Adaptively Managing Extinction

In the never-ending saga of calling a skunk an adorable striped kitten, the proponents of the Voluntary Agreements released, on August 16, 2024, their latest defense of the scheme to undermine the flows needed for San Francisco Bay and the Delta to once again thrive. 

A flood of water agencies, headed by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), frame the new defense of the indefensible as “Common Responses” to criticisms of the Voluntary Agreements (VAs).

The proponents know that the VAs do virtually nothing to improve conditions in “Critically Dry” water years.  These are the driest years that have decimated fish and water quality in the last decade.  To fill the void, DWR et al. tell us (on pdf p. 49) that they plan to continue the failed Critically-Dry-year policies of the last decade as part of a strategy of “adaptive management.” 

No matter that these failed policies led, in 2014 and 2015, to the functional extinction of Delta smelt

Here’s a rundown of the gambits (quotes in italics are from p. 49 of the “Common Responses):

1. Can’t fix it here; look over there.  DWR et al. tell us that VAs don’t have to improve conditions in Critically Dry years because it is covered in other processes.  (“[P]roposed actions as part of USBR’s and DWR’s reinitiation of consultation for the long-term operation of the CVP and SWP are focused on Critical water years and improved temperature conditions downstream of Shasta Reservoir for the protection of winter-run Chinook salmon.”)  But the proposed actions in the consultations under the state and federal endangered species acts don’t require major changes in Critically Dry year water management.

2. Revise history.  Attribute environmental motivation to actions that bolster water supply.  DWR et al. tell us the State Water Board weakened protections for fish and water quality in recent droughts (2014, 2015, 2021, 2022) to protect salmon.  (“The improved ability to manage water temperature for winter-run Chinook salmon has been a common reason for temporary urgency change petitions (TUCPs) granted by the State Water Board in the recent past.”)  Nope.  The goal was not improved salmon management.  The goal was triage, mostly for water supply: take water for minimal environmental protection and reallocate it to agricultural water users. 

3. Misstate the problem.  Use a bunch of wiggly modifiers to make reaction-after-the-fact appear to be the only possible solution.  (“Critical droughts are unique events and hard to fully anticipate.”)  As my dad would have said, “balderdash.”  As CSPA’s Bill Jennings did say to the State Water Board in April 2021, droughts are normal.  “In the last 103 years, there have been 11 multi multi-year droughts in California of large large-scale extent, spanning 43 years.”

DWR and the Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) gave away too much water in Dry water years 2013 and 2020; the following years (2014, 2021) were even drier, leaving no reservoir storage to effectively manage.  See figure from Bill Jennings’s April 2021 presentation, below.

4. Mislabel the strategy.  These “temporary urgency change petitions” (TUCPs) are neither temporary nor urgent.  They are the predictable result of giving away too much water in the first Dry year.  They are not really changes, because they are serial abuse that happens every time a Critically Dry year follows a Dry year.  In the Common Responses, the VA parties officially adopt TUCPs as part of their business model.  

Here’s a fairer statement of the strategy: Deliver water aggressively knowing that you’ll be out of water if next year is dry, and then throw yourself on the mercy of the politically vulnerable State Water Board and the Governor when you run out of water.  

5. Give it the trappings of science.  The TUCPs are a form of adaptive management where USBR and DWR seek the State Water Board’s input on how to best balance beneficial uses of water during critical droughts … TUCPs are a flexible tool …”  (Emphasis added.)  The TUCPs as practiced by USBR and DWR in the past decade are “flexible” only in the sense that they allow evasion of legal protections for fish and wildlife.  USBR and DWR don’t seek “the State Water Board’s input.  They seek a rubber stamp for irreversible overallocations of water they made in a previous year.  Failing all else, they’ll all blame climate change.

Adaptive management would require enough decision space to actually make a difference.  But once a TUCP rolls around, success is no longer an option: bad management has left no room for adaptive management.

DWR and the other VA proponents are promoting “adaptive management” all over the state: for the VAs, for the Delta tunnel, for Sites Reservoir, for implementation of the state and federal endangered species acts.  The admissions in DWR et al.’s “Common Responses” reveal the emptiness of the claims that what they call adaptive management will protect fish and wildlife.