Category: Water Management

Drought Can Be Managed – Lack of Preparation and Common Sense Cannot

So here we are again, California. We’re coming through another dry year and watching the sky, hopeful that Mother Nature will give us a reprieve.

We’ve all had a bad year, but everyone needs to buckle up because some of the biggest consumer impacts are just now showing up. Farmers, many of whom received none of their promised water allotment this year were forced to grow less of the healthy, safe, diverse food supply our families rely on. Just trying to make it through the year, most farmers had to either fallow land, focus only on the highest value crops or a combination of both. Price increases and decreased availability of some foods are hitting the markets now, just as we’re all making shopping lists for all our favorite holiday foods. What will next year bring? There are already rumblings that farms will start the year with a 0% allocation of promised water.

It doesn’t have to be this bad. California has weathered multi-year droughts as far back as data has been recorded and still been able to deliver water to farms, people, and the environment.

What is preventing California from meeting water needs now?

Of course, we’re in a drought, but there is much we could be doing to help mitigate the worst of the drought impacts on people, farms and the environment.

Our government has been slow to adjust to climate change

Climate scientists have been telling us for some time that our changed weather pattern is here to stay. We are seeing more precipitation in the form of rain instead of snow in the Sierras, drier dry years and wetter wet years. In order to adjust to these boom-or-bust water years, we must be able to store it when we get it.

If Sites Reservoir had been built, we’d have nearly one million acre-feet of water available to help reduce the impacts of this year’s drought.

But there is much more we can and should do apart from multi-year projects like Sites. Restoring flood plains and building recharge ponds is critical. It not only captures surface water, but holds it, allowing us to recharge groundwater aquifers, and also helps prevent flooding and rockslides.

We are simply not ready to adequately capture water from big storms such as in 2019 when eighteen trillion gallons of rain fell in California just in the month of February, or the atmospheric river that soaked the state in October of this year.

Making these adjustments could dramatically enhance our ability to meet California’s water needs. We just need the political will to make it happen.

State and Federal agencies want to revert to old, outdated operating rules for 2022

Over the past decade, science has taught us that keeping our ecosystem and fish populations healthy requires us to take a holistic approach to water management. Rather than only considering the amount of water in our rivers and streams, we’ve learned that we must also improve habitat, increase food supply and control predators. And in 2019, we finally abandoned decision making based on arbitrary calendar dates and began using real-time monitoring because fish don’t check the date on their iPhones, they respond to real-time changes in the ecosystem that governs their lifecycle.

And to be clear, we discarded the outdated ways of doing things because they weren’t working. Fish continued to decline throughout the decade that the ineffective rules were in place.

We already know that abandoning the holistic approach to managing our environment won’t help fish. Reverting to an outdated system also removes important operational flexibility and delivers even less water to farmers. Proposals from officials at the Bureau of Reclamation and the State of California put food production third or fourth in line for getting water. And what’s even worse, is that farmers wouldn’t know what water they will have to work with until after planting decisions must be made.

All this new plan would do is guarantee decades more conflict and litigation.

Voluntary Agreements are currently stalled

Our biggest hope for common sense water regulation remains the Voluntary Agreements. These agreements would allow local stakeholders, through a collaborative process, to decide how to best use the available water in their area and base all decisions on the latest science.

To make these agreements happen, already struggling farmers are willing to give up even more water because the result would be a holistic approach to protecting native species and enhancing fish and wildlife habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta and its tributaries, which would be good for all Californians.

Unfortunately, after years of negotiation and work throughout both the Brown and Newsom administrations, the state has chosen to walk away from talks with five water agencies operating projects on tributaries to the San Joaquin River. We appreciate how complicated the remaining issues are, including how to navigate water rights that precede the State’s oversight versus state and federal control. However, we hope all sides can find a way to work this out. Without the Voluntary Agreements, we will continue to limp along under a top-down regulatory system that cuts the locals out of key decisions and over the last decade has been making things steadily worse for fish, farms and people. Getting the Voluntary Agreements right is a critical step towards a more secure California water future and worth fighting for.

The bottom line is our state and federal governments have not done their jobs. Our infrastructure is old and decaying and outdated notions on how to protect endangered fish have clearly failed. Rather than embrace the future with new science, adaptive management, local decision-making, creating new water supplies and adapting to our new weather patterns they remain locked into old and destructive ways of doing things. Their only solution is to demand more and more from water users, and we simply have no more to give.

