Judge rejects a Trump-era water contract in a win for tribes in California
On Oct. 27, in a victory for tribes in Northern California, Fresno County Superior Court Judge D. Tyler Tharpe rejected a Trump-era water contract between the federal Bureau of Reclamation and Westlands Water District, the public entity in charge of distributing water to farms in California’s San Joaquin Valley. … The contract would have given Westlands permanent access to 1.15 million acre-feet of water from the Trinity River … without ensuring that Westlands paid an estimated sixth of the $400 million it owed the Bureau of Reclamation for ecosystem restoration.