[env-trinity] Save California Salmon Action Alert: Meeting Time & Location Change!

[Daniel Bacher]

Here’s my revised action alert on saving Central Valley salmon. Please note 
the change in the time and place of the Bureau of Reclamation’s meeting on 
Thursday, October 7. Below the action alert is a press release on the 
meeting from the Bureau, followed by Stuart Leavenworth’s outstanding 
article in the Sacramento Bee on Saturday, October 2.

Thanks!
Dan



Action Alert: Save California Salmon - Block the Contracts!

It is very clear that the Department of Interior intends to destroy the 
fisheries on the American, Sacramento and other rivers in order to give 
corporate agribusiness more water to grow cotton, alfalfa and other 
subsidized crops. That's why the Bureau of Reclamation is so hell bent on 
signing the Central Valley contracts without proper environmental review and 
public comment.

According to Stu Leavenworth’s article in the Bee on Saturday, October 2, 
the Bureau appears to be writing off the American River as a fishery: the 
revised water plan eliminates temperature and flow requirements on the 
American!

What is happening on the American River is just a window into the future. 
The Bureau last week arbitrarily dropped flows on the American River to 
1,000 cfs from 1,500 cfs. Unless we get an unusually cold fall, we will see 
pre-spawning mortality that will be even worse than the fish kills that 
occurred on the American River over the past three years!

A total of 181,709 salmon died before spawning on the American over the past 
three years, greatly surpassing the Klamath fish kill of 2002, when 68,000 
adult fish died before spawning. But these fish kills are just the beginning 
of even worse fishery disasters yet to come if the Bureau has its way.

Everybody needs to raise hell with their legislators to stop the water 
contract renewal process and plans for shipping more water south until the 
needs of fish are taken into account. Here’s three actions that we can do.

First, everybody should write a letter to their Senators and Congressman 
demanding that the Bureau immediately halt the CVP contract renewal process 
and plans to move more water south by expanding South Delta export 
facilities.

Second, everybody interested in the future of our fisheries should attend 
the informational meeting sponsored by the Bureau and the Department of 
Water Resources in Sacramento on Thursday, October 7 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. 
at the California Bay-Delta Authority 650 Capitol Mall, 5th Floor – 
Bay-Delta Room.

I will be there to ask some hard questions about the Bureau's plans and to 
write an article on the meeting. Though this is a public information 
meeting, not a public comment session, I encourage everybody to ask real 
tough questions of the Bureau’s plans to ship northern California water 
south!

Save California Salmon  -  Block the Contracts!
Dan Bacher


Bureau of Reclamation Press Release:


Mid-Pacific Region
Sacramento, CA

MP-04-0CAP2

Media Contact: Jeffrey McCracken  916-978-5100
		jmccracken at mp.usbr.gov
For Release On:  October 6, 2004

Location and Time Changed for Public Information Meeting on the Operations 
Criteria and Plan Biological Assessment

The Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources have 
scheduled a public information meeting as an update on the consultation of 
the Operations Criteria and Plan (OCAP) Biological Assessment (BA).

NEW MEETING LOCATION AND TIME
Thursday, October 7, 2004
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
California Bay-Delta Authority
650 Capitol Mall, 5th Floor – Bay-Delta Room

The BA describes future operations with certain new facilities and operating 
criteria in place and was prepared to facilitate compliance with State and 
Federal Endangered Species Acts.  Regulatory and legal requirements are 
explained and planning models and strategies are described in the BA. The BA 
identifies many factors influencing the decision-making process and physical 
and institutional conditions under which the projects currently operate.  A 
separate OCAP document was prepared to serve as a baseline description of 
the facilities and operating environment of the Central Valley Project.

The BA and OCAP is accessible online at www.usbr.gov/mp/cvo/index.html.  To 
request a copy or CD, please contact Ms. Sammie Cervantes at 916-978-5104, 
TDD 916-978-5608, or via e-mail at scervantes at mp.usbr.gov.   For additional 
information, please contact Ms. Ann Lubas-Williams at 916-979-2068, TDD 
916-979-2183.

# # #
Reclamation is the largest wholesale water supplier and the second largest 
producer of hydroelectric power in the United States, with operations and 
facilities in the 17 Western States. Its facilities also provide substantial 
flood control, recreation, and fish and wildlife benefits. Visit our website 
at http://www.usbr.gov.


Rewrite softens report on risks to fish

By Stuart Leavenworth -- Sacramento Bee Staff Writer

Published 2:15 am PDT Saturday, October 2, 2004
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/environment/story/10948835p-11866210c.html

Officials at a federal fisheries agency ordered their biologists to revise a 
report on salmon and other
endangered fish so that more water can be shipped to Southern California 
from the Delta, according to
interviews and internal agency documents obtained by The Bee.
Biologists with NOAA Fisheries, an arm of the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration,
concluded in August that a plan to pump more water through the 
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta could
jeopardize endangered salmon and other fish.

