San Francisco Chronicle – 3/28/08
Steven R. Beissinger, U.C. Berkeley

"It is a matter of serious regret that our choicest and most valued fish, the ... salmon, is annually decreasing and the supply for exportation and home consumption is diminishing. Unless salmon that now home in our waters are protected and fostered as a nucleus for increase, our rivers will become barren of this most desired fish."

These words appear in an 1886 report of the Commissioners of Fisheries of the State of California, but they could have been written yesterday. While some suggest the current collapse of the Sacramento chinook salmon run is unprecedented, we are poised to repeat unlearned lessons from a century ago unless conservation measures are enacted that reverse the underlying causes of the salmon decline.

Salmon harvesting in California began in the mid-1850s as an inland fishery, was stimulated by the canning industry, and soon met a fate similar to the infamous Cannery Row sardines. The first salmon cannery opened on the Sacramento River in 1864 near Broderick. By 1881, there were 20, but by 1885, only six canneries remained in operation, and in 1919, the last one closed. Having captured the easy pickings of fish moving on their way upstream to breed, commercial salmon fishing was forced to move to the ocean, where it has remained to this day.

Hapless sea lions got blamed for the decline in 1886, just like today. Of seals, the commissioners stated that they "sit at the entrance of the Golden Gate as royal toll gatherers and take the lion's share of the schools of the finny tribe as they pass from the broad Pacific into the Bay of San Francisco..." The commissioners urged, without success, the repeal of legislation that protected sea lions.

Recently, however, the National Marine Fisheries Service authorized a special capture of seals at the mouth of the Columbia River, an action that is unlikely to lead to salmon recovery and one that should not be repeated in California.

Multiple causes, perhaps as many as 40, have been identified as possible agents of the contemporary decline. Many on our list of culprits were identified in 1886 - over-harvesting, dams that stop the spawning movements of salmon, diversion of freshwater to the Central Valley for agriculture and the siltation from erosion (due now to deforestation but in those days caused by the legacy of Gold Rush mining in the foothills). Now, we can add climate change, which warms the oceans and robs young salmon of their foods.

Better science is needed to diagnose the causes of decline and to determine their relative influences - a difficult, yet required, task for recovering any threatened species.

The commissioners in 1886 expressed confidence that salmon fry produced in California hatcheries would restore the stock. Hatcheries have forestalled the ultimate decimation of the salmon, but at the same time they create genetic and behavioral changes in salmon and may introduce diseases.

Hatcheries disguise the long-term problems facing salmon, and create a put-and-take fishery that can never lead to self-sustaining populations.

The salmon fishery must be closed temporarily to both commercial and recreational fishing as the first step for recovery, and smaller limits will probably be needed in the future. Serious consideration must next be given to removing dams and reducing water diversions in the Central Valley, restoring many watersheds and reducing agricultural run-off, while we work to abate climate change. The pain must be shared by all. We can't let the sea lions be the "fall guys" forever.

Steven R. Beissinger is a professor of conservation biology at UC Berkeley, where he holds the A. Starker Leopold Chair in Wildlife Biology. His research addresses the causes of decline, risks of extinction and recovery options for endangered species.

Associated Press – 3/25/08

SACRAMENTO — The California Assembly on Monday approved $5.3 million to restore salmon habitat as federal fisheries managers considered whether to shut down salmon fishing off the California and Oregon coasts.

Lawmakers voted 59-11 for a bill by Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, that would allocate part of a $5.4 billion water bond passed by voters in 2006. The money is intended to rebuild dwindling salmon populations by removing stream barriers and restoring spawning areas, among other programs.

Part of the money also could be used to monitor salmon populations.

The 2006 bond measure, Proposition 84, provides money for clean water, parks, flood control and conservation programs. Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, said the money authorized by the bill could be used to qualify for up to $20 million in matching federal funds.

She said the Pacific Fishery Management Council probably will decide during its meeting next month to shut down salmon fishing off California and Oregon. There has been a precipitous drop in the number of fish returning to spawn in the rivers of California's Central Valley.

"The Legislature must act to begin restoring the salmon industry," she said.

Assemblyman Bill Maze, R-Visalia, agreed there was a "critical issue with salmon" but questioned whether the state could afford spending the $5.3 million because of its budget problems.

"It's not an appropriate time to move forward with this measure," he said.

Berg said the money would come from the sale of Proposition 84 bonds, not from the state's deficit-plagued general fund.

The Assembly vote sent the bill back to the Senate, which approved an earlier version of the measure in January. Final approval by the Senate would send the bill to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. #

Despite salmon numbers dwindling from the northern Oregon border throughout California and proposed fishing bans in the states, Butte Creek may have abundant salmon, maybe even too many.

Allen Harthorn, executive director of Friends of Butte Creek said fishing was closed in 1994 by the California Department of Fish and Game, but re-opening salmon fishing would help reduce numbers to a manageable level.

"The whole idea behind this is that the Department of Fish and Game and PG&E that operate the Centerville Powerhouse, say there's too many fish," Harthorn said.

"I've been telling them that if there is too many, then anglers should help thin the population," he said.

Putting a hard number on how many fish the habitat can support is tough for DFG to do, but 9,000 salmon have been counted in the habitat, and biologists claim there's only habitat for 6,000, Harthorn said. Chinook, the variety of salmon in Butte Creek, are a threatened species and because of that, "there won't be any fishing for quite some time," he said. The lack of fishing will certainly hurt the economy, Harthorn said. Harthorn said each fish caught could bring in $500 for the local economy.

Rocque Merlo owner of Merlo's Fishing Adventures in Chico said the cost varies, but that the cost of a fish for guide service alone is anywhere from $80 to $180. That is not including any other expenses.

"Everybody stays at a hotel and eats at the Fifth Street Steakhouse and buys equipment."

This year's season may be short or non existent and the legal limit of fish able to be caught has yet to be set.

Three options were proposed by DFG last Thursday, March 20 and are posted at www.dfg.ca.gov. In Merlo's words, the season would be delayed, shut down completely or require a punch card with a set limit on each species. Guide fishing is big and attracts customers from as far as the East Coast to fish on the Sacramento and Feather Rivers. Large corporations also charter fishing trips, he said.

The business has changed rapidly, Merlo said.

Recently salmon numbers for fall run fish are low and may hurt business. More than anything, Merlo said improper and unethical fishing has destroyed the salmon population.

"You definitely shouldn't be jigging," he said.

Jigging is a technique using long, slender, two ounce pieces of lead with treble hooks to attract fish. It can hurt fish by snagging.

"That's when the striper come out and wipe out the Salmon," he said. "Stripers are at an all time high in April and May"

Though numbers are low for fall run salmon fish populations, Butte Creek may be nearing 17,000 now, Merlo said. High summer temperature makes it hard for the fish to get adequate oxygen, which then puts PG&E in a hard spot to increase flow rates from the Centerville Powerhouse to lower the water temperature.

"Now it puts PG&E on the line," Merlo said. " there's a lot of politics with it."

The bigger story, for Harthorn is that hatchery fish can't handle the harshness of the wild as well as natural fish, he said. Merlo disagreed saying he didn't think the fisheries, and hatcheries are breeding lower quality fish.

"I don't have enough knowledge to say, but I don't think so," he said. "They're not genetically modified. I can't see why that'd be different. I just go by what I see, but something is off, three or four years ago it was phenomenal out there."

Harthorn said the dramatic decrease in salmon population is found in the fall run of the fish, not in the spring run. Salmon are migratory fish that live in the ocean part of their lives. Their run is when they return to rivers and creeks to spawn. Fall run fish populations decreased 80 percent from 2006 to 2007, Harthorn said.

During that same time, Butte Creek Chinook salmon numbers increased from 6,400 more than 6,800. Butte Creek salmon are all wild, naturally spawning salmon, spring run fish, he said.

