A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 22, 2007
3. Watersheds
DELTA SMELT:
Fresno hearing focuses on action needed to protect dwindling delta smelt population - Fresno Bee
Environmentalists, water users debate fate of tiny delta smelt - San Francisco Chronicle
Hearing a step for water rules; Judge wants to find a way to operate system in a way that doesn't obliterate Delta smelt - Contra Costa Times
INVASIVE SPECIES:
Quagga varmints invade county; Worrisome mussels found in San Vicente Reservoir - North County Times
DELTA SMELT:
By John Ellis, staff writer
Environmentalists and water managers agree that the delta smelt struggles for survival in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta but differ on the cause of the tiny fish's hardships.
On Tuesday, the two sides began a lengthy hearing before U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger to determine what action -- if any -- is needed to protect the smelt in its native waters.
After hearing testimony, Wanger may craft an interim solution to deal with the diminishing smelt population, a ruling that likely will dictate the delta's management well into next year. The 3-inch-long fish is considered an indicator of the delta's health.
Water districts, federal authorities and agriculture agencies, however, want Wanger to leave things as they are while a new management plan for the smelt is written, a process not expected to be finished until late 2008.
By then, environmentalists say, it may be too late.
"I think that the smelt is on the verge of extinction," said Peter Moyle, a professor of fisheries at the
But if Wanger follows the requests of environmentalists, it could have dire consequences for west Valley agriculture and thirsty
At issue are the giant pumping stations that are key to the state and federal water systems, devices that environmentalists say have driven the smelt to record low numbers.
Moyle spent more than six hours on the stand, detailing how the pumps have adversely affected the smelt.
Not only are they sucking the smelts to their death, he said, but they also have helped wreck critical spawning areas in the southern delta and are damaging their overall habitat, including
The smelt live one year, a life that begins in the upper part of the delta where they are spawned. River water and tides then carry the larvae into the brackish water of the
Federal authorities, water districts and agriculture representatives acknowledge the pumps may be hurting the smelt, but they say the population drop is mainly due to the loss of food supplies and the introduction of foreign plant and fish species that have altered the smelt's environment. They also dispute claims that the species is on the brink of extinction.
Cross-examination of Moyle focused on several issues, including the 1987-99 "invasion" -- as Moyle termed it -- of an Asian clam that competed with the smelt for food in
Another clam, this one a freshwater species, also has moved into the delta.
Moyle testified that pesticides in the delta and a decline in food supply and habitat have all adversely affected the smelt, but he said the pumps are the main culprit.
Earlier this year, Wanger threw out a key U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion on water management and pumping in the delta. His decision required the opinion to be rewritten. That process is under way but isn't expected to be finished until late next year.
Tuesday's hearing, which could last through the end of the week, is focused on what to do between now and when the new opinion is finished.
Environmentalists have proposed a 10-point plan to cover the interim period. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/118645.html
Environmentalists, water users debate fate of tiny delta smelt
San Francisco Chronicle – 8/22/07
By Peter Fimrite, staff writer
Lawyers, biologists and experts on everything from fisheries to agriculture are crowding into a federal courtroom in
The courtroom drama, which started Tuesday and is expected to last most of the week, is an attempt to establish temporary guidelines for the protection of the two- to three-inch-long silver-colored fish known as the delta smelt.
But the fate of the fish, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, has turned into a tug of war over water.
The battle pits environmentalists led by the Natural Resources Defense Council against state and federal water brokers and their contractors. At stake is the delta ecosystem and the water pumped out to irrigate 750,000 acres of agricultural land and supply 25 million Californians.
"I think the smelt is on the verge of extinction," said Peter Moyle, a professor of fisheries at UC Davis, who was called Tuesday as an expert witness. He said there has been a drastic decline in the number of smelt in the delta over the past four or five years.
"It's clearly related to multiple factors acting together, of which the pumping plants are a major contributing factor," he said.
The skirmish, before U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger, started in 2005 when environmentalists sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the agency issued an opinion saying that the federal and state water projects would not jeopardize the delta smelt.
In May, Wanger essentially agreed with the plaintiffs and scheduled this week's hearing. The state Department of Water Resources and the Fish and Wildlife Service are now attempting to come up with a new biological opinion, which will take about a year. The hearing is to determine what measures should be taken until then to protect the fish.
