First Delta tunnels lawsuits are filed
SACRAMENTO — Environmental groups filed dual lawsuits against the federal government on Thursday challenging their partial approval of Gov. Jerry Brown’s Delta tunnels. It is likely only the beginning. Tunnels opponents could conceivably fight the project in a half-dozen or more other legal arenas in the months to come, as government agencies begin to approve various aspects of the $17 billion project that is more than a decade in the making.
Previous lawsuits fought the state’s efforts to conduct tests on private property in preparation for the tunnels. Monday’s lawsuits are apparently the first that directly target some level of government approval of the tunnels themselves.
“We’re ready,” said Dante Nomellini, the Stockton attorney representing central Delta farmers. “The decision was already made to do this (build the tunnels). It’s a done deal.”
Thursday’s lawsuits filed in federal court came barely 72 hours after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service published lengthy opinions of more than 1,800 pages concluding that fish species will not go extinct with the tunnels in place.
The Golden Gate Salmon Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife and The Bay Institute argue that the government’s decision amounts to bad science and fails to identify measures to protect the fish as the tunnels are constructed and operated.
“Politics has trumped science once again,” Doug Obegi, an attorney for NRDC, said in a prepared statement. “Instead of fixing the major environmental problems with the project, the agencies tasked with protecting our natural resources are making things worse and assuming that someone else will fix them down the line.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service declined comment on the lawsuits Thursday.
In the case of the fragile Delta smelt, Fish and Wildlife officials said Monday that the creation of 1,800 acres of additional wetland habitat in the Delta — above and beyond the 30,000 acres that state officials have already pledged to restore — will help sustain the species.
Independent scientists have warned, however, that it can take years for restored habitat to become fully functional in an ecosystem.
The environmentalists raise other concerns as well, including the potential that a saltier Delta will reduce the smelt’s spawning habitat, and that baby salmon migrating on the Sacramento River will be killed directly or indirectly by the huge pumps that will feed the tunnels.
They also say that the documents released Monday analyze the tunnels’ impact only through the year 2030, by which time construction would not even be complete.
State officials have said the tunnels are needed to restore a more natural flow pattern in the Delta, where fish are routinely drawn into the existing state and federal export pumps near Tracy.