Zeke Grader
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Assns, Exec. Dir.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Dear Governor-Elect Brown:

First, congratulations: you prevailed in a hard-fought gubernatorial election, one that had the dubious distinction of being the most expensive in state history. You trumped a slick advertising campaign funded by the personal fortune of a billionaire candidate by speaking the simple truth to the voters -- there are no easy solutions, and we'll all have to work together to make government work for all Californians.

Governor-Elect Brown, commercial fishermen hear you. We supported you in the election, and we look forward to working with your administration. We believe this is a legacy moment -- for you, for the natural resources of California and for the fishing industry. We believe that your administration marks a tipping point for California's greatest biological treasure -- its native salmon. It can go either way: we can save our salmon during your administration, or we can lose them. It basically comes down to your decisions.

California's salmon runs were once a mighty economic engine as well as a natural wonder, feeding the state and the nation and supporting hundreds of thousands of working people. But in the past five years, they have been devastaded -- almost wiped out. There are several factors to this catastrophic collapse, but two transcend all others: water diversions and habitat destruction in the Bay/Delta Estuary, in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers and their tributaries and, to the north, in the Klamath River. By addressing these issues in a forthright and aggressive fashion, you will secure our salmon runs for California's posterity.

Please consider the following measures when you assume office:

Set State Water Board Flow Standards:

Direct the State Water Resources Control Board to move promptly in setting strong, scientifically-based standards to protect and restore the public trust values -- most notably, fisheries -- of California's rivers and the Bay/Delta Estuary.

Stop Illegal Water Diversions:

Support legislation that will strengthen the State Water Board's ability to prosecute illegal water diverters. California's water resources are limited. The state government, responsible urban and agricultural water agencies, the business community, fishermen and environmentalists must find common ground on the equitable distribution of water, and work together to stop illegal diversions. Illegal water diversion is arrant theft of a public resource; we need to prosecute the people who are doing it.

Reduce Reliance on the Bay/Delta Estuary:

Your administration must protect the Bay/Delta -- the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas and a national treasure -- by requiring the agencies under your authority to enforce existing regulations. Require the Delta Stewardship Council and the Department of Water Resources to draft programs that reduce reliance on the Bay-Delta as a water source. It is, after, all, California's single most important ecosystem; it is a life-producing estuary, not a reservoir. Reducing diversions of the freshwater flow that sustains this great estuary -while developing new water sources elsewhere -- is policy already required by state law, but has never been effectively implemented. The time is now to act on that policy.

Restore California's Great Salmon Rivers:

State agencies must be directed to proceed with full restoration of the San Joaquin River, a critical component of any long-term state salmon recovery strategy. The agreement among farmers, the federal government, environmentalists and fishermen established parameters for the river's restoration, but implementation of the settlement has been lagging; we need to move ahead with the plan. In the Sacramento, we need to move aggressively in removing old barriers that have blocked salmon access to hundreds of miles of spawning habitat, while on the Klamath we need to move at all deliberate speed to take down the old salmon killing dams and restore habitat and flow to the third largest salmon producing river in the lower 48.

Rebuild the Department of Fish and Game:

Historically, the California Department of Fish and Game has stood as a stalwart for the state's natural resources and a vigorous enforcer of environmental laws. CDFG wardens and biologists have always been the "thin green line" that protected our natural resources from pillage and ruin. Sadly, the department has been sapped of its funding and authority under recent administrations, and its ability to protect our fisheries and wildlife has been undermined. We need to turn things around. The new CDFG director must be given explicit marching orders to protect state fisheries. Additionally, CDFG should be directed to collect appropriate fees and reimbursements to fund the agency's work. To that end, we pledge to work with your administration to find new funding sources to support Fish and Game's critical mission.

Finally, Governor-Elect Brown, our state agencies must fully understand that a new sheriff is in town. The people who elected you have no doubt that you intend to do things your way, not your predecessor's way. But you've been in Sacramento before. You know that state bureaucracies have an institutional inertia that insulates them from the administrations that oversee them.

This has to stop. In particular, the agencies that deal with water and fisheries must be informed that their decisions WILL be based on biological science, not political science. I respectfully suggest an executive order similar to the U.S. Department of the Interior's recent Secretarial Order to Ensure Integrity of Scientific Process in Departmental Decision-Making. This order directs California agencies working on water issues to base their planning and regulatory efforts on the best available science. A companion order from your administration would leave no doubt in the minds of agency directors and staffers that the era of political wheeling and dealing is over -- at least where our fisheries and other natural resources are concerned.

Commercial and sport salmon anglers are not turning blind eyes to the plight of the salmon. There is much focus these days and especially this past year on how the declining runs of salmon can be restored. Drastic measures are taking place, which includes removing the dams on the Klamath River to allow the fish to reach the upper spawning grounds.

Around 1926, fish biologists and anglers were not happy with the Copco (CaliforniaOregon Power Co.) dam construction. They were even less happy with the dam’s operation. No minimum flow conditions were required of the operator. The power plants were operated to meet peak power demands (at capacity by day and shut down at night and on weekends) and the flow releases fluctuated with the anticipated demands. During one week, flows could vary from 3,200 cubic feet per second to 200 cfs.

Hazards were created for fish and anglers with these extreme and unnatural short-term fluctuations. Complaints were common during the 1920s and 1930s. Lawsuits against Copco were eventually filed. In several studies, adult and juvenile salmon and steelhead were observed being stranded along the shores of the river, and stream invertebrates being killed by the exposure. Then the sudden rise in the release would wash out and destroy recently made spawning redds.

As a result, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries recommended in 1935 that an equalizing dam be constructed below the Copco power plant to regulate the releases to a steady flow. In 1945, the state Legislature requested the Public Utilities Commission to study the effects of the artificial fluctuation and recommend a solution. The final report recommended in 1947 that a regulating dam below Copco #2 be installed and operated by the company.

Studies at the time showed a phenomenal biological impact. California Fish and Game biologists calculated that during the period from June 1948 through May 1949, the Klamath River below Copco experienced a loss of 1,862,132 salmon fingerlings, yearlings and adults. Multiplying this annual loss times the 45 years it took until the problem was solved, indicates the magnitude of the tremendous loss to the fishery.

Another impact of the dam noted by the agency at the time was the cementing of spawning gravel in the Klamath River between the mouth of the Scott River and Copco dam, a factor that was and still is a serious impediment to successful spawning. Most all of these revelations can be credited to the painstaking work of the late Millard Coots of Redding, a biologist for the Department of Fish and Game.

It was not until the 1950s that Copco decided to build Iron Gate Dam. One of the large stumbling blocks to taking action was the resolution of the major water rights issues in the upper Klamath River Basin. Only after the ratification of the Klamath River Basin Compact by Oregon, California and Congress in 1957 was it possible for plans for the Iron Gate Dam to proceed. A higher priority for Copco was the completion in 1958 of the Big Bend (now John C. Boyle) dam and power plant upstream of Copco #1 in Oregon.

Obtaining the state water rights and Federal Power Commission license for the Iron Gate Dam required negotiations over the needed in stream flows below this desired project. The Department of Fish and Game protested the initial flow release recommendations, finally reaching an agreement with Copco in 1958. The flows were based on 1950s state-of-the-art methods, with the primary intent to improve the fall Chinook salmon runs. This final flow schedule was added as a Protest Dismissal Clause to the Federal Power Commission license:

- Sept. 1-April 30, 1,300 cfs

- May 1-May 31, 1,000 cfs

- June 1-July 31, 710 cfs

- Aug. 1-Aug. 31, 1,000 cfs

A new fish hatchery in lieu of a fishway ladder also was required by the California Department of Fish and Game and the Federal Power Commission for mitigating the loss of anadromous fish habitat. The old hatchery at Fall Creek was abandoned in 1948.

Construction of the Iron Gate Dam began in 1960 and was completed in 1962. Located about seven miles below Copco #2, the dam is 173 feet high and the reservoir capacity is 58,000 acre-feet. Power plant capacity is 20 megawatts.

In 1948, the Copco mitigation hatchery at Fall Creek, (also Yreka’s water supply source) was permanently closed because of its dilapidated condition and the state’s apparent lack of interest at the time in artificial salmon propagation. Although the egg collecting station was maintained, no propagation facilities were operated on the Klamath River until 1966. The Department of Fish and Game’s mitigation emphasis for Iron Gate for a minimum flow schedule to protect the salmon and the construction and operation of the new hatchery to produce fall Chinook, Coho salmon and steelhead.

The Federal Power Commission license stipulated the production capacity by species: 200,000 steelhead trout; 73,000 yearling silver (Coho) salmon; and 6 million fingerling Chinook salmon and the release of an additional 5.5 million swim-up-fry. Pacific Power and Light Co. (PP&L) (formerly Copco) pays 80 percent of the annual maintenance costs while California Department of Fish and Game covers 20 percent.

On a detailed topo map or Forest Service map, one can point out the various dams proposed for removal. Starting upstream would be Iron Gate Dam. About eight miles upstream at the head of Iron Gate Lake is Copco #2 dam and a quarter-mile above that is Copco #1. Dam. About 20 miles upriver is the John C. Boyle Dam in Oregon. Then, about eight or 10 miles above there is the Keno Dam. The current number of hydroelectric projects of the upper Klamath River is six. Two are at the Klamath Falls area below Link River Dam at Klamath Lake.

More items to be addressed include such things as water quality effects, spawning gravel impacts, fish passage, fishing rights, and related subjects. More to come on Part 3.

Tight Lines.

John Spencer is a longtime angler and north state resident.

Eureka Times-Standard-12/24/10
By John Driscoll

The number of salmon seen in parts of the Eel River this year have dwarfed that in any other year since the 1940s.

All across the watershed, people have reported big numbers of salmon moving in to spawn. There's no official tally of fish anywhere but at the Van Arsdale Fisheries Station, but fish lovers and biologists are saying the run -- which is now tapering down -- was impressive.

At Van Arsdale, the previous record for chinook salmon was 1,754 in 1986-1987.

This year: 2,313, and a few more may trickle in.

”A lot of people are impressed with the numbers of chinook we've seen,” said Fish and Game Associate Fisheries Biologist Scott Harris. “What I'm really impressed with is this is a 100 percent wild population.”

There's no way to accurately correlate the numbers seen at Van Arsdale with the rest of the watershed. But Harris said that there were reports of big numbers of salmon running up the Van Duzen River -- perhaps more than in 20 years -- and in other areas. Fish watchers on the South Fork of the Eel River also reported an impressive run.

A couple of weeks ago, ranchers Dina and Mark Moore on upper Yager Creek were wide-eyed when they saw dozens of chinook in a broad, shallow stretch of the creek. Dina Moore estimated there were perhaps 100 swimming in that one spot, and there were another 30 carcasses of salmon that had already spawned and died.

”These big fish were just right there,” Dina Moore said.

Landowners in that area have for years been doing projects like road decommissioning and other efforts aimed at improving salmon habitat on Yager Creek, and while it may be too early to tell whether that's had an effect, Dina Moore said it is encouraging.

”Who knows if what everybody's doing is helping?” Dina Moore said. “But what an incentive.”

The number of jacks at Van Arsdale is also far above last year's total of 139. Jacks are 2-year-old fish that return early to spawn, and are often a good indicator of the health of the following year's run. To date, there have been 746 chinook jacks at Van Arsdale.

Steelhead are faring only slightly better than last year's run at this time, but that run is just getting under way. At Van Arsdale, 17 steelhead have been counted, compared to 10 last year at this time. Steelhead numbers at Van Arsdale have fluctuated widely, reaching a high of 7,679 in 1960-1961, falling to just a handful in the early 1990s, and holding at about 250 per year since then. Last year's steelhead count was 324.

Coho salmon are rarely seen at Van Arsdale anymore, though estimates of their numbers in the early 1900s were in the tens of thousands. Estimated historic runs of chinook salmon and steelhead in the entire watershed were between 100,000 and 800,000, according to a 2010 report by the University of California at Davis Center for Watershed Sciences that was commissioned by California Trout.

Heavy logging, water diversions, commercial fishing, invasive species and dams that block spawning habitat have all been implicated in the declines. Chinook, coho and steelhead are federally protected, which has led to regulations on logging, fishing and gravel extraction.

Harris said that a wet spring will probably help young salmon avoid predatory pike minnows on their way out to sea, and mean better survival.

The big runs being seen on the Eel River this year may be a testament to the improving health of the watershed, Harris said. Still, there is more work that needs to be done to help the river's fish, he said.

”Until we can walk across their backs,” Harris said.#

On a sun-splattered March afternoon, a drumbeat thundered through New Zealand's Rakaia Gorge. Layers of beads and abalone shells shook around Rick Wilson's neck as he wove his way through a row of dancers representing spawning salmon. As the salmon spirit, Wilson -- the dance captain for the Winnemem Wintu -- an unrecognized tribe of 123 from Redding, Calif., moved to a group of warriors stomping by the fire. He touched their shoulders as he passed, a sign of an apology accepted.

The ceremony, performed this spring for the first time in 70 years, was part of an effort to restore the California tribe's spiritual connection to salmon, severed when Shasta Dam was completed during World War II. In the Winnemem's creation story, salmon gave the people its voice. In return, they promised to protect the fish. But when the dam flooded the tribe's village and cut off salmon runs in the nearby McCloud River, the covenant was broken.

But not necessarily for good. In 2005, the Winnemem made a surprising discovery: Salmon eggs and milt exported from a McCloud hatchery about a century ago had spawned a stable sport and commercial fishery on New Zealand's Rakaia River. The tribe began hatching an unorthodox plan to bring their salmon home.

"We felt if we didn't do it now we might run out of time," says the tribe's spiritual leader and chief, Caleen Sisk-Franco.

Salmon runs are genetically distinct from one another and thoroughly adapted to their spawning grounds. No one knows whether California's McCloud salmon died out or bred with other runs after the dam went up. So simply repopulating the river with salmon from nearby rivers wasn't an ideal option for the Winnemem.

New Zealand biologists and the tribe are convinced, however, that Rakaia salmon are direct descendents of the McCloud run, and the Winnemem plan to build a hatchery on the river to rear fry hatched from that stock. To move salmon around the dam, the tribe has proposed extending natural creeks to connect the Sacramento River, which runs to the ocean, to the dam's reservoir.

Spawning salmon swimming up the creeks from the Sacramento would spill out near the mouth of the McCloud and likely find their way home, following scents they knew as fry.

Some hoops remain to be swum through, though: State and federal officials want to verify the fish's genetic origins and do a thorough study of the genetic and behavioral changes it's undergone adapting to the Rakaia's short run and small estuary. Biologists are also concerned that hatchery fish could compete or interbreed with fragile wild populations.

Whether Rakaia salmon -- which are smaller and spawn earlier than their ancestors -- will even be able to survive in the McCloud is also uncertain. It isn't the same river they left behind. In some seasons, its flow is a fifth of what it once was, owing to hydroelectric-plant diversions -- too low to support spawning salmon. The plant is now up for relicensing, and the tribe is among many groups jockeying over the terms of the new permit.

Despite the challenges, Sisk-Franco dreams of the day when the salmon will come home.

"When that dam went up, it left a hole in our lives," she says. "It would mean a whole lot to us to see salmon spawning in our river again."#

Amphibians are still in serious trouble around the world. A recently updated worldwide population assessment by the non-profit International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that 32 percent of the 6,000-plus amphibian species left on the planet have declined to dangerously low levels-and qualify for vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered status on the group's "Red List" of at-risk wildlife.

Perhaps even more disturbing is that upwards of 160 amphibian species - some of which have been around for hundreds of millions of years - have gone extinct just in the last 25 years. Since amphibian species are particularly sensitive to environmental change, they are often the first animals to decline in areas just beginning to experience environmental degradation, and as such are considered to be important indicators of the health of the wider ecosystems surrounding them.

Scientists are hard-pressed to pick one major cause for such dramatic declines, but at least one key culprit is a fungal pathogen called "frog chytid" (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis). According to the nonprofit Amphibian Ark, frog chytid causes changes to amphibians' sensitive outer skin layer, making vital life processes - such as the absorption of water, oxygen and electrolytes - difficult or impossible.

Prior to 1999, researchers hadn't yet identified this variant of the chytid fungus, let alone the role it was playing in decimating amphibian populations. It is particularly dangerous because none of the world's amphibians seem to be immune - even those species that survive an infestation still carry and transmit the parasite.

Frog chytid isn't the only factor in amphibians' recent troubles. According to the AmphibiaWeb website, habitat destruction, alteration and fragmentation (with the forest goes the frogs), as well as predatory introduced species, increased exposure to UV-B radiation (likely caused by erosion of the Earth's protective ozone layer), various forms of air and water pollution, and poaching all combine to stack the odds against amphibians.

IUCN and its partners Conservation International and NatureServe have released an Amphibian Action Conservation Plan, which outlines ways that international institutions, national governments, corporations and even everyday people can take part in helping to save our frogs and their relatives. According to the plan, reducing pollution and lowering our carbon footprint is an important first step.

Likewise, preserving more amphibian habitat - especially in Latin America, which has the largest number of threatened amphibian species, and the Caribbean, where upwards of 80 percent of amphibians are at risk - will be key to the survival of our frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians. Captive breeding programs in various zoos and labs around the world, reintroductions of species into formerly abandoned habitats, and the removal of harmful non-native species also need to play a role in preserving these many species that, once gone, will never reappear.#

Early flooding, variable water depths and broadening field levees are experiments that some Mid-Valley rice farmers are testing in an attempt to improve habitat and shorebird populations along the Pacific Flyway.

The California Rice Commission is in its second year of a pilot project with wildlife groups to study the potential of new waterfowl-centric management practices. Audubon California, PRBO Conservation Science, and The Nature Conservancy are helping lead the study, along with six rice farmers.

"Rice growers have a natural love affair with water birds, ducks and shorebirds, so it's a natural partnership to come together," said Paul Buttner, environmental affairs manager for the commission. "The goal here is to try to identify some new things that maybe we haven't thought of before."

The flooding that creates habitat for millions of birds became prevalent in the 1980s after burning mandates limited disposal of rice straw. Now the prevailing method, it's aided by migrating birds.

"(Birds) walking around in the straw and picking through it looking for waste grain and weed seeds helps advance the decomposition," Buttner said.

In return, the rice fields dominating the Mid-Valley landscape serve as surrogate wetland habitat. About 350,000 acres of flooded winter fields provide 80 percent of winter wetlands.

"By no means are we experts on this, but we all know we're providing habitat to 230 species of birds, and 7 million waterfowl visit our fields every year," said Jon Munger, of Montna Farms in the Dingville area of Sutter County. "Now, it's what can be done to further enhance the shorebird population."

The project targets four methods: variable flooding, early flooding, "boards in," and increasing nesting habitat.

Variable flooding would maintain fields at different water levels so migrating birds could find the depth their species prefers, whether it's 2, 4 or 6 inches.

For early flooding, farmers would let water flow into individual fields immediately after harvest, instead of waiting weeks for all the rice to be harvested.

"Biologists are quick to point out that at the same time we are harvesting in August and September, there is a shorebird migration coming in and those birds want the water the rice fields provide," Buttner said.

At Montna Farms, where conservation has always been part of the business model, harvest often wraps up earlier than other growers and its fields are among the first to flood, Munger said. Shorebirds come flocking by the thousands when the water starts to flow.

"They are beautiful, it's wonderful to see them," he said. "Every year there seems to be more and more."

Montna Farms is also testing the "boards in" approach, with some success. The concept means that farmers who don't flood their fields set the boards that prevent water from flowing out during the growing season, with the hope of trapping enough rainwater to attract some species.

The fourth concept is to increase nesting habitat, whether by creating islands in the fields or broadening and flattening the in-field levees.

"It makes sense, but how many do you do? How big do they need to be? How high?" Munger said. "These are the discussions that we're having."

Every two weeks, a biologist goes to the participating farms to survey the birds. As early as last year, they began to see some success, said Alex Hartman, shorebird conservation biologist for Audubon California.

Widening the field levees seemed to cause an increase in American avocets and black-necked stilts. And in boards-in fields, numbers increased for killdeer, greater yellowlegs, long-billed curlew and Wilson's snipe.

"It's been overwhelming, but it's something we expected," Hartman said. "You put water out on those fields in the fall and birds are going to migrate and going to use them."

The Sacramento Valley is home to one of the greatest concentrations of arctic and subarctic species from Alaska and Canada, with up to 300,000 shorebirds in the winter. But during parts of the migration, all the flooded habitat is absent.

The birds going north to their breeding grounds in March coincides with farmers drying fields to prepare for planting. And when birds start migrating south in July or August, fields are drying before harvest.

"Limitations for many of the species are occurring during migration in the winter," Hartman said. "If we can improve the conditions, we feel we can go a long way to improving the population of the birds."

Each method has its challenges for the farmer and will likely be accompanied by costs, whether from labor or infrastructure.

"As long as they understand we need to maintain a viable farm as well as continue to make a profit, we are more than willing to invest in conservation," Munger said.

The California Rice Commission hopes this project will also further its reputation as an environmental crop, Buttner said.

"There are 36 million people in the state and few have any connection to agriculture, but they all care deeply about the wildlife," he said.

A better understanding of agriculture's commitment to and partnership with wildlife may help growers and waterfowl, he said

"None of this would be possible if we didn't have access to the surface water resources that we use to grow rice in the Sacramento Valley," Buttner said. "Five inches of water used to flood the rice fields has so much more value than just the crop that is being produced."

Farmers are the best partners for the project because they know their fields, the possibilities and the obstacles, Munger said.

"We have a great dialogue of what is feasible out there, as a grower what can we do," Munger said. "I'm happy to be a rice farmer that can help, know that we are providing a place for them to stay."#

Redding Record Searchlight-12/14/10
By Scott Mobley

Dam operators have more than doubled Sacramento River flows to make room in Lake Shasta as forecasters call for a week of rain starting Friday.

The river went from about 7,000 cubic feet per second below Keswick Dam to 15,000 cubic feet per second between 1 and 3 a.m. Tuesday. That’s a peak summertime flow but well below the big releases of 50,000 to 72,000 cubic feet per second during major storms.

Dam operators might boost flows even more this week, depending on weather forecast trends, said Larry Ball, operations chief at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Northern California Area Office.

“Everyone wants to see the reservoir full,” Ball said. “But people forget the reason the reservoir is there is for flood control. If you fill the space too early and there’s no room for rain later on, you’re in a world of hurt.”

Lake Shasta stood 45.79 feet below the dam crest early Tuesday afternoon, compared with 129 feet below the crest a year ago.

The lake stored about 3.33 million acre feet as of Tuesday. That’s roughly 125 percent of the 15-year average for the date, and 362,847 acre feet more than the lake should contain at this time of year, Ball said.

