On Thursday, the Sacramento Superior Court issued tentative ruling on multiple parties requests for clarification of the recent ruling on the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Plan. Read the article here.
Later in the day, the Delta Stewardship Council issued a statement saying they would likely appeal. Click here to read the Delta Stewardship Council’s statement.
Here are the reactions from organizations and legislators, listed in alphabetical order.
From the California Water Impact Network:
A ruling by a Sacramento Superior Court judge invalidates the Delta Plan, the Brown administration’s restoration blueprint for the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta. The decision throws a large monkey wrench into the administration’s “California WaterFix,” a massive water conveyance scheme that would shunt most of the water from the Sacramento River to Southern California via two gigantic subterranean tunnels.
The decision by Judge Michael Kenny declares the Delta Plan invalid because it does not conform to state laws passed in 2009. The ruling is a clarification of an earlier ruling issued in May.
The court found that the Delta Plan was not legally enforceable because it only provided “recommendations” that could reduce reliance on Delta water exports rather than firm and quantified targets.
“…None of the recommendations proffered by (the State Delta Stewardship Council) as complying with this requirement appear to be designed to achieve measurable reduced Delta reliance…” Kenny wrote.
Carolee Krieger, the executive director of the Santa Barbara-based California Water Impact Network, called the ruling a momentous development in the fight to stop the Twin Tunnels. C-WIN is a lead litigant in the coalition that sued the Delta Stewardship Council over the plan.
“The court noted that there can be no plan unless it is consistent with the law,” Krieger said, “and the law clearly states that the plan must have clear, quantified, and enforceable targets. The fact that it doesn’t means there is no longer an extant plan. This is a major blow to Governor Brown’s wasteful and destructive plan to drain the Delta via the Twin Tunnels, and a huge victory for the ratepayers and environment of California.”
The ruling greatly complicates State plans to expedite approval and construction of the tunnels, a water conveyance megaproject that would disrupt the ecological stability of the Delta, displace the region’s family farmers, cost taxpayers up to $70 billion or more, and provide no additional water to Southern California.
Still, warns Krieger, the battle is by no means over, given that the Brown Administration will attempt to revise the plan to conform to the judge’s order.
“The ruling gives us three to 12 months of breathing room on the Delta Plan,” Krieger said. “But there are other fronts in this fight. The administration must also draft a valid Environmental Impact Report for the so-called California WaterFix, which is the authorizing mechanism for the Twin Tunnels, and the State Water Resources Control Board must approve a proposed change of diversion for the project. We’re going to challenge them at every step. We won’t rest until this fiscally irresponsible, environmentally destructive, and wholly unnecessary ‘legacy’ project is, so to speak, dead in the water.”
From Restore the Delta:
Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny yesterday clarified his May 18, 2016 decision that the Delta Stewardship Council’s 2013 Delta Plan is now vacated and invalid. That clarification became final at a hearing today.
In 2013, the Delta Stewardship Council adopted a Delta Plan which established policies and made recommendations for the management and sustainability of the estuary. A total of seven lawsuits were filed soon after that, challenging the sufficiency and legality of the Delta Plan and the plan’s Environmental Impact Report.
The court found that the Delta Plan does not meet the requirements of the Delta Reform Act with respect to establishing “quantified or otherwise measurable targets.” This included its failure to articulate a “flows policy” protective of Delta resources and uses, as well as quantify measures to reduce reliance on the Delta for future water needs of importers, among other things.
In his clarification notice released late Thursday Judge Kenny said, “To be clear, the Delta Plan is invalid and must be set aside until proper revisions are completed.”
Kenny found the Delta Plan fails to include “quantified or otherwise measurable targets” to:
- reduce reliance on the Delta by water exporters
- reduce risk of take and harm to listed species from nonnative invasive species
- restore more natural flows into and through the Delta
- increase water supply reliability
The Plan also failed promote options for new and improved infrastructure relating to water conveyance in the Delta, storage systems, and for the operation of both to achieve the coequal goals of increased water supply reliability and protection of Delta ecosystems.
The Delta Stewardship Council must now redo the Delta Plan.
Groups who participated in the lawsuits challenging the weak Delta Plan included: AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Water Impact Network, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the River, North Coast Rivers Alliance, Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman’s Associations, Restore the Delta, Save the California Delta Alliance, San Francisco Crab Boat Owners Association and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Those groups coordinated with: Central Delta Water Agency, Lafayette Ranch, Inc., Local Agencies of the North Delta, fisherwoman Cindy Charles from San Francisco and South Delta Water Agency.
