On September 14, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted the state and federal defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Center for Environmental Science, Accuracy & Reliability (CESAR) v. Cowin, No. 1:15-cv-00884 (pdf). Plaintiff CESAR claimed that the construction and operation of an emergency drought salinity barrier … Continue Reading
On March 14, 2013, the State of California announced (pdf) that it has released the first 4 of 12 chapters of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). California plans to release the next three chapters on March 27, and the remaining five chapters on April 22. The BDCP website notes that the materials being released are preliminary and subject to … Continue Reading
Today Governor Brown and Secretary of the Interior Salazar announced plans to construct two tunnels to transport water under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in an effort to guarantee a stable water supply for Californians and contribute to the protection and recovery of the Delta ecosystem and at-risk species. In a press release that accompanied the announcement, … Continue Reading
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is a daunting conservation planning exercise. The affected ecosystems have been irreversibly altered; a number of the covered species are at risk of extinction over the next century; despite the investment of billions of dollars, the monitoring scheme in place is inadequate to provide scientists with data necessary to … Continue Reading
Large-scale habitat conservation plans often are under development for many years then mired in the regulatory process for many more. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is not exceptional because it has hit a number of bumps in the road. But it is exceptional because the plan development and regulatory processes are transparent and being … Continue Reading
In a recently issued draft biological opinion (PDF) , the National Marine Fisheries Service (Service) has concluded that EPA’s registration of products containing the herbicides oryzalin, pendimethalin, and tricluralin is likely to jeopardize the survival of approximately half of the Pacific salmonid populations listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The draft biological opinion is the latest milestone in a series of … Continue Reading
The National Research Council’s Committee on Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta issued its final report (pdf) entitled Sustainable Water and Environmental Management in the California Bay-Delta. The report is 220 pages and includes five chapters as well as a number of appendix. The National Research Council established the Committee at the … Continue Reading
On March 8, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California entered judgment in Coalition for a Sustainable Delta and Kern County Water Agency v. Federal Emergency Management Agency, et al., No 1:09-cv-02024 (E.D. Cal.) based on a settlement agreement in which FEMA agreed to request consultation with the National Marine Fisheries … Continue Reading
On February 29, 2012, the California Natural Resources Agency released approximately 10,000 pages of "preliminary" draft planning documents relating to the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) for public review and comment. The documents fall into two categories: Draft BDCP documents, and Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) documents (see the list below for details). The … Continue Reading
