The plan released today by the National Marine Fisheries Service recommends a list of actions it estimates would cut current state and federal water exports south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by 5-7 percent, or 330,000 acre-feet, a year.

This cut is in addition to a curtailment made last year to protect the Delta smelt.

Agricultural water users south of the Delta currently receive about 10 percent of their average deliveries.

Today’s opinion, if not challenged by a federal court, would mean an effective shutdown of all pumping for agriculture south of the Delta, said Manuel Cunha, Jr., president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League.
Cunha said its time for the farm community to jolt the nation into realizing its food supply is compromised by lack of water.

“Civil disobedience has to happen,” Cunha said. “We have to cut the food chain to this country. It’s time we all become unified in agriculture, especially California, because it feeds the world.”

The fisheries service had to redo its plan after a federal judge in Fresno threw out its previous proposal last year.

The plan was formulated to protect populations of “winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food,” according to a fisheries service press release.

The move is another indication that environmentalists are turning a deaf ear to drastic economic losses associated with drought and regulation, said Congressman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare).

“Killer whales, steelhead, salmon and sturgeon — the latest excuse for the diversion of water away from dry California communities,” read a statement on Nunes’ website.

Among the plan’s recommendations are a new water temperature management plan for the upper Sacramento River and Shasta Reservoir and opening dams to allow for better salmon migration.

“What is at stake here is not just the survival of species but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them,” said Rod Mcinnis, southwest regional director for the federal fisheries Service, in a prepared statement. “We are ready to work with our federal and state partners, farmers and residents to find solutions that benefit the economy, environment and Central Valley families.”

Cunha said all eyes are on Federal Judge Oliver Wanger to act on behalf of farmers. Wanger issued a ruling at the end of May that the federal government must consider the impact on humans when it allocates Delta water.