If the state and federal governments don’t change their way of doing things now, California farmers simply will not be able to provide the diverse food supply to which we are accustomed.

Maintaining a healthy, safe, local food supply must be a priority for California and the nation

Since 1980 California farmers have reduced water usage by double digits. But installing all the expensive drip irrigation in the world doesn’t help if there’s no water flowing through it.

Cutting farm water supplies too low or increasing the cost to unreasonable levels could cause more problems than it solves.

If the state continues on its path to abandon California farmers, we will all suffer.

A sad reality of drought, many multigenerational family businesses have closed because they were unable to make ends meet under persisting conditions. A Utah dairy farmer somberly reported, “I’ve sold my dairy animals after five generations of dairying. I’m unable to grow my own feed, super-high feed costs and lowering milk prices forced me out of the business.” Similarly, a California walnut producer wrote, “We sold the family farm due primarily to severe reduction in walnut prices and stress from water issues. My husband was a fourth-generation farmer.”
Source: 2021 American Farm Bureau Federation Survey

Less water means:

Higher costs
More land fallowing
Farms sold off to institutional interests
Driving out family-owned operations

All of which is the opposite of what Californians say they want.

Whatever farms remain will have no choice but to plant crops that provide the highest return and those are usually permanent crops. Tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, melons, sweet corn and much of the rest of California’s diverse seasonal produce will decline, leaving consumers holding the bag with higher prices and more imports from countries that don’t have the same food and worker safety laws that we have in California.

“Average yields for the 2021 harvest season are expected to be 42% lower than in 2020”

The farmers who grow our food are our neighbors. As Californians, they care about their communities and the environment. And the products they grow meet the strictest food and worker safety standards anywhere in the world. Much of the food grown on California farms can’t be replaced by trying to increase production in other areas of the country. Our unique soil and climate make California the most productive farmland in the U.S., and that makes our food production a national security issue. Squeezing out California food production will result in less availability and higher prices at the grocery store and imported food often from countries that have less stringent safety standards than we do here at home.

You cannot just move California food production to other states.

Most other states face more significant weather extremes, higher altitudes, oppressive humidity, and in some cases, too much water, which limits their ability to grow the same kinds of crops in the quantities that come from California.

For example, California grows 30 times more processing tomatoes than the No. 2 state, Indiana, because we’re more efficient food producers. The same is true for many other foods, including those from the No. 2 states in the chart to the left. And chemical inputs are less in California because diseases, mildew, and other pests are less prevalent compared to other states.

Decorative Image. Image is of dead and living orchards adjacent.

Here’s the link to the full AFBF: https://www.fb.org/market-intel/reduced-crop-yields-orchard-removals-and-herd-sell-offs-new-afbf-survey-res

State Water Board Action Threatens Jobs, Food Supply

In a stunning move that could wreak havoc on California farms, the broader California economy and our food supply in a time of national crisis, the California State Water Resources Board is trying to use regulatory maneuvers to cut this year’s water supply to California farms.

In February of this year, the Bureau of Reclamation announced the federally-run Central Valley Project would only be able to fulfill 15% of its water commitment to farmers due to a drier than normal year. In May that amount was increased to 20%. Even with this meager allotment, farmers marched forward, made their plans, purchased supplies, planted crops and committed other dollars needed to get through the growing season.

And now, in the middle of the season, the State Board wants to take back the small amount of water already promised. Losing that water now not only throws away all the money farmers have already committed, it does damage to the entire California economy just at time when we’re trying to claw back from the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Job losses in the San Joaquin Valley will be staggering, putting further pressure on our stressed unemployment system. And according to an economic analysis completed earlier this year by University of California, Berkeley, economist Dr. David Sunding, farming job losses don’t stay in the Valley – they quickly spread throughout California to the other industries that service the farm sector.

These moves also decrease tax revenue to already strapped state and local governments. We’re already faced with devastating cuts to education, police, fire, health services and more. Additional loss of revenue will only exacerbate an already critical problem.

Unfortunately, this is not only happening in California. Farmers on the California-Oregon border in the Klamath Basin are facing similar cutbacks of already-promised water as a result of pressure from other federal agencies on the water supplier, the Bureau of Reclamation. A recent protest by Oregon and California farmers and their supporters brought together 2,200 vehicles in a convoy stretching 29 miles through the region.

