[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 1/10/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

January 10, 2008

 

1.  Top Items

 

Fish: Delta drop sparks fears of ecological shift - Sacramento Bee

 

Delta's grim year; Survey says weather, pollution in 2007 caused fish species to hit record-low levels - Contra Costa Times

 

 

Fish: Delta drop sparks fears of ecological shift

Sacramento Bee – 1/10/08

By Matt Weiser, staff writer

 

THE ISSUE The simultaneous drop in several Delta species suggests deeper ecological problems are at work, such as poor water quality or a rupture in the food chain.

 

Ultimately, experts say, humans could be at risk.

 

Five Delta fish species continue marching toward extinction, according to new data released Wednesday, a result that some observers warn may signify a major ecological shift in the West Coast's largest estuary.

 

The data come from an annual fall survey for fish that live in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the 740,000- acre estuary that also is the primary diversion point for drinking water enjoyed by 25 million Californians.

 

For four months each fall since 1967, California Fish and Game officials have used trawl nets in an effort to estimate the Delta's fish population. The product of that survey for 2007, released Wednesday, shows record-low numbers for three species: longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and American shad. Two others, Delta smelt and striped bass, posted near-record lows.

 

The shad and bass are not native, but are important to the economy as sportfish.

 

The Delta smelt is listed as threatened under state and federal endangered species laws.

 

Environmental groups last year submitted formal petitions to list the longfin smelt.

 

"These species are on the verge of extinction, and they should not be allowed to go extinct," said Peter Moyle, a University of California, Davis, professor and one of America's leading fish biologists. "It's an ecological change that is knocking out a precious part of our California heritage."

 

The Delta fish decline has been unfolding since 2003, and a team of government biologists has been working for three years to understand the collapse. It has yet to find a smoking gun.

 

But the team identified a combination of factors that may have converged to imperil the fish, including excessive water diversions from the Delta, poor water quality caused by urban and farm runoff, and competition for food from invasive species.

 

"These are very discouraging numbers," said Marty Gingras, a member of the investigative team and a supervising biologist at the Department of Fish and Game. "We're trying to understand the mechanisms for the variations in fish abundance. If it turns out the actions of man are contributing, we may be able to undo that and improve conditions for the fish."

 

Environmental and fishing groups have argued for years that the contributing factors are all manmade, and they blame a sluggish government response for the death spiral.

 

The state and federal governments operate separate canal systems that divert Delta waters to urban and farm consumers from the Bay Area to San Diego. These water exports have reached near-record volumes over the past five years.

 

The pumping systems are strong enough to reverse natural flows in the Delta, sucking tens of thousands of fish to their deaths each year.

 

Government agencies in September lost a federal lawsuit filed by environmental groups that contested the pumping practices. The resulting court order requires water exports from the estuary to be reduced to protect the Delta smelt.

 

The first of those cutbacks began Dec. 29. Ultimately, urban water users from the Bay Area to San Diego who depend on Delta water could see their deliveries slashed as much as 30 percent this year. More than 2 million acres of farmland will be affected as well.

 

But water exports alone aren't to blame. State regulators have been slow to protect water quality in the Delta, and Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, said all Californians share some blame for their wasteful water habits.

 

He said we will all share in the consequences.

 

"I've always maintained that a world that is not safe for fish is probably not long safe for little boys and girls," Jennings said. "The tragedy is that what we're seeing could have been avoided with a little common sense and a recognition that there are limits to using these waterways as sewers and bleeding them of their water."

 

Solutions are in the works. State officials are simultaneously preparing a habitat management plan for the estuary and drafting ways to reconfigure the Delta to protect the environment and secure water deliveries. New operating rules also are being developed for the export pumps.

 

It remains to be seen, however, if these efforts will come in time. Just in case, officials also are scrambling to breed a refuge population of Delta smelt in case the species goes extinct in the wild. #

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/623644.html

 

 

Delta's grim year; Survey says weather, pollution in 2007 caused fish species to hit record-low levels

Contra Costa Times – 1/10/08

By Mike Taugher, staff writer

 

A severe ecological decline in the Delta worsened substantially in 2007 despite major efforts to stop it, including an unprecedented nine-day shutdown of state water deliveries in June.

