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CSPA Advisory July 1, 2010 

CSPA, AquAlliance and CWIN Sue U.S. Bureau of Reclamation


By Bill Jennings, CSPA Executive Director
July 1, 2010 -- Today, AquAlliance, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) and California Water Impact Network (CWIN) filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). The action, filed in federal District Court, alleges the USBR failed to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the transfer and export of almost 400,000 acre-feet of Sacramento Valley water to subsidize urban sprawl and irrigate crops in the desert. The USBR issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) and refused to conduct the required analysis under NEPA that would have analyzed and identified impacts and alternatives.

The proposed new water transfers come at a time when the fisheries and aquatic ecosystems of northern California rivers and the Delta estuary are in a state of collapse.

"The Bureau's fallacious claim that massive serial water transfers from the Sacramento Valley to irrigate the southern desert have no significant impact on the farms, communities, fish and wildlife of the Sacramento Valley and the Delta Estuary evidences either a breathtaking incompetence or a flagrant contempt for the law, the environment and the people of the Sacramento Valley and Delta,” said CSPA executive director Bill Jennings. “We sue to compel compliance with that most basic of all environmental laws; i.e., the requirement to adequately analyze and disclose the impacts of a project,” he said.

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Read Suit