Longfin smelt doesn't qualify for federal listing

Issue Date: April 15, 2009

By Kate Campbell
Assistant Editor

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finds the longfin smelt population in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta doesn't meet the legal criteria for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act.

The service said last week, however, it will initiate a broader evaluation of the species throughout its range, which includes San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, as well as other West Coast estuaries, extending as far north as Alaska.

The petition to list the longfin smelt as threatened or endangered was filed in August 2007. The petition asserted that the Bay-Delta longfin population is physically and reproductively isolated from populations farther north, that it's genetically different and lives in a unique ecological setting.

The petition also claimed that reduced outflow caused by water exports from the delta have contributed to decline of the longfin smelt.

The FWS decided, however, that because some Bay-Delta longfin smelt migrate into the Pacific Ocean and can travel up the coast to breed with longfin farther north, they fail to meet the criteria for protection as a distinct population segment.

Commenting on the FWS findings, Kari Fisher, associate counsel for the California Farm Bureau Federation Natural Resources and Environmental Division, said, "This decision highlights the need for sound science before a determination on the status of a species is made."

Longfin smelt is a species that lives mostly in coastal estuaries, but breeds in fresh water and can live in the ocean. It grows to about five inches in length and tolerates wide ranges of salinity. It generally has a two-year life cycle, spawning from November to June in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and then traveling with currents downstream to Suisun and San Pablo bays.

Population indicators for longfin smelt in the delta have been low since 2000, but historically have fluctuated, with low numbers often occurring in dry years.

A close cousin of the already protected delta smelt, the longfin smelt occasionally appears in the vicinity of the water export facilities in the south delta that serve the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.

If the longfin smelt had been listed as a unique species and its survival deemed threatened under the ESA, that could have posed additional management problems for project operators and those who depend on water supplies from the delta.

Fisher noted that while the longfin smelt has been declining in the delta, it is an abundant species whose range includes 1,900 miles along the Pacific Coast of North America, ranging from Alaska in the north to California in the south.

California Farm Bureau Federation pointed out in a letter to the FWS on the proposed ESA listing that recent scientific studies do not support the assertion by environmental groups that longfin smelt in the delta or San Francisco Bay are a distinct subspecies.

The Bay Institute, Center Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council petition to list the Bay-Delta population of the longfin smelt as a distinct subspecies warranting protection relied on a study from the 1990s that had noted some genetic differences between a Washington State population of longfin smelt and the Bay-Delta population of the species.

The FWS's recent decision, however, found that the comparison between a landlocked Washington State population and the estuarine population of the California Bay-Delta was inappropriate and inconclusive as to the Bay-Delta population's genetic "distinctness" from other populations within the species' larger geographic range.

A 1992 petition sought to list the entire longfin smelt population, but the FWS determined in 1994 that the species as a whole did not warrant protection.

Farm Bureau's letter to the FWS noted that the petition to list the longfin smelt as threatened or endangered focused "myopically and disproportionately on a single possible factor in the longfin smelt's recent decline—namely, operations of the State Water Project and Central Valley Project export facilities in the south delta.

"This approach attempts erroneously to saddle a single source of possible harm with responsibility to mitigate for the effects of all harms," Farm Bureau said in its comment letter on the proposed listing. In addition, Farm Bureau's letter advised the FWS to adopt a broader view of the problems facing the delta, its habitat and species. Best available science shows a wide range of causes contributing to declines in both delta and longfin smelt, Farm Bureau told federal officials.

The petition to list the longfin smelt had maintained that proposals to increase water exports present a grave and immediate threat to the species.

"The reality is, of course, that the CVP and SWP pumps are more constrained today than at any point in the past," Fisher said. "This represents a dramatic decrease in exports and, without some significant change in water management or water conveyance, it's unclear when or if exports will return to anything resembling previous levels, let alone increase.

"Meanwhile, water users throughout the state are in the grips of a regulatory drought that shows no signs of relenting, at least for the foreseeable future," she said. "Obviously, petitioners' allegations of imminently increasing water exports ignored the actual and very dire situation on the ground."

Fisher said that while the federal decision not to list the longfin smelt as threatened or endangered is encouraging, in March the California Fish and Game Commission voted to protect longfin smelt as a threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act.

While the state listing of the longfin smelt does not apply directly to the federal Central Valley Project, the state listing may lead to further restrictions on operations of the State Water Project.

"That could further erode water supply reliability overall," Fisher said. "And, the legal effect of the state's up-listing of the delta smelt is that the species is now considered a species in serious danger of becoming extinct."

She said that is perceived as a more dire condition than if the species were deemed likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future.

(Kate Campbell is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at kcampbell@cfbf.com.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item. Top