected are already endangered,” said Michael Jackson, a lawyer for the environmental groups. “But what’s happening is the whole bottom is falling out of the ecosystem. You cannot list everything (as an endangered species) and you can’t protect species by species.”

By invoking the public trust doctrine, a legal concept that dates to the Roman Empire, the environmental groups seek to force regulators to consider the environment, recreation, aesthetics and other values to be passed to future generations in the Delta much more rigorously.

The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, the California Water Impact Network and retired federal biologist Felix Smith, seeks to stop water deliveries from the Delta until the massive state and federal pumping stations near Tracy come into compliance with laws that the environmentalists say are being broken.

A spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources said the lawsuit could lead to “draconian” cuts in the East Bay and South Bay and threatens what little stability is left in the state’s water supply outlook. “It used to be that drought was determined by hydrology. Now it is determined by hydrology and by regulatory and judicial constraints,” said water resources department spokesman Ted Thomas. “This condition could toss us into the worst drought in California history very easily.”

From Alex Brietler of Stockton’s Record:

State and federal water managers have increased exports to farms and cities south of the Delta even as fish populations plummet, says the lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior Court. Northern California reservoirs have been “cannibalized” for the sake of Southern California, and irrigation of drainage-impaired lands in the western San Joaquin Valley is a waste of water, the groups say.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation and state Department of Water Resources, both of which export Delta water, are targets of the lawsuit. So is the State Water Resources Control Board, which is charged with regulating water rights and ensuring water quality in California. The board has failed to provide important oversight, environmentalists say.

“It’s clear that if the Delta, this estuary and its fisheries are to be saved, it will be under a court’s jurisdiction,” said Stockton-based Bill Jennings, whose California Sportfishing Protection Alliance is among several plaintiffs. “This may be the last, best chance for California fisheries.”

A federal court has already restricted exports from the Delta to protect threatened smelt, and the state is enduring its second year of drought. That double-whammy has triggered water rationing from portions of the Bay Area to San Diego.

Ted Thomas, a spokesman for Water Resources, said the department was “disappointed once again that everyone focuses only on the pumps,” just one factor in the decline of fish. Shutting down the pumps would be Draconian, Thomas said.

Read the press release from C-WIN by clicking here.

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