From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

Deals for out-of-region water transfers have some calling for a halt 

Coalition response…Proposing that a regional body assume control over locally elected irrigation and water districts may not be a good idea. The board members that make decisions on how best to manage their district have the interests of their constituents to consider. Local accountability is important. That means that the decisions made by an irrigation or water district may not be popular with every voter when they’re made to benefit the overall operation of the district. Delegating that responsibility to a regional authority means that local voters could lose their voice on important local issues.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

California Farmers Explore Water-Conserving Agriculture For A Drought-Filled Future

Coalition response…There is a reason dry land farming has been declining in popularity, as the article states. It’s just not as productive. According to a 2001 study by Peralta and Stockle, irrigation on land allows it to be twice as productive. Modern irrigation techniques, such as those widely used in California, have almost immensely increased crop production on the same amount of applied water as was used over 40 years ago. At a time when millions of people worldwide are entering middle income brackets and becoming larger food consumers, does it make sense to adopt old, less productive practices when they could hasten a global food shortage?

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

Fish Wrap: Salmon fishing outside the bay continues to run hot

Coalition response…Millions of acre-feet of water have been taken from agriculture to benefit fish since the passage of the Central Valley Project Improvement Act by Congress. Despite 20 years of water supply cuts intended to help fish, salmon numbers have continued to fluctuate through the years, meaning that dedicating more water to fish has not resulted in higher numbers.

Scientists from the Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service have identified poor ocean conditions—warm temperatures and reduced food supply—as the leading cause of the drop in salmon numbers.

In February 2008 a NMFS report (http://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/FED/00994.pdf) concluded  that the overall cause of the recent salmon decline was ocean conditions. A year later the Pacific Fisheries Management Council reported that all the evidence they could find pointed to ocean conditions as being the proximate cause of the poor performance of the 2004 and 2005 broods of Sacramento River Fall Chinook — http://www.pcouncil.org/bb/2009/0409/H2b_WGR_0409.pdf.

Since the adoption of CVPIA, studies conducted by the California Department of Fish & Game and UC Davis have also shown a strong increasing trend in the abundance of warm water predatory fish in the Delta that feed on juvenile salmon as they make their way through the Delta.  The result is predator species consuming and replacing native fish in the Delta — https://farmwater.org/centrarchids.pdf . The article doesn’t mention it but that’s the real reason salmon smolts are trucked around the Delta.

In contrast, public water agencies are translating science into action by supporting, developing and/or implementing solutions that address the need for multi-solution approaches, such as those found in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Those solutions will increase both the quality and quantity of habitat diversity through ecosystem based management, as will solutions recommended by a range of science interests from Pacific Fisheries Management Council to the Public Policy Institute of California.

Environmentalists and fishermen have the opportunity to be part of the solution but it will take a concerted effort to move beyond the old approach of simply blaming the pumps.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

Tunnels would beat Delta with ugly stick

Coalition response…The Delta is already suffering horribly from many different factors including poor water quality, invasive species, predators that consume native salmon on their migration to the ocean and waterways that no longer resemble the beauty that was once the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Legislature’s 2009 mandate for co-equal goals includes both improved water supply reliability AND ecosystem restoration. Fixing the host of problems confronting the Delta will take a lot of work and making improvements means that some things may not look the same in the future as they do today. That’s a necessary part of returning the Delta to its potential as a vibrant and productive ecosystem and serving the water supply needs of 25 million Californians and thousands of farmers. Doing nothing means that the Delta stays in its current condition, which is unacceptable for water users and true advocates for the environment.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

A healthy fishing industry is just one of the benefits of strong endangered species protections

Coalition response…NRDC continues to beat the drum over impacts on endangered salmon and in doing so, often neglects other important information. The constant drum beat of blaming the pumps for the decline of Delta fisheries is misleading and does little to provide useful information that may actually help find a solution to the Delta’s woes.

As a start, 20 years of pumping restrictions have done nothing to improve conditions for fish. One would think that if a supposed solution isn’t achieving the desired results then logic would tell you to look for another solution. But that’s not in NRDC’s playbook.

