As we enter the second year of Temporary Urgency Changes for Delta operations, the State Water Board is leaving Delta fish with no protection from our waste and the summer heat while allowing the storage and diversion of millions of acre-feet of water for cities and farms. Little or no water left the Delta for the Bay this spring, and even less will leave this summer. The Smelt Working Group charged with protecting two species of endangered smelt is about to take its summer hiatus as South Delta water temperature hits 25\u00b0C. The State Board has recently been forced to reduce Shasta Reservoir agricultural releases for fear of running out of cool water for winter run salmon again this summer.<\/p>\n
The State Board\u2019s “drought relief\u201d orders keep little water reaching the Bay and allow salt water to encroach into the Delta. The False River Barrier has been installed to keep salt out of south Delta water diversions at the expense of north Delta habitat. Interior, USFWS, NMFS, EPA, and CDFW, our resource protection agencies, have \u201cconcurred\u201d with the Temporary Urgent Change Petitions from Reclamation and CDWR, and the State Water Board has complied. 1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Meanwhile, the remnants of the Delta Smelt population have become isolated in the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel. Reclamation scientists assure us that the smelt will be fine and will descend into the cooler water at the bottom of the channel. The lack of smelt in their traditional designated critical habitat of Suisun Bay and the western Delta low-salinity-zone is apparently not a concern.<\/p>\n In the midst of all this \u201cdevastation\u201d, the Delta Science Program held a Delta Challenges Workshop this past March.<\/p>\n \u201cOn March 16, 2015 the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Science Program hosted a workshop to summarize the risks and challenges facing the Bay-Delta system. These challenges include a multitude of stressors that threaten our ability to achieve the Delta Plan\u2019s coequal goals. Numerous reviews, reports and articles describe the stressors and risks facing the contemporary Delta, but this information is spread across diverse publications, journal articles, and lengthy technical reports. The information has not yet been presented in a highly concise, readable way by an independent set of distinguished science experts.\u201d 2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dr. Moyle suggested that we prepare for the worst:\u00a0\u201cWe have to prepare for the extinction of Delta smelt: \u201cIt seems very likely to happen in the next year or two,\u201d Dr. Moyle said. \u201cThe Fall Midwater Trawl index has never been lower, we\u2019re basically not getting any in any of our samples, and then most recently, the Kodiak Trawl sampling has found very few, even in places they normally aggregate.\u201d He noted that the results of the most recent Kodiak Trawl, a survey aimed at catching smelt in the places where they\u2019re supposed to be, and where they have been in the past, were pretty dismal. \u201cThey got 6 smelt, 4 females and 2 males. So the smelt are pretty much gone from this system. We don\u2019t know yet but they could easily have reached a threshold that they can\u2019t get back over, that they can\u2019t survive. We need to be thinking now of answers to questions like: how will we know when the smelt is extinct in the wild? Who declares that? How can the captive populations present in Byron, how can these captive populations be used for re-introduction when better conditions return, at least temporarily, or even should they? And how does management of the Delta change if the Delta smelt are gone? What do we do, essentially, in the absence of Delta smelt?\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Others spoke on adaptive management: \u201cDr. Goodwin asked Maria Rea about doing large landscape-scale experiments. \u201cTo really do an experiment on the scale that needs to be done, and it\u2019s an experiment so you don\u2019t necessarily know what the outcome is, that puts people making decisions in a very difficult position, and I just wonder, how, as a science\/policy\/management community, what needs to be done to allow these landscape-scale experiments to go on?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe do need to get better at experimentation,\u201d Maria Rea answered, noting that with salmon, they\u2019ve done a bunch of tagged fish studies, some with active adaptive management. \u201cThe Vernalis Adaptive Management Program had an active component to it, but the number of fish tagged was insufficient to allow any real conclusions to be drawn from that, and so I think we\u2019ve got quite a bit of work to do to. If we\u2019re going to do a large-scale experiment and actually manipulate the system, then let\u2019s make sure we\u2019re growing enough fish and getting enough tags to put in the system that will actually be able to deduce something from the data that we get.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The need for more money for more science came up: Dr. Luoma noted that since between 1997 and 2010, there was a large injection of science into the system, tens of millions of dollars. \u201cThat was a sign of what we need to keep things moving rapidly,\u201d he said. \u201cThat money has dried up \u2026 If we\u2019re going to really continue on this journey of trying to make progress, it\u2019s obvious we need a big injection of science somewhere managed by the science program. We need an injection of science that allows us all to work together. That\u2019s desperately needed now or else we\u2019re just going to start flailing.