Salmon and steelhead are threatened by California's water system, judge says

Check out Times staff writer Eric Bailey's story today on another late-Friday decision by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger of Fresno said in a 118-page opinion that the "Central Valley's winter- and spring-run salmon, as well as the remnants of its once-thriving steelhead population, are being threatened by the dams and aqueducts that store and move water around California," according to the story.

But the judge denied several remedies suggested by environmental attorneys ... such as storing more water behind Shasta Dam to be released for migrating salmon and opening a pivotal diversion dam's gates to allow the fish to reach spawning grounds.

Environmentalists sued last April over threats to salmon and steelhead. According to the story, federal officials are working on a biological study "spelling out operational changes needed to keep the state's water system functioning without endangering the fish."

During a series of hearings this summer, state and federal water agencies "voluntarily agreed to some operational changes to better protect the fish, such as earlier opening of a diversion dam and increased water flows down a key tributary," the story says. "But environmentalists and fishermen wanted more."

The judge said a "scientific and evidentiary dispute" undercut the merits of environmentalists' proposed changes. He set a hearing Wednesday to hear further arguments.

Wanger's latest decision comes nearly a year after he ordered a pivotal shift in water operations because of concerns about Delta smelt, a tiny endangered fish that lives only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. That ruling has resulted in a 30% cutback in Delta water exports this year.

On Thursday, the Public Policy Institute of California released a report concluding that a peripheral canal to carry water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta was the best potential strategy for reviving a threatened ecosystem and maintaining quality water for Californians.

-- Tami Abdollah

Photo: The 2002 Klamath salmon die-off, which officials said was the worst in decades, claimed more than 30,000 fish. Klamath, Calif. Credit: Bruce Ely, AP Photo / The Oregonian

Comments

[Bradh2o]

Great, so do nothing... typical of today's American mentality... "I'm OK today, its tomorrow's problem(s)..."

[anotherview]

Statewide, farmers overuse and waste water. Farming activity now consumes about 85 percent of the available state water supply. Households use about 5 percent. The rest goes to government, industrial, and commercial. Simple math shows that forcing farmers to lower their water use by only 5.88 percent would free up an amount equal to household water use. Further, about 30 percent of farm irrigation water runs off the land to waste. Via political pressure, however, farmers resist (1) improving their farm irrigation practices and (2) recycling farm water runoff. The Golden State has plenty of water available, but the distribution and use of this water does not happen rationally. Farmers grab most of the water, and then waste nearly a third of it. So any fair and sound solution to the water supply problem must require farmers to stop using and wasting so much water. Then others will have enough water.

[Dry Person]

The Southwest sector of the United States is predominately desert. With this in mind there is only a limited amount of water available to support the ecosystem of man, fish, and animal. I have read that some truly smart folks tell us that man’s needs take about 50 gallons of water a day per person (This is a blend of personal use and his or her share of public usage. i.e. parks and street maintenance, etc) Today the population explosion in the Southwestern states is putting an unacceptable stress on the balance. We are to a point something has to die. I wonder how much closer we could come to coexistence with all living things if we sent all the illegal populations back to their homelands. Remember they are contributing very little to this country but are consuming millions of cubic feet of water a day.

[Hassan]

Dry Person stated "...I wonder how much closer we could come to coexistence with all living things if we sent all the illegal populations back to their homelands."

Wow! Remember that most inhabitants of the United States are invaders to this land and less entitled than your "illegal populations" who are blood kin to those we forced to near extinction.

What a selfish and uneducated position to take. I truly hope that your sentiment is not popularly held.

Hassan