The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) has filed a complaint with the State Water Board alleging the State Water Board and the federal and state water projects have violated the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan and the D-1641 implementing requirements, as well as the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, the public trust doctrine and the state constitution.
The complaint is alleging that the temporary urgency change petitions that have been approved by the State Water Board represent a de facto change in the standards themselves, that the State Water Board has failed to enforce applicable water quality standards, and that the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Water Resources are presently violating water quality standards.
The complaint further alleges that the State Water Board has failed to enforce and the water projects have failed to comply with the Cease and Desist Order issued in 2010 for violating south Delta salinity standards. Additionally, the complaint alleges that the State Water Board, Bureau of Reclamation, and the Department of Water Resources have failed to comply with their respective responsibilities and obligations under the endangered species act, public trust doctrine, and Article X of the California Constitution.
Given the impending extinction of Delta smelt and other species, the complaint asks the State Water Board to act expeditiously and immediately reestablish D1641 critical year requirements for the protection of fish and wildlife.
“Should Delta smelt perish, it will not be the drought that sent them into extinction: it will be the failure of the SWRCB to comply with and enforce minimal standards for drought sequences that it adopted to prevent such catastrophe,” the complaint states. “Fallowed fields will be replanted when the drought is over; extinct species are forever lost. It would be tragic if the SWRCB’s legacy were that its failure to comply with the law sent species that evolved and prospered over millennia into extinction. And longfin smelt are next in line.”
Read the full complaint here: CSPA Complaint Bay-Delta (2)
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