Los Angeles Times – 12/31/08
By Julie Cart

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown filed suit against the federal government Tuesday, charging that a recent rule change by the Bush administration illegally gutted provisions of the Endangered Species Act, essentially quashing the role of science in decisions made by federal agencies.

Ken Alex, senior assistant attorney general, said the state took the action because it has both the legal right and the moral responsibility to protect California's environment and resources. The new federal rules, he said, could put California's threatened and endangered wildlife in greater jeopardy and could ultimately cost the state more to protect plants and animals on California's Endangered Species List.

The federal rules, made final on Dec. 16, eliminated mandated independent scientific review of federal agency plans if the agency determined the projects pose no threat to protected species. Further, the new rules removed the requirement to consider the effects of greenhouse gases on protected species and their habitat.

Critics argued that agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management do not have sufficient scientific expertise to properly evaluate threats to wildlife. And, they said, the rules would make it more difficult to protect animals such as the polar bear, which was placed on the Endangered Species List because of the effects of climate change on the bear's melting habitat.

In announcing the new rules, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne emphasized that the modifications were minimal and did not amend the law. He said the changes were common-sense streamlining of bureaucratic processes and would not imperil protected species.

"We absolutely disagree," Alex said. "These regulations are illegal. It's consistent with the Bush administration's attack on science."

Several environmental groups have also sued over the changes, and Alex said it was likely the cases will be combined, possibly in a California court. An Interior spokesman said the agency does not comment on lawsuits.

It is not uncommon for California to sue the federal government. In recent years the state has taken on Washington regarding federal forest policy, clean-air and clean-water rules, and automobile emissions standards.

Alex said California has won practically every case that has been ruled on.#

Eureka Times Standard – 12/23/08
John Driscoll, staff writer

After suffering a near-death experience, the renowned Salmon in the Classroom program is officially back on.

The California Department of Fish and Game sent a letter to some 33 Humboldt County classrooms recently confirming that the project has been saved due to popular support.Beginning in January, some 700 students will raise steelhead in aquariums in their classrooms before releasing them into the Mad River, according to the letter from Fisheries Program Manager Steve Turek.

When a position to run the decades-old program was announced by Fish and Game to have been purged in October, the news was met with angst about losing a valuable teaching tool, and anger over the perception that the department's administration of the program made it vulnerable.

But concerned teachers and fisheries experts moved quickly to support Salmon in the Classroom, and worked with Fish and Game and the Humboldt County Office of Education to restore it.

After a few weeks of wrangling and further support from the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Green Diamond Resource Co., the program was whipped into shape again.

”The program is rolling,” said retired teacher and biologist Jeff Self, hired as a contractor to oversee the program. “It's really exciting.”

Around the end of January, classrooms will begin to set up their aquariums using water from Mad River Fish Hatchery and ensure consistent operation for at least a week.

Steelhead eggs will be brought in around the beginning of February. They'll take about two to three weeks to hatch, and students will help rear them for another four to six weeks, Self said, when they'll be ready to be released below the hatchery in Blue Lake.

Self hopes that veteran teachers, especially those retiring or moving to other classrooms, can help pass on their skills to other teachers, which may help expand the program in the future.

Ethan Heifitz, who previously ran a salmon program while he was a fourth- and fifth-grade science teacher at Lafayette Elementary School in Eureka, will help other fourth-grade teachers get started. The reason for his efforts: He still has former students approach him to say that raising steelhead was one of their best school experiences.

And it's something that can be used as a means to approach other subjects, he said.

”It's just an amazing springboard for everything else,” Heifitz said.#

San Francisco Chronicle – 12/16/2008
By: Peter Fimrite

Scarce irrigation and drinking water in California could be reduced under a set of rules enacted Monday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect a rare fish uniquely adapted to the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The new protections of the threatened delta smelt appear in a 400-page report, the culmination of long negotiations, lawsuits and hearings over three years involving environmentalists, fishing advocates, state and federal water brokers and their contractors.

The rules are among the most comprehensive ever put together under endangered species laws to protect a single species of fish, according to experts.

The crux of the issue is the contention by environmentalists that the huge Tracy-area pumps used by the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project to bring delta water to 25 million Californians and irrigate 750,000 acres of cropland also suck up and kill smelt. Biologists believe the federal ruling will prevent the extinction of the species.

"We're very pleased," said Tina Swanson, a fish biologist and senior scientist at the Bay Institute, a nonprofit research organization dedicated to protecting San Francisco Bay and delta ecosystem health. "The biological opinion includes curtailments in water exports from the delta during times of the year when delta smelt are spawning and the young larvae and juveniles are present. The requirements are there to reduce the number of delta smelt sucked into the pumps and killed."

The health of the delta smelt, a 2- to 3-inch long silver-colored fish, is, according to biologists, a sign of the overall health of the ecosystem, including other fish species such as striped bass, longfin smelt, threadfin shad and Chinook salmon. At stake is not only a rare species of fish uniquely adapted to the delta's shifting currents and brackish water but also the drinking and irrigation water for millions of Californians from the Bay Area, throughout the San Joaquin Valley and in Southern California.

Vast amounts of water
The federal and state water distribution systems tap the vast network of channels, islands and marshes known as the California Delta. Vast quantities of water are pumped every year to farmers and communities using the pumping and piping systems of the two agencies.

In 2007, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger ordered cuts in the amount of water pumped out of the delta in an effort to protect the fish. The ruling caused a 25 to 30 percent reduction in water exports by the State Water Project in 2008, or a loss of 730,000 acre feet of water. An acre foot is enough water to cover an acre in a foot of water.

Overall, the two agencies cut water production about 18 percent since Wanger's ruling.

The new rules will maintain that same average annual reduction, but Department of Water Resources officials said the lack of water will be more noticeable during dry years because of a mandate that more fresh water be sent downriver each autumn. Swanson and other experts on smelt have long pushed for provisions mandating increased freshwater flows down the river because, she said, studies have shown that delta smelt populations increase when there is more water.

Lester Snow, the water resources director, said state water exports could be reduced as much as 50 percent of pre-2007 levels during dry years under the new provisions. The combined total of federal and state water exports would decline about 33 percent during dry years, he said.

Water rationing
That would almost certainly mean mandatory water rationing and other measures to reduce water use in many areas throughout California, a scenario that is looking more likely every year drought conditions persist in California.

"Obviously a 50 percent impact is a significant impact," Snow said. "There are a lot of stressors (on the fish). Water exports are not the only stressor."

The water fight started in 2005 when environmentalists sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the agency issued a biological opinion saying that the federal and state water projects would not jeopardize the delta smelt.

Wanger's 2007 ruling was in reality an order for the government to establish new rules to protect the fish. The rules are known as a biological opinion, a bureaucratic way of describing the official conclusion about the impact of the jointly operated water projects on fish species. Such biological opinions are required under the Endangered Species Act.

The Association of California Water Agencies, a lobbying group that represents more than 400 agencies that deliver 90 percent of the state's water, has been warning that such restrictions would cause cropland to go fallow. Representatives say cities in the Tri-Valley, Santa Clara County, Los Angeles and elsewhere would have to start mandatory rationing programs in order to deal with the cuts in water.

Effect on Salmon
Snow suggested that the regulations might also reduce the amount of water available for salmon, a contention Swanson said was bogus. A separate biological opinion for salmon is scheduled to be released in March.

"It is not a choice between protecting delta smelt or salmon," Swanson said. "You need to protect both. It is the responsibility of the state and federal water projects to maintain adequate flows to protect all of these fish."

Swanson acknowledged, though, that the new guidelines will probably mean less water for people and crops.

"We have been saying for years that too much water has been exported and that has contributed to the decline of the fish," Swanson said. "As a consequence they are now listed as an endangered species. These biological opinions we hope will bring back balance. It's probably going to mean there is less water available for export."

The delta smelt are unique to the delta's vast network of channels, islands and marshes. The species adapted over the eons to the brackish water, varying currents from converging rivers and flooding that has historically inundated the valley. Smelt live for about a year, spawn and their larvae then drift down to Suisun Bay, where they grow and repeat the cycle.

Studies this decade have documented a precipitous drop in the number and range of the smelt, historically the most common fish in the delta. Many believe they are on the verge of extinction.

The decision on the smelt is the latest in a string of rulings ordering state and federal regulators to fix a water system. In July, Judge Wanger affirmed that water diversions in the Delta have jeopardized the existence of California's beleaguered salmon. That decision came amid a statewide fisheries crisis. The number of salmon in the ocean plummeted this past year, prompting a ban of fishing all along the California and Oregon coasts. #

The Redding Record-Searchlight – 12/14/2008
By Dylan Darling

Kirk Portocarrero, right, guides his boat down the Sacramento River near the Woodson Bridge in Corning, hoping to find salmon. Portocarrero offers chartered fishing trips on the river.

Dismal salmon returns on the Sacramento River in recent years have most often been blamed on poor food conditions out in the Pacific Ocean.

But while the Sacramento has continued to see declining returns this year, fall Chinook runs on the Klamath and Columbia rivers - the next two major river systems north - appear to be healthy.

"The only real weak link river next year looks like the Sacramento again," said Paul Heikkila, a commercial salmon fisherman in Coos Bay, Ore.

That's caused critics, Heikkila among them, to wonder what's different with the Sacramento. They say the salmon from the three rivers have spent time in the same ocean water, so food supply at sea shouldn't be singled out as the problem.

"It's the same ocean that is feeding the Klamath, the Columbia and everything else," said Dick Pool, president of Pro-Troll Fishing Products, a Concord company that sells salmon fishing gear.

Pool and others contend that there must be something wrong with the Sacramento that is causing salmon returns to keep dropping.

"If you don't get the little fish to the ocean it doesn't make any difference what the ocean does," Heikkila said.

Six years after a record salmon return of close to 500,000 fall-run Chinook salmon, the return at Coleman National Fish Hatchery near Anderson is down to about 14,000 fish.

And that's with bans this year on off-shore commercial fishing and limited sports fishing along the river.

"If there had been a fishery (commercial and sport catch), we would have had little or nothing," said Scott Hamelberg, Coleman's manager.

While it's too early to tell how runs on the three river systems fared this fall - scientists monitoring each are still tabulating data and it should be out in February - counts at hatcheries on the Klamath and Columbia rivers and a major fish ladder on the Snake River tell different tales.

Contrasting the low runs recorded at Coleman, the fall-run Chinook count at Iron Gate Hatchery on the Klamath is only slightly off average, and at the fish ladder at the Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River, a major tributary to the Columbia, there's been a record run.

This autumn, 9,847 chinook returned to Iron Gate, which is near the Oregon border in Siskiyou County, said Keith Pomeroy, the hatchery's manger.

"It's a little less than average," he said.

At Lower Granite Dam on the Snake River in southeastern Washington, 16,628 chinook made the swim this fall, said Michelle DeHart, manager of the Fish Passage Center, a group that monitors fish runs on the Columbia, in Portland.

"That's an all-time record," DeHart said.

The dam has been in place since 1975.

Although the differing figures seem to support the theory that the dropping Sacramento salmon numbers must be caused by problems in the river, they actually could support the notion that ocean conditions are the culprit, said Doug Killam, a fisheries biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game in Red Bluff.

"Usually when one state is doing really good," he said, "the other state could be doing really bad," he said.

While state and federal agencies that manage the fish on the three rivers are conducting studies into the cause of the Sacramento salmon crash, Killam said a direct cause has not been identified.

Along with ocean conditions, discussions of the salmon decline often focus on the amount of water pulled from the Sacramento and its delta with the San Joaquin River for agriculture.

Each year state and federal pumps draw about 6 million acre-feet - or enough water to submerge 6 million acres of land under a foot of water - from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

But, the pumping shouldn't get the blame, said Sarah Woolf, spokeswoman for Westlands Water District - the nation's largest water district, with more than 600,000 acres in western Fresno and Kings counties. The pumping is just a piece of the massive Central Valley Project, she said.

"It's a huge system and there are a lot of problems that need to be addressed," Woolf said.

Power plants, urban wastewater systems and ship traffic could be contributing to the salmon problems on the Delta, Woolf said.

As for diversions along the upper Sacramento, those used to pose problems for wayward salmon who got lost in the irrigation canals and never made it out to sea, said Jeff Sutton, general manager of the Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority. But most canals now have screens to keep fish out.

The canal delivers water to 150,000 agricultural acres south of Red Bluff.

Like Woolf, Sutton said there are a host of other factors along the river and in the ocean that should be considered in examining what is causing salmon numbers to drop.

"It shouldn't always be blamed on the projects," he said.

Regardless of what's behind the Sacramento crash, fishermen fear it will continue next year and they'll again have to keep their nets and hooks out of the water.

"We expect widespread closures again," said Glen Spain, northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.

Like many involved with the fishing industry, Spain blames harsh conditions on the Sacramento caused by too much pumping during the drought.

"The problem is (the young salmon) never survived to get to the ocean," Spain said. "This shouldn't have come to a surprise to anybody."#

San Francisco Chronicle – 12/12/08
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer

(12-11) 20:28 PST -- Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced major changes Thursday to the Endangered Species Act, causing environmental groups to charge that the "midnight rules" set to go into effect before President-elect Barack Obama takes office are intended to eviscerate the nation's premier wildlife-protection law.

The regulations eliminate a requirement that federal agencies seek review by government scientists before approving logging, mining and construction projects to make sure the activities don't endanger rare animals and plants.

In addition, the regulations say the law could not be used to protect polar bears, walrus, mountain frogs and other species vulnerable to the effects of global warming.

"The Bush administration is using this to go after our most imperiled wildlife and kick them when they are down," said Janette Brimmer, an attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental group. "The act is our nation's most important law for protecting wildlife like wolves, grizzlies, salmon and lynx."

Reid Cherlin, a spokesman for the Obama-Biden transition team, said, "President-elect Obama will review all 11th-hour regulations and will address them once he takes office." Obama has said he does not favor changing the Endangered Species Act.

Kempthorne, at a news conference in Washington, said that he knew changes to the act would evoke controversy but that he is certain the new rules would clear up confusion over the law that had existed for years.

"Nothing in the regulation relieves a federal agency of its responsibilities to ensure that species are not harmed," he said.

Law covers 1,400 species
The law protects 1,400 species. In the last eight years, there has been a slowdown in adding new plants and animals, building a backlog of hundreds of species waiting for scientific review and approval, including California's furry Pacific fisher and Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog.

The Interior Department proposed the new regulations in May and since has received nearly 300,000 comments, the vast majority opposing the changes.

Hours after Thursday's announcement, three environmental groups, Greenpeace, Defenders of Wildlife and Center for Biological Diversity, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco seeking to halt regulations that they say are inconsistent with the act.

The regulations don't require federal agencies to seek consultation with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service before approving projects, the lawsuit said.

In Congress, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., called a hearing to review the regulations and said members would work to restore the act. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., said members may try to eliminate the regulations by using a special congressional act that allows the review of newly adopted administrative rules.

Part of the new regulations prohibit regulators from taking into account the effects of greenhouse gases on habitats and on species. Kempthorne said his legal advisers concluded that considering global warming a threat to the survival of the polar bear would require tracking emissions to a particular factory and determining how that would melt Arctic ice and harm the bear.

"That's completely wrong, and they're just making that up," said attorney Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity, which is suing the federal government in an attempt to protect polar bears.

Federal agencies are supposed to look at sources of greenhouse gases from projects they approve, then analyze ways to reduce those emissions, Siegel said.

"There's no requirement to trace any molecule of DDT to the thinning of bald eagle eggs just as there's no requirement to trace any molecule of carbon dioxide to the death of any particular polar bear," she said.

In California, the requirement to consult with government biologists before construction projects is particularly crucial, said Mark Rockwell, California state representative of the Endangered Species Coalition, an alliance of 50 environmental, business, hunting and fish and religious groups in the state.

The U.S. Forest Service approves logging plans that might affect coastal coho salmon and steelhead, marbled murrelets and Pacific fishers on national forests. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers give permits for filling wetlands.

Without the requirement, there's no incentive for the agencies to seek consultation and a biological opinion, Rockwell said.

For example, the Bureau of Reclamation was forced by the current requirement to seek biological opinions on whether the amount of water being diverted from the southern part of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta would hurt the delta smelt or harm chinook salmon.

Protections found lacking
Environmental groups challenged opinions that water flows for the fish were adequate, and won decisions agreeing that the protections were indeed lacking in the plans.

"It was the biological opinions that led to the challenges," Rockwell said. "If you don't have an opinion, you have nothing to challenge."

Under the new regulations, the federal agencies would have the discretion of deciding whether or not to ask for a consultation and opinion, Rockwell said.#

Capital Press – 12/12/08
By Tim Hearden, staff

A proposal for irrigation in parts of remote Siskiyou County has statewide implications that have raised the ire of both farm groups and environmentalists.

The Department of Fish and Game is preparing watershed-wide permits for streambed changes and incidental takings of threatened coho salmon along the Scott and Shasta rivers, which are key tributaries to the Klamath River.

Participation by landowners would be voluntary and those who signed up would be responsible for certain measures to protect salmon, such as adding fish screens. The program could eventually be implemented throughout California, said Bob Williams, an environmental scientist for the Department of Fish and Game based in Redding.

Incidental take permits insulate irrigators from having to pay thousands of dollars in fines if their diversions unintentionally kill imperiled fish. A watershed-wide license would encourage compliance by offering an easier and more affordable alternative than if a farmer were to seek a permit on his own, Williams said.

But this proposal's potential to spread elsewhere - and its influence on future water diversion policy in California - have made it the latest battleground in the state's ongoing water wars.

California Farm Bureau Federation environmental attorney Jack Rice isn't concerned so much about the streambed alteration permit itself, but rather the Department of Fish and Game's interpretation of who needs the permit.

It used to be that a streambed alteration agreement was only necessary if an irrigator physically changed the bank or channel, such as by dredging a temporary dam, he said. Now Fish and Game is asserting an irrigator may need the permit if he simply diverts water, Rice said.

"What it requires is payment of a fee, and it would require certain terms and conditions," Rice said. "Basically what this (environmental impact report) says is that Fish and Game has the authority to impose whatever terms and conditions it finds reasonable on every water right in California."

Environmentalists assert the stricter mandate has always existed but was never fully enforced. For their part, they're concerned that groundwater pumping wouldn't be regulated under the new program and that the permits would be administered by local resource conservation districts.

"They (Fish and Game) would actually be ceding their authority as a regulator to the resource conservation districts," said Felice Pace, a longtime environmental activist who lives in Klamath. "Is that even legal, to take the regulatory authority you have and constantly give that to another entity that's appointed by the Board of Supervisors that tends to be farmer-friendly?

"There's a place for regulation and a place for restoration and conservation," Pace said. "When you have regulatory laws that have to be enforced, those should be enforced by the state."

A 60-day comment period on a pair of draft environmental impact reports on the proposed permits was set to expire Dec. 9. The program, which could apply to as many as 180 water rights holders in the Scott and Shasta valleys, could be approved as early as March, Williams said.

The permits are part of a fish-recovery effort developed when coho salmon north of San Francisco were listed as threatened in 2005. As a result of the listing, Fish and Game has been "looking at diversions throughout our region," Williams said.

But requiring a streambed alteration permit for a diversion isn't new for the agency, he said.

"We're not doing anything with regard to water rights," Williams said. "Water rights are what they are. ...One of the things we are doing is verifying that they're taking the amount they're legally entitled to."

However, many of the roughly 50 farmers and ranchers who attended an informational meeting in Yreka on Tuesday, Dec. 2, suspected otherwise. Siskiyou County Farm Bureau board member Jeff Fowel rattled off dozens of perceived problems with the EIRs, including that they didn't consider the economic impacts from anticipated decreases in water diversions.

One attendee, organic beef producer Craig Chenoweth, has about 40 cows and calves on 456 acres in Scott Valley. He said the permit program would have little if any impact on his own operation, but he thinks the proposal is a form of "tyranny."

"It's about them trying to control us," Chenoweth said. "What Fish and Game wants is control of water on private land. ... They want us to pay for it, too."#

Chico News and Review – 12/11/2008
By Robert Speer

Thad Bettner has a trust problem.

Bettner is the general manager of the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District, and some people think the district has something up its sleeve. That distrust was evident Monday evening (Dec. 8), during a public meeting attended by about 200 people at the Durham Memorial Hall.

It was the latest in a series of meetings the GCID has held regarding a two-year state- and federally funded program to study the Lower Tuscan Aquifer, the groundwater basin underlying much of the Sacramento Valley. The study is part of a larger effort to develop a plan for managing surface water in conjunction with groundwater so as to maximize the amount of available water.

The GCID’s project includes drilling seven big wells to test what happens to nearby streams and the aquifer itself when large amounts of water are pumped out.

Both farmers in the Durham area and environmentalists are distrustful of the program. The farmers vividly recall how their wells “sucked air” in 1994 when a local water district—not GCID—pumped huge amounts of groundwater to replace water it had sold south. And the environmentalists—led by the Butte Environmental Council—are convinced that GCID’s study, as well as one being done by Butte County, is part of a larger plan to transfer local water to points south.

BEC has sued both GCID and Butte County to compel them to do full environmental reviews of their projects. On Aug. 13, a Glenn County Superior Court judge upheld GCID’s claim that its project was strictly for research and dismissed the case against the district; the Butte County suit, filed Oct. 27, has yet to be heard.

In a phone interview Tuesday, Barbara Vlamis, BEC’s executive director, said a careful reading of the Sacramento Valley Integrated Regional Water Management Plan, which the county signed onto earlier this year, shows clearly “how Butte County is woven into the fabric of this plan. … Its major goal is to ship water out of here, and Butte County is integral to this.”

BEC’s litigation, she said in a subsequent e-mail message, asserts the county “failed to disclose, as required by law, the entire scope of the project, all its dependent parts, as well as the cumulative impacts from this and the combined projects that are moving forward. Adequate analysis should not be feared, but endorsed by a government that seeks to protect its citizens.”

The aquifer study, in other words, cannot be considered separate from the larger plan of which it is a part.

Interviewed after the Durham meeting, Paul Gosselin, director of the county’s Water and Resource Conservation department, said adamantly that “the idea that the county wants to move water out of the area is ludicrous. … This county has made every effort to protect its water and to avoid a repeat of what happened in 1994.”

He said he was “dumbfounded and dismayed” by BEC’s suit, adding that, instead of protecting the area’s water, it was putting it at risk. “People outside the region are pleased that we’re being stymied in our efforts” to study the aquifer, he said.

Bettner, also interviewed separately, said GCID had absolutely no intention of profiting off the test wells. The goal is simply to understand the aquifer in order to manage the area’s water better—and protect it—in response to challenges.

Those challenges are several. One is Delta Vision, the state’s new plan to protect the endangered Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It foresees needing more water for the Delta, and that water will come mainly from Northern California.

Other challenges include urban growth, with its increased use of groundwater, and changes in farming practices. Grant Davis, an engineering consultant to the GCID, used PowerPoint charts to show how water demand was going up, the result of increasing irrigated acreage and a turn to more water-intensive (and permanent) orchard crops, most of which are served by groundwater.

Without data about the aquifer, we can’t know what impact such changes will have, Davis said.

The part of the presentation that generated the most concern, however, was the “Conjunctive Operations Strategy,” a model for increasing use of surface water to create a more reliable supply, relying on groundwater as “backup.”

Currently, releases from Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville are limited in order to keep enough water in the reservoirs to offset a possible dry next year. But if groundwater could be used as backup during those occasional dry years, Davis said, more water could be released all the other years, providing a more reliable supply and, potentially, meeting Delta demands.

The problem, as farmers in the audience quickly noted, is that as much as 50,000 acre-feet of groundwater could be needed to replace surface water during a single dry year. What will happen to their wells when so much water is sucked up elsewhere in the aquifer?

