Fish trapped in levee repairs

Thousands of fish are likely to die on Prospect Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta within the next few days, the unwitting victims of a project to repair two levee breaks on the island after storms in 2006.

The 1,253-acre island, adjacent to the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Channel, is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The bureau began repairing the levee breaks in October, and recently started pumping trapped water off the island.

Fish are also trapped with the water. No one knows exactly how many or what kind. But several fishermen began raising alarms about the problem Tuesday when they learned about the impending carnage.

Bob McDarif, an avid fisherman and owner of Cliff's Marina near Freeport, was on the scene Tuesday and said thousands of fish could be seen thrashing on the island as the water level dropped. Among them, he said, were thousands of striped bass, a popular sport fish.

"What's going to happen is, every one of these fish are going to die," said McDarif. "There could be a million fish in there. It's terrible."

Bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken said his agency consulted with federal wildlife officials before starting the project. He said they concluded the pumping could begin because there was no practical way to evacuate the fish.

The bureau directed its contractor to wait for a low tide before closing the last breach, McCracken said, so the island would drain naturally as much as possible.

"There certainly were some fish, unfortunately, that were unsalvageable, that we couldn't get off of this island. So there probably has been some fish loss out there," said McCracken.

Most of the fish are likely to be striped bass, a non-native fish that is not protected by law. McDarif said he saw thousands of them stranded in the shallow waters on Prospect Island.

But striped bass are part of a category of fish that has been declining in recent years. These pelagic or "open water" species include the Delta smelt, a native fish protected by the federal Endangered Species Act.

Al Donner, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his agency gave the go-ahead for the pumping after determining there was a "negligible" chance that smelt would be killed.

He also said there was no effort to determine what kind of fish might be trapped.

"Because we didn't think there would be any – or if any, very few – Delta smelt there, that wasn't a matter of discussion," Donner said.

Ironically, government wildlife experts identified Prospect Island more than 10 years ago as an ideal location to be intentionally flooded to create fish habitat. That is why Congress directed the bureau to buy the island in 1994.

A $10 million restoration project was proposed, said Lee Laurence, a project manager at the bureau. At one point in 2002, the project hinged on a $700,000 grant from the CalFed Bay-Delta Program to the state Department of Water Resources, Laurence said.

But CalFed spokesman Keith Coolidge said the grant wasn't funded because Congress balked at creating a North Delta Wildlife Refuge that would have included the island.

Prospect Island was considered ideal for restoration because its interior is relatively shallow. Many Delta islands have sunk more than 20 feet below sea level because their peat soils decompose when dried out. But Prospect Island is less than 10 feet deep, making it a good candidate for restoration.

It is also in an area identified as a traffic zone and feeding area for both Delta smelt and salmon.

McCracken said the bureau felt obligated to fix Prospect Island because of liability concerns. Water flowing out one of the breaches was eroding a neighbor's levee, he said, and five boats capsized while navigating the rapids caused by a breach.

Gary Bobker, program manager at the Bay Institute, said conflicts over Prospect Island illustrate the need for a comprehensive vision for the future of the Delta, one that establishes large restoration zones and deals with liability issues.

A task force appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to present just such a vision when it meets next week in Sacramento. The North Delta near Prospect Island is one area it has looked at for restoration.

But the bureau is hoping to unburden itself of Prospect Island. By the end of this month, it plans to offer the island to any other agency within the Department of Interior, Laurence said. She does not expect any takers, in which case it will be offered for sale to anyone, perhaps as soon as January.

The bureau expects to spend about $2.5 million fixing the Prospect Island levees and pumping out the water. That's almost as much as the $2.8 million it spent to buy the island in 1994.

In the meantime, McDarif plans to gather a volunteer force at Cliff's Marina at 8 a.m. today to try to rescue some of the fish.

"I'm just trying to save these fish," he said. "This situation right here is totally outrageous."

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