NOAA: Delta pumps harm salmon and other endangered fish

On June 4, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released its official opinion regarding the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley.

NOAA found that these projects jeopardize the continued existence of many threatened and endangered species in California’s rivers and streams.

Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be revamped to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and the North American green sturgeon.

The Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon for food while in the ocean, also are indirectly at risk under the current water management policies.

“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 Rod McInnis, southwest regional director for NOAA’s Fisheries Service.

“We are ready to work with our federal and state partners, farmers and residents to find solutions that benefit the economy, environment and Central Valley families.”

The Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) has provisionally accepted NOAA’s recommended changes to its water pumping operations, and said it will begin to implement its near-term elements as it carefully evaluates the overall opinion.

As part of the final opinion, NOAA’s Fisheries Service has provided a number of ways the BOR can operate the water system to benefit the species, including increasing the cold water storage and flow rates.

Such methods will enhance egg incubation and juvenile fish rearing, as well as improve the spawning habitat and the downstream migration of juvenile fish.

Changing water operations will impact an estimated five to seven percent of the available annual water on average moved by the federal and state pumps, or about 330,000 acre feet per year.

Agricultural water use in California is roughly 30 million acre feet per year. Water operations will not be affected by the opinion immediately and will be tiered to water year type.

The opinion includes exception procedures for drought and health/safety issues.

In addition, the opinion calls for the BOR to develop a genetics management plan and an acoustic tagging program to evaluate the effectiveness of the actions and pilot passage programs at Folsom and Shasta reservoirs to reintroduce fish to historic habitat.

The water projects included in the opinion are Shasta Dam at the upper headwaters of the Sacramento River, Folsom and Nimbus dams on the American River, and New Melones Dam on the Stanislaus River.

The opinion also covers the state and federal export facilities in the Delta, the Nimbus hatchery on the American River, and the operations of diversion structures, including the Red Bluff Diversion Dam on the main stem Sacramento and the Delta Cross Channel gates in the Delta.

It’s great to see progress being made on this front, and a public acknowledgment of how the manipulation of water flows in California has adversely impacted native fish species.

Let’s hope the BOR follows through on these recommendations and gives the embattled salmon and other troubled fishes a good chance at recovery.

Guy Carl is a CPA and partner with BDCo Accountants and Advisors in St. Helena (www.bdcocpa.com).

Contact Guy at GC.outdoors@sbcglobal.net.

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