Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Federal protections for California's delta smelt will remain intact, but Western water controversies will keep on boiling, with a Supreme Court decision Monday not to hear farmers' ambitious challenge to a key environmental law. The court's decision, issued without comment, effectively upholds the conclusion by a Fresno, Calif.-based trial judge and a lower appellate court that the Endangered Species Act can protect even those plants and animals that don't cross state borders.

Reason TV gives a report on the problems plaguing California’s Central Valley, once a breadbasket to the world, and now a government-created basket case of dust, unemployment, poverty, and now starvation. The short documentary focuses on two federal policies that heavily impact the farming region, the first water policy and environmentalism, and the second immigration: The crisis in the Central Valley comes directly from the application of the Endangered Species Act to the Delta smelt, one of a number of bait fish species indigenous to the area. The order by a federal judge relying on that law cut off irrigation...

The same federal judge who helped set in motion protests in California's farm country when he ruled three years ago that Delta pumping limits were too lax to prevent fish from going extinct determined Tuesday the new regulations go too far the other way. In a sharply worded, 255-page decision, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, of Fresno, concluded: "The public cannot afford sloppy science and uni-directional prescriptions that ignore California's water needs." He ordered regulators to rewrite significant portions of a permit for massive Delta pumps that deliver water to the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The...

... The disaster coming this spring and summer is no movie, and nothing menacing is falling from the sky. It's about what's not falling from the sky — rain. After three years of below-average rain and snowfall, coupled with new pumping restrictions to protect endangered fish, California's farmers are running out of water. The devastating impact has trickled down to dozens of small Central Valley farming communities. ... The farmers who will be slammed the hardest are those who depend on the Central Valley Project, the massive federal system of dams, reservoirs, pumps and canals that helped spawn California's $36...

Hoopa Tribe blasts Westlands Trinity plan By John Driscoll The Times-Standard Thursday, January 22, 2004 - The Hoopa Valley Tribe has roundly criticized a proposal by Central Valley irrigator Westlands Water District that aims to skim water from Trinity River flows called for in a federal fish restoration plan and keep it moving south. The tribe's analysis released this week found that the proposal would result in the failure of the restoration program approved by former U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt in 2000. That program has been litigated by Westlands and other water and power interests, and much of the...

WASHINGTON — Individual farmers may not sue the federal government to enforce water contracts signed by their irrigation districts, the Supreme Court said Thursday in a unanimous ruling that limited landowners' ability to seek compensation for reduced flows. Two dozen farmers from California's Central Valley wanted the federal government to pay them about $32 million as compensation for water they were supposed to get under a federal contract. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation diverted the water to comply with Endangered Species Act requirements to protect two threatened types of fish. The federal government argued that its contract with the Westlands...

SAN FRANCISCO - A half-century ago, the federal government moved mountains and harnessed rivers to convert California's Central Valley into some of the nation's most productive farmland, fed by subsidized water at rock-bottom rates. Now, many of those cheap-water contracts are up for renewal, rousing critics who argue that the government should increase its rates, both to generate more revenue and encourage farmers to conserve. The critics include both fiscal conservatives and liberal environmentalists. Aileen Roder, the program director for Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington, calls the contracts "a raw deal" for taxpayers. Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst...

Why Barbara Boxer Would Crush Bill Jones When I first heard that Bill Jones was running with the endorsement of the CAGOP establishment, I had the same reaction as most of you probably did. I remembered his feckless support for McCain, his critical vote in raising taxes for Pete Wilson, that he is a farmer, pro-life, and seemingly a nice guy. That's it. It was enough to get me to support Kaloogian instead. Well, unfortunately, my common understandign was not the whole story. The tipping point came with Arnold Schwarzenegger's endorsement. It was curious that Arnold chose to support Bill...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Westerners fear they'll be the ones tapped to pay for a multimillion-dollar settlement with Westlands Water District farmers.</p> <p>So now unhappy California lawmakers intend to force the Bush administration to again find some other way to fund the land-retirement deal.</p>