A federal judge declared in a new ruling that the Bureau of Reclamation can issue permanent water agreements to major contractors in California — specifically the sprawling Westlands Water District — without undertaking new environmental or Endangered Species Act reviews.
But conservation advocates who brought the lawsuit against the Westland contract said that it does not clear the path forward for that deal, pointing to a series of claims still pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
District Judge Jennifer Thurston, a President Joe Biden appointee, issued a decision in favor of the Interior Department on June 30, and subsequently ordered the case, Center for Biological Diversity, et al., v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, closed last week.
That case centered on the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act signed into law in 2016, which allowed water contractors to ask Reclamation to convert their agreements into perpetual contracts with the agency in exchange for payments of outstanding debts tied to infrastructure costs.
