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KLAMATH RIVER: 'Granddaddy of fish projects'; Coastal conservancy sees big role in possible Klamath dam effort |
| Eureka Times-Standards
– 6/30/06 By John Dricsoll, staff writer
ARCATA -- Members of the California Coastal Conservancy envision the agency playing a key role in decommissioning and removing dams on the Klamath River, an effort whose time they said has come.
”This is the granddaddy of all fisheries restoration projects,” said conservancy Chairman Doug Bosco at a meeting here.
Bosco also voiced hope that dam owner PacifiCorp -- now owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings -- would agree to an arrangement that would make whole its customers and others that see some benefit from the four dams in question. Bosco said that if Buffet can give 85 percent of his estate to charity, as he's recently done, the renowned investor should be willing to play a part in restoring the river's struggling salmon runs.
The conservancy also heard an update on studies now under way to study sediment trapped behind Iron Gate and Copco I dams.
Conservancy project manager Michael Bowen passed around a container of muck from Iron Gate Reservoir, material that's being tested for toxins like mercury and cyanide to determine if it's safe to remove the dams.
”I can't vouch for its contents,” Bowen said about the fine, gooey mud. “I hope it's clean.”
There may be as much as 4.8 million cubic yards of sediment trapped behind Iron Gate Dam, and more than 10.3 million cubic yards behind Copco I, the first dam built on the river in 1917. Bowen said there does not seem to have been much historic mining activity in the vicinity of the dams, which could mean that lab tests only find contaminants from upstream agricultural practices.
The dams block salmon at Iron Gate Dam -- 109 miles up the river -- from reaching some 300 miles of spawning grounds. Today, many of those areas would need to be restored to be of value to salmon, but experts estimate that under restored conditions, fish populations could average 149,000 to 438,000. This year, fewer than 30,000 salmon are expected to run upstream, a number too low to allow commercial fishing along 700 miles of the West Coast this year, and which limits tribal and sport fishing.
The PacifiCorp project produces only about 150 megawatts of electricity, and as part of applying for a new 50-year license, may have to provide passage above the dams for salmon. That may cost up to $200 million under demands by the U.S. Interior Department. The company is appealing those demands, proposing instead to trap fish and truck them over the dams.
Settlement negotiations are also ongoing, parallel to the relicensing project.
Conservancy Executive Officer Sam Schuchat said he doesn't believe the dams themselves have a high value, though their removal could be expensive. Estimates have reached about $150 million for such a project. # |
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| San Francisco Chronicle
– 6/30/06 By Lynda Gledhill, staff writer
(06-30) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a $35 million state aid package for salmon fishermen on Thursday, while blasting the federal government for not helping the beleaguered West Coast fishing industry.
Schwarzenegger and two state senators said they will push for urgency legislation authorizing aid for commercial fishermen and other businesses affected by the near-closure of the commercial salmon fishing season by federal officials.
"The federal government's decision to severely limit salmon fishing along the West Coast has had a terrible effect -- it's had a devastating impact on the fishermen, the community and their families," Schwarzenegger said. "It will literally wipe them out if they don't get help."
Representatives from California and Oregon have been pleading with the federal government to declare a federal disaster and help the coastal fishing industry.
"What is really outrageous is that the federal government made this decision and recognizes the devastating impact but will not issue a disaster declaration until next spring," Schwarzenegger said.
The aid package will include $5 million in cash assistance, $20 million in no-interest loans and up to $10 million in small-business loans. Schwarzenegger also extended the state's declared disaster area to other three counties, including San Luis Obispo.
Congressional representatives from California and Oregon slowed work in the House of Representatives on Wednesday until Republican leaders agreed to $2 million in economic relief -- far short of the $81 million that had been sought.
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said the state aid will be "extremely helpful."
"This gives a clear message to the federal government that this is a serious problem, and it should embarrass the federal government into doing what it should have done a year ago," he said.
Schwarzenegger has made several requests of the Bush administration that have not been fulfilled, including a call for a federal disaster declaration for the state's aging levee system and demands that the federal government reimburse the state for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants.
"This is almost like a tale of two Republicans -- one competent and one incompetent," Grader said.
Because of low numbers of chinook salmon from the Klamath River, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal agency, called for strict reductions in the commercial catch this year.
Fishermen's groups argue that the poor condition of Klamath salmon is the result of years of federal water mismanagement, including diverting the flow of water from the river to farmers. In 2002, more than 33,000 salmon died because of low water, high temperatures and disease. Large die-offs of young salmon have followed in recent years.
Grader and other fishermen said the next step is for the state to take the lead in fixing the Klamath River once and for all.
"Now we need to see restoration activity on the Klamath so we don't have to see this aid be necessary again," said Duncan MacLean, a commercial fisherman and the California salmon troll adviser to the fishery management council.
State Sens. Wes Chesbro, D-Arcata (Humboldt County), and Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley (Nevada County), will co-sponsor the emergency legislation authorizing the funds. But because lawmakers adjourned Thursday a week early for their summer vacation, the measure will be considered in August.
"We have a comprehensive bipartisan plan to protect the lives of people on the coast," Chesbro said. "The administration in Washington single-handedly created this disaster, but now it's up to the state to help its people."
Aanestad was also critical of the federal government.
"This is just another case where the federal government is causing a problem and not solving the problem," he said. "Once again, the state has to bail out what should be a federal responsibility." # |
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Sacramento Bee – 6/30/06 By now, it's clear that thousands of salmon fishermen and owners of related businesses face economic ruin this year in California and Oregon.
To protect runs of fish in the Klamath River, commercial fishermen are limited to taking 75 salmon per week from the ocean in a shortened season. It's not enough to pay for fuel, even with salmon prices topping $20 per pound in some markets.
Fishing advocates are seeking $81 million in disaster aid from the Bush administration for affected communities. The Commerce Department is balking, saying it can't release such aid until the reduced season ends and the economic impact is calculated.
Rebuffed, the House passed an amendment Wednesday that specifies $2 million for salmon relief. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced yesterday he would seek $35 million in state funds to help the industry.
It's hard to know why the Bush administration is balking. Some have suggested the White House doesn't want to appear to be accepting responsibility for a Klamath fish kill three years ago that led to the current salmon collapse. All we know is the White House moved quickly to help fishing communities on the Gulf Coast devastated by Hurricane Katrina. It should do the same for suffering salmon ports on the West Coast.
At the same time, environmentalists and fishing advocates need to stop blaming the Bush administration for all the woes of the Klamath River. As the National Academy of Sciences pointed out a few years ago, Klamath salmon are dying a death of many, many cuts -- including logging, erosion and hydroelectric dams. Water diversions from the federal irrigation project in Oregon are part of the problem, but not the only one.
Disaster aid, of course, is just a Band-Aid for fishermen. What they really want is a Klamath River that supports healthy stocks of salmon. As they fight over aid payments for fishermen, California, Oregon and the White House need to keep their focus on the bigger challenge ahead. # |
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| Sacramento
Bee – 6/29/06 By Matt Weiser, staff writer
Federal agencies agreed Wednesday to give the Yurok Tribe a larger role in managing the Klamath River, where water diversions and habitat loss have depleted salmon runs.
The tribe will have a seat at the table with federal agencies that manage the river, including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and Fish and Wildlife Service. Previously, it was a bystander.
"We believe the tribe's role and input is going to be more valuable than ever to help restore a healthy Klamath River and stabilize basin communities," said Troy Fletcher, a tribal member who works on resources issues.
The Yurok Tribe owns 13,000 acres on the Klamath River below the town of Weitchpec in Humboldt County.
Salmon are a key food and cultural resource for tribes. Declining salmon threaten tribal health and have also triggered fishing limits that threaten coastal towns in California and Oregon.
"It is a new beginning in our relationship, one that will greatly benefit both the tribe and the important resources of the Klamath basin," said Kirk Rodgers, Bureau of Reclamation regional director. # |
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| San Francisco Chronicle
– 6/29/06 By Zachary Coile, staff writer
(06-29) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Lawmakers from California and Oregon, angry at the Bush administration for refusing to aid struggling Pacific Coast salmon fishermen, brought the House to a standstill Wednesday -- ultimately forcing GOP leaders to offer a small amount of economic relief.
The issue has simmered for months as West Coast fishermen have struggled to cope with the nearly complete closure of the salmon season by federal officials, who are trying to protect critically low salmon stocks in the Klamath River.
Lawmakers have been urging Congress to pass an $81 million relief package for fishermen and fishing-related businesses along the California and Oregon coasts to address the economic fallout of closing the fishery.
"The administration is refusing to even look at it," Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, said on the House floor. "The Republican Congress is ignoring the fact that working families are being displaced, being put out of jobs and going bankrupt."
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski have declared state disasters for coastal fishing communities and are urging Congress to offer economic relief. But the White House so far has refused to declare a disaster, and until Wednesday House GOP leaders opposed economic assistance.
"It's just unfair that this would happen, especially when this is a disaster that was created by the Bush administration," said Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. "They ought to take responsibility; they ought to be held accountable for their actions, and they ought to provide relief for these hard-working families."
In protest, Miller and other lawmakers used procedural moves to slow the House to a crawl. All morning, lawmakers labored through a series of 15-minute "motion to rise" votes that delayed action on a spending bill for the Commerce, Justice and State departments.
West Coast lawmakers won a small victory and ended their protest when the House passed an amendment specifying $2 million for disaster relief for salmon fishermen. The money is seen as a placeholder so California and Oregon senators can seek to add more disaster aid to the bill later in a conference committee.
The troubles for West Coast fishermen stem from the poor state of wild salmon stocks in the Klamath River near the California-Oregon border.
Chinook -- or king -- salmon are bountiful this year off the Pacific Coast, but most of them are from the Sacramento River. Salmon from the Klamath River are at perilously low numbers, and because Klamath and Sacramento fish intermingle in the ocean, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a federal agency, called for strict reductions in the commercial catch to protect the threatened Klamath stocks.
Fishermen's groups argue that the poor condition of the Klamath salmon is the result of years of controversial federal water management decisions.
Much of the river's flow is diverted to farmers, and four hydropower dams along the river warm the water, killing salmon through disease or parasites. In 2002, more than 33,000 salmon died because of low water, high temperatures and disease, and large die-offs of young salmon have followed in recent years.
The restrictions by federal authorities sharply limited the season, banned fishing in some areas and allowed commercial fishermen to catch only 75 fish each week, which fishermen's groups and state officials say is economically unfeasible.
"No one can afford to go far out and catch 75 fish, so no one is fishing," said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said fishermen in California coastal communities such as Bodega Bay, Half Moon Bay, Fort Bragg and Eureka have seen their incomes plummet as the harvest of salmon has dropped by as much 90 percent.
"The younger people, who still have boat payments, they aren't going to make it," Grader said. "It's pretty bleak."
The issue came to a boil Tuesday at a meeting on Capitol Hill between lawmakers and officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees fisheries, including the agency's administrator, Conrad Lautenbacher. According to Congressman Thompson, agency officials said they wouldn't be able to declare a disaster until next year after the salmon season had ended.
Lawmakers were irate. DeFazio asked why the agency didn't just cancel the salmon season so fishing communities could qualify for disaster relief.
A spokesman for the agency said lawmakers were mistaken and that officials could declare a fishery disaster at any time based on data they receive from the state about salmon populations. NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John added that the agency was trying to allow limited fishing to keep the industry alive.
"The original discussion was to close the entire fishery," St. John said. "At the request of fishermen's groups and some of the very same members of Congress, they worked out some way to keep the season partially open so there could be fishing."
But Thompson said the agency's plan has been a disaster for fishermen, who have invested thousands of dollars in fishing permits, fuel, bait and payments on their boats. Federal officials are opening areas off the coast for two weeks at a time, but there's no guarantee there will be fish in those areas during those windows, he said.
"I think the fishing industry is going to evaporate," Thompson said. "It's not just the people who are going out fishing. This has an impact on the whole community."
Grader said he hopes for a technological solution: Fishermen are starting to use new technologies that can distinguish between the salmon from the Sacramento River and those from the depleted Klamath River.
"We've been trying to use modern technology to do a better job," he said. "But we've gotten no help from the agencies. There's no leadership."
By the numbers
100 million
2 million
29,000
637,000 Source: Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations # |
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| Eureka Times-Standard
– 6/29/06 By James Faulk, staff writer
EUREKA -- Congressman Mike Thompson and other West Coast representatives would not take no for an answer this week when it came to securing emergency aid for area fishermen.
The group was told by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration on Tuesday that no money and no disaster declaration would be forthcoming, at least until next February, to help fishermen deal with a severely curtailed commercial salmon season.
Lawmakers originally asked for $81 million, but settled for $2 million after a strange legislative display in which the lawmakers used procedural votes to force action on an amendment Wednesday.
”What we decided to do was pull out all the plugs,” said Thompson, D-St. Helena.
The $2 million may sound like little compared to the original amount requested, but it gets the foot in the door, said Thompson's press secretary, Matt Gerien, and allows for the U.S. Senate to provide even more money down the legislative line.
The $2 million comes from the U.S. Commerce Department's administrative funds and goes into NOAA's general fund to help with fishermen.
Thompson's measure passed on voice vote as an amendment to an annual spending bill funding the departments of Justice, Commerce and State. The underlying bill was expected to pass this week.
Eureka fisherman David Bitts said Thompson and his staff have been working hard on this issue.
”His persistence looks like it may pay off,” Bitts said. “If it happens, it's going to happen in spite of NOAA fisheries and not because of them -- this not-till-February thing is basically thumbing their nose at fishermen.”
First District Supervisor Jimmy Smith also credited Thompson and his staff, as well as other West Coast lawmakers.