Our food supply has been one of the few things Americans have been able to count on during the coronavirus shutdown. That’s because farmers put in almost a year of planning, planting and work to keep that supply steady. It is never a good time to renege on a commitment but doing it in the middle of a global pandemic is unconscionable. The State Board needs to work with the federal government to work out any issues and let farmers get back to the job of feeding the state and the nation.

New Biological Opinion Fact Sheet

In October of 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) released new biological opinions (BiOps) analyzing the operation of the Federal Central Valley project (CVP) and the California State Water Project (SWP). Following the release of the BiOps, there were numerous inaccurate characterizations of the opinions. To address this misinformation, CFWC published the linked informational piece, “Myths vs. Facts: 2019 Biological Opinions for Long Term Operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project”.

The new fact sheet helps clarify four areas where incorrect information has been circulated in public: the use of best available science, protections for species under the Endangered Species Act, how the new BiOps go farther to protect imperiled species, and the process by which the BiOps underwent peer review and approval.

Developing rules that are designed to protect California’s natural resources requires an open and transparent process. The Biological Opinion fact sheet includes a list of FWS and NMFS independent experts that reviewed them prior to their approval, ensuring that the final product will provide the species protections expected under the ESA.

View or download the fact sheet at: https://bit.ly/2QFxkOp

Clearing the Water on the Biological Opinions

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the federal rules known as biological opinions that are intended to protect threatened and endangered species in the San Francisco Bay-Delta region. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, a biological opinion, “…is a document that states the opinion of the service whether or not a federal action is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of listed species in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat.”

We are nearing the end of 10 years of implementation of the biological opinions that were adopted in 2008 and 2009 and aimed but failed to lead to the recovery of Delta smelt and Chinook salmon. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and National Marine Fisheries Service, two agencies responsible for implementing the Endangered Species Act for different species, recently released updated versions of these biological opinions.

Calendar-based approach is outdated

Some stakeholders claim that existing calendar-based regulatory structures, rather than the new, real-time monitoring proposed under the updated rules are more protective of species. By contrast, many other stakeholders see a way to improve the reliability of water deliveries while also making positive changes in the environment. Specifically, we believe the new set of biological opinions actually increases protections for listed species and will help fish populations start to recover, rather than continue to decline as they have during the decade we’ve spent basing decisions on a calendar instead of emerging science.

Better protection for fish

So how are the new biological opinions an improvement over the previous ones? Here are four ways that fish receive the same or better protection moving forward.

1. Increased cold-water pool at Shasta. The additional amount of cold water that will be stored behind Shasta Dam will be used to maintain healthy temperatures AND will be managed better in order to protect salmon spawning in the Sacramento River.

2. Pumping restrictions related to salvage at the pumps. The salvage (or “take”) target for reducing pumping will be the 10-year average that was achieved under the old biological opinions. Some groups point to the old versions as the Gold Standard. Operating the Central Valley Project under the new biological opinions will not take any more fish than were taken under the old, outdated, and less flexible rules.

3. Investments in fisheries. Under the new biological opinions, $1.5 billion will be spent on fishery improvements. That includes investments in habitat, restored spawning grounds and side channels in rivers and streams that are important to the salmon life cycle. Net pens for smelt placed in the Yolo Bypass and various reaches of the Delta will help increase smelt populations from a current estimate of about 5,000 fish to a projected half a million by leveraging the existing captive population. This trend reversal is exciting and will be subject to annual reporting, a level of transparency that did not exist under the old rules.

Real-time monitoring replaces a calendar-based approach

4. Real-time monitoring. Under the new rules, pumping restrictions would be based on real-time monitoring of where smelt and migrating salmon are in the Delta, rather than the seasonal prescriptions contained in the current regulations. When we know exactly where fish are it is much easier to make determinations for water project operations that deliver more water for people without any increased risk for fish.

Flexibility for water users

Creating better habitat, improving stream flows, controlling predators, and protecting listed species from the pumps in the Delta can help turn the tide for California’s struggling fisheries. These improvements will translate into more flexibility for water operators, which is good for farms, homes, and businesses. It is the kind of success we have sought, but one that has been out of reach under the old biological opinions.

