Posted on 09/05/2007 8:14:26 AM PDT by SmithL
For years, anyone watching the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta has known that a smack-down was looming over endangered smelt. These tiny fish, a bellwether for the ecosystem, have declined over the last decade while water exports from the Delta have been rising.
The Endangered Species Act gives judges wide latitude in curtailing government operations that prompt the extinction of a species. And while the smelt and other Delta fish appear to face a variety of threats -- including invasive species, water pollution and loss of habitat -- it's hard for a judge to overlook the impact posed by the massive state and federal pumps that move water through the Delta.
That day of judgment has now arrived. On Friday, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger issued a landmark ruling that could significantly reduce the 1.9 trillion gallons of water pumped annually through the Delta, largely to Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley. Although Wanger didn't go as far as environmental groups had hoped in restoring flows to the estuary, he issued an order that could fundamentally alter the day-to-day transport of water in California and the ways it is contracted to irrigators and other water users.
It's hard to overstate the impact of this ruling. For the first time, the most crucial valve in California's plumbing apparatus has fallen under control of the federal courts. Moreover, this takeover isn't the work of some activist judge. Wanger in the past has issued decisions favorable to irrigators.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Fish appear to have the right to life in this society. Too bad preborn humans have less than that.
Ping
Send all the illegals back and the population of Calif instantly halves and the fish are saved.
Many years ago, I worked in a Federal Marine Biology research lab on the San Francisco Bay.
We studied the striped bass to try to find out why the population was way down.
Our lab was just across the Bay from the Richmond refinery and if we had pointed a finger at them, we would have been ok, I believe.
But the main cause was that the Delta (water) pumps were located in the fish hatchery areas (where the baby fish are born and live) and much of each years hatch got sucked into the pumps and either turned into chowder or at least sent south, down the canals.
Result of our research? Political powers from above slashed our research funds and forbid us to do any more S.F.Bay research.
We were told we could study rockfish, etc out in the Ocean, but no Bay studies.
Most of us “temps” lost our jobs. The permanent staff were reduced to a lot of make work.
Result of politics in science.
Most of the biggest political fights in California have been over water since its inception.
How To Turn The Deserts Green & Double the Size of the Habitable Earth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1873413/posts?page=91#91
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