to marine recreational fishing. Since 

 the majority of marine angling is for 

 finfish, the importance of estuarine- 

 dependent and related species to rec- 

 reational fishing is apparent. 



The basis for NMFS's resource 

 protection activities stems princi- 

 pally from the Fish and Wildlife 

 Coordination Act (FWCA) and the Na- 

 tional Environmental Policy Act 

 (NEPA) . Protection responsibilities 

 also derive from the Fishery Conser- 

 vation and Management Act (FCMA) , the 

 Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) , 

 the Endangered Species Act, the 

 Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the 

 Columbia River Basin Fishery Develop- 

 ment Program Act (Mitchell Act) . 



Due to the need to focus our ex- 

 isting program resources on problems 

 of the highest priority, we are at 

 this time beginning to place more 

 emphasis on developmental impacts, 

 which are related to or dependent on 

 freshwater inflows. The San Francis- 

 co Bay and Delta, Columbia River, 

 Chesapeake Bay, and the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico coastal region have been identi- 

 fied as particularly important areas 

 of concern. I am going to briefly 

 address each of these four areas. 



The urban-suburban area sur- 

 rounding California's San Francisco 

 Bay and Delta supports about 5 mil- 

 lion people. With its strategic lo- 

 cation and its huge natural harbor, 

 the bay is a major center for com- 

 merce and industry. The estuarine 

 system itself has historically pro- 

 vided abundant quantities of fish and 

 shellfish. Of all our Nation's major 

 estuaries which have had their fresh- 

 water inflows altered, San Francisco 

 Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin 

 Delta stand out among the others. 



With population growth has come 

 major changes to the estuarine sys- 



tem. Since the arrival of the gold 

 seekers in the mid-19th century, 

 intertidal wetlands have been re- 

 duced to about 17 percent of their 

 former size. The result has been 

 the loss of fish and wildlife habi- 

 tats and a reduction of tidal-relat- 

 ed flushing, which in turn has led 

 to progressive deterioration of the 

 quality of bay waters. In particu- 

 lar, increased trans-basin diversion 

 of river inflow has limited the abil- 

 ity of the system to flush itself 

 naturally. Currently, with inflows 

 of only 5,000 cubic feet per second 

 (cfs) from the Sacramento-San Joa- 

 quin Delta, one out of eight gallons 

 of "freshwater" entering the bay is 

 now sewage effluent. 



The State of California esti- 

 mates that the State's chinook sal- 

 mon populations have been reduced 

 90 percent from their historic lev- 

 els. Since the early 1960s spawn- 

 ing salmon in the Sacramento River 

 system have declined more than 50 

 percent from the 1959-63 annual 

 average of 420,000 fish. Striped 

 bass populations in the San Francis- 

 co Bay estuary have also declined by 

 between 60 percent to 80 percent. A 

 major factor responsible for these 

 reductions has been reduction in 

 freshwater inflow to the estuary. 



Two major diversions from the 

 delta (the Central Valley Project and 

 State Water Project pumping facili- 

 ties) are used to export water to the 

 south. The physical loss of fish 

 caused by these diversions is sub- 

 stantial. Evidence collected by the 

 California Department of Fish and 

 Game indicates that the loss of young 

 striped bass to diversions is a major 

 factor threatening survival of this 

 species in the estuary. It has been 

 estimated that 31 percent of the 

 striped bass and 25 percent of the 

 young chinook salmon are passed 



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