The San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, also known as the Bay-Delta, is an expansive inland river delta in Northern California. It is formed at the western edge of the Central Valley by the Sacramento River at its confluence with the San Joaquin River just east of where the river enters Suisun Bay. The Bay Delta is the largest estuary on the West Coast, covering 738,000 acres of land interlaced with hundreds of miles of waterways. Much of the land is below sea level and relies on more than 1,000 miles of levees for protection against flooding.

This March, biologists counted only 25 juvenile Delta Smelt; a fish found only in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta and is a keystone species for many other types of fish, including salmon. Extensive evidence demonstrates that over the past two years, the populations of delta smelt have been at record lows. The decline of the Delta Smelt is primarily due to water diversions south of the Delta.

“If there really is an Inspector General’s investigation going on, it calls into question the data being used for future Delta management,” said Congressman Thompson. “As a government, we need to work together to fix the Delta’s deteriorating levees, recover its endangered species and provide safe drinking water.

Of the original 29 indigenous fish species in the Delta, 12 have either been entirely eliminated or are currently threatened with extinction. Once one of the most common and abundant of the pelagic fishes in the delta, the delta smelt population is estimated to have declined approximately 90 percent in the last 20 years.

The focus of today’s hearing was, “Extinction is not a Sustainable Water Policy: The Bay-Delta Crisis and the Implications for California Water Management.”