Judge halts further water cuts

A federal judge on Monday rejected a request to cancel or renegotiate more than three dozen Sacramento River water contracts that environmentalists claimed were drawn up using flawed information. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger appears to keep in place the Central Valley's intricately woven water system -- and to spare agricultural users north and south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta from potentially losing even more water. Trent Orr, an attorney for environmental group Earthjustice, said it appears that water amounts outlined in the Sacramento River users contracts will be "there in perpetuity. We just don't think that's right." Westlands Water District spokeswoman Sarah Woolf said it was "nice to see [environmentalists] simply didn't win one." Wanger's ruling involves one of the last outstanding issues in a federal lawsuit involving the endangered delta smelt...Fresno Bee