A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 5, 2007
2. Supply -
State explores legal course after
Forced water conservation could follow dry winter -
San Francisco Chronicle
Water rationing could be on horizon
RULING ON DELTA FISH MAY LIMIT SUPPLY PUMPED TO VALLEY -
State explores legal course after
By John Ellis
State officials will meet today to talk about the effect of a ruling late Friday by a federal judge in Fresno that ordered big cuts in delta water pumping to protect an endangered fish.
The state contends the ruling by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger will have dire consequences for Valley farmers and
State and federal officials could pursue at least three legal routes, should the state suffer a protracted drought or face other emergency conditions that could severely affect water supplies.
The director of the California Department of Water Resources, however, remains skeptical of those legal options, even as he and others try to comprehend the ramifications of Wanger's order.
Lester Snow, the state Department of Water Resources head, said he is aware of the options, but he noted that one is time-consuming and the other two might only help urban areas in true peril and not agricultural users.
As of now, those who depend on delta water are still dissecting Wanger's order.
"We're somewhat in a survival mode," said Dan Nelson, executive director of the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, which represents farmers on the
Wanger's 30-minute oral ruling late Friday followed an eight-day hearing in which environmentalists and state and federal water officials each offered several witnesses with expertise in fish biology.
The ruling stems from a 2005 lawsuit filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which sought to help protect the delta smelt under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The 3-inch-long fish, which only lives a year, is considered an indicator of the delta's health.
At issue are the giant pumping stations that are key to the state and federal water systems, devices that environmentalists say have driven the smelt to the brink of extinction.
State officials, farmers and water contractors immediately criticized the ruling. Among other predictions, state officials said, the ruling could mean that in an average year, 35% less water would be delivered to farmers and urban water users in the Bay Area and
But Wanger -- who has heard more than 30 cases involving the Central Valley Project -- tucked legal options in his decision that could allow more water pumping.
Under the federal Endangered Species Act, Wanger said, those involved in the case can ask him to modify the provisions of his order "to protect human health and safety."
"We have a fail-safe here that the court is going to employ," he told both parties.
In addition, Wanger crafted his order as a "preliminary injunction," which allows either side to seek a change in the order if emergency conditions arise.
Both options would be subject to a hearing before Wanger, who would listen to arguments from state and federal water officials, as well as the environmentalists who filed the lawsuit, before making any decision.
Another legal avenue under the Endangered Species Act is to employ a panel of seven Cabinet officials who could find that the economic hardship from reduced water flows is more important than protecting a threatened species.
The panel -- informally known as the "God Squad" -- was added to the Endangered Species Act in 1978.
Snow, the state's water chief, acknowledges that "health and safety" and other emergency appeals to Wanger are options, but said it would likely only help restore emergency services.
He pointed to the state's voluntary shutdown of the huge delta water pumps for 10 days in May after rising numbers of delta smelt were being sucked to their deaths.
Not long after, Snow said, some water contractors served by the South Bay Aqueduct in the Bay Area started having troubles with their water supply.
If that had persisted, he said, firefighters might have had insufficient water pressure to fight fires.
It is that kind of condition, Snow said, that he thinks could be appealed to Wanger.
"I don't think that would help out the ag community very much," he said.
As for the "God Squad," Snow noted it has only been invoked a handful of times since it was added to the Endangered Species Act.
When it was, he said, it was long and time-consuming.
"You only go to it when there is no other action that can be taken," Snow said.
"We're just not at that point yet."
Friday's ruling followed a May ruling by Wanger that threw out a key U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion on water management and pumping in the delta.
His decision required the opinion to be rewritten to protect the smelt.
Friday's ruling will be in effect until that opinion is rewritten. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/129636.html
Forced water conservation could follow dry winter
San Francisco Chronicle – 9/5/07
By Jonathan Curiel, staff writer
A federal judge’s ruling that limits the amount of water that can be pumped out of the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta increases the likelihood of rationing in much of the Bay Area if the coming winter is as dry as the last one, water officials said Tuesday.
Agencies that supply water to millions of customers in Santa Clara County, the Livermore area and other places dependent on the delta described Friday's court decision as the back half of a double whammy that started with last winter's skimpy storm totals.
"We are looking at the potential for mandatory conservation, but we're not going to know until we get into late January or early February," said Susan Siravo, a spokeswoman for the Santa Clara Valley Water District, which serves 1.7 million residents and gets half its water from the delta. "Here in
Friday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger will cut the amount of water pumped from the delta to cities, counties and farms around the state. Wanger's decision is designed to protect delta smelt, a small fish whose spawning has been disrupted by delta water pumps operated by the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project.
The ruling will restrict delta water flows from late December through June, a six-month period when the smelt spawn.
The decision, which will be in effect for at least a year, could lead to a cutback of as much as 35 percent of the water pumped from the delta for people and farms, say officials from the state Department of Water Resources.
