Response to the Delta Science Program and Independent Review Panel Report from the 2015 Annual Review of the Long-term Operation Biological Opinions (2015 Annual Review) (January 29, 2016)

Delta Stewardship Council (Delta Council) | January 29th, 2016

Responsible Exports Plan

Environmental Water Caucus | May 29th, 2013

The consensus diagnosis for the Delta estuary is dire. The California Environmental Water Caucus prescribes more river flows and reduced fresh water exports to help the D

The consensus diagnosis for the Delta estuary is dire. The California Environmental Water Caucus prescribes more river flows and reduced fresh water exports to help the Delta recover. The EWC’s plan demonstrates how water supply reliability can be improved while reducing exports from the Bay Delta Estuary. Many of our recommendations have been presented to the Delta Stewardship Council as part of Alternative 2 for the Delta Plan. We have now packaged this series of related actions into a single alternative for evaluation in any future NEPA or CEQA evaluations, or by the State Water Resources Control Board. The actions are largely based on the EWC report California Water Solutions Now, (www.ewccalifornia.org), which can be referenced for supporting details. This package of actions (“The RX Plan”) represents the EWC alternative to the BDCP. The RX Plan includes a unique combination of actions that will open the discussion for alternatives to the currently failed policies which continuously attempt to use water as though it were a limitless resource. The RX Plan is about far more than just reduced exports. The uniqueness of this Plan is that while it will reduce the quantity of water exported from the Bay Delta Estuary, in order to protect the health of the Estuary’s habitat and fisheries with increased inflows and outflows, it also contains actions that will reduce the demand for water and increase supplies for exporters south of the Delta in order to compensate for the reduced south-of-Delta exports. It is the only extant plan that will modernize existing facilities in the Bay-Delta with improved fish screens at the South Delta, levees reinforced above the PL84-99 standard, and significantly increased flows in order to recover habitat and fish stocks, while avoiding the huge infrastructure costs of tunnels under the Delta. It will also provide increased self-reliance for south-of-Delta water users through inter-regional water transfers and south of Delta groundwater storage. The reinforced levees will provide increased reliability of the water supplies through the Delta. And it will accomplish the legislated goals of Estuary restoration and water reliability for billions of dollars less than currently contemplated plans.

Restoration pulse flows from a California dam temporarily increase drifting invertebrate biomass concentration

Journal of Environmental Management (Elsevier) | November 9th, 2022

The decline of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) populations over the last few decades has stimulated major restoration efforts across the Pacific Northwest to improve t

The decline of Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) populations over the last few decades has stimulated major restoration efforts across the Pacific Northwest to improve the status of these iconic fishes. The leading factors contributing to the decline of Pacific salmon include watershed degradation and water diversions, which result in part from widespread dam construction across the United States (Moyle, 1994). Early river restoration actions primarily focused on physical habitat alterations (e.g., in-stream habitat improvement, fish passage; Barinaga, 1996; Bernhardt et al., 2005), while more recent work has centered around restoring natural processes (Johnson et al., 2019). Since socioeconomic and political complications are typically too great for dam removal projects to be feasible, reconciliation ecology, which encourages the accommodation of both human and wildlife needs in a human-dominated landscape, can be a more effective approach to restoration (Rosenzweig, 2003; Moyle et al., 2017). Rather than the elusive goal of returning rivers to a natural flow regime, the aim can be to attain functional environmental flows to support beneficial flow-ecology relationships (Poff et al., 2017). Dams can be operated to reduce some of their detrimental effects by releasing flows that improve downstream habitat through the preservation of key hydrologic signals upon which biophysical processes and native biological communities depend (Yarnell et al., 2020). Four functional flow components were identified for Mediterranean montane streams: wet-season initiation flows, peak magnitude flows, spring recession flows, and dry-season low flows; see Yarnell et al. (2015) for a description about the importance of each key functional component. Several studies have identified the need to further assess linkages between streamflow, invertebrate prey availability, and drift-foraging dynamics for consideration in future restoration plans for juvenile salmonids (Weber et al., 2014; Naman et al., 2016; Lusardi et al., 2018). The focus of this study is to assess the impact of dam-release flows imitating one of those functional flow components, peak magnitude flows, on invertebrate drift as a food resource for juvenile salmonids.

Review of 2018 Ocean Salmon Fisheries Stock Assessment and Fishery Evaluation Document for the Pacific Coast Salmon Fishery Management Plan

Pacific Fishery Management Council | February 11th, 2019

Review of North Delta Salmon Out-Migration Study

CALFED | January 23rd, 2008

This document is a review of the North Delta Salmon Out-Migration Study (NDSOS) proposed to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) by a group of PIs l

This document is a review of the North Delta Salmon Out-Migration Study (NDSOS) proposed to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) by a group of PIs lead by Jon Burau of the USGS. To carry out this review, the CALFED Science program, acting at the request of DWR and the PIs, convened a panel that was given a substantial written proposal describing the study. In addition to the written proposal, the PIs gave a series of presentations to a majority of the panel members at a public workshop held on January 10, 2008. The presentations provided many details about the proposed study that were not included in the written proposal. The panel was charged by CALFED to: “.... make recommendations concerning, and oversee incorporation of modifications to, the proposed study to ensure that, when funded, executed, and analyzed, the proposed investigation will provide the best-available science when characterizing the hydrodynamics and movement of out-migrating salmon smolts in the north Delta region in response to several alternate regional configurations.” This report is the panel’s response to that charge. In the sections that follow, we start by describing those aspects of the proposal that the panel found would work well or were strong positives. We follow this with a critique of perceived shortcomings of the proposal and a set of recommendations for possible changes to the proposed work that would improve the proposed study. These recommendations were based on the information in the written proposal provided to the panel and on the presentations made at the public workshop.

