Report Finds Delta Pumping Restrictions to Protect Fish "Scientifically Justified"

Contact: Jeff Miller, (510) 499-9185

Report Finds Delta Water Pumping Restrictions to Protect Fish "Scientifically Justified"

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.— The National Academy of Sciences today released a peer-review report that validates recent federal “biological opinions” and federal actions, particularly seasonal reductions in water pumping, to protect endangered fish species in the San Francisco Bay-Delta.

“The Academy of Sciences report confirms that the best available scientific information demonstrates that unsustainable water diversions are a major factor driving salmon and other native fish in the Delta to extinction, and that restrictions on excessive pumping mandated by the Endangered Species Act are justified and necessary,” said Jeff Miller, conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “It is past time to restore sufficient flows to ensure the health of the Bay-Delta ecosystem.”

In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service issued biological opinions under the Endangered Species Act that required reduced water diversions from the Delta to prevent the extinction of delta smelt, Central Valley chinook salmon and steelhead, and green sturgeon. To keep the record amounts of subsidized water flowing, agricultural interests filed litigation, lobbied Congress, spread disinformation about the economic impacts of the restrictions, and attempted to downplay the effects of massive water diversions. Despite the biological opinions undergoing five peer reviews to ensure that they were based on the best available science, Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., pushed for additional review, and Congress and the Interior Department asked the National Academy of Sciences to provide a further scientific evaluation of the actions in the biological opinions.

“With the smallest return of fall-run salmon ever recorded in the Sacramento River, it is now more clear than ever that we need to restore and maintain flows to the Delta,” said Miller. “The National Academy of Sciences report confirms that freshwater flows are essential to endangered fish, the fishing jobs dependent upon healthy salmon runs, and the whole ecosystem.”

Unsustainable water exports, in combination with the effects of dams, invasive species, pesticides and water pollution, and other stressors, have caused the collapse of nearly all native open-water and migratory fish populations in the San Francisco Bay-Delta, such as runs of chinook salmon and steelhead trout, white and green sturgeon, delta smelt, longfin smelt, and Sacramento splittail. These fish declines correlate with the past decade of record water diversions at federal and state pumps in the Delta and have resulted in $270 million in economic losses and 2,700 lost fishing jobs in 2009 alone with the closure of the state salmon fishery.

“If we don’t protect the Bay-Delta’s endangered species and the ecosystem as a whole, there won’t be fishing or farming jobs,” said Miller. “The massive expansion of water pumping over the last decade was clearly unsustainable in our thirsty state.”

The National Academy of Sciences study found that the specific environmental triggers to indicate when water diversions should be reduced to protect native fish need further monitoring and review. The Academy will provide a second report to review other stressors on native fish, which agricultural interests have attempted to highlight to divert attention from record water diversions.

Background

After rebounding from record low levels at the end of the last major drought in the early 1990s, populations of California’s salmon and other native fish crashed during the Bush administration years, when agency science was politically manipulated to allow increased water exports from the Bay-Delta. As water exports increased to record levels, numerous fish populations declined to historic lows, requiring the closure of California’s 150-year-old salmon fishery in 2008 and 2009.

In 2007 and 2008, the twisted reasoning and shoddy science underlying endangered species permits (called “biological opinions”) prepared under the Bush administration led a federal district court judge in Fresno to invalidate the permits, ruling that additional restrictions on the state and federal water projects were necessary to protect endangered species, and to impose some interim protections for native fish in the Delta while new biological opinions were prepared. The new biological opinions were issued in late 2008 and in June 2009. The biological opinions require the agencies to set operational restrictions using an adaptive management process that considers the geographic distribution of fish, water temperatures and water quality, the number of fish that are being killed by the pumps, and other scientific data. The operational measures in the biological opinions build on the restrictions imposed by the federal court in 2007, which were explicitly found by that court to be based on the best available science.

The San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem, an ecologically important estuary and a major hub for California’s water system, is now rapidly unraveling. Once-abundant fish species are in critical condition due to record-high water diversions, pollutants, and harmful nonnative species that thrive in degraded Delta habitat. Since 2002, scientists have documented catastrophic declines of delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, Sacramento splittail, and striped bass. The Sacramento River fall run of chinook salmon, once the most abundant salmon run on the West Coast, has declined from 768,000 fish in 2002 to 66,000 in 2008 to 39,500 in 2009, the lowest number ever recorded. The critically endangered winter run of chinook salmon has declined to 4,483 fish, and the spring run has declined to 4,506 fish. White and green sturgeon numbers in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River have also fallen to alarmingly low levels; the southern green sturgeon population was federally listed as threatened in 2006.