Nobody really knows, Davis replied. That’s why they’re doing the study.

Audience members, including Vlamis, suggested a better step would be to shut down the “toxic farming” in the massive Westlands Water District in the San Joaquin Valley that relies on Northern California water. Bettner didn’t disagree, but he replied that there was nothing the GCID—and by implication anyone else in Northern California—could do about that.

One thing is for sure, Bettner said: The Delta needs more water. “If the Legislature comes and says, ‘We want your water,’ what are we going to do? Changes are coming, and we have to be proactive about it.”#

Sacramento News and Review – 12/11/2008
By Robert Speer

Two-thirds of California’s native fish species—salmon, steelhead and trout—may be extinct by the end of the century, if not sooner.

That’s the dire prediction contained in “SOS: California’s Native Fish Crisis,” a report released November 19 that is based on a two-year research study by a team of UC Davis scientists. They received support from the fish and watershed advocacy group California Trout.

If the report proves correct, it would mean that of the 32 native salmon and trout species, only 10 or 11 would still exist in 2100. Of those 32 species, 65 percent are found only in California. And of the state’s nine living native inland species, seven are in danger of extinction.

The report’s author is UC Davis professor Dr. Peter Moyle, a widely known expert on California’s water systems and the fish that inhabit them.

It’s not just the fish we should be concerned about, Moyle states. That their stocks are in unprecedented decline and teetering toward extinction, he writes, is “an alarm bell that signals the deteriorating health of the state’s rivers and streams that provide drinking water to millions of Californians.”

One species, bull trout, became extinct in the 1970s, and four others—pink and chum salmon, southern steelhead and coho salmon—are in grave danger.

“The fish don’t lie,” Moyle stated. “The story they tell is that California’s environment is unraveling. Their demise is symptomatic of a much larger water crisis that, unless addressed, will severely impact every Californian.”

The fish crisis is plenty big enough, however. Sport fishing in California is a $2 billion business, and a crucial income source in rural counties.

The report lists numerous causes for the fish’s decline, including dams; agricultural and grazing practices; development; mining; railroads; logging; some recreational uses; illegal harvesting of native fish; reliance on fish hatcheries; and invasive species, such as the northern pike.

In addition, the report states global warming will accelerate the decline of many of the fish, as salmonids are particularly sensitive to changes in water temperature. Rapidly changing ocean conditions also contribute to the stressors on the fish.

The report argues for increased funding for the Department of Fish and Game and for the DFG to partner with local communities to protect regional fish populations and their habitats.

In a November 21 Op-Ed piece in The Sacramento Bee, Moyle notes that some native species—he cites the Goose Lake redband trout—are thriving because of watershed-restoration projects. New projects on Clear Creek and Battle Creek promise to increase habitat for the four runs of chinook salmon, and a court has ordered restoration of the chinook salmon to the San Joaquin River.

“Providing a future for our iconic native fishes and their waters … requires a fundamental shift in the way our society treats its streams and natural lakes,” Moyle writes.

To read the “SOS” report online, go to www.caltrout.org.

Local sport fishers should know that the report’s inclusion of fish hatcheries as a cause of the decline is echoed by a new DFG agreement to curtail stocking in many lakes and streams.

In 2006, two conservation groups, Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity, sued the DFG, charging that stocking streams and lakes with hatchery-reared fish—a DFG practice for a century—was having deleterious impacts on native fish species and several species of frogs.

In May 2007, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge ruled that fish stocking has “significant environmental impacts” on “aquatic ecosystems” and “in particular, on native species of fish, amphibians and insects, some of which are threatened or endangered.”

The court ordered the DFG to prepare an environmental analysis by the end of 2008, but the DFG came back to court seeking an extension until January 2010. In exchange, the DFG last week agreed to the interim stocking plan.

The agreement will not stop all fish stocking, but it will be limited mostly to reservoirs and lakes that are not connected to a river or stream known to contain endangered native species. Stocking will be curtailed in waters where any of 25 native fish and amphibian species considered sensitive to fish stocking are known to occur.#

Visalia Times – 12/6/08
By Brett Wilkison

A back-room deal quietly put a lid on 100 years of California fishing history two weeks ago.

As part of a 2006 lawsuit by two environmental groups, the California Department of Fish and Game agreed to stop stocking — or planting — fish in 175 streams, lakes and reservoirs across the state.

The interim agreement, which took effect immediately, covers almost 10 percent of the 2,000 waterways the agency stocks, some since early last century.

It includes stretches of the Sacramento, American and Yuba rivers, angler destinations such as Lake Amador and the Truckee River, and locally the Kaweah River and Kern River, one of the state's most popular trout fisheries. Lake Kaweah and Lake Isabella will still be stocked, as will all privately run trout ponds.

The deal is intended to protect 25 rare native fish and frog species, which some scientists say are threatened by fish stocking, while the department completes a broad study of its stocking program. The study is due to be released in early 2010.

Reaction to the deal from anglers and outfitters, however, has been loud and critical.

The temporary ban will hurt communities dependent on fishing dollars such as Kernville, above Lake Isabella, opponents say.

The town on the banks of the Kern River gets much of its summer business from anglers, who come for the dependable trout fishing.

Stop the stocking and that business will go elsewhere, said John Strange, sporting goods manager at James Sierra Gateway Market in Kernville.

"I shudder to think at what this will do to us," Strange said.

Groups: Science shows stocking's effect

The groups behind the lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Pacific Rivers Council, say a comprehensive study of Fish and Game's stocking program is long overdue.

The groups convinced Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette that until the agency finishes its environmental impact report — ordered by the judge as part of the 2006 lawsuit and originally due out this year — stocking should be halted in areas where any of 16 native fish or nine native frog species occur, or in areas where no recent surveys have been done.

"This lawsuit is not about fishing. We don't oppose fishing," said Noah Greenwald, a program director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Our intent is to make sure that the stocking doesn't contribute to the extinction of those fish and frog species."

That concern is well-placed and the science behind the groups' legal claim is sound, two noted biologists said this week.

In the High Sierra, where with the exception of the Kern River drainage trout did not historically live above 7,000 feet, the mountain yellow-legged frog was once the most common vertebrate, found in most of the range's 4,000 lakes. The frog now occupies only a fraction of those lakes.

Disease and pesticides are partly to blame for that decline, but planted trout are an equal if not larger factor, said Roland Knapp, a veteran research biologist at University of California, Santa Barbara's Sierra Nevada Research Laboratory in Mammoth Lakes.

The fish feed on frog tadpoles and adults, Knapp said, and all recent studies, some even by Fish and Game, have found the same thing, according to Knapp: Where there are introduced trout there are likely no frogs.

Same goes for native fish, which are often eaten, out-competed or, in the case of native trout, interbreed with the introduced fish, reducing their chance of survival, according to University of California, Davis, fish biologist Peter Moyle, an expert on the state's native freshwater fish species.

Most stocking in California over the last century has been "willy-nilly," ignorant of those effects, Moyle said.

Among the fish that have been harmed are the California golden trout and Little Kern River golden trout. Partly because of ill-advised stocking, those and other native trout face a 65 percent chance of extinction within the next century, Moyle said.

"We are at the point were we need to take drastic steps to save these species," he said.

Fish and Game responds

Fish and Game officials said they have been put in a tight spot. They say that while part of their job is to protect species, another part is providing fishing to the masses, and barring stocking makes that difficult.

The agency has overhauled its stocking operations in recent years out of concern for native fish and frogs. Non-native trout are no longer planted in water bodies with primarily wild, native trout, and in the High Sierra the department has removed hundreds of lakes, most of them seldom visited, from the stocking program to give frogs back their habitat.

That is partly why so few waters from the Sierra or the south Central Valley — none outside of the Kaweah and Kern — landed on the no-stock list this time around, one local official said. They had already been taken off years ago.

Yet, while a comprehensive study of the stocking program will ultimately be a good thing, officials said, the selective ban could still be excessive and unwarranted on certain waters, including the Kern and Kaweah.

Studies on Kaweah, Kern

The Kern was placed on the list out of environmentalists' concerns that a type of minnow called the hardhead was imperiled by planted trout.

The hardhead, however, are abundant in the Kern and have coexisted with introduced fish for years, said Dale Mitchell, a Fish and Game environmental manager based in Fresno.

The Kaweah landed on the list because no recent surveys have been done for sensitive species. But Mitchell said he's almost certain that no rare species exist in the Kaweah.

"We don't like having those waters on [that list]," he said, referring to both the Kern and Kaweah.

The completed study should support reinstating stocking on the two rivers in 2010, he said.

Until then, both rivers should still prove worthwhile destinations for anglers, he said.

"The catch per hour will go down," he said. "But it's not going to be a [situation] where people are going up there and there's not going to be any fish."

But going beyond 2010 without stocking could result in a major decline in the trout population, Mitchell added.

That situation could be grounds for lowering the catch limit, currently five on stretches of the Kaweah and Kern, or for an expansion of catch-and-release regulations, both of which would have to be approved by the state Fish and Game Commission, he said.

Neither step has been seriously discussed yet, he said.

Anglers, communities, wild trout caught in middle

Still, local outfitters and fishermen say that environmentalists and state managers are overlooking the impact that even an interim stocking ban could have on fishing-dependent communities and on wild, native trout.

Anglers rack up 100,000 fishing days on the Kern every year and around 140,000 trout had been planted annually in the river to support that use. The Kaweah receives about a fifth as many angler days and was last stocked in 2005 with 1,000 trout, according to Fish and Game records.

Without stocking, anglers, including families that often fish the stocked stretches, could get skunked and decide to take their business out of the area, outfitters say.

That could cost a community such as Kernville millions in license fees, hotel bookings, shopping revenue and fishing services, said Guy Jeans, owner of Kern River Fly Shop in Kernville.

"It's a big blow and a lot of people are pretty upset," Jeans said.

An estimated 70 people packed a room at the Kernville Community Center this week, where the discussion turned on trying to get the Kern River removed from the no-stock list through a letter-writing and petition campaign that draws on Fish and Game's latest science on hardhead minnow populations.

"We're fighting for the sportsmen and for our fishing heritage," said Strange, the Kernville sporting goods manager.

Future of fishing

Meanwhile, local fishermen, many of who say they've supported previous reforms of the stocking program, are weighing in about a potential double whammy effect of the stocking ban on wild, native trout.

Fishing license fees pay for game wardens. Fewer stocked water bodies could result in fewer license purchases, driving game warden funding down and decreasing fishing patrol, fishermen said.

A Fish and Game spokeswoman said the agency doesn't expect the ban will lead to decreased enforcement.

Nevertheless, anglers are worried that with fewer stocked fish, water bodies that are designated catch-and release refuges for native, wild trout, such as the Kern River above Johnsondale Bridge, will see more fishermen and more illegal take of wild fish.

"I'm a fisherman, but I'm also a conservationist," said Fred Naylor, president of Kaweah Flyfishers in Visalia. "Stocking allows for the survival of those native, wild fish."

But the lawsuit didn't take that into consideration, in the eyes of local fishermen.

"The problem is lawsuits tend to be draconian," said Mark Cave, a Visalia fly fisherman who fishes mostly for wild trout. "We need to have a balance. I recognize that there needs to be a place for people to take their kids to fish. And no one is against frogs. I think we can do both."#

The Redding Record – 12/4/2008
By Dylan Darling

After decades of delay, construction of Auburn Dam has been canceled - a move that intensifies focus on the potential of raising Shasta Dam.

"As more (water) storage options are taken off the table that will increase the focus on the remaining options," said Brian Person, who heads the Bureau of Reclamation's Northern California Area Office.

Having studied the possibility of raising Shasta Dam since 1980, the bureau is set to release a draft feasibility study and environmental documents by next September, Person said.

The federal agency is evaluating the possibility of raising the dam as many as 18 1/2 feet, a project that would add another 634,000 acre-feet to the 4.5 million acre-foot Lake Shasta.

An acre-foot is enough water to flood a 1-acre field with water 1 foot deep.

Tuesday, a state board revoked federal water claims for Auburn Dam, a project long-proposed for a canyon on the American River 30 miles northeast of Sacramento.

The vote effectively ended the chances that a 2.3-million acre- foot reservoir will be built at the site.

"We are naturally very disappointed," said Lynette Wirth, spokeswoman for the bureau's regional office in Sacramento.

Plans for the Auburn Dam were authorized by Congress in 1965 and work on the dam's foundation began in 1974, according to the Bureau's Web site. Work halted after a magnitude 5.7 earthquake shook Oroville Dam about 50 miles from the proposed dam site.

The quake raised concerns about the stability of a thin arch concrete dam like that proposed for the American River, according to the Web site. An Association of Engineering Geologists report in 1976 said Auburn Dam would fail in such a temblor.

Revised plans for the dam made it able to withstand a quake, but raised its cost to more than $1 billion, which stalled it in Congress.

Wirth said the bureau is discussing the State Water Resources Control Board's decision to revoke the water claims with its attorneys, although the board's 5-0 vote doesn't bode well for an appeal.#

I have been an advocate of Klamath River dam removal since the early 1960s. When I first became involved, there was distrust and unfriendliness among virtually all the Klamath Basin residents. All that the residents of the Klamath basin had in common was the river itself. My main concern was that more dams and diversions would be built to send the Klamath River to Southern California.

After years of effort by many people throughout the basin, it is amazing to see the progress that has been made to help the Klamath River. The focus has changed from adversarial positioning to a mutual trust and cooperation among most of the participants.

For over two years the Klamath Settlement Group, representing Indians, farmers, commercial and sport fishermen, ranchers, state and federal government agencies and nongovernmental organizations, have worked together on a comprehensive solution for the Klamath Basin problems.

The resulting Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement is intended to lead to effective and durable solutions which: 1) in concert with the removal of four dams, will restore and sustain natural production and provide for full participation in ocean and river harvest opportunities of fish species throughout the Klamath Basin; 2) establish reliable water and power supplies which sustain agricultural uses, communities, and National Wildlife Refuges; and 3) contribute to the public welfare and the sustainability of all Klamath Basin communities.

Recently, PacifiCorp, the owner of the Klamath dams, the governors of California and Oregon, and the departments of Interior, Agriculture and Commerce have all signed an agreement in principle for dam removal.

Unfortunately, a few environmental groups and others continue to criticize any progress. They have no end point in mind, but are quick to pick apart the hard work of others. Many of these groups and individuals became interested in the Klamath River only when the public's awareness was raised by the 2002 fish die-off. The environmental groups realized the great fundraising potential of advertising their alleged work for the Klamath River. The Klamath problems have spawned a new growth industry of professed scientific “experts” who are more than willing (for a fee, of course) to give their opinion on the result of enacting some of these complicated solutions.

One does not need to be an “expert” to understand the effects of dams. Dams block the upstream and downstream movement of fish. Thus blocked from their breeding and rearing sites, the fish population dies. Removing the dams will allow the fish to make a comeback.

We must not lose sight of the now obtainable goals on the Klamath River. As my old friend Tim McKay frequently pointed out, we only get the chance to remove the Klamath dams every 50 years. #

The Inyo-Register – 12/3/2008
By Mike Gervais

Trout stocking in the Eastern Sierra is expected to carry on as usual, despite new restrictions that have been placed on the California Department of Fish and Game program.

An agreement between the DFG and the Center for Biological Diversity limits the waters where non-native species of fish may be stocked, but allows the DFG to continue providing sport-fishing opportunities throughout the state.

A lawsuit filed by the Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity against DFG in 2006 claimed that DFG’s fish stocking operation did not comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and harms native species that share waterways with the non-native sport-fish.

“The court agreed with us that trout stocking has a significant impact on the environment,” said Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity.

In July, 2007, the DFG was ordered by the Sacramento Superior Court to comply with CEQA regarding its fish stocking operations.

To complete that process, the DFG was required to complete an environmental impact report on its stocking operations within one year.

Recently, the DFG notified the courts and the Center for Biological Diversity that it would not have the environmental documents in order in time to meet its deadline.

That delay could have resulted in temporary suspension of all DFG stocking operations, but, to avoid the ban, the Center for Biological Diversity and the DFG reached an interim agreement on Nov. 20 that allowed the agency to continue stocking on a limited basis until the EIR is completed.

According to the agreement, before the DFG can stock a stream or body of water in California it must conduct a survey of the wildlife that can be found there. If one of 25 native species that have been identified by the Center for Biological Diversity are found, the agency must wait until after the EIR is complete to stock there.

The DFG will not be required to conduct a survey of man-made reservoirs that are more than 1,000 acres in size or reservoirs that don’t connect to areas where there are native species.

“In the case of the Eastern Sierra, the Department of Fish and Game is well ahead of the curve,” said Greenwald.
Of the 25 native species outlined in the stocking agreement, the mountain yellow-legged frog and the golden trout are found in the Eastern Sierra.

“The DFG has done a lot of surveys for the mountain yellow-legged frog and have stopped stocking over them,” Greenwald said. “Because the DFG was managing their impact on the species anyway, this agreement shouldn’t affect that area very much.”

The DFG will be publishing a list of waters that will be affected by the new agreement in the near future. That list will be available on the DFG Web site.

Locally, Crowley Lake, North Lake, South Lake, Sabrina and the upper and lower Owens River will be stocked as planned next year.

Many lakes in the backcountry may not be stocked next season due to the agreement.

On its Web site, the DFG says it plans to have the EIR available by 2010.

Phone calls to DFG Hatchery Supervisor Gary Williams were not returned as of press time Monday.#

This month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will release a draft plan to protect the endangered Delta smelt, which lives only in the Sacramento-San Joaqin River Delta. Last year, a court order to protect the smelt drew protests from water users south of the Delta who are concerned about their water supply. We sympathize, because we also understand the importance of water.

We represent, respectively, farmers in the Delta and California's commercial salmon fishermen. Our communities depend on water. Healthy rivers produce healthy salmon runs, sustaining fishermen, their families and fishing communities. Delta farmers also depend on healthy rivers.

When others divert too much water from the ecosystem, Delta farmers find their crops damaged by salty water intruding from the bay and the salty San Joaquin River drainage discharges that collect in the South Delta, as a result of the operation of the export pumps.

For the past five decades, we have seen steady increases in the amount of water pumped from the Delta – to record levels in recent years. Today, as a direct result, the entire Delta ecosystem is collapsing. In addition to the smelt, some salmon runs, steelhead, sturgeon and other fish are threatened by extinction.

This damage is no surprise. The massive pumps in the Delta divert more water than is pumped at any single location in the nation.

State and federal agencies ignored the Delta's collapse and failed to act when science showed its cause. That's when a federal court stepped in and ordered the federal government to prepare a new plan to protect the smelt under the Endangered Species Act.

Limitations on Delta pumping can protect more than just this vulnerable fish. The plan can also help fishermen and farmers.

The futures of our communities are at stake. This year, California's salmon fishery was closed for the first time in state history, putting thousands out of work and costing California's economy a quarter of a billion dollars. The fall run of chinook salmon in the Bay-Delta system is the most important in the state and is the backbone of our commercial and recreational fishery. Unfortunately, the fall run has suffered the same collapse as the Delta smelt. If agencies fail to protect the smelt, we could lose the salmon fishing industry forever, damaging communities throughout the Central Valley, the Delta and along much of the California coast.

Delta farmers are also deeply concerned. The State Water Project has indicated that it intends to divert even more water in the future – violating water quality standards and putting the future of Delta farmers at risk. Extensive scientific investigation in the past several years has reached a clear conclusion. We have exceeded the amount of water we can safely pump from the Delta.

Recently, the governor's Delta Vision Task Force recommended significantly stronger standards to guarantee more fresh water for the bay and Delta, especially during dry and average years. These conclusions raise an obvious question. How can we restore our salmon fishery, protect the bay, save farmers in the Delta, and meet our water needs?

Fortunately, we know the answer. By dramatically increasing efforts to maximize water conservation, to recycle wastewater, and to integrate groundwater replenishment and stormwater management, we can provide water for California's future. By working together, we can protect the futures of the smelt, salmon fishermen, Delta farmers and the millions of Californians who receive water from the Delta.

The catalyst for this new direction is the Delta smelt, but the stakes are far higher. The future of the largest estuary on the West Coast is at stake. We urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to require adequate protections for the smelt, reflecting the latest scientific results – thereby also providing a safety net for fishing and Delta farming communities.

Tom Zuckerman is the special projects manager of the Central Delta Water Agency. Zeke Grader is the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations.#

Santa Cruz – 12/3/2008
By Traci Hukill

Two years ago UC Davis biologist Peter Moyle set out to document the condition of California’s salmon and trout. The findings took him by surprise.

“Basically, two things impressed me,” says Moyle. “One was how many fish were in trouble. I had a feeling things were not good, but I didn’t realize collectively how many were in serious trouble.

“The second thing that surprised me, though, is how many of these fish are hanging in there.”

Moyle’s research, commissioned by the sportfishing group California Trout and summarized in SOS: California’s Native Fish Crisis, found that if present trends continue, 65 percent of California’s native trout and salmon will be extinct within 100 years. Moyle and his fellow researchers applied seven criteria to each of the state’s 32 salmonids (a family that includes trout) and came up with an index. On a scale of 0 to 5, with 0 being “extinct” and 5 being healthy, 20 of the fish scored a 2 or lower. Only five scored a 4 or 5. The state’s 12 salmon species are under particular pressure; 83 percent of them could vanish in the next century. “Only two populations of Chinook are at low risk of extinction, but even these are declining,” Moyle told reporters at the Nov. 18 press conference announcing the results. “At the end of the century they’ll be curiosities.”

On the other hand, Moyle points out, most of the fish still persist in their native range, albeit in small pockets. “Like the steelhead in Southern California—that’s truly amazing,” he says. “So the fact that these fish are still maintaining marginal populations in so many areas tells you conservation efforts are worthwhile.”

California Trout is being careful to relate the findings to human self-interest and to supply suggestions for how government agencies—specifically the Department of Fish and Game—can act to preserve salmonids.

“At its core, this report and its findings are really about cold, clean water—absolute requirements for healthy fisheries, but also absolute requirements for our very own livelihoods,” says California Trout CEO Brian Stranko.

“The recent Klamath agreement [to remove four dams] and the coming restoration of the San Joaquin [River] all provide hope: we can engage in more large-scale restoration projects, and we can adapt our land use practices—how we farm, how we graze cattle—but we need to start doing this right now.”

He adds that California also needs a robust DFG. “We understand that DFG has budget challenges in an economic downturn, but we also understand that if we lose fish, we lose valuable inputs to our economy.”

The response from DFG has been a deafening silence that suggests either a lack of enthusiasm for the report or the need for department-wide training in speed-reading. A statement by DFG Director Donald Koch on Nov. 18 said this:

“We look forward to reading the 100-plus-page report ‘SOS: California’s Native Fish Crisis,’ released by California Trout today. We thank California Trout for their dedication to California’s native fish species. We appreciate their support and look forward to engaging them and other stakeholders in finding solutions to further our efforts to conserve the state’s valuable fish and wildlife resources.”

Bleak Outlook for Coho Of the three salmonids rated a 1—meaning highly vulnerable to extinction in the next 50 years—the Central California Coast coho historically had the broadest range, extending from Punta Gorda to the San Lorenzo. The others, pink and chum salmon, exist only in northern California and never in historically large numbers.

Coho watchers got a sour surprise earlier this year when adults came back to spawn in pitiful numbers that represented a 70 percent decline from previous years. In Scott Creek—at the southern end of the fish’s range—just 11 fish returned to spawn, and only one was female.

Sean Hayes, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, says it’s too early to tell what the coho return will be like this year. It takes a good, healthy rain to breach the sandbar at the end of creeks like Scott and Waddell so the coho that have been feeding in the ocean can make it back upstream to spawn. Hayes says that usually happens in mid-December, with the first serious storm of the season.

