A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 5, 2007
3. Watersheds
Plucky pupfish survive Salton Sea pumps - Riverside Press Enterprise
Salton Sea restoration bill moves forward - Riverside Press Enterprise
DELTA ISSUES:
Delta water pumps again posing threat to smelt - San Jose Mercury News
Second opinion; Water suppliers say toxic runoff — and not a state pumping plant — may be to blame for the rapid decline of the Delta smelt - Tracy Press
SCV Gets Its Water Back From State - Santa Clarita Signal
Editorial:
Plucky pupfish survive
Riverside Press
By Jennifer Bowles, staff writer
A tiny, endangered fish discovered thriving in test ponds near the
Federal scientists last year created the shallow ponds dotted with small islands to see if they would attract any of the 400 bird species that frequent the
The sea, which straddles
The test ponds will help determine whether the lake can remain a key stopover for migratory birds on the Pacific Flyway. If so, larger versions of the ponds would be carved into the seabed as the shoreline recedes.
Recently, rare pupfish thought only to live in the sea and a couple of tributaries were found in large numbers in the test ponds, southeast of the sea near Niland. The discovery means the local irrigation district, which owns the land, is concerned that it may be required to maintain the newly created habitat after the three-year pilot program ends.
Water is continuously pumped from the sea and a nearby river and catapulted through a 1.5-mile pipeline to maintain the test ponds. Scientists say the 2-inch fish somehow survived the trip even though the pump is designed to keep them out.
"How they made that wild ride ... that's probably the best E-ticket ride anyone could have," said Douglas Barnum, the U.S. Geological Survey scientist in charge of the pilot project.
The similar-size Delta smelt, also an imperiled fish, has not been so fortunate. Much larger pumps on the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta that supply drinking water to the Inland area were turned off recently because they were chewing up the smelt.
An Unexpected Discovery
An eyeball estimate showed more than 1,000 pupfish in three of the four 25-acre test ponds, Barnum said. A series of surveys would be needed to find out how many juvenile fish actually make it into adulthood.
While the discovery could lead to boosting the population of an endangered species, it raises questions for the Imperial Irrigation District, the water agency that let the USGS use its land for the test ponds, free of charge.
"I don't want to be so defiant as to say their experiment went awry so it's their problem to fix, but I do want to sort of underscore the notion that I.I.D. was simply being a good partner," said Kevin Kelley, a district spokesman.
"This unexpected and unintended development is a concern to us for precisely the reason ... that it creates an open question as to how we're going to mitigate this problem."
Any animal protected under the federal Endangered Species Act and the similar state law could require measures to protect the species from slipping further toward extinction. The Delta smelt case is one example.
In the Inland region, development has been curtailed in
Kelley said he is unsure if regulatory agencies will require the district to continuously fill the ponds with water, a rare commodity in the hot desert, once the pilot project is completed.
He said the district's board meets Tuesday and will discuss the issue.
Greg Hurner, senior adviser to California Fish and Game Director Ryan Broddrick, said there's no easy answer.
The situation is complicated, he said, because it involves several agencies and possible regulatory issues. In addition, the
"It's not like someone built a pond on their property and the red-legged frog showed up," Hurner said, of that threatened amphibian.
Puppylike Fish
Hurner said in the short term, the state would require the USGS to get a so-called take permit to do any scientific studies or make any changes to the ponds. Requirements for the long-term management of the ponds, possibly by the water district, would depend on a number of factors.
"We'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it," he said.
The pupfish were named for their puppy-like behavior in which they aggressively dart at intruders and nip at their tails.
The pupfish were in the ponds for about a month before the researchers, who wade through the ponds searching for bird nests, began thinking they were more than just an average fish.
USGS fisheries biologist Michael Saiki positively identified the pupfish. The fish have tan-to-olive bodies, but the males turn bright blue with yellow or orange fins and tail during breeding season.
In a statement, Saiki said the majority of pupfish in the ponds are juveniles, suggesting that breeding was taking place there.
