San Luis & Delta Mendota Water Authority v. United States.

Plaintiffs San Luis & Delta Mendota Water Agency and Westlands Water District asserted that the Bureau had very limited authority to attribute (or not attribute) certain water releases to the 800,000 acre-feet ("AF") release limit imposed by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (“CVPIA”), and had exceeded that limited authority by improperly accounting for those releases in 2004. The CVPIA authorizes the Bureau to dedicate and manage eight hundred thousand acre-feet of Central Valley Project yield per year for certain wildlife and habitat restoration and enhancement purposes. The specific issue addressed by the court was whether the Bureau’s method of accounting for CVP yield dedicated and managed under section 3406(b)(2) of the CVPIA, as applied to 9,000 AF of water released in late June of 2004, was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law because that method excluded water dedicated to benefit fishery resources and habitat pursuant to certain outflow objectives. After extensive discussion of the history of litigation as a result of these CVPIA releases, the Ninth Circuit ultimately affirmed the district court’s ruling that the Bureau did not abuse its discretion by failing to apply the additional 9,000 AF of CVP yield released in late June of 2004 from the 800,000 AF specified in CVPIA section 3406(b)(2). After confirming that the Water Agencies had standing to bring these claims, the court performed a detailed analysis of whether the Bureau abused its discretion in its accounting of the late June 2004 releases. Ultimately the court upheld the district court’s assessment that the “primary purpose” language in section 3406(b)(2) refers only to the programs specifically enumerated in that specific section of the CVPIA, and that CVP yield used to meet WQCP and/or ESA requirements had to be counted against the 800,000 AF limits only when they “predominantly” contributed to one of the specified (b)(2) primary purpose measures as well. (Decision at p. 2318.) The court found the Water Agencies’ contention that the “primary purpose” actions under section 3406(b)(2) include all actions serving the other purposes and measures authorized by the CVPIA (i.e., the “secondary” purposes) was without merit. The court also rejected plaintiffs’ contention that allowing the Bureau this level of discretion in its water accounting practices would eviscerate the 800,000 AF cap in the CVPIA. The court noted that “the statute does not require any automatic or compulsory ‘one-for-one’ deduction from the 800,000 AF (b)(2) account” and to read such a requirement into the CVPIA could interfere with the “restoration mandate” central to the CVPIA. (Decision at pp. 2321-2333.) Finally, the Ninth Circuit noted that “[m]uch work, and, possibly, this entire appeal, could have been avoided had [the Bureau] either (1) implemented a more coherent set of accounting procedures after it became aware of our January 2004 amended decision, or (2) given a complete explanation of its accounting for the 2004 Water Year at some time prior to its being challenged in court.” However, this failure to give full contemporaneous explanations does not amount to an abuse of discretion or otherwise invalidate the Bureau’s actions.