Ninth Circuit sides with Reclamation in fight over California water contract conversions

The Ninth Circuit ruled the Bureau of Reclamation was not required to conduct environmental review before converting Central Valley Project water service contracts into repayment contracts, upholding a lower court decision. The panel found the 2016 WIIN Act creates a mandatory duty to convert contracts upon request and bars the bureau from weighing environmental effects or protected species in the process.

Between 2020 and 2021 the bureau converted 67 such contracts, with 16 more proposed, prompting a 2020 lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups who argued the conversions lock in water deliveries to large agricultural users without regard to consequences for the San Francisco Bay Delta and salmon migration. The court's ruling was unanimous, spanning judges appointed by Biden, Clinton and Trump.

The Center for Biological Diversity's attorney called the decision a semantics game, arguing that permanent conversions function the same as renewals regardless of what the court calls them. The panel itself noted the ruling is narrow and doesn't exempt actual water deliveries under the converted contracts from future environmental review.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.