The California Legislature was the first in the country to
protect rare plants and animals through passage of the California
Endangered Species Act (CESA) in 1970, Congress followed suit in
1973 by passing the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The federal ESA aims to, “protect and recover imperiled species
and the ecosystems upon which they depend.”
The state ESA states that, “all native species of fishes,
amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, invertebrates, and plants,
and their habitats, threatened with extinction and those
experiencing a significant decline which, if not halted, would
lead to a threatened or endangered designation, will be protected
or preserved.”
Imperiled species are defined as follows: “Endangered” if it is
in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion
of its range and “threatened” if it is likely to become an
endangered species within the foreseeable future.”
A Texas lawmaker has reinforced Republican-led efforts to roll
back Endangered Species Act protections with new legislation
that targets seven kinds of fresh-water mussels with funny
names. In the latest Congressional Review Act salvo focused on
ESA listings, Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) introduced H.J.
Res. 169 to erase the Guadalupe fatmucket, Texas pimpleback and
five other mussels from the list of threatened and endangered
species. Arrington’s resolution, introduced with two
co-sponsors Friday, comes about three weeks after the Fish and
Wildlife Service announced the final decision listing the seven
species and designating 1,578 river miles as critical
habitat… In making the listing decisions, the Fish and
Wildlife Service cited water diversions from the Colorado
River, Rio Grande and other river networks as leading threats
to the species, along with drought, flooding and pollution. But
on a more positive note, the administration also pointed to
conservation measures undertaken by the Brazos River Authority,
the Lower Colorado River Authority and the Trinity River
Authority.
Killed by algae blooms and dwindling from dams and droughts,
the largest freshwater fish in North America is at risk in
California. Today, wildlife officials took the first major step
toward protecting it under the state’s Endangered Species Act.
White sturgeon, which can live longer than 100 years,
historically reached more than 20 feet long and weighing almost
a ton. … California’s Fish and Game Commission unanimously
approved white sturgeon as a candidate for listing, which
launches a review by the Department of Fish and Wildlife to
evaluate whether it is in enough danger to warrant being
declared threatened or endangered. The review is expected to
take at least a year. … The Department of Water Resources,
which operates the major water project funneling water south
from Northern California rivers, will now need to apply to the
state wildlife agency for a “take” permit for operations and
fish screens at pumping facilities. … State officials working
on the proposed Delta tunnel project also are
evaluating impacts to white sturgeon and plan to investigate
how sturgeon respond to fish screens and river flows …
California is awash in water after record-breaking rains
vanquished years of crippling drought. That sounds like great
news for farmers. But Ron McIlroy, whose shop here sells
equipment for plowing fields, knows otherwise. “I’ll be lucky
if I survive this year,” he said. Illustrating how broken
California’s vast water-delivery system is, many farmers in
Central Valley, America’s fruit and vegetable basket, will get
just 40% of the federal water they are supposed to this year.
Why? Endangered fish. The pumps that transport water from wet
Northern California to the semiarid south have been drastically
slowed to protect threatened migrating smelt, measuring up to 3
inches, and steelhead. That means growers in the U.S.’s richest
farming area are having to plant fewer crops even as they are
surrounded by water.
The Klamath Water Users Association, along with the U.S. Bureau
of Reclamation and other plaintiff appellants asked a Ninth
Circuit appeals panel Wednesday morning to reverse summary
judgment from a case that confirmed the bureau and other actors
must comply with the Endangered Species Act when operating the
Klamath Irrigation Project. Managed by the Bureau of
Reclamation, the Klamath Irrigation Project supplies water to
over 225,000 acres of farmland and two wildlife refuges in the
Klamath Basin along the Oregon-California border. The project,
however, decimated the local Chinook and Coho salmon
population, which the Yurok tribe rely on to survive. Dams are
currently being removed from the upper Klamath Basin, allowing
the river to flow freely for the first time in 100 years. In a
victory for the fish and the tribe, U.S. District Judge William
Orrick ruled in 2023 that the federal government must follow
its own laws, such as the Endangered Species Act…
From brown trout becoming “addicted” to methamphetamine to
European perch losing their fear of predators due to depression
medication, scientists warn that modern pharmaceutical and
illegal drug pollution is becoming a growing threat to
wildlife. Drug exposure is causing significant, unexpected
changes to some animals’ behaviour and anatomy. Scientists have
said that modern pharmaceutical waste is having significant
consequences for wildlife exposed to discharges in their
ecosystems, and warned it could have unintended consequences
for humans.
