6/5/2008

The Coleman National Fish Hatchery staff announced today they have completed the trucking of 1.4 million of its Chinook salmon smolts from the hatchery to San Pablo Bay. The trucking was completed in phases between May 19, and June 5, 2008. The Chinook smolts, 3 inches in length, have been raised at Coleman NFH in Anderson, Calif., as part of the hatchery?s role in mitigating for the Shasta and Keswick dams on the upper Sacramento River.
This was the first time in more than a decade that Coleman NFH employees trucked smolts from the hatchery 300+ miles to San Pablo Bay.

"Trucking was challenging at times, but the results will help us better understand how the release location influences the number of salmon available to the ocean fisheries and returning to the Sacramento River and Coleman National Fish Hatchery," said Coleman National Fish Hatchery Manager Scott Hamelberg. &"Although it will likely take several years to gather all the data, we expect the information will help us improve salmon management in the Central Valley."

After a difficult and disappointing first day when one load of fish died due to a failed circulation pump, all of the remaining fish made a successful trip to San Pablo Bay. The smolts trucked to San Pablo Bay were placed in net pens operated by the Fishery Foundation of California for acclimatization and then released in to the bay. A portion of the smolts have coded-wire tags to identify them as part of this experiment. As these smolts are harvested or return as adults, fisheries biologists will be able to determine the rate of return of these fish.

Coleman National Fish Hatchery was constructed in 1942 as part of the mitigation measures to help preserve significant runs of Chinook salmon threatened by the loss of natural spawning areas resulting from the construction of Shasta and Keswick dams on the upper Sacramento River. One of the primary goals of the hatchery is to assure that salmon return to the upper Sacramento River. Fall Chinook salmon smolts produced at the Coleman NFH are typically released on-site so that they complete the imprinting cycle during their outmigration to the ocean. This release strategy increases the likelihood that these fish will return to the upper Sacramento River as adults to contribute to the upper Sacramento in-river fishery, and return to the hatchery in sufficient numbers to perpetuate the runs and the programs. Another important goal of the hatchery is to contribute to the ocean sport and commercial fishery. Coleman NFH contributes up to 100,000 Chinook annually to the ocean fisheries as well as thousands of fish for the fisheries in the Sacramento River.

Situated on Battle Creek, a small, cold water tributary of the Sacramento River, the hatchery produces 12 million fall Chinook salmon, 1 million late-fall Chinook salmon, and 600,000 steelhead trout annually. Coleman NFH also has a coded wire tagging program in which young fish are taken from the raceways to the tagging trailer in an aerated tank. After sedation, fish are adipose fin clipped to provide an external mark that identifies coded-wire tagged fish. After the fin clip, fish are placed in a nose cone and a small wire tag is injected into the cartilaginous portion of the nose. This small tag will remain in place for the entire life of the fish. When these fish return as adults the tag can be removed and read with the aid of a microscope. The coded-wire tag code gives the biologist information about which hatchery the fish came from, the year the fish was hatched, tagged, released, and other pertinent information such as parental lineage.

The Fresno Bee- 6/27/08
By John Ellis

A federal judge on Friday rejected an emergency request by environmentalists to immediately open the gates of a key dam on the Sacramento River, a move they said was needed to allow endangered Chinook salmon to reach their spawning grounds.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger sent a wave of relief through nervous Sacramento Valley farmers and growers who depend on water diverted at the dam to feed their crops.

"We dodged a bullet," said Jeff Sutton, general manager of the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority.

Wanger, however, also said he was leaning toward ordering the gates of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam to open Sept. 2, about two weeks earlier than normal. He said he wants to hear more testimony on that matter and didn't issue any final ruling.

Though peak time for irrigating is July and August, if September is a hot month, opening the gates two weeks early could have an adverse effect on the same growers who feared the gates would be ordered open now, said Ken LaGrande, the canal authority's chairman.

But Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Kate Poole, who is participating in the hearing, said the gates remaining closed now hurt Chinook salmon heading upstream to their spawning grounds. In August and September, the gates need to be open to assist young salmon heading back downstream to the ocean.

Poole has said the species are in peril and need help to survive the state's drought conditions.

Friday's ruling was another in an ongoing trial involving a federal water plan that covers Central Valley steelhead and two species of Chinook salmon. In April, Wanger invalidated part of the plan because it did not adequately protect the three fish species, he said.

Now he is holding a hearing to decide what -- if any -- action needs to be taken.

One of the actions requested by environmentalists was to open up the Red Bluff Diversion Dam. But because the trial was taking so long -- it has now stretched over three weeks -- environmentalists last week made an emergency request to open the diversion dam.

The dam raises the water line on the Sacramento River, which allows it to run into the Tehama-Colusa Canal on gravity. If the gates were open, the water level would fall too low to spill into the canal.

A pump would then be used, but its capacity is far less than using gravity. There are plans to someday install a bank of pumps.

The dam, located south of Red Bluff, has 11 gates and was built on the Sacramento River in the early 1960s. The canal system it feeds diverts water into Tehama, Glenn, Colusa and Yolo counties.

On Tuesday, the trial will resume with environmentalists seeking to increase cold-water releases from Lake Shasta to make the Sacramento River's temperature lower at a point further downstream. That would assist in salmon spawning. They also want to maintain 1.9 million acre-feet of water in Lake Shasta.

Those decisions would not only affect Sacramento Valley farmers, but also farmers much closer to home in the Westlands Water District.

Wanger also must issue a final ruling on the Red Bluff Diversion Dam.

The government and its water agency allies think Wanger should do nothing.

Currently, they say, the National Marine Fisheries Service is rewriting a biological report on the Central Valley Project's effects on the steelhead and two salmon species that Wanger invalidated. That should be done by next spring and should address the environmentalists' concerns, they say.#

FRESNO, Calif.—A federal judge has denied environmentalists' and fishermen's emergency request to open the gates of a dam south of Redding to safeguard endangered fish species they say are threatened by its operations.

Attorneys for the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations argue that keeping the dam's gates closed prevents adult spring-run chinook salmon from swimming upstream to spawn.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger said he wouldn't order any immediate changes to operations of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam, but would consider their concerns in future hearings about the effect of the state's water systems on the fish.

Farmers in the Sacramento Valley were relieved at the ruling, since opening the gates could have restricted their water supplies.#

The Capitol Ag Press- 6/20/08
By Elizabeth Larson

The Family Water Alliance said it will be able to continue its fish screen program in the Sacramento Valley for another five years thanks to new state and federal grant funding.

Ashley Indrieri, executive director of Family Water Alliance, said the group will use the funds for the seventh phase of its fish-screen program, which began in 1996. Since then, they've assisted with 24 fish screens - representing a cumulative screening of 563 cubic feet per second of California water - funded by different grants.

Water pumped through the screens helps irrigate 22,000 acres of prime agricultural land, while the screens help protect water rights and fishery resources, according to the organization.

"This is definitely our biggest endeavor," Indrieri said of the new funding, which should help complete between nine and 15 new screen installations on water diversions.

Funding is provided by the Central Valley Project Improvement Act's Anadromous Fish Screen Program administered by the Bureau of Reclamation and Proposition 84 bond monies administered by the California Department of Fish and Game, Indrieri said.

The screens are designed to meet Department of Fish and Game standards.

