An advisory committee has recommended that Director of Fish & Wildlife Chuck Bonham deny the incidental take permit for the BDCP’s Alternative 4, saying that the plan does not meet the requirements of a Natural Communities Conservation Plan and therefore cannot be approved because it will contribute to the further decline of salmon.
The California Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead Trout is a public committee authorized by the Legislature in 1970 to advise the Director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife on matters relating salmon and steelhead trout.
In a letter dated February 26, the Committee cites several reasons why Director Bonham should not issue a permit for the BDCP, including reduced smolt survival through the Delta, the concept that habitat restoration can make up for increased exports is not supported by science, and that funding and water supplies for habitat restoration is far from assured.
And furthermore:
“None of the alternatives considered in the BDCP Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Report would lead to the recovery of Sacramento River Winter Run and Spring Run Chinook salmon. None of the alternatives analyzed reduces the amount of water diverted upstream of or within the Delta. None of the alternatives analyzed considers meeting or moving toward meeting the State Water Resources’ Control Board’s Delta Outflow Criteria of 2010 that was specifically required by the legislature in 2009 “to inform planning decisions for the Delta Plan and the BDCP.”
- Read the full letter here: CACSST to Bonham CDFW on BDCP NCCP_022614
- For more information on the California Advisory Committee on Salmon and Steelhead Trout, click here.