Of California’s many tough water challenges, few are more
intractable than regulating how much water must be kept in
rivers and streams to protect the environment. … But now, a
new strategy developed by scientists to end the
stalemate is gaining momentum. … Gov. Gavin Newsom has
already made the blueprint a key element of his plans
to recover salmon populations and build climate
resilience in California’s water systems. Known as
the California Environmental Flows Framework, the
scientists’ strategy shifts the focus of environmental
water management from single species to entire ecosystems.
… The blueprint is already being used for rivers that
wind through California’s famed vineyards and ancient redwood
groves, and streams that feed a Northern California lake of
cultural importance to Native American tribes.
… California and the life cycle of salmon have been linked
for centuries, beginning when only indigenous people lived in
the state. California’s rivers and streams benefit from the
nutrients salmon bring with them from the ocean. Salmon create
jobs. Salmon are our shared living heritage. … [S]almon are
on the brink despite California having some of the strictest
environmental laws on the planet. The government’s ability to
regulate this species to safety is dubious at best. Consider
that the state’s primary plan to protect the Delta by balancing
the uses of water has not been updated by the State Water
Resources Control Board since Bill Clinton was in office. It’s
a telling example of water’s political and regulatory
paralysis. There is no shared sense of responsibility to save
the salmon because we have devised such self-centered
regulatory systems. -Written by Tom Philp, reporter with the Sacramento
Bee.
U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman co-sent a letter to federal
administrators on Tuesday calling for disaster relief funding
to be allocated quicker for the state’s salmon fishery closure
in 2023. A year later and no disaster funds have been
distributed, and fishermen face another closed season.
… Historically, federal disaster aid for fishing
disasters has taken years to reach the pockets of fishermen.
The season was closed this year, the fourth in California’s
history, for largely the same conditions in 2023: low salmon
counts. In press releases, the Golden State Salmon Association
cited the failure of water management to keep fish eggs in 2021
and 2020 cool, while the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife pointed to the multi-year drought conditions the now
adult fish were reared under.
Monitoring salmon and steelhead is like ghost-hunting. Despite
declining population numbers, these spawning salmonids still
run in the memories of communities along coastal California
streams. These fish support the livelihoods of diverse people
including tribes, commercial fishers, and recreational fishing
businesses. Claire Buchanan, Bay Area Senior Project Manager,
captured the sentiment when she said “steelhead are like
ghosts” as she described how they often migrate up and down
creeks undetected under the cover of darkness and murky waters
after storms. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, at the southern edge
of where salmon spawn along the West Coast, sightings of
critically endangered coho salmon are rare and sightings of
threatened steelhead are even less frequent. Conservationists
are working to conjure more of these fish back into the Santa
Cruz Mountains.
… The vast majority of Tricolored Blackbirds spend their
whole lives in California. A handful breed in Oregon,
Washington, Nevada, and Baja California, and at least 20 of the
birds were spotted last year in Idaho. Most, however, nest in
the San Joaquin Valley, and many are known to breed a second
time in the early summer months—often 50 to 100 miles north in
the wetlands and willows of the Sacramento Valley. It’s here,
too, that the birds feed on rice in the fall. They often browse
the paddies alongside other blackbirds—including the very
similar Red-winged Blackbird—that farmers can legally cull as
pests. This has inevitably led to losses of Tricolors over the
years. Although the species’ native
nesting habitat has been almost entirely removed from
California, they’ve adapted with varying success to shifting
land use. Where vineyards and orchards have replaced grassland
and marsh, the blackbirds have mostly disappeared.
The federal government has released a 584-page document
detailing possible solutions to an invasive species that poses
“an unacceptable risk” to another fish that’s listed as
threatened. When it’s all said and done, officials want to give
smallmouth bass a cold shower — or a cool bath, anyway — to
discourage them from reproducing. Make no mistake, the U.S.
