In summary
Growers support a federal and state proposal for operating California’s massive systems that send river water south. But it could harm more salmon and other endangered fish.
When the Trump administration presented a new plan exporting more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta five years ago, state officials and environmentalists objected that the new rules would increase the chances that salmon, smelt and steelhead would go extinct.
Now, state and federal agencies are nearing the finish line on a replacement plan that could boost water supplies for cities and some growers but, according to a federal analysis, could be even more harmful to the estuary and its fish.
The Trump administration rules, critics say, fail to adequately protect endangered fish, while increasing Delta water exports to some Central Valley farms and Southern California cities.
But the new proposal from the Biden and Newsom administrations — developed mostly by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources — does not fix what environmentalists considered deal-breaking flaws in the Trump rules. Rather, they say, it worsens them, and could lead to lower survival and accelerated declines in fish listed as threatened or endangered.
“You’d think it would be at least as good as the one the (state) sued over — but it’s not,” said Jon Rosenfield, science director at San Francisco Baykeeper and one of the lead voices of opposition. “Not only do the proposed operations make things no better (for fish in the San Francisco Bay-Delta), they actually make things worse.”
Water districts serving growers and urban areas said they support the federal and state agencies’ preferred plan, even though some expect less water to be delivered to them. They said it is a carefully plotted roadmap for managing human water supply while also protecting Central Valley rivers and their fish.
The federal Bureau of Reclamation is planning to release its final environmental review of its options in mid-November, and then — in collaboration with state water officials — approve a plan for operating California’s two massive Delta water conveyance projects after a 30-day period, said David Mooney, manager of the agency’s Bay-Delta Office. Mooney told CalMatters that the final decision will be made “jointly” with the state.
At stake is a new operating arrangement for the State Water Project — which delivers Northern California river water to 27 million Californians, mostly in Southern California, and 750,000 acres of farmland — and the federal Central Valley Project, which serves 2.5 million people and 3 million acres of farmland. These systems together export 3 to 5 million acre-feet of water from the Delta each year, the equivalent of the amount used by 9 to 15 million households.
An environmental report released by the federal agency in July analyzed five options for implementing the plan. The preferred one — which was drafted after weekly meetings between six state and federal agencies — would likely harm threatened and endangered fish, according to the report.
“The Proposed Action may affect, and is likely to adversely affect Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon,” as well as Delta smelt, spring-run Chinook, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and longfin smelt, the agency reported in its biological assessment of the plan.
Adult fall-run Chinook salmon congregate near the Nimbus Hatchery Fish Ladder on the American River in Sacramento County, on Oct. 15, 2012. Photo by Carl Costas, California Department of Water Resources
State and federal officials say their new preferred option offers features that the Trump-era operating arrangement did not — including more protective temperature controls in the Sacramento River where salmon spawn, timed pulses of water in the spring to help young salmon reach the ocean, and boosted hatchery production. Special attention has been paid to spawning conditions for the Sacramento River winter-run Chinook, a federally listed endangered species.
“Overall, we expect conditions for winter-run (Chinook) to be better,” said Mooney of the federal Bureau of Reclamation.
However, when measured against a baseline of the 2019 Trump administration rules, the new operating plan could reduce numbers of young winter-run salmon swimming downstream by as much as 23% in critically dry years, according to the federal analysis. Even in wet years — generally good for salmon spawning success — it would cause a slight decline in young salmon. Environmentalists say this may be because the proposal lacks sufficient protections for the fish after they’re born, during their downstream migration through the Delta.
The state Department of Water Resources separately analyzed potential impacts of the State Water Project’s Delta facilities. Lenny Grimaldo, the project’s assistant environmental director, told CalMatters that the proposed operating plan “incorporates a portfolio of actions designed to reduce impacts to listed species while ensuring water supply reliability.”
State water officials wrote in their report that even though the Delta has been degraded by many “past actions and activities,” the isolated effect of the proposed plan would be minimal.
The expected impacts of the plan vary with how wet the year has been. For example, it could – under certain conditions — cause more fish to get sucked into the state and federal pumping stations. This is an inevitable downside of the water projects that have killed many millions of fish.
“If you operate water pumps, you are going to entrain some amount of fish, so the question is, what amount of fish is sustainable or is allowable without causing jeopardy to the population?” said Jennifer Pierre, general manager of the State Water Contractors, which represents urban water agencies and irrigation districts.
Federal fish and wildlife officials must still decide whether their option brings any of the fish species closer to extinction — not just whether it harms some fish. That decision will come in two reports, called biological opinions, that are expected before the end of the year.
Jeffrey Kightlinger, former general manager of the urban water supplier Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, said the Bureau of Reclamation’s proposed plan adequately identifies and mitigates impacts to salmon, smelt and other species. He said other environmental problems, including climate change, cause more harm to these fish in the first place.
“This iteration of the plan is, to my mind, the best one we’ve had in the last 20-something years,” he said, explaining that it more evenly distributes regulatory constraints on pumping between the federal and state water projects than previous arrangements.
One unlikely option would slash water deliveries
Of five options on the table, “Alternative 2” is endorsed by the Bureau of Reclamation, the state Department of Water Resources, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, federal fish and wildlife agencies and major agricultural water districts. It is dubbed the “Multi-Agency Consensus” alternative.
Another listed option is the so-called “No Action Alternative,” which would default to the current rules for operating the water systems stemming largely from the Trump administration in 2019. That’s an unlikely outcome, sources say.
Another was drafted with input from environmental organizations. It would drastically cut water exports from the Delta but would also, according to the federal modeling, dramatically improve environmental conditions in Central Valley rivers and increase each fish species’ survival and production.
