Science group to study environmental measures affecting California water deliveries

In a bow to a summer of angry complaints about water cutbacks to Central Valley farms, the Obama administration said Wednesday it would invite the National Academy of Sciences to examine the environmental measures restricting some water shipments from Northern California. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he would ask the academy to conduct an independent review of the science underpinning federal pumping limits imposed under the Endangered Species Act to protect smelt and salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. In a letter to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who had requested the review, Salazar said he was confident that the fish protections were "scientifically sound." But he said he would like the academy to determine if there were other actions that could be taken that would have less of an effect on water supply. The announcement came on the same day that Salazar held a public hearing in Washington on California's water shortages, caused by a three-year drought and mounting environmental problems in the delta, the conduit for water shipments to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California...read more