Farmers with agricultural water diversions along the Sacramento River from Chico Landing to the upper reach of the delta region can apply to receive a fish screen at little or not cost.

The fish-screen project's newest phase will begin with the alliance identifying landowners with river diversions willing to participate in a biological assessment.

"In the past, we've just installed fish screens," she said. "This program will have a study portion in it."

Two irrigation seasons before screen installation, a biologist will do an entrainment study for each of the prospective installation areas, Indrieri said.

Participating in the study will guarantee farmers a fish screen at no cost.

Dan Griffith, farm manager for Davis Ranches/Sycamore Family Trust near Colusa, said the operation has received four screens in two projects, beginning about five years ago.

He said Davis Ranches diverts about 30,000 acre feet of water annually from the Sacramento River, which is used to grow rice, walnuts, alfalfa, wheat, vine seeds and some tomatoes for processing.

Davis Ranches decided to install the screens because they could see the threat of lawsuits on the horizon, which would hit farming operations based on the assumption their diversions were also drawing in fish.

Installing screen is very expensive and wouldn't have been feasible without the grants and assistance through the Family Water Alliance, he said.

The screens are working fine, he said, and have prevented fingerling-sized fish from getting into the pumps.

Reclamation District 999, located between the Sacramento River and the ship channel in Yolo County, currently has the largest fish screen installed in the program, said district manager Bob Webber. The district provides water to 25,000 acres of farmland for winegrapes, alfalfa, corn, wheat, safflower, tomatoes and cucumbers.

The screen, which has been in operation since March 2007, works great, Webber said. It is located underwater to allow shipping traffic to pass.

"We're still able to deliver water and the fish can get by our screen and be OK," Webber said.

He said the screens also have helped keep other things out of the water pipes - from boats to logs.

Webber said the district volunteered to do the project and help develop the fish screen technology, realizing that due to its location on the river's main stemscreens would be mandatory at some point.

The project was paid for by the Bureau of Reclamation, the Wildlife Conservation Board and the district's landowners, with Family Water Alliance managing the project, including the permitting process and securing funding, Webber said.

The screen is designed to keep delta smelt and salmon out of the irrigation diversions.

"It's really worked out well," he said.#

Yubanet.com – 6/19/08
By Karuk Tribe

Sacramento, CA, June 18, 2008 - A Native Tribe along with commercial and recreational fishermen called on Governor Schwarzenegger today to restrict the controversial gold mining technique known as suction dredge mining. The groups' call to limit the recreational mining technique comes as California faces the worst fisheries collapse in history.

"In April, the state and federal government took unprecedented emergency actions to completely close California's coast to recreational and commercial salmon fishing, something that is causing severe economic harm to businesses and communities," said Brian Stranko, CEO of California Trout. "This is why it is inappropriate and unacceptable for state government to allow recreational suction dredge mining operations to continue to harm fish, particularly endangered species like coho salmon."

Suction dredges are powered by gas or diesel engines that are mounted on floating pontoons in the river. Attached to the engine is a powerful vacuum hose which the dredger uses to suction up the gravel and sand (sediment) from the bottom of the river. The stream bed passes through a sluice box where heavier gold particles can settle into a series of riffles. The rest of the gravel and potentially toxic sediment is simply dumped back into the river. Depending on size, location and density of these machines they can turn a clear running mountain stream or river segment into a murky watercourse unfit for swimming.

"Dredging disturbs spawning gravels and kills salmon eggs and immature lamprey that reside in the gravel for up to seven years before maturing. In a system like the Klamath where salmon can be stressed due to poor water quality, having a dredge running in the middle of the stream affects the fishes ability to reach their spawning grounds," according to Toz Soto, lead fisheries biologist for the Karuk Tribe.

Soto adds, "there is a lot of mercury settled on the bottom of these rivers from gold smelting operations from the 1800's. Dredging reintroduces mercury to the stream creating a toxic hazard for fish and people."

Exposure to mercury can lead to mental retardation and birth defects.

The groups are hoping that the Governor will agree to a provision added by the Legislature to the 2008 Budget Bill that would establish a temporary moratorium on suction dredge mining in areas that represent the most important habitat for salmon and trout while the Department of Fish and Game revises (DFG) its regulations in compliance with a 2006 court order.

"The 2.2 million Californians that buy fishing licenses every year expect the Governor to protect both our natural resources as well as our rural economies," said Stranko.

According to the American Sportfishing Association, licensed anglers in California contribute $4.9 billion annually to the state's economy This includes 43,000 jobs amounting to $1.3 billion in wages and salaries annually. Commercial salmon fishing contributes $255 million and 2,263 jobs to the California economy.

By comparison, DFG only issues 3,000 permits for suction dredging each year.

For the Karuk Tribe the threat is even greater. "Suction dredge mining is nothing more than recreational genocide. The first gold rush killed more than half our people in 10 years.This modern gold rush continues to kill our fish and our culture," says Leaf Hillman of the Karuk Tribe.

"While we cannot harvest enough salmon for our ceremonies or to meet our families' food needs, miners are allowed to rip and tear our river bottoms to shreds. We need the Governor to take a stand with Native People and the 2.2 million anglers in California - not 3,000 recreational gold miners," added Hillman.

In coming weeks the Governor will have to consider the groups' proposal to limit mining as part of the 2008 Budget Bill to provide interim safeguards while DFG conducts a two-year effort to overhaul statewide regulations covering instream mining.#

The routes to the ocean followed by California salmon for millennia have turned into such a dangerous gauntlet that today millions of fish no longer come down the Feather, the American or the Mokelumne rivers.

They migrate instead in trucks down U.S. Highways 70 and 50, Interstate 80 and State Route 12.

On Tuesday, the nonprofit Fishery Foundation of California completed 2?1/2 months of transplanting the output of state-run salmon hatcheries — 20 million fish — to the top of San Pablo Bay.

Trucking salmon to the Bay is not new, but this year is unusual because the entire production from state-run hatcheries was trucked downstream and allowed to acclimate in "net pens" before being released.

The reason: California's salmon population has collapsed and fishing regulators took the unprecedented step of closing all salmon fishing off the California coast this year.

Something had to be done.

Salmon carried by truck to net pens in the Bay have a two- to four-times better chance of surviving and returning to spawn as adults than do fish released directly from the hatcheries, according to the state Fish and Game Department.

Going by highway helps the fish bypass the pollution, predators, pump intakes and other dangers in the deteriorating Delta.

No one suggests the plan is ideal. But with evidence increasing that California's salmon populations are highly dependent on the hatcheries, and with even those populations in a severe downturn, many biologists and anglers say the hatchery-to-net pens operations is needed. It is funded by $98,000 from sportfishing stamps paid by anglers who fish in the San Francisco Bay and Delta.

"We're in such dire straits, this is an important piece of the puzzle," Fishery Foundation's project manager Kari Burr said on the boat ride to the Rodeo wharf. "I would hate to see everything go to hatchery fish. ... If we could give ourselves a little wriggle room, nature is resilient."

For salmon that are raised in a hatchery, trucked to an acclimation pen and let loose, it is unclear how well they will fare and where they will return to spawn. After all, they can't rely on a truck driver to get them back home.

So about 5 million of them — one in four — were tagged with wires so that a few years from now when the fish return, researchers should be able to determine whether the hatchery fish are returning to native streams or whether they are straying to other streams, said Fish and Game department spokesman Harry Morse.

