California now has a leader with the same name as a trout, but will Governor Jerry Brown be good for fish? Only time will tell, though the new governor’s preelection statements reflect a commitment to fish-and-wildlife issues and to reshaping the state fish-and-game agencies. “It is very important that California preserve its natural resources and habitat, the opportunities for anglers, hunters, and all outdoorsmen to enjoy the beauty of this magnificent state,” Governor Brown said in a radio interview before the election, adding that he often spent time in the outdoors with his late father, who served as governor from 1959 to 1967.
“I still have a ranch in Colusa County, and I went there with Earl Warren, the former governor and chief justice, and my father, Pat Brown, for duck hunting,” said the 73-year-old Brown in the interview.
He was also exposed to the outdoors during his first term as governor, when he tagged along on fishing trips sponsored by the state Fish and Game Commission. “We went to the Trinity Alps with outdoorsmen and outdoor writers,” he told Sep Hendrickson in the California Sportsmen interview on KHTK AM. “It was quite an experience. I hope that as I have more time, I will be able to do more of those as governor.” Because of that exposure, Governor Brown added, he would like to preserve the tradition of hunting and fishing in a state with an increasingly urban population. “I want to make sure that California maintains its outdoors in a way that works in a traditional sense,” he said.
Anglers who fish the American River in Sacramento might cross paths with Governor Brown and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, who jog along the river’s bike trail. Governor Brown lives in a rented downtown loft when in Sacramento and has been seen walking to his office a couple of blocks away in the State Capitol. Anglers also might bump into the governor sharing a bourbon with his wife at the Torch Club, a downtown jazz club they have adopted as their neighborhood bar.
Although the governor has focused primarily on how to balance a state budget that is $26.6 billion in the red, he will have an opportunity to reshape fisheries management in the state during his term in office.
Reforming the DFG
Assembly Bill 2376, which was approved in the 2010 legislative session and signed into law, forms a committee of state agency heads and authorizes creation of a blue-ribbon citizen commission and a stakeholder group whose members will create a “strategic vision” to reform the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and its policy-setting parent, the Fish and Game Commission.
State Assembly Member Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael), the former staff member of a national environmental group and a fly fisher, introduced and stewarded AB-2376 through the legislature to address problems in the two fish-and-game agencies caused by lack of funding, understaffing, limited use of science, politically motivated decision-making processes, and other issues. “The department is dysfunctional,” Huffman has said of the DFG. “It’s a mile wide and an inch deep and is structured in a way that makes it vulnerable to political influences.”
Clark Blanchard, associate director of communications for the California Resources Agency, which is overseeing the reform effort, said the work is a high priority for the state’s new resource secretary, John Laird. At a legislative forum on fisheries held in mid-February, Laird told lawmakers that he prepared for the effort by reading five DFG strategic-planning documents dating back to 1958. “One thing they all had in common was the issue of the lack of funding for the department,” said Laird, adding that issue will be addressed again. “I’m concerned that this not be the sixth report that has no outcome.”
The California Delta
On taking office, Governor Brown inherited the complex and contentious issue of how to meet the dual goals of protecting declining fish populations in the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta and providing for the growing water demands of farmers and Southern California’s urban areas. Governor Brown was involved during his first term as governor with Delta issues, including plans to build the controversial Peripheral Canal to route water around the Delta, a proposal that was rejected in 1982 in a statewide vote.
In the latest round of Delta planning, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan recommends an underground version of the Peripheral Canal as part of a so-called “dual conveyance” strategy, which also proposes routing water through existing rivers and waterways in the Delta. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan calls for studying the environmental impact of two 35-mile-long, 33-foot-diameter underground pipes that would divert Sacramento River water from just south of Sacramento to near Tracy, where pumps send the water south. The pipe system could divert as much as 15,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) of water around the Delta. The average Sacramento River flow is 30,000 cfs, according to published reports. A decision to move forward on the dual-conveyance Delta strategy is due later this year.
Water planners have said that some sort of canal is needed to control water flows in the Delta and for reliability of supply in case of an earthquake. Environmentalists fear that routing river water directly to Southern California will devastate the Delta and its fragile fishery and wetland areas.
In a throwback to his earlier Delta work, Governor Brown has appointed well-respected environmentalist Jerry Meral as a resource agency deputy secretary in charge of Delta water issues and the Bay Delta Conservation Plan. Meral, who is the retired executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, led the 1982 canal effort while working as an employee of the California Department of Water Resources during the first Brown administration. His position in favor of the water diversion hasn’t changed much since those days. “I don’t want to prejudice this,” Meral told the Contra Costa Times newspaper, “but something like a facility roughly of the size in the earlier documents will be proposed, will be permitted and be built.”
Approval for construction of the canal, which is projected to cost $20 billion, will depend on its final approval in the Delta planning process and the ability of Meral and the governor to find funding, craft a plan for its operation that pleases the many wrangling factions, and overcome opposition by some environmental groups, particularly those seeking to protect and restore fish populations.
“The [Department of Fish and Game] is dysfunctional. It’s a mile wide and an inch deep and is structured in a way that makes it vulnerable to political influences.”
