A Water Agenda for Governor Brown - Restoring California's Salmon Fishery and Endangered Fish
Posted November 29, 2010 in Living Sustainably, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
California’s salmon fishing industry and fisheries have never faced a more uncertain future. The state’s historic salmon fishery was closed for the first time ever in 2008 and 2009, with a very limited season in 2010. This environmental damage has cost California thousands of jobs and a quarter-billion dollars per year. Rather than making strides toward achieving the doubling of salmon populations, as required by state and federal law, many salmon species are sliding toward extinction. A growing list of California’s fish are listed or proposed for listing as endangered or threatened species --- particularly in the San Francisco Bay-Delta.
Although there are many causes, irresponsible water policies have played a major role in the collapse of the salmon fishery and the Bay-Delta ecosystem. The next Governor may well decide if our fisheries will be restored, or if California will lose species to extinction and lose one of its most important fishing industries forever.
The Bay-Delta, the San Joaquin River and the Klamath Rivers are the epicenters of the effort to restore our rivers and fisheries. Each of these systems, indeed all of California’s rivers, have hit “peak water”, clearly indicating the need for new water sources. We must do many things to restore our rivers – cleaning up pollutants, removing antiquated dams and restoring habitat. But the bottom line is water. We need water policies that emphasize alternative water supplies (my next post) and protect and restore our fisheries.
Here are some specific recommendations to reverse the disturbing decline of the state’s fisheries:
Setting State Water Board Board Flow Standards: Direct the State Water Resources Control Board to move promptly to set stronger, scientifically-based standards to protect and restore the Public Trust values provided by California’s rivers – starting with the Bay-Delta ecosystem.
Stopping Illegal Water Diversions: Support legislation to strengthen the State Water Board’s ability to detect and prosecute illegal water diversions. Given the limits on California’s water resources, we need to eliminate old policies that are soft on illegal diverters. Responsible water urban and agricultural agencies, the business community, fishermen and environmentalists should all find common ground in such an effort. It’s time to end the state’s tolerance of illegal water diversions.
Rebuilding the Department of Fish and Game: Rebuild the Department of Fish and Game into an effective advocate for California’s fisheries. Direct DFG – and its new Director - to use all of their authority to restore the state’s fisheries. Direct DFG to collect fees and reimbursements to help provide the resources needed to carry out its responsibilities.
Restoring the San Joaquin River: Direct state agencies to ensure the full and timely restoration of the San Joaquin River, pursuant to the settlement reached among environmental and farming interests and the federal government.
Reducing Reliance on the Bay-Delta: Direct the Delta Stewardship Council and the Department of Water Resources to design policies and programs to reduce reliance on the Bay-Delta, as required by state law.
Many fish, and particularly salmon, are resilient animals. If we give them a chance - and enough water to thrive - we can resore these fisheries to ensure a healthy salmon fishery, to enhance the recreational fishing economy, and to guarantee all Californians the opportunity to take their children down to the river to fish.
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Comments
Mike Wade — Nov 30 2010 06:56 PM
The impacts to salmon fishery cited by the author are inflated, according to UOP’s Dr. Jeffrey Michael’s recent study. Instead of “thousands of jobs and a quarter-billion dollars per year,” Michael puts those numbers at 1,823 jobs and $118.4 million. It is difficult to accept any of the solutions offered by the author when he starts off with inflated numbers.
Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition
Chris Gulick — Dec 1 2010 11:57 AM
While we are correcting authors Mr. Wade we can agree that, using the same study you quote,Dr. Jeffrey Michael puts the job losses in the central valley due to environmental protections at 1,400.
I will assume that given your faith in this study we will be using these numbers as a basis for discussion in the future.
Barry Nelson — Dec 1 2010 12:59 PM
Chris - Thanks for the response. You're absolutely right that, according to UOP, more California salmon fishing jobs have been lost from environmental degradation than farm jobs lost due to ESA protections in the Delta. My colleague Doug Obegi has written about this before -
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/dobegi/2009_economic_data_shows_the_f.html
By the way, the State's estimates of the impacts to the fishing community are a little higher -- over 2,000 jobs lost and approximately $250 million in damages per year.
