Chico Enterprise-Record July 2, 2010:
Three environmental groups, including Chico-based AquAlliance, Thursday, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation calling for environmental review of plans for a 2010-11 north-to-south water transfer.
The planning documents call for up to 395,000 acre feet of water each year, moved through both the federal Central Valley Project and California’s State Water Project.
While the deals would be for two years, AquAlliance and co-plaintiffs, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and the California Water Impact Network, have said in court documents that repeated water transfers over the past decade have never included a full federal or state environmental analysis.
This would require a “baseline conditions, comprehensive monitoring and the disclosure of impact,” the lawsuit states. The concern is that the transfer will continue, perhaps each year, leaving the Sacramento Valley exploited “in the same disastrous condition as the Owens and San Joaquin valleys,” AquAlliance Executive Dircetor Barbara Vlamis said in a press statement.