Today, these groups hailed the clarification order:
Barbara Vlamis, director, AquAlliance:
Our group asked for a thorough environmental review of the Delta Plan, but now the plan must be completely re-written. On the issue of water supply, the Plan doesn’t even allude to where the water is coming from and that’s just ludicrous.Tim Stroshane, policy analyst with Restore the Delta:
Judge Kenny has told the state that the Delta Reform Act means what it says. The Delta Stewardship Council must go back to the drawing board and actually require numeric measures of progress from water importers to reduce reliance on the Delta for their future water needs.Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance:
The court invalidated the Delta Plan because it blatantly failed to comply with the law and, consequently, was not protective of the Delta. The Plan failed to mandate specific requirements that would reduce reliance on the Delta, provide for more natural flows, reduce harm from invasive species or increase water supply reliability though increased regional self-sufficiency. This will delay efforts to construct the Delta Tunnels. State and federal contractors will now have to reassess whether they wish to expend tens of billions of dollars for a project that will supply less water from the Delta.Osha Meserve, counsel for Local Agencies of the North Delta (LAND):
The Council made clear all along that it was doing everything it could to stay out of the way of the Delta Tunnels. In so doing, the Council ignored the mandates of the Delta Reform Act to actually protect the Delta in a concrete and measurable way. This ruling sends a clear message that the Delta needs, and the law requires, more than another glossy Plan with pretty pictures hat accomplishes nothing. I am not sure what the point of the Council continuing to exist is, given its refusal to carry out the Delta Reform Act’s basic requirements.Thomas H. Keeling, counsel, Central Delta Water Agency, South Delta Water Agency, etc.
The Delta Plan was intended to be the overarching structure – the “dock” that would receive the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. But the BDCP didn’t survive and was replaced with the “WaterFix.” Now the Delta Plan itself is dead.Robert Wright, senior counsel, Friends of the River:
The Delta is under more threat than ever before, from exports to powerful special agricultural interests in the south and from climate change. It is time for the Council to proceed to deal with the Delta crisis by adopting powerful Delta Plan provisions restoring Delta flows and reducing exports in an effort to save the Delta.BACKGROUND
Though created by the Legislature with good intentions, the Delta Stewardship Council and the Plan have done very little to improve conditions in the Delta. Multiple fish species are going extinct, water contractors continue to taking more water than the ecosystem can sustain, and in-Delta beneficial uses from municipal drinking water to subsistence fishing to farm irrigation are threatened.
Among the failures cited by Judge Kenny, the Council failed to provide a flow policy, punting that duty to the State Water Resources Control Board, which is now over 20 years late updating its own 1995 Bay Delta plan. The Council’s plan spoke of making “progress” on restoring flows, but nothing measurable has occurred on its watch.
In 2013, the Council assumed that Governor Brown’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan would be automatically incorporated into the Delta Plan, but when the state dropped that plan in April 2015, the Delta Plan had no policies with which to ensure that the proposed Delta Tunnels project would comply with the Plan and with state law.
In its public remarks, the Council also overstates the work it has done to revise the Plan in the interim period since the litigation was filed in 2013. The Delta Plan is essentially the same shell as it was before, and the Council remains ineffective in addressing the needs of the Delta.
From Senator Lois Wolk:
From the office of Senator Lois Wolk:
State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) issued the following statement today on yesterday’s ruling by the Sacramento Superior Court that the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Plan, the state’s management plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, is “invalid and must be set aside pending revisions.”
“I applaud the courts’ decision, which echoes what scientists, the Delta’s representatives, and the Delta community have long signaled to be a failing in the Delta Plan. The current Delta Plan does not include the basic quantitative measures necessary to meet the statutory requirements to reduce reliance on the over-stressed Delta. Reducing stress on the Delta by reducing reliance on freshwater exports is a fundamental and necessary step to ensure sustainable and resilient water supplies for California’s economy, communities and ecosystems. With this ruling, we have an opportunity to get things right and ensure that the Delta Plan meets the state’s ‘coequal goals’ for the Delta.
Instead of spending more taxpayer funding to fight the judge’s ruling, the funding should be spent to create and advocate for a serious alternative Delta Plan that recognizes the need for reducing the amount of water taken out of the Delta and the progress that communities across the state are making in expanding their water supplies without draining the Delta.
The co-equal goals of 2009 are no longer in effect, nor is the commitment to the Delta as a place being upheld. The inadequacies of the Delta Plan are reflected in the judge’s opinion. It’s time for a Plan B that works.”
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