”This is good work,” Smith said.
Thompson downplayed the victory Wednesday and said the work would only be done when the fishermen get the aid they need and the Bush administration takes responsibility for the problems it created in the Klamath Basin.
Thompson said he met with Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Wednesday, and that she committed to supporting the funding on the Senate side, and to finding even more money.
Thompson said the difficulty has been exacerbated by the fact that only a few congressional districts are affected by this, and that Republicans are reluctant to support help for the fishermen because it “would be an admission that the Bush water policy caused this problem.”
So it came time to take drastic action, he said.
”We created some ... civil disobedience,” Thompson said. # |
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| By Nathan
Rushton, staff writer
A tour Friday of the Mattole River watershed near Petrolia highlighted the successes, as well as ongoing challenges, of the bevy of agencies working to restore critical fish habitat and the vital salmon runs in the damaged watershed. Elected officials representing Eureka, Arcata and state legislative offices, as well as natural resource managers, conservationists and commercial fisheries experts attended the tour led by local experts, who explained the history of the region’s innovative, community-based efforts to restore and protect the watershed that was once home to thriving salmon and steelhead populations. With no real reference point by which to gauge healthy population numbers, conservationists are optimistically announcing that last year’s spawning run of Chinook salmon in the Mattole river was probably the best salmon return seen in 25 years, which is due in part to restoration efforts. Participants in the all-day tour visited a downstream migrant trap, a fish-rearing facility, riverside habitat improvement projects and the Mattole River estuary; the tour was presented by the Institute for Fisheries Resources, Americorps Watershed Stewards Project, the Mattole Salmon Group and the Mattole Restoration Council.
With its considerable rainfall in the winter, the area is one of the more erosion-prone areas in the world. Simpson described the Mattole Restoration Project as the longest lasting and probably the most successful watershed-wide citizen-run program for the restoration of an entire natural system in North America. “By 1975, it became apparent that the once great king and coho salmon runs in this watershed were in rapid decline,” Simpson said. Stepping in to correct the problem, the Mattole Salmon Group, Simpson said, conducts “emergency operations” seeking not only to restore a few pockets of salmon, but to achieve the full recovery of abundance. Although there has been disagreement about why the runs have declined, Simpson said biologists generally agree that more than 25 years of intense timber harvesting and road-building activity, as well as two back-to-back 100-year storms, are to blame for the massively altered watershed that has seen huge amounts of sediment accumulated in the river. “We cannot restore everything at once,” Simpson said. “All we can do is give the salmon a fighting edge — as it were — while the system responds to a different management regime and a long healing process, which nature is good at, given half a chance.” Although the lower river and the estuary still have significant problems with high water temperatures and other factors, Simpson said the group has seen recovery in the Mattole’s tributaries and the main river is beginning to clear itself up. At the site of a fish-trapping device on the river, four miles from its opening to the ocean, Mattole Salmon Group member Reed Bryson explained to the tour participants the seasonal migrant trapping, which has been in operation April through July since 1996 to track and monitor juveniles that are migrating out of the watershed. “With this trap, we are collecting information on the health of individual Chinook, by their size and presence of any disease characteristics and also monitoring the health of the overall run by determining the number of fish that are coming down throughout the season and developing an estimate of (the total number of fish leaving the river into the ocean).” In light of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent disaster declaration for the 2006 salmon fishing season, government officials are acknowledging that it has become impossible to ignore the critical role for restoration to maintain healthy and abundant salmon populations. Connie Stewart, an aide to 1st District Assemblymember Patty Berg, who attended Friday’s tour, called the Mattole project the model for salmon restoration efforts in the country. Berg has been on the front line locally in the fight for securing disaster aid for fishermen affected by the recent decline in salmon runs in the Klamath River watershed and has also called for more restoration funding. “The governor has offered loans to fishermen, but we also want to get those loans extended,” Stewart said. “The loans were only offered in 10 counties — Trinity County wasn’t included and San Luis Obispo wasn’t included.” # |
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| Eureka Times-Standard
– 6/28/06
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson late Tuesday introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill to try to obtain assistance for coastal salmon fishermen.
The congressman's action came after he and other members of Congress met with officials of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
”A group of us met with NOAA fisheries today and they told us they aren't going to do anything for us,” Thompson said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
Thompson said NOAA told the congressional delegation there would be no assistance until February.
”We are going to try to get an amendment passed for $81 million needed for disaster relief” in the Commerce Appropriations bill, Thompson said. He added, however, “We don't think in our wildest dreams that it will pass.”
The attempt, he said, is to “tell our story that this administration is ignoring us up and down the coast.”
Thompson also referred to a letter from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, which Thompson said is “the best letter out of his office about anything.”
In his letter, Schwarzenegger said: “I cannot understand why another day needs to pass without a declaration of disaster for California's salmon fishing season. Fishermen who rely on a full season to pay the bills have been restricted to approximately 20 percent of their normal season. It is within your authority to declare a disaster. I urge your immediate action to provide the relief necessary to fishermen, business owners and fishing-dependent communities. Without your assistance, those who rely on commercial salmon fishing may lose their boats, permanently shut their doors or be forced out of their livelihoods.”
Last week, NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said the fact that there is limited fishing allowed this year makes it difficult to determine whether there is a real, not just projected, effect on the industry, which he claimed is a requirement under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act. Only then can the U.S. secretary of commerce make a declaration, he said, adding that such a determination is in progress.
Schwarzenegger's letter, dated Monday, follows an earlier push for a disaster declaration by him and the governor of Oregon. # |
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| Sacramento
Bee – 6/28/06 By David Whitney, staff writer
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration said in a heated meeting with West Coast House members Tuesday that there will be no economic aid until at least February for salmon fishermen idled because of the collapsing Klamath River fishery.
"This is NOAA saying to the fishermen of California and Oregon: Drop dead," snapped Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, after the closed meeting with Conrad Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The virtual closure of the West Coast salmon season is affecting fishermen from Monterey to Portland.
"This has hurt communities just as seriously as Hurricane Katrina," said Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara. "We have fishermen in San Luis Obispo suffering, not being able to make their boat payments, not being able to continue their family businesses. Our communities need help, and they need it now."
Thompson and Capps were among a half-dozen House members appealing directly to Lautenbacher and the Commerce Department for $81 million in disaster aid for the fishermen and dependent communities. The meeting followed a letter from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Bush administration Monday expressing deep frustration over the delay.
"I am at a loss as to what further information you need so that our fishing-dependent communities can become eligible to receive disaster assistance," the governor said.
The House members said they were told no disaster declaration would be coming until at least February, after the closure of the season and enough time for the administration to calculate actual damages.
Lautenbacher declined to confirm that, saying the agency was "still working with the congressional delegation."
But that's not what the angry House members said.
"We have fallen into a bureaucratic black hole," sighed Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
The Commerce Department announced in May that it was slashing the commercial salmon season by 80 percent because of poor returns of fish to the Klamath River, where a huge die-off three years ago was blamed on Bush administration policies that favored farm irrigation over downstream water quality.
Despite a regional office approving a disaster declaration, top officials in Washington have held up a final decision. Many believe that their decision is influenced at least in part by the fact that a disaster declaration would implicate the administration's controversial water policy.
According to a Congressional Research Service memo to Thompson, there are no formal established procedures for fishery disaster declarations and the time for making them varies dramatically. For example, it took less than a week to issue such a declaration for fishermen affected by Hurricane Katrina.
Thompson said he and fellow lawmakers would try to add $81 million in disaster aid to a 2007 spending bill for the Commerce Department this week, but that effort is likely to be challenged in the Republican-led chamber. # |
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| Ukiah Daily
Journal – 6/24/06 By Katie Mintz, staff writer
On Friday, the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District (MCRCD) hosted the Navarro and Russian River Watersheds Restoration Projects Landowner Recognition and Tour.
Attendees included state Assemblywoman Patty Berg, D-Eureka, and representatives from state Sen. Wes Chesbro's and Congressman Mike Thompson's offices, as well as project managers from the California Department of Fish and Game, the Department of Water Resources and the State Coastal Conservancy.
"The tour is a wonderful opportunity to share with these people what we do," MCRCD Board Chair Geri Hulse-Stephens said. "I really appreciated how we can work together with people from Sacramento like Patty Berg who really care about conservation."
The tour, organized in recognition of the partnerships between private landowners and agencies that made the projects possible, highlighted five restoration projects that have been put in place over the last few years -- three in the Navarro River watershed and two in the Russian River watershed -- as well as the Navarro River Resource Center, which offers information to local landowners and citizens.
The MCRCD has been actively involved in restoration projects since the early '80s, according to Executive Director Janet Olave. It offers technical and financial support for projects to improve erosion control, water quality and fishery habitat restoration. The district covers 84 percent of the county's 2,246,400 acres, with the incorporated cities the only areas excluded.
"We try to broker the services of many different entities including the federal government, to work here locally," Patty Madigan, watershed programs manager for the MCRCD said. The projects shown on the tour were funded by a number of agencies, including the State Coastal Conservatory, U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Water Resources, California Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Total funding amounted to $547,300 between the six projects.
According to Contracts Administrator Cassandra Thatcher, the MCRCD applies for grants to fund projects on private land. Olave explained that private land can be anything from land owned by a corporation to a state park. The MCRCD, she said, is introduced to possible projects in a number of ways, including through the Navarro River Resource Center, referrals from other agencies and also word of mouth.
Both Thatcher and Olave called the MCRCD one of the area's best kept secrets, because often the projects go unnoticed.
"A lot of times these projects go unseen, so this was a real chance to let people know about them and let those involved gain some recognition that they don't always get," Nicole Porter, resource technician for the MCRCD said. "It was great that all the representatives came out to support our effort and that is something that is really needed right now in natural resources."
Berg also echoed the need for more money for restoration projects.
"We need more money to be invested in restoration and more wonderful people like we have here today," she said.
The all-day tour began in the Navarro watershed area at Robinson Creek, where invasive plants had been removed and replaced with native riparian plants. The other Navarro restoration projects included streambank restoration to decrease the amount of sediment entering the channel at Upper Rancheria Creek and giant reed removal from the headwaters of the Navarro River watershed.
Feliz Creek in Hopland, a part of the Russian River watershed, was bolstered with willow baffles and brushes as well as large rocks to slow water velocity against the eroded streambank. According to Derek Acomb from the California Department of Fish and Game, the vegetation also benefits a number of animals in the area by adding protection. The site is located on land owned by the Solar Living Center.
Bob Gragson, executive director of the Solar Living Institute, was on hand. He was appreciative of the work the agencies have done.
"I appreciate it even more now having gone through the flood in January and seeing the importance of stopping erosion and maintaining water ways." Gragson said. "This also fits into what we're about here: sustainability."
The other Russian River watershed project, re-vegetation and restoration at McNab Creek at Bonterra Vineyards, included planting willows to stabilize banks and laying rock to slow the speed of water through curves. Trees were also planted to give shade and improve habitat for fish, according to Chad Boardman of Bonterra Vineyards.
"I think it's just wonderful to have these kind of people dedicated to working hard, and in a team approach, to improve the land for our future generations," Berg said. # |
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| Eureka Times-Standard
– 6/24/06 By John Driscoll, staff writer
The federal government has put a different spin on a North Coast congressman's outrage over an apparent delay in disaster relief for California salmon fishermen.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Washington, D.C., office insists it's still studying the extent of the economic impacts of widespread salmon fishery closures, and claimed that Rep. Mike Thompson or other members of Congress don't need a disaster declaration to push for relief.
NOAA spokesman Jordan St. John said the fact that there is limited fishing allowed this year makes it difficult to determine whether there is a real, not just projected, effect on the industry, which he claimed is a requirement under the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Act. Only then can the U.S. secretary of commerce make a declaration, he said. That's in progress, he said.
St. John also said that Congress has on several occasions appropriated money without a disaster declaration.
”It doesn't trigger anything,” St. John said, “and it's not a prerequisite for anything either.”
NOAA's take on the situation has made Thompson and salmon fishermen hoping for assistance bristle.
Eureka commercial fisherman Dave Bitts said the West Coast fishery this year is an unquestionable disaster, and said that the current administration simply views the existence of salmon and salmon fishermen as inconvenient. He scoffed at NOAA's view of the disaster declaration.
”That's very interesting,” Bitts said. “You don't need the fire department to put out the fire -- you've got a hose.”
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently pushed for a disaster declaration, as did the governor of Oregon. The state set up loan guarantees for fishermen who can't borrow from banks. Bitts said he doesn't know anyone using the program, but added that Schwarznegger's request of the federal government was extremely important.
Thompson said Thursday that NOAA headquarters had overruled a disaster declaration request from a West Coast office, and planned to put off the declaration until February. Without a declaration, some $80 million in relief included in legislation is unlikely to get to fishermen, he said.
On Friday, Thompson said it is possible to appropriate money without a declaration, but a similar request several years ago by both Republican and Democratic senators was viewed as premature.
”NOAA's part of the equation,” Thompson said. “It's sad because they have a responsibility to the resource and those who make a living off the resource.”
The Sustainable Fisheries Act, an amendment to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, only says that once the secretary makes a determination that there is a disaster, he can make money available for affected states. The only applicable prerequisite is that the secretary must be sure that providing the assistance wouldn't worsen the disaster.
Sustainable Fisheries Act
FISHERIES DISASTER RELIEF -- (1) At the discretion of the Secretary or at the request of the Governor of an affected State or a fishing community, the Secretary shall determine whether there is a commercial fishery failure due to a fishery resource disaster as a result of –
(A) natural causes; (B) man-made causes beyond the control of fishery managers to mitigate through conservation and management measures; or (C) undetermined causes.
