Massive Transfers Threaten North State Farms, Fish and Communities

Read the Complaint:

Chico, CA. 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.

The 2019 Long Term Water Transfer Program’s final approvals were made in April 2020. The Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR) describes the Project as north-to-south transfers that could be as high as 600,000 acre-feet (af) per year in the six year project window.1

One of the many EIS/EIR failures disclosed in the complaint starts with the Project description. The EIS/EIR complicates something as basic to a project as its description by asserting transfers will differ from the disclosed 600,000 af and only reach 250,000 af per year,2 yet no legally enforceable element of the Project would compel the purported annual restriction. Further complicating the Project description is one assertion that transfers will take place in only two of the six years.3

The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the Agencies’ Environmental Impact Statement/Report was arbitrary and capricious, ignored relevant new information and failed to meet minimum requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In addition to the wholly inadequate Project description, the Agencies failed to fully disclose the impacts from the Long Term Water Transfer Program and the numerous conditions affecting groundwater, subsidence, and species populations. The Agencies’ review also failed to consider the cumulative impacts from other significant actions such as the 1) Addendum to the Coordinated Operation Agreements of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project; 2) Water Quality Control Plan for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary Amendments and Voluntary Settlement Agreements; 3) Sacramento Valley Water Management Agreement; 4) Sites Reservoir project; 5) other water transfers; 6) California Department of Water Resources’ Delta Conveyance Project; 7) amendments to State Water Project water supply contracts.

AquAlliance Executive Director Barbara Vlamis explained, “Not just once, but twice now we find that USBR and SLDMWA refuse to face the real impacts that come from hoping to squeeze ever more water from the streams and groundwater basins of the Sacramento Valley. Clearly, they ignored their losses in the 2018 court ruling and pursued the very definition of insanity – using the same tools to reach the same conclusions. To represent the farms, fish, fowl and communities, we had to pursue our legal options.”

AquAlliance has been joined by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network, and they are represented by the Aqua Terra Aeris law firm. Co-plaintiffs in the litigation also include Central Delta Water Agency and South Delta Water Agency that are represented by the Soluri Meserve law firm.

Additional Contacts:
Bill Jennings, CSPA: 209-464-5067; cell 209-938-9053
Pat Soluri, Soluri Meserve: 916.455.7300; cell 916.599.0474

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AquAlliance is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit public benefit corporation established to defend northern California waters and to challenge threats to the hydrologic health of the northern Sacramento River watershed to sustain family farms, communities, creeks and rivers, native flora and fauna, vernal pools and recreation. www.aqualliance.net

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Background

A) 2015 10-Year Water Transfer Program History
USBR and SLDMWA (Agencies) approved a Program that could send up to 600,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water south of the Delta – each year.4 When combined with additional state approved transfers, the total could have been over 800,000 acre-feet each year. With history as a guide, half of the transfer water would have come from groundwater substitution transfers. 5 Although widely opposed by NorthState residents and local government, the Agencies moved forward approving the use of groundwater substitution, fallowing, reservoir releases, and conservation to make the transfers possible. The Agencies proposed a thin veneer for mitigating impacts that depends only on monitoring the stressed hydrologic systems (groundwater, streams, and rivers). AquAlliance and partners sued in 2015 and received a favorable ruling in 2018. Successful claims included:

1. CEQA
   1. The absence of performance standards for groundwater mitigation measure.
   2. The FEIS/EIR failure to mitigate for land subsidence.
   3. The inadequate cumulative biological impact analysis regarding reduced delta outflow.
   4. The FEIS/EIR’s failure to analyze impacts to the giant garter snake and propose mitigation.6
2. NEPA
   1. Failure to evaluate the effectiveness of groundwater mitigation.
   2. Climate change.

B) U.S. Bureau of Reclamation /SLDMWA Long Term Water Transfer Program
2015 Project – https://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvp/long-term.html
2019 Project – http://www.usbr.gov/mp/nepa/nepa_projdetails.cfm?Project_ID=18361
C) Maps illustrating the groundwater conditions in the Sacramento Valley.
https://data.cnra.ca.gov/dataset/northern-sacramento-valley-groundwater-elevation-change-maps

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1 “In addition, the biological opinions1 on the Coordinated Operations of the CVP and State Water Project (SWP) (USFWS 2008; National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service [NOAA Fisheries] 2009) analyze transfers through the SWP Banks and CVP Jones Pumping Plants from July to September that are up to 600,000 acre-feet (AF) in critical and dry years. For all other year types, the maximum transfer amount is up to 360,000 AF. For this Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report (EIS/EIR), annual transfers would not exceed the above capacities and would be pumped through Banks or Jones Pumping Plants between July 20 and September.” EIS/EIR p. 3.1-3.

2 “The transfers included in Alternative 2 would be up to 250,000 acre-feet per year…” p. ES-7. Also found on pages E-9, E-11, 1-4, 2-2, 2-9, 2-10, etc.

3 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biological Opinion 2019. “After reviewing the current status of the snake, environmental baseline for the action area, effects of the proposed project, cumulative effects, and proposed conservation measures, it is the Service’s opinion that the two years of water transfers as proposed from 2019-2024, are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the snake.” [Emphasis added] p. 28.

4 600,000 acre-feet each year for 10 years is equivalent to what a city of 100,000 people would use in 300 years.

5 Groundwater substitution transfers take place when a water district sells its river water that is normally used to irrigate rice and instead continues growing rice by pumping well water. The grower makes money on both the water sale and the rice that is grown.

6 “This type of failure was deemed dangerous because the lack of analysis and findings about the extent of impacts makes it impossible to determine if the mitigation measures are sufficient.”