Friday, June 5, 2009
(06-04) 18:10 PDT San Francisco --
Federal regulators prescribed sweeping changes Thursday to the dams, reservoirs and pumps that supply water to two-thirds of California in an effort to restore a salmon population whose steep decline has sounded an environmental alarm and led to the cancellation of two consecutive commercial fishing seasons.
While the measures could save the chinook salmon and other species from extinction, critics argue the plans reduce the water supply to people and farms at a time when the water system is strained by earlier environmental rules, drought, population growth and crumbling infrastructure.
On Thursday, an 800-page biological opinion released by the National Marine Fisheries Service found that operations of the state and federal water systems had jeopardized the state's spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales. Moving water from one area of the delta to another and exporting increased supplies to cities and farms slashed flows for fish and boosted water temperatures, the report found.
The agency recommended increasing the amount of cold water stored at Shasta Dam, routing fish around a Red Bluff dam, closing "cross-channel" gates within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for longer periods, and cutting delta water exports by 5 to 7 percent. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which represents both the state and federal water systems, expressed initial support of the opinion but said it would examine the document in detail before moving forward.
The aim is to make waterways more hospitable and accessible to spawning salmon, while also preventing the fish from getting trapped in the giant delta pumps that funnel water to 25 million Californians and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. Federal architects of the plan say California's future relies on reviving these fragile species.
The salmon population has declined by about 90 percent over the past six years, according to several West Coast fishing industry groups.
"What is at stake here is not just the survival of species, but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them," said Maria Rea, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service supervisor for the Sacramento office.
Governor critical of opinion
State officials, however, issued a stinging rebuke of the opinion.
"This federal biological opinion puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world's eighth-largest economy," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "The piling on of one federal court decision after another in a species-by-species approach is killing our economy and undermining the integrity of the Endangered Species Act."
The governor said he would seek meetings with federal administrators to discuss the opinion.
Thursday's plan is the second released by the agency. Last year, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno tossed the service's 2004 opinion, which critics contended favored politics over science.
Commercial salmon fisherman, idled for the second season in a row, said the latest plan may resurrect an industry they say historically poured more than $2 billion a year into the state economy.
During a normal year, dozens of fishing boats would be lined up along San Francisco's commercial piers unloading salmon payloads as high as $20,000, said Larry Collins, vice president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. During a news conference Thursday held by Collins and other industry advocates, the piers were empty.
"We need to do what's right for these fishing communities, what's right for these fish, and we need to do it now," Collins said.
California water managers and representatives of agriculture greeted the plan with much more disappointment than hope. Most of the criticism rested on the plan's call for reducing water deliveries by 5 to 7 percent. The Department of Water Resources estimates deliveries have already been cut by as much as 20 percent after an earlier biological opinion on the threatened delta smelt. Around the state, drought and water cuts have forced many farmers to fallow prime farmland.
Rural, urban hardships
"It's another water supply cut on top of numerous ones over the years that are driving Central Valley economies into the tank," said Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition. "This is just more of the same."
The cuts also impact urban areas around the state, served mainly by the state water project.
"The new opinion ... further chips away at our ability to provide a reliable water supply for California," said Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow.
Several Bay Area agencies, including Santa Clara Valley Water District, Zone 7 Water Agency in Alameda County, Contra Costa Water District and Alameda County Water District, rely heavily on delta water.
Instead, Snow and others said the state must take a more comprehensive approach to solve the water network's myriad problems.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a state environmental and planning process whose goals balance both delta ecosystem restoration and water supply reliability, may hold some of the answers. But environmentalists say fixing the water system is as much behavioral as it is structural.
"We have high hopes that the BDCP will help move us away from short-term fixes," said Ann Hayden, senior water resource analyst at Environmental Defense Fund. "But we also need to seriously address alternatives to water supply coming out of the bay-delta - recycling, conservation and groundwater management."
E-mail Kelly Zito at kzito@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
