California WaterBlog

For nearly 50 years, the State Water Project’s South Bay Aqueduct has been conveying water from the Delta to Alameda and Santa Clara counties.  Source: State Dept. of Water Resources

By Ellen Hanak

California has been struggling to manage its scarce water resources effectively for the benefit of competing needs: a growing population and urban economy, a highly productive agricultural sector and many valuable but threatened watersheds.

In the final months of 2009, the state Legislature passed a comprehensive package of water bills – the first in many years – to address these challenges. The package included new groundwater monitoring requirements, strengthened enforcement of surface water rights, stricter targets for water-use efficiency and a new governance structure for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – a major hub for statewide water supplies and a troubled aquatic ecosystem.

The package also included an $11.14 billion general obligation (GO) bond act supporting these and other areas, to be put before the state’s voters in November 2010. (The Legislature can place bonds on the ballot, but ultimately California voters – who foot the bill through repayments out of the state’s general fund – must approve these measures.) Concerns about weak voter support in a slow economy have since led the Legislature to twice delay putting the bond on the ballot, and it is now slated for the November 2014 general election.

The 80,000-hp pumps that lift California Aqueduct water over the Tehachapi Mountains form the highest single lift pumping plant in the world. The top of the pumps shown here extend downward six floors. Source: Chris Austin

Although this bond is large by historical standards, the 2009 legislature had reason to think voters might support it: from 2000 to 2006, voters had approved six GO bonds for water-related purposes, totaling more than $23 billion (in today’s dollars). And voters had also approved tens of billions in bonds for other purposes in the 2000s, including education, transportation and stem cell research.

But a statewide survey released in March by the Public Policy Institute of California suggests that despite a strengthening economy, today’s voters are subject to sticker shock when presented with a new water bond. Since March 2012, when economic indicators like unemployment and the state budget were less favorable than they are today, support for the bond has actually declined: only 42 percent of likely voters indicated that they would vote for the bond if the election were held today, compared with 51 percent a year ago. When those who would vote no were asked how they would vote if the bond were smaller, overall support increased to 55 percent of likely voters – a majority, but still not overwhelmingly strong support.

This message isn’t lost on the Legislature. Indeed, prior to the March PPIC survey results, the Senate had already held two informational hearings on the water bond, and their tone suggested a desire both to shrink the bond and to reconsider what it should contain. (In my testimony at the Feb. 26 hearing, I noted that while state GO bonds are welcome budgetary supplements for water managers, they require tradeoffs with other important activities – such as education, health and social services – because they are paid back through general fund tax dollars.) The Senate held a third informational hearing on the bond in Southern California on May 10. And on April 30, the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife moved forward three “placeholder” bills on the water bond, signaling its intention to reconsider the content of the bond.

The state’s Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant lifts water from the Delta 244 feet up into the California Aqueduct for export to cities and farms south. Source: State Dept. of Water Resources

One area likely to receive close scrutiny (once legislators begin rebuilding the bond in earnest) is the funding allocated for ecosystem restoration in the Delta. The current bond includes about $2 billion for that purpose, along with several hundred million dollars to support flood control and economic sustainability in the Delta.

When the bond was originally passed, this support was seen as an integral part of a package of reforms to support improved economic and environmental management of the Delta. The bond drafters explicitly rejected the prospect of funding new water conveyance infrastructure in the Delta – such as the tunnels envisaged under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). But the BDCP planned investments in habitat restoration have always assumed financial support from the general public, and a GO bond is one way to provide that support.

Whatever shape and size the next water bond ultimately takes, California will also need to find other ways to pay for water infrastructure and for critical improvements in aquatic habitat.

Options include small additional fees on monthly water and wastewater bills (something we already do in the energy sector), higher local property assessments for flood control, and new surcharges on harmful chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides to help reduce their harm on our waterways and groundwater reserves. Such fees are not likely to be especially popular, unless they come with a clear message that they are necessary for a healthy state economy and environment.

Getting the water bond right is an important item on the current policy agenda, but public policy discussions also need to consider a broader range of funding options to address our critical needs.

Ellen Hanak is Co-director of Research and Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California.

