Delta Water Conclusion Was Flawed
Jul. 14–A Bush administration official reversed scientists’ conclusions last year that California salmon would be driven closer to extinction by plans to increase the use of Delta water in a decision that compromised the integrity of endangered species protections, federal auditors have found.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, James Lecky, bypassed internal controls designed to protect the integrity of NOAA scientists’ determinations and the legal justification for their work, the report found.
Critics said it is the latest evidence that political considerations trump science in the Bush administration.
“(NOAA) is doing this up and down the coast,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “We’ve seen it on the Columbia. We’ve seen it on the Klamath. And now we’re seeing it in the Delta.”
“All they’re doing is signing the death warrant for salmon fisheries,” Grader added.
Lecky did not return phone calls Wednesday.
At issue is a key environmental review of how the state’s Delta-based plumbing system will continue delivering trillions of gallons of water each year to farms and cities.
NOAA’s fisheries division, which is charged with protecting endangered marine species, issued an opinion last fall that said those plans would not jeopardize the existence of California’s salmon and steelhead runs.
It was the opposite of the conclusion reached in preceding months by the agency’s biologists.
The audit by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Inspector General found irregularities in how the report was revised.
The audit, requested by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, did not review the scientific validity of the agency’s ultimate conclusion that salmon and steelhead would not be seriously harmed by water operations.
But it said that the agency promised to complete its environmental review even before it had all the information it needed about the water operations plan. It also said there was no record that the agency ever determined it had the information it needed.
Lecky also bypassed agency officials whose job was to ensure that its scientific conclusions about endangered species were sound, the audit said.
“Although we did not assess the soundness and supportability of the opinion’s conclusions, the process used by (NOAA) in this instance understandably raises questions about the integrity of the … opinion,” the report said.
A spokesman for the NOAA fisheries division said the agency had no immediate comment. But in a letter to the auditors, agency officials said they were seeking an outside scientific group to review their conclusions.
The audit singled out Lecky, who is identified only by his former job title as an assistant regional administrator in Long Beach. He has since been promoted to an office in Washington where he oversees protection of marine endangered species.
Lecky said in an earlier interview that his staff made numerous errors in reaching its conclusions.
One of the bypassed officials told investigators “she would not have signed off on the (altered) opinion because of her belief that there is a basic disconnect between the scientific analysis and the conclusion,” the report said.
That official said she could recall only one other time when she was bypassed. In 2002, the agency was conducting a similar review of water deliveries to farmers on the Klamath River along the California-Oregon border. That review gave a clean bill of health to the government’s plans to take more water out of the river for farmers, a decision that was blamed for the deaths of thousands of salmon later that year.
“It was just raw politics (on the Klamath), and I’m afraid that’s what we’ve seen here,” said Miller, who released the audit.
The report comes at a critical time in the Delta. A multibillion-dollar program to address water supply and environmental problems in the Delta is foundering while its open-water ecosystem is in grave decline.
“The Klamath was under a great deal of environmental stress, and we saw the fish kills,” Miller said. “Here, we have the Delta … in what may be the most serious environment crisis in its history.”
By giving its blessing to the way California’s major dams and Delta pumps are run, NOAA Fisheries cleared the way for dozens of long-term water contracts to be renewed for Central Valley farmers and for plans to increase pumping out of the Delta.
“The question is whether California’s endangered salmon are going to be wiped out by this Bush administration policy,” said Miller. “But the administration chose not to have an honest and thorough review of that and other critical issues and as a result the entire federal plan for the management of California’s water is called into question.”
Miller said the entire plan should be re-evaluated, and that at this point the independent review sought by NOAA is inadequate.
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