CSPA, Winnemem Wintu sue Bureau over CVP contracts

CSPA, Winnemem Wintu sue Bureau over CVP contracts

by Dan Bacher

The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), North Coast River Alliance, Friends of the River and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe have sued the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Federal Court for failing to conduct a full environmental view of interim Central Valley Project (CVP) water delivery contracts.

The water is exported from the imperiled Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, to irrigate drainage-impaired land owned by corporate agribusiness interests on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley.

"Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for eleven interim renewal contracts for water deliveries to the San Luis Unit, which includes Westlands Water District," according to Bill Jennings, Chairman/Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.

The Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George Bush in 1992 to address the adverse environmental impacts that result for Central Valley Project operations. It made fish and wildlife a purpose of the Central Valley Project for the first time.

"The CVPIA requires full environmental review, including an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), before any long-term water service contracts can be renewed by USBR," said Jennings. "However, since passage of the CVPIA, USBR has been sequentially issuing two-year interim renewal contracts to avoid having to conduct a full environmental review of project operations."

The CVPIA's goals included the doubling of anadromous fish populations, including Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, white and green sturgeon, striped bass and American shad, by 2002. Of course, that goal was never reached, due to massive water exports to Westlands Water District, declining water quality and bad state and federal fishery management practices. In fact, many fish populations declined even further, as evidenced by the Central Valley fall chinook salmon collapse of 2008 and 2009.

The action requests the Court to: 1) find that USBR has acted contrary to law by issuing a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for interim contract renewals; 2) issue an order requiring USBR to withdraw their FONSI until they have complied with the National Environmental Policy Act and the Administrative Procedures Act; and 3) and issue an injunction against further water deliveries until USBR has complied with the law.

"It is amazing that the CVPIA 'requires' an EIS, yet the government finds ways around that 'requirement' to keep pumping water while it is responsible for killing the millions of fish that should be protected in a full and complete EIS," said Caleen Sisk-Franco, Chief and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, a traditional tribe whose ancestral territory extends from Mount Shasta down the McCloud River watershed. "There should be no more two-year contacts to Westlands or any other water agency until the EIS is completed! Stalling or ignoring the required environmental review, including an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), should be a crime and there should be financial citations attached to the destruction of the fish."

The Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker are representing CSPA, North Coast River Alliance, Friends of the River and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe in this litigation against the Bureau/ A copy of the complaint is available at: http://calsport.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/BureauContractsSuit-30Dec2011.pdf. For more information, go to http://www.calsport.org.

The lawsuit takes place as the Brown and Obama administrations are fast tracking the construction of a peripheral canal through the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to export more water to southern California and corporate agribusiness in the San Joaquin Valley. The Winnemem Wintu, other Tribes, fishing groups, environmental organizations, Delta residents and family farmers oppose the construction of the canal because it will likely lead to the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta and longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail green sturgeon and other imperiled fish species.

The Winnemem Wintu Tribe is now leading an ambitious campaign to reintroduce winter run chinook salmon from New Zealand's Rakaira River to the McCloud River above Lake Shasta.

"The salmon are an integral part of our lifeway and of a healthy McCloud River watershed," according to Sisk-Franco. "We believe that when the last salmon is gone, humans will be gone too. Our fight to return the salmon to the McCloud River is no less than a fight to save the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. As salmon people and middle water people we advocate for all aspects of clean water and the restoration of salmon to their natural spawning grounds." (http://www.winnememwintu.us)