The Yolo Bypass (below) is considered one of the more promising sites for increasing fish habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Its primary purpose is to provide flood control for the Sacramento region. But it also is a valuable resource in Yolo County for farmers, duck hunters and bird watchers. Sources: Jacob Katz (above) and Carson Jeffres (below)

By Richard Howitt and Josué Medellín-Azuara

For decades, Sacramento area freeway commuters have been treated to a carousel of contrasting landscapes as they cross a vast floodplain known as the Yolo Bypass. The carousel rotates by the season.

In wet winters, the rain-swollen Sacramento River spills into the bypass, which is designed as a relief valve in the region’s flood control system. In heavy storms, the 57,000-acre bypass becomes a river. Come spring, after floodwaters recede and the ground dries, causeway commuters get an acrobatic airshow of low-flying planes that sow rice fields, which repaint the bypass a brilliant green. Harvesters shave the crop down to blonde stubble in the fall. Farmers then flood their fields to decompose the rice straw, creating habitat for migratory birds and hunting grounds for duck clubs.

The bypass trio of farms, floods and fowl has harmonized successfully for more than 70 years, with management for ducks increasing in recent decades. Now, researchers are examining the possibilities of forming a quartet. Recent studies indicate the bypass would make a fabulous salmon nursery at relatively little cost to Yolo County’s farming.

Levees in California’s Central Valley have all but eliminated the seasonal wetlands that served as food-rich rearing grounds for young salmon. To help struggling fish populations, water and wildlife managers are looking for ways to recreate the historical floodplain conditions. The UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences has been studying the question in collaboration with private landowners, environmental groups and government agencies.

Experiments at the Knaggs Ranch rice farm in the bypass show juvenile Chinook salmon growing at phenomenal rates, requiring flooding for less than two months in winter and early spring.

In February, scientists put 50,000 pinky-sized Chinook salmon into flooded test fields in the Yolo Bypass. Forty days later, they found the fish had grown nearly 1.5 inches longer and packed on weight at an average rate of 0.17 grams/day. Source: Carson Jeffres

“These fish have grown so fast that we’re calling them our ‘floodplain fatties,’ ” said Carson Jeffres, an aquatic biologist with the Center.

Test fish in the field fattened faster and had better survival rates than those left to mature in the Sacramento River. Indeed, preliminary results indicate that young salmon grow better in rice fields than in unfarmed floodplains, such as the one connected to the nearby Cosumnes River. When rice growers flood their fields they unwittingly generate lots of fish food, namely zooplankton.

Seasonal flooding of farmland does reduce the crop-growing season. But if it increases salmon growth and populations, farmers in the bypass can be compensated – just as they are now for flood control easements, which also lower rents.

Scientists release salmon in Yolo Bypass, Feb. 20, 2013. Source: UC Davis

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A recent report found that the costs of sharing the bypass with fish would be relatively small. The UC Davis study, commissioned by Yolo County, found a “sweet spot” for flooding that gives fish enough growth time without significantly cutting into crop yields and farm profitability. Fields would be drained by late March, causing a yearly loss of roughly $1.5 million or less than 1 percent of the total value added for Yolo County’s economy ($212 million in 2009). Bypass inundations extending further into spring become too warm for salmon and most other native fish.

This flooding scenario is consistent with one state officials are seriously considering, and presumably would pay for, as part of its Bay Delta Conservation Plan. It calls for flooding no more than 6,000 cubic feet per second for 30 to 45 days in the winter.

Green area with blue hatching shows footprint of area that would be inundated under the 6,000 cfs flooding scenario. Source: Yolo County

The bypass would be inundated for fish only in years when flooding in the river plain occurs naturally – which, historically, is about half of the time.

Results of the cost analysis and the ongoing salmon-rearing experiment suggest that farmers in the Yolo Bypass can look forward to profitably farming for fish, as well as for flood control, ducks and crops.

Richard Howitt is a professor emeritus of agricultural and resource economics with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Josué Medellín-Azuara is a Center researcher who specializes in economic modeling of water systems.