"From the minute they come out of the gravel they're surviving in the wild."

He compared that to hatchery fish.

"They're herded like cattle into the spawning room that's another unnatural process that leads to less genetic strength."

Spring run was the largest population of salmon prior to the construction of dams because rivers and creeks have the highest flows in the spring and fish could get farther into the waters into cooler water to survive the summers, Harthorn said. The way to solve the problem is to truck the migrating fish around the dams or to build fish ladders for the fish to migrate with, Harthorn said. The problem with those solutions is that they cost a lot of money.

Bill Zemke, senior licensing coordinator with PG&E said PG&E filed its re-licensing application last October and is now waiting on a response from FERC. A FERC license for the powerhouse is good for 30 years and also covers the West Branch of the Feather River. Re-licensing studies the salmon population of Butte Creek, both above and below the powerhouse.

Curtis Steitz, a PG&E biologist said Butte Creek has several runs of fish, but the most emphasis is on the spring run of the Chinook salmon that starts now and peaks in April.

It is hard to estimate populations right now, because the flows are so high and the water is murky. Numbers won't come in until April, Steitz said. The Department of Fish and Game uses two ways to count the fish. One is to snorkel the creek with three or four people using only direct observation. The other is to count fish carcasses in the fall, he said.

The low numbers of salmon talked about in the media now are the fall run of the salmon which accounts for most of the commercial and sport fishing. He agreed with Harthorn's theory that historically, the spring run was the dominant run before dams and said Harthorn's numbers are close. Looking at the carcass count numbers alone, they show 6,303 in 2006 and 6,214 in 2007, but the numbers are too close, statistically to differentiate an increase or decrease.

Steitz said most hatcheries produce fall run fish, and there is a wild component of fall run but they outnumbered by hatchery fish. Are the natural fish a stronger breed?

"That is certainly discussed a lot in the scientific community. Some studies suggest it, others are not that definitive," Steitz said. "Most people would want to and tend to believe they are."

As part of re-licensing, PG&E studies the potential for fish ladders and screens, but no one has made any proposals for ladders, or trucking. The numbers of fish won't affect PG&E's operation.

"It doesn't affect us one way or another, because it is a protected species, it does affect the way we handle that," Steitz said. "Whether there's a small run or not we'll operate the same way and try to maximize the cool water benefits no matter what the return is." #

Sacramento Bee – 3/22/08
By Matt Weiser, staff writer

State wildlife officials arrested nine Sacramento men Friday on charges of poaching salmon and sturgeon in the Sacramento River and Delta, providing another possible clue about why these species are threatened.

One of the suspects was on probation for similar crimes committed last year.

Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Game said the suspects illegally netted recently spawned chinook salmon as the fish attempted to migrate downstream to the sea. These fish were allegedly used as bait to catch oversize sturgeon, which were then processed illegally for the black-market caviar trade.

State fishing rules allow anglers to keep sturgeon that measure only between 46 and 66 inches long.

In an investigation, officials observed suspects taking two sturgeon 79 and 86 inches long. At that size, the fish are considered among the Delta's oldest and most prolific breeders. A third sturgeon was discovered during the arrests Friday but was cut into too many pieces to measure accurately.

"What poachers are doing is damaging our broodstock," said Warden Steven Stiehr, who patrols the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. "So next year we may see even tougher fishing restrictions."

It was the department's sixth major investigation into sturgeon poaching since 2003. Wardens said the arrests illustrate a problem that is outpacing their enforcement ability. California has only 200 game wardens statewide and the governor's budget for the coming year proposes to eliminate 38 vacant warden positions.

"We are at our wits' end with groups like this who continue to just poach and poach and poach for personal profit," said Warden Patrick Foy. "It's sturgeon in Sacramento, lobster in San Diego. We have too few wardens to slow them down."

Last year's fall chinook salmon run was the second-lowest on record. To protect the species, a total ban on commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California and Oregon is likely later this year, jeopardizing thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic value.

In this case, Stiehr said, the impact is especially troubling because poachers may have handicapped future populations.

The surveillance operation produced enough evidence against the suspects to justify search warrants. In raids that began at 6 a.m. Friday, wardens collected fishing gear, firearms, illegal fireworks and marijuana plants at seven south Sacramento homes.

The nine suspects were booked into the Sacramento County jail. Four face felony charges, because of prior convictions for illegal commercialization of sturgeon, and were being held on $12,000 bail each.

One suspect, Su Fou Saechou, 20, served jail time last year and was on probation for poaching sturgeon, Foy said. His probation terms required him to stay away from the Sacramento River and not possess any fishing gear or sturgeon.

The other three felony arrests included his brothers, Kao Fou Saechao, 27, and A Fou Saechao, 26. The fourth is Pahin Saephan, 25.

The other five were arrested on misdemeanors and are being held on $7,500 bail each: Pao Sio Chiew, 30; Ricky Saechao, 21; Torn Seng Saechao, 22; Cheng Chiew Saechao, 27; and Louchio Saeturn, 26. #

YubaNet.com – 3/21/08
By Pacific Fishery Management Council

Portland, OR. - Today the Pacific Fishery Management Council formally announced its April 7-12 meeting in Seattle, Washington, where an option for managing West Coast salmon fisheries will be chosen and recommended to National Marine Fisheries Service. The Council invites public comment on the options; details for commenting are provided below.

On March 14, the Council adopted three public review options for the 2008 salmon season, two of which would totally close fisheries for Chinook salmon off California and most of Oregon. Seasons for northern Oregon and Washington were also drastically reduced. The Council is scheduled to take final action to choose a single option on Thursday, April 10.

"The 2008 salmon season considerations have been dominated by the unprecedented collapse of the large Sacramento River fall Chinok stock," said Council Executive Director Donald McIsaac. "Council members will now take a final vote on whether any fishing on Sacramento fish should be allowed in the ocean this year."

Options

A detailed table of options is available online.1

The options for the area south of Cape Falcon (from northern Oregon to the Mexico border) are summarized below.

Option I allows a small amount of recreational and commercial ocean Chinook fishing, and a small quota for Sacramento Basin freshwater sport fisheries.

Under Option I, sport Chinook fishing would be open on the following

dates: April 15 - June 15 from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain (Oregon); Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day weekends for areas between Humbug Mountain (southern Oregon) and Pigeon Point (central California); and May 18-26 south of Pigeon Point. In addition, mark ' selective coho' only fishing (for coho that were marked at the hatchery) would be allowed between Cape Falcon and the Oregon/California border from June 22-August 31, or until a quota of up to 10,000 coho are caught.

Ocean commercial Chinook fishing would be allowed April 15-May 31 between Cape Falcon and the Oregon/California border, and August 1-31, or a 3,000 fish quota, for each of these areas in California: the Oregon/California border to Humboldt South Jetty, Fort Bragg, and San Francisco.

Option II allows a catch-and-release genetic research experiment for Chinook salmon south of Cape Falcon. This fishery is not open to the public. However, Option II also allows a sport fishery for 6,000 hatchery coho off Oregon between Cape Falcon and Humbug Mountain2. This option assumes salmon could not be kept in Sacramento Basin freshwater fisheries.

Option III would allow no ocean salmon fishing, and also assumes salmon could not be kept in Sacramento Basin freshwater fisheries.

North of Cape Falcon to the U.S./Canada border, the three options range from a quota of 15,000 to 25,000 coho (last year's limit was 140,000), and 45,000 to 25,000 Chinook (last year's limit was 32,500), split between commercial and recreational fishermen.

