Tribes, environmental groups blast Newsom's Delta Tunnel trailer bill, urge audit of DWR funding

As Central Valley salmon and Delta fish populations plummet to record low levels, the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (DTEC) and a coalition of statewide organizations dedicated to the “equitable stewardship of California’s water resources” sent letters to legislative leaders urging them to reject Governor Newsom’s proposed budget trailer bill.

They say the bill “would accelerate the Delta Conveyance Project, otherwise known as the Delta Tunnel, and eliminate critical environmental reviews for the Bay-Delta Water Quality Control Plan.” The Governor’s proposal to fast-track the Delta Tunnel and circumvent legal protections is also facing unanimous opposition from the California Legislative Delta Caucus, who held a major press conference yesterday in collaboration with statewide organizations and Tribes opposing the project.

“Governor Newsom’s trailer bill language seeks to bypass decades of established water laws, environmental protections, and public processes in order to fast-track one of California’s most controversial and costly infrastructure projects—The Delta Tunnel. The legislation also threatens water quality standards for the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary,” according to a statement from the coalition.

“We know there are solutions that will restore and protect our sacred waterways and allow our people to maintain our culture and traditions while providing sufficient water for Southern California,” said Malissa Tayaba, Vice Chair of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians. “Instead of pursuing those solutions, Governor Newsom is pushing the Delta Conveyance Project, which would destroy the remaining life in our Delta watershed and eco-cultural estuary.”

In their letter, the Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (DTEC) —including the Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Little Manila Rising and Restore the Delta—highlights the significant harm this project could inflict on the communities relying on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. They also argue that the Governor’s proposals fail to advance climate resilience and would financially burden California ratepayers, undermining the legislature’s focus on affordability this session. 

“The proposed trailer bill is a blatant attempt to codify illegal provisions to advance the Delta Tunnel. It’s a misuse of the budget process—bypassing legal requirements and undermining the public processes that are fundamental to our democracy,” said Cintia Cortez, Policy Program Manager at Restore the Delta. “As it stands, the project is incomplete, violates multiple laws, and could not legally move forward otherwise. Restore the Delta remains committed to defending Delta communities in the face of these flagrant efforts.”

Tribes and organizations, including the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Restore the Delta, Golden State Salmon Association, and Sierra Club California, are also urging the Joint Legislative Audit Committee to approve an audit of the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) spending on the Delta Tunnel. The goal is to “ensure full accountability for DWR’s expenditures of public funds and to hold the agency responsible for protecting California’s crucial Delta water resources and ecosystems,” according to the coalition.

The request for an audit by the Tribes and organizations takes place as the San Francisco Bay-Delta estuary is in its worst-ever crisis, as evidenced by the closure of commercial salmon fishing off the California Coast for an unprecedented third year in a row, due to the collapse of the Sacramento and Klamath River Fall Chinook Salmon populations. Meanwhile, Sacramento River Spring Chinook and Winter Chinook Salmon — listed under both the state and federal endangered species acts — continue to decline.   

The data from the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) documents the abysmal situation that Sacramento River Fall Chinook Salmon, once the driver of the West Coast salmon fishery, and the Spring and Winter Chinook populations are now in, largely due to water and fishery mismanagement by the state and federal governments.

Between 1996-2005 the average return for fall-run Chinook on the mainstem Sacramento River was 79,841 spawning salmon. In 2023 that number fell drastically to only 3,560 salmon – a 95% decline, according to an analysis by the Golden State Salmon Association.

Spring-run Chinook have also experienced a staggering 95% decline due to a lack of cold water flows in Central Valley salmon rivers. The average wild and hatchery spring-run return plummeted from 28,238 fish in 2021 to just 1,231 salmon in 2023.

And spawner escapement in 2024 of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook  was estimated to be only 789 adults and 578 jacks (two-year-olds). 

Delta Smelt is functionally extinct in the wild

I have written extensively about this in previous articles, but it’s crucial in understanding how bad the situation is in the once robust Bay-Delta estuary to review the current status of Delta Smelt and  other pelagic species on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Many folks do not seem to understand how dire the state of these fish populations are now at a time when the state and federal governments are engaged in a systematic campaign to greenwash their horrendous environmental legacies.

For the seventh year in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife CDFW found no Delta Smelt in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in 2024. This 2 to 3 inch fish is an indicator species that has been villainized by Donald Trump and his corporate agribusiness allies for supposedly being a “worthless fish,”  

It is significant that zero Delta smelt were caught in the survey despite the release of tens of thousands of hatchery-raised Delta smelt into the Delta over the past few years by the state and federal governments.

“The 2024 abundance index was 0 and continues the trend of no catch in the FMWT since 2017,” reported  Taylor Rohlin, CDFW Environmental Scientist Bay Delta Region in a Jan. 2 memo to Erin Chappell, Regional Manager Bay Delta Region: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/...

“No Delta Smelt were collected from any stations during our survey months of September-December. While FMWT did not catch any Delta Smelt, it does not mean there were no smelt present, but the numbers are very low and below the effective detection threshold by most sampling methods,” she wrote.

The CDFW has conducted the Fall Midwater Trawl Survey (FMWT) to index the fall abundance of pelagic (open water) fishes annually since 1967 (except 1974 and 1979), Rohlin stated.

Why is this survey so important?  It’s because “the FMWT equipment and methods have remained consistent since the survey’s inception, allowing the indices to be compared across time,” Rohlin wrote. “These relative abundance indices are not intended to approximate population sizes; however, indices reflect general patterns in population change (Polansky et al. 2019).”

Other surveys last year also reveal the functional extinction of Delta smelt in the wild. A weekly survey by the US Fish and Wildlife Service  targeting Delta smelt caught only one smelt in the summer of 2024. “A late April IEP juvenile fish survey (the 20-mm Survey) caught several juvenile Delta smelt in the same area,” noted scientist Tom Cannon in his blog on the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance website: calsport.org/...   

In a January post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that Governor Gavin Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way. He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California.”

I break down the four falsehoods that Trump made in this post here: www.dailykos.com/...

To summarize, the Delta Smelt is definitely not a “worthless fish.” In fact, the Delta Smelt is a key indicator species that demonstrates the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas. The 2 to 3 inch fish that smells like a cucumber is found only in the Delta.

It was once the most abundant fish in the Delta, numbering in the millions, but now is functionally 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.  

The significance of the Delta smelt’s role in the Bay-Delta Estuary cannot be overstated. ”Delta Smelt are the thread that ties the Delta together with the river system,” said Caleen Sisk, Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. “We all should understand how that affects all the water systems in the state. They are the irreplaceable thread that holds the Delta system together with Chinook salmon.”

Other pelagic fish species are in free-fall also

The other fish species collected in the fall 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 threadfin shad showed an increase from the last year’s index — and the population is still at just a fraction of its former abundance.

The survey uses an “abundance index,” a relative measure of abundance, to document general patterns in population change.

The 2024 abundance index for striped bass, an introduced gamefish, was 136, representing a 49% decrease from last year’s index.

The index was 175 for longfin smelt, a native fish species, representing a 62% decrease from last year’s index.

The index was 577 for threadfin shad, an introduced forage fish, representing a 12% increase from last year’s index.

The index for American shad, an introduced gamefish, was 1341, representing a 45% decrease from last year’s index.

The index for Sacramento splittail, a native minnow species, was 0, with 0 fish caught.

To put things truly In perspective, one must understand that these substantial decreases were from already abysmally low levels of abundance.

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/…