(2) Upon the determination under paragraph (1) that there is a commercial fishery failure, the Secretary is authorized to make sums available to be used by the affected State, fishing community, or by the Secretary in cooperation with the affected State or fishing community for assessing the economic and social effects of the commercial fishery failure, or any activity that the Secretary determines is appropriate to restore the fishery or prevent a similar failure in the future and to assist a fishing community affected by such failure. Before making funds available for an activity authorized under this section, the Secretary shall make a determination that such activity will not expand the size or scope of the commercial fishery failure in that fishery or into other fisheries or other geographic regions.
(3) The Federal share of the cost of any activity carried out under the authority of this subsection shall not exceed 75 percent of the cost of that activity. # |
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| Sierra Sun
– 6/23/06 By Bruce Ajari
There appears to be good news for the fishermen and women in the state of California. The California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) released a plan to fully implement the hatchery enhancements called for in Assembly Bill 7. The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Dave Codgill of Modesto, will take effect on July 1. Apparently, Governor Schwarzenegger has made a decision to implement AB 7 fully, showing his commitment to restore California’s hatchery system and wild trout program. This restoration is important not only to anglers but to the economies and communities that rely on them. This is especially true in an area such as ours that has such a high tourist trade. Fishing is a much bigger part of the equation than many realize. AB 7 added Section 13007 to the California Fish and Game Code in 2005 and requires DFG to deposit one-third of sport fishing license fees in the Hatchery and Inland Fisheries Fund (HIFF) beginning July 1. HIFF funds may be used upon appropriation by the legislature to support DFG programs related to the management, maintenance and capital improvements of California’s fish hatcheries, the Heritage and Wild Trout Program and enforcement activities. The fund will also support other activities eligible for revenue generated by sport fishing license fees. Schwarzenegger has proposed full funding in this budget year for implementation of AB 7 and has included additional funding to DFG from the General Fund. In keeping with the Governor’s signing message, this action will ensure that the implementation of AB 7 will not impact other programs, said DFG Director Ryan Broddrick. Funding I was happy to see that the Governor has recommended additional moneys from the General Fund in addition to one-third of the funds from license sales. With license sales apparently declining, less funding would have been available to fund the projects if he had not taken this measure. As I have commented before, the budgetary model for the DFG needs to be changed. The resources are everyone’s to enjoy, not just hunters and fishermen. It is crazy for the Department to be dependent on just fishing and hunting license sales. I discussed this model briefly during the warden parity article I recently wrote. Incidentally, this issue of warden parity is another critical one. Need for change California’s trout resources are found in more than 3,000 natural lakes, 625 man-made reservoirs and more than 18,000 miles of cold-water streams. This includes 7,763 miles of salmon and steelhead water. DFG stocks six species of trout and chars — rainbow, brown, cutthroat, golden, brook and lake trout (Mackinaw) — and three species of salmon. Kokanee (non-anadromous sockeye salmon) are stocked in 24 reservoirs, Chinook salmon in another 12 reservoirs and a domesticated strain of Coho salmon has been stocked in Lake Oroville. Wild, native and introduced trout, including 11 identified subspecies of heritage trout, are found in California. Bruce Ajari is a Truckee resident and regular fishing columnist for the Sierra Sun and other area newspapers. The key issues AB 7 addresses include: |
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| San Jose Mercury
News – 6/22/06
The most alarming aspect of Monday's U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Clean Water Act is that four justices were ready to put one of the nation's most successful environmental laws through the paper shredder. As the first environmental case of the Roberts court, it gives us plenty of reason to worry that longstanding protections to our water, air, endangered species and public lands could be in jeopardy.
Only moderate Justice Anthony Kennedy, a California native, stood in the way of a decision that would have put at risk 150,000 miles of the state's protected streams and would have endangered waterways that provide drinking water to one in three Americans.
Kennedy agreed with the four conservative justices that two developers, including one who filled in protected wetlands in Michigan without a permit, were entitled to have their cases reviewed by lower courts. But he strongly rejected an opinion signed by the same four justices that would have created an entirely new, unscientific definition of what is and what is not a protected wetland.
Congress must now clarify Kennedy's ruling by passing the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, which has been introduced in both houses and enjoys bipartisan support. The bill would make clear that the protections of the Clean Water Act are meant to be broad, just as Congress intended when it passed the landmark law in 1972, and just as the law has been interpreted by federal agencies under Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
The Clean Water Act protects from pollution the ``waters of the United States.'' That includes rivers and lakes, as well as wetlands that are adjacent to them. The Michigan developers argued that the wetlands on their property were excluded because they were connected to major rivers not directly, but rather through a drainage system and intermediate tributaries.
It doesn't take a hydrologist to understand that a pollutant dumped into those wetlands will flow into the tributaries and eventually into the river. And to believe the law excludes those wetlands is to believe polluting major rivers and lakes is perfectly OK -- you just have to do it from a distance.
Congress passed the Clean Water Act after the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River near Cleveland caught fire. At the time it passed, between 60 and 70 percent of the nation's lakes, rivers and coastal waters were deemed to be unsafe for fishing and swimming. Thirty year later, only 39 percent of rivers, 45 percent of lakes and 51 percent of estuaries remained unsafe, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
That represents a significant improvement in the quality of life of millions of Americans. The cleanup of America's waters, however, remains a work in progress that must be allowed to continue. A return to wholesale pollution of rivers and streams is in no one's interest. # |
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Sacramento Bee – 6/16/06 An investigation into a disease outbreak at Nimbus Fish Hatchery this spring will bring state scientists to Folsom Lake on Saturday looking for blood.
Fish blood, that is.
Tresa Veek, an associate fish pathologist, will be at Granite Beach with colleagues from the Department of Fish and Game asking anglers for blood, tissue and organ samples from salmon and trout they catch that morning.
Fish and Game officials will collect the samples, a process that should take about five minutes, Veek said; all fishermen need do is bring over live fish, or fish that have been preserved on ice.
Veek said live fish are preferred because blood coagulates quickly in dead fish. She noted that salmon and related fish are not supposed to be kept live after being caught, but wardens will make an exception to the rule to support the investigation.
The department is trying to determine the source of the virus that caused an epidemic of infectious hematopoietic necrosis, which killed about 2 million juvenile chinook salmon at the hatchery this spring.
The outbreak is now largely over. The roughly 3 million survivors are being transferred to San Francisco Bay, said Bob Burks, hatchery assistant manager. The juveniles swim out to sea, where they spend two to five years before returning inland to spawn.
However, more disease outbreaks in the hatchery could be in the cards if the virus entered Nimbus via the American River from fish planted by the state in Folsom Lake.
The virus is endemic to California and may be harbored by healthy adult salmon and trout. Scientists will be able to tell if that's the case in Folsom by looking for antibodies in the blood.
"We really want to know whether we can expect to get infected again next year," Veek said. "If it's in the water supply (of the hatchery) and there are plenty of hosts in the lake … we could be infected for two, three years in a row."
Another possibility is that the virus was introduced by salmon that swam in from the ocean last year to spawn. As happens every year, hatchery workers brought those fish into the facility to collect their sperm and eggs.
"If it was something we did, we can be extra-careful in our procedures in spawning, and hopefully this will never happen again," Veek said.
Department officials say the virus causes illness only in certain species of salmon and does not make people sick, neither by coming in contact with the germ nor by eating fish that have been infected.
Veek said the sampling station will be set up from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday on the grassy area at the north end of Ramp B. To reach Ramp B, take Douglas Boulevard east to the lake entrance, pass the kiosk, and turn right at the second stop sign. # |
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| Santa Rosa
Press Democrat – 6/15/06 Which of the following is bad for endangered coho, chinook and steelhead? (a) A bunch of kids splashing, throwing rocks and building dams in a stream where fish are spawning. (b) Dirt from an unpaved farming road that runs off into a stream, reducing water clarity and covering the gravel where the fish lay eggs. (c) Contaminants from leaking septic systems, outhouses and trash on the banks of the Russian River. The answer is: (d) all of the above. In a world of limited resources, a more important question is which of these factors (and dozens of others, including gravel mining, disposal of treated wastewater, summer dams and logging operations) are worse? Even more important, which of these factors can be changed relatively quickly - and which changes will provide the biggest bang for the buck? Without knowing the answer to these questions, regulators and local governments have taken a scattershot approach to fish recovery. For this reason, the Board of Supervisors was right on Tuesday to approve $400,000 to develop recovery plans for steelhead trout and chinook salmon. This money is in addition to $200,000 approved three months ago for a recovery plan for coho salmon. Ideally, the studies - which will be conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service - will provide a blueprint that will guide future restoration efforts and spending decisions. Because the three species range throughout Northern California, the plans won't be specific to the Russian River watershed but will focus on the threats faced by the fish in a geographic area that ranges from Santa Cruz to near the Oregon border. So far, Sonoma is the only county that has contributed cash to the project. Hopefully this will change as other governments recognize the wisdom of focusing recovery efforts on those projects that are doable, affordable and sustainable over time. # |
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| Eureka Times-Standard
– 6/14/06 By John Driscoll, staff writer
A Sacramento court has upheld decisions by the California Fish and Game Commission to list coho salmon in Northern California as protected under state law.
Judge Gail Ohanesian in Sacramento Superior Court ruled late last week that the commission and the California Department of Fish and Game acted within the law to list the fish as endangered between San Francisco Bay and Punta Gorda, and as threatened above Punta Gorda to the Oregon border.
The case was brought by the California Forestry Association and others, including the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce. The plaintiffs contended that the 2002 and 2004 decisions by the state were an abuse of discretion and unsupported by evidence. They argued that the California Endangered Species Act doesn't allow listing population segments of a species, as the federal Endangered Species Act does.
But Ohanesian said that there was no further definition of a species or subspecies under the state law, and noted the federal definition.
”The court finds that the concept of 'species' is a scientific one, not a matter of common understanding among those not trained in biological science,” Ohanesian wrote.
She also wrote that the record contains a large amount of information that supports that coho has been removed, or is in serious decline, from its entire California range.
Conservation groups who intervened in the case said they hoped the decision would allow industry and environmental interests to work together to restore coho salmon.
”This was a biologically sound decision,” said Tom Weseloh with California Trout. “Now the courts have said it's not only biologically sound but also legal.”
J Warren Hockaday, executive director of the Eureka Chamber of Commerce, said the board believed that the state listing was duplicative of existing federal regulations. It joined the suit as a show of support for the timber industry, Hockaday said, concerned that some of its members would see significant costs from the state's actions.
Ohanesian found that the state acted according to its policy because federal protection had not proven adequate to prevent the decline of coho.
The California Forestry Association did not return the Times-Standard's phone call by deadline. # |
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Eureka Times-Standard – 6/11/06 Some of the techniques developed to help salmon and steelhead find their way back into coastal streams in Northern California are being exported through a multimedia DVD meant to spread homegrown success stories around the country.
The DVD produced by geologist and videographer Thomas Dunklin of Arcata follows the progress of four projects to replace barriers to migrating fish, using video, time-lapse photography, music and other methods from several sources to give a well-rounded view of the efforts. More than 100 miles of stream habitat has been opened in Humboldt, Del Norte, Trinity, Mendocino and Siskiyou counties since government and private biologists and engineers began identifying culverts and other fish-blocking infrastructure, especially ones hurriedly put in place following the 1964 flood.
Using video and the other techniques to document the projects is an effort to bring a concept writer and biologist E.O. Wilson called consilience, Dunklin said. It means, essentially, a leaping together of information.
”Video, in a way, is a consilience engine,” Dunklin said.
Digital media allows examination of problems, projects and results in a way that it could never be examined before. And instead of having to go through a production house, the Apple computer and accompanying technology put the power to edit the reams -- or megabytes -- into the hands of the people, Dunklin said.
With it, fish advocates have been helping to bring funding for steelhead to the species' southernmost range, Ventura County. The U.S. Forest Service has also taken up the concept of barrier removal for aquatic species on a national level, Dunklin said.
The effort was born out of the Fish Xing project, which began in 1998 to identify barriers in the five counties. Hydrologists Mike Furniss and Mike Love, Humboldt State University engineer Margaret Lang, and private fish biologist Ross Taylor were among those to begin the assessment, and help lead the way to begin replacing culverts and bridges. The Five Counties Salmon Restoration Program became a conduit for state and federal funds to the projects, many of which were nearly instant success stories.
In several places, salmon immediately gained access to spawning grounds that had been off limits for decades. These were places where Dunklin had videotaped salmon fruitlessly leaping against culverts and slamming into the banks. But after the projects were complete, Dunklin was able to record salmon swimming freely upstream to spawn.
At the celebration of the 100th mile of habitat to be opened up, Dunklin's videos struck a chord with the California Department of Fish and Game and the National Marine Fisheries Service, which asked Dunklin to put together a DVD to share the success stories. California Trout also contributed to the production.
Dunklin said there is much more work to be done. The likely sequel to the fish passage success stories, he said, is fish passage nightmares, like dams that are far more significant barriers to salmon and steelhead.
”We're barely scraping the surface of dams, diversion and other types of fish passage issues,” Dunklin said. # |
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| Chico Enterprise-Record
– 6/11/06 By Cheryl Brinkley, MediaNews Group
RED BLUFF -- Lake Red Bluff, home to summertime water recreation and boat drags, may be nonexistent in a few years because of the green sturgeon.
That fish will be listed as threatened as of July 6, said Mike Aceituno, area supervisor in Sacramento for the National Marine Fisheries Service.
That could mean the Red Bluff Diversion Dam would have to remain open so the fish can spawn.
