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Environmentalists renew attacks in battle over Delta water

Posted by: Maven on December 24, 2008 at 6:58 am

From the California Real Estate Journal:

A lawsuit seeking to shut down the large pumps that remove water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta has opened a whole new chapter in the protracted battle over the state’s thirst for water and the threat of ecological collapse in the delta.

The two environmental groups that filed suit Dec. 1 in Sacramento Superior Court are also seeking to take hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, reliant on delta water, out of production. In California Water Impact Network v. California Department of Water Resources, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network claim that water draining off mineral-damaged land in the western San Joaquin Valley is ending up in the delta and harming fish.

“California has regulated its waters like the feds have regulated Wall Street and the result has been a collapse of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems,” Bill Jennings, chairman of the sportfishing alliance, said in a statement. “Given bureaucratic paralysis, we have little alternative but to turn to the courts to prevent the extinction of our historic fisheries.”

Ted Thomas, spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, which runs the state pumping operation, said the suit focuses too narrowly on the pumps as the center of the delta’s environmental problems.

“There are myriad factors contributing to the decline of the delta ecosystem,” Thomas said. Shutting down the pumps would leave Central Valley farmers and city water users high and dry and the economic impacts would be draconian, he added.

“We are totally concerned about the condition of the delta and we understand the groups’ impatience regarding the delta but we’re very cautious that any hastily constructed ‘solution’ could have unintended consequences,” said William Rukeyser, spokesman for the state Water Resources Control Board, which was named in the suit.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, also named in the suit, declined to comment.

Read more from the California Real Estate Journal by clicking here.

December 24, 2008 · Filed Under Delta Issues

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