Bold Actions for People, Farms, and the Environment

The United States Bureau of Reclamation is commencing a process aimed at modernizing the operations of the federal Central Valley Project (CVP). For decades, the approaches to protecting the fish and wildlife dependent on the Bay-Delta watershed and estuary have been species-by-species and stressor-by stressor. Those approaches have failed. The effort by Reclamation responds to a consensus view within the scientific community and policy direction from the State of California – that, to improve protection and enhancement of fish and wildlife, comprehensive approaches are required.

The United States Bureau of Reclamation recently completed an important part of that process and issued what is known as a biological assessment. In simple terms, a biological assessment evaluates the possible effects that a project or action may have on a species listed as threatened or endangered as well as critical habitat protected by the Endangered Species Act. The assessment leads to a set of rules to help protect threatened or endangered species, in this case, salmon, Delta smelt, and other fish dependent on the Bay-Delta.

Reclamation’s biological assessment advances a proposed operation that responds to science and policy. It seeks to establish new rules that allow for operation of the CVP and SWP to meet the water supply needs of the people in urban and agricultural communities, within a suite of actions that address directly the many physical, biological, and chemical factors that adversely affect the health of the ecosystem.

This biological assessment process is a critical step in protecting our environment and our water supply. The biological assessment looks back at what we’ve learned and applies it to future measures. In the case of the Bay-Delta, what we have been doing hasn’t worked as the health of the Bay-Delta continues to decline, with important species, like salmon and smelt continuing their death spiral to a point of near extinction. Without undertaking this process and without the bold step by Reclamation, we remain mired in mistakes of the past.

Release of the biological assessment is one effort of many required to improve conditions for fish and wildlife and make water supply more reliable. In December, California’s Director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Chuck Bonham, and Director of the Department of Water Resources, Karla Nemeth, laid out another effort, a far-reaching plan that incorporates what we have learned from past errors and current studies and establishes an adaptive management program designed to react to new science for the benefit of the ecosystem as a whole. This comprehensive solution provides stable funding for habitat restoration and a more comprehensive approach to fish protection and enhancement, including efforts to reduce predation, eliminate passage barriers, and increase hatchery production. Now, all parties need to commit to moving beyond incremental change and take bold action by finalizing the voluntary agreements.

Governor Gavin Newson is the right person to lead California into a bold new future for people and the environment. He joined former Governor Brown and Senator Feinstein in supporting a comprehensive solution. The Farm Water Coalition had the opportunity in the not-too-distant past to host a tour into the heart of the San Joaquin Valley for then-Lieutenant Governor Newsom. We were impressed with his grasp of the issues, not only with respect to agriculture but for rural communities that depend on the farm economy and on the wildlife areas that partner with irrigation districts to improve water supply reliability for everyone.

Governor Newsom has been characterized as someone with big ideas and a willingness to take bold action. That’s what California needs as we look ahead to a new, overarching approach to protecting and enhancing the Bay-Delta and the water supplies of those in urban and agricultural areas as well as the willingness of locals to invest in that future.

Countdown: 1 Day to Drought

On Wednesday, the State Water Board will vote to remove enough water from the system to irrigate over 200,000 acres of farmland or meet the domestic needs of 2 million people every year. If approved, this action will lead to one of the most predictable droughts California has ever faced.

Is a Compromise Still Possible?

UPDATE: Gov. Jerry Brown and Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom sent a letter late on November 6th requesting the State Water Board postpone action on the Bay Delta Water Quality Control Plan until December 12, 2018. View the Letter HERE.

Until the Board votes, it’s not too late.

Farmers, irrigation districts, large cities, small towns, schools, sanitation officials, economic development agencies, large industries, small business owners and millions of Californians who have implored the Board to reconsider are ready to sit down today, as we have been for years, and work out a compromise plan.

And we come armed with up-to-date science, real world data showing demonstrable results and a willingness to work for a sustainable solution that serves all Californians. The alternative serves no one and the devastation it would cause has been well documented – $3.1 billion in lost economic activity, according to local experts, thousands of jobs gone, land fallowed, loss of water to urban and disadvantaged rural communities alike, negative impacts on schools, local sanitation, and more.

Insufficient water means lost crop production.

It’s also been well documented that decades of following this same water-only policy has had no effect – fish have continued to decline. And now, the benefits of trying another, more holistic approach are also documented.

