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California’s
biggest rivers converge in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the
waterways and wetlands forming an
ecosystem where fresh water meets salt
water from San Francisco Bay, and where
native fish historically flourished.
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Every
few years, dozens of scientists examine
the environmental health of the estuary
in a report card that considers water
flows, wildlife and habitat, as well as
other factors. Their latest shows the
bay is mostly in fair condition and
stable, but the Delta is “mostly in poor
condition and declining.”
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According
to the State of Our
Estuary report, less fresh
water has been flowing through the Delta
in recent years, which creates “chronic
artificial drought conditions” and harms
fish.
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To
learn more about the findings, I called
Christina Swanson, a biologist who for
more than two decades has worked on the
assessments. One reason the Delta’s
health is declining, she said, is that
giant state and federal pumps, as well
as those of other entities, are taking
more water out of rivers and the Delta,
“degrading the environmental and
ecological conditions that species need
to survive and to thrive.”
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“The
amount of water that we’re taking out of
the system, it’s too much,” Swanson
said, and it has “been increasing for
years, despite the fact that we know
that it’s an environmental problem.”
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The
new report, the first since 2019, was
prepared by the San Francisco Estuary
Institute, an independent environmental
research organization, together with the
San Francisco Estuary Partnership. It
was supported with federal funds that
are funneled through the state for water
initiatives.
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California’s
largest estuary provides vital habitat
for fish including Chinook salmon,
steelhead, green sturgeon, longfin smelt
and Delta smelt, but the numbers of many
native fish have declined over the last
few decades.
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On
the positive side, the researchers found
that wet years such as 2023 still allow
some fish to rebound, at least locally,
especially near floodplains that people
have worked to restore.
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Wetlands
restoration projects have increased the
tidal marshes around San Francisco Bay
to 57,800 acres, nearly twice the size
of the city of San Francisco. The
Delta’s tidal marshes have grown from
8,000 to 13,000 acres over the last five
years. Two types of birds that live in
tidal marshes — black rails and
yellowthroats — are rebounding.
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The
researchers said large wetland
restorations, such as a recent
3,400-acre project at Lookout
Slough, are helping the
Delta’s native fish.
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Still,
fish have been struggling to spawn and
survive as the amount of water left in
their habitats has decreased since the
early 2000s, and as they have endured
longer and more severe droughts, Swanson
said.
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As
California pumps water
south, an elaborate
operation focuses on
rescuing fish. Lately,
more fish have been
arriving, forcing the
state to pump less
water.
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She
noted that during the last 50 years, a
series of rules and regulations were
adopted to protect the estuary’s
ecosystem.
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“And
yet, during those same five decades,
freshwater flow has continued to
decline. Today, flow is poorer than it’s
ever been,” she said. “That says to me
that our efforts to establish
protections have not been effective, and
we need to do a better job and be better
stewards.”
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The
report does not propose policy
solutions, but the findings will be
discussed as California water officials
debate options for the Delta. The State
Water Resources Control Board is now updating a
Bay-Delta water plan that
will determine how much water may be
taken out, and how much should be
allowed to flow through the Delta.
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Efforts
to protect the Delta environment are
further complicated by climate change,
which is driving more
extreme droughts in the West
and altering precipitation patterns,
bringing less snow
and more rain.
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The
Trump administration, meanwhile, has
adopted a controversial plan to pump more
water from the Delta to
Central Valley farmlands.
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“The
Trump administration’s attempt to take
more water out,” Swanson said, “will do
nothing but exacerbate the deteriorating
condition of the system and the species
that rely on it.”
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More
water news
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Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s administration is working
on a plan to build a 45-mile water
tunnel beneath the Delta, creating a
second route to the aqueducts of the
State Water Project. But as I reported for
the L.A. Times last week, a state
appeals court rejected the state’s
financing plan for the project. The
administration still has another case
pending as it seeks to issue bonds.
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For
years, groundwater has been dropping
beneath desert farmlands in Arizona,
where the state has allowed landowners
to pump unlimited amounts. Now, the
state is finally imposing limits. Last
month, I traveled to
an area of Arizona called
the Ranegras Plain, where the aquifer
has been falling as a Saudi-owned dairy
company irrigates vast alfalfa fields.
This week, Gov. Katie Hobbs announced
that Arizona is establishing
a new “active management area”
there to protect the groundwater.
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I
also wrote about a first-of-its-kind
agreement between Arizona Atty. Gen.
Kris Mayes and another of the state’s
biggest farming businesses, which has agreed to
leave some croplands dry and
pay $11 million to help residents whose
wells have gone dry.
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The
Trump administration has released an
outline of new options for dealing with
deepening water shortages along the
Colorado River. As I reported for
The Times, the federal
government’s options could dramatically
reduce the amount of water available for
Southern California. The rules for
dealing with shortages are set to expire
at the end of this year, and
representatives of seven Western states
are holding difficult negotiations on
how to share necessary cutbacks in the
coming years.
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More
climate and environment news
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My
colleague Hayley Smith reported on one of
President Trump’s latest moves to
halt involvement in international
climate efforts, as he pulled the U.S.
out of dozens of international
organizations and treaties, including
the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change and the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change.
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For
months, federal disaster officials
leading the Eaton fire cleanup claimed
that soil testing was unnecessary, but
as Tony Briscoe and Noah Haggerty report for
The Times, the Environmental Protection
Agency is now expected to announce that
the government will pay to test the soil
for lead at 100 homes destroyed in the
fire.
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An
invasive beetle responsible for killing
hundreds of thousands of oak trees in
Southern California has now expanded into
Ventura County. Lila Seidman
reported for The Times that to prevent
further spread, some experts are calling
for regulations limiting the movement of
firewood.
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For
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Ian James @ianjames.bsky.social
on Bluesky and @ByIanJames
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