As Anticipated, Trump Administration Cuts Off Funding For Group That Worked On Delta Smelt Restoration

As President Donald Trump has made it a point to blame California’s perceived water issues on protecting native fish species like the threatened Delta smelt. And in what was anticipated recently while the White House guts federal jobs at outdoors-related agencies. Here’s the San Francisco Chronicle with more on the halting of a project that worked on Delta smelt breeding programs:
The UC Davis-run Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory in Contra Costa County, which maintains a population of smelt to help sustain the small number of smelt in the wild, has been getting about three quarters of its budget from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. That funding, which is tied to a five-year grant, expired Friday, however, and the agency has not committed to renewing the payments.
A UC Davis spokesman said university administrators have been in conversations with federal officials and are optimistic about getting new financing. Still, they’ve made contingency plans. Eleven of the lab’s 17 employees have been sent termination notices.
University officials have told the Chronicle they have enough money in reserves to continue a scaled-back operation through the end of the year, preserving the lab’s “core functions,” should federal funding not resume. The long term, though, remains unclear.
“This (lab) is kind of the lifeboat for the smelt population right now,” said Ted Sommer, a retired lead scientist for the California Department of Water Resources who doesn’t currently work at the lab but has been involved with efforts to safeguard smelt since the 1990s. “There are still some fish out in the wild, but this hatchery is really the thing maintaining strength in the population. It’s absolutely critical to keep the program going.”