A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
September 28, 2007
3. Watersheds
DELTA SMELT:
Safeguarding a species; A UC Davis captive-breeding program will use captured Delta smelt to create a strong strain to replenish the wild population if it dies out - Sacramento Bee
Nature holds its ground at Compton Creek; Wildlife clings to a portion of the polluted waterway, whose future rests on negotiations with a mall developer - Los Angeles Times
BAY AREA WATERSHEDS:
Guest Column: Invest now for a healthy bay in the future -
DELTA SMELT:
Safeguarding a species; A UC Davis captive-breeding program will use captured Delta smelt to create a strong strain to replenish the wild population if it dies out
Sacramento
By Matt Weiser, staff writer
BYRON -- After fighting for decades to protect the threatened Delta smelt, wildlife officials have begun to move in a new direction: a captive-breeding program in case the fragile fish goes extinct in the wild.
The decision to begin a species rescue program was made cooperatively by state and federal agencies and academics in recent weeks. Officials are still working to fully fund the effort, but it will be based at a UC Davis smelt research lab at the state Department of Water Resources facility near this south Delta town in Contra Costa County.
UC Davis will isolate a separate group of smelt, captured in the wild last year, and breed them to create a genetically strong strain that could be used to replenish the wild population.
No decision has been made to actually reintroduce these fish. Officials said that ruling is years away and would first require many answers about whether such fish are compatible with their wild cousins.
But the program marks a significant new dimension for management of the smelt -- and the Delta itself.
"We're trying to create a safeguard against extinction, but hopefully the fish will come back in the wild so we won't have to restock," said Joan Lindberg, an ecologist and supervisor of the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory. "The bigger issue is trying to clean up the Delta so the wild fish can continue to survive."
Lindberg's lab has been breeding smelt for 15 years for research purposes. At any given time, its tanks hold as many as 50,000 juveniles and 20,000 adult fish. They range from larval fish smaller than a grain of rice to adults the size of a pinky finger.
Smelt have been in sharp decline over the past five years. The cause remains unclear, despite millions spent on research during the past two years. Possible culprits include water contamination, invasive species and the effects of water exports -- or all of these together.
The Delta collects more than 40 percent of
The smelt is unique to the Delta and, because it lives just a year and is sensitive to water quality, is considered a strong indicator of the estuary's health.
Biologists fear if the smelt disappear, other species may follow in a cascade of extinctions.
"This is going to be more like a fail-safe program if things don't go well over the next several years," Jerry Johns, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources, said of the captive-breeding effort. "This doesn't do anything to help fish already in the Delta. We still need to aggressively move on other programs to help those fish."
The Department of Water Resources operates one of the Delta's two major export facilities. The pumps were stopped for nine days in June to protect smelt amid a population crash.
Along with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Department of Water Resources also recently lost a federal lawsuit by environmental groups, which found that water exports contributed to the decline of Delta fish.
Johns said the Department of Water Resources plans to spend $600,000 to help UC Davis launch the smelt breeding program. This will provide facilities to house and manage the fish.
But the program will need money to expand as the fish population grows. Johns said the Department of Water Resources and other agencies are collaborating on a cost-sharing deal.
About a year ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service started its own smelt breeding program at Livingston Stone Hatchery near
"If you're going to have a captive population, then you try to have a redundant backup so if something happens at one facility, you don't lose all your fish," said Bob Clark, assistant fisheries program regional manager at the wildlife service.
The new breeding effort was partly triggered by a decision earlier this year to discontinue collection of smelt in the wild for scientific purposes. Concern arose that even scientific collection could jeopardize the species.
Thus, UC Davis smelt became the best option.
The lab still held a group of adult smelt collected from the wild in the fall of 2006. They had already spawned once at the lab, and researchers discovered several useful things along the way: Smelt can breed more than once in a season, and they can live in captivity beyond the usual one-year life span.
These special smelt will launch a new generation that might one day help them hold on in the wild. Lindberg plans to spawn that first new generation next spring.
The fish -- about 1,000 individuals -- are closely guarded in a separate warehouse.
Breeding smelt is difficult because they are so small and sensitive. At the larval stage, it is tricky to screen debris and contaminants from tanks without also screening out the fish.
Captive-breeding programs have their critics. Intervention creates a weaker species, they claim, which often faces the same old threats when returned to the wild.
The California condor is an example. Captive breeding saved the condor from extinction, but reintroduced birds still face many environmental threats upon release.
"There is a tendency for people to think that if we have a refuge population, then we don't have to work as hard at restoration because we have a fallback," said Tina Swanson, a senior scientist at the Bay Institute. "I worry it will allow people to take their eye off the real problem, which is ecosystem degradation in the Delta."
Yet Lindberg said the effort is worthwhile because the captive fish may hold greater genetic variability -- and thus greater strength -- than fish now in the wild.
It is hard to know how small the wild population has shrunk, but these fish were captured before the latest population decline and probably won't survive beyond one more breeding season.
"We need to move now to use these fish," Lindberg said. "It would be unwise to lose this opportunity." #
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/403570.html
Nature holds its ground at Compton Creek; Wildlife clings to a portion of the polluted waterway, whose future rests on negotiations with a mall developer
By Louis Sahagun, staff writer
Decades of storm drain runoff and illegal dumping have devastated lower Compton Creek, choking its foliage with trash and lacing its knee-deep water with pesticides and industrial waste.