“This is the only alternative that adequately protects endangered species,” said Ashley Overhouse, water policy advisor for Defenders of Wildlife. “It also focuses on maintaining higher reservoir storage and higher flows into and out of the Delta.”
That option would cut average annual exports from the Central Valley Project to San Joaquin Valley growers by two-thirds – from 1 million acre-feet to 333,000 acre-feet per year. It would similarly slash State Water Project exports by about half.
Urban and agricultural water user groups have endorsed the option preferred by the federal and state agencies.
Compared to the Trump-era rules, it would increase State Water Project average annual deliveries — 1.9 million acre-feet under the Trump rules — by a sliver, to just under 2 million acre-feet, with no significant changes during drought periods. For some Central Valley Project farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, water deliveries could drop by up to 19% in drought years, according to the federal analysis. Cuts are less substantial in wetter years.
Still, the water districts serving the growers said they are generally supportive.
At the Westlands Water District, which provides Central Valley Project water to San Joaquin Valley growers, average annual deliveries are expected to decline under the new plan’s preferred alternative. General Manager Allison Febbo said she expects a “significant decline in our water supply” but cannot predict “the full extent of the effects.” She attributes the cut partly to the proposed actions to help winter-run Chinook.
“But we agree those fish are in critical condition and understand the need for that, though it does impact our water supply,” she said.
For the Sacramento River Settlement Contractors – a major Central Valley Project water recipient that grows much of the state’s rice – the proposed plan, compared to the Trump rules, would cut supplies 6% on average. In dry and critically dry years, the same group of farmers would be cut 10%, according to the federal analysis. Mooney said under certain conditions, their water deliveries could be cut in half from their total allocation.
Still, they support it, said Thaddeus Bettner, the group’s executive director. He noted that five government agencies helped develop that proposal and “we want to support an action that has that level of support.”
Water projects are ‘death by a thousand cuts’
The Department of Water Resources, in its review of proposed State Water Project operations, predicted large increases in young fall-run Chinook killed by the Delta pumps.
For example, deaths of young fish at the pumping station would nearly double, to almost 7,000 fish, in years with “below normal” rainfall. The fall-run Chinook is not subject to endangered species protections, but its low numbers in the past 15 years have led to a two-year closure of commercial and recreational fishing.
But Grimaldo, at the state water agency, said the entrapment of more fish will not amount to a significant hit to the total population. “Overall, the (State Water Project) entrains a very small proportion of the approximately 20-30 million juvenile hatchery fall-run salmon released annually in the Central Valley,” he said.
While the federal review proposes actions to help the fish and offset expected impacts, the state’s environmental review, anticipating insignificant impacts, does not.
Pierre, with State Water Contractors, added that the purpose of the environmental review process is not to avoid all “take” of a species — it’s to authorize “take.” Take is the technical term for disturbing, harming or killing a protected species.
But several of these species are already close to extinction, and even slight harm at this point may be cause for concern.
“The water projects are a death by a thousand cuts, and can we tell which of those cuts is having the greatest impact?” said Carson Jeffres, a fish biologist with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. “Small changes in the (long-term operation of the water projects) won’t be a death knell, but they might just be another cut.”
Jeffres said climate change and invasive species are also responsible for the downfall of the Delta ecosystem, amplifying the impacts of dams, habitat loss, reduced flows and pumping stations.
An aerial view of Threemile Slough in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta near Rio Vista on May 19, 2024. The expansive Delta is formed by the confluence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers before they flow into San Francisco Bay. Photo by Loren Elliott for CalMatters
Environmental advocates said the time has come for a major regime shift in how water is divided between user groups. Barry Nelson, a policy representative for the Golden State Salmon Association, said the federal Bureau of Reclamation dismissed the more fish-friendly alternative “out of hand.”
“How you can fix a system that is careening toward multiple extinctions without significantly changing the status quo is beyond me,” Nelson said.
Chris Shutes, the executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, also thinks the time has come for the agricultural industry to release its legal entitlement to so much water or at least take bigger cuts in dry times.
“The water contracts need to be renegotiated,” he said, referring to long-term delivery agreements made decades ago between government agencies and farming districts. “They need to look at how to reset the system so that agriculture can remain sustainable but perhaps at a different level than it is now.”
An estuary collapse
The revision of the Central Valley’s water management system comes in the midst of an ecological meltdown in the Bay-Delta, which is California’s largest estuary. All Chinook salmon populations have crashed and salmon fishing has been banned statewide for two years.
Delta smelt, once a common species, are now nearly extinct. The small, silvery fish only lives in the Delta, and it’s long been a potent figure in California’s water wars.
Delta smelt swim in a tank at the UC Davis Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory on July 19, 2022. Photo by Hector Amezcua, The Sacramento Bee/TNS/ABACA via Reuters
Longfin smelt numbers have nosedived precipitously from historic abundance. Managed as a threatened species by the state for 15 years, it was listed in July as federally endangered, and it appears to be following in the path of its cousin the tiny Delta smelt.
Reckoning with yet another declining species, California is now evaluating whether the white sturgeon, once abundant, should be listed as threatened.
UC Davis’ Jeffres said more fish are on track to vanish without major changes to water management. California must, he said, increase river flows at key times of year while aggressively rebuilding wetlands and floodplains. He said efforts to restore flows have amounted to “messing around at the edges without doing anything at scale” to boost fish populations.
“Unless we start thinking outside the box,” he warned, “our salmon will follow the smelt” into extinction.