The renewal of the river proceeds.
An excerpt.
River's renewal a step closer
Deal to be filed today would begin restoration around '09.
By Michael Doyle / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Wednesday, September 13, 2006, 4:37 AM)
WASHINGTON — More water should start flowing down the San Joaquin River by around 2009 under a long-awaited settlement scheduled to be filed in Sacramento today.
By around 2013, salmon should be reintroduced to the river, which once teemed with them. Hundreds of millions of dollars would be spent on channel improvements and more, and a new "San Joaquin River restoration" administrator would oversee the complicated work.
The river restoration details, and myriad others that will change life in the San Joaquin Valley, have been worked out by farmers and environmentalists during months of negotiations. They are to be presented to a federal judge this morning in hopes of settling an 18-year-old lawsuit.
"To be able to come up with an agreement that parties on both sides can agree to is a monumental step to a healthy river," said Grant Davis, executive director of the San Francisco-based Bay Institute, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. "Failure would not only harm the river, it would harm the San Joaquin Valley."
Davis declined to offer details of the settlement, which was described by others who had been briefed about the pending deal. The Justice Department only signed off on the agreement Monday night, participants said, and details were changing up until the last moment.
But even as environmental groups and their negotiating partners embrace the new deal, it's attracting flak on Capitol Hill and among some water users. Part of the agreement includes an apparent deadline for Congress to approve San Joaquin River restoration legislation: Dec. 31.
If the legislation substantively differs from what negotiators agreed to, at least one lawmaker said, the whole deal could fall apart.