“We’re probably expecting somewhere on the order of 50 fish if things are mediocre to slightly poor to 100 if things go really well,” he says. “A good year of coho in the creek is 300 or more fish. Two hundred we’re happy with, and 100 we can get by with. And less than that and we’re worried.” #

San Francisco Chronicle – 12/2/2008
Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer

(12-01) 19:17 PST -- The giant state and federal pumps in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that funnel water to 25 million Californians should be shut down until certain Central Valley farmers retire hundreds of thousands of acres of chemical-laden farmland, according to a lawsuit filed today by a state water watchdog.

Irrigating agricultural land in the western San Joaquin Valley tainted with selenium, mercury, boron and other toxic substances constitutes an unreasonable use of a public resource protected by state laws and has contributed to the sharp decline of endangered fish species, said the California Water Impact Network.

"We think there is a simple solution to California's water problems - to retire all of the drainage-impaired lands in the Central Valley. A second is water conservation - agriculture uses 80 percent of the developed surface water," said Carolee Krieger, president and founder C-WIN.

The lawsuit marks the latest twist in the continuing Delta drama. The hub of the state's 1,300-square-mile water system is also at the heart of the fight between uses for food and human needs, and those of wildlife and rare plants. In recent years, failure of the ecosystem forced legal rulings that curbed water exports - a move made more complicated this year by a drought and fears of another dry winter.

In the 27-page lawsuit filed in superior court in Sacramento , C-Win, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and an individual, Felix Smith, lays much of the blame for the system's problem on water over-allocation. One culprit, the lawsuit said, is the State Water Resources Control Board, which issues all water permits in the state.

Also named were the state Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the two operators of the huge pumps and pipelines that send water, mainly from the north, to water users throughout California.

Although turning off the pumps would impact residential, industrial and agricultural users, plaintiffs in the case, as well as environmental and other groups contend that recent, increased pumping by the state and federal agencies through the Delta has killed millions of protected and endangered fish species, including the Delta smelt. Much of the water has gone to watering cropland laden with chemicals that filter into the San Joaquin River and back to the southern Delta.

Poor regulation decried

"California has regulated its waters like the feds have regulated Wall Street and the result has been a collapse of fisheries and aquatic ecosystems," said California Sportfishing Protection Alliance Chairman and Director Bill Jennings. "We have little alternative but to turn to the courts to prevent the extinction of our historic fisheries."

Officials at the state Department of Water Resources, the Water Control Resources Board and the Bureau of Reclamation could not be reached for comment.

A spokeswoman for the largest irrigation district in the country, located around Fresno, called the lawsuit "disappointing."

To date, about 100,000 agricultural acres have been taken out of production due to poor drainage and chemical saturation, said Sarah Woolf, of the Westlands Water District, which serves 600,000 acres and about 700 farms.

Working with state

At the same time, the agency has been working with state and federal legislators over the past 25 years to craft a deal that would fix the drainage problems with funds from the water district and landowners. Westlands estimates there are about 100,000 more acres of contaminated acres with poor drainage; Krieger put the number at closer to 1 million acres.

"We're moving forward and being aggressive about it," Woolf said. "But really it's the environmental community that's holding it up."

Last year, in an effort to curb the fish population decline, a federal judge ordered reduced Delta pumping - a move that critics like Westlands claim has not helped boost the smelt or other fish species.

"In the last year we had the biggest cutbacks in pumping in the history of the entire system," Woolf said. "Six hundred acre feet were dedicated to helping fish, and the numbers of the Delta smelt are still down."

But Krieger, of C-WIN, said the rapid die-off of the Delta smelt adds more urgency to fixing the ecosystem.

"You can't interrupt the food chain without having dire consequences," she said. "It's not just a little fish. It's the bellwether of the Delta." #

WASHINGTON -- They were two of the 1,000 juvenile salmon implanted with almond-sized transmitters as they headed out of the Rocky Mountains, down the Snake River bound for the sea.

Their remarkable three-month, 1,500-mile journey of survival to the Gulf of Alaska was tracked by an underwater acoustic listening network that has wired the West Coast from just north of San Francisco to southeastern Alaska. The tracking network could provide a model for a global system.

A salmon's life in the ocean has always been one of nature's best kept mysteries.

However, scientists using the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking network have made some startling discoveries that challenge long-held beliefs about salmon survival and raise new cautions about how global warming may affect salmon and other marine species.

"I hope it will be a revolution in the way we do marine science," said David Welch, the president of Kintama Research Corp. in Nanaimo, British Columbia, who was one of the founders of the tracking system. "I think we will make discoveries that are incredibly important and unexpected."

The transmitters, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated, smaller and cheaper, have been implanted in a dozen species, including coho, sockeye and chinook salmon, along with green sturgeon, white sturgeon, sixgill shark, salmon shark, market squid, cutthroat trout, steelhead, dolly varden and black rockfish. Eventually, scientists think they'll be able to implant the transmitters in marine animals as big as whales and as small as herring.

Signals from the transmitters are picked up by nearly 300 receivers on the ocean floor as the fish swim by. The information is eventually retrieved from the listening devices by scientists who routinely visit the eight lines of acoustic receivers by ship. The receivers don't transmit the data by satellite.

Listening lines are off Washington state's Willapa Bay, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca between Vancouver Island and Washington's Olympic Peninsula, in British Columbia's Strait of Georgia, Queen Charlotte Strait, Howe Sound and off the northern tip of Vancouver Island, along with Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, and Graves Harbor in southeastern Alaska.

Two major Northwest rivers, the Columbia and Fraser, are also wired with receivers that can keep track of salmon movements from the river mouth to hundreds of miles inland.

"This is a revolution in being able to study marine animals that travel vast distances," said Fred Goetz, a fish biologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who's been studying Puget Sound chinook, steelhead and bull trout. "This is a big breakthrough."

Goetz said an effort is under way to permanently establish an acoustic listening line in Puget Sound near Admiralty Inlet.

Scientists are convinced the marine environment is changing because of global warming. However, no one yet understands how the changes are linked to such weather patterns as El Nino, La Nina and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a shift in the weather that occurs every 20 to 30 years in the northern oceans.

Tracking marine life could help document these shifts and the effects they are having on the oceans.

"Now we are getting virtually real-time information," said Jim Bolger, the executive director of the tracking network. "We are answering questions we couldn't before."

Among the findings:

-Previously, it was thought that the highest mortality rates for salmon were in the freshwater streams and rivers as they headed to the saltwater ocean. But using the acoustic tracking system, researchers found that within the first few weeks of entering the ocean, 40 percent of the salmon died. Meanwhile, billions of dollars have been spent to increase in-river survival rates of salmon through projects such as habitat improvements in spawning areas and the modification of hydroelectric dams.

-A study by Welch, which has touched off a major scientific debate, found dams may have less of an impact on salmon survival rates than previously thought. The study found juvenile salmon from the Columbia River, with its string of massive hydroelectric dams, survived their downstream migration equally or better than those migrating downstream in the dam-free Fraser River in British Columbia. Some environmentalists have insisted the only way to restore the Columbia River runs is by breaching four dams on the lower Snake River, a major tributary of the Columbia.

-It's long been thought green sturgeon from the Sacramento and Klamath rivers in California migrated into the ocean but didn't go far. Now, using the acoustic tracking system, the green sturgeon have been found congregating off the north end of Vancouver Island at certain times of the year and then heading into the North Pacific. They've also been found in Puget Sound.

"We are taking a black box which is the ocean and trying to shed some light on it," said Jonathan Thar, the network's research coordinator.

The tracking system has also helped researchers confirm the incredible speeds at which juvenile salmon can travel, said Cedar Chittenden, a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia.

Juvenile coho salmon, about 5 inches in length, can travel almost 20 miles a day in the ocean and nearly 40 miles in rivers, or about 200,000 body lengths a day, she said. An average-sized person swimming at the same rate would cover nearly 220 miles a day in the ocean and almost 435 miles in a river, Chittenden said.

Using the tracking system, Chittenden said, researchers also found that wild juvenile salmon take less time to enter the ocean than hatchery fish, perhaps because the hatchery fish tend to be heavier and slower. And wild fish adapt faster to saltwater than hatchery ones.

The tracking system may also help scientists determine whether salmon runs, because of rising ocean temperatures, may be relocating further north. Chittenden said there is some evidence thermal blocks, or areas of warm water, have hindered salmon as they seek to return to their home rivers to spawn, and instead the fish may head to different rivers.

"We can actually track individual fish," she said. "We couldn't do these things without POST," the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking network.

The network, which has cost about $7 million, is run by a nonprofit organization hosted by the Vancouver Aquarium and funded by various foundations. It is also one of 14 field projects under the Census for Marine Life, a group of scientists and researchers from more than 60 universities and colleges around the world who are spending 10 years cataloging every marine species.

Eventually, the Census for Marine Life hopes to establish a global Ocean Tracking Network, or OTN, that would cover 14 areas in the Pacific, Atlantic, Indian and Arctic oceans, along with the Mediterranean Sea.

Efforts to establish such networks are already under way in eastern Canada, South Africa and Australia. In Australia and South Africa, the networks could also be used to alert authorities when sharks are near swimming beaches.#

Sacramento Bee – 11/30/08
By Tom Knudson

Wildfire has marched across the West for centuries. But no longer are major conflagrations fueled simply by heavy brush and timber. Now climate change is stoking the flames higher and hotter, too.

This view, common among firefighters, is reflected in new studies that tie changing patterns of heat and moisture in the western United States to an unprecedented rash of costly and destructive wildfires.

Among other things, researchers have found the frequency of wildfire increased fourfold -- and the terrain burned expanded sixfold -- as summers grew longer and hotter over the past two decades.

"When I started fighting fire, the normal fire season was from the beginning of June to the end of September," said Pete Duncan, a fuels management officer for the Plumas National Forest, northeast of Sacramento. "Now we are bringing crews on in the middle of April and they are working into November and December. And we're seeing fires now burning in areas that normally we wouldn't consider a high-intensity burn situation."

Numbers bear this out: The fire season now stretches 78 days longer than it did during the 1970s and '80s. And, on average, large fires burn for more than a month, compared with just a week a generation ago.

Scientists also have discovered that in many places nothing signals a bad fire year like a short winter and an early snowmelt. Overall, 72% of the land scorched across the West from 1987 to 2003 burned in early snowmelt years.

Across the Sierra, satellite imagery shows that today's wildfires are far more destructive than fires of the past, leaving larger portions of the burned landscape looking like nuclear blast zones. That fire intensity, in turn, is threatening water quality, wildlife habitat, rural and resort communities and firefighters' lives.

As the climate warms, the ability of the region's iconic mixed-conifer forests ecosystem to regenerate from these destructive fires is compromised.

"We're getting into a place where we are almost having a perfect storm" for wildfire, said Jay Miller, a U.S. Forest Service researcher and lead author of a recent paper published in the scientific journal Ecosystems linking climate change to the more severe fires in the Sierra. "We have increased fuels, but this changing climate is adding an additional stress on the whole situation. When things get bad, things will get much worse."

Future could be bleaker

That future may already have arrived. This year, the fire season got off to an early June start in the north and only recently came to a close. Statewide, 1.4 million acres burned in 2008, just shy of last year's 1.5 million acres, the highest total in at least four decades.

Duncan points to the recent Panther fire on the Klamath National Forest near the Oregon border as an example of a fire in today's drier climate and longer fire season.

"It made an eight-mile run one afternoon, in late October. It burned through an area of fairly high-elevation old-growth timber and at very high severity," Duncan said. "I was kind of amazed that something would have burned to that scale. To make a 40,000-acre run in an afternoon is significant for any time of year -- but particularly for that time of year."

The Moonlight fire, which burned across the Plumas National Forest and timber industry land north of Quincy in September 2007, was one of the most environmentally destructive in recent memory.

Vast stands of trees exploded into flame like matchsticks, including forest set aside to protect spotted owls. Smoke spread across Northern California and drifted as far south as Bakersfield. In all, six of 10 acres were burned so badly that in many places, few living trees remain. The global climate suffered, too. In the two weeks it took to control the fire, it pumped an estimated 5 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air, equivalent to the annual emissions of 970,000 vehicles or one coal-fired power plant.

The Moonlight fire even incinerated the soil, leaving mountain slopes barren and prone to erosion. With no natural seed source across wide swaths of terrain, the future of the mixed-conifer forest is in doubt; many fear it could morph into brush, stands of deciduous oak, even desert.

"I don't envision sand dunes like the Sahara," said Mike Yost, a retired forestry professor from Taylorsville. "But I can envision places where there aren't going to be forests again in many human lifetimes and in some places, maybe never."

Today, in fact, the region is the focus of the largest federal reforestation effort in Sierra Nevada history. Over the next two years, 3.4 million seedlings will be planted across 37 square miles -- but climate change is sowing uncertainty about that, too.

"You will always be left wondering: Is the tree I am planting today going to be able to survive the climate of the future?" said Mike Landram, reforestation manager for the Forest Service in California. "That will be a lingering question."

Walking is a challenge

One thing Landram doesn't want is a forest like the one that burned, an incendiary thicket of pine, fir, cedar and oak that had grown unnaturally dense during a century of fire suppression.

Such crowded stands are common in the Sierra, and walking through them can be a challenge. Where John Muir once strolled through parklike groves of 50 to 60 large stately conifers per acre, hikers today find shadowy tangles of sun-starved trees, some no wider than a fence post, at densities of more than 350 trees per acre. The forest floor -- littered with dead limbs, logs and spiky branches -- resembles a giant game of Pick-Up Sticks.

While such conditions are a major reason fires burn so hot, they are not the only variable. Strong winds, steep terrain and low humidity all push flames into a frenzy as well. Now there is another brick in the oven: the changing climate.

One of the first to make the link was Anthony Westerling, an assistant professor at the University of California at Merced whose 2006 paper in Science magazine found fires grow more unruly in years when the mountain snowpack melts early.

"An early spring means you're going to have a longer fire season [and] drier vegetation," Westerling said at a conference in Sacramento this year. "On the other hand, when it's a late spring, you never get a big fire year."

Last year's Moonlight fire fits the pattern. The snow melted early in 2007. Precipitation was well below average, and the fuel moisture content of the forest was at or near historic lows by the end of August.

"When we moved here in 1980, the snow stayed around through August," said Shirley Kossow, who lives along Indian Creek near Genesee with her husband, Mike. "In the 1990s, it was gone by the Fourth of July. Now it doesn't make it to the end of May."

Natural regeneration tough

After the Moonlight fire, satellite imagery showed the fire had burned 102 square miles, making it the largest blow-up in Plumas County history. But they also revealed something more troubling: 62% of the overall fire burned at high severity, a term scientists use to describe a stand-destroying fire.

Historically, fires in Sierra mixed-conifer forests skipped lightly across the landscape. They singed some areas, scorched others, but most of the forest remained healthy. Only 5% to 10% burned at high severity, said Hugh Safford, regional ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service who works in Davis.

Now, that number is climbing, up from 17% two decades ago to 28% for the period from 1997 to 2006. In 2007, it soared to 60%.

"Last year was the most severe fire year we've seen since the beginning of Landsat [satellite] imagery" in 1984, Safford said. "It was astounding. Things burned really, really hot."

Safford is one of the authors of the paper in Ecosystems that ties more high-severity fire to climatic changes, including less-snowy springs and rising summer nighttime temperatures. Last month, he tromped around the blackened aftermath of the 2007 Angora Fire at Lake Tahoe, which burned at 52% high severity and destroyed 254 homes.

"There were large areas where every needle got burned right off those trees," he said. "There isn't anything to cover the soil when the rainy season hits."

Increasingly, people are at risk, too.

"Look at the subdivisions in the Angora drainage," Safford said. "Fire wasn't on anybody's minds when they built those homes. It wasn't even a consideration because we put everything out. And now, with climate getting warmer and the forest becoming denser, I think we're at a position where it's really becoming a critical problem."

Makeup of forests changing

With fires burning hotter and temperatures rising, though, there is no guarantee conifer forests will remain evergreen.

Already, parts of the northern Sierra that once grew pine now sprout more grass and deciduous black oak -- a possible early warning sign of climate change. In some places, whitethorn, manzanita and other native brush species -- which bounce back rapidly after a fire and shade out sun-loving pines -- are expanding over large swaths of terrain.

Malcolm North, a research scientist with the Forest Service's Sierra Nevada Research Center, said the Moonlight fire's intensity created "seed source" problems.

"When you have the nearest live trees a mile, two, even three miles from the center of the burn area, it's unlikely that you are going to get seed back in there," North said.

Solving that problem will take human assistance, said Landram, the Forest Service reforestation manager. Next spring, crews hired by the Forest Service will fan out across the rugged terrain, planting 1.7 million trees across 12,000 acres. In 2010, they will do it again, all by hand. Every speck of brush near each seedling will be scraped away, again by hand, because herbicides are not allowed in the forest.

Playing catch-up with climate change could prove risky. "If you end up with a couple of dry years -- which is probably going to happen more commonly with climate change -- you could lose 80% to 90% of your stock," North said.

Successful or not, he feels the region will remain wooded, probably with a different mix of conifers -- in particular more white fir, incense cedar and other species that can more readily grow up beneath the heavy shade of brush fields.

Climate, however, will make the final call.

"There are so many different factors at play," North said. "It's very difficult to predict what plant and forest communities are going to look like in the future.

"To quote 'Star Trek,' we are going where no man has gone before -- where no plant community has gone before." #

Redding Record Searchlight – 11/30/08
By Thomas Glenn Dye

Thomas Glenn Dye is a retired California registered professional engineer and a board member of the Friends of Cow Creek Preserve. He lives in Whitmore.

The future of California depends on the utilization of water. Water is the new California gold. Without proper control, the state will slowly deteriorate.

Californians have taken water for granted for far too long. With the burgeoning population, that can no longer be the case. We have to balance it against our needs in the future. Where do we put our priorities? They are: first, in life-giving drinking water; second, in food and foliage production, and third, in sanitation.

With the amount of expenditures being evaluated by state and federal agencies, there have to be viable options. Wasting water for generations is no longer acceptable. Curbing inequitable proposed measures could support production of water storage, totally independent of existing waterways and spawning grounds. Water education, like power and fuel efficiency, should parallel all efforts.

Programs are being studied to store fresh water. Catch basins/dams and replenishing aquifers are considered. Current clean hydroelectric reservoirs should be retained. We need more off-line storage when wet years provide a surplus of water.

One near-term effort needs to be to educate the population. Wasting of this precious resource should be curtailed. Water is the life blood of all California and bleeding it dry should be stopped, even to the extent of fines for flagrant waste.

Without adequate water, the agricultural economy of the state is in trouble. The world needs the food California produces, as much as California needs the product income. It has been said the desert would bloom if it had water, and lots of arid parts of California have been converted. This has increased the need for water as well as the agricultural productivity.

California is slowly digging its own grave. Case in point is the Owens River Valley on the east side of the Sierra Nevada. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Water District channeled that water source south to the growing population center in about 1913. The result was to devastate the valley, turning it into a wasteland. Only recently has the effect been addressed and any efforts at recovery experimented with. Is this the way areas must suffer before preventive action is taken?

Areas of Northern California are working to keep their water rights and still provide support to the more arid southern portion of the state. Water to support fish is recognized, as this is another important food source. But have we studied the conditions adequately to be able to balance the use of water for people and food production?

Sources are at work to open up streams for fish spawning. Though this is a worthwhile effort, it must be done without impacting other needs. Currently National Marine Fisheries Service scientists have identified the cause for the reduction of anadromous fish as not being the feeder streams. Removing valuable hydroelectric facilities does not appear justified and is in opposition to the efforts to promote "green" power.

Millions of dollars are being spent in the Northwest studying means of retaining fresh water, while millions are being spent in California to destroy reservoirs and the accompanying hydroelectric power. This money is allocated by the California Public Utility Commission and is ratepayer money, yet these same ratepayers have had little if any say in the process. Adequate studies do not support removal of non-impacting power stations in place for over 100 years.

Opening up streams means a greater flow of water to the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta region and spurs the effort to create a peripheral canal to take water south. It is needed to support the growing population in the south, but at what cost to the north and the farms and ranches throughout the valley? Is it unreasonable to expect comprehensive study of cause and effect?

A battle over water rights would be unsatisfactory and detrimental to all areas and agencies that are involved. It could easily become a federal rather than a state problem for resolution, since the option being considered of raising the height of Shasta Dam is a federal project.

The current economic crisis means conservation. The balancing of the budget is vital, but it must go beyond the fiscal and include productivity. Allocations for water supplies can be established and escalating costs can be set for excessive use. There are always individuals who feel they can flaunt the rules. They should be forced to support the cost of remediation. The new California gold must be used wisely or we are destined for disaster.#

By Dana M. Nichols

SAN ANDREAS - Keep your eyes on the clouds rolling east this week. If they're fat enough, they'll get squeezed.

Thirsty California water and power agencies - including those serving San Joaquin County - this winter are again sending pilots out to seed the clouds over key watersheds.

In fact, the cloud-seeding programs are growing and could potentially double in coming years, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

The year's first seeding in the central Sierra could happen this week if conditions are right.

The seeding involves the use of chemicals such as silver iodide that cause more water droplets or snowflakes to condense and fall to the ground. Various agencies spend more than $3 million a year statewide on the seeding, which typically generates rain and snow fall that yields an extra 300,000 to 400,000 acre-feet a year of water, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre 1 foot deep. Water managers say an acre-foot is about enough water to serve two typical family homes for a year.

"It definitely is worth it," said Kevin Cunningham, hydro facilities manager for the Northern California Power Agency, which this year for the second time is seeding clouds over watersheds in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties that feed the North Fork Stanislaus River.

The Northern California Power Agency, whose local members include the Lodi Electric Utility and Turlock Irrigation District, wants the extra water to spin the turbines at its power generation plant at Collierville Powerhouse on the Stanislaus River south of Murphys.

Cunningham said that he estimates the seeding will squeeze an extra 7 percent of water out of a winter's storms. That adds up to about 28,000 acre-feet during a typical year on the North Fork Stanislaus. And the power agency isn't the only beneficiary. The extra water also means better conditions for boaters at Spicer Meadow, and Union and Utica reservoirs, and a better chance that Valley cities like Stockton might get water that ends up stored downstream at New Melones Lake.

The Northern California Power Agency program is only in its second year. Pacific Gas and Electric Co., however, has been seeding clouds over the Sierra for five decades, including portions of the Upper Mokelumne River watershed above Salt Spring Reservoir.

PG&E also has a new cloud-seeding effort this year in the watersheds of the Pit and McCloud rivers in the far north end of the state. The announcement of cloud seeding there stirred consternation among community residents concerned about the effects of the chemicals used.

Independent experts, however, say the concentration of silver in the resulting water and snow, although measurable, is so low that it is below typical background concentrations, or the concentrations humans already encounter from dental fillings or silverware.

"We really haven't seen negative effects associated with it," said Jeffrey Mount, a geography professor and expert on state rivers at the University of California, Davis.

Cloud seeding got a brief spurt of fame this summer when word got out that Chinese officials used the technique to squeeze rain out of clouds before athletes and fans got to Beijing, thus clearing the skies over that city during the Olympics.

In California, all cloud seeding is done to yield precipitation where it is wanted. But there are many unanswered questions about cloud seeding - including whether it can make up for rain shortages caused by pollution and climate change.

A draft of the California State Water Plan update for 2009 calls for more research on cloud seeding, including how the process interacts with the effects of air pollution. According to the plan draft, recent research suggests that clouds here are yielding less rain and snow because of the effects of dust and other air pollution.

Still, the state Department of Water Resources estimates that California might be able to get another 300,000 to 400,000 acre-feet of water each winter if cloud seeding was expanded as far as possible, and that it would only cost around $7 million, or roughly $20 per acre-foot.

