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News and Special Events!

• SacPAS Workshop 2026

  The SacPAS Workshop will take place October 30, 2026 from 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. at the USBR federal office 2800 Cottage Way, Sacramento. The workshop will be in-person & online. See the SacPAS Workshop flyer (PDF) for more information and registration link.

• Requests of 2027 Year-Class Cultured Delta Smelt

  The Cultured and Supplementation of Smelt (CASS) Steering Committee has released their annual memo to request proposals for the use of cultured Delta Smelt originating from the U.C. Davis Fish Conservation & Culture Laboratory from the 2027 year-class. Review the memo (PDF) to learn more about the proposal submittal process.

  The deadline to submit fish request proposals to the CASS is October 9. Requests must be submitted to Nora De Cuir (Kearns & West) at ndecuir@kearnswest.com. All requests should follow the template included in the memo and provide all the requested information. The memo (Word) version can be used for ease of access to the template.

  Additionally, the CASS will hold an information session for researchers to ask questions of CASS agency members. The meeting is anticipated to be held in early September with more information to follow shortly. Share this announcement with others who may be interested.

• Call for Abstracts for the 2027 IEP Workshop

  Call for Abstracts for the March 2-4, 2027 IEP Annual Workshop is now open! The deadline for abstract submission is November 6, 2026 (11:59 p.m.). Review the Call for Abstracts flyer (PDF) for more information. Subscribe to the IEP Annual Workshop email campaign to receive updates and visit the IEP Annual Workshop page for additional information on the event.

• Got something new to share? Contact us at iep@wildlife.ca.gov.

IEP Calendar

Check out the IEP Calendar for upcoming IEP meetings and events!

IEP Blogs and Videos

Subscribe to receive the latest posts!

• Views from the Water - A blog by IEP survey field crew
• Science Stories: Adventures in Bay-Delta Data - A blog by the IEP Synthesis Team Lead
• IEP Playlist on YouTube - collection of IEP videos
• Purple Fish in Flow (PDF) - 2026 Poetry Slam lyrics by Levi Lewis

Featured Survey

The Summer Townet Survey (STN) is one of the longest running long-term fish monitoring programs. Since 1959, STN has sampled fixed locations from eastern San Pablo Bay to Rio Vista on the Sacramento River, and to Stockton on the San Joaquin River and a single station in the lower Napa River. The survey was initially started to monitor age-0 Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) and later began to monitor Delta Smelt (Hypomesus transpacificus), a sensitive native species believed responsive to the proper functioning of the Delta region. Data collected at 31 index stations are used to calculate annual relative abundance indices for age-0 Striped Bass and Delta Smelt. The study area was expanded in 2011 to include stations located within the Sacramento Deep Water Ship Chanel and Cache Slough for a total of 40 stations. These stations are sampled every other week June through August.

In addition to fish, the STN also measures environmental variables including water temperature (°C), water clarity (Secchi Depth & NTU) and specific conductivity (µS/cm). Managers and researchers use the data collected by STN to monitor long-term trends in the fish and invertebrate community, monitor the diet and condition of important predator and prey fish species, detect the introduction of new and potentially invasive species, inform decisions and improve the understanding of the health of the San Francisco Estuary.

Additional information on abundance indices, sampling protocol, and copies of the STN databases can be found on the CDFW FTP site for the Townet and Fall Midwater Trawl.

Featured Publications

• A new open-access article by Khanna et al., "Multi-Year Regional-Scale Efficacy Assessment of Two Herbicides for Treatment of Invasive Floating Aquatic Vegetation in a California Estuary," is now available in the September 2026 issue of Environmental Management. The study examined the efficacy of a program for treating invasive Floating Aquatic Vegetation (FAV) using two herbicides, glyphosate and 2,4-Dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D), over two five-year periods.
• A new open-access article by Hobbs et al., "Mass mortality of aquatic organisms in the San Francisco Estuary - using community science to document the impacts of a severe harmful algal bloom," is now available in the August 2026 issue of Frontiers in Marine Science. The article reconstructs the progression and impacts of the 2022 harmful Heterosigma akashiwo bloom that occurred in the San Francisco Estuary using information from community-science platforms and available agency observations.
• Got something new to share? Contact us at iep@wildlife.ca.gov.

Featured Datasets

• The deltafish and long term monitoring report data for the "Fish abundance in the San Francisco Estuary (1959-2026), an integration of 10 monitoring surveys" has been updated on EDI through the end of 2025.
• Got something new to share? Contact us at iep@wildlife.ca.gov.
• Looking for IEP Datasets? Visit the IEP Survey Data page.

Featured Websites

• Seasonal Monitoring Report
  The seasonal monitoring report was created to provide managers with an overview of the trends associated with different environmental ad biological parameters in the system. The IEP Seasonal Monitoring Report presents the full time series for selected water quality, plankton, and fisheries surveys conducted by IEP in a single graphical report. Time series are presented separately for 3 major regions: Delta, Suisun, and San Pablo Bay. The report is developed by the IEP Synthesis Team, and reviewed by the Science Management Team and Coordinators before publication.
• Frontiers for Young Minds
  Where the river meets the ocean - Stories from San Francisco Estuary