"In two to three years, we should start to get some statistically valid information," Morse said.

In all, about 20 million hatchery salmon were taken since early April in ice-chilled river water to wharves in Vallejo and Rodeo.

Burr and her assistants, biologist Roxanne Kessler and deck hand Troy Winchell, arranged the nets on a floating platform while balancing on 12-inch boards that bobbed on the waves.

From the parking lot, which was perhaps 18 feet higher than water level, more than 200,000 of the fish were spilled down a more than 100-foot plastic pipe, where they shot into the waters near the Carquinez Bridge with a whoosh.

"Last time for the season," Burr shouted.

Innumerable smolts, 2 to 3 inches long, flitted and flopped around before settling lower in the water and gathering into schools. Once they acclimated, the fish were fed for the first time in days — a fast imposed to reduce fecal contamination during the truck ride.

The fish were entering a dangerous world. Striped bass know where to find the salmon babies. And striped bass fishers knew where to find the stripers.

A handful caught several fish near the pens during the operation.

Meanwhile, hundreds of birds, mostly gulls but also pelicans and terns, waited for the pens to be hauled out into the currents below the Carquinez Bridge.

When the fish were released, pelicans dove and gulls picked the injured fish off the surface.

"See you later, fish," Kessler said as the last of the nets was emptied and hauled out.

"See you in three years, I hope," added Burr.#

The Department of Fish and Game hauled 20.2 million fall-run chinook salmon smolts this year from hatcheries on the American, Feather and Mokelumne rivers. The fish were dumped into net pens on shore, then towed by barge into San Pablo Bay.

The state has trucked salmon for years, but never on this scale, said spokesman Harry Morse, and nor has anyone else.

"I called both Washington and Oregon and asked if anybody had transported a number this massive, and both said no," he said.

Fish and Game trucked nearly all its hatchery chinook this year to ensure more fish survive to spawn again. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trucked 1.4 million chinook from its Coleman hatchery near Redding, out of 12.6 million produced there.

Trucking avoids exposure to predators and pollution in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. But a debate exists on whether this disrupts the fishes' ability to return to their home rivers.

The Central Valley fall chinook this year is predicted to reach its lowest level in more than three decades, and fishing seasons have been closed as a result.#

Mary Snyder, district engineer for the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District, is responding to the June 1 front-page article "Ecosystem decline tied to ammonia."

All residents of the Sacramento region know the value of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – not only to Northern California but the entire state. The Delta is a key water source and provides a multitude of recreational and fishing opportunities. It is also a complex ecosystem and habitat. Similarly, the decline of fish species in the Delta is a complex and difficult issue.

As we all search for answers to the decline, some – as reported in The Bee – are looking at ammonia from the Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District's wastewater treatment plant discharge as the possible culprit. Yet there is no proven link to confirm this, and a more holistic and scientific examination of the Delta decline needs to continue.

The district is a highly responsible agency focused on environmental stewardship. Our commitment to the environment is demonstrated by our excellent regulatory compliance record and our collaborative efforts with regulators and stakeholders to ensure the long-term sustainability of the entire Sacramento River Watershed.

There is wide agreement that numerous factors affect the Delta ecosystem. The list is significant: invasive species, water diversions, food web disruption, habitat degradation, predation, disease, turbidity, salinity and pesticides may also have a role. For example, the invasion of the overbite clam alone – and its resulting disruption on the Delta smelt's food source – requires much more rigorous study.

To attach the Delta's problems to ammonia from the district's discharge is a tremendous oversimplification. Of more than 70 studies being conducted by the Interagency Ecological Program investigating this issue, only a few involve ammonia. To imply the "simple fix" is to construct and implement a treatment method to remove ammonia from wastewater – not knowing whether it will solve the ecosystem problems – would be bad public policy and a poor use of public funds.

The issues confronting the Delta are complicated and politically charged. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has created an independent "Blue Ribbon Task Force" to develop a Delta Vision and Strategic Plan to address the Delta crisis. However, any solutions developed for the Delta must incorporate sound science and consider all the various factors affecting the ecosystem.

We are encouraged that The Bee is interested in this important issue and suggest continuing investigation to provide readers with a more balanced perspective of all the factors that could be contributing to the decline of the Delta ecosystem.#

The governor has declared that California is in a drought. Generally, there are two solutions: Build more dams to store water (one of the governor's proposals) or reduce our use of water. But it takes a long time to build new dams, so that plan will do nothing to help us during this drought. We need to prioritize water use.

Of all the usable water behind dams, urban water users consume 20 percent and agricultural users 80 percent. The governor would like to see a 20 percent reduction in urban water use; this would yield only a 4 percent savings in the amount of water now being consumed.

Much more water can be saved by achieving a similar 20 percent reduction in agriculture water use. That saving would be 16 percent!

California needs its agriculture, but farmers need to become much more efficient water users. California can no longer afford the water demands of the status quo. Our climate is changing, and how we use water must change, too.

It is now popular to consider the carbon footprint generated by the energy demands of our way of life and the goods we consume. We need to do the same for water by accounting for how much water is used when we live wherever we choose, and when we grow whatever and wherever we choose.

The water we Californians consume also requires lots of energy to pump, filter, clean and deliver. Depending on where and how we secure that energy, water use has a significant carbon footprint. For example, it takes much more water and energy to keep a 100-square-foot lawn green in Anaheim than it does in Arcata.

Where you grow plants matters. Hotter and drier areas evaporate more water from the soil, the irrigation system and the plant. Cotton, one our state's major crops, needs a lot of water to grow, yet one of the largest cotton-growing areas in California is located in the hot, dry, southern portion of the Central Valley, an area called Westlands.

The water imported to raise cotton in Westlands comes from the Trinity River, which is a major tributary of the Klamath River. If water used to raise cotton was instead allowed to remain in the Trinity, the recovery chances of the threatened salmon fisheries of the Klamath would be much improved.

In this age of climate change, we have our priorities wrong. Perhaps the water in the Trinity should be used to recover and raise a bountiful crop of salmon on the North Coast, not cotton in the Westlands desert.

Raising cotton in a hot dry environment can waste as much as 41 percent of the irrigation water due to evaporation (www.waterfootprint.org). How many salmon could have been raised with that water?

Reassessing our water use priorities will be difficult, but the status quo cannot be maintained and with our climate changing right now, we have no choice. We have no time or water to waste, and California needs leaders with the vision to face the water crisis of the 21st century.

Aldaron Laird is on the board of directors for the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District. He lives in Arcata.#

By John Ellis

Nearly two months ago, a Fresno judge invalidated part of a federal water plan because it did not adequately protect Central Valley steelhead and two species of Chinook salmon.

Now, the question is what -- if any -- action should be taken to correct the problem.

Attorneys representing environmentalists and the agencies that oversee and depend on the massive Central Valley Project for their water on Friday began what promises to be an extensive debate on that key question.

In a week that saw Gov. Schwarzenegger proclaim a statewide drought and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation officials announce water-allocation reductions from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the ultimate answer could mean even more cutbacks for water users that depend on the Central Valley Project.

U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger -- who in April invalidated a key part of the federal water plan because he said it violated the Endangered Species Act by not adequately protecting winter-run Chinook salmon, spring-run Chinook salmon and the Central Valley steelhead -- will first decide if any steps need to be taken to protect the fish.

