The poor little Delta smelt are up to their gills in trouble again.
Just when it seemed the endangered fish had faded into the backwater of public attention, along comes an old nemesis to bring them wiggling back to the forefront: Donald Trump.
In the past, conservatives have claimed how water releases to save the smelt cost agricultural jobs, putting land out of production and draining growers’ profits.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin may have put the argument most succinctly on behalf of farmworkers and growers in 2011 at an appearance in the Central Valley.
“A faceless government is taking away their lifeline — water — all because of a 3-inch fish,” Palin said at the time. “Where I come from, a 3-inch fish, we call that bait. There is no need to destroy people’s lives over bait.”
Trump sought to weaken the smelt’s protection during his first administration. He’s now bringing the fish up again, but in a different water-related context. He is dragging the smelt into the debate over whether more could have been done to reduce losses from the wind-driven wildfire catastrophes unfolding 350 miles away in Southern California.
In a posting last week on his Truth Social platform, Trump used the fish to blame California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the fires.
Newsom “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water, from excess rain and snow melt from the North, to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way.”
Newsom “wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water (it didn’t work!), but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump wrote. The post garnered more than 40,000 likes.
Newsom’s representatives quickly pushed back, saying talk of a “water restoration declaration” was “pure fiction.” CalMatters, in its fact-check of Trump’s statement, reported that the state’s water policies didn’t make a bit of difference in this month’s wildfires; the blazes were fanned by severe winds and exacerbated by near-zero rainfall throughout Southern California.
In the middle of all this, of course, is the smelt, whose troubles transcend any back and forth between politicians.
Once common in San Joaquin and the surrounding Delta counties, the smelt’s population has been decimated. They were listed as threatened under the Federal Endangered Species Act and the California Endangered Species Act in 1993. By 2009, California listed the fish as endangered, and just months ago — in August — the federal government did the same.
And now, the tiny fish, an indicator species of the overall health of the Delta ecosystem, are being transformed into a wholly different lifeform: a scapegoat.
While experts agree the fish have nothing to do with the fires, they also aren’t really the reason there’s a fight over California’s water. Rather, it’s the other way around: In the state’s water wars, the smelt are an indicator of who’s winning and who’s losing.
“The smelt’s current condition is more a symptom than a cause of California’s water problems,” Peter Alagona, an assistant professor of history and environmental studies at UC Santa Barbara, said in his book, “After the Grizzly: Endangered Species and the Politics of Place in California.”
The Delta is home to 200 invasive species making up 95% of its biomass, Anagona writes, “a dazzling array of plants and animals from around the world.” They include the African clawed frog, Brazilian waterweed, Chinese mitten crab, New Zealand mud snail and African sabellid worm, to name a few. The latest addition, golden mussels from Asia — dangerous because they can foul water pipes — moved in just last year.
With all that infiltration, no wonder the smelt are being muscled aside.
While Trump blasts Newsom on what he sees as defense of the smelt, environmentalists have upbraided state officials for not doing enough to save the species.
When the state joined federal officials in nixing fall releases of more water to support the smelt and other endangered fish, some viewed it as a death sentence for smelt.
“At this time next year, we may be looking at the extinction of a fish species that was once incredibly abundant,” Gary Bobker, senior policy director for Friends of the River, said in a statement in October calling on authorities to release more water into the Delta instead of diverting it for water exporters.
Of course, the little smelt have no say in the matter. But if fish could talk…