BACKGROUND: SACRAMENTO RIVER FALL CHINOOK DECLINE

The Sacramento River is the driver of commercial and recreational fisheries off California and southern Oregon. The minimum conservation goal for Sacramento fall Chinook is 122,000 - 180,000 spawning adult salmon (this is the number of salmon needed to return to the river to maintain the health of the run). As recently as 2002, 775,000 adults returned to spawn. This year, even with all ocean salmon fishing closed, the return of fall run Chinook to the Sacramento is projected to be 58,200. Under the option that allows small fisheries in specific areas, returns would be approximately 51,900.

Economic impacts

The economic implications of the low abundance of Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon could be substantial for commercial, recreational, marine and freshwater fisheries. In California and Oregon south of Cape Falcon (in northern Oregon), where Sacramento fish stocks have the biggest impact, the commercial and recreational salmon fishery had an average economic value of $103 million per year between 1979 and 2004. From 2001 to 2005, average economic impact to communities was $61 million ($40 million in the commercial fishery and $21 million in the recreational fishery).

The potential closure is devastating news to beleaguered salmon fleets on the west coast. California and Oregon ocean salmon fisheries are still recovering from a poor fishing season in 2005 and a disastrous one in 206, when Klamath River fall Chinook returns were below their spawning escapement goal. The catch of salmon in 2007 in these areas was also well below average, as the first effects of the Sacramento River fall Chinook stock collapse was felt.

Causes

The reason for the sudden collapse of the Sacramento fall Chinook stock is not readily apparent. The National Marine Fisheries Service has suggested ocean temperature changes, and a resulting lack of upwelling, as a possible cause of the sudden decline.3 Many biologists believe a combination of human-caused and natural factors are to blame, including freshwater in-stream water withdrawals, habitat alterations, dam operations, construction, pollution, and changes in hatchery operations.

The Council has requested a multi-agency task force led by the National Marine Fisheries Service's West Coast Science Centers to research about 50 potential caustive areas and report back to the Council at the September meeting in Boise, Idaho.

"After everyone asks how this could have happened, the question then becomes 'is there anything we can do to fix it?'," said Council Chairman Don Hansen. "The Council will take an immediate step to fix what it has authority to fix, which is appropriately managing the ocean fisheries that affect this valuable resource."

Process

The Council will accept public comment on the salmon options until April 1, and at its April 7 12 meeting in Seattle, Washington. Comments may be sent to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, 7700 NE Ambassador Place, Suite 101, Portland, OR 97220, emailed to pfmc.comments@noaa.gov, or faxed to (503) 820-2299. Meanwhile, scientists will also review the options to determine the effects on salmon and on the coastal economy.

Public hearings to receive input on the options are scheduled for March 31 in Westport, Washington and Coos Bay, Oregon, and for April 1 in Eureka, California. In addition, the California Fish and Game Commission will make a decision on California's state-managed salmon fisheries on April 17.

At its meeting in Seattle, the Council will consult with its scientific and fishery stakeholder advisory bodies, hear public comment, and choose a final option for ocean commercial and recreational salmon fishing.

Final Council action is scheduled for Thursday, April 10. The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to make a decision to implement the Council recommendation into federal regulations before May 1. The California Fish and Game Commission will set freshwater seasons affecting Sacramento fall Chinook salmon later in 2008.

All Council meetings are open to the public. #

San Francisco Chronicle – 3/23/08
By Tom Stienstra, outdoors columnist

(03-22) 19:27 PDT -- A Chronicle story in 2006 warned of a deteriorating marine food chain off the California coast that has since led to the collapse of salmon stocks.

Environmental Jane Kay wrote, "By now, the offshore waters should be roiling with plankton and the shrimp-like krill, the foundation of the ocean's food chain. Instead, the researchers say, the organisms appear to be in short supply." ("Sea life counts dive for 2nd year - Decrease in essential plankton and krill disrupt food chain," June 23, 2006.)

To explain the lack of marine food production, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Frank Schwing said, "The upwelling that we normally expect in the springtime hasn't kicked in.

We think there might be real consequences for the seabirds, fish and mammals."

This year's salmon season for the Bay Area coast was supposed to open on April 5, but the opener has been postponed and the season is in jeopardy because of a collapse of stocks. Salmon that spawn or are released from hatcheries in the Central Valley are down from 804,401 fish in 2002 to 90,414 in 2007.

"It is pretty clear that poor ocean conditions in 2006 and 2007 are the major factor in the decline in salmon abundance this year (and projected for next year)," said John Carlos Garza of the federal Southwest Fisheries Science Center out of Pacific Grove.

Since coho salmon on coastal streams have also declined, that also indicates that the problem is largely focused with ocean conditions. "The only thing that they all share in common is their residence in the coastal ocean," he said.

He said that high water exports out of the Delta and direct fish losses at water pumps could explain why salmon from the Central Valley have had "an inordinately large decline relative to other stocks."

With low rain and snow last year, and yet high water exports to points south, fall-run salmon were down 80 percent in the San Joaquin River Basin, with only 1,158 fish, according to the San Joaquin Basin Newsletter.

"Concurrent declines," Garza said, in other Delta species, such as the endangered Delta smelt, makes it "seem likely" that Delta conditions are a contributing factor.

"As with most things, it appears that there are multiple causes to the salmon decline," Garza said. Based on his group's studies, he predicted dramatic fluctuations in the future.

Chronicle readers have suggested additional reasons why the salmon have disappeared:

Wiped out by netters: Foreign trawlers, the giant mother ships that drag huge scoop nets, have the capabilities to wipe out thousands of salmon with one swipe of the net, and they do so without United States oversight.

Humboldt squid: Voracious swarms of 50-pound Humboldt squid, which seem to devour everything in their path, are now wintering off the Bay Area coast and have located and annihilated schools of salmon (and rockfish).

Predators galore: High numbers of predators, including sea lions, elephant seals and killer whales, are eating the fish into a decline, similar to how mountain lions killing both deer and Sierra bighorns have put those species on the brink in the Sierra Nevada.

Using smolts as striper feed: By releasing salmon smolts from the hatcheries on a routine schedule in the Lower Delta, they have trained striped bass into a feeding program, where the smolts get wiped out every time they're plunked in the water.

Delta fish grinders: The suction force of the Delta pumps, which reverses tide flows near Clifton Court at the intake, is simply grinding up all the juvenile fish that try to swim past the area.

Carrying capacity: The basic "carrying capacity" of the rivers/delta/bay system, that is, the amount of food and freshwater available as habitat, has declined because of water diversion and industrial pollution, and in turn, the habitat can support far fewer fish than in the past. #

San Francisco Chronicle – 3/24/08
By Jane Kay, staff writer

Amid growing concern over an imminent shutdown of the commercial and sport chinook salmon season, scientists are struggling to figure out why the largest run on the West Coast hit rock bottom and what Californians can do to bring it back.

The chinook salmon - born in the rivers, growing in the bay and ocean, and returning to home rivers to spawn - need two essential conditions early in life to prosper: safe passage through the rivers to the bay and lots of seafood to eat once they reach the ocean.

Yet, the Sacramento River run of salmon that was expected to fill fish markets in May didn't find those life-sustaining conditions. And some scientists say that's the likeliest explanation for why the number of returning spawners plummeted last fall to roughly 90,000, about 10 percent of the peak reached just a few years ago.

The devastating one-two punch happened as the water projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumped record amounts of snowmelt and rainwater to farms and cities in Southern California, degrading the salmon's habitat. And once the chinook reached the ocean, they couldn't find the food they needed to survive where and when they needed it.

"You need good conditions in the rivers and ocean to get survival and good returns for spawning," said Stephen Ralston, supervisory research fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and a science adviser to the Pacific Coast Fishery Management Council.

Without those favorable conditions, the salmon run crashed. Five years ago, the peak was 872,700 returning spawners. Roughly 90,000 were counted in 2007, and only 63,900 are expected to return to spawn in fall 2008.

