It’s not only fish vs. people, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 29, 2009 at 6:53 am

From the Sacramento Bee, this editorial:

The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued a wake-up call on the dangers facing the Central Valley’s salmon and, ultimately, the water system they depend on. It should be mulled and acted upon.

The wake-up call came in the form of a “biological opinion” that the fisheries service filed earlier this month. Prompted by a federal court ruling on a lawsuit by environmentalists and fishermen, it found that the ways the state and federal water projects operate threaten the survival of endangered chinook salmon and steelhead, and it required that they change their policies.

The changes the agency envisions include finding ways to get the fish around the dams and other barriers that currently stop them as they migrate upstream to spawn. With immense structures like Shasta Dam spanning the Sacramento River, and Folsom Dam the American, this will not be a simple task. It will require the construction of fish ladders, or elevators, or perhaps truck-and-haul operations. Experts aren’t sure if any are feasible. The estimated price tag starts at $1 billion.

The price of not acting, however, will likely be steeper.

Read the rest of this editorial from the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

Restrictions placed on catch-and-release salmon fishing

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 28, 2009 at 6:25 pm

From the Sun Herald:

The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has begun enforcing new recreational salmon fishing regulations for the Central Valley Basin.

In a May 28 press release, the DFG announced that catch-and-release fishing that intentionally targets salmon is now illegal in any river or stream closed to salmon fishing. DFG staff will be notifying anglers and posting information about the new regulations in the area. Violators are subject to a fine of up to $1,000.

“These changes were necessary to increase protection for Sacramento River fall run Chinook populations, which have drastically decreased in the last few years,” said Neil Manji, DFG Fisheries branch chief.

“The Sacramento River fall run Chinook are projected to just meet minimum escapement levels for 2009. We need this new measure to ensure that the stock will continue to recover,” Manji said.

Read the rest of this story from the Sun Herald by clicking here.

The SARSAS plan for saving anadromous fishes in California and in the Pacific marine fishery

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 28, 2009 at 6:08 pm

From My Auburn:

The salmon of California are nearing extinction for many possible reasons: global warming, pollution, upwelling of ocean currents, lack of fish passage and spawning areas. Whatever the reasons, a clear, simple plan is necessary to save them. The SARSAS Plan, formulated for the Auburn Ravine, is the simplest way to save the fish and should be implemented on all streams in California. What is the SARSAS Plan?

SARSAS believes if every stream in California has a volunteer group working to do what SARSAS is doing with the Auburn Ravine, that is, to return salmon and steelhead to its entire length and secure fish passage, adequate water and spawning grounds, then salmon will not go extinct. The line from the movie Field of Dreams, “If you built it, they will come” can be applied to anadromous fish with a slight twist: “If you clear it, they will come”; that is, SARSAS with the cooperation of Governor Schwarzenegger can encourage other groups to do with other streams, what SARSAS (www.sarsas.org) is doing with the Auburn Ravine. By providing fish passage on all the tributaries to the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, the anadromous fishes will have many spawning grounds currently denied them. Will the Governor help? SARSAS is working with his staff urging him to help. Only the Governor with his sweeping influence over California agencies can coordinate this program and create an incentive program to encourage other organizations to take ownership of particular streams and retrofit them completely to create fish passage so that citizens become the instruments of the salmon salvation. Only the Governor can fast track the 501C3 process, necessary for fundraising, and connect each group to the right agencies quickly and efficiently.

Read more from My Auburn by clicking here.

Valley lawmakers can’t block water legislation (bi-op); Democratic leaders block vote on Nunes water amendment

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 26, 2009 at 7:14 am

From the Fresno Bee:

San Joaquin Valley lawmakers have failed again in their effort to block the environmental rules steering irrigation water toward the protection of endangered species.

With Interior Secretary Ken Salazar now planning a Fresno town hall meeting for Sunday, a powerful House panel decided to quietly bury the controversial San Joaquin Valley amendment. Unlike a similar effort last week, this latest amendment never reached the House floor.

The proposed amendment to a $32 billion Interior Department funding bill would have blocked spending on two so-called “biological opinions” governing crucial California water flow. These biological opinions amount to federal water management rules that protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and species including salmon and the delta smelt.

“For the San Joaquin Valley, the majority in this House has chosen fish over working families,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, declared Thursday.

Read more from the Fresno Bee by clicking here.

Congressman Nunes issued this statement on his website:

“The hypocrisy of this situation is that the Democratic majority champions the working family but backs the radical environmentalists instead. For the San Joaquin Valley, the majority in this House has chosen fish over working families,” said Nunes.

“What we are witnessing, is the greatest elected assembly in the history of the world starving its own citizens of water, acting like a despot, who tortures the innocent just to stay in power. And make no mistake, raw power is what we are witnessing. Power that injures and wounds, exercised at highest levels of government, straight from the Obama White House and the Democratic leadership in the Congress. They will say and do anything to keep hold of the reins of power. And their victims are my constituents, the people of the San Joaquin Valley, who have done nothing to deserve such cruelty at the hands of the government,” said Nunes.

California Proposes Logging Rules That Would Exterminate Coho Salmon Inadequate Regulations Proposed in Critical Watersheds as Coho Salmon Spiral Toward Extinction

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 25, 2009 at 8:13 am

From the Center for Biological Diversity, this press release:

The California Board of Forestry this week is considering proposed state timber-harvest regulations that would continue harmful logging adjacent to critical salmon streams, prevent recovery of key salmon watersheds, and essentially guarantee extinction of coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch) from California. The Center for Biological Diversity sent comments to the Board this week regarding the failure of the proposed rules to protect coho and other salmon; the Center warned of the likelihood for illegal take of salmon species listed under the federal and state Endangered Species Acts if the rules are adopted. The Board will hold hearings today and tomorrow in Sacramento on the proposed rules.

“For a decade, the Board of Forestry has avoided taking the steps that are necessary to protect California’s salmon from the impacts of logging activities, and meanwhile coho salmon have spiraled toward extinction,“ said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “These unacceptable rules would continue business-as-usual logging practices and facilitate the dismantling of the last shaded, cold-water forest refuges for fish.”

The Board is updating its “threatened or impaired watershed” logging rules, state forest practice rules originally adopted in 2000 that regulate commercial timber harvesting on private land in watersheds harboring threatened or endangered salmon species and in water bodies listed as impaired under the federal Clean Water Act. Most remaining coho salmon streams in northern and central California are within private forestlands subject to California’s Forest Practice Rules.

The Board has proposed a smorgasbord of options for riparian timber-harvest rule changes, almost all of which reduce critical riparian protection. The rules would also: allow excessive road densities, near-stream roads and road stream crossings that will result in degradation of salmon habitat with sediment; approve logging and road building on unstable slopes and soils; allow logging of critical headwaters refugia; and prevent previously logged watersheds from adequately recovering.

“The Board of Forestry should adopt stronger timber harvest regulations to protect all salmon streams and should prohibit logging in key watersheds in order to allow impaired areas to recover,” said Justin Augustine, a Center attorney. “The Board’s proposed approach would likely result in timber-harvest plans violating the Endangered Species Act, causing illegal take of salmon, and undermining the recovery of listed salmonids.”

Read more

Fish prevail over Californians again, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 23, 2009 at 8:00 am

From the Western Farm Press:

The latest fish-saving biological opinion from the National Marine Fisheries Service reaches far beyond the infamous Delta pumps where most of the focus lately has been in the “save the minnow (smelt)” melodrama.

It would dramatically alter the way the California federal and state water projects are operated to better benefit salmon, sturgeon, Southern Resident killer whale, and steelhead. It would reduce the water supply to 25 million Californians by another 300,000 to 500,000 acre feet annually.

Yep, you read correctly. Killer whales. Shamu. Those big black and white things you pay to see leap out of the water at Sea World. You know, the fish you see swimming in the California Aqueduct; the ones that can grow to 32 feet and weigh as much as 18,000 pounds.

No kidding, the National Marine Fisheries Service says the decline in salmon can be blamed on the operation of the California state and federal water projects and they threaten Orcas since killer whales eat salmon.

Specifically Resident Southern killer whales, which according to the Marine Fisheries Web site, live much of the year in the San Juan Islands and Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest. It’s more than 600 miles by road from the Sacramento Delta to Puget Sound and an even longer trip by sea. It seems a bit of a stretch to say these whales are threatened by the reduction of salmon due to the California water projects.

