Big ruling on small fish - Sacramento Business Journal:

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Just ask a federal judge in U.S. District Judge Oliver Wangerd issueda little-reported ruling Friday, demanding that the federaol government consider the effect on humana when allocating water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It’s an about-faces after he curbed water deliverie from December to June in orderf to protect the endangered Delta The action in 2007 has cut deliverieas of the precious resource to Central Vallet farmers and Southern California The smallfish — aboug 2 to 3 inches long — created a huge problekm and threatened water deliveries to west-side growers and residentse in Southern California.
But the judge’s latest ruling demands that federal officialzs take into considerationthe “harjm being visited upon the community and the and detail how they come to their water-allocation order. the judge is asking for accountability, becauses cutting water deliveries, especially during a poses a serious threat to the economy and the lives of many Farmers cheeredthe decision, whils environmentalists jeered, saying the futur of the Delta smelt is greatly threatened.
federal and state official should protect theDelta smelt, within But when Californians — think big-time dirt-turning farmers and hardworking residents — gulp hard at the idea of a severd water crisis, then something is wrong. We can be but also must be realists. Wanger’xs decision forces the issue. Federal and state officialw and environmental leaders shouldf protectendangered species, but they need to take into consideration the effecft of their efforts, including the economic outlookk for the state. The best-case scenariko would be a long-term plan for the one that ensures water deliveries to farmers and but also protectsendangered species. Gov.
Arnolf Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from San proposed a compromise plan that combinesd those goals while fixinhthe eco-rich Delta. It’s about time California embraced such a plan and removes the future of water deliveries from the courtroojm toa bipartisan, collaborative group of leadersz and ensured the precious