It won't happen immediately. "For the next 18 to 24 months, there is no prohibition on activities and the current operation of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam," Aceituno said
Officials don't know how big of an impact keeping the dam open would have on fish.
"We don't have any numbers of how many green sturgeon go up and down the river," said Melissa Neuman with the fisheries service from Long Beach. "Spawning is variable from year to year, but we do know there are green sturgeon in the river in Tehama County."
When the Red Bluff office of the Bureau of Reclamation conducted its Environmental Impact Report in 2002-2003 on salmon and water for agricultural use, the report did not include the green sturgeon.
The EIR was conducted because the three small pumping plants currently in use to get water to farmers are not sufficient.
"The bureau already addressed economics of the city and county in its EIR, now the EIR needs to be revised to include the green sturgeon," Aceituno said.
Passage for the sturgeon is not the same as for salmon, Aceituno said.
"Sturgeon do not like the stair step fish ladders," Aceituno said. "They are bottom swimmers and prefer a flat or slight incline. Sturgeon do not jump like salmon."
Neuman said the green sturgeon come to fresh water to spawn every couple of years. The sturgeon season is late March to early August.
The Red Bluff Diversion Dam currently operates with the gates open from mid-September through mid-May to allow salmon passage and are closed to form Lake Red Bluff in the summer.
Closing the gates at the diversion dam will be looked at if it appears that operation is causing jeopardy to the green sturgeon.
"Threatened is not as serious as endangered," Aceituno said. "We have a little more flexibility."
For the latest news and information on the green sturgeon, go to www.swr.nmfs.noaa.gov. # |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 6/12/06
A new federal study praises the ongoing cleanup efforts at the sprawling Iron Mountain Mine, the notorious environmental Superfund site 9 miles northwest of Redding.
The 17-page report, published recently on the Environmental Protection Agency Web site, said remediation and pollution-control efforts at the 4,400-acre site have reduced by 95 percent the discharge of toxic copper, cadmium and zinc into area streams and the Sacramento River. In recent years, those efforts have included construction of the 151-foot-high Slickrock Creek Dam to capture acidic runoff for treatment, diversion of clean water around the site, the capping of 400,000 cubic yards of arsenic-laden tailings, and expansion of a 6,500-gallon-per-minute plant to treat acid mine drainage. During the winter rainy season, the plant can handle more than 5 million gallons of contaminated water a month. Rainfall at the desolate site can top 70 inches annually. "We’ve been more successful than we thought we’d ever be — and the river is definitely healthier for it," said Rick Sugarek of the EPA’s office in San Francisco, who has worked on the Iron Mountain project for two decades. "It was a really nasty problem. Twenty years ago we thought, ‘What are we going to do with this?’" Extensive mining of Iron Mountain for silver, copper, gold, iron, zinc and pyrite — beginning in the 1890s and lasting until the early 1960s — left mountains of tailings, scarred the slopes and fractured the bedrock overlying extensive underground mine workings. "The mountain is falling in on itself," said John Spitzley, a civil engineer with the CH2M Hill engineering firm who oversaw much of the remediation work. "Some 30 to 40 acres at the top of the mountain is moving." The open wounds on the mountain allowed water, oxygen and microbes to react with sulfide ores (mostly pyrite), dissolving heavy metals in the ore and creating acid mine drainage. Some water at the site is as corrosive as battery acid, Spitzley said on a recent tour of the site, which in parts resembles a Martian landscape.
Before the cleanup began, Iron Mountain discharged, on average, 650 pounds of copper, 1,800 pounds of zinc and 10,000 pounds of iron per day. That was "at least equal to all the combined industrial and municipal discharges to the San Francisco Bay and Delta Estuary System," the report said. While not a threat to Redding’s drinking water, because of the dilutive effect of the Sacramento River and removal of the metals in the city’s water-treatment plant, the acidic runoff periodically killed salmon, trout and other aquatic life. Nearly all the acid mine drainage now is collected and treated on-site, the EPA report said. About 10 people work at the treatment plant and elsewhere on the site. The plant, about half a mile past a fortified gate at the end of Iron Mountain Road, is staffed around the clock. Iron Mountain was added to the EPA’s list of environmentally toxic Superfund sites in 1983. In 2000, the EPA reached a nearly $1 billion settlement with one of the mine’s owners, Aventis CropSciences USA Inc., to fund the cleanup for the next 30 years. Despite the encouraging progress, the report warns that containment and cleanup efforts must continue for a long time to come. Scientists estimate that at current erosion rates, Iron Mountain "will continue to produce acid mine drainage for 2,500 to 3,000 years, until the estimated 12 million tons of sulfide deposits remaining in the mountain have weathered away." |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 6/9/06 Although it's 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean at its westernmost point, Siskiyou County will get help from the state to cope with the economic impact of a restricted salmon fishing season.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this week declared a state of emergency in Siskiyou and nine other counties, opening the door for $9.2 million in loans for salmon-related businesses and anglers.
The other counties -- Del Norte, Humboldt, Marin, Mendocino, Monterey, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Cruz and Sonoma -- all border the Pacific Ocean. Siskiyou County was included because the Klamath River runs through it, said Steve Martarano, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
It is not yet clear how the assistance is to be divided up.
The Klamath has been at the heart of the current crisis. Low numbers of nativerun chinook salmon are expected in the river this fall, and since there's no way out in the ocean to distinguish a Klamath salmon from any other, the federal government has limited commercial fishing along 700 miles of coastline. The ban runs from Point Sur near Monterey to Cape Falcon near Astoria, Ore.
The low Klamath numbers are the result of recent fish kills brought on by bacteria and disease, as well as a lack of good spawning grounds.
There will be a limited season in September off Fort Bragg; in July, August and September in the ocean near San Francisco; and in May, July, August and September in the Monterey area, according to the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, the federal agency that sets ocean fishing seasons. This year's catch should be 40 percent of the usual commercial harvest.
In addition to the federal limits, the state Fish and Game Commission -- which sets regulations for fishing and hunting -- has called for a ban on recreational fishing in the Klamath this fall, Martarano said. The proposed ban is undergoing legal review, but looks likely. "There is not going to be any fall fishing along the Klamath," he said.
An exception is the Karuk Tribe, which will maintain its legal right to catch fish for traditional purposes. But tribal members expect this year's haul to be especially low.
Fishing guides based in Siskiyou County will take an economic hit, as will river resort owners. "The disaster for fish on the Klamath River affects all of those people," said Marcia Armstrong, chair of the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors.
Communities along the Klamath River already have a 19.6 percent unemployment rate -- mostly because of the effects on the logging industry from federal protection of the Northern spotted owl. Armstrong said unemployment could increase if there isn't a fall salmon season.
Armstrong said she was pleased Schwarzenegger lumped Siskiyou in with the coastal counties that will receive assistance. Ron Reed, cultural biologist for the Karuk Tribe, said he also appreciates the help. But he added that more needs to be done to mend the problems -- such as dams blocking salmon from upstream spawning grounds -- that led to the low numbers of Klamath salmon in the first place.
"I don't need a loan, I need a fish to eat," he said. # |
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News Release, Department of Water
Resources – 6/5/06 SACRAMENTO -- The California Department of Water Resources, Division of Planning and Local Assistance, has awarded nearly $9 million in CALFED grants to 28 watershed projects throughout the state.
The money comes from the sale of $3.4 billion in bonds approved by voters as Proposition 50 in November 2002.The projects range from evaluating the condition of watersheds to programs that educate the public about their local watersheds.
A watershed is a region draining into a creek, river, river system or other body of water. In California, there are about 1,500 watersheds. Some are as big as the Sacramento River watershed that drains much of Northern California; others are as small as Laguna Creek watershed, which drains several miles in Sacramento County.
Key to the projects is local involvement. For example, the city of Folsom will use its grant to plan improvements to the Alder Creek watershed. And KIDS for the BAY will use the money it receives to educate children about the watershed of Codornices Creek and how its health affects salmon and steelhead migration from San Francisco Bay.
Originally, 128 local groups asking for a total of $40 million applied for Proposition 50 watershed grants. The list of 28 grant recipients is on-line at: http://www.watershedrestoration.water.ca.gov/watersheds/grant.cfm The Department of Water Resources operates and maintains the State Water Project, provides dam safety and flood control and inspection services, assists local water districts in water management and water conservation planning, and plans for future statewide water needs. # www.water.ca.gov |
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Chico Enterprise-Record – 5/18/06
After years in the works, guidelines for how to be a good neighbor when it comes to agriculture, development and wildlife habitat have been completed and are up for approval later this month.
The Sacramento River Conservation Area Forum has been working on the good neighbor policy, sometimes with people disagreeing on what should or shouldn't be included in the guidelines. Manager Burt Bundy said most in the group are happy with the way the document came out.
One of the concerns highlighted in the good neighbor policy is that when habitat restoration occurs, farmers nearby could experience pests and predators that wouldn't exist there if the land was used as farm land. Some in ag are also concerned that threatened and endangered species on habitat could cause regulatory problems for farmers.
The document also spells out ways in which farming and habitat can also be compatible, especially compared to having the land developed for business or residential.
Although the SRCAF is not a government body, and therefore isn't an enforcement agency, the forum recommends that before any land use or management changes, landowners should communicate with neighbors who could potentially be affected.
According to the plan, discussions with SRCAF and neighbors will result in actions to minimize impacts, and communication should continue until the project is completed.
The good neighbor policy also asks the property owner consider a contingency fund to deal with unforeseen impacts to neighbors.
Bundy said the policy doesn't spell out specific requirements for property owners, but the hope is that potential problems can be worked out before a project is built.
Bundy said the SRCAF is a nonprofit group, and can't dictate to government agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or state Department of Fish and Game. However, through the good-neighbor policy they can ask landowners to weigh in a number of neighbors' concerns.
He conceded that not everyone who worked on the policy will be completely happy with it.
One critic is Jeff Sutton, president of the Family Water Alliance, a property rights advocacy group.
Although he's not perfectly pleased with the draft policy, he said it is a good starting point. He wishes the document had more teeth in it. The trend of converting agricultural lands to habitat continues, with the use of public funds, Sutton said. If the public wants these projects it needs to take into consideration economic losses when wildlife eats crops or when counties lose property tax funds.
Until something more substantial is established, Sutton said he believes there should be a moratorium on all new habitat restoration.
BACKGROUND: The Sacramento River Conservation Area Forum is a group of landowners and public members from seven counties who have an interest in land along the Sacramento River. The group helps guide preservation of habitat and re-establishment of the river ecosystem. WHAT'S NEW: The group has been working on a "good neighbor policy" to help property owners communicate with neighbors when property is converted from one use to another. To receive an e-mail copy of the policy, send an e-mail to Burt Bundy at bundy@water.ca.gov. WHAT'S NEXT: The group meets May 25, starting with a tour of the Llano Seco Riparian Sancutary. A board meeting will follow at 4 p.m. with a barbecue to after at 6:15 p.m. Donations for the barbecue are welcome. |
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San Francisco Chronicle – 5/18/06
California will become the first state in the nation to adopt comprehensive controls on future fish farming in its coastal waters, if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a tough set of environmental standards that state legislators have approved.
The Sustainable Oceans Act would install provisions for siting and operating aquaculture businesses that produce finfish -- such as halibut, bass or tuna -- for the retail market. About 100 aquaculture businesses operate in California, but none of the farms raise finfish. Farm-raising salmon or genetically engineered fish is illegal in the state.
SB201, by state Sen. Joseph Simitian, D-Palo Alto, requires the state to prevent fish farms from interfering with wildlife and marine habitats or with commercial fishing. Farms would have to minimize the use of fish meal and fish oil taken from the ocean, and prevent the spread of disease or the escape of fish into the environment. Regional water-quality boards would issue permits and regulate against pollution discharges to the ocean.
The governor has until Wednesday to sign or veto the bill, 12 days after the Legislature passed it. An unsigned bill would become law. A representative of the governor said the bill hadn't reached the governor's desk, and he hadn't taken a public position.
Applicants for fish-farming leases now go to the state Fish and Game Commission; no environmental standards must be met before the commission considers granting a lease.
The California Aquaculture Association, a trade group, said the state's fish farming businesses grow freshwater fish, aquarium stock and aquatic plants. Industry officials say the demand for farmed fish will increase as more people learn about the health benefits of fish and wild ocean supplies are taxed.
State waters extend from the shore to 3 miles out, where federal waters begin and extend another 200 miles to sea. International waters lie beyond that.
The bill was ready to go last fall, according to Simitian's staff, but Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman expressed interest in working with the parties on the bill's content. Chrisman attended the last two of about a half-dozen meetings among representatives of the state Fish and Game Department, environmental groups and the aquaculture and commercial fishing industries.
The Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, a commercial fishermen's group, and the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, Natural Resources Defense Council, Environment California, Bluewater Network, Environmental Defense and Sierra Club California supported the bill. The aquaculture industry was neutral. Sandy Cooney, a spokesman in the Resources Agency, said Chrisman didn't have a position on the bill.
Richard Matteis, who represents the aquaculture association in Sacramento, said the industry removed its opposition to the bill "after the latest amendments and some clarification by the senator over a couple of remaining issues.''
Aquaculture businesses still have concerns over some parts of the bill, Matteis said, and will be active in discussions about state regulations if it becomes law.
Tim Eichenberg, Pacific Region director of the Ocean Conservancy, said the environmental groups want to see standards set.
"We want to put these standards in the bill so when consumers buy these products they can be sure that they (the farmed fish) aren't harming the marine environment,'' Eichenberg said. He said fish farming may be a cause for depleted ocean fisheries rather than a solution. Using chopped up ocean fish to feed farmed fish depletes the net protein production of the ocean, he said.
