The fight for water rights in California is on the table again. After an amended plan for water allocation passed in December, the state has faced criticism and legal action from agricultural interest groups.
The city and county of San Francisco has joined the Oakdale Irrigation District (OID), South San Joaquin Irrigation District (SSJID), and the Turlock Irrigation District (TID) in an additional lawsuit against the California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) over the board’s approval of Phase I of the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan.
The Bay-Delta Plan Phase I, adopted Dec. 12, 2018 by a 4-1 vote, would require minimum flow regulations for the lower San Joaquin River and three tributaries—Merced, Tuolumne, and Stanislaus rivers—during peak salmon spawning periods from February to June. The plan would require districts to keep 30-50 percent of watershed runoff in the rivers to help increase salmon population.
The irrigation districts, all members of the San Joaquin Tributaries Authority (SJTA), challenge the state of California’s right to increase water flows to the river and tributaries through the Phase I unimpaired flow proposal.
“The State Water Board misused its power to adopt a misguided and devastating plan. Given their current plan, we’re left with no choice but to pursue legal action. We must protect our more than 130-year-old water rights, our water supplies, and the communities we serve.” — MID Board President Paul Campbell
The injunction request by SJTA was filed in Tuolumne County Superior Court on Jan. 10, shortly after an independent lawsuit filed by the Modesto Irrigation District (MID) on Dec. 21, 2018 in Merced County Superior Court.
“The Bay-Delta Plan will cause substantial losses to the surface water supply relied upon by the SJTA member agencies for agricultural production, municipal supply, recreational use, and hydropower generation, among other things,” the SJTA lawsuit document read.
The lawsuit continues to claim, “implementation will also cause direct impacts to groundwater resources relied upon by the SJTA member agencies,” and “these impacts will devastate local water supplies for ag and urban communities and severely impact the regional economy.”
A second independent lawsuit was filed by the MID in Sacramento County Superior Court on Jan. 10 for the SWRCB failing to comply with both the U.S. and California Constitutions and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
In a released statement, MID Board President Paul Campbell said, “The State Water Board misused its power to adopt a misguided and devastating plan. Given their current plan, we’re left with no choice but to pursue legal action. We must protect our more than 130-year-old water rights, our water supplies, and the communities we serve.”
The SJTA lawsuit states that the plan will impact more than one million acres of agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley, “the majority of which, 65 percent, is designated as prime or unique farmland, or farmland of statewide importance. Of that 65 percent, the Board estimates the project would convert more than 24,000 acres to non-agricultural use.”
The lawsuit also claims that a 40 percent unimpaired flow objective will increase water rationing throughout the service area of the Hetch Hetchy Regional Water System, which provides water to nearly three million people in 29 cities around the San Francisco Bay area.
“While we see some marginal benefit to additional flows, we’ve also experienced water supply impacts and fishery declines because current river operations cannot sustainably manage for both,” a statement released by the OID and SSJID said.
Steve Knell, general manager of the OID, said in a released statement, “It’s the decimation of a large portion of agriculture in the middle of the nation’s most productive food belt that should concern everyone. All this loss of productive agriculture to gain 1,103 more salmon a year—per the state’s own analysis—doesn’t make sense.”
The SJTA lawsuit claims the SWRCB focused their entire analysis on only one species of anadromous fish, Central Valley fall-run Chinook salmon, and did not analyze protection of any other fish or wildlife resources. The lawsuit reads also there was only a projected 0.15 percent increase in Chinook salmon production.
The lawsuit continues to claim the SWRCB analysis “only considers the impacts to a single year of agriculture and does not consider the impacts of multiple-year water supply reductions,” and Phase I “will result in reductions in water supply in almost every year, with significant multi-year reductions during drought cycles.”
“We file suit not because we prefer conflict over collaboration,” said Peter Rietkerk, General Manager of the SSJID, in a released statement.
“On the contrary, we continue to encourage and participate in settlement discussions on our rivers, and support science on the Stanislaus. But we also have an indisputable responsibility to reserve our legal rights and protect our ag and urban customers.”
A released statement from the SSJID and OID concludes, “The OID, SSJID and other members of the SJTA stand ready to return to the table if that door is opened under the new administration, but the lawsuit is a necessary action to preserve the SJTA’s legal rights in court should that not occur.” — Anna Miller, WLJ correspondent