Further readings
Howitt, R., MacEwan, D., Garnache, C., Medellin-Azuara, J., Marchand, P., Brown, D., Six, J., Lee, J., 2013. Agricultural and Economic Impacts of Yolo Bypass Fish Habitat Proposals. Yolo County. 58p.

Jeffres, Carson. June 2, 2011. Frolicking fat floodplain fish feeding furiously. California WaterBlog

Jeffres, C., J. Opperman and P. Moyle (2008), “Ephemeral floodplain habitats provide best growth conditions for juvenile Chinook salmon in a California river,” Environmental Biology of Fishes 83 (4): 449-458.

Katz, Jacob, 2012. Knaggs Ranch Experimental Agricultural Floodplain Pilot Study 2011-2012: Year One Review. University of California, Davis. 14p.

Mount, Jeffrey. August 11, 2011. The Benefits of Floodplain Reconnection. California WaterBlog

Sommer, T., B. Harrell, M. Nobriga, R. Brown, P. Moyle, W. Kimmerer and L. Schemel (2001), “California’s Yolo Bypass: Evidence that flood control can be compatible with fisheries, wetlands, wildlife and agriculture,” Fisheries 26 (8): 6-16.

Upton, John. March 1, 2012. A Bold Plan to Reshape the Central Valley Flood Plain. The New York Times.

Researchers with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences search for clusters of frog eggs as spring snowmelt flows recede in the Rubicon River, a tributary of the Middle Fork American River. Source: Ryan Peek; April 30, 2013

By Sarah Yarnell and Ryan Peek

In case you hadn’t heard, the annual Sierra “spring snowmelt recession” has begun.

The foothill yellow-legged frog certainly knew.

Adapted to the seasonal patterns of California’s climate, this rare frog and other native amphibians, fishes and bottom-dwelling invertebrates are genetically wired to reproduce during the spring snowmelt when river flows are predictable but receding.

The river-breeding frogs in the foothills are cued by the decreasing flows and warming water to lay their eggs. They evidently got the word by April 30. Researchers with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences saw their first egg masses of the season that day as they waded the Rubicon River, one of several northern Sierra rivers that the Center monitors for ecological responses to the recession.

Source: UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

The Center’s Carson Jeffres checks for the response among native fishes in the Cosumnes River. As with the foothill yellow-legged frog, Chinook salmon, rainbow trout, hitch and suckers have evolved to fit the extremes of river flows in California’s Mediterranean climate – flows flush with snowmelt runoff in the spring but anemic through the summer and early fall. For native fishes, however, the spring snowmelt recession sends a different signal: Get off the floodplains. Go back to the river.

Historically, winter and spring floods swept fish onto floodplains – vast stretches of riverside marsh that once dominated the Central Valley. Plentiful food, slow water and few predators made for optimal fish growth. During the recession, as the floodplains drained, fish would move back into the river well-nourished. Young salmon and steelhead trout would be fit for their ocean voyage.

The Cosumnes is one of the few Valley rivers that still have a hydrologic connection to their floodplains. (Flood control projects have eliminated most natural flooding and levees have cut off salmon access to floodplains.) Jeffres’ fish survey during last year’s recession showed the natives moving off the Cosumnes floodplain on cue. This spring, however, is a scratch. Conditions were too dry; the river crested its channel only in early December.

Source: UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences

The Center’s studies of the springtime snowmelt recession, of course, are not just for curiosity’s sake. State and federal water managers are currently exploring opportunities to expand native fish species habitat in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to satisfy Endangered Species Act requirements for winter- and spring-run salmon and Central Valley steelhead. Officials need data showing that salmon and steelhead do in fact move off floodplains as waters recede and don’t get stranded, unlike non-native species such as carp.

Eggs masses laid by the foothill yellow-legged frog cling to submerged river rocks in the North Fork Yuba River. Source: Ryan Peek

The frog surveys, meanwhile, are helping to inform decisions in the federal relicensing of Sierra hydroelectric projects. Dam operations have radically changed the spring flow patterns downstream, much to the detriment of the foothill yellow-legged frog and other native aquatic species. Dam-regulated river levels can drop sharply from the peak spring flows spilling over the dam to the low, flat-lined summer flows, as managers fill reservoirs. As a result, frog eggs, which are attached to submerged rocks in the shallows, can quickly get stranded and left to bake in the sun.

