The Tiny Fish That May Eat a Water System : Ecology: The debate over whether to save the three-inch delta smelt highlights the narrow-mindedness of our environmental laws.

A three-inch fish that smells like a cucumber and lives only in the Sacramento River Delta is being cast as a villain second only to the drought. Scientific studies suggest the population of the delta smelt has plummeted since 1979. The Endangered Species Act, environmentalists argue, is all that can save it. To protect the fish, water taken from the Delta for shipment to farms and cities in California might have to be restricted. A recommendation on what to do is expected June 29.

What’s going on here? Time was when water was an environmental resource, too, just like smelt. Is this simply a confrontation between two opposing views each claiming to defend our well-being?

It’s easy, of course, to phrase this apparent conflict to sound absurd: saving a fish of no known use rather than providing more water to already thirsty urban masses. But the deeper issues involved are anything but absurd. The delta smelt should force to the surface the flaws in the legal basis for biological conservation.

Part of the problem is that the Endangered Species Act is one of the few hooks that gives conservation of living resources legal standing. As a result, small, seemingly unimportant creatures become overnight surrogates for issues fundamental to our well-being, indeed to our survival.

In the forests of the Pacific Northwest, the spotted owl is a surrogate for primary issues about conservation of old-growth forests and the secondary effects of logging. The snail darter was a stand-in for a confrontation over construction of a dam. Now the delta smelt is seen as imperiling our time in the shower.

The primary concern, in some cases, is a single species. In West Coast rivers, salmon is not a surrogate issue; salmon is an important economic and recreational resource in itself and, as such, is a legitimate focus of debate. The Endangered Species Act has an important role to play in such cases and should not be debased.

The fate of the delta smelt does not simply involve a single species, however; it includes Delta ecosystems and landscapes. Nor is it about one species separated from all human influence, but a question of how best to distribute all uses of land and water across the Delta and throughout the state.

Conservationists give a number of reasons for saving endangered species for their own sake, but they also argue, as with the delta smelt, that some species may serve as indicators of deeper problems. The dwindling population of the fish, they say, is a sign of how environmentally imperiled the Delta has become. At stake are “public-service functions” of ecosystems and landscapes.

We tend to think of land “uses” only in terms of what we can do to it--farm it, build a house on it. But natural landscapes and seascapes, deltas, bays, rivers, streams and lakes have public uses in their own right. Wetlands, for example, process wastes. Bacteria in muds decompose toxins. Water vegetation--water lilies, water irises and their relatives--concentrate heavy metals, removing these potentially dangerous elements from the water. We can--and do--replace these natural processes with our technologies, but at great expense in energy, resources and additional strains on land and environment.

The catch is that for these public-service functions to be accomplished by our natural surroundings, a reasonable fraction of the land must be set aside for these uses. In California, for example, 90% of the original wetlands have been converted to other uses, and the remaining wetlands are decreasing rapidly. We have reached a critical level in land-use allocation.

For the state’s water suppliers, the issue should not simply be viewed as one involving a source of water. Rather, it should be the entire water system--its uses, efficiency, waste processing, recycling--that, to listen to the suppliers, could be jeopardized by a three-inch fish.

But consider:

In California, 83% of the water is used in agriculture. The four biggest water-using crops--alfalfa, hay, cotton and rice--consume more than one-third of all water used in the state. Yet the commercial value of these crops is comparatively low. Irrigated pasture accounts for less than $100 million a year in a state where agriculture is worth more than $16 billion a year.

We thus need to balance the benefits of this kind of agricultural production with the public-service functions of the Delta. Legal mechanisms to accomplish this need not be punitive or coercive. Subtle changes in tax laws and crop and water subsidies have large effects. Agricultural subsidies could favor more water-efficient crops like fruits, nuts and tomatoes.

What the delta-smelt controversy highlights is the lack of an ecosystem approach in our environmental laws, on what is necessary to maintain life in river channels, wetlands, flood plains. This would require ecological surveys and monitoring so that we know, for example, the status of the Delta’s ecological systems and how these respond and change over time. We need to begin to consider what fraction of the Delta landscape should be set aside for public-service functions, how to partition those uses and what water flows will be necessary to achieve them.

Progress over the Mono Lake controversy offers some constructive lessons. A special bill passed by the California Legislature funded a study of the effects of water diversion on the lake’s ecosystems and surrounding landscape. That study influenced and formed a basis for wise policy.

Shifting to an ecological approach to environmental law will not be easy. Each side will have to confront its sacred cows: for the water supplier, water rights; for the conservationist, the meaning of valuing an endangered species.

Once we recognize that we share the common goals of well-being, then we will begin to see that differences of opinion have to do with the scales on which we think we should plan--very short term and small scale, or longer term and larger scale. A legal basis that integrates human activities with our direct dependence on natural areas is what’s required. We need more emphasis on environmental law that embodies an overall concept of land-use planning.

Short of that, we will continue to use endangered species as surrogates for larger--and supremely tougher--questions about how much of our lands we should protect for public-service functions. We will be continually reduced to the apparent absurdity of choosing between tiny fish and water for California’s cities.