FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 13, 2025
CONTACT:
Stephanie Safdi, stephanie.safdi@YLSClinics.org
New Motion by State Water Contractors Undermines Transparency and Raises Concerns of Bad Faith
Sacramento, CA – A coalition of thirty-two California Native Tribes, environmental justice organizations, Delta counties, water agencies and other Delta advocates has filed a Petition for Reconsideration with the State Water Resources Control Board, urging the agency to reverse its April 11 decision denying a motion to cancel the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) Change Petition for the Delta Conveyance Project (DCP).
The original motion to cancel the petition — filed earlier this year — was based on DWR’s repeated failure to submit required supplemental information about the State Water Project’s historic water use, as ordered by the Administrative Hearing Officer (AHO). That data is critical to determining whether the proposed Delta Tunnel would initiate a new water right and its potential impacts on existing users and ecosystems. Despite numerous extensions, DWR failed to produce the data.
Now, troubling new developments have emerged. In a separate but related DCP legal proceeding last week, the State Water Contractors — who are financially and operationally tied to the Delta Tunnel project — filed a motion for a protective order that would prevent the AHO and the Water Board from seeking the very information at issue in the coalition’s Petition for Reconsideration.
Though the protective order was filed in a different case, the implications are profound. The Contractors who have not themselves been required to present any information — are seeking to relieve DWR from the obligation to present the supplemental water use data to the AHO, effectively shielding DWR’s past levels of water export from scrutiny and interfering with the ongoing water rights hearing process.
Noting that DWR’s provision of the water use data was originally due in December 2024, Gary Mulcahy, Governmental Liaison of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe said, “We are giving the State Water Resources Control Board one more opportunity to uphold the law and stop giving DWR preferential treatment.”
The coalition’s Petition for Reconsideration argues that the Board erred in allowing the Change Petition to move forward without full compliance with data requirements formulated by the Administrative Hearing Officer. The new attempt to interfere with the provision of this basic water diversion data by the State Water Contractors only strengthens the case for immediate reconsideration.
“This is about upholding the law and protecting the integrity of the process,” said Cintia Cortez, Policy Manager with Restore the Delta. “The Water Board must not condone DWR’s ongoing attempts, now being delivered through the State Water Contractors, to withhold critical information. Allowing the water rights hearing to move forward without transparency and accountability sets a dangerous precedent and continues the harm to Delta communities and the environment.”
Legal advocates point out that the State Water Contractors’ motion, though technically separate, is part of a broader pattern of obstruction. For instance, just last week, DWR was threatening to file a motion to disqualify counsel for several local entities protesting the water rights changes sought by DWR, potentially leaving disadvantaged communities like Stockton without counsel in this critical water rights proceeding. To date, nothing has come of that threat.
Eric Buescher, Managing Attorney at San Francisco Baykeeper explained, “State law is clear about the State Water Board’s authority and responsibility to ensure that water rights proceedings are fair and complete. But DWR seems to believe that it is only obligated to follow those rules if it wants to, justifying its brazen conduct on the purported need for more and bigger ways to extract water from the Bay and Delta. But the DCP would be a disaster for the watershed, ecosystem, and for communities throughout the Delta, and it is vital that DWR be held to the same standards as every other water right applicant. The State Board should stand up for its own authority, independence, and integrity and cancel DWR’s petition.”
Stephanie Safdi, Director of the Yale Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic and counsel for the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition, added, “California’s Water Code requires the Board to cancel a petition for a change in water rights where, as here, the petitioner fails without good cause to timely submit information required for a complete and fully-informed hearing. The Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition and the other thirty-two signatories to this Petition for Reconsideration are calling on the State Water Board to uphold the law and end the DCP change petition proceedings.”
Environmental justice and water equity advocates say the maneuvering from project backers only reinforces the need for stronger community oversight. The coalition is calling on the State Water Board to grant the Petition for Reconsideration and reaffirm its commitment to a fair, transparent, and lawful review of the Delta Conveyance Project.
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