Given the stone-age perspective of Siskiyou County’s Board of Supervisors, it’s clear we need the help.

At a recent meeting, Supervisor Jim Cook astonishingly said “This is the first time I’ve seen anything that CalTRout has been involved with that wasn’t a piece of crap,” while Wise Use Cartoon Character (from way back) Supervisor Marcia Armstrong asserted that “fishing is no longer a vital activity in the county.”

Cook even suggested the Shasta River (major spawning tributary of the Klamath) simply wasn’t a good salmon river when he said “…the stream channel is not what you normally see in salmon areas.”

Jim “I’m not a biologist, but I’ll pretend” Cook is completely wrong, of course – every biologist who knows the Shasta River practically wets their pants explaining why it’s perhaps the most productive trib on the whole Klamath River.

Good call, Jim.

As you can see, the mess up here is considerable. At times it’s even despressing, especially given that the quotes you read above are not fictional – and that the people issuing them are using public funds to foul our own own nest.

It’s galling to think my property tax dollars are fighting salmon recovery on the Klamath – and this despite the economic boon a healthy fishery would bring to this county, which is suffering an 18% unemployment rate.

After all, we put a little water back in the Trinity and now the flood of steelhead fishermen means you can’t park your car there most weekends.

And the Lower Sac sees somewhere between 4000-6000 boat trips annually – the cumulative economic affect of which is considerable.

Meanwhile, the salmon on the Klamath are dieing in droves, and scientists aren’t even sure why, though it’s pretty clear the Klamath’s atrocious water quality is playing a role.

My close friends know the Klamath River/Nestle/Shasta Dam stuff alternately works me up and knocks me back – a fact exacerbated by this reality: there’s only a few of us, and a lot of them, and the “bad guys” all seem to be getting paid.

It’s as if the barbarian hordes were fulltime professionals, while the guys charged with defending Rome buckled on the old broadsword only after working a hard shift in the catacombs.

With that as a backdrop, you’d think CalTrout wouldn’t want to bite off any more regional office goodness, but they’re slow learners (thank goodness), and they just announced the opening of a field office in the Tahoe area.

That’s good because – when it comes to fishery issues – nothing really beats a “boots on the ground” presence (though we wonder why Tahoe gets a babe for a regional rep, while here in Shasta we’re stuck with some skinny guy).

I imagine the recession is playing havoc with CalTrout’s budgets, and while I’m all for the Undergrounders becoming members of the organization (it’s $35 for chrissakes), it would be a lot better if some undeserving AIG bonus baby threw a couple hundred thousand at the organization instead.

Of course, that’s about as likely as an Undergrounder throwing away a Victoria’s Secret catalog without a peek, so in truth, I guess I am suggesting the Undergrounders throw down for a yearly CalTrout membership (nothing’s changed from the previous sentence: it’s still $35 for chrissakes).

Somebody’s got to beat back the Barbarian Hordes, and while it doesn’t have to be CalTrout ($35), there’s probably somebody in your neck of the woods beating back the barbarians, so consider joining them.

Clearly, this is all getting to me, so after I write this, I’m going to get up, walk out of my dungeon office, and shoot a few paper targets (which is calming and a little zen – nobody hits the 10 ring in a frazzled state of mind).

The Upper Sacramento’s falling slowly, so even though it’s probably not fishing great, I expect I’ll find out for myself this weekend.

See you fighting the barbarians, Tom Chandler.

siskiyou county, salmon, klamath river, caltrout

The bullet points? They’re not pretty:

• If present trends continue, 65% of native salmon, steelhead, and trout species will be extinct within 100 years or sooner.
• Sixty-five percent of the species headed towards extinction are found only in California
• Of the state’s 22 anadromous fish species (which spawn in freshwater and live most of their adult lives in the ocean), 59% are in danger of extinction
• Of the state’s nine living native inland fish, 78% are in danger of extinction

Click image to download a copy of: SOS: California's Native Fish Crisis

Here’s the lead from the Press Release:

San Francisco, CA – Fish and watershed advocacy group California Trout today released the first-ever comprehensive report chronicling the status of each of California’s native fish species (salmon, steelhead, and trout). SOS: California’s Native Fish Crisis was written and researched by Dr. Peter Moyle, UC Davis professor and renowned expert on California’s water systems and the fish that inhabit them.

