BLOG ROUND-UP: Bloggers on Oroville Dam, Delta smelt salvage, Water law and drought, Stockton and sea level rise, and more ….
Brown – his son is the current governor for those not familiar with California politics – as a pushy politician looking for a legacy.
Restore the Delta writes, ” … Reporters Ryan Sabalow and Dale Kasler examined CA’s deep history of irresponsible infrastructure planning—a statewide problem passed down from father (former-governor Pat Brown) to son (current Governor Jerry Brown)—in an article published Sunday.
… ” Read more from the PPIC Blog here: Water law aided ecosystems in drought Abolish private property in water?
… ” Continue reading at the Master Resource blog here: Abolish private property in water?
California needs markets (Stroshane reconsidered) Governor Brown cuts $100 million for drought response in revised budget: Restore the Delta writes, “Governor Brown’s May revision of the California Budget released Thursday slashed over $100 million in funds designated for drought response.
… ” Continue reading at Restore the Delta here: Governor Brown cuts $100 million for drought response in revised budget Where your water goes after it goes down the drain: Bad Mom, Good Mom writes, “Last November, I had the opportunity to chaperone my daughter’s class when they visited the West Basin Water District’s Edward C. Little Water Recycling Facility in El Segundo, California.
… ” Continue reading at the Bad Mom, Good Mom blog here: Where your water goes after it goes down the drain Stockton of the future?
Using less water on the Lower Colorado River: John Fleck writes, “At the end of April, Lake Mead sat at 1,085 feet above sea level, more than eight feet higher than it was a year ago.
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May 5: 2017 Inland Empire Your Voice Land, Air and Water: Navigating Complex Environmental Issues in the Inland Empire 9am to 4pm, Riverside Join the Environmental Law Section of the California State Bar for a community conference focusing on environmental issues in the Inland Empire. 5.5 Hours Participatory MCLE Credit available for attendance. May 17-19: Workshop on improving the skill of long-range weather forecasts (sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) precipitation forecasting) San Diego The Western States Water Council and the California Department of Water Resources are cosponsoring a recurring workshop on improving the skill of long-range weather forecasts (sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) precipitation forecasting), to support water management decision-making. The agenda will include lessons learned from recent years’ seasonal outlooks, updates on scientific research on sources of skill and predictability, and programmatic efforts to improve forecasting. Increasing forecast skill will require a sustained investment over time, prioritizing the federal resources necessary to make progress, and a specific focus on the West. Click here for more information. May 18: Groundwater Law Conference San Francisco The American…

by Peter Moyle and Jason Baumsteiger At least two species of California fishes appear to be facing imminent extinction in the wild: delta smelt and winter-run Chinook salmon.
These species could join about 57 other North American fishes declared extinct.
As far as we know, none of these fish were ever officially declared extinct for the first time by state or federal agencies.
An exception may be the thicktail chub, which was declared extinct by Mills and Mamika in an administrative report by the California Department of Fish and Game, 23 years after the last fish was caught.
How do we know when a species is extinct?
Ricciardi and Rasmussen modeled the extinction trajectories for all the aquatic fauna in North America and estimated extinction rates of 4% per decade “which suggests that North American freshwater ecosystems are being depleted of species as rapidly as tropical forests (p. 1220).” Further studies by Howard et al. for the aquatic fauna of California support this conclusion as does the study of Grantham et al., which shows a disconnect between fishes needing protection and protected areas.
In conclusion, the best strategy is not to let any fish species go extinct.
If a fish species does go extinct, despite our best efforts, then funds and water used to keep the species going should be redirected towards keeping other species from following the same extinction trajectory.
But to avoid spending scarce conservation dollars on species that have already gone extinct, we need a policy in place that provides a pathway for declaring a species officially extinct.
Missing the boat on freshwater fish conservation in California.

