One assumes this will be similar to the other recent cut off, lasting only a couple weeks before reason prevails.
Judge limits Delta pumps
Effort to save fish will hurt farmers and others, the state says.
By John Ellis - Fresno Bee
Published 12:00 am PDT Saturday, September 1, 2007
A federal judge on Friday ordered less water to be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect the threatened Delta smelt, a decision state water officials said will hurt San Joaquin Valley farmers and Southern California residents alike.
State Water Contractors, an organization representing more than two dozen agencies that buy water from the state, called the decision by U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno the largest court-ordered water supply reduction in California history.
"This may be the biggest impact anywhere, California or nationwide," said Terry Erlewine, the organization's general manager.
In an average year -- when close to 6 million acre-feet of water is sent south from the Delta -- the giant pumps serving both the state and federal water projects could deliver up to 35 percent less water under the federal order, said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources.
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.
"The evidence is uncontradicted that these project operations move the fish," Wanger said after hearing objections from defendants, who had argued that other factors led to the fish's decline.
"It happens, and the law says something has to be done about it."
Under the ruling, limits would be put in place from the end of December, when the fish are about to spawn, until June, when young fish can move into better habitat with more food.
