Article from Central Valley Business Times.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=28732
SACRAMENTO
July 22, 2015 6:54am
- Complaint says Brown Administration favors alfalfa over fish
- “If the SWRCB can require urban conservation, it can also require conservation in agriculture”
The State Water Resources Control Board has failed to follow the law and the state Constitution by favoring farmers over fish through its decisions – and lack of enforcement, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance says in a lengthy complaint filed against the board Wednesday.
It says the State Water Board, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation through its Central Valley Project, and the Department of Water Resources through its State Water Project, have violated the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan, its implementing requirements, the federal Clean Water Act, the federal Endangered Species Act, the public trust doctrine enshrined in California law and the state Constitution.
All of that boils down to the impact on fish in the California Delta. The complaint says the state’s practices have virtually driven the Delta smelt to extinction and imperil the futures of other fish.
The complaint points to the Board’s issuance of temporary urgency change petitions that have impacted water quality and fresh water flows, especially in the California Delta.
It also says the State Water Board has failed to enforce required water quality standards, including salinity standards that were supposed to have been imposed five years ago.
“Considering the conditions of drought which are described in the ‘drought emergency’ declared by Governor Brown — the curtailments of water rights, the waiver of … standards to protect fish and wildlife and water quality in the Delta watershed — it is time for the SWRCB to declare flood irrigation by agriculture during the drought emergency a waste and unreasonable use until the emergency is over,” says the complaint, in part.
“If the SWRCB can require urban conservation, it can also require conservation in agriculture. Flood irrigation in the Sacramento Valley in particular is unreasonable when the endangered salmon are facing extirpation. Increased evaporation from spreading water on the ground alone likely uses more stored water than that needed to save the fishery,” it says.
It says that growing alfalfa and irrigating pasture alone uses 8.6 million acre-feet of water in California and provides low net revenue and few jobs. “The SWRCB can and must reduce the quantity of water allocated to irrigated pasture and low-value crops like alfalfa that use prodigious amounts of water during the drought emergency. To continue this use is unreasonable and a waste of water and must be stopped or reduced until the drought emergency is declared over,” it says.
The formal complaint is expected to be merely a required precursor to taking the issues to court.