Groundwater permits spur suit in Siskiyou 

June 26, 2010

A commercial fishing group has teamed up with an environmental group to sue the state and Siskiyou County over how groundwater permits are issued around the Scott River.

The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the Environmental Law Foundation filed the lawsuit this month, saying the state and county are failing to leave enough water in the Scott River to protected dwindling salmon runs.

“Scott River water depletion has gotten so bad that today coho salmon are on the verge of extinction there, once one of their major refuges,” said Glen Spain, northwest regional director for the PCFFA, which has offices in Eugene, Ore., and San Francisco. “All the while, the state’s water agencies have been looking the other way and doing little to stop it.”

In setting water rules for the Scott Valley in 1980, the state and county limited how many wells could be put in within 500 feet of the Scott River, Spain said. But past 500 feet from the river it’s anything goes, he said.

The expansion of agriculture in the valley, with many wells built just past 500 feet from the river, is sucking the underground water supply dry, Spain said.

Through the lawsuit, the two groups aim to change that, he said.

“The criteria should have been the health of the aquifer,” Spain said, “not the distance from the river.”

Officials at the State Water Resources Control Board are just beginning to digest the lawsuit, said William Rukeyser, board spokesman.

“It appears to raise many theories about water pumping that aren’t in California law,” he said. “ There’s no doubt that it will be an interesting case.”

Parts of the Scott River went completely dry last year, temporarily stranding spawning salmon in isolated pools before fall rains revived the river. The dry year fueled debates around the valley about the coexistence of fish and farms.

While historical data isn’t available for the Scott River, the nearby Shasta River drew a spawning run of about 80,000 fish in 1930, according to state records. Mark Pisano, a wildlife biologist who works on both the Scott and Shasta, has said he thinks the river could support a similar run if conditions were perfect.

Saying low water levels each fall make the river inhospitable for endangered coho salmon, Spain said the river’s condition is far from perfect.

Last year he said the river had a return of 81 adult coho.