Read more of this editorial from the Western Farm Press by clicking here.

SalmonAid organizes to fight threat of extinction

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 22, 2009 at 7:26 am

From the Oakland Tribune:

The plight of declining salmon populations and the commercial fishers they support up and down the West Coast drew hundreds of people to Jack London Square on Saturday and Sunday for the second annual SalmonAid Festival, organizers said.

The festival featured food, music and a message of conservation. Some salmon populations around the Central Valley are down 90 percent over the past eight years, SalmonAid Foundation President Jonathan Rosenfield said.

The issues facing wild salmon throughout California and as far north as Alaska involve many local interests represented by more than 2,000 small nonprofit organizations. The foundation first put together the event last year to unite their voices and help consumers, politicians and the media understand the enormity of the issue, Rosenfield said.

“One of the major issues we’re asking the state and federal governments to tackle is water management in the state of California,” Rosenfield said. “We have huge amounts of water being diverted from the greater Bay Area into the Central Valley for big agricultural corporations to grow crops out there that don’t make sense. For example, you’re seeing a lot of water used to grow grapes, which need a constant water supply to grow,” he said. “We don’t need to be growing grapes in the desert during a drought.”

Read more from the Oakland Tribune by clicking here.

Dan Bacher: Schwarzenegger amps up canal campaign, war on fish

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 21, 2009 at 10:05 am

From Dan Bacher, this commentary:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, after protesters in Fresno Thursday accused him of not doing enough to support San Joaquin Valley growers in their battle to export more water from the imperiled California Delta, yesterday amped up his campaign to build the peripheral canal and more dams and affirmed his opposition to increased protections for salmon and other fish.

“We need to rethink the Delta, fix the Delta, and build a canal around the Delta,” said Schwarzenegger, in pushing a project that would cost an estimated $12 to $24 billion at a time when the state budget deficit is the largest in California history and thousands of teachers, health care workers and game wardens face layoffs.

Schwarzenegger, who appeared at a meeting and press conference Friday in Mendota, also emphasized the necessity to build Temperance Flat Reservoir on the San Joaquin River and Sites Reservoir on the west side of the Sacramento Valley. “Dams need to be built,” he stated. “We need above ground storage, below ground storage, new infrastructure.”

In a similiar vein, the Governor stated, “We urgently need a clean, reliable water supply, and I am committed to getting comprehensive water reform done once and for all. We must invest in our future, protect our precious resources and protect the state of California.”

He also again slammed the court ordered federal biological opinion, released on June 4, that directed the state and federal governments to change export pumping operations out of the Delta to avoid jeopardizing the continued survival of Sacramento winter run and spring run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and the southern resident population of killer whales.

“I think the judge’s decision is wrong,” said Schwarzenegger. “If you start choosing species, and the smelt and salmon over people, I think you’re wrong. I think it’s a mistake when you see the impacts that it has.”

Schwarzenegger yet again parrotted the false claim by Westlands Water District and corporate agribusiness giants that the biological opinion chooses “fish over people.” In fact, the conflict is in reality a conflict between restoring salmon and other fish populations and the thousands of jobs they support and keeping in production drainage-impaired land in the west side of the San Joaquin, land laced with selenium that should have never been irrigated.

Read more

Stockton East Water District sues feds over Stanislaus rules in the salmon biological opinion

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 20, 2009 at 7:31 am

From Stockton’s Record:

Concerned over what may be a “drastic” reduction in this region’s water supply, the Stockton East Water District filed suit Friday against the federal government challenging new rules to protect fish. The lawsuit alleges that the rules, published by the National Marine Fisheries Service on June 4, are in violation of the Endangered Species Act because they do not rely on the best available science.

The rules require greater flows down the Stanislaus River for steelhead. Stockton East relies on diversions from the Stanislaus - and storage at New Melones Lake - for about half its surface water supply. That water can be treated and sent to city taps, which takes pressure off the county’s diminished underground aquifer.

Water from the Stanislaus has never been completely reliable, but officials have said the new rules mean even less will be available. “There will be virtually no water to the contractors except in a very few circumstances,” said Jennifer Spaletta, an attorney representing Stockton East. “It’s predicted that the reservoir is going to go bust very often.”

Read more from The Record by clicking here.

Friday’s top of the scroll: House narrowly rejects bid to nullify salmon protection rules

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 19, 2009 at 8:08 am

From the Silicon Valley Mercury News:

The U.S. House of Representatives narrowly rejected an attempt Thursday by a San Joaquin Valley congressman to set aside regulations adopted this month to protect salmon and killer whales from the operations of dams and pumps in California.

The move was an attempt to strike back at increasingly tough rules that are cutting into farmers’ water supplies after nearly a decade of relatively unfettered access to Delta water. As water deliveries from the Delta increased, fish populations collapsed and courts have since found that regulators were not doing their jobs.

Introduced by Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Tulare, the measure would have prevented the National Marine Fisheries Service from spending money to enforce its sweeping new rules issued earlier this month. It failed by a vote of 218-208.

“Environmentalists are tripping over themselves to preserve every species that crawls, squirms, swims or flies, but they are content to let humans die. And now they have a government that agrees with them,” Nunes said on the eve of Thursday’s narrow vote.

From the Fresno Bee:

Still, Nunes and his allies insist they put a useful spotlight on a region they believe has been ignored too long.

“It’s OK to value fish, that’s OK,” Nunes said during House debate, “but understand you’re starving families while you value fish.”

The vote Thursday was closer than some expected, with 37 Democrats joining most Republicans in supporting Nunes. Democratic Reps. Jim Costa of Fresno and Dennis Cardoza of Merced voted for the amendment, with Cardoza using his House Rules Committee position to ensure the amendment got a vote on the floor.

From Doug Obegi of the NRDC Switchboard blog:

Today’s action in Washington is a reminder of the failures and costs of our current water practices in California, and the need for real solutions, particularly as our third year of drought continues to cause water reductions across the state, which have particularly hurt farmers in the Central Valley. As drought continues to cause low water supplies across the state, this highlights just how important it is to develop long term water solutions that benefit all Californians. Scientifically sound decisions like the salmon biological opinion that this amendment targeted must be part of the foundation for that solution. And while California has made some significant investments in alternative water supplies and win-win solutions, including federal investments from the stimulus bill, it’s time for a new, better, smart-water solutions for the 21st century that will help all Californians get the water they need for drinking, fishing and growing our food supply into the future.

Congressman Devin Nunes responds on his website:

“Environmentalists are tripping over themselves to preserve every species that crawls, squirms, swims or flys but they are content to let humans die. And now they have a government that agrees with them. This Congress and our President have chosen fish over people in my state,” said Rep. Devin Nunes.

It has been 629 days since Congressman Nunes first asked Democrat Congressional leaders to respond to the water crisis facing California. Despite the clear evidence of suffering, un-paralleled unemployment rates and the looming destruction of San Joaquin Valley communities, no assistance has been offered. Indeed, in a recent trip to California the Secretary of Interior specifically avoided visiting the impacted region.

“It’s time to ask the Speaker ‘how many studies do you need? How many starving families and devastated communities will it take to get your attention?’ We need Congress to do its job. This government is failing to uphold its Constitutional oath to the people and I will not stop fighting until the voices of my constituents are heard,” said Rep. Nunes.

For more information:

• Silicon Valley Mercury News article
• Fresno Bee article
• NRDC Switchboard Blog post
• Devin Nunes’ statment on his website

Tightening the tap: Feds order state to cut water-project flows to Southern California

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 18, 2009 at 7:50 am

From the Sacramento News & Review, this article by Dan Bacher:

In a court-ordered plan released on June 4, scientists from the National Marine Fisheries Service concluded that current water-pumping operations of the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of four imperiled fish species and one orca population.

The “biological opinion” lists a number of steps the state and federal governments must take to protect winter- and spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, southern green sturgeon and southern resident killer whales from going over the abyss of extinction. The whales, now numbering only 85 individuals along the coast from Puget Sound to California, rely on Sacramento River salmon for food.

Changing water operations will impact an estimated 5 to 7 percent of the water exported annually to San Joaquin Valley water contractors and Southern California by the federal and state pumps. That’s 330,000 acre feet per year, according to Maria Rea, the NMFS area supervisor.