The rare foothill yellow-legged frog is the only amphibian in California that breeds exclusively in rivers and streams. Source: Ryan Peek

Center researchers have helped to develop flow schedules below dams with small daily percentage declines that mirror the natural pattern of the spring snowmelt recession. In the past few years, negotiators have promoted environmentally friendlier springtime flow patterns as part of operating conditions in federal license applications for hydroelectric facilities in the Yuba River and Bear River watersheds.

Stay cued for more developments as we continue our research.

Sarah Yarnell is a hydrologist with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. Ryan Peek is an aquatic biologist with the Center.

References and further readings
Epke, GA. 2011. Spring Snowmelt Recession in Rivers of the Western Sierra Nevada Mountains. Master’s Thesis. Hydrological Sciences, University of California, Davis.

Jeffres CA, Opperman JJ, Moyle PB. Ephemeral floodplain habitats provide best growth conditions for juvenile Chinook salmon in a California river. 2008. 83(4)

Kupferberg, S., Lind, A., Mount, J., and Yarnell, S. 2009. Pulsed flow effects on the Foothill Yellow-Legged Frog (Rana boylii): Integration of empirical, experimental, and hydrodynamic modeling approaches. California Energy Commission, PIER. CEC-500-2009-002.

Lind, AJ and Yarnell SM. 2011. Frogs that go with the flow. River Management Society Journal 24(4): 10-11.

Yarnell SM. 2012. Sierra frogs breed new insights on river management. California WaterBlog

Yarnell SM, Viers JH, Mount JF. 2010. Ecology and Management of the Spring Snowmelt Recession. Bioscience. 60(2)

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UC Davis watershed scientists immerse themselves in rafting guide training on the South Fork American River, April 2013. Video/Eric Holmes.

By Chris Bowman

Researchers here at the multidisciplinary UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences convey the power and behavior of rivers in many ways.

Geologists measure the movement of sediment and the scouring of beds and banks. Ecologists read the physics of stream flows by the type of aquatic creatures and plants that live in and along the channels. Engineers calculate how rivers will respond to changes such as climate warming.

Zack Steel

Zack Steel, a landscape ecologist affiliated with the Center, recently found another, more personal way to test the waters. Armed with helmet and life jacket, he threw himself at the mercy of a fearsome rapid in the North Fork American River.

“I found myself submerged in frothy chaos, inexpertly flailing my arms as if my life depended on it,” Steel recalled of his frigid plunge. “I was able to drag myself on shore only after the rapid spit me out in the pool below.”

Steel’s sacrificial-like leap is part of whitewater rescue training that the Center offers its field researchers for job safety. Often these scientists are immersed in the rivers they research. Current projects have one team snorkeling spring-fed rivers and creeks near Mount Shasta while another wades northern Sierra rivers in the spring as they run fast and flush with snowmelt.

Steel enters Triple Threat – class 3 rapids.
Photo/Eric Holmes

Steel and fellow Center researchers Ryan Peek and Eric Holmes earned their Swift Water Rescue certification earlier this month from UC Davis Campus Recreation’s Outdoor Adventures, one of the largest university-run mountain recreation programs in the country.

At the same time, the three also learned through Outdoor Adventures how to pilot whitewater rafting trips, a tradition among Center researchers and faculty that dates back – and actually gave rise – to its founding.

The Beginning Whitewater Rafting Guide School consists of 12 classroom hours and 8 days rafting on the South Fork of the American River, a Class 3 stretch and one of California’s most popular rafting runs.

Peek said he felt fairly comfortable “reading” the water for potential hazards having waded many Sierra rivers and creeks for years as an aquatic biologist. Steering a 14-foot paddle raft in whitewater, however, is another story.

Ryan Peek
Photo/UC Davis

“Guiding a raft is not like driving a car,” he said. “A road doesn’t move under your feet, pull you back into holes, or push you out of your lane.”

“Imagine driving a bus on ice with bald tires,” one trainer quipped.