Dam operators would like to keep Keswick Dam flows around 15,000 feet, Ball said. That’s still low enough to spin turbines in the power plant. Higher flows go over the spillway and generate no additional power, Ball said.

Bureau of Reclamation dam operators base their decisions to crank up releases on a flood control formula that accounts for reservoir inflows. The formula gets more conservative if storms have boosted runoff into the lake and there’s more rain forecast, Ball said.

Storms so far this month have dropped 5.72 inches at Shasta Dam, with rains dumping about 0.68 inches early Tuesday.

These rains have pushed the lake level up about five feet since Dec. 4, according to California Department of Water Resources figures.

Season rainfall to date at the dam is running about 145 percent of the 15-year average, Bureau of Reclamation figures show.

Forecasters agree that the widespread cooling of the eastern Tropical Pacific known as La Niña has helped drive the jet stream into the Pacific Northwest and often across Northern California.

La Niña years are notoriously more difficult for dam operators than El Niño years, which almost always bring wet spring weather, Ball said. Spring rains aren’t nearly as dependable during La Niña, he said.

So while the flood control formulas require a conservative response to early La Niña storms, weather patterns may shift after February and shunt rainfall away from Northern California.

Mid-range forecasts indicate a chance of showers over the mountains around Lake Shasta today and Thursday. The northern Sacramento Valley should stay dry.

Rain should return Friday, as a deep long-wave low pressure trough develops off the Oregon coast. A series of storms rippling through this long-wave trough will hit Northern and Central California through the weekend into early next week, if these forecasts verify.

Current forecasts indicate these storms will hit the Sierra Nevada much harder than the Lake Shasta inflow and the northern Sacramento Valley.

Five-day precipitation forecasts call for up to 2.4 inches of precipitation over the wettest portions of the north state above Lake Shasta this weekend.

These same forecasts call for up to 6 inches of precipitation — or 5 to 7 feet of snow — over the Sierra crest this weekend.#

A high-stakes effort to remake the San Francisco Bay Delta, the West Coast’s largest estuary, is looking as fragile as the degraded delta itself these days.

Four years into the effort, the distance between competing water constituencies has only been widening as self-imposed deadlines come and go.

Farmers and cities in Southern California are pressing for a return to the abundant supply of water delivered through the 1,000-square-mile delta before a drought and legal rulings to protect endangered fish led to constraints two years ago. Environmentalists want ironclad guarantees that threatened fish like the minnow-size delta smelt will not be wiped out for want of water.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a federal and state initiative, would re-engineer the delta to make it safe for native species and would establish a framework for water distribution for the next 50 years. The delta, where California’s two largest rivers come together, supplies about one-quarter of the freshwater used by about 23 million Californians.

The goals of the plan are to keep vegetables and fruit trees growing in the Central Valley, taps running in Southern California and native fish swimming in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and in the briny western reaches of the delta, which the rivers feed and give it its formal name.

But the Westlands Water District, which serves some of the wealthiest and most powerful agricultural interests, has pulled out of the negotiations, saying it doubts it will get the water deliveries it had expected.

“The original purpose was to restore our water supply,” said Tom Birmingham, the general manager of the district, which snakes along the western edge of the Central Valley and serves 600 farms, according to its Web site.

The route the water takes is not without risks. Because of 160 years of farming and the construction of 1,100 miles of levees, delta lands have sunk and are now 3 to 20 feet below sea level. Mindful of how Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, planners are also focusing on the possibility that a big earthquake or storm could break crucial levees and allow saltwater from the bay to inundate the delta, which could shut off a large source of the freshwater supply for months.

Among the proposed solutions to the environmental and engineering issues is a $13 billion tunnel that would tap into the Sacramento River farther upstream and divert water around the delta. The tunnel, which could be 33 feet in diameter and 33 miles long, would be designed to be more resilient to earthquakes. It could also eliminate the springtime problem of newly hatched young smelt being sucked into giant pumps south of the delta that pull the river water into the distribution system.

Another proposal calls for a canal system to serve the same purpose. And a third calls for installing gates to isolate one of the northernmost channels of the San Joaquin River, setting aside a permanent habitat for fish.

Both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and the incoming Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, support the twin goals of making the supply of water running through the delta reliable and protecting the species that have dwindled.

As Spreck Rosekrans, a delta expert for the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “The reliability of our water systems is key to California’s economy.”

But Mr. Birmingham said that no agency contracting for water from federal or state projects “is going to spend billions of dollars on the implementation of a program that isn’t going to provide benefits to them.”

While he did not specify what water deliveries would be adequate, Mr. Birmingham and other Westlands officials had expressed comfort with the option most closely studied, which could ensure that the district gets more than 70 percent of the maximum flows that it contracts for.

In 2009, that flow was reduced to 10 percent of the contracted amount; a political outcry ensued.

The district originally joined in the conservation effort partly to win exemptions from some provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The premise is that helping to create or restore habitat for a species can outweigh the harm imposed by another activity — in this case, transporting water south through the federal and state systems.

The precise relationship between flows of river water and fish mortality is not clear. Still, environmentalists and fishermen note that the years of abundant water for farmers and Southern California cities corresponded to years when fish populations crashed — in the case of the smelt, almost to the vanishing point. (Judge Oliver W. Wanger of Federal District Court ruled Tuesday that the 2008 federal plan to protect the smelt was critically flawed and sent it back to the Fish and Wildlife Service for reconsideration.)

The work on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan had nonetheless been moving in a direction favorable to Westlands interests for much of the past year, with most of the attention devoted to a set of flow-related criteria that would assure the district of supplies they considered sufficient.

Then, federal and state biologists reported in September that those criteria could deprive the smelt of crucial water flow.

In November, David Hayes, the Interior Department’s No. 2 official, made it clear that the finding meant that other formulas, which would probably mean less water for farmers, would have to be studied as well. Westlands officials were furious.

“We were sold a bill of goods once again by the federal government,” said Westland’s president, Jean Sagouspe. In an interview, he said the scientific process had been “politicized,” and he went so far as to call Mr. Hayes a “liar.”

Mr. Sagouspe predicted that the loss of Westlands financial support, which has covered more than a third of the planning costs so far, would doom the project. “Nothing will get built if we’re out,” he said.

In an interview, Mr. Hayes played down the district’s move. “I would turn my attention not to talking to them but to continuing the work we’re doing,” he said, adding that the other major water users are “still at the table.”

New actions and announcements from both state and federal officials are possible at any moment.

By agreement and by state law, Westlands had been sharing the cost of the plans with the Kern County Water Agency, which represents wealthy farmers and investors and growing communities to the west of the southern Sierra Nevada, and with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. These two agencies might now have to bear future costs with only the help of whatever money can come from the financially squeezed state and federal agencies.

So far the planning costs are expected to exceed $226 million, however, and more than half of that has already been spent.

“The costs go up significantly if major parties are dropping out,” said Jeff Kightlinger, the chief executive of the Southern California district. “While we have not been necessarily as vocal as Westlands, we share the same frustrations.”

If the planning process falls apart, Mr. Kightlinger said, the water users might “limp along without a big grand fix but a number of patches.”

Environmentalists warn that inaction on the delta ecosystem could imperil aquatic life. At the same time, many acknowledge the need for a solution that also adequately addresses the needs of farms and cities.

“The theatrics of people leaving the negotiating table is just that, it’s theatric,” said Jon Rosenfield, a biologist with the nonprofit Bay Institute and a member of the restoration plan’s steering committee.

“There has to be a conservation and restoration plan for the delta,” Mr. Rosenfield said, “that improves the status of the species and provides better water supply reliability for the water users.”#

A federal judge in Fresno on Tuesday invalidated key parts of a much-debated plan to protect the threatened Delta smelt. The ruling will likely force the federal government to rewrite the plan for the second time in less than four years.

U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger's 225-page decision found that while pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta hurt the smelt, the restrictions set up to protect the fish were not justified.

The ruling also said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn't follow its own regulations, which require the agency to study whether the pumping reductions are economically and technologically feasible.

The judge has been harshly criticized by water users for some preliminary rulings that favored the environmental protections. On Tuesday, plaintiffs who had sued to overturn the plan applauded his latest decision.

The ruling is a "step closer to accomplishing California's co-equal goals of restoring the Delta environment and ensuring that the public will have an adequate and reliable water supply," said Tom Birmingham, general manager of the Westlands Water District.

The politically conservative Pacific Legal Foundation – which joined the smelt battle when it filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of three San Joaquin Valley farming operations – issued a statement from attorney Damien Schiff that said Wanger was "correct to recognize" that the smelt plan "involved a lot of junk science."

While the ruling looks to be a victory for agricultural water users and their urban water district allies, the ruling also turned back a number of their legal challenges.

And even though significant portions of the smelt plan will likely have to be rewritten, it doesn't necessarily mean more water for Los Angeles and Bay Area water agencies and agricultural users on the San Joaquin Valley's west side.

These water users have battled environmental groups who sought to keep the smelt plan in place, saying it was vital to protect the tiny fish.

"We're disappointed that the judge found the number of flaws that he did with the (smelt plan)," said George Torgun, an attorney with Earthjustice, which is one of the groups fighting for the smelt protections. "We think it was based on sound science."

Still, Torgun said he was pleased that Wanger continued to agree with the contention of environmentalists and the federal government that Delta pumping operations do hurt the tiny fish.

Wanger has issued several preliminary rulings in the case, but this was the big decision that both sides had awaited. It came more than four months after the oral arguments in the case.

But this is unlikely the final word in the long-running battle – which Wanger's ruling called a "continuing war over protection of the delta smelt" – that has pitted environmentalists against the urban and agricultural users that depend on the Delta for their water supply.

For starters, Wanger has ordered both sides to convene Jan. 4 to see what, if anything, needs to be done while the Fish and Wildlife Service rewrites the smelt plan.

This will likely lead to more arguments between the two sides, and possible orders from Wanger affecting smelt-related pumping restrictions that could kick in as early as this month.

In addition, any new smelt plan could face more court challenges from either environmentalists or water users.

And there is also the parallel issue of endangered salmon, which also have a protection plan that is being challenged by water users. Arguments in that case are scheduled Thursday and Friday before Wanger.#

In California, the coho (silver salmon) have been on the endangered species list for many years. They have been raised in hatcheries on the Klamath and Trinity Rivers but these efforts have not produced sufficient numbers on a consistent basis to warrant a sport fishing season in the rivers.

The Department of Fish and Game recently announced the release of 100,000 coho smolts in the Russian River drainage in an ongoing attempt to re-establish a self-sustaining population in the Russian River. This project began in 2001 through 2003 with the capture of some of the few remaining silver salmon spawners returning to the Russian. The first release of 6,000 juvenile salmon came in 2004.

Since that time, the facilities at the Warm Springs Hatchery have been expanded and improved. The experimental facility located at Warm Springs Hatchery is the largest in California devoted to rearing and releasing endangered wild coho salmon.

This year's plants will total 160,000 fish released in three phases. Rather than releasing these fish in the main river channel, biologists are backpacking these smolts into remote streams.

The hope is that they will imprint on the waters of the stream and return as adults to spawn in the wild rather than return to the hatchery. The Russian River flows through the redwood country and has many small tributaries suitable for coho propagation.

This project is funded by the Army Corps of Engineers who are responsible for Warm Springs Dam and Lake Sonoma. The hatchery is operated by Fish and Game. Hopefully this project will realize its potential and someday we will again have a viable coho salmon fishery on the Russian River.

Local fishing has been rather slow lately. I went to Englebright on Sunday afternoon for a couple hours. The fishing was fun but the catching was a bust. I tried trolling with flies but there is a lot of debris on the surface that hangs up on your line. The water temp was 52 degrees. The only hopeful sign came as we pulled up to the dock. As if to show me the single fin salute, a trout jumped not more than 10 feet from the boat.

On the Sacramento River the salmon season ended with a whimper. The storms had raised the water level and there was quite a bit of debris riding the current down river. The best push of salmon came through in mid to late November and it has slowed down since then.#

Crescent City Triplicate-12/10/10
By Megan Hansen

Streams and rivers in the Redwood National and State Parks are filled with the sights and sounds of spawning salmon.

Salmon sightings were few in previous years, but park volunteer Rick Hiser said the Smith River is starting to see an increase in Chinook salmon.

He said the streams were filled with salmon 150 years ago, before logging and road construction took their toll on places like the Mill Creek Watershed.

“Any disturbance to the landscape impacts the salmon,” Hiser said. “You take the habitat away and you don’t have any fish.”

Restoration efforts in the watershed have helped improve estuarine habitat conditions, in turn improving spawning locations. Hiser said the efforts are important because they improve the stream’s health.

“The park is putting large woody debris back into the river,” Hiser said. “It creates pools for the fish to rest in and places for little salmon to hide.”

Hiser is showing off the restorative efforts to the public in weekend tours that showcase spawning salmon. He said it’s always a treat to have people see the salmon’s reproductive process.

“I’m always amazed at how amazed people are,” Hiser said.

Rick Hiser leads weekend tours so people can observe the spawning process. The Daily Triplicate/Bryant Anderson Salmon spawn after a rigorous journey upstream from the ocean to the waterways from which they were born. Before a female salmon can lay her eggs, she must first dig a depression in the gravel of the river.

Hiser said this depression, known as a redd, is a 12- to 15-inch nest created by the movement of the female fish’s body.

“Every time she turns over backward and flips her tail she’s in essence digging a hole,” Hiser said.

Splashes of water and flashes of silver and white scales give away a female’s digging location. Once she’s done, she deposits her eggs in the hole. A nearby male salmon will swim alongside the female and fertilize the eggs as they are deposited.

Hiser said people are often surprised to learn that salmon spawn in moving water and that a 25-pound Chinook can lay about 25,000 eggs.

Once the salmon have spawned over the course of a couple days, they die. Hiser said he has heard some people say it’s a waste of a good fish. However, he said the dead fish are a source of nutrients.

“The dead parents feed the insects and the insects feed the baby salmon,” Hiser said. “The forests have been fertilized by the salmon, too.”

In addition, he said once the salmon are done spawning their meat is no longer fatty and becomes tasteless and colorless.

Tiny salmon offspring will be in the ocean by springtime. Hiser said little fish will emerge from the eggs 50-60 days after fertilization. In about two to four years, these salmon will return to spawn for themselves.

Hiser said the reproductive cycle of the salmon is fascinating and that everything in nature is connected.

“Salmon have evolved to be born in fresh water, go to a place with nutrient-rich food and come back to fresh water,” Hiser said.

Salmon spawning tours will take place Saturday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon through Dec. 18. Two Sunday trips are scheduled for Dec. 26 and Jan. 2.

Attendees are advised to dress warmly and bring polarized sunglasses and binoculars. Trips will be cancelled if it rains or if the water is muddy from a previous day’s rain.#

Redding Record Searchlight-12/11/10
By John Spencer
Opinion

There has been quite a stink going on about the removal of the dams on the Klamath River. Many articles have appeared in this paper along with articles about the plight of the salmon being the main reason for their removal. It seems, however, with all the arguing and bickering, there might be some blind spots and questions unanswered about this fine fishing river and its future.

To better understand the issue, I researched some history about water and power projects on the Klamath. Unlike its Trinity River sub-basin, the Klamath River does not suffer from the effects of a major river diversion project exporting water out of the basin. It does, however, show the effects of years of habitat damage caused by dams permanently blocking fish runs and altering stream flow patterns.

Water impounding dams in the Klamath were first built in the 1850s for supplying water to mining and farming operations. These early dams were small, located on tributaries, and often washed out with a flood of any magnitude. Temporary dams of rock, dirt and logs would likely block downstream migrating fish, but were not barriers to upstream fish, depending on the autumn flows.

In the 1930s more permanent mining dams blocked passage in quite a few tributaries of the Klamath: Hopkins, Camp, Indian, Beaver, Dutch and Cottonwood creeks. The Salmon and Scott River tributaries also were blocked. Some of the old mining dams lasted long after abandonment and still were blocking access to anadromous habitats. Many abandoned mining dams were dismantled by the Department of Fish and Game through an aggressive removal program in the 1950s.

A wooden dam was built on the upper Klamath at the mill town of Klamathon in 1889 for a large lumber mill there, but the whole town was destroyed by fire in 1902. This allowed the salmon to again resort to the river’s upper reaches.

For many reason, large dams were not built during the early period, but circumstances changed. Around 1892, the first hydroelectric power plant was built on the Shasta River, about five miles upstream from where it enters the Klamath. That was followed by one built on the Link River to serve Klamath Falls.

Through the eyes of the California Oregon Power Company (Copco) Engineers, the Klamath River represented numerous power sites between Keno and the Pacific Ocean. The most attractive sites were in the first 50 miles of river below Keno (where the fall is about 2,500 feet), but serious exploration also occurred down river.

At least 10 dam sites were identified along the lower river between Iron Gate and the mouth at various times by various engineers. In 1910, Copco’s reconnaissance favored two: Bib Bend, about four miles upstream of Happy Camp; and at Ishi Pishi Falls, just above the mouth of the Salmon River. Since the latter site would provide the cheapest power, Copco initiated water rights in 1908, obtained rights of way and began extensive construction work. The company, however, abandoned plans when it could not find a market for the power.

Since projects were not always feasible for power benefits alone, Copco also was trying to find a project, which would have irrigation supply benefits. Other sites were evaluated by several entities on tributaries of the Scott River (including one with a tunnel to Yreka to supply the Shasta Valley) but none was ever found to be feasible.

In 1910, Copco (formerly Siskiyou Electric Power and Light Co.) finally focused on the Ward Canyon area northeast of Yreka for the location of its first hydroelectric power plant. In anticipation, the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries installed a salmon egg-taking station a few miles below the area at Klamathon, which was the side of the old logging dam at the turn of the century. Remains of that old dam still remain in the river. These racks extended across the river, effectively blocking the salmon run, but were necessary in order that the supply of salmon may be maintained in the Klamath River.

Pre-dam flow records of the Klamath River were begun in May 1910 on a daily basis at Ward’s bridge by Copco, with the maximum discharge at 4,500 cubic feet per second and the minimum discharge at 1,450 cfs. Over a five-year period, the records indicated a change from a uniform flowing stream to one with lower water in the summer and high water in the early spring.

The observed uniform flows, which at first would seem unnatural, reflected the moderating influence of the large shallow natural lakes in the headwaters, Upper and Lower Klamath lakes. Copco’s engineer attributed the flow change to the irrigation development in the upper Klamath basin then being constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation. Although the change in river flows was not too serious at that time, they were destined to get worse as the Reclamation Service projects progressed and water rights battles were heating up.

The power company’s marketing survey showed that the project should be split in two phases. Copco No. 1 dam, completed in 1917, created a reservoir with a surface of 1,000 acres and a storage of 77,000 acre-feet. In 1918, the first generating unit was put online, with a second one (Copco No. 1-A) added in 1922, following the raising of the dam to its ultimate height. Generating capacity was 20,000 KW. In 1925, Copco No. 2 plant was put into commercial operation. It consisted of a powerhouse and a small reservoir (5 surface acres containing 55 acre-feet) about a quarter mile downstream of Copco No. 1 dam.

In the early 1920s, momentum was growing for more dams. The Electro-Metals Co. planned two very high dams in the lower Klamath and at Ishi Pishi Falls. Another company wanted a dam between the other proposed dams. The California Fish and Game Commission claimed the lower site would exterminate all the salmon in the Klamath River, as there were no spawning grounds below the proposed dam sites. The agency finally decided to make a determined fight against the construction of any more dams on the Klamath River.

Arguments that the dams’ benefits were far in excess of the value of the salmon fishery, the company convinced local papers to editorialize in its favor. They emphasized that salmon canneries were small enterprises of only local importance and the Fish and Game Commission was a tool of the idle rich, blocking the much-needed industrial expansion of the state. The agency countered that comparing the costs and benefits of destroying the largest remaining free-flowing river on the Pacific Coast were immaterial.

Although the Federal Power Commission at first denied the permit for the dams, it later reversed itself because it did not want to get in the middle of a dispute between two state agencies. The State Division of Water Rights had approved the water appropriation of 8,000 cfs despite the Fish and Game Commission’s recommendation for denial. Siskiyou County farmers also opposed the decision.

To successfully fight the two other agencies and the power company, Siskiyou County and the Fish and Game Commission appealed directly to the people through an initiative measure on the state ballot (Proposition 11) in November 1924. As the result of persistent campaigning of Fish and Game employees in all parts of the state, the measure passed by nearly a two-to-one margin.

The initiative created the Klamath River Fish and Game District consisting of the Klamath River from its confluence with the Shasta River all the way to the mouth in Del Norte County. This prohibited the construction of any dam or obstruction in the river. However, upstream from the Shasta River confluence, there is more to write about that will be covered in future articles.

My hat goes off in thanks to the Klamath Basin Task Force and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for providing vital research information for this writing. The removal of the dams issue can affect the future of fishing one way or another. It is this writer’s intent to not make any judgments on the issue but to try a supply information that may not have emerged or slipped through the cracks. More to come later in part 2.#

John Spencer is a longtime north state resident and angler.

It’s not going to happen overnight, but if a plan by the Napa County Resource Conservation District works as hoped, Calistogans may be able to lean over the railing of the Lincoln Avenue bridge next winter and be pleasantly surprised by the sight of a Chinook salmon returning to the stream of its nativity to mate and find eternal rest.

In recent years Chinook salmon this far up the Napa River have been mostly the stuff dreams are made of, but this may be the last year the community will find itself longing for the return of the magnificent salmonidae Oncorhynchus tshawytscha. The scientific name of the Chinook salmon, a fish that can grow up to four or so feet in length, comes from the Greek words onkos (hook), rynchos (nose) — charactieristics of the male of the species — and tshawytscha (the Chinook’s common name in Siberia and Alaska).

Old photos have been published in this newspaper showing this fish caught locally by folks back in the 1950s.

So, when we learned that the NVRCD was conducting an excursion to watch the fish engage in procreative congress last Sunday, we couldn’t resist.

The destination was Zinfandel Lane, south of St. Helena and closer to the Silverado Trail than Highway 29. It’s a beautiful bridge built in 1913. It’s also the spot where an insurmountable barrier has existed since 2008, keeping the magnificent fish from migrating to their natal home to participate in an exercise that would, well, be a killer rendezvous.

Prior to four years ago the fish could be spotted during the day from the Lincoln Avenue bridge, or near the foot crossing behind the Sharpsteen Museum. But in 2006 the sightings became less frequent. After 2007 or 2008, none have been seen.

None.

