Commission Votes for Increased Protection for Delta Fish

California Fish & Game Commission Votes for Increased Protection for Longfin Smelt

by Dan Bacher

The California Fish and Game Commission at its meeting in San Diego on February 7 voted 3 to 0 designate the rapidly declining longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys), a cousin of the delta smelt, as a "candidate species” for listing under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA).

The decision, spurred by a petition by three environmental groups, is the first step toward a formal listing of the fish as an endangered or threatened species under CESA. The longfin declined to record low numbers in the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary in 2007 and is nearing extinction in other northern California estuaries.

“There has been a lot of talking,” said Richard Rogers, the Commission’s president. “There have been a lot of plans, decades worth. This is something we have to solve and we have to solve now."

The Commission also voted to adopt interim regulations to protect longfin smelt that will require water managers to reduce water exports from the California Delta when longfin smelt are present in areas where they could be killed at the State Water Project and Central Valley Project pumps. Thousands and thousands of longfin smelt, delta smelt, striped bass, chinook salmon and other species are killed every year in the state and federal pumps.

The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) recommended that the Commission make the fish a “candidate species” because the facts contained in the petition and the dramatic decline in the species since 2000 warranted it.

The Commission’s decision gives the DFG the authority to protect the smelt larvae in the Delta when the fish migrate through the Delta during the spring. At an undetermined date, the Department will then go back to the Commission to petition for the authority to protect the adult longfin when they become vulnerable to being killed in the pumps in the late fall and early winter.

“When we find smelt larvae during the spring, we have the authority to tell the state to stop pumping to stop the loss of smelt in the Delta pumps,” said Marty Gingras, supervising biologist for the DFG Bay Delta Region “California Fish and Game Code 2084 allows water managers to kill longfin smelt and other species under certain circumstances. The Commission decision means that it’s O.K. to kill some fish in the spring as long as we are on the lookout for the risk that pumping poses to smelt larvae.”

Fish and Game Code 2084 also authorizes the DFG to return to the Commission to discuss protecting adult longfin smelt when they migrate through the Delta in late November and early December.

The three petitioners, Center for Biological Diversity, The Bay Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, praised the ruling. “These regulations go above and beyond the recent Kempthorne decision by Judge Wanger reducing Delta water exports to protect delta smelt,” according to a joint press release by the three organizations.

The State Water Contractors and Westlands Water District strongly opposed the granting of candidate status to the fish.

“We are very concerned that the Wanger ruling provides for significant cutbacks in our water supply already,” said Sarah Woolf, spokesperson for the Westlands Water District. “We are not immediately impacted by the Commission’s decisions because it concerns the State Water Project pumps and we receive all of our water from the federal Central Valley Project. If the State determined that the federal pumps are also subject to the decision, it will directly impact our water supply.”

The abundance of longfin smelt, a cousin of the delta smelt, plummeted to a record low in 2007, according to the DFG’s fall midwater trawl survey. The longfin smelt population collapse occurs within the context of the dramatic decline of delta smelt, juvenile striped bass, threadfin shad and other species.

“The collapse of the longfin smelt is another alarming indication that the Bay-Delta ecosystem is in critical condition,” said Dr. Tina Swanson, senior scientist for The Bay Institute. ”But what makes it worse is that this collapse was entirely predictable.”

“We know what the problems are in this estuary and yet, year after year, the state, federal and local resource managers responsible for protecting our fish and wildlife have ignored the science and let conditions deteriorate to the point where, now, another species teeters on the brink of extinction,” she stated.

State and federal scientists first documented the "Pelagic Organism Decline" (POD) in the spring of 2005. Since then, the POD team has revealed a continuing decline of delta smelt, longfin smelt, juvenile striped bass and threadfin shad populations in its surveys and studies.

The scientists believe that the number one cause of the food chain collapse is massive increases in water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta since 2001, followed by toxics and invasive species. The state and federal governments exported a record 7,000,000 acre feet of water from the California Delta to subsidized agribusiness and southern California in 2007.

“Mismanagement of the Bay-Delta and outrageous levels of fresh water diversions have helped push the ecosystem toward collapse and our native fish to the edge of extinction,” said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Delta smelt, longfin smelt, and Sacramento splittail populations have bottomed out, and Central Valley runs of salmon and green sturgeon are near record lows.”

Longfin smelt were once one of the most abundant open-water fishes in the San Francisco Bay-Delta and other northern California estuaries and a central component of the food web that sustained other commercially important species. In 2007, following decades of decline, the Bay-Delta longfin smelt population fell to unprecedented low numbers.

The abundance index, a relative measure of abundance, from fall 2007 trawl surveys conducted by the DFG was the lowest ever recorded since regular surveys began in 1967 and more than 80 percent lower than the previous record low. Three of the five lowest longfin smelt abundance indices from the fall trawl surveys have occurred since 2004.

“Longfin smelt have declined due to many of the same degraded environmental conditions that caused the collapse of the Delta smelt: reduced freshwater inflow to the estuary because of massive water diversions; loss of fish at agricultural, urban, and industrial water diversions; impacts of nonnative species on food supply and habitat; and the effects of pesticides and toxic chemicals,” according to the groups.

The San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary is home to the largest and southernmost self-sustaining population of longfin smelt. Populations that once occupied the estuaries and lower reaches of Humboldt Bay and the Klamath River have also declined and may now be extinct.

The three groups petitioned for both state and federal endangered species protection for the longfin smelt in August 2007. The Commission determined that the petition contained sufficient information to indicate that listing may be warranted.

The longfin smelt, by being designated as a candidate species, is afforded many of the legal protections of endangered or threatened species while a status review is conducted. A final listing determination is due in August.

“The realization is finally dawning on some water managers that we need a healthy Delta if we’re going to continue to rely on it to provide 22 million Californians with clean drinking water,” said Kate Poole, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Restoring the Delta’s fisheries, including the longfin smelt, will help us to revive the ailing estuary so that it can continue to sustain us and future generations of Californians.”

The conservation groups also petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Bay-Delta population of longfin smelt under the federal Endangered Species Act in August 2007. Unfortunately, the Service has failed to respond to the petition. The Delta smelt, a species already listed under state and federal Endangered Species Acts, recently plummeted to the lowest population levels ever recorded.

Meanwhile, the Central Valley salmon populations have experienced a collapse over the past three years paralleling the Pelagic Organism Decline. The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) recently released data pointing to an "unprecedented collapse" of Sacramento River chinook salmon. This is extremely alarming, considering that the Sacramento salmon stocks have been historically the most robust along the California coast.

The Central Valley salmon runs plummeted from a record abundance of 804,401 fish in 2002 to only 90,414 salmon in 2007. Although ocean conditions and other factors are believed to play a role in the decline, fishing and environmental groups are pointing to massive increases of water exports as a major factor in the decline of the salmon and other fish species.

I'm glad that Commission, not known for the environmental soundness of its decisions, did the right thing and voted to give the longfin smelt "candidate species" status under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA). I just hope that it is not too late to save the longfin smelt, delta smelt and other species on the precipice of extinction.

For more information on longfin smelt, go to http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/fish/longfin_smelt/index.html