Smelt uptick spin

It is amazing how much spin a “three-inch bait fish” can induce in human beings. (Judges, too - but that’s another issue.) Poor fish has a decent season, and the water export lobby uses it as evidence that the little fellas are getting too much water. That they aren’t confused enough.

If they don’t get emulsified at the pumps, here’s what happens to Delta smelt when water is dear:

Posted at Aquafornia, here’s a portion of the statement made by Terry Erlewine, general manager of the State Water Contractors, regarding the uptick of Delta smelt collected in this fall’s smelt sampling.

“The Delta smelt’s population has been impacted over the years by a number of factors, such as pollutants that impact the Delta food web and invasive species. Although the state’s water operations have also been listed as a factor, no Delta smelt were found at the State Water Project entrainment facilities this year. At the same time, water agencies were able to export high levels of water for storage and reservoir replenishment given the extremely wet year.

“While three additional surveys will take place later in the fall, the September numbers for Delta smelt are an encouraging sign. The State Water Project was able to deliver healthy levels of water this year to farms and communities throughout the state without detecting any smelt in the entrainment facilities. It is further evidence that pumping levels are not the primary driver of the health of key fish species, and that a comprehensive approach addressing all stressors via the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is necessary for a long-term solution.”

There is no disagreement with much of Mr Erlewine’s statement - that there are lots of stressors on the Delta’s ecosystem - and that this was an exceptionally wet winter and spring, leading to an exceptionally large volume of water flowing through the Delta, to farms and cities in the south, and out to San Francisco Bay.

But I’ve added italics to the first clause in the concluding sentence because unlike the rest of the sentences, that clause is spin. Spin that is coordinated, deflective, and pervasive in social media as much as it is in the rhetoric of politicians and spokespersons.

The uptick in smelt numbers collected in the Delta combined with the absence of any collected at the pumps is not “further evidence that pumping levels are not the primary driver of the health” of the smelt.

Here’s a different take: It could easily be argued that the smelt uptick is exactly evidence that the pumping levels are the primary reason, and here’s why.

1/ This season there is a lot of water flowing in the direction nature intended it to flow;

2/ that means the smelt do not get confused about which direction downstream (and importantly, their spawning ground) is;

3/ since they are not confused about where to go to spawn, they have no reason to show up at the fish screens in the first place.

The poor little smelt are not fooled by the immense draw of the SWP/CVP pumps that in relatively dry seasons actually change the direction that water in the Delta flows from toward the Bay to toward Altamont Pass.

Isn’t that spin at least as credible as Mr Erlewine’s?

Another take on the smelt uptick, this one from an advocate of “Salmon Water Now,” commenting on Bettina Boxall’s 10/13 LAT piece.

“Under the federal fish-rebuilding plan for the Delta, we changed water management a bit to protect fish starting in 2008 following years of neglect that crashed the ecosystem. Here’s what we got: Fall run chinook rebounding to allow fishermen and fishing businesses to back to work in 2011 after three years of devastaing closures. Record CA farm revenues in 2009 and 2010. Record Delta freshwater exports in 2011. Rebounding Delta smelt in 2011. On top of it all, the nation’s top scientists gave their seal of approval to the science behind the rebuilding plan. Plain and simple: protecting the Delta is good for California.”

Plain, but not so simple I’m afraid. It appears that it has become all too easy to spin evidence and science. Let’s try to keep the spin civil.

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Public infrastructure / public space

Delighted people are a common sight at the Capilano Salmon Hatchery near Vancouver. Especially young people, watching salmon climb a fish ladder:

The hatchery provides evidence that creating public spaces out of public infrastructure isn’t just justifiable because of profits, pleasure and synthesis. Infrastructure has the potential to educate and communicate ideas about water and nature, human management and control to a public that sorely needs it.

The US Bureau of Reclamation has a great page on their website about the Central Valley Project fish screens.

As I’ve said in the past, the fish screen facility is a piece of environmental protection infrastructure, created in the 1950s, that reflects the better angels of the Californian (and American) ethos. You know, the one that existed before the effects of Proposition 13 and all of its siblings and offspring started to kick in.

I’ve visited the fish screens. It’s really an eye-opener about the lengths to which people try to protect fish from the effects of human management and control. Every kid should get the chance.

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Silo visioneering

The Delta National Park project is guided by a both/and, not an either/or, philosophy. From all perspectives, one, that’s the message here.

So this Contra Costa Times article, called Future of the Delta could be tourism, according to state report, in all senses of the word, piqued.

About laudable efforts by the state parks department proposing new and improved Delta parks, the lead paragraph reads

A lack of money isn’t stopping state parks and natural resources officials from dreaming big and coming up with a plan to revitalize Delta economy and tourism.

The problem is, the parks people aren’t dreaming big enough, or more precisely, synthetically enough. It is merely a parks plan, developed by the state parks department, supported by regional political figures, and disconnected from the maze of planning underway.

Why? As conceptual artist Sol Lewitt may have said if he followed California water issues, the Delta parks plan accounts for just four of 122 variations of incomplete open cubes.

More from the CCTimes:

“Contra Costa County Supervisor Mary Nejedly Piepho, of Discovery Bay, said an outline of how to revitalize the Delta also demonstrates how important it is to plan for the region, and how the Delta can be damaged further if too much water is siphoned to Southern California.”

