Restrict pumping, save salmon

The governor’s announcement on July 25 regarding his peripheral-canal proposal included some interesting supporting documentation released by the state to bolster his case. Among those documents is one showing how deadly the existing Delta pumps are to salmon.

Salmon advocates have been shouting this at the top of their lungs for more than a decade, but the state’s official position was that the decline in salmon populations over roughly the last eight years was caused by “ocean conditions,” not the Delta pumps. They also blamed other stressors, such as invasive species and ammonia discharges in the Delta.

Now the state is admitting that baby salmon are siphoned out of their natural migration routes by the tractor-beam suction of huge Delta pumps. They’re admitting the pumps reverse natural flows and make rivers run backward. They’re admitting that when juvenile salmon are pulled off course in the Delta, 95 percent of San Joaquin River and 60 percent of Sacramento River chinook salmon do not survive.

That’s what every responsible scientist has been saying for years.

The federal agency charged with keeping the state from killing off our salmon runs introduced new, more restrictive Delta-pumping rules in 2009. Of course, agricultural operators, who had been getting that water, and their agents in the California Department of Water Resources sued to get the pumping restrictions thrown out. They’re still in court, trying to convince anyone who’ll listen that it’s those darn “ocean conditions” and other adversities in the Delta, not the pumps, that drove the salmon runs into the ground.

But we’re finally enjoying a halfway decent salmon season this year, and it’s precisely because the 2009 pumping restrictions are starting to show results. More salmon means more employment for thousands of workers in salmon-related industries: boat and marina operators, seafood processors, tackle shops, charter-boat operators—even restaurants and hotels.

Why is the DWR still in court? The canal is many years off under any scenario. The pumping restrictions in place to keep our salmon runs healthy—plus other salmon habitat improvements—will be needed for years to come, no matter what.