Helped by cool-water winter

The fishery council, a regulatory body charged with setting fishing limits, has recommended a full closure or a strict curtailment of the commercial and sport season. A final decision will come in April.

NOAA researchers say a cool-water winter will help the beleaguered run in the future. An influx of cold Alaska waters, along with a shot of nutrients from vigorous upwelling of deep waters, have been fueling the food chain that feeds salmon, birds and marine mammals.

But the scientists warn that chinook, which have swum through the San Francisco Bay for thousands of years, have suffered human harm over the past half-century and now also need human help.

They've proposed a number of solutions, including sending more water over the dams and reservoirs and down the tributaries where salmon spawn; removing barriers to migration such as old dams; screening the fish away from the pumps and diversion pipes that suck them up, misdirect or kill them; controlling pesticide and sewage pollution - and catching fewer fish while the populations try to rebuild.

Over the millennia, salmon have been born in the Central Valley rivers. At about six months, they head through the delta. At 10 months and only 4-inches long, they reach the ocean and start feeding voraciously in the Gulf of the Farallones on small shrimp, krill and young rockfish.

From there they move to the open waters from Monterey to Vancouver Island in British Columbia until 3 or 4 years of age or older. Then they return home to their birth river to reproduce and die. The young come down the rivers, and the cycle begins again.

The problems for the troubled fall run began in 2004 and 2005, the years the chinook were born and traveled to the ocean. In those two years, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project exported record amounts of delta water to urban and agricultural customers in Southern California.

2005 a bad year for Chinook

In 2005, a crucial year for the young salmon, 55 percent of natural river flows never made it out to the bay, according to records of the state Department of Water Resources. The water was either exported by the water agencies, diverted upstream of the delta or held back by dams.

"The flows were less than what the salmon needed, and the populations are collapsing," said Tina Swanson, senior scientist with the Bay Institute. Even if water agencies are meeting minimum standards, they are inadequate to protect the fish, she said.

A network of nonprofits, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, filed a notice Tuesday with the State Water Resources Control Board, saying it would sue if it doesn't curb pumping.

But when looking for an answer to the fall run collapse, Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, said there are many causes for the salmon's decline.

"You can't just simply blame it on the pumps," he said. Ocean conditions, a reduction of phytoplankton in the bay, the amount of salmon fishing, natural die-off and other factors are part of the broader picture, he said.

There may have been increases in exports to water customers in recent years, but the crucial point is whether there was also an increase in rainfall and snowmelt, he said. That would mean there was more water to divert.

State and federal water project representatives say they follow requirements put forth in their permits, which, among other things, ensure a big enough water supply to protect endangered species and provide certain minimum temperatures. They've aided the salmon by removing dams, screening off diversion pipes and improving habitat.

Biologists caution that salmon need generous flows of cold water at almost every life stage. The fish also need the fresh river water from the reservoirs at the right times, particularly in the fall and summer.

"The adults come upstream in the fall to spawn partly because they're responding to cooler water temperatures," said Peter Moyle, professor of fish biology at UC Davis. "If the females have to swim through water that's too warm, their eggs don't mature as well. Some don't hatch at all."

Some females, Moyle said, just stop migrating and wait for cool water. "They know from evolutionary perspective that if they don't wait until the water gets cold, the young won't survive," he said. In the end, they spawn or die before spawning.

'Squirrelly' ocean conditions

According to Moyle, good ocean conditions can somewhat make up for drought in the river systems and vice versa. But ocean conditions have been "squirrelly" in the last several years with a number of anomalies that produced abnormally warm conditions not good for salmon, he said.

"Usually, salmon populations are at their worst when conditions are bad in both fresh water and salt water," Moyle said. Some scientists think that is what happened to the 2007 fall run.

Once in the ocean, salmon must gorge on small sea creatures to survive.

In 2005 and 2006, the years that the 2007 fall run needed food near the shore in the Gulf of the Farallones, the upwelling of nutrients apparently came too late to produce the small fish that feed the salmon.

Most of the scientists studying the ocean link the unexpected bouts of rising temperatures to global warming.

As the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, researchers have had to discard the theory of decades of warmer, then cooler, ocean temperatures. Now they expect an unpredictability, which is projected in climate models.

"What's happening is that the rockfish, the squid, the krill, the anchovies and the community of critters that salmon feed on changed dramatically in 2004 to the prey that is not as favorable to salmon," NOAA's Ralston said.

The distribution of the sea life also changed. Young rockfish moved well to the north or to the south of Central California, he said.

Ralston's hypothesis is that animals are adapted to finding food at certain times and in certain locations.

"When salmon arrive in the ocean, they'll go to certain areas to find their food as they have for millennia," he said. "If we have a major change, their fitness, their ocean survival is compromised."

Bill Peterson, a NOAA researcher in Newport, Ore., offered some hope for a cooler offshore current, although he cautioned that there would be a few years of hard times for chinook.

"It's looking kind of good this year" with five months of cold ocean currents, he said. But the scientists are "very guarded" because in the past two years the ocean was cold in the winter, and then the winds that brought upwelling quit in May and June, reducing the zooplankton that feed the prey of the salmon.

Peterson would like to see measures that would aid the salmon.

"These fish are so resilient and tough," Peterson said. "We should be a little nicer to them." #

International Herald Tribune – 3/19/08
By Eric Giles

SAN FRANCISCO: McCloud, a former lumber company town in the far north of California, has the charm of a small village and a breathtaking setting among pine and fir trees on the southern flank of Mount Shasta.

In 2003, the town government signed a contract to sell its spring water to Nestlé Waters North America, a subsidiary of the largest food and beverage company in the world. Nearly one-third of bottled water sold in the United States in 2006 came from the 23 Nestlé plants in the United States, earning the company $3.57 billion.

The Nestlé deal has divided this close-knit town of about 1,350 people. While some support it because they welcome economic development, others object to the lack of public input on the contract, the contract's terms, and the possible environmental effects. Five years after the contract was signed, construction of the plant, mired in conflict, has yet to begin.

"It's the issue in town," said Curtis Knight, the Mount Shasta area manager of California Trout, a wild fishery conservation group. "You know, who are you and are you pro-Nestlé or are you anti-Nestlé? It's really been a wedge through town, and I think it's unfortunate."

Controversy has followed such Nestlé operations. Its worldwide water bottling earned  6.3 billion, or $9.9 billion, in 2007. Lawsuits against the company have been filed - and some won - in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, California, Maine, and in Brazil.

The debate in McCloud over the bottling contract is about method and content.

Dennis Kucinich, a U.S. congressman from Ohio, was the chairman for the first of several federal subcommittee hearings on water in December. He said bottling companies usually put plants "in rural areas, where people don't necessarily have access to big law firms or the attention of the federal government to protect their economic interests. There are always questions raised in terms of how these contracts are gained and whether people have informed consent."

McCloud is unincorporated, so the McCloud Community Services District board serves as the town government, with five elected board members. Many residents said the board signed the deal with little public input.

Nestlé's Northern California natural resource manager, Dave Palais, and a district board member, Al Schoenstein, said standard meeting procedures were followed for the contract, with notices inviting public input posted in the newspaper. They said residents largely stayed away from the discussions until a meeting Sept. 29, 2003. That session was well attended, and residents asked Palais and the board many questions. But many questions were not answered, some residents said, and at the end of the night the board approve the deal.

"I was really upset," said Tim Dickinson, the board president. "It was announced as being an 'info' session, and after it was done, the board signed the contract."

Kucinich said this story was common. At his hearings, people "testified that local and state authorities often short-circuited their complaints and curtailed their input in the face of these perceived economic benefits that a water bottling plant promised to bring to a region," he said.

The McCloud contract's terms trouble many people. Debra Anderson is a third-generation McCloud resident who helped create McCloud Watershed Council in 2004 to educate her neighbors about the issues. The group took a survey two years ago and found that 77 percent of the citizens were opposed to the contract.

