San Francisco Baykeeper v. California Department of Water Resources

San Francisco Baykeeper, a Tribe and Tribal organization, and other organizations challenged the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) approval of the Delta Conveyance Project, which the petitioners said would divert water from the Sacramento River, "denying critical freshwater flows to the [Sacramento-San Joaquin] Delta and the San Francisco Bay" and have "devastating impacts on the Delta." The petitioners alleged the DWR’s environmental impact report (EIR) for the project was inadequate, including because it failed to address “the likely implications climate change will have on the efficacy and impacts associated with the Project.” The alleged shortcomings included that the EIR’s baseline excluded the effects of climate change and that the EIR did not consider long-term effects of the project in 2040 or 2070 that included the effects of climate change. The organizations contended that “[t]he billions to be spent on the Project could be used instead for more effective climate adaptation purposes like flood protection investments throughout the Delta.”