Bureau of Reclamation’s plan is a detailed “Cool Mix” strategy
on how to reduce the threat to the humpback chub in the
Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam. Smallmouth bass are
voracious predators, and they’ve started to establish
populations below the dam where the chub is struggling to
survive. Biologists say the bass will feed on the chub, their
eggs, and pretty much anything else that will fit in its mouth.
In the third week of May 2024, the water temperatures in the
lower Sacramento River recorded at Wilkins Slough increased to
72oF, well above the 68oF water quality standard (Figure 1).
These warm water temperatures occurred in a wet spring of an
Above Normal water year that is following a Wet water year. The
water temperature spike occurred between prescribed pulse flow
releases from Shasta Dam in May (Figure 1). Three pulse
flows were prescribed this spring to promote and assist
migration of juvenile salmon into the lower Sacramento River
and the Delta. After the second pulse in early May, the lower
river flow was allowed to drop to a drought-level 5000 cfs,
causing the high water temperatures. Shasta Reservoir was
virtually full at 4.3 MAF during all of May. The Central Valley
Basin Plan’s water quality objective for the lower Sacramento
River is 68oF maximum “during periods when temperature
increases will be detrimental to the fishery.” (P. 3-14).
On May 23, 2024, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
published opinion in Natural Resources Defense Council et al.
v. Debra Haaland et al. (Case No. 21-15163) (“NRDC v. Haaland”)
rejecting the plaintiffs’ challenges to the federal
environmental review of certain long-term water supply
contracts for the Central Valley Project (“CVP”). Specifically,
the Ninth Circuit held that the Bureau of Reclamation
(“Reclamation”), Fish & Wildlife Service (“FWS”), and National
Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) complied with the Endangered
Species Act (“ESA”) in evaluating the effects of executing and
implementing these contracts on listed species. The opinion is
the latest development in a nearly 20-year-old case that is in
its second round of review by the Ninth Circuit. The Sacramento
River Settlement Contractors (“Settlement Contractors”) are
agricultural, municipal, and industrial water users who hold
senior water rights to the Sacramento River. Downey Brand
represents a large group of Settlement Contractors in this
case.
California’s freshwater ecosystems—and the native plants and
animals that rely on them—have been in decline for decades.
Roughly half of California’s native freshwater species are
highly vulnerable to extinction within this century. But
efforts to protect and recover native species now face an
additional serious threat: climate change, which is
accelerating and compounding the impacts of past and current
land and water management issues. Simply working harder, using
the same insufficient approaches to conservation, is unlikely
to be successful. New approaches, including some that are
experimental or highly controversial, are urgently needed.
Although California has recently made important strides in
setting goals for salmon, the state lacks a comprehensive
approach to protecting native biodiversity in the face of
climate change. We have identified a portfolio of actions that
can help California rise to this urgent challenge.
California is recognized as one of the world’s hotspots of
biodiversity, with more species of plants and animals than any
other state. And a significant number of the state’s species,
from frogs to birds, live in habitats that depend on
groundwater. … Spotting threats to vulnerable natural areas
has become a mission for Melissa Rohde, a hydrologist who has
spent years analyzing satellite data and water levels in wells
to come up with strategies for preventing ecosystems from being
left high and dry. … California is the only state with a
groundwater law that includes provisions intended to protect
groundwater-dependent ecosystems. But the law, adopted in 2014,
gives considerable leeway to local agencies in developing water
management plans that prevent “significant and unreasonable
adverse impacts.”
Environmental activists have opened a new front in their
long-running fight against a company that pipes water from the
San Bernardino Mountains and bottles it for sale as Arrowhead
brand bottled water. In a petition to the state, several
environmental groups and local activists called for an
investigation by the California Department of Fish and
Wildlife, arguing that the company BlueTriton Brands is harming
wildlife habitat and species by extracting water that would
otherwise flow in Strawberry Creek. Those who oppose the taking
of water from San Bernardino National Forest want the state
agency to assess the environmental effects and uphold
protections under state law, said Rachel Doughty, a lawyer for
the environmental nonprofit Story of Stuff Project.