But a surprising variety of wildlife clings to a 1/4 -mile-long stretch of creek hemmed in by a casino, a Metro Blue Line station, a freeway and a mall under construction. Turtles chase minnows in the murky, barely moving water. Green herons stand like sentinels on discarded automobile parts covered with muck. Mallards relax in the weeds.
Wildlife can be found south of this spot, closer to where the creek flows into the
Leaning against a rail on an
"Amid all this mess, nature wants to come back, and we plan to help it along," said Frederick, a planning analyst for the authority.
Saving this rare remnant of soft-bottom, or "dirt-floor," creek south of downtown
The negotiations between the authority, which is a local public entity dedicated to preserving open space, and developer Brook Morris of Newport Beach-based PRISM Realty Corp. involve the amount of land available and its price. The land is in the southeast corner of
The authority wants to buy as much square footage as possible on each side of the creek to create a buffer zone wide enough to protect the habitat and accommodate bicycle trails and park benches. The
In an interview, Morris said he has offered to donate some land along the creek as easements and sell a nearby 1-acre parking lot. The lot is adjacent to the river on the northern end.
"I could give them 15 to 20 feet on each side of the creek; we have project restraints that won't allow more than that," Morris said. "The parking lot could be torn out and turned into a nice park."
How much a park would cost is uncertain because the ultimate size of the parcel is being negotiated. But Morris said that land in the area has been appraised at about $1.6 million an acre.
If all goes according to plan, title to the property will eventually be handed over to the city of
The goal is to provide the park-poor, mostly blue-collar black and Latino community with a taste of the outdoors alongside the mall, which is expected to generate sorely needed sales tax revenue.
A longtime crusader for preserving the creek is City Councilwoman Yvonne Arceneau, who has lived near the waterway all her life and leads the Compton Creek Task Force.
"We are very hopeful that this will be turned into a beautiful place for our community," Arceneau said on a recent weekday, as a great blue heron landed in the stream bed just a few yards away from the commotion of heavy equipment.
She also sees no conflict in having a mall rise nearby. "The mall, which is the only real shopping center in
A victim of geography and explosive urban growth, 20-mile-long Compton Creek has for centuries drained a 42-square-mile watershed. By the 1920s, however, residents were pleading for protection from floods that inundated homes and downtown businesses.
Today, the upper stretch of the creek is a concrete-lined flood control channel that cuts diagonally through
The creek's dirt-bottom portion winds through some of the most densely populated and highly industrialized regions in
"Who would believe the people of
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-compton28sep28,1,7728731.story?coll=la-headlines-california
BAY AREA WATERSHEDS:
Guest Column: Invest now for a healthy bay in the future
By David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay and Peter Darbee, executive director of Save the Bay
Forty years ago, public outcry put a badly needed end to the slow destruction of
The Bay Area's quality of life and economy depend on a healthy and vibrant bay. This natural treasure defines our region, provides recreation and beauty, and serves as the backbone of our economy. The bay is why many of us choose to live and work here.
The bay's wetlands also play a role in the increasingly important fight against global warming. According to scientists, every acre of restored, healthy salt marsh captures and converts at least 870 kilograms of carbon dioxide into plant material annually - equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from driving 2,280 miles.
Yet, unless we make smart investments now to secure a healthy future for the bay, many of these benefits may never be realized. The bay has been drastically altered by mass urbanization, and its wetlands have been diked and drained for farms and salt ponds, or filled for development. Only 5 percent of the bay's original wetlands remain. Restoring more wetlands is vital to support endangered species, filter pollutants from the water, protect communities against flooding and provide open space.
In 1999, scientists created a regional blueprint for restoring bay wetlands, including 100,000 acres of restored tidal marsh at sites where it was still possible. Large shoreline parcels were acquired to pursue this blueprint, from salt ponds in
A new report by Save the Bay - "Greening the Bay" - documents for the first time the total projected cost of these restoration projects, finds strong public willingness to pay that cost and recommends ways to secure the necessary funds.
Over 50 years, $1.43 billion of investment will be required to fully restore more than 36,000 acres of tidal marsh. That's about $4 annually per area resident. In a recent EMC Research poll, 83 percent of likely voters said they would be willing to pay $10 per year in taxes or fees to restore bay wetlands. Support is strong throughout the region and is not limited to individual projects or local priorities. We have the will and the wallet - what we lack is a way to translate this strong regional support into steady funding for restoration of bay wetlands.
"Greening the Bay" recommends the immediate creation of a bay special district to explore and coordinate local and regional public revenue mechanisms. This entity could design fundraising methods that earn voter approval, cultivate private support and develop priorities and sequencing for spending funds on projects within the available acreage.
We also recommend dedicating more funds from future state resources bonds for bay restoration. Only about 1 percent of recent bonds, approximately $167 million, has been invested in bay restoration, despite its ecological importance and strong voter support for these measures.
And we recommend that Congress increase funding for the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, which contains more than 13,000 acres of major bay wetland restoration projects. The nation's largest urban wildlife preserve, with 700,000 annual visitors, has grown in size and complexity without comparable budget increases for maintenance and protection.
Over the past four decades, Bay Area residents have overcome tremendous odds to prevent the bay from being destroyed. By developing a long-term bay wetlands restoration plan now, we can make the bay healthier for people and wildlife long into the future. #
http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_7024011?IADID=Search-www.mercurynews.com-www.mercurynews.com
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