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issues,whicharealso relyingon theagree- ments,” Knell said. “Onething’sclear:Withorwithoutvolun- taryagreementsinplace,dependingonyour circumstances, therewill be plenty of risk, painanduncertainty foreveryone,”hesaid. Without voluntary agreements, Knell added, “there is nomoney for habitat and nomoney for anything else. We’ve always said, if we’re going to have a voluntary agreement,wedon’tmindpaying for hab- itat andnonflow issues if we can lower the flowpercentage.” The California Farm Bureau is among theorganizations that challenged the state unimpaired-flowsplan incourt, andFarm Bureau Senior Counsel Chris Scheuring said that unless discussions on voluntary agreements succeed, the questionwill be “bogged down in court dealing with the regulatory battle over the delta.” Scheuringsaiddeltamanagement “can- not just be a flow-centric approach. We simplycannotaffordthe luxuryofnotman- aging the systemfor all of the variables.” A second phase of the water board bay-deltaplan, affectingSacramentoRiver tributaries, has not yet been released. (Chr i s t ine Souza i s an ass i s tant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at csouza@cfbf.com.)
fisheries biologists have been studying the hypothesis that salmon could be lost to predators “in high numbers.” “Now,” Fuller said, “we have the data to say, even in good water years, we still have the potential for the predator popu- lation to consume upwards of 50% of the salmon produced.” With river flows as high as 5,000 cubic feet per second, she said, “we’re losing 50%-plus.” “Thebass are still eating salmonat 5,000 cfs at the same rate that they are at 1,000 cfs, and over a broad range of water tem- peratures,” Fuller said. “No matter what you dowith flow, you’re still going to have substantial predation.” FISHBIO researchers gathered data on the lower Stanislaus River near Riverbank last week, as part of the Stanislaus River Native Fish Plan, a study funded by the Oakdale IrrigationDistrict and South San JoaquinIrrigationDistrict. Thedistricts re- ceive water supplies from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation under pre-1914 water rights on the Stanislaus. The study intends to learn the abun- dance of fish predators in the Stanislaus near theconfluencewiththeSanJoaquin. It wasauthorized in2016 throughthe federal Water Infrastructure Improvements for the NationAct, andconductedincollaboration with state and federal fisheries agencies. With the use of “rotary screw traps” and
FISHBIO fisheries biologists conduct electrofishing surveys to collect baseline information on the abundance and distribution of predatory fish populations in the lower Stanislaus River.
fish-tracking technology, the FISHBIO team is estimating the number of juvenile salmon that enter and exit the river’s mi- gratory corridor, Fuller said. “If thatmantraiscorrect, thatmoreflowis going to give youmore fish, thenwhere are thefish?They’renothere.Thenumbershave droppeddramatically,”shesaid,addingthat theimpactofpredators“seemstobeincon- flict with their desire to getmore flow—but it shouldn’t bemutuallyexclusive.” As an alternative to the regulatory flow regime adopted by the state water board, waterdistrictshavepressedthestatetopur- suethevoluntaryagreements,whichwould includeflow,habitatandfundingelements. In early 2020, state water and re- source agencies released a framework for voluntary agreements, and interest- ed parties reportedly have continued to work through the specifics.
Those negotiations have been affected by lawsuits filed by the state of California and environmental groups, after federal agencies issued new biological opinions during the Trump administration, which determinedthatproposedlong-termoper- ations of the federal Central Valley Project and StateWater Project do not jeopardize continued existence of protected salmon and delta smelt. Inresponse, the state issuedanenviron- mentalpermit for theSWPthat couldplace itsoperationinconflictwiththatof theCVP. Oakdale Irrigation District General Manager Steve Knell said the delta litiga- tion, on topof theother regulatoryactions, mean“there’sa lot at stake ingetting tovol- untary agreements.” “Federal and state (water) exporters also have risks with regard to their ability to settle theirCoordinatedOperationPlan
For a video, see the online version of this story at www.agalert.com
12 Ag Alert May 5, 2021
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