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe need to explore performance measures, of having something that we can track that helps the policy makers understand the question, what has to happen next. \u201cI think it was Bill Dennison who ran that workshop several years ago, showed us what you can do with a really organized system of performance measures that gets the public involved, gets the policy makers involved. We can do that, we just haven\u2019t done it. I think this is something we really have to focus on doing right.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Of course, there is always the concept that the Delta continues to evolve and remains hard to understand:\u00a0Dr. Mike Healey began by noting that one of Jim Cloern\u2019s comments especially resonated with him. \u201cHis comment that the Delta is a continually evolving system and we\u2019re never going to be able to fully pin it down. Several people have been talking about wicked problems. Wicked problems have a formal definition in planning and management, and one of the characteristics of wicked problems is that they can\u2019t be solved, they can only be managed. I think that\u2019s probably what we\u2019re looking at is coming up with a system of management that will be hopefully be relatively effective, rather than imagining that we can clearly define this problem and ultimately provide a solution.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Then there is always the \u201creality check\u201d and a \u201chappy place somewhere down the road\u201d: A potential for \u201cboldness\u201d from \u201coutsiders\u201d who can provide a \u201cfresh look\u201d at the problems: And finally, \u201csomething learned\u201d, \u201cfun\u201d, and a \u201cridiculous challenge\u201d: \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how important I think this effort is,\u201d she continued. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to be incredibly helpful, because policy making in such a complex scientific environment, we need guideposts and people, you all who have both the scientific expertise and the wisdom gained through that, we really are fortunate to be able to get your expertise, so thank you so much.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Not a word on the drought or changes to Delta water quality standards, or the effects of having no freshwater flow into the Bay.<\/p>\n As we enter the second year of Temporary Urgency Changes for Delta operations, the State Water Board is leaving Delta fish with no protection from our waste and the summer heat while allowing the storage and diversion of millions of … Continue reading The Workshop<\/h1>\n
\n\u201cOnce you\u2019ve answered that question, you need to then concern yourself with what\u2019s actually feasible but most of us want something that we\u2019re really not going to be able to get, so we\u2019re going to need to be able to make a reality check and decide what among the things we\u2019d like to have we can actually accomplish, and then the final question is, how do we get to where we want to go from where we are now? And I think we still have a lot of work to do on those latter three questions,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not anywhere near coming up with the final management plan for this problem as yet, I don\u2019t think,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I hope that whatever we can come up with can make some kind of a contribution to making progress, down the road towards that happy place.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\n\u201cI really think there is an opportunity here for some boldness, and I hope that we as a foursome will be a bit bold,\u201d he said. \u201cI really do hope that we basically embrace ideas that we can agree upon and present them to you as things that would be the next steps moving forward, or at least our ideas of what that might be, because we need to move beyond just simply continuing to monitor this system. We really need to begin to actually implement some projects, some experiments, and really move that next step down the road to actually beginning to deal with some of the changes that are being imposed on the system and seeing if we can come up with a better and more beneficial ending with some of our attempts. I know it\u2019s fraught with lots of difficulty, and we\u2019re going to make lost of mistakes, but I think we need to be bold and move forward. And hopefully we can give you some ideas on how we think that might be best done.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nAfter public comment, Letty Belin with the Department of the Interior then gave some final thoughts. \u201cI think it\u2019s been an extraordinary day,\u201d she said. \u201cI bet you there\u2019s not a single person in this room that hasn\u2019t learned something significant. I\u2019m still amazed that we got this incredibly talented and experienced panel to accept what I acknowledge is a ridiculous charge. If I had this assignment, I would first turn it back to the teacher and say this is impossible, you cannot summarize this stuff in 15 to 20 pages, and then I\u2019d ask what size can the font be, can it be like .333 but anyway I know it\u2019s particularly fun to hear your reactions and use words like fun.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n