The pressure to pass a California aquaculture bill has increased in recent months, as Congress considers legislation that would put the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in charge of developing a permit and leasing system for fish farms in federal waters.
The supporters of the state bill say the federal legislation, backed by U.S. senators Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, doesn't contain strict environmental controls. The federal legislation is before the Commerce Committee's National Ocean Policy Study Subcommittee. # |
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San Francisco Chronicle – 5/17/06
ONE OF the special things about California is that we still have large salmon spawning in some of our rivers, the southernmost populations of the species. The presence of salmon defines the nature of the rivers as "salmon streams," invoking images of wildness and abundance.
Yet today salmon fisheries are being shut down as our rivers lose their wild salmon, the result of decades of neglect of rivers and watersheds.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the Klamath River, where Chinook and coho salmon are at low ebbs of their populations.
Given the complexity of the problems besetting Klamath River, it is going to take a long time to bring back the salmon to historic numbers, assuming our society has the will to do so. In the meantime, we need to protect the few remaining healthy populations in California, to make sure the salmon are not forgotten and to make sure that we have sources of fish for damaged rivers as they recover.
For example, the continued protection of the beautiful and little appreciated Smith River, the next major river north of the Klamath, is an investment that will help sustain salmon fisheries in California and will also support recovery of the Klamath River.
The Smith River is a stronghold for salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout in California; at least five species in multiple runs use the river. It is unparalleled in its combination of natural river flows, protected habitat and healthy fish populations. Much of this watershed is within the Smith River National Recreation Area and the Redwood national and state parks, but not all. We now need to protect the entire watershed, to make sure that the Smith remains an example of what a healthy river is like. The Smith can also become our salmon insurance policy, a potential source of wild fish for restoration of other watersheds such as the Klamath.
Right now, we have an opportunity to further secure the Smith River as a refuge for wild salmon. Thanks to the action of three hard-working organizations, Western Rivers Conservancy, California Trout and the Smith River Alliance, the public has the rare opportunity to purchase the lands surrounding Goose Creek, the Smith's largest tributary and an important spawning area for salmon.
The timber company owners of the 9,500-acre Goose Creek property made the decision to sell the land and the nonprofit guardians moved quickly to forge a deal to add it to the Smith River National Recreation Area.
Thanks to support from many individuals and organizations, including Del Norte County, more than half of the purchase has been completed with funds from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. Sens. Dianne Feinstein Barbara Boxer and Rep. Mike Thompson all deserve credit for their diligent work to make this happen. But $2.7 million is still needed to complete the acquisition, and, this year, no funds have been allocated in the federal budget for Goose Creek.
The need for forward-thinking restoration measures to recover California's northern salmon populations has never been more evident.
Protecting Goose Creek is an important action we can take now with long-term, positive consequences for the Smith and Klamath rivers.
Those of us who continue to be optimists about the restoration of California's rivers see this as a major, highly visible step toward reversing decades of abuse of our salmon rivers. # |
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Los Angeles Times – 5/16/06
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court sided with the environment over electric power Monday, ruling that state regulators may require a steady flow of water over power dams to benefit fish and kayakers. The unanimous decision holds that states may protect the health of their rivers, even though hydroelectric dams are regulated exclusively by the federal government.
The dispute arose over five small dams on the Presumpscot River in Maine, but the court's decision affects an estimated 1,500 power dams in 45 states. They include scores of dams on the Sacramento, Klamath and San Joaquin rivers in California. Separately, the court agreed to take up an appeal from environmentalists who are seeking to enforce stricter clean-air rules against aging coal power plants. The justices said they would hear the clean-air case in the fall. The ruling on rivers and dams resolved a clear conflict in the law. The Federal Power Act says hydro-power dams are to be regulated by federal authorities with the aim of producing electricity. But the Clean Water Act says those who "discharge" anything into a state's navigable waters must obtain a permit from the state. Until recently, state officials believed they were entitled to protect their rivers by regulating the flow of water over and through dams. But last year, the privately owned SD Warren Co., which produces hydroelectric power in Maine, won the Supreme Court's review of its argument that water flowing in and out of a dam is not a discharge. Had the company prevailed, states would have lost their legal authority to protect their rivers and ensure a steady flow of water. Not surprisingly, officials of the power plants said that during dry seasons, they were more interested in holding back water so they could be assured of a steady flow over their generators to maintain power production. In its opinion, the Supreme Court looked to the dictionary to decide the meaning of the word "discharge." "When it applies to water, 'discharge' commonly means a 'flowing or issuing out,' " said Justice David H. Souter, citing Webster's New International Dictionary. Other judges and regulators have agreed with "our understanding of the everyday sense of term," he added. Therefore, since water flowing over a dam is discharged back into the river, a state may regulate the operation of the dam, the court concluded in SD Warren Co. vs. Maine. "This is a victory for rivers, for clean water and most of all for good common sense," said Rebecca Wodder, president of the environmental group American Rivers. But environmentalists are anxiously watching two other Clean Water Act cases that are pending before the Supreme Court. Both from Michigan, they will determine whether federal regulators can continue to protect inland wetlands and small streams from development or pollution. Private-property activists say the Clean Water Act protects only rivers and lakes where boats can float, not wetlands that are far inland. Decisions in those cases are due by late June. Bush administration lawyers joined all three Clean Water Act cases on the side of the environmentalists. The clean-air case to be heard in the fall, however, concerns a move by the Bush administration to relax a strict anti-pollution rule set by the Clinton administration. Under that rule, aging power plants that expanded or modified their facilities were required to adopt modern anti-pollution controls in the process. This issue has drawn much attention in the states of the Northeast, including New York, which are downwind of coal-powered plants in Ohio and West Virginia. The Duke Energy Corp. in North Carolina challenged the Clinton-era rules and won a ruling from the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals concluding that the Environmental Protection Agency had exceeded its authority in requiring such modifications. In a separate lawsuit, several Northeastern states are challenging the Bush administration's move to relax the same rules. Taking up the cause of clean-air advocates, lawyers for the nonprofit group Environmental Defense appealed to the high court. They argued it was the 4th Circuit Court that exceeded its authority. The ruling will have a broad impact, environmentalists say. "Over 160 million Americans, more than half of the country, live in communities out of compliance with the nation's health standards, and today the Supreme Court took a big step toward aiding those communities in their efforts to restore healthy air," Vickie Patton, an Environmental Defense lawyer, said on Monday. # |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 5/15/06
For more than 20 years, a beaver pond has been a backyard secret for a cluster of homes on Salmon Creek off Old Alturas Road in east Redding.
That changed this winter.
The beaver dam that formed the pond was blown out during high water brought by the winter's unrelenting rain. Now where there once was a deep pond -- big enough for a small rowboat -- there is murky, shallow water.
Sitting in the middle of the dwindling pond is the den, which still houses three or four beavers. The beavers haven't been busy rebuilding the dam and, with the heat of summer quickly returning, people who live around the pond are worried about the fate of the pond and the beavers.
"I don't want to see anything suffer," said Norman Hargett, who has a clear view of the beaver den from his living room window. "Those animals mean everything to us out here."
So, what should be done, and who should do it?
Hargett, who has lived by Salmon Creek for 33 years, said the state Department of Fish and Game (DFG) should repair the dam. DFG officials say if the beavers still want the pond, they'll rebuild the dam.
Worried about the situation, Hargett called the DFG on May 4 to tell them about the pond. He said it's the agency's job to protect wildlife, so it should do something to help the beavers. That could mean putting logs in the creek to re-form the dam and trucking in tanker loads of water, he said.
"Sometimes mankind has to come in and help wildlife," Hargett said.
He got a message back from the DFG the same day he called.
"The beaver situation sounds pretty grim," Scott Hill, a DFG wildlife biologist, said in the message. "Unfortunately, this is probably one of those things where we let nature take its course."
Beaver dams often are blown out during the winter, and the situation doesn't put the animals in peril, said Pete Figura, another DFG wildlife biologist.
"Normally beavers are tenacious little guys, and if they want to stay in the area, they will rebuild quickly," he said. "Dams kind of come and go."
Craig Martz, DFG staff environmental scientist, said the beavers might be looking to build on another spot of the creek because of a better supply of trees for food and building material. If that's the case, then the pond once again could become a free-flowing part of the stream.
Beaver dams "are not always a permanent fixture," Martz said.
Before the beaver dam was constructed in the early 1980s, the stretch of Salmon Creek that passes behind the home Hargett shared with his parents would go almost dry every summer.
Since the beavers built the dam, the pond has become a part of the neighborhood. Residents have put benches or picnic tables on its shores to create spots to watch not only the beavers but also the flocks of waterfowl the pond attracted. One neighbor even built a dock to walk on and feed the birds.
This winter's heavy flows not only broke through the dam but also pulled the dock off its concrete moorings and pushed it down stream. It now sits tangled in creekside bushes about 30 feet from the location of the dam.
Most beaver dam problems are opposite of those at Salmon Creek, Martz said. People usually want to get rid of beaver dams, not rebuild them, he said.
One such unwanted dam was on the spillway of the dam holding back Mary Lake several years ago.
"The city would take it out by day, and the beavers would rebuild it at night," he said.
With the beavers at the Salmon Creek pond not burning any midnight oil to rebuild their lost dam, Brenda LaManna, who owns the property where the pond is located, said she and other neighbors have been trying to help rebuild it themselves.
Rocks, branches, concrete rubble, a tarp and more have been stacked where the dam broke in an attempt to hold the water back, but the makeshift, manmade dam hasn't held as well as the sticks, stones and mud that had been formed by the beavers.
"They are pretty good contractors, those beavers," LaManna said.
She said she thinks mesh and pea gravel should be used to rebuild the dam and preserve the pond. Until this year, the pond has been a fixture down the hill from her house, with the water level changing only slightly through the year.
"It's been here 13 years and it never changed more than two or three feet," LaManna said.
But before such work is done, Martz said, people would need to notify DFG of their plans.
There's a fee for notifying DFG of the projects that could alter streambeds, starting at $200 for projects that cost less than $5,000.
Depending on how much a project alters a stream, the DFG may require a special agreement, he said.
Before the agreement is made, DFG officials will inspect the proposed project, evaluate it and recommend changes, he said. The notification and agreement process can take up to 90 days.
With beaver dams, Martz said, DFG might recommend that people wait for the beavers to rebuild the dam themselves.
"Sometimes that is the best thing to do," he said. "When human beings try to intervene and lend Mother Nature a helping hand, it can cause more problems then it solves." # |
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Fresno Bee – 5/12/06
SACRAMENTO (AP) - California would impose some of the world's toughest restrictions on fish farming under a bill sent to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger by the Senate on Thursday.
No commercial fish farming exists off California's coast yet, but the federal government is seeking a fivefold expansion in aquaculture in the next two decades to try to relieve pressure on wild fish populations.
Under the bill, fish farms would be banned without a lease from the state Fish and Game Commission, which would be required to adopt regulations governing the farms.
By setting standards for environmental reviews and leases for use of state-controlled waters, bill supporters said, the state can address problems that have plagued other areas.
Those problems include fish escaping from the pens and breeding or spreading disease to wild populations, the use of chemicals to treat commercial stocks in open water pens, controlling fish waste and putting fish farms in inappropriate locations.
"For once we're actually ahead of the curve in addressing an environmental concern before it happens," said the bill's author, state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto.
"Aquaculture is the future of our oceans," said Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks. But he said Simitian's bill would discourage fish farming.
"When you regulate something you get less of it," McClintock said. "Regulations don't help business, they hurt it. Regulations impede the expansion of enterprise."
Simitian said the standards are supported by fishing organizations and the aquaculture industry, as well as environmental groups.
"There are very few states that have comprehensive standards," said Tim Eichenberg, regional director of The Ocean Conservancy, which supports the bill. "It would be the strongest standards in the country and perhaps the world. We're hoping this provides a model for the federal government."
Senators voted 22-11, largely along party lines, to approve Assembly amendments to the bill, which sent it to Schwarzenegger, who has not taken a position on it. # |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 5/12/06
A recently released assessment of the watershed in the western half of Tehama County covers topics as varied as fire history and land use.
The Tehama West Watershed Assessment, compiled by the Tehama County Resource Conservation District, pulls from state and federal reports, studies and research.
The assessment evaluates the watershed's condition and offers recommendations of how to better understand it. The assessment will be used by the district as it puts together a management plan for the watershed, in which officials will identify resource problems.
"What we hope to do with this is funnel this into the Tehama West Management Project," said Tom McCubbins, district watershed coordinator.
The management plan, started a year ago, should be completed in two years, McCubbins said.
Among its recommendations, the assessment calls for involving landowners in water-quality monitoring, installing water-gauging systems and creating a database of digital maps of the watershed's geology. # |
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News-Review (Oregon) – 5/9/06
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate rejected emergency assistance for West Coast salmon fisherman as part of a giant spending bill approved this week, but the senator who pressed the issue says he will continue the effort. Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., tried to add $81
million in disaster assistance for the fishermen to the $109 billion
emergency spending bill, but the effort was shot down The Bush administration last week approved a sharply reduced commercial salmon fishing season in a 700-mile stretch of Oregon and Northern California coastal waters to protect struggling returns of chinook salmon in the Klamath River, which runs between the two states. The National Marine Fisheries Service said the reduced seasons will produce about 40 percent of the normal catch, but salmon fishermen say they expect only 10 percent of normal. A spokesman for Smith said his boss will continue efforts to find relief, whether by redirecting unspent money from the Commerce Department or some other emergency step. Smith also is seeking additional aid in the next federal budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, said spokesman R.C. Hammond. “It’s economically devastating to have restrictions put on the salmon season,” Hammond said Friday. “You are taking away their livelihoods.” Bills by Smith and Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein of California and Ron Wyden of Oregon are pending that would provide much the same relief. House members in the two states are also seeking relief for fishermen, tribes and others hurt by fishing restrictions imposed this year. The $109 billion bill to pay for war in Iraq and hurricane relief at home was passed by the Senate Thursday. But it is much larger than President Bush says he is willing to accept, and difficult House-Senate talks loom over how to cut it back to his request. # |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 5/2/06
Could something as simple as rubber sheeting mend the political rift in the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District?
