Posted on Sat, May. 07, 2005
By Mike Taugher
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
A Bay Area
congressman and leading voice in California water
policy is warning that immediate action is needed
to avoid a potential ecological disaster in the Delta.
Rep. George Miller, responding to a Sunday report
in the Contra Costa Times about a sudden, sharp decline
in populations of several fish and other organisms,
said the ongoing collapse could be a sign that the
Delta is facing a crisis like it did in the early
1990s.
"What I want to know is,
are we repeating history here, and are we putting too much pressure on the
Delta?" Miller, D-Martinez, said in an interview
Friday.
In particular,
Miller questioned a basic tradeoff underlying CalFed,
the highly ambitious multibillion dollar water program
designed 10 years ago to avert another Delta water
crisis. That deal assumes, in essence, that more
water can be pumped out of the Delta for farms and
cities in Central and Southern California if more
money is invested in environmental improvements.
"The basic, fundamental
assumptions that were made either were wrong or we put too much stress on the
Delta," said Miller, the author of a 1992 law that
rededicated Delta water from Central Valley farms
to the environment.
Miller has drafted a letter
demanding information from state and federal water
agencies about when they recognized the problem and
what has been done about it. He also wants to know
why the crisis was reported in the Times before members
of Congress were notified.
"Given the substantial state and federal financial investments
in the CalFed program, it is incumbent on you to demonstrate that you are
responding appropriately to the potential of an ecological disaster," the
letter reads.
On Friday, Miller distributed the letter to Northern
California members of Congress, asking them to sign
it before the letter is delivered next week to the
water agencies.
CalFed deputy director Keith Coolidge said
state and federal agencies involved in the program
are handling the situation appropriately and that
it is too early to blame the declines on pumping
because several other possible causes for the ecological
decline exist.
"They're
not sure yet how to narrow that down," Coolidge said. "It
is possible that it's a combination of many different
things."
State and federal scientists
are compiling a research plan and hope to shorten
the list of possible causes by fall.
The Times reported May 1 that scientists are deeply
concerned about steep declines in the number of fish
caught in annual trawls in the Delta. All of the
major open-water fish species appear to be in decline,
along with zooplankton. One zooplankton species that
is an important food source for other species has
fallen to extremely low levels, which could dramatically
disrupt the food chain.
Scientists do not know what is causing the crisis,
but the top suspected factors fall into three categories:
invasive species, toxins, including pesticides, and
increased pumping.
Critics of the Delta
pumping note that water was moved out of the Delta
at near record levels during the past two years.
And the three highest pumping levels recorded are
in 2000, 2003 and 2004.
"It is totally obvious. You have three of the highest
exports in history (in the past five years) and now you have this problem in the
Delta," said Tom Graff, a lawyer for Environmental Defense in Oakland. "Duh,
is my reaction."
The decline in fish levels is the latest problem
for CalFed, which has been levied with severe criticism
from key state lawmakers over its plan to pay for
its programs.
Some legislators have threatened
to cut CalFed's state monies next year to a "life-support" level.
Since
the CalFed program was finalized in 2000, it has
spent or committed $3 billion, with $1 billion of
that coming from state bonds, a source of funding
that could begin running out for some programs next
year. Last December, CalFed's governing board released
an $8 billion, 10-year plan through 2015 that a key
legislator, state Sen. Mike Machado, D-Linden, panned
as highly unrealistic.
And
lawmakers have been frustrated by CalFed's refusal,
so far, to develop a more realistic financial blueprint
for the coming decade. If legislators follow through
with the threat and withdraw support for CalFed,
that would complicate efforts by California's congressional
delegation to win more federal money.
In response, Sen. Dianne Feinstein met Friday with
key state lawmakers and California water officials
in Los Angeles to discuss recent controversy over
the finance plan.
"It was an opportunity for Senator Feinstein to meet
with some of the leadership to discuss the importance of keeping CalFed alive
and moving forward," said Feinstein spokesman Howard
Gantman.
The
Schwarzenegger administration is expected to make
its request for CalFed funding as part of its May
budget proposal.
© 2005 ContraCostaTimes.com and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.contracostatimes.com