And Mike - Thanks for your response as well. I'm glad to hear you citing UOP's figures. I'm happy to use UOP's estimates for job losses in both farming and fishing. You will too, right? And I hope you will also join us in correcting wildly inflated claims of up to 40,000 farm jobs lost (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204619004574318621482123090.html).
because of ESA protections in the Delta.
Barry
Jeff Michael — Dec 1 2010 04:01 PM
It is nice to see the reference, and I am glad that people find value in alternative estimates from the same source and units.
Barry is not exagerrating. In fact, NRDC has been extremely responsible in not using some of the exagerrated estimates preferred by some in the fishing industry even before we wrote a report that was critical of the estimates.
Most of the difference between the "quarter billion" and $118 million is different measures, output vs income or value added. I use income/value added in all of our reports to be consistent and because it is a better measure of economic welfare and is directly comparable to GDP and other measures of the macro economy. Output (total sales) is another measure that is frequently reported, and it is always a larger number. California DFG has reported fishery impacts in output, whereas the Pacfic Coast Fishery Management Council reports income. It is very common to report dollars without being specific about the output or income measure as both Barry and Mike do here since most people don't understand the difference.
A "quarter billion" for salmon is a reasonable number for output and similar to our income measure, and about what California DFG has estimated. (I very recently had a chance to review the details of DFG's estimates. I found them quite reasonable and one could legitimately use them to argue that our estimate is a little low, although they are of a similar scale).
Consider two cattle farmers who produce the same output and value for the economy. Farmer 1 grows his own feed and uses employees for labor, and Farmer 2 purchases feed . Measured by income/value added, there is no difference in the impact of the 2 enterprises, but measured by output, the farmer that purchases feed and labor creates more sales to other enterprises and therefore generates a larger "impact" measured by output. (Tax wonks who discuss the merits of sales and value-added taxes know this distinction well.)
For agriculture, statements that ag. is a $35-40 billion industry are based on measures of total receipts. If you look at official data on GDP, the GDP of California ag. is about half that because GDP is based on income/value added.
A common error is to use an output measure of economic impacts, compare it to GDP for a state or region, and state that the industry is X% of the economy. That's wrong because the units are not consistent, it's apples and oranges.
Sorry for the lengthy message, but I hope the explanation is useful.
Mike — Dec 1 2010 07:51 PM
The California Farm Water Coalition has not hesitated to use new credible estimates for job losses when they are published. Early estimates were corrected downward and we reported them as such. Jeff Michael's and Richard Howitt's estimates were fairly close to one another in the end and we don't have a problem acknowledging that.
We do take issue with the continued blame for problems in the Delta being placed almost exclusively on exports. If we can recognize new job loss data, maybe others in the discussion can acknowledge new science that shows a wider range of Delta stressors.
Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition
Mike Hudson — Dec 2 2010 12:08 PM
I personally don’t care if hundreds or thousands, or tens of thousands of jobs were lost due to the collapse of our salmon fishery, and of we’re talking about millions or billions of Dollars. All I know is: I lost my job and my family had a really hard time making it through the last 3 years. And I personally know hundreds of fishermen in the proverbial “same boat”. I’ve seen ice houses go into disrepair because the owners can’t afford to pay for the upkeep, I’ve seen fuel docks close their doors, and I’ve seen plenty of good hard working people laid off from the payrolls of the fish processors because there was no salmon to be processed.
NOBODY at our end of the business had anything to do with the closure of our fishery.
Nobody at our end allowed their fertilizers to run off into our streams.
Nobody at our end allowed their herbicides run off into our streams.
Nobody at our end allowed their pesticides to run off into our streams.
Nobody at our end is responsible for any increases in water diversions from our rivers.
Nobody at our end has ever dewatered any of our rivers.
Nobody at our end makes the Delta flow in the wrong direction.
And yes, nobody at our end is responsible for Sacramento’s urban ammonia pollution either – glad to see you’re addressing this issue, even if it’s all for the wrong reasons Mr. Wade.
Shame on the State of California because this salmon-collapse should never have happened. And shame on anybody who had anything to do with it.
On the bright side, since we started trucking and acclimatizing our fish again, they now don’t have to travel through our lethally poisonous Sacramento River and Delta any more – and they seem to survive to the point that we may have a salmon season again this coming year. I’m looking forward to getting back to work, though I do wonder what we leave behind for future generations when we let our rivers get into such sad states that they can’t sustain life any longer.