In truth, the news isn’t that surprising; many of the region-specific trout sub-species are relegated to tiny redoubts and hybridizing with introduced populations, and the over-allocation of California’s water resources is severely stressing salmon, steelhead populations.

CalTrout notes fishing is a $2 Billion industry in California, and the Trout Underground would like to note that the fishing part of the state’s economy could be sustainable (largely “free”) – given a modicum of clean, cold water and a little attention.

The find out more (and find links to the report, which features the attractive cover shown above), simply click on the link: “SOS: California’s Native Fish Crisis”

To read the report itself, click here.

See you reading, Tom Chandler.

Will the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement Restore Salmon Populations, or Simply Benefit Upper Klamath Irrigators?

For more than a decade, Northern California/Oregon’s Klamath River has been ground zero in the salmon wars: a vicious legal and public relations battleground that’s pitted commercial fishermen, irrigators, big ag, tribal interests, environmental groups and an electrical utility against each another.

Fought amidst a volley of lawsuits, threats, PR campaigns and high-end political intervention, the results haven’t been pretty; salmon populations continue to dwindle, and in 2006 and 2007, plummeting salmon populations in the Klamath and Sacramento Rivers forced a large-scale closure of the commercial salmon fishery along the West Coast.

Against this backdrop, some of the west’s most gripping water wars have played out – largely to nobody’s advantage.

In 2001, 1/3 of the water headed for irrigators was put back in the river to protect endangered suckers, salmon and other species.

Mass protests and civil disobedience reigned in the small, largely agricultural communities along the Klamath, including threats and a largely symbolic “Bucket Brigade” that actually moved water from the river to irrigation ditches via a human chain.

An influx of extreme private property rights groups followed, and the area became the center ring in one of the biggest water circuses the west’s ever seen.

Massive Fish Kill Ignites Controversy Over Cheney’s Role, Future of Salmon

In 2002 – after direct intervention by the Bush administration and Vice President Cheney – water again flowed to irrigators, which lead to one of the biggest salmon kills in history (estimates range from 30,000 dead salmon to 80,000).

Shortly thereafter, 28 organizations came together, looking for a way out of the endless web of lawsuits. After years of negotiation – and the ejection of two of the groups who refused to sign a working framework – the group released the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement – a proposal aimed at restoring the Klamath’s troubled salmon populations and ending the Klamath’s water wars.

At stake is the future of the Klamath’s faltering salmon runs, which have been plagued by habitat loss (removing PacifiCorp’s four dams would open 300 miles of spawning habitat), agricultural water diversions, poor water quality, poor returns due to ocean conditions, and overfishing.

The agreement can’t force the removal of the lower four aging PacifiCorp dams – the dams are currently in the midst of a federal relicensing process – but it is dependent on dam removal before it’s put into effect.

After the restoration agreement was released, participants seemed stunned by the wave of protest pouring forth from groups on both sides of the issue, and PacifiCorp – the Warren Buffet-owned electrical utility who must agree to remove its four Klamath River dams or the agreement is a bust – continued playing its cards close to its chest.

Proponents – including diverse groups like Trout Unlimited, CalTrout, upper Klamath irrigators and several nearby native American tribes – say the restoration agreement charts a way forward after years of lawsuits.

Steve Rothert of American Rivers said “By releasing the proposed Basin Restoration Agreement today, we’re saying that there is a better way, and that ongoing environmental degradation is no longer an option.”

Opponents Decry Pork, Priorities

Opponents point to “pork” projects unrelated to salmon recovery (the Klamath tribe wants $21 million to purchase lands for a new reservation), and Felice Pace – longtime Klamath activist, author of the Klam blog water-related Web site and critic of the agreement – argues that the flows mandated in the agreement won’t result in salmon recovery.

“According to independent scientists who have reviewed the flow plan, the flows that would result from this agreement and which would be capped by federal legislation will not lead to Salmon Recovery.”

