"The man with his hand on California's spigot," LA Times, 10/7/11:
Oliver W. Wanger is not the archetypal power broker embodied by William Mulholland but a workaholic U.S. District Court judge whose Fresno courtroom was the forum for many of the state's fiercest water conflicts.
Last week was his last on the bench. At the age of 70, Wanger returned to private practice, leaving a record of long, complex rulings and a parting diatribe at federal scientists that has echoed across the country.
Wanger's decisions determined how much water gets pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta south to fields and cities and how much stays behind to sustain fish species pushed to the edge of extinction by the state's thirst. He is known for delving deeply into the minutia, writing opinions that at times read like scientific papers.
"He has been hugely influential," said Richard Frank, director of the California Environmental Law & Policy Center at UC Davis. "I think he in many ways has been the most important public official when it comes to California water policy in the last 15 years."
A former Marine Corps sergeant, prosecutor and civil trial lawyer who grew up in Beverly Hills, Wanger was appointed to the bench in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.
A year later Congress passed the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, altering decades of federal irrigation policy. Farmers who were used to getting plenty of cheap federally subsidized water had to pay more and give up some supplies for the benefit of fish and wildlife. In 1993, the delta smelt was placed on the endangered species list.
The ensuing, and still raging, war between fish protections and water exports sent a seemingly endless stream of lawsuits to Wanger's courtroom.
In a series of decisions, he handed victories to both sides. He found that the federal and state water-delivery systems imperiled native smelt and salmon. He ruled that fish protections issued by the George W. Bush administration were inadequate. Then he found that tougher pumping restrictions imposed later were not entirely justified.
"I have always been what I would call a down-the-middle person, calling things as I see them," Wanger, a Republican, said in an interview during his final week. "I feel I don't have many friends. That is a fact. Every constituency in these cases finds a reason to not like what I do."