Coos Bay World Link: Options set for salmon season Mar 16, 2008

SACRAMENTO , Calif. — The room at the DoubleTree hotel in Sacramento was relatively empty when the Pacific Fishery Management Council considered the final three options for 2008 salmon seasons.

Most sport and commercial fishermen were anxious to catch their flights or drive home after a week that was filled, for the most part, with bad news.

Council staff packed up boxes and cartons while salmon scientists — the Salmon Technical Team — crunched numbers for the fifth day in a row.

The final push was an effort to predict what and how much impact any kind of sport and commercial season would have on Sacramento River and Central Valley stocks of fall Chinook salmon. Fishermen and state and federal managers met early in the morning to add one more proposal to the mix of three options.

Those three options included no season at all for sport and commercial in Oregon and California, south of Cape Falcon on the northern Oregon Coast; a commercial troll fishery that would take place only for ongoing genetics studies, complemented by a coho-only/non-Chinook-retention season on the sport side; and a limited number of fishing days for trollers and also limited Chinook fishing days for recreational fishermen.

Oregon Sea Grant Agent and salmon troller Jeff Feldner said that due to the limited options, genetic stock studies will be difficult to plan for this year.

“Anyone with any other opportunity is going to take it,” he said.

Still, despite the option of some fishing being proposed, fleets shouldn’t get their hopes up, council members warned.

“People should be aware that the chances of getting any fishery are exceedingly slim,” council member and West Coast Seafood Processors Association Executive Director Rod Moore said. “The National Marine Fisheries Service has made it clear we’re not meeting the necessary escapement goals on the Sacramento River . No matter how we shape our fishery south of Cape Falcon , we can’t do anything to increase the Sacramento escapement.”

Returning spawners to the Sacramento were at an all-time low last year and projected to be less than half the numbers needed to keep the stock sustainable next year.

Public meetings will be held in Washington , Oregon and California at the end of March or beginning of April to take public comment on the proposed options. The council will again meet for a week in Seattle to make a final season approval. Then the National Marine Fisheries Service must also approve it and put together a package of regulations regarding the specific seasons.

That leaves some hope yet — a thin, thin ray of hope — that a season may yet be possible.

“It will be important for fishermen and local communities to document the economic harm that will result from a zero season,” Moore said. “This will be the only way we can convince NMFS to allow a fishery this year.”

The afternoon’s long wait was preceded by an ad hoc group of commercial fishermen, sportsmen, tribal nations and environmental groups in the morning who held a press conference about the plight of the Sacramento salmon and other Central Valley species of fish.

Though federal scientists have said ocean conditions likely are the main culprit for poor returns of not just Sacramento but salmon in other rivers as well, Environmental Water Caucus members said that’s not the only problem.

Poor water conditions aren’t conducive to salmon survival in the Central Valley , coalition members said, and proposed simple solutions.

“There are practical, manageable common-sense ways to reverse the decline,” Dick Nesmith, facilitator for the caucus, said.

The group proposed reducing impacts of export water pumping and diversions; improving water quality on the delta and Central Valley streams; improving access to blocked salmon habitat; improving habitat in Central Valley rivers and streams by enhancing flows, providing cooler temperatures and restoring floodplains; improving hatchery operations; and providing effective governmental leadership.

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