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The Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society have filed a 60-day “notice of intent to sue” alleging the cities of Colton and San Bernardino and their Regional Tertiary Treatment and Water Reclamation Authority have allowed the plant to repeatedly strand and kill Santa Ana sucker fish without the permit required by the Endangered Species Act.
“It’s outrageous that these cities are killing and injuring Santa Ana suckers without any attempt to comply with the Endangered Species Act,” said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been working to protect the rare fish for more than a decade. “So once again we’re having to take legal action to protect these fish from going extinct in their namesake river.”
According to a press release from the three conservation groups more than 100 Santa Ana sucker fish have died since 2014 when the Colton/San Bernardino Regional Tertiary Treatment and Water Reclamation Authority have halted their water releases into the Santa Ana river. Each shutdown has caused the river to go dry, thereby killing the endangered fish as well as other native fish.
The situation between the environmentalists versus the two cities and their water plant has become more evident as drought conditions have minimized the amount of water in the river.
Santa Ana sucker fish are currently found in the headwaters of San Gabriel River in the Angeles National Forest, Big Tujunga Creek in the Los Angeles River Basin, portions of the Santa Ana River and parts of the Santa Clara River system in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. They were once plentiful in Southern California but have been listed as a threatened species since 2000.
With their mottled olive-gray backs and silver bellies, they grow to about 5 inches in length and have large, thick lips and small mouths to vacuum or suck up algae and other organisms. In spite of their protected status, their numbers have continued to drop due to the drought, water diversions and dams, erosion, debris and pollution, heavy recreational water use and stream channels’ alterations. The introduction of nonnative species that prey on the suckers and compete for their habitat has also contributed to the suckers’ decline.
At issue is when the water treatment plant — jointly owned by the Colton and San Bernardino — halts its outflows about once a month, thereby further reducing a drought- afflicted stretch of the Santa Ana River and quickly stranding thousands of suckers.
“The sucker fish is struggling to survive in the Santa Ana River as it is. Repeatedly shutting off the water that the fish rely on without even seeking the necessary federal permits is decimating this population and making recovery impossible,” said Kim Floyd, conservation chair for the San Gorgonio Sierra Club.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Stacey Aldstadt, general manager of the San Bernardino Municipal Water District, said the treatment plant shuts down its outflows to conduct maintenance required by its operating permits. Under federal restrictions, the city isn’t allowed to turn off the water because doing so threatens the fish. At the same time, however, federal water law requires the city to perform the regular maintenance because it is the only way to keep the plant’s discharge clean.
The plant’s average outflows of treated water have been halted at least 60 times over the last two years, according to Regional Water Quality Control Board records. The Water Reclamation Authority, owned by the two cities, said it plans to make improvements to the waste water treatment system that would reduce the frequency of shutdowns.
The general manager of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District and spokesman for the coalition, Douglas Headrick, said all parties agree that “… the Santa Ana sucker is not doing well and needs help. But we believe that we can develop sustainable viable habitat for the species without wasting hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of water to move gravel for the sucker.”
In an attempt to save at least some of the sucker fish U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees and volunteers have, on occasion, waded into the diminishing water when the flows are halted to rescue as many of the 4- to 6-inch fish as possible and place them in buckets and ice chests filled with water. They are then re-released into the river once the treated water begins to flow.
