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PrintFeds fail to meet salmon goal
Editorial
In the 1960s, Florida’s Kissimmee River was transformed by the Army Corps of Engineers from a meandering, ecologically-rich, scenically-stunning, 103-mile-long river into a straight, 56-mile-long, 300-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep ditch. As a result, the watershed lost 90 percent of its waterfowl (including 70 percent if its bald eagles) and most of its largemouth bass fishery.
Thirty years later, after acknowledging the wholesale destruction of the Kissimmee River, the Corps of Engineers announced what they euphemistically called “Phase II” of the Kissimmee River project, namely the restoration of the historic river bed and expansion of high water flows back into the original flood. That project has now cost at least $1 billion, and it’s not finished.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Take the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA), a bit of oxymoron bureaucratese that, like the Kissimmee River restoration project, was designed to “improve” the fishery conditions in Central Valley watersheds – notably including the San Joaquin and Sacramento River systems – after they were ecologically ravaged by the state and federal water projects.
Now, a new Chinook salmon index, recently released by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Golden Gate Salmon Association, reveals that only 13 percent of the population goal required by federal law has been achieved. That information was released following the 20th anniversary of the CVPIA, passed by Congress in 1992 with a goal of doubling the Bay-Delta’s salmon runs from 495,000 to 990,000 wild, adult fish by 2002.
It is now a decade after the doubling was supposed to be achieved and the “improvement” effort is still 87 percent shy of its goal.
The Central Valley’s Chinook (or king) salmon fishery has suffered a dramatic collapse over the past decade and, according to Barry Nelson, senior policy analyst with NRDC’s Water Program, “California salmon, the fishing industry and the Bay-Delta ecosystem all need adequate water flows to maintain their health over the long-term. The Department of the Interior and the State of California need to dramatically step-up efforts to protect the San Francisco Bay-Delta ecosystem and restore salmon populations.”
The NRDC and GGSA analysis, published in the Salmon Doubling Index, reveals a steady decline in Bay-Delta Chinook salmon from 2003 through 2010, at which point it reached a record low of 7 percent. Increased water diversions were a significant cause of this decline. Between 2000 and 2006, freshwater pumping from the Bay-Delta increased 20 percent in comparison to 1975-2000.
Rep. George Miller, D-CA 7th District, authored the CVPIA and is angry at the pace of “improvement,” stating, “Despite indefensible foot-dragging and countless lawsuits, salmon restoration has remained the lynchpin of federal water policy in California for 20 years … and it’s long past time for the federal agencies to take their responsibility to our state’s wild fisheries seriously. The federal government must restore California’s iconic salmon runs to health: that’s the law.”
While salmon numbers have recently improved thanks to reduced pumping forced by a lawsuit, recovery is a long way off. We agree with Rep. Miller. It’s time for more action.
Please note: Your full name will be published with your comment.
Continuing to blame deliveries of water that flow through the Delta as a "significant cause" for the drop in the salmon population does a disservice to the public that deserves factual information. The report by the two organizations failed to include current reports that present a different picture.
Scientists from the Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service have identified poor ocean conditions---warm temperatures and reduced food supply---as the leading cause of the drop in salmon numbers.
Since the adoption of CVPIA, studies conducted by the California Department of Fish & Game and UC Davis have shown a strong increasing trend in the abundance of warm water predatory fish in the Delta, including largemouth bass, that feed on juvenile salmon as they make their way through the Delta. The result is predator species consuming and replacing native fish species in the Delta --- http://www.farmwater.org/centrarchids.pdf.
As admitted by the author, the index report compiled by NRDC and the Golden Gate Salmon Association contains no new information. It's too bad that it doesn't because maybe greater acknowledgement of factors impacting salmon population to a greater degree than the pumps would be recognized. Instead, the author and the two organizations continue to blame the pumps for the low salmon numbers while ignoring the significance of recent scientific studies.
Mike Wade
California Farm Water Coalition
California's major agribusinesses who employ Mike Wade don't want the
public to understand that the 16 percent jump in freshwater diversions
from the Sacramento/Bay delta that began in the year 2000 took our
salmon fishery, already on the edge from destruction of freshwater
habitat, and dumped it over a cliff. The excessive diversion of
Sacramento River water to irrigate marginal desert lands in the San
Joaquin Valley loaded with the toxic mineral selenium, is clearly what
sent our salmon fisheries into a tailspin. This resulted in the first
ever closure of ocean fishing for salmon in California's history in
2008 and 2009. It's true the water users in the San Joaquin Valley are dead set against giving up a drop of water, never mind they only have juniorwater rights which is supposed to put them at the end of the line of who gets water. It's also true they will always be able to pay people like Mike Wade to plant their propaganda for them. And of course they now want even more water and it seems that Gov. Brown is willing to kill all the fish and their related industries to do that.
Balance is what's needed here and we'll never get any from the big
speculators, turned agribusinessmen, who turned worthless land into
something of value by essentially taking water needed by the state's
salmon fishery, stripers, sturgeon, and other migrating species, and all the businesses, from tourism to fishermen, these eco-systems support. The only thing they respond to are court orders stopping them from killing off the salmon, the delta, and everything else that relies on freshwater supplied by the Sacramento River and its Northern California tributaries.
I am glad to hear that some kind of progress is taking place . The government should get off the pot and do whats right here . That is restoring our sport fishing population to a level that has been put fourth in the guidelines .
Restoring the Deltas levee system to a safe state should already be in progress . It is way passed time to protect the people from the floods that will happen if these levees aren't shored up and repaired !
California resident and life long Fisherman ,
Toby Kellison
Mike Wade: You and your organization needs to check your facts - are you not aware that the salmon that are thriving in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and British Columbia occupy the same "poor ocean conditions" as do the salmon of the Sacramento River. While "poor ocean conditions" may have contributed to the collapse of the Sacramento salmon runs, water diversions which were increased 5-fold under the previous governor are mainly to blame. The difference is that the governments of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and BC believe that it is important that the fishery survive.
To lose a sustainable resource such as salmon is tantamount to pure idiocy, something that both our representatives and your organization seem to represent well. We cannot eat cotton!
How many people know how the water is really used that is pushed over the mountains and down to Southern California? How much goes to multi-billion agriculture businesses that then earn substantial subsidies for growing crops we may not need? I do believe that almost 70% is used by business interests.
Can't wait for the "40 foot wide tunnels of 40 miles." We will be fishing for Sturgeon in the Sacramento River in Red Bluff if this nonsense goes through.
Water has always been the issue in California. Don't forget the Klamath River salmon fish kill when the water went to hay farmers in Southern Oregon.