Federal agencies and California farmers fended off a challenge
by environmentalists seeking greater protections for several
vulnerable fish species, as an appeals court Thursday upheld
the handling of long-disputed irrigation water contracts. In
the latest round of a fight that’s dragged on for decades and
isn’t over yet, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals determined that the Biden administration
properly considered the impact of the irrigation water
deliveries on the delta smelt and Chinook salmon. Both species
are protected by the Endangered Species Act.
Just east of the San Francisco Bay, a steel bucket holding 90
gallons of water is strained to rescue precious cargo. The
metal roars as it spins, dispelling more and more water, to
reveal, finally, a wriggling pair of juvenile Chinook salmon.
These young, 2-inch long fish were drawn into danger by giant
pumps that push water south to millions of Californians and
farms. Saving them from likely peril has been the core purpose
since 1968 of the John E. Skinner Delta Fish Protective
Facility. But the facility been the subject of considerable
attention recently for a spike in fish deaths, drawing the ire
of environmentalists and anglers. That’s not to say farmers are
happy either, as pumps deliver less water despite a second year
of drought-busting storms.
California has prided itself on its bold leadership on climate
change. In the past twenty years, it has made unprecedented
commitments and investments to reduce emissions and build
climate resilience. Unfortunately, amid a dire state budget
crisis, California leaders are struggling to ensure that the
state will continue its leadership in meeting the challenge of
climate change. Immediate and large-scale climate action is
essential to protect people and birds. Audubon’s Survival by
Degrees report found that 389 species of North American birds
are likely to see significant population declines due to
climate change if global temperature increased beyond 3 degrees
Celsius, which now seems almost unavoidable. As the world’s
fifth largest economy and a global leader on climate policy,
California’s climate action will have direct impacts on birds
and their habitats well beyond the state’s borders.
Three California companies pushing back against state emergency
regulations and water curtailment orders saw most of their
claims dismissed by a federal judge Tuesday. Los Molinos Mutual
Water Company, Stanford Vina Ranch Irrigation Company and
Peyton Pacific Properties LLC challenged the restrictions,
which were in response to 2021 and 2022 drought conditions. …
However [U.S. District Court Judge Dale Drozd] kept intact the
Endangered Species Act claim against water board members and
staff while tossing all claims against the [state] Department
of Fish and Wildlife.
Without their knowledge, they are tracked. There are little
transmitters in their bodies, slipped inside when they were
groggy, unknowing. The tracking goes on 24 hours a day, every
day. Sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months. It is, though,
all for the good. This surveillance is done so fish in the
Mokelumne River – and fishes all over Northern California and
beyond – might survive and thrive. Acoustic tracking, it is
called. At any given time, there are hundreds of fishes
swimming about with tiny implanted transmitters. As they swim,
they ping out signals to an array of 400 receivers throughout
the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay. -Written by Rich Hanner, special to the News-Sentinel.
Learn the history and challenges facing the West’s most dramatic
and developed river.
The Layperson’s Guide to the Colorado River Basin introduces the
1,450-mile river that sustains 40 million people and millions of
acres of farmland spanning seven states and parts of northern
Mexico.
The 28-page primer explains how the river’s water is shared and
managed as the Southwest transitions to a hotter and drier
climate.
The Klamath River Basin was once one
of the world’s most ecologically magnificent regions, a watershed
teeming with salmon, migratory birds and wildlife that thrived
alongside Native American communities. The river flowed rapidly
from its headwaters in southern Oregon’s high deserts into Upper
Klamath Lake, collected snowmelt along a narrow gorge through the
Cascades, then raced downhill to the California coast in a misty,
redwood-lined finish.
In the vast labyrinth of the West
Coast’s largest freshwater tidal estuary, one native fish species
has never been so rare. Once uncountably numerous, the Delta
smelt was placed on state and federal endangered species lists in
1993, stopped appearing in most annual sampling surveys in 2016,
and is now, for all practical purposes, extinct in the wild. At
least, it was.
