Federal officials plan to fund a study at UC Davis to learn more
about the basic behavior of Delta smelt, the threatened fish at
the vortex of water supply and environmental problems in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced the study on a government grants website. It plans to
pay UC Davis $73,957 to try to answer basic questions about
smelt behavior. Pete Lucero, a Reclamation spokesman, said an
important goal is to determine the role of turbidity. Biologists
theorize that smelt require murky water because the fish are
visual feeders: silty or muddy water may provide a visual
background that helps the fish identify food. Muddy water may
also help smelt hide from predators. If true, these traits would
raise key questions about water management in the state. The
Delta’s waters may now be clearer than historically because
thousands of dams block downstream sediment movement that would
make the water murky. Certain invasive water weeds also make the
water clearer by trapping