NOAA administrators in Long Beach, however, overruled the biologists and 
supervised a rewriting of
their analysis. That, in turn, removed the last major obstacle to a plan 
that could send more water
south, affecting how much is reserved in Northern California, including for 
salmon in the American
River.

NOAA officials say the revisions were justified. Agency biologists made some 
errors and
"unsubstantiated conclusions" in their original draft, said James Lecky, an 
agency administrator in
Long Beach who ordered the revisions.

Some agency employees, however, say some of the changes had no basis in 
science and substantially
weaken protections for endangered winter-run salmon, steelhead trout and 
other fish.

"I haven't seen anything this bad at NOAA since working here," said one 
agency biologist who asked
that his name not be used. "The Sacramento office (of NOAA Fisheries) is 
totally demoralized."

At issue is a state-federal plan for operating the massive network of 
reservoirs, aqueducts and pumping
plants that move water around California. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and 
state Department of
Water Resources are planning major changes for those facilities, partly to 
free up water that can be
shipped through the Delta.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave its blessing to the plan in August, 
but NOAA Fisheries has
sought extensions in releasing its own analysis.

Documents obtained by The Bee explain why.

In August, NOAA biologists issued a draft stating that the plan "is likely 
to jeopardize the continued
existence of Sacramento winter-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley 
Steelhead," as well as
spring-run salmon.

The document outlined several measures the Bureau of Reclamation could adopt 
to reduce impacts on
fish, but the document was never signed.

Instead, Lecky delivered the draft to his counterparts in the Bureau of 
Reclamation, who offered
suggestions on revisions, he said.

Lecky said such document sharing is commonplace as federal agencies undergo 
what is known as a
consultation under the Endangered Species Act. NOAA officials wanted to 
ensure they had
appropriately interpreted the bureau's plans, he said, and receive feedback 
on their own analysis.

A copy of NOAA's latest draft, however, shows that administrators have 
altered the report in ways that
go beyond mere word changes.

The updated version, 289 pages and dated Sept. 27, no longer concludes that 
winter-run salmon or
other fish could face extinction by the extra water diversions by state and 
federal facilities.

The report concludes that the new operations would likely reduce the 
juvenile population of winter-run
salmon by 5 percent to 22 percent, but says that agencies can help minimize 
those losses by monitoring
and adapting.

The latest version also softens the wording for how the Bureau of 
Reclamation can avoid future impacts
on fish.

In the original report, NOAA biologists called on the Bureau of Reclamation 
to reserve 450,000 to
600,000 acre-feet of water in Folsom Lake by September to provide adequate 
supplies for returning
salmon and steelhead.

The latest version changes the wording from "shall maintain" to "shall 
target" the extra water.

In addition, the latest draft no longer calls for a minimum flow standard 
for the American River, as the
original did. The state Water Resources Control Board called for an American 
River flow standard in
1988, but federal officials haven't yet agreed to one.

A former state official who now works for a leading environmental group 
reviewed the two versions and
said he was stunned by the revisions.

"The September draft guts the minimal protections that were in the earlier 
version," said Jonas Minton,
a former deputy secretary for the Department of Water Resources. "The new 
version includes
commitments to talk instead of commitments to protect fish."

Minton, who now works for the Planning and Conservation League, agreed that 
supervisors often make
routine changes to a scientific document. "It's an entirely different thing 
to change science for political
purposes," he said.

In an interview, NOAA's Lecky disputed that political appointees had pressed 
for changes. Everything
has been handled within NOAA's Southwest Regional Office in Long Beach, he 
said.

Lecky declined to comment further on the revisions, saying The Bee had 
obtained a "predecisional
document" that was subject to further review. Sources say a final version 
could be released next week.

Formerly known as the National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA Fisheries 
enforces the Endangered
Species Act for fish that spend part of their lives in the ocean, such as 
salmon. In recent years, NOAA
has become embroiled in several controversies over water allocations and 
fish.

In 2002, NOAA biologist Michael Kelly warned that the Reclamation Bureau's 
water plans in Oregon
could lead to fish kills downstream on the Klamath River. Later that year, 
warm water and disease killed
about 77,000 returning salmon, according to a report by the California 
Department of Fish and Game.

Kelly later resigned from NOAA after another disagreement with Lecky.

In recent months, the Bureau of Reclamation has been pushing to sign 
long-term contracts with
irrigation districts and finalize plans for shipping more water through the 
Delta. Some of California's
most powerful groups - including the Chamber of Commerce, Westlands Water 
District and the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California - are lobbying for extra 
water.

Environmentalists suspect this pressure prompted some of NOAA's recent 
actions, although they
acknowledge they can't prove it.

Bureau of Reclamation officials say the public will have full opportunity to 
comment on any changes in
water operations. The Bureau and the Department of Water Resources have 
scheduled an
informational meeting in Sacramento on Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon at the 
Best Western Expo Inn,
1413 Howe Ave.

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About the Writer
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The Bee's Stuart Leavenworth can be reached at (916) 321-1185, 
sleavenworth at sacbee.com.