Biologists have designed a variety
of unique experiments in the past decade to demonstrate the
benefits that floodplains provide for small fish. Tracking
studies have used acoustic tags to show that chinook salmon
smolts with access to inundated fields are more likely than their
river-bound cohorts to reach the Pacific Ocean. This is because
the richness of floodplains offers a vital buffet of nourishment
on which young salmon can capitalize, supercharging their growth
and leading to bigger, stronger smolts.
This tour guided participants on a virtual journey deep into California’s most crucial water and ecological resource – the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The 720,000-acre network of islands and canals support the state’s two major water systems – the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. The Delta and the connecting San Francisco Bay form the largest freshwater tidal estuary of its kind on the West coast.
Voluntary agreements in California
have been touted as an innovative and flexible way to improve
environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and the rivers that feed it. The goal is to provide river flows
and habitat for fish while still allowing enough water to be
diverted for farms and cities in a way that satisfies state
regulators.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Bruce Babbitt, the former Arizona
governor and secretary of the Interior, has been a thoughtful,
provocative and sometimes forceful voice in some of the most
high-profile water conflicts over the last 40 years, including
groundwater management in Arizona and the reduction of
California’s take of the Colorado River. In 2016, former
California Gov. Jerry Brown named Babbitt as a special adviser to
work on matters relating to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and
the Delta tunnels plan.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
Water means life for all the Grand Canyon’s inhabitants, including the many varieties of insects that are a foundation of the ecosystem’s food web. But hydropower operations upstream on the Colorado River at Glen Canyon Dam, in Northern Arizona near the Utah border, disrupt the natural pace of insect reproduction as the river rises and falls, sometimes dramatically. Eggs deposited at the river’s edge are often left high and dry and their loss directly affects available food for endangered fish such as the humpback chub.
An hour’s drive north of Sacramento sits a picture-perfect valley hugging the eastern foothills of Northern California’s Coast Range, with golden hills framing grasslands mostly used for cattle grazing.
Back in the late 1800s, pioneer John Sites built his ranch there and a small township, now gone, bore his name. Today, the community of a handful of families and ranchers still maintains a proud heritage.
Farmers in the Central Valley are broiling about California’s plan to increase flows in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river systems to help struggling salmon runs avoid extinction. But in one corner of the fertile breadbasket, River Garden Farms is taking part in some extraordinary efforts to provide the embattled fish with refuge from predators and enough food to eat.
And while there is no direct benefit to one farm’s voluntary actions, the belief is what’s good for the fish is good for the farmers.
Does California need to revamp the way in which water is dedicated to the environment to better protect fish and the ecosystem at large? In the hypersensitive world of California water, where differences over who gets what can result in epic legislative and legal battles, the idea sparks a combination of fear, uncertainty and promise.
Saying that the way California manages water for the environment “isn’t working for anyone,” the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) shook things up late last year by proposing a redesigned regulatory system featuring what they described as water ecosystem plans and water budgets with allocations set aside for the environment.
As vital as the Colorado River is to the United States and
Mexico, so is the ongoing process by which the two countries
develop unique agreements to better manage the river and balance
future competing needs.
The prospect is challenging. The river is over allocated as urban
areas and farmers seek to stretch every drop of their respective
supplies. Since a historic treaty between the two countries was
signed in 1944, the United States and Mexico have periodically
added a series of arrangements to the treaty called minutes that
aim to strengthen the binational ties while addressing important
water supply, water quality and environmental concerns.
Butte Creek, a tributary of the
Sacramento River, begins less than 50 miles northeast of Chico,
California and is named after nearby volcanic plateaus or
“buttes.” The cold, clear waters of the 93-mile creek sustain the
largest naturally spawning wild population of spring-run chinook salmon in the Central Valley.
Several other native fish species are found in Butte Creek,
including Pacific lamprey and Sacramento pikeminnow.
This 28-page report describes the watersheds of the Sierra Nevada
region and details their importance to California’s overall water
picture. It describes the region’s issues and challenges,
including healthy forests, catastrophic fire, recreational
impacts, climate change, development and land use.
The report also discusses the importance of protecting and
restoring watersheds in order to retain water quality and enhance
quantity. Examples and case studies are included.
