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Delta farmers sue to block peripheral canal plan

Posted by: Maven on April 14, 2009 at 8:21 am

From Mike Taugher at the Contra Costa Times:

Delta farmers have sued to block plans to build an aqueduct that would divert Sacramento River water around the Delta. It is the latest in a flurry of about a dozen active lawsuits over California’s most important and fought over source of water, but it appears to be the first to directly take on new plans to build a peripheral canal like the one voters defeated in 1982.

“This is a life-and-death struggle for us, and we’re not giving up,” said John Herrick, a lawyer for the South Delta Water Agency, one of two water districts that filed the lawsuit last week in federal court in Sacramento.

At issue is a mammoth planning effort that seeks, by the end of next year, to have a detailed plan and permit to build a peripheral canal around the Delta that would also help conserve fish and other wildlife that are in danger of extinction.

The plan, called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, would be the largest and most complex habitat conservation plan ever under state and federal endangered species laws. It is also on a schedule that would also make it one of the fastest.

The lawsuit, filed late last week in federal court in Sacramento, says the plan violates planning laws because the environmental review has begun even though there is no specific plan for critics to analyze.

Read more from the Contra Costa Times by clicking here.

Dan Bacher responds to the news:

I applaud the farmers for joining with fishing groups, Delta residents and grassroots environmentalists in opposition to the BDCP’s push to build a peripheral canal. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s BDCP and Delta Vision processes are nothing other than cynical attempts to cloak the plan to build the peripheral canal and destroy the California Delta with a veneer of deceptive “green” eco-babble.

These two processes stress the “co-equal goals” of “ecosystem restoration” and “water supply” when they really will only result in a gigantic water grab to serve corporate agribusiness on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side and southern California.

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan process is “essentially a massive hydrologic modification of the Delta masquerading as a habitat conservation plan.”

“BDCP is essentially an end run around the Endangered Species Act,” he emphasized. “It promises take permits, fifty-year guarantees and no surprises in an incredibly complex and degraded estuary while refusing to address how much water the Delta needs to maintain ecosystem integrity or to analyze the costs and benefits of various reduced or zero export scenarios,” he added.

The canal and increased water exports will only exacerbate the imperiled state of Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations.

You can find the full text of Dan Bacher’s commentary at IndyBay.org by clicking here.

April 14, 2009 · Filed Under Delta Issues

Comments

One Response to “Delta farmers sue to block peripheral canal plan”

  1. dfb on April 15th, 2009 12:10 am

    For some reason, I have a feeling this will not be the last lawsuit about the peripheral canal plans. Also looming out there, I expect there will need to be another update to the FWS and NOAA fisheries BiOps for the smelt and salmon before the canal can break ground. Those will be needed for the Army Corps to give its permits. Let the battles begin.

    BTW: We’re not alone in dealing with water issues. ;) NPR broadcast a two part series about the Indian green revolution, mostly dealing with water. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102944731

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