Photo by Tim Stroshane.

C-WIN's Water Rights Action Program benefits public trust protection and reasonable use of water. Whatever results come from the state and federal governments’ Bay Delta Conservation Plan process, recent legislation in the State Legislature to "fix the Delta," the 2010 water bond, the Delta Vision Task Force process, potential permanent water transfers—they all must obtain permits from the State Water Resources Control Board.

When they do, C-WIN expects to stand before the State Water Resources Control Board to fight for public trust resources and prohibition of waste and unreasonable use of water in their activities and operations.

Our Water Rights Action Program goals are to:

• Ratchet back over-appropriation of water as embedded in water right permits on Bay-Delta tributary streams through monitoring and challenging water rights applications before the State Water Resources Control Board.
• Establish the public interest and environmental protection as central to evidence considered by the State Water Resources Control Board in preparing its water rights orders and decisions.
• Develop partnerships with other organizations to track and protest water right petitions threatening public trust resources, instream flows, watershed and fishery restoration efforts, and water supply security.

We have already initiated activities of our Water Rights Action Program this year:

• Selecting water right petitions to protest, including one associated with the a cease and desist order in June 2009 against the California Department of Water Resources and the US Bureau of Reclamation.
• Coordinating, preparing, and delivering needed hearing testimony to the State Water Resources Control Board.
• Identifying and obtaining expert witnesses where needed.
• Providing experienced legal expertise to navigate the Board’s quasi-judicial procedures; and
• Recommending permit conditions protective of public trust resources, public interests, and environmental integrity in the Delta’s watershed.

By protesting water right petitions, C-WIN’s Water Rights Action Program will be positioned to influence permit conditions and recommend amendments that foster ecological sustainability through closer alignment of water rights with actual water available from nature. This in turn will help ensure greater water supply reliability since natural supplies will be known and allocated with greater certainty in the future. No other organizations make it a central service they perform to facilitate environmentally-focused reconsideration of water rights in California.

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