Experts warn of dire water needs

Press staff report

Pioneer Press

Fort Jones, CA

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

page 1 column 2

The Chico Enterprise Record reported last week on the recent International Sportsmen's Exposition show at Cal-Expo in Sacramento where experts from California's salmon fishery issued dire warnings about fishery health in California. The following are direct quotes from panelists, as reported by the Enterprise Record.

The panel included Dr. Josh Israel of UC Davis, Barry Nelson of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Jared Huffman of the California State Assembly Sixth District and Chair of the Water (Parks and Wildlife Committee), Michael Jackson of the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, Zeke Grader of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations, and Dick Pool of Water4Fish.

Each participant delivered a prepared statement based on their area of expertise or concern, although time constraints allowed only a few questions from the audience. The participant's statements are excerpted below.

Israel (UC Davis): "It is possible that 65 percent of the 31 native California species of trout and salmon will become extinct soon. California has such tremendous species diversity due to the Pacific's California Current and other factors, but human development has affected those species adversely.

"At this time, only 10-percent of California's ocean population of salmon are wild, the rest are hatchery-produced. This tends to reduce the fitness of the natural population, we need to consider ways to adapt and reform hatcheries. We also know that many ocean-harvested fish are from endangered runs. Marking all hatchery fish may be a possible strategy.

"Bio-complexity is important. We have had self-sustaining salmon populations because of locally-adapted stocks. If we want to keep self-sustaining populations, we should take advantage of this. Right now it is not possible to differentiate between stocks in the ocean."

"We may also need to re-connect landlocked populations. It may be necessary to look at taking trout, steelhead and salmon, and passing them into historic habitats. In Southern California this could mean moving steelhead over dams. We will really have to adapt over the next 50 years, and will have to decide what kind of societal changes we will have to make."

During a brief one-on-one discussion, Dr. Israel talked about why the salmon population on Butte Creek could be doing so well. "It may be because the salmon from Butte Creek summer over in the stream, and exit as larger sub-yearlings. They [Butte Creek juvenile salmon] may also put on some additional growth in the Sutter Bypass."

Nelson (NRDC): "The Chinook salmon is California's iconic fish [displays a California flag with a salmon replacing the bear], and we've come to the remarkable conclusion that fish need water. We hope to restore a dead salmon river, the San Joaquin, by re-watering it for the first time in 60 years. Water needs to be managed first for the needs of fish, and second for the needs of people."

Grader (PCFFA): "Right now we have another opportunity for change. Some 40 years ago when the negative effects of the Red Bluff Diversion Dam were first being felt in the salmon population, the proposal from Pauline Davis in the Assembly was just to 'close down the fisheries'. Since then of course, we have found that the foundation for restoring salmon is water.

"The Delta is collapsing, there is not enough water. In the future, we must not get things out of order; instead we need to go from the foundation up. We must say no to new dams and the peripheral canal."

Huffman (CA Assembly Sixth District): "We are looking at an unprecedented second year in a row for salmon fishing closure, primarily caused by the Delta pumps and upstream reservoirs that don't allow enough cold water downstream. A fishery can't be managed just by restricting the take of endangered species. If we don't come together on this, it will be handled by the courts, which can be abrupt and draconian.

"It is important that the voices of fishermen be heard in Sacramento this year. Not just because of endangered species like Delta smelt, but because of the simultaneous decline of many Delta species. We must take bold action on the stressors. The National Marine Fisheries Service biological opinion says that extinction of winter-run Chinook salmon and others is primarily due to Delta pumping and dams.

"Governments have not fulfilled their responsibilities, the system is failing. As we reach critical mass, we must act in enlightened self-interest. It should also be made clear that economic activity related to fishing amounts to millions of dollars. The decline and loss of jobs is equally bad. Nationwide, at least $200 million is collected for fishery restoration in the form of excise tax on fishing tackle. Some $12 million of that comes back to California."
Jackson (CSPA): "There are four things we must do within five years, or salmon will go extinct. We must reduce the water export from the Delta from 6 million acre-feet to 2.5 million acre feet per year. The water that is pumped should be given an 'urban preference', to keep the city dwellers from becoming hysterical.

"You can't equate urban requirements with growing cotton in the San Joaquin Valley, and this will break up 'Big Ag'. It also allows us to isolate where water with real value will go.

"We have got to get those fish above the dams. All it takes is one natural disaster, like a catastrophic fire or even Mount Lassen erupting, and we will lose the fish in Butte Creek, Mill Creek and Deer Creek.

"Last, the outflow must increase at cross channel gates during the ingress and egress of fish. It happens now or they're [salmon and steelhead] gone."

Dick Pool([Water4fish): "In the past year almost nothing has happened. No water has been reserved for fish. This industry is going to die if we don't change. So far we have 64,000 people signed up on our website, but we need 264,000! We need the public behind us and support for conservation organizations."

The publisher grants permission for the article to be reprinted or distributed.