Jared Huffman
“We oppose the Peripheral Canal,” said John Beuttler, conservation director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, which is supported by many of California’s fly-fishing clubs. “The science isn’t in place to show how what is being proposed is going to work. With their track record on the Delta, do we really want to trust the government alone with that decision?” Beuttler said the decision to recommend the Peripheral Canal in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan was based on computer models using the wrong alternatives. In a related issue, Governor Brown is expected to play a key role in deciding the size and content of a water bond that could be placed on the November 2012 ballot. An $11 billion bond that included funding for the Peripheral Canal was considered last year, but was delayed from appearing on the ballot because of lack of agreement by lawmakers and Delta interest groups.
Steelhead and Salmon
Steelhead and salmon populations could be affected by appointees of the governor this year when the state government decides on no-fishing zones on the North Coast and in San Francisco Bay. The zones are part of the debate over methods of protecting fish as part of the 12-year-old Marine Life Protection Act, which has already resulted in angling closures in ocean areas on the South, Central and North-Central coasts. The decision, which has been opposed by commercial fishermen and some sport-fishing groups, will be made by the Fish and Game Commission, where Governor Brown will make key appointments during his term in office.
Appointments and Staffing
During his current term, Governor Brown will appoint or replace three of the five members of the Fish and Game Commission — Jim Kellogg, whose term expires on January 15, 2012; Daniel Richards, a fly fisher whose term expires on January 15, 2013; and Richard Rogers, whose term expired on January 15, 2011, but who can continue to serve until he is reappointed or replaced. On his way out of office, Governor Schwarzenegger reappointed Jack Bayliss to a six-term term. Rogers and Bayliss have sided with those who have advocated protecting fisheries. If he chooses, the governor could reshape the commission into a more or less environmentally oriented body at a critical time for North Coast salmon and steelhead.
Over at the Department of Fish and Game, Governor Brown, as of this writing, is interviewing candidates who have applied to head the department. While the personnel process is closed, one candidate who has embarked on a public lobbying campaign for the job is Bob Treanor, who retired after heading the Fish and Game Commission for many years and has experience working on agency strategy plans. John McGamman is currently acting DFG director and is expected to be replaced.
Dam Removals
Governor Brown could already be playing a key role in preserving federal funding to study removing four dams on the Klamath River as part of fishery restoration efforts. Following a year-old landmark agreement, planning is underway to remove the dams, but U.S. Representative Tom McClintock (R-CA4) in February got an amendment tacked onto a Congressional funding resolution that cut $1.9 million from the Department of Interior’s budget to do the work. If not overturned, the funding cut could delay the project, which has been scheduled to begin in 2020.
At the mid-February fisheries forum, Resource Secretary Laird said his agency was also working on convincing the federal government to pay for Klamath restoration after the dams are removed.
Sam Schuchat, executive officer of the California Coastal Conservancy, told lawmakers at the February hearing that his agency is also working to remove the heavily silted, fish-blocking San Clemente Dam on the Carmel River in Monterey County and the Matilija Dam on a tributary to the Ventura River in Ventura County in Southern California. “These dams serve no other purpose than to frustrate the romantic interests of anadromous fish,” said Schuchat.
Fish Passages
The DFG’s McCamman said that removing or fixing structures that block fish passage in streams is one of the department’s high priorities. “Since 2000, over five hundred barriers have been removed in California,” he said at the fisheries forum. “And we have just published a fish passage study.”
The fish-barrier work has included removing dams, some of which had remained in streams but no longer provided flood control, water diversion, silt collection, or fulfilled other purposes. In addition, the DFG has worked with state and local road departments to modify culverts and road-crossing structures that block fish from swimming up streams to reach spawning areas.
The DFG has provided agencies and nonprofits with funds for this work through its 30-year-old Fisheries Restoration Grants, which have opened some 661 miles of stream by removing 440 barriers. The grants are a combination of state and federal money. McCamman said that the department is not getting as much money for grants and stream restoration work because of cuts in the federal budget. Last year, the DFG approved $13.4 million in grants for stream projects, including a number involving removal of blockages.
Groundwater Regulation
Powerful agricultural, development, and conservation interests will be watching closely to see whether Governor Brown will tackle the high-stakes issue of regulating groundwater, which has an effect on stream flows and fish habitat.
To date, no governor has even hinted at substantially regulating the groundwater impacts of drilling wells, which are widely used as a replacement for water lost from rivers and streams in the Delta. Extensive well drilling has caused ground to subside in the Delta, which is thought to increase the danger of levees collapsing. However, any legislation that even hints at regulating groundwater draws heavy opposition. For instance, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed Assembly Bill 2304, which would have required reporting the number of groundwater recharge projects (these projects involve pumping water into underground basins for later use).
In early February, the bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Jared Huffman, who chairs the Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee, held a public hearing on groundwater, which could set the stage for more mapping, monitoring, and study of the impact that drilling has on rivers, aquatic ecosystems, and fish. Given the importance of water in California, the issue will be one of many on a thorny list that could make Jerry Brown wonder why he ran for governor again.
