John Beuttler's take on the AB 1253 hearing

he Stripers Win One!: The Striped Bass Extermination Bill Goes Down

by John Beuttler, CSPA Conservation Director

April 28, 2009 -- The State Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife met on April 28 to hear Assembly member Fuller’s bill sponsored by the Metropolitan Water District and the Modesto Irrigation District that would have eradicated the state’s striped bass fishery if it passed the Legislature. The bill was supported by a host of water districts and associations and  was poised to destroy striped bass fisheries from the Colorado River, to the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary, everywhere in the state.

Due to the significant opposition to the bill generated by the sportfishing community with support from environmental groups, during the hearing the author notified the committee that all the language in the bill would be removed regarding the striped bass fishery. Instead of stripping the striper's sportfishing status and opening it to indiscriminate harvest, Fuller offered an amendment to require the CalFed Independent Science Panel to review all of the predation studies done in the estuary and to report their findings to the Legislature on whether or not additional studies are need to better understand all the impacts of fish predation that occurs in the estuary.

CSPA lead the “opposition panel” during the hearing. We noted that the state’s leading independent science experts agree that striped bass predation does not impact the populations levels of salmon and Delta smelt. Because further study of the predation issue is highly unlikely to provide new information, CSPA recommended that it would be far more productive to pass legislation to stop the direct losses of over a million salmon annually killed by the state and federal water projects along with priority programs to restore their spawning, rearing and migration habitat.

Calling the vote, Committee Chairman Jared Huffman, whose opposition to the original bill ushered in its downfall, suggested that  reviewing the science might be good idea, since it should also include reviewing the screening of the pumps and other intakes. The committee voted to pass the Fuller amendment along with Chairman Huffman’s recommendations to review how the state and federal water projects can improve fish salvage, screening and better methods of releasing fish back into the delta to minimize losses.

Following the hearing CSPA praised the estimate 100 hundred anglers that attended, acknowledging their outstanding contribution by letting the committee know they cared deeply enough about the striper fishery to attend and demonstrate their opposition to AB 1253. We also thank all the fishing groups that helped to organize the effort to stop the bill. Their efforts to urge anglers to oppose the legislation demonstrated that the sportfishing community can come together to take positive actions on behalf of our fishery resources. Over sixty fishing groups officially opposed the legislation.

Of course, one victory does not win the war. Given the opposition and its very effective and well financed water lobby, the sportfishing community must continue to work collectively to engage the legislature on critical legislation if our fisheries that rely on the delta are to have a future, instead of becoming a memory of the past.

The water wars in California are just beginning.