Feds' plan to improve Delta water system isn't accurate, agency warns

Matt Weiser
Sacramento Bee
07/01/2008

A court-ordered fix for the threatened Delta smelt population is running into trouble before it has even seen daylight.

Federal water officials have been warned that their work on a draft plan for operating the Delta's water works "contains deficiencies, incomplete analysis, inaccuracies and omissions."

The warning came from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which faces the same court deadline of Sept. 15 to submit the plan, called a "biological opinion." The goal is to create a new set of operating rules for the massive state and federal pumping systems that export water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the Bay Area and Southern California.

Federal Judge Oliver Wanger, in Fresno, ordered the new plan in December. His ruling found that the state Department of Water Resources and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had violated the Endangered Species Act because their prior pumping rules did not adequately protect Delta smelt. The fish are ground up in the pumps and also killed by changes in water flows caused by the powerful pumps.

In its letter, the service set a July 7 deadline for the Bureau of Reclamation to fill in the data gaps, or it will be forced to complete the study using available information. The bureau is the lead agency responsible for drafting of the new rules.

If that deadline isn't met, the Fish and Wildlife Service could be forced to use incomplete information to prepare the new rules.

"We're going to go with the best information we have when we prepare the biological opinion," said service spokesman Al Donner. "Hopefully, we will have all the information we think we need."

Doug Obegi, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a plaintiff in the federal case, said this raises a concern that the document and the smelt protections could be compromised.

"I would not like to go into court, if I were the federal government, with an opinion based on what the agency has already said is inadequate information," Obegi said. "I don't think the judge will be very pleased."

In the 18-page letter, released Friday on its Web site, the Fish and Wildlife Service reminded the bureau that much of the missing or inadequate information pertains to deficiencies specifically identified by the court.

The bureau has also ignored repeated pleas to provide the information, according to the letter.

For example, there is no analysis of the effects of climate change or large-volume water transfers between agencies.

Analysis of effects on the Delta's aquatic environment as a whole are also said to be inadequate.

The document depends to a large degree on a concise description of the "project" that is being studied. This is intended to explain how and when the state's vast system of reservoirs, pumps and canals moves water.

While admittedly very complex, even that description was found to be lacking.

"Many of the changes and issues previously provided by the fishery agencies on the project description have not been included or made," Cay Goude, assistant field supervisor at the Fish and Wildlife Service, wrote in an e-mail to the bureau that was attached to the letter.

The bureau on Monday provided a prepared statement in response to an inquiry from The Bee. Donald Glaser, regional director, said his agency is "thoroughly committed to providing necessary additional information."