Pressure mounting on smelt study

Feinstein wants to ease economic impact on state.

 
tool goes here Political pressure is bearing down on a major study due Monday that could permanently restrict water exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect imperiled fish.

The study, called a biological opinion, is being prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service under a federal court order to protect the threatened delta smelt.

The translucent, finger-length fish has long symbolized environmental conflict in the delta, a source of drinking water for two-thirds of all Californians.

 The forthcoming study sets new operating rules for state and federal pumping systems in the delta.

Federal District Court Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno ordered the study last year, after ruling that existing operations violate the Endangered Species Act.

On Dec. 5, however, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging him to ask the Department of Justice to petition the court to delay the new rules.

A delay is "essential here to minimize the potentially devastating economic impacts to my state from significant further cutbacks in our water supply," Feinstein wrote.

Interior spokesman Shane Wolfe said the agency is preparing a response for Feinstein and has had "numerous conversations" with the Department of Justice.

Feinstein wants the study combined with a similar report being drafted for Central Valley salmon, due in March, by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Unless combined, she argues, the two might conflict.

The state Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation operate the two Delta water systems and are the lead defendants in the federal case. They provide delta water to dozens of contractors, including some of the state's largest water agencies.

DWR Deputy Director Jerry Johns said his agency wants the smelt and salmon rules combined.

"A lot of time, protecting one fish has a bad impact on the other that you didn't think about," Johns said. "What we're looking for is asking the fish agencies to consider how this gets coordinated in a more effective fashion."

Johns declined to describe DWR's concerns about the draft rules.

But in a 15-page letter to the Bureau of Reclamation on Dec. 1, obtained by The Sacramento Bee, Johns detailed numerous objections and said the rules amount to "severe" pumping cutbacks.

He complained that recommendations by state water contractors were not included in the rules, and said the pumping systems should be allowed to kill more smelt than the draft rules allow.

However, Barry Nelson, a senior policy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said there's no need for delay.

He said the salmon and smelt rules already are being coordinated in regular meetings between the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.

Nelson said indications are that the new rules include many of the protections recommended by groups such as the governor-appointed Delta Vision Task Force, which heard testimony from numerous fisheries experts in a series of meetings over nearly two years.

"I don't know which of those [water] contractors is leading the charge, but it's quite clear those contractors are hoping the agencies can be pressured to weaken the protections in the draft biological opinion," Nelson said.

Laura King-Moon, assistant general manager of the State Water Contractors, said her agency did not ask Feinstein to write the letter and has not been in contact with the Interior Secretary's Office.

She said her group, which represents 27 water agencies that buy delta water, hasn't even seen the draft biological opinion yet.

"But DWR has seen it," King-Moon said, "and the rumblings I've heard from them is that they don't seem to be very satisfied. I doubt we will be."