Sen. Feinstein Urges Outside Review of Calif. Water Restrictions

A puzzler, although Feinstein has always looked after Central Valley interests and enjoys strong support from the typically Republican farming community.

Note the fourth paragraph about the letter from billionaire Stewart Resnick. So now the Obama Administration has to deal with California's Governor, senior Senator and big Ag interests all pressuring it to reopen the two biological opinions.

Here's the article.

UPDATE: Why Feinstein seeks review of delta findings

NOAA Biological Opinion Released

Here's the NOAA press release. The full report is linked to at the bottom of the release. An excerpt:

"NOAA released its final biological opinion today that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.

The bureau has provisionally accepted NOAA’s recommended changes to its water pumping operations, and said it will begin to implement its near-term elements as it carefully evaluates the overall opinion.

Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food."

New rules will cut delta water pumping by up to 33 percent

This article describes the release of the long-awaited biological opinion by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concerning the future of the Delta Smelt.

Additional water cuts to the Central Valley and water rationing in parts of California now seem likely unless Northern California receives record snow and rainfall this winter.

Environmentalists called Monday's news overdue.

"The delta smelt is a bellwether for the health of the delta," said Doug Obegi, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in San Francisco. "What has happened to the smelt is indicative of what has happened to salmon and other species. We have increased pumping from the delta over the past decade and seen dramatic reductions in their numbers."

Others called the order a travesty.

"California's primary water supply has just taken another big hit," said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, an association of 27 farm and city water districts.

SF Chronicle coverage here