Recent allegations have been that the fish could not be sustained because of the lack of water upriver, but that may be only part of the truth. The real culprit is the damage done to a type of fish ladder at the Zinfandel Lane bridge in 2006. That damage made the progression of the salmon north a journey possible for only the most fit of fish, those determined enough to leap to the next higher level of river.

In 2008 the way north became completely blocked when the original fish bypass completely fell apart and even the most robust of salmon could not make the journey past Zinfandel. Combine that with the depletion of salmon along the Northern California coast, and — viola! — no Chinook up north.

On Sunday, some 75 observers stationed themselves just south of Zinfandel Lane — 13 miles south of Lincoln Avenue — to voyeuristically peer at the bedroom antics of the Chinook salmon beneath a sky that frequently spit drizzle.

The sights and sounds were among the most beautiful. The courtship and flirting. The conflict of a male spurned. The guardianship of the mom salmon of her “redds,” a pile of eggs she’d deposited in the gravel river bottom. It represented the way of life in the Napa River for eons.

Next summer, the NVRCD, with approved Measure A flood control funds, possible grant money from the California Coastal Conservancy, and the support of the Board of Supervisors, will create a new channel allowing these and other magnificent fish to make the journey upstream all the way to Calistoga, where residents and visitors alike will be able to enjoy the rebirth of nature.

Kudos to the NCRCD — to Jonathan Koehler, Frances Knapczyk and Stephanie Turnipseed — for facilitating Sunday’s excursion to the edge of something we may have lost forever if not for efforts to save the river.

Our Napa River is far from pristine but with continued monitoring and the support of The Weekly Calistogan readers, the beauty of nature Upvalley is a treasure within reach.#

Legislators promised a roomful of angry, miserable fishermen this weekend that they would work to restore devastated salmon runs and bring back their jobs at a seminal gathering near Half Moon Bay.

U.S. Reps. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, and Mike Thompson, D-Napa, didn't mince words in describing the impacts of the loss of Central Valley Chinook that pass through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The number of fall-run adult Chinook returning to spawn crashed from 879,000 in 2002 to 39,500 in 2009, resulting in the cancellation of the California salmon fishery for two years in a row and a near-total Chinook salmon ban last summer.

"This is an unmitigated disaster," Speier said. "We're not going to let your businesses die."

It's unclear, however, what a few legislators can do amid a contentious political divide over Southern California water exports from the Delta and the effects those water withdrawals are having on salmon populations. One man at the meeting held up a sign that said, "Salmon need water!"

The meeting exposed these political fissures. Speier and Thompson sharply questioned representatives of the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the California Department of Water Resources, who presented their perspectives on the causes of and solutions to the salmon crisis.

Both agencies move billions of gallons of water to Southern California corporate farms and cities. The Department of Water

Resources has joined more than a dozen lawsuits seeking to overturn recent federal court orders that required Southern California water agencies to cut back on withdrawals from the Delta to protect endangered species.

"We don't think some of the solutions they've proposed will help any, and they're going to use a lot of water," said Gerald Johns, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources.

Thompson rejected that argument outright.

"We need to let science drive this, not some lamebrain political campaign," he said.

Many factors are affecting the survival of the species, including inclement ocean conditions, upstream toxic runoff from farms and cities, and dams that block fish passage. But the Bay Institute's Tina Swanson said "strong" science has shown that the decisive factor is the flow and abundance of water in the Delta and its tributary rivers. And the news has been all bad so far on that count.

"Despite the tremendous work that's been done to increase flow, if you look at the data, there hasn't been any progress at all," Swanson said.

Swanson is participating in the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, which is formulating a controversial $12 billion canal or tunnel that would reroute Sacramento River water without killing fish at pumping stations like the one in Tracy.

But even if water districts back the plan, any action is at least a decade away.

"I'm fearful that Rome is burning and we're sitting around talking about whether we're going to move forward," Speier said. "We have a roomful of people who have lost their livelihoods."

A study sponsored by the American Sportfishing Association found that bringing the Central Valley Chinook salmon back from the brink would create 94,000 California jobs and pump $5.7 billion into the state's economy.

The lawmakers resolved to carry that message to all Californians, who seem largely unaware of the salmon's plight. Speier and Thompson plan to hold similar meetings at each of the 74 marinas across the state, to raise awareness of how the issue affects everyone and break the political standoff.

Fishermen pledged their support.

"Anything you need done, anything we can provide for you, we will do," said Duncan Maclean, a Half Moon Bay fisherman, addressing the politicians. "Where we're going now is not a legacy I want to leave."#

Georgiana Slough in Walnut Grove looks like an inviting place for fish. It's quiet and shady and appears to have a lot of habitat.

In fact, it's a death trap for young salmon. Big, toothy bass wait in the shadows. And the slough, which splits off from the Sacramento River, is a dangerous detour toward pumps that export water south from the Delta and chew up the 6-inch fish.

State water officials hope to neutralize this problem with a novel tool: a curtain of underwater bubbles to steer salmon to safety.

The experimental "bubble fence" will operate at the mouth of the slough, where research shows that 65 percent of the salmon that enter don't survive.

"We may want the water to go that direction, but we don't want the fish to go," said Jacob McQuirk, project manager for the California Department of Water Resources. "What we're doing is just trying to direct the fish – guide it down a certain channel."

The bubble curtain will be built underwater across the entrance to the slough.

A sheet of air bubbles will rise from the bottom, lit by flashing lights and saturated with offensive electronic sound. The theory is that salmon don't like the sound, and the lights and bubbles tell them how to avoid it.

The system is attached to a framework mounted to pilings, which are cut off about 10 feet below the water surface so boats can still pass.

It will not be visible on the surface, except for a line of fizzing bubbles and, at night, perhaps the underwater lights flashing, McQuirk said.

DWR plans to install the system in February. It will operate for 45 days starting in March as researchers monitor salmon behavior.

The project will be discussed at a public meeting today at 6 p.m. in Walnut Grove at the Jean Harvie Auditorium, 14273 River Road.

Similar systems have proved effective throughout the world at power plant cooling intakes.

The installation at Georgiana Slough, however, will be the biggest of its kind ever tested in the United States, McQuirk said. It will operate in a far more complex environment that includes rising and falling tides, stronger and more persistent river flows and more boater traffic.

The technology is being leased from Fish Guidance Systems, a British company. First-year costs are estimated at $5 million, McQuirk said, to be paid by State Water Project contractors.

If the project is successful, the hope is that it will keep salmon away from diversion pumps, thereby allowing higher pumping levels.

In order to test whether the system works, at least 1,000 juvenile salmon, raised at Coleman National Hatchery near Red Bluff, will be implanted with tiny radio transmitters, then released upstream.

In addition, at least 50 predator fish – bass and catfish – will also be implanted with transmitters.

Each fish, whether predator or prey, will emit a unique "ping" that will be picked up by a network of underwater microphones surrounding the bubble curtain.

The microphones will create a sonar image of fish behavior to help researchers determine if, in fact, salmon were deterred by the bubbles and how predators behave.

A special underwater camera will allow researchers to "see" in dark and murky water, to reveal what's happening along the bubble curtain itself.

"We want to know exactly what the fish is doing – in three dimensions," said McQuirk. "We want to break it down to the reasons why the fish goes the way it goes."

Bill Jennings, executive director of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, is skeptical of the system. He called it a "Band-Aid" to cover up the bigger problem of water diversions killing fish.

"It's the latest techno gadget," Jennings said. "It's intriguing. But in this estuary, few things work out as anticipated."

A similar system has been tested on Old River near Stockton. In 2009, river flows were low and the bubble curtain was 81 percent effective at deterring salmon.

This year, with much greater river flows, it was about half as effective. Many salmon appeared to initially avoid the bubbles but were pushed through by the flow.

In both years, many salmon were still eaten by predators at the bubble curtain, which improved salmon survival only slightly compared with no bubbles at all.

At Georgiana Slough, a goal is to improve the concept. For instance, McQuirk said, the bubbles will be more forceful to match stronger currents and will curve out into the Sacramento River so salmon can see them sooner and swim away before passing through.#

Spencer Callahan donned a pair of waders and stepped into the Stanislaus River on a chilly morning last week.

He was helping to count the chinook salmon that have swum up the river this fall after spending a few years at sea.

As of Wednesday, 1,268 fish have been tallied, better than the dismal 595 for all of last fall but still far less than the 10,000-plus in some years past.

Callahan, who works for a consulting firm called FishBio, was as undaunted by this fact as he was by the 48-degree water at the counting station near Riverbank.

"I have high hopes for the salmon," he said. "I think we're getting better and better fish coming up, more every year."

Plenty rides on the backs of these sleek native swimmers. The decline in salmon has led to cutbacks in Central Valley irrigation supplies — mild to moderate in most places, but severe in parts of the West Side in recent drought years.

State and federal officials have warned that greatly increased river flows could be needed to aid salmon, smelt and other fish at risk. That could mean further cuts in water for California cities and for the farms that are the foundation of the valley economy.

Hence the welcome, however cautious, for this fall's uptick in the salmon count.

"We're pleased with that, but they're still pretty meager," said Walt Ward, assistant general manager for water operations at the Modesto Irrigation District.

As of Wednesday, 684 salmon had been counted on the Tuolumne River, which supplies the MID and the Turlock Irrigation District. Last year, it was 124.

"We're not popping any champagne," said Jesse Roseman of the Tuolumne River Trust, an environmental group. "While any increase in returns is appreciated and at least guardedly celebrated, the numbers are still disastrously low."

The numbers are up as well in Sacramento Valley rivers, which account for the vast majority of the Central Valley total in any year.

Ward said he was surprised by the increase because the drought of 2007 to 2009 should have stressed the salmon.

On the other hand, experts said the fish have benefited from improved conditions in the Pacific Ocean, including a recent upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water off the coast. Survival also was aided by a ban on commercial salmon fishing off California in 2008 and 2009, prompted by the low counts on the rivers.

But the fish face plenty of challenges. Dams block parts of the river stretches where they lay eggs. Mining and other human activities have disturbed streamside vegetation and the riverbed gravel where the baby fish hatch. Some stretches of water are too warm for these cold-loving creatures.

Downstream in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, salmon contend with pollution and with the massive pumps that send water south.

Then there's the striped bass, an introduced species that feasts on young salmon.

"It's clear that fish aren't making it out of the south delta, because they're getting eaten," Ward said.

MID officials contend that this predation is not getting enough attention from state and federal agencies that are more interested in boosting river flows.

The Oakdale and South San Joaquin irrigation districts, which tap the Stanislaus River, have taken up the predation issue, too. On a Web site, they refer to it as "the real and solvable problem" and call for lifting the limits on bass fishing.

These two districts pay for salmon counting on the Stanislaus by FishBio, a 33-employee firm based in Oakdale.

At the site near Riverbank, the company has installed a temporary weir — a series of grates that stretch about 120 feet across the river. Salmon headed upstream can only get through a passage about a foot wide, which leads to a chamber where high-tech equipment photographs and measures them.

It's sometimes rugged work for Callahan, who is an aquatic research specialist, and for Jacque Demko, a biologist working alongside him last week. They collect the fish data and clean debris off the weir, which is designed to allow small boats to pass. Sometimes, they snorkel in the river to count the salmon.

FishBio also monitors salmon on the Tuolumne for the MID, the TID, and the city and county of San Francisco, another user of this water.

Doug Demko, who is the firm's president and uncle of Jacque Demko, agrees that factors other than stream flows are hindering the salmon.

The irrigation districts have helped pay for habitat improvements that do not involve flows — creating gravel bars, restoring riverside vegetation and the like.

"They know that if they want to keep their water flowing, they need more fish in the river," Demko said.

Roseman, who is the Central Valley program director for the Tuolumne River Trust, said salmon need the habitat improvements and flows that mimic natural conditions.

"We have great conditions for an agricultural economy," he said, "and we hope to also have similarly great conditions for local fisheries."#

Peggy Beckett is struggling to keep her coastal sportfishing shop open as salmon numbers decline. Five years ago, Peggy and Bill Beckett had plans to one day sell their coastal sportfishing shop to help them get through retirement. The couple spent their entire adult lives fishing for salmon, chartering boats and selling bait and tackle to recreational anglers. But salmon season was closed in both 2008 and 2009 and Bill Beckett died just more than a year ago. Although salmon season was opened this year, Peggy Beckett said there was “no fish locally to catch.” Now Peggy wonders whether she will be able to keep the Huck Finn Center at Pillar Point open another year. She has put every dollar she has into keeping the shop open but is not sure she will be able to renew the lease when it expires in 18 months.

She first landed in Half Moon Bay with her husband on their boat the Red Baron back in 1987. The couple saw some incredible years together as fishermen, especially in 2002 when a record-high 800,000 Central Valley Chinook salmon returned to spawn in the Sacramento River. Anglers were able to haul in an incredible 700,000 salmon out of the Pacific Ocean that year. Last year, less than 40,000 fall Chinooks returned to Central Valley rivers, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. The low numbers have brought the salmon fishing industry to the brink of extinction and has cost the state billions in revenue. Locally, Beckett knows she is not the only one suffering through the decline in salmon numbers. The bookings she makes for local charter boats has dropped dramatically. Duncan MacLean, who captains the boat Barbara Faye out of Pillar Point, has been forced to take his boat to fishing waters off the coast of Oregon and Washington this past year to keep food on the table. For MacLean, “fishing was never a living and always a lifestyle.”

But the lifestyle is deteriorating, he told a packed house of fishermen and government officials at a salmon summit at Mavericks Lodge and Event Center at Pillar Point Saturday, hosted by U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo. Speier, along with U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Napa, invited scientists, state water agency representatives and those affected by the industry’s decline to gather at Pillar Point to discuss what is needed to restore California’s salmon runs. Central Valley Chinook salmon runs, if recovered fully, could provide 94,000 new jobs and $5.7 billion in annual revenue for the state.

The numbers have dropped for a variety of reasons, including pollution and predation. But many fisherman, including Dick Pool and Marc Gorelnik, blame water diversions out of the Delta and the state agencies that allow it for bringing salmon to the brink of extinction. “If business as usual continues, this fish is headed for extinction,” said Pool, the owner of Pro-Troll Fishing Products in Concord. Gorelnik, who serves on the board of the Coastside Fishing Club, blames corporate farms, and Southern California parks and golf courses for draining water away from the Delta at the expense of salmon and the industry the fish supports. “State agencies are playing God, by diverting water to the San Joaquin Valley. Access to salmon is critical to the livelihood of coastal communities,” Gorelnik said. It is not “Mother Nature” at work in the salmon’s decline but something more “sinister,” Gorelnik said.

But it is not all bad news for salmon, said Tina Swanson, executive director and chief scientist at The Bay Institute. “Salmon is a resilient species. If we improve conditions, they will be able to bounce back,” Swanson said. Restoring the Delta’s ecosystem and improving fresh water inflow will be key to the recovery of the species,” Swanson said. A collaboration of state, federal, and local water agencies, state and federal fish agencies and environmental groups are currently preparing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan with the goal of identifying water flow and habitat restoration actions to recover endangered and sensitive species and their habitats in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The plan, however, is in its early stages and is not expected to be completed until 2013. For some fisherman, that may be too long. “We can’t wait 20 years in the future. We need emergency actions. We need help now or we will never fish again,” Pro-Troll Fishing Products owner Pool said. Peggy Beckett, 63, can’t wait 20 years either for solving salmon’s decline. “I’m out of savings both personally and for the business. I can’t afford employees,” Beckett said. She has no retirement and is too old for a career change, she said.

“Salmon is an indicator of what will happen to all of us,” Beckett said.

Ventura County Star-12/4/10
SUDHIN THANAWALA

HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) - Members of Congress and fishermen grilled federal and state officials on Saturday about efforts to restore California's once-abundant salmon runs. U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, who helped organize Saturday's wild Pacific salmon summit, said she was alarmed by dwindling salmon populations and suggested more needed to be done to prevent their demise. "We have evidence and science suggesting we're losing the salmon run, and we're not doing anything about it," Speier told Federico Barajas, a representative of the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

Barajas spoke about a conservation plan in the works for the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta aimed in part at restoring sensitive and endangered species and their habitat. The Sacramento River Basin has experienced particularly dramatic losses in its once-healthy runs of fall chinook salmon - the cornerstone of commercial fisheries in Oregon and California. Numbers there have plummeted from about 770,000 returning chinook in 2002 to a record-low 39,500 fall chinook last year. Officials have responded with a ban on commercial fishing the past two seasons that has devastated the industry.

"It's not just the salmon (we're losing)," said Rod McInnis, a representative of the National Marine Fisheries Service. "It's the communities and the good people who built those communities and are tied together by salmon." Many in the fishing industry blame the decline on the transfer of water from the Sacramento River to farms in the San Joaquin Valley. But Jerry Johns with the California Department of Water Resources said other factors, including toxins in the water and predators, were also to blame. Representatives of the fishing industry say whatever is causing the decline, their livelihoods are at stake. Dick Pool, owner of Concord-based Pro-Troll Inc., which manufactures salmon fishing equipment, said his business is suffering.

"Last three years have been mighty tough. We haven't made a dollar," he said. "We need some emergency action here if we're ever going to fish again."#

S.F. Chronicle-12/3/10
By David Perlman

An enterprising young scientist reported Thursday that in the briny mud of Mono Lake, where strange life-forms abound, she has discovered a strain of bacteria bizarrely different from anything ever known on Earth.

Felisa Wolfe-Simon, 33, a research fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey's regional laboratories in Menlo Park, found a peculiar microbe that thrives and reproduces based on the highly poisonous element arsenic, a life-form, she says, whose existence could change the way space biologists seek life on distant planetary systems.

Even before she described her discovery, a cryptic NASA announcement that it was coming caused a frenzy in the blogosphere - with bloggers speculating wildly that unknown life had been discovered on Saturn or Mars or somewhere else in the solar system.

Wolfe-Simon had predicted that microbes like these would exist somewhere in the world long before she found them thriving in the arsenic-laden California lake.

Her discovery is significant because all life known today depends on the element phosphorus for its DNA and its tissues. If her microbes have in fact evolved to thrive on an element other than phosphorus - in this case arsenic - then the basic definition of life needs changing, for Earth and other planets, she said.

Wolfe-Simon is a biochemist and has worked at the NASA Astrobiology Institute at Arizona State University, where scientists study the varied microorganisms that live in extreme environments on Earth and that might exist elsewhere in our solar system - or even beyond.

In a report published today in the online journal Science Express, and during a NASA news briefing, Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues argued that the arsenic-eating bacteria she found could well have been abundant when life first emerged on Earth, but that over billions of years most of the strain ultimately lost out in their evolutionary competition against the phosphorus-based life we know.

Some, however, must have persisted reproducing, with arsenic substituting for phosphorus in their DNA and all their other functions, Wolfe-Simon said during the briefing.

"It's amazing," she said. "We've cracked open the door to what's possible for life elsewhere in the universe. Now we must think about what other forms of life there could be."

To make sure that her bacteria really reproduce and thrive on arsenic instead of phosphorus, Wolfe-Simon said she ran a careful series of experiments, culturing the bacteria with varied concentrations of arsenic and diminished levels of phosphorus. It was the arsenic that kept them alive and reproducing, she said.

One scientist who joined her for the televised NASA briefing was more cautious, though.

Steven Benner, founder of the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution in Gainesville, Fla., called it "an exceptional report." But recalling the late Carl Sagan's admonition for all scientists, he warned that it "requires exceptional evidence" - many more experiments, he said, to confirm her findings and her conclusions.

But Pamela Conrad, an astrobiologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, however, was excited. "It's a phenomenal finding," she said. "It's a huge deal. It will fundamentally change how we view life."

Many other scientists who are uninvolved in the research, but who read the paper in Science Express, also consider it highly significant.

"This is very important for astrobiology," Chris McKay, a planetary scientist and astrobiologist at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, said in an e-mail interview. "It is not a second genesis of life, but it's the first example of what we can really call an extreme life form in an extreme environment. Here is the first example of a microorganism that has really changed itself at a fundamental biochemical level in order to live in an extreme environment. Very interesting indeed."

Terry C. Hazen, a specialist in microbial ecology at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said the information provided by Wolfe-Simon and her colleagues "is quite convincing and provides potential new insights that many of us have not thought of."

Dylan Chivian, another biologist at the Lawrence lab, called the discovery "very exciting" and said it provides an example of life that is "able to escape dependency on the standard building blocks (of life), opening the possibility that other essential elements might also be replaced" - as in this case, where arsenic replaced phosphorus in Wolfe-Simon's microbes.

When NASA issued a news release early this week announcing Thursday's media briefing "to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life," those words generated a storm of rumors.

Jason Kottke, a former Web designer and widely known blogger, referred to the NASA release in his blog and said, "If I had to guess ... I'd say that they've discovered arsenic on Titan and maybe even detected chemical evidence of bacteria utilizing it for photosynthesis ... or something like that."

Kottke's blog went viral all week, and then - with tongue in cheek, presumably - Mickey Richardson, a well-known bookmaker whose online wagering site is widely followed, posted odds on what NASA would announce: "Images of a recovered alien spacecraft," "a life form on Mars," and "life on one of Saturn's moons" were all longshots, but "a new model for the existence of life" was Richardson's odds-on favorite. He was right.#

Sacramento Bee-12/3/10
By Matt Weiser

Fall in Northern California brings a rustle of leaves and a welcome chill to the air. Nothing's changed about that. What's been missing the past three years is the pulse of salmon returning from the ocean to their spawning streams.

The Central Valley fall chinook run was once the most abundant salmon population on the West Coast. But three years ago, its numbers plunged, hitting a record low in 2009, due to what scientists think is a mix of environmental problems.

Fishing was banned, salmon festivals canceled.

Now chinook are surging back to the American, Feather, Mokelumne and Sacramento rivers.

"To have a total ecosystem alive again, including what is under the water, it really is thrilling," said Jim Jones, a board member of Save the American River Association. "It makes you stop and just feel how blessed you are."

More than 7,000 salmon returned to Nimbus Hatchery on the American River as of Tuesday. That's triple last year's total and near the long-term average, said Harry Morse, spokesman at the state Department of Fish and Game. But it's still well below the peaks of 25,000 or more.

Some fish spawn in the river, then die. But most spawn in the artificial world of the hatchery, where they are killed and their eggs removed. The young salmon swim to the ocean in spring.#

Santa Rosa Press Democrat-12/2/10
By Guy Kovner

It’s considered a long shot, but a permanent ban on offshore oil drilling along the North Coast could be approved by Congress this month.

“Everybody’s holding their breath,” said Richard Charter, a veteran anti-drilling advocate from Bodega Bay. “This is really the closest we’ve ever been to permanent protection” for the coast.

If such a measure is passed, it would be the first time in a 30-year battle that oil rigs were definitively barred from the Sonoma and part of the Mendocino coast, a goal that has united local officials, fishing interests and environmentalists.

