ESTUARY 1 SCIENCE • RESTORATION • WATERSHED • POLITICS SPECIES BAY • WATERSHED SCIENCE • RESTORATION San Francisco Estuary Partnership Prepping for a Hotter San Joaquin Valley Derelict San Francisco Shipyard Goes Soft Committee Approves 32-Action Plan for Estuary Nervy Merger EBMUD Experiments with Pipe Replacement Mixed News from Eggs Local Ocean Response to Climate Change John Hart Reviews the Estuary’s Divided Heart NE WS JUNE 2016 VOL. 25, NO. 2 SJ Valley Change ............ 2 India Basin .................. 4 CCMP Approved ............. 5 ABAG Merger ............... 6 Pipelines .................. 15 Bird Egg Contaminants ...... 17 Point Buckler .............. 18 Ocean Climate Summit ...... 19 SPECIAL: Estuary History. 7-14 2 JUNE 2016 3 ESTUARY NEWS RIVERS climate change will be intrinsically lived there first. “Native Americans different in the two regions. Here were constantly burning and thinning on the edges of the Bay, a big worry forests,” Selmon says. “But, thinking is that rising seas will swamp the it was a better way to manage them, Getting Ahead marshes that protect against floods, we did nothing except put fires out.” and push salt water so far into the According to a recent study led by Delta that water near the pumps will Christopher Dolanc of UC Davis, fire be undrinkable. suppression has crammed the Sierra of Change in the Valley Nevada with small trees, more than For Valley ecosystems, the worst doubling their density in some places. On a hot day in a dry year in the thousands of Chinook salmon that then nightmare is rising temperatures. Dense forests catch snow in their San Joaquin Valley, water is already so Warming does a double whammy spawned upstream. Now, more than branches, where it skips melting into scarce that there isn’t enough to meet on the Sierra Nevada snowpack that half a century later, the San Joaquin liquid water. Instead, it evaporates all needs. And it will only get worse supplies water through the long dry River Restoration Project is finally into water vapor and floats away. as climate change makes summers rebuilding the historic salmon runs season: the mountains get more there even hotter and drier. This vast and giving them back a bit of water. rain and less snow, shrinking the Thinning a crowded forest lets arid valley, stretching from Stockton to snowpack; and the snow that does fall more snow fall to the ground, building Bakersfield and bounded by mountains This restoration will also benefit melts earlier, diminishing the water up the snowpack and swelling runoff to the east, west and south, is drained wildlife and people in the valley the supply in the summer when the need into the headwaters of San Joaquin by the San Joaquin River, which flows river traverses, as well as in the is greatest. River. A team led by Roger Bales of hundreds of miles from high in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta it flows UC Merced estimates that thinning into. And it’s just one of the things Selmon points out that this is already Sierra Nevada to the lowlands of the happening: “California has warmed overgrown forests could yield up to Delta. Along the way, people dam that can be done today to prepare for 16% more water and extend snowmelt tomorrow’s climate change. “It’s all almost 1.5 °F over the last century and and divert water for communities and the snowpack has declined 10% — by precious weeks, calling thinning agriculture, sometimes taking so much connected, it’s quite a complicated “one of the few ways that California puzzle,” says Tom Harmon, a climate we’ve already lost 1.5 million acre-feet that hardly any is left for salmon and of water.” That’s enough for 3 million can address the negative impacts of researcher at UC Merced. other wildlife. households for a year. climate change on water yield and Even so, this puzzle can be solved. storage in the Sierra Nevada.” “One of the biggest threats of climate And temperatures continue to go up. “We need to integrate planning for change is that we will have even less The US Bureau of Reclamation projects Another way is restoring mead- climate change with planning for water water,” says Michelle Selmon, a state that by the end of this century, the ows, which can keep snowmelt from Department of Water Resources climate and other resources, and we all need Central Valley will be nearly 5 °F hotter. rushing down to the Valley too early. change specialist based in Fresno. to work together,” Selmon says. “Most That may not seem like a big deal but Meadows are like sponges, soaking people have no idea how challenging up water fast and releasing it slowly, “San Joaquin ecosystems are already it’s enough to tip the balance from snow Biologists capture first fall run