AquAlliance exists to defend northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed. We are prepared and willing to confront the escalating attempts to divert more and more water from the northern Sacramento River hydrologic region.
Why care about the threat to
Northern California groundwater?
It affects our homes, our livelihoods and the environment.
Sincere thanks to Metric Cosmetics for its interest in NorthState water and production of this video.
LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR LEGAL ACTIONS:
- COMMENTS SUBMITTED: Revised Colusa & Corning Groundwater Sustainability Plans
- HUGE WIN! “One Tunnel” Court Victory
- LAWSUIT FILED AGAINST DWR: EIR Challenged in Court
- 3 LAWSUITS: 3 Groundwater Sustainability Plans – Lawsuits Proceed
- LAWSUIT FILED: Lawsuit Challenges Valley’s Edge Development in Chico Wildfire Zone | Final Complaint
- Lawsuit Decision Pending: Long Term Water Transfer Program
- Lawsuit Settled: Chronic Violations of Public Trust in the Sacramento River and Delta.
Water Transfer Program Lawsuit
5.11.20: AquAlliance filed a lawsuit in federal District Court against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) (Agencies) over their second attempt to disclose and analyze impacts from their long term water export plans. USBR and SLDMWA seek significant water from the Sacramento River Watershed and groundwater basins to ship through the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley.
AquAlliance filed a lawsuit in federal District Court in May 2020 against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) (Agencies) over their second attempt to disclose and analyze impacts from their long term water export plans. USBR and SLDMWA seek significant water from the Sacramento River Watershed and groundwater basins to ship through the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley.
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Provoke Lawsuits
5.11.20: AquAlliance filed a lawsuit in federal District Court against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) and San Luis Delta Mendota Water Authority (SLDMWA) (Agencies) over their second attempt to disclose and analyze impacts from their long term water export plans. USBR and SLDMWA seek significant water from the Sacramento River Watershed and groundwater basins to ship through the Delta to the San Joaquin Valley.
2.21.22: AquAlliance filed three lawsuits in February against the Butte, Colusa, and Vina subbasins’ Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) with two co-plaintiffs, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network. The GSPs are the result of state mandates from the 2014 Groundwater Sustainability Act, which requires some protection of groundwater after allowing unregulated use since California’s formation.
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Judges in Colusa and Butte counties agreed that 3 challenges to Groundwater Sustainability Plans (GSPs) by AquAlliance & partners were legitimate and our lawsuits can proceed.
Authority and the Corning Sub-basin GSA Committee. We requested additional information from Glenn County and DWR at the Red Bluff office. There were no responses over 13 days hence we resorted to formal Public Records Act requests.
On January 11, 2022 AquAlliance become aware of sinkholes in the mid-Sacramento Valley through minutes from the Glenn Groundwater Authority and the Corning Sub-basin GSA Committee. We requested additional information from Glenn County and DWR at the Red Bluff office. There were no responses over 13 days hence we resorted to formal Public Records Act requests.
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Tunnels don't add up;
now we know why
* 2023: Still relevant *
In May 2016, the Modesto Bee wrote an excellent editorial about the Twin Tunnels. It is still worth reading today, even though the current governor (Newsom) is considering just a one-tunnel project.
"For years now, Gov. Jerry Brown has been telling us that he will save the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – the greatest fresh-water estuary on this side of the continent – by taking water out of it. As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, if you divert major portions of the Sacramento River under the Delta, the only way to “save” the Delta is to increase the flows from the much-smaller San Joaquin River into the Delta. To do that, the state will have to take more of the flows from the Merced, Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers. The tunnels are nothing less than a water grab, and it’s our water they’re grabbing."
Groundwater-Surface
Water Interactions in
California's Central Valley
Back in the 1950s and ’60s, the Sacramento River and its tributaries were probably gaining about a million acre-feet per year on average from the groundwater. As pumping progressed through the years, the groundwater levels were drawn down… “the impacts from today’s pumping haven’t even shown up yet in the river.”
– Maurice Hall, Ph.D., P.E.
West megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years
2.14.22: The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds.
The study calculated that 42% of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change.
AquAlliance joined the Sierra Club & the Center for Biological Diversity to sue the City of Chico for approving a development of 2800 housing units without properly assessing or mitigating wildfire and other environmental risks.
City of Chico over Valley's Edge
Development Approval
Photos by Elizabeth Devereaux
The coalition is challenging the city for violating the California Environmental Quality Act when approving this project.
LA state appeals court just ruled in favor of AquAlliance and partners against Westlands Water District. The court denied Westlands’ attempt to move forward with a permanent contract as opposed to its renewable contracts that reflect the district’s junior status in the water seniority system. The proposed 2019 contract was a biased attempt by a former Westlands’ lawyer and lobbyist, Interior Secretary David Bernhard, to require the federal government to provide unreasonable, unsustainable, and unattainable amounts of water to the district.
on Tuscan Water District ‘Water Grab’
AquAlliance Executive Director Barbara Vlamis
was quoted in the Los Angeles Times (Dec. 2, 2023):
“I think it is a damaging effort that could potentially destroy this region as we know it.”
"... you start taking over the groundwater basin for private profit, and it changes everything."
Click image to see the LA Times article
