Groundwater permits spur suit Record-Searchlight
27.06.10
A commercial fishing bundle has teamed up with an environmental group to sue the state and Siskiyou County over how groundwater permits are issued around the Scott River.
The Pacific Shore Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and the Environmental Law Foundation filed the lawsuit this month, saying the state and county are flaw to leave enough water in the Scott River to protected dwindling salmon runs.
“Scott River drinking-water depletion has gotten so bad that today coho salmon are on the verge of extinction there, once one of their major refuges,” said Glen Spain, northwest regional head for the PCFFA, which has offices in Eugene, Ore., and San Francisco. “All the while, the state’s water agencies have been looking the other way and doing teeny-weeny to stop it.”
In setting water rules for the Scott Valley in 1980, the state and county limited how many wells could be put in within 500 feet of the Scott River, Spain said. But gone 500 feet from the river it’s anything goes, he said.
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