Friends of the River Submits a Brief in the U.S. Supreme Court

United States Supreme Court Building, courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

It’s not often that one of our legal cases results in a brief filed at the U.S. Supreme Court, but here we are. Here’s the road we took.

We are intervenors with a group of environmentalists in the federal relicensing proceeding of the Turlock and Modesto Irrigation District’s giant Don Pedro Dam on the Tuolumne River. The ongoing proceeding is taking many twists and turns, but one twist is the lawsuit by the Districts arguing that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should throw the state of California out of its responsibilities to certify that the relicensed project will comply with state water quality law under the Federal Clean Water Act (i.e., FERC waive the state’s CWA §401 authority).

FERC had refused to issue the waiver of certification (we filed siding with FERC arguing against waiver). The districts sued in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals (we intervened and submitted arguments there), the D.C. Circuit sided with FERC and us, and the districts appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. So last week we submitted a brief to the Supreme Court arguing why the court should not take the case (grant certiorari). The State of California and FERC also submitted similar briefs.

Perhaps the Supreme Court will turn the case down. But, we still have a series of cases in “defense of the Clean Water Act” in federal and state court, with years before we see the end of them. That’s not to mention our other litigation efforts. If you would like to help with these or other lawyerly tasks, please consider a donation to Friends of the River.

See the State of California’s and FERC’s briefs to the Supreme Court