Article from Central Valley Business Times.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=26521
STOCKTON
August 18, 2014 4:45am
- Complaint says they have no rights to the water they are taking
- “The State Water Board needs to step in and stop this massive theft of water”
California’s Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation are illegally diverting and exporting water, says a complaint being filed Monday with the State Water Resources Control Board Water by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
Additionally, the complaint says that the Bureau of Reclamation has been illegally diverting San Joaquin River riparian flow at its Friant Project.
CSPA wants the Water Board to investigate and curtail “these illegal diversions.”
The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance also formally petitioned the Water Board to initiate a legal adjudication of the Central Valley’s oversubscribed waters.
The source water fingerprinting analyses contained in the Bay Delta Protection Plan’s (BDCP) EIR/EIS and DWR’s own water-fingerprinting analyses reveal that a significant percentage of the water exported from DWR and USBR’s Delta pumping facilities comes from the San Joaquin, Mokelumne, Cosumnes and Calaveras rivers.
Neither DWR nor USBR have legal water rights to divert and export any water from these rivers, says the complaint. As to water from these rivers being “abandoned” in once the water reaches the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, “appropriative and riparian senior water rights holders in the Delta have first claim to these flows,” the environmental group says.
The CSPA complaint follows a July 23 letter from DWR and USBR to the Water Board accusing south and central Delta diverters of illegally diverting water belonging to the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. In a series of response letters to the Water Board, Delta diverters denied they’re illegally taking CVP/SWP water.
“Contrary to DWR and USBR’s claim that Delta farmers were illegally diverting water, it is DWR and USBR that have long been stealing water belonging to Delta farmers,” says CSPA Executive Director Bill Jennings. “USBR has also been illegal taking all of the riparian flow in the upstream San Joaquin River thus depriving Delta water users on the lower river of their fair share of riparian flows.
“The State Water Board needs to step in and stop this massive theft of water,” says Mr. Jennings.
CSPA also formally petitioned the Water Board to initiate a legal adjudication of Central Valley waters. The average annual unimpaired flow in Central Valley Rivers is approximately 28 million acre-feet, while the claims to that water add up to more than 153 million acre-feet.
Central Valley waters were “oversubscribed” long before the state and federal water projects were constructed, the alliance says.
The last 70 years of California’s water wars must be read in the light of junior water right claimants seeking to break in line and disenfranchise those who hold senior riparian and appropriative water rights, the alliance says.
“Politically powerful junior water rights holders have prevented the state from taking long-overdue action to bring legal rights to water into balance with actual water supplies,” says Mr. Jennings. “Adjudication is an initial step in bringing water demand into balance with supply and is fundamental for ensuring California’s future prosperity.”