The opinion also calls for pilot passage programs at Folsom, Nimbus and Shasta dams to reintroduce salmon and steelhead to historic cold-water habitat above the dams. “We want to get winter-run chinook back to habitat in the McCloud River and steelhead back to habitat in the upper American River,” said Rea.

Read more from the Sacramento News & Review by clicking here.

The San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority charges ‘pseudo science’ in salmon biological opinion

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 18, 2009 at 7:45 am

From the Western Farm Press:

The San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority has filed suit in federal court over the issuance of a biological opinion by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The lawsuit contends that the federal agency failed to conduct required environmental review and that it used “pseudo science” to develop measures meant to protect fish.

“Federal laws governing environmental review apply to everyone,” said Dan Nelson, executive director of the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority. “The National Marine Fisheries Service needs to follow the rules like everyone else when they make decisions that have such enormous impacts.”

In addition to demanding that NMFS publish an Environmental Impact Statement, the suit also claims that there was inadequate public review of the science the agency used to support its decision.

“The public has a right to know how agencies like NMFS makes decisions and that was completely inadequate in this instance,” said Nelson. “Decisions that affect the water supply for 3 million acres of farmland and 25 million people can’t be made in secret, as this one was. The law requires a specific public review process in cases like this and NMFS didn’t do that.”

Read more from the Western Farm Press by clicking here.

The EDF on NMFS’s new salmon biological opinion: Beyond operations

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 16, 2009 at 4:27 pm

From the Environmental Defense Fund’s On the Water Front blog, this post by Rod Fujita, Senior Scientist and Director, Ocean Innovations, for EDF:

Salmon and steelhead are in jeopardy. That is no surprise to many of us, especially fishermen and coastal communities who have suffered through the closure of the salmon fishery. But thanks to NRDC’s successful lawsuit, it’s official. The lawsuit forced NMFS to take another look at the effects of the state and federal water projects on salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon, resulting in a new Biological Opinion. This new Biological Opinion (B.O.), released two weeks ago, confirms our fears that the water projects have been and are likely to continue to jeopardize the continued existence of winter run, spring run, steelhead, and green sturgeon if nothing additional is done to protect these iconic and valuable species. The recommended actions in the B.O. are also consistent with the research and conclusions of many others: these fish need more water, cooler temperatures, better passage past dams, and improved habitat.

To save these fish, the B.O. goes beyond short-term band-aids toward a holistic health model. When salmon populations are this low, it is time to pull out all possible stops to save them which means supporting the survival of ALL life stages comprehensively, which is what the B.O. attempts to do. It acknowledges that just altering project operations is not sufficient; rather, the full range of Reclamation and DWR authorities (especially those provided by CVPIA) to reduce stressors and compensate for them must be brought to bear if these species and the fisheries and ecosystem values that depend on them are to survive, never mind recover.

Read more from the EDF’s On The Water Front blog by clicking here.

Tuesday’s top of the scroll: Westlands sues over salmon plan

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 16, 2009 at 8:19 am

From the Fresno Business Journal:

The Westlands Water District announced today it is joining 29 other public water agencies in a lawsuit against the federal government over its latest plan to curb water deliveries.

The plan released June 4 by the National Marine Fisheries Service recommends a list of actions it estimates would cut current state and federal water exports south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by 5-7 percent, or 330,000 acre-feet, a year.

This cut is in addition to a curtailment made last year to protect the Delta smelt. Agricultural water users south of the Delta currently receive about 10 percent of their average deliveries.

The suit argues fisheries service should have prepared an environmental impact statement before adopting the salmon recovery plan.

Read more from the Fresno Business Journal by clicking here.

California Water Districts sue to force Federal fish agencies to obey environmental laws

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 16, 2009 at 8:17 am

From Westlands Water District, this press release:

“Environmental laws apply equally to all,” said Tom Birmingham, General Manager of the Westlands Water District, in announcing a lawsuit aimed at the federal government’s latest plan for cutting back even further on California’s water supplies.

Westlands is joining with 29 other public water agencies who argue that the National Marine Fisheries Service should have prepared an environmental impact statement before adopting a salmon recovery plan that will divert hundreds of thousands of acre feet of California’s freshwater supplies into the ocean.

“Denying this much water to California is going to do obvious, serious and enduring damage to habitat, to wetlands, and to other endangered species. It will reduce water quality and drive up the costs of water treatment for millions of people. It will reduce the opportunities for recycling, conjunctive use, and water transfers, which are all vitally important to the state’s efforts to conserve water and improve efficiency. And it will put tens of thousands of people out of work, which affects public health and safety in myriad ways,” Birmingham said.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California recently granted a preliminary injunction in connection with a similar lawsuit that pointed to the failure of another federal agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, to prepare an environmental assessment before imposing a set of restrictions on behalf of the Delta Smelt that cut California’s water supply by nearly one third. Hearings on the merits of those challenges will be conducted later this year.

“The Obama Administration’s salmon plan mimics the smelt proposal and it suffers from the same defects,” Birmingham pointed out. In both the smelt and salmon proceedings, Westlands filed its lawsuit jointly with the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.

The smelt cutbacks have cost California more than 660,000 acre feet of water last year and they have reduced water supplies by another 480,000 acre feet so far this year. The federal plan for salmon would continue all of those reductions and could take as much as another 500,000 acre feet of water out of the water system, according to the California Department of Water Resources. Those combined losses add up to enough water to serve nine million people for a year.

“The federal agencies pushing this plan have refused to estimate what the total loss of water will be. And they won’t say what it is going to cost taxpayers either,” Birmingham said. “But the Department of Water Resources reports that the smelt and salmon restrictions will add $500 million a year to the cost for public agencies to continue delivering water. And that doesn’t include the much larger capital costs for the changes that these federal agencies are demanding in existing dams and other water facilities.”

In announcing the salmon plan, the regional commissioner for the federal Bureau of Reclamation acknowledged that its implementation would mean that there will no longer be reliable water supplies for California agriculture and that there will not be any additional water available for cities that are growing.

“It is simply outrageous that federal authorities would seek to force these restrictions on California without conducting a single public hearing, without any public review or comment, and without any consideration of the harm they are doing,” Birmingham said.

Sunday’s top of the scroll: Are ‘misguided environmentalists’ using the ESA to “elevate plant and wildlife species above the economic, social and even physical needs and endeavors of people”? or is “growing water-thirsty alfalfa and taxpayer-supported cotton in the San Joaquin Valley is more important than salmon – or people”?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 14, 2009 at 11:05 am

In the Sacramento Bee’s “Join the Conversation”, two opposing commentaries:

Blame ’shortage’ on misguided environmentalists, writes David Stirling of the Pacific Legal Foundation:

For the past 36 years, some environmentalists or hardcore “greens” have used the heavy hand of the 1973 federal Endangered Species Act to elevate plant and wildlife species above the economic, social and even physical needs and endeavors of people.

This began in earnest with the first U.S. Supreme Court case testing the Endangered Species Act’s scope and authority (Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, 1978). The court declared that by enacting the ESA Congress intended to preserve listed species at “whatever the cost.”

While it is curiously troubling that the Supreme Court viewed a law like the Endangered Species Act as beyond challenge on costs to taxpayers, this court-created fiction about the inviolability of the ESA continues as judicial precedent. As a result, the lower federal courts regard the ESA as a “super statute,” enabling species preservation to trump human interests and endeavors in nearly all circumstances.

Read the full text of David Stirling’s commentary by clicking here.

Agribusiness puts subsidized crops ahead of people, says Jim Jones, past president of the Save the American River Association:

Apparently the governor thinks growing water-thirsty alfalfa and taxpayer-supported cotton in the San Joaquin Valley is more important than salmon – or people. But the fishermen, communities, and their residents and business owners up and down the California coast which depended on the once-prolific salmon runs are people, too. They just don’t have the voice or political clout and millions of dollars for politicians’ campaigns and public relations firms that agribusiness can employ to get its message out.

The recent report from biologists at the National Marine Fisheries Service suggested a 5 percent to 7 percent reduction in water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley agriculture under certain conditions. That would hardly be the calamity that the governor would have us believe.

