Delta Stewardship Council Cases

The California Court of Appeal reversed a trial court’s determination that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009 required the Delta Stewardship Council to adopt performance measure targets as legally enforceable regulations in the long-term management plan for the Delta to achieve certain objectives of the Act. The court also agreed with the Council that other violations found by the trial court were moot due to the adoption in 2018 of amendments to the Delta Plan. In addition, the court affirmed the trial court’s rejection of certain other challenges to the Plan, including a claim that aspects of the Plan were not based on best available science. A climate change-related argument rejected by the trial court—that sea level rise projections in the Plan were too high and not based on best available science—did not appear to have been before the appellate court.

A California Superior Court invalidated the long-term management plan for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta but was not persuaded by an argument that the plan relied on sea level rise projections that were too high and not based on best available science. The management plan was prepared by the Delta Stewardship Council pursuant to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Reform Act of 2009. A draft conservation strategy report was based on an assumption of a rise in sea level of 55 inches over the next 50 to 100 years, a projection also referenced in the Act. While petitioners argued that data in the report predicted a rise of only 13.8 inches by 2050 and 35 inches by 2100, the court noted that the 55-inch level was supported in other studies cited by the Council.