ELR Citation: ELR 20120
No(s). 1:09-cv-407 (E.D. Cal. May 29, 2009)

A district court preliminarily enjoined FWS from restricting river flows in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for purposes of protecting the threatened Delta smelt. Water districts filed suit under NEPA and the ESA challenging FWS' 2008 biological opinion for the Central Valley Project (CVP). The opinion imposes certain flow restrictions on CVP operations in the Old and Middle Rivers of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. There is a strong likelihood that the districts will be able to establish that the flow restrictions will have substantial, detrimental, indirect effects on the districts, the community, and the human environment. The districts have also shown that irreparable harm will likely occur in the absence of injunctive relief, including, among other things, loss of water supplies, damage to permanent crops, groundwater overdraft, increased energy consumption, and land fallowing. The balance of the harms also tips strongly in favor of the water districts. And the public interest favors granting injunctive relief, as the harms cannot be remedied by monetary compensation, the environmental consequences cannot be avoided or reasonably mitigated, and the damage to the community is now occurring and will continue to be exacerbated.