Trump OKs more California water for Valley farmers. Gavin Newsom files a lawsuit

Gov. Gavin Newsom hailed President Donald Trump’s visit to California on Wednesday with a threat to sue Trump’s administration to block a controversial plan to increase water deliveries to the San Joaquin Valley.

A day later, Newsom’s administration followed through. Two state agencies and Attorney General Xavier Becerra took Trump’s administration to court Thursday evening, claiming the new water plan will put populations of Delta smelt, Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead at severe risk and violates federal environmental law.

Newsom served notice that he would sue just minutes before Trump appeared in Bakersfield on Wednesday to announce his administration had finalized an order removing regulatory roadblocks and enabling the giant Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta pumps to deliver additional water to the southern half of the state.

Appearing with farm leaders and elected officials in the heart of Valley agriculture, the president endorsed new rules governing how water moves through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The decision is designed to open the floodgates so that millions of gallons additional water can flow to urban Southern California and the Valley, where farmers are constantly clamoring for additional supplies.

Trump, speaking to a cheering crowd at an airport hangar in Bakersfield, said his plan will bring “a massive amount of water for the use of California farmers and ranchers and all these communities that are suffering.” He decried state policies that have allowed “millions and millions of gallons (to be) wasted and poured into the ocean” and said he hopes Newsom would fall into line.

With roadblocks to water delivery removed, “you’re going to be able to farm your land and you’re going to be able to do things you never thought possible,” the president added. “Maybe we can get the governor to come along and really be friendly on this one.” He didn’t mention Newsom’s plan to file suit.

Newsom, who has sued Trump over everything from air pollution to immigration, originally threatened to sue over the water plan last fall, saying it could harm the environment.

But the Democratic governor has also tried to find common ground with Trump on water. On Monday he sent the Interior Department a letter acknowledging that Valley farmers need more water and pledging to continue negotiating a compromise with federal officials.

“We remain committed to working to resolve these remaining differences in (the) coming weeks and months,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

Grand compromise?

Newsom has been promoting a grand compromise plan on allocating river flows that are designed to prop up faltering fish populations — a plan that he says could resolve decades of “water wars” in California. He reiterated his commitment to that plan Thursday as the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

Some farm irrigation agencies, including the influential Westlands Water District in Fresno, have threatened to withdraw from the compromise talks if Newsom sued over Trump’s Delta pumping plan.

After Newsom announced he was going ahead with a lawsuit, Westlands general manager Tom Birmingham said he needs “to assess the situation” before the sprawling farm district continues negotiating on Newsom’s compromise.

“We are so very close to reaching an agreement,” Birmingham said. “It would be a shame to waste the work that has been done.”

Meanwhile, most environmentalists are skeptical about Newsom’s river-flow compromise and are pushing the governor to fight the Trump plan in court.

Environmentalists say the Delta pumps are so powerful that they can alter the natural water flows in the estuary, diverting migratory fish toward predators and the pumps themselves. They argue that additional pumping will put more pressure on endangered species such as Delta smelt and Chinook salmon, whose populations have dwindled in recent years.

“Trump’s shady water deal ... seizes more Northern California water and gravely threatens the jobs of tens of thousands of Californians who work in the salmon industry,” said John McManus of the Golden State Salmon Association. He added that administration officials overruled federal scientists who had argued that the Trump plan would harm fish and the Delta’s eco-system.

Bernhardt — a former lobbyist for Westlands — called those criticisms unfair and said new scientific research shows pumping can be increased at strategic times without imperiling fish.

“We’ll be using the best science,” Bernhardt said at a conference Tuesday hosted by Trump’s political ally Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare. “I feel like it’s rock solid.”

The amount of additional water that can be pumped will depend on the weather, he said. In wet years, like last winter, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation could have sent an extra 1 million acre-feet to the southern half of the state, Bernhardt said. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons; 1 million acre-feet is slightly bigger than Folsom Lake when it’s full.

Valley officials called the decision a great gift to the region’s farms. “ Jason Phillips of the Friant Water Authority, a major water agency on the east side of the Valley, said Tuesday that the decision represents “the first substantive positive action that’s being implemented in the Valley for over 50 years.”

Yet Bernhardt said the president’s decision has benefits beyond agriculture.

“We’re talking about the water supply for 25 million people,” he said at Tuesday’s conference.

This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 3:03 PM with the headline "Trump OKs more California water for Valley farmers. Gavin Newsom files a lawsuit."