Delta Flows - Weekly Highlights from Restore the Delta for the Week of April 14, 2008
"There sits a judge, that no king can corrupt.""
---Henry VIII, William Shakespeare
Delta Flows Is Back
Welcome to the new Delta Flows, Restore the Delta's, once again, weekly newsletter on Delta news.
Due to the phenomenal growth experienced by Restore the Delta this past year (over 1000%), our email and web systems imploded in early March. Over the last six weeks, Restore the Delta staff has been busy working with a team of computer experts to create new systems that will support our current activities and that will give plenty of room to grow over the next few years. The end result is a newly designed newsletter with numerous website updates with enhanced communication features being released over the next six weeks.
We are interested in hearing your feedback regarding our new look, as well any suggestions that you may have for our newsletter.
Also, if you have had problems reach us via email over the last six weeks, please contact Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla at Barbara@restorethedelta.org.
Court Rules in Favor of Chinook Salmon, Delta Water Needs, and Delta Communities
Yesterday, Judge Oliver Wanger ruled that guidelines for protecting winter- and spring-run salmon, in addition to sturgeon, were aI`?a^?Aginexplicably inconsistentaI`?a^?A^? with facts cited in a National Marine Fisheries Service 2004 report on water needs for these species. Judge Wanger determined that the contradictory findings within the report did not support the higher than recommended level of water exports being taken from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta by the Bureau of Reclamation and that the report and its findings must be rewritten.
Earth Justice's, Mike Sherwood, lead attorney for the case, said that "This ruling makes it clear that there are biological limits to the amount of water we can export south." (To read the full story as reported in The Stockton Record click here
Without a doubt, Judge Wanger's ruling should help to bring about new standards to protect salmon and other fish species, and should help to further reduce water exports from the Delta, benefiting the water needs of local Delta communities.
At the same time, environmentalists working on Delta issues also warn that Judge Wanger's ruling will become another reason to promote the building of new conveyance system, aka the peripheral canal. While this most recent ruling may be spun as the reason for such a new facility by water agency and political leaders, one question can help to expose their illogical conclusion. Can an isolated facility, which will divert much needed Sacramento River water from entering the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, protect Delta fisheries and enable Salmon and other fish species to migrate safely into the Delta? The answer is a resounding no!
