Scientists say new water capturing projects are going to directly affect the white sturgeon, which only spawns when river levels are excessively high.
photo credit: US Fish & Wildlife Service via Bay City News A female sturgeon captured by U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
is tagged to document movement in the San Joaquin River Basin. April 17, 2024.
After over 100 million years of existence, the white sturgeon may be fading from the San Francisco Bay estuary.
On June 19, the California Fish and Game Commission approved white sturgeon as a candidate species for listing under the California Endangered Species Act.
Bay Area scientists say their decline is due to increased pollution and a loss of deep-river spawning grounds.
The listing could not only affect the sport fishing industry but throw more legal weight behind the argument against state and federal projects that divert and store water from the Sacramento San Joaquin Delta.
The Sites Reservoir and the Delta Conveyance Tunnel, which are planned to draw excess water from the upper Sacramento River, are both designed to only capture water during wet periods. According to wildlife experts, that's the same excess water the white sturgeon needs to spawn.
In November 2023, several advocacy groups including San Francisco Baykeeper, California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, The Bay Institute, and Restore the Delta petitioned to list the California white sturgeon as threatened under both the state and federal Endangered Species Acts.
"We divert too much water from Central Valley rivers, dump too much pollution into the Bay, and we overfish this white sturgeon population," said Baykeeper Senior Scientist Jon Rosenfield in the petition statement.
According to staff at the California Water Impact Network, an environmental nonprofit founded by Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, the state and federal Endangered Species Acts (ESAs) are basically the same in defining endangered and threatened status and prohibitions. But the federal act also defines and prohibits a species' harassment, harm, and incidental killing, while state law does not address these issues.
The federal ESA defines harm as "an act which kills or injures wildlife and may include significant habitat modification or degradation that kills or injuries wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavior patterns."
White sturgeon returns to spawn in the upper Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers every 2 to 6 years. Those two rivers are major faucets for state and federal water conveyance systems. According to Rosenfield, new water capturing projects are going to directly affect the white sturgeon, which only spawns when river levels are excessively high.
"There's this myth out there that there is surplus water that could be diverted when it's wet and there's plenty of water in the ecosystem, that it doesn't get used or brings no benefit," said Rosenfield. "And that's just simply not true. The white sturgeon are the poster child for the need for big river flows."
The sturgeons don't come along all that often, said Rosenfield. They live a long time - up to 20 years -- so they can wade out droughts, but they need to get into high river flows when it's wet out.
White Sturgeon are capable of living in the ocean but prefer freshwater, specifically the rivers systems from Northern California to Canada.
Commercial fishing of white sturgeon has been outlawed since 1917. A century ago, they grew to the length of 20 feet, and lived for almost 100 years. Today, a full-grown sturgeon is half that size, and it takes them 17 years to reach full maturity.
In 2022 and 2023, the San Francisco Bay experienced a bloom of a brown algae, that feeds off the nitrogen in wastewater. It infected the Bay and damaged aquatic ecosystems. Hundreds of white and green sturgeon died, as well as thousands of small fish.
The conditions for that bloom were warm water temperatures, combined with wastewater overflows and reduced freshwater flows from the Delta, said Tom Cannon, with California Sportfishing Protection Alliance.
"With the ESA listing, you could say they're violating their incidental take permit, and you have something to base your case on," said Cannon.
An Incidental take permit is a rule set by each law to protect the species.
This June, steelhead trout, which is listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act, were swimming too near to the intake pumps for the State Water Project.
"Federal biological opinions say if you incidentally take more than 100 steelhead into the pumps, you have to turn off the pumps," said Cannon. "So, they had to cut back on exporting this June because they hit the numerical limit, but it really just triggered a consultation. It didn't stop anybody. They talked and agreed to cut back a little in June. On the first day of July, they went to pump like hell, full blast all month."
Notice of their decision to pursue the classification will be Friday. At that point, fishing for white sturgeon could close during the year-long review process.
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