Environmentalists have asked a judge to order enough water to supply 6 million people be used instead to protect an imperiled fish.
The court papers filed Monday are the latest attempt to dictate how the state’s major water systems will continue to operate even though they lack legal permits required by state and federal endangered species laws.
Lawyers for environmental groups said water cutbacks of 1.5 million acre-feet – or about 25 percent – are needed to prevent Delta smelt from going extinct.
And, they argued, a proposal made earlier this month by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was not restrictive enough.
A hearing on the competing proposals is scheduled Aug. 21, and U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger could rule any time after that.
“They can’t simply ask him (Wanger) to trust them. That’s sort of how we got here in the first place,” said Andrea Treece, a lawyer for Earthjustice, which is representing environmental groups.
In May, Wanger ruled that the federal permit that allows state and federal water agencies to move Delta water to other parts of California was too vague and insufficient to protect Delta smelt from going extinct.
Though he ruled the permit illegal, Wanger stopped short of ordering a shutdown of water deliveries.
He asked environmentalists, water agencies and regulatory agencies to suggest how the water system should be run until a permit setting out more permanent conditions can be drafted about a year from now.
Contact Mike Taugher at mtaugher@cctimes.com or (925) 943-8257.