Nobody disputes that the delta smelt is in serious decline. The argument is over the pumps used by the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project to siphon water out of the delta for delivery south. Environmentalists claim the massive pumps used in the gargantuan water delivery system suck baby and juvenile smelt out of the delta, killing huge numbers of them.
Lawyers for the state and federal governments and water contractors insist that the pumps are only a minor part of the problem and that other factors - like nonnative predatory species, toxic runoff, wastewater dumping and unregulated pumping from farmers - are also major culprits. They want these things studied and addressed before limits on pumping are put in place.
The two sides have submitted vastly different plans involving myriad theories, calculations and actions necessary to protect the fish. Essentially, the plaintiffs propose limits on pumping while the defense favors leaving state and federal water distribution alone.
"The plaintiff's plan would take 54 percent of the water used by state water project contractors, and that is a huge curtailment of water," said Michael Boccadoro, spokesman for the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta, a group of agricultural water agencies dependent on the delta for water. They estimate $480 million in agricultural losses next year under the plan outlined by environmentalists.
"We could have a huge crisis on our hands if the pumps are curtailed to the level the environmental community is proposing," he said. "You're going to have increasing costs and reduced availability of water."
The fact that the delta smelt is unique to the vast network of channels, islands and marshes known as the California Delta makes it a crucial gauge of the ecological health of the region. It adapted over the eons to the brackish water, varying currents from converging rivers and flooding that has historically inundated the valley.
Smelt swim only in bursts to get to locations where they can drift with the currents and feed, according to experts. They live for about a year, spawn and their larvae then drift down to
Experts have noticed a precipitous drop in the number of smelt, which were once the most common fish in the delta. A survey by the Department of Fish and Game this year in a sample area turned up fewer than 50 juvenile fish, an alarmingly small number by all accounts.
Although there is no official count of the number of smelt killed by the state and federal pumps in the south delta, near
There is no monitoring of the small fish sucked into the pumps, so the death toll is largely speculation. Moyle said limited counts have also discovered a drastic reduction in the range of the fish, a decline that is most noticeable in the south delta, where he said the pumps change the direction of the current and confuse the fish.
"You just don't find the smelt scattered around the system like you used to," Moyle said. "The big worry about these smelt being concentrated in one area is they have a very small spawning area and they are really vulnerable to any kind of disaster."
Both plans involve increased monitoring of the fish.
Increasing water flow from upstream reservoirs and establishing minimum flow levels through the delta in the fall are issues up for debate. While environmentalists would like farmers to experiment with different crops and install more efficient irrigation systems, agricultural conservation is not part of the discussion.
The issue is ripe with suspicion and paranoia, as it involves water deliveries to
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/22/BALLRM1M7.DTL
Hearing a step for water rules; Judge wants to find a way to operate system in a way that doesn't obliterate Delta smelt
Contra Costa Times – 8/22/07
By Mike Taugher, staff writer
But the conditions he imposes could have a major impact during the next 12 months: By one estimate, a proposal under consideration could cost state and federal water customers half their Delta water.
U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger called the hearing after ruling in May that a key federal permit is illegal under the Endangered Species Act. He expects this week's hearing to help him craft rules to allow the water projects to operate legally until a new permit is issued next year.
He stressed that he wants to leave details of how the system is run to experts in regulatory and water agencies.
"All (water agencies) have to do is run them lawfully so they don't make the species extinct," Wanger said. Just putting smelt in jeopardy of extinction was enough to make the water project operations illegal, he said.
"You don't have to go to complete obliteration of the species," he said.
The hearing, which could last the rest of the week, got under way Tuesday with a leading expert who told the court that Delta smelt are on the verge of extinction.
A number of factors contribute to the smelt's decline, said Peter Moyle, a UC Davis fisheries biologist and author of a standard reference on
But he said the Delta water pumps that send water to people and farms from the
"It's clearly related to several factors, but the pumping plants in the south Delta are certainly a contributing factor," Moyle said.
Environmentalists are pushing for new fish-protection measures they say would cut water deliveries by about one-fourth. State water officials say the environmentalists' proposal would be far more drastic, cutting water supplies by about half.
The state water agency and federal regulators have proposed restrictions that could result in water-delivery cuts as high as one-quarter to one-third.
How those kinds of restrictions might trickle down to individual communities is impossible to say, but with reservoirs running low because of dry conditions, they could be significant.
Among the most vulnerable regions is the Tri-Valley in eastern
Most of the scientists researching the decline of Delta fish populations say the pumps are at least part of the problem, but pesticides and other toxic materials, a decline in planktonic food and invasive species are also to blame.
