Urbanites and Environmetalists vs. Farmers in California Water War

Here's a sign of things to come if I've ever seen one. California environmentalists are appealing a judge's decision to keep active more than 100 long-term water delivery contracts to farmers 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 (particularly Smelt) in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Based on a 2005 Biological Opinion that has been thrown out in federal court, they are asking the appeals court to have the contracts renegotiated to reflect current science to safeguard the Smelt which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Some of the contracts being challenged allow the diversion of over 300,000 acre-feet of water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley growers for the next 25 years. Others allow diversion of 2.2 million acre feet annually.

"We're talking about agreements that hand over California's real wealth, its water, for decades to some growers watering desert soils full of toxic minerals for a fraction of the real value of that water, all at taxpayer and urban water users' expense," said Earthjustice Attorney Trent Orr.

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