Knight of the fishery group said opponents' top concerns were the price that Nestlé would pay for the water, once the plant started operating, and the length of the contract, which runs for 100 years.

McCloud would receive about $305,000 the first year, based on residential water tariffs, which equals $191 per acre foot, or 15.5 cents per cubic meter. By comparison, Nestlé is paying $2,183 per acre foot to Pure Mountain Spring in Maine for its water, according to an economic study conducted by ECONorthwest, a consulting firm.

People also objected to an exclusivity clause, the quantity of water to be sold and the lack of information on how it would effect the environment.

An local group, Concerned McCloud Citizens, filed a lawsuit against Nestlé, saying that an environmental review, allowing discussion of alternatives or mitigation measures, should have been done before the town agreed to a contract. A district court sided with Concerned McCloud Citizens, but Nestlé appealed the decision and won because it said McCloud still had the right to negotiate contingency issues.

A water rights lawyer, Don Mooney, who handled the case for Concerned McCloud Citizens, said that even though the case had been lost, "we have an appellate decision saying that the district has further discretion with regards to the project, the size of the project, or whether or not the project should even go forward."

Palais of Nestlé disagreed, saying McCloud had no right to end the contract.

While the case was going through the courts, Nestlé began an environmental impact report under the California Environmental Quality Act. The first draft, published in 2006, received 4,000 public comments.

Protect Our Waters, a group of residents and trout fishery and habitat conservationists, hired experts to study the report. Betsy Phair of Concerned McCloud Citizens said the report did not address downstream communities, aquifer effects, global warming, fish, diesel fumes from increased trucking, or hazardous waste on the former mill site where Nestlé plans to build its plant.

In February, under pressure from conservationists, Nestlé agreed to cap its water extraction at 1,600 acre feet a year, or just under 2 million cubic meters. It also agreed that it would not drill groundwater wells and would conduct more environmental studies in a second environmental impact report.

But Nestlé is not altering the contract with the town to reflect these changes. Palais said the issues were already covered by contingency terms.

Groundwater and surface water are interconnected in a single hydrological system, said Kucinich, the congressman. "The existing regulatory structure barely recognizes this fact. For every gallon that's extracted for the bottled spring water, that's one gallon lost for surrounding streams and watershed."

Knight of the fishery group worries that water removal could effect the fish and ecosystem. He said a local fish hatchery had been distributing McCloud River redband trout eggs internationally since the 1870s. "The McCloud River is sacred water," Knight said. "It's one of the most treasured and popular trout fishing streams in the country and has a reputation throughout the world."

Under the contract, Nestlé can build a bottling plant covering an area of up to 1 million square feet, or 93,000 square meters.

"This would totally destroy the integrity of our small, historic mill town," said Anderson of the McCloud Watershed Council.

The contract also allows for 600 daily truck trips, and the trucks could run 24 hours a day all year. Some people are concerned about traffic and pollution. Residents who favor the plant say that plenty of trucks drove through town during logging's heyday. But other residents say logging trucks peaked at 150 per day, and they did not run at night, on weekends, during the winter or on holidays.

Project supporters hope that jobs at Nestlé will strengthen the town's economy. But the ECONorthwest report said that, of the 60 to 240 jobs predicted by Nestlé to be generated at various stages of operation, most "would likely be filled by people who do not currently live in McCloud." It said some jobs probably would be seasonal, and only low-paying production jobs would be open to local residents.

Still, even low-paying jobs would be welcomed, said Dickinson, the board president. "I know people in town who would dearly love to have a $10-an-hour job with benefits," he said. "I don't think their expectations are all that high."

"Most of the businesses in town are dying," Dickinson added. "Forty percent are not occupied."

Conservationists point to tourism as an alternative to the bottling plant, but "tourism doesn't contribute a lot of money," he said.

Knight of the fishery group said Nestlé would not take care of local residents the way the town's lumber company once did. "Any comparison of what Nestlé is trying to do to that is a complete fallacy," he said.

Jane Lazgin, a spokeswoman for Nestlé Waters North America, said: "I think it's appropriate that communities would have questions and concerns. In most cases, we're welcomed because we're able to offer a rural community an economic benefit, while harvesting responsibly a natural resource and providing jobs that otherwise have been lost." #

Contra Costa Times – 3/22/08
By Mike Taugher, staff writer

A powerful state agency is coming under increasing pressure to apply an ancient, obscure and potent legal concept to sort out the state's untenable water mess and save the Delta's dying ecosystem for future generations.

The public trust doctrine, which has roots in the Roman Empire, could lead to sweeping revisions in the amount of water that may be taken from the Delta.

The doctrine, which has been buttressed in California's courts, says that certain values belong to present and future generations and that the state has an obligation to protect those values. In the Delta, for example, that could mean regulators might strike a new balance between the needs for Delta water and recreational fishing and water quality.

The idea is prompting fierce opposition from some of the state's largest water agencies, who fear water will be taken away from them for environmental benefits.

Several months ago, an independent panel appointed to make recommendations on water policy and the Delta concluded public trust and a related constitutional doctrine should become the foundation of decision-making about California water.

The chairman of that panel, former legislative leader Phil Isenberg, told the State Water Resources Control Board this week that the status quo must change, but he added that proposed changes will face stiff opposition.

"Most people want to be assured that what they're doing now, they can continue to do it, and it will be cheap," Isenberg said.

Then this week, environmental and sport fishing groups threatened to sue unless the state board agrees to restrict two mammoth water pumping projects owned by the state and federal governments that they blame for the bulk of the Delta's environmental problems.

After a workshop this week on Delta issues, some observers said it appeared the board was unlikely to apply public trust protections any time soon.

"The state board has raised delay to an art form," said Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, one of the groups that filed the petition.

Three members of the board declined requests for interviews, saying through a spokesman that it would be inappropriate to comment on an issue that they will later consider in a quasi-judicial proceeding.

But the pressure to ignore public trust issues may outweigh the pressure from the Isenberg's Delta Vision blue ribbon task force and the petition from environmentalists.

"An open-ended water rights proceeding for the protection of public trust values would be unwieldy, would greatly impede the progress on current planning efforts and is inappropriate and unnecessary at this time," the California Farm Bureau wrote to the state board.

And Jerry Johns, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources, which owns and operates a huge water pumping system that supplies water to the Tri-Valley, the South Bay and Southern California, urged the regulatory board to hold off at least until late 2009.

His rationale: The state's major water users are trying to craft an agreement with the regulatory agencies that enforce endangered species laws. A proceeding to weigh public trust issues could greatly complicate things, he said.

"The board has a long history of allowing the parties together to work on these issues," Johns told the board.

The public trust doctrine derived from Roman law that said, "By the law of nature these things are common to mankind -- the air, running water, the sea and consequently the shores of the sea."

English common law took that a step further and determined that the state owns navigable waterways and the land beneath them in trust for all people.

The public trust was referenced by high courts more than 100 years ago to halt hydraulic mining in California because the siltation that resulted in the Sacramento River impeded the public right to navigate the river.

It was also used to justify the Illinois Legislature taking waterfront land in Chicago back from a railroad to which the state had previously given the real estate. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such land could be given away for wharves and docks because those structures were consistent with the public's interest in navigation, but the wholesale grant to the railroad was not.

"The state can no more abdicate its trust over property in which the whole people are interested, like navigable water and soils under them, ... than it can abdicate its police powers in the administration of government and the preservation of the peace," the Supreme Court ruled.

The idea that the public trust doctrine could be applied to modern environmental disputes is credited to a 1970 law journal article by UC Berkeley law professor Joseph Sax.