Barnum said the discovery provides a unique opportunity to determine how salinity, temperature and predators affect the rare creatures.
Their decline is blamed on the introduction of exotic fish species, including tilapia, and habitat degradation due to water diversion and invasive plants. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_R_pupfish05.43fb593.html
Riverside Press
By Jim Miller, staff writer
The shrinking sea straddles
The bill by state Sen. Denise Moreno Ducheny, D-San Diego, appropriates $47 million in Prop. 84 bond money for the project.
The total project will cost an estimated $8.9 billion over 75 years.
Changes to the bill Tuesday would put the California Resources Agency in charge of the process until a permanent board is in place to oversee the project. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_R_salton04.41ebcec.html
DELTA ISSUES:
Delta water pumps again posing threat to smelt
By Mike Taugher, MediaNews staff writer
Department of Fish and Game Director Ryan Broddrick told reporters outside a congressional oversight hearing on the Delta that the water supply crisis might not be over this year because a surprising number of fish continue to be killed at the pumps.
"Is this time to ramp back down?" Broddrick asked, adding that he and other officials will discuss that issue today.
Rep. George Miller said during the hearing that the ongoing Delta crisis - in which fish populations are crashing and water supplies have been rendered less reliable - suggests it might be time to shift water away from low-value crops.
"Perhaps it is time to consider that not all water is equal in
Water could be shifted away from cotton and alfalfa farms in the
Bay Area lawmakers requested the hearing after spring fish surveys found the Delta's ecological crisis appears to be worsening.
Delta smelt, considered an indicator of Delta health, have been in a long-term decline that worsened substantially beginning in 2002. Surveys for juvenile Delta smelt this spring showed a 90 percent drop compared with last year, triggering pumping shutdowns.
In April, a state court ruled the State Water Project should be shut down until it obtains a permit to comply with the state endangered-species law, a ruling that is on hold pending appeal. Then in May, a federal court ruled that the federal permit designed to protect Delta smelt from extinction due to the water pumping was illegally lax. The federal court is expected to decide how to address that problem next month. #
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6287685?source=most_viewed
Second opinion; Water suppliers say toxic runoff — and not a state pumping plant — may be to blame for the rapid decline of the Delta smelt
Tracy Press – 7/3/07
By Ron Wagner, staff writer
Two regional groups that supply water to the
Terry Erlewine, general manager of State Water Contractors, and Daniel Nelson, executive director of San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, said “best evidence” suggests that large numbers of Delta smelt were killed in the northern Delta in the past year from toxic runoff and not by the Harvey O. Banks Delta Pumping Plant north of Tracy.
“In December and January, the smelt congregated north of Rio Vista, an area that is supposed to be the best habitat,” Erlewine said Tuesday. “The adults did great, (but) when the first surveys were done this spring, they showed nothing. All of a sudden, no baby smelt.”
Last month, the state Department of Water Resources shut down the pumping station for 10 days because state officials believed the smelt were being sucked into the station’s 11 stainless-steel pumps. When the smelt moved away from the station, pumping resumed.
State water and wildlife officials were scheduled to meet Tuesday to determine whether pumping in the Delta should be curtailed for a second time to protect the endangered fish. Ted Strickland, spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources, said no decision had been reached as of late Tuesday.
But Erlewine and Nelson say the pumps are not the problem.
“Simply taking the easy path of turning the knob tighter on the plants … is not the answer,” according to their letter released Thursday and delivered to L. Ryan Broddrick, director of the state Department of Fish and Game, and Steve Thompson, manager of California-Nevada operations for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Erlewine said the pumps are unable to account for the 90 percent drop in the number of juvenile smelt.
“The numbers just crashed,” he said.
Erlewine said water samples taken in the spring showed toxicity in the
The DWR also wants to examine pollution and toxicity that might have been caused by the
Closing the pumps sparked concern among water providers who claimed the reduced flow affected 23 million water users, with some cities instituting rationing programs. Nelson said in a statement that the cutback in water flow put the state in “unnecessary jeopardy.”
