Facts on Delta Water and Fish

• California has far more water available than you might think. We do not need any more dams, and we certainly don’t need a Peripheral Canal – without de-commissioning the State Water Project and Central Valley Project, which are already taking too much water out of the delta!

• THIS IS NOT A NORCAL vs SOCAL ISSUE!  There is plenty of water for LA, Santa Clara valley, etc. Take a look at the NRDC’s Virtual River Concept.

• Don’t be fooled.  The backers of AB 1253 make $ HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS $ by getting PUBLIC water for almost free, wasting up to several million acre-feet on land that should not be grown on, and selling the rest of the water for up to 1200 times the amount they paid for it.  These water districts didn’t even pay for the huge tax-payer funded pumping projects that distribute it to them!

• The backers of AB 1253 have produced a video called “California Water Problem” which seeks to divide people of California into those that believe in People Over Fish, and those that believe in Fish Over People. This same group is once again declaring war on the Endangered Species Act, and by extension, the California Endangered Species Act.  The video completely misleads viewers to believe that lack of waters to the west side San Joaquin Valley land is depriving people of food, etc.  Click HERE to view the misleading video.
• Westlands Water District, among other west side SJ valley corporate Ag entities, are hell bent to claim water rights from up north.  ASK YOURSELF WHY WESTLANDS BOUGHT THE MCLOUD RIVER BOLLIBAKKA CLUB – the first 7 miles of river to Lake Shasta?  Let us tell you: a) to put the McLoud under water from raising lake Shasta, and b) to try to claim superior water rights.  Don’t believe it?  Look HERE and HERE !!!! oh – I forgot to tell you they paid $5 million over the next highest bidder.  If any pure trout/steelhead/salmon anlgers thinks AB1253 is only about Stripers you are deadly mistaken!  We fight as a unified front, or we die a unified front.  (And us striper guys/gals also fish the rivers.)

• But first, backers of AB 1253 seek to remove Striped Bass from the equation, in hopes of removing their most vocal opposition to increased water exports: Striped Bass fishery advocates.   At the same time, they are introducing Senate Bill 207 to provide a hatchery Delta Smelt program so they can continue killing millions of smelt in their huge pumps – another “pay no attention to the man behind the curtains” sham to get Environmentalists to support their causes.

• But People – understand that a healthy fishery is critical to a healthy people.  FACT: wild salmon is arguably the most nutritious food source on the PLANET.  The Delta watershed - as near back as 2003, produced a runs over 600,000 fish.  They are now well below 100,000. Farmed Salmon is known to be is frought with health hazards, and has far less nutritional benefit than does wild Salmon.  FACT: Killer Wales are displaced from their traditional home waters near the San Juan Islands between Washington State and Vancouver.  Why?  They are in desperate search for their food supply – Salmon.  You see, Salmon runs from California’s Central Valley, and the Klamath River (among a few others) migrate along the pacific up to and beyond the San Juans.  Fact: both the Klamath and Central Valley Salmon were affected by decisions in 2001-2002 from this same – ANTI-Endangered Species Act crowd.  In 2002, judges and federal agency officials were intimidated and ultimately reversed laws and opinions that sought to keep a minimum level of water to protect Klamath River Salmon.  With a month or so the massive fish kill ocurred – due primarily to lack of cool water.  And this same intimidation ocurred in California’s Delta region. Scientific opinion was scoffed at, court rulings ignored, and between 2003-2007, we saw peak water exports out of the Delta.  And now – STRIPED BASS, SALMON, DELTA SMELT, THREADFIN SHAD, ETC. ARE ALL AT HISTORIC LOWS.

• So, backers of AB 1253 do not want us to make the connection that the entire pacific ocean food supply is affected by inland water policy!  Are we suppose to sacrafice California Salmon, Striped Bass that have been legally introduced 130 years ago, Steelhead, etc, just so arid, non-sustainable, drainage-impacted lands of the western San Joaquin valley can be farmed for a short period of time? ==> How about retire this land and implement state-wide water projects that will deliver more water than has ever been exported from the delta?  As NRDC’s Doug Obegi says, “We Don’t Need to Sacrafice Endangered Fish to Provide Water to Californians”.

PLEASE SDF’s RESOLUTION TO PROTECT OUR “EVERGLADES OF THE WEST” below: arm yourself with more knowledge!

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SDF’s Resolution to Protect and Restore the SF Bay-Delta Watershed, Ecosystem and Fisheries

Author: Robert Johnson, Jr., ; rjohnson@alum.mit.edu

(With input from CSPA’s Michael Jackson, attorney and others) Draft version #2b; April 15 2009

• fact, a recent study produced by the LA County Economic Development Corporation[i] concludes that urban water conservation and enhancement of ground water storage capacity would save approximately 2.5 million acre feet of water, and that such measures involve minimal cost and can be fully implemented within 3 to 5 years (but with a significant amount of such savings within 1 year),
• fact, this same study concludes that conservation would be the least costly water supply alternative for Southern California at $210 per acre-foot of treated water, and with ground water storage second most favorable at $580 per acre-foot of treated water. Current bond measures are recommending surface storage options, including proposals such as the Sites Reservoir in Northern California and the Temperance Flat dam near Fresno – that would cost $760 to $1,400 per acre-foot, and surface storage would take well over 10 years to fully implement.