That will likely be decided late next week. If Wanger finds something must be done to protect the three fish species, the trial will then turn to that matter.

Environmentalists are seeking four primary measures to address the issue: Increase cold-water releases from Lake Shasta to make the Sacramento River's temperature lower at a point farther downstream. That would assist in salmon spawning.

Maintain 1.9 million acre-feet of water in Shasta.

Keep a diversion dam on the Sacramento River near Red Bluff open longer.

Maintain higher water flows in Clear Creek, a salmon-spawning waterway that flows into the Sacramento River.

Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Kate Poole, who participated in Friday's hearing, said the three fish species are being pushed to the edge of extinction.

"It's not clear they will be able to survive these critically dry years," she said. "We need to make sure they get a fighting chance to weather this drought."

The government and its water agency allies think Wanger should do nothing.

Currently, they say, the National Marine Fisheries Service is rewriting a biological report on the Central Valley Project's effects on the steelhead and two salmon species that Wanger invalidated. That should be done by next spring and should address the environmentalists' concerns.

They're also baffled by the environmentalists request to release more water from Shasta, but also maintain 1.9 million acre-feet, said attorney Daniel O'Hanlon, who represents the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority, which represents water districts -- including Westlands -- covering more than 2 million acres of farmland.

"We can't make sense of that," he said.

Many of the issues -- as well as the participants -- were similar to those in Wanger's courtroom last year in a case involving the tiny delta smelt.

Wanger threw out a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opinion on management of the delta smelt. Ultimately, his order resulted in less water being sent south from the delta pumps.

But government and water-agency attorneys on Friday argued that while many of the legal issues may mirror that of the delta smelt, there are different issues with the steelhead and salmon species.

One key issue is life span. The delta smelt lives one year, so a population crash could imperil the species. But salmon live four to five years, so while a generation could be wiped out, the long-term viability of the species could still remain intact.

Another issue is the Pacific Ocean and whether it is contributing to troubles being experienced by the three species -- trouble in which the Central Valley Project plays no role.#

By Alex Breitler, Staff Writer

FRESNO - The same federal judge who ordered historic water cutbacks to protect Delta smelt last year began trial-like proceedings Friday for an equally beleaguered, yet more beloved, fish: salmon.

And while it could be weeks before he rules, Judge Oliver Wanger indicated he will consider the economic impact of withholding water from farms and cities already parched from California's first drought since the early 1990s.

Endangered species are considered the first priority in conflicts such as these, under federal law.

"It's the law," Wanger said. "We can't just ignore the law because it's convenient or expedient."

But, he added, economic hardships "need to be on the table."

Wanger ruled in April that the federal government's guidelines protecting two species of salmon and steelhead were faulty and must be rewritten.

The new guidelines won't be finished until March. Wanger wants to know how imperiled the fish are and what if anything should be done this year to protect them.

That could mean even more changes in how much water is available for millions of Californians.

The salmon situation is considerably more complicated than the smelts'. Salmon are migratory, living most of their lives in the ocean and returning to inland rivers to spawn as adults.

Less water will be available this year for endangered winter-run chinook salmon, threatened spring-run salmon and threatened steelhead; what water the fish do have may be too warm for their eggs to survive.

Neither side of the legal dispute believes any of the three species are in danger of extinction prior to next spring.

But environmentalists argue the fish have been "beaten, exhausted and all but broken" by the state's vast plumbing system, which sends water from the Sacramento River and the Delta mostly to the south.

"The (water) projects chip away at the fish populations - 1 percent here, 2 percent there," said Michael Wall, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"These projects are slowly bleeding these species."

The fish in question are not to be confused with fall-run chinook, whose rapid decline triggered widespread publicity and fishing closures up and down the West Coast earlier this year. Fall-run salmon are not considered endangered.

The salmon and steelhead species do face similar risks, however: a lack of food in the ocean, water exports and water quality in the Delta, and predatory fish, among others.

The dangers are far worse in a drought year. Lake Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, is expected to lose its cold-water storage by the end of September, a blow for fish trying to spawn downstream. The number of winter-run salmon returning to spawn below the lake has already declined from 17,000 in 2006 to 2,500 last year, according to testimony Friday.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation has suggested strategies for the coming months, including conserving as much water as possible in Shasta for the sake of next year's salmon run while also adding 16,000 tons of gravel to rivers for salmon to spawn.

"My feeling is that those actions will be effective" in lessening the harm to fish, said Charles Hanson, a biologist testifying on behalf of water users.

They will not save all the fish, Hanson said. But he doesn't believe the species overall is at immediate risk of extinction, in part because salmon live more than one year, with some age classes in the ocean and safe from the inland dangers.

Environmentalists, however, will ask Wanger for stronger action, including additional cuts in the amount of water pumped out of the south Delta when juvenile fish are nearby.

They originally sued over the water operations in 2004, when the National Marine Fisheries Service ruled that the bureau's plans to increase water deliveries would not jeopardize salmon and steelhead.

Wanger ruled otherwise in April.

The salmon hearings are expected to resume Tuesday.#

SACRAMENTO — Assembly Speaker Karen Bass admits to being "strictly a city kid" who's basically clueless about California's most valuable resource: water.

"Coming from L.A., we use it all, but we have no concept where it comes from," the Democrat says, poking fun at herself and other Southlanders. "We get it out of a bottle or the tap . . . "

"I know that it's a contentious issue -- I mean, 'Chinatown,' the movie.

"That was the extent of my knowledge. And then I come up here and find out I live in a flood plain [near the Sacramento airport]. I was stunned."

Bass is laughing over lunch. She's acknowledging her water ignorance, but -- most important -- expressing an eagerness to learn.

Recently, before replacing termed-out Fabian Nuñez (D-Los Angeles) as Assembly speaker, Bass took trips to Bakersfield and Fresno to hear firsthand about California's dire water problems. "I'd never been on a farm before," she says, until Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford) marched her into a field to learn about irrigation.

Bass is one hopeful sign for impatient water warriors because of a leadership transition at the Capitol.

Another is Sen. Darrell Steinberg of Sacramento, who has been selected by fellow Democrats to be the next Senate leader, replacing termed-out Sen. Don Perata (D-Oakland).

Steinberg is a policy wonk who, as a Sacramentan, is very familiar with the leaky, creaky Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and its vulnerability to flood or, worse, earthquake.

The delta estuary is California's main water hub, the source of drinking water for 24 million people and irrigation for 3 million acres. It also has become a deathtrap for fish, ranging from the endangered tiny smelt to disappearing popular salmon. So federal courts have cut back on water exports to save the critters.

Steinberg, chairman of the Senate water committee, is eager to repair and update the state's aged water facilities. So is Bass, unlike her predecessor Nuñez, whose main interest in water was to use it as a bargaining chip to achieve universal healthcare.

Water talks between Perata and the Schwarzenegger administration were scuttled when the Senate killed Nuñez's health insurance bill in January. A bitter Nuñez would have killed any water bond proposal the Senate had sent the Assembly. But Perata denied him the sweet revenge by pulling the plug on water.

Bass has told Perata that she has no such hang-ups about water and healthcare.

Neither does she or Steinberg harbor the instinctive opposition to dams that many environmentalist-influenced Democrats have exhibited in recent years.

"What's absolutely true is I'm open," Bass told the Sacramento Press Club last week. "I don't come into this issue with rigid positions around dams."