Review of the Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | December 18th, 2020

Spurred by an ongoing multi-year drought, decreasing system storage, and growing demands for Colorado River Water, in December 2007, Secretary of the Interior (Se

Spurred by an ongoing multi-year drought, decreasing system storage, and growing demands for Colorado River Water, in December 2007, Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) Kempthorne approved the Record of Decision (ROD) for the Colorado River Interim Guidelines for Lower Basin Shortages and the Coordinated Operations for Lake Powell and Lake Mead (Guidelines) (U.S. Department of the Interior [Department], 2007). The Guidelines, which are anticipated to be in place for an interim period through 2026, provide operating criteria for Lake Powell and Lake Mead including provisions designed to provide a greater degree of certainty to water users about timing and volumes of potential water delivery reductions, and additional operating flexibility to conserve and store water in the system. The interim nature of the Guidelines provided the opportunity to gain valuable experience for the management of Lake Powell and Lake Mead under modified operations and improve the basis for making future operational decisions, whether during the interim period or after. The requirement to document this experience is set forth in Section XI.G.7.D. of the ROD: “Beginning no later than December 31, 2020, the Secretary shall initiate a formal review for purposes of evaluating the effectiveness of these Guidelines. The Secretary shall consult with the Basin States in initiating this review” (7.D. Review). In December 2019, Secretary Bernhardt directed the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) to begin a review of the Guidelines in early 2020. This Report is the culmination of that process. This Report documents Reclamation’s operational experience and provides a retrospective evaluation of whether operations and actions specified by the Guidelines have adhered to common themes and been effective with respect to the purpose stated in the ROD. The results of this evaluation are not intended to imply correctness of any particular operational provision or recommend future policies or actions. Reclamation anticipates that this Report will be a valuable source of information during upcoming activities in support of post-2026 operations – but expects this Report to be only one of many sources of information that will be available to guide that process and inform upcoming decisions on operations. Reclamation recognizes there are other areas of interest beyond the scope of this Report that should be considered in future discussions. These topics include but are not limited to the impacts to environmental, recreational, hydropower, and water quality resources, how to meaningfully engage perspectives from a diverse group of partners and stakeholders, and other recommendations from tribes, states and other stakeholders. Reclamation anticipates that additional studies and activities will be undertaken and used to inform discussions related to future operations of Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Click here for Final Report, Appendix A – Operational Documentation for Lake Powell and Lake Mead Operations Under the Colorado River 2007 Interim Guidelines Years 2008 to 2019

Review of the Long-Term Operations of the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project

National Academy of Sciences (NAS) | November 10th, 2025

The CVP and SWP (referred to collectively as “the Projects”) rarely deliver their full contracted  amount of water. Some of this is inherent in the operation of larg

The CVP and SWP (referred to collectively as “the Projects”) rarely deliver their full contracted  amount of water. Some of this is inherent in the operation of large water projects with diverse demands in a dry and highly variable climate. A growing, complex regulatory environment of state and federal laws, some of which were created to protect fish species endemic to the Delta, has further restricted CVP and SWP operations.  These fish include the southern distinct population segment of North American green sturgeon, California Central Valley steelhead, Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon, Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, longfin smelt, and Delta smelt. Operating the Projects while trying to prevent species extinction can be a source of conflict if the actions to prevent extinction reduce the amount of water that can be exported. Project operation into the future will likely become more challenging as changes in various climatic factors push the listed species closer to their thresholds of survivability. Hence, in late 2023 USBR contracted with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) to form an expert committee that could serve as an independent review for the CVP and SWP as they operate into the future. The Committee’s statement of task appears in Box S-1. The three actions chosen for the study—the Shasta Coldwater Pool Management Action, the Old and Middle River Flow Management Action, and the Summer-Fall Habitat Action for Delta Smelt— are perceived as consequential for species survival and controversial for their effects on water deliveries to contractors.

Revised Incidental Take Methodology for the Coordinated Long-Term Operation of the CVP and SWP

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) | January 30th, 2019

Revised Water Right Decision 1641

California State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) | December 29th, 1999

Root Causes Analyses of the Oroville Dam Gated Spillway Failures and Other Developments

University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) | July 20th, 2017

We have performed forensic Root Causes Analyses of the Oroville Dam Gated Spillway failures and other associated developments as unfunded (approximately 3,000 pro-bono h

We have performed forensic Root Causes Analyses of the Oroville Dam Gated Spillway failures and other associated developments as unfunded (approximately 3,000 pro-bono hours) volunteers of the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) Center for Catastrophic Risk Management (CCRM) Oroville Dam Advisory Group (ODAG). We initiated this work on January 27, 2017. The results contained in this report have been developed based on the currently available public document and information sources cited at the end of this report, included in the Preliminary Root Causes Analysis of the Failures of the Oroville Dam Gated Spillway report dated April 17, 2017, and in the Legislative Oversight Report: Oroville Dam report dated May 11, 2017.  This report documents our analyses of the Root Causes of the initial failure of the Gated Spillway. Appendix A of this report provides summaries of the procedures and processes we used to perform the Root Causes analyses, background on the components that comprise Engineered Systems, and background on the Human and Organizational Factor malfunctions (errors) responsible for failures of Engineered Systems. Appendix B provides details of our analyses of the Physical and Organizational Root Causes of the initial failure of the Gated Spillway. The opinions expressed in this Report are ours alone. The opinions expressed herein are a fair and accurate summary of our opinions, based upon our experience, education, training, and expertise.