A California future that includes healthy rivers and fish as well as jobs, fresh local produce and water for schools, businesses and homes is in front of us if the Board will allow it.

Countdown: 2 Days to Drought

On Wednesday, the State Water Board will vote to remove enough water from the system to irrigate over 200,000 acres of farmland or meet the annual domestic needs of 2 million people every year. If approved, this action will lead to one of the most preventable droughts California has faced.

How Will This Impact Our Food Supply?

Simply put, less water for farms will mean less of the fresh, local produce our families depend on.

California farmers have proven incredibly resilient in drought situations, employing the latest technology to do more with less. However, while you can grow food with less water you can’t grow it with no water.

In conjunction with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, as much as 1 million acres statewide may be fallowed due to the combined impact of these two overlapping regulations. Just ONE acre of land can yield almost 100,000 pounds of tomatoes or 36,000 heads of lettuce. Imagine the impact on California-grown tomatoes, lettuce, oranges, avocadoes, apples, strawberries, grapes, almonds, peaches and more if we have one MILLION acres less to grow our food? You can’t support California’s world-class orchards without reliable water supplies from year to year. The Water Board’s answer? Grow different crops. But farmers grow the crops people want, not the ones the State Water Board’s policy dictates.

Will there be less produce available, higher prices, fruits and vegetables that are less fresh because they must be shipped in, or all three? It’s hard to know exactly at this point, but the impacts for California consumers will be measurable and will not be limited to freshness and availability.

Our food has to come from somewhere, right? So, if we have less California produce available, then what? If we decrease our capacity at home, we put the safety and reliability of our fresh food supply in the hands of other countries that do not grow food under the same strict regulations that we follow in California.

In addition, our environment will suffer. Importing food to replace what we don’t grow at home means more ships, moretrucks, and more pollution.

There’s still time to adopt compromise plans supported by water districts, scientists, education officials, health departments, farmers, farm workers, cities, economic development officials and others ready to implement solutions that science tells us will help.

Countdown: 3 Days to Drought

On Wednesday, the State Water Board will vote to redirect enough water in the system to irrigate over 200,000 acres of farmland or meet the annual domestic needs of 2 million people every year. If approved, this action will lead to one of the most preventable droughts California has ever faced.

Is This Just Fish vs Farms?

Absolutely not. The negative impacts of this policy are broad and deep. Education officials are concerned about water supplies for schools, water experts worry this will stall groundwater replenishment, health officials are troubled by potential impacts on sanitation, cities large and small don’t know how they will replace the lost supply, Bay Area experts are alarmed by potential cuts to water supply, lost jobs and lost economic activity, and the list goes on and on, including some unexpected consequences. In a recent article from Breitbart News, Joel Pollak writes, “Leslie McGowan, the CEO of Livingston Community Health, said local hospitals saw the impact of water shortages — in the rising number of indigent patients, and in the rise of opioid use and other forms of substance abuse.”

Read about additional consequences in the words of those impacted:

“Let us be clear. The detrimental impacts of the Board’s plan will be felt strongly by the children that we serve. . . it is unclear why you have not taken the time to study the financial implications to school districts that would be forced to provide bottled water and portable toilets, or relocate schools entirely, as wells go dry. . . Access to drinking water and water for sanitation is a basic requirement for us to fulfill our mandate to provide quality education to the children of our districts.”

Steven Gomes, Merced County Superintendent of Schools
Tom Changnon, Stanislaus County Superintendent of Schools

“Many communities in the Merced area are already experiencing well production problems and drinking water quality issues . . . Over 800,000 people live in the two counties [Stanislaus and Merced]. Groundwater is the primary source of drinking water for the majority of the local population. The plan sorely understates the devastation this recommendation will cause. As an Interim Director of Environmental Health, I am required to ensure that safe, adequate, and dependable water supplies are available for domestic use.”

Vicki Jones, Interim Director of Environmental Health
Merced County Department of Public Health

“The consequences of these cutbacks potentially could cripple our Bay Area economy. Our initial economic analysis of the first iteration of this plan forecast up to 51 percent rationing, resulting in 140,000 to 188,000 jobs lost in the Bay Area.”

Harlan L. Kelly Jr., General Manager, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
Nicole Sandkulla, CEO and General Manager, Bay Area Water Supply & Conservation Agency.

