State’s Water Plans Must Heed Concerns of North, Court Says

State authorities, preparing to create a major statewide plan for water usage into the next decade, must take heed of a broad range of environmental concerns in Northern California before allocating water to the south, a state appellate court ruled Wednesday.

The sweeping Court of Appeal decision may increase costs of water in Southern California and may heighten tension among conservationists concerned with water quality in the north--particularly in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta areas--and agricultural, industrial and domestic water users in the San Joaquin Valley and in Southern California.

The 103-page ruling deals with California’s two main water projects--the federally run Central Valley Project and the State Water Project. The projects include such major dams as Shasta and New Mellones, and rivers such as the Sacramento, San Joaquin and American. Taken together, the systems supply more than half the water consumed in Southern California.

The Court of Appeal concluded that the Water Resources Control Board, which is responsible for allocating water statewide, did not pay enough attention to environmental concerns in 1978, the only other time it devised a major water plan.

But rather than direct that board to redo its 1978 plan, the court said that the state water board must head into its planning process, set to begin in July, 1987, with a much broader view of its authority.

The court repeated several times that the board’s main obligation is to the general public, not to ensure that contracts with individual water agencies or industries remain unchanged. The court said that among the various consumers, the board’s first priority must be to supply drinking water, followed by industrial or agricultural use.

The effect of the ruling on Southern California consumers is not yet clear.

But the opinion raises the possibility that all water users--from ranchers to the Metropolitan Water District--may have to pay more in order to maintain and improve water quality throughout the system, and especially in the environmentally sensitive bay and delta regions.

In addition to planning water use, “the board has the separate and additional power to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent unreasonable use or methods of diversion,” the court said in an opinion by Justice John T. Racanelli, who was joined by Justices Norman Elkington and William A. Newsom.

“That independent basis of authority vests jurisdiction in the board to compel compliance with the water quality standards insofar as the projects’ diversions and exports adversely affect water quality. Such authority, we think, includes the power to impose related costs on the projects,” the court said.

Started With Suit

The case stems from a lawsuit brought against the state Water Resources Control Board over its 1978 plan. Thirteen different parties were involved, ranging from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to local water agencies in Kern and Contra Costa counties, the MWD, industries that are heavy water users, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Lawyers involved predicted Wednesday that there would be appeals from some of the parties in the suit to the state Supreme Court. Federal issues involved in the ruling suggest that the case also could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“This is a tremendously significant case,” said Arthur L. Littleworth, one the lawyers for the Metropolitan Water District. “It sets the standards of protection required in the delta. . . . If the standards in the delta are higher, there is less water available for export (to users to the south).”

“It (the court) recognizes that the board has authority basically to determine what reasonable uses of water are and to make decisions accordingly. . . ,” Deputy Atty. Gen. M. Anne Jennings, representing the Water Quality Control Board, said in praising the ruling.

Ruling Draws Praise

Conservationists immediately hailed the ruling as a victory. They had argued that the 1978 plan paid too little heed to water quality in the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Delta.

Because water was diverted for agricultural, industrial and domestic use, less freshwater flowed into the delta. As a result, salinity increased, which damaged fish and wildlife in the delta system.

“My sense of the ruling is that it will put a very important set of constraints on the Water Resources Board when it revisits this issue next year,” said Thomas J. Graff of the Environmental Defense Fund. “The board will be required to really protect the bay and delta, rather than merely pretending to protect it.”

The ruling will require that the board expand the scope of its planning process. For example, it must bring into the planning process users upstream from the delta. The board must consider whether they use unreasonable amounts of water and thus add to environmental damage in the delta.

Authority Over Bureau

The court also concluded that the board has authority over the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, operator of the Central Valley Project, one of the two major water projects affected by the ruling. Federal lawyers had argued that the board had no authority to modify its permits with the U.S. government to operate dams and aqueducts, such as those in the Central Valley Project.

The court upheld the board’s order that bureau give first priority to water quality, at the expense of water exports to farmers and other users.

The court concluded that the bureau must release water from dams upstream to help reduce the amount of saltwater flowing into the delta, even if that means there will be less water for agricultural or domestic use.