Judge to set water rules

SUPPLY FROM DELTA COULD BE CUT IN HALF

Michael Taugher
Mercury News
08/22/2007

FRESNO - The federal judge presiding over hearings this week that could have dramatic implications for California's water supply said Tuesday he has no intention of taking over the state's water system.

But the conditions he imposes could have a major impact during the next 12 months: By one estimate, a proposal under consideration could cost state and federal water customers half their delta water.

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger called the hearing after ruling in May that a key federal permit is illegal under the Endangered Species Act. He expects this week's hearing to help him craft rules allowing the water projects to operate legally until a new permit is issued next year.

He stressed that he wants to leave details of how the system is run to experts in regulatory and water agencies.

"All (water agencies) have to do is run them lawfully so they don't make the species extinct," Wanger said. Just putting smelt in jeopardy of extinction was enough to make the water project operations illegal, he said.

"You don't have to go to complete obliteration of the species," he said.

The hearing, which could last the rest of the week, got under way Tuesday with a leading expert telling the court that delta smelt are on the verge of extinction.

Several factors contribute to the smelt's decline, said Peter Moyle, a University of California-Davis fisheries biologist and author of a standard reference on California fish.

But he said the delta water pumps that send water to people and farms from the East Bay to San Diego are definitely part of the problem.

"It's clearly related to several factors, but the pumping plants in the south delta are certainly a contributing factor," Moyle said.

Environmentalists are pushing for new fish-protection measures they say would cut water deliveries by about one-fourth. State water officials say the environmentalists' proposal would be far more drastic, cutting water supplies by about half.

The state water agency and federal regulators have proposed restrictions that could result in water delivery cuts as high as one-quarter to one-third.

How those kinds of restrictions might trickle down to individual communities is impossible to say, but with reservoirs running low because of dry conditions they could be significant.

Among the most vulnerable regions is the Tri-Valley in eastern Alameda County, which gets 80 percent of its water from the delta and has little storage to draw upon.

Most of the scientists researching the decline of delta fish populations say the pumps are at least part of the problem, but pesticides and other toxics, a decline of planktonic food and invasive species are also to blame.

Lawyers for water agencies that depend on the state and federal water projects will argue later this week that the pumps are a relatively minor source of the problems facing delta smelt and that curtailing them will come at a huge economic cost.

"Focus on the pumps won't do much for the smelt but it will have very, very serious collateral consequences," said Daniel O'Hanlon, a lawyer for San Joaquin Valley water interests, including Westlands Water District.

The hearings are the latest in the escalating conflict between California's water users and the health of delta fish populations.