Reclamation approves water plan that's 'likely to adversely affect' Sacramento River Winter Chinook

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The Bureau of Reclamation today approved a controversial new plan, known as a “biological opinion,” for the long-term operation of the Central Valley Project and Delta facilities of the State Water Project — even though the opinion documents say it would likely harm endangered Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon.

Reclamation claimed the biological opinion “presents a path forward with more predictable actions for endangered fish species and a more reliable CVP response to multi-year droughts,” while fishing and environmental groups slammed the decision for being even worse in some areas than the 2019 Trump Administration plan that it replaces.

“The resilience of the Central Valley Project, with its importance to the agricultural industry and drinking water deliveries across California, is critical to the state’s water supply future,” gushed Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Water and Science Mike Brain. “The revised operating plan will improve regulatory certainty for water users and provide a more stable water supply for communities, farms, and fish.”   

Echoing Brain’s statement, CDFW Director Chuck Bonham, said, “Today’s signing is the result of years of unprecedented collaboration and partnership between state and federal agencies committed to better outcomes for the fish, wildlife, plants, and people that call California home. With this new plan, we’re taking action to protect endangered fish and wildlife species, utilize science-based outcomes to plan for the future and the threats of climate change, and improve habitat conditions throughout the Delta.” 

Governor Gavin Newsom also celebrated the biological opinion’s release, echoing his recent press events touting the environmentally destructive Delta Tunnel and Sites Reservoir projects as “climate adaptation projects.”

“We know what the future has in store for our state: hotter hots and drier dries,”: said Newsom. “That means we have to do everything we can now to prepare and ensure our water infrastructure can handle these extremes.”  

The Bureau said the revised operating plan includes a “new framework” for Shasta Reservoir operations to “benefit” winter-run Chinook salmon and revised operational criteria for Delta exports. 

NOAA Fisheries assessed the impacts of operations of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project on species listed under the Endangered Species Act and their critical habitat. 

In a December 6, 2024 communication announcing the release of the biological opinion, NOAA Fisheries stated, “We concluded that the Bureau of Reclamation and California Department of Water Resources’ proposed action is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of these species or destroy or adversely modify their designated critical habitat.” 

Those species include endangered Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon and threatened Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon.  

At the same time, NOAA Fisheries contradicts itself by stating, “The Proposed Action may affect, and is likely to adversely affect Sacramento River winter- run Chinook salmon.” (Long-Term Operation – Biological Assessment, Appendix AB, Chapter 13.1 – Conclusion  www.usbr.gov/...)   

The biological opinion has two components. The NOAA Fisheries Biological Opinion analyzes the effects on federally-listed winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon, Southern Resident killer whales and their critical habitat, while the USFWS Biological Opinion assesses the effects on federally-listed species such as Delta smelt, longfin smelt, and 14 terrestrial species and their critical habitat.

Salmon advocates are outraged with the release of a plan that would likely destroy what remains of once robust Central Valley salmon populations.

“This is not the Christmas present we asked for and certainly not the lifeline already struggling salmon fishing families needed while neck deep in a two-year salmon fishing shutdown," said Scott Artis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Association. "Instead of providing those families and businesses with hope for the future, the Bureau of Reclamation threw some coal in their stockings in the form of water policies that have been an environmental disaster – a disaster that’s also impacted Tribal and Delta communities.” 

Artis said actions taken under the previous biological opinion “severely damaged” California’s fall-run Chinook salmon – the state’s only remaining commercially viable salmon run — and he said this plan will only continue to exacerbate the destruction of the state’s once-abundant salmon population.

He noted that Reclamation continues to flout federal law and the requirements of the State Water Resources Control Board by ignoring the state and federal obligation to double the 1967 through 1991 naturally producing salmon population.

“That’s a one million fish per year goal and a far cry from the dismal numbers of the last few years. The Bureau’s actions have devastated salmon, not restored them,” Artis explained.

