Protecting California's Salmon

Coalition to Protect Salmon Files to Oppose Lawsuit to Overturn New Plan

On August 24, 2009, a coalition of fishing communities, tribes and conservation groups that includes San Francisco Baykeeper filed papers in federal court to protect California's salmon and steelhead from water diversions in the Delta. Commercial water users and agricultural interests are attempting to challenge a document issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service that will protect Delta fish populations. See the press release here.

Federal Government Issues New Rules to Protect Imperiled California Salmon

On June 4, 2009, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued an 800-page biological opinion stating that California's water diversions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to cities and farms are harming spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales. The report found that state and federal water projects resulted in reduced freshwater flow and higher water temperatures.

2009 Salmon Season Closed, NOAA Study Faults Delta Water Diversions

In March 2009, state officials closed the Chinook salmon fishing season for the second consecutive year due to record low number of salmon returning to spawn in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study released in the same month identified water diversions in the Delta as a primary cause of the decline in California's Chinook salmon population.

A Victory for Protecting Salmon

In July 2008, a federal judge declared that water diversions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta must be reduced through March 2009 in order to prevent the extinction of threatened and endangered Chinook salmon and steelhead populations. In April 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger ruled that the government’s diversions of water from Delta rivers were illegally destroying these species. After a contentious trial over how the government would be required to fix the situation, Judge Wanger ordered water managers to reduce diversions immediately, before the species disappear entirely.

California's salmon populations have plummeted dramatically in the last year, and state and federal fisheries managers were forced to close the salmon fishing season for the first time in 150 years.

Baykeeper is a member of the coalition that's been fighting to save the salmon since 2005, along with The Bay Institute, Natural Resources Defense Council, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Institute for Fisheries Resources, California Trout, Friends of the River, Northern California Council of the Federation of Fly Fishers and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, and represented by Earthjustice.

In 2005, a coalition represented by Earthjustice and including Baykeeper, The Bay Institute, National Resources Defense Council, Friends of the River and California Trout filed suit because of the water diversions’ dire effects on the crashing Delta smelt population. A June 2007 ruling by Judge Wanger in that case also ordered reductions in pumping. This latest ruling in the salmon case directly parallels the earlier decision to help save the smelt.

Delta Water Diversions Are Killing the Delta's Endangered Fish

Water exports from the Delta threaten the survival of the Chinook salmon and Delta smelt by reducing freshwater flow, eliminating spawning habitat and killing juvenile fish that are sucked into the pump machinery. Every year, an estimated 5.5 million acre-feet of water is pumped from the Delta in order to irrigate rice and other water-intensive crops grown in the semi-arid Central Valley. In 2004, water managers significantly increased the amount of water pumped from the Delta, which has led to the current salmon population crash.

Baykeeper wrote about the destruction of California's salmon in our June 2008 Bay Crossings column. Read the full analysis here.