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.