CSPA Advisory-9.30.06

SETTLEMENT REACHED TO RESTORE THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER

By John Beuttler
As fate would have it, while I was away on vacation the federal government signed the settlement agreement that has been under negotiation for many months to restore the San Joaquin River and the fisheries that once thrived in the state’s second largest river. An estimated $800 million will be needed to put the river back together again. The settlement requires federal legislation to authorize the federal government’s participation and to approve funding their share of the cost. During the past several weeks widely divergent interest including many Central Valley agribusiness organizations signed on to support the legislation that will hopefully move through Congress next session.

So, the last leg of the marathon will be played out in the congressional arena where political players with hidden agendas could make changes to the implementation of the settlement agreement. This could mean the restoration program will not get all the funding currently agreed to or that the restoration program’s implementation will be altered significantly constraining restoration goals. While there is no assurance of the ultimate outcome, the combined political power of fishery conservation and environmental groups on this issue will surely prevail if we stay vigilant.

More than a dozen fishery conservation and environmental groups became plaintiffs in the litigation nearly two decades ago. The role played by the National Resource Defense Council in shepherding this effort while working closely with fishery and other environmental groups demonstrates the huge value public benefit groups can have in holding the government responsible for its actions if they work together.

As a party to the litigation that spawned this settlement, CSPA played a key role in bringing fishery groups together to support the restoration of the salmon fisheries destroyed by the Central Valley Project on the San Joaquin River. The fact that our federal government wiped out such a valuable public resource to benefit private enterprise should speak clearly to anglers and the pubic; we must always be vigilant in the protection of our publicly owned fishery resources!

We are pleased this settlement and the recently drafted legislation commit the government to restoring this once great river and its fall and spring-run salmon. Below, please find a CSPA media release on this subject for additional information.

John Beuttler, Conservation Director

SETTLEMENT REACHED TO RESTORE THE SAN JOAQUIN RIVER

Berkeley (9-20-06): The California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) announced today that a historic settlement has been reached to begin the largest river and fishery restoration programs ever conducted in the United States. For eighteen years litigation over the destruction of the San Joaquin River has been waged by fishery conservation and environmental groups represented by their legal counsel the Natural Resources Defense Council, in San Francisco. They sued the federal government’s Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) over the dewatering of the river and the destruction of its salmon and other fisheries that began some fifty years ago when the Friant Unit of the Central Valley (water) Project was built.

Federal Judge Lawrence K. Karlton ruled in NRDC, et al. (Plaintiffs) v. Kirk Rodgers, Regional Director of the United States Bureau of Reclamation (Case No. CIV-S-88-1658 U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California) in August of 2004 that the BOR had violated state law when they knowingly failed to release enough water from Friant Dam to prevent the destruction of the river’s salmon runs.

In his 41-page decision, Judge Karlton noted, "In the words of the Department of Interior, Friant Dam's operations have been a 'disaster' for Chinook salmon."

Karlton’s ruling lead to a series of settlement discussion between the Friant water contractors and the plaintiff groups to settle the litigation out of court. After two years of effort, a negotiated settlement has been signed by the parties and federal government to work with the state to restore the river from below Friant Dam to Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The President of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Jim Crenshaw, acknowledged that this settlement is one of the greatest victories for fish in the state’s history. “For nearly two decades our plaintiff coalition has fought the federal government over the destruction of the state’s second largest river and its salmon fisheries,” commented Crenshaw. “This settlement vindicates decades of effort and sends a long overdue message to our government that destroying rivers and fisheries are not in the best public interest, it’s not legal, and it will not be condoned!”

Bill Jennings, the organization’s Executive Director believes this legal decision and settlement will have a lasting impact on how our government manages the public’s waters and fishery resources.

“This decision has ramifications for the citizens of this state, our quality of life and that of the generations that follow ours,” he said. “The government must now ensure the management of our water resources will protect our fisheries when diverting river flows for human use instead of allowing fisheries to be destroyed!”

“Not only will the BOR have to release water from Friant Dam near Fresno for the first time in 55 years to restore the river and its fishery resources,” noted Jennings, “but they must put up the lion’s share of the many millions of dollars it will take to restore the fishery habitat so the salmon runs can be self sustaining as they were before the Friant Dam was built.”

“Several years ago the federal court agreed with us that Section 5937 of the Fish and Game Code had been violated” said Mike Jackson, CSPA’s Attorney, “but they withheld resolving the issue until the parties could attempt to find a settlement. This state law requires the owner of any dam to allow sufficient water to pass over or through the dam to keep the fish in good condition below that dam. This law was intended to protect the public’s fishery resources, but for decades up to sixty miles of the San Joaquin River went dry because the BOR decided to send that water to private sector farming contractors.”

“Today, we are faced with the same problem in the Sacramento - San Joaquin Delta,” commented Jackson. “If we don’t do something right now, we’re going to be watching ‘Terminator 4 - Death of Delta’ in the very near future! The San Joaquin River was destroyed because the state and federal agencies charged with protecting it and the public’s fisheries stood by and let it happen,” he said. “Unfortunately, while we rightly celebrate the victory for the San Joaquin River, the Delta is suffering the same fate and is in a state of ecosystem collapse!”

"We owe all of the groups that stood fast for nearly twenty years to rectify this tragedy our gratitude,” said Jackson, “especially NRDC and their huge legal effort assisted by the law firm of Shepard and Mullin of San Francisco.”

The plaintiffs in the litigation that lead to the settlement are composed of fishery conservation groups including the California Striped Bass Assoc., California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, California Trout, Nor-Cal Fishing Guides and Sportsmen's Assoc., Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Trout Unlimited, and United Anglers of California. Environmental groups included the Bay Institute, Friends of the River, National Audubon Society, San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, Sierra Club, and the Stanislaus Audubon Society.