Suit Seeks to Bar Raising Level of Trinity River

Citing diminished supplies for power users and farmers, a giant water district has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt a recent decision by U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to bolster flows to Northern California’s once-roaring Trinity River.

Lawyers for the Westlands Water District, which supplies water to more than half a million acres of some of the world’s richest farmland, filed their complaint last Friday in U.S. District Court in Fresno. They are seeking a preliminary injunction to stop Babbitt’s decision, which allows the Trinity to retain nearly half its natural flow, from being implemented.

Westlands officials estimate that in an average year, Babbitt’s decision will lead to a reduction in deliveries of enough water to irrigate 23,000 acres and will cost 380 farm jobs.

“In our view Secretary of the Interior Babbitt failed to consider the impacts of water supplies and power supplies when he signed the record of decision regarding the Trinity River,” Westlands General Manager Thomas W. Birmingham said Monday. “It is our hope that the next secretary of the interior will reach a different decision when the water supply and power supply impacts are adequately considered.”

Westlands officials unsuccessfully sought an injunction last month to block Babbitt’s decision, which was announced Dec. 19 and is formally referred to as a “record of decision.”

Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes said Monday that he expected the continued litigation. He brushed aside suggestions by Westlands officials that an analysis by his agency of the decision’s effect on water and power users was inadequate.

“The record is very solid,” Hayes said. “We’re confident it will hold.”

While lauded by salmon fishing Indian tribes and Trinity County officials eager to boost tourism, Babbitt’s call to return water to the Trinity has also drawn the ire of some Northern California power officials.

Officials with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District contend that the loss in hydroelectric power caused by keeping more water in the Trinity River is enough to supply 31,000 Sacramento-area homes--a point of contention with Hayes, who said the figure is exaggerated.

Sacramento utility officials had sought for Babbitt to issue a decision that would require less water to be returned to the Trinity, in part by removing sediment and controlling vegetation in the river.