The stiffest competition now comes from the crush of business pending before the lame-duck Congress, including the Bush tax cuts, unemployment benefits and the “don’t ask, don’t tell law” on gays and lesbians in the military.

Charter, a lobbyist with the environmental group Defenders of Wildlife, said approval of a drilling ban “would be a long shot, end-of-session effort” but still a possibility until Congress adjourns, presumably before Christmas.

A bill originated by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, would more than double the size of two existing marine sanctuaries — in which drilling is prohibited. The measure appears likely to be rolled into an Omnibus Public Lands Act, congressional aides said Thursday.

The Cordell Bank and Gulf of the Farallones national marine sanctuaries currently cover about 1,800 square miles of ocean from just north of the Golden Gate Bridge to Bodega Head.

Woolsey’s proposal, approved by the House last year and backed in the Senate by California Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, would extend the sanctuaries’ northern limit from Bodega Head to Point Arena in southern Mendocino County.

Bill Wicker, a spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, confirmed that a draft of the omnibus lands bill is “ready to go” and could be introduced if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada “gives a green light.”

Wicker declined to comment on whether the marine sanctuary measure would be included in the omnibus bill, but aides to both Woolsey and Boxer said Thursday they believed it would be included.

The omnibus bill is expected to include additions to wilderness areas and public lands in California, Oregon, Utah, Colorado and other states.

Packages like that “tend to have something everybody wants for their state,” which improves their chances of passage, Charter said.

If the public lands bill clears the Senate, approval by the House is “almost pro-forma,” he said.

Asked if the omnibus bill would get to a vote, Wicker said “we are competing for floor time with an impressive set of bills already ... in the lame duck pipeline.”

In November, 23 environmental groups — including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ocean Conservancy and California League of Conservation Voters — sent Reid a letter urging him to put the sanctuary expansion into an omnibus lands bill.

The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations also support expansion of the sanctuaries.

Supervisor Efren Carrillo, whose district covers the coast north of Bodega Bay, said he hopes the omnibus bill will pass.

“Sonoma County depends on the health of our coastal waters,” he said, noting that oil extraction would threaten the tourism and fishing industries.

The nation should pursue alternative energy and public transit to reduce dependence on foreign oil, Carrillo said. Drilling off the local coast is “not a viable option,” he said.

County supervisors since the early 1980s have opposed oil drilling off the North Coast, county spokesman Jim Leddy said.

The fishermen’s federation supports marine sanctuaries to prevent offshore oil drilling, executive director Zeke Grader said.

“We have no problem with it,” Grader said. Fishing is permitted in sanctuaries, and fishermen have an economic stake in protecting marine life, he said. “If we don’t, we’re out of business,” Grader said.

President Barack Obama in March put the Pacific coast off-limits to oil and natural gas development through 2017.

And for 27 years before that, the North Coast had been protected by a congressional ban on drilling, which had to be renewed every year and sometimes made it out of committee by only one vote, Charter said.

But the oil industry has long eyed the Point Arena basin, which extends south to Sea Ranch in Sonoma County and holds considerable reserves of oil and natural gas, Charter said.

Until the coast is protected by a sanctuary, the industry will wait for a “political opportunity” to drill here, he said.#

Western Farm Press-12/2/10
By Cary Blake

A California rice industry-wildlife development pilot project underway in the Sacramento Valley is a prime example of farmers and environmental groups partnering to achieve mutual long-term goals.

The pilot program, underway in part at the Davis Ranch operated by the Sycamore Family Trust in Colusa County, is designed to tweak rice production management to spur habitat and wildlife expansion in the epicenter of California’s rice industry.

Among the major players include the California Rice Commission, PRBO Conservation Science, Audubon California, and The Nature Conservancy.

The $1.3 billion California rice industry wants to further improve its commitment to wildlife habitat development in part to maintain support for flooded rice production. Environmentalists view the rice industry as a natural gateway to improve and expand the habitats and populations of critters.

The pilot program, launched in 2009, follows two years of discussion between the groups. The program was detailed in late September to Western Farm Press at the Davis Ranch.

“We are developing new ideas and practices to further enhance water bird habitat for a variety of water birds in rice fields,” said Paul Buttner, environmental affairs manager with the California Rice Commission based in Sacramento. “Rice fields are an excellent habitat drawing 230 species of wildlife, including about 30 viewed as species of concern by state and federal agencies.”

Jon O’Brien, habitat restorationist with Audubon California in Winters, Calif., noted, “We don’t want to take rice land out of production or stop rice farming. We want to work with the rice industry to gain improved wildlife and waterfowl habitat in rice-growing areas while making the changes economically viable for rice growers.”

The pilot program includes four potential changes in rice field management to enhance wildlife. One is to flatten berms between the rice field checks (patties) and remove the vegetation. Buttner says this effort could create a more desirable habitat for some shore birds and waterfowl.

Don Traynham, Davis Ranch custom operator, is one of a handful of farmers participating in the pilot program. Davis Ranch includes 3,500 acres of rice.

“Traditional levees are more of a pyramid shape,” Traynham said. “For the pilot study, we rolled the berm top down to create more of a curvature while maintaining the same height. The idea is to attract more shore birds to the center of rice fields for nesting which can reduce predation from coyotes, raccoons, skunks, and possums.”

The cost to flatten berms is minimal, Traynham says, requiring an extra tractor pass or two across the berm.

A second concept in the pilot program encourages rice farmers to flood individual fields immediately after the fall harvest. Fields are traditionally flooded once the entire farm’s rice harvest is completed.

“The idea is to flood fields immediately after the harvester completes the harvest on a field-by-field basis rather than waiting to flood fields after the entire farm is harvested,” Buttner explained. “This would get water on some fields earlier. In late summer there is a dramatic shortage of open water for shorebird migration. Earlier flooding would increase the available acreage for shore birds.”

A third practice under study is varying the water depth in individual rice fields during the winter months. The current standard is about 5 inches of water across all rice fields. Creating variable water depths could provide habitat for water bird species which have various habitat preferences.

“The water depth of the field really drives which birds use it,” said Khara Strum, water bird ecologist with PRBO in Petaluma, Calif. “Water fowl can better utilize deeper water depths than shore birds and the long-legged waders typically use depths between waterfowl and shore birds. We’re trying to target those three guilds by creating a beneficial habitat for all of them.”

A fourth practice encourages more available water for birds during the winter by growers keeping water boards in place in the fields to improve rain water collection. Strum says the “boards in” procedure in the winter months can create improved habitat for waterfowl.

“If boards are put back in back in the water control structures in un-flooded fields then we can accumulate more rain water to provide extra habitat for shore birds.”

The current pilot project is a win-win opportunity, says O’Brien.

“We want habitat projects which are compatible with existing rice operations,” O’Brien explained. “We want to work with farmers to develop better habitats for birds and other wildlife through economically viable practices for the ranch.”

O’Brien’s participation in the current pilot project involves developing natural habitat areas on the edges of farm fields, including oak and sycamore trees, California grape and Mexican elderberry bushes, and native grasses.

“Creating habitat corridors compatible with existing agricultural operations means no land should come out of production,” O’Brien explained. “Instead of disking and spraying the field edges every year we can create a native habitat for wildlife.”

Buttner points out that rice growers, themselves environmentalists, have a natural appreciation for waterfowl and support efforts to increase wildlife numbers.

“Many growers enjoy their own zoo experience in their rice fields,” Buttner said.

California’s rice industry has similarities to the actor Rodney Dangerfield who claims he does not always gain the respect he deserves. Wildlife in rice-growing areas generates respect for the rice industry.

“The public generally doesn’t realize that California rice is a billion dollar commodity with yields which can fill the Arco Arena (sports venue) in Sacramento eight times annually.”

Consumers often take rice for granted since it is always on the grocery store shelf, Buttner says. Many Californians, especially in the large urban centers, no longer have relatives with a direct connection to agriculture. Consumers aware of the wildlife habitat created by the rice industry build excitement for California rice.

California’s Sacramento Valley has about 2,500 rice growers with about 525,000 acres in production and about 75,000 acres of managed wetlands. The majority of California-grown rice is medium grain. Virtually all of the rice in U.S.-consumed sushi is California grown. California ranks second in the nation behind Arkansas in rice production.

The ongoing rice-wildlife relationship in California is a strong collaboration; both sides understand each other’s value. An estimate from Ducks Unlimited suggests that a one-half reduction in California rice acreage would result in 1.2 million fewer ducks in the Sacramento Valley.

About 7 million waterfowl reside in the Pacific Flyway, including about 60 percent of those in the Sacramento Valley.#

S.F. Chronicle-12/2/10
By Jackie Speier
Opinion

Wake up, Californians! We are on the verge of losing Pacific salmon runs. This loss would be devastating to both our health - salmon are high in nutritional value - and our welfare - salmon support a multibillion-dollar fishing industry.

Three years ago, this industry boasted 1,200 commercial boats, half a million recreational fishermen, hundreds of retailers, commercial charters, river guides, marinas and restaurants. Then in 2008, the once-robust salmon run in the Central Valley collapsed - endangering the fish and the associated jobs.

Fish returns in the Sacramento River plummeted from a high of 768,000 in 2002 to a staggering low of 39,500 fish in 2009. Low runs canceled fishing in 2008 and 2009. This year's commercial season lasted eight days - few fish were caught, and fishermen could not earn a living.

The California salmon industry includes such people as Jacky Douglas, skipper of the charter boat Wacky Jacky for 30 years; Duncan MacLean, a commercial fisherman for four decades; Paul Johnson, a fish buyer and former chef in San Francisco; and Peggy Becket, owner of a sport fishing store in Half Moon Bay. I've met with these proud industry representatives to learn firsthand what abuse of our river water is doing to California salmon.

Salmon face many obstacles: dams, logging, development, agriculture - all factors that destroy or alter their habitat. Salmon are born in rivers. In a miracle of nature, after three years at sea, they return to their birth river, where they spawn and then die, leaving the next generation to fend for itself.

But this doesn't happen when river levels are too low or excessive water diversions disrupt the natural cycle, as has occurred in recent years. The biggest hazard the Central Valley runs confront is the lack of robust spring outflows through the delta to flush baby salmon out to the ocean.

Water has long been the gold of California: Everyone is fighting for its limited supply. The good news is that scientists know how much water is needed to support healthy salmon runs. The bad news is that in years of drought, rivers and the delta are being drained by farmers and developers.

A 2009 study released by the American Sportfishing Association estimates that the shutdown of the salmon fishery cost California 23,000 jobs and $1.4 billion in economic activity. The same study projects that a full recovery of California's Central Valley chinook salmon runs can potentially provide $5.7 billion in new economic activity and 94,000 new jobs. We need those jobs!

Salmon have been around since before the ice age. We can't afford to be the generation that forces them into extinction, but we will if we continue to let rivers and the delta be drained by special interests that do not have salmon in mind.

I will be sponsoring a Salmon Summit in conjunction with Reps. Anna Eshoo, Mike Thompson, George Miller and Lynn Woolsey. I encourage the public to get involved by attending this free meeting to learn more about what is killing our salmon and what can be done to save them.#

Jackie Speier represents San Mateo and San Francisco counties in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Tahoe Daily Tribune-11/29/10
By Matthew Renda

One little creature has an extra reason to give thanks this year — a group of dedicated and compassionate human beings took time out of their holidays on Thanksgiving morning to rescue an orphaned bear cub from what officials say was certain death.

Ann Bryant, executive director of the BEAR League, and Madonna Dunbar, resource conservationist with Incline Village General Improvement District, teamed up to tend to the small female cub who had lost her mother and was on the verge of starvation.

“She looked dazed when I reached her,” Dunbar said. “She was definitely underweight.”

Dunbar said the cub weighed between 15 and 20 pounds; a cub typically weighs between 80 and 100 pounds at this time of year, she said.

Dunbar, Bryant and other volunteers responded to phone calls from various hikers and skiers who spotted the sickly bear near the Mt. Rose Highway just to the south of the Tahoe Meadows area.

“She was about a basketball-sized cub,” Bryant said. “She was shivering and listless and was approaching people in search of help. The temperatures were really cold that night and I find it hard to believe she would have made it until the (next) morning had we not found her.”

They did find her and provided warm shelter, food and water.

Bryant phoned the Nevada Department of Wildlife, but because of a scarcity of resources, Bryant took the bear home with her, placed it before the fire and fed it some bear formula.

An NDOW official picked the bear cub up on Saturday, and the agency delivered the cub to the Reno-based animal sanctuary, Animal Ark, on Sunday.

“The cub is doing really well,” Bryant said. “We have reports that she is recovering and has even started to get feisty, which is a good sign, because it means she can one day return to the wild.”

The cub will be kept at Animal Ark for the next year, where it will be cared for and raised in the company of another orphaned bear cub found earlier in the year.

Bryant said the chances the bear will be able to transition from captivity back into the wild are “very good.”

“We've done it countless times,” she said. “The bear is young enough, and if she continues to do well, she can be introduced back into the wild and live a long good life.”

Despite the good news, Dunbar and Bryant said they do not know what happened to the cub's mother.

“It's a happy ending to a sad story,” said Dunbar. “This cub lost her mother, but she will survive due to a little Thanksgiving Day magic.”#

Marysville Appeal-Democrat-11/24/10
By Ben van der Meer

Using a nearly half-mile-long pipe that draws water from the dam behind the lake and mixes it at the top of a hill with a particular gravel and cobble, Corps engineers spray the mixture onto the Yuba River bed below the dam.

By doing so over the next four to six weeks, the idea is to create a romantic reef for spring-run Chinook salmon, whose numbers have declined in recent years, to return next spring to spawn.

"This is the point where the spring run comes back," said Skip Sivertsen, senior park ranger for Englebright Dam. He referred to a 400-foot-long section below the dam where a team of three Tuesday used ropes to move the pipe's spray end to different points in the water, creating a bed of light gray gravel visible from the steep hill above.

The rock comes from a nearby quarry, which itself took those loose parts from the river. When finished, the new riverbed will be about 2 feet deep and made of 5,000 tons of round, small rock, ideal spawning ground for spring-run Chinook and also-threatened steelhead salmon.

As one group works, another team about 50 yards downstream tests the water quality, making sure it's optimal for both fish and humans.

"The overall project is a huge plus for the fishery," said J.J. Baum, a water quality specialist with the Corps' Sacramento district office. "But on a day-to-day basis, I have to deal with the requirements of the Regional Water Quality Board."

Sivertsen said National Marine Fisheries Service biologists believe there are several factors behind the decline of the salmon. Issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and climate change have been suggested, along with the decline in spawning habitat as a result of mining practices and dams on Northern California waterways.

On a nearby part of the Yuba, state agencies and environmental groups are in the beginning stages of deciding how to create salmon habitat through different methods, such as planting more native trees and plants near the shoreline.

Gary Reedy, science program manager with one of those groups, the South Yuba River Citizens League, said efforts like the Corps' and the one his group is undertaking are acknowledgment the river isn't what it once was.

"The river's been lacking spawning gravel on its own," Reedy said. "The idea behind river rehabilitation is that the river has been impacted by a number of human impacts, and it acknowledges these impacts aren't changing."

Though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers normally oversees levee construction and certification, it took on the riverbed project because the dam is a Corps responsibility, Sivertsen said.

Those Corps engineers and officials are already looking forward to the results of their handiwork.

"We'll have to see next spring how happy the salmon are with it," he said. #

Los Angeles Times-11/23/10
By Carol J. Williams

A federal appeals court panel says targeting the predators was inconsistent with letting fishermen catch even more of the Columbia River stock.

A federal appeals court Tuesday halted the killing of sea lions that had been feeding on endangered salmon along the Columbia River, pointing out contradictions in the government's conservation policy that targets the natural predators while allowing fishermen to take many more of the scarce fish.

At least two dozen of the flippered predators have been captured and euthanized by the National Marine Fisheries Service since the federal government in 2008 authorized the agency to kill protected sea lions in Washington, Oregon and Idaho to prevent them from feeding on salmon and steelhead headed upstream to spawn.

An Oregon judge declined later that year to stop the lethal taking of "individually identifiable pinnipeds that are having a significant negative impact" on salmon stocks, as permitted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, saying that the fisheries service policy of killing sea lions to prevent them from consuming as much as 4% of the salmon gathering around Bonneville Dam was inconsistent with its assessment that fishermen could catch up to 17% of the stock without harming recovery efforts for the endangered species.

The National Marine Fisheries Service "did not adequately explain its finding that sea lion predation is having a significant negative impact on salmonid decline or recovery in light of its positive environmental assessments of harvest plans having greater mortality impacts," the panel said.

The judges added that the conflicting assessments of the effects of sea lion feeding and fishermen's take "raised questions as to whether the agency was fulfilling its statutory mandates impartially and competently."

The appeals court struck down the order authorizing the sea lion culling and told the agency to come up with a justification for its policy or revoke it.

The Humane Society of the United States, which brought the suit that was dismissed by the Oregon judge, hailed the appeals court ruling.

"The government's plan to kill sea lions for eating fish, while at the same time authorizing fishermen to take four times as many fish as sea lions, is irrational, and the court has rightly put a stop to it," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president and head of animal protection litigation for the society. "It's time for the agency to abandon this plan and work cooperatively with us to protect both sea lions and salmon in the Columbia River."

Fisheries service officials in the Seattle regional office were not immediately available for comment. #

Sacramento Bee-11/20/10
By Noelle Ferdon and Rick Guerrero
Opinion

Although fish may not be on the menu for your Thanksgiving Day feast, its fate for future meals hangs in the balance. The Food and Drug Administration is on the verge of approving the first genetically engineered fish for human consumption: an Atlantic salmon crossed with the genes of two other fish to make it grow twice as quickly as a normal salmon.

If the FDA approves the fish, it may not even be labeled as genetically engineered. Consumers would have no way of knowing whether they were eating a natural salmon or a mutant farmed fish whose impact on human health and the environment is still largely unknown. The last day for public comment is Monday. Comments can be submitted at www.regulations.gov, docket No. FDA-2010-N-0385.

A federal bill that would ban the production of genetically engineered fish (HR 6265) was recently introduced to put the brakes on the FDA's runaway process. Sacramento Rep. Doris Matsui should take a stand and co-sponsor this bill.

It is not just seafood-loving consumers who should worry about the future of their next salmon fillet if genetically engineered farmed salmon are OK'd. Our local salmon and the communities that depend on them, would be at risk, too.

Pacific Coast fisheries have been in a state of crisis for several years. The number of salmon in the Sacramento River fell from 800,000 in 2002 to under 40,000 in 2009. Up and down the West Coast, commercial salmon fisheries have closed for the last few years, costing an estimated 23,000 jobs and $2.8 billion in lost revenue.

Farmed salmon already threaten wild stocks, escaping by the millions each year from ocean pens. There, they compete for resources, spread disease and reduce biodiversity. Genetically engineered salmon could be even more dangerous to wild fish, as their quick growth makes them more voracious and aggressive (think salmon on steroids) and more likely to outcompete wild fish for food.

In a letter sent to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg in September, 14 California legislators registered deep concern that "approval (of AquaBounty's petition) will lead to numerous other applications to grow this and other genetically modified fish. … California's wild salmon runs are at historical lows and are not capable of withstanding an additional assault that could come from escaped genetically modified farmed salmon in the future."

The legislators also point out that California law prohibits the rearing of genetically engineered salmon or any transgenic fish in our ocean waters. FDA approval could pre-empt California from enforcing this law. Even if it did not, flooding the market with genetically engineered farmed salmon raised elsewhere would undercut local producers of wild Pacific Coast salmon – much like cheap farmed shrimp from foreign operations has driven the few sustainable, local shrimperies left in the United States toward bankruptcy.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have sent letters to the FDA expressing concern over the FDA's shoddy approval process of genetically engineered salmon.

Experts, including scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, believe that insufficient research has been done on the risks of raising or eating genetically engineered salmon. The FDA only considered studies conducted by AquaBounty or its contractors, not independent scientists.

The rapid approval of genetically engineered salmon would open the floodgates for other transgenic food animals. It would also reduce political pressure to restore our natural salmon runs. But we must restore them: their health is critical to our fishing communities, our economy, Pacific tribal cultures and our state's biodiversity.

It would be a mistake for our legislators to allow the approval of genetically engineered salmon, particularly at a time when our unemployment rate is at an all-time high and efforts to restore our wild salmon fisheries are in full force.

Matsui sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which allocates funding for the FDA. She has an especially important role to play in protecting our health and the critical salmon habitat that helps define the Sacramento region. She can lead on this issue by co-sponsoring HR 6265 and by directing the FDA to develop a robust process for considering genetically engineered animal applications.

Our fisheries are nearing the point of no return. We need federal and state investment in their restoration, not a science experiment that uses our plates – and our environment – as a Petri dish.#

Noelle Ferdon is senior organizer with the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch. Rick Guerrero is president of the Green Democratic Club of Sacramento County.

Sacramento Bee-11/21/10
By John McCamman
Opinion

In 1965 the director of the Department of Fish and Game, Walter T. Shannon, presented his annual report to the Fish and Game Commission. In that report, he noted the "significant accomplishment" of selecting the peripheral canal "as the best method of transporting water from the north to the south across the Delta."

This conclusion was the product of the "Delta Fish and Wildlife Protection Study," a joint federal-state project that evaluated alternatives to enhance wildlife protections in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. In fact, that report concludes that the peripheral canal is "the only opportunity to both protect and enhance these resources."

There has been no change in that position, or in the relative benefits of the peripheral canal when compared to other options for the export of water since that time.

If the state and federal governments continue to export water from the Delta, the fishery agencies' obligation is to ensure that those exports will do the least damage, and may provide an opportunity to conserve and enhance natural communities, including the fish, wildlife and habitat that are a part of those communities.

After 45 years, we now have the best opportunity to correct our failure to construct a peripheral canal when the state water project was being built. The Bay-Delta Conservation Plan is a stakeholder process organized to develop a plan and ultimately a series of permits for the construction and operation of the canal. During that planning process, the "canal" has likely become a tunnel, and is now called an "isolated conveyance," but it serves the same purpose as the original canal: to remove the negative effects of operating large pumps in the south Delta.

Those effects are manifold:

• Pumps take water from the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers when fish are vulnerable.

• Fish in that water are brought south to a dead end and become subject to predation from other fish, from impingement on the fish screens and from being drawn in to the pumps themselves.

• The mix of fresh water and salt water is altered from its natural and seasonal variation, having negative effects on native fish species and creating improved conditions for introduced species.

• Old and middle rivers in the Delta flow backward from their natural direction when the pumps are running.