But it was a 1983 decision by the state Supreme Court on Mono Lake that made clear that the state water board has the authority, and the duty, to apply public trust principles to water rights.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had acquired water rights in Mono Lake near Yosemite National Park. Its use of that water was drawing the lake down, making it smaller, saltier and exposing land bridges that allowed coyotes to reach birds' nest on what had previously been inaccessible islands.

The court ruled that the beauty and recreation afforded at Mono Lake were public trust values, forcing Los Angeles to reduce its reliance on Mono Lake and restore the lake.

But the court also ruled that the environmental protection afforded by the public trust doctrine was not absolute -- that the state also had the authority to allow water diversions that harmed public trust values.

"Just as the history of this state shows that appropriation may be necessary for efficient use of water despite unavoidable harm to public trust values, it demonstrates that an appropriative water rights system administered without consideration of the public trust may cause unnecessary and unjustified harm to trust interests," the court ruled.

In 1986, a state appeals court ruled in a sprawling decision on Delta water quality that the state board has the authority to modify permits to operate the state water department's State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project to protect fish and wildlife.

"It seems that 22 years after the (appeals court) decision, the Delta is in worse shape," said Richard Frank, the executive director of the California Center for Environmental Law and Policy and UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall and a member of the Delta Vision task force.

"The application of public trust values makes a lot of sense," he said, adding that such a proceeding is "the unfulfilled legacy of the Mono Lake decision."

The state board is considering whether to wield its authority over public trust as part of a larger package of measures meant to address the Delta's problems. A decision could be made in late spring. #

Stockton Record – 3/21/08
By Hank Shaw, Bureau Chief

SACRAMENTO - A stretch of the Delta due west of Thornton could become California's newest haven for hunters, anglers, boaters and hikers if legislation sponsored by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk becomes law.

Wolk's idea is for the state to buy Prospect Island and Little Holland Tract from the federal government, and Liberty Island from the Trust for Public Land, and turn them into a state recreation area. This would allow a variety of uses, including hunting, bird-watching and fishing.

"It's good habitat. It's essential for flood control," said Wolk, a Democrat from Davis. "This could be a template for what the Delta could become.

Creating such a park would give the public access to some of the land the state is acquiring to help save the Delta's ecosystem, something the state failed to do when it spent more then $35 million on nearby Staten Island, which is owned by The Nature Conservancy and does not provide public access.

Wolk is taking the first tentative steps toward making her project a reality. In all likelihood, passing the bill will require some time, and Wolk is in her final months as an assemblywoman. She is running for state Senate against Stockton Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian.

Chris Unkel of Ducks Unlimited, which is a sponsor of the bill, says the legislation could change radically as negotiations progress.

"What we've got is a sort of first draft of the legislation, a starting point," Unkel said.

Still, Wolk hopes to make headway this year.

"It's complicated," she said. "But the intent of the bill is to at least begin the discussion."

Financing the project will be the key: It is unclear how much it would cost to buy the three parcels, although the federal Bureau of Reclamation is eager to unload Prospect Island, which was the site of a disastrous fish kill late last year caused when the bureau pumped water from the flooded island.

"We think this is a great idea," said Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken. "If we can make this work, it would be a great resolution."

McCracken said federal rules prevent the bureau from just giving away the island. It must go through the General Services Administration process. It is possible, however, that the state could acquire Prospect Island on the cheap, depending on its purpose.

Wolk says the real issue will be finding cash to maintain and operate the new recreation area. She says one idea would be for water users south of the Delta to put money in a kitty that would be used for operation and maintenance costs.

Why would they do this? Because water users would need to do something to make up for the fact that the water they receive goes through pumps that kill thousands of fish, including the endangered Delta smelt.

Helping to finance the north Delta refuge could create more spawning habitat for the fish so the losses at the pumps can be borne.

State Water Contractors Director Laura King Moon, who met with Wolk's office Thursday, said it was too soon to say whether her organization could support the idea.

This is not the first time officials tried to create a wildlife refuge in the area.

Federal authorities wanted to create the North Delta National Wildlife Refuge in 1998, but that attempt foundered on the rocks of landowner opposition. Rep. Doug Ose, R-Sacramento, was instrumental in killing the attempt when he represented the area. Ose is now running for a different seat in Congress.

Unkel said he's hopeful that at the end of the day, the recreation area will move from dream to reality.

"We want to create something a little bit different. It's going to be a new animal," Unkel said. "This has a lot of win-win opportunities embedded in it." #

Central valley Business Times – 3/18/08

Two environmental groups say they are preparing to haul officials of the State Water Resources Control Board into court for failing to protect the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta.

As a prelude to the probable lawsuit, the California Water Impact Network and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance on Tuesday filed a public trust, waste and unreasonable use of water and method of diversion petition with the State Water Resources Control Board.

It says the board has failed to halt the continuing ecological collapse of the estuary by permitting excessive amounts of water to be pumped to western San Joaquin Valley farms and to Southern California.

There was no immediate comment from the Water Board.

The California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) and the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (CSPA) contend the Water Board has allowed the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) to pump so much water each year from the beleaguered Delta that

The draining of the Delta has pushed many fish species to the brink of extinction and forced citizen groups to turn to the courts instead of the Water Board, which has primary authority for protecting the state's surface water supplies, the two groups contend.

"The Water Board has served as a handmaiden for decades to special interest groups instead of doing its job as a regulatory agency," says Carolee Krieger, chairwoman of the California Water Impact Network board of directors. "Dying fish populations and degraded drinking water are the result of this shocking dereliction of duty.”

Bill Jennings, executive director of CSPA, says that because of the ongoing failure of the Water Board to do its job, a federal judge in Fresno recently was forced to order reduced pumping in the Delta to protect endangered fish species.

"The stall-and-delay tactics of the Water Board as the Central Valley's salmonid fisheries and the Delta's pelagic fishers collapse borders on the criminal," says Mr. Jennings, a longtime critic of the Water Board.

"Watching fisheries that God nurtured over tens of thousands of years being virtually destroyed in less than two decades while DWR, the Bureau and the State Board continue their embrace of denial is surely one of the most wretched and despicable spectacles we have ever witnessed," he says.

The two groups say that if the Water Board does not take decisive action to begin reversing the decline of the Delta within the next 60 days they will take the matter into state court.

Water Board action demanded by the two groups includes:

• Modification of existing water rights to improve the fishery;

• Mandatory daily flow requirements;

• Mandatory pulse flows during salmon migration;

• Functional fish passage facilities on all dams;

• State-of-the-art fish screens on all diversion points to prevent young fish from being ground up in the Delta pumps or sucked down irrigation ditches;

• Requiring the California Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to begin actually complying with all water and fishery protection laws; and.

• Establishing minimum pool and temperature requirements on all water storage reservoirs to protect fish.

The petition requests the board to begin holding evidentiary hearings including testimony under oath, cross-examination and rebuttal on the issues raised as soon as possible. #

Stockton Record – 3/18/08
By Alex Breitler, staff writer

SACRAMENTO - A proposed peripheral canal and its impact on the Delta will be a key part of a two-year study launched Monday by state water officials.

The environmental review will examine building a canal to carry Sacramento River water around the Delta rather than through it. Officials said they'll look at a canal's potential to affect flooding, land use, groundwater, recreation and many other factors.

"It's a very long, deliberative process, and we want to get started on it now," said Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources.

The study would be a step toward completing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a document that will set forth fish habitat conservation strategies for water users. By changing how water is sent through or around the Delta, "we can much better protect fish than what we're doing today," said Jerry Johns, deputy director for Water Resources.

Some fish populations in the Delta have crashed at least in part due to the large export pumps near Tracy that send water south to cities and farms. The fish are sucked into the pumps.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called in late February for the conservation plan to be completed quickly. On the canal question, he presented four options: building a canal, not building a canal, "armoring" Delta islands to make them suitable for transporting water or some combination.

