Press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today proposed to designate 91,630 acres of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act for the critically imperiled San Francisco Bay population of longfin smelt. The formerly abundant native fish have seen their population plummet in recent decades.
Today’s proposal is the result of petitions first filed in 1994 and multiple lawsuits by the Center for Biological Diversity and San Francisco Baykeeper to compel protection of the fish.
“These habitat protections are a critical lifeline for a fish species whose decline portends the loss of our valuable salmon runs and potentially all of the Bay-Delta’s native fishes,” said Jeff Miller, a senior conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Despite our rapidly heating planet, more and more water is being diverted for unsustainable industrial agriculture, sucking the life out of Central Valley rivers and the Delta.”
Critical habitat designation is a crucial tool under the Endangered Species Act. It requires federal agencies to ensure their actions don’t destroy or damage areas essential for the survival of endangered species, whether or not that habitat is currently occupied.
The areas to be protected for longfin smelt include waters of San Pablo Bay, Suisun Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. These encompass the most crucial habitats that provide the necessary water flows, temperature, salinity, turbidity and substrate conditions for smelt spawning, rearing and feeding.
“Like most of the Delta’s native fishes, longfin smelt need high river flows to reach San Francisco Bay in the winter and spring,” said Jon Rosenfield, science director for Baykeeper. “The mixing in the Delta of fresh and salt water creates the habitat that smelt, salmon, sturgeon and countless other fish depend on for survival. Continued unsustainable diversion of water threatens to extinguish the Bay’s longfin smelt and other native fish.”
Protections for longfin smelt will not affect human health or water supplies. Donald Trump has been spreading lies about protections for endangered fish species in the San Francisco Bay-Delta affecting the current Los Angeles wildfires. These falsehoods have been debunked, as the South Coast reservoirs supplied by Delta water are currently between 76% to 97% of capacity and well above average for this time of year. Even during extended droughts, these reservoirs contain more than enough water to support firefighting.
The “water restoration declaration” cited by Trump that could supposedly somehow allow Northern California water to flow to the fire zones does not exist. The water Trump seems to be referring to would be sent to San Joaquin Valley agribusiness, not Los Angeles.
Lack of water is not the reason for the spread of the devastating fires. Rather it’s due to climate-driven drought conditions, unusually high winds, city infrastructure not designed to respond to massive wildfires across multiple neighborhoods, and poor land-use planning. Protecting people from wildfire requires investing in home hardening, increasing climate-resiliency in communities and strengthening regulations to prevent new development in high-wildfire areas.
“Any claim that Gov. Newsom is denying Californians water in order to protect endangered fish is baseless, since state and federal agencies under both Republican and Democratic administrations have continuously allowed massive diversions of Delta water to Central Valley agriculture and Southern California water agencies,” said Miller.
Under pressure from Delta water exporters, state agencies successfully petitioned for waivers of required minimum flow safeguards into the Delta in spring of 2021, 2022 and 2023, and October 2024.
Background
Extended climatic drought and water mismanagement have caused unprecedented water crises in California. Poor management of Central Valley tributary rivers, including the construction and operation of hundreds of dams and thousands of water diversions, has slashed annual freshwater flow into the Bay by 53% — and by more than 70% in some years during the critical winter to spring period when longfin smelt benefit from high levels of freshwater flow into the Bay’s estuary to thrive.
This massive overuse of limited freshwater resources — largely by industrial agribusiness — results in perpetual, man-made, drought-like conditions for native fish, which degrades their habitat.
Longfin smelt were once one of the most abundant fishes in the San Francisco Bay estuary, but populations have declined more than 99% from 1980s levels. Annual state surveys show that longfin smelt in San Francisco Bay have been at or near record-low abundance almost every year since 2007 and are nearly undetectable in other Northern California estuaries.
The longfin smelt’s decline, which mirrors depletion of other San Francisco Bay native fishes such as Chinook salmon, steelhead, white sturgeon, and delta smelt, harms all of the wildlife species that depend on fish for food. The decline of these fish also indicates that requirements in various laws to protect endangered species, fisheries, and the Bay’s water quality remain unfulfilled.
Despite these consequences, the state plans to divert additional fresh water through the proposed Delta Conveyance and Sites Reservoir projects, which would further degrade Bay-Delta habitat. The Delta Conveyance would add a diversion in the lower Sacramento River and a tunnel to carry water under the Delta for cities and agriculture south of the Delta. The announced price tag for the tunnel is over $20 billion, but that cost is likely to increase dramatically as the planning process drags on.
Reduced flow into San Francisco Bay will increase the threat of extinction for many native fish species, including those that support recreational, commercial and Tribal fisheries. The closure of California’s commercial and recreational fishery for Chinook salmon in 2023 and 2024 is another byproduct of mismanagement of Central Valley rivers. And the recent prohibition on recreational harvest of the Bay’s white sturgeon is another example of state and federal failure to protect the public trust from unsustainable water diversions.
Conservation groups first petitioned for protection for the longfin smelt (Spirinchus thaleichthys) in 1994, and finally in response to a 2024 lawsuit by Baykeeper the San Francisco Bay population was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
San Francisco Baykeeper is a nonprofit established in 1989 to defend San Francisco Bay from the biggest threats and hold polluters and government agencies accountable to create healthy communities and help wildlife thrive.
