Farm bureau files suit

With the 2011 irrigation season upcoming and with farmers and ranchers uncertain about state regulators’ new interpretation of an environmental law, the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau recently announced that they have filed suit to protect its members’ ability to provide water to their crops. In a lawsuit filed Friday in Siskiyou County Superior Court, the Siskiyou County Farm Bureau is asking the court to prevent the California Department of Fish and Game from enforcing its new interpretation of a 50-year-old law. “Farmers and ranchers in Siskiyou County are now in the impossible position of either complying with (DFG’s) new interpretation of the Fish and Game Code, or continuing to extract water pursuant to their water rights under the longstanding application, meaning, interpretation and enforcement of the code and thereby risking civil and criminal prosecution,” the lawsuit states. At issue in the case is a section of the code that requires water users to obtain a permit from the DFG before diverting or obstructing the natural flow of a stream. For decades since the section became law in 1961, the DFG has required such permits for activities such as gravel mining, the annual construction of push-up dams, installation of new headgates and other projects. But now, the DFG has informed farmers along the Scott and Shasta river watersheds that they will be required to obtain such permits simply to exercise their longstanding water rights by opening an existing headgate or activating an existing pump in order to irrigate their crops...more