Coalition files civil rights complaint against State Water Board

Earlier this month a coalition of regional tribes, Restore the Delta, and Save California Salmon filed a civil rights complaint against the State Water Resources Control Board with the US Environmental Protection Agency.

The complaint and petition seek relief for California Tribal nations and disadvantaged Delta communities. In May 2022, this same coalition of groups petitioned the State Water Resources Control Board to update water quality standards for the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Estuary (the “Bay-Delta”) to improve instream flows to save fish species and address harmful algal blooms (HABs) that plague their communities.

The coalition alleges that the California State Water Resources Control Board has failed to uphold its statutory duty to review water quality standards in the Bay-Delta for more than a decade and ensure compliance with the federal Clean Water Act’s objectives.

The actions by the coalition urge the EPA to: 

1. Initiate a Civil Rights investigation regarding allegations of discriminatory water management policies and practices in the Bay-Delta by the State Water Board, and

2. Initiate a rulemaking to adopt federal Clean Water Act-compliant, water quality standards for the Bay-Delta, including designating tribal beneficial uses and adopting flow-based, temperature, and HABs criteria that protect beneficial uses and tribal reserved rights.

“The Board is failing to uphold both the Clean Water Act and federal civil rights law,” adds Stanford Environmental Law Clinic student attorney Mark Raftrey. “It is allowing the Bay-Delta to descend into an ecological crisis that harms Native tribes and disadvantaged communities the most. The EPA has the authority to correct these violations, and we call on it to do so here.”