A far more responsible response to the biological opinion came in a statement from Donald Glaser, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s regional director: “We have to just find better ways to make efficient use of the water we have,” he said.

Read the full text of Jim Jones’ commentary by clicking here.

Join the conversation at the Sacramento Bee by clicking here.

Watering down the fishery gene pool: Do hatcheries help or hinder efforts to sustain wild populations?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 13, 2009 at 7:18 am

From the Scientific American:

Plummeting numbers of several salmon and trout species have conservationists looking more and more to hatcheries—where fish are reared in comfortable captivity and then released into natural bodies of water. But this strategy may hurt wild populations, according to a paper published this week in Biology Letters.

Researchers at Oregon State University (O.S.U.) found that not only do hatchery-raised steelhead—a Pacific trout sharing the same genus, Oncorhynchus, as salmon—produce relatively fewer and weaker offspring once back in a natural environment, but so do their wild-born spawn.

“Captive breeding programs are a popular and efficient strategy to save declining populations, but the genetic impact must seriously be taken into account,” says Hitoshi Araki, a co-author on the paper who recently moved from O.S.U. to the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. “Otherwise, wild populations can be at risk of extinction.”

Read more from the Scientific American by clicking here.

DWR will boost Feather River flows to help salmon

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 13, 2009 at 7:03 am

From the Department of Water Resources:

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) will increase flows in the Low Flow Channel (LFC) of the Feather River June 15 to help Chinook salmon. DWR is hopeful that the action will help attract more spring-run Chinook to the Feather River Fish Hatchery near Oroville.

The increased “pulse” flow will start just after midnight June 15, and continue until noon. The pulse flow will peak at 1500 to 1700 cubic feet per second (cfs) before returning to a more regular flow of about 600 cfs.

The affected eight-mile channel runs through downtown Oroville, but few will notice the event. The river will rise by not more than 12 inches, much less than during typical winter flood releases. The water will be released from Oroville Dam, which DWR operates.

At the bottom of the LFC, the Thermalito Afterbay releases additional water that combines with the LFC water to form the total release to the Feather River. The Feather River then flows another 60 miles to its confluence with the Sacramento River. Release of water from Thermalito Afterbay will be reduced commensurate with the increase to the LFC so that this activity will not result in any change to total river releases to the lower Feather River.

The Feather River Fish Hatchery is located at the upstream end of the LFC and is operated by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG). DFG asked DWR to release additional water down the LFC to help attract more salmon to the hatchery for tagging.

These fish won’t be ready to spawn until September. However, tags enable the hatchery staff to easily identify the spring-run Chinook salmon so they can be spawned separately as a discreet group of fish.

DWR biologists will study the response of the salmon to this flow pulse.

Biological opinion takes water from people, says editorial

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 12, 2009 at 7:55 am

From the Capital Press, this editorial:

From San Diego to Redding, Californians are trying to figure out the meaning of the 844-page biological opinion the National Marine Fisheries Service issued last week. This is a precedent-setting order, one that if unchallenged could derail long-established water law precedent in any Western river basin supporting fish protected under the Endangered Species Act. In the short term, NMFS policies could wreck much of California’s agricultural and domestic water supply without providing alternatives.

This is what’s known as a “jeopardy opinion.” It concludes state and federal water project deliveries in the Central Valley and Southern California must change or salmon and perhaps orcas, the killer whales that feed on salmon, will go extinct.

Cheers are in order for Westlands Water District, west of Fresno, and other public water agencies that announced a lawsuit almost as soon as the NMFS opinion came out. Cheers are also due to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who issued a statement saying in part the opinion “puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world’s eighth-largest economy.”

On the other hand, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., an author of the federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act, hailed the NMFS finding for undoing Bush administration water policy. This opinion does a whole lot more than Miller describes; it continues a “single species” approach to complex water issues that cry out for basin-wide and system-wide thinking and solutions.

Read more of this editorial from the Capital Press by clicking here.

Salmon Salvation: Will a new political order be enough to finally bring the dams down?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 12, 2009 at 7:48 am

From The Source Weekly:

Scott Van Bergen settled onto a bench at the back of U.S. District Judge James Redden’s Portland courtroom on a Friday morning in March and waited for the ninth — or perhaps the 29th — round of Pacific Northwest salmon vs. the dams to begin. His high school zoology class had just studied endangered species, and his teacher offered him the opportunity to see where a significant part of the effort to save imperiled creatures takes place — the federal courts.

Van Bergen is a bright Oregon native who aspires to become a marine biologist. He hopes “there will be a movement to bring the river back to where it was naturally,” and that healthy runs of wild salmon and steelhead will swim the Columbia and Snake rivers by the time he gets his college degree.
Can the Pacific Northwest — indeed the nation — fulfill Van Bergen’s dream of wild salmon recovery? For the first time in decades, the answer may be yes. Many biologists have long been clear about the best way to achieve it: Remove four dams on the Lower Snake River so the fish can reach millions of acres of pristine habitat in central Idaho and northeast Oregon.

For nearly 20 years, however, the powerful federal agencies now appearing before Redden — including the Bonneville Power Administration, which markets the region’s hydropower, and the Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers, which run some of the region’s 200 major dams — have strenuously avoided dam removal. They’ve spent $8 billion on almost every conceivable alternative with little consequent improvement in the fortunes of wild fish. And they’ve cultivated allies among inland ports, utilities, the barging industry, the vanishing aluminum industry and politicians, including Washington state’s senior senator, Democrat Patty Murray.

Read more from The Source Weekly by clicking here.

This just in: Sixty day notice of intent to sue officials for killing fish filed, this time for salmon & others at the Delta pumps

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 11, 2009 at 3:51 pm

From Patrick Porgans & Associates and the Law Office of Joel C. Baiocchi:

Government officials are driving Californians deeper in debt, after borrowing billions of dollars in a failed attempt to double fish populations. Conversely, the record shows that Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials have killed tens-of-millions listed salmonid and other species, at their Delta water export project pumping plants, and got paid in the process and are not being held accountable for their actions.

The Law Office of Joel C. Baiocchi formally notified federal and state officials of Porgans & Associates, Inc. intent to sue officials, and culpable parties (non-governmental organizations, water contractors and other collaborators) responsible for failing to provide water for fish and for violating the provisions of the federal Endangered Species Act “Take.

Three years ago, P&A initiated an independent research assessment of government‟s role in declining salmonid populations throughout the Golden State. This week Baiocchi‟s firm submitted a 79-page, Sixty Day Notice of intent to sue, outlining in detail officials‟ collective and unrelenting failure to provide water for fish and revealing the inherent conflicting roles they play, as regulators, water purveyors and Public Trustees.

Patrick Porgans, a solutionist, and long-time advocate of Public Trust protection and government accountability, stated, “Based on the information obtained from “official” sources, the salmon collapse is not the result of natural phenomenon, it is the direct result of a government-induced disaster which has been in the making for decades. The crux of the matter is premised on the fact that government is required to provide water for fish; they have simply failed to do so, and are in violation of the provisions of the federal Endangered Species Act and other federal and state laws that provide protection for listed species.

Contrary to the Governor’s position, this is not about people versus fish, but is about his administration‟s mismanagement of both financial and natural resources. The State Water Resources Control Board is responsible for the administration of water rights appropriations, its records show that it has over-appropriated the waters of the state by 500 percent.

Furthermore, neither it nor the Department of Fish and Game can provide a readily available accounting of the amount of water provided for fish needs, primarily because, in most cases, they do not set a numerical flow value required to sustain listed species. Even when they do, they do not monitor to ensure the fish water needs are being met – that is the diverter‟s job.

In cases when the SWRCB was fully aware of the fact that illegal diversions of water are occurring, such as the 1,771 illegal diversions in the North Coast Region, most of which are in “Wine Country”, the Board simply failed to abate the unlawful diversions. The National Marine Fisheries Service advised the Board that the unauthorized diversions in that area were responsible for the “Take” of listed species and violated the provisions of the ESA; it took no action.

While officials are not providing water for fish, since 1996, according to California‟s Legislative Analyst‟s Office, voters have approved $14 billion in General Obligation Bonds for water and water-related programs, which included buying water for fish. More than $5 billion of which has been expended on a myriad of water supply reliability and fish-doubling programs. Most of those funds were administered through CALFED, a consortium of federal and state agencies, a number of which are directly responsible for the disastrous decline in salmonid populations. They are also major water purveyors, regulators, Public Trustees and unaccountable violators of the law.

