ShareThisA drought approaching epic status in California may force the state to choose one imperiled species of fish over another.
This week, state and federal water agencies petitioned regulators to relax standards for flows of fresh water in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, hub for most of California's water supply.
This means holding fresh water in the state's severely depleted reservoirs. Water officials fear there won't be enough cold water behind those dams this fall to trigger and sustain the Central Valley's fall run of iconic chinook salmon.
But the controversial move would leave less fresh water for other fish species breeding in the Delta now -- namely, the threatened Delta smelt and its cousin, the longfin smelt.
"We pray it won't be the extinction of these species," said Spreck Rosekrans, an analyst at the Environmental Defense Fund. "This is unprecedented."
Smelt and salmon are both already severely depleted. Ironically, the longfin last week was recommended for threatened status under the state Endangered Species Act by California's Department of Fish and Game.
The state's water shortage threatens to become a deathblow.
Jerry Johns, deputy director at California's Department of Water Resources, said the proposed changes are unlikely to severely affect smelt. He also said similar actions were taken during the 1976-77 drought, one of the worst on record.
"This drought we're in currently is looking pretty dismal to us," Johns said. "So we just want to make sure people understand how bad it could get, and we're taking proactive actions early to make sure we can preserve species later in the year."
But critics say that without adequate freshwater flow now, the agencies are clearly making a choice that may be harmful to smelt.
Reducing freshwater flows could leave smelt without enough habitat to breed successfully. They may also be more likely to die in the massive water export pumps that deliver Delta water to California's parched cities and farms.
Johns said holding water in reserve for salmon also means it may be available for diversion to people during the fall -- often the worst of the dry season in California.
But he said that depends on many other variables, and he emphasized that their primary concern is balancing needs of fish species.
(E-mail Matt Weiser at mweiser(at)sacbee.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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