• fact, a recent study produced by the Pacific Institute[ii] concludes that modest investments in any or all of four specific agricultural water conservation and efficiency enhancement scenarios can save up to 5.8 million acre feet of water per year. Such savings far exceed anything a large surface storage project (dams, etc.) could obtain, and they can be achieved in far less time and with much less cost to the California tax payers.
• fact, California law regulates water under the doctrines of reasonable use and public trust. The state Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) has the duty and the authority to apply these laws to all water users in California. The SWRCB has been identified by the Delta Vision Task Force as being negligent in this capacity and lack of enforcement of these and other laws (state and Federal Endangered Species Act, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Act and the Clean Water Act) has contributed to the present decline in the Delta ecosystem.

• fact, private entities such as the west side San Joaquin valley irrigation districts earn windfall profits via the export of Delta water. These entities have commanded such large profits by taking advantage of artificially low Delta water export contract fees, which are approximately 2%[iii] of what an average California City pays for municipal use.

• fact, roughly 1.3 million acres in the west side of the San Joaquin valley is considered by the united state geological survey and regional and state water quality control boards to qualify as “drainage impacted” (“toxic”) land. These 1.3 million acres are currently using 3.1 acre-feet of water per acre of crop, thereby requiring 3.9 million acre feet of clean water annually (over 3 times the amount that LA and Santa Clara use from the State Water Project).

• fact, initiatives sponsored by the west side SJ valley irrigators and others serve to advance the interests of a relative few at the expense of the millions who inhabit and/or recreate the Delta waters. Measures such as AB 1253, which seeks to remove striped bass as protected game fish, essentially blaming this fish – and by extension the black bass – for the declines of Salmon, smolt and other native species, are disingenuous attempts to preserve the status quo of increased Delta water exports beyond levels that are sustainable.

• fact, California Salmon populations are at all time lows and face the prospect of extinction, having declined in proportion to increased water exports from the Delta. Other anadromous species such as steelhead and striped bass are similarly threatened. Many other species that spend their entire lives in the Delta such as the Delta smelt have experienced similar catastrophic population declines over the past five years. In fact, the California Department of Fish and Game’s (DFG) fall 2008 midwater trawl survey on the California Delta documented the lowest ever recorded abundance of Delta smelt, Sacramento splittail, threadfin shad, American shad and an alarmingly low level of longfin smelt and juvenile striped bass.

• Action ==> Save Delta Fish seeks to persuade the people of the state of California to know that there is sufficient water for their municipal (and responsible agricultural) needs, particularly if the state enacts certain water conservation and agriculture efficiency enhancements that can be funded inexpensively and will significantly increase water supply beyond needed levels with 3-5 years.

• Action ==> Save Delta Fish supports the formal acknowledgement that the Delta watershed is protected by the California public trust, and therefore, any remaining water (beyond certain threshold amounts for LA, Santa Clara and other urban areas currently using delta water) should be allocated for sustaining the Bay-Delta Estuary.

• Action ==> in order to achieve the tri-equal goals of a restoring and preserving a healthy fishery and ecosystem, reliable state water supply and preserving the Delta region as a place, Save Delta Fish supports creation of a new agency (Delta Steward) be created with the sole responsibility of managing the SF Bay-Delta water resources. And funding for this entity and its mission should in part be sourced from Bureau of Reclamation and State Water Project contractor export fees. This Delta Steward must also be governed in such a way as to shield it from outside political or economic interests.

• Action ==> Save Delta Fish demands of our elected officials that any emergency stimulus funds secured from either state or federal sources be directed first towards water conservation and efficiency programs, with funds appropriated to mitigate transition to more efficient agricultural methods, and for such stimulus or infrastructure funds to otherwise go to programs which are the least costly in the near term and most effective for the state’s long term water usage goals. (Planned projects such as the BOR/SWRCB’s Franks Tract Project do not meet this description.)

[i]“Where Will We Get the Water - Assessing Southern California’s Future Water Strategies, August 14, 2008.” Freeman, Poghosyan & Lee, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, August 14, 2008.

[ii]“More with Less: Agriculture Water Conservation and Efficiency in California - A Special Focus on the Delta,” Cooley, Christian-Smith & Gleick, Pacific Institute, Oakland CA, September 2008.

[iii]“Fish Out of Water: How Water Management in the Bay-Delta Threatens the Future of California’s Salmon Fishery,” P24, Obegi, Natural Resource Defense Council, San Francisco, CA July 2008.