The water district's directors and many customers have been loudly at odds for years. A long-term federal water contract, the full-time manager's employment, accusations of Brown Act violations, questions about who lives where and who paid the water bill late have all fed a steady stream of arguments.
The ultimate wellspring, though, is water use -- in particular irrigators in Churn Creek Bottom who have long complained they aren't getting fair deliveries. The reason? Porous soil along the canal lets up to two-thirds of the water drain before it reaches thirsty pastures and orchards.
It doesn't take a doctorate in civil engineering to conclude that lining the canal to stop water losses is a good idea, but a good idea isn't worth much without the money to put it into effect. The district has applied for a $100,000 grant to line the leakiest stretch of canal and expects to hear back next month.
It's good to see the district trying to fix problems even as it feuds over them. Maybe keeping the canal full will drain the venom from the ACID's water wars. # |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 4/25/06
Many of us who live along the Klamath have watched the fish runs plummet and with them our local economies. Communities such as Happy Camp, once known as the steelhead capital of the world, attracted anglers from around the world. Today, these communities have had their economic bedrock, the fishery, ripped out from under them. The Klamath once returned nearly a million wild salmon each year. This year the expected return is less than 30,000.
Now the Klamath problem is metastasizing. Recently, the decision to severely restrict more than 700 miles of coastline to salmon fishing has grabbed the attention of lawmakers from Los Angeles to Portland, Ore. The fishery closure could result in economic losses of $200 million and drive many family fishermen out of business. However, there is hope for the Klamath. The FERC relicensing of the Klamath dams provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reverse this trend by enabling the removal of the lower four Klamath dams.
The dams cause problems for salmon and steelhead in two ways. They deny access to more than 350 miles of historic spawning habitat and degrade water quality. The reservoirs soak up sunlight and warm water to temperatures lethal to salmon. In addition, the reservoirs host massive algal blooms that are bad for both fish and humans. The algae provide habitat for the parasites that cause gill rot and other fish diseases. One algal species the reservoirs host, Microcystis aeruginosa, secretes a potent liver toxin. Last year water quality experts found the toxin present at levels as high as 1,000 times higher than what the World Health Organization considers a moderate health risk. These dams are dangerous to fish and people.
Removing these dams will take political will. With the economic problems that stem from the collapsing fishery, politicians are under pressure to act. For years, there has been little in the way of big fixes for the Klamath that could gain bipartisan traction. Few politicians would dare suggest downsizing the Klamath Irrigation Project as many conservationists have suggested. However, since the lower four dams provide no water for farms, dam removal is a politically practical approach to helping salmon recover.
Experts believe that dam removal could cost as much as $100 million. A lot of money, but less than the estimated $187 million it would cost Pac- ifiCorp to add ladders to the dams -- criteria federal agencies have placed on the utility for issuance of a new license. Given that the two most politically powerful players in the basin -- tribes and irrigators -- appear willing to work together on a holistic Klamath package that would include dam removal and affordable power for farmers, Congress may be willing to foot the bill for additional restoration projects as well.
Funding for dam removal and ensuing restoration efforts could come from PacifiCorp, state governments, the federal government, or most likely a combination of the above. This kind of funding would be an economic windfall for the area. The jobs dam removal would create for area construction firms and supporting businesses would be huge. In addition, there are long-term economic opportunities afforded by an increase in salmon in the area. Happy Camp could again be steelhead capital of the world.
It's time for our area leaders to acknowledge that these dams kill fish. They also must understand that salmon restoration means jobs. Our leaders must stop defending PacifiCorp, a company that kills our fish and sends its profits outside the region. Instead, local politicians should be fighting for fisheries restoration and the economic benefits that restoration brings. It is time for local elected officials to lead the charge to remove the dams to benefit our economy and our standard of living. It is time for our leaders to bring the salmon-- and the restoration dollars -- home. # |
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| Sacramento Bee – 5/1/06 By Matt Weiser -- Bee Staff Writer Commercial salmon fishermen in California are going to work today, marking a bittersweet end to months of brinkmanship between the fishing industry and federal officials.
May 1 marks the traditional opening of commercial salmon season on the Pacific Coast, a $150 million industry. But the National Marine Fisheries Service earlier this year proposed closing the season, along 700 miles of Oregon and California coast, to protect dwindling Klamath River chinook salmon.
On Friday, however, the service approved a severely curtailed season that starts today. In doing so, it adopted a proposal by the Pacific Fisheries Management Council from its April meeting in Sacramento.
All parties hope the limited season allows the industry to survive while Klamath River chinook recover from decades of water diversions and poor water quality. But it will be a difficult year for fishermen: The season represents only about 40 percent of the usual commercial salmon harvest.
"I'm glad they approved it, but right now, we're not very happy," said Larry Miyamura, a salmon fisherman who lives in Sacramento. "It's really going to be tough on some of us."
The reduced season helps ensure more Klamath fish return to spawn this fall. But it also reduces access to salmon species that are abundant, including Sacramento River chinook.
"We are acutely aware of the impact this rule has on fishermen and coastal communities but feel this is a necessary step to ensure the long-term health of the salmon fishery," Rod McInnis, fisheries service regional director, said in a statement.
Fishermen blame their plight on politically motivated water management by the Bush administration. In the spring of 2002, a drought year, the administration ignored its own scientists and diverted more water out of the river for Klamath Basin farmers.
This compounded long-standing problems on the Klamath River, including poor water quality caused by logging, high water temperatures that breed deadly parasites, and old dams that don't have fish ladders.
By the fall of 2002, more than 30,000 salmon died in stagnant pools near the river's mouth while attempting to migrate upstream. Because those fish didn't spawn, the population this year is likely to fall short of a management target for the third year in a row.
This year's season allows commercial fishing only during certain periods between California's Point Sur and Oregon's Cape Falcon. For instance, in the Monterey area, the season opens for the month of May, closes for June and most of July, then reopens until Sept. 30.
Other areas open later and are even more fragmented. In many areas, fishermen may take only 75 fish per week. Restrictions also apply to the recreational and American Indian catch.
Meanwhile, the Klamath River's troubles are far from solved.
PacifiCorp, the energy company that owns dams on the river, announced Friday it will appeal a federal order to install fish ladders on four dams. Instead, the company wants a "trap and transport" operation, in which it would haul migrating salmon by truck around the dams.
The Pacific Fisheries Management Council at its April meeting recommended removing those dams altogether, a position favored by fishing and environmental groups. The dams are in the midst of being relicensed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.# |
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| Sacramento
Bee – 4/28/06 By David Whitney, staff writer WASHINGTON - California and Oregon Democrats are rallying behind commercial salmon fishermen facing drastic reductions in their season because of poor runs in the Klamath River.
The 32-member California House Democratic caucus and Oregon's four Democratic House members joined in legislation introduced this week by Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, that directs $81 million in emergency relief to the commercial fishermen. It also calls for spending another $45 million to make the Klamath River more hospitable to the prized fish.
Similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both California Democrats, and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., making the call for federal aid a unanimous Democratic initiative.
So far, no Republican member has joined on the legislation. But Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., has introduced a much narrower bill that includes the $81 million for emergency assistance but does not seek any funds to improve river conditions. Wyden is also a co-sponsor of that bill.
The political jousting showcases a huge divide over Bush administration environmental policy. It comes as Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez is about to act on a recommendation by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to drastically reduce the commercial salmon harvest this summer from Monterey to the Columbia River in an effort to protect the low numbers of fish migrating back to the Klamath River to spawn.
More than 30,000 adult salmon died in the lower portions of the Klamath in the fall of 2002 when the river was running low, the water was warm and a fatal parasite spread. Poor runs last year and this year are related to that die-off, and continuing water quality issues in the river have been blamed for tens of thousands of additional fish dying either as they head out to mature in the ocean or as they return to lay their eggs as part of their three-to four-year life cycle.
Fishermen blame federal water policy, saying the Bush administration's management decisions favor water for agricultural irrigation in the Upper Klamath basin north of the California-Oregon border. A federal court recently ordered the National Marine Fisheries Service to redo its biological opinion on water needs for the Klamath salmon.
Glen Spain, Northwest regional spokesman for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, said the $81 million included in the legislation in aid for commercial fishermen, Indian tribes and fishing communities reflects what Oregon and California estimate the economic damage will be from the proposed season closures.
Democrats held a press conference with fishermen in San Francisco on Monday to announce the introduction of the bill.
"The Bush administration's gross mismanagement of the Klamath River has led to this year's and last year's shortened salmon seasons," Thompson said. "Yet the administration isn't offering any assistance."
Last year, Democrats, again unanimously, wrote the administration seeking an economic disaster declaration after the commercial season was shortened by 60 percent. The Commerce Department recently rejected such a declaration, however, saying that high prices paid for salmon last year canceled out the effects of the shortened season.
Thompson has filed a Freedom of Information Act request in an effort to evaluate the information the agency used in reaching that conclusion. Thompson said the situation is so dire this year that the dock price for salmon would have to top $280 a pound for commercial fishermen to break even under the expected closures.
The prospects of economic damage are serious enough that representatives of Boxer and Smith said separately Thursday they will try to persuade congressional leaders to include money for the fishermen in an emergency spending bill for hurricane relief and the war in Iraq nearing completion in the Senate.
Even with the pared-down bill Smith proposes, however, the chances of passage seem grim.
According to Spain, without the additional funding for improving the Klamath River included in the Democrats' version of the bill, there's not much hope for reversing the conditions that make the Klamath problematic for fish.
"We can't solve the problem just with disaster assistance," Spain said. "The river itself is the problem."
Under the Thompson bill, the Commerce Department would have six months to write a recovery plan for the salmon. Once done, the $45 million would be allocated for monitoring equipment, fish passages and more fisheries biologists to study the problem and issue annual progress reports to Congress. # |
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Sacramento Bee – 4/24/06 A trend continues. California is poised to surpass the federal government with an important environmental regulation. In this case, the issue is "aquaculture," the farming of the sea with penned fish, frequently salmon.
More fish farming is in the world's future, and the key will be breeding those populations without harming the wild, fragile world on the other side of the pens. It isn't easy. And the job won't be easier if governments take wildly different approaches to regulating the same industry.
The vast Pacific Ocean is actually, in the view of government, three oceans. California gets to regulate what happens in the ocean up to three miles from shore. The federal government gets to regulate what happens from this three-mile boundary out to 200 miles. Beyond that, the ocean is considered international waters.
The concept that the Pacific is actually three oceans is not lost on the aquaculture industry, nor should it be. If regulations in one of the three "oceans" are more lax, for business reasons the industry may drift in that direction. For government and ecosystem management purposes, it's important to regulate this industry in a sensible, sustainable way.
Agriculture thus moves to a new setting. Fish products such as salmon are a vital food source. Aquaculture can supplement what nature can provide.
The potential downside is that aquaculture can harm nature. Fish, diseased from living in cramped pens, can escape and infect wild populations. If fish raised in the farms are genetically altered to grow faster or resist farm diseases, what happens if they mingle in the wild? Those are the looming issues.
For the three miles of Pacific Ocean regulated by California, SB 201 by Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, takes an important step. Any aquaculture operation already has to provide an environmental analysis of its proposed operation. SB 201 provides needed standards for the analysis.
SB 201 would make California's aquaculture rules stronger than those of the federal government and international waters. That is a worry. But that is no reason to ignore the challenges of providing fish products to a hungry world in a sustainable way. The ocean is a hard place to regulate. But do we have much choice? # |
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Stockton Record – 4/21/06
STOCKTON - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposes to wield more influence over a coalition criticized for coming up short of nearly everyone's expectations in its mission to balance the Delta's health with the state's water needs. Under a 10-year plan announced Thursday, the group of state and federal agencies known as CALFED will be placed under state Secretary of Resources Michael Chrisman, while its advisory board will be replaced by a group of appointees handpicked by the governor.
