Lawsuits Slow Progress of California's $17 Billion WaterFix Project

Paul Rogers reports: "Kicking off what are expected to be years of legal battles, a coalition of environmental and fishing groups [recently] filed the first major lawsuits over California Gov. Jerry Brown’s $17 billion plan to build two massive, 35-mile-long tunnels under the Delta to make it easier to move water from Northern California to the south."

"The Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Bay Institute and Golden Gate Salmon Association filed two lawsuits in U.S District Court in San Francisco," adds Rogers.

The lawsuits respond to a report released in June by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service that provided the so-called California WaterFix project with a necessary level of environmental clearance from the federal government, and reversed course from a previous report.