“Our Bay-Delta salmon are the backbone of salmon fishing in California and coastal Oregon. In fact, the Sacramento River had been the most important salmon producing river south of the Columbia River. But that’s not the case today. The population is just a few percent of what it was 20 years ago. With dwindling salmon numbers, the Bureau continues to plan to ask the State Water Board to waive salmon protections during droughts – through a process known as Temporary Urgency Change Petitions. Those TUCPs played an important role in destroying salmon runs during the drought,” he argued.

“Sure, the new NOAA Fisheries biological opinion includes a few modest improvements. But it’s not near enough. Our salmon need a transfusion, not a band aid. And the transfusion we need is enough cold water to keep baby salmon alive. But even the Bureau’s own analysis showed that, in some areas, the record of decision could be even worse than the disastrous 2019 biological opinion that it replaces. The missing ingredients are strong flow and temperature protections in our salmon rivers. This record of decision is not enough,” said Artis.

“The old 2019 Endangered Species Act rules in the previous biological opinion, in place for the last 5 years, were nothing more than a salmon extinction plan. It was during this time that we have seen the biggest crash in salmon in state history. The old rules allowed the Bureau to kill all of the baby salmon in the Sacramento River,” added Artis.

“During the recent drought, that’s exactly what they did. The cause of the current salmon shutdown is not complicated. If you kill all the baby salmon, 3 years later you don't have adult salmon. That’s where we are today. That’s why some of California’s once great salmon runs are at the brink of extinction and why salmon fishing has been shut down for two years, imposing tremendous impacts on thousands of fishing businesses, families, and communities,” Artis concluded.

Background: Central Valley salmon and Delta fish are in worst-ever crisis

The new biological opinion was released at a time when Central Valley salmon and  Delta fish populations are in their worst-ever crisis.

The ocean and river salmon fishing seasons have been closed for the past two years, due to the collapse of Sacramento River and Klamath River fall-run Chinook salmon population, as Scott Artis has pointed out so well.

Meanwhile, endangered winter and spring-Chinook salmon populations are moving closer to extinction. Spawner escapement of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook (SRWC) in 2023 was estimated to be only 2,447 adults and 54 jacks, according to Pacific Fishery Management Council data. By comparison, even after Shasta Dam was built, 117,000 winter Chinook returned to the river in 1969.

Butte Creek, once the stronghold of spring-run Chinook, saw a record low 100 fish return to spawn last year and an even lower number of fish this year. Only 51 spring Chinooks were reported in the Butte Creek snorkel count and “probably less than 25” in the carcass count this year, according to Allen Harthorn, executive director of Friends of Butte Creek.  

The total number of salmon returning to the Sacramento and Klamath rivers and their tributaries this year won’t be made public until the data is released during the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's annual salmon fishery information meeting (webinar) in late February or early March 2025.

The Delta Smelt, an indicator species that was once the most abundant fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is virtually extinct in the wild, due to massive water exports to agribusiness and other factors, including invasive species, toxics and pollution, over the past several decades.

Zero smelt have been caught over the past six years in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Midwater Trawl Survey. Then this summer a weekly survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service targeting Delta smelt caught only one smelt, despite the stocking of thousands of hatchery-raised smelt by the state and federal governments over the past few years. 

“A late April IEP juvenile fish survey (the 20-mm Survey) caught several juvenile Delta smelt in the same area,” noted fishery scientist Tom Cannon in his blog on the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance website: calsport.org/..

Meanwhile, the other pelagic species collected in the survey — striped bass, longfin smelt, Sacramento splittail and threadfin shad — continued their dramatic decline since 1967 when the State Water Project went into effect. Only the American shad shows a less precipitous decline.

Between 1967 and 2020, the state’s Fall Midwater Trawl abundance indices for striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad have declined by 99.7, 100, 99.96, 67.9, 100, and 95%, respectively, according to the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.

The graphs in this CDFW memo graphically illustrate how dramatic the declines in fish populations have been over the years: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/…  

The State Water Project (SWP) and Central Valley Project (CVP) Delta “death pumps” have been the biggest killers of salmon, steelhead, Sacramento splittail and other fish species in California for many decades, as I have documented in hundreds of articles in an array of publications.