The trainees nervously took turns at the helm.

“The first day was a bit chaotic and involved pretty much every boat getting stuck, perched, bumped, or spun around more than once,” Peek said.

Directing passengers to paddle when you need them to, and in the way that you need them requires nimble river-reading skills and decisive, timely calls.

“The river is dynamic, always moving, never waiting for you to decide whether you are ready or not,” Peek said. “You must always be aware, and you must be prepared to react quickly if the river does something unexpected.”

Steering becomes all the more important when heading into Class 3 rapids named “Meatgrinder,” “Triple Threat,” “Deadman’s Drop” and the like.

Source: CaliforniaWhitewater.com

Eric Holmes said he could hear his blood thumping above the roar on approaching “Satan’s Cesspool,” a rapid that dumps into a deep, funneling pool. Rafters must hit the hole dead on at full speed.

Eric Holmes

“My heart raced as we passed the point of no return and entered the mouth,” Holmes recalled. “The hole grabbed at the right side of the raft as we skirted around the side” – a good run for a novice pilot in wicked waters.

By day eight, the trainees had a much better grip on the American.
“It looked much more like ducks in a row, with everyone keeping up and floating smoothly down the river,” Peek said.

Scientists say their swift-water skills have enabled them to survey a greater range of river habitat in their field research. Rafting reduces time spent hiking and hauling gear. Proficiency in river-reading tells them where they can safely wade and place equipment, like fish traps, and where they can’t.

“You learn to use eddies to slow yourself down. You look for the smooth tongues of water to pass through a rapid,” said Andrew Nichols, a geologist with the Center.

Rafting guide trainees celebrate passage through “Surprise,” the last rapid in their run. Photo/Eric Holmes

The Center grew out of its founding director’s love of whitewater rafting. Thirty years ago, a couple Outdoor Adventures guides – undergraduates – talked Jeffrey Mount and other UC Davis geologists into running a geology field trip in oar-frame boats down the Tuolumne River, a foamy staircase winding out of Yosemite National Park. Rafting aficionados call its Class 4 rapids the “champagne” of Sierra whitewater.

Mount, now retired from the university, reflects on that spring 1983 trip not only as one of the most frightful and exhilarating adventures of his life but also as a, well, watershed event in his career. The experience inspired him to broaden his research from rocks to rivers.

Jeff Mount

“Every geologist on this trip just went nuts viewing this glorious transect across the foothills of the Sierra,” Mount recalled in a recent interview with California WaterBlog. “At the end we all said, ‘This is the way to see geology.’”

Mount went on to become a rafting guide and lead annual river-geology trips, which he later blended into a popular “Rivers of California” course. He didn’t get far into river research before meeting UC Davis’ Peter Moyle, the leading expert on inland fishes of California. The two saw a niche in interdisciplinary studies of freshwater systems and occupied it, eventually forming the Center for Watershed Sciences, in 1998.

This spring, three of the Center’s researchers – Carson Jeffres, Joshua Viers and Sarah Yarnell – are leading a dozen students in a Sierra rivers course that culminates with a four-day rafting trip in the Tuolumne watershed. Students will produce short videos and written reports using the Tuolumne field data to address management issues in the watershed.

All three instructors are Outdoor Adventures-trained rafting guides and veterans of the Mount trips. The whitewater tradition lives on.

Chris Bowman is Communications Director at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

Gerald T. Orlob (right) worked on water quality in California and worldwide for more than 50 years. He died March 23, 2013 at 88. Jerry and fellow UC Davis professors emeritus Ian King (middle), the late Ray Krone (left) and George Tchobanoglous (not shown) shaped generations of water professionals in California. Photo: 1999

By Jay Lund

Jerry was a giant. He pioneered the field of water quality modeling and system analysis in water and environmental engineering. He founded a series of influential consulting firms, many of which exist today. And he helped establish the excellence of environmental and water engineering programs at UC Davis.

What made Jerry a giant, though, was not only his considerable technical talents, but also his ability to inspire people to work together on important problems and his sincere respect for colleagues. This respect extended to family, office and technical staff. An individual alone can accomplish very little. His gentlemanly manner and people skills allowed him to accomplish truly big things and earn widespread respect.