In a state where water sometimes sells for $200 or $300 an acre-foot, that's a bargain.#

San Francisco Chronicle – 11/20/2008
By Jane Kay

Most of California's native salmon, steelhead and trout species face extinction by the end of the century unless the state acts quickly to provide adequate freshwater and habitat, according to a study released Wednesday by the state's leading salmon expert.

Ted Stevens' fall points to political shift 11.20.08

Twenty of 31 species of the prized fishes are in sharp decline, including the Sacramento River winter run of chinook salmon, the Sierra's California golden trout and coastal coho, according to the study by Peter Moyle, a nationally known UC Davis professor of conservation biology.

The fish advocacy group, California Trout, that commissioned the study will use the results to try to help persuade legislators and the governor to direct and help the California Department of Fish and Game to better carry out its mission of conserving the state's wild fish.

Decades of lax controls on farming, logging, grazing, mining and road-building have filled and polluted streams, the study said, while the removal of streamside vegetation on the North Coast, in Sierra creeks and on inland lagoons has warmed the water and harmed fish.

For the past 50 years, ocean salmon that spawn in rivers from the Klamath south to the Sacramento have been blocked by dams and other barriers and deprived of water diverted to farms and cities by state and federal water projects.

In some recent years, salmon returning to the ocean to feed and grow have found a poor food supply of krill, squid and smaller fish caused by higher water temperatures that could be related to global warming.

"Our fish need cold, clean water to survive, but they're getting less and less of it," Moyle said. "Dams block access. Climate change is now looming to exacerbate the threat, and it increases the urgency. All of these things are pushing our fish toward extinction.

"If we allow these fish to go extinct, we've allowed the deterioration of the streams and rivers," Moyle said, adding that the same waterways supply clean drinking water to humans.

One species, the bull trout, already has disappeared. The fish was last seen in the McCloud River in the 1970s, and scientists link its disappearance to the Shasta and McCloud dams.

In the 316-page study, Moyle calculated the survival chances into the next decades of 12 kinds of salmon, 11 kinds of trout, eight kinds of steelhead and one species of white fish.

He based the assessment on size of the habit and population, dependence of the fish on human intervention to save it, tolerance to environmental stressors, vulnerability to genetic disruption and likelihood of doing worse under global warming.

Fish and Game Director Donald Koch, in a statement released Wednesday, said the agency looks forward to reading the report.

"We thank California Trout for their dedication to California's native fish species," he said. "We appreciate their support and look forward to engaging them and other stakeholders in finding solutions to further our efforts to conserve the state's valuable fish and wildlife resources."

Sport and commercial fishing and environmental groups have complained that the agency is mismanaged and underfunded, resulting in a shortage of wardens and other staff members charged with preventing poaching, checking stream quality, running restoration projects and monitoring logging and development plans.

Brian Stranko, CEO of the 7,500-member California Trout, praised recent progress in aiding the state's fish. There were two preliminary agreements last week to remove four dams on the Klamath River and a court settlement involving restoration of the San Joaquin River, which aims in part to bring back the spring run on the river that was wiped out by the construction of Friant Dam in the 1940s.

Restoration measures work, Stranko said. Volunteers working with state and federal agencies, conservation groups and private parties have begun to bring back the California golden trout in the southern Sierra and the Goose Lake redband trout near the Oregon border.

But the most important changes must come from Fish and Game, an agency legally mandated to manage and conserve fish and wildlife, Stranko said.

Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael, the new chairman of the Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee, said the state's fiscal crisis will prevent expansion of Fish and Game's resources, which have been depleted by cuts.

But Huffman, who plans hearings on the salmon problem early next year, said the state can find other sources of revenue and can consider other ways to reconfigure the agency "so it can fulfill its missions." In some states, the wildlife agency is combined with the parks agency, he said.

"The department is understaffed and underfunded. The answer is more than money," Huffman said. "We need a department that is fundamentally more committed to its resource-protection mission. That means it can't be subservient to political interests.

"The fishery watchdog agency hasn't had a good track record," he added, referring to court orders to protect smelt that have stopped water deliveries from the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. In 2007-2008, the Sacramento's fall run of chinook was the second lowest on record in recent times.

"This is no longer a hook-and-bullet agency," Huffman said. "It has a serious resource mandate as well."

State Sen. Patricia Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture, said she would have hearings on Moyle's findings.

"It wasn't too long ago that salmon flourished throughout Northern and Central California. In just one generation, we have lost significant salmon and steelhead runs in the Russian, the Eel and the Klamath rivers as well as rivers in the Central Valley," she said in a statement.

Wiggins' bill, SB562, was signed into law last year, providing $5.3 million in funding that will be used to gain federal money for salmon monitoring and restoration. She intends to bring a package of bills to the Legislature in January.

Unless immediate changes are made to protect the environment, she said, "wild salmon as we know it will disappear from our dinner plates."#

"Because of the low predicted run-size, adult fish were managed slightly differently this year and eggs were collected and fertilized from nearly every mature fish available," said Coleman National Fish Hatchery Manager Scott Hamelberg.

"We consider ourselves fortunate that we were still able to collect eggs at the tail-end of the run, when we were initially thinking few -- if any -- fish would be available to us by that time." Hamelberg added that the hatchery collected more eggs than it can raise, a normal occurrence at fish hatcheries. Eggs were collected throughout the spawning season to ensure adequate genetic representation of run timing and maturation timing.

Considering the decreased abundance of fall Chinook salmon, and the fact that some excess eggs have been collected, the hatchery is working on a strategy to incorporate some of these eggs into the current rearing program. "The endeavor is not without risk, but, given the circumstances, Coleman NFH personnel will do their best to produce as many as 1.8 million additional healthy fish this year," notes Hamelberg.

While some excess eggs will be incorporated into production some will also will be removed from production, per standard practice, and will be used by Coleman NFH as part of their ongoing program to recondition steelhead adults after they have been spawned. "These eggs are the perfect food to get the spawned out steelhead adults healthy enough to be released in hopes they will grow for another year and come back next year and spawn again," Hamelberg said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Coleman NFH remains committed to meeting fish production goals to off-set the impacts of Shasta and Keswick dams while minimizing the effects of the hatchery's operation on natural fish populations. "Considering the current status of fall Chinook salmon in the Central Valley of California, we believe we have found a reasonable strategy to utilize some excess eggs in the production program this year," concluded Hamelberg.

The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov.

More information about the Fish and Wildlife Service operations in California, Nevada, and the Klamath Basin is available at www.fws.gov/cno.

It was a giant among salmon, three times the size of its peers — an 85-pounder that turned up in the upper Sacramento River, believed the largest in three decades.

But the reason for the fish's girth had a darker layer — a population crash that has led to severely restricting fishing on West Coast shores and rivers.

"It had its last year basically free because there was no commercial fishery," said Doug Killam, a state Department of Fish and Game researcher in Tehama County.

The giant salmon discovered in late October, 20 miles south of Red Bluff, was one of a much-thinned field in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where record low counts of chinook salmon have shrunk the Mid-Valley's angling season and started to threaten the businesses and tourism linked to it.

"The preliminary results are that they're similar to last year's returns — which were dismal," said Scott Barrow, a senior Fish and Game biologist in Sacramento.

Fall salmon counts have plunged nearly 90 percent from their 2002 peak of about 800,000, leading to a federal cancellation this year of ocean fishing and a shortened, restricted season for California's anglers. Earlier, state regulators predicted as few as 54,000 salmon would migrate up the Delta this fall.

Fish and Game delayed the Sacramento River season's usual summer opening to November, and anglers can keep only one salmon a day through year's end.

State biologists are surveying the current salmon run by checking video footage around the river, doing riverbank surveys on foot and counting dead fish, said Killam. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, regulator of West Coast fisheries, will release the season's salmon count in late January.

Any improvement leans heavily on winter rainfall breaking a string of nearly two full years of below-average precipitation, which have helped drive down river levels and impede salmon's journeys from the ocean to the rivers to spawn. The need for rain is more acute with the Delta's water nourishing not only North State fisheries, but Southern California cities and farms where much of the water is delivered.

"The tributaries, the dams at Oroville and Shasta, they're so low now that if they're not replenished, the whole state's going to be in trouble. The whole state depends on that," he said.

With dams and water pumps killing or slowing many salmon, authorities have stepped up releases of young salmon smolts downriver in hopes of easing their journey to the Pacific. Fish and Game has set out about 20 million smolts in the Sacramento Delta and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife has released another 12 million, according to Harry Morse, a Fish and Game spokesman.

But the releases are only of limited help to anglers and the businesses dependent on them, a longtime Mid-Valley tackle shop owner, Mike Searcy said.

Birds, mammals and striped bass often find the young fish to be easy pickings "like putting a 3-year-old in front of a tiger," he said.

Those young fish surviving the gauntlet need two or three years in the ocean to mature to catchable size, perhaps more time than already battered business owners have.

"Either you have to find another way to make money without salmon, or you're going to close," said Searcy, who runs Star Bait and Tackle in Linda, where business is down 30 percent from a year ago. "You're going to see a lot of stores close, small ones and even big ones with their huge overhead."

Some good news came out of Washington Tuesday, as the Bush administration released the remaining $70 million of the disaster relief that Congress appropriated to help salmon fishermen and related business after the West Coast fishery collapsed last summer. Congress appropriated $170 million, but last September the administration held back revenues to help cover costs of the fish census.

Congress rejected the plan.#

Like a steelhead in high water, the renowned Salmon in the Classroom program just won't quit.

Acting on an outpouring of public support to save the hands-on classroom steelhead-rearing project, a grassroots campaign was quickly launched after news of the program's demise was learned. Now, not only is a volunteer, county and state partnership vowing to revive the aquarium project this year, it may grow to become something more.

”Hands-on learning is something that you just can't beat,” said Humboldt County Superintendent of Schools Garry Eagles.

The California Department of Fish and Game in October sent a letter to more than two dozen teachers who had raised steelhead in classroom aquariums, informing them that a key position had been cut, and no one would be able to oversee the program. Teachers were saddened to learn of the suspension of the project.

But the beloved program was not about to get washed out to sea. There are many teachers with strong experience raising steelhead, and a number of fisheries professionals interested in seeing the effort carry on.

”If you start talking to the kids and the families that have gone through this the last 20 years -- you know those milestones you go through in school -- they always come back to 'Are you still raising fish?'” said retired teacher Jeff Self, who has a long history raising salmon in Blue Lake, Freshwater and Eureka city schools.

On Friday, representatives with the county and Fish and Game and volunteers met to figure out how to restore Salmon in the Classroom, and ensure that kids would see steelhead raised from eggs this year and into the future. Things quickly came together.

”We've got a plan, we've got a strategy and we've got people lined up,” said Fish and Game senior biologist Scott Downie.

The group needs to raise about $20,000 to contract a volunteer and for supplies and travel. There are about 33 classrooms in the county scheduled to raise steelhead from eggs procured from the Mad River Fish Hatchery this year. Fish and Game's Fortuna office has agreed to oversee permitting and other elements.

Eagles said he believes there are funding sources that can contribute to the program in the short term, and expects to have them in place by the beginning of December.

Another potential hurdle for the program has been cleared. A lawsuit lodged by the Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity in 2006 looked to force Fish and Game to do an environmental analysis of its decades-old fish stocking programs.

That could have shuttered Salmon in the Classroom, because it may have closed the Mad River hatchery and prevented students from releasing the steelhead they raised in their classrooms.

But Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette on Friday ordered the environmental analysis -- after lengthy negotiation between the parties -- while allowing certain stocking programs to continue, including the Salmon in the Classroom effort.

Eagles hopes to take the program further in coming years. He's looking into how California State Parks and the K-12 system might work to bring videoconferencing into classrooms in an effort to link schools to each other and to park interpreters.

Virtual field tours can be arranged through such a program, he said, and an existing curriculum is available.#

Redding Record Searchlight – 11/22/08

California Trout’s new comprehensive report on the state of the state’s native fish makes for grim reading. At the current rate, it concludes, the damage from dams, logging, road-building and agricultural diversions will leave two-thirds of the original wild fish species extinct in another century.

But sometimes environmentalists don’t know when to claim a victory.

The 20th-century trends that developed modern California while decimating its wild fish have already begun to reverse in the first decade of the 21st century.

This summer’s salmon crash — largely caused by fluctuating ocean currents — notwithstanding, at the current rate we’ll have protected and restored great stretches of California’s salmon and trout habitat in another century. The north state is salmon central, and the list of local projects to improve conditions for fish is as long as a fall-run chinook.

We’ve extensively restored Clear Creek, busting the old Saeltzer Dam and opening miles of new spawning grounds below Whiskeytown Dam.

The Trinity River, once drained to a trickle by agricultural diversions into the Central Valley, has had its flows increased and is the target of extensive restoration work.

Pacific Gas and Electric and various government agencies will start work in earnest next year to restore some 50 miles of habitat in Battle Creek and its tributaries. PG&E also plans to dismantle the Kilarc- Cow Creek hydroelectric projects to improve habitat in that watershed.

The Tehama-Colusa Canal Authority has devised a plan to replace the Red Bluff Diversion Dam with a much more fishfriendly set of modern pumps. (The proposal is tied up in a lawsuit with the city of Red Bluff, but that will only delay the inevitable.)

The Bush administration just last week announced an agreement to remove Pacifi- Corp’s controversial hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. And down on the San Joaquin River, a deal was announced earlier this month to restore flows to a 60-mile stretch of riverbed parched by ag diversions next year and, hopefully, bring salmon back by 2012. To be sure, we have problems.

Fixing them requires controversial steps. A lot of habitat is permanently blocked by big dams like Shasta that Californians couldn’t live without. It’s difficult to change the balance among farm, hydropower and environmental needs. It’s often painful to lose lakes that have become beloved local landmarks.

It’s expensive to do everything we should. And CalTrout’s alarm should alert us to the need to keep moving forward even though progress can be slow. But looking around California, we see as many reasons to cheer progress as to despair for the future of our fish. Our grandkids will still be fishing.#

San Francisco Chronicle – 11/19/08
Ron Sullivan, Joe Eaton

Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan are naturalists and freelance garden writers in Berkeley. Check out their Web site at www.selbornesurveys.com or e-mail them at home@sfchronicle.com.

We don't claim to be trend-spotters.

However, we picked up on something encouraging at a recent Ruth Bancroft Garden seminar in Walnut Creek, where two prestigious designers spoke about their use of native plants and natural hydrologic processes.

Susan Van Atta, from Santa Barbara, is explicitly engaged in ecological restoration in many of her Southern California projects. Bernard Trainor, now in Monterey but active from the Carmel Valley to Marin County, says his gardens aren't about replicating nature. But both converged on similar themes: looking at natural landscapes for inspiration and, as Trainor puts it, "learning tricks from nature and applying them."

Van Atta has taken on institutional as well as residential projects. She described the making of Lagoon Park at UC Santa Barbara, recognized with an American Society of Landscape Architects special honor award. The site, once covered with coastal marshes, meadows and vernal pools, had been transformed beyond recognition. Van Atta tried to visualize what had originally been there, and to restore not just plant communities but ecosystem services.

In addition to bringing back the meadows, she created a bioswale, which is a living pollution filter. Much of the pollutant load comes from gulls roosting on campus buildings. Newly planted areas now capture pollutants from runoff before it reaches the lagoon.

At the South Coast Watershed Resource Center in Santa Barbara, Van Atta recreated a transect from low to high elevations. "All the runoff flows into a bioswale," she said. "We celebrate the water that falls on the site. A civil engineer would just want to get rid of it." She's also planning bioswales for the new office complex of the Conrad Hilton Foundation.

Turning concrete-lined Sheffield Reservoir into a public park was a major challenge. Van Atta said she began by asking: "What could have been here?" In recreating coastal sage scrub, oak savannah and riparian woodland environments, 35,000 native plants were propagated from a nearby city park. A wetland basin filters runoff. Working with heavy equipment operators who had never done rock placement, Van Atta built a chaparral rock garden using boulders found on site.

Her work at the California State University Channel Islands campus in Camarillo (Ventura County), although not a restoration project, became an opportunity for the creative use of native plants. "The master plan had the saddest plant list I ever saw in my life," she recalled. "The list had no plants from the Channel Islands.

Landscape architects often don't realize what's possible." Van Atta has interspersed island oaks with the existing pepper trees and created transitions from turf to native wildflower meadows.

She's sensitive to the way planting can affect native plant genetics: "If I use horticultural varieties, I restrict them to urban areas. When I do a rural project, I'm propagating from the local gene pool." She also tries to limit construction staging to portions of a site that are already disturbed.

"Understanding of the native flora provides insight regarding our overall environment, including soils, climate, and human habitation," Van Atta has written. Although many California native plants remain hard to find in nurseries, she sees the increased coverage of natives in recent editions of the Sunset Western Garden Book as a sign that "native plants have finally gone 'mainstream.'"

Bernard Trainor, who denies that he's a plant-driven designer, works with both natives and non-natives. "The thing that makes a good garden is balance," he told the seminar audience. "The great gardens are beautifully balanced compositions of hardscape and softscape. If the plants don't do well, the whole design fails. If the hardscape isn't resolved well, it doesn't do anything for the planting."

Trainor said he begins some projects by taking aerial images: "I start to understand about human intervention - what was here before. Exploring natural landscape patterns provides clues to opportunities in creating planting zones." He described one site as " a perfectly functioning grassland before some civil engineer ruined it."

Exposure to the natural world is essential for him: "For the past five to seven years, what's inspired me more than anything is just getting out into nature. When you don't get out enough, you start to lose touch with why you got into this in the first place."

Pinnacles National Monument, with its varied terrain and plant communities, is a perennial source of inspiration. "It's a fantastic place to look at landscape patterns," he said. "You take four steps and the habitat changes. Among the cliffs you have slices of green coming down through space: that's what a garden is, especially urban residential sites."

One of Trainor's residential projects, at the Markham Ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains, uses bioswales and takes advantage of an extensive dry creek system. A glass bridge between the main house and guest house crosses one of the swales - a way of celebrating the water's presence. At Vynbos in Lagunitas, he did restoration planting to establish "seamless connections to the native plant communities and ecologies surrounding the project." Rivermouth, with a view of the Carmel River's meeting with the Pacific, "was a rare opportunity for us to design with a select palette of indigenous plants that existed on the coast long before we arrived on the scene."

We found all this enormously gratifying: Private clients and large institutions welcoming designs that make environmental sense. Let's hope this is a trend whose time has come.#

A swarm of 6,000 bionic salmon has become the latest tool in an ongoing struggle to protect declining fish species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Researchers began releasing the radio-tagged salmon into the Sacramento River on Friday. It's an unprecedented effort to answer one of nature's mysteries: Why do young salmon choose one fork in the river instead of another on their migration to the sea?

Results of the $6 million study may show that both natural signals and human manipulation of water flows hold the answer.

The 8-inch chinook salmon were reared in a hatchery. Each has a tiny radio transmitter implanted in its belly, which emits a signal unique to each fish.

The first 300 salmon were released Friday into the Sacramento River just downstream of the Tower Bridge in Old Sacramento.

The U.S. Geological Survey, which is leading the study, has installed more than 50 sensors in the river between Sacramento and Pittsburg to pick up signals from the fish.

"This is pretty bleeding-edge stuff," said Jon Burau, USGS project chief.

Data from the study may also be used to show how a proposed water canal around the Delta might affect salmon.

The canal is similar to one rejected by voters in 1982. It is being sought by statewide water interests to protect another native fish, Delta smelt, which are killed by water deliveries from the Delta.

But a new canal's intake would be located somewhere south of Sacramento, potentially harming salmon instead.

"The data could be used for that, and I'm sure will be," said Jim Wilde, the study's coordinator at the California Department of Water Resources, which is funding the research. "What we want to get out of this is management tools."

Water interests got another reason to press for the canal Friday, when the California Fish and Game Commission added new Delta pumping restrictions to protect another smelt, the native longfin. The interim rules could mean a 50 percent cut in water supplies for Southern California next year.

DWR estimates the longfin protections will cut Delta water deliveries by 1.1 million acre-feet, or enough to serve more than 2 million homes.

"This is not people vs. fish," Commissioner Cindy Gustafson said after voting for the limits. "Because at some point, everything we do in our environment is coming back to affect the people. When we start damaging our ecosystem, it will have impacts."

The study will help improve existing water operations to protect fish, Wilde said.

Salmon survival in the Delta varies depending on how long fish stay in the estuary, where they go and how they migrate through its braided channels. Some water operations can be adjusted to vary these effects.

The research is important for both the endangered winter-run chinook salmon and the fall-run chinook. The latter make up nearly all of the West Coast's commercial salmon catch. A sudden decline in the fall run prompted the first statewide closure of salmon fishing this year.

The USGS equipped two key Sacramento River "intersections" with extra sensors to produce three-dimensional images of salmon behavior in the water column. These intersections, both near Walnut Grove, are at the Delta Cross-Channel Gates, operated by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and at Georgiana Slough.

Salmon taking these detours leave the main river channel and end up in the Central Delta, where they are exposed to more predators and their path to the ocean becomes more complicated.

Surface currents may drive salmon into these detours. Researchers will deploy two custom-built robotic boats to measure those currents.

The aluminum craft, painted yellow, look like torpedoes with outriggers. As long as a kayak, they bristle with antennae and sensors. Computer programs and GPS signals will steer the boats in precise patterns to map the currents.

Results could prompt operational changes to persuade salmon to avoid the detours. They could also determine the best site for a canal intake. For instance, it might be bad to place the intake near a river bend, where currents could sweep fish into the canal.

"We want to be able to predict what the effect might be with future operations of the (water) system," said Burau. "We can do a pretty good job predicting where the water's going to go. We're trying to do that with salmon, too." #

San Francisco Chronicle – 11/15/08
By Kelly Zito, staff

(11-14) 18:16 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- State and federal researchers Friday released hundreds of tiny, transmitter-equipped salmon into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as part of California's largest effort to track movements of the pink fish through an estuary that has grown increasingly hostile to salmon and other species.

Entrepreneur blogs about charity's money woes 11.17.08

Using underwater listening devices, scientists will follow the fate of more than 6,000 juvenile chinook salmon - or smolt - over the next several months, gathering data on how fish behavior may be tied to factors such as tidal action and salinity, as well as the operations of the state and federal agencies that pump water through the delta to 25 million Californians.

"What we want to know as a department is how to modify our operations to meet the needs of the salmon, so that we can transport water south through the delta and also protect the salmon run," said Jim Wilde, senior engineer at the Department of Water Resources and lead coordinator of the study.

Initial work on the $6 million study, funded by the department, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and state water bond money, began several years ago, when winter run populations of chinook salmon began declining, Wilde said. Today, both the winter run populations and late fall run populations are crashing - along with delta smelt and other species.

As scientists try to determine the roles of global warming, pollution, changing ocean chemistry and water exports, authorities have taken drastic steps to stem the losses. Last year a federal judge ordered reduced pumping in the delta to protect the endangered delta smelt. The move affected water supplies around the state and slammed Central Valley farmers, who rely heavily on delta water.

This year, the National Marine Fishery Service banned all commercial and recreational chinook salmon fishing off the coasts of California and most of Oregon. It was the first time such a ban had been issued in 160 years.

Complicating the debate over the future of salmon and other species, California is facing the worst drought in decades and a decrepit water system straining to slake demand from thirsty cities. A governor-appointed task force charged with fixing the delta last month urged the state to change its laws in order to balance environmental and human needs for water. In addition to imposing conservation targets, building new reservoirs and investing in desalination, panel members recommended changing the state constitution to make delta restoration as important as improving the reliability of the state's water supply.#

Four hydropower dams on the Klamath River are being targeted for demolition in an attempt to restore the basin's salmon runs, which had seen deep declines in recent years.

