Opinion

Salmon still not receiving promised water ON WILDLIFE

FILE--A salmon leaps a waterfall on the north fork of the Samonberry River in Oregon's Coast Range in northwest Oregon in this file photo. The Environmental Protection Agency is working with the Army Corps of Engineers to protect salmon from too-warm dam reservoir water along the Columbia and Snake rivers. (AP Photo/The Oregonian, Doug Beghtel) less FILE--A salmon leaps a waterfall on the north fork of the Samonberry River in Oregon's Coast Range in northwest Oregon in this file photo. The Environmental Protection Agency is working with the Army Corps of ... more Photo: Doug Beghtel, Associated Press Photo: Doug Beghtel, Associated Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Salmon still not receiving promised water 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

October marked 20 years since the Central Valley Project Improvement Act, a water project aimed at restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, went into effect. After many years of damage caused by water diversions from the delta, Congress acted to fix some obvious problems. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, and former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, a Democrat from New Jersey, deserve the credit for getting this law passed.

A key goal of this water project is to rebuild the state's commercially valuable salmon fishery and the rest of the delta ecosystem. The act required water managers to double the average number of adult naturally reproducing salmon (as opposed to hatchery-raised fish) in Central Valley rivers. In spite of good intentions, the law hasn't worked.

A new measurement of salmon runs developed by the Golden Gate Salmon Association and the Natural Resources Defense Council reveals that, in 2011, fish populations had fallen to only 13 percent of the federally mandated goal of 990,000 wild adult fish.

Why? Because in California, water equals money, and agricultural operations in the San Joaquin Valley have seized it for their own purposes.

The act also required water to be set aside for wildlife, including salmon, but never specified that the salmon water must be allowed to flow from Central Valley rivers all the way to the ocean, which is what salmon need. Instead, much of that water now released in the Upper Sacramento River to support wildlife is later diverted in the Sacramento River Delta and delivered to Central Valley agriculture.

This sleight of hand hasn't gone unnoticed. In a 2008 report, independent scientific reviewers said they were "flabbergasted" at how agencies reduced the amount of water that was supposed to shift under the law from farms to fish.

The act also created a $50 million annual fund to pay for projects that restore salmon and other wildlife. About half of this is spent restoring waterfowl, but instead of restoring salmon with the other half, federal water managers use this money for endless studies and staffing. Very little is applied to projects on the ground that restore salmon.

What are the real solutions? First, the U.S. Department of Interior must prioritize the salmon "doubling" requirement.

Second, the state of California, which has an identical legal requirement to double salmon runs in the Central Valley, needs to create an ambitious state salmon restoration program. Wildlife managers, not water managers, need to lead these efforts.

Initial plans to build a new peripheral canal showed that this project could drive salmon to extinction. Such plans are not faithful to the salmon-doubling requirement.

This year, stronger legal protections have helped to produce a better salmon run. Given a chance, these fish will come back, providing jobs for fishermen, revenue for our economy and delicious, healthy, local food for Californians.