Environmental groups sue to stop water tranfers

The Contra Costa Times – 4/15/09

By Heather Hacking

Environmental activists, including the Butte Environmental Council, filed a lawsuit Monday stating the state Department of Water Resources, the state Natural Resources Agency and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger are not following environmental laws for planned water transfers.

After filing the lawsuit, representatives from the groups said they will likely seek an injunction to halt the proposed water transfers.

The Drought Water Bank, established by the state, is in the works to transfer water this year. While far fewer sellers have signed up than initially proposed, sellers from the Sacramento Valley are poised to move some water.

The bank was used in the 1990s to broker water sales from north to south. It was revived this year to deal with California's third year of drought.

The program would pay growers $275 for an acre-foot of water — about the amount of water used annually by two average households.

The lawsuit, filed by the BEC, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network, argues the state used an environmental impact report from a different project in 2004, rather than preparing a California Environmental Quality Act review for the current water-transfer program.

Schwarzenegger filed for a CEQA exemption in March, stating a drought emergency.

In a letter sent to the Enterprise-Record, the plaintiffs stated the state's actions would start the process of turning northern Sacramento Valley groundwater basins into "private water banks" that would facilitate more transfers to other parts of the state.

A Department of Water Resources spokesman declined to immediately comment, saying the legal staff had not had time to look at the lawsuit.

BEC has been speaking out about water transfers for years, particularly when those transfers involve landowners selling surface water and then pumping groundwater for their own use.

In their cover letter, the coalition of plaintiffs referenced water sales in Butte County in 1994, where groundwater was substituted.

"This caused significant impacts to adjacent agricultural wells and homes north of the pumping had their wells run dry," the letter states.

Water sales through the Drought Water Bank were originally targeted at about 500,000 acre feet. However, prices for rice are high and few rice farmers with water rights are signing up for the transfers. Also, there will be difficulty this year getting water through the Delta until July, which would mean buyers would need to pay farmers for the water they wouldn't use in May and June as well.

One local water manager predicted that less than 100,000 acre-feet of water would be included in the Drought Water Bank program.

Exact amounts of water are still being negotiated.

Barbara Vlamis, BEC executive director, said the state hasn't adequately studied the program's impact on local creeks and drinking water.

"We are deeply concerned about the state targeting the north valley for water sales when they have not analyzed what it could do to our area, and when they incorporate groundwater, it makes it more significant," Vlamis said.

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said the suit is due to "blatant and illegal failure to comply with the (California Environmental Quality Act)."

"Had it done so, the massive water transfer would have been revealed as poorly conceived, inadequately planned, ineffective and deeply environmentally damaging," Jennings said.

While this is the third dry year in California, Jennings said it isn't a "critical emergency" with most reservoirs currently at least three-quarters full.

He said one problem is that the state has overallocated the water supply.

"We're fighting for our turf, fighting for the estuary and river tributaries. We're fighting for the farmlands of the Delta and the Sacramento Valley," Jennings said.