Posted on 10/02/2009 7:21:48 PM PDT by SmithL
The federal government must compensate two regional water authorities for water diverted to preserve the environment, a federal appeals court ruled this week in a landmark decision that could open the floodgates for agencies who contend the government is taking water from them for fish.
After a 16-year legal battle, the 2-1 decision came down as California is coping with a drought and new environmental rules that are cutting into the water supplies of farmers and cities across the state. The ruling appears to create an opening for San Joaquin Valley farm districts that are lashing out at environmental regulations to seek payment for water lost to environmental needs.
Whether the districts are entitled to recover damages from the government will depend on language in their water contracts, why specifically water was not delivered and issues beyond the scope of the decision handed down this week, lawyers said.
The ruling, by the U.S. Court of the Appeals for the Federal Circuit, appears to be the first in which an appeals court has concluded the government has breached a water contract when water is diverted from contractors to environmental needs.
(Excerpt) Read more at contracostatimes.com ...
Wow! A little sanity from the court system. Kind of refreshing for once.
Hmmmm....so how will this affect the Obomba Admins desire to remove dams on the Klamath River????
They will appeal and more time will pass while the farmers watch their lives dry up and blow away. This is agood ruling, but it isn’t the last of it.
Then again, when has the bam admin ever paid attention to the rule of law?
VERY NICE.
This needs MEGA FR attention!!!!!!!
Big time kudos to Paul Rodriguez. Good job big guy!!!
I hope the turn on the dang water. Of course we’ll never hear the end of it from Sean. LOL
Except that is it the American citizens who have to pay for the policies of the envirowhackos.
You’re right. We are at fault. We are left unloading our pockets in order to pay for the pain and suffering caused to the farmers, and to clean up the mess caused by the whacko environs.
I’ve always thought you would see MUCH less of this eviro nonsense if there was a law in place saying the government had to pay anybody affected by one of these rulings TRIPLE damages for any economic loss or loss of property...
The federal government is at least 20 times as large as it should be to meet its constitutional obligations.
After the FDR power grab many wise people complained about the growing intrusion of the federal government and a corresponding loss of states rights but were ridiculed and brushed off. The left and the media successfully planted the idea that protecting states rights was a regressive idea with possible racist underpinnings.
Now, much of the cost of that short sightedness will be paid by our kids and grandkids - or maybe it will bring about the fall of the Republic before that.
All that gov’t ain’t gonna fill your belly when there’s no food left.. pity the idiot tree huggers can’t see that.
They need the WATER - money for stolen water will not get the crops growing again.
Turn the WATER ON...
The WHACKO Environmentalists should pay. Not us hard working taxpayers!!!
So, instead of restoring the water, the gov’t can continue to steal it, just has to pay for it, iow, expropriation.
It is a shame that the whackos who made the decisions cannot be personally held accountable for the devastation their policies wreak on the good people.
When the goverment cheese runs out the fireworks will start.
.
I guess it never ocurred to them to just keep the water flowing and just breed the stupid limpdik endangered fish species in a fish farm, until they had so many of the worthless endangered species they could open a chain of sushi bars
I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to any of these farmers to take the fight right to the envirowackos’ doorsteps. If they can do it to AIG, I don’t know why a couple of busloads of farmers and their families can’t storm the doors of the Sierra Club or their supporters.
So when Feinstein’s cronies buy up the land for pennies on the dollar as farmers get subjected to inflated land value tax liens, compensation for the injustice will be paid by taxpayers.
Here’s a better idea: the enviro groups and their corporate backers should pay.
The communists will not stop their attacks on humans until their own selfish existence is directly at stake.
Wow, two important pieces of good news in one day! Blame it on Rio!!
I doubt if this is finished in the courts. I fully expect appeals. Still, it’s a nice victory.
Turn on those pumps!
Of course, this past summer’s crops are a lost cause.
I am wondering. You might have something there. While they may not be able to get a suit against a Sierra Club rendered, they might actually be able to bring suit against the contractor who made this travesty happen.
Many of the regulations are written to include consequences to those affected by poor/bad decisions and or require some level of compensation.
A new mall was built on a wetland. The contractor had to create a new wetland a few miles away. They take too long to do this...they can be sued.
RCRA has cradle to grave and beyond consequences. An environmental professional can be held personally accountable years later.
They, meaning some environmental professional, reviewed and recommended the water be completely turned off to an entire valley. If one were to complete an, Environmental Impact Assessment, as the result of the denial of water on not just the farms, but the entire region a suit most likely could be brought. They have degraded not just the farms, but the environment around the farms to such a point that negative impact is being experienced throughout the environ and ecosystem.
You mean the gummit could turn on the folks who instigated it in the first place... sweet.
Environmental law and lawyers work on both sides of issues. It seems to me there has been a larger negative impact on the environment than to the fish. Working from inside the regulations there should be a path of recourse available. First would be to establish the negative EIS for the region. Region meaning not just the farms, but the entire valley and its prevailing ecosystem. Second, the commerce clause might be explored and investigated for applicability and impact.
The Endangered Species Act was not designed to save only one at the expense of the entire ecosystem.
(4) the United States has pledged itself as a sovereign state in the international community to conserve to the extent practicable the various species of fish or wildlife and plants facing extinction, pursuant to— http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/laws/esa.pdf
“...conserve to the extent practicable,” the question to be asked in this case is how we are conserving the fish and is it practicable?
If not, then the actions taken are outside the scope of the ESA and should not hold valid standing in court.
I am not a lawyer, but I am a retired EHS person....oh and I didn't sleep at a Holiday Inn last night either.
Was this ruling from a earlier diversion that went into the Trinity River from Trinity Lake to appease the Indians and CalTrout? Normally the water was pumped over the hill to Whiskey Town reservoir and released into the Sacramento River destined for the farmers on the West Side...
“Normally” 100% of the water flowed down the Trinity. 80%+ was diverted and sent down the Sacramento system instead of the Trinity to the Klamath. The Hoopa got a ruling reducing that Sacramento diversion to 50%, but that was several years ago. The topic is a “third rail.” We are never allowed by the agencies to discuss the fact that some of the Klamath’s water/salmon problems might be the diversion of its largest tributary south.
This could be good news for the upper Klamath basin irrigators. They lost their suit for compensation for water shut off and sent down the Klamath for fish. This was strange to me because their water use rights were deeded as a part of their homesteads. The BoR was not the water rights holder in these cases, just the water manager. Perhaps this ruling will mean a revisitation of that case.
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