Countdown: 4 Days to Drought

Countdown: 4 Days to Drought

Who will Benefit?

Sadly, no one. The Board claims that withholding this water from the human population will help fish. However, they are basing their assumptions on outdated science.

Water districts and farmers working with conservationists, government agencies and others have spent millions in the past decades studying the ecosystems of our rivers and ways to make them healthier. The resulting science has revealed a more complete vision of the problem and a holistic approach to solving it. There is growing agreement among scientists that fish need more than water to survive and thrive. We need to restore habitat, increase food supply and decrease the number of predators. In addition, we’ve learned that more important than the amount of water in the system is the timing of adding water to the system. These “functional flows” release water when, where and how it makes sense from a biological perspective.

Decades of following the water-only approach favored by the Board has had no effect – fish have continued to decline. And now, the benefits of moving away from exclusively focusing on the amount of water in the river and towards a more comprehensive approach have been documented and this strategy is now supported by our state’s most prominent water experts.

“Frankly, I think we have to get away from this notion of trying to do the math based on this much water for this many fish. That just doesn’t work. . . there is an argument that [more water] won’t make a significant enough difference unless you deal with all the other problems.”

Michael George, Delta Watermaster

“Large-scale habitat improvements in the south and central delta are key to improving salmon survival. Higher flows alone won’t be successful.”

Peter Moyle, Professor Emeritus, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and
associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis

“Simply increasing river flow represents a “sort of a scientific laziness related to the ‘fish-gotta-swim’ theory of environmental flows, like the more water you give them, the more of them there are going to be to swim.”

Jay Lund, Director, Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis

“Is the goal more water or is the goal more fish? If it’s about fish, there are better solutions.”

Doug Demko, President of Fishbio, environmental consulting firm

And Doug is correct – there are better ways. The Board’s own estimates say that the $100 million in annual community costs (local experts say the cost will be much more) will produce an additional 4,139 salmon. That’s almost $25,000 per fish. Science shows us we can do better with less devastation.

A Compromise Plan is Achievable if All Sides Come to the Table

There are a lot of discussions about what isn’t working for wildlife in California’s waterways? So what COULD work? Improving outcomes for fish species while protecting communities is possible when everyone comes together in good faith to find solutions. Local communities have made great strides, investing in ecosystem and habitat restoration, as well as preparing plans based on real-world, site-specific science that can do even more.

The heat of the Sacramento summer has also seen a lot of heated water debate, topped off by two days of contentious hearings on a proposal by the State Water Resources Board. If implemented, Phase I of this policy, which is aimed at the San Joaquin River and its tributaries, would subtract 350,000 acre-feet of water yearly from the amount available to Californians – that’s enough to irrigate over 100,000 acres of farmland or meet the domestic needs of 2 million people for a year. And that’s just the beginning. Phase II heads north into the Sacramento Valley, expanding the impact of this misguided policy to hundreds of thousands of additional acres and millions of acre-feet of water.

This proposal would have devastating impacts on more than farms and farm workers – the pain would be felt by cities as large as San Francisco and towns as small as Mendota, counties, rural areas, schools, sanitation districts, small businesses, large industries, within and far beyond the immediate areas impacted by the Board’s decision. Hundreds of people representing the broad coalition of those impacted rallied on the Capitol steps, pleading with the Board to consider alternative plans.

As summer gives way to fall, it seems a good time to step back and examine what we’ve learned for all of this. First, all Californians support healthy rivers. Keeping them and the entire ecosystem healthy makes sense for all water users. Second, this issue is not about red vs blue, fish vs farms or north vs south; it’s about all sides working together to find a real solution that is sustainable over time and serves all Californians. The question is, with so much emotion surrounding this issue, how do we get there?

Holistic, comprehensive approaches work best

The troubles in California’s rivers didn’t start yesterday, nor have those impacted been standing idly by. Water districts and farmers working with conservationists, government agencies and others have spent millions in the past decades studying the ecosystems of our rivers and ways to make them healthier. The resulting science has revealed a more complete vision of the problem and a holistic approach to solving it. There is growing agreement among scientists that fish need more than water to survive and thrive. We need to restore habitat, increase food supply and decrease the number of predators. In addition, we’ve learned that more important than the amount of water in the system is the timing of adding water to the system. These “functional flows” release water when, where and how it makes sense from a biological perspective.

