Our action-hero governor must have written this script himself. On what has been the hottest day of the year, with fires burning across the state, and smoke choking the Central Valley, he announced a water bond proposal that promises cool relief the all of California. And then he signed on the only co-star who might be capable of bringing this box-office smash to fruition.

Gov. Schwarzenegger enlisted Sen. Dianne Feinstein to help rebuild California’s deteriorating water system with a $9.3 billion bond proposal.

As we know all too well, this isn’t the first time the Gov has tried to get a water bond passed. Last year, he and Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata went head-to-head with similar but competing water bonds. Perata held out more money for dams, but wanted legislators to have annual reviews of expenditures. Such a deal was a dead duck and deservedly so. The Gov’s plan would have appropriated the money as needed.

Few words pack the power of this one: “Drought.”  Gov. Schwarzenegger officially declared the state to be in drought conditions on Wednesday, calling for far greater conservation, water transfers, federal aid and the establishment of an emergency “water bank” in case our dry conditions continue.

It’s an interesting and logical step – after all, he’s tried just about everything else to call attention to the fact that our entire state is suffering a two-year water emergency. Last year, the governor traveled the state to call attention to a disasterously dry year. He joined with the Association of California Water Agencies’ President Randy Fiorini of Turlock and Sen. Dave Cogdill of Modesto to push for money to build two dams at either end of the valley – Temperance Flat near Fresno and Sites Reservoir north of Sacramento. But politics got in the way at the last minute and the bond proposal was derailed when it became clear the governor would not agree to a plan that would allow the legislature to "review" how the money was spent each year. 

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has decided it needs a little more time to decide whether or not it will conduct a “rehearing” into how Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts are protecting salmon on the Tuolumne River. That’s a good step, though a better step would be to set a date.

By all accounts, fewer than 250 Chinook salmon returned to the river this year to spawn. Some put the number at around 125. That’s the worst return in a string of terrible returns, continuing a downward spiral that doesn’t have much more room to drop. It’s especially troubling in light of strong spring flows in 2004 and 2005. Such flows have always meant an increase in salmon numbers two years later. That didn’t happen. Part of the problem is undoubtedly connected to a catastrophic decline in salmon all along the West Coast. But there are likely contributing factors specific to the Tuolumne since the number of salmon returning to the Stanislaus and Merced rivers did not fall as precipitously.

Salmon can be fragile creatures. Around 75,000 Chinook salmon smolts being trucked to San Pablo Bay near Vallejo died on the trip, according to a report from Redding Record Searchlight. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento told the newspaper it would try to find out what happened.
This is just more bad news for the salmon fishery, which was devastated this year when only around 90,000 fish returned to Northern California rivers to spawn. Everyone has a pet theory about why the fish didn’t return — from a lack of food in the Pacific to pollution in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to predation on the tributary rivers like the Tuolumne and Stanislaus where they spawn — but no one is calling the numbers anything less than catastrophic.
Losing 40 percent of the 180,000 planter smolts doesn’t help.
It shouldn’t take long to find out what caused the dieoff. Valley temperatures exceeded 100 degrees Monday, and salmon don’t like anything above 65; most would die in acceptable bathwater. If the water in the tank truck got warm, it would kill the smolts. Still, a smaller truck carrying juvenile salmon (about six inches long) survived the trip, according to the Record Searchlight. So even when they’re swimming in a tank truck, the deaths of salmon can be downright mysterious.

The fight over water in the San Joaquin River has resumed in earnest. In a letter dated May 12, Modesto Irrigation District general manager Allen Short demanded that action be taken against those who pump water from the south delta.
This is the latest salvo in a battle that stretches back decades. Acting as the coordinator for the eight-member San Joaquin River Group, Short says that two small irrigation districts and a specific farmer have been taking water they have no right to use. He lays out his case in a four-page letter to the State Water Resources Control Board, which has authority over such pumping.
Short wants the South Delta Water Agency and others to stop pumping. His arguments reach back to a 1961 board recommendation that pumping rights on the San Joaquin be worked out among stakeholders. But they never were. The board suggested again in 1978 that the rights be worked out or that pumping should stop. But nothing happened.
A board spokesperson said such complaints are more common in dry years. Four decades of inactivity suggests that this has not been high on the board’s priority list.