Government officials are not penalized when they curtail water exports from the Delta, as a result of killing listed species; they get paid and are rewarded for purportedly not pumping. At times, when officials exceeded the “take” limits under the ESA, they got back together and increased the number of fish they could “legally” kill.

To date, the only so-called relief available to abate the carte blanche killing at the Delta pumps is when a non-governmental entity files a lawsuit requesting judicial intervention. Ironically, this de facto action does not address the fundamental unaccountability of officials‟ business-as-usual kill and get paid for not killing fish. It simply affords officials more free press, public empathy and free money to ensure the water supply reliability of State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project contractors.

Coincidentally, it is the project operators that count the fish they kill and they pass the “data” down the food chain to their sister state and federal agencies “responsible” for fish and wildlife protection. P&A formally requested scientific proof from officials that would validate the effectiveness of the CALFED decade-in-the-making Delta improvement and fish-doubling effort.

Unfortunately, despite the plethora of studies that have been conducted, no quantitative analysis has been done to validate the effectiveness of the programs or the fish-doubling effort. Conversely, officials admit that there does not appear to be any increase in the doubling of fish populations or that the water for fish is even working.

The $345 million spent for buying water for the fish for achieving the fish-doubling goal, which was supposed to occur around the year 2002, and the other $5,000,000,000 in related efforts, is another taxpayer subsidized disaster. In fact, based on the government‟s data, which are dubious, salmonid populations are worse now than ever.

Furthermore, an estimated two-million acre-feet of water “purchased” through the Environmental Water Account (EWA), between 2001 and 2007, was not from water purchased for fish flows, rather the result of water officials‟ claims they did not pump. The SWP export rates, according to the Department of Water Resources, were in excess of 3,000,000 acre-feet for the years 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006; a reduction in pumping and an increase in exports! The hundreds of millions of dollars paid for not pumping were from General Bond funds, and are backed by the full faith and credit of the State.

Much of the water purchased through the EWA for fish protection also became available to state and federal water project contractors, which the Department of Water Resources can suck out of the Delta, after the fish were done using the water. Furthermore, a substantial portion of the additional 800,000 acre-feet of water allocated for fish purposes, from the federal Central Valley Project, can be sucked up by the massive government Delta pumping plants and exported south. The majority of the water goes to irrigate lands in the San Joaquin Valley, which are the primary cause of the extensive surface and groundwater contamination plaguing the region and making fish unfit for human consumption.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Valley is now rated as one of the most contaminated areas in the United States, and will cost billions of dollars to cleanup. Contrary to government and water contractors‟ public relations campaigns, water available for Delta exports have not diminished, via the water for fish and the CVP allocations, the water for exports have actually increased on average by as much as 1.3 million acre-feet of water annually.

Twenty-four million Southern Californians do not depend on water exports from the Delta for their water supply; the maximum amount of water ever delivered by the SWP facilities was 1.9 million acre-feet, in 2006. Delta exports only account for about 25 to 30 percent of the Southern California Metropolitan Water District‟s supply, the SWP‟s largest contractor. The majority of the District‟s water comes from the Colorado River, estimated at 4.4 MAF or more, which is firm for at least another decade, and other surface and groundwater supplies.

Contrary to media and government rhetoric the Delta is not “broken”, that is simply a misnomer, it has been and continues to be grossly mismanaged and exploited, and the only thing that has been broken, is government‟s failure to fulfill its Public Trust Mandates. The Sixty Day Notice states that the demise of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the once sustainable fisheries and agricultural enterprises that thrived therein, are being put to death. The Delta has become the sacrificial lamb so that government water project operators can export cheap water to keep their “ailing” unsustainable agricultural contractors in the San Joaquin Valley “alive” on an artificial-life support system. Porgans & Associates has nearly 40 years of extensive involvement in water project operations, Delta water exports and fisheries related issues.

The crux of the Delta‟s dilemma is the California State Water Project, which was sold to the public back in 1960, as one that would unite the state, has and remains at the epicenter of its conflict. It was sold on the premise that it would “pay-for itself (water and power contractors would pay all reimbursable costs plus interest) and it would mitigate the impacts of the projects; it has failed to live up to those promises.

The SWP was underfinanced and “sold” more water than the project can supply and the unsuspecting public is footing the bill. As California‟s Governor recently announced the idea of selling public natural resources to pay off existing debt and to balance an out-of-control General Fund deficit, which, in part, is directly tied to the water for fish and the failed CALFED process. Ironically, the threat to sell off public parks and other landmarks is not to relieve the budget deficit. Instead, it will be used to borrow more money, via General Obligations Bonds, to sink into the blind-sighted “Delta Vision” which is yet another black hole that will keep certain SWP contractors financially afloat, and will keep the “Wall Street financiers” at Bay and amenable to financing more bond debt. Of course, this will be at the expense and to the demise of the Delta, taxpayers and Public Trust Resources.

This notice by P&A is the second of its efforts to sue the government for causing significant damages to the Bay-Delta Estuary. The first action was back in 1994, when it filed a lawsuit against the state and federal water project operators for illegally exporting more than $29,000,000 worth the water from the Delta. Fortunately, its efforts were effective in stopping the illegal exports at that time.

Water managers: Federal fish plan flawed, Plan would reduce Delta pumping by about 330,000 acre feet per year

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 11, 2009 at 12:55 pm

From the Capital Press:

Local water managers are calling a new federal plan aimed at protecting fish misguided and illegal.

Westlands Water District says the National Marine Fisheries Service bypassed the required environmental-review process, including an examination of impacts to industry, for the biological opinion it released last week. The plan would mean greater restrictions on Central Valley water deliveries as water managers release more water down rivers and into the ocean through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The long-awaited document lays out water-temperature and flow guidelines that the service says are necessary for protecting winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and the killer wales that eat salmon.

“We don’t even know how devastating it’s going to be at this point,” said Westlands spokeswoman Sarah Woolf. “We’ve been trying to do calculations on our own, but they’re very ambiguous about when their cutbacks are going to occur.”

The current opinion is itself the result of a lawsuit. It was ordered last year by federal Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno, who found that Delta pumping would harm fish under the agency’s previous plan.

The plan calls for reducing Delta pumping by about 330,000 acre-feet per year, or 5 to 7 percent of water pumped by the federal Central Valley Project and California’s State Water Project, the agency says.

Read more from the Capital Press by clicking here.

Earthjustice: Feds link harm to endangered Puget Sound killer whales to destruction of freshwater salmon habitat in California

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 11, 2009 at 8:18 am

From Earthjustice:

Federal officials in California have acknowledged that destruction of salmon freshwater habitat on the Sacramento River illegally jeopardizes killer whales. The loss of salmon habitat has greatly reduced the supply of wild salmon, a favorite food of Puget Sound’s resident killer whales. These killer whales roam as far south as Monterey Bay in California during the winter in pursuit of salmon. Puget Sound resident killer whales are protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The finding released last week in a biological opinion from the National Marine Fisheries Service was welcomed by Northwest conservation, fishing, and killer whale advocates.

Earthjustice attorney George Torgun said, “The National Marine Fisheries Service is saying that operation of state and federal water projects in California’s Sacramento River basin deplete chinook salmon, the killer whale’s primary prey. It’s clear that harming our rivers and our salmon harms not only the salmon and coastal communities that rely on them, but also animals far and wide, reaching all the way to Washington’s killer whales.”

Salmon advocates say similar facts justify the same findings in biological opinions governing reservoir and dam operations on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, as well as the Klamath River in California and Oregon.

Read more from Earthjustice by clicking here.

Fed study, proposal another blow to ag

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 10, 2009 at 12:19 pm

From the Hanford Sentinel:

Kings County farmers struggling with drought have a new water issue to be riled about: A federal study released last week calling for more pumping cutbacks to protect threatened fish species.

The study, issued Thursday by the National Marine Fisheries Service, says that the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project are endangering the survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales.

Both projects have massive pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that suck water out for delivery to hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and millions of residents to the south.

Thursday’s study estimated that deliveries will have to be cut by 330,000 acre feet a year to protect the fish, many of which spend most of their time in the ocean but must swim upstream to spawn.