Lawyers for water agencies that depend on the state and federal water projects will argue later this week that the pumps are a relatively minor source of the problems facing Delta smelt and that curtailing them will come at a huge economic cost.
"Focus on the pumps won't do much for the smelt but it will have very, very, serious collateral consequences," said Daniel O'Hanlon, a lawyer for
The hearings are the latest in the escalating conflict between
Highlighting the severity of the crisis, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sen. Dianne Feinstein convened a Delta water summit Tuesday in
"The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is on the brink of disaster. And the decline of the Delta smelt is the canary in the coal mine," Feinstein said.
In May, Wanger ruled that conditions in a federal permit that allows the state and federal projects to operate did not sufficiently protect the smelt.
At the time, water agencies and regulators had begun work on a new permit, but that is not expected to be completed until a year from now.
Several of the measures proposed by regulators and by environmental groups are meant to reduce the pumps' effect on two key south Delta rivers. Researchers say that when Delta smelt are in the south Delta, the fish are especially vulnerable if the pumps are running hard enough to reverse the rivers' flow.
Environmental groups also want spring pumping restrictions extended for a month to protect early-spawning smelt. New research suggests that might be disproportionately important to the health of the population.
And they want higher water flows in the fall to provide fresher water in
Except for the request for more monitoring, each of those measures could result in less water for state and federal water agencies to deliver to farm districts and urban water agencies across the state.
"We are facing some of the most significant challenges to our water system in a half-century," said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, which represents nearly all of the state's water agencies.
"Today's events are just the latest signs that the existing Delta system does not work for fish, people or the environment," he said. #
INVASIVE SPECIES:
Quagga varmints invade county; Worrisome mussels found in San Vicente Reservoir
By Gig Conaughton, staff writer
The mussels don't threaten the water supply, but they have cost agencies and ratepayers billions of dollars to clean up in the Midwest and
Gary Eaton, director of operations for the San Diego County Water Authority, said biologists at
Eaton said the Water Authority was working with the California Department of Fish and Game and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to create a group that could develop a plan to control the mussels.
Fish and Game officials, meanwhile, immediately suggested that officials -- and the public -- take steps to ensure that boaters, Jet Ski operators and others using San Vicente properly clean equipment and bilges to make sure the mussel was not spread to other reservoirs. The city of
Water and wildlife officials have been scurrying to search for and kill the quagga mussels since January, when they were discovered in reservoirs of the
Until then, the Ukrainian mussel had never been found near
Metropolitan --
Despite that, the mussel now has spread all the way south, through untreated water pipelines or by larvae-carrying boats, to
Environmental scientists believe that the roundish mussel, which is often the size of a fingernail but can grow to slightly larger than a silver dollar, was brought to the
The mussel, which has no natural predators in this part of the world, has become a huge and expensive problem in the
The mussel is also voracious, often eating phytoplankton and suspended particles in the water, robbing fish and other aquatic species of their natural food supply.
Having the mussel cleanse the water can also let sunlight reach deeper into lakes and reservoirs than it otherwise would, creating algae blooms that could kill off fish and other aquatic species.
The mussel also does not provide an enticing meal for people. Because it can accumulate organic pollutants in its tissues up to 300,000 times greater than concentrations in the environment, officials suggest that people who try to eat the mussel could get sick.
But, at the moment, the biggest problem that the mussel presents water officials is its prolificacy.
"One female can produce 1 million eggs," said Alexia Retallack, spokeswoman for the state Department of Fish and Game's quagga mussel task force.
"(They) can overheat boat motors, they'll pull buoys under from their weight," Retallack said. "They're just a nasty pest."
Metropolitan officials, who updated board members Monday about the quagga infestation, said that in early January, divers and workers were only finding the mussels in small numbers. But those officials said that since January, they've been seeing a tenfold increase in those numbers every two months. Metropolitan officials said they've started adding thousands of gallons of chlorine into parts of the Colorado River Aqueduct system in the hope of killing, and controlling, quagga populations.
Jim Fisher, deputy director for the city of
Eaton, meanwhile, said that the Water Authority needs to create a plan to try to control the mussel in part because San Vicente is eventually supposed to become linked to other local reservoirs as part of the $800 million "emergency storage project." The project would link San Vicente, Olivenhain Reservoir and
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/08/22/news/sandiego/10_50_098_21_07.txt
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