The agreement has PacifiCorp spending $200 million, California $250 million to uproot four dams that have blocked the migration of salmon. Critics say the deal favors farmers over fish.

Los Angeles Times – 11/14/08
By Eric Bailey

Reporting from Sacramento -- The Bush administration announced a nonbinding agreement Thursday to uproot four hydropower dams that have blocked the migration of imperiled salmon up the troubled Klamath River, a project that could amount to the biggest dam removal in history.

But the deal, which could require fiscally strapped California to finance $250 million of the demolition costs, came under immediate attack from foes who called it a scheme riddled with loopholes that favor farmers and other allies of the outgoing president.

The agreement in principal was signed by officials from the Department of the Interior, the states of California and Oregon, and PacifiCorp, the Portland, Ore., utility that owns the dams. It commits all sides to work toward dam removal by 2020.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said the deal represents a "path forward" that he hopes will bring "a vision of peace, finally, in the Klamath Basin."

The river has been the focus of a long and volatile water war pitting the needs of farmers against the survival of endangered fish. Howls of protest erupted when authorities shut off irrigation deliveries during the drought of 2001. Restoration of those diversions in 2002 was blamed for the deaths of 70,000 adult salmon returning to spawn.

In the years since, conditions on the Klamath River have been implicated in a steep salmon decline that has undercut the West Coast commercial fishing industry.

Under the deal, PacifiCorp would contribute as much as $200 million toward dam removal and river restoration, with the money coming from boosted electricity rates for customers in the Pacific Northwest.

California would be on the hook for any cost overrun, and would finance the additional expenses through a $250-million bond measure it would have to put before voters, according to the plan.

Greg Abel, PacifiCorp chairman, said rates could rise as much as 2%. Meanwhile, the agreement gives the company protection from liability and allows time to find replacement power.

Backers of the deal expressed optimism, but noted that a number of tricky steps remain.

"We have not popped the champagne cork yet, but we have put a bottle on ice," said Rebecca Wodder, president of the nonprofit group American Rivers.

A final agreement is to be signed by June 30. That would launch an intense scientific and economic analysis to determine if dam removal is feasible and cost-effective, a process to be concluded with a decision by the Interior secretary in March 2012.

The deal also calls on Congress to approve a $1-billion restoration package for the river basin that won broad support in the region earlier this year. Some environmental groups say that accord bends too far to deliver abundant water and cheap power to farmers.

PacifiCorp, which is owned by billionaire Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc., has been under mounting pressure to demolish the dams.

West Coast lawmakers, among them Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, called for dam removal after the Klamath's salmon runs slumped deeply in 2006.

Last year, federal biologists required PacifiCorp to install fish ladders -- a tricky engineering feat expected to cost at least $300 million -- before the company could get a new license to continue operating the dams.

California has been conducting an ongoing review of water quality problems caused by the dams, which are blamed for a toxic stew of blue-green algae bedeviling the river.

Foes of the agreement said it makes no sense to strike a deal weeks before Barack Obama becomes president.

"It's just nutty to commit to this with Bush heading out the door," said Tom Schlosser, an attorney for the Hoopa tribe of Northern California.

He and other foes say PacifiCorp might exploit the agreement as a delaying tactic, arguing that the deal has loopholes that allow the company to back out as late as 2012.

In the meantime, they said, the agreement will essentially shut down California's water quality hearings on the Klamath dams.

Steve Pedery of Oregon Wild said the deal also links dam removal to the $1-billion restoration package he believes favors farmers over fish.

"This has been a well-orchestrated campaign by the Bush administration taking advantage of a desire for dam removal to sell another package that's actually bad for salmon and wildlife," he said.#

San Diego Union Tribune – 11/13/08
By Mike Lee

It's known as the “race for fish” – the free-for-all at the start of each commercial season in which those who catch the most fish the fastest get the biggest payday.

The strategy often leads to huge loads of wasted seafood, unsafe fishing conditions and the depletion of ocean ecosystems worldwide, according to a report to be released today by a bipartisan group of politicians, scientists and policymakers, including California's secretary of resources.

The group is pushing President-elect Barack Obama and Congress to reform ocean fish management by switching from derby-style competitions to “catch shares,” which allot a percentage of the overall harvest to specific fishermen, allowing them to catch their quotas whenever they choose.

Today's report follows a landmark decision in San Diego last week to establish the most sweeping catch-share program in the country. It covers dozens of species of West Coast groundfish, including types of cod and sole, that are caught by commercial boats.

“We are right at the beginning of changing the way that we fish and acknowledging that the oceans are not limitless,” said George Sugihara, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego. “This is going to bring about a revolution in how fisheries evolve into organized, transparent markets instead of a race for fish.”

Catch shares are contentious partly because of the difficulty of setting fair quotas. But advocates say they make the harvest more profitable and sustainable while providing consumers with more fresh fish. The concept is emerging in the United States at a pivotal point for oceans, which are being hammered by overfishing, climate change and other factors.

“Catch shares will protect ocean productivity and diversity . . . for generations to come,” today's report states, adding that federal policy changes could quickly and inexpensively revive fisheries.

Under the new rules adopted Friday, about 175 commercial trawlers in California, Oregon and Washington will be allotted shares of the overall number of groundfish that can be caught. After the program takes effect in 2011, fishermen will be able to sell their stakes in the harvest much the way people do with company stocks.

Shares are expected to increase in value if the fish population expands, providing an incentive for fishermen to support the long-term health of the resource.

With fewer competitive pressures under a catch-sharing approach, fishermen could switch from trawl nets to more selective gear that causes less ecological damage and allows them to better target high-value types of fish, said Shems Jud, an analyst for the Environmental Defense Fund in Portland.

Fishing more carefully also should reduce “bycatch” – the unintended harvest typically discarded at sea. Studies say traditional derby-style fishing can result in 20 percent or more of catches being tossed overboard.

Not everyone likes catch shares. Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations in San Francisco, said selling shares of the harvest could give large processing companies too much power and hurt some ports.

His group blasted the groundfish quota plan as “a massive giveaway of a public resource that will lead to . . . a plantation-style fishery, turning fishermen into sharecroppers.” Consumer advocates at Food & Water Watch in Washington, D.C., raised similar concerns.

However, a recent paper in the journal Science documents how catch shares can halt or even reverse the global trend toward widespread demise of fish populations – one of the world's most pressing environmental problems.

“When you allocate shares of the catch, then there is an incentive to protect the stock, which reduces collapse. We saw this across the globe,” said Christopher Costello, an economist at the University of California Santa Barbara and the lead author of the journal article.

He compared the situation to buying a home instead of renting it. “If you own something, you take care of it – you protect your investment or else it loses value,” Costello said.

Individual fishing quotas have been adopted in Australia and Iceland and are credited with helping revive the Alaska halibut industry.

Sugihara of UCSD said catch-share programs are supported by science in some cases, but they don't make sense everywhere. Like other management tools, they rely on high-quality data to set the overall catch limits.

For consumers, catch shares could result in more fish and longer periods when markets offer fresh local fish as opposed to frozen imports, Costello said. He said prices generally are set by world markets, not local fishing rules.

West Coast groundfish represent a major test of the catch-share strategy. Federal regulators called the fishery a “disaster” about eight years ago. Several species in the class remain overfished.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council now manages groundfish through a complex system of fleetwide limits, gear restrictions, seasonal closures, in-season adjustments and other measures.

As is, “fishermen have little to no incentive to not fish. Any fish they don't catch, one of the other fishermen will,” said Frank Lockhart, a top official at the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle, which is responsible for setting the West Coast program's quotas.

The new program involves placing monitoring agents on board all of the trawlers. Federal officials said that will dramatically improve the quality of their data about harvests, ensure that quotas are strictly observed and encourage less bycatch.

“On balance, this approach to management of fish is much more intelligent, and there are better controls over the total impact on these stocks,” said Bob Fletcher of Point Loma, president of the Sportfishing Association of California.

Friday's decision capped more than five years of study by the fishery council. Board members said they were conflicted about the right course but decided to try something new.

“Without a change . . . fisheries are going to crumble,” said Stephen Williams, a council member from Oregon. #

Yubanet.com – 11/12/08
By Center for Biological Diversity

The Pacific Rivers Council and Center for Biological Diversity are represented by Deborah A. Sivas of the Environmental Law Clinic, Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School. For more information about the lawsuit go to www.pacrivers.org or www.biologicaldiversity.org.#

SACRAMENTO, Calif. Nov. 11, 2008 - The Sacramento Superior Court has ordered the California Department of Fish and Game into talks with Pacific Rivers Council and the Center for Biological Diversity to develop interim measures to limit harm to native species caused by fish stocking. The intent is to minimize the adverse effect that hatchery-raised fish inflict on sensitive native fish and amphibian species while the Department prepares an Environmental Impact Report under the California Environmental Quality Act.

"Interim measures limiting stocking are needed to help save California's native fish and frogs from extinction," said Noah Greenwald, biodiversity program director for the Center for Biological Diversity. "Fish and Game should still be able to stock hatchery fish, but in places where they won't harm native species."

The court ruled in May 2007 that fish stocking has "significant environmental impacts" on "aquatic ecosystems" and "in particular, on native species of fish, amphibians and insects, some of which are threatened or endangered." The court ordered the Department to analyze and mitigate the impacts of the stocking program in an Environmental Impact Report, or EIR, by the end of 2008. The Department returned to court last month to ask for a one-year extension, to January 2010, because the agency has made little progress on the EIR.

To reduce the impact of the Department's delay, the Center and Pacific Rivers Council asked for interim restrictions on stocking, including not stocking in areas where sensitive species such as California golden trout, Santa Ana sucker, mountain yellow-legged frog, and Cascades frog, are known to be present or where the Department has yet to survey. Judge Patrick Marlette stated in a tentative order that such interim measures may be necessary, but gave the Department until November 24th to negotiate an agreement with the two organizations to determine where stocking could take place pending completion of the EIR. If no agreement is reached, the Judge indicated that he would consider limiting stocking only to water bodies where no at-risk species occur on an interim basis, as proposed by petitioners.

"The far reaching, often disastrous consequences of stocking hatchery fish have been known for decades," said Dr. Chris Frissell, Director of Science and Conservation for Pacific Rivers Council. "It's far past time the Department of Fish and Game completed a credible review of the environmental impacts of its hatchery program and identified the steps needed to limit its impacts to sensitive native species, as many other states have done. Interim measures are merely a short-term safety net to protect vulnerable species and waters until the State meets its legal mandate to produce a report."

The required California Environmental Quality Act environmental review will for the first time provide the public and independent wildlife experts with an opportunity to actively participate in how the Department can improve management of the statewide fish-stocking program to better meet the needs of both California's native species and recreational anglers. Suspending the stocking of non-native fish in certain areas while the review is being conducted will allow the Department to keep open as many options regarding future management as possible by ensuring that interim stocking does not further jeopardize any of California's wildlife.

"The Department needs to consider the environmental impacts of its fish-stocking program before it stocks more fish into aquatic strongholds," said Frissell, who has published numerous scientific articles on the ecology of native fish and wildlife species. "This is the only way that the Department can be sure that it is not causing or contributing to the loss of the last remaining populations of these native California animals and the habitat they depend on."

Removing non-native fish once they have been introduced is difficult, expensive and can cause further damage to sensitive species. Many of the sensitive fish and amphibian species are already so seriously depleted by past impacts, including fish stocking, that even one more year of stocking could cause irreversible loss of some populations.

"The mountain yellow-legged frog has disappeared from more than 90% of its former range in the Sierra Nevada, and introduced trout are an important cause of this decline," stated research biologist Dr. Roland Knapp. Likewise, unintended consequences of stocking nonnative trout without needed precautions have seriously compromised and set back the State's own conservation and recovery efforts for its imperiled native golden and redband trout. "On a hopeful note, a cessation of stocking and the removal of nonnative trout from key sites can allow the recovery of mountain-yellow legged frogs and other native species."

The Pacific Rivers Council and Center for Biological Diversity are represented by Deborah A. Sivas of the Environmental Law Clinic, Mills Legal Clinic at Stanford Law School. For more information about the lawsuit go to www.pacrivers.org or www.biologicaldiversity.org.#

Fish and Game biologist Doug Killam displays Chinook carcass found in lower Battle Creek

San Francisco Chronicle – 11/9/08
By Tom Stienstra

(11-08) 17:50 PST -- The biggest salmon in 29 years in California, 85 pounds and more than 4 feet long, was found washed up on a river bank last week, dead and spawned out. Fish and Game biologists discovered the giant fish on a creek that feeds the Sacramento River near Anderson in Shasta County.

The salmon likely weighed more than 90 pounds before it died, a big buck, according to Fish and Game biologist Doug Killam, perhaps far more when in the ocean and beginning its journey through San Francisco Bay, the delta and up the Sacramento River to its place of birth on Battle Creek. When salmon begin their migratory journey to freshwater, often swimming more than 500 miles to their spawning grounds, they stop eating.

The state record salmon is 88 pounds, caught in 1979 by Lindy Lindberg in an epic tale. Lindberg was fishing alone near Red Bluff and brought the fish alongside after a long fight. Then, like in Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," he strapped the 41/2-foot salmon to the side of his boat to make it back to the boat ramp.

Last week's giant fish is more good news in what has been a great year for the long-term future of salmon:

-- Genetics: The fact that the salmon appeared to have spawned successfully means that its rare genetics, a wild fish of landmark proportions, will be passed down to its progeny.

-- Future indicator: The giant salmon is another indicator that the ocean has been full of food this year, the richest year of marine food production in more than a decade. When plankton, krill, anchovies, squid and sardines are abundant, salmon can grow an inch and a pound per month.

-- 2010 a magic year? The ocean abundance is a key because more than 20 million salmon smolts were trucked from hatcheries in the north state to San Pablo Bay this summer and released from net pens in order to short-cut the juvenile salmon's journey to the ocean. That trip allowed the fish to get past unscreened water diversions, Delta pumping and verified ammonia pollution in the river near Sacramento. It will take two years for those fish to reach 15 to 30 pounds, so an ocean full of food makes the 2010 salmon season appear very promising off the Bay Area coast.

This comes after two disastrous summers in 2006 and '07, when there was little upwelling in the ocean and sparse marine food production. That lack of food caused the salmon population to crash, not only for Chinook, or king salmon, but also for Coho salmon on small coastal streams. The population of many species of marine birds, including murres, often considered an indicator species, also plunged in '07.

Some blamed global warming, or the delta pumps, but the consensus among scientists is that the crash was due to a scarcity of food in the ocean. That population crash was caused by a change in wind conditions and predicted in a Chronicle story in '06.

Yet this past spring, strong winds out of the northwest returned for the first time in three years. That set off upwelling, where cold, nutrient-rich water rises to the surface, and jump-started the marine food chain with plankton and krill. The high numbers of marine birds, blue whales, humpback whales, porpoise and other marine species that have spent the summer and fall off the Bay Area coast indicates that the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is again one of the richest marine regions in the world.

The giant salmon that washed up last week adds to the great news, and it's needed after a disastrous shutdown of the salmon industry. The number of adults was so low in the '06 and '07 classes that salmon fishing was prohibited this year off California and most of Oregon, and next year is a question mark.

At the Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek, a tributary to the Sacramento River, about 13,000 adult salmon made the migratory trip this fall from the Golden Gate, according to Scott Hamelberg, manager of the hatchery.

Although that's down by more than half in a typical fall run at the hatchery, Hamelberg said it was enough to collect 15 million eggs and produce its goal of 12 million smolts for release next spring. He said the biggest salmon that made it to the hatchery this year weighed 53 pounds.

The world record for salmon caught on rod and reel weighed 97 pounds, 4 ounces, and was landed in 1985 in Alaska on the Kenai River, according to records kept by the International Game Fish Association. A 100-pounder caught on rod-and-reel has never been verified. But a salmon that weighed 126 pounds was caught in a fish trap near Petersburg in 1949, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Another 126-pounder was caught by a commercial fisherman off British Columbia. That fish was mounted and is displayed at the Vancouver International Airport.#

Los Angeles Times – 11/10/08
By Kenneth R. Weiss

After years of lax rules and wasteful practices that led to an economic disaster, fishery managers have decided to adopt a new approach to some of the West Coast's largest fisheries: give fishermen exclusive rights to a portion of the overall catch.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council voted unanimously Friday to make a historic shift in strategy that encourages cooperation, rather than competition, among fishermen who drag nets to catch cod, whiting, rockfish, flounder and sole.

The new approach, often called "individual fishing quotas," will give commercial fishermen from Morro Bay on California's Central Coast to Puget Sound in Washington state the right to bring in their portion of the catch when the seas are safe and they can command higher prices.

It will also eliminate rules that forced fishermen to shovel tons of dead fish overboard because they didn't have permits to sell particular species inadvertently caught in their nets.

Advocates of this approach, which has been used successfully in Alaska and elsewhere, believe that this can help turn around West Coast fisheries. In January 2000, the federal government formally declared these fisheries an economic disaster, the culmination of decades of overfishing. Since then, managers have attempted to restrict catches and buy out fishing boats -- actions that brought only marginal recovery of fish stocks.

"We expect in five to 10 years this will be one of the best-managed fisheries in the country," said Johanna Thomas, Pacific Ocean policy director of the Environmental Defense Fund.

The quota system will not be implemented until 2011 and must first be approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the government agency that regulates fisheries. The federal government typically defers decisions about regulating commercial catches to regional fishery management councils, which are quasi-governmental organizations dominated by fishing interests.

The shift to individual fish quotas comes after recent scientific studies showing that the system has a way of encouraging fishermen to be better stewards of the resource. It tends to end the dangerous race to catch fish before another boat does and has helped stocks rebound.

Still, such a program cannot work without government setting restrictions on overall catches, scientists say, nor can it attack another fundamental problem: too many boats chasing too few fish.

In most catch-share programs, the industry tends to consolidate into fewer vessels, as some fishermen sell their quotas to competitors and cash out of the business. That anticipated contraction has led to objections by one fishing group that contended that it would turn fishermen into the equivalent of "sharecroppers" working for a plantation.

The new management plan also will allow the Nature Conservancy, which has bought a number of these fishing permits in Morro Bay and Half Moon Bay, to switch to a different type of fishing gear that is less destructive than dragging nets across the rocky seafloor. Few commercial boats trawl the bottom for fish in Southern California waters because the stocks are so depleted.

It also adopts a different approach to cut down on the wasteful problem of "bycatch," the accidental netting of species that are so overfished they are off limits to commercial fishermen. The problem is that more than 80 species of bottom-dwelling rockfish, cod and other groundfish tend to mix together and can end up in the same net.

"Right now, fishermen are forced to discard the overfished species," said Jim Seger, an economist with the Pacific fishery council. Under the new program, federal observers would tally all fish and count the overfished species against quotas and limits. "Since they will be counted as dead, the fishermen could bring them in and sell them."#

Scienceline, NYU – 11/7/08
By Lynne Peeples, posted November 7th, 2008.

Young Chinook salmon entering the Pacific Ocean this year are finding cooler waters and more plentiful meals than the sea provided their parents. Because of these improved conditions, fisheries scientists forecast a rebound in coming years for the West Coast’s most famous fish. But some researchers and fishermen believe the respite will be temporary, and warn that future generations of Chinook could face even more devastating declines than their ancestors did.

“Things are definitely looking up. I’m pretty optimistic,” says Bill Peterson, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, whose ocean monitoring detected the changing environment.

The good news is a welcome change from the latest Chinook headlines. Despite unprecedented fishing restrictions, only 54,000 Chinook are expected to return to the Sacramento River this fall, according to NOAA. Just five years ago, 775,000 came back to the river, and historic numbers—before California’s population boomed with the Gold Rush of 1849—are thought to have been between 1.5 and 2 million.

Three years ago, the Pacific Ocean was in particularly poor shape. Researchers documented large numbers of dead sea birds and skinny whales, along with fewer small fish, shrimp and squid for salmon to eat. “It was horrid,” says Peterson. “Salmon went to sea in 2005, [then] probably died within a couple weeks of getting there, and that’s why there weren’t any fish to come back last year and this year.”

But a recent shift in atmospheric conditions, known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, is pushing cold water from the Gulf of Alaska south to the Pacific Coast this year, and with it plenty of plankton—the foundation of the aquatic food chain on which salmon rely. This food source is crucial for oceangoing Chinook that typically spend three years at sea before returning to spawn in freshwater. Returns are therefore expected to fully reflect the ocean’s shift in another two or three years.

Longer-term projections of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, however, are becoming increasingly difficult. What used to be a relatively predictable cycle of 20- or 30-year warm and cold phases has shortened to 4-year shifts in the past decade. Whether or not these phases are being influenced by climate change remains uncertain. “Maybe in 20 years we’ll look back and say, yeah, this is global warming . . . all the cycles have been upset,” says Peterson. But for now, his attention is on the pending effects of ocean cooling.

The favorable ocean currents “will buy us some time,” says Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “But we have to deal with the problems inland in the meantime.”

The list of freshwater issues is daunting. Hydroelectric dams and water diversions have dried up the Chinook’s traditional migratory paths and spawning grounds. The rivers and streams that remain run shallow and warmer—uncomfortable conditions for salmon. Soil erosion and pollution, as well as natural floods and droughts, further destroy viable habitat. On top of all that, the salmon also face overfishing and an altered ecosystem that includes non-native predators and farmed fish.#

On October 22, utility giant Pacific Gas and Electric posted a “Notice Of Intention” in the Mt. Shasta Area Newspapers outlining their plan to conduct a five-year “weather modification” program in southern Siskiyou County. Many wondered, “Wait a second… Our weather is going to be controlled by PG&E?”

According to the notice, the answer is yes, at least partly. For some Siskiyou County residents, this is an unsettling thought, and many are demanding more information.

The program, called the “Pit-McCloud Cloud Seeding – Ground Water Enhancement Project,” is one of several projects of its kind throughout California. It is slated to begin on November 15 of this year and will involve “cloud seeding” over a target area “east of McCloud town, north of Burney town, south of Medicine Lake and bounded on the east by the White Horse and Big Valley mountains,” according to the NOI. The goal of the program, states PG&E, is to increase precipitation in the McCloud and Pit River watersheds in order to promote and protect the production of hydroelectric power.

Though the notice further states that “no adverse environment impacts will occur” and that “PG&E cloud seeding programs comply with all regulations,” many residents have expressed their concern over the program and want more information, including a group of citizens who held a rally in front of Mt. Shasta City Hall on October 28.

Among those participating in the rally was Mount Shasta resident Robin Houghten, who had many questions that he feels have not been adequately addressed. Speaking bluntly, Houghten stated, “I have concerns about the implications of launching chemicals in the environment.”

He further expressed his dismay about the program, referencing other concerns such as the short notice given by the utility company and questions over whether there have been sufficient studies done on cloud seeding. He also speculated on the overall wisdom of attempting to alter natural cycles. “I think we’re already seeing evidence that (interfering with nature) doesn’t always work.”

Cloud seeding history

Though relatively unknown, the history of cloud seeding in California can be traced back to California Electric Power’s 1948 project on Bishop Creek in the Owens River Valley. Since then, it has been practiced continuously in the state, primarily in the Sierras but also in the San Gabriel Mountains and in Santa Barbara County. PG&E has operated its own programs in Lake Almanor and in the Upper Mokelumne reservoir, which date back to the early 1950s, as well.

According to the “California Water Plan Update 2009 Pre-Administrative Draft,” a document compiled by the California Department of Water Resources, the agency entrusted with the oversight of weather modification programs, “Cloud seeding artificially stimulates clouds to produce more rainfall or snowfall than they would naturally.” It is a process that involves “injecting” silver iodide aerosol (AgI) into already existing clouds where the substance mixes with moisture and promotes the growth of additional ice crystals. It is, in a sense, a way of “wringing out” more water from clouds. Weather modification programs have also been designed for hail suppression and fog dispersal, according the report.