Read more from the Hanford Sentinel by clicking here.

Biological opinion for salmon adds to water worries

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 9, 2009 at 1:36 pm

From the California Farm Bureau Federation:

Water users—urban and rural alike—have lost another round in the struggle over California’s critically short water supply.

While issuing a final biological opinion relating to endangered species last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service called for action on the part of state and federal water regulators that would have a direct impact on water-pumping operations in California’s Central Valley.

Acting under authority granted by the Endangered Species Act, federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on chinook salmon runs for food. To accomplish this goal, the opinion calls for several actions, such as increasing cold-water storage in Lake Shasta, regulating river flow rates to protect migrating fish and curtailing water-transferring pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to a greater degree.

The opinion covers the state and federal export facilities in the delta, the Nimbus hatchery on the American River and the operations of diversion structures, including the Red Bluff Diversion Dam and the Delta Cross Channel gates.

If the directives are put in place, they could reduce available water to cities and farms south of the delta by 300,000 to 500,000 acre-feet, a drop of 5 percent to 7 percent from water deliveries that are already drastically limited by drought and earlier court rulings related to protecting endangered species such as the delta smelt.

Gov. Schwarzenegger reacted strongly to the NMFS opinion. “This federal biological opinion puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world’s eighth largest economy,” the governor said. “The piling on of one federal court decision after another in a species-by-species approach is killing our economy and undermining the integrity of the Endangered Species Act.”

Schwarzenegger said he would seek a meeting with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke “to discuss our concerns with these biological opinions, and my administration will be pursuing every possible avenue to reconcile the harmful effects of these decisions.”

Agricultural groups expressed similar concerns. “The biological opinion on salmon issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service brings more evidence that our California water system is broken,” said Doug Mosebar, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation. “California has outgrown its water supply system, and enforcement of the federal Endangered Species Act ensures that the needs of fish outweigh the needs of people.

“What we’re left with is a situation that allows a handful of biologists to govern the water supply for a state of 38 million people. It will be that way until the people of California take control of their own future,” he said.

Read more from the California Farm Bureau Federation by clicking here.

Butte Creek spring salmon run: The Central Valley exception

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 9, 2009 at 7:47 am

From Dan Bacher of The Fish Sniffer:

There is one lonely creek, Butte Creek, located in a deep canyon outside of Chico where salmon have been doing relatively well, compared to the Sacramento River’s collapsing winter and fall runs of salmon.

The Butte Creek spring run Chinook salmon population was singled out in the court-ordered Biological Opinion, released by NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service on June 4, as the most viable wild salmon population left in the Central Valley.

The average run in the creek over the last 15 years has been about 10,000 fish. Last year’s run topped out at 11,136, including approximately 1100 fish that died before spawning, according to Allen Harthorn, executive director of the Friends of Butte Creek. Right now anglers and scientists are estimating a run less than 5000 for the first time in nine years.

The relatively healthy spring run on Butte Creek is not saying much for a species where California by itself supported more than a dozen salmon canneries, many generations of commercial salmon fishing families, and untold numbers of sportfishing enthusiasts, according to Harthorn.

“That is not enough to recover the species,” said Harthorn. “And putting all your eggs in one basket is not a good management plan for the salmon species and the ecosystems that depend on them.”

Read more

Radanovich, Valley reps scold Obama admin on biological opinion, request House Natural Resources Committee Field Hearing on man-made California drought

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 7, 2009 at 9:43 am

From the website of Representative George Radanovich:

Washington DC – Rep. George Radanovich (R-Mariposa), Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Visalia), and Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) today, in response to the Obama Administration’s Biological Opinion on salmon, green sturgeon, steelhead, and killer whale that takes more water away from Valley farmers, sent the following letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee requesting a field hearing on the man-made drought in the San Joaquin Valley:

June 4, 2009

The Honorable Nick Rahall, Chairman
The Honorable Doc Hastings, Ranking Member
House Natural Resources Committee
1324 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairman Rahall and Ranking Member Hastings:

We write to follow-up on our earlier request for the House Natural Resources Committee to hold a field hearing on the man-made drought in the San Joaquin Valley.

At the time of our March 31, 2009 request, the San Joaquin Valley and southern California faced crippling job losses and economic disaster because of a Biological Opinion on the three-inch Delta Smelt. Today’s proposal by the Obama Administration to curtail even more water deliveries to California farms and cities in the name of salmon, steelhead, green sturgeon, and killer whale protection will make matters even more devastating to California’s communities.

Very little has been done to help California’s San Joaquin water-starved communities in the last few months. Red-tape, bureaucratic inertia and lack of adequate funding have made a bad situation even worse in the San Joaquin Valley. In addition, President Obama’s skipping an opportunity to witness the dire economic and social situation in the San Joaquin Valley so he could attend a $3 million Hollywood fundraiser on May 24th left the impression that policy-makers in Washington, DC fail to understand the everyday plights of Valley farmers and farm-workers.

The Natural Resources Committee has an opportunity to reverse this perception by holding a field hearing this summer in the San Joaquin Valley where Congress can listen firsthand to impacted citizens and tour the nearby area to begin the process of enacting real change for the hard working people who put food on America’s table.

We hope you agree that the status quo of massive unemployment and economic turmoil in the name of protecting fish is unacceptable. We stand ready to work with you immediately to ensure a field hearing occurs so the people’s voices can be heard. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

George Radanovich, Member of Congress
Kevin McCarthy, Member of Congress
Devin Nunes, Member of Congress

Legislators respond to salmon biological opinion

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 7, 2009 at 9:36 am

Here’s a roundup of what legislators have to say about the salmon biological opinion, starting with Senator Cogdill, who denounces federal opinion which jeopardizes valley water supply and will worsen unemployment:

“This federal edict will have a disastrous impact on the Central Valley’s water supply and only cause the Valley’s high jobless rate to continue to soar. If this decision stands, Valley agriculture will collapse – taking away jobs and a vital food source for the nation. There should be a balance between what’s best for the people of our state and the environment. It’s disappointing that our courts and federal government continue to act in the best interest of fish, at the expense of human livelihood.

“We keep having the same battles over water – pitting the environment against the economy. The two are not mutually exclusive. Through effective management of our water resources, such as my comprehensive water reliability legislation, we can achieve the goal of protecting species without devastating the economy.

“I urge the California Congressional delegation, especially those representing the Valley, to take immediate action to reverse this detrimental decision.”

Representative Jim Costa slams biological opinion on the Central Valley Water Project and State Water Project:

“This decision is unwise, and will have very serious implications for Valley farmers and communities,” said Costa. “The decline of fisheries in the Delta can be attributed to a variety of factors, including tertiary treatment from sewage facilities in the Sacramento and Stockton area which cause ammonia to drain into the Delta, over 1,600 private pumps in the Delta diverting water without screens, non-point source pollution from the surrounding urban areas, striped bass and other invasive species. Our state’s agricultural community cannot bear the entire brunt of this multifaceted problem. They are always the first to suffer when environmental opinions are released or implemented. I believe that the Delta does need restoration, but not at the expense of agriculture, and especially my constituents.”

The opinion stated that the current pumping operations in the Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to increase the long-term survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, steelhead, the North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales. The whales rely on Chinook salmon runs for food.

Recommended changes in water operations will impact an estimated five to seven percent of the available annual water moved by the federal and state pumps, or an estimated 330,000 acre feet per year. These changes come on top of water cuts to Valley farmers and cities this year, which have had major negative impacts on the San Joaquin Valley’s economy.

Dr. Ian Fleming stated in a peer review of the biological opinion that some of the analyses would “benefit from more explicit attention” which includes “the additive nature of stressors and non-linear responses”. Costa believes this includes the major other factors that are contributing to the decline of Delta health.

Congressman George Radanovich: President Obama to San Joaquin Valley: Fish are more important than you; Obama doesn’t understand rural farmers and farm-workers who cherish their guns, religion, and water:

“Today we witnessed yet another move by the environmental community against agriculture and California’s economy for the sake of fish. The Obama Administration is clearly out of touch with the San Joaquin Valley, and unable to comprehend the needs of our agriculture economy, especially water.