Opponents of a canal say it would divert most of the fresh water that normally would flow into the Delta, turning the estuary into a stagnant swamp. It also would reduce incentives to strengthen levees, they say, making floods of low-lying Delta islands more likely.

The canal is the most controversial issue but not the only one surrounding California's future water supply and distribution system. Also Monday, the state said it would begin working toward the governor's goal of increasing water conservation 20 percent by 2020.

State officials also announced a series of meetings on flood protection and emergency response in the Delta. #

Redding Record Searchlight – 3/15/08
By Thom Gabrukiewicz, staff writer

SACRAMENTO -- While federal fishery managers grapple with closing this year's commercial and recreational ocean chinook salmon season from northern Oregon to the Mexican border, Sacramento River anglers said they still hold out hope for a truncated 2008 sportfishing season.

The Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC) ended its latest round of talks Friday by weighing three options for ocean anglers, including completely shuttering the season or severely limiting fishing. The council is expected to choose its final ocean recommendation when members meet April 6-12 in Seattle.

"I think the likeliest outcome this year is no one will put a hook in the (ocean)," said Humboldt County fisherman Dave Bitts, who was attending the weeklong meeting in Sacramento.

River anglers, meanwhile, said they still anticipate fishing for fall-run chinook salmon, considered one of the healthiest runs on the West Coast until the collapse this year.

"It's not over yet," Redding guide Mark Mlcoch said. "There's still a lot to discuss and we have to sit tight and see what they decide."

While the PFMC sets the ocean season, the state's inland salmon season is decided by the California Fish and Game Commission, with input from the National Marine Fisheries Council and the PFMC. The commission sets its regulations every three years and is midway through its cycle.

Each year, supplements to the sportfishing regulations are released in May and June to specifically address changes to the ocean and inland salmon regulations, according to the Fish and Game Commission Web site.

The season is set in a way that shelters protected spring-run and winter-run fish that also enter the Sacramento River watershed to spawn.

Fall-run salmon season on the Sacramento River traditionally begins July 16.

"Once the PFMC sets its option, we will report to the commission and it will adopt what to do in the Central Valley," said Randy Benthin, a Department of Fish and Game senior fisheries biologist in Redding. "They've got time to set notices, have public meetings; that's my guess in how it's going to work."

North state guides who attended the PFMC meetings said river anglers could see one of three options that were discussed Tuesday being adopted by the Commission. Those options include a zero-limit, catch-and-release season; an allotment season of the fish coming back to spawn, which would be about one-third of last year's take; or a shortened season -- say September and October -- where there would be the traditional two-fish-a-day limit and two in possession.

"My guess, we'll probably see a two-month season," said Robert Weese, a guide from Red Bluff who attended the PFMC meetings. "They'd take two-thirds of the season away from us, but we'd still be fishing during the peak times."

Only about 90,000 adult salmon returned to the Sacramento River and its tributaries to spawn last year, the second-lowest number on record and well below the government's conservation goals. That's down from 277,000 in 2006 and a record high of 804,000 in 2002.

Biologists are predicting that this year's salmon returns could be even lower because the number of returning young males, known as "jacks," hit an all-time low last year. About 2,000 of them were recorded, which is far below the 40,000 counted in a typical year.

Experts are unclear about what caused the collapse. Some marine scientists have said the salmon declines can be attributed in part to unusual weather patterns that have disrupted the marine food chain in the ocean along the Pacific coast.

But anglers, environmental groups and American Indians put the blame on poor water quality and water diversions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

"It's way beyond the fish," Mlcoch said. "It's politics."

Specifically, they say, the massive pumping of water to the San Francisco Bay area and Southern California has altered the flows and temperature of the delta's rivers and streams where salmon reside until they move to the ocean and mature.

"Times will be hard, and if it goes like this and we see a shortened season, fine," Weese said. "But then the government needs to look into it -- all of it -- and fix the problem." #

New York Times – 3/17/08
By Felicity Barringer, staff writer

SACRAMENTO — Where did they go?Skip to next paragraph

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations — and coming up dry.

Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border. A final decision on salmon fishing in the area is expected next month.

As a result, Chinook, or king salmon, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive in markets and restaurants nationwide.

“It’s unprecedented that this fishery is in this kind of shape,” said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the council, which is organized under the auspices of the Commerce Department.

Fishermen think the Sacramento River was mismanaged in 2005, when this year’s fish first migrated downriver. Perhaps, they say, federal and state water managers drained too much water or drained at the wrong time to serve the state’s powerful agricultural interests and cities in arid Southern California. The fishermen think the fish were left susceptible to disease, or to predators, or to being sucked into diversion pumps and left to die in irrigation canals.

But federal and state fishery managers and biologists point to the highly unusual ocean conditions in 2005, which may have left the fingerling salmon with little or none of the rich nourishment provided by the normal upwelling currents near the shore.

The life cycle of these fall run Chinook salmon takes them from their birth and early weeks in cold river waters through a downstream migration that deposits them in the San Francisco Bay when they are a few inches long, and then as their bodies adapt to saltwater through a migration out into the ocean, where they live until they return to spawn, usually three years later.

One species of Sacramento salmon, the winter run Chinook, is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

But their meager numbers have held steady and appear to be unaffected by whatever ails the fall Chinook.

So what happened? As Dave Bitts, a fisherman based in Eureka in Northern California, sees it, the variables are simple. “To survive, there are two things a salmon needs,” he said. “To eat. And not to be eaten.”

Fragmentary evidence about salmon mortality in the Sacramento River in recent years, as well as more robust but still inconclusive data about ocean conditions in 2005, indicates that the fall Chinook smolts, or baby fish, of 2005 may have lost out on both counts. But biologists, fishermen and fishery managers all emphasize that no one yet knows anything for sure.

Bill Petersen, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research center in Newport, Ore., said other stocks of anadromous Pacific fish — those that migrate from freshwater to saltwater and back — had been anemic this year, leading him to suspect ocean changes.

After studying changes in the once-predictable pattern of the Northern Pacific climate, Mr. Petersen found that in 2005 the currents that rise from the deeper ocean, bringing with them nutrients like phytoplankton and krill, were out of sync. “Upwelling usually starts in April and goes until September,” he said. “In 2005, it didn’t start until July.”

Mr. Petersen’s hypothesis about the salmon is that “the fish that went to sea in 2005 died a few weeks after getting to the ocean” because there was nothing to eat. A couple of years earlier, when the oceans were in a cold-weather cycle, the opposite happened — the upwelling was very rich. The smolts of that year were later part of the largest run of fall Chinook ever recorded.

But, Mr. Petersen added, many factors may have contributed to the loss of this season’s fish.

Bruce MacFarlane, another NOAA researcher who is based in Santa Cruz, has started a three-year experiment tagging young salmon — though not from the fall Chinook run — to determine how many of those released from the large Coleman hatchery, 335 miles from the Sacramento River’s mouth, make it to the Golden Gate Bridge. According to the first year’s data, only 4 of 200 reached the bridge.

Mr. MacFarlane said it was possible that a diversion dam on the upper part of the river, around Redding and Red Bluff, created calm and deep waters that are “a haven for predators,” particularly the pike minnow.

Farther downstream, he said, young salmon may fall prey to striped bass. There are also tens of thousands of pipes, large and small, attached to pumping stations that divert water.

Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which is among the major managers of water in the Sacramento River delta, said that in the last 18 years, significant precautions have been taken to keep fish from being taken out of the river through the pipes.

“We’ve got 90 percent of those diversions now screened,” Mr. McCracken said. He added that two upstream dams had been removed and that the removal of others was planned. At the diversion dam in Red Bluff, he said, “we’ve opened the gates eight months a year to allow unimpeded fish passage.”