When the decisions were made to build the state and federal projects, the potential impacts on fish were considered but not fully addressed. Since that time, the sensitivity of the American public about these issues has increased.

• Both the federal and state governments have passed endangered species acts.

• Research has established long-term trends that indicate that current conditions in the Delta cannot sustain native fish species.

• Native fish, including Delta and longfin smelt, and green sturgeon are at or near their lowest populations ever.

• The salmon industry has been virtually shut down in California for the past three years.

Not all of these issues are a direct result of the operation of the state and federal water projects, but those operations exacerbate the effects of many other stressors, and therefore cannot be ignored. Many other factors may be addressed in the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan planning effort, including wastewater discharge and its effect on nutrients in the Delta, agricultural and urban storm runoff, and the role of introduced plant and animal species, including predatory fish species such as black bass and striped bass.

The operation of an isolated conveyance will provide opportunities to manage the flow of water which will enable the operators to better emulate the natural flows, which were evident before all of man's changes to the system; further, having both north and south intake points will provide flexibility in operations not available in the current system, enabling fisheries managers to monitor fish locations and adjust operations as necessary to protect them.

In addition, Bay-Delta Conservation Plan permits will provide regulatory control over how much water can be pumped from the Delta at what times and from what locations (the operating criteria), provide a governance structure for operations that will work to ensure sufficient flows for fish and for water users, and will provide for the development of habitat for fish and food production throughout the Delta.

For these reasons, the California Department of Fish and Game has signed the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan planning agreement and has already committed over four years toward this effort. The Department of Fish and Game is committed to what then-director Shannon insisted needed to be done in 1965 – build the peripheral canal.#

John McCamman is director of the California Department of Fish and Game.

Eureka Times-Standard-11/19/10
By John Driscoll

The Eel River appears primed to have one of the best salmon runs in decades.

The largest number of chinook salmon counted at the Van Arsdale Fisheries Station since records began being kept in the 1940s is 1,754. This year, already, biologists have counted 1,600 -- and the run is probably not at its peak.

”The numbers we're seeing are impressive,” said California Department of Fish and Game Associate Fisheries Biologist Scott Harris.

The run typically is in full swing around Thanksgiving, Harris said. Unlike many other rivers in the area, nearly all of the chinook and steelhead in the Eel River are wild fish, not produced in hatcheries.

The count so far dwarfs last year's total of 519 chinook. More than a quarter of that run were jacks, or 2-year-old salmon, which run up the river to spawn a year earlier than usual. The abundance of jacks often foretells how future runs of adult fish will look.

The counts at Van Arsdale represent a fraction of the total number of fish returning to the entire watershed to spawn. Fish caught at Van Arsdale are released upstream of Cape Horn Dam.

Chinook and steelhead have struggled in the Eel River for decades. Estimated runs were between 100,000 and 800,000 fish in the late 1800s, and 50,000 to 100,000 in the early 1900s, according to a 2010 report by the University of California at Davis Center for Watershed Sciences that was commissioned by California Trout.

Fish and Game recorded 994 chinook at Van Arsdale in 1947-1948. But in 1955-1956, the next year data was available, only five chinook were counted. The next year there were none counted, though the agency estimated the number of spawning chinook throughout the entire basin in the early 1960s at 56,000.

Steelhead counted at Van Arsdale numbered in the thousands until 1963-1964 when they dropped off to 846. Last year, 324 steelhead were counted.

Both salmon and steelhead languished for years, with a spike in the mid-1980s followed by another precipitous drop-off. Their numbers have risen since the late 1990s, but coho salmon, which numbered in the tens of thousands in the early 1900s, may be headed toward extinction in the watershed by 2025, the U.C. Davis report found.

Heavy logging, water diversions, commercial fishing, invasive species and dams that block spawning habitat have all been implicated in the declines. Both chinook and steelhead are federally protected, which has led to regulations on logging, fishing and gravel extraction.

What has happened to cause the increase in fish this year is not clear, but it's likely to be a combination of factors. Tom Weseloh with California Trout said it's possible that a lack of competition for food in the ocean from struggling Sacramento River stocks, good ocean food conditions and limited commercial and sport harvest in recent years may all have played a role.

”All the fish I've seen are fat,” Weseloh said. “I've seen some of the largest salmon I've ever seen this year.”

Increased minimum flows allowed downstream from the Potter Valley Project -- especially during the spring -- may also be helping juvenile fish migrate out to sea in good condition, Weseloh said.

Humboldt County Supervisor Jimmy Smith said it may be too soon to say that changes on the river have made a difference, but that the larger numbers are a hopeful sign. It's possible that estuary restoration efforts planned in the lower Eel River will continue to help the fish along, Smith said.

”The people who are really concerned about fisheries are, I hope, delighted with some good news,” Smith said.#

Stockton Record-11/16/10
By Alex Breitler

Green-headed, red-bodied aliens have been caught on video in the Stanislaus River - far from their native Pacific Northwest.

The mystery fish must have either veered more than 750 miles from home or arrived from an upstream reservoir after tumbling through the sharp, spinning turbines of a hydroelectric power plant, experts say.

Either way, the discovery was surprising.

Biologists snorkeling in the Stanislaus at Knight's Ferry last week spotted the three adult fish. Without a carcass to examine, however, they can't say whether they're oceangoing sockeye salmon or an identical freshwater variety known as the kokanee, introduced to Northern California reservoirs in 1941.

For now, biologists have nicknamed them the "kokan-eye."

"It's all wild speculation, one way or another," said Peter Moyle, a University of California, Davis, professor and leading expert on California fish.

Moyle and Doug Demko, whose scientists with the private consulting firm FISHBIO made the discovery, believe the fish most likely came from New Melones Lake or some other reservoir where the landlocked kokanee are a popular sport fish.

The kokanee in New Melones could have been sucked into the turbines of a power plant at the base of the dam, which is east of Stockton in Calaveras County, Demko said.

"You'd think the fish would be all ground up," he said. "But it's true that (some) fish certainly do survive. The propellers, they move the water, but they don't grate everything up in there."

Or perhaps the visitors are especially adventuresome sockeye. Instead of returning up the Columbia River past Portland, Ore., to spawn, they might have swum beneath the Golden Gate Bridge past San Francisco, through the Delta and up the Stanislaus.

"A certain number of salmon are prone to wander," Moyle said. "It's just in their genes. If a few fish wander, they're the ones that might win the lottery and find a (new) place to spawn," thus expanding the range of the species.

There are dozens of records of stray sockeye in the Sacramento River over the years and in California coastal streams, Moyle said.

However, the 16-inch fish spotted by the divers are smaller than most adult sockeye salmon, which range from 25 to 31 inches. This increases the likelihood they came from a California lake.

There are two more possibilities. In August, officials were shocked to find baby sockeye in the Napa River; the Stanislaus fish could be grownups that migrated from that stream. Or perhaps they were dumped in the Stanislaus drink illegally.

The fish on video appear to be attempting to spawn. But it's not likely that they'll establish a population in the Stanislaus.

"There's always a chance," Demko said, "but as we know, it's a perilous trip down through the Delta to the ocean and back."#

Redwood Times-11/10/10
By Virginia Graziani

The Eel-Russian River Commission, made up of representatives of Humboldt, Mendocino, and Sonoma counties met in Santa Rosa last Thursday, November 4.

The two critical questions of why pikeminnow suppression efforts have been curtailed and why “block flows” of water have not been released into the Eel River were addressed. Additionally, the commission heard a report on increasing the capacity of Lake Mendocino, a reservoir that receives Eel River water diverted into the Russian River.

Second district supervisor Clif Clendenen represented Humboldt County, alternating for supervisor Jimmy Smith, who was unable to attend. Other members of the commission were supervisors Carre Brown from Mendocino County and Paul Kelley from Sonoma County, who chaired the meeting.

At the ERRC’s last meeting on July 1, Smith and others attending the meeting, including Friends of the Eel River and CalTrout, were surprised and dismayed to learn that efforts to suppress the predatory pikeminnow in the Van Arsdale Reservoir had been curtailed.

Pacific Gas and Electric takes water from the Eel River through a diversion tunnel below the Van Arsdale Reservoir. The water is used to run PG&E’s 9.4 megawatt electrical generating plant and is then released into the East Branch of the Russian River, where it is used by farmers, vintners, and ranchers in Potter Valley.

The excess is impounded in Lake Mendocino behind Coyote Dam and is eventually released into the main Russian River, where it is used by farms, homes, and municipalities in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

The impact of the diversion on Eel River fisheries has been a point of controversy since the creation of the Potter Valley Project in 1920.

The Reasonable and Prudent Alternative (RPA), a set of protocols hammered out in 2004, requires PG&E to suppress the pikeminnow, which prey on young salmonids in the Eel River system.

In 2006 the National Marine Fisheries Service ordered PG&E to stop the suppression efforts after discovering that the gillnetting program was also killing young steelhead. No further suppression is planned until NMFS completes further studies.

Back in July Smith had strongly criticized NMFS for not bringing Humboldt County into the discussion when it made this decision.

Furthermore, the question of “block flow” releases of Eel River water became an issue in mid-October when Friends of the Eel River announced that they had conducted a fish count that found hundreds of salmonids apparently trapped in algae-filled pools in the lower Eel near Fortuna.

FOER pointed out that an obscure clause in the RPA allows release of 2,500 acre feet of Eel River water impounded in Lake Pillsbury, the large reservoir 12 miles upstream from Van Arsdale, when more water is needed to assist Eel River fisheries. FOER called for a block flow to aid the upstream migration this fall.

At last Thursday’s ERRC meeting, Dick Butler of NFMS/NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) presented the commission with a letter explaining NFMS’s position on pikeminnow suppression and block flows.

Regarding the pikeminnow, the letter states that gillnetting in July and August of 2006 captured 61 pikeminnow and 13 steelhead. All the steelhead, which are listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act, were killed or injured, resulting in an agreement to suspend the gillnetting.

The letter goes on to explain that using rotenone, which suffocates fish, and detonation cannot be used because of the need to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act. Inviting fishermen to catch pikeminnow has also been found to result in takes of steelhead.

As for the block flow, Butler described it to the commission as “an artifact... we didn’t know how to use it but we didn’t want to throw it away.” NFMS asked the California Department of Fish and Game to monitor river conditions and to make the call when a block release is needed.

”We talked with Fish and Game, who found no need for release,” Butler continued, explaining that in DFG’s opinion a release in the fall might cause harm by causing fish to move up the main stem of the Eel River too early and then be trapped by low water in the tributaries.

Nadananda, executive director of FOER, disagreed, saying FOER had counted as many as 2,000 salmonids in the lower Eel. The group also learned from the Ferndale Enterprise that the fish begin migrating as early as mid-August.

More water was needed to clean up algae in the river as well, Nadananda continued, noting that the pools were “clogged with algae,” which contains toxins and de-oxygenates the water.

Tom Westlow of CalTrout added that the NFMS letter did not address the fact that block flows can be used not only in the fall but also at “other times when it would benefit fish... if we can all agree.”

Clendenen said that state assemblyman Wes Chesbro, who is chair of the assembly’s Aquatic and Fisheries Committee, is willing to facilitate a series of workshops among the interested parties to “look at whatever we can do that will help.” John Woolley, who heads Chesbro’s staff in Humboldt County, confirmed this, saying that they would be announcing the workshops soon.

In a conversation with the Redwood Times two weeks ago, Scott Downie, senior biologist supervisor with the Department of Fish and Game in Fortuna, explained the fish situation in more detail.

He agreed that a release of water into the Eel’s main stem would prompt fish to move upstream but until rainstorms raised water levels in the many tributaries, fish entering those tributaries would be trapped by low water.

Levels in the Van Duzen and South Fork Eel Rivers, the major tributaries in Humboldt County, were still extremely low until the rain began at the end of October. “The way fishes’ eyes are set, they can’t see ahead the way we do. They can’t see how low the water is, so they get stuck,” he said.

On the other hand, salmonids have been coming from the ocean in the fall and holding in the lower reaches “for eons,” Downie continued. They wait for the barometer to drop and rain to fall, their signal to “steam up the river” and spawn.

Downie also stated that only blue-green algae is toxic to fish. Water temperatures must be at least 75 degrees for blue-green algae to flourish, with anaerobic (no oxygen) conditions needed to produce toxins, and he found neither of those conditions in the lower Eel.

”What people are seeing is just algae,” he said, “not blue-green algae.”

Between that conversation and the ERRC meeting last Thursday, the North Coast has seen two significant rainstorms, and all the fish have moved upriver under natural conditions.

It looks potentially like a good fish year, Downie told the Redwood Times last Thursday.

The best time to release block flows, in Downie’s opinion, is later in the spring when the smolts (young fish) are heading downriver to grow to maturity in the ocean. Faster, colder water favors salmonids and makes pikeminnow sluggish and not hungry. This would give smolt survival a boost in low-rainfall years when the river drops and warms up earlier than normal.

Mike Dillabaugh, chief of operations and readiness with the Army Corps of Engineers in San Francisco, gave a presentation about the condition of Coyote Dam and how its storage capacity could be increased.

This year has seen one of the highest water levels in Lake Mendocino in its 60-year history. The current water level is 757 feet, several feet above what is believed to be “the impervious core,” that is, the part of the dam built to withstand the huge pressure of the volume of water.

The Corps has been monitoring the dam throughout the season and found no leaks or indications of problems, so it has cautiously suggested that the dam was “overbuilt” in 1950. In other words, the actual construction of the dam exceeded the design specifications.

Many of the engineering drawings and paperwork from planning and construction have been lost, so the Corps can only extrapolate the dam’s condition from the data they have gathered recently. More studies need to be done.

Many Mendocino and Sonoma County interest groups would like to see Lake Mendocino’s storage capacity increased. Until now it appeared that raising the dam was the only option, since dredging out the accumulated sediment is even more costly.

If the additional 31-foot portion of the dam believed to be above the impervious core turns out to meet the same standards as the core, the capacity of the reservoir could almost double without building it any higher, Dillabaugh said.

Dillabaugh pointed out that the Corps’ interest is only in the dam’s flood control function. Water storage in Lake Mendocino for human use falls under the mandate of the Sonoma County Water Agency, which owns that aspect of the project.

Since a significant amount of water going into the reservoir comes from the Eel River via the Potter Valley Project, Humboldt County and Eel River fisheries advocates are concerned whether increasing Lake Mendocino’s capacity would lead to pressure to increase the diversion.

On the contrary, increasing the storage capacity of Lake Mendocino would mean reduced withdrawals from the Eel River, said Janet Pauli, Potter Valley farmer and chairman of the Mendocino Inland Water and Power Commission.

”Most of the water comes in the winter. In the winter we get more than enough water, but we can’t store it,” Pauli said.

The IWPC has also applied to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission for a review of the RPA because they believe that the protocols were based on inaccurate data and that excessive water is being released into the Eel.

Pauli raised the possibility that the state might revive plans to raise major dams throughout the Eel River system to export water to the Central Valley. These plans were shelved in the 1970s when then-Governor Ronald Reagan canceled a project to dam the upper Eel River near Round Valley.

”It behooves our three counties to work together more closely... on this shared resource,” Pauli said. “Those plans could come back with the vote of the people.”

Clendenen agreed that cooperation among the three counties is important, observing, “Water does a lot when it’s flowing, more than just going downstream. There are unintended consequences” to human interference with a river, he concluded, which makes it important to consider all options.

As Kelley’s term as commission chair expired and he announced his retirement from the commission, Clendenen moved to appoint Smith as chair with Brown as vice-chair, and the commission agreed unanimously.

The ERRC is committed to at least two meetings per year, in the spring and the fall, but may meet more often as necessary. Location of the meeting rotates among the members. The next meeting will be held in Humboldt County, at a date and time to be announced.#

Siskiyou Daily News-11/10/10
By Tony Intiso and Louise Gliatto

Last week more than 79 percent of Siskiyou County voters expressed their opinion that three California dams (Iron Gate, Copco 1 and Copco 2) on the Klamath River and associated hydroelectric facilities should not be removed.

The resounding vote gives the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors valuable public support in its majority opposition to removal of the dams. Other elected and agency officials in Sacramento, Oregon and Washington, D.C. were sent a clear, strong message of the overwhelming public rejection of dam removal.

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors was not included in the negotiations for the Klamath Basin Settlement Agreement (KBSA) that was sponsored by the federal government and associated state regulatory agencies, and that provides for potential removal of the dams and hydroelectric facilities. There were no public hearings before the KBSA was adopted and signed.

By a 4-1 majority vote, the supervisors agreed to put Measure G on the Nov. 2 ballot. Even though it was an advisory measure only and not legally binding, the measure served finally to give Siskiyou County voters a voice in the issue. The four supervisors who approved setting the measure for the ballot commented on the vote:

Dist. 3 Supervisor Michael Kobseff stated:

“The successful vote against dam removal is HUGE! Seventy-nine percent of Siskiyou County is against dam removal. Washington, D.C. won’t be able to ignore the voice of Siskiyou County people. Thank you to the Siskiyou Water Users Association for promoting NO on Measure G.”

Dist. 5 Supervisor/Board Chair Marcia Armstrong’s response was:

“The vote on Measure G affirmed that our board of supervisors has been reflecting the opinions of the people of Siskiyou County in our efforts to oppose dam removal and to protect the interest of constituents who would be negatively impacted by it.”

Grace Bennett, Dist. 4 supervisor, said:

“This vote reaffirms my commitment to follow the voters’ decision to keep fighting against dam removal.”

And Jim Cook, Dist. 1 supervisor, stated in a message to his supporters:

“With nearly 80 percent of the county voting to keep the dams, I want to thank you for all your help in convincing our folks that dam removal is a bad idea.”

The Siskiyou County Water Users Association (SCWUA) was formed as a tax-exempt corporation to support and defend countywide property rights, water rights and water use priorities. SCWUA believes that only a few individuals and organizations would benefit from the terms of the KBHS and the KBRA.

The SCWUA formed the “No on G Committee” to educate the public and wage opposition to removal of the dams and green hydroelectric power. With that stunning victory, the SCWUA will continue its efforts to keep the ongoing process transparent and open to public scrutiny.

Watch for information on viable, scientifically proven alternatives to the economically devastating proposals conceived in secret to usurp the rights of Siskiyou County residents.#

Redding Record Searchlight-11/9/10
By Tim Holt

John McCullah is the sworn enemy of riprap, and for that matter anything that keeps streams from flowing freely in their natural state, anything that keeps wild salmon from navigating their native streams.

McCullah can tell you horror stories about salmon returning to streambeds littered with the debris from mining and gravel operations, of fingerlings trapped in those gravel-choked streams, dying by the thousands.

That’s why, with the help of Shasta College students, he’s spent the past 12 years restoring Sulphur Creek to its original configuration, and cleaning debris from its streambed.

McCullah began his watershed restoration work 22 years ago, starting out with what he now calls “Band-Aid” solutions on Grass Valley Creek near the Trinity River, trying to stop soil erosion into the creek by putting small “check” dams across logging roads above the creek.

But he soon moved on to the more ambitious approach of taking out the logging roads altogether. McCullah was at work on just such a project when I first met him 12 years ago. Trim and ruggedly handsome (he’s a former surfer dude who grew up in Santa Cruz), McCullah was clad in fashionable outdoor attire and looked as if he’d just stepped out of an L.L. Bean catalog.

Beneath the slick exterior, though, lay a deep connection to the natural world and a strong commitment to his restoration work. McCullah was teaching at Shasta College by then and had assembled a crew of eager students for a restoration project at Clear Creek near Lake Whiskeytown. After heavy equipment operators removed a logging road above the creek and restored the slope to its original contours, the students planted willows, fir trees and native grasses on the bare slope.

McCullah then moved on to Sulphur Creek, which runs into the Sacramento River at the Sundial Bridge. In this stream — where he’d watch young salmon die — he began cleaning out the streambed and restoring part of it to its original channel with the aid of student labor, more heavy equipment and $1.2 million in grants.

In those days McCullah also was a self-appointed erosion control cop, patrolling construction sites in the Redding area and delivering impromptu lectures to hardhats on the importance of spreading straw over bare ground. His lectures were not always well-received. He was thrown out of a number of construction sites, and one heavy equipment operator threatened to turn McCullah into sediment.

Stricter enforcement of erosion controls by state agencies has made McCullah’s citizen patrols no longer necessary. Nowadays, at the mellow age of 60, he’s more into persuasion than confrontation. One of his current crusades is to turn highway engineers into born-again environmentalists.

Highway engineers have long had an adversarial relationship with rivers. When rivers run fast and high in the wet season, they can have a devastating impact on nearby roads. The universal approach up until now has been to contain and control them with riprap.

McCullah was recently commissioned by the Federal Highway Administration to write a manual for highway engineers that outlines alternatives to the use of riprap — mainly, using vegetation and trees to prevent bank erosion. This also improves fish habitat by adding insects and cooling shade trees over the water. McCullah also advocates the use of rock “vanes,” rock outcroppings placed in the stream itself that divert the current and keep it from eating away at the riverbank.

McCullah practices what he preaches: He’s recently completed projects using these techniques on the Russian River near Geyserville, in Willow Creek in Alberta, and as far away as Lucas Creek north of Auckland, New Zealand.

He’s still finding the time to train a new generation of watershed restorers at his Shasta College Erosion Control Training Facility. Its most notable feature is 40-foot-high “Mount McCullah,” on whose slopes students practice bank stabilization and revegetation techniques.

Don Hayward is a recent Shasta College graduate who’s making a career out of what he learned from McCullah. A member of the Redding Rancheria tribe, Hayward has become the tribe’s environmental point man, making sure sediment controls are in place to protect nearby Clear Creek. He’s also designed a restoration project for the creek that will enhance salmon habitat.

“I was really inspired by John to pursue a career that involves protecting salmon and watershed restoration,” Hayward says.

Nowadays McCullah travels the world spreading his gospel of watershed restoration. He’s recently traveled to Argentina and Brazil, and will head down to Australia next March for another speaking engagement. His “Dirt Time” instruction films are sold all over the world via the Internet.

It’s been a long and successful journey for McCullah, one inspired by his love of the wild salmon. After over two decades of dedication to his work, McCullah says he still retains a “sense of awe” at the mysterious power and resilience of Nature — and, with a little help from him, the life-giving force of its free-flowing streams.#

Santa Cruz Sentinel-11/8/10
By Julia Scott

Locals have spent every winter for the past 15 years watching silvery steelhead trout die in Pescadero Marsh. Now they are tired of waiting for state officials to step in and are preparing for a major fight -- in court.

"We're now 15 years in and the problem is still unsolved. When the system is in utter collapse, you don't study that. You take action," said Ronda Azevado Lucas, an attorney representing a group of Pescadero anglers and concerned citizens who are about to file a lawsuit accusing state resources agencies of abdicating their responsibility to protect sensitive fish and amphibians under the California Endangered Species Act.