With China’s recent acknowledgment that it conducted extensive weather modification programs in preparation for the recent Beijing Olympics, the concept is slowly leaking into the public consciousness. Critics, however, hold fast to the idea that “playing God” has its unforeseen consequences and that messing with the environment only continues to disrupt nature’s delicate balance.

Though seeding is sometimes done using aircraft, the Pit-McCloud project is a ground-based program, which utilizes seeding generators (metal towers) to launch the material. The towers, currently in place on Sierra Pacific land, are located on higher ground to incorporate the natural uplifting that occurs during winter storms.

Plan has been reviewed
In a recent phone interview, Byron Marler, PG&E supervisor and managing meteorologist for the project, expressed his regret that the issue appeared to surface so suddenly and asserted that PG&E has gone through all of the proper legal and environmental channels. Marler outlined the history of this particular program, noting that, “We weren’t being quiet in 2005,” referring to when PG&E first brought their attention to Siskiyou County officials.

In his attempt to inform the public and assuage mounting concerns, Marler noted reports supporting the minimal environmental impacts of cloud seeding and emphasized that it has been done in many other areas in California and has gone through several Environmental Impact Review processes. In every case, says Marler, it has received a “negative declaration,” meaning that no substantial negative environmental impacts were found. Among the studies referenced by PGE are Harris 1981, PGE 1995, and Snowy Hydro 2003, as well as research done by the US Bureau of Reclamation in 1977 and 1981.

California DWR’s “California Water Plan Update 2009” draft also notes that “Silver iodide concentrations measured in snow, water, soils, and lake sediments are far below thresholds of concern for humans, animals, fish, insects and plants and are not anticipated to affect endangered of threatened species or plant or wildlife or their habitats.” The document points out, too, that “the emission rates of primary pollutants for the seeding generator chimneys resulted in no significant impacts.”
Though most were surprised by PG&E’s announcement, the plan had been reviewed by county and agency officials on at least two occasions prior to its release.
Steve Bachmann, a hydrologist with the McCloud Ranger District, and Curtis Knight of California Trout both recalled a presentation given by PG&E at a McCloud River Conservation Resource Management Plan meeting held in July, 2005. Knight noted that the program was introduced as something that was slated to happen and the tone of the presentation was more informational than anything else. Knight also said that he could understand why PGE would be interested in enhancing precipitation in the region, noting that the extra water would be adding to three reservoirs and three runs of the river hydroelectric projects that exist in the target watersheds.

“From their perspective, it is a cheap way to produce more power,” Knight said. He added that he had concerns over the impact of such a project.

Not much was heard about the program until six months later, on January 6, 2006, when PG&E made an informational presentation to County Supervisor Jim Cook and Assistant County Planner Patricia Bluman. In that meeting, PG&E presented their McCloud-Pit plan, providing general information about cloud seeing, its history, and its implications.

Because the launching towers are located on private land, it appears that a full California Environmental Quality Act review process is not required unless the home county wishes to pursue the matter. After reviewing the proposal with the Siskiyou County Air Quality and Pollution Control Board and the Northern California Regional Water Quality Control Board, the county decided that it was satisfied with the previous Environmental Impact Reviews that had been conducted for similar programs in other counties.

Supervisor said ‘it looked reasonably benign’

Supervisor Cook noted in a February 6, 2006 e-mail in reference to the project that, “It looks like it doesn’t require the CEQA process unless we want to require it and I don’t get that sense from staff so I guess I have not [spelling error] questions or comments.”

In a recent conversation Cook notes that the county made its best effort to review PG&E’s proposal and that determining the process for weather modification programs proved challenging for the county. “On that particular one, we were trying to figure out whether we had any jurisdiction at all,” noted Cook. He added, however, that although he had some questions about the process and its implications, “It looked reasonably benign,” and he was satisfied with the “negative declarations” that previously filed EIRs had received.

Since PG&E released its plan, Siskiyou County Natural Resource Specialist Ric Costales has been scrambling to find out more about the program and to respond to the barrage of calls he has recently received. He made it clear that the County felt justified in its decisions and willingly provided documentation tracing the decision making process that occurred. He noted, in particular, that “CEQA (review processes) are expensive and time consuming,” and that “…a lot of the permitting stuff is over the top.”

PG&E representative Marler emphasized his regret that the public was not informed in a more timely manner. “We did not involve the public and that was probably an oversight on our behalf,” he said. However, he insisted that the program is safe and that the available science supports this fact. He said that it is projected to add an additional 200,000 to 300,000 acre-feet of water per year, a 5 to 10 percent increase in run-off in the target drainages. At an estimated $20 per-acre foot cost to PG&E, it is deemed a cost effective way generating more power.

Marler noted that such programs help keep electric rates down for Californians and help ensure power in times of drought and “off peak” production. Though some of the precipitation is harnessed directly as run-off, a significant goal of the project is intended to add extra water to the aquifers that substantially contribute to the watershed. According to PG&E, “Northern California’s flood basalts, with their large aquifers and springs, are a significant daily delivered source of hydroelectric power for PG&E.”

No rigorous studies have been done

Though there is data to support the fact that the impacts of weather modification programs are safe and effective, there is also evidence to the contrary. The “California Water Plan Update Draft 2009” itself notes, “No complete and rigorous comprehensive study has been made of all California Precipitation Projects.”

Other research, such as a report filed by the Office of Environmental Heath and Safety at UC Berkley, rate silver iodide as a “class C non-soluble, inorganic, hazardous chemical that pollutes water and soil, and one of the key manufacturers of silver iodide, Deepwater Chemicals, warns of potential health effects of silver iodide in their Material Safety Data Sheet. The Federal Clean Water Act, regulated by the EPA, notes that “silver iodide is considered a hazardous substance, a priority pollutant, and as a toxic pollutant.”

Other concerns are over the effectiveness of the programs to create the stated amount of moisture, with some critics claiming that cloud seeding can contribute to drought and in other cases flooding.

Though the Mt. Shasta citizenry is continuing to research the issue and make calls to county officials and PG&E, many questions remain. Among those still seeking answers is Ra-el Corsini, owner of the Flying Lotus Dance Studio, who also participated in the Mt. Shasta Rally with her children Shasta and Ellen and other students who are part of the “hummingbird” dance class. For the art portion of the class, according to Corsini, the group decided it would stage a rally to help raise awareness around the issue, which the students had learned about the day before.

Alarmed by the implications of “weather modification” and silver iodide in the air, the group, which consisted of both adults and kids, displayed banners, one of which said, “We love clean air and water.” They sang songs, and passed out flyers that had a copy of PG&E’s notice on one side and a list of questions compiled by the community on the other. Some of the questions posed were: What are the ingredients of the spray besides just silver iodide? What happens when the material is vaporized? What about our human rights to clean air and pure water?

Corsini noted that as a parent, she is open with her children and sees them as an important part of the community. It was apparent to her that her children were concerned about the issue and wanted to express that concern. “My children have been raised with awareness about how chemicals can affect us,” she said. The PG&E announcement, among other things, prompted her daughters Shasta and Ellen to write a letter to supervisor Marler.

McCloud Ranger District hydrologist Steve Bachmann noted that there is a “strong precedent” established by the previous “negative declarations” received by similar projects but noted that “there are indirect effects as well as direct effects (to these programs).” Though Bachmann professed little background knowledge on the seeding process, he did say that “In general, I don’t think these programs have been studied enough. People need to be educated (about this technology), including myself.”

This sentiment was parroted by Rene Henery, Research Director for the Upper Sacramento River Exchange and University of Nevada’s Castle Lake Research project, who referred to the “reservoir in the sky” and emphasized that disrupting the complexities of the hydrological cycle could have its unintended consequences. Though PG&E asserts there are no negative impacts to other areas (what they call “downwind effects”), that assertion remains questionable for many.

Five to 10 percent more rain

Locals can expect to see a slight increase in precipitations, estimated to be around 5 to 10 percent. Cloud seeding, emphasized Marler, will not make more clouds. They would be seeding some storms, but not all storms, and they would not seed storms if winds came out of the east. He emphasized too that the seeding would occur during the winter months between November and May. “We are making snow, not rain.”

With increasing concerns about climate change, aquifer depletion, and the possible implications of “bio-engineering” programs, many area residents are expressing their concerns and demanding answers. Hydrologist Bachmann notes that “10 years ago, this would have gone unnoticed.”

A group of concerned citizens is meeting at the Flying Lotus Dance Studio on Wednesday Nov. 5 to discuss the issue. The meeting is open to the public and scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m.#

Eureka Times Standard – 11/06/08
John Driscoll, staff writer

A prolific invasive snail has now been found in four coastal watersheds, raising the possibility that it will infest a larger part of Humboldt County in the near future.

The New Zealand mud snail, first found locally in Big Lagoon in September, has since been confirmed as present in Lake Earl, Tillas Slough off the Smith River, in the lower Klamath River and in the Russian River east of Hopland.

Other watersheds infested with the invasive snail have been devastated by their presence. It was first found in the Snake River in Idaho in the 1980s, and now is present in 10 states. Without natural predators, the snails consume algae and plant and animal debris, altering the food chain -- affecting protected salmon, steelhead and other species.

While the state is launching an educational campaign to let boaters and fishermen know how to prevent the spread of the tiny snail, it's clear it will not be easy, if even possible. To date, there is no way to eradicate the snail, either.

”There's not a whole lot you can do once they get in there,” said Fish and Game district watershed biologist Michelle Gilroy.

The snails can spread on the feet of wading birds, and can survive in the digestive tracts of fish. To kill them on fishing waders and gear, the California Department of Fish and Game recommends freezing the stuff for eight hours; to scour them from boats, the agency recommends scrubbing them off with hot water.

The hope is to at least slow the spread of the New Zealand mud snail. Breck McAlexander, a Fish and Game aquatic species coordinator said that the snails, which thrive in fresh water, could have limitations in brackish waters like lagoons and estuaries. If their introduction into a watershed is reduced, it's conceivable that they might not take hold enough to produce a viable population, he said.

But even that is hopeful thinking.

”The best strategy is to try to prevent their spread,” McAlexander said, “which may or may not be possible.”

On the American River, biologists have carefully monitored for the presence of mud snails that can be transported by hatchery fish into their destination lakes and streams. Fish and Game policy is to not allow fish from infested hatcheries to be transported to bodies of water not yet infested.

Now, with the presence of mud snails not far from the Mad River Hatchery, McAlexander said it is important to monitor that hatchery, too.

So far, there have been no mud snails discovered there, and the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District is working to develop ways to prevent the spread of the snails into the upper watershed, in Ruth Lake.

Pikeminnow scare is quelled

In the effort to keep invasive species in check, there is some good news.

The dreaded pikeminnow -- which has voraciously consumed salmon on the Eel River for years -- was believed to have worked its way into the Elk River, which empties into Humboldt Bay.

Biologists found a single pikeminnow in Martin Slough, a tributary to Elk River, in August, and feared the worst. Along with other state and federal agencies, the California Department of Fish and Game developed a sampling strategy to detect whether any other pikeminnow were in the watershed.

”The implications for restoration around Humboldt Bay with the introduction of these invasive species is pretty frightening,” said Fish and Game district watershed biologist Michelle Gilroy.

But after a number of attempts to find other pikeminnow, the stream turned up clean. No pikeminnow. While the sampling will continue at least until spring of 2009, biologists are reasonably certain that the fish's presence was an isolated case.

The question is how did it get there? Gilroy said that it seems most likely the fish was planted in a nearby pond or in the slough itself. That's illegal; Fish and Game requires a permit to stock fish in private ponds and in no circumstance allows fish to be transported to other streams without permission, Gilroy said.

Gilroy said it's also possible the fish got there from the Eel River, although pikeminnow aren't salt-water tolerant, and would have had to travel miles to get into Elk River.

Restorationist Mitch Farro with the Pacific Coast Fish, Wildlife and Wetlands Restoration Association said that when the Eel River is running strong, a current can push a stream of fresh water north from the mouth of the river to Humboldt Bay. That could have allowed a pikeminnow to travel into the bay and back into fresh water.

”It's a possibility,” Farro said. “It's also fairly likely that someone put them there.”#

San Francisco chronicle – 11/1/08
By Peter Fimrite, staff writer
(10-31) 17:58 PDT MENDOCINO COUNTY --

Jennifer Carah is a scientist who doesn't normally squeal, especially not when she is under water, but a recent snorkeling expedition in an obscure creek on the North Coast caused her to abandon all scholarly protocol.

"Yeeeee heeeeee," she shrieked through her snorkel upon spotting a mass of little fish behind a rock in Pardaloe Creek, a remote tributary of the Garcia River, in the heavily logged forests of Mendocino County.

The critters that elicited the squeal were endangered coho salmon. In fact, juvenile coho were found in 10 places where they had not been seen in years in the 72,000 acre Garcia River watershed.

"I was pretty excited to find them there," said Carah, a field scientist for the Nature Conservancy. "We've checked the data of other agencies and haven't heard accounts of coho being up there before. These sightings have generated a whole lot of enthusiasm, especially given the fact that coho are pretty much on the brink of extinction."

The discovery of coho in the headwaters of the Garcia River is especially eye-opening because the watershed once was destroyed by logging. Now it is part of a unique experiment that involves what conservationists call sustainable forestry, or selective logging.

"As we all know, parks are struggling to manage the lands they already own, and local governments, particularly in rural counties, don't like to see big swaths of private land put into parks because it takes it off the tax roles and takes the land out of public use," said Chris Kelly, the California program director for the Virginia-based Conservation Fund, which paid the timber company Coastal Forestlands $18 million in 2004 for the 23,780-acre Garcia River Forest. "Why not own it and manage it as a productive forest and use the timber to pay for the restoration and management of the property?"

The Nature Conservancy paid $3.5 million for a conservation easement on the property that allows them to conduct studies and monitor fish and wildlife populations in the watershed. The Conservation Fund is in charge of managing the forest by repairing roads, fixing erosion and hiring loggers to selectively thin out stands and remove sick trees.

In exchange, the land is protected forever from residential and vineyard development.

The forests of Mendocino County are a crucial testing ground for this type of strategy because it is in this region that coho salmon once were extremely abundant.

Decline of the coho
A large American Indian fishing village once was located on the Garcia River, but when white men arrived in the 1850s and 1860s, the native Bokeya, or Central Pomo Indians, were moved out, land was cleared, and lumber production began. By the late 1870s, more than a dozen mills were operating in the watershed.

Meanwhile, salmon from the Garcia River were netted by the thousands, smoked and shipped to San Francisco. The Nature Conservancy's Carah estimates that as many as 500,000 coho once squirmed and wriggled their way up California streams every year as late as the 1940s.

Old-timers living in Mendocino County remember spearing coho in the Garcia. After the first rains, dozens of young coho could be seen in every pool and eddy. They were so abundant that people simply ignored the 25-fish limit, sometimes just scooping the fish out of the water.

The fish began to disappear when the widespread clear-cutting of forests began after World War II. The rampant building of logging roads in the watershed, the removal of riparian vegetation and huge amounts of silt running off into the creeks ruined their habitat.

The Garcia River Forest has been clear-cut twice, the last time in the 1940s, according to Kelly.

Coho now make up about 1 percent of their historic population on the North Coast. The construction of dams, pollution and the emergence of global warming appears to be making things even worse. So few spawning chinook salmon returned to the Sacramento River and its tributaries this year that ocean fishing for salmon was banned in California and Oregon.

Coho, which are more sensitive to water temperature and quality than other salmonid species, are in worse shape than chinook. The species was listed as endangered in 2005 under the Endangered Species Act. On top of that, fisheries analysts report a 73 percent decline in the already dismal number of coho returning to the creeks and tributaries along the coast of California during the 2007-08 spawning season. Coho in Oregon showed a 70 percent decline.

'Encouraging sign'
Pardaloe Creek, which at 2,470 feet is the highest point of the Garcia watershed, had been surveyed six times between 1975 and 1999 by the state Department of Fish and Game and the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District. Not a single coho was spotted in any of the surveys. In fact, the farthest up coho were found was in Inman Creek in 1997, 11 miles downstream from Pardaloe Creek.

The Nature Conservancy and the Watershed Fund have been working together to build wood structures in the streams to create pools for fish, upgrading logging roads to reduce sediment and choosing only non-thriving trees to harvest.

The coho were discovered during the first survey of the upper reaches of the watershed since the restoration work began. Success is hard to measure, Carah said, and one field survey is hardly definitive evidence of a recovery, but she thinks the little fish she saw in the creek are a message that better times could be ahead.

"Because coho are so sensitive, they really serve as kind of a canary in the coal mine for Northern California coastal rivers and streams," Carah said. "It is a really encouraging sign to find them in 10 places and especially way up in the headwaters given the status of coho in the state. I think it does indicate that we are having some success."

Kelly said the kind of forest management being practiced in the Garcia watershed might be the best way left to preserve woodland ecosystems, watersheds and fish.

"A forester would look at this land and say it doesn't meet my 8 or 10 percent return on investment, but we don't have a rate of return expectation. All we need to do is pay the bills," Kelly said. "I look at it as an intervention. We are preserving the viability of the forest and watershed in a feasible way that over the next 10 or 15 years could restore the productivity and volume of timber and again make the timber industry meaningful."#

By Dylan Darling
Thursday, October 23, 2008

Another fall has brought another drop in the number of salmon returning to the north state's principal hatchery from the Pacific Ocean after their three-year swim.

So far only about 12,000 fall-run Chinook salmon have swum from the Sacramento River up Battle Creek - on which Coleman National Fish Hatchery sits near Anderson - said Jim Smith, a project leader for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Red Bluff.

"I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that we won't get as many fish as we did last year and could end up with a bunch less," he said. "… It's not looking too good."

As of Oct. 18, only 11,714 salmon had been spotted swimming into Battle Creek by a video camera set to catch images of fish so scientists can do a count, Smith said. At this point in last year's season, 18,929 salmon had returned. By the end of the season, 22,700 fish had returned.

Despite the low run numbers, the hatchery's manager said he's hopeful that at least 9,000 of the fall-run fish will make it up the hatchery's ladder and provide the eggs and milt needed to produce 12 million tiny salmon smolt come spring.

"I'm maintaining my optimism that we are going to meet our targets and only time will tell whether that is true or not," said Scott Hamelberg, Coleman's manager.

He said about 3,000 fall-run salmon have been processed at the hatchery as of Tuesday, and so far the fish have produced about 45 percent of the 16 million eggs needed.

The latest low salmon run is part of a trend of diminishing returns each year since 2002 when "phenomenal ocean conditions" the year before boosted the return to 480,000 salmon, Hamelberg said.
"We don't expect to see half a million fish each year in Battle Creek," he said.

But they do expect 20,000 to 30,000 and this year's run could fall short of that, even with a ban on sport fishing through the Sacramento River system and commercial fishing in waters off the California coast.
A limited sport season for late fall-run Chinook on the Sacramento River, from the Red Bluff Diversion Dam to Knights Landing in Yolo County, is set to start Nov. 1 and last until January, Smith said.

Licensed anglers will be allowed one Chinook per day. The Chinook haven't experienced the population problems of their earlier running relatives, said Harry Morse, spokesman for the state Department of Fish and Game.
"The fall run is basically through," he said.

Like the good ocean conditions credited for the spike in salmon numbers in 2002, poor ocean conditions - which lead to short food supplies for the young fish - are blamed for the decline in salmon returns.
"Essentially they starved when they first hit the ocean," Smith said.

Early reports for this year are that the ocean conditions are "very, very good," he said.

The salmon released from the hatchery last year include some 1.4 million yearlings that were hauled by truck to San Pablo Bay last spring rather than being released into the river to swim for it. How they fare in these improved conditions won't be known until fall 2010.

Hamelberg said salmon trucked last spring that survive life in the ocean and then the swim upstream will return in 2010 and a analysis of the program won't be completed until 2011.

While the practice is common from state-run hatcheries on the Sacramento River system, the salmon were the first to be trucked from Coleman in close to two decades.

Between 1990 and 1992 most of the Hatchery's smolts were trucked because of poor river conditions brought by drought and lack of screens on irrigation diversions.

Hatchery officials have yet to decide whether more fish will be trucked again this year, he said.
"We are going to have some internal meetings on it," Hamelberg said.#

AN INNOVATIVE TRACKING system used in the Northwest came to some surprising discoveries while tracking juvenile salmon migrating downstream to the Pacific Ocean. Scientists learned that just as many salmon or more survived going over eight dams on the Northwest's Snake and Columbia Rivers as others did going down a major river in British Columbia without any dams at all.

The study was published in the online edition of the Public Library of Science Biology and it arrives just when salmon advocates are in a battle in federal court with the Bush administration and dam advocates over whether the Columbia Basin dam system can be made safe enough for salmon to satisfy regulations under the Endangered Species Act.

What the study suggests is that there's a chance salmon can survive going over dams as easily as traveling down rivers that do not have dams.

The tracking system used is called the Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking, where fish were implanted with an acoustic transmitter about the size of an almond.

It sends out a signal tracked by many receivers in the rivers and ocean. Also, salmon were monitored with Passive Integrated Transponder tags to see their survival rate over dams. This testing, however, was limited to juvenile salmon.

This discovery should act as a springboard to conduct studies in California, where a complete collapse of the salmon population nearly shut down salmon fishing

off the West Coast, and all types of salmon should be monitored.

NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency in charge of restoring threatened and endangered salmon, has asked POST developer David Welch to monitor salmon in the Sacramento River. We hope he takes the offer.

While the study was limited to juvenile salmon, an expansion of POST examination of state rivers and dams could be the start of improving dwindling salmon runs and help the fishing industry in the future.#

Eureka Times Standard – 10/28/08
John Driscoll, staff writer

A giant eddy off Cape Mendocino has caught the radar eyes of researchers at Humboldt State University and University of California at Davis, who watched it evolve over the past two months.

Using a radar station at Point Arena, and a newly built station at Shelter Cove, scientists were able to determine the direction and speed of the massive swirl of water.

”It was arguably the biggest, most noticeable feature on the West Coast,” said Greg Crawford, chairman of HSU's Oceanography Department.

Part of the California Ocean Current Monitoring Project, the Shelter Cove station was vital to being able to detect the eddy, as it gave the area coverage by more than one station, allowing it to discern various qualities of the oceanic feature.

The researchers aren't the first to see the eddy. It had been spotted by satellites in space and detected by ship in the 1990s by Gary Lagerloef. But the long-range radar system allows researchers to continuously watch how the eddy changes over time.

The California Coastal Conservancy oversees the system, which is funded by the state.

The eddy currently appears to be a seasonal feature, which adds complexity to what was once seen as a simple system of currents along the California coast, Crawford said. It's about 110 miles in diameter and swirls at up to 1.5 miles per hour.

The question now is to determine what effect the currents have on marine life.

Crawford said that the eddy may interfere with how nutrients and marine species are moved to more southern waters, but how extensively isn't known. That could affect how marine protected areas are set up along the coast, as called for in 1999 legislation.

The radar system now installed up and down the West Coast may also help emergency crews determine how oil spills or pollutants travel along the coast, enabling them to better respond to disasters. It may also help U.S. Coast Guard rescue personnel more quickly find boats in trouble, or survivors drifting on the open ocean.

And it could also be used to route ships around -- or take advantage of -- an eddy, making ocean travel more efficient, Crawford said.#

(10-28) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- A federal judge upheld on Monday protections for wild steelhead trout in California rivers, rejecting an argument by forestry groups that argued the success of hatchery-raised steelhead has made the population sufficiently robustMan killed in Visitacion Valley identified 10.28.08 U.S. District Court Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno disagreed. He said hatchery-raised fish are no substitute for wild steelhead.

