[env-trinity] Sac Bee January 31

[Byron]

Farmers sue in fight over water; State fish policy ruining the Delta, they
claim

Sacramento Bee - 1/31/08

By Denny Walsh and Matt Weiser, staff writers

 

After months of losing fights over how much water can be pumped to farms
from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a coalition of farm groups is
striking back with a federal lawsuit blaming state agencies for endangering
native fish in the Delta.

 

In a suit filed in Sacramento federal court, the groups ask for a halt to
California's practice of maintaining predatory, nonnative striped bass in
the Delta for the benefit of fishermen, claiming the policy violates the
Endangered Species Act.

 

The bass feed on spring- and winter-run chinook salmon, steelhead and Delta
smelt - all protected by the Endangered Species Act - and their dwindling
populations harm the overall health of the estuary, ultimately resulting in
reduced water deliveries to farmers, the lawsuit charges. 

 

"Allowing this destruction to continue when the populations of several of
these species - including the Delta smelt - are crashing is outrageous,"
said Michael Boccadoro, spokesman for the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta,
the lead plaintiff in the suit filed late Tuesday.

 

Biologists already are concerned about drastic reductions in the Sacramento
River's fall chinook salmon run, saying it is near collapse.

 

Sport fishermen, however, scoffed Wednesday at the lawsuit's thesis, saying
the real threat to the Delta is all the water channeled to farmers through
the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project.

 

"We're irrigating desert that never should have been irrigated anyway," said
Jim Crenshaw, president of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
"The real resolution is to stop sending water to the west side of the San
Joaquin Valley.

 

"Anything they can do to relax the restrictions on pumping they'll do,"
Crenshaw said of the agriculture interests. "I suspect the judge will see
through this foolishness."

 

Members of the coalition include four large agricultural water districts in
Kern County, at the southern tip of the San Joaquin Valley. The districts
supply State Water Project deliveries to land within their respective
boundaries through contracts with the Kern County Water Agency.

 

The agency has grown over the past 10 years into one of the most powerful
and wealthy water players in California.

 

The coalition's tactics suggest it aims to draw attention from the effects
of water exports on the Delta's habitat and fish. Its Web site, for example,
offers information about virtually every other problem affecting the Delta
except the major pumping systems.

 

The Delta ecosystem is deteriorating due to a number of factors, including
degradation of water quality from urban and agricultural runoff and water
withdrawals to support the needs of the state's growing human population.

 

A federal district judge recently ruled that State Water Project and Central
Valley Project water deliveries must be reduced substantially to protect the
Delta smelt.

 

The coalition's suit names as defendants the California Fish and Game
Commission and the Department of Fish and Game, along with the agencies' top
officials. It has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr.
Department spokesman Steve Martarano declined comment Wednesday.

 

The suit claims one factor in federal regulators' past decisions to cut San
Joaquin Valley farmers' water allocations has been the declining Delta
populations of the protected fish, and the "illegal and unmitigated" killing
of them aggravates the problem.

 

Matt Nobriga, a staff environmental scientist at the CalFed Bay-Delta
Program, said Wednesday very little is known about whether striped bass are
a serious threat to any other fish species. Much of the available
information, he said, is decades old.

 

In 2001 and 2003, Nobriga examined about 1,000 striped bass stomachs to find
out what they were eating. He learned they were mainly eating lots of shad
and goby, both nonnative species. But, he said, more research is needed
before drawing any conclusions.

 

"It should be studied, but all we can do right now is guess," he said.

 

He said striped bass are definitely a top predator in the estuary, and are
themselves preyed upon only by humans and sea lions.

 

The coalition's suit says the Department of Fish and Game estimates that, at
a population of 765,000 adults, striped bass annually consume 6 percent of
Sacramento River winter-run chinook salmon and 3 percent of the Central
Valley spring-run chinook salmon.

 

It says that, at the same population, the department estimates striped bass
annually consume 5.3 percent of Delta smelt.

 

Despite those facts, the Fish and Game Commission's policy "establishes a
long-term bass restoration goal of 3 million adult striped bass in the
Delta," the suit says. The policy also "requires the Department of Fish and
Game to stabilize and restore the striped bass fishery in the Delta," the
suit says.

 

The suit asks Damrell to enjoin the state from enforcing its strict limits
on striped bass sport fishing and policies that tend to protect the bass,
and to direct the state "to remedy their violations of the ESA."

 

 

Byron Leydecker

Friends of Trinity River, Chair

California Trout, Inc., Advisor

PO Box 2327

Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327

415 383 4810

415 383 9562 fax

bwl3 at comcast.net

bleydecker at stanfordalumni.org (secondary)

http://www.fotr.org

http://www.caltrout.org

 

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