The group recently launched a nonprofit, the Coastal Alliance for Species Enhancement, to raise money to fix Pescadero Marsh. Recently, it notified California State Parks, California Department of Fish and Game and the California Natural Resources Agency to expect a lawsuit over their "complacency" in the face of evidence that man-made changes to the marsh have resulted in the annual fish kills.

An unknown number of juvenile steelhead suffocate each year in the brackish waters of the marsh when rains force open the sandbar at the mouth of the lagoon and the ocean flows in like a fire hose, mixing layers of freshwater and saltwater. Scientists believe this mixing stirs up toxic hydrogen sulfide and robs the water of oxygen the fish require to breathe.

Time is of the essence for one of the last steelhead runs in San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties. The marsh also hosts the largest population of threatened California red-legged frogs in the state, and the Pescadero group asserts that increasing salinity levels have substantially hurt the frog population as well as the endangered San Francisco garter snake and the tidewater goby.

The endangered Central Coast Coho Salmon disappeared from Pescadero and Butano creeks a few years ago, which feed into the marsh.

"The frogs, the snakes and gobies -- they'll come back. But once the fish are gone, they won't come back. They're extinct," said Steve Simms, a local fisher and a driving force behind the lawsuit.

Everyone acknowledges something went wrong in the 1990s, when State Parks, which owns the marsh, re-engineered the water flow with levees, culverts and water gates. Many of these fixes quickly became defective but were left in place.

Juvenile steelhead grow up feeding in the marsh estuary before going out to sea when the sandbar breaks. Most seasonal lagoons have broken open by now, but this sandbar forms in the fall and remains unbroken until winter. Aquatic plants begin to decompose, which affects dissolved oxygen levels in the water. In 1995, locals witnessed the first steelhead die-off.

This lawsuit will attempt to tie the actions 15 years ago to the California Endangered Species Act. It focuses on the Coho salmon and the San Francisco garter snake, since they are state-protected species.

Lucas, the lawyer for the group, said state agencies have the power to enforce the Endangered Species Act.

"I really think this is about trying to let a sister agency off the hook. If it were a private citizen who owned this marsh, someone would very likely be in jail or definitely facing a cease-and-desist order," Lucas said.

Internal correspondence obtained by the legal team through the Freedom of Information Act shows that the Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Department of Fish and Game officials agree that they would like to restore Pescadero Marsh to a freshwater lagoon system, but they are stymied by a difference of opinion with State Parks.

"We want make sure our agencies are on the same page. They're welcome from my perspective to propose something. I'd love to hear a proposal from them," said Krissy Atkinson, an environmental scientist with Fish and Game.#

Redding Record Searchlight-11/4/10
By Dylan Darling

This fall’s run of chinook salmon into Battle Creek has already surpassed last year’s, and there are signs that next year could be even better.

“We could see a big next year based on the number of two-year-old fish we are seeing,” said Scott Hamelberg, manager at Coleman National Fish Hatchery.

So far about 13,500 chinook salmon have returned from the Pacific Ocean to the hatchery this fall, he said.

Last year only 8,268 fish returned to the hatchery and natural spawning beds along the creek that feeds the Sacramento River. The run starts in October and ends in late November. That run was the smallest in 31 years, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data.

Almost 7,750 of the fish that have returned to the hatchery so far this fall have been “jacks,” male salmon who swam in from the ocean after about two years at sea. Most salmon make the big swim back to their spawning ground after three or four years in the ocean, so a good run of jacks may be a harbinger of a strong fall run next year, Hamelberg said.

The salmon rebound is encouraging to Northern Californian commercial salmon fishermen whose catches were limited this year after a two-year salmon fishing ban, said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

But they’re hoping for more.

“None of this is to the extent we’d like to see,” he said.

Grader said fisherman would like to see Battle Creek returns reach the kinds of numbers recorded early this decade. In four of the five years from 2001 to 2005, returns exceeded 100,000 salmon. The high point came in 2002, when a record 463,296 salmon returned to the hatchery and spawning beds at Battle Creek.

Then came the crash, with the run into Battle Creek dropping to 77,510 in 2006, 21,682 in 2007 and 14,925 in 2008 before bottoming out at the 8,268 last year.

Higher returns in Battle Creek mean there are more salmon in the ocean, which translates into bigger catches for fishermen, Grader said.

Coleman serves as a replacement for salmon runs from the Upper Sacramento, McCloud and Pit rivers cut off by the completion of Shasta Dam in the 1940s. That makes it one of the largest contributors to the full Sacramento River run, which weighs heavily in federal fishery managers’ decisions about commercial and recreational catches at sea and on the river.

While he’s also happy to see the first increase in salmon returns to Battle Creek in six years, Hamelberg would be content with a return of about 20,000. That happens to be how many he also expects to return this year.

Each year the hatchery aims to produce 12 million fingerlings — young salmon ready for release — from 14 to 15 million eggs. Hamelberg said the females in this fall’s run should produce enough eggs for the hatchery to meet its goals.

What caused the rebound is no more clear than what caused the crash in the salmon returns.

Federal fishery scientists pinned the crash on poor ocean conditions — not enough food to feed all the growing fish.

Hamelberg said it’s likely those conditions have improved.

But Grader said the root of the crash is in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, through which the young salmon have to pass en route to the Pacific. He said poor conditions there, brought by irrigation diversions, was the problem.

He credits court mandated changes to Delta diversions for spurring the salmon rebound on Battle Creek.

In an effort to boost salmon numbers at sea, Coleman workers hauled 1.3 million fingerlings by truck to San Pablo Bay each of the last three springs.

Hamelberg, however, said those fish may not be fueling the higher returns in Battle Creek. That’s because the trucked salmon are hauled over highways and don’t imprint the return route as do the hatchery-raised and naturally spawning brethren.

Nevertheless, another 1.3 million Coleman chinook will likely be trucked again this spring, Hamelberg said.#

Siskiyou Daily News-11/4/10
By David Smith

Blue-green algal species exist in Upper Klamath Lake, Copco Reservoir and Iron Gate Reservoir, according to Dr. Jacob Kann of Aquatic Ecosystem Sciences and Chauncey Anderson of the United States Geological Survey Oregon Water Science Center, although differing conditions in each area determine which species dominates.

According to Kann, the high phosphorous conditions in Upper Klamath Lake allow dominance by the species Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, which is used as a popular dietary supplement, and according to Anderson has long been considered to be non-toxic.

In the Copco and Iron Gate reservoirs’ nitrogen-rich environments, however, Kann said the species Microcystis aeruginosa dominates, which the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) lists as a producer of cyanotoxins.

According to the CDC, cyanotoxins produced by Microcystis can promote tumors and produce hepatotoxins, which damage the liver.

Kann and Anderson both stated that the Iron Gate and Copco reservoirs contain warm, nutrient rich and calm waters in which the toxin-producing algae can grow.

“Even now there has never been an exposure risk in the Klamath River immediately upstream from Copco, but numerous public health exceedances occur in the reservoirs and downstream, all the way to the estuary,” Kann said. “Such downstream levels are a direct reflection of the algae and toxin leaving Iron Gate Reservoir.”

According to a 2009 report in the journal Toxicon, titled “Recreational exposure to microcystins during algal blooms in two California lakes,” there are “no regulations defining acceptable levels of cyanobacterial toxins in drinking or recreational waters” in the United States.

The report, based on a 2007 study conducted in Siskiyou County during the occurence of cyanobacterial algal blooms (CyanoHABs) containing Microcystis, stated that 81 adults and children were tested during the month of August after recreational exposure to CyanoHABs in the Copco and Iron Gate reservoirs.

Representatives from Siskiyou County, the Karuk Tribe, the CDC and a number of laboratories were involved in the study.

“It is likely that healthy persons will not have adverse acute effects from periodic exposures to [Microcystis] in aerosols generated by water-based recreational activities in lakes with patches of toxin-producing blooms,” the report reads. “However, these healthy persons clearly are exposed to potent hepatotoxins.”

Although the number of self-reported symptoms after exposure were low, according to the report, “recreational exposure to CyanoHAB toxins remains a public health concern.”

While a number of local residents have disputed the toxicity of the algae and have used anecdotal evidence suggesting that contact has not been harmful, each summer, signs have been posted at the reservoirs warning of contact with it.

Kann has also participated in a number of studies that demonstrated an accumulation of Microcystin toxins in mussels and some fish species in the Klamath River, raising concerns over consumption of those animals.

While all sources state that Microcystis is present in the reservoirs and is toxic, the Toxicon report states that further study should be conducted to determine to what extent recreational exposure can affect people.

The causes of and effects from Microcystis’ presence in the reservoirs will also factor into the KHSA dam removal decision.#

Grass Valley Union-11/1/10
By Denis Peirce

The fall run salmon are at their peak in the Sacramento Valley river system. A good rule of thumb is that the salmon spawn peaks at Halloween. The Lower Yuba has good numbers of spawning salmon.

Comments from the Department of Fish and Game salmon counting crew mention increased numbers over last year and the potential for “normal to above normal” quantities of salmon. This is anecdotal evidence until all of the numbers are tabulated. There are redds to be seen from the Hwy 20 bridge all the way down to Daguerre Dam and below.

The Yuba rose to 6,000 cubic feet per second with the rain event a week ago. Since then the flows have come back down to 800 cfs. The most recent reports I heard came from last week.

The egg bite picked back up and the fish caught came on eggs 75 percent and nymphs 25 percent of the time.

Frank Rinella (Nevada City Angler) attributed the resurgence in egg effectiveness to a recent wave of fresh salmon moving up to spawn. The most popular nymphs include Flash-Back Pheasant Tails and Copper Johns in size 16 when the water is low and clear.

Stone fly nymphs are worth trying if the water is up or off colored. The bite is far from wide open.

The steelhead/ rainbow trout are seldom suicidal on the Lower Yuba. Recently 3 or 4 fish is considered a good day for experienced fly anglers. Frank mentioned that there continues to be some caddis activity in the evenings. Some fish are being taken late in the day swinging soft hackle caddis patterns. The water temp is 54 degrees.

The fishing action is similar on the Feather River near Oroville. The bite also is a combination of egg patterns and nymphs with the Olive Fox Poopah and Olive Bird's Nest being local favorites. The nymphs have been out producing the eggs in the last week.

Craig Bentley (Huntington's Sports) sent me a photo of a 6 pound steelhead caught and released last Sunday by a customer of his. Conventional tackle anglers are using Glo-Bugs, small spinners or mini-crawlers when fishing for steelhead. Late in the afternoon when the water warms by a degree or two, the squawfish go on the egg bite in the high flow area.

The Klamath River rose dramatically a week ago and had another heavy rain last Thursday. The flows which commonly are near 2,000 cfs at Orleans are still in the 5000 cfs range. Prior to the storms there were lots of spawning salmon in the middle to upper river with half pounder steelhead on the bite close behind. The adult steelhead had yet to show in any numbers. The rain and the rising river hopefully will move the adult steelhead up river.

The Trinity River is getting better. The best month on the Trinity for steelhead traditionally is November. There are steelhead being caught in the middle river from Junction City to Del Loma. The action will pick up as we go through November.

The best salmon fishing in the state has been on the Smith River.

Prior to the big rains the salmon had not come in from the salt. I checked with Ron McMasters (Catch My Drift Guide Service) and as the river dropped from the peak a week ago the salmon run came in. All of the fish are bright and fresh from the ocean. He has been drifting from “The Forks” down river.

The best bite has been on the Kwikfish with Sardine wrap. This run of fish is on time for this part of the coast. The Smith and the shorter rivers on the lower Oregon coast fish well for salmon now through Thanksgiving weather permitting. The good steelhead fishing will begin in late December and go through March.

Fairfield Daily Republic-10/28/10

A former environmental manager at a bottling plant in American Canyon was arrested earlier this week after a federal grand jury in San Francisco indicted him on two counts of violating the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Thursday in a press release.

According to the indictment, Dhiren Patel, 43, was the environmental affairs, safety and security manager of AMCAN Beverages Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Co. In 2007, the plant generated up to 150,000 gallons per day of wastewater. The wastewater was processed on site at AMCAN's own wastewater treatment plant. The treated wastewater was then discharged into sewer lines that led to the city's own wastewater treatment plant that handled the city's domestic sewage and industrial wastewater.

The indictment charged Patel with conspiring from at least January 2006 until August 2007 to violate the Clean Water Act. Patel allegedly diluted and ordered others to dilute required samples of AMCAN's discharge with up to 50 percent water. Patel then allegedly caused those altered sample results to be submitted in monthly reports to the city of American Canyon to show compliance with its Clean Water Act permit.

The pollutants of concern involved total suspended solids and biological oxygen demand -- both of which are measurements of water quality and regulated as pollutants. AMCAN's permit set forth specific numeric limitations of these pollutants, which city surveillance showed were being exceeded frequently and significantly.

A federal grand jury indicted Patel on Oct. 5 on one count of conspiring to violate the Clean Water Act, two counts of violating the Clean Water Act by knowingly falsifying, tampering with and rendering inaccurate a monitoring device, and two counts of violating the Clean Water Act by knowingly making false statements in required reports.

The indictment was unsealed Tuesday after Patel's arrest in Phoenix at his place of employment. He made an initial appearance Wednesday in federal court in Phoenix and was released on his own recognizance. The case has been assigned to U.S. District Court in San Francisco.#

Sacramento Bee-10/28/10
By Matt Weiser

State officials have reached an agreement that will provide an estimated $188 million over 10 years to restore habitat for imperiled fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The deal between the state Water Resources and Fish and Game departments binds the water agency to certain restoration activities to satisfy state and federal environmental laws. State water contractors, who buy Delta water from DWR, will pay for those projects.

Among the first projects will be restoration of Prospect Island, near Rio Vista, as tidal wetland habitat. DWR acquired the 1,253-acre island from the federal government at no cost earlier this year.

In the agreement, finalized last week, DWR also commits to restoring a total of 8,000 acres of habitat for fish including salmon, sturgeon, Delta smelt and Sacramento splittail. This may involve acquiring additional Delta properties.

The deal is intended to satisfy state and federal endangered species acts, as well as the terms of a forthcoming Bay Delta Conservation Plan.#

Eureka Times-Standard-10/31/10
By John Driscoll

Local timberlands have become a source for a seldom-seen predator biologists are reintroducing to the northern Sierra Nevada, where they have been extinct for decades.

As part of the second year of the project, biologists trapped a Pacific fisher on Green Diamond Resource Co. land at the Humboldt-Del Norte County line on Thursday. They are hoping to trap several more animals in the coming days, transfer them to a canyon outside of Chico and then monitor the large weasel to determine how they take hold.

Of 15 fishers trapped and relocated from the Weaverville and Yreka areas last year, 12 are still alive and all of the females have had kits, raising hopes that the ongoing reintroduction will be successful.

”You can put them out there and they seem to be OK,” said North Carolina State University researcher Aaron Facka.

While many reintroduction efforts have simply trapped and moved animals, the Pacific fisher has been considered for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act, a condition that has made the effort more complex.

Sierra Pacific Industries has fishers on its properties in Trinity County, but until last year, they were believed to be gone from its northern Sierra Nevada tracts. It offered five potential properties where fishers might be reintroduced, and biologists settled on Butte Canyon as an area with the best possible habitat.

The timber company forged an agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to allow the reintroduction on the condition that if the fisher became federally protected, it wouldn't have to alter its operations in the area. Sierra Pacific spokesman Mark Pawlicki said that the reintroduction appears to be going well and that the fishers have taken to good habitat in the area.

”It gives us an opportunity to show that you can continue to manage forests and manage habitat for specially adapted animals like the fisher,” Pawlicki said.

Last year, the first 15 of an expected 40 total animals were moved to the Butte Canyon area.

On Thursday, biologists gathered in Crannell on the Little River north of McKinleyville to examine the fisher caught on Green Diamond property that morning. Fishers have to be handled carefully; a member of the weasel family, they can be unpredictable and vicious when cornered.

The animal was pushed from a crate into a metal cone in which it was immobilized, then treated with anesthesia. The fisher was then laid out on a table, given oxygen from a tiny mask, and the team began to take measurements and samples.

In order to transfer an animal, it must be shown to be free of diseases like distemper and canine parvo. It also must be a mature animal in good condition, able to survive the rigors of transportation and relocation. Blood, genetic and dental samples were also taken.

The fisher trapped Thursday was an adult male, about 7 pounds. Used to handling larger fishers from inland areas, California Department of Fish and Game Associate Wildlife Veterinarian Deana Clifford wasn't initially impressed, though as the examination continued, she gave the animal a clean bill of health.

The fisher may be lean for an inland animal, but it is average for a coastal fisher, said University of California Davis wildlife disease ecologist Mourad Gabriel.

After about 30 minutes and some focused discussion, the team determined that the fisher was a strong candidate for relocating. Facka put a satellite tracking collar on the animal as Clifford warmed and dried the animal in preparation for its recovery. The fisher would be taken to a Fish and Game facility in Anderson while biologists wait for disease tests to come back.

”They'll be cared for intensively,” said Fish and Game Senior Environmental Scientist Richard Callas.

Once cleared, the animal will be released in the Butte Canyon area. The biologists are looking to continue trapping on Green Diamond property in the coming days, luring fishers to traps with a product they call Gusto -- a violently foul skunk-based attractant -- and drawing them to chicken bait. Fishers are tuned to scent, and Facka and the others began to believe that brand-new traps deployed this week smelled too much like new cabinets to trick them. They expected better luck in the coming days.

The satellite collar will allow Facka to track the animals that are trapped and relocated, sending regular updates on its position by e-mail. Male fishers are known to roam large distances, he said, unlike females, which generally have a smaller territory and can be tracked using more simple radio-telemetry equipment.

The Pacific fisher has become largely extinct in much of its historic home range in California, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Idaho. Northwest California and the southern Sierra Nevada now hold the last breeding populations of the animal.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2004, responding to a petition to put the animal on the federal endangered species list, determined the fisher warranted protection, but other species were a higher priority. In April, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Protection Information Center and other groups sued Fish and Wildlife, claiming the agency is illegally delaying the fisher's protection.

The Hoopa Valley Tribe and Green Diamond Resource Co. have done extensive surveys for the fisher locally, and their properties are believed to have some of the highest densities of fishers in the West, and even the United States. Green Diamond began surveys for fishers in 1994 and found they were relatively evenly distributed across its 450,000 acres, said Senior Wildlife Biologist Lowell Diller.

In 2004, however, the company found a decline in detections, as had the Hoopa Tribe in their work between 1999 and 2005. But that year, the tribe began to see fishers rebounding, and in 2006, Green Diamond noted the same upswing, Diller said. With the numbers back up, Diller said that Fish and Game contacted the company about being a source to gather fishers for relocation.

Last year, all 15 animals that were relocated did well, despite the massive snow storms that hit the northern Sierra Nevada. They were all alive in the spring. By June, biologists confirmed three mortalities of females -- one likely killed by a bobcat, another died when it fell into a water tank and the third was struck by a car.

Facka said that the team will be keeping a close eye on the fishers moved from the coast to the colder, snowy inland country where they will be released.

The larger scientific community is also watching with significant interest. Relocating animals is not without risk, and plenty of reintroduction efforts have gone bad.

Humboldt State University wildlife professor Richard Golightly said that the main question that will be answered as part of the fisher reintroduction effort is whether the habitat they are being released into is suitable. Moving a predator into an area can also have effects on prey and other species that can be detrimental, he said.

”It's really hard for anyone to forecast those consequences,” Golightly said.#

Sacramento Bee, 10/29/10
By Matt Weiser

State officials have reached an agreement that will provide an estimated $188 million over 10 years to restore habitat for imperiled fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

The deal between the state Water Resources and Fish and Game departments binds the water agency to certain restoration activities to satisfy state and federal environmental laws. State water contractors, who buy Delta water from DWR, will pay for those projects.

Among the first projects will be restoration of Prospect Island, near Rio Vista, as tidal wetland habitat. DWR acquired the 1,253- acre island from the federal government at no cost earlier this year.

In the agreement, finalized last week, DWR also commits to restoring a total of 8,000 acres of habitat for fish including salmon, sturgeon, Delta smelt and Sacramento splittail. This may involve acquiring additional Delta properties.

The deal is intended to satisfy state and federal endangered species acts, as well as the terms of a forthcoming Bay Delta Conservation Plan.#

Chico Enterprise-Record-10/28/10
By Heather Hacking

The Butte Environmental Council has settled a lawsuit with Butte County, ending a two-year challenge over a contract for the Tuscan Aquifer monitoring, recharge and management project.

The conclusion has been a "win-win," as the county retained funding for groundwater studies and ended up with a better study for protection of resources, said Jim Gregg, BEC board chairman.

Butte County received a grant from the Department of Water Resources under Proposition 50 for a three-year study using monitoring wells, stream gauges and test pumping to study groundwater. The county approved the grant in September 2008.

In October 2008, BEC asked the Butte County Superior Court to overturn the county's approval of the contract stating more environmental review was required under the California Environmental Quality Act.

The county had approved what is called a mitigated negative declaration, which means environmental impacts can be mitigated.

BEC disagreed, said Chico attorney Richard Harriman. At the time, there was also strong concern the project would be "a precursor to the export of groundwater from Butte County," to water users south of the Delta.

This was in the midst of a drought, and there were other plans in early development for regional surface and groundwater management programs.

After the lawsuit was filed, the state's economy went into a tailspin and the grant money had been held up.

While the money was held, the court case was in settlement negotiations while Barbara Vlamis was head of BEC.

In May 2009, after many talks and negotiations, the Board of Supervisors rescinded the original approval of the environmental review, while a new environmental review could be completed.

But this did not stop the grant money on the way from the state.

The revised mitigated negative declaration "substantially addressed" the issues raised in the BEC lawsuit, Harriman said, and public review and comments were gathered.

Renewed approval was made in July of this year.

The revisions include better defined sites for test monitoring wells and better environmental protection, Harriman said, and BEC dismissed its CEQA claim.

The county also agreed to more public notice of project activities and to appoint a representative of BEC to the Technical Steering Committee.

Harriman said the county also will provide BEC with a copy of the Butte Basin Groundwater Model to compare data from the upcoming study, and the county has said the study will not be used to "justify specific water transfers from the Lower Tuscan Aquifer."

The county will also reimburse BEC for attorney fees.

Gregg praised former BEC leader Barbara Vlamis for her role as watchdog in the case.

He said the outcome of the case has been better cooperation between BEC and the county.