Science shows that hatchery-fish can be beneficial, but they also can be detrimental to wild steelhead, Wanger wrote in his 168-page ruling.

Steelhead are listed as either threatened or endangered in different parts of California.

In a related claim, the judge also rejected a bid by Central Valley farmers to remove steelhead trout from the federal Endangered Species Act. The farmers pointed to an abundance of resident rainbow trout, steelhead that do not migrate to the ocean.

The Modesto Irrigation District had argued that rainbow trout are essentially the same species as wild steelhead. Wanger agreed with federal wildlife scientists, who have said wild steelhead are distinct and indispensable to the survival of the species.

It is the third instance in two years in which a federal court has rejected arguments that hatchery fish ought to be counted as part of salmon or steelhead populations, said Steve Mashuda, an attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit group that represented the conservation and fishing groups.

The groups pressing the cases say federal wildlife managers should assess an entire fish's population - both wild and hatchery-raised - when deciding whether to protect it.#

Early indications are good for Klamath and Trinity river salmon next year, although Sacramento River fish -- whose collapse ground ocean commercial and sport fishing to a halt this year -- may still be struggling.

Counts of adult fish and 2-year-old chinook salmon, which are a strong indicator of next year's run, have been strong at several weirs on the Klamath and Trinity. While it's still early, the beginning numbers are encouraging.

For example, some 1,000 2-year-olds -- called jacks -- have been counted at the Willow Creek weir. Last year at this time there were 50 counted, said California Department of Fish and Game biologist Wade Sinnen.

Biologists don't start tabulating all the information on the two rivers until the end of December, Sinnen said, but so far it appears that the run will be average or perhaps a bit better. Counts at other weirs on Klamath tributaries also are up, he said.

”It's really all still up in the air,” Sinnen said.

Klamath River salmon stocks have long limited fishermen's access to typically more abundant Sacramento River fish in the ocean. That's because they mix at sea, and fishery managers try to limit the effect of fishing on the Klamath salmon.

Dave Hillemeier, a senior biologist with the Yurok Tribe, said that information collected from the tribe's fishery is promising.

In 2006, commercial fishing for hundreds of miles north and south of the Klamath mouth was severely restricted.

But this year, it was a radical decline of Sacramento River fish that triggered an even wider closure of both ocean commercial and sport salmon seasons. Both of the crashes were considered disasters, and prompted Congress to provide tens of millions in relief.

All eyes are now on the Sacramento, particularly how many 2-year-old and 3-year-old salmon run up the river and its tributaries.

Dick Pool with Water4Fish, a fishing advocacy group, said that the figures he's collected from the Sacramento River don't look good.

”All evidence is that Sacramento River runs are down,” Pool said.

The number of fish predicted to return next year must meet a threshold to allow fishing. Also important is that hatcheries are able to collect enough eggs from adult fish, said Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith, also a sportfishing representative.

”If they don't, that means they even more have to protect those four-year-olds for next year,” Smith said.

Four-year-old fish are especially important to the commercial fishery, which generally has a larger size limit than the sport fishery. #

Associated Press – 10/21/08
By TRACIE CONE, Associated Press Writer

FRESNO, Calif.—A federal judge ruled Tuesday that California's canal water systems are placing wild salmon "unquestionably in jeopardy," but stopped short of issuing court-order limits on pumping in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Environmental groups had sought the temporary pumping limits to guard three species of migrating salmon in the delta until a new fish protection plan is due in March.

But U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger declined to do so, after the state Department of Water Resources said last month it would voluntarily reduce pumping to protect the juvenile fish.

"Upon initial glance, the department believes that the judge handed down a responsible ruling," said spokesman Ted Thomas.

If environmental groups want to make new arguments for court-ordered pumping limits, Wanger wrote, any motion filed would be "heard on an expedited basis," an offer attorneys are considering.

"We need to decide whether it's worth doing for this short amount of time or not," said Michael Sherwood, an attorney for Earthjustice.

Chinook salmon and steelhead freely migrated on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers until the federal and state system of dams built to deliver water via canals to the state's arid areas blocked their paths. Now up to 42 percent of the endangered juvenile fish die as they are sucked into Delta pumps that send water into canals.

Wanger's opinion eased the fears of farmers worried about impacts of mandatory water cutbacks on an agricultural industry already suffering from drought, while validating concerns by environmentalists as well as fishing groups affecting by the collapse of the state's salmon population.

"In the meantime, we've got boats tied up this year and probably next," said a frustrated Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Association, referring to the resulting ban on commercial and recreational fishing.

The ruling stems from Wanger's earlier decision that pitted the endangered fish against Central Valley farmers. In that ruling, he said the National Marine Fisheries Service's biological opinion on water projects tied to the delta does not adequately protect salmon and must be rewritten.

In the meantime, environmentalists, fishing groups and water users filed briefs over how the delta and its water should be managed until then. Earthjustice had wanted the judge to order a cutback in pumping that would be legally enforceable.

Last month, the Department of Water Resources, intervening on behalf of the water districts who depend on canal water for their constituents, said they would operate the water systems to minimize impacts on salmon, especially during the December-January migration of juvenile fish to the ocean, until the new report comes out. Wanger said that testimony under oath made a court order unnecessary.#

A federal judge on Tuesday denied a request by environmental groups to reduce delta pumping and take other measures at two major California reservoirs to help the state's endangered salmon population.

In an 11-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Oliver W. Wanger didn't outright reject the requests, but said a hearing would be necessary if environmental groups wanted to pursue the proposals.

Environmentalists aren't sure whether they will seek a hearing because an updated opinion on how to manage the salmon is due in March, said Michael Sherwood, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice. They will discuss the matter today.

Environmentalists had requested that:

Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta pumping in December and January be limited to 7,600 cubic feet per second, or to a ratio based on how much water enters the estuary, based on whichever is more protective of the salmon.

At least 1.9 million acre feet of water be held in Lake Shasta at the end of January, and 2.5 million acre feet at the end of February.

Releases from Folsom Lake be limited beginning Dec. 31 until the new salmon opinion is completed.

The federal government and its water agency allies had opposed the request and had presented new evidence that questioned the science used to justify the requests.

Changes requested by environmentalists would have been only for the short term until the new opinion is issued.

The litigation over winter-run Chinook salmon, spring-run Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead is part of a long-running battle between the government and environmentalists dealing with the massive Central Valley Project's effect on the fish, which are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Wanger already has issued a written opinion that the three fish species are at risk of extinction, and the state and federal water project operations are further jeopardizing them.

But in Tuesday's ruling, the judge was reluctant to issue a further ruling without hearing more evidence.

"In light of the potential consequences of further reducing the available CVP project water [yield] to implement such remedies, and in the face of substantial scientific disagreements about the effectiveness and need for such remedies, it is improvident to issue any such relief without further hearings," Wanger wrote.

In addition to the steelhead and two salmon species, the government and environmental groups are sparring over the CVP's effects on the tiny delta smelt. An updated opinion on the smelt is due later this year.

Environmentalists filed suit involving the salmon and smelt because they said the government based project operation effects on the species on flawed data.

Wanger agreed, which is why the opinions are currently being rewritten. #

Associated Press – 10/19/08
By JIM FITZGERALD-AP

BUCHANAN, N.Y. (AP) — For a newly hatched striped bass in the Hudson River, a clutch of trout eggs in Lake Michigan or a baby salmon in San Francisco Bay, drifting a little too close to a power plant can mean a quick and turbulent death.

Sucked in with enormous volumes of water, battered against the sides of pipes and heated by steam, the small fry of the aquatic world are being sacrificed in large numbers each year to the cooling systems of power plants around the country.

Environmentalists say the nation's power plants are needlessly killing fish and fish eggs with their cooling systems, but energy-industry officials say opponents of nuclear power are exaggerating the losses.

The issue is affecting the debate over the future of a nuclear plant in the suburbs north of New York City, and the facilities and environmentalists are closely watching the outcome here to see how to proceed in other cities around the country. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this term in a lawsuit related to the matter.

The issue's scope is tremendous. More than 1,000 power plants and factories around the country use water from rivers, lakes, oceans and creeks as a coolant. At Indian Point plant in New York, the two reactors can pull in 1.7 million gallons of water per minute. Nineteen plants on or near the California coast use 16.3 billion gallons of sea water every day.

Most of the casualties are just fish eggs, and for many species, it takes thousands of eggs to result in one adult fish. The U.S. Environmental Protection Administration, which counts only species that are valuable for commerce or recreation, uses various formulas and says the number of eggs and larvae killed each year at the nation's large power plants would have grown into 1.5 billion year-old fish.

Environmentalists note that even fish that die before maturity contribute to the ecosystem as food for larger fish and birds, and as predators themselves on smaller organisms. But once they've gone through the power plant, they become decomposing detritus on the river bottom and have moved from the top to the bottom of the food chain, said Reed Super, an environmental lawyer specializing in the federal Clean Water Act.

"This is a really significant ongoing harm to our marine ecosystem," says Angela Haren, program director for the California Coastkeeper Alliance in San Francisco.

Technology has long existed that might reduce the fish kill by 90 percent or more. Cooling towers allow a power plant to recycle the water rather than continuously pump it in. New power plants are required to use cooling towers, but most existing plants resist any push to convert, citing the huge cost and claiming that most fish eggs and larvae are doomed anyway.

"We're not killing grown fish," says Jerry Nappi, spokesman for Entergy Nuclear Northeast, owner of Indian Point. "If we were killing billions of grown fish you'd be able to walk across the Hudson on their backs."

And Nappi says the fish population in the Hudson is stable, despite a recent study commissioned by Indian Point opponents that said 10 of 13 species were declining.

He also says an insistence on cooling towers could lead to Indian Point's closing and a sudden power deficit in the New York metropolitan area.

"What you're really talking about is a $1.5 billion hit on the company, and then it becomes an economic decision whether they want to stay here," he says. He believes talk of cooling towers is "a backdoor attempt by some to shut down Indian Point."

A recent ruling dealt at least a small blow to Entergy's efforts. The state Department of Environmental Protection, which is pushing for cooling towers, said the simple fact that so many fish eggs are destroyed each year at Indian Point is proof of an environmental impact, and Entergy can no longer maintain that it's not adversely affecting the river.

There's still months of argument ahead, but the ruling could be influential.

"We'll be very interested to see how that comes out," says Katie Nekola, an attorney for Clean Wisconsin, which failed to force cooling towers at the Oak Creek plant on Lake Michigan but won a $105 million settlement.

State agencies in California also are working on new regulations that should limit the numbers of fish killed, in the Pacific Ocean and other bodies of water.

According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, nuclear plants drink from other familiar bodies of water as the Mississippi River, Chesapeake Bay, Lake Michigan, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Oceans. Water used for cooling does not become radioactive.

Most plants without cooling towers use a system in which water is continuously pumped in, used for cooling, and returned.

Various types of barriers are used to keep adult fish out of the system; Indian Point uses screens with holes measuring a quarter-inch by a half-inch.

However, fish that are blocked by the screen can become caught on the screen by the force of the water intake. To rescue them, the screens rotate, and as they come out of the water a spray of water knocks the impinged fish into a trough, which is directed back to the river.

A California state report says 9 million fish are caught on nets there every year. Even turtles, seals and sea lions are occasionally caught. Environmentalists believe many fish and other creatures are killed in this process, or are injured and die later.

"When you hit a deer in your car, just because it gets up and runs away doesn't mean it's not going to die," Haren said.

But Ed Keating, environmental manager at the nuclear subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc., said that probably only 1 percent of the fish caught get killed on the screens. Dara Gray, environmental supervisor at Indian Point, says there's no reason to believe that any fish are injured or killed by being caught on the screen.

In the process known as closed-cycle cooling, used mostly in newer plants, the number of fish and eggs sucked in or impinged is sharply reduced because cooling towers use so much less water. Even if a power plant draws its cooling water from a river, it uses that water over and over again and rarely needs to replenish.

Some plants with cooling towers don't have to worry about fish at all. PSEG Fossil has plants in New Jersey that now take treated wastewater from sewage plants. #

(10-19) 04:00 PDT McArthur Swamp, Shasta County -- Dale Glassburn wasn't looking for serenity on Big Lake, an isolated spring-fed body of water outside the town of Burney.

Taliban gunmen kill Christian aid worker in Kabul 10.20.08

A person doesn't have to search for that in this 7,596-acre haven for wildlife known as McArthur Swamp in the rugged Cascade Mountains of Northern California. Serenity is what you get on the lake and in the surrounding wildflower-strewn valley with a view of cloud-capped Mount Shasta.

What Glassburn was after was what Native Americans sought in this former swamp until they were driven off their land: fish.

"I come here every chance I get," the 66-year-old fisherman from Round Mountain said as he helped his wife, Mary, into their motor boat as it bobbed amid the reeds on Big Lake, which laps up against the 6,000-acre Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. "It's the best trout fishing around."

The remote marshland - which, in addition to the rainbow trout, serves as the winter home to tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl - is a signature piece of one of the biggest, most elaborate public takeovers of hydropower lands in America.

The Pacific Forest and Watershed Lands Stewardship Council, a nonprofit foundation, is drawing up plans to protect 140,000 acres of land owned by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

The plan, which is part of PG&E's 2003 bankruptcy reorganization settlement, is to donate half of the land to public trusts, parks, wildlife agencies and tribal organizations by 2013 and protect it all through conservation easements.

The deal includes green forests, rolling oak savannahs, many sources of the state's drinking water and some of the best fly-fishing rivers and streams in 22 counties across California from Mount Shasta in the north to the Carrizo Plain in the south. Added together, it is an area almost twice the size of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

The amount of land going into public hands is shy of the largest open space transaction in California, but it is clearly the most spread out and diverse.

PG&E has agreed to pay $100 million in ratepayer funds to the various agencies that are selected to manage the lands, which were deemed unnecessary for hydroelectric power generation.

McArthur Swamp was selected by the Stewardship Council as one of the first four properties to be given away. The others are Bucks Lake, a popular reservoir in Plumas County; Doyle Springs, a forested 43-acre site in Tulare County; and Kennedy Meadows, a scenic 244-acre high sierra meadow in Tuolumne County.

Hat Creek, just down the road from McArthur Swamp, is another site that will be donated in the near future.

The first four transactions are scheduled to be completed by mid- to late 2009. By then, the Stewardship Council will have begun preparing eight to 10 other sites for transfer, said Ric Notini, the council's director of land conservation.

"It is one of the most complex land conservation deals ever done in California, and the land is being donated to those organizations," Notini said. "In this case, PG&E is providing millions of dollars to the parties that receive the land."

Slice of serenity
McArthur Swamp is one of the most intriguing sites because of its proximity to one of California's most isolated state parks. Ahjumawi Lava Springs was named for the 3,000 to 5,000 year old lava flows that mark its topography. It is one of the few places anywhere where fish traps left by Native Americans still exist.

Fewer than 2,000 people a year visit this gem in the wilderness, which can be reached only by boat. The only boat ramp available to transport visitors is at McArthur Swamp.

Once a large marsh with meadows on the fringes, it is now mostly meadow with 1,400 acres of open water around it. A system of levees and drainage canals were built starting in 1903, creating Big Lake. PG&E bought the land in 1925 to stop water diversions that were hurting their powerhouse operations downstream. A muskrat farm operated on the land for several years, but the animals were released when the farm ceased operations in the 1930s. The burrowing non-native muskrats have since caused bank erosion and flooding.

The swamp area, which is now essentially seasonal wetlands, has been used for cattle grazing and periodic logging since 1944.

The area, part of what is called the Fall River Valley, is the ancestral homeland of the Ahjumawi band of the Pit River Indian tribe, which is made up of 11 autonomous bands of local Indians. The 2,500 people in the tribe - 75 percent of whom live in Modoc, Lassen, Shasta and Siskiyou counties - consider McArthur Swamp an extremely important ancestral area.

The tribe is one of seven bidders for the property, including California State Parks, Shasta County and several conservation groups.

Historical significance
The area is rich in history.

The word Ahjumawi is said to have meant "where the waters come together." It perfectly describes the spot on state park land next to McArthur Swamp where Big Lake, Tule River, Ja-She Creek, Lava Creek and the Fall River come together. The Ahjumawi lived off the abundant food supply from these waters and called themselves river people.

One of their techniques was to build elaborate walls out of lava rock on the local springs, which would concentrate the spring water and draw in suckers and trout. The natives would then trap the fish in these shallow areas and spear them.

The remains of these fish traps still exist at the mouth of the springs.

The Ahjumawi were apparently rivals of the nearby Modoc Indians, famous for waging the last great Indian war against United States troops in 1872 and 1873 under the direction of their chief, Captain Jack. The Modoc War stronghold was an intricate web of lava caves that are now called Lava Beds National Monument, in Siskiyou and Modoc counties.

Chris Pirosko, director of natural resources for the Pit River tribe, said the Modocs used to raid Pit River camps, and the cavalry rode through their land during the war.

"There are stories in the Pit River tribe of watching the cavalry chase Indians through the valleys," he said.

The area became known as McArthur Swamp after John McArthur purchased the property in 1868. McArthur and the other settlers began calling the natives Pit River Indians because they would often dig pits and cover them along deer trails by the river. The deer would fall into these traps when they came down to the river for a drink.

Six Native American archaeological sites have been recorded in the marsh area, but a comprehensive survey has never been done.

"There are probably many village sites that are scattered around the perimeter. There are probably prehistoric grave sites. We don't know, but we do know that this place is a part of history," Pirosko said. "The primary objective for the tribe is to enhance the swamp's ecological status and preserve the cultural resources. We intend to keep it as open space and provide access to the public."

As in all of the various units of land that PG&E is donating, the bidders are being encouraged to work together. Ultimately, Notini said, the land steward that is selected may be a collaboration of groups that will take into account the desires of all the users.

"We're looking at it from a long-term perspective," Notini said. "Our goal is to identify the organizations we think are best equipped to preserve these lands in perpetuity."#

The Oregonian – 10/19/08
by Michael Milstein, staff writer

The most valuable resource in the national forests atop the Oregon Cascades may not be the timber and recreation spots they're known for, but something else that's largely invisible: water.

Scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and Oregon State University have in recent years quietly realized that the high Cascades in Oregon and far Northern California contain an immense subterranean reservoir about as large as the biggest man-made reservoirs in the country.

The secret stockpile stores close to seven years' worth of Oregon rain and snow and is likely to become increasingly precious, even priceless, as population and climate add pressure to water supplies.

The reservoir hides within young volcanic rock -- less than 1 million years old -- in the highest reaches of the Cascades. The rock is so full of cracks and fissures it forms a kind of vast geological sponge. Heavy rain and snow falling on the rock percolate into the sponge, like a river filling a reservoir.

"It's not just the fact we get a lot of rain in Oregon that gives us copious amounts of water," says Gordon Grant, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station leading the research. "It's the unique geology -- the plumbing system -- that allows us to retain much of it."

It's easily one of the biggest groundwater systems known in a mountainous region anywhere on the planet, he said.

Some water leaks steadily from the hidden reservoir, gushing from springs into rivers such as the McKenzie, Deschutes and Clackamas. Many of the rivers flow into the Willamette, keeping the river through Portland full of water even now, when mountain snow that feeds many other Western rivers is long gone and the rivers are just trickles.

"The geology is kind of like your genetic code in terms of the water we can get out of the Willamette basin," said Julia Jones, a geosciences professor at Oregon State University and vice chair of a National Research Council panel examining the connection between forests and water.

That all-year reliability of water from the underground store puts Oregon in a much stronger position than the rest of the West as global warming dries out nearby states, some already suffering through record drought.

At the same time, it may also make the Northwest a sought-after source of future water for the rest of the West. Southwest states have already floated the far-out idea of piping in water from the Columbia River. Businesses such as technology companies that require reliable water supplies for manufacturing may see the consistency of Oregon's enormous reservoir as a strategic advantage.

Looking into the future, "the value of water coming out of this system absolutely exceeds any other economic value from national forestlands," Grant says.

The underground pool lies almost entirely within Oregon. Volcanic rock in the highest reaches of the Oregon Cascades is typically less than a few million years old, with cracks and crevices that store far more water than the older, dense Washington Cascades. The spongy rock and the water it holds extend into northeastern California, and some of its spring water emerges into the Sacramento River system.

More study proposed

A group of OSU and other scientists including Grant are proposing more research to better gauge the subterranean supply and examine the potential effects if thirsty regions such as California and the Southwest someday seek to extract its water.

"We need to have a better understanding of what's there so we're in a position to make wise decisions about it in the future," said Michael Campana, director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at Oregon State University. "There's an exceptionally big resource here, and someone, someday, may want to use it."

Grant took flak from colleagues last summer after Campana posted a California newspaper article on his blog, WaterWired. It described a lecture by Grant and hinted that Oregon's hidden reservoir could help cure California's perennial water shortage.

Some thought Grant was suggesting the water might go to California. Not so, says Grant. Rather, he wanted "to focus attention on where water comes from now, and how those places are likely to become increasingly important in a climate-warmed and water-challenged future," he wrote in a response on Campana's blog.

But the exchange highlighted the value of the underground water system, and researchers are now considering how to better understand it.

On par with Lake Mead

The volume of the underground water is difficult to fathom. Most of it lies in a layer around 500 feet thick, Grant says. Rough estimates suggest the system probably holds at least as much water as Lake Mead, the largest constructed reservoir in the nation.

Actually, it probably holds much more, but some water remains locked in cracks and crevices and cannot find its way out. While eight years of drought has left Lake Mead half full, however, Oregon's reservoir is still brimming.

Given the enormous value of the reservoir of pristine water, Grant says, land managers may need to think about new ways to safeguard its quality. For instance, it might be worth considering limits on transport of hazardous materials across some parts of the Cascades to reduce the risk of spills contaminating the water, he said.

Forests such as those that house the groundwater system must be managed in the future to promote sustainable water supplies as much as anything else, Jones' National Research Council panel concluded in a report last summer.

That's especially true as growth and development erode forested areas that have long held crucial watersheds, Jones said.

Huge springs discovered

When Grant and his team began studying the water system, they found its water spilling from large springs so little-known they don't appear on maps. One spring pours out a full 1 percent of the summer volume of the Willamette River -- some 43 million gallons a day, enough to supply almost half of Portland's year-round water needs.

Grant isn't highlighting its location. "You can be sure the bottled water people would like to know all about it," he said.

He and his colleagues are also studying the way global warming may influence the underground water supply. Many climate models show that as temperatures rise, more winter snow will fall as rain instead and run off the landscape more quickly. Less snow will remain to melt and feed rivers in summer, when water is needed most.

The underground Cascade reservoir changes the picture in the rivers its springs supply. Water entering the reservoir as rain or melting snow pushes water out of the springs, so as less water flows in from melting snow in the summer, less will exit the springs, Grant says.

However, because so much water remains underground, plenty is left to flow out during the summer. That means rivers fed by the reservoir's springs -- though reduced somewhat by climate change -- will keep flowing far more reliably than rivers fed by snowmelt alone.

"The high Cascades will continue to have water when others are losing it," Grant said. "When people look for where water comes from in the West, this is a place they will look." #

If you're going

What: 18th annual Return of the Salmon Festival.

Where: Coleman National Fish Hatchery, free shuttles to the hatchery leave from Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot in Anderson.

When: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday.

Activities include: Salmon viewing, 63 information and vendor booths, children's games.

Also: Anderson Rotary Salmon Bake, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Wal-Mart Supercenter parking lot. Salmon plate $8.

People might outnumber the salmon at a north state hatchery's annual celebration of the ocean-going fish's return - but the party goes on.

