The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is responding to Governor Newsom’s announcement regarding the State of California’s intent to sue the federal government on the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project.
In a prepared statement, Brenda Burman, Commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation says ”From the beginning, we’ve been focused on cooperative solutions with the State of California to bring reliable water supplies to farms, families, communities and the environment.
She goes to to say that the announcement by Governor Newsom is “disappointing in his preference to have judges dictate these important projects instead of the career professionals at the federal and state levels who have developed a plan based on the best science and significant input from the public. If that’s their choice, we’ll see them in court.”
The prepared statement to the news media also says that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation oversees the CVP and the Bureau along with the National Marine Fisheries Agency, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have all worked closely with the state on the biological opinions since reinitiation was announced in August of 2016.
As such, the final biological opinions included significant modifications based upon the state’s feedback.
When the Bureau of Reclamation and California’s Department of Water Resources requested reinitiation, they recognized in 2016 that there was a need to explore potential alternatives to operating the CVP and SWP and to take advantage of advancements in our scientific knowledge.
Without question according to the U.S. Bureau of Relamation, the National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biological opinions represent the best available science and included two independent peer reviews.