But she is concerned about cost, benefits and who pays, Bass added.

That has been a major quarrel among water negotiators. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republicans have argued that the cost should be 50-50: half public, half water contractor.

They contend that the public would use any new dam for flood control and recreation and the water for delta ecological restoration. Democrats counter that water contractors -- for farmers and city dwellers -- traditionally have financed the lion's share of dams.

There has been some recent progress on resolving this dispute.

Sen. Michael Machado, a Democratic farmer from San Joaquin County, has been the Senate point man on water. He now has concluded that the public should pay 100% of the building cost for a long-proposed, off-stream dam called Sites, near the Sacramento River in Colusa County. It's needed for delta restoration and flood control, he says. Any surplus could be sold to water contractors.

But Machado, who represents delta farmers, still is leery of carving a so-called peripheral canal around the delta to carry Sacramento River water into the south-bound California Aqueduct. That would rob the delta of fresh water, he notes.

That issue currently is being studied by a Schwarzenegger-created blue-ribbon commission, which is expected to recommend building a combo contraption to transport water in canals both outside and inside the delta. That could muck up the delta's most popular, scenic recreational boating area, called the Meadows.

But the Legislature won't decide that this year -- or maybe ever. The administration believes it has the power, granted by voters in 1960 when they authorized the State Water Project, to build a peripheral canal without asking the Legislature. Contractors would pay the entire cost.

Prediction: No peripheral canal -- or anything else it might be dubbed -- will ever be built without legislative approval. Nor should anything that significant.

The water issue has resurfaced in Sacramento because of the driest spring in history and a disappointing Sierra snowpack that has evaporated in warm weather and wind.

Schwarzenegger called a news conference last week to declare a "serious drought." Just because a governor says there's a drought, doesn't mean there really is one. And this doesn't seem to be one. But "drought" is an attention-grabbing word, and the governor was correctly trying to prod the politicians into action.

"There is no more time to waste," Schwarzenegger asserted. "We have to go and get started because we have been talking about this now for years."

He called for building dams, cleaning up groundwater, fixing delta levees, conserving . . . and placing a multibillion-dollar bond on the November ballot.

Who knows? It all could happen as part of a budget deal this summer.

But if not, here's one thing the governor could do: Agree to sign a bill appropriating $600 million in already-authorized bond money for various water projects, including delta repairs. Perata passed such a bill last year and Schwarzenegger vetoed it, holding the measure hostage for the comprehensive bond bill that died. Perata is pushing similar legislation this year.

The governor also could agree to sign an Assembly bill that would require Californians to cut water use 20% by 2020.

That would constitute at least minimum progress while lawmakers are focused on budget balancing.

Then next year, Bass says, water "will be a high priority."

We've heard that before. But listening to Bass say it -- with Steinberg waiting in the wings -- the promise doesn't seem so far-fetched.#

A federal judge today will begin considering whether to further restrict the flow of water to California farms and cities in a state already parched by drought.

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger has already ruled that permits meant to prevent water managers from driving fish extinct are failing and illegal.

Last year, he ordered Delta pumping reductions of as much as 30 percent because Delta smelt are vanishing. The hearing in Fresno, which may extend into next week, could lead to further restrictions to protect salmon and steelhead, which are also in decline.

"This isn't going to solve the salmon crisis but it can help quite a bit," said Zeke Grader, who represents commercial salmon fishers who joined with environmentalists to bring the lawsuit.

Most observers do not expect a court order as dramatic as the one Wanger issued last year. In part, that is because salmon and steelhead do not appear to be as threatened as Delta smelt, which are facing the possibility of imminent extinction.

"There was common agreement with the Delta smelt that it was disappearing from the system," said Chris Scheuring, a water lawyer for the California Farm Bureau. "The salmon and steelhead are in a little more hopeful situation than the Delta smelt."

Instead, environmentalists and anglers are asking water managers to maintain colder temperatures in spawning beds, save more water behind dams and take other measures that would have a more subtle effect on water supplies.

Today's testimony will focus on the status of salmon and steelhead runs and whether court intervention is needed. If so, it will likely take several days of testimony before the judge reaches decisions on what protective measures to order.

At issue is a permit issued in 2004 by the National Marine Fisheries Service that controls cold water releases from dams, Delta water pumping and many other pieces of California's plumbing system.

Federal investigators earlier found the permit was approved under unusual circumstances. Although biologists concluded water deliveries could threaten fish with extinction, they were overruled by a manager, James Lecky, who gave the water plan the agency's blessing and was later promoted to become the Bush administration's top official overseeing marine endangered species.

In April, Wanger found the permit did not meet the requirements of the Endangered Species Act. Last year, he made a similar ruling on a permit issued by another federal wildlife agency that was supposed to protect Delta smelt.

Wanger was not alone. An Alameda County judge ruled last year that the state water resources department's Delta pumps were running illegally because state regulators never issued a permit or certified the federal permit, as required by the state endangered species law.

The multiple violations of endangered species laws in the two major water delivery systems — one of which is run by the state water resources department and the other by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — come at a time when Delta fish are in deep peril.

Delta smelt are believed near extinction and longfin smelt are being considered for endangered species status.

Winter-run salmon, which rebounded during the 1990s from extremely low population levels, dropped sharply last year to the point where fewer than 2,500 fish returned to the Sacramento River to spawn. That represents a decline of two-thirds from the previous generation, which spawned three years earlier.

Spring-run salmon and steelhead also are foundering, and even previously abundant fall-run salmon — the backbone of the state's commercial salmon fishery — have collapsed to the point where regulators took the unprecedented step of closing the entire California coast to salmon fishing this year.

In all cases, most researchers say there are other contributing factors to the fish declines, including pollution, invasive species and fluctuations in ocean conditions.#

By Alex Breitler, Staff Writer

SACRAMENTO - The government was legally justified when it did not consider cutting water exports as one way to solve the Delta's problems, the state Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

But one attorney said language in the ruling may actually help Delta farmers and environmentalists in their renewed fight against a peripheral canal.

In 2000, the state-federal partnership known as CALFED released a major environmental plan that listed three broad alternatives to improving the Delta.

None of those alternatives included reducing the amount of water that is exported from giant pumps near Tracy to portions of the Bay Area, the southern San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

Delta farmers sued. They lost in Sacramento County Superior Court, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision. That court said the state's population would eventually adjust to the new realities of less available water.

The state Supreme Court decided the matter once and for all Thursday, saying CALFED's entire purpose was to reduce conflicts over water, and that the agency was justified in deciding that slashing water exports from the Delta would only make things worse.

Much has changed since that original plan was issued. CALFED is widely considered a failure - a bill pending in the state Legislature would eliminate it altogether.

Meanwhile, officials have moved on to new planning processes in the Delta, including consideration of a peripheral canal.

But the court's decision Thursday is not moot. CALFED's plan is still the foundation for many studies that are under way in the Delta, said CALFED spokesman Keith Coolidge. And the ruling will be looked to by those who are crafting new strategies.

That's why Stockton attorney Dante Nomellini, although on the losing end, was encouraged.

The court acknowledged that federal and state law means water exports must be "subordinated" to environmental needs, he said.

CALFED was based on the theory that it's possible to restore the Delta's ecology while maintaining or even increasing water exports.

