Good overview of the pumping process relating to the fish caught in it, but sad as that may be, we need the pumps more than the relatively small amount of fish lost due to their operation.
Delta pumps fear the squeeze
Fish lawsuit has some worried over the future of flows
By Alex Breitler, Record Staff Writer, November 13, 2006 6:00 AM
TRACY - With more combined horsepower than a fleet of 3,000 Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the state's Delta water pumps can really roar.
And, some say, they are indeed hogs.
At least some of the 11 pumps generally churn around the clock in the bowels of a secured building nestled at the base of the Altamont hills, behind a secured perimeter. The state water project is the largest PG&E customer in terms of energy consumed.
This is where it all begins: Billions of gallons of water are drawn in from the Delta, pumped 245 feet uphill to the head of the California Aqueduct, and then sent south toward Tracy, Patterson, Modesto - and Los Angeles.
The pumps are an amazing engineering feat. And they remain arguably the most controversial component of California's water distribution system.
A lawsuit to be heard next week in Alameda County alleges that the operators of the pumps have sucked in and chopped up endangered fish without proper authorization from state wildlife officials.
It is a paperwork argument, the state says in its defense - a procedural splitting of hairs. But the case has again cast attention on the pumps and their crucial role: for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, for families who need drinking water and for ratepayers whose wallets might be hit if pumping causes Delta water quality to decline.
"The pumps are a billion-dollar utility that runs a trillion-dollar economy," said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, the agency charged with running the pumps.
During high tides, the state opens gates on the Delta allowing water to pour into a holding bay. Sometimes this giant sucking can create a reverse flow in parts of the Delta - water goes in the opposite direction nature intended.
With the water comes the fish. Many of the sensitive Delta smelt and juvenile salmon that enter the bay are promptly gobbled up by striped bass.
Those that survive eventually flow with the water into a fish screening facility, their last chance to escape the pumps. They are funneled into pipes and holding tanks, and dumped into trucks for transport.
"They are crowded and crunched and squashed and plastered - you cannot handle fish that way. Not if you want them to live," said Tina Swanson, a biologist for the conservation group The Bay Institute.
Even if they survive the trip and are released back into the Delta, the fish may quickly be eaten by fat pike minnow or bass that have learned to congregate near the drop-off points in hopes of getting a free lunch, she said.
Bottom line: Not all fish are protected from the pumps.
The state doesn't dispute that.
