Opinion ID: 2763492
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Factual Background—The Sacramento-San

Text: Joaquin Delta
The Central Valley is a flat-bottom basin covering 22,500 square miles in inland California. The walls of the basin are created by several mountain ranges: the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains to the east, the Klamath Mountains to the north, the Coast Range to the west, and the Tehachapi Mountains to the south. See infra, Fig. A. The Valley is long and narrow. It stretches from Bakersfield in the south to Redding in the north (about 450 miles) and is between 40 and 60 miles wide from east to west. The Central Valley contains several major river systems. Those systems are comprised of the San Joaquin River (which flows west from the Cathedral Range of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, turns north around Fresno, and enters the San Francisco Bay north of Berkeley), the Sacramento River (which flows south from the Salmon and Trinity Mountains around Redding and passes through Sacramento before joining the San Joaquin River), and their tributaries. The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers converge around Antioch, about thirty miles northeast of Oakland, where they form the San Joaquin River Delta. The water from the Delta flows past Chipps Island, into the Suisun Bay, through Bulls Head Channel, and into the San Francisco Bay. The water passes the city of San Francisco and flows under the Golden Gate Bridge where it finally enters the Pacific Ocean. See 24 SAN LUIS V. LOCKE infra, Fig. A. The brackish body of water through which the rivers flow on their way to the Pacific Ocean is called the “Bay-Delta.” The river delta is called simply “the Delta.” Fig. A. Delta Map.2 2 California Water Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey, http://ca.water.usgs.gov/gama/Provs/CenVly.htm (last visited Oct. 21, 2014, 9:09 a.m.). SAN LUIS V. LOCKE 25
Valley Project Since the early part of the twentieth century, land owners, local irrigation districts, and the federal and California state governments have pumped fresh water out of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers (and their tributaries) to irrigate the agricultural lands of the Central Valley and to provide drinking water to the people of California. See Cent. Delta Water Agency v. United States, 306 F.3d 938, 943 (9th Cir. 2002). California governs this pumping through the State Water Project (“SWP”) and the federal government does so through the Central Valley Project (“CVP”) (collectively, “the Projects”). The SWP is the largest state-built water project in the United States. Delta Smelt, 747 F.3d at 594. It consists of “21 dams and reservoirs, . . . five power plants, 16 pumping plants, and 662 miles of aqueduct.” Id. (internal citations omitted). The California Department of Water Resources (“DWR”)—Plaintiff-in-Intervention here—oversees operations of the SWP. Id. The CVP is “the largest federal water management project in the United States.” Cent. Delta Water Agency, 306 F.3d at 943. Congress initially authorized it in the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1935. Id. It comprises a series of dams, “21 reservoirs, 11 hydropower plants, and 500 miles of canals and aqueducts.” Delta Smelt, 747 F.3d at 594. Reclamation oversees operations of the CVP. The CVP is partially governed by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (“CVPIA”), id. at 594, which Congress passed in 1992 to “achieve a reasonable balance among competing demands for use of Central Valley Project water, including the 26 SAN LUIS V. LOCKE requirements of fish and wildlife, agricultural, municipal and industrial and power contractors.” Central Valley Project Improvement Act, Pub L. No. 102–575, 106 Stat. 4706 (1992). Together, the Projects provide water to more than 25 million agricultural and domestic consumers in central and southern California. They do so, in part, by pumping fresh water out of the Delta using the Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant (“Banks pumping plant”) and the C.W. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant (“Jones pumping plant”), both of which are located near Tracy, California.3 The Banks pumping plant is capable of pumping water at the rate of 10,300 cubic feet per second (“cfs”), but it generally operates closer to 6,680 cfs. See OCAP BA at 2-2. The Jones pumping plant has a maximum pumping capability of 4,600 cfs. See id. The plants operate by lifting water from the Delta using motorgenerated pumps.4 They pump the water into pipes that deliver it into the California Aqueduct or the Delta-Mendota Canal, respectively. See Jones & Banks Pumping Facilities. From there, the Projects deliver the water to agricultural users in the Central Valley and domestic users in central and southern California. See id.; see also Fig. B. 3 See Biological Assessment on the Continued Long-term Operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, http://www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/ocapBA_051608.html 2-1 (last visited Oct. 20, 2014) [hereinafter “OCAP BA”]; see also Fig. A. 4 Central Valley Project’s C.W. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant and Tracy Fish Collection Facility, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (July 2012), http://www.usbr.gov/mp/PA/docs/fact_sheets/Jones_Pumping_Plant.pdf [hereinafter “Jones and Banks Pumping Facilities”]. SAN LUIS V. LOCKE 27 The Projects also control the volume of water flowing through the Central Valley’s rivers by prescribing releases from upstream reservoirs, which operate as water storage facilities. Releases from CVP/SWP reservoirs cool water temperatures, reduce the salinity of the Delta, provide flood control, improve volume for fish habitat and migration, and supply additional water for agricultural use. See OCAP BA at 2-5. Fig. B. CVP and SWP Map.5 5 Central Valley Project, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, http://www.usbr.gov/projects/Project.jsp?proj_Name=Central+Valley+ Project (last visited Oct. 21, 2014 8:55 a.m.); James Nickles et al., California’s BAY-DELTA: USGS Science Supports Decision Making, http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2010/3032/ (last visited Oct. 21, 2014, 9:00 a.m.). 28 SAN LUIS V. LOCKE
Although the Projects provide substantial benefits to people and to state agriculture, they arguably harm species native to the Delta by modifying those species’ natural habitats. Five such species are at issue in this case: (1) the endangered Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon (“winter-run Chinook”); (2) the threatened Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon (“spring-run Chinook”); (3) the threatened Central Valley steelhead (“CV steelhead”); (4) the threatened Southern Distinct Population Segment of North American green sturgeon (“green sturgeon”); and the endangered Southern Resident orca whale (“Southern Resident orca”). See 2009 Salmonid BiOp at 30. SAN LUIS V. LOCKE 29 The four Salmonid species (the first four listed) are anadromous fish, and Southern Resident orca are marine mammals. Anadromous fish live most of their lives in salt water.6 Nevertheless, they are born, mature, lay eggs, and often die in inland freshwater lakes and rivers. After they grow from fry (baby fish) to smolts (juvenile fish) in fresh water, anadromous salmon outmigrate through rivers and deltas into the oceans and seas where they will spend most of their adult lives. When it is time to reproduce, these salmon migrate back through the deltas to the rivers and lakes in which they were born to lay eggs. During this migration, salmon must pass impediments in inland rivers such as locks, dams, channels, and pumps. The San Francisco Bay-Delta is an essential conduit for anadromous fish that return to California’s inland rivers and lakes to reproduce. Nevertheless, human interactions with the Delta and California’s inland rivers over the past century have significantly altered them, threatening their ability to serve as salmonid habitats. SWP and CVP operations increase pollution, encourage the growth of non-native species, and create water shortages in the Delta that harm salmon by exposing them to unnatural stressors. See 2009 Salmonid BiOp at 374–82. Migrating salmon can also be caught in, and killed by, the large water pumps that serve the Projects. Finally, CVP/SWP operations that limit cold water releases from dams upstream of traditional spawning sites potentially impact critical spawning habitat by making the rivers less conducive to reproduction. 6 See, e.g., Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources, http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/ pr/species/fish/chinooksalmon.htm (last updated May 15, 2014). 30 SAN LUIS V. LOCKE