"If practical experience demonstrates that the theory is unsound, Bay-Delta water exports may need to be capped or reduced," the ruling says.

Good news, said Nomellini, who represents Delta farmers.

"I think it's a very important statement that will have an impact" on current Delta planning, he said.

The State Water Contractors, which represents 27 agencies that receive Delta water, praised Thursday's ruling, calling ecosystem and water supply "co-equal goals."

But an environmental group, the Planning and Conservation League, called it an "unfortunate" decision that relied on an outdated understanding of the relationship between water exports and the Delta's ecosystem, including fish species whose numbers have plummeted under CALFED's watch.#

Bob Egelko, Staff Writer

The state and federal governments can form a long-range plan for managing water shipments through the bay and delta region without examining the option of reducing exports to Central and Southern California, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Environmentalists had argued that the plan favored dams over conservation, and farmers said they feared they might be bypassed in favor of city dwellers. But the court ruled unanimously that CalFed, the state-federal consortium drawing up the long-range plan, had balanced water supply needs against ecological and other concerns.

The decision upheld an environmental review of the plan, which the agency developed between 1995 and 2000 to try to address urban and agricultural water needs while protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where river diversions, development and pollution have damaged water quality and wildlife habitat.

The CalFed proposal includes increased shipments through the delta, with the goal of assuring reliable supplies for water users to the south. A state appeals court ruled in 2005 that the environmental review was inadequate because it failed to include the option of reduced water shipments, which would avoid the need for additional dams, and did not identify where the extra water to be shipped south would come from.

Although the justices cleared the way for a planning process for dams, reservoirs and other projects contemplated in the 30-year program, the ruling may not have much impact. CalFed, a group of 18 federal and state agencies formed in 1994 to work on long-term solutions to delta water problems, has made little headway and is being bypassed by combatants in the water wars.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed a task force to take another look at the issues, and a group of major water users, state and federal regulators and other interested parties is working separately on habitat protection. The state Senate passed legislation last month to dissolve the state agency that manages CalFed.

A federal judge, meanwhile, has ordered a reduction in water exports from the delta to protect a fish called the delta smelt and has scheduled a hearing in Fresno today to consider additional protective measures for salmon and steelhead.

"The debate has moved on in terms of fixing the delta," said Chris Scheuring, a lawyer with the California Farm Bureau and a member of Schwarzenegger's task force.

He said CalFed "collapsed under its own weight."

An attorney for environmental groups said the ruling set a bad legal precedent but probably wouldn't have any immediate effect on the bay-delta region.

"The parts of CalFed haven't come together" and the program is "all but moribund," said Antonio Rossmann, lawyer for the Planning and Conservation League, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense. The group of state and federal agencies "hasn't provided environmental protection, and water agencies and farmers haven't seen the reliability (of supplies) they thought they were getting," he said.

But Keith Coolidge, spokesman for the state's CalFed bay-delta program, said the court had validated the program's environmental planning process and provided a road map for future efforts to improve both water delivery and ecological protection. Lisa Page, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger, said the ruling "reinforces our delta restoration effort."

The state Supreme Court said CalFed was entitled to conclude that reducing shipments would not ensure a reliable water supply for Central and Southern California. #

After years of searching high and low for a culprit in the collapse of Delta fish populations, scientists are learning the problem may lie right under their noses.

The likely fish killer is ammonia, a common byproduct of human urine and feces.

Sacramento's regional sewage treatment plant is the largest single source of ammonia in the Delta. It discharges treated wastewater from nearly 1.4 million people into the Sacramento River near Freeport – without removing ammonia.

Two recent studies by Richard Dugdale, an oceanographer at San Francisco State University, show that ammonia disrupts the food chain in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The discovery, if it holds up to further scientific review, reveals how just one factor can tilt the Delta's complex ecological balance. It also illustrates how fixing the Delta will be a costly task for many California residents who mistakenly assume their lives are not connected to the estuary.

The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District estimates it needs as much as $1 billion to remove ammonia from the metro area's wastewater. Monthly sewer bills would have to triple throughout the region.

"We're not going out on the edge to say this is the whole answer," said Dugdale, co-author of the studies along with others at the university's Romberg Tiburon marine lab. "But we think it's part of the reason for the decline in (ecological) productivity."

Ammonia in the river does not make fish unsafe to eat, nor does it pose a threat to recreation. It does, however, seem to interrupt a natural food production line that would otherwise yield abundant blooms of tiny aquatic animals to feed salmon, smelt and bass, Dugdale said.

Those species have been in steady decline.

The ammonia threat was dramatically illustrated last May when dozens of chinook salmon showed up dead in the San Joaquin River near Stockton's sewage outfall. Anke Mueller-Solger, an environmental scientist at the state Department of Water Resources, said the fish may have been killed by high levels of ammonia in the wastewater.

Sacramento's effluent problem is slightly different. Rather than high concentrations of ammonia, the threat is the enormous volume of ammonia-laced wastewater. The regional sewer agency treats human waste from Sacramento, West Sacramento, Folsom, Carmichael, Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove and other unincorporated communities.

The plant near Freeport each day releases about 146 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Sacramento River. That's enough to fill about 225 Olympic-size swimming pools daily.

Despite this volume, Mueller-Solger said, the Sacramento River is traditionally considered the Delta's lifeblood, because it provides the vast majority of fresh water entering the estuary.

"But there is this big urban area called Sacramento and it's been growing like gangbusters," she said. "Obviously, sewage is produced proportionally to the number of people, so the water's perhaps not quite as nice and clean as we thought."

The ammonia load in Sacramento's wastewater has more than doubled since 1985 due to rapid urbanization, and is now more than 125,000 gallons per month. That's 10 times more than the Stockton sewage plant.

To handle more growth, the regional sewer agency is planning a major expansion that would allow total discharge volume to grow 30 percent. The plan includes no ammonia controls.

"This is a cost of growth that is too often externalized onto a degraded environment," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and longtime Delta water-quality watchdog.

Jennings called it "simply reprehensible" that the sewer agency hasn't already improved its systems to remove ammonia and other contaminants.

Sewage officials counter that they have a responsibility to ratepayers. They estimate upgrading the wastewater treatment plant to filter out ammonia would cost $740 million. To remove excessive nitrates produced as a byproduct of that treatment would raise the cost to $1 billion.

District engineers estimate these steps together would boost sewage rates in the region from $19.75 per month to $62.17.

"If it's causing a problem, I think we have to recommend going to that," said Mary Snyder, district engineer. "But on the other hand, we don't want to leap into anything precipitously simply because of the effect on ratepayers. The average person is going to object to paying that much."

Growth in Sacramento's ammonia output has coincided with a long-term decline in diatoms, an important phytoplankton at the base of the food chain.

Dugdale's research suggests the volume of human wastewater may be starving Delta fish by shutting down food production.

It works like this:

• Young fish eat small animals in the aquatic food chain, called zooplankton. The zooplankton, in turn, feed on diatoms and other phytoplankton.

• Phytoplankton require nutrients in the water and enough sunlight to bloom in sufficient numbers. Nitrates are the favored nutrient. Ammonia is another.

• For reasons that remain unclear, phytoplankton can't feed on nitrates when there is too much ammonia in the water, Dugdale said. They must eat the ammonia first, and by the time that's gone, the phytoplankton bloom dies out before it gets big enough to feed fish.

