New Salmon Barrier Is No Substitute for Real Delta Protections

New Salmon Barrier Is No Substitute for Real Delta Protections

by Dan Bacher

In an apparent public relations move to divert media attention from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's latest attacks on Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) on May 15 unveiled a non-physical "bubble curtain" barrier to “protect” migrating Chinook salmon on the San Joaquin River in the California Delta.

DWR staff took reporters on a tour of the barrier project and enabled them to interview agency participants including Jerry Johns, DWR Deputy Director, Mark Holderman, DWR Project Manager, Dr. Mark Bowen, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation biologist, and Trent Gathright and Guy Beauchesne, EIMCO Water Technologies, LLC. This photo opportunity was held at the divergence of Old River at the San Joaquin River near Lathrop, California.

The agency’s “bubble curtain” fish barrier project combines acoustics and a strobe-lit sheet of bubbles to create an “underwater wall of light and sound at frequencies” that repel juvenile Chinook salmon, according to a news release from DWR.

"The bubble-curtain is being tested for use instead of a rock barrier that has been installed each spring in previous years to help keep juvenile salmon from straying into Old River as they out-migrate from the San Joaquin River through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta," according to DWR. "Preliminary results show that an experimental, non-physical fish barrier is working to help keep young Chinook salmon and steelhead in a more direct path to the ocean and away from agricultural diversion and the state and federal pumping plants.”

The agency said the rock barrier was not installed this year because of the Biological Opinion on Delta smelt issued in December 2008. Instead, VAMP (Vernalis Adaptive Management Plan) participants decided to test a non-physical barrier -- the strobe-lit, sound-generating bubble curtain -- in an effort to “investigate an alternative” to the rock barrier that can have adverse hydrodynamic impacts on Delta smelt.

Agency staff said that results from three of seven planned releases of hatchery juvenile Chinook salmon implanted with acoustic tags indicate that the barrier has increased the number of fish staying in the San Joaquin River to continue their out-migration to San Francisco Bay and the ocean. Past studies have shown that salmon kept in the main stem of the San Joaquin River have better survival than those that move into the central Delta through Old River.

Four remaining releases are scheduled through late May, according to DWR. Receivers are stationed along the salmon out-migration path at sites along the San Joaquin River and Old River near the barrier.

Representatives of fishing groups reserved judgment on whether the project would be beneficial or detrimental to salmon populations, but were concerned that "techno-fixes" like this one, though they sound interesting, cannot be substituted for what salmon and steelhead really need for survival - less water exported out of the California Delta and more water allowed to go down river through the estuary.

“I’m intrigued by the bubble curtain,” said Bill Jennings, chairman of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, “but I would like to better understand the potential opportunities and downsides to the project. On the surface, it appears that it may eliminate the need for certain permanent structures.”

However, he noted that regardless of whether a physical or bubble barrier is constructed, virtually all of the outmigrating salmon smolts are drawn down to Turner or Columbia Cuts into the state and federal pumps. “This bubble curtain isn’t likely to decrease the current massacre of fish that is occurring at the pumps due to water exports,” said Jennings.

Fishing groups are also concerned that DWR, an agency whose policies have helped to engineer the dramatic decline of Central Valley salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, threadfin shad, juvenile striped bass and other fish populations and the southern resident killer whale population, is using this photo opportunity as a chance to convince the media that it is doing something for salmon while it continues to pursue policies that have killed millions and millions of fish over the years.

Just last week Lester Snow, DWR Director, filed a petition to relax federal rules protecting Delta smelt, an indicator species that has declined to record low population levels in recent years. Snow formally requested the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reinitiate consultation with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation regarding state and federal water project pumping operations on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The massive pumps have exported record amounts of water out of the estuary in recent years.

In a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Snow claimed that freshwater flows to protect the smelt may not be necessary in the light of the recent discovery of a Delta smelt population at Liberty Island that is supposedly "unaffected" by State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) operations. The Delta smelt biological opinion issued on December 15 ordered restrictions on Delta water export pumping during wet years to protect the tiny fish during the fall spawning season.

"There is new information that shows there are better ways to protect Delta smelt that also better protect water supply," said Snow. "The current biological opinion contains conditions which have a high degree of scientific uncertainty for the level of protection they provide, but these conditions have significant water supply impacts for California."

Jennings called Snow’s petition a “stab in the back.”

“If the state professes that it’s committed to protecting the Delta through the Bay Delta Habitat Plan and Delta Vision processes, then why is it seeking the reversal of the opinion protecting Delta smelt?” asked Jennings. “It resolves the issue of whether the DWR and the Governor give a tinker’s damn about the health of the Delta, but it’s not surprising, since the state has historically failed to comply with requirements of the the state and federal Endangered Species Acts.”

The photo opportunity to tout how DWR is “protecting” salmon also took place the same month the State Water Resources Control Board held an evidentiary hearing on the petition by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and DWR to consolidate their respective places-of-use in their water rights permits in order to expedite water transfers over the next two years.

CSPA and C-WIN (California Water Impact Network) have protested the inclusion of the late evidence DWR submitted after evidentiary testimony, cross-examination and closing statements had been made by all other parties in the State Board hearing on the DWR/Bureau petition to consolidate the SWP and CVP places-of-use.

“This petition will allow for the first time water from Shasta to go to LA and water from Oroville to go to the Westlands Waters District,” said Jennings. “Under the guise of an emergency drought proclamation by the Governor, the California Environment Water Quality Act (CEQA) and State Board Decision 1641, the only Bay-Delta protections we have, have been tossed into the garbage.”

Jennings noted that since 1959, both the Sacramento and San Joaquin River Basins have been dry or critically dry 37 percent of the time. “One of the basins has been dry 50 percent of the time. The current 3-year drought is only the 10th worst on record. We live with drought,” noted Jennings.

Jennings emphasized that the recent actions by the Governor and DWR have pulled the rug from under faith-based environmental NGO’s who have participated in the Bay Delta Habitat Conservation Plan process.

“Clearly, recent events in waiving CEQA and Bay-Delta protections in truncated emergency hearings demonstrate that there are no regulations, no assurances, no promises and no guarantees that won’t be cast aside by the Governor and DWR whenever convenient,” Jennings concluded.

While DWR is taking the press on tours of the “bubble curtain” to demonstrate what a "great job" that it is doing to "restore" salmon, the Schwarzenegger administration continues to pursue water management policies that favor corporate agribusiness over fish and ecosystem restoration. Meanwhile, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senator Diane Feinstein and San Joaquin Valley agribusiness are pushing for a peripheral canal and more dams that are expected to exacerbate the current salmon and smelt crisis.