Posted on 11/26/2008 9:30:13 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Environmental activists continue to deny Californians more water in the name of saving fish.
Last year, responding to an activist lawsuit, a federal judge ordered a 31 percent cut in water pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta – a water supply for 25 million residents. The judge acted in an effort to end the decline of the three-inch-long Delta smelt.
Last year, responding to activists, a judge demanded that the Department of Water Resources, which runs the State Water Project in the Delta, get a permit to “take” Delta smelt. The California Fish and Game Commission ordered the state to restrict pumping to protect larval and juvenile as well as mature smelt.
Last year, responding to activists, the Fish and Game Commission ordered protection of a kindred fish, the longfin smelt. This action extends the pumping restriction period to six months of the year.
In February, responding to activists, the commission declared longfin smelt a candidate for state endangered species status. This month, the commission extended for 90 days restrictions to protect the longfin smelt from State Water Project pumps. It also rejected a request by the state Department of Water Resources to mitigate the impact of pumping impacts on longfin smelt in lieu of stopping the pumps.
Federal regulators, too, have a role. On Dec. 15, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will release its revised biological opinion on the Delta smelt's federal status. The fish is likely to be declared, again, endangered.
And the impact on smelt of the restrictions so far? Zero. In the last five years, eight smelt were caught in the pumps. The regulations have saved none. Others suspect other culprits in the smelt's decline, such as pollutants, invasive species and drought.
Only the pumps, however, offer the huge, adverse impacts on the water supply for 25 million residents.
Just how adverse is that impact? Between increasingly onerous smelt rules and continuing drought, the state Department of Water Resources projects that in 2009 wholesale water agencies may get as little as 15 percent of the water they need. Even record snowmelt in the Rockies won't help, since the State Water Project can't deliver it.
What would help? A new official attitude that comes right out of a state Supreme Court ruling and recognizes, as Director Don Koch of the Department of Fish and Game put it, “the importance of various agencies' responsibilities to protect both humans and fish.”
Also at work is the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a move to address all possible hazards to Delta wildlife's overall health, including a system to convey water for people around instead of through the Delta. A sizable coalition led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and water and wildlife agencies will run up against the activists and their strident opposition to the dual duty for the Delta.
At least 25 million Californians north and south have all the reason they need to encourage the success of the coalition's efforts.
Just don’t take any water out of Tulloch.
(”me generation” impersonation)
Yep scoop ‘em up in a net and have a Smelt fry... cause they are not native to calif
The current plan being pushed by LA is to build a peripheral canal and to deliberately flood 90% of the Delta farmland. The attendant water rights of that farmland will then go to LA and Ah-nold is spearheading this theft of farmland that has been in some families for 150 years.
Those "activists" are my friends and their families in Clarksburg, Scribner Bend, Courtland, Rio Vista, Isleton, Merritt Island, and Hood whose farms and homes will be destroyed so LA can steal their water. THIS ARTICLE IS PURE PROPAGANDA! DO NOT FALL FOR THIS TRICK TO STEAL NORTHERN CALIFORNIA'S WATER!!!!!
Please extend my sincerest sympathies to your friends who are trying to hang onto their land.
We got some nature delivered water last night down here.
if anyone cares here is a thread:
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the people who live in Southern California.
That environment cannot sustain anything close to the present population. Everything there is artificially maintained, including the fake lawns that are implanted on a scrub-desert climate.
When I see a mud slide, a fire or some other alleged natural disaster’s aftermath, all I see are things being destroyed that didn’t belong there in the first place.
Maybe they take the hint when their artificial structures are wiped out and not come back.
We’re getting a nice dousing here in the bay area.. at least I can burn wood tonight.. I hope..
Thanks for the storm link,,
anything sliding ?
Incident: 1758
Type: Mud, Dirt or Rock Slide
Location: S MALIBU CANYON RD JNO PACIFIC COAST HWY
I think the writer meant to refer to “snowmelt in the Sierras”. The rockies are over in Colorado—well east of me in N Nevada.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.