Judge goes with flow on canal

Irrigation water will continue to flow on the west side of the Mid-Valley, a federal judge has ruled, despite evidence that water diversions are harming fish populations statewide.

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger said in a 118-page opinion that the operations of the Central Valley Project, including Red Bluff Diversion Dam, hurt salmon and trout populations. However, the judge said the immediate protections sought by environmentalists, including the early opening of the dam gates in Red Bluff, were not proven to cause significant harm to species in the next eight months.

“The judge’s decision preserved $250 million in crops that farmers have planted this year,” said Jeff Sutton, the general manager for the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority, the canal system that supplies irrigation water from the dam in Red Bluff.

Further hearings resume today as the judge considers other proposals that would protect the fish until March, when the National Marine Fisheries Services issues a new biological opinion. However, Sutton said it was unlikely that today’s proceedings would affect operations in Red Bluff.

The biological opinion effectively controls operations of the Central Valley Project, including the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.

Officials from the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and other environmental and fish resource advocates filed the suit in April. At issue was a challenge to previous biological opinion, issued by NMFS in 2004.

Wanger ruled, in April, that the opinion was legally inadequate. Specifically, the judge said the opinion did not adequately address global warming and loss of critical fish habitat for endangered salmon and trout.

During the hearing, the plaintiffs requested additional emergency relief measures that included a request to open the Red Bluff dam gates until July 15. However, the judge ruled that any benefit the fish would have received from raising the gates early would have been insignificant and denied the request.

Phone calls to the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations were not immediately returned.

“It’s a total relief,” said Steve Dennis, a Tehama-Colusa Canal board member and water user. “It could have been devastating for me.”

The Dennis family operates about 2,200 acres in Colusa County. He said he likely would have been forced to dry up his rice fields to divert water to his almond and walnut orchards. “I’m stretching my water as far as I dare right now and anymore would have been a huge financial blow for our family operation,” Dennis said.

According to the authority, water from diversion operations at the Red Bluff dam feeds a variety of crops in four Mid-Valley counties, contributing about $1 billion to the regional economy annually. Sutton said the decision, issued late Friday, effectively saved about 150,000 acres of crops.

The Red Bluff dam gates could be opened sometime between Sept. 2 and Sept. 15, to protect winter-run salmon juveniles. Sutton said once it is determined that a certain number the juveniles have passed the dam, the gates would open, but there is no way to know exactly when that will happen. “We feel confident that will be able to meet the irrigation demand even with the potential early closure of a few days,” Sutton said.

The judge’s decision came just two days after the Bureau of Reclamation approved design and construction of a $160 million pumping plant that would eliminate the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.

Sutton estimates pump construction to be complete in three years, but expressed concern about future challenges to diversion operations. “Until the pump project is complete, diversion operations will come under increased environmental scrutiny,” he said.