adult Chinook salmon in November 2012 at the confluence of the San stressed. There are only pockets of this is.” to rain at Sierra Nevada elevations even into September. But the Sierra Joaquin and Merced Rivers. They transported the fish around barriers and then released them again native habitat left.” Nevada’s nearly 200,000 acres of Warming will bring more intense where the snowpack begins. “The in the upper San Joaquin River. Fish passage barriers will be fixed as part of upcoming restoration snow-rain transition zone is gradually meadows are “one of the most altered, efforts. Photo: Monty Schmitt After the Friant Dam went in on the rainstorms and more severe floods to impacted and at-risk landscapes in San Joaquin River near Fresno during California. But just as the San Joaquin hiking its way upslope,” UC Merced’s Harmon explains. “California depends the range,” say Joshua Viers and col- Resources Defense Council. By into the ground, where it is banked the 1940s, nearly 60 miles downstream Valley can feel like a different world leagues of UC Davis. Half the mead- shifting storms in the Sierra Nevada for dry times to come in the San ran dry, cutting off the hundreds of from the Bay Area, other effects of on snowpack and it’s not a very cold snowpack — that’s why the state is so ows there have been so degraded from snow towards rain, warming Joaquin Valley. “Even 10,000 acre feet sensitive to climate change.” by livestock grazing, diversions and will bring bigger floods in the future at the right time can make a world of ditching that the streams running from storms of a given size. “For a difference,” Schmitt says. Today, runoff from the snowpack through them are deeper than the 200-year event, climate change will Restoring the San Joaquin River can last until July. But with the smaller floodplains — so they fail to capture increase peak runoff into the San will benefit the Bay Area as well. snowpack and earlier snowmelt much water. Reconnecting the stream Joaquin River by 20%,” he says. “Now, virtually no water from this caused by warming, this welcome and floodplain can reverse that, restor- Levees along two long stretches part of the river gets to the Delta,” replenishment of icy streamflow ing a meadow’s capacity to hold water that are bottlenecked—increasing the Schmitt says. Returning some of during the Valley’s scorching summer and release it down to the San Joaquin flood risk—will be set back. Besides the river’s water means more will may dwindle to just a trickle. River through the summer. giving flood water a safe place to go, ultimately make its way downstream There’s already so much extra After the Sacramento River, the setting back the levees will make to the Delta, where lack of freshwater carbon dioxide in the air that it’s too San Joaquin River is California’s sec- room for thousands of acres of the imperils smelt and other at-risk fish. late to halt climate change. “There are ond longest at 350 miles and its res- floodplains that nurture young salmon As Schmitt points out, every drop is unavoidable impacts already in the toration spans the 150 miles between migrating to the sea. welcome. RM pipeline so we need to adapt,” Selmon Friant Dam and the confluence with The river’s restoration will also CONTACT Tom Harmon says. There’s not much that can be the Merced River. While driven by at- help ease the impact of future [email protected]; done about the temperature rise, at risk salmon, the restoration will also droughts—which climate change Monty Schmitt [email protected]; least in California alone; warming help counteract the effects of climate will likely exacerbate—by recharging Michelle Selmon is worldwide so curbing it is an change—especially flooding. international undertaking. some much-needed groundwater. As [email protected] This part of the river is largely de- part of the restoration effort, the river But plenty can be done about the fenseless against large flood events. gets back an average of 17% of its consequences of warming. “Protection wasn’t set up because historical flows before the Friant Dam High in the Sierras, researchers are the river is so dry much of the time,” went in, or about 300,000 acre feet. So says Monty Schmitt, senior scientist far, about 40% of the water that has Lower San Joaquin River near its confluence with the Merced River. Photo: Monty Schmitt testing a snowpack-boosting method that dates back to the people who and project manager with the Natural been restored to the river has gone 4 JUNE 2016 5 ESTUARY NEWS ADAPTATION PARTNERSHIP A Softer Shoreline for San Francisco? Committee Approves 32-Action Plan A derelict shipyard, an proposals came out for After two and a half years work in the first place.