The Delta Stewardship Council, together with community partners from Restore the Delta, Fathers and Families of San Joaquin, Little Manila Rising, and Third City Coalition, will hold the “Delta Adapts Vulnerability Assessment Findings” virtual public workshop on February 4, 2021 from 6:00 to 7:30pm.
The Assessment represents “an effort to better understanding of the Delta vulnerabilities and was that Delta communities, infrastructure and ecosystem can adapt to future conditions,” according to an announcement from the Council
JOIN YOUR FELLOW DELTA STAKEHOLDERS IN FEBRUARY TO:
- Review results. Council staff will share the main findings from the recently completed vulnerability assessment.
- Hear from youth leaders. Youth leaders from several Delta communities will share their reactions to the study’s findings.
- Provide input. Workshop organizers are eager to hear from workshop participants on how to best communicate the study’s findings moving forward.
- Discuss next steps for adaptation. The workshop team will provide some initial next steps for the beginning of the adaptation planning process.
BACKGROUND:
“Over the past two years, Delta Stewardship Council has been leading a region-wide planning effort to improve understanding of the Delta’s climate change vulnerabilities and identify ways that Delta communities, infrastructure, and the ecosystem can adapt to future conditions,” according to the Council.
In addition to their co-leads, the Council acknowledged support from the following organizations:
- Reinvent South Stockton Coalition
- San Joaquin Council of Governments
- Substratum Systems
MY ANALYSIS:
The workshop takes place at a critical time for the Delta ecosystem and communities.
The Newsom administration is fast-tracking the Delta Tunnel, the most environmentally destructive public works project in California history, along with forging ahed with the Sites Reservoir and the corporate agribusiness-backed voluntary agreements. The construction of the Delta Tunnel will hasten the extinction of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, winter-run and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead and other fish species.
For the third year in a row, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife found zero Delta Smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus) in its 2020 Fall Midwater Trawl Survey throughout the Delta. Not only did the survey catch zero Delta Smelt, but it also found zero Sacramento Splittail, a native minnow that was removed from the Endangered Species list by the Bush administration.
“All signs point to the Delta smelt as disappearing from the wild this year, or, perhaps, 2022,” according to a California Water Blog post by Peter Moyle, Karrigan Börk, John Durand, T-C Hung and Andrew L. Rypel.
The zero Delta Smelt and Sacramento Splittail found in the survey reflect an ongoing collapse of pelagic (open water) fish species in the Delta that also includes Longfin Smelt, Striped Bass, Threadfin Shad and American Shad.
The dramatic decline of Delta smelt and other species, when viewed over the period of 53 years since 1967 when the State Water Project went into operation, is simply chilling.
Between 1967 and 2020, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Fall Midwater Trawl (FMWT) abundance indices (combined September, October, November and December surveys) 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 percent, respectively, according to Bill Jennings, Executive Director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA).
“Taken as five-year averages (1967-1971 vs. 2016-2020), the declines for striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, American shad, splittail and threadfin shad are 98.1, 99.8, 99.8, 26.2, 99.3 and 94.3 percent, respectively,” said Jennings.