The State Water Contractors comprises 27 agencies that have contracts from the State Water Project to provide water to farmland and about two-thirds of the state’s population. San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority represents 32 agencies that have contracts with the Central Valley Project to provide water to about 1.2 million acres of agricultural land in the western
http://tracypress.com/content/view/10037/2/
SCV Gets Its Water Back From State
Santa Clarita Signal – 7/4/07
By Katherine Geyer, staff writer
The state has resumed pumping at a major State Water Project pump, at levels higher than normal to make up for lost time.
The Department of Water Resources on Monday began pumping more than 6,600 cubic feet per second - 2,600 more than average for this time of year - at the pumps that deliver State Water Project water to
"This would be about the highest level we would go," said Ted Thomas, spokesman for the DWR. "We're sort of making up for lost time."
The pumps had been shut down for 10 days in June and were in limited operation for several weeks due to concerns about the declining number of the delta smelt, most of which have now migrated away from the pumps to cooler water.
"At this stage of the game, it's almost business as usual," said Dan Masnada, general manager of the Castaic Lake Water Agency. "They should be able to pump essentially at normal levels, which is certainly a relief to us because that will preserve our ability to receive our allocation of 60 percent of our contract amount for this year, which would have been in jeopardy if the pumps had been shut down into July."
The pumps are pumping at increased levels to replenish the state water supply south of the delta, he said.
"Because San Luis (Reservoir) is drawn down and we've basically been taking water out of storage, the reason they're pumping above what is typically seen as normal is not just to meet demands, but also to fill up the downstream storage that was in part depleted as a result of the shutdown during June."
Because of ongoing litigation concerning the permits for pumping in the delta, the state will go about getting the appropriate permits over the next year.
"We may be in the same boat again next year," Masnada said. "Once they get the permit, the new rules will be established and they will have the parameters and they will know for certain what they can and can't do. They want to do it in a manner that truly protects the species but that doesn't result in an unnecessary reduction in delivery of State Water Project supplies to CLWA and all the other State Water Project contractors in
http://www.the-signal.com/?module=displaystory&story_id=49388&format=html
Editorial:
Go outside after dark tonight and find the moon. Extend your right arm out in front of you. Flick up your thumb. Cover the moon.
It will give you an idea of the visionary process
Politicians at the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) used minnows about the size of your thumb to totally obscure in their minds 25 million Californians and 5 million acres of farmland — just like your thumb can make the moon “disappear.”
Makes you wonder what DWR leaders were thinking when they shut down Delta transfer pumps and told everyone: no big deal.
People would just quit drinking water and farmers would stop farming while fish biologists count needles (tiny minnows) in a haystack (the vast California Delta)? It created chaos among farmers. It compromised the integrity of a giant earthen dam. It sent water prices soaring — all in less than two weeks. It threatened more than $1 billion in agricultural crops.
Thank goodness someone with some common sense at the Bureau of Reclamation turned the water back on.
All this over a fish that gets no bigger than 3 inches that is struggling for survival in a Delta lined by cities and industrial plants legally and illegally dumping millions of gallons of waste, toxic and otherwise, into the fish’s habitat.
Everyone agrees Delta smelt is an endangered species, including agriculture. Also indisputable is that the two pumping stations used to move water from Northern California to Central and
The easy save-the-smelt target is the pumps. You can turn them off and on.
It is easier than dealing with the fact that the San Francisco Estuary is one of the most invaded aquatic ecosystems in
Certainly not positively.
Turning off the pumps is easier than telling farmers in the Delta to put fish screens on their irrigation pumps. Turning off the pumps is easier than telling Bay area cities and industries to quit dumping their waste into the Delta and the Bay. It is easier than monitoring the thousands of ships invading the Bay carrying invasive aquatic species.
But it seems people with questionable depth perception think they can make the real and very complex issue of the disappearing smelt and the fragile Delta ecosystem health go away by putting their thumb between themselves and reality. When you remove your thumb, the moon does not go anywhere. #
http://westernfarmpress.com/environment/070407-smelt-water/
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