The plan largely reflects Schwarzenegger's vision for CALFED, which was created a decade ago in an attempt to end the water wars among farmers, urban users, fishermen and environmental groups. Yet since CALFED's birth, the quality of Delta water that's delivered to 23 million Californians each year has gotten worse, while the populations of several fish species plummeted to historic lows. Meanwhile, the Delta's 1,600-mile patchwork of public and private levees continues to erode and occasionally break, triggering fears of a Hurricane Katrina-size disaster in the Central Valley - or even worse. "If there was a program element that was not funded very well, it was the levee program," CALFED director Joe Grindstaff said Thursday. CALFED also was expected to receive $8 billion in state, local and federal money, but most of it never came. Critics also said the effort lacked direction because too many agencies were involved with very little oversight. Recent reviews by the state Department of Finance and the Little Hoover Commission suggested CALFED should be streamlined and its efforts made accountable. Grindstaff said placing CALFED under the Resources Department should shore up those concerns. Some remain skeptical. Sen. Michael Machado, a Linden Democrat who chairs a Senate subcommittee on Delta resources, was "quite disappointed" with the restructuring plan, his spokeswoman said. "Today's announcement was just a reintroduction of old ideas using old data that are not accepted and probably will not be accepted by the Legislature," Jody Fuji said. Dante Nomellini, an attorney for the Central Delta Water Agency, said he didn't like the idea of getting rid of CALFED's public authority, which included legislative appointees representing members of the public and environmental groups. "It sounds to me like they're going to throw it back to the back room, out of the public eye," Nomellini said. One of authority's 24 board members, Marc Holmes, also criticized the move. With the new structure, "we get a single perspective, the state's perspective," he said. But Holmes, who is also a restoration manager for the San Francisco Bay Institute, an environmental group concerned about the Delta, agreed that accountability should improve under the governor's plans. Holmes was also optimistic that the legislation for restructuring CALFED would be carried by Assemblywoman Lois Wolk, D-Davis, who is generally supported by environmental groups. "I'm hopeful she will institute ... some meaningful reforms that will actually improve it rather than consolidate power under the governor's office," he said. Wolk could not be reached for comment Thursday. Grindstaff on Thursday acknowledged many of CALFED shortcomings, saying it also never tackled important issues such as rail transportation, land use and gas deliveries involving the Delta. "There are a number of things that really need to be considered," he said. But CALFED also did a lot of things right, Grindstaff said. Populations of salmon that migrate through the Delta reached a 40-year high, and water supplies increased by half a million acre-feet annually, he said. An acre-foot represents enough water for one family a year. "We made real progress," he said. # |
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| Los Angeles
Times – 4/21/06 By Bettina Boxall, staff writer
The Schwarzenegger administration on Thursday released a plan to reorganize a wide-ranging government program launched six years ago to repair the ailing heart of California's water system. Known as CalFed, the alliance of state and federal agencies was supposed to improve water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta east of San Francisco while also restoring the delta's deteriorating environs.
But in the past year, CalFed has been severely criticized for being ineffective and slow to tackle some of the delta's most vexing problems. The Schwarzenegger administration ordered reviews by the independent Little Hoover Commission and the state Finance Department. The blueprint issued Thursday adopts some but not all of the recommendations made by the commission. Under the restructuring, a new governing body would be created, composed of the directors of 14 state and federal agencies. Co-chair of that entity would be the state resources secretary, who administration officials said would be the ultimate state decision-maker and held accountable for state actions. The current governing board, made up of agency heads, regional representatives and members of stakeholder groups, would be dissolved. The CalFed staff would be folded into the resources agency. In addition, said Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman and Bay-Delta Authority Director Joe Grindstaff, a new effort would be made to focus on the most crucial problems based on a realistic vision of what the delta will look like a century from now. The reorganization requires the approval of the Legislature. That may be elusive, based on the comments of a key player on water issues, Sen. Michael Machado (D-Linden). "I think it's a rehash of old ideas that doesn't go to the core of the problem," Machado said of the plan, complaining that it should have been released in January. It would probably be preferable, Machado added, to return to a pre-CalFed format in which individual agencies enforced regulations to achieve the needed delta improvements. CalFed was born under the Clinton administration as a hugely expensive, 30-year effort to resolve the state's chronic water conflicts, many of which can be traced back to the troubled delta. The program tried to buy peace by promising something to everybody, including water consumers, environmentalists, farmers who grow crops in the delta and fishermen. So far, CalFed has spent $3 billion of a projected $10 billion. There have been some successes. Imperiled salmon runs have improved. Wildlife habitat has been restored. Groundwater storage projects around the state have been funded. But the populations of several delta fish species, including the threatened delta smelt, are crashing. Delta water quality problems continue. And renewed warnings about the fragility of delta levees have highlighted the fact that the levee system has not been fixed under CalFed. There are "legitimate criticisms that we tried to be all things to all people and we tried to do everything," Grindstaff conceded. "So part of the program is to focus on key areas of conflict." # |
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: Species act report mixed on Pombo |
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Stockton Record – 4/15/06
SACRAMENTO - A recent federal analysis of the Endangered Species Act rapped Rep. Richard Pombo's rhetoric on the controversial law at the same time it bolstered his argument that the act needs overhauling. The report released by the Government Accountability Office could prove moot, because the Tracy Republican's proposal to substantially revise the act has stalled in the Senate and faces an uncertain future. Pombo often cites as his strongest proof that the Endangered Species Act is broken the fact that only 17 of the 1,300 plants and animals tagged as threatened or endangered have recovered enough to escape the list.
The report by the GAO, a federal agency whose job is to watch how Congress spends taxpayers' money, called Pombo's favorite sound bite simplistic. "Simply counting the number of extinct and recovered species periodically or over time, without considering the recovery prospects of listed species, provides limited insight into the overall success of the services' recovery programs," the report states. Environmental groups jumped on the GAO analysis. "Richard Pombo's lies and exaggerations are catching up with him," said Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity. "The GAO has confirmed that his primary anti-Endangered Species Act message is gibberish." On the flip side, the GAO did recommend that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service develop exactly the kind of specific species recovery plans - including time frames and cost estimates - that Pombo's proposal requires. Only a tiny fraction of recovery plans for endangered and threatened species in the act included time frames or cost estimates, and many of those that did offered only vague numbers, the report showed. The GAO said this leaves Fish & Wildlife and the Marine Fisheries Service open to lawsuits by both environmentalists and aggrieved property owners who have threatened creatures on their land. Pombo said the report - the latest in a flurry of official analyses of the 33-year-old law - vindicates his bill. "When you fail to plan appropriately, you plan to fail," Pombo said in a statement. "This is precisely what has happened under the ESA, and it is tantamount to doing a jig-saw puzzle in the dark or trying to treat a patient without making a thorough diagnosis first." But election politics and the mechanics of the U.S. Senate could scuttle Pombo's effort. After years of attempts, Pombo is closer to his career-long goal of revising the act than he has ever been. His bill passed the House last fall with bipartisan support; Merced Democrat Dennis Cardoza was his co-sponsor. Votes split largely along regional, not political, lines. Western politicians of both parties have more visceral experiences with the Endangered Species Act, because nearly every acre of designated habitat for the creatures lies east of the Mississippi River. San Joaquin County and the Mother Lode are home to at least a half-dozen species, including riparian brush rabbits that fled flooding in Lathrop earlier this week and the red-legged frog, whose critical habitat was restricted by the Fish & Wildlife service Thursday. In the Senate, power lies in the East, thanks to its larger number of smaller states. And Eastern politicians are traditionally reluctant to tinker with the act. Their constituents rarely have firsthand experience with some of the law's more restrictive provisions. Holding the key to Pombo's ultimate success is a Rhode Islander: Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, a moderate who is locked in a tough primary fight for re-election. Chafee has repeatedly said he fears any revisions the Senate passes would become "Pombo-ized" in the negotiations between the two chambers that take place before a bill can become law. He thinks Pombo's proposal goes too far. Chafee is "very pessimistic about something happening this year," his spokesman Stephen Hourahan told The Associated Press last week.
Even if the committee does come up with a bill, it will face numerous hurdles. Congress will not return until late April, midterm elections loom, and immigration and other issues crowd the agenda, leaving little time for Endangered Species Act changes in the 109th Congress. That would mean starting the process anew next year. Pombo spokesman Brian Kennedy said the congressman is not giving up just yet. "We are still working," he said. # |
RIVER HABITAT: The River Wild; High water levels a blessing for fish, fowl and restoration |
| Modesto Bee – 4/16/06 By Michael G. Mooney, staff writer
The rush of water coursing through Northern San Joaquin Valley rivers is good news for fish, as well as environmentalists working to restore habitat and protect river-based fisheries.
The wet winter and spring, and reservoir releases keeping river levels high and water flows strong will bring great health to the rivers.
"This is good for the riparian habitat and the fish," said Patrick Koepele, Central Valley program director for the Tuolumne River Trust, "and exactly the situation the restoration projects are designed for."
When rivers such as the Tuolumne, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Merced run "high and hard," experts say, they often expand their natural channels into the flood plain, bringing needed nutrients to thirsty trees and other vegetation.
It also bolsters the size and overall number of fish, such as salmon, which have more room to feed and grow as they migrate between the rivers and the Pacific Ocean via the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The natural expansion of the river channel also makes it easier for large volumes of water to move downstream without causing tributaries to back up and flood.
High flows in the Tuolumne and other Central Valley rivers also benefit restoration projects completed in recent years — such as rebuilding salmon spawning areas and restoring native plant life along river corridors.
Koepele pointed to the Tuolumne River Trust's "Big Bend Habitat" project, which is restoring — to its natural state — a 240-acre site where almond trees, melons and pumpkins once grew.
Located west of Modesto off Grayson Road, the "Big Bend Habitat" had been prone to flooding. It was hit especially hard in the 1997 flood. Tim Venn's family had farmed 165acres of the 240-acre site. His crop losses that year prompted the grower to sell easements on the property that prevent him or anyone else from ever farming it again. Venn retains ownership of the land, however, as well as all hunting, fishing and mineral rights.
A number of local, state and federal agencies are involved in the restoration project — East Stanislaus Resource Conservation District, U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Department of Water Resources.
"We're removing flood-prone farmland from harm's way," Koepele said, "and restoring riparian habitat. We're advocating more projects like that."
Wilton Fryer, civil engineering department manager at the Turlock Irrigation District, has overseen several Tuolumne restoration projects in recent years aimed at improving conditions for chinook salmon and steelhead trout.
Those projects have involved depositing gravel into the Tuolumne River at various locations below La Grange Dam, including the Fox Grove area. The gravel has been used to fill in dredging holes left in the river bottom by past mining operations.
Some of the man-made holes or pools have become havens for hungry bass, who then feed on the young salmon and steelhead smolt.
"The fry get trapped (in the dredge pools) and are eaten by the bass," Fryer said. "(But) the high flows move water into the flood plain, helping revive habitat and providing food and shelter for the (young salmon and steelhead).
It's between the La Grange Dam and Waterford where fish thrive the most.
Other projects involve positioning loose gravel to encourage salmon spawning. Those spawning areas, known as "riffles," will be moved and reshaped by the force of the water flowing down the river.
Unless the flows are too strong, Wilton said, and wash the gravel away , the movement and reshaping help wash away sediments that suffocate fish eggs.
"These moderate high flows," Fryer said, "move (the gravel) a little bit and clean it out. You have to have flows of more than 8,000 to 9,000 cfs (cubic feet per second) before you get a lot of (gravel) movement."
The Tuolumne's flows near Modesto during the past few days have hovered around a moderate 7,500.
Fryer said flows of 15,000 cfs or more — like those seen during the floods of 1997 — could wash away gravel and cause other damage.
Fryer said none of the most recent projects on the Tuolumne River should be considered flood-control measures. They were designed to help the river's fish by creating a more diverse flood plain. # |
WATERSHED GROUP FORMATION: New watershed group meets today |
| Chico Enterprise-Record
– 4/12/06 By Heather Hacking, staff writer
OROVILLE -- A new watershed group is in the formative stage for the lower Feather River/Honcutt Creek areas. The group is currently deciding how it will be run and is recruiting people interested in being a part of the process.
The county has about a dozen watershed groups already up and running. The groups meet to try to collectively manage the waterways and deal with other shared concerns.
Coordinator Mel Thompson explained that the Lower Feather River/Honcutt Creek group has met about five times and will meet again at 6 p.m. tonight at the Butte County Farm Bureau, 2580 Feather River Blvd. in Oroville.
The area covered by the watershed includes Oroville up to Forbestown Road, across Oroville Dam and up toward Cherokee, down around the Thermalito lakes and past Gridley to the county line, he said.
Thompson, a sheep rancher, said the group is very pragmatic.
"We're not at all confrontational," he said.
The landscape is diverse, as are the uses of the land. Through the watershed group, they hope to attract ranchers, orchardists, rice growers, people with small ranchettes, as well as residents.
Thompson said he got involved after he moved to Butte County in 1998. He raised sheep in San Luis Obispo but sold to a new owner who planned to become a vintner. Production agriculture is pressured on a regular basis from development.
One possible project being discussed includes trash removal in the Oroville state wildlife area, Thompson said. People sometimes use the area for dumping or to abandon cars.
They're trying to organize enough manpower to hold a cleanup, he said. They're hoping to partner with one or more other service groups and will work through the Resource Conservation District to cover issues such as liability insurance and organization.
Another topic discussed is oak woodlands that exist on lands used to raise animals. Thompson said he'd like to see schoolchildren come to the land and adopt a seedling, maybe put a name tag on them, and see what happens.
Up in the Forbestown Road area of the county, residents are concerned with wildfires and limiting the amount of fuel on their lands. Promotion of brush chipping has been discussed with expertise from the Fire Safe Council.
"There is no Fire Safe Council for the Bangor area," he said. "That's a development we want to try to help along."
"As we come down the valley there is quite a bit of activity with regard to wildlife habitat easements," he explained.
The topic for tonight's meeting, for example, will be wetlands and wildlife habitat.
He said the meetings are mostly informative at this point, and everyone is learning about shared issues at the same time.
Also, property owners can share their concerns, such as conserving open land and monitoring the expansion of ranchettes in the foothills.
Members of the group will be attending a three-day workshop in May on how to assess water quality, eventually leading to citizen water monitoring.
"Some of the growers are interested in this because this could help them defend their management practices on orchards or other ag production land."
As new regulations will continue to come into play, "everything we can learn ahead of time will be to our advantage," he said. # |
Salmon policy under review |
| Ukiah Daily
Journal – 4/10/06
North Coast Congressman Mike Thompson filed a Freedom of Information Act request with NOAA Fisheries Friday, asking for all documents pertaining to federal salmon policy dating back to 2001.
"It's time to shine a bright light into the shady backrooms where the Bush Administration has been making politically motivated decisions about the management of the Klamath," Thompson said in a statement. "These politically motivated decisions are directly responsible for the poor condition of the Klamath and the near loss of this year's salmon season."