In fact, the National Research Council reported in March of 2012, “Consideration of the large number of stressors and their effects and interactions leads to the conclusion that efforts to eliminate any one stressor are unlikely to reverse the declines in the listed species.”

That is as clear as it gets. You can’t focus on solely one thing to improve ecological conditions in the Delta but Kate Poole chooses to quote Dick Pool and blame the State and federal water projects that “divert too much water out of the Delta.”

When you superimpose the chart used in Kate’s blog on a Sacramento River Chinook escapement, ocean harvest and river harvest chart you see a remarkable similarity in the trend over the past 24 years of data—www.farmwater.org/nrdcsalmondata.pdf. You also see that fishermen routinely take 50 to 90 percent of the fish in the system. I wonder how that affects fish populations. Couple that with recent data showing that 93 percent of the hatchery salmon released on the Tuolumne River never make it past the mouths of predatory bass in the Delta and one has to wonder whether the pumps are really the problem after all.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

If BDCP were science-based, Delta flows would be a priority

Coalition response…Public water agencies serve the public on a not-for-profit basis. When they do not receive supplies for which they have already contracted, the cost of water to their customers goes up. These public water agencies play a pivotal role in keeping California’s economy moving forward and it is discouraging to read an editorial that discredits their role as they seek reliable water supplies for their customers.

For more than 20 years State and federal fish agencies have attempted to protect and restore imperiled fish species through regulating water supplies. These actions have included in-stream temperature control, Delta outflow (fresh water poured into the ocean), and curtailed pumping to the extent that though northern California storage is in excess of 100% of average, today’s water supplies for farmers and communities on the San Joaquin Valley’s Westside is only 20% of what they need.  Despite these actions that have resulted in money spent, water lost and socio-economic upheaval in rural and disadvantaged agricultural communities, little if any improvement for these species has been accomplished.

Despite what this editorial purports, independent scientific evidence has already demonstrated that increasing the flow of water through the Delta will not increase the number of salmon returning to spawn or the number of Delta smelt. So what are we trying to achieve?

The safeguard of “adaptive management” is part of BDCP and will adjust operations in accordance with future unknown effects. Exports may go up if conditions improve or they may go down if there are unforeseen problems. Sacramento River flows change year-to-year and month-to-month and to set a minimum flow standard today prevents future conditions from being considered. “Adaptive management” is an important tool that should be allowed to function in order to protect all interests.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

Irrigation deal’s water is trivial, precedent huge

Coalition response…This editorial does a good job in providing the facts about the proposed transfer of water by ACID. Federal regulations require the district to install monitoring wells to gauge the effects the transfer might have on local groundwater supplies. Additional State regulations mandate that the area of origin must not be negatively impacted from the transfer. The State also requires a portion of the water to remain in the Delta to enhance the environment. These safeguards are in place to protect those who would transfer available water supplies to those in need and receive funding for projects that will benefit the customers of ACID.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here.

ACID looks at selling water to San Joaquin Valley farmers

Coalition response… Short-term transfers are a time-tested tool used to improve water management and send water from areas with available supplies to those areas in need. Transfers are automatically reviewed by the California Department of Water Resources to guarantee that areas of origin are not harmed. A portion of the transferred water will remain in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for enhancement of the Delta environment. The proposed ACID transfer will undergo the same stringent review process.

The benefits of approved transfers are two-fold: (1) districts sending the water receive funding that would not otherwise be available for improvements to their system without increasing fees to local water users and (2) areas receive the water are able to reduce shortfalls in deliveries to their users.

From News Line, a daily compilation of farm water news distributed to CFWC members and others upon request. To receive News Line, click here. 

Buchanan is critical of twin tunnels Delta plan

Coalition response…The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) is the best choice for creating water supply reliability for 25 million Californians and almost 4,000 farmers and at the same time restoring the Delta ecosystem. The construction, operation and maintenance costs of the proposed conveyance tunnels will be funded by those who receive the water. BDCP also includes the restoration of more than 100,000 acres of habitat for the Delta ecosystem.

BDCP does not prevent the ongoing efforts related to conservation, recycling and other water management practices. These practices should continue but most water industry officials have acknowledged that these efforts will not replace the reliability provided by the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.