[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: Top Items -6/16/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

June 16, 2009

 

1. Top Items–

 

 

 

Westlands joins in salmon suit

The Fresno Bee

 

 

Federal agency wants to block white water on Pit River

Redding Record Searchlight

 

 

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Westlands joins in salmon suit

The Fresno Bee-6/15/09

 

The Westlands Water District has joined with 29 other public water agencies in a lawsuit against the federal government to stop further cutbacks to California’s water supplies.

 

An agency official said the goal of the lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service is to force the federal government to prepare an environmental impact statement before adopting a salmon recovery plan that could dramatically cut water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

 

In a similar case involving the delta smelt, U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger in Fresno last month ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must take into account “the harm being visited upon humans, the community and the environment.” He also said officials must explain and justify how they reached their water-allocation decisions.

 

 The Westlands lawsuit was filed jointly with San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority.#

 

http://www.fresnobee.com/406/story/1473880.html

 

 

 

Federal agency wants to block white water on Pit River

Redding Record Searchlight-6/16/09

By Dylan Darling

 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has recommended ending summer whitewater releases on the Pit River in the interest of protecting the Shasta crawfish, an endangered species. Photo courtesy of Koen G. H. Breedveld

 

Concern over an endangered crawfish's dwindling numbers on the Pit River could end summer white water that has become a popular ride for rafters and kayakers.

 

"What those flows do is bring warmer water from upstream down to that area," said Al Donner, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento. "The crawfish need cool water."

 

The agency is asking the state Water Resources Control Board and the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) to end the increased flows immediately.

 

But white water enthusiasts say they don't think Fish and Wildlife has data to support its call for the end of the increased flows that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. turns on one weekend a month in June, July and August.

 

"There is no clear linkage that they make between the releases and the decreases in population," said Dave Steindorf, state stewardship director for American Whitewater.

 

The national North Carolina-based nonprofit group advocates for river restoration and white water paddle opportunities, he said.

 

A Fish and Wildlife letter sent to the water control board and FERC said that, after reviewing five years of monitoring data at an April workshop and a May meeting, fisheries scientists concluded that the high water flows should be stopped.

 

There has been a "precipitous" decline in the number of crawfish in about a 600-meter stretch of the river near the Pit 1, one of PG&E's hydropower dams on the river, Donner said.

 

In 2005, scientists tallied 21 Shasta crawfish, he said.

 

"Last year, they went back and they only found one," Donner said.

 

Scientists also found the number of invasive crawfish, which Donner said aren't as sensitive to temperature, to have doubled or tripled in the same time period.

 

PG&E has been running the "flushing flows" three times each summer on the Pit River since 2003 to clear out aquatic vegetation accumulations, said Paul Moreno, spokesman for the San Francisco-based power company. While the recreational white water isn't a goal of the releases, it has become popular.

 

"It's always on a weekend, so the white water enthusiasts can take advantage of the flows," Moreno said.

 

The highly dammed river normally runs at 150 cubic feet per second during the summer, but it increases more than eightfold to 1,250 cfs during the flushing flows. The next increase is set to start Friday and last through the weekend.

 

Moreno said neither the water control board nor FERC has issued an order to end the flushing flows. The power dams were put in starting in the 1920s and are under a license with FERC. In 2003, FERC made the flushing flows a condition of that license.

 

Steindorf said the white water draws more than 100 people each weekend it occurs.

 

"These recreational flows replace a small but important fraction of the 365 days per year of white water boating flows that existed on the Pit pre-project but were eliminated by the project," said Robert Center, state regional coordinator for American Whitewater.#

 

http://www.redding.com/news/2009/jun/16/federal-agency-wants-to-block-white-water-on-pit/

 

 

 

 

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DWR’s California Water News is distributed to California Department of Water Resources management and staff,  for information purposes, by the DWR Public Affairs Office. For reader’s services, including new subscriptions, temporary cancellations and address changes, please use the online page: http://listhost2.water.ca.gov/mailman/listinfo/water_news . DWR operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. Inclusion of materials is not to be construed as an endorsement of any programs, projects, or viewpoints by the Department or the State of California.