California Groups File Suit to End Wasteful, Fish-Killing Delta Diversions

By Dan Bacher

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and Felix Smith, retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist, filed an historic lawsuit against the State Water Resources Control Board, California Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Sacramento Superior Court this afternoon.

The seven-count lawsuit alleges violations of the public trust, California Constitution, Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan, Fish and Game Code 5937 and State Board Decision 1641 and asks the court to curtail water exports from the Delta. Specifically, the seven-count lawsuit charges that the huge export pumps near Tracy in the south Delta kill thousands upon thousands of smelt and small salmon fry every year, at different times of year, and are the main threats to public trust resources in the Delta.

The lawsuit went to court as Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, striped bass and other fish populations continue to collapse, due to record increases in water exports from the California Delta in recent years. The state and federal governments have drained Northern California reservoirs to record low water levels over the past two years to fill the Kern County Groundwater Bank and to provide subsidized water to the Westlands Water District.

California has regulated its waters like the feds have regulated Wall Street and the result has been a collapse of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems, said CSPA Chairman and Director Bill Jennings. Given bureaucratic paralysis, we have little alternative but to turn to the courts to prevent the extinction of our historic fisheries.

Jennings takes particular aim at Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's controversial Bay Delta Vision and Bay-Delta Conservation Program processes. Both programs, under the "leadership" of a Governor who recently received Field and Stream's "Outdoor Villain" of the year award, are recommending the construction of a peripheral canal and more dams that would only exacerbate the fishery collapses.

The State Water Board hasn’t applied one significant measure to protect fisheries in over a decade and the Governors Delta Vision and Bay-Delta Conversation Program processes are little more than smokescreens to justify the status quo, added Jennings.

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