Merced Irrigation District Sues California over 'Water Grab' for Fish, Downstate Users

The Merced Irrigation District, a regional water authority in the San Joaquin Valley, is suing the State of California over a plan to divert water from the Merced River watershed to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for fish and downstate use.

As Breitbart News reported in 2018, the state’s Bay-Delta Plan aims to increase the amount of fresh water in the delta, also known simply as the “California Delta,” which has suffered from increasing salinity in recent years.

The Merced Irrigation District (MID) alleges that the plan is simply a “water grab” that will take water from local users and send it to the delta, to satisfy environmental interest groups — many of which have no connection to the state — and Southern California users.

The MID has conducted its own scientific studies to suggest that declining salmon populations in other parts of the state are not due to water diversion, but rather to the arrival of alien predators and other development activities, such as mining. The MID has also negotiated with the state in the past to provide its own salmon habitat restoration — while keeping the water.

But the state has decided to go ahead with its plan, though it has not yet said how much water it plans to divert from the Merced River, which is a tributary of the San Joaquin River that flows from the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite National Park, through the rich Central Valley farmland before joining the main watercourse northward to the Delta.

Merced River, Yosemite (Mark Gunn / Flickr / CC / Cropped)

The Merced Sun-Star reported Saturday that local leaders are fuming — while out-of-state environmental groups are happy:

MID officials have set up a “Save Merced’s Water” website to gather signatures from residents to stop the diversions from moving forward.
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“Our perspective is we didn’t create [California’s] water quality problems,” [MID spokesperson Mike] Jensen said. “It shouldn’t be our responsibility to bear the brunt of fixing them.”

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Still, the state’s plan does have its supporters. Some speakers at the Dec. 8 State Water Board meeting urged the board to move forward with it, saying existing protections for salmon don’t go far enough.

“The current water quality control plan objectives aren’t adequately protecting fish and wildlife beneficial uses,” said Gary Bobker, program director at The Bay Institute, which is headquartered in New York City.

The fight over the Merced River’s water comes as the state is suffering one of the most crippling droughts in its history. In the past, Merced-area officials have stressed that the water in the MID is not simply used for agriculture, but also supports local household use and is used by local school districts and communities of farm workers, which are predominantly Hispanic.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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