Gerald T. Orlob
1924-2013

Jerry came to UC Davis’ civil engineering department as a part-time faculty member and become the department’s chairman and its first National Academy of Engineering member. He led a group of UC Davis faculty (including Ray Krone, Ian King and George Tchobanoglous) that together shaped more than a generation of water and environmental engineers in California.

The technical skill that I think contributed much to his success was his ability to organize problems. His water quality modeling was impeccably organized. The spatial and temporal domains and fundamental flow and transport equations were organized into 1, 2 or 3 dimensions; the water quality and chemical processes rode on the backs of these flows; equations for the biological processes to be represented lived off the water quality and flows. Engineering and economic performance might then be estimated for a range of conditions and management alternatives. The processes were discrete, but they all worked together.

Jerry did not shy from water and water quality management and policy problems in California and worldwide. His technical analysis of alternatives to the 1982 Peripheral Canal proposal was brilliant and influential. He consulted for many years with the South Delta Water Agency, working with Alex Hildebrand. His work on water quality models for the Delta, Sacramento River, and a host of other streams are foundational to our current capabilities in these areas and the careers of many, if not most, of the senior modelers and managers of these systems today.

Jerry left big shoes to fill.

As a young professor, what impressed me most was how Jerry worked with students. I sat in on his and Ray Krone’s classes, both to learn something of their topics and their approaches to teaching and being a professor. And I learned much from having his students involved in my classes and research. We shared several students, from my first PhD student Jim Englehardt (now a professor at the University of Miami).

Jerry inspired his students to do both good and important work. His enthusiasm and joy in their common work was infectious. He seemed to encourage students to explore courses from all over campus so they would enter their careers with a broader depth and ability to see problems. “Jerry’s kids”, as I have often heard them called, are his most important professional legacy. You can see them proudly everywhere.

Jay Lund currently holds the Ray B. Krone Chair in Environmental Engineering at UC Davis and is director of the university’s Center for Watershed Sciences.

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Remembrances can be made in the form of donations to the Gerald T. and Lillian P. Orlob Professorship in Water Resources Engineering. Checks should be made payable to the UC Davis Foundation, 1 Shields Ave. Davis, CA 95616, Attn: Oliver Ramsey, UC Davis College of Engineering.

The UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences recently presented a series of nine talks on California water policy, including one by California Natural Resources Secretary John Laird. Photo: UC Davis

By Chris Austin
California’s water future is at a critical juncture.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is declining, both as a reliable hub for exporting water for millions of Californians and millions of farmed acres, and as an ecosystem supporting a vast array of wildlife.

The Delta Reform Act of 2009 set a fundamentally new state water policy by mandating the “coequal goals” of water supply reliability and ecological restoration of the estuary where native fish populations are crashing.

To meet those goals, the state has proposed construction of two giant water export tunnels underneath the Delta, running 35 miles from new intakes upstream on the Sacramento River to existing export canals near Tracy.

The re-plumbing proposal in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is highly controversial and expensive. But the costs of inaction are better understood today than they were in 1982 when California voters first rejected the proposed Peripheral Canal. Hard decisions will have to be made. Does California have the will to do it?

This past winter, the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, publisher of CaliforniaWaterBlog, invited nine top water leaders to share their insights on this question and others.

More than 50 students, mostly graduates in water sciences, attended the weekly California Water Policy Seminar Series, which also drew members of the faculty and the public. Following their public talk, each speaker engaged a smaller group of students in discussions over dinner. The Center’s video recordings of the talks are available online as are my written summaries of the presentations, posted at Maven’s Notebook. (See links below.)

The speakers were mostly optimistic, although each saw the path forward somewhat differently.

Phil Isenberg, chairman of the Delta Stewardship Council, said his hope springs in part from water contractors’ newfound acceptance of uncertainty in amount of Delta water exports. The debate over the Bay Delta Conservation Plan marks the first time the contractors have not demanded legal guarantees on how much water they would received, Isenberg said.