The National Academy of Sciences press release and a link to the full report are provided below.

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Jeff Miller
Conservation Advocate
Center for Biological Diversity
351 California Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 436-9682 x303
Fax: (415) 436-9683
Web site: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org

At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild plants and animals. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law, and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive. We want those who come after us to inherit a world where the wild is still alive.

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Read Full Report

Date: March 19, 2010
Contacts: Jennifer Walsh, Media Relations Officer
Alison Burnette, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information 202-334-2138; e-mail
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MOST FEDERAL ACTIONS TO PROTECT ENDANGERED FISHES IN CALIFORNIA BAY-DELTA 'SCIENTIFICALLY JUSTIFIED,' BUT ADDITIONAL CLARIFICATION NEEDED

WASHINGTON -- Most of the actions proposed by two federal agencies to reduce water diversions in the California Bay-Delta in order to protect endangered and threatened fish species are "scientifically justified," but the basis for the specific environmental triggers that would indicate when water diversions should be reduced is less well-supported by scientific analyses, says a new report from the National Research Council that was requested by Congress and the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The California Bay-Delta region receives its fresh water from the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries, and the delta's water ultimately flows into the San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Tidal mixing from the Pacific Ocean also occurs, resulting in a brackish water ecosystem in many regions of the delta. In addition, pumping stations divert water from the delta, primarily for Central Valley agriculture and southern California metropolitan areas. The effects of an increasing population and the operation of the engineered water-control system have substantially altered the delta ecosystem, including its fish species.

In 2008 and 2009 respectively, the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued biological opinions under the Endangered Species Act that contained "Reasonable and Prudent Alternatives" requiring actions to reduce the adverse effects of water diversions on delta smelt, Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, and green sturgeon. Those actions included restrictions in diverting water during certain periods, depending on environmental conditions. Congress and the Interior Department asked the Research Council to provide a scientific evaluation of the actions in the biological opinions.

For its study, the committee that wrote the report reviewed an action in the FWS alternative to protect delta smelt by limiting how much water is pumped from the delta to reduce reverse flows in the Old and Middle rivers, two branches of the San Joaquin River. The committee concluded that in winter, high reverse river flows from high levels of pumping probably adversely affect smelt. Therefore, reducing the high reverse flows to decrease mortality of smelt is scientifically justified. However, the data do not permit confident identification of when to limit reverse flows of the rivers or a confident assessment of the benefits fish receive by reducing reverse flows, the committee found. As a result, the implementation of this action needs to be accompanied by careful monitoring, adaptive management, and additional analyses.

How the action in the FWS alternative to manage the contour line of 2 parts per thousand salinity, called X2, is beneficial to smelt needs further clarification, the committee said. The action is intended to increase outflows of water during the fall by maintaining the average position of X2 no farther upstream (east) of the Golden Gate Bridge than 74 kilometers in wet years and 81 kilometers in moderately wet years. The FWS's argument for the action is that the average position of X2 is an indicator of suitable and available habitat for delta smelt. Preventing X2 from moving farther east on average requires the use of additional freshwater releases from reservoirs under some conditions.

The action is conceptually sound to the degree that the amount of habitat available for smelt limits their abundance, but the derivation of the details lacks rigor, the committee said. The committee emphasized that the adaptive management requirements in the action should be implemented in light of the uncertainty about the biological effectiveness of the action and its possibly high water requirements.

In addition, the FWS requirement for creation or restoration of 8,000 acres of intertidal and subtidal habitat in the delta is weakly justified, because the relationship between tidal habitats and food availability for smelt is poorly understood. Because the details of implementation are not fully justified in the biological opinion, the committee recommended that this action be carried out in phases, with the first to include developing an implementation and adaptive management plan. The committee also recommended considering the sustainability of the resulting habitats.