"We're not yet talking about rationing, but down the line, we don't know," said Boni Brewer, spokeswoman with the Zone 7 Water Agency, which gets 80 percent of its water from the delta and serves about 200,000 customers in
Calls for voluntary conservation began in April around the Bay Area, not just in districts that rely on delta water. In
The Alameda County Water District, which serves
Wanger's ruling doesn't affect customers of the Hetch Hetchy system, which serves 2.6 million people in
All those agencies, however, have joined in the campaign urging people to curtail their use of water. #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/05/BAN8RUVLB.DTL
Water rationing could be on horizon
RULING ON DELTA FISH MAY LIMIT SUPPLY PUMPED TO VALLEY
By Paul Rogers
Silicon Valley may be heading toward its first mandatory water rationing in 16 years, after a federal judge's decision to protect a tiny endangered fish by reducing the amount of water that can be pumped from
Santa Clara Valley Water District officials said Tuesday that they will produce a range of options - including mandatory rationing - by November for the district's board to consider for 2008.
"We may find that we need to go back and ask for more conservation - perhaps even mandatory conservation," said Walt Wadlow, a chief operating officer of the district, based in
The last time
"If we have a lot of local rainfall in the winter that will make it easier to get through next year," Wadlow said. "But we'll have to do the planning this fall. In the water planning business, you are always looking ahead."
The district provides water to 1.7 million people in Silicon Valley by acting as a wholesaler to 13 retail agencies, such as the San Jose Water Co., that stretch from
Drinking water
The delta is a vast network of sloughs and marshes where the state's two largest rivers - the
But the delta has faced increasing turmoil, from crumbling levees to collapsing fish populations.
The ruling on its future, by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in
Tuesday, when farm leaders and government water managers returned to work, the ruling still was reverberating as a landmark moment in
"This is very significant. I can't think of a decision that had bigger water supply impacts than this, and I've been doing this for 33 years. This is a big deal," said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources in
But it was not unexpected.
Four environmental groups sued the U.S. Department of Interior in 2005, arguing that increased pumping of fresh water from the delta had so degraded the area that the delta smelt, a three-inch translucent fish, was nearing extinction.
The groups contended that the Bush administration had not done enough to protect the smelt when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued rules known as a "biological opinion" to guide how the giant pumps of the State Water Project and Central Valley Project near
Environmentalists and many biologists contend the smelt are an indicator of the health of the entire delta.
"This issue has been coming for some time. The water users have watched as the government has operated those projects remarkably irresponsibly," said Barry Nelson, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in
"They were killing delta smelt, chinook salmon, splittail, green sturgeon - a whole assemblage of species," he said. "Now, the whole delta ecosystem is collapsing."
Farm and urban water organizations did not deny the smelt population has fallen as water exports from the delta have increased. Not only does the pumping of fresh water make the delta more saline, harming smelt and other fish, but they also are sucked into the massive pumps and killed.
Other causes
Farm and urban water groups cited other causes, from pesticide runoff to an invasive clam, that also may be to blame. Wanger did not issue a written ruling.
Instead, he ordered from the bench that pumping from the delta be reduced from December to June when smelt are present near the huge pumps until the Fish and Wildlife Service writes a new biological opinion next year. That document also must pass muster with him.
Wanger, appointed to the bench by President Reagan, required that two waterways in the delta, Old River and Middle River, which now run backward because of the pumping, must stop running backward enough that the smelt are no longer at risk of extinction.
How much pumping from the delta will have to be reduced is not known yet. Johns estimates it could range from 10 percent to as high as 35 percent. The judge gave the environmentalists and federal and state governments until mid-October to write up his order in legal water terminology.
Three million Bay Area residents from
"I'd say nervous is putting it lightly," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation in
Kranz said farmers will have to make tough decisions in a few months about what to plant for next year.
"We know that this is going to have real impacts on real people," he said. "There are family farmers and their employees who are going to be affected by this, and all the communities whose livelihoods depend on agriculture."
Options, he said, include more drip irrigation, buying satellite images of fields to more efficiently apply water and fallowing land.
Nelson, the environmentalist, noted that farmers use 80 percent of the water in
Conservation urged
There is plenty of water, Nelson said, if farmers and cities use it more efficiently, including drip irrigation and low-flush toilets, along with more recycled water.
"The Department of Interior is currently writing more cheap contracts for farmers," Nelson said. "If water is a scarce commodity, we should treat it as a scarce commodity. If gas was a nickel a gallon, our energy problems would be much worse. That's what we're doing with water."
The huge issue - how to provide water to a growing population from a fragile delta - is expected to come to a head by Jan. 1, when a task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issues recommendations. Those could include everything from reduced pumping to construction of a peripheral canal to move water around the eastern edge of the delta.
Johns said a canal would cost at least $5 billion, yet would solve many problems. Voters, however, rejected the idea in 1982 when
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6804690?nclick_check=1
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