In addition, ammonia is preferred by a bad breed of phytoplankton, called mycrocystis. A toxic type of algae, it has begun to replace more nutritious phytoplankton that normally dominate the food chain. So ammonia may also encourage the rise of harmful foods.

The phenomenon is especially important in Suisun Bay, Dugdale said. The shallow bay near Pittsburg is a vital feeding area for young fish in spring.

New studies are under way to explore the problem further and confirm whether Sacramento's sewage is the true cause.

"If it's part of the problem, it's big because there's so much of it," Dugdale said. "The river just could never handle that amount and reduce it by the time it gets to Suisun. It just can't absorb that."

Sacramento's regional sewage plant uses a so-called "secondary" treatment process that has become outdated. Most other urban areas have upgraded to "tertiary" systems that add rigorous filtration steps.

Sacramento has been able to avoid this expense so far, Snyder said, because its wastewater is quickly diluted to legally acceptable levels by the strong flow of the Sacramento River.

"We are a very large discharger," Snyder acknowledged. "But when you look at the Sacramento River, we have a small impact on the river."

Sacramento may not be able to rely on this free dilution as urban growth continues.

In November a Sacramento Superior Court judge ruled against the district on a number of points in a lawsuit against the environmental impact report prepared for the planned sewer expansion. The suit was filed by many of the water agencies that divert drinking water from the Delta to serve more than 20 million people throughout California.

Importantly, the court ruled that the Sacramento district "ignored a significant component of the environment" by failing to fully assess the additional nutrients pumped into the Delta in the region's wastewater.

Ammonia is one of those nutrients. The sewer district appealed the ruling.

"We had long discussions with them, before we got to the point of a lawsuit, on ways they might be able to offset their discharges," said Greg Gartrell, assistant general manager at the Contra Costa Water District, the lead plaintiff in the case. "They just weren't willing to entertain any of those issues yet."

Mueller-Solger at DWR noted that, compared with other problems in the Delta, the ammonia threat can be fixed if further research confirms it to be a danger.

There is no ready fix for the predicted sea level rise that could overwhelm Delta levees, nor any practical way to remove foreign species invading the estuary. But technology exists to remove ammonia from wastewater.

"It's expensive and it's sometimes hard to push through, so it needs the political will. But it's possible," she said. "To me as a scientist, it's not about finger pointing. We are all in this together."

Oakland Tribune – 5/31/08
By Kevin Leahy, correspondent

OAKLAND — Hundreds of people converged on Jack London Square on Saturday to hear live rock bands and rally for a good cause — saving California's dwindling wild salmon population.

The free SalmonAid festival, which will continue today, was organized to raise awareness about the fish's upstream battle against climate change, dams and damaged river habitats.

"The major thing is, water has to run downstream, and it has to be cold," for salmon to survive, said Jon Rosenfield, an ecologist who helped organize the festival. "We make it complicated because we find a number of ways to screw that up."

The Pacific Fishery Management Council placed the most stringent limits ever on recreational and commercial salmon fishing this year, and the U.S. Commerce Department declared the West Coast's salmon fishery a commercial failure earlier this month.

Ben Platt of Fort Bragg makes most of his income fishing for salmon near the California-Oregon border on his 42-foot boat, the Kaybee. But when authorities closed the salmon fishing season before it began this year, he was forced into crabbing full-time.

"I'll generally be gone from home most of five months out of every spring and summer," Platt said. "This year after crab season we just got nothing to do until next crab season."

For some, the event was an opportunity to see a free concert by local musician Les Claypool. Bands played zydeco and bluegrass music on two stages, while people strolled by informational booths, sampled food and posed for pictures with a woman in a full-body salmon suit.

But despite the festive atmosphere Saturday, the numbers tell a grim story.

In the Sacramento River, for example, the number of fall chinook salmon expected to return from the ocean to spawn this year is 59,000, down from about 88,000 in 2007, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Robert Bush, a retiring science teacher at Washington High School in Piedmont, attended the event with his wife, Connie. Bush said he is interested in parks and recreation management and was hoping to learn more about how he could help.

"I think we have to balance the water needs with the salmon but it's clear we don't have a balance," Bush said. "The fish always lose."

Organizers say the problem is not overfishing. Water is increasingly being pumped from Northern California's Klamath and Sacramento rivers to irrigate farms, draining them of the clean, cool flowing water the fish need to spawn.

Scientists still have a lot of questions about why salmon are not returning in large numbers to spawn after the typically three years they spend in the ocean. Some attribute the decline to changes in ocean conditions and food supply spurred by global warming.

But fishermen and conservationists Saturday said they believe excessive damming creates reservoirs where water becomes too warm for the fish to reproduce.

"Obviously the ocean is going to play a part. But the thing is, we can't do much about ocean conditions," Rosenfield said. "What we can do is provide better access to spawning grounds for these fish — and it means providing more water and taking out dams that aren't worthwhile."

The shortage has been partly fixed by fish hatcheries, but they are not enough to keep the species going in the long-term, organizers said.

If salmon returns continue to flail, the economic ripple effect would reach beyond the commercial fishing and restaurant industries. Providers of ice, fuel and tackle based around rivers would be out of work too.

Dick Poole, president of Pro-Troll Products, a Concord-based fishing equipment company, said his business has already been hurt by the recent downturn.

"We're suffering right alongside a lot of these people," he said.#

The discovery, if it holds up to further scientific review, reveals how just one factor can tilt the Delta's complex ecological balance. It also illustrates how fixing the Delta will be a costly task for many California residents who mistakenly assume their lives are not connected to the estuary.

The Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District estimates it needs as much as $1 billion to remove ammonia from the metro area's wastewater. Monthly sewer bills would have to triple throughout the region.

"We're not going out on the edge to say this is the whole answer," said Dugdale, co-author of the studies along with others at the university's Romberg Tiburon marine lab. "But we think it's part of the reason for the decline in (ecological) productivity."

Ammonia in the river does not make fish unsafe to eat, nor does it pose a threat to recreation. It does, however, seem to interrupt a natural food production line that would otherwise yield abundant blooms of tiny aquatic animals to feed salmon, smelt and bass, Dugdale said.

Those species have been in steady decline.

The ammonia threat was dramatically illustrated last May when dozens of chinook salmon showed up dead in the San Joaquin River near Stockton's sewage outfall. Anke Mueller-Solger, an environmental scientist at the state Department of Water Resources, said the fish may have been killed by high levels of ammonia in the wastewater.

Sacramento's effluent problem is slightly different. Rather than high concentrations of ammonia, the threat is the enormous volume of ammonia-laced wastewater. The regional sewer agency treats human waste from Sacramento, West Sacramento, Folsom, Carmichael, Rancho Cordova, Elk Grove and other unincorporated communities.

The plant near Freeport each day releases about 146 million gallons of treated wastewater into the Sacramento River. That's enough to fill about 225 Olympic-size swimming pools daily.

Despite this volume, Mueller-Solger said, the Sacramento River is traditionally considered the Delta's lifeblood, because it provides the vast majority of fresh water entering the estuary.

"But there is this big urban area called Sacramento and it's been growing like gangbusters," she said. "Obviously, sewage is produced proportionally to the number of people, so the water's perhaps not quite as nice and clean as we thought."

The ammonia load in Sacramento's wastewater has more than doubled since 1985 due to rapid urbanization, and is now more than 125,000 gallons per month. That's 10 times more than the Stockton sewage plant.

