Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 23, 2009
3. Watersheds –
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta becomes water war's front line
Riverside Press
Hopes rise for salmon success
Though 2009 will likely see return of severe restrictions
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Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta becomes water war's front line
Riverside Press
Bumping along a rutted levee road in his pickup, Steve Mello surveys some of the 3,100 acres he and his son farm in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The sinking sun warms the landscape to shades of gold and pink, and Mello's fingers trace the upward arc of sandhill cranes, geese and egrets abandoning their evening meal in an old corn field.
Mello, 53, took over this land from his father, who started as a field hand.
More than a century before, farmers carved the Delta from a swamp.
They built earthen levees to protect crops from the rivers' rising tides, pushed inward with saltwater from nearby
Little did those early settlers know,
This triangular slice of land, a checkerboard of green and brown fields dotted with quaint farmhouses and serpentine rivers and sloughs, is the cornerstone of the state's fresh-water system.
Rainfall and snowmelt from the Sierra feed the
That water is channeled through hundreds of miles of canals and pipelines making up the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project that ends at
Two-thirds of the state's water comes from the Delta.
It quenches the thirst of 23 million Southern Californians and supplies farms in the San Joaquin Valley that grow much of the country's grapes, almonds, cotton, tomatoes, apricots and asparagus.
But those supplies are threatened.
Delta exports have been drastically reduced under a court order to protect threatened fish species.
The cutback, paired with ongoing drought, has caused water agencies statewide to dip into reserves and impose rationing, and forced farmers to fallow their fields.
In addition, the Delta's 1,100-mile levee system is vulnerable to failure from rising sea levels and a large-magnitude earthquake.
Most of the land within the Delta already sits below sea level, a result of subsidence caused by farming of the rich black peat soil.
A catastrophic levee collapse would cause widespread flooding and draw saltwater from
In that scenario, exports to the south would be cut off for more than a year because the water would not be fit to drink, the state Department of Water Resources says.
Nearly everyone agrees the Delta must be fixed, but how to do that is the source of a long-standing and contentious debate.
What is considered the ideal solution varies by geography and demographics.
"The Delta is the Bermuda Triangle of California. It is the single biggest ecosystem, water supply and headache in the state," said Barry Nelson, western water project director in
Solutions Vary
Perhaps most controversial among the possible solutions is the state's revival of a decades-old proposal to build a canal to route fresh water around the Delta instead of through it and allow more seawater into the Delta from the San Francisco Bay.
The canal would be part of the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to restore the environmental health of the Delta by expanding floodplains and marshes to provide food, habitat and spawning ground for countless fish and fowl.
The canal, about 42 miles long and 600 feet wide, would cut through existing farmland, said Paul Marshall, principal engineer at the Department of Water Resources.
The state estimates the cost at $5 billion to $8 billion, not including land acquisition and wetlands restoration.
Others say such a project could total $18 billion.
Water users, including about 2 million customers in the Inland area, would foot the bill.
An $8 billion price tag would translate to an estimated $50 per year boost to consumers' water bills, according to the Metropolitan Water District,
The MWD would be responsible for about 25 percent of the total project cost; the remainder would be covered by other water users.
The peripheral canal idea was first floated in 1965 as a way to bypass Delta channels and carry water more efficiently to pumping plants.
The plan was to release fresh water back into the Delta at intervals for irrigation and to reduce salinity.
When the proposition went before voters in 1982, it was soundly defeated.
Northern Californians feared that such a canal would act as a giant funnel through which thirsty
But water managers, environmentalists and state experts agree the purpose of a canal would be to provide a more dependable supply and to restore fish and wildlife species.
A canal wouldn't mean a larger share of water for
That would prevent problems like this year's expected 20 percent allocation of requested supplies from the State Water Project, a near-record low, he said.
"We've got to do it, even if it doesn't produce more water in aggregate, but a bigger block of water more of the time," Van Gelder said.
The state's water picture has grown dire since the last canal proposal in 1982:
The list of fish species receiving protection under the state and federal endangered species acts grew from zero to six.
Farmers have shifted from row crops to higher-value, permanent crops such as orchards and vineyards that are not easily fallowed without great economic impact.
The state's population has jumped by more than 10 million, driving Delta water exports to all-time highs in recent years.
The other major import supply, the
And three consecutive years of below-normal rainfall has left Californians wondering when, or even whether, the drought will end.
"It really is a question of balance. The old balance no longer works," said Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute in
The state wants to begin construction on a peripheral canal in 2011.
State officials said such a plan does not require public or legislative consent based on the Burns-Porter Act, approved by voters in 1960 to authorize bond financing for State Water Project facilities.
Critics and supporters agree the issue will likely end up in court.
The Department of Water Resources has outlined several potential canal routes -- one on the east side of the Delta, one on the west, and a through-Delta alignment that would fortify the existing natural waterway by strengthening critical levees and installing gates to protect fish.
The pumps that move the water are so powerful that they reverse the flow of the river, sucking in smelt, salmon and other threatened species.
Moves to protect the fish have drastically cut water exports from the Delta.