Pace adds “there are no provisions that will make it possible to adequately address climate change impacts.”

Pace has a point; minimum flows in dry years would fall below those recommended by the biological opinion as being necessary for salmon recovery, and when I asked one of the leading figures in the negotiations about the implications of climate change, he offered a not-very-helpful response about a paragraph in the agreement “acknowledging the potential for climate change.”

Another biologist who was part of the negotiations – and supports the accord – admits to some concern about the water available to salmon in wet years, when recovery should be aided by high recruitment.

In low-flow years, salmon populations fall off, but high-flow years should allow populations to recover quickly. However, with upstream irrigators receiving a lot of water in high-flow years, populations won’t “bounce back” like they should.

Pace also suggests that this agreement – which provides guaranteed flows and heavily subsidized power to irrigators – isn’t necessary. Saying that PacifiCorp can’t meet water quality standards (the Klamath River often runs pea green due to toxic algae blooms in the summer), so they can’t relicense the dams.

Local Politics Flare Up

Meanwhile, the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors held a series of public meetings, on dam removal, and with the help of a lot of questionable scare tactics via the Underground’s old friend Supervisor Marcia Armstrong – who alleged dangerous levels of dioxin in the sediment behind the dam when tests suggested only trace amounts – the Board passed a resolution opposing dam removal.

While the county has some legitimate concerns about the loss of property taxes, the heavily timber-and-extractive-industry leaning board (typically) failed to consider the economic benefits to the county of healthy salmon and steelhead fisheries.

Fisheries advocate CalTrout commissioned a study which suggested a salmon was worth $200 to the state economy, and given the Klamath’s history as the third most-productive salmon river on the West Coast, the economic benefits to sport and commercial fisheries could be substantial.

Tribes Split

While the Karuk, Yurok and Klamath tribes support the agreement, the Hoopa tribe have refused to sign.

In a Sacramento Bee opinion piece, Hoopa Reservation Chairman Clifford Lyle Marshall argued that “Water rights are upside down in the agreement. The agreement guarantees water for Bureau of Reclamation project irrigators and refuge users, while Hoopa and Yurok senior fishing rights, dating back to 1855 and 1864, are not guaranteed. The agreement puts all the drought-year risks on the fish.”

Craig Tucker – the Klamath Coordinator for the Karuk tribe and longtime proponent of dam removal on the Klamath – wrote a sharply worded opinion piece in the Eureka Times-Standard.

He supported the deal with “The proposed deal addresses the need for increased river flows for fish, dependable power and irrigation diversions for agriculture, and funding to restore fish habitat,” then castigated opponents: “The reality is that many critics of the deal simply hate the other side more than they love their own self-interests.”

The estimated costs of the settlement agreement have been estimated a $1 billion (over ten years).

And frankly, all this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Before agreeing to any removal, PacifiCorp will likely insist someone else assume the risks and costs of dam removal, which would be the largest dam removal project in history [ed: this appears to be true, at least given the reports coming out about the agreement]

This stance belies the fact that the utility benefited from the power produced by the dams for decades, only to try and dump the liabilities associated with them on taxpayers.

Unresolved Water Quality Issues

A hidden issue in all this is the Klamath’s horrible water quality – the product of toxic algae blooms behind the dams in Iron Gate and Copco Lakes.

During the late summer, the Klamath actually turns green, and in places human and pet contact with the river is discouraged. Residents and tribal members offer up stories of rashes that won’t go away after contact with water, and that level of water quality has to have an effect on endangered species.

Felice Pace suggests that these water quality issues mean PacifiCorp can’t get their dams relicensed, and thus, a sweetheart deal for irrigators (the settlement agreement) isn’t necessary.

With rumors of federal/state/PacifiCorp negotiations in the works, the next chapter in the Klamath’s history remains to be written.

(California Dept of Fish & Game photo)

Measuring in at 51 inches – 4 1/4 feet – long, the male salmon was likely five to six years old, Killam said. Scientists used the salmon’s girth and length to come up with their estimate of 85 pounds – and that’s dead. The salmon probably weighed about 90 pounds alive when it started its swim from the Pacific Ocean back to Battle Creek.