“Judging from his actions, President Obama does not understand the importance of agriculture to California’s Central Valley. Clearly, President Obama doesn’t understand rural farmers and farm-workers who cherish their guns, religion, and water.

“Today, my Valley Republican colleagues and I wrote a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee requesting a field hearing in California so Congress can see first hand the devastating repercussions of these misguided environmental decisions.

“While no immediate losses of water will result in this Biological Opinion, there will be devastating affects to future water deliveries. In Congress, I will continue to fight against future cuts to agriculture water and will support court actions that will provide adequate and certain water supplies to San Joaquin Valley agriculture.”

Congressman Devin Nunes: Are valley farmers killing whales? New biological opinion blames Delta pumps for endangering killer whales, sturgeon, salmon and steelhead:

“Despite the serious crisis facing our state, today the Obama Administration announced a new biological opinion that will end water deliveries in California – laying waste to billions of dollars worth of infrastructure and starving the state of water,” said Rep. Nunes.

“The Obama Administration and the Democratic leadership of this Congress have totally disregarded the suffering of our country’s largest farming community. It has been tragic to witness,” said Nunes.

Congressman Nunes has repeatedly called for intervention by Congress and the White House to alleviate the suffering in the San Joaquin Valley (click here for more information). However, state and federal leaders have stood-by silent as entire communities have been devastated.

In a briefing for Congressional offices held today, NMFS officials announced that water exports from the Delta would be reduced 330,000 acre feet as a result of the new biological opinion. This is above and beyond water reductions that have been mandated due to the Delta Smelt, as well as reductions on the East-side of the valley associated with the San Joaquin River Settlement Agreement.

“President Obama and this Congress are allowing the diverse and agriculturally rich San Joaquin Valley to become a third world enclave in America. It is truly a disgrace,” said Rep. Nunes.

Senator Dianne Feinstein’s statement:

“Yesterday, the National Marine Fisheries Service released a biological opinion on the impact of Federal and State water projects in California’s Bay Delta.

What the Agency found is that additional endangered species – including salmon, sturgeon, and steelhead – are jeopardized by the current water projects. The Agency concluded that to avoid the extinction of these endangered species, further restrictions on pumping next spring will be needed, along with a number of changes to the long-term operations of the Delta infrastructure.

What this underscores is the absolute urgency to develop a comprehensive, long-term plan that restores the Delta ecosystem, includes Delta communities, and provides a stable water supply – and that affected parties need to come to an agreement on a preferred alternative solution this year.

I believe this plan should include new conveyance, along with more storage, water recycling and conservation mandates, groundwater management, desalination, and a robust habitat restoration plan. At the same time, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan needs to expedite its work on the multi-species habitat conservation plan and the State needs to resolve the issues of governance, conservation, and financing as soon as possible.

Bottom line: the longer we wait, the worse the crisis gets. So, I firmly believe the solution must be agreed to this year, and I offer to help in any way that I can.”

From Congressman George Miller (D-Martinez), Mike Thompson (D- Napa Valley) and Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento): Federal scientists announce new requirements that will improve long-term survival of salmon populations; Miller instrumental in securing key review of earlier politically-tainted policy:

“With today’s announcement, the Obama administration has set a science-based course toward recovering the populations of wild salmon and steelhead that are so critical to California’s economy and environment,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), an expert in Congress on California water policy. “After years of costly litigation and negligence and political tampering by the Bush Administration, this is an important step towards the recovery of California’s fisheries and the environmental health of the Bay-Delta. It is refreshing to see water management decisions that are based on science, not on the whims of tainted political appointees like Julie MacDonald.”

“This is an important step for restoring California’s fisheries,” said Congressman Mike Thompson (D- Napa Valley). “Salmon and steelhead are a vital part of our ecosystem and contribute to our state’s economy up and down the coast. Today’s report is a breath of fresh air for Californians who have grown used to water policies based on politics rather than on science. Moving forward, we need to use this as a first step towards building a water policy in California that is based on science and includes all stakeholders at the table.”

“I am glad to see that the Administration is taking critical action based on sound science,” said Representative Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento). “Today’s opinion will go a long way towards preservation of not only a number of threatened species, but also will play a role in the protection of the entire watershed on which so many Californians rely. It is key that as the federal government moves forward to protect and restore California’s fisheries, water supply and the future of the Delta, that decisions are based on sound science.”

Today’s announcement replaces a controversial 2004 biological opinion stating that the state and federal agencies’ plans to pump water to the Central Valley would not harm wild fisheries. After the release of that opinion, Reps. George Miller, Mike Thompson, Ellen Tauscher and other members of Congress asked the Commerce Department’s Inspector General to investigate. That audit found that the Bush Administration violated standard procedures and compromised the integrity of the biological opinion. Reports from the Interior Department’s Inspector General found that over the same time period, several endangered species decisions were “inappropriately influenced” by Julie MacDonald, the Bush administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks.

Friends of Butte Creek: California salmon on the brink

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 7, 2009 at 7:46 am

From Friends of Butte Creek:

There is one lonely creek outside of Chico where salmon have been doing pretty well. That’s not saying much for a species where California by itself supported more than a dozen salmon canneries, many generations of commercial salmon fishing families, and untold numbers of sport fishing enthusiasts. Although the Butte Creek Spring Run Salmon population was singled out in the just released Biological Opinion by NOAA Fisheries as the most viable wild salmon population left in the Central Valley, this is not enough to recover the species. And “putting all your eggs in one basket” is not a good management plan for the salmon species and the ecosystems that depend on them. UC Davis studies on Butte Creek have shown that the interaction of salmon is an integral part of the whole functioning water catchment basin or watershed. “When salmon are gone, the bears suffer, the eagles suffer, the ring-tailed cats and mountain lions suffer, right down to the dragonflies that eat the mosquitoes,” said Allen Harthorn, Executive Director of Friends of Butte Creek. “The whole food web changes,” he added.

In response to the Biological Opinion, Harthorn concluded, “It is long overdue that we need to protect and restore these species, the laws are in place, and we need to rigorously enforce them.” Similar collapses have occurred in Europe and the Atlantic Coast of North America due to lax enforcement of the law. “We can do better at managing our water and the species that keep the water healthy,” Harthorn added. “Water with no fish is not healthy for anyone. Some people will just have to figure out how to use it more efficiently. Butte Creek is a great recovery story, but the real story will be how we apply those restoration techniques to the rest of the system, that’s the challenge!”

South Yuba River Citizens League applauds new salmon plan federal decision signals hope for Yuba’s wild salmon

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 7, 2009 at 7:45 am

From YubaNet.com:

The South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) responded optimistically to the Biological Opinion issued June 4th by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) regarding the impact of state and federal water projects on threatened salmon, steelhead and sturgeon in the Central Valley. The over 800 page plan calls for changes in the operations of the Delta pumps and fish passage over Central Valley dams operated by the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project, which primarily serves industrial agricultural interests south of the Delta.

“This decision is about recognition. Recognition of the value of wild salmon in the vast San Francisco Bay/Delta watershed. Recognition of the gross imbalance in the allocation of water in this state. Perhaps even recognition that the cultural lifeways that nourished humans on this land for millennium have relevance and legitimacy in the current dialogue about California’s future,” states Jason Rainey, SYRCL Executive Director.

Read more from YubaNet.com by clicking here.

California’s water woes may go from bad to worse

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 6, 2009 at 6:41 am

From The Packer:

The National Marine Fisheries Service, an arm of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has dropped a bombshell on California growers. The service submitted to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation June 4 a biological opinion, also known as a reasonable and prudent alternative, calling for even greater reductions in federal and state exports of Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta water to San Joaquin Valley growers and to southern California. Reaction from the growers and California politicians was quick and angry.

In a statement released by his office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said “the opinion puts fish above the needs of the people of California.”

Fresno-based Westlands Water District, which serves growers who farm 600,000 acres, will join other public water agencies in filing suit to block the implementation of the RPA, said Sarah Woolf, spokeswoman for Westlands. “They have rushed this biological opinion into place without bothering to prepare an environmental impact statement, without public hearings or the kind of independent public review that the law requires,” she said. “The opinion is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act and of the federal endangered species law.”

News of the opinion came as a shock to the valley’s grower-shippers, many of whom received just 10% of the region’s irrigation water allotment this spring.