Experts agree

Moving away from exclusively focusing on the amount of water in the river and towards a more comprehensive approach is supported by our state’s most prominent water experts:

Michael George, Delta Watermaster

“Is the goal more water or is the goal more fish? If it’s about fish, there are better solutions.”

Doug Demko, President of FishBio, environmental consulting firm

“Large-scale habitat improvements in the south and central delta are key to improving salmon survival. Higher flows alone won’t be successful.”

Peter Moyle, Professor Emeritus, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis

Simply increasing river flow represents a “sort of a scientific laziness related to the ‘fish-gotta-swim’ theory of environmental flows, like the more water you give them, the more of them there are going to be to swim.”

Jay Lund, Director, Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis

Science and progress in the field

But the science has not stopped at the laboratory door. Farmers throughout the state are working with the conservation community, urban and agricultural water suppliers and state and federal agencies to implement the recommendations of these studies and gather real-world data. Just one program that has seen tremendous success is the Butte Creek Salmon Recovery Project which was launched in 1995. Thanks to this project more than 10,000 spring-run salmon return on average to Butte Creek each year, up from fewer than 100 in some years as recent as the mid-1990s.

Many cooperative projects succeed

And Butte Creek is just one example – a few of the many other projects either underway or designed and shovel-ready include:

River Garden Farms invested in a multi-year project to create refuge spots for salmon intended to improve upon a barren river bottom where young fish have little if any way of evading hungry predators or taking a break from the pulsating current. The 3-year project is being monitored to see if it can be the catalyst for similar ventures. Sonar imagery has confirmed juvenile fish are using the artificial refuge, but more monitoring needs to be done.
The Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District (GCID) staff spent over 500 hours preparing and moving approximately 8,000 cubic yards of gravel to re-open Painters Riffle, a historic salmon spawning channel.
In 2012-2014 Oakdale Irrigation District, in a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, restored the Honolulu Bar section of the Stanislaus River. This restoration effort replanted the river’s banks with native vegetation and created two salmon rearing ponds plus enhanced nesting areas for spawning salmon. The project resulted in a rise from 43 to 152 salmon redds (nests) in the Honolulu Bar restoration area from 2012 to 2016. During the same period, the percentage of total redds on the Stanislaus River rose from just 2.3 percent in the Honolulu Bar area to over 11 percent in 2016, a fivefold increase.
The Tuolumne and Modesto Irrigation Districts have put together a $158 million plan that goes beyond flow, habitat and predator improvements to bald eagle and wildlife monitoring as well as protection for endangered species. The scientific modeling done around this plan shows significant improvement for both salmon and trout once implemented.

Why are farmers investing so much in all the research as well as implementation? As Roger Cornwell of River Garden Farms says, “The overall goal is to improve the ecosystem. A healthy ecosystem makes the whole river better for everybody.”

Inclusion and partnerships can lead to future success

A California future that includes healthy rivers and fish is in front of us. Farms and irrigation districts are ready to sit down today and work out a compromise plan. And we come armed with up-to-date science, real world data showing demonstrable results and a willingness to work for a sustainable solution that serves all Californians. But we can’t do it alone – we need all stakeholders to meet us at the table with a serious desire to make this work.

We know that the State Water Board has invested years of time as well as millions of dollars trying to find a path to better policy. But with all due respect, the policy on the table simply isn’t it. The devastation it would cause has been well documented – $3.1 billion in lost economic activity, thousands of jobs gone, land fallowed, loss of water to urban and disadvantaged rural communities alike, negative impacts on schools, local sanitation, and more. It’s also been well documented that decades of following this same water-only policy has had no effect – fish have continued to decline. And now, the benefits of trying another, more holistic approach are also documented. This really shouldn’t be a hard choice.

The right choice is sometimes the hard choice

The Board says it doesn’t have authority over anything other than the amount of water in the rivers. But it does have power over all of us and now would be the time to use it. Once the current proposal is approved, it seems likely that negotiations would end, and everyone moves into survival mode, which would be tragic. It takes courage to walk away from what’s always been done and chart a new course. Perhaps the Board using its power to bring all sides to negotiate a smarter path, rather than throwing up its hands, might be the most courageous act of all.