Is Delta’s New Water Delivery Plan Worse Than Trump’s Rules? Environmentalists say yes

For Sacramento River Settlement Contractors — the main source of water for the Central Valley project, which grows most of the state’s rice — the proposed plan would cut supplies by an average of 6 percent compared to Trump’s rules. According to a federal analysis, the same group of farmers would be cut by 10% in dry and critically dry years. Mooney said that under certain conditions, their water supplies could be cut in half from their total allocation.

Still, they stand by it, said Thaddeus Bettner, the group’s executive director. He noted that five government agencies helped develop the proposal, and “we want to support an action that has this level of support.”

Water projects are “death by a thousand cuts”

The Department of Water Resources in its review of the proposed operations of the State Water Project predicted a significant increase in young cast iron felled in the fall paddock stocked with Delta pumps.

For example, juvenile fish kills at the pumping station will almost double, to nearly 7,000 fish, in years with “below-normal” rainfall. The endangered chinook is not listed as an endangered species, but it is low numbers over the past 15 years have led to two-year closure of industrial and recreational fishing.

But Grimaldo, of the state water agency, said that catching more fish would not significantly harm the overall population. “Overall, (the State Water Project) captures a very small fraction of the estimated 20 to 30 million juvenile hatchery salmon released annually into the Central Valley,” he said.

While the federal review suggests actions to help the fish and offset the expected effects, the state environmental assessment, predicting minor effects, does not.

Pierre of State Water Contractors added that the purpose of the environmental review process is not to avoid “removal” of a species, but to allow “removal.” Take is a technical term that means to disturb, harm or kill a protected species.

But some of these species are already close to extinction, and even minor damage at this stage can cause concern.

“Water projects are death by a thousand cuts, and can we tell which of those cuts has the biggest impact?” said Carson Jeffress, a fisheries biologist at the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis. “Small changes in (the long-term operation of water projects) will not be the death knell, but they may be just another cut.”

Jeffress said climate change and invasive species are also responsible for the Delta’s ecosystem decline, exacerbating the effects of dams, habitat loss, reduced flows and pumping stations.

Environmentalists say it’s time for a major overhaul of how water is distributed among user groups. Barry Nelson, policy spokesman for the Golden State Salmon Association, said the federal Bureau of Reclamation rejected the more fish-friendly alternative “out of hand.”

“I don’t see how you can fix a system that is headed for multiple extinctions without fundamentally changing the status quo,” Nelson said.

Chris Shutes, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, also believes it’s time for the farming industry to release its legal right to that much water, or at least resort to greater reductions in dry times.

“Water contracts need to be reviewed,” he said, referring to the long-term supply agreements made decades ago between government agencies and farming districts. “They need to look at how to reboot the system so that agriculture remains sustainable, but maybe at a different level than it is now.”

Collapse of the estuary

The review of the Central Valley’s water management system comes amid an environmental crisis in the Gulf Delta, which is California’s largest estuary. All populations of teal salmon have collapsed, and salmon fishing has been banned statewide for two years.

The delta smelt, once a common species, is now almost extinct. The little silverfish lives only in the Delta, and it has long been a powerful figure in California’s water wars.

The number of long-feathered smelt has fallen sharply compared to historical numbers. Listed as endangered by the state for 15 years, it was federally listed as an endangered species in July, and it appears to be following the path of its cousin, the tiny Delta smelt.

With another species in decline, California is now evaluating whether it white sturgeononce abundant, should be listed as endangered.

Jeffress of the University of California, Davis, said that more and more fish will disappear without major changes in water management. California needs to increase river flow at key times of the year while aggressively restoring wetlands and floodplains, he said. He said efforts to restore watercourses amounted to “drifting around the edges without doing anything big” to boost fish populations.

“If we don’t start thinking outside the box,” he warned, “our salmon will follow the smelt” to extinction.