“Everybody needs to realize the benefit of the Delta as more than a plumbing fixture,” Piepho said.

Leaving aside the question of whether Ms. Piepho’s hometown of Discovery Bay has helped or hurt efforts to revitalize the Delta, focus on the Delta is going to be on its plumbing fixture-ness for the foreseeable future.

The “parks department wants to improve four existing recreation areas and six state parks, and create four new parks.” Please see this proposal for the Large Owner Axis at the DNP.

“The strategy recommended by the state would create tourism and business opportunities in towns that are gateways for recreational activities; offer more historic and nature interpretation, restrooms, picnic and camping sites and other facilities at parks; and create additional activities such as fishing, hunting and bird-watching to entice more visitors.” Please see this proposal for a network of Lodgecamps in the Delta at the DNP.

“These locations would be connected by scenic driving routes, boating trails, or bicycling and hiking trails.” Please see this proposal for a California Delta Transit Authority at the DNP.

I could go on.

Anyway, all of those new and improved parks will be great, but what about integrating that work with at least the acknowledgement that massive amounts of infrastructure improvement (of whatever sort, through, around, or under) are being planned for the Delta? That what you are planning “would take about 50 years to complete” nicely intersects with the time horizon of re-engineering the Delta?

A comment made about the Delta National Park siphon springs proposal referred to the proposal’s both/and thinking, applied to parks and the Peripheral Canal, thus:

Coool, (toke) hey where’s the water slides? If you put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig.

A Delta resident’s understandable if predictable point of view. I expect more out of state agencies, whose obligations are to the state’s citizens.

Since the money doesn’t exist for executing any of these plans anyway, agencies like the state parks department should be more strategic, and treat their ideas like grafts on the larger surgery being planned for the Delta. Otherwise, their work will be like lipstick on the pig, a few disembodied park spaces that take no advantage of the systemic possibilities of public space in the Delta.

Get in there, parks department!

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How many CFWC’s are there in this map?

My last post asked how Bill Wells, head of the Delta Chambers and Visitor’s Bureau could possibly support the agenda of the arguably misnamed California Farm Water Coalition.

Well, the answer is that he can’t. And I feel a need to give Executive Director Wells a bit of airtime here. This should help clarify and amend his less-than-successful attempt at sarcasm, or perhaps my tone-deafness to his subtle use of the style.

But before then, Mr Wells comments led me to ask the question How many separate CFWC’s are there in the entire Valley? I count six, but #3 may be split between #‘s 4 and 5. People who really know could probably count dozens.

From the comments at the Oakland Tribune article is Mr Wells’ thoughtful response to my question, quoted in full below:

John - I was being sarcastic, according to their website: “The CFWC has three primary goals in its mission to positively affect the perception of California agriculture’s use of water and provide a common, unifying voice for agricultural water users: 1. To serve as the voice for agricultural water users. 2. To represent irrigated agriculture in the media. 3. To educate the public about the benefits of irrigated agriculture”.

The reality is that all farmers are pawns in this game. The Delta Stewardship Council and the Bay Delta Conservation seek to consolidate the control of all of California’s water into the hands of a few powerful individuals and then sell it back to the citizens at exorbitant prices. It is like (the movie) Chinatown on a statewide scale.
Bill

Now that I am aware of Mr Wells’ subtle sarcastic style, I am better able to appreciate and enjoy the rhetorical utility of “you would think that CFWC might show some concern…” Good luck with that, Bill.

Mr Wells’ comments unpack a few important points, but I especially like the implicit point that the CFWC is really a misnomer. For a truer geographical picture of their mission, should they perhaps call themselves the Southern California Farm Water Coalition? An answer might become clearer in the near future as further expression of the diversity of farming self-interest is articulated.

Anyway, to expand on a few of Mr Wells’ points as follows:

1. Farming interests are not monolithic, and tend to adhere with other interests in complex, sometimes issue-specific ways. Like most groups, the various farm groups’ agendas are less about principle and more about self-interest.

2. The issue of property rights for Delta farmers and landowners is as sacrosanct as it is for Rep. Nunes’s (R-Hyperbole) constituents. It’s just that property rights in the Delta align nicely with the fullest interpretation of the Endangered Species Act, whereas they do not in the San Joaquin Valley.

3. Many farmers are pawns in the California’s Big Water Picture. That is the what happens when a place creates an enormous infrastructure of water storage and movement, making the resource a commodity - it’s much more transactional than it is, say, in Iowa.*

4. Chinatown, like the Mark Twain quote about whiskey, fighting and water, needs to be put down. Both have outlived their usefulness, and as kind of soft romantic reflection from the age of abundance, actually do more harm than good.

* 8:43 AM 9/27/11: Revised to emphasize the transactional capacity of water instead of whether/which farmers farm their land vs. trade its water. In all parts of the state, farmers can and do do both.

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Basic facts, cognitive dissonance

As a rule Chambers of Commerce are pro-market and anti-regulation. I’ve seen “Hot Coffee.”

But one would think that in the case of debate about water exported from the Delta, the position of the Executive Director of the California Chambers & Visitor’s Bureau would prove to be the exception to that rule.

From the comments at the bottom of the article:

Can this be explained by anything other than cognitive dissonance?

“80 percent going to agriculture is the figure generally used when discussing ‘developed water’.  I am glad that the Farm Water Coalition is on top of this matter.”

They are most definitely on top.

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