Delta Pumps Shutdown to save Delta Smelt

For once fish and the environment trump wter hungry development and agribusiness. At least for now though I am sure lawsuits are being filed. I glad to see this. Teh Striper population in the Bay and Delta are in peril and my guess is plunging numbers of Delta Smelt are certainly a contributing factor.

http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_6030946?nclick_check=1

sweet, lets see those smelt come back!
more smelt = more bass (striped and LM), and more salmon and steelhead

IMHO Socal can give up some water for the rest of us once in a while...

2c

Cool deal hopefully they can work out something to keep them off or reduce the run time on them.

Registration for the Merc is bull. Anyone care to post some of the appropriate content under the fair use clause?

Or is this just a rehash of the Alemada County judge telling DWR to shutdown the pumps if they don't get a permit from the DFG? Did the pumps actually stop?

Regards,
Scott

Try this link:

http://origin.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6035871

or go to Google news and search for  Delta Pumps Shutdown to save Delta Smelt then follow the link there.

Wow, they're giving the smelt a 7-10 day reprieve....very generous. Looks like nice PR for the state and every little bit helps but how much good is coming from this????? Seeing the interview with the agency lady on the news this morning irritated me.  She acted as though they were big heroes voluntarily doing this out of the best interest of the delta.  Never once mentioned that the fire under them coming from the environmental sector and lawsuits they're going through.   

So those were kind of my thoughts as well.

Is it the pumps themselves that are killing off the delta smelt, or is it that all the water that goes elsewhere creates environmental impacts that are killing off smelt? I'm somewhat leaning towards the latter. However, if it can be shown that by only running the pumps at only certain times of the year, the health of the delta will improve, well that's fine too.

Regards,
Scott

My understanding is that it is a two fold issue. One the pumps do pump smelt, stripers and salmon out of the delta and since most of it is for ag use the fish often get pumped right out into the fields. Now there are groups the are trying to recapture the salmon and put them back into the delta and they are successful to a point. Two when like now there are relatively low flows in the rivers when they start pumping the salt line moves further up river. If I understand it right they try to keep the salt line around Pittsburg but heavy pumping during low flows coupled with low tides really pulls the salt deep into the delta and the smelt simply can't handle the salt. Also with the low flows it sounds like the river isn't as capable of flushing the salt back out down river where it should be. The sad thing is it sounds like all this time they knew they were operating the pumps illegally and have never really made any effort to correct the issues.

Even worse they pump based on need where the water goes, not based on the supply available at the pumps.

Jeff