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Wolk's Fish Rescue Bill, AB 1806, Passes Senate NR&W Committee

by Dan Bacher

AB 1806, Assemblywoman Lois Wolk's Fish Rescue Plans Bill, passed out of the Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee on Tuesday, June 24 on a vote of 5-3. The bill will now go to the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

"I am pleased that the Senate committee recognized the urgency of the Delta fisheries crisis and approved this bill," said Assemblywoman Wolk (D-Davis). "AB 1806 will establish plans for emergency fish rescue. It also requires the Water Board to conduct a comprehensive review and require the state and federal water projects to be responsible for their impacts on Delta fisheries."

The vote was on party lines, with Democrats Steinberg, Kehoe, Kuehl, Machado, and Migden voting "aye" and Republicans Cogdill, Hollingsworth and Margett voting "no" for the measure.

There were some amendments taken that should be out in print in the next couple of days. The Committee struck out the section that that required the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to mitigate for the massive fish kill that occurred on Prospect Island on the basis that that it would not be legally defensible, since the fish kill took place before the legislation was introduced.

Wolk introduced the bill in response to a massive fish kill on Prospect Island in November 2007 that resulted when the Bureau of Reclamation drained water from the area to conduct levee repairs.

AB1806 is important for two reasons. First, it addresses the issue of dealing with fishery disaster rescues. Second, the bill provides full mitigation for the degradation of Delta and Central Valley fisheries caused by the pumping of massive amounts of water south to the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and southern California.

John Beuttler, Conservation Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA), Dick Pool, Coordinator of Water for Fish, John Ryzanych, from the Allied Fishing Groups, and Gary Adams, vice president of the California Striped Bass Association, testified in support of AB 1806. Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisheries Associations (PCFFA), Jonas Minton, Water Policy Advisor to the Planning and Conservation League, Jane Wagner-Tyack, Secretary of the Restore the Delta Board of Directors, and others also spoke in support of the bill.

"Every run of chinook salmon in the Central Valley is currently headed for extinction," said Dick Pool. "Passage of this bill is needed to keep this from happening."

John Beuttler described the huge impact of water exports upon Cental Valley salmon and California Delta fish - and urged the Senators to pass the bill to help restore these imperiled fisheries.

"The closure of the salmon fishing season this year is in part a direct consequence of the long term decline in the productivity of our Central Valley salmon that used to provide 2/3rds of all the salmon harvested in the state," said Beuttler. "The Delta's ecological crisis is also mirrored by the collapse in many other fishery resources that depend on it. Several runs of salmon, all of the steelhead, Delta smelt and longfin smelt have been listed under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts in an effort to prevent their extinction. What we are experiencing is much more that a salmon crisis, it's a fishery crisis of epic proportions that is becoming progressively worse!"

While Beuttler acknowledged that the impact of the operations of the state and federal water projects is not the only factor involved in the decline of these fisheries, he emphasized that they play a very significant role.

"Project operations cause both direct and indirect impacts to these fisheries," explained Beuttler. "While some of these impacts are currently being mitigated by both projects, the simple fact is that most of them are not. The result is millions of fish perish annually. This number soars when viewed from a vantage point of decades. AB 1806 calls for these impacts to be addressed by the State Water Board in consultation with the state and federal fishery agencies and with the oversight of the CalFed Independent Science Panel."

The bill is opposed by big water agencies that would be forced to pay their fair share for the huge numbers of salmon and other fish killed in South Delta pumps and by the diversion of massive amounts of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Representatives from the Metropolitan Water District, Westlands Water District, and other water agencies spoke against the legislation.

“While there have been a number of efforts over the years to restore habitat for fish, millions of salmon and other species continue to die annually as a result of both the direct and indirect impacts of the state and federal water project pumps,” said Wolk. “My bill requires the state and federal projects that pump water out of the Delta to mitigate for these losses, which have huge negative impacts on our state's fisheries, as well as the commercial and sport fishing industries that contribute billions of dollars to our economy.”