Federal agency oblivious to the decline of salmon

April 13, 2008

Modesto Bee Opinion

Perhaps the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission managers didn't get the word about the disastrous decline of chinook salmon across the West Coast, and especially on the Tuolumne River . Why else would FERC inexplicably decide that nothing more needs be done to bring the river's salmon back from the edge of extinction?

In an April 3 order, FERC ignored the recommendations of its own staff, turned a blind eye to steps the Tuolumne River 's irrigation districts agreed last year to take and told officials that current measures were sufficient -- at least for now.

Clearly, that's not the case.

"It's a disaster," said Patrick Koepele, the Tuolumne River Trust biologist who has overseen the Big Bend habitat restoration project. "I can't believe this; the whole thing is really shocking."

He isn't alone. Federal and state agency staffers have been huddling to consider requesting a "rehearing" of FERC's order by the May 3 deadline. What's to consider? A rehearing is necessary, as are changes to the order.

The order follows the completion of 10 years of studies and restoration efforts that have been taking place on the Tuolumne as part of a 1995 environmental settlement. FERC oversaw the settlement because it grants a license to operate electric generation facilities at Don Pedro Dam. The review began in 2005, but FERC needed until April 3 to finish it.

The Turlock Irrigation District manages releases from Don Pedro Dam and restoration projects for its partners, the Modesto Irrigation District and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. The TID has overseen several promising projects, most of which are still too new to show significant results. Even Tim Ford, the TID's careful and well-respected biologist, admits this year's salmon numbers were awful and that the overall trend is falling, not rising.

The same is true elsewhere. The salmon collapse prompted the National Marine Fisheries Service and other agencies Thursday to ban salmon fishing from California to Washington this year. Even commercial fishers supported the ban in hopes the populations can be revived.

Salmon are anadromous, meaning they start their lives in cold, freshwater rivers, migrate to the ocean to feed and grow, then return to the same rivers to spawn. Thousands of spawners used to swim up the San Joaquin River and its tributaries in November and December, then millions of their offspring would try to swim out by May.

The decline in ocean salmon mirrors a decline on all of California 's rivers -- but none more so than the Tuolumne . Several agencies do counts, so numbers vary. But the highest anyone claims this year is 211; others say only 150, 135 or 115 salmon returned. Numbers also crashed on the Merced (497) and Stanislaus (315) rivers.

Ocean conditions were a big factor. But in the face of such a dire situation, this is no time to make it more difficult for salmon to recover. And that is exactly what the FERC order would do.

Signed by J. Mark Robinson, director of energy projects, the order did not require any additional measures or studies, and it even provided an opportunity to abandon some measures now in place. In its summary, FERC requires the districts to report the number of salmon each year, but higher in the order, it says that current counting methods such as trapping, snorkel surveys and seine counts (with a mesh net) should be continued "if adequate funding sources are available."

What if they're not? The districts already are in a dispute with CalFed for the $600,000 they have spent over the past three years.

Such equivocation flies in the face of FERC's field staff, which had extracted greater commitments from the TID and MID to improve salmon conditions. In March 2007, the districts agreed to FERC staff requirements for six additional measures -- including more tracking studies, enhanced egg- and fry-survival studies and a look at the effects of higher water flows.

It was clear from these remedies that FERC staff had charted a middle course between the desires of the districts and the demands of environmentalists and oversight agencies. But none of these measures was required in the final order. Instead, FERC said such studies should be rolled into the relicensing process, which won't be finished until 2016.

"FERC callously refuses to address the catastrophic decline of the Tuolumne River salmon because some of the problems may occur in the delta and the ocean," said Chris Shutes of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance. "FERC needs to address the problems in the river that it does control. The best available science says those problems are inadequate flows for juvenile salmon, rearing and outmigration, and inadequate summer flows to provide coldwater habitat."

Koepele of the Tuolumne River Trust appeared dumbfounded: "Why did they ignore the district plan on chinook restoration? ... For FERC to completely reverse itself and not to do anything doesn't make any sense."

The Tuolumne River once teemed with salmon, but no longer. The FERC order does not require any additional efforts from the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts to help remedy the situation. But that doesn't mean the districts should stop trying. They must commit to maintaining studies and continuing restoration projects and then more, when they figure out what should be done next.

It's not a question of what FERC wants, it's what those who live in the districts require. Clearly, we would prefer a river with salmon.

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Source:  http://www.modbee.com/opinion/story/267980.html