SCIENCE NEWS: Enhanced Delta smelt monitoring program helps fill the void; Sierra snowpack bigger than last 4 years combined; Report recommends integrated and community-based approaches to data and modeling for the Delta; and more ….
In science news this week: Wanted: More smelt data: Enhanced Delta smelt monitoring program helps fill the void; Sierra snowpack bigger than last 4 years combined; Report Recommends Integrated and Community-based Approaches to Data and Modeling for the Delta; Your comments requested on the draft 2017-2021 Delta Science Action Agenda; Tackling invasive iceplant; A decade of Delta research on juvenile salmon; A climatology of the California Current System from a network of underwater gliders; Study on impact of climate on snowpack loss in the Western US; and more … Wanted: More smelt data: Enhanced Delta smelt monitoring program helps fill the void: “Shortly after 6 a.m., boat crews with the U.S.
That’s enough snow to fill the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, nearly 1,600 times.
Please click here to read the Draft 2017-2021 Science Action Agenda.” Independent Review Panel posts report for California Water Fix Aquatic Science Peer Review: An Independent Review Panel was convened by select staff of the Delta Stewardship Council’s Delta Science Program to provide the National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S.
… ” Read more from the FishBio blog here: Tackling invasive iceplant A decade of Delta research on juvenile salmon: “California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is unique among large West Coast estuaries in that it supports four distinct runs of Chinook salmon (Onchorhynchus tshawytscha) as well as Central Valley steelhead (O. mykiss).
… ” Read more from the FishBio blog here: A Decade of Delta Research on Juvenile Salmon A climatology of the California Current System from a network of underwater gliders: “A paper by Rudnick et al. published in Progress in Oceanography includes a climatology of the California Current System, a current moving south along the U.S. West Coast.
… ” Read mroe from Science Daily here: Study on impact of climate on snowpack loss in the Western US New era of Western wildfire demand new ways of protecting people, ecosystems: “Current wildfire policy can’t adequately protect people, homes and ecosystems from the longer, hotter fire seasons climate change is causing, according to a new paper led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
… ” Read more from Science Daily here: Retreating Yukon glacier caused a river to disappear 7 science innovations that are changing conservation: “In our still relatively brief existence, humans have evolved our way to an era many are now calling the Anthropocene – a new geological epoch defined by human impact on Earth.
… ” Read more from Science Daily here: Next 10 years critical for achieving climate goals April ENSO Update: Conflicting signals from the Pacific Ocean: “The tropical Pacific Ocean has been giving mixed signals recently, making a forecaster’s job even more difficult!
About Science News and Reports: This weekly feature, posted every Thursday, is a collection of the latest scientific research and reports with a focus on relevant issues to the Delta and to California water, although other issues such as climate change are sometimes included.

Wetlands at risk from federal rule change: “The federal government’s Clean Water Act includes dozens of regulations to reduce water pollution.
… ” Read more from the PPIC Blog here: Wetlands at risk from federal rule change 100% Wrong!
Some of the discussion points are presented in this post, with my comments.
Now, by many accounts, the drought is over for much of the state.
… ” Read more from The Confluence Blog here: Extreme precipitation and water storage in California Accounting for water in the San Joaquin Valley: “Accounting for water supplies and uses is fundamental to good water management, but it is often difficult and controversial to implement.
I discussed these and related topics for the San Joaquin River fall-run salmon in a post on February 13.
In a March 1 post on its daily blog, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife predicted poor salmon runs this year: … ” Read more from the California Fisheries Blog here: Sacramento River fall-run salmon: status and future State double-feature is for the birds: “Though it’s one of the most altered landscapes in the west, the northern San Joaquin Valley still retains remnants of its marvelous natural history.
… ” Read more from The Valley Citizen here: State double-feature is for the birds Oroville’s impact on Lake Mead: “Friday’s announcement of an 85 percent California State Water Project allocation was, tentatively at least, good news for Lake Mead.
The Trump administration official said he and the governor discussed “public lands, water infrastructure and projects throughout California” that are managed by the Department of Interior.
… ” Read more from the Inkstain blog here: The paradoxes of irrigation efficiency Sign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post!

BLOG ROUND-UP: More on Delta tunnels impacts and economics, Delta smelt take limits, CVP allocation, ag water conservation, nitrate troubles, and more ….
… ” Continue reading at the Valley Economy blog here: WaterFix Economics Flop in Two Recent Federal Consultant Lists of National Infrastructure Priorities Reclamation Requests Higher Smelt Take Limits: Tom Cannon writes, “The State and Federal water projects requested on March 16, 2017 a higher take limit for Delta smelt under their endangered species permits for the south Delta pumping plants.
And as climate change brings longer, more frequent droughts, rising sea levels, and floods (or even leads to near failures of our outdated water infrastructure like we recently saw at Oroville Dam), it’s critical that we prepare for the water challenges looming ahead.
Tom Cannon writes, “The Klamath River Chinook salmon fall run is expected to be a record lows in 2017.
… ” Read more from the California Fisheries Blog here: 2017 Klamath Chinook run: Disaster or catastrophe?
In recent years, the sea received a temporary water source arranged as part of a Colorado River water trading agreement that is sending some irrigation water to cities on the Southern California coast.
John Fleck writes, “David Owen makes an interesting point in this New Yorker piece: Just as proximity makes people think that Las Vegas is the principal cause of the decline of Lake Mead, it also makes them think that any further decline in the lake will be a problem mainly, or even only, for Las Vegas.
Glen Canyon Dam and the $10 bill: John Fleck writes: “tl;dr The claims of “Fill Mead First” advocates that we could save hundreds of thousands of acre feet of water a year while draining Lake Powell and consolidating all the Colorado River’s water in Lake Mead don’t hold up.
… ” Read more from the Legal Planet blog here: The overlooked part of Trump’s Executive Order on climate change New article on judicial review and the Endangered Species Act: Damien M. Shiff writes, “The Endangered Species Act gives the United States Fish and Wildlife Service the authority to exclude areas from protected species’ “critical habitat” when the benefits of excluding those areas would exceed the benefits of including them.
… ” Read more from Legal Planet here: The implementation gap Sign up for daily email service and you’ll never miss a post!