"Working with (Department of Water and Resource Conservation director) Paul Gosselin and Felix Wannemacher (county counsel's office), we were able to get things done in a way that helped the public and helped the county," Harriman said.#

Eureka Times-Standard-10/27/10
John Driscoll

A Blue Ribbon Task Force unanimously endorsed a proposal developed by local fishermen, conservationists and tribes on Tuesday to carve out a series of protected areas off the North Coast to restrict or eliminate fishing and gathering.

At the River Lodge in Fortuna, the task force decided to send the set of marine protected areas unchanged to the California Fish and Game Commission and lauded local interests for their devotion to navigating the Marine Life Protection Act process.

”In all other areas of the state they have been unable to do this,” said task force member Meg Caldwell.

Caldwell read into the record a number of findings that hold that the North Coast's geography and weather make it different than any other region the MLPA Initiative has visited. While the proposal has its shortcomings, she said, the North Coast's unique environment supports the task force's recommendation.

Task force member and Humboldt County 1st District Supervisor Jimmy Smith agreed, saying the remoteness of the coastline and the sparse population make the area different than others.

Locals had hoped that the task force would send the proposal on alone and unchanged, with language meant to resolve issues related to tribal fishing and gathering in the future. But after the California Department of Fish and Game criticized the unified proposal as not being protective enough, task force member Greg Schem introduced a motion that would increase restrictions in some marine protected areas as a separate proposal. Schem said that it would be better to draft the proposal before the Fish and Game Commission meets and said that it was not an attempt to thwart the unified proposal.

Caldwell remarked that the second proposal had not been as thoroughly analyzed as the regional group's. Several members of the public also said that sending a second proposal to Fish and Game undermines the united front local groups had generated through the initial proposal.

The 1999 Marine Life Protection Act called for developing a network of marine reserves, and after two failed attempts by the state to implement it, a public-private partnership called the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative took up the effort, moving from region to region. North Coast interests pushed for a unified proposal they believe will be less likely to be changed by the Fish and Game Commission, which must implement the restrictions.

The unified proposal would result in about 12 percent of the coast from the Albion River to the Oregon border restricted or closed to fishing and gathering, on top of existing fishing regulations.

The task force also developed language meant to address traditional tribal uses in marine protected areas.

Throughout the process, North Coast tribes have held that the state cannot legally regulate such uses, while Fish and Game has said it can't exempt any particular group from the restrictions. A legislative remedy will be needed to correct the problem, but the task force agreed to a motion that signals the intent to create shoreline areas open to traditional tribal uses once the legal issue is resolved by the state.

Recreational Fishing Alliance Executive Director Jim Martin applauded the task force and the regional group for its work, acknowledging the conservation-mindedness of people in the area.

”The social context up here is much different,” Martin said.

After months of deliberations, there appeared to be some sense of relief that this latest stage of the process is over. Comparing the talks to her husband's annual sausage-making effort -- mixing meat and fat while consuming beer -- Petrolia resident Abi Queen told the task force members that they performed their work “with just as much style.”

Queen commended the task force for forwarding the unified proposal to the Fish and Game Commission.

”I think that this thing does have a lot of power, especially if you add your voices to it,” Queen said.#

Redding Record Searchlight-10/25/10
By Dylan Darling

Lake Shasta is again on the rise following a wet weekend in the north state.

The lake level rose almost a foot after storm clouds steadily dropped more than 5 inches of rain onto the lake from 3:30 p.m. Saturday until 1 p.m. Sunday said Sheri Harral, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Reclamation at Shasta Dam. The lake went from being 48.65 feet below its high water line Friday to 47.82 feet below Monday.

“That’s not a whole lot of room at all,” she said.

Depending on whether rainstorms continue at the lake, the bureau may have to start letting increased flows out of Lake Shasta and down the Sacramento River for flood control, she said. If the rains return soon, the lake also likely already has hit its lowest level for the year.

Last year, which saw a mostly dry November, the lake didn’t bottom out until Nov. 18, when it hit 130.5 feet below the high water line. A year earlier the lake dropped to its lowest level since 1991 when it fell to 157.77 feet below the top of Shasta Dam on Oct. 13, 2008. The record low for the lake is 230.32 feet below set in 1977.

At Lassen Volcanic National Park, the same storm that brought rain to Lake Shasta and Redding delivered more wintry weather. The storm dropped 8 inches of snow at Lake Helen, 8,200 feet above sea level near the base of Lassen Peak, said Karen Haner, spokeswoman at Lassen.

“It kind of surprised us Saturday,” she said.

Cold temperatures then turned the snow to ice, prompting the closure of the road through the park over the weekend. The 33-mile-long road remained closed for 22 miles — between the Devastated Area and Sulphur Works — Monday and likely will be closed until it warms up in the park, Haner said.

She said she didn’t think the road was closed for the season yet. Last year the road closed Nov. 18.

While last weekend’s storm closed Lassen’s road, it opened burning season around much of the north state.

The rain prompted the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to lift open burning bans in Shasta, Siskiyou and Trinity counties. The ban remained in Tehama County.

The storm is also spurring the state’s Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Redding office to check for heavy sediment runoff at construction sites around the north state. Robert Crandall, the office’s assistant executive officer, said the office received two citizen’s complaints about runoff one at the Salt Creek development by Sierra Pacific Industries in west Redding and the other at the city’s overpass construction on Interstate 5 at Oasis Road.

He said an inspector from the office is set to visit both sites today.

At the Antlers Bridge project in Lakehead, where a similar storm last year prompted runoff concerns, there was no sign of sediment pouring into Lake Shasta, said Mark Darnall, a resident engineer for Caltrans.

He said the storm did shift dirt around within the 14-acre site and crews are bracing for more rainstorms after the weekend’s douser.

“It was a good warm-up for the season,” he said.#

S.F. Chronicle-10/25/10
By Jim Martin
Opinion

Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, recently made a "once in a lifetime" visit to the North Coast to meet with a small group of environmentally minded Mendocino Democrats.

On the list of topics discussed were the high-handed tactics being used by the state's consultants to rush through a complex, top-down Marine Life Protection Act.

The local Democrats expressed concern that instead of focusing on real and emerging threats of new oil drilling, wave energy and other forms of industrial uses of the ocean and the ever-present threat from degraded water quality, marine protected areas are instead targeting only subsistence, recreational and commercial fishing - critical elements of the local economy and culture.

Pérez sympathized with the local attendees by sharing a concern regarding the city of Maywood (Los Angeles County) in his district, where residents get blue, green or tan water from their taps - rendering it undrinkable. Certainly, those present surmised, he knew that marine protected areas are being pushed in Southern California, where they also just punish fishermen without any real benefits.

Assembly members Noreen Evans and Wes Chesbro, who were also at the meeting, understand the questionable implementation of state law. They shared concerns about the process, incomplete science and inappropriately focused priorities.

The locals felt as if they had been heard.

But, as it turns out, just days before his trip to the North Coast, Pérez had sent a letter to the state Fish and Game Commission advocating for the "strongest possible" marine protection areas, knowing, one presumes, that it simply meant the most expansive restrictions on fishing and fishing-related small businesses and jobs.

Sadly, the Assembly speaker's letter repeats worn out PR spin about restoring fisheries, protecting ocean health and using the best science. But the facts give a different view.

In 2009, researchers Boris Worm and Ray Hilborn led a team examining fisheries worldwide and concluded that fisheries off California are among the best protected in the world and that good management here was, in fact, pushing fishing to areas of the world with poor protection, thus exacerbating the problems there.

Closer to home, the California Department of Fish and Game reports that no state fisheries are in crisis. And the scientific team advising the marine protection area effort concluded that the areas will have negligible and uncertain value to fisheries, but significant and predictable costs.

Pérez says he understands there are serious ocean threats other than fishing and yet he calls for adoption of the most expansive anti-fishing marine protection areas.

Does Pérez know or care about any of this? Those of us meeting with him this summer thought he did, until we discovered his letter advocating for an excessive marine protection area system.

So what's a voter to do? Maybe we'll add an extra splash of oil and a dash of brown water to Speaker Pérez's plate the next time he comes to Mendocino for local seafood.#

Jim Martin is a trustee of the California Fisheries Coalition and the West Coast regional director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance. He has been engaged in the Marine Protection Act adoption process since 2004.

Oroville Mercury-Register-10/21/10
By Barbara Arrigoni

A wide field of dirt, rocky banks and still-murky water may not look like much now, but in about 18 months a newly excavated pond will be lush with native plants for all manner of wildlife to inhabit.

The area is a 15.5-acre plot of rock and cobble at Oroville Wildlife Area being restored as wetlands for wildlife in a state Department of Water Resources project.

Granite Construction Co. has been excavating the parcel since September and has just finished for the winter. The company will resume work again next May.

At the Wildlife Area, several acres of field are graded, and about a quarter mile in, a new pond stretches across roughly three acres below the field.

DWR scientist Eric See said the entire project area was once covered with rocks, cobbles and starthistle.

The intention of the project is to excavate the entire field down to the water table to expose new ponds that can support wetland habitat.

Two separate ponds will be created. Of the project's total 15.5 acres, 13 will become actual "emergent wetlands" and 2.5 acres will be used for riparian shrub and woodland habitat, See said.

Biologist Gail Kuenster came up with the idea and began designing it in 2007.

The project cost about $500,000 for the design and environmental stage, and the excavation cost is about $1.3 million, funded through the DWR.

However, Kuenster and See emphasized the excavation cost is offset by the $1.3 million value of the rock and cobble that will be removed and used for construction elsewhere.

"It's nice we have a resource here of value," See said. "The project is a lot less expensive when you have an actual commodity out of the deal."

Not all of the excavated material will be taken out. Kuenster said some of the soil will be used as bedding material to plant selected vegetation.

Kuenster anticipates the pond just finished will fill up another four feet over the winter, depending on the amount of rain that falls.

Planting will begin in either the fall or winter 2011.

Kuenster said plants will be native vegetation that occurs normally in shallow, permanent waters, including tules, sedges and cattails.

Cottonwood, willows and other trees and shrubs will also be planted, but Kuenster said those may also begin to come up voluntarily from existing trees near the perimeter of the project.

See said the habitat will benefit waterfowl such as mallards, wood ducks and Canada geese. Other wildlife will also benefit, such as deer, kingfishers, osprey, river otters and beavers.

He also noted areas of the ponds will be deep enough for fishing, and the area will be good for hunting.

Although there is sand around some areas of the new pond, surface soil will also be added to areas that are still very rocky.

DWR won't stop with the current project. See said agency officials hope to develop partnerships with other agencies for additional wetland restoration projects. He noted the wildlife area encompasses 11,000 acres. More than 600 acres are still "sheer cobble fields," he said.

DWR also plans to restore an overgrown area on the other side of a narrow levee near the current project boundary.

See said the agency plans to do similar projects on both sides of the Feather River.

Kuenster is excited to finally see her project take shape.

"It's nice to see it go from talking about restoration to actually doing it," See said.

Although it took more than three years to reach the progress evident Wednesday, See added that now the framework is in place, future projects should progress more easily.

See said the project is the first of its kind in the Oroville Wildlife Area in at least 20 years.

Some funding was possible under the current recreation plan licensing, See said. He said once the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (FERC) issues a new license to Oroville water and recreation facilities, wetland projects in the Wildlife Area should become commonplace.

FERC relicensing is pending.#

Chico Enterprise-Record-10/20/10

A new recovery plan for chinook salmon in the McCloud River area is being pursued by the Winnemem Wintu Tribe in Redding. Mark Franco, head tribal spokesman, said the fish have been blocked for generations after Shasta Dam was built.

A few years ago the tribe learned that embryo from the McCloud salmon had been transplanted to New Zealand in the late 1800s. For the Wintu, the return of the salmon to Northern California is a spiritual quest, and tribe members believe it is their duty to return their "relatives" to the water of the McCloud.

Franco said the plan, which is receiving the help of U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, is to set up a hatchery above Shasta Dam. Smolts would be released at a time when they are larger than is done in hatcheries now.

The fish would be tagged and placed in Battle Creek. When the fish return to Battle Creek from the ocean, they would be gathered and trucked to spawn in the McCloud River, Franco explained.

The goal is to work through Proposition 84 funding.

The long-term plan would be to connect Little Cow Creek or Dry Creek to the McCloud River, where salmon would have the ability to swim much further north to cool spawning areas.

Chico Enterprise-Record-10/20/10
By Heather Hacking

Fishery leaders were in Chico Monday to ask for another round of input for saving dwindling fish species. People at the meeting gave several suggestions, but the overall message was for the National Marine Fisheries Service, known as NOAA Fisheries, to actually do something, rather than keep writing recommendations.

One of the more dramatic proposals in the report NOAA Fisheries is working on is to transport fish around dams, allowing them more habitat in areas now blocked. The recovery plan states that as climate change is expected, getting to the fish to colder areas makes more sense.

Priority areas for reintroduction of fish include Little Sacramento River, McCloud River, Battle Creek, the Upper Yuba River and American River.

With recent improvements to the San Joaquin River, this waterway is also a priority for reintroducing fish.

The 273-page NOAA document is available online at: http://swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/recovery/centralvalleyplan.htm

The plan also includes many strategies for restoring flows through the Sacramento and San Joaquin River basins and Delta, large ecosystem restoration, reduction in non-native fish predators, changes in commercial fishery and several more.

Several people criticized NOAA for spending so much time on planning, but comparably little time on putting plans in place.

Hal Thomas, who handles environmental cases for the Butte County District Attorney's office, said NOAA Fisheries rules are inconsequential when there

is only one NOAA cop for the entire Sacramento Valley.

He said NOAA has spent millions for discussions about fishery issues, "but no money for enforcement."

With the recent relicensing of dams under FERC, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, "why wasn't NOAA asking for FERC money," Thomas said.

He mentioned a Butte County case with potential damage to Butte Creek, where salmon are spawning. However, agencies, including NOAA, won't take action until there are actual fish killed.

"There is no prevention," he said.

"You need to provide a revenue stream (through FERC) to enforce laws on the books since 1872," Thomas said.

John Merz, of the Sacramento River Preservation Trust, said NOAA needed to "step up."

"It's really overdue for NOAA to step up. I've been going to these meetings for way too long.

"We can't do a lot about the ocean, but we can do a lot with the water in the rivers," Merz said.

"We need to have you guys stand up and talk back."

Mark Franco, of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe in Redding, said PG&E is making plenty of money by creating energy, some of that money should be going to restore fish.

Several of the 36 people at the strategy meeting about how to save imperiled fish shared ideas for fish recovery.

* One man said he has visited areas near Highway 162 and south of Durham where he has witnessed dozens of fish trying to jump over small dams. He said a simple strategy was to use removable dams, similar to those used to flood rice field. A wooden plank could be removed when water was too low for fish to pass, the man said.

* Another man, an almond farmer along Antelope Creek, suggested small dams in the foothills could be "taken out of the way," to provide more habitat.

* Two audience members brought up predators as a problem, specifically sea lions and striped bass.

Compared to 100 years ago in the Central Valley, 95 percent of the spawning habitat has been lost due to dam construction and 98 percent of riparian and floodplain habitat is gone in the lower river and Delta, according to information provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Many other factors have harmed the fish, including warm water, water withdrawals, loss of habitat, poor water quality, predation by non-native fish, fishing, hatchery effects and climate change.

Populations of winter-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley spring-run salmon and Central Valley steelhead have been in decline since the 1960s.#

Eureka Times-Standard-10/16/10
By John Driscoll

Counties in the Klamath River watershed stand to see millions of dollars in annual economic benefit from removing four dams on the river, embarking on fisheries restoration and shoring up water deliveries to farms, according to an analysis commissioned by supporters of the effort.

Humboldt County could see business revenues increase by about $4.93 million per year over 10 years, increasing county income and generating 98 full- and part-time jobs, the study by California State University Chico Economics professor emeritus David Gallo concludes. Del Norte County would also see a similar but smaller boost, according to the study, based on restoration, monitoring and salmon reintroduction projects.

It is Klamath County, Ore., and Siskiyou County that would see the biggest economic benefit, said the study commissioned by California Trout and a group called PROSPER, made up of supporters of the two agreements to take out the four dams and restore fisheries while ensuring water for farms.

In those counties, construction work to take out the dams and perform related activities would spike business revenues in Klamath County by $40 million a year and create 707 full- and part-time jobs. Siskiyou County would see a $20 million annual boost and get 298 jobs. An more dependable agricultural environment will also help, the study found.

”It'll be a major impact,” Gallo said.

In some of the counties, the boost would restore many of the jobs that have been lost during the current recession, Gallo said. In the coastal counties, salmon restoration after the dams are removed -- targeted to begin in 2020 -- would go on long into the future, Gallo said.

Both Klamath and Siskiyou counties have measures on the November ballot aimed at determining public support for the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement and the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement. The deals were signed by 28 parties in both states in February, with some environmental groups, Siskiyou County and the Hoopa Tribe abstaining over disagreements with the pacts.

Iron Gate, Copco 1, Copco 2 and J.C. Boyle dams would be torn out beginning in 2020 if an in-progress investigation by the U.S. Interior secretary finds it would be in the public interest. There are significant hurdles in the way: Legislation to implement the agreements has not been submitted to Congress due to disagreements over its content, although some interim work is in progress; and California's share of the money to take out the dams is in question since the water bond that contained the money was pulled from the upcoming ballot.

Curtis Knight with California Trout said that his organization commissioned the study to inform people's decisions on the Klamath agreements going forward. He said that the report makes clear that the economic benefit estimates are conservative, and that the real effects are likely to be significantly greater.

”We've tried to characterize this as just one piece of the big puzzle and one piece of the economic puzzle,” Knight said.#

S.F. Chronicle-10/15/10
By Peter Fimrite

A gargantuan redwood tree towered above the locomotive as it chugged through the forested Noyo River canyon in Mendocino County, prompting gasps of delight from some of the train's passengers.

The massive sequoia, with branches so large and tangled that smaller trees were actually growing out of dirt and litter on the limbs, is part of one of the last, biggest old-growth forests in private hands left on the West Coast.

The ancient trees cover 123 acres of a 426-acre plot of land along the historic Skunk Train route. Today, the San Francisco-based Save the Redwoods League will announce it has reached an agreement to buy the plot - a deal that has one major catch.

The league, which has worked for more than 90 years to protect ancient redwoods, needs to raise the $7 million sale price by April 1 or the current owner, Willits Redwood Co., will log the big trees, which are worth big dollars as lumber.

Ruskin Hartley, the executive director of Save the Redwoods, called it an "urgent situation" that will require public and private support.

"It is more than 100 acres of old growth in an area where there really aren't any more stands of old growth," he said. "The goal here is to have people come out and enjoy the woods."

The league's Rails Through the Redwoods fundraising campaign is one of the most ambitious efforts ever undertaken to save a California forest.

The property, which also contains huge stands of ancient Douglas fir, is surrounded by private property, making it unsuitable for incorporation into a state or national park, as has happened with other Redwood League purchases.

The idea is to buy the property located west of Willits and then turn it over to a permanent steward, preferably a local conservation organization or land trust.

Ideally, a partnership would be worked out with the owner of the Skunk Train, which has the right of way for 6 miles of railroad tracks that zigzag through the lush hills and verdant valleys along the ancient Noyo riverbed.

The railroad was established in 1885 to haul lumber. When the connection to Willits was completed in 1911, the railroad wound 40 miles through vast redwood stands that were used to build the cities of the West.

People began calling it the "skunk" train in 1925 because of the acrid fumes from the gasoline and diesel rail engines. The last old-growth trees were harvested in the late 1970s and the train is now used by the Sierra Railroad Co. exclusively for tourists.

Hartley's vision is for the train to bring schoolchildren and other interested groups into the region, where on-board biologists would explain the redwood forest ecosystem, lead tours and organize camping expeditions in ecologically important areas.

The fundraising effort might have to go on for a while as there will undoubtedly be costs associated with managing the property and building infrastructure, including shoring up failed culverts along the river.

During a recent tour of the property, Hartley and several of his colleagues rode on the train's open viewing platform past granite cliffs, giant trees and shimmering pools surrounded by lush moss and ferns. Waterfalls dot the river. Long-abandoned mining camps pepper the route, with rotting old barns, shacks and rusted equipment.

The train slowed as it passed the giant, gnarled redwood with trees growing out of it. Emily Limm, the league's director of science, said the thick, sprawling branches create habitat for bats, mammals like red tree voles and a wide variety of birds, which set up housekeeping from the base of the tree all the way to the top, more than 200 feet high.

"These trees really are ecosystems in and of themselves," Limm said.

The Noyo River redwoods provide habitat for numerous rare, threatened and endangered species, including the northern spotted owl, marbled murrelet, bald eagle and the Pacific fisher.

Bats live in the charred hollows of redwoods, Limm said. The northern red-legged frog and southern torrent salamander live in the wetland areas near the headwaters of the Noyo. Coho, steelhead and chinook salmon breed in the river, and numerous rare plants, vines and flowers grow throughout the region.

The Willits Redwood Co. went through a difficult and lengthy approval process before the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection accepted its timber harvest plan. Co-owner Chris Baldo said top-grade old-growth wood, which is thicker, has fewer knot holes and is sturdier, can fetch up to $10 a board foot compared with $1.80 a board foot for second-growth redwood.

"That was one of the values of this property to us," said Baldo, who, with business partner Bruce Burton purchased the property for about $2 million in 2007. "There are people who feel that saving old growth is the most important thing to do in the world, but I've always felt that if they feel that way they should raise the money and buy it."

Hartley said there have been discussions with a number of potential donors, but no money has yet materialized.

"We hope that the public will join us in providing protection for this property," Hartley said. "As California gets more and more crowded, these places where you can get away from it all become more and more precious."#

Red Bluff Daily News-10/12/10

The Feather River Hatchery kicked off the statewide effort to spawn returning fall Chinook salmon this week. Department of Fish and Game (DFG) hatchery workers took more than half a million eggs during the first week of spawning.

Over the next two months, the Feather River Hatchery will take approximately 12 million eggs in order to produce a total of 10 million Chinook salmon for release next spring.

The Feather River Hatchery is the first of the three major state-run hatcheries in the Sacramento River system to start spawning operations. Mokelumne and Nimbus hatcheries spawning operations will also commence later this fall, in October and November.

Together, the three hatcheries should harvest enough eggs to raise more than 20 million young salmon for release into the Sacramento River and its tributaries next spring.

Each hatchery has a viewing area where visitors can watch the spawning process. At Nimbus and Feather River hatcheries, thousands of schoolchildren tour the facilities each year. The visitors center at Nimbus Hatchery includes a playground with replicas of giant salmon that are enjoyed by young and old alike.

