Consolidated Salmonid Cases

MEMORANDUM DECISION RE CROSS-MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON NEPA ISSUES (Docs. 82 & 83).

I. INTRODUCTION

These consolidated cases all challenge the June 4, 2009 issuance of a biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”), finding that the coordinated operations of the federal Central Valley Project (“CVP”) and State Water Project (“SWP”) are likely to jeopardize the continued existence and adversely affect the critical habitat of certain salmonid and other species (“2009 Salmonid BiOp”), as well as the implementation of the terms of that BiOp by the United States Bureau of Reclamation (“Reclamation”). Because the 2009 Salmonid BiOp found that planned coordinated Project operations would jeopardize the continued existence of and/or adversely modify the critical habitat of several of the species, 2009 Salmonid BiOp at 1-2, NMFS proposed a Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (“RPA”) that imposes a number of operating restrictions and other measures on the Projects. The RPA included numerous elements for each of the various project divisions and associated stressors, which NMFS concluded “must be implemented in its entirety to avoid jeopardy and ad verse…