Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

After another week of attempts  to weaken the Endangered Species Act, EDF couldn't be happier to see Lester Snow, Director of the State's Department of Water Resources, put his support of the ESA in writing. See his letter to Senator Feinstein, Secretaries Salazar and Locke  here (PDF).  We're hoping to hear the same commitment from Secretary Salazar at the public hearing tomorrow.

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

It seems like not a day goes by when we don’t hear about another attempt to undermine endangered species protections in the Bay-Delta. The latest attack comes from the Pacific Legal Foundation. PLF is planning to hold a press conference this week to call for convening a federal committee, known colloquially as the “God Squad”, to eliminate Endangered Species Act protections in the Delta. PLF is seeking to collect 10,000 signatures by August 19th on its petition and has also filed suit to invalidate protections for Delta smelt. The group claims its action will help San Joaquin Valley farmers.

PLF has chosen to blame the Delta fisheries protections for reduced water deliveries that some farming communities have experienced. Instead, PLF should evaluate California’s historically-derived water rights system, which too often provides full supplies to some areas and leaves others dry. This has meant that water sells at under $8 per acre-foot on one side of the Valley and up to $600 per acre-foot on the other side. Read more »

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

It’s been a long time coming for the San Joaquin River, but yesterday marked the beginning of the return of both the river and the salmon runs that it once supported.

Congress overwhelmingly approved the project as part of a landmark wilderness bill (sponsored by Senators Feinstein and Boxer) that will require river flows along the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam, re-watering a 63-mile stretch of the river that has been mostly dry for decades. In addition to mandated river flows, the legislation includes provisions to restore riparian habitat as well as measures to help valley farmers. This deal is in no small part due to the tireless efforts of fishing and environmental interests, led by NRDC, who first took the matter to court in 1988, showing that sometimes persistence and hard work does indeed pay off.

Additional flows on the San Joaquin will surely help the imperiled Delta ecosystem as well and will be factored into efforts to create a Bay-Delta Conservation Plan as well as Delta-related activities within the California legislature.

Victories like this are few and far between—giant kudos to our colleagues who worked so hard for so many years.

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.
Payments by federal water and power users into the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) Restoration Fund for such projects as doubling salmon populations must continue for many years to come. This is the key conclusion of a recently released draft report (PDF)by the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Back in 2005, the Central Valley Project Water Agency requested a reduction in payments to the Restoration Fund based on their claim that all reasonable efforts had been made to achieve the environmental goals of the Act. Had their request been granted, funding for programs such as restoration of the Trinity River and recovery of Central Valley salmon would have been diminished.

Read more »

Ann Hayden is a Senior Water Resource Analyst at EDF.

Contrary to the San Diego Union Tribune’s latest editorial on the Delta (“Stop handing Delta water rules to activists”), recent actions to protect imperiled Bay-Delta fish are not simply the result of requests from "environmental activists". Instead, it is the proper enforcement of the state and federal Endangered Species Act that is responsible for these actions taken to protect imperiled Bay-Delta fish. Delta smelt and other pelagic species are at their lowest levels on record; the ESA has been enforced as a last-ditch effort to prevent their extinction. Read more »

Cynthia Koehler is Senior Consulting Attorney for EDF.

The Mainstream media reports that the Bush administration is rushing to finalize "minor" changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) that would preclude federal agencies from considering global warming when determining whether fish, wildlife, plants and other species are threatened with extinction.

This provision is apparently part of the Administration's proposal to eliminate the ESA's requirement that federal fishery agencies, either the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provide scientific review for all federal projects that could affect a protected species. Read more »

Spreck Rosekrans is an Economic Analyst at EDF.

We submitted two sets of additional comments to the independent Delta Vision Blue Ribbon Task Force last week. The first set addresses legal issues in response to the Task Force's request for elements "appropriately incorporating the principles of reasonable use and public trust in California water policy making", and was prepared by our senior consulting attorney Cynthia Koehler.

The second set of comments, addressing water supply and related environmental considerations, was prepared jointly with our colleagues at The Bay Institute. It should come as no surprise that we believe that getting the financing right will be a key element of implementing a successful Delta Vision.

Turning the Vision into reality is, however, a long ways away. These comments are for the Task Force's consideration as they develop the first draft of a strategic plan. They plan on a series of three drafts over the course of the summer before completing a final strategic plan, eerily due to be completed on Halloween. After that the Task Force will hang around for a few months to answer any questions that the State's Delta Vision Committee might have, before turning into a pumpkin.