In a bold move to save the endangered Delta smelt, California has undertaken the largest tidal habitat restoration project in its history. This ambitious endeavor aims to revive the ailing fish’s population and provide critical flood protection for the region.
A Massive Undertaking
The Lookout Slough Tidal Habitat Restoration and Flood Improvement Project is an incredibly major undertaking. Clocking in at an astounding 3,400-acres and over the course of a six-year development window, it cost more than $130 million to bring this ambition project to fruition.
It involved moving six million cubic yards of dirt, building a new 3-mile-long setback levee and the cooperation of several governmental agencies and other stakeholders. Both the Department of Water Resources and its partners at Ecosystem Investment Partners spent two years redesigning 1,100 acres to go from stagnant, otherwise agricultural-use land for the past century into a fully functioning tidal wetland.
Nearly 200 people cheered as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta surged onto the land through the ceremonial levee breach opening. This ambitious project is the result of both California’s historic investment in Delta land conservation and providing necessary water supplies to address the environmental challenges faced by the region.
Saving the Threatened Delta Smelt
The main objective of the project is to restore the environment for the threatened Delta smelt, a native fish species on the edge of extinction. The Delta’s ecosystem has been in a decades-long decline partly because large-scale pumping for California’s farms and cities has driven the pelagic fish like the Delta smelt almost to extinction.
While recent decades have seen attempts to save the species through pumping regulations, the Delta smelt has continued to be a flash-point in California’s water wars – with former President Donald Trump even taking aim at even as fishermenlong urged for protections. Its effectively extinct in the wild and many experts now call it functionally extinct, so these habitat restoration projects are very important.
Once restored, the tidal habitat is supposed to be a life line for the Delta smelt. The original design allows Delta water to flood the zone, but a new strategy known as “reimagine” calls for the restoration of nine break sites throughout the Zone in hopes of restoring a more robust and diverse ecosystem which can also support recover efforts for fish. Jacob Katz, a senior scientist with California Trout, one of the organizations supporting the project, is more hopeful that the smelt could recover in the Lookout Slough.
While much will depend on what the pumping facility actually looks like and its true measure of impact to the iconic California species, or more generally, valued & endangered smelt inhabiting the Delta going forward.
Conclusion
The Lookout Slough Tidal Habitat Restoration and Flood Improvement Project is a centerpiece of the State’s efforts to address both key environmental and water supply challenges facing the Delta region. The biggest tidal habitat restoration project in the history of state, this 3,400-acre project could be seen as a ray of hope for the beleaguered Delta smelt. The jury is still out on what affect the project may have on fish population in the long-term, but this major initiative demonstrates that California knows how to think big and act fast in addressing Delta problems.
