[env-trinity] McClatchyDC: A predator fish in California has lost its White House support

[Sari Sommarstrom]

April 20, 2016 5:46 PM 

A predator fish in California has lost its White House support 

Read more here:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article72930017.html#s
torylink=cp

Photo: A juvenile salmon is removed from the stomach of a striped bass
during a study on whether predation by the non-native bass is interfering
with efforts to protect the native salmon. The photo was taken on the
Tuolumne River near Waterford, California, on May 2, 2012. Fishbio Fishbio 


By Michael Doyle

 <mailto:mdoyle at mcclatchydc.com> mdoyle at mcclatchydc.com

.         WASHINGTON 

A still-controversial 1992 law intended to boost California's striped-bass
population can be scaled back, the Obama administration now believes.

In a modest softening of the state's polarized water debate, a top Interior
Department official voiced sympathy Wednesday for a Republican-authored bill
that would end the 1992 law's stated goal of doubling the number of striped
bass living in and around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

"It makes sense to remove the striped bass from the doubling goals," said
Tom Iseman, deputy assistant secretary for water and science, adding that
"the striped bass is a predator of native species." 

Maintaining the goal of doubling the predatory striped-bass population
potentially undermines the 1992 law's accompanying goals of doubling the
populations of other fish that ascend the Delta and Sacramento and San
Joaquin rivers. Striped bass forage on juvenile salmon, fisheries expert
Charles H. Hanson told lawmakers Wednesday.

"This is bipartisan and common-sense legislation that means less money, time
and water wasted," said Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock.

 
<http://denham.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/denham-introduces-commo
n-sense-predation-legislation> Denham's striped-bass bill, in turn, marks
the latest effort by California lawmakers to reconsider portions of the 1992
Central Valley Project Improvement Act that steered more water from farms
toward protection of rivers and the Delta.

Another bill,
<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/economy/article268132
09.html> by Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Sacramento, to revise a water-recycling
grant program established in the 1992 law likewise secured administration
support Wednesday. Matsui's bill would remove a requirement that grant
applicants first secure a hard-to-get congressional authorization.

The answer to our drought challenges is not taking water from one group or
region in order to benefit another. Instead, we should be looking at ways to
generate new water sources which benefit all water users. Rep. Doris Matsui,
D-Sacramento.

Taken together, the administration's moves might be interpreted as a greater
willingness to reopen deliberations about updating a wide-ranging law that's
been on the books longer than any of the Central Valley's House members have
been in Congress. 

"We would be willing to have that discussion," Iseman said, adding, "it's
appropriate that that conversation include many other stakeholders" as well.


Still, serious obstacles remain, and the prospects for any kind of
California water deal, at any level, are uncertain at best.

While Matsui, for instance, said her water recycling grant bill "prioritizes
projects in drought-stricken areas, which is critical given the current
challenges facing the West," the Republican chairman of the House water,
power and oceans subcommittee, Rep. John Fleming of Louisiana, asserted it
would "allow the (grant) program to spiral even further out of control."

Denham's striped-bass bill, while it also has the backing of several House
Democrats, has raised the hackles of some sport-fishing enthusiasts and was
dismissed by Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, as an "enormous straw man"
that would do little for salmon.

Pressed by Huffman, Iseman said the Interior Department has not implemented
any specific programs intended to double the striped-bass population. Iseman
also noted the administration wants some "technical changes" in Denham's
bill.

And soon, the full House will wrangle anew over California provisions added
by Rep. David Valadao, R-Hanford, to an energy and water appropriations bill
for 2017. The House Appropriations Committee approved the $37.4 billion
package Tuesday, including language to mandate more Delta water pumping and
block spending on San Joaquin River restoration.

"I am continuing to pursue all available avenues until my constituents have
the water they so desperately need," Valadao said Tuesday.

Huffman, the senior Democrat on the House water, power and oceans panel,
remains skeptical, as do other Northern California Democrats.

"I don't know where they come up with these ideas," Huffman said in an
interview. "None of these overreaching, over-the-top tactics have ever
worked for these guys."

Michael Doyle:  <tel:202-383-0006> 202-383-0006,
<https://twitter.com/MichaelDoyle10> @MichaelDoyle10


Read more here:
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