| On his last day on the bench, retiring United States District Judge Oliver Wanger dismissed a lawsuit by San Joaquin Valley agribusiness interests that sought to shut down the West Coast's 2011 commercial salmon season for Sacramento River chinook salmon.
Wanger based his October 3 Judgment on a 60-page ruling filed September 30, 2011 that rejected all of the challenges of the San Joaquin River Group Authority (SJRGA) to the salmon season. The SJRGA includes nearly 30 irrigation districts and water agencies in the San Joaquin Valley, as well as the City and County of San Francisco.
The SJRGA argued that the National Marine Fisheries Service and its related agencies violated their duty to protect Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon populations by allowing a full commercial season.
However, Judge Wanger concluded that "this is a case where the agency (National Marine Fisheries Service) 'got it right' and followed the law" (Memorandum filed September 30, 2011 at page 59.)
The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations (PCFFA), a coalition of commercial fishing groups, successfully intervened to defend the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) 2011 salmon season management measures.
The is the first year since 2007 that the state and federal governments allowed normal commercial and recreational salmon fishing seasons on the California coast, due to an improvement in Central Valley salmon numbers. Federal fisheries managers opened the seasons based on their ocean abundance estimate of 730,000 fall run chinook salmon this year.
SJRGA had attacked the NMFS' 2011 salmon fishing season that allowed PCFFA members and others to engage in commercial and recreational salmon fishing on the grounds that maintaining a viable salmon fishing industry at the 2011 level of harvest might curtail the water diversions that SJRGA's members are making from the San Joaquin River and its tributaries, according to a news release from the PCFFA.
PCFFA joined NMFS in challenging SJRGA's standing to attack the fishing season. Judge Wanger agreed with the PCFFA that SJRGA's members had failed to show that they would be harmed by NMFS' salmon management measures, and therefore lacked standing to sue.
Judge Wanger also rejected all of SJRGA's substantive challenges to NMFS' 2011 salmon management measures, finding that they fully complied with the Magnuson-Stevens Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. Accordingly, Judge Wanger dismissed all of SJRGA's claims, and granted NMFS' and PCFFA's motions for summary judgment, according to the PCFFA.
PCFFA's Executive Director William F. "Zeke" Grader, Jr. praised Judge Wanger's ruling.
"This is a case where the judge 'got it right,'" stated Grader. "In rejecting each of SJRGA's challenges to the 2011 salmon fishing season, Judge Wanger recognized that SJRGA's interests in water diversion are not harmed by maintaining a robust salmon fishery that benefits both commercial and recreational fishermen and the salmon-consuming public.
"Protecting the habitat needs of salmon is not only good for California's environment, it is also good for its economy," pointed out Grader. "Now it will be the abundance of fish and how much science says is safe to harvest-not litigation brought by water diverters-that will determine whether fishing men and women work."
PCFFA's lawyer, Stephan Volker, likewise applauded Judge Wanger's ruling.
"Judge Wanger understood that maintaining a productive salmon fishery that employs hundreds of fishing men and women and feeds thousands of consumers poses no harm to California's agricultural and municipal water diverters," stated Volker. "His ruling makes clear that maintaining environmental health is good for California's economy."
The spokesman for the SJRGA had not responded to my request for a comment regarding the dismissal of the lawsuit at press time.
Salmon fishing was closed on the California and Southern Oregon coast in 2008 and 2009, due to the unprecedented collapse of the Sacramento River fall run chinook salmon population. State and federal officials blamed the collapse on poor ocean conditions, while independent biologists, fishermen, California Indian Tribes and environmentalists pointed to a combination of record water exports out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, declining water quality and poor ocean conditions as factors in the decline.
The judge's dismissal of the lawsuit took place as the Brown and Obama administrations are fast-tracking the construction of the peripheral canal to divert more Delta water to corporate agribusiness and southern California water agencies. A coalition of Delta residents, family farmers, fishermen, Indian Tribes, environmental justice communities and elected officials is opposing the canal's construction because it would likely result in the extinction of Central Valley steelhead, Sacramento River chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail, green sturgeon and other imperiled species.
The dismissal also took place several days after two disturbing records were set on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as the water year ended.
First, a record 9 million Sacramento splittail were "salvaged" at the state and federal Delta pumps near Tracy in 2011. The previous record salvage number for the splittail, a native minnow found only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River system, was 5.5 million in 2006 (http://blogs.alternet.org/danbacher/2011/09/09/over-11-million-fish-salvaged-in-delta-death-pumps-since-january-1).
Second, the water projects pumped a record 6.5 million acre-feet of water from the Delta in 2011, according to government data compiled by Spreck Rosecrans at Environmental Defense. The previous record was 6.3 million acre-feet in 2005.
Founded in 1976, PCFFA is a coalition of fourteen fishermen's organizations from throughout California, Oregon and Washington, with a combined membership of more than 750 fishing men and women. Its members depend on a sustainable commercial salmon fishery to maintain their commercial salmon industry.
For more information, call tacts: Zeke Grader (415) 561-5080, Larry Collins (415) 885-1180 or Stephan Volker (510) 496-0600. |
