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CSPA, C-WIN and BEC sue Schwarzenegger, Resources Agency and Department of Water Resources over approval of Drought Water Bank water transfers
April 14, 2009 -- The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) joined the Butte Environmental Council (BEC) and the California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) in suing the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the California Resources Agency and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger over their blatant failure to comply with fundamental requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in approving the 2009 Drought Water Bank (DWB) emergency water transfers. The DWB project envisions the transfer of up to 600,000 acre-feet of water during 2009 to supply State Water Project contractors.
Much of the proposed project is predicated upon pumping groundwater in the Sacramento Valley for export to Southern California. Unfortunately, lowering groundwater levels threatens to dewater important eastside streams like Butte Creek of water crucial to sustaining remnant salmonid fisheries. Depleted groundwater would also deprive the extensive eastside orchards of irrigation water because they lack adequate surface water supplies.
CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings observed that “the DWB is simply another attempt at transforming the Sacramento Valley into a latter day Owens Valley and that the raison d'etre of the complaint is DWR's blatant failure to comply with CEQA because the massive water transfer project would have been unmasked as poorly conceived, inadequately planned, ineffective and environmentally damaging.” “In other words DWR is playing a shell game in order to get around the fundamental statue that was enacted to protect the general public from unwise and disastrous courses of action,” he said.
The lawsuit alleges that: 1) the Governor does not have the power to waive CEQA because the drought is not a disaster that could not have been foreseen or which required emergency response like a flood, fire or earthquake and 2) in so far as the defendants claim they complied with CEQA, they relied upon a supplement environmental document that had not been certified, was for a different project (Environmental Water Account), was based upon vacated biological opinions and failed to consider recent events (i.e., collapse of pelagic and salmonid fisheries).
The complaint asks the court for a peremptory writ of mandate voiding the approval of the 2009 DWB and a permanent injunction enjoining further activity in furtherance of the DWR. The parties will be asking the court for a temporary restraining order, stay or preliminary injunction prohibiting further actions on the DWB while the petition is pending.
Contra Costa Times article on the lawsuit