 

The results of a key survey, made available Wednesday, offer no hope of relief anytime soon for increasing tension between the Delta environment and state water supplies, worrying biologists that one fish, Delta smelt, could be nearing extinction.

 

The new numbers also greatly increase the possibility that another fish might disappear from the region. Longfin smelt range from the Delta north to Alaska, but in 2007 their numbers here plunged far below previous record lows.

 

Striped bass, a popular sportfish, also fell into deeper trouble. The young-of-the-year striped bass numbers dropped sharply last year to their third-lowest level ever. And the December portion of the survey turned up just two fish -- the fewest collected in any single month since the survey began in 1967.

 

Biologists said that last year's dry weather was not enough to explain the severe declines and noted fresh evidence that pollution and a toxic algae may have struck severe blows.

 

"It's looking pretty bleak," said Randall Baxter, a senior fisheries biologist at the California Department of Fish and Game. "These are very concerning levels."

 

The numbers are from a four-month fall survey used to gauge the overall health of the Delta's open-water fisheries. This same annual survey was used in 2005 to show that after decades of gradual decline, the Delta's open-water, or pelagic, species dropped sharply beginning about 2001.

 

Delta smelt, longfin smelt, young striped bass, threadfin shad and a key food source all were collapsing. The cause of the decline has not been fully explained, but scientists say it is a combination of water supply management, pollution and invasive species, especially a clam infestation that appears to be removing food from the water.

 

The latest survey showed extremely low numbers for two additional fish species, Sacramento splittail and American shad. The significance of those measures is unclear.

 

"We need to look at those," said Bruce Herbold, a fisheries biologist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

 

He echoed a growing sense of pessimism about the health of the Delta, the bottom of a watershed that drains about 40 percent of California and is arguably the state's most important source of water.

 

"It's very grim," he said. "We had a very dry year, which is usually bad for fish, but it was really bad."

 

The only bright spot in the survey was a slight increase in the threadfin shad population.

 

The Delta's ecological crisis already has had a major effect on water deliveries into a system that irrigates 2 million acres of farmland in the San Joaquin Valley and is relied upon by two of every three Californians for at least some of their water.

 

In June, shortly after state and federal courts ruled separately that pumps near Tracy were being operated in violation of endangered species laws, the Department of Water Resources took the unprecedented step of shutting its pumps down for nine days to protect Delta smelt.

 

Shortly after Christmas, water deliveries were slowed for the first time under a new court order that sets the conditions under which the pumps can operate. State and federal water agencies say that order could cut water deliveries up to 30 percent in an average water year.

 

Tina Swanson, a fisheries biologist at the environmental group the Bay Institute, said that the severity of the ecological crisis was made worse because of the reluctance of state and federal water officials to take action before courts got involved.

 

"It took a federal court to bring that about. What does that say about the management of the agencies that are managing the system?" she asked.

 

Even if Delta smelt were somehow resuscitated now, water managers have another fish to worry about. Longfin smelt are being considered for protection under endangered species laws by state and federal wildlife agencies, and the latest numbers are certain to bolster the case.

 

All of the fish caught were in the second year of a two-year life.

 

Without first-year fish in the estuary, there will be no fish to spawn next year. State biologists, concerned about that possibility, evaluated a separate survey that found young longfin smelt in central San Francisco Bay, far downstream from where they were expected in a dry year.

 

Baxter said biologists found other oddities in the locations of longfin smelt, Delta smelt and first-year striped bass, with most of the fish found upstream or downstream of Suisun Bay and the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers, near Antioch.

 

"Suisun Bay used to be the breadbasket," Baxter said.

 

A major bloom of a toxic blue-green algae occurred last year, which could have affected the fish.

 

"This particular year seems to be particularly dramatic," Baxter said. "It's definitely something we're looking at."

 

And biologists recorded three instances last year where water was toxic to test organisms in areas where they thought Delta smelt were swimming. That toxicity came from pesticides, Baxter said.

 

Baxter and other biologists said that even if the severity of the downturn in 2007 was due to toxic algae and pesticides, that does not let water operations off the hook.

 

"There's a lot of interaction among stressors," said Herbold, adding, "What's killing the fish in dry years is different from what is killing them in wet years."

 

Baxter said the water operations in general are artificially stabilizing what was a dynamic estuary for the benefit of invasive pests and weeds.

 

"We're creating kind of a lake system here," he said. #

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_7931189

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