California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
The 3rd District Court of Appeal has granted a temporary stay delaying Metropolitan Water District’s (MWD) purchase of five islands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as of Tuesday. Escrow had been expected to close on Wednesday for the $175 million deal.
San Joaquin and Contra Costa counties had filed suit against MWD saying that Metropolitan had failed to complete environmental studies as to how the deal might harm the Delta before the land purchase from a Swiss investment group is completed. Metropolitan is purchasing the land from financial services conglomerate, Zurich Insurance Group.
Metropolitan has countered saying the lawsuit is premature. The water district says it has not determined how the land will be used.
But both counties and various environmental groups contend that the land could be used to help in the construction of the controversial twin tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Metropolitan acknowledges that the land might be used to store “fill” dirt for the tunnel project or for habitat restoration to ensure a reliable supply of delta water for its customers.
Catherine Stites, Metropolitan’s attorney, stated that the ruling will probably only delay the purchase by a few weeks and is merely a procedural ruling since the court probably needs more time to review the case. More than 1,000 pages of documents were filed on Tuesday and Stites said Metropolitan submitted a stack of documents as well.
“We don’t believe it is a substantive decision,” said Stites.
The ruling doesn’t mean an end to Metropolitan’s purchase of 20,000 acres across five Delta islands, says Dante Nomellini, an attorney for the Central Delta Water Agency and a plaintiff in the case. But the decision could be another delay for California WaterFix, California Governor Jerry Brown’s overall plan for the state’s water plan to send water south which includes the twin tunnels.
“We all know they want to get the property … for facilitating the WaterFix,” Nomellini said. “Why would Met come up here and buy land unless it related to their water supply?”
In issuing its one-paragraph order on Tuesday, the court gave no explanation for its ruling.