“There was no public comment period,” said Congressman Devin Nunes, a Visalia Republican who represents portions of Tulare, Kings and Fresno counties. “It’s absurd; I’m told that’s really never before happened.”

Read more from The Packer by clicking here.

500,000 salmon start life in strait

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 6, 2009 at 6:07 am

From the Times-Herald:

With fingers crossed, state officials Thursday dumped about a half-million young salmon into Mare Island Strait as part of an ongoing effort to keep the fish from going extinct. If all goes according to plan, the smolts will swim into the San Pablo Bay and the Pacific Ocean. There they will fend for themselves for three years before — officials hope — about 1 percent will return to spawn.

The release follows last year’s record-low fall run of Central Valley chinook salmon. “We were at an all-time low of 66,000 fish returning last year,” Department of Fish and Game spokesman Harry Morse said. “Hopefully we’ll see an upswing.”

To restore salmon populations, officials have released more than 30 million smolts into coastal waters during the past 10 years. This year, the Department of Fish and Game plans to release nearly 15 million tiny salmon.

More from the Times-Herald by clicking here.

CSPA: NMFS biological opinion for salmon step in the right direction but not sufficient to restore fisheries

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 5, 2009 at 3:06 pm

From the CSPA, this press release:

Today, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) released its long awaited Biological Opinion (BO), pursuant to the federal Endangered Species Act, on minimal actions necessary to protect Central Valley salmonid species, green sturgeon and killer whales from extinction. The 800-plus page BO found that operation of the federal Central Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP) was likely to jeopardize the existence of listed species unless substantial alternatives to present operations were implemented. The BO requires numerous changes in the operation of the water projects, including 5-7% reduction in exports from the Delta.

Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), observed that, “the BO is a long overdue but welcome initial step in protecting species hovering on the brink of extinction. However, it is only a first step. It is not a recovery plan that will restore seriously degraded fisheries; much more will be required.”

Jennings added that, Virtually all of the new requirements are measures that environmentalists, fishermen and resources agencies have advocated in numerous proceedings over the last 25 years but were consistently ignored or rejected by the State Water Board, DWR and the Bureau.” These include measures to eliminate: lethal temperature below rim dams, the problems at Red Bluff Diversion Dam and the Cross-Channel Gates, violation of water quality standards, inadequate flows in both the San Joaquin and Sacramento River systems, excessive predation caused by project facilities and the enormous damage created by reversed flows in Old and Middle Rivers.

CSPA attorney Mike Jackson said, “The BO only evaluates water contributions from the state and federal projects but acknowledges the significant need for contributions from other water users. Without this additional water, steelhead and salmon will not survive until 2030. The BO notes that the State Water Board has the authority to require water users to contribute to the restoration of the fishery and urges that the Board take prompt action.”

CSPA urges the State Water Board to take prompt action in implementing the BO’s recommendations.

Independent review report posted on draft version of the National Marine Fisheries Service OCAP biological opinion

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 5, 2009 at 10:58 am

From CALFED:

A CALFED Science Program independent review report of the draft National Marine Fisheries Service Operations and Criteria and Plan Biological Opinion and a response to the review from the fisheries service are now available. The CALFED Science Program conducted a temperature management workshop and a two-part independent peer review of a draft version of the biological opinion that evaluates the effects of California water project operations on threatened and endangered anadromous fish species.

The response noted that the fisheries service revised their final opinion significantly as a result of the information in the CALFED peer review panel report saying that “the peer review has been an essential component to developing a well-considered Opinion based on best available science”.

For further information, see:
http://www.science.calwater.ca.gov/events/reviews/review_ocap.html

Earthjustice: Fisheries service announces measure to protect imperiled California salmon; Fishermen, tribes, and conservationists hail decision to protect fish, jobs, and local communities

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 5, 2009 at 10:11 am

From Earthjustice, this press release:

Current operations of state and federal water projects in California’s Central Valley jeopardize endangered California Chinook salmon and steelhead populations, according to a biological opinion filed today by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Today’s announcement also finds that current water operations jeopardize killer whales, which rely on Sacramento River salmon as a major food source.

The opinion establishes a new set of rules under which the state and federal water projects must be operated to protect California’s imperiled salmon. Key measures in the new biological opinion include:

* Requiring more cold water held behind Shasta dam for release during salmon migration and spawning seasons
* Reducing the amount of time Red Bluff Diversion Dam gates are closed, blocking salmon migration
* Modifying operation of Delta Cross Channel Gates to reduce the number of juvenile salmon unnaturally pushed to their deaths by predation and the delta water pumps
* Requiring better flows and colder water to enhance salmon spawning and habitat in the American and Stanislaus rivers
* Reducing water pumping when juvenile salmon are migrating through the delta

The opinion follows an April 2008 court ruling finding that management of the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project is driving three listed salmonid species — winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon, and Central Valley steelhead — to extinction, in violation of federal law.

The court’s decisions came after the historic collapse of Central Valley salmon populations and the unprecedented closure of commercial salmon fisheries in California, now in its second year.

The fishing groups, tribal members, and conservationists say that reforming management of the state and federal water projects to better balance environmental and water supply needs is critical to protecting and restoring salmon and other endangered species. The new opinion is an important milestone in their long legal and legislative battle to restore California salmon and the communities who depend on them for their survival.

Additional background on this story
Quotes from Salmon Advocates Party to The Case

Dave Bitts, president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations said, “This isn’t about either fish or farms. It’s about how we use our limited, vastly oversubscribed water resources wisely in order to have both. If you continue taking so much water that salmon go extinct in California, what wild creatures will be next? Do we sacrifice all of nature to commerce, or do we learn to conduct our commerce so that nature, and eventually humans too, can also survive?”

Dr. Jon Rosenfield, conservation biologist for The Bay Institute, noted, “This is a plan of action but not the action itself. While we are glad to have a new biological opinion, we are more interested in what actions will be taken to protect our salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon this summer and fall. As we speak, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plans to provide only minimal protection to winter-run Chinook salmon incubating in the upper Sacramento River; steelhead and the economically valuable fall run may be impacted as well. Despite the fact that there is much more water available this year than last, salmon eggs will not hatch successfully because of poor water quality conditions that follow from misguided water allocation decisions. Now that they have completed a new biological opinion, the National Marine Fisheries Service needs to aggressively enforce the Endangered Species Act to ensure recovery of the species under its stewardship.”

“California is at a crossroads: we can continue business as usual and ignore the impacts of the drought on our crops, fisheries and water resources, or invest in better and readily available water solutions,” said Kate Poole, lead attorney on the case for NRDC. “There is a virtual river of smart, alternative water sources that can provide more water each year than has ever been exported from the Delta — and it doesn’t require dams. That’s more water to drink, more water for our crops, and more water to restore California’s salmon runs that provide thousands of jobs and millions of dollars for the state.”

“The Bush-era plan for water operations in California was not based in science and it devastated coastal fishing communities throughout California as the salmon population plummeted. This biological opinion brings back some needed balance. Now fishing communities, native California salmon species, and water users will all operate on a level playing field,” said George Torgun of Earthjustice who helped represent groups challenging the 2004 plan.

“Our vanishing salmon are yet another indicator that the once vibrant and resilient Bay-Delta is in crisis. Abundant salmon used to travel through the Bay-Delta ecosystem, but years of mismanagement have driven the fisheries to near collapse,” said Sejal Choksi, Program Director for San Francisco Baykeeper. “The creation of new rules to manage the delta is the critical first step to protecting a key species in this important ecosystem.”

Gary Mulcahy, of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe said, “Why is it that only a crisis that bodes the extinction of a species will move governments and courts to address an issue? Why is it that even in the eye of that crisis storm, the opposition will still be great, the greed and misuse of the water will still be there, and the fisheries will still suffer the brunt of that greed and misuse. I am not as optimistic as my fellow colleagues. Though this biological opinion may set out new rules and guidelines that seek to protect our water and fisheries, I truly expect the big agribusiness and Water Buffalos to use their power to find some way around it, and complete the extinction they so readily pursue in the name of progress, commerce, and economic growth.”

“Federal and state agencies have failed to keep a lot of promises they made to restore Central Valley salmon,” said Steve Evans, Conservation Director of Friends of the River. “The new biological opinion will hopefully and end to business as usual when it comes to the protection and recovery of salmon.”

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