In a failed effort to protect endangered fish, the federal government decided without proper study to default to restricting the giant pumps at the bottom of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
So argues a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Sacramento by a powerful consortium of water agencies. They’re hoping for a larger share of Delta water. It’s the latest salvo in a political and legal dispute over how to manage the competing demands on the fragile estuary.
Friday’s suit, filed by the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, alleges that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation failed to seek alternatives other than cutting water supplies to people when it adopted its operations plans for the massive Central Valley Project in 2008 and 2009.