20-minute version of the 2012 documentary The Klamath Basin: A
Restoration for the Ages. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues related to complex water management
disputes in the Klamath River Basin. Narrated by actress Frances
Fisher.
For over a century, the Klamath River Basin along the Oregon and
California border has faced complex water management disputes. As
relayed in this 2012, 60-minute public television documentary
narrated by actress Frances Fisher, the water interests range
from the Tribes near the river, to energy producer PacifiCorp,
farmers, municipalities, commercial fishermen, environmentalists
– all bearing legitimate arguments for how to manage the water.
After years of fighting, a groundbreaking compromise may soon
settle the battles with two epic agreements that hold the promise
of peace and fish for the watershed. View an excerpt from the
documentary here.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
This beautiful 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, features
a map of the San Joaquin River. The map text focuses on the San
Joaquin River Restoration Program, which aims to restore flows
and populations of Chinook salmon to the river below Friant Dam
to its confluence with the Merced River. The text discusses the
history of the program, its goals and ongoing challenges with
implementation.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Klamath River Watershed. The
map text explains the many issues facing this vast,
15,000-square-mile watershed, including fish restoration;
agricultural water use; and wetlands. Also included are
descriptions of the separate, but linked, Klamath Basin
Restoration Agreement and the Klamath Hydroelectric Agreement,
and the next steps associated with those agreements. Development
of the map was funded by a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
This beautiful 24×36-inch poster, suitable for framing, displays
the rivers, lakes and reservoirs, irrigated farmland, urban areas
and Indian reservations within the Truckee River Basin, including
the Newlands Project, Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe. Map text
explains the issues surrounding the use of the Truckee-Carson
rivers, Lake Tahoe water quality improvement efforts, fishery
restoration and the effort to reach compromise solutions to many
of these issues.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The Water Education Foundation’s second edition of
the Layperson’s Guide to The Klamath River Basin is
hot off the press and available for purchase.
Updated and redesigned, the easy-to-read overview covers the
history of the region’s tribal, agricultural and environmental
relationships with one of the West’s largest rivers — and a
vast watershed that hosts one of the nation’s oldest and
largest reclamation projects.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
The federal government passed the Endangered Species Act in 1973,
following earlier legislation. The first, the Endangered
Species Preservation Act of 1966, authorized land acquisition to
conserve select species. The Endangered Species Conservation Act
of 1969 then expanded on the 1966 act, and authorized “the
compilation of a list of animals “threatened with worldwide
extinction” and prohibits their importation without a permit.”
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the issues
associated with the State Water Board’s proposed revision of the
water quality Bay-Delta Plan, most notably the question of
whether additional flows are needed for the system, and how they
might be provided.
This printed issue of Western Water examines science –
the answers it can provide to help guide management decisions in
the Delta and the inherent uncertainty it holds that can make
moving forward such a tenuous task.
This printed issue of Western Water provides an overview of the
idea of a dual conveyance facility, including questions
surrounding its cost, operation and governance
This printed copy of Western Water examines the native salmon and
trout dilemma – the extent of the crisis, its potential impact on
water deliveries and the lengths to which combined efforts can
help restore threatened and endangered species.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Delta through the
many ongoing activities focusing on it, most notably the Delta
Vision process. Many hours of testimony, research, legal
proceedings, public hearings and discussion have occurred and
will continue as the state seeks the ultimate solution to the
problems tied to the Delta.
In California and the West, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a
critical issue. Development and agricultural interests say the
law should not be used to unjustly block new projects, while
conservationists view the law as a major bulwark against the
destruction of vital habitat. In the water world, municipal and
agricultural interests say there is room to streamline the ESA’s
application to prevent undue interruption of water delivery.
Two events that transformed the West, population growth and the
dominance of agriculture, are inextricable parts of the battles
fought over its most vital resource, water. Throughout the 19th
century, as settlers sought to tame the rugged landscape,
momentum built behind the notion of a comprehensive, federally
financed waterworks plan that would provide the agrarian society
envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. The Reclamation Act of 1902,
which could arguably be described as a progression of the credo,
Manifest Destiny, transformed the West into an economic
powerhouse while putting an exclamation mark to the tide of
American migration.