The state began environmental review of the canal project last year and is expected to release more details in the coming weeks.
Nelson, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, is waiting for those details about the canal's size, alignment and management before taking a position on it.
His group was one of the environmental organizations that filed suit in 2007 to protect the threatened Delta smelt, a tiny silver fish that scientists say is an indicator of the health of the entire Delta ecosystem.
Some environmental groups, including The Nature Conservancy, favor the canal idea. They want less water taken from the Delta for exports in order to restore the ecological balance.
Many Delta farmers and residents favor the through-Delta route with repair of the levee system, which they say has worked for more than a century.
The farmers want more storage for the wettest times of the year, when the land is prone to flooding; that water could be released south in dry times.
They fear that once a canal is built, interest in preserving the Delta would fade, agricultural land would be lost to habitat restoration and with it would go the businesses that support the farm industry and the tax base.
"This is the legacy my mother and father worked a lifetime to create, and I'm protecting it," said Mello, the farmer. "We won't go quietly into the night, for obvious reasons."
Different Perspectives
The 1,153-mile Delta is the largest estuary on the West Coast, though it remains unknown to many.
It is home to about 400,000 people.
Marci Coglianese lives in Rio Vista, one of the largest small towns along the Delta with a population of 8,000.
She was a city girl when she moved there with her husband, a teacher, in 1966.
She couldn't wait to leave.
But it wasn't long before the "Tom Sawyer way of life" grew on her, she said.
Coglianese came to appreciate the friendly residents and the way people pull together, especially when there are problems with the levees.
Coglianese, who was Rio Vista's mayor from 2000 to 2004, said the seismic risk of the levees is overstated.
She believes government used levee breaks in
"It sounds like it is an easy solution, but I think it creates as many problems as it solves," she said. "Once the state makes such a huge investment, it may not have the ability to deal with the impact it creates. It may not even help the fish."
In addition to losing the tax base, Coglianese worries about the town's water quality, if fresh water is drawn off and seawater is allowed to penetrate farther into the Delta.
Similar worries plague Russell van Löben Sels, a fourth-generation farmer to the north in Courtland.
It's possible that the canal's eastern alignment could cut through the middle of the grape crop he sells to Beringer Winery for chardonnay.
Van Löben Sels' great-grandfather built many of the Delta's levees, and his grandfather worked some of the same land Russell van Löben Sels does today.
The 8 million pounds of pears he grows each season go into Del Monte's fruit bowls; his tomatoes are used for
"The big fear is if good quality water is not maintained, you can't farm," he said.
But his view differs from his neighbors to the south.
Burt Robbins of
Robbins, a retired Metropolitan Water District surveyor, said he's seen plenty of smelt alive and well in
What's more, he said, the
"The
http://www.pe.com/reports/2009/water/stories/PE_News_Local_S_delta22.1976829.html
Hopes rise for salmon success
Though 2009 will likely see return of severe restrictions
By
THE
A few more pokes and prods and the technician returns the helpless Chinook fry to the river, where it is whisked away by the current. If it is lucky, the fish will return in three years as a 30-pound adult, to spawn and to die.
There is growing hope that more will return, that the worst of the salmon crash that started in 2007 is over.
A federal report released this week confirms that poor but temporary ocean conditions were largely to blame for a record-low 2008 fall salmon run that crippled commercial fishing off the coast as well as recreational fishing inland.
This fall, the number of adults returning to the
Even so, 2009 would still be the third-lowest salmon return since 1992, and severe fishing restrictions would once again be likely this fall, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Waiting anxiously are businesses such as
"Last year was rough," he said. "We got through OK, but we were stuck with a lot of stuff we couldn't sell. It's just been hanging there on the shelves."
"I said, 'Just let them be,'" he said. "It's getting so hard for them to make it. They all get eaten on the way down, or sucked into the pumps, and with all the pollution ... the poor fish don't have a chance."
Last week's report blames the salmon crash on warm temperatures and a lack of food in the ocean, on top of a "long-term, steady degradation of the freshwater and estuarine environment."
Fishery managers also share some blame, the report said: They overestimated the number of adult Chinook that would return in 2007, and as a result, did not apply greater fishing restrictions that year. Hatcheries, meanwhile, have reduced genetic diversity and made salmon more susceptible to volatile population swings. The report compares this to a financial stock portfolio which, if not diversified, will suffer or soar with the ebb and tide of the market.
Doug Demko, a fisheries biologist with environmental consulting firm FISHBIO, said he believes there will be a "few more fish" this year, and a gradual recovery over the next five years.
His company captures baby salmon in 8-foot turning "screw" traps on several rivers and monitors them each day; on Friday, 16 tiny Chinook were counted at a trap on the sun-rippled Stanislaus near Oakdale.
Some days, thousands are found there. And now they're on their way to the Pacific, which may prove a more hospitable host than in years past.
"All evidence is things are picking up in the ocean," Demko said. "And we know so little about the ocean. If there's one good thing that came out of this collapse, it's that more focus is now on the ocean."#
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