Impeach McConnell, Boehner, and Cantor Today: So-called environmental lawsuits are just to make Americans, via California, so uncomfortable and dispirited that they will give up

Sunday, December 19, 2010

So-called environmental lawsuits are just to make Americans, via California, so uncomfortable and dispirited that they will give up

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This is another article on the Dec. 2010 overturning of the Delta Smelt case which affects water to "more than half the state of California." The so-called 'environmental lawyer' is hopeful there will be even less water for California as a result. The money behind the 'environmental' racket seeks to crush ordinary Americans and America as we have known it. Water contractors are the least of it. This article mentions even more species of fish must be protected from vile American humans. Why not? There's enough money in this to bleed America to death. A commenter to the following article complained the latest decision appeared to favor "Central Valley farmers."

12/15/10, "Judge says Delta pumping rules, meant to protect fish, are too restrictive," Contra Costa Times by Mike Taugher

"The same federal judge who helped set in motion protests in California's farm country when he ruled three years ago that Delta pumping limits were too lax to prevent fish from going extinct determined Tuesday the new regulations go too far the other way.

In a sharply worded, 255-page decision, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, of Fresno, concluded: "The public cannot afford sloppy science and uni-directional prescriptions that ignore California's water needs."

He ordered regulators to rewrite significant portions of a permit for massive Delta pumps that deliver water to the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The permit sets out a host of rules that are meant to prevent Delta smelt from going extinct.

"We are thrilled with the court's decision," said Thomas Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District, the country's largest irrigation district and the region hardest hit by recent drought.

The ruling, Birmingham said, would send the permit back to regulators for "a thorough overhaul."

Wanger characterized the situation as "the continuing war over protection of Delta smelt "... and

associated impacts to the water supply for more than half of the state of California."

Despite the blistering language Wanger used at times, it was unclear how much relief water agencies most affected by the regulations would see.

He ordered no immediate changes to the pumping regulations.

His ruling appeared to echo a critique in March by a panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences that found the new Delta smelt permit --

along with a related permit to protect salmon, steelhead and green sturgeon --

was conceptually justified but inadequate in its specifics.

Although he was more critical, Wanger, like the panel of scientists, determined regulators were

correct to put limits on how hard the pumps could drive two Delta rivers to run in reverse.

But both were critical of how government biologists justified the specific limits they laid out. Wanger ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to adjust and better justify those limits.

Similarly, a new restriction that requires more water to flow through the Delta in the fall to reduce salinity was justified

but no scientific rationale was given for the specific salinity limits that were set.

"It's disappointing and frustrating -- a lot of sound and fury -- but it might not be as bad as I thought and it might not be as good for the contractors as they think it is," said Doug Obegi, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council who worked on the case.

Obegi predicted changes ordered by Wanger would not allow state and federal water projects to return to the record-breaking pumping levels they reached from 2000 to 2007.

It is possible, Obegi said, that the rewrite might even result in
tighter restrictions.

Wanger also was sharply critical of the permit's assertion that pumping exacerbates other problems in the Delta by altering flow patterns and habitat.

Biologists contend the pumps change the Delta's hydrodynamics in ways that foster undesirable weeds, fish, algae and clams and increase the exposure of fish to pollution. Wanger called those

connections "unsupported."

A hearing is scheduled in early January to determine the next steps. After Wanger invalidated the previous permit in 2007, he held a series of technical hearings to set interim pumping limits until a new permit was written in late 2008.

It is unknown whether he will follow the same pattern this time."