Dehydrating California, Or What’s That Smelt?
Note: The follow excerpts are from an excellent synopsis of the Delta smelt catastrophe. Please visit the link to read the entire piece.
The California Water v. Delta Smelt War
by Procrustes, The Real Barack Obama, February 21, 2009 [here]
… In 2007, a federal judge ruled state and federal pumps sending some 6 million acre-feet of delta water south to Kern County and other users each year could wipe out the endangered smelt, a tiny silver fish. The court ruled pumping had to be curtailed by about a third until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could weigh in on the problem.
On Monday, the federal agency submitted a 400-page “biological opinion” to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on the effects of pumping by the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project. The agency concluded pumping was “likely to jeopardize the continued existence of the delta smelt (right) and adversely modify its critical habitat,” and offered a plan to mitigate damage.
The plan would keep current restrictions in place, and even more limits could kick in under certain conditions. Further cuts would be triggered in a variety of scenarios, including limited rainfall during key periods in the fish’s spawning cycle.
Jim Beck, general manager of the Kern County Water Agency, which contracts for water on behalf of agricultural, municipal and industrial water districts in Kern, said “Implementing the plan would reduce water supplies from San Diego to San Jose by 20 to 30 percent on average, but up to 50 percent in some years.”
As always, this is not the end of the story. Other water districts, which “have long argued that pumping isn’t the real culprit in the smelt’s demise,” are “gearing up for a fight.”
Invasive species, pollution and greater municipal and industrial uses of delta water are important factors that have not been given enough attention, said Robert Kunde, assistant engineer manager for the Wheeler Ridge-Maricopa Water Storage District.
“There are a number of good reasons to believe that even if State Water Project pumps were cut entirely, the delta smelt may very well go extinct,” Kunde said.
Al Donner, assistant field supervisor for the Sacramento field office of the Fish and Wildlife Service, said all that has been looked at, but pumping cannot be discounted.
“The indices that track the smelt show the last couple of years, they’ve been at their lowest numbers ever,” he said. “The species clearly is in trouble.”
Back in June 2008, the Bakersfield paper reported on the second year of drought problems for farmers who once grew such products as cotton, pistachios, almonds and alfalfa.
Faced with too little rain and restricted pumping to protect an endangered fish, farmers and ranchers in and around Kern County are facing tough choices. In a typical year, 850,000 acres are irrigated, according to the Kern County Water Agency.
This year, about 45,000 of them will be idle at a cost of $46 million. In addition, 100,000 acres will be “underirrigated,” causing a $59 million loss.
Also in June 2008, the Bakersfield paper reported that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation was “further shrinking the amount of water allocated to farmers subject to the Central Valley Project contract, which regulates water use on many farms in the Kern County area.” …
On July 10, 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service changed the status of the “critically imperiled delta smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) from threatened to endangered” under the federal Endangered Species Act. However, the Bay Institute, Center for Biological Diversity, and Natural Resources Defense Council had “petitioned the Service in 2006 requesting a change in the federal listing. The finding is 25 months late, and a final listing determination is already 13 months overdue.”
“We are seeing a cascading series of crashing Delta fish populations – delta smelt, longfin smelt, chinook salmon, steelhead trout, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail, striped bass – the warning bells are ringing loud and clear,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The ecological collapse of the Delta threatens more than just our native fish since millions of people depend on the Delta for drinking water, agriculture, and fishing.”
See also:
USFWS Delta Smelt Recovery Site [here]
Shutting off the water pumps to save delta smelt unwarranted [here]
Food Grows Where Water Flows [here]
Schwarzenegger declares Calif. drought emergency [here]
