California Sportfishing Protection Alliance v. California Department of Water Resources

Eleven environmental and conservation groups filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court challenging the approval of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan/California WaterFix Project, which would divert water from the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary for export south. The groups said the California Department of Water Resources had failed to comply with the Delta Reform Act, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the “fully protected species” statutes, and the California Public Trust Doctrine. They asserted numerous shortcomings in the CEQA review, including the failure to discuss the implications of climate change for the project’s water deliveries and failure to consider the cumulative impacts of climate change such as changing storm patterns and sea level rise or the potential climate change effects on hydrology.