Seeing salmon up close and personal in Battle Creek and holding tanks at Coleman National Fish Hatchery near Anderson is still the main event of the 18th annual Return of the Salmon Festival, said Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery's manager.

"It never fails to impress people," he said.

The festival is set to run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the hatchery, with visitors shuttled in by bus from the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Anderson.

Hamelberg said he expects to see a crowd of people close to last year's record 15,000.

The numbers don't look so good for the fall-run chinook salmon, which have had low runs in recent years, he said. Hatchery workers usually hope to see at least 20,000 salmon return from the Pacific.

"Our current estimate in the creek is 9,000," Hamelberg said.

Salmon experts are still trying to determine the cause of the dramatic salmon decline.

In conjunction with the festival at the hatchery put on by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Anderson Rotary Club is hosting its annual salmon bake Saturday at the Wal-Mart parking lot.

The bake will likely feed 1,000 people and features salmon that returned to the hatchery, where their eggs were harvested. The Wintu American Indians sold the fish to the group, said Rotary member Keith Webster.

Cost for a plate is $8, he said. This year volunteers will bake 650 pounds of salmon between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. "That's a lot of salmon," Webster said.#

Sacramento Bee – 10/12/08
By Sandy Louey

Rich Cowell brought his 3-year-old grandson to the Nimbus Hatchery on Saturday so he could see salmon jumping the fish ladder to complete their life cycle.

"They'll jump over each of those woods," the 52-year-old Penryn resident pointed out to Drew Chaddock.

Unfortunately the pair had to imagine the scene.

The fish ladder, which is a major regional attraction, is usually open for the annual American River Salmon Festival. But Saturday, during the festival's 12th run, the ladder was idle.

The closure was a precautionary measure because of concern over what's expected to be a small fall salmon run in the American River. The water's higher temperature could also lead to some salmon dying before they're able to spawn, said Bob Burks, manager of the hatchery.

"It's very stressful on the fish," he said.

The fish ladder, operated as part of the hatchery by the California Department of Fish and Game, accommodates salmon and steelhead returning from the Pacific Ocean and headed for spawning grounds farther up the river.

The festival, which ends its annual weekend run today, usually draws more than 20,000 people to the hatchery and Lake Natoma in Rancho Cordova. Organizers didn't have a crowd estimate for this year's turnout.

The festival is coordinated by the Department of Fish and game, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the American River Natural History Association and the Save the American River Association.

Even though the only salmon some visitors may have seen Saturday were in a giant aquarium, Burks said the festival offers an opportunity for the public to learn more about the need to protect the river's natural resources.

"(It's) for folks to come out and have a great time, but to take away from it information about how fragile our resources are," he said.

There was no shortage of educational resources on Saturday. Groups such as the Sacramento Audubon Society and Friends of the River all had booths at the festival.

Except for a preview run during the festival, the fish ladder usually opens each year in early November. The peak of the fall salmon run is usually from mid-November to mid-December, Burks said.

The American River salmon run estimate for this year is just 6,000. Average numbers in the past year have been 35,000, with as many as 80,000 in some years, according to Mike Healey, an associate fisheries biologist for the Department of Fish and Game.

Burks said there is a combination of factors behind the decreased salmon population, including ocean currents and changing water conditions.

The low population numbers led federal and state officials to cancel most of the commercial and recreational salmon fishing seasons this year in Northern California.

It's lessons like the ones offered at the festival that can help future generations of migrating fish, officials said.

Another is a project, launched last week, aimed at deepening a side channel on the American River near Sunrise Boulevard Bridge in Fair Oaks. Salmon will benefit from the work, but the real winner will be the American River steelhead, considered threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Steelhead use the channel for spawning when water flows are high, said Sarah Foley, deputy director of the Water Forum.

Lowering the channel will allow water and steelhead to move through it under lower flows. At the festival on Saturday, Cowell said he'll come back to the hatchery later this year with his grandson."(You see) how hard the fish have to fight to have babies and start the new fish for the next round," he said. "This generation can grow up to protect the natural resources," Cowell said. #

Hwy. 99 bridges, train trestles, town ruins emerge as water level drops
Redding Record Searchlight – 10/7/08
By Ryan Sabalow

There's more than just muddy flip-flops and busted lawn chairs emerging from the depths of Lake Shasta as the reservoir drops to its lowest levels in 16 years.

Old bridges, train trestles, tunnels and the foundations from towns long-drowned have begun to pop out of the lake's muddy depths.

One such relic from Shasta County's pre-lake past even has taken on a new life.

A bridge from Highway 99, the precursor to Interstate 5, was being used last week as a makeshift low-water boat ramp at Antlers Resort & Marina near Lakeshore Drive in Lakehead.

On Tuesday, Lavonne Coskinen of Garberville stood on the bridge, which once spanned the Sacramento River, with her three sisters waiting for a houseboat to arrive for the family's annual reunion trip.

She had no idea the half-submerged bridge under her feet was nearly 100 years old, and that once Model Ts rumbled back and forth across its deck.

"It's sad that the lake is so low," she said. "But it makes it interesting to find all the stuff that's come out of it, too."

Lake Shasta last week dropped to 150 feet below its high-water mark, putting it well on track to break the 155-foot mark set in 1992.

The lowest the lake ever dipped was in 1977, when the lake dropped to 230 feet below the high-water mark.

Although the low water has turned the ever-growing bathtub ring of the lake's shoreline into a muddy mess, local historian Chuck Hornbeck, a 78-year-old retired civil engineer, says those same low levels have brought out many relics from the pre-Shasta Dam era.

All one needs to find them is to know where to look.

The lake's Sacramento River arm is probably the best and easiest place to view many of the ruins.

Hornbeck said that's because both Highway 99 and the old Central Pacific Railroad once ran up the Sacramento River canyon.

And now that the lake's low, the transportation infrastructure that was flooded after the dam was finished in 1945 is back in the sunlight.

Parts of Highway 99, including the bridge Coskinen stood on, and another crossing at Salt Creek, just a mile or two to the east, have emerged from the depths.

The Salt Creek bridge at the end of Lower Salt Creek Road can still be driven across in a four-wheel drive vehicle.

The completed-date stamp of "1925" can be spotted on the bridge's base.

"What amazes me is the level of technology they had back then," said C.T. Carden of Mountain Gate as he looked up Tuesday at the Salt Creek bridge.

Relics from the old railroad have fared a little less well.

Central Pacific Railroad's Tunnel No. 6 is easily viewed in the muddy river bottom below Lakeshore Drive, but it's about half-filled with silt.

Hornbeck said at least one other railroad tunnel, No. 5, can be seen further down the road. And another tunnel, No. 4, might emerge if the lake drops enough.

Hornbeck said that in 1977, a friend once piloted a boat through No. 4 when the lake dropped to its lowest-ever recorded level.

"We went out the next week and the lake had dropped 30 feet, so you couldn't do that anymore," he said.

But probably the most easy-to-spot railroad relic is half of a metal trestle near Tunnel No. 5 which began to emerge last month near the Beehive Camping area off Lakeshore Drive.

The half-submerged trestle rests on its side, looking from above like a discarded child's building block.

"They never scrapped it out," Hornbeck said. "Remember, it was wartime and they didn't have the manpower to do anything."

But one relic of the manpower used to build the dam has become especially visible this year.

More than 50 feet of the head tower once used to move buckets of concrete in the construction of Shasta Dam has risen from lake's surface.

The head tower was partially dismantled after the dam was built and reappears when the lake drops 90 feet below the high-water line.

The skeleton can be viewed from the Shasta Dam visitors' center.

The head tower was built near the town of Kennett, a copper-smelting town that boomed in the early 1900s with some 10,000 residents living there in its heyday.

But Hornbeck said that even when the lake dropped to its lowest levels in 1977, the town didn't become visible.

That's because Kennett was flooded with more than 400 feet of water when the dam was raised.

But the remains of another mining town is visible to boaters on the lake's Squaw Creek arm.

Low water has exposed the remnants of the town of Delamar, a 6,000-person, copper-smelting settlement, near the Bully Hill mine.

Hornbeck said tailings from the mine and crockery have been exposed on the ridge where the town once stood.

But even in high-water years, the foundations of Bully Hill Mine's blast furnace and smelter are above the waterline and parts of the town can be viewed near the Monday Flat camping area, according to the U.S. Forest Service.#

Sacramento Bee – 10/5/08
By Brian Fagan - Special to The Bee
Brian Fagan is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara

They call Chaco Canyon in New Mexico the Stonehenge of America and its nine magnificent pueblos "great houses." The greatest of them all is Pueblo Bonito, built during the eighth to 11th centuries A.D. Semicircular, three stories high, with two large plazas and numerous subterranean chambers, this stupendous pueblo is one of the great architectural wonders of ancient America.

Places like Chaco Canyon make journeys in search of the past profoundly worth it in a world where so much archaeology is very specialized, often narrow and, frankly, sometimes rather dull. At Chaco even the casual visitor can explore new things for days. But as you visit the great houses, you also see the impact of drought on our world.

We've known about the Chaco droughts for years, but it's only recently that we've learned just how widespread droughts were in the American West of a thousand years ago. The great Chaco drought coincided with long dry cycles in California, which provide sobering food for thought today as California experiences another year of drought. Scott Stine, a geography professor from California State University, Hayward, has studied the rings of trees that once grew on the lakebed of Owens Lake on the eastern flanks of the Sierra Nevada. He found evidence of seven droughts between A.D. 900 and 1250. In 1025, the lake level was more than 130 feet below today's shoreline.

Stone extended his research to other lakes such as Mono Lake, the northernmost catchment of the Los Angeles aqueduct. He found more evidence of prolonged dry cycles, one that lasted for about 190 years, from 910 until about 1100, and a second that lasted nearly 140 years, that began before 1210 and ended in about 1350. The same droughts extended as far north as east-central Oregon and into the Rockies and adjacent Great Plains.

Chaco Canyon lies at the mercy of the irregular rainfall of the San Juan Basin encompassing northwestern New Mexico. Why, then, did the Ancestral Pueblo build elaborate great houses here? The canyon itself could only support about 2,200 people, certainly not enough people to build the pueblos by themselves. There was something compelling about Chaco that attracted villagers from miles around. Generations of Ancestral Pueblo flocked here for major ceremonies, perhaps to commemorate the passage of the solstices. They carried in 200,000 tree trunks from as far as 50 miles away to serve as beams for the great houses.

Thanks to ancient tree rings, we have such accurate pictures of long-forgotten droughts that we can track arid cycles as they moved across the Southwest centuries ago. The zigzag growth patterns in Chaco's tree rings are a sobering chronicle of persistent droughts, which culminated around 1100 in a 50-year dry spell. Chaco emptied rapidly. Family by family, the permanent residents of the great houses moved away, to live with kin where water was more abundant.

The droughts occurred because the winter jet stream over the northeastern Pacific and its associated storm tracks stayed well north of California. After 1300, there was an abrupt change to persistently wetter conditions, which lasted for 600 years, before giving way to today's arid conditions. None of today's droughts approach the intensity and duration of the epochal dry spells of a thousand years ago. These prolonged droughts occurred because of warming throughout the world and persistent, dry La Niña conditions in the Pacific. The lesson is clear: Even modest warming can bring serious drought to California.

We are now living though a warming cycle that began about 1860 and continues unabated. The incidence of drought has risen 25 percent worldwide since 1990. Britain's Hadley Meteorological Institute is one of several institutions that have developed sophisticated, and frightening, computer models of the effects of continued warming. By 2100, extreme drought will affect a third of the world's surface, up from 3 percent. Moderate drought will descend on half the world, a doubling from today. The aridity will hit hardest in arid and semi-arid lands, among them the American West and tropical Africa, where self-sustainable agriculture is chancy even with plentiful rainfall. With our promiscuous urban development and industrial-scale agriculture (70 percent of California's water goes to farming), we have already strayed far from any form of self-sustainability.

I recently visited Phoenix, where unbridled urban sprawl rules and the population is exploding, despite rapidly diminishing water supplies. While the experts worry, the public at large seems little interested in serious, collective efforts at water conservation. Here in California, too, we live in a state of comfortable denial. You can hardly blame us, residing as we do in an environment of short-term thinking where we are accustomed to instant self-gratification. We turn on faucets and water is there, however dry the landscape outside the kitchen. The thought of a 140-year drought is almost beyond comprehension, yet we may well be entering one. To deny the possibility, to suggest that history is no guide, is just plain stupid.

Whether we like it or not, droughts and water define our lives. Water shortages are on the horizon now. If the Hadley's projections are correct, they'll be a daily reality in our great-grandchildren's time, unless we become really serious about water conservation as a society. That's the lesson of Chaco's silent great houses, where people conserved water rigorously, yet were defeated by prolonged drought.

It takes serious commitment and long-term thinking to develop water conservation that works for the benefit of future generations. And part of this effort must include education about water issues from the earliest age, for conservation is, after all, a social problem as well as a practical one. But, as Chaco hints, this is something that needs to transcend petty concerns about tax increases and ideological fixations. It's a matter of the collective survival of the West as we know and love it.#

In the latest salvo in the battle over steelhead trout, an environmental group this week took the first step toward filing a lawsuit against the United Water Conservation District and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, claiming the water agency is not doing enough to protect the federally endangered fish in the Santa Clara River.

"We have to take decisive action now," said Nica Knite, program manager for California Trout, which filed a notice Monday that it planned to sue over the issue. The suit is not just about protecting the steelhead, but the entire river, she said.

The steelhead "is an indicator of the ecosystem health of the entire Santa Clara River watershed," she said.

Knite's group contends United Water hasn't done what was specified in a July document by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which regulates the management of the steelhead.

The biological opinion said the United fish ladder that goes around the Freeman Diversion doesn't work and the agency must fix it or build a new one.

It said actions are needed as early as this winter to help the fish get around the structure, which diverts water from the river to the Oxnard Plain.

United's general manager dismissed Knite's claims as well as parts of the biological opinion, saying the water district is doing all it needs to do to protect the fish.

"We are not going to be intimidated," Michael Solomon said. "We are going to protect the environment and do our responsibilities and protect our constituent's water supply."

Solomon said the ladder does work, and the reason only two steelhead have been seen going up it in the past 11 years is there isn't a significant fish population in the river.

"We believe the fish ladder works and if they are there, they can get up it," he said. "What it says to us is that the fish aren't there."

The Bureau of Reclamation was named in the lawsuit notice because it lent the money to United to build the ladder. Bureau officials were unavailable for comment.

Knite said the biological opinion states United needs to form a panel to figure out ways to make the ladder more effective this rainy season, when steelhead normally swim from the ocean and up freshwater streams to lay eggs. She said a number of things can be done to make the ladder more effective, including modifying the streambed at the entrance to the ladder.

But Solomon said United is convening a panel to determine if the ladder needs to be fixed. Only if the panel decides it is broken will United look at ways of fixing it, instead of building a costly new one.

"Don't replace the engine of the car when all you need is a spark-plug change," he said.

Knite argued the biological opinion clearly states the mission of the panel is to find immediate solutions, and United needs to act quickly before the rainy season.

"They may complain that they are moving forward, but they are not," she said. "The regulatory process is complete. There are directives, and you are not acting on them. You need to act on them to benefit the species."

Chris Yates, who oversees steelhead restoration in Southern California for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the purpose of the panel is to consider ways to fix the ladder or determine what new facility would work.

It has unequivocally been determined the existing ladder doesn't work, he said.

United Water has spent a significant amount of time trying to prove that steelhead are no longer in the Santa Clara River and therefore a new fish ladder is not needed.

The biological opinion said the river is one of the most important in Southern California in helping the species to recover.

It also said a new ladder — which United estimates could cost $28 million to $60 million to build — needs to be constructed by 2011, a timeline United called unreasonable.

It will not be the first time California Trout has sued a water agency.

The Casitas Municipal Water District built a $9 million fish ladder on the Ventura River in 2005 after threats of a similar suit by California Trout.

Knite said it's time to move forward and look at how to protect the steelhead in the Santa Clara River.

"The fat lady has sung, and the writing is on the wall," she said. "Eleven years is too long to allow this to go on, and we cannot stand for any further delays."#

Mount Shasta News – 10/2/08
By Tony D'Souza
Siskiyou County, Calif. -

A drive along the I-5 corridor between Mount Shasta and Redding will quickly let even the casual observer know that California is experiencing a severe drought. The sight of a bare Mount Shasta and the exposed banks of Shasta Lake serve as stark and constant reminders of the situation unfolding throughout the North State. In a statement on its website, the Department of Water Resources calls the drought of the past two years, “the most significant water crisis in California history.” The drought is also arguably the biggest factor in the wildfires that made this year’s “the worst fire season in California history,” according to Governor Schwarzenegger and CalFire.

Intensifying disputes over bottling plants and dam removal in our area are symptoms of water, climate change, and drought, local environmentalists say; these issues will become increasingly important to planning decisions in Siskiyou County.

The severity of the current water crisis was first outlined by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on June 5, when he declared the drought official, and underscored in early September when state officials unveiled a “drought water bank” to prepare for the possibility of a third dry year in a row.

In declaring the drought, Gov. Schwarzenegger said, “This drought is an urgent reminder of the immediate need to upgrade California’s water infrastructure. There is no more time to waste because nothing is more vital to protect our economy, our environment and our quality of life... Water is like our gold, and we have to treat it like that.”

Driest spring in 88 years
The drought declaration was the first since 1991. This year saw the driest spring in 88 years, with many of the state’s largest reservoirs currently nearing a third of their capacity. Not only was rainfall slight this year, but according to the DWR, the final survey for 2008 conducted in May measured snow levels at “just 67% of normal for the date, statewide.”

“Snow depth and water content have declined since April,” the DWR statement accompanying the survey results continued. “Much of the water content is being absorbed by parched soil as a result of last year’s extremely dry weather. March and April 2008 combined are the driest in the northern Sierra since 1921, the first year that records were kept. Water runoff into streams and reservoirs is only 55 to 65 percent of normal... Storage in California’s major reservoirs is also low because of last year’s dry conditions.”

In releasing the survey results back in early May, DWR director Lester Snow said, “Today’s conditions further underscore the need for immediate action to solve California’s water supply and delivery problems. We must take immediate steps to protect the Delta ecosystem, conserve more water and develop additional groundwater and surface storage facilities to meet our future needs.”

The summer only saw a continued lack of precipitation, and the eventual rationing of water by some downstream and southern California communities and utilities, most notably the East Bay Utility District and the Long Beach Water Department.

Drought water bank
To prepare for the possibility of a dry 2009, the DWR announced the “drought water bank,” which will facilitate the relocation of 600,000 acre feet of water from the north of the state to the south. Under the program, water-rich sellers in the north, including Sacramento Valley farmers who can create a surplus of water by idling crops, will sell their excess water on the open market to water-thirsty cities and farms in the south. The DWR will collect a fee for “pumping the water to its destination,” the Sacramento Bee’s Matt Weiser reported in September.

The DWR will also “...rank buyers according to need. Cities with water related health and safety problems will get first dibs, with farm crops a lower priority. To qualify, urban buyers must have a conservation program adopted to cut normal water use by 20 percent.”

This is to avoid a situation where, as the DWR’s Snow explained, “...farmers selling water so people can hose off their sidewalks.” By moving pro-actively and quickly to address the drought – Schwarzenegger declared the drought this year when water levels were still higher than at Governor Pete Wilson’s 1991 declaration – state officials hope to staunch some of the losses suffered by the economy this summer in the form of “plowed-under” crops and delayed housing and business projects.

Sheri Harral, the Bureau of Reclamation’s Public Affairs Specialist at Shasta Dam, while conceding that BOR officials are “concerned” with the situation in a phone call last week, also was eager to let people know that not everything is as troubling as it may seem at first glance.

“We’re at 147.23 feet from the crest at Shasta Lake. The reservoir is 31 percent full,” Harral explained. “But we’ve been lower before. 147 is not good, but it’s not the worst. The lowest we’ve ever been was 230 feet below the crest in 1977.”

“What people don’t understand is that when we get average rainfall, the reservoir fills quickly,” Harral continued. “It kind of looks like something from a space movie right now, the emptiness of it, all that red dirt. We get a lot of questions whenever the water level falls this low. For the last 16 years we have had excess water. People have gotten used to seeing that. When the reservoir looks like this, people start to panic a little because they don’t remember 1977. The purpose of this facility is to prevent flooding, but we’re also here for years like this. The dam is doing it’s job...We still have 1.5 million acre feet, there is still a lot of water here... 90% of our water is from rain, 10% is from snowmelt. We’re hoping for an average rainfall. Even in 1977, the reservoir filled the very next year.”

In a call just before press-time on Tuesday, Frank Christina, National Weather Service observer in Mount Shasta, said that the seven consecutive months of drought conditions experienced locally are scheduled to get a reprieve as early as this Thursday, with rain forecast through the weekend, he said. #

WASHINGTON -- Political maneuvering over the San Joaquin River's future continues even as Congress grinds to a halt.

In a last-minute bid to sidestep budgetary obstacles, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein has cut the cost of the river-restoration bill. Feinstein says stripping out money could ease the bill's passage.

"The only viable option is to make the bill [budget] neutral, then pursue legislation in the next Congress to fully restore the original funding provisions," Feinstein told the Friant Water Users Authority late Friday.

Feinstein added that "this will give us momentum going forward," as environmentalists and Friant-area farmers try to complete a lawsuit settlement. Water would be flowing and salmon swimming again below Friant Dam by 2013 under the settlement.

But Feinstein's move caught even some of her Capitol Hill allies by surprise, and the odds still appear heavily stacked against success.

"I don't think that will fly," said Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno.

At the least, the latest maneuvering epitomizes how hectic Capitol Hill becomes as Congress rushes to adjourn. Political opportunities can rise and fall quickly amid the hubbub, and so can lobbying efforts. On Saturday, for instance, Fresno-area political activist Tal Cloud began trying to raise $10,000 for a quick campaign opposing Feinstein's efforts.

The river legislation is supposed to cap a 20-year-old lawsuit. The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmentalists successfully sued the federal government, contending that Friant Dam wiped out the San Joaquin River's salmon population.

The environmentalists won and then negotiated a restoration plan with the farmers of the Friant Water Users Authority. For the past two years, lawmakers have tried without success to pass the legislation authorizing tens of millions of dollars in levee construction and other work the plan needs.

The river-restoration bill has an estimated federal price of roughly $250 million. Feinstein initially folded the bill into a huge public-lands package, designed to attract maximum political support by including about 140 separate bills.

Senators were having a hard time offsetting the cost of the public-lands package. Conservatives also opposed the public-lands omnibus as excessive. The package appeared dead. Then, late Friday, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and other senators determined they could streamline the bill by removing some of the spending authorization. This outflanked the congressional "pay-go" requirement that bills be paid for.

"I think what the senator is trying to do is keep the bill in play," said Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Merced.

The revised river bill offers only $88 million in guaranteed spending. The rest must be appropriated by Congress in future years. The original bill authorized roughly $250 million.

In theory, the revised public-lands package might be taken up before the November election or in a potential post-election lame-duck session. In practice, this will still be very hard.

Costa, for one, represents farmers now raising alarms that river-related projects promised to them will never be built if the money isn't guaranteed up front.

"Given the financial crisis that this country is in, the likelihood of receiving substantial additional funding is more remote than ever," the Los Banos-based San Joaquin Valley Exchange Contractors wrote Monday.

In a thinly veiled warning, the west-side farmers further cautioned that if Congress pressed ahead quickly, there may be a "need to return to court."

Others, including the Chowchilla Water District and Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Visalia, are likewise insisting that Congress slow down.

The overall Senate public-lands bill itself remains subject to objections by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, with 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a potential filibuster even as Feinstein urges speed.

"Not to begin," Feinstein warned, "presents a real risk that the parties will return to court." #