Around the state, there are eight state-run hatcheries, all of which will participate in the salmon spawning effort. Those hatcheries, along with federally run hatcheries, will together be responsible for the release of 40 million juvenile salmon into California waters. These massive spawning efforts were put in place over the last 50 years to offset fish losses caused by dams that block salmon from spawning in historically used waters.

Today, hatcheries are multi-million dollar operations that employ scientific methods to spawn, rear and return healthy young salmon to various river systems each year. At each hatchery, a team of managers and staff monitor the progress of batches of eggs that will become tomorrows returning salmon, while pathologists work with each hatchery to ensure fish health.

Once the young salmon reach 2 to 4 inches in length, one quarter of stock will be marked and implanted with a code wire tag prior to release. DFG biologists use the information from the tags to chart their survival, catch and return rates.#

Red Bluff Daily News-1012/10
By Geoff Johnson

For more than a decade the Cottonwood Creek Watershed Group worked to protect property values and to preserve a major salmon spawning ground. Members say the group achieved a balance between landowners, developers and the government and helped stop erosion for numerous homeowners.

Now board members say its stakeholders, or anyone whose land touches the 604,000-acre watershed, are the only ones who can save the group from debts threatening to dissolve the nonprofit.

An emergency meeting is scheduled at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Cottonwood Community Center. Board members say it will determine the future of the group.

My gut tells me that if there are interested people, the three hours we have set aside will be the start of a new movement here, Board member Jim Busher said. If not, it could be the end of the CCWG as we know it, he said.

The group's debts are so bad some members say they would resign if the by-laws would let them. The organization requires four board members at any given time.

Interim Executive Director Rick Ortega said he tried, unsuccessfully, to step down from his position. I'm there as a volunteer but I think the title's going to stick, he said.

Estimates on the group's debt varied between board members. Those willing to put a dollar figure agreed at least tens of thousands of dollars are owed to a pair of contractors hired to do fire breaks. Their work was supposed to be paid for by a grant from the California Fire Safe Council. When the time came to pay contractors this summer, however, members said the money was missing.

The contractors are still owed. At the same time the Fire Safe Council has asked for a return of the grant money, Ortega said.

The California Fire Safe Council referred questions to its attorney, Anthony Eaton. A message left with Eaton was not returned Monday afternoon.

I think there was a misapplication with funds that were used for administrative purposes...and now we are facing reality, that we can't run it that way, Board member Judy Huddleston said. Board members, including Busher, said the discrepancy dates back to July, just as the group's sole employee, Office Manager Brynn Nolan, left. Nolan could not be reached by phone and did not return an e-mail sent Monday afternoon.

About the time Nolan left, the group called in law enforcement to investigate the matter. The Shasta County Sheriff's Office has since begun an investigation, Busher said. There was a shortage of funds that we became of aware of...rather than try to figure it out ourselves... we want a legitimate county agency or somebody that does investigations to sort that out, Busher said.

Ortega gave a similar story and singled out Nolan as the reason for the organization's financial problems. She had a jolly old time spending money she got from these federal grants, he said. As far as I can tell most of the money went to her payroll.

One option may be to pass the group's responsibilities onto the Tehama County Resource Conservation District. In that scenario, the CCWG would renounce its non-profit status and serve as an advisory board to the RCD, Huddleston said. But the arrangement could sacrifice the trust the group built and the kind of influence that yielded $2 million in grant money in less than a decade, said Vieva Swearingen, a former coordinator instrumental in the group's early years.

Because of its grassroots beginnings, the nonprofit had the trust to do environmental work on private property. Because of its influence, it could work with developers on conservation easements. Because of its ties to the government, it could pair private landowners with government grants, Swearingen said.

It can also cross county borders, unlike either the Tehama County RCD or its Shasta County counterpart. The two will have to cooperate in any future watershed dealings if the CCWG dissolves. Some of the residents are going to say we didn't need (the CCWG) anyway, Swearingen said. In the long run, Swearingen said the North State will lose out.#

S.F. Chronicle-10/12/10
By Kelly Zito

In defiance of a federal policy intended to bolster the safety of California levees, some Bay Area legislators, regulators and water agencies said Monday that they refuse to remove shrubs and trees from the banks of numerous creeks and culverts.

They say stripping vegetation from 100 miles of levees around the nine counties would cost millions, ruin scenic byways and damage riparian, or riverbank, ecosystems.

"In California, we've seen our riparian habitat reduced to almost nothing - it's fragmented beyond belief," said Chuck Armor, regional manager of the California Department of Fish and Game. "If this policy is implemented, we're going to see this habitat virtually disappear."

In the wake of the levee failures that destroyed New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina five years ago, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has ramped up its levee safety programs. Though the vegetation rule has been around for decades, in April 2009 the agency released an "engineering technical letter" spelling out that unless granted a waiver, 14,000 miles of levees around the country must be free of foliage, with the exception of grasses. However, the agency has made it clear that waivers will not be meted out easily or quickly.

The corps argues that in driving wind and rain, trees may topple over, pulling levees with them and unleashing untold storm water into neighborhoods, businesses and roadways. There are about 3,000 miles of levees in California.

"Public safety is our No. 1 priority," said J.D. Hardesty, spokesman for the corps' San Francisco District. "After Katrina, there's more focus on making sure everything is up to proper standards."

Around the Bay Area, 19 creeks, canals and rivers are affected, from Uvas Creek in the South Bay, to the Russian River in the north. Agencies that maintain the levees have until April to obtain a waiver, Hardesty said. After that, those levees could be decertified and the supervising agencies will be ineligible for federal emergency funds for levee repair. In addition, nearby homeowners could technically find themselves in a newly expanded flood zone that requires pricy flood insurance.

Implementing the clear-cutting policy will cost local jurisdictions millions, they insist. At a news conference Monday in North Richmond, officials pointed to a thick stand of trees and bushes along Wildcat Creek. It would cost $2 million to bring the area in compliance with federal rules, said Mitch Avalon, deputy director of the Contra Costa Public Works Department and spokesman for a group of Bay Area flood protection agencies.

"I stand before you today at the risk of going to jail," said Avalon.

In a sense, he was only half-joking. On the one hand, Avalon will be in violation of federal policy by declining to chop down trees and bushes. But if crews do fire up their chainsaws, they could be in violation of state and local measures to protect endangered species. Indeed, the Golden Gate Audubon Society said the Bay Area's leafy creeks are important to legions of threatened animals, including the red knot, the clapper rail, nesting osprey, red-shouldered hawk and willow flycatcher as well as the red-legged frog, steelhead and salmon.

What's more, they contend that especially among older levees, trees, stumps and roots help stabilize the structures and reduce erosion.

Instead of enforcing a blanket vegetation removal policy for the entire nation, Avalon and others want the corps to evaluate each levee and its ecosystem, age, stability and meaning to the surrounding community. For activist Whitney Dotson, Wildcat Creek is a key piece of the broad effort to restore Richmond's 32 miles of shoreline, much of it lost over the years to industrial development.

And there is yet another reason to flout the vegetation rule, the officials said Monday.

When Wildcat Creek was built for flood control in the 1980s, the Corps of Engineers incorporated trees and bushes into the design after the community rebelled against a bare-bones channel. Nearly three decades later, mature oaks, shrubs and vines stand in stark contrast to piles of rusting cars in an adjacent junkyard.

"I guarantee you in 10 years, the corps will come back and say, 'Replant the trees,' " said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove (Sacramento County).#

Siskiyou Daily News-10/8/10
By David Smith

New information is out on the Klamath Dam removal studies after a technical workshop held on Tuesday that focused on water quality and sediment issues. Three PowerPoint presentations from the meetings are available on klamathrestoration.gov, located under the announcements heading.

Studies have been conducted to determine how much total suspended sediment is likely to influence downstream water quality, with a focus on the amount of dissolved oxygen available for aquatic life if sediment travels downstream. Included in the presentation is an account of where sediment samples were taken, how they were handled and how they were analyzed, along with data analysis.

Sediment contaminant testing is also discussed, including information on how the sampling was conducted and how the data was analyzed. It is noted in the presentation that a number of chemicals found in the sediments did not exceed levels found throughout the region, and that further studies have been planned or have been completed in order to test the effects of exposure of biological organisms to chemicals found in the sediments.

Also included in the plans is the development of a model predicting pathways for exposure to chemicals.

According to this presentation, the water quality analysis team will need to take into consideration how conditions under current regulations, including the Total Maximum Daily Loads, will be affected by the decision of whether or not the dams are removed.

Under the dams-in scenario, it is noted that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission guidelines and 401 Water Quality Certification requirements will also need to be analyzed.#

Sonora Union Democrat-10/5/10
By Sean Janssen

A meadow restoration project under way along Herring Creek Road on the Stanislaus National Forest is designed to improve wildlife habitat as well as water quality in streams, according to a forest hydrologist.

A crew from James Dambacher Construction of Sonora worked Friday to finish putting in a new stream bed channel and burying large rocks to prevent erosion at Leland Gully in Fiddler’s Green meadow.

Meanwhile, Summit Ranger District hydrologist Tracy Weddle, who is supervising the project, and Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center environmental associate Julia Stephens scattered seeds from native plants that will eventually repopulate the once-lush meadow.

Through the years, the gully became eroded, the water table dropped and vegetation dried out, Weddle said.

The Forest Service is combining its own funds with a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers grant to cover costs, estimated at slightly less than $200,000, to restore the meadow, she said.

“It will be a big improvement habitat-wise,” Weddle said.

She added that the Stanislaus National Forest does not have a lot of meadows, making the restoration of those that it does have particularly important.

“It’s great for deer and other wildlife,” she said.

The gully previously eroded upstream, and a lot of sediment moved downstream, Weddle said. But the new design should provide clearer water. The rocks buried by the heavy equipment last week will hold back erosion until vegetation has time to take a stronger hold, she added.

CSERC became involved when Mi-Wok Ranger District botanist Margaret Willits approached the organization about collecting native seed and helping replant the gully with grass and flowering species from nearby Bell Meadow, Stephens said.

Staff and volunteers then collected seed and pulled invasive bull thistle from the site, she said.

On Nov. 6, volunteers from the Summerville High School Ecology Club, CSERC and other groups will plant willow along Leland Gully.

The stream bed work has taken about four weeks and the next step is putting up a fence that will remain in place for five years to allow vegetation to recover, Weddle said.

Those plants include native Anderson’s thistle, lily, monkey flower, foul-smelling tarweed, lupin, corn lily and shooting star, Stephens said.

Soon, there will be “nicer vegetation throughout the whole area again,” Weddle said.#

Ukiah Daily Journal-10/5/10

Beginning Friday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will increase the flow of water from Lake Mendocino's Coyote Valley Dam into the Russian River to aid Chinook salmon in their migration.

"This will be the first year since the dam was built that we are sending a water surge down the Russian River in October for this purpose," said Mike Dillabough, chief of the operations and maintenance division for the Corps' San Francisco District, explaining that the release is meant to provide the same effect as substantial rain.

According to the Corps, increasing the flow of water from the dam also improves public safety by reducing the risk of flooding, while increasing the likelihood that migrating salmon will survive their journey.

The flow will be increased gradually, beginning at 180 cubic feet per second (cfs) Friday, then increasing to 1,000 cfs on Tuesday, then dropping down to 325 cfs by the following Sunday, Oct. 17.

Dillabough said this release is occurring now in part because, for the first time in the dam's history, the amount of water stored behind the dam -- in Lake Mendocino -- is approximately 91,000 acre-feet. Reducing the lake's water level also reduces the impact of flooding on downstream communities during winter storms.

Normally, by Nov. 1, the amount of water stored behind the dam would be 68,400 acre feet or less. If the Corps were to wait longer to release water, the volume released could negatively affect salmon migration.

"We have to balance flood risk caused by future rains with the Chinook salmon migrating up the Russian River to spawn from mid-October to the end of November," Dillabough said. "The increased flow will mimic a naturally occurring rainfall within the watershed, raising the river level approximately two feet in the process for a 24-hour period, and then returning to near previous flow."

Biologists from the organizations concur that if a heavy and sustained water flow were necessary, it could potentially harm the endangered salmon by effectively washing the Chinook back toward the ocean. An increase in water discharge could wash away boats, irrigation equipment or other items stored near the river's bank.

"The public, who have become accustomed to the stable river water flows, need to relocate any equipment or boats near the shoreline to prevent loss," Dillabough said. "We ask that neighbors check on their colleagues to ensure they also have received the message."

The scheduled release will have no impact on Warm Springs Dam or Lake Sonoma.

The Corps planned this release in collaboration with the Sonoma County Water Agency, Mendocino County Russian River Flood Control and Water Conservation Improvement District, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the California Department of Fish and Game.#

Eureka Times-Standard-10/2/10
By John Driscoll

Divers scoured holes on the lower Eel River on Friday looking to get an estimate of how many salmon and steelhead have moved in from the ocean so far.

Fisheries biologist Patrick Higgins, joined by divers with the Wiyot Tribe, the Bear River Rancheria and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, briefed the group on how to go about counting fish in different types of holes, letting them know that poor visibility from algae growth would make the task difficult.

”This is a challenging exercise,” Higgins said on the banks of the Eel River at Fernbridge.

Higgins has been contracted by Friends of the Eel River to get an idea about how the first salmon and steelhead in the river are affected by the diversion to the Russian River. Currently, some 130 cubic feet per second of water is being sent through the diversion tunnel to Potter Valley into Lake Mendocino. Only 28 cfs is being released into the Eel.

At the same time, Lake Mendocino is substantially more full than is allowable in the winter, when space is needed for floodwaters.

Dressed in wetsuits and donning snorkels, the team worked through pools from below Fernbridge up to the Van Duzen River confluence. Higgins said he saw hundreds of chinook salmon and steelhead two weeks ago when he dove, and was hoping to see several hundred more Friday. If the team can get a good count, he said, the California Department of Fish and Game may follow the dive with weekly surveys.

These salmon are not migrating upstream due to the low flows in the river, and could be vulnerable in dry years if a heat wave sparked an algae bloom that stripped oxygen from the water, Higgins said.

Wiyot Tribe Councilman Alan Miller said that the tribe wants to get the river back to health, to where tribal members can harvest salmon and lamprey sustainably. With the river so shallow and so choked with algae -- in parts of the watershed harmful to contact or drink -- there's clearly a long way to go, Miller said.

”Where do you even start with such things?” Miller said. “The river is a mess.”

Councilman Brian Mead said that his efforts this year to catch lamprey, which are traditionally provided to elders, turned up a single lamprey, a profoundly weak catch.

Friends of the Eel River earlier this year asked the State Water Resources Control Board to consider cutting diversions to the Russian River to improve conditions for salmon.

The Potter Valley Project was born in 1908 with the building of Cape Horn Diversion Dam, which created Van Arsdale Reservoir, tunnels and a powerhouse. Scott Dam followed about a decade later, creating Lake Pillsbury. The project generates 9.4 megawatts of electricity. A single commercial windmill produces about 2 mw.

Cities, farms and vineyards in Sonoma, Mendocino and Marin counties rely on diversions from the Eel mixed with releases from Lake Sonoma and Lake Mendocino, but the project water right belongs to PG&E, and it is up for renewal in 2022.

The Friends of the Eel River said that it was an unreasonable use of water under state law to send so much water to the Russian -- whose flows have been deemed too high for fish by the federal government. More water should go to the Eel River, whose historically booming salmon and steelhead have continued to decline despite a 2004 National Marine Fisheries Service to cut the diversions to the Russian by 15 percent.

In May, the water board denied the Friends' petition.#

Modesto Bee-10/4/10
By John Holland

A state agency's opinion on what salmon need to survive has water users warning of an economic disaster.

The State Water Resources Control Board has suggested greatly increased flows through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

That could mean a reduction of more than 40 percent in the amount of water that farms and cities take from the Tuolumne, Stanislaus and Merced rivers, one attorney involved in the issue said last week.

Water users say this would force an overreliance on wells and could even take farmland out of production.

"It's a huge hit to our water supply," said Jeff Barton, assistant general manager for civil engineering and water resources at the Turlock Irrigation District. "It would be devastating."

The suggested flows were in a report that lawmakers ordered last year as part of a package of bills aimed at fixing California's water system. The findings are not binding, but they could influence future decisions, board spokesman David Clegern said.

Environmentalists hailed the report as a key step toward restoring the delta, where Central Valley rivers meet before heading out to San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.

"This is something that really shouldn't be startling to anybody," said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "There is solid science saying that to maintain this estuary, which is the most important on the west coast of two continents, it needs fresh water."

The members of his San Francisco-based group include commercial fishermen who have been out of work because of the recent plunge in salmon numbers.

Mike Jackson, an attorney for the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance in Stockton, also praised the report.

"These numbers make it clear -- as we have always believed -- that the delta needs substantially more water than it has been receiving over the last 30 years if it's going to survive," he said in a news release.

The report is the latest of many dealing with the delta, where about 700 miles of channels wind amid about 60 levee-lined islands.

The flows were reduced by upriver diversions starting in the 19th century. This was compounded by the massive delta pumps that send water south.

A series of laws and court rulings has restored some delta flows, but environmentalists want more.

Most of the extra water would come from the Sacramento River and its tributaries. Some would be from the San Joaquin River and its feeders, including the Stanislaus, Tuolumne and Merced.

The latter rivers irrigate several hundred thousand acres of farmland in and near Stanislaus County. They also help supply domestic water to the region and to San Francisco and nearby cities.

Tim O'Laughlin, general counsel for the Modesto Irrigation District, explained the state board's suggested flows last week:

Under natural conditions, without dams or other diversions, about 6.13 million acre-feet of water would flow into the delta from the San Joaquin River and nearby streams in an average year. (An acre-foot covers an acre of land a foot deep.)

• Today, that flow averages about 3.03 million acre-feet because of the diversions.

• The main part of the state board's proposal would add 1.24 million acre-feet to this flow, 41 percent of what now goes to farms and cities.

The main releases would happen February through June, when the rivers under natural conditions would be running strong with storm runoff and snowmelt. This would help young salmon migrate toward the ocean, the report said.

This time of year also brings the start of irrigation season, when water managers like to see reservoirs rising. The releases would mean that Don Pedro Reservoir would never fill again, as it did this summer, O'Laughlin said.

The report suggests a smaller increase in October flows to help attract salmon returning from the sea to spawn.

Farmers could replace some of the river supplies by pumping groundwater, but it is expensive and uncertain, irrigation district officials say.

The river water that could be lost is enough to irrigate 125,000 to 200,000 acres of San Joaquin Valley farmland, O'Laughlin said. To put that in perspective, the MID and the TID together supply about 200,000 acres from the Tuolumne.

Water users could face even greater cutbacks in dry years so the fisheries get enough, he said.

O'Laughlin is working on the issue on behalf of several irrigation districts that lie east of the San Joaquin River.

Officials fear that they could face what happened in recent years in parts of the west valley, where drought combined with delta fish protections to reduce farming.

"When they lost water, they lost production, and then they lost jobs," MID General Manager Allen Short said. "It will replicate here if large amounts of land go out of production."

The economic damage would ripple to food processors and other employers, he said.

Water managers say factors other than stream levels are harming salmon and other native fish. They point to predation by non-native striped bass, pollution from sewage treatment plants and other sources, and poor conditions in the Pacific, where salmon spend most of their lives.

"It is a combination of a lot of things," Barton said. "There is no science out there that says that if we drain all of our reservoirs, the fish will return."

Grader said predators and pollution are factors but river flows matter most. He urges water agencies to increase efforts at conservation and reuse.

Steve Knell, general manager of the Oakdale Irrigation District, said the delta proposal would mean much less storage in New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus. That would hurt Tuol-umne County's visitor-based economy, he said.

Water officials note that under natural conditions, the rivers sometimes would run dry in summer. The reservoirs provide releases to keep them going, including the cold water that salmon and trout need.

The delta proposal, Knell said, "would kill the very thing they are trying to protect."

Water officials say that keeping ample reservoir storage in summer means plenty of cheap hydropower during peak demand.

The report acknowledges the economic concerns and the possibility of nonflow factors affecting fish. But Clegern, the spokesman at the state board, said legislators told the authors to focus only on flows at this point.

The MID and its allies are gathering data on how a reduction in water supplies could affect employment, food prices and other indicators.

Short said the districts face several million dollars in legal costs in the coming years to counter advocates for increased flows.

"As far as I'm concerned," MID Director Paul Warda said, "I'm not going to give them one damned drop."#

Chico Enterprise-Record-10/1/10
By Laura Urseny

Chico veterinarian Mike Seely has been watching a family of beavers enjoying Sycamore Creek in north Chico.

Even though there's not much water in the creek, Seely said he's seen the beavers moving around as a family and hunting for food under the Cohasset Road overcrossing of the creek.

But he panicked after seeing big equipment and crews working along Sycamore Creek at that spot.

Seely, who owns Butte Mobile Veterinary Practice, called the Enterprise-Record Thursday with his concerns.

"There are two adults, a yearling, and three babies," said Seely, who noticed the family and lodge on several walks from his house to the airport, and feels the lodge is doomed.

"I know those youngsters won't make it to another stop. A big fat beaver can walk a long way, eating vegetation, but those youngsters have to eat. They're not going to make it. I don't even know where the next water is."

Seely agrees the clearing project needs to be done, but thinks provisions need to be made for beavers. He called the Department of Fish and Game to complain, but was only able to leave a telephone voice mail.

California Department of Water Resources spokesman Matt Notley confirmed his agency was doing clearing work in Sycamore Creek and the lodge would be dismantled.

"The project is about public safety there and downstream. Without channel capacity, the city might not get its FEMA certification," referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Notley said DWR has determined the creek's holding capacity during flooding is at 4,400 cubic-feet-per-second when it should be at 10,000 cfs.

Notley said DWR has a permit from California Fish and Game to dismantle the lodge this week in the process of removing sediment and vegetation from the creek to increase capacity.

He said the lodge will be dismantled at night when the beaver are out of the lodge, feeding.

"Beavers will naturally relocate," Notley said, pointing out the other option is killing them.

California Fish and Game spokeswoman Jordan Traverso confirmed her agency issued the permit to allow the lodge removal.

"It allows sediment removal and covers any necessary change to the streambed," which would include the removal of the lodge.

"We looked at the best way to handle this," said Traverso, who said her office has been contacted by a concerned citizen.

While no one will be monitoring or tracking where the beavers go, it's likely someone will keep their eyes open for the beavers.

Because of diseases the beaver may carry, and the introduction of invasive plants and seeds as part of the process, relocation is not an alternative, she said.

"We're hoping the beavers relocate themselves," she said. "They love to build."

Saying she was "guessing," Traverso said the different handling of the beavers in Sycamore Creek and the reconstruction of Highway 149, where the beavers there were relocated, was because the beaver habitat was destroyed by the road construction.#