To handle more growth, the regional sewer agency is planning a major expansion that would allow total discharge volume to grow 30 percent. The plan includes no ammonia controls.

"This is a cost of growth that is too often externalized onto a degraded environment," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and longtime Delta water-quality watchdog.

Jennings called it "simply reprehensible" that the sewer agency hasn't already improved its systems to remove ammonia and other contaminants.

Sewage officials counter that they have a responsibility to ratepayers. They estimate upgrading the wastewater treatment plant to filter out ammonia would cost $740 million. To remove excessive nitrates produced as a byproduct of that treatment would raise the cost to $1 billion. #

Stockton Record – 5/28/08
By Peter Ottesen

King salmon smolts have been implanted with acoustical tags under a multi-agency research project to provide scientists answers to why as many as 90 percent of the young fish die each year while out-migrating through the south Delta and San Joaquin River.

"The project goal is to figure out what is killing the young salmon during their journey and solve those problems," state Department of Fish and Game spokesman Harry Morse said. "It's a mystery that must be solved."

He said 1,000 smolts have been implanted with transmitters at the Merced Hatchery as part of the Vernalis Adaptive Management Plan in the San Joaquin River Agreement. The transmitters are programmed by the U.S. Geological Service. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two private consulting firms are providing technical assistance to the project.

"Tracking is done in the river and south Delta with acoustic receiver buoys," Morse said. "Buoys have been anchored in key locations throughout the river system and water diversion pathways to track the salmon."

Said Fish and Game biologist Tim Heyne: "The results of this study and other evaluations being conducted in the San Joaquin River basin will determine stream flows that are needed to overcome all the impediments to adequate salmon and steelhead production in this river system."

Each year a remnant run of fall-run salmon still migrate into the San Joaquin, Merced and Tuolumne rivers. Eggs spawned and reared at the Merced Hatchery will produce the fish for this study over the next four years. Releases of smolts carrying the transmitters began the last week in April. All of the salmon were released before May 15. Currently, the tiny fish are being tracked in "real time" from sounds emitted by the acoustic tags.

The Vernalis Adaptive Management Plan focuses on understanding the relationship between south Delta inflow, Delta exports and juvenile salmon survival. ONITAGBOLDONIInformation:ONIENDBOLDONI sjrg.org.

Challenges ahead

The bulk of fall-run king salmon - as much as 85 percent of all the chinook found off the California Coast - are Sacramento River stock fish. That resource literally collapsed in 2007 when 79,000 adults returned to spawn, a reduction of 90 percent of the run, down from a high of approximately 800,000 salmon in 2002. The Sacramento River system includes major tributaries - the American and Feather rivers and Battle Creek. Poor ocean conditions are blamed for the collapse of the run.

On May 9, the California Fish and Game Commission adopted a "zero bag" limit on all Central Valley rivers in 2008 to give fall-run salmon maximum protection and completely closed recreational salmon fishing in ocean waters.

Central Valley salmon regulations were purposely structured as "zero salmon bag" limit to allow fishing for other non-salmon species such as striped bass, trout, sturgeon and shad. While catch-and-release fishing for salmon is not prohibited in rivers, Fish and Game officials are asking the public to refrain from using fishing methods that target salmon.

The five-member panel did approve an in-river exception that calls for a one-salmon bag limit in the Sacramento River from the Diversion Dam at Red Bluff to Knights Landing from Nov. 1 to Dec. 31. Commissioners approved this rule to give sport anglers limited access to late-fall chinook.

The forecast of returning Klamath and Trinity River fall-chinook is more than needed to meet conservation and reproduction goals, DFG scientists said. As a result, recreational salmon fishing will be permitted and allow for a 37,000-fish quota for Indian tributes and a 22,500-fish quota for recreational anglers.

Guide Dave Mierkey of Stockton said half the recreational quota, about 11,250 salmon, will be allocated to the lower Klamath River from the mouth to Weichpec. The other 11,250 salmon will be designated for anglers who try their luck in the upper river, from Weichpec to Iron Gate Dam near Hornbrook. Mierkey will fish the mouth of the Klamath from Sept. 6-28 and, after a week's layoff, will shift to the upper end for most of October.

"Last year, we didn't reach the recreational quota," Mierkey said. "Since there is no ocean salmon fishing this year, the quota was increased by 1,000 fish. That's the good news."#

San Francisco chronicle – 5/26/08
By Peter Fimrite, staff writer

Butte County -- The salmon looked like shadows gliding silently beneath the surface of a pool between the foaming rapids of rugged Butte Creek.

Suddenly, with a splash, a big glittering fish leaped out of the water, then another and another. The spring-run chinook were jumping this past week in the remote, forested gorge outside Chico.

"This is the last best run of wild salmon in California," said Allen Harthorn, 56, the executive director of Friends of Butte Creek, who has been fighting for more than a decade to save the historic - and once sacred - spring run of chinook in this untamed tributary of the Sacramento River.

The fast-flowing creek now holds the largest population of wild spring-run chinook, or king salmon, in the Sacramento River system.

"It's the only place that gives me hope," Harthorn said from an observation deck he built on a cliff-side five years ago.

It was clear from Harthorn's deck as the morning sun peaked over the volcanic cliffs surrounding Butte Creek Canyon that, despite the almost complete collapse of the salmon fishery in California, there are still healthy salmon where there is healthy habitat.

The number of spawning fish returning from the ocean to Butte Creek increased 10 percent from 2006 to 2007, Harthorn said. By the look of things, he said, even more fish are returning this year.

But the most dramatic resurgence occurred over the past 10 years, when an average of almost 10,000 salmon a year swam back up the creek, according to Harthorn, who co-founded Friends of Butte Creek in 1999 after years battling farming interests and Pacific Gas and Electric over its DeSabla-Centerville plant.

It is a minor miracle that there are any salmon at all wriggling their way up Butte Creek, given that only 14 fish returned to spawn in 1987.

The dismal return outraged environmentalists and prompted a desperate effort to save the fish. About $30 million was spent by the state on a variety of projects over the years, including the removal of six small dams, the building of fish ladders and the insertion of numerous screens to keep salmon out of water diversion pipes.

Healthy runs

The effort finally paid off in 1998, when 20,000 spring-run salmon were counted in Butte Creek. The runs in 2006 and 2007 were slightly below the average, but still healthy compared with the rest of the Sacramento system.

"The restoration there I think has clearly had a measurable response," said Rob Titus, a senior Department of Fish and Game environmental scientist. "Butte Creek is a good example in the respect that the removal of diversion dams, migration barriers, hydroelectric dams can make a difference. It's a thing you'd really like to see on the really big systems."

The sight of leaping, wriggling salmon - once as reliable as the seasons in almost every river and tributary in California - is increasingly rare. The shocking collapse of the fall run of salmon in the Sacramento River prompted federal officials to shut down all ocean fishing this year in a desperate attempt to save California's last viable population of the iconic pink fish.

It is a problem up and down the Pacific Coast, where salmon populations are steadily declining. Every one of the Sacramento's seasonal runs has plummeted - and the winter and spring runs are listed by the federal Endangered Species Act.

The collapse is particularly troubling because fishermen all along the West Coast depend on Sacramento River fish, most of which come from hatcheries. Some believe the species itself is in danger of becoming extinct in C