California environmentalists are appealing a judge's decision to keep active more than 100 long-term water delivery contracts in the agriculturally rich Central Valley.
In an appeal filed Monday in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the San Francisco Baykeeper say the decades-long water contracts would harm aquatic life in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The groups are appealing a ruling by U.S. District Senior Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno, Calif., that U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rewrite its rules governing the management of the imperiled delta smelt.