Bureau of Reclamation records show that annual diversions of water in 2005 were about 8 percent above the 12-year average, while diversions in June, the month the young Chinook smolts would have headed downriver, were roughly on par with what they had been in the mid-1990s.

Peter Dygert, a NOAA representative on the fisheries council, said, “My opinion is that we won’t have a definitive answer that clearly indicates this or that is the cause of the decline.” #

Chico Enterprise Record – 3/14/08
By Steve Carson, outdoors columnist

Already reeling from unfavorable news about salmon populations and returning fish, California salmon anglers took another huge hit Wednesday when all currently open salmon fishing areas in the ocean were closed effective April 1, and all upcoming openers were suspended.

At meetings held this week, representatives of the National Marine Fisheries Service, California Department of Fish and Game, Pacific Fisheries Management Council and others made the decision based on a forecast of only about 59,000 chinook salmon returning to the Sacramento River for spawning this year.

That number is substantially below the minimum "escapement floor" of 122,000 to 188,000 fish. In 2007, only 87,966 chinooks were estimated on the Sacramento, also well below the preseason prediction of 265,000.

Exactly how all of this will affect our local salmon fishing seasons remains to be seen. The only currently open fishing season for river salmon in the state is for "spring run" salmon on our own Feather River.

On Thursday afternoon, Department of Fish and Game spokesman Harry Morse said, "What is going on right now relates to jurisdictions in federal waters. There are seven ocean area closures from Oregon down to San Luis Obispo.

All of the emphasis is on the 'fall run'. When the Central Valley fall run fish get ready to enter the rivers, they will look at it separately."

Morse added, "Although much is still to be determined, it is likely that there will be limited if any salmon fishing this season in the main stem of the Sacramento River. We may be able to do special regulations on the Feather River based on last year's numbers."

Another public discussion meeting is going on today in Sacramento, conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service. The meeting will start at 9 a.m. at the Doubletree Hotel, 2001 Point West Way, near Arden Way. Concerned members of the public are encouraged to attend. #

Sacramento Bee – 3/13/08
By Matt Weiser, staff writer

Wildlife officials moved Wednesday for early closure of seven coastal salmon fishing zones in California and Oregon, a sign of dire conditions facing the Central Valley chinook.

The action came in a conference between fisheries managers gathered in Sacramento for a series of meetings by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council.

Officials representing California, Oregon and the federal government opted to close the seven zones to protect salmon that remain alive in the ocean.

They decided early closures are needed because the council won't make a final ruling on the 2008 salmon season until mid-April, and seasons that normally open before then could jeopardize the species.

Commercial and sport fishing are affected, from Oregon's Cape Falcon to the Mexican border.

The California Central Valley fall chinook salmon, a normally robust run that underpins the fishery in both states, is in steep decline.

Last year's run was the second-lowest in 35 years of record-keeping; this year is likely to be worse.

Peter Dygert, National Marine Fisheries Service biologist, said closing both commercial and recreational seasons early is rare.

"It's always been done to preserve some options for future fisheries," said Dygert. "Now, the context is different. Now it's just to save fish for spawning."

The seven zones include two Oregon commercial areas that were set to open Saturday and a California zone near Fort Bragg that would have opened April 7.

The rest of the commercial season usually begins May 1.

Opening the two Oregon zones will be delayed until April 15 at the request of Oregon officials.

But future actions probably will keep them closed, Dygert said.

Four recreational zones also were closed early. They cover the entirety of the Oregon and California coasts, except for a zone near the Klamath River, and would have opened either March 15 or April 5.

One near Fort Bragg has been open since Feb. 16 and will now be closed April 1.

Joe Janisch of Fort Bragg, president of the nonprofit Salmon Restoration Association, said the closures will hurt his community.

"There's probably 200 boats in this harbor that go out on the weekend to chase salmon that won't be going," he said.

The council Friday is set to adopt three options for the bulk of the 2008 season.

One is likely to include total closure of all commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California and Oregon.

It will choose a final option in April. State and federal agencies adopt that as formal regulations. California is likely to also close fishing on Central Valley rivers. #

Chico Enterprise Record – 3/12/08
By Heather Hacking, staff writer

As water planners continue to map out the forces pulling on both groundwater and surface water, questions keep coming up.

Dan McManus' job is focusing on groundwater for the Red Bluff office the Department of Water Resources. He was invited to talk about water for the Monday meeting of the Big Chico Creek Watershed Alliance.

Watershed Alliance board member Susan Strachan explained to other alliance members that McManus was asked to speak to the group because of groundwater depressions under the city of Chico and in the Capay area.

There are no easy answers, McManus said.

As someone who focuses on groundwater, McManus said he would hope developers would pay for monitoring wells.

"I've been pushing this with the General Plan," he said.

There is also a need for more dedicated monitoring wells in the Durham area. Scientists have ways of detecting age of water in deep wells, McManus explained.

This helps to better understand how long it takes for groundwater to recharge. Through greater monitoring, researchers will be better able track down where the water came from and when, he said.

Strachan is a board member of the Big Chico Creek Water Alliance and also a Water Commissioner.

She and others have been asking a lot of questions about wells proposed in Glenn County. She is concerned about the impact pumping water in that area of the Sacramento Valley could have on groundwater supplies that lie beneath both Glenn and Butte counties.

Of particular concern is that landowners will sell water to other parts of the state.

During his presentation, McManus also laid out the basics of water use in Butte County and the Sacramento Valley.

Butte, for example, uses about 1 million acre-feet of surface water, and about 438,000 acre-feet of groundwater.

Of that, about 70 percent is used for summer agriculture, 20 percent for fall agriculture, 5 percent for urban use and 5 percent dedicated to the environment, he said.

Among water users, the county varies. Some areas, such as the Vina area north of Chico, relies almost totally on groundwater. Places such as West Butte are half surface water and half groundwater, while Eastern Butte is almost entirely surface water, he said.

In some areas, such as the foothills, water supply is more hit-and-miss.

The hard rock foundation means wells are dug into the cracks in the rock. Sometimes these wells will tap into a steady supply of water within those fissures. Other times, the wells will reach only small supplies of water. #

San Francisco Chronicle – 3/12/08
By Peter Fimrite, staff writer

So few salmon are living in the ocean and rivers along the Pacific Coast that salmon fishing in California and Oregon will have to be shut down completely this year unless an emergency exception is granted, Pacific Fishery Management Council representatives said Tuesday.

It would mark the first time ever that the federal agency created 22 years ago to manage the Pacific Coast fishery canceled the coast's traditional salmon fishing season from April to mid-November.

Such a move would jeopardize the livelihoods of close to 1,000 commercial fishermen from Santa Barbara to Washington State and would significantly drive up the price of West Coast wild salmon.

A decision to shut down the fishery also would kill recreational salmon fishing for some 2.4 million anglers in California, an activity that the American Sportfishing Association has estimated is worth $4 billion.

The council is expected to make a recommendation in April to the National Marine Fisheries Service, which will make the final decision about what to do about the collapsing salmon fishery.

"This is unprecedented," said Dave Bitts, a commercial salmon and crab fisherman based in Eureka. "The Sacramento fish are our bread and butter, and there are not even any crumbs. It's horrible. It means half or more of my income is not going to be there at all this year."

Why season can be closed

The prospect of banning fishing came up during the first full day of presentations about the salmon crisis during the council's weeklong meeting at the Doubletree Hotel in Sacramento.

The council's salmon management plan, first adopted as part of the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and amended several times since then, requires the council to close ocean fishing if the number of spawning salmon do not reach the conservation objectives set for the fishery.

There are many ways to count fish, depending on what rivers and tributaries are included, but only 63,900 fall run salmon were documented spawning in the Sacramento River in 2007, far below the 122,000 to 189,000 objective the council had set.