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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Supreme Court "Sides" with Smelt in Calif. ESA Challenge

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Tuesday, January 13, 2015   

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The highest court in the land has sided with one of the tiniest fish in California - by refusing to hear an appeal on Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court was asked by some California farming interests and water districts to consider overturning a case that affirms protections for the delta smelt, a fish found only in the San Francisco Bay Delta.

After years of pumping and diverting water from the Bay Delta, water users stepped in to challenge the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service when it made some changes to keep the smelt from extinction. Gary Bobker, program director with The Bay Institute, says the steps were small but critical.

"What the courts have basically affirmed is the steps the government took are scientifically justified," says Bobker. "If it hadn't been for those steps, there's no doubt after several years of extreme drought, on top of many years of bad water management, we wouldn't have any smelt at all."

The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the appeal in the case also is being touted as reinforcement of the importance of the Endangered Species Act, for allowing the federal government to give priority to the survival of a species over economic concerns.

Attorney Trent Orr with Earthjustice, who represented the conservation groups in the case, notes the delta smelt used to be one of the most common fish in the Bay Delta, but current tallies indicate it's now one of the most rare. However, Orr says the case reaches beyond protecting a single fish species.

"It was a very healthy population and, not coincidentally, the populations of a lot of other fish in the Delta have also dropped," says Orr. "It's sort of an indicator for the health, or unfortunately, the lack of ecological health of the Delta."

With the Supreme Court's decision not to hear the appeal, Orr says the case has gone as far as it can in the legal system. But he predicts it isn't the end of the survival challenges for the delta smelt.


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