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SJ Sues State Water Agency Over Drilling For Tunnel Project

/in , , /by /The Record (Stockton, Calif.)

San Joaquin County has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court asking the state Department of Water Resources to abide by local drilling permit requirements to protect wildlife and water quality in accordance with California law. According to the county, DWR began geotechnical well drilling in San Joaquin and Sacramento counties in June to collect data the agency says it needs for a proposed Delta tunnel project. The controversial tunnel project would carry water diverted from the Sacramento River to the existing state and federal water pumps in the south Delta for export to points south.

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OPINION: A Fight Over A Unique Delta Island

/in , /by /The Record (Stockton, Calif.)by Michael Fitzgerald

A Delta farming island crucial to sandhill cranes is so mismanaged that the levees may break, a lawsuit alleges. Ironically, the allegedly bad manager is The Nature Conservancy. A suit by the Wetlands Preservation Foundation seeks to stop TNC’s allegedly bad, even dangerous, farming practices to avert a potential catastrophe on Staten Island in San Joaquin County. “TNC has failed to live up to its proud environmental tradition,” says the suit, filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court. The Nature Conservancy counters that the suit is baseless. The nonprofit is proud of its work on Staten, which is helping cranes rebound, a spokesman said.

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OPINION: Fitzgerald: How WaterFix Hurts The Poor

/in , /by /The Record (Stockton)by Michael Fitzgerald

California’s system of dams and canals is made of equal parts concrete and injustice. Injustice is baked into the system, which unfairly burdens Stockton and the Delta. A “vast and powerful” constituency of Delta water exporters — the south-valley water districts of Big Ag, southland urban consumers — likes it that way. Their latest baby, the California WaterFix, is more of the same. On Monday Restore the Delta unveiled a new way of fighting the WaterFix, with its twin tunnels: showing its impacts will fall most heavily on the so-called “environmental justice community” of Stockton and the Delta region.

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