“I can’t tell you how odd that sounds to someone in the water world, because everyone wants guarantees, whether it’s guarantees on water deliveries or the number of salmon that pass a certain point at March 31st of every year,” Isenberg said. Video, Script, Maven’s Notebook

Felicia Marcus, a member of the State Water Resources Control Board, sees hope for compromise because “virtually all” Delta interest groups are backing off from their “all-or-nothing” positions of the past.

Felicia Marcus, State Water Resources Control Board. Photo: UC Davis

Still, Marcus said, “Egosystem management” remains the biggest challenge – “not ecosystem management or economics or politics or legislative hoo-ha, you name it, but actually just dealing with the people who happen to be in the room.” Video, Maven’s Notebook

State Natural Resources Secretary John Laird talked about developing solutions within the existing legal framework. He sees this time as a window of opportunity for reform that isn’t opened but every 10 or 15 years. One of the biggest challenges he said is public perception, particularly among older Californians.

“They think of the Delta controversies as they did 30 years ago when the Peripheral Canal was on the ballot. They’re locked into the narrative of a north-south political war…People need to understand that they’ll be paying mainly for increased reliability in water supply, not necessarily for more water.” Video, Maven’s Notebook

Tim Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, said the new coequal goals are achievable through technology but much more expensive than the traditional single-purpose goal of expanding the availability of cheap water.

“If you want the Delta to function for coequal goals,” Quinn said, “the most important thing to do is technological; its infrastructure; it’s to isolate those two water uses, the environmental from the economic, to give yourself a standing chance to deal with risks that remain and those risks in theory should be enormously smaller. And that’s what they’re trying to do in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.” Video, Maven’s Notebook

Mark Cowin, director of the State Department of Water Resources. Photo: UC Davis

Department of Water Resources Director Mark Cowin said that while the department has made headway integrating flood management, water project financing and land use planning with traditional water supply-and-demand issues, new and better water management tools are needed.

“How do you measure resiliency in a system? … How do you value ecosystem function and health? This is one of the key issues that we are dealing with in the BDCP.” Video, Maven’s Notebook

State Sen. Lois Wolk of Davis said that while broadening the representation and collaboration in water policymaking is more difficult and time consuming, the outcome is more sustainable because it enjoys wider support.

“The best and most long-lasting decisions or solutions to problems are when you have buy-in from the largest number of folks who are affected by what you are trying to do,” Wolk said, citing hard-won consensus agreements on environmental plans at Lake Tahoe, the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and the Everglades. Video, Maven’s Notebook

Jay Lund, director of the watershed sciences center, pointed out that local governments and irrigation districts are the key to moving the state towards solutions in this era of declining state and federal capacity to fund and manage water projects.

“We’re going to have to figure out ways that induce local entities to cooperate and work together across this statewide system without having a lot of money for incentives,” said Lund, a UC Davis professor of civil and environmental engineering. Video, Maven’s Notebook

UC Davis’ Peter Moyle shared his history studying the delta smelt, his outlook on the fate of California freshwater fish and his prescription for conservation of aquatic species.

“What we have to do to make this work is shift to ‘ecological reconciliation approaches’ which is simply a way of saying that we’ve got to integrate conservation into the places where we humans live and work and play,” said Moyle, a professor of fish biology. “Trying to protect species by setting aside pristine areas is not going to work by itself.” Video, Maven’s Notebook

Tim Washburn, planning director, Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency. Photo: UC Davis

Tim Washburn, planning director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency, gave a lively presentation on the 160-year history of the Sacramento area flood control system, up to the adoption of the Central Valley Flood Protection Plan, in 2012.

“We are improving Folsom Dam so that it can handle much larger floods more efficiently. We are building up the resilience of the American River channel so it can take higher flows from Folsom Dam safely down through the channel. And then we are working regionally with West Sacramento and Yolo County to widen the Sacramento Bypass,” Washburn said. Video, Maven’s Notebook

Chris Austin is an independent freelance writer who covers California water issues. She publishes online at Mavens Notebook.