Of course, one of the reasons this huge fish was able to contribute its monster genetics to Battle Creek was due to the commercial fishing restrictions and closures of the past two years:

Federal and state officials called off a commercial salmon fishery this year off the state’s coast and are allowing nothing but a short sport season in the Sacramento River because of the low runs.

“A fish that big would have been caught in the fishery,” Smith said.

Sadly, the fish is simply a remnant of the kind of fish that once swam in the Upper Sacramento on a regular basis, and with habitat and environmental issues rearing up – and commercial overfishing more the norm than the exception in prior decades – we’re unlikely to see its kind anytime soon:

Although monstrous, the salmon found on Battle Creek is part of a meager salmon run on the stream that feeds Coleman National Fish Hatchery. This year’s fall-run has been about 13,000 fish, said Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery’s manager.

Average runs at the hatchery have been between 20,000 and 30,000 fish.

See you on the River, Tom Chandler.

fishing, salmon, west coast salmon, salmon fishery, lower sacramento river, battle creek

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A normal season would see up to six months of fishing with two fish per day. But wildlife managers decided in May to cut inland fishing dramatically – a potential $20 million hit for the state economy – due to plummeting numbers of adult fish returning to spawn last fall.

Ocean fishing was also canceled, exponentially increasing the economic toll in California to $255 million.

The salmon crash has been blamed on a slew of potential factors, including poor ocean conditions, a loss of river habitat and the export of water from the Delta.

Game Wardens Communists??

Oddly, the first reader comment to this story noted that California hires so few game wardens that effective enforcement of salmon fishing limits was a joke. That observant comment was followed by one that truly highlights the failure of either our public schools or laws against the marriage of family members:

“There’s no such thing as a good game warden……something about them just makes them all communists.”

Truly, the Underground fears for the Republic.

salmon, california salmon runs, sacramento chinook salmon, game wardens

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Populations up and down the West Coast are under siege from water diversions, dams, predators and habitat loss. And scientists keep citing mysterious “ocean conditions” (possibly related to climate change) as imperiling salmon food supplies in the ocean.

It’s not even safe to be a hatchery salmon:

About 75,000 of 180,000 young fall-run Chinook salmon being hauled in tanker trucks from the Coleman National Fish Hatchery in Anderson to San Pablo Bay near Vallejo Monday died. “We are kind of in the stages of trying to figure out what went wrong,” Scott Hamelberg, the hatchery’s manager, said early Monday afternoon. “It’s part of the risk of trucking fish.”

About 41 percent of the smolts being trucked Monday died. Scientists plan to perform necropsies — animal autopsies — on some of the dead smolts to determine their cause of death, said Alexandra Pitts, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Sacramento. “They are going to see what they can see in them, which can tell them a lot more of what happened,” she said.

See you at the piles of dead salmon smolts, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: salmon recovery,salmon,sacramento coho salmon,dead salmon

Early season salmon fishing off the coasts of California and most of Oregon was shut down Wednesday by federal regulators responding to an unprecedented collapse of salmon populations along the West Coast.

The actions affect commercial and recreational fishing seasons either underway or scheduled to open in the coming weeks. When they meet again next month, regulators are likely to close the bigger fishing seasons that come later in the year.

Specifically, a small recreational fishing season off Fort Bragg that opened in mid-February will close April 1. Other recreational fishing seasons from San Francisco to the Mexican border that were scheduled to open April 5 have been closed.

This report from the Contra Costa Times says the later salmon seasons will probably be canceled as well — the product of a disastrous 2007 fall chinook salmon run on the Sacramento River.

Ocean conditions, delta pumping blamed

The Sacramento chinook had been the backbone of the west coast salmon runs, but with less than 90,000 adults returning to spawn (second lowest number on record) and a dismal number of two year-old “jack” salmon counted (less than 2,000), it appears the commission thinks even a recreational sport fishery isn’t warranted.

Next year’s salmon run could easily fall below 60,000, so any salmon fishery that might impact the Sacramento’s Fall chinook run will likely be affected.

