Save Central Valley Salmon - Block the Contracts!

Action Alert: Save Central Valleey 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 http://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.