Regarding the NMFS biological opinion, which applies to the Chinook salmon, steelhead, and green sturgeon in the delta and farther upstream, the committee concluded that on balance the actions are scientifically justified. However, as with the FWS opinion, specific environmental triggers, thresholds, and flows should receive additional evaluation that is integrated with the analyses of similar actions for delta smelt. In particular, the NMFS alternative contains an action similar to the FWS action to limit pumping in order to reduce high reverse flows in the Old and Middle rivers, and the committee likewise judged that high reverse river flows probably adversely affect the fish, but that the scientific support for specific flow targets is less certain. The committee also found it difficult to ascertain the extent to which the collective watershed and tributary actions will appreciably reduce risks to the fishes within the watershed or throughout the entire river system and recommended a quantitative framework be created to assess survival.

The committee also considered whether any additional actions not included in the biological opinions might have the potential to provide equal or greater protection for the fishes than the current requirements, while costing less in terms of water availability for other uses. The committee found none that had received sufficient documentation or evaluation to be confident that any action had the potential to meet this objective, but will consider alternatives in more detail in its second report.

Adverse effects of all other stressors on the listed fish -- such as contaminants in the delta and structures on rivers that block fishes from access to their spawning habitat -- are potentially large, concluded the committee, which was asked to consider the effects of other stressors if time allowed. The limited timeframe to complete the first report did not permit full exploration of the issue, but the committee will review it more thoroughly in its second report, scheduled to be released next year. Moreover, the committee found that its evaluations and the agencies' evaluations were hampered by the lack of an integrated analysis that took all aspects of the fishes' life cycles into account, considered the effects of all the actions and fish species together, and included clear and well-documented considerations of the water needed to implement the actions. However, such an analysis likely goes beyond the agencies' legal obligations under the Endangered Species Act.

The report was sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They are independent, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under an 1863 congressional charter. Committee members, who serve pro bono as volunteers, are chosen by the Academies for each study based on their expertise and experience and must satisfy the Academies' conflict-of-interest standards. The resulting consensus reports undergo external peer review before completion. For more information, visit http://national-academies.org/studycommitteprocess.pdf. A committee roster follows.

Copies of A SCIENTIFIC ASSESSMENT OF ALTERNATIVES FOR REDUCING WATER MANAGEMENT EFFECTS ON THREATENED AND ENDANGERED FISHES IN CALIFORNIA'S BAY-DELTA are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at HTTP://WWW.NAP.EDU. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

[ This news release and report are available at HTTP://NATIONAL-ACADEMIES.ORG ]

NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Water Science and Technology Board

COMMITTEE ON SUSTAINABLE WATER AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE CALIFORNIA BAY-DELTA

ROBERT J. HUGGETT (CHAIR)
Professor Emeritus and Former Chair
Department of Environmental Sciences
Virginia Institute of Environmental Sciences
College of William and Mary
Seaford

JAMES J. ANDERSON
Research Professor School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences
University of Washington Seattle

MICHAEL E. CAMPANA
Professor Department of Geosciences
Oregon State University Corvallis

THOMAS DUNNE
*Professor Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
University of California Santa Barbara

ALBERT E. GIORGI
President and Senior Fisheries Scientist
BioAnalysts Inc.
Redmond, Wash.

PATRICIA M. GLIBERT
Professor Horn Point Laboratory
University of Maryland
Center for Environmental Science
Cambridge

CHRISTINE A. KLEIN
Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law
Levin College of Law
University of Florida Gainesville

SAMUEL N. LUOMA
Research Professor
John Muir Institute of the Environment
University of California Davis

MICHAEL J. MCGUIRE
President and Founder
Michael J. McGuire, Inc.
Santa Monica, Calif.

THOMAS MILLER
Professor of Fisheries
Chesapeake Biological Laboratory
University of Maryland
Center for Environmental Science
Solomons

JAYANTHA OBEYSEKERA
Director
Hydrologic and Environmental Systems Modeling Department
South Florida Water Management District
West Palm Beach

MAX J. PFEFFER
Interntaional Professor and Chair
Department of Development Sociology
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.

DENISE J. REED
University Research Professor
Department of Geology and Geophysics
University of New Orleans
New Orleans

KENNETH A. ROSE E.L.
Abraham Distinguished Professor
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge

DESIREE D. TULLOS
Assistant Professor
Department of Biological and Ecological Engineering
Oregon State University
Corvallis

STAFF

DAVID POLICANSKY
Study Director
*Member, National Academy of Sciences