This spells trouble (or even the end of) the west coast salmon fleet, which has already been rocked by the 2006 closure to protect failing Klamath River salmon runs.

The blame game is fully underway, and while Pacific Fishery Management Council scientists point the finger at oceanic conditions (lack of nutrients at the bottom of the food chain), others feel that increased pumping from the Delta — leading to the collapse of several native species — is a contributing factor.

You can read the whole Contra Costa Times article here, and the Seattle Times article here.

See you buying salmon belly futures, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: salmon,endangered salmon,sacramento chinook salmon,commercial salmon fishing,chinook salmon

This grim:

The grim reality of a collapsing salmon fishery will hit home over the next week as fishing interests, tribal representatives and conservation groups from three Western states hash out plans to protect the fish and, if possible, save their livelihoods.

“Could it possibly be worse?” asked Chuck Tracy, a member of the management council. “Not much.”

That grim.

Last year’s Fall run of Chinook to the Sacramento River watershed was the second lowest on record (88,000), and naturally, everyone’s trotting out their own theory.

Sportsmen point to water diversions in the delta while scientests think unusual ocean conditions had something to do with it. The normal salmon season runs April to November, and we’re hearing about the potential for a near-total closure.

Rather than wait, California politicos are already labeling the upcoming season a disaster, and asking for Federal aid.

(UPDATE: Damn — somehow edited the next paragraph out in the original post. My bad) 

Complicating matters are two simple facts.

• With only 2,000 jack salmon returning (young salmon returning early; counts have never been below 10,000), next year’s run will likely be even worse
• The Chinook are the only salmon run in California not listed under the ESA. They’ve long been the healthy, “workhorse” salmon run on the West Coast

Yeah. That grim. See you NOT fishing for salmon, Tom Chandler.

From the LA Times:

SACRAMENTO — – Faced with an “unprecedented collapse” of California’s Central Valley salmon population, federal regulators warned Tuesday that the West Coast fishing industry is on course toward steep restrictions this year.

The number of chinook salmon returning to the Sacramento River plummeted to near historic lows last year, and fishery experts are predicting similarly light returns this year.

Donald McIsaac, director of the Pacific Fishery Management Council, said the reason for the decline remains unclear.

There’s been a lot of speculation about the non-availability of food for juvenile salmon due to ocean conditions (which many scientists are linking to climate change issues), yet one group remains convinced the problem is at least partially due to Delta water diversions:

The Sacramento River’s “missing salmon” were juveniles migrating to sea in spring 2005, when state and federal water managers “set records for pumping delta water south,” said Mike Sherwood, an attorney with Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental legal group that has been jousting with water managers over water exports.

The Environmental News Service is carrying a slightly more detailed article than the LA Times, but you don’t really have to read the fine print to guess what comes next.

Fishing closures (both sport and commercial), the inevitable government payouts, and yes — the finger pointing.

There are a lot of people hoping this is a one-time event, but the low number of returning “jack” salmon (two year-old fish) suggests poor returns in 2008.

Is this an artifact of global climate change? Are the ghosts of all those delta water diversions and habitat compromises finally coming back to haunt us?

See you buying tofu, Tom Chandler.

UPDATES: Singlebarbed weighed in last night. Now the Eugene, Oregon Register Guard considers the economic consequences to Oregon’s coastal fishing communities — already pummeled by Klamath-related closures and this year’s disastrously low catches:

Earlier this year, the Oregon Salmon Commission released figures that depict one of the worst salmon seasons on record. The fleet landed 463,500 pounds, about 20,000 pounds less than in 2006 — a more restricted season. Between 1979 and 2007, chinook landings have averaged more than 2 million pounds. In only two of those years have landings dropped below 500,000 pounds.

The fleet earned $2.6 million in 2007, slightly less than what trollers brought in the year before, despite the highest price per pound fishermen have fetched since 1981: $5.64.

Technorati Tags: salmon,chinook salmon,central valley salmon,endangered salmon,sacramento river salmon,unprecedented collapse,salmon recovery