Peter Moyle, UC Davis professor of fish biology, said he was stunned to find a delta smelt he could hold in both hands. Photo by Jacob Katz-Ragatz

UC Davis scientists have found large populations of the federally protected delta smelt growing extraordinarily large in three Southern California reservoirs, hundreds of miles from its native waters. The smelt presumably colonized the lakes after being pumped from the Delta though the California Aqueduct.

The find, reported today (April 1) in the journal Pelagic Papers, prompted immediate calls from San Joaquin farmers to remove the fish from state and federal lists of species threatened with extinction. Wildlife officials, however, feared the newfound populations in Pyramid, Castaic and Silverwood lakes would be swiftly poached to low levels because they are extraordinarily large, tasty and easily caught on dry flies.

Normally no bigger than a finger, the delta smelt caught by researchers were an arm’s length and as much as nine pounds, the pier-reviewed study said. Photos of the super-sized smelt went viral on social media within minutes of their online publication this morning. By noon, the fishing blog Fish Ogler reported runs on smelt flies at sports stores near all three lakes.

“I’m shocked!” said Peter Moyle, an electro-fishing expert who led the six-month study funded by the independent Pacific Regal Foundation and its closely allied Naturally Really Defensive Council (NRDC).

“It handled more like a wide mouth bass,” the Watershed Center’s Carson Jeffres said of the delta smelt captured in his trawl of Silverwood Lake. Photo by Louie Jeffres-Ragatz

Moyle and his colleagues at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences explored several explanations for the extraordinary size of the smelt found in the Southern California lakes, but reached no definitive conclusion.

“More research is needed,” said Jay Lunge, director of the center.

Moyle said the abundance of food in the reservoirs – mostly discarded lunch leftovers – could not alone account for the tremendous difference in size between the north and south state populations.

“Perhaps the delta smelt are so large because local treatment plants cannot remove the body-building steroids common in Southern California’s wastewater,” Moyle said in a phone interview from his Delta home on Mildred Island. It has long been rumored that Southern California has been recycling wastewater through some reservoirs to help offset environmental restrictions on Delta exports.

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which owns the drinking-water reservoirs, said its executives were aware of the study but unavailable for comment.

“They are out at our reservoirs,” spokesman May Hemm said. “They’re casting the first ceremonial lines in our new Southern California Delta Fishing Derby.”

Dr. Moyle’s delta smelt catch at Castaic Lake drew much attention from nearby bait fishermen who mugged for photographers. Photo by Jacob Katz-Ragatz

Fishing for delta smelt has been banned since 1993, when state and federal wildlife agencies listed the species as “threatened” with extinction, a designation meant to elevate a species status to a pricey delicacy, improving U.S. trade relations with China. But the fishing restrictions apply only within the smelt’s “critical habitat,” which is limited to the San Francisco Estuary.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials said they are moving fast to extend the protective designation to all of Metropolitan’s reservoirs supplied by the California Aqueduct, including Lake Perris near Riverside, where some suspect smelt to be spawning on the failed parachutes littering its bottom.

“Our fishing derbies will be done by then,” Hemm said, “But we can preserve a few smelt for museum specimens in the interest of science.”

A “critical habitat” designation on the reservoirs would likely reduce the amount of water available for millions of people in Metropolitan’s service area.

For years, Moyle’s research assistant, Teejay O’Rear, speculated that smelt larvae conceivably could enter the California Aqueduct and survive the journey through several pumping stations and the powerful Edmonston plant that lifts the water more than 1,900 feet to cross the Tehachapi Mountains.

The Southern California Delta Fishing Derby allows delta smelt to be taken “by any means” within the maw. Photo by Carson Jeffres-Ragatz

Tule perch, prickly sculpins, hitch, blackfish and other fish endemic to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have been found in various Southern California lakes as well as in San Luis Reservoir west of Los Banos, O’Rear said.

“We never looked for the delta smelt down south,” O’Rear said. “I could never get my boss to approve travel expenses for any trip farther than Suisun Marsh.”

“Once I learned that University of Pacific researchers were on the trail, however, Professor Moyle couldn’t spend money fast enough to get us down there with our trawler.”

Despite the unnaturally large size of the south state smelt, Moyle said he could immediately confirm its identity.

“It has a curious cucumber odor,” he said.