SACRAMENTO, California — The federal government agreed Tuesday to continue funding a University of California lab that keeps the delta smelt alive, despite the ire President Donald Trump has directed at the tiny endangered fish.
What happened: The University of California, Davis’ Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory, which breeds, raises and releases delta smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, is now out of the financial limbo created when a five-year federal grant from the Bureau of Reclamation lapsed in late February.
“Reclamation recently awarded a five year financial assistance agreement with UC Davis so it can continue its support of Delta Smelt supplementation using the hatchery, work that helps Reclamation meet regulatory requirements to maximize water supplies from the Delta,” David Mooney, the manager of the Bureau of Reclamation’s Bay-Delta office, said in a statement Tuesday.
Why this matters: The delta smelt has made for an easy villain for right-wing critics because it is one of the several endangered species for which state and federal officials must at times limit their pumping of water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Central Valley farmers, but its wild population has been undetectable for years.