In 2002 the Bush administration diverted Klamath River water to upper basin farmers -- an act Thompson says the administration did to solidify its political base.These water diversions resulted in a fish kill that claimed 80,000 adult salmon.Experts say the fish kill and parasitic infection, resulting from poor federal management of the river, are responsible for the low salmon returns expected this year, Thompson's office said.
Thompson's FOIA request would include all administration correspondence pertaining to the 2002 decision to divert water and the 2002 fish kill.
The request comes amid NOAA Fisheries' continued refusal to provide Congress with a report quantifying the economic impact of last year's shortened salmon season. In a March 29 meeting NOAA officials told Members of Congress that last year's shortened salmon season did not warrant a fisheries disaster.
"I have continually asked NOAA fisheries to provide me with the data used to determine that last year's slashed salmon season didn't have a negative economic impact. They have balked each time," Thompson added."I find it mystifying that the president can declassify top secret intelligence information that is harmful to our national security, but his own administration won't provide unclassified information on a topic important to the livelihoods of thousands of Americans up and down the California and Oregon coast."
In response to the Pacific Fishery Management Council's decision to limit this year's salmon season, Thompson blasted the Bush administration for "incompetence and gross mismanagement of the Klamath River."
Thompson's First Congressional District includes the southern Klamath Basin. In the fall of 2002, after Interior Secretary Gale Norton refused to meet with Thompson to discuss the fish kill of 80,000 adult salmon, Thompson dumped 500 pounds of dead salmon on the steps of the Interior Department during a press conference calling attention to the problem.
The public learned on Friday that the Justice Department plans on asking U.S. District Court Judge Saundra Armstrong to reconsider her ruling that limited the amount of water diverted from the Klamath and its struggling salmon.
Democrats up and down the coast widely noted that Armstrong's ruling aided in the protection of salmon and the redevelopment of their habitat on the Klamath River
"This decision is nothing short of a slap in the face to fishing families and coastal communities in California and Oregon," Thompson said. "We are reeling from yesterday's decision to severely limit the season and today the Bush administration has shown complete disregard for the health of the Klamath and the livelihoods of thousands of people who live along our coast." # |
Guest Opinion; Klamath dams' removal would have severe impacts |
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Redding Record-Searchlight – 4/9/06
It has been 20 years since Congress passed the Klamath Act for the purpose of recovering anadromous fish (salmon) in the Klamath River system.
Much of that time, parties have engaged in a tug of war over flows. Fingers have been pointed upstream at the negative of natural resource use on fish habitat, resulting in a cessation of timber harvest on local national forests and a suit that has halted suction-dredge mining. Although some support has been provided to the heroic voluntary habitat restoration efforts of farmers and ranchers in the Scott and Shasta River valleys of the mid-Klamath (where the fish spawn and rear), the bulk of funding has been expended elsewhere.
With 700 miles of coastal fisheries about to be restricted because of a second year of low chinook returns to the Klamath, obviously what we have been doing is not working. Yet all we hear is the same old cry for flows, finger pointing and the demand to shut down more activities upon which the inland economy depends.
Research being done in the Klamath by Scott Foott of the California-Nevada Fish Health Center indicated that in 2005, half of chinook juveniles sampled were infected with the parasite Ceratomyxa Shasta and 91 percent infected with the parasite Parvacapsula. Thirty-eight percent of the fish sampled were dually infected. The infection is generally lethal. The infection rate has been increasing over the sampling period since 1995. These are the same infections that caused the fish die-off of adult salmon near the mouth of the Klamath in 2002. The parasites have not been found in the mid-Klamath tributaries.
Foott has observed that increased Klamath River flows in May did not appear to affect the rate of infection in juvenile fish. It was actually the increase of water temperature to 18 degrees centigrade, accompanied by a reduction in flows, that finally seemed to cause a decrease in infection in juveniles during the month of June. In regard to the adult die-off in 2002, the National Research Council in its final 2003 report stated, "... no obvious explanation of the fish kill based on unique flow or temperature conditions is possible" and "It is unclear what the effect of specific amounts of additional flow drawn from controllable upstream sources (Trinity and Iron Gate Reservoir) would have been." High temperatures may have stressed them, making them more susceptible to disease, but they did not die of low flows. The adult fish died of disease.
The hue and cry has been raised to tear down the dams on the Klamath. Siskiyou County thinks that it would be rash to rush into removal of the Klamath River dams. There are more than 1,600 property owners around Copco Lake behind the lower complex of dams. In addition to providing low-cost renewable energy from hydropower, these facilities provide roughly $750,000 a year in tax revenue. The impact of dam removal to the county and local residents would be substantial.
There are no compelling data or studies to demonstrate that dam removal is the best answer to assist in the recovery of fish. Information from PacifiCorp indicates that water quality would actually be decreased by dam removal. The county is particularly concerned about the effect that sediment migration might have on salmon runs.
Alternatives to dam removal have not received the attention they deserve, such as fish ladders, trucking and other means of bypassing the dams. The county feels alternatives to dam removal should be tested on a pilot basis.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Siskiyou County's economy now stands at 11 percent unemployment -- 18.8 percent on the Klamath River corridor. Our median household income at the 2000 census was only $29,530. Let's take some new approaches to solving this problem before all of our economies collapse. # |
Cut Salmon Catch to the Bone, U.S. Panel Says; Fishermen charge shorter season, limit of 75 chinook a week will ruin them, but officials say they have no choice |
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Los Angeles Times – 4/7/06
SACRAMENTO — A federal advisory panel Thursday recommended a dramatic cutback in the West Coast's commercial salmon season, stopping just short of an unprecedented ban that threatened to swamp the beleaguered fishing industry. The Pacific Fishery Management Council's decision comes after weeks of intense debate up and down the coast as sagging chinook salmon runs on the troubled Klamath River threatened to keep fishermen off the water entirely.
Under the restrictions, commercial fleets along a 700-mile swath of Northern California and Oregon would be forced to limp along with far fewer days than last year, which fishermen considered among the most restrictive in memory. Fishing fleets would also be off the water during what are typically the most productive months of the summer, and face a weekly limit of just 75 fish. Some fishermen can catch that in less than a day. Commercial fishermen said the truncated season could prove a death blow to hard-hit fleets and communities that count on salmon as an economic and cultural cornerstone. The fish will survive, they said, but the fishing industry may not. "There's a lot of people who are going to be hurt," longtime Oregon fisherman Don Stevens told the council, his voice choking with emotion. Duncan MacLean, a Half Moon Bay fisherman representing the California fleets, stormed out of the meeting and vowed to fight the restrictions all the way to Washington, where the Department of Commerce's National Marine Fisheries Service will have the final say. "I'm going to do everything I can to torpedo this," he said afterward. "There's no way in hell I can make a living at 75 fish a week." Council members said they were boxed in and had to adopt tough restrictions because of problems on the Klamath. "It's the best we can do right now," council member Darrell Ticehurst said. He called it "the most gut-wrenching decision I've had to make." National Marine Fisheries Service officials said they would support the council's recommendation. They said the tough steps were needed to ensure that the Klamath keeps a sustainable commercial salmon fishery. "Our concern from the start has been the level of risk" that continued fishing could pose on the Klamath, said Bob Lohn, the agency's Northwest regional administrator. "It's likely to be a very difficult year for commercial fishermen." Once among the most productive spawning grounds in the nation, the Klamath has been reduced to a trouble spot for salmon on the Pacific Coast. The river, which emerges from the snowmelt of Oregon to empty in the sea north of Eureka, Calif., has endured five years of drought and a vitriolic water war in 2001 characterized as a fight between farming and fish. The Bush administration began diverting more water to agriculture in 2002, and fishermen and environmentalists blame the lower river flows for the die-off that fall of more than 70,000 returning adult chinook. But the unseen threat was to young salmon. Biologists say that with four hydropower dams blocking the Klamath's natural currents and its historic flows cut by irrigation deliveries, a lethal parasite flourished, triggering a massive wave of juvenile salmon deaths. Those that survived to reach the sea and grow are now returning in depleted numbers. During the last two years, the number of naturally spawning adults dropped below the 35,000 floor set by federal regulations for the Klamath. This year, experts pegged the number at 24,300 without any commercial and recreational fishing. Under the fishing restrictions approved by the Pacific council, about 21,100 naturally spawning chinook are expected to return to the river, enough to give federal regulators optimism that the Klamath salmon can rebound. But fishermen say that they may now be endangered. And most blame the Bush administration, which they say hurt the fish by diverting too much water to Klamath Basin farmers and now is hurting fishermen by slicing the salmon season. "They didn't care about the fish when they took all the water out of the river. Now they say they care about the fish so they can hurt the fishermen," Bill Murtha, a commercial fisherman out of Moss Landing on Monterey Bay, said after the meeting. Murtha is one of many fishermen Thursday who suggested that a deeper political subplot was at work: They suspect the Bush administration would rather support the commercial aquaculture industry than commercial fishermen, who were critical of the agriculture diversions hatched in 2001. "I feel we've been sold out," Murtha said. "They're going to sacrifice the small, independent fishermen for pen-raised fish." Lohn of the fisheries service said the agency's hope is just the opposite. "Our desire is to see a strong and sustainable commercial fishery," he said. "The problem we face is caused by a drought of historic proportions in the Klamath Basin and a river system with problems a long time in the making." A quarter-century ago, more than 8,000 fishing vessels plied the waters off California and Oregon. Today, there are fewer than 1,000 as catch restrictions and competition from farmed fish imported from Chile, Scotland and Canada have squeezed the commercial fleets. Income from salmon caught off California and Oregon fell from a high of $243 million in 1988 to $57 million last year. In a good year, commercial fishing in California and Oregon is a $150-million industry. The commercial mainstay is the silver-sided chinook offered in the supermarkets as king salmon, which sells for higher prices than farmed fish because of superior flavor and health benefits. Even as Klamath salmon have slumped, several other West Coast rivers — most notably the Sacramento — have enjoyed bumper crops of chinook.
But in the ocean the fish range far and commingle, raising the possibility that fisherman in far-flung spots could snag a Klamath salmon. # |
Fishermen fight feds over right to fish; Federal ban, a first, may restrict fishers from catching in the area |
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San Mateo County Times – 4/3/06
HALF MOON BAY -- SPORT FISHERMAN Tom Mattusch caught two salmon Saturday, the first day of salmon season. He didn't take his boat out on Sunday — it wasn't worth it.
"We're only allowed to fish for three miles out," he said.
For the first time in California's history, all salmon fishermen may be prevented from catching a single fish in federal waters along a 700-mile stretch of Oregon and California coastline. The ban may last the entire duration of the season, which started April 1 and May 1 for recreational and commercial anglers, respectively.
A declining salmon population in the Klamath River for two years running prompted the Pacific Fisheries Management Council to restrict all salmon fishing last month, pending a final decision in Sacramento this week.
Unable to distinguish between Klamath River salmon and the plentiful salmon that spawn up the Sacramento River, the PFMC put forward three options to discuss at a later date. Option I would ban all fishing for the rest of the year. Option II would allow half the fishing permitted in 2005, the most restricted year on record. Option III would allow a quarter of the 2005 fishing limits.
Anything short of a full fishing season would spell devastation for Captain William Smith and other fishermen down at Pillar Point Harbor in Half Moon Bay who depend on the salmon season to survive — not to mention the local harbor economy.
"This is going to hurt people from the mom-and-pop stores who sell coffee to the fishermen in the mornings to the hotels that house fishermen during the season," said Smith, who estimated that his sport fishing business would lose at least $80,000, or 75 percent of his income, from a total fishing ban.
"Even a half season would mean we'd lose 60 or 70 percent of our business, because it would take away the momentum of building customers," Smith said.
Fishermen say they are being unfairly blamed for the Bush Administration's decision to divert the Klamath River to potato farmers in 2002. It was a drought year, and lower water levels caused the death of 70,000 fish — about half of them salmon.
"The fact is, California has a long history of water mismanagement. We can't call it overfishing because fishing hasn't caused the problems of the Klamath," Mattusch said.
The Coastside Fishing Club, a Half Moon Bay-based advocacy group, organized a rally in front of the PFMC headquarters in Santa Rosa last week to protest the agency's plans and is in the midst of organizing another one in Sacramento this Tuesday, in conjunction with the final round of meetings.
Coastside also collaborated with the American Sport Fishing Association on a petition and letter-writing campaign targeting key legislators.
Mattusch, the club's political coordinator, said more than 28,000 petitions had been sent out in the past few days alone.
"It's on everyone's radar screen," he said.
The message: Ending salmon season would wreak havoc on the California economy, to the tune of $150 million a year. Instead, the Coastside Fishing Club has proposed what it calls "option 2A," which would give recreational anglers a full season but prevent them from fishing in known Klamath River salmon areas.
That may be easier said than done. On Friday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration sent a letter to the PFMC endorsing option I, the no-fishing option, to avoid jeopardizing the remaining Klamath River stock. NOAA, under the U.S. Department of Commerce, has final word on the salmon season under this circumstance.
Mattusch said his group was lobbying legislators to override any restrictions imposed by NOAA by declaring a state of economic emergency.
Although he was hopeful the PFMC would come to a compromise on party boats, he predicted heavy restrictions for commercial fishermen.
In the meantime, fishermen are being watched. Any sport boats that go out to catch salmon in state waters — an exception created by the California Department of Fish and Game, but one that keeps them within three miles of the shoreline — are surveyed by Coast Guard boats and helicopters to make sure they do not stray beyond the limit.
"Everyone wants salmon season to happen," said Mattusch. This week he will leave his boat, the Huli Cat, behind to go to Sacramento and fight for it. # |
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