[env-trinity] Sacramento & Klamath salmon ocean abundance forecasts are down/Tunnels Opponents Say 'Fix LA & Santa Clara Valley First'/Karuk Tribe and conservation groups file lawsuit

[Dan Bacher]

Good Evening.

Here is my latest article, a piece about the CDFW Salmon Fishery  
Information Meeting in Santa Rosa on Wednesday, followed by a piece  
about Delta opponents challenging the "wisdom" of funding the tunnels  
when the Santa Clara Valley and LA water infrastructure is  
deteriorating. That article is followed by a press release by the  
Karuk Tribe and conservation groups about a federal lawsuit they filed  
against a post-fire logging plan in the Klamath National Forest  
yesterday.

Thanks
Dan

http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/03/sacramento-and-klamath-river-salmon-ocean-abundance-estimates-are-down-in-2016/

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/4/1495852/-Sacramento-and-Klamath-River-salmon-abundance-forecasts-are-down-in-2016

Photo: Chinook salmon moving up Blue Creek, a tributary of the Klamath  
River. Photo by Thomas Dunklin.
Sacramento and Klamath River salmon ocean abundance forecasts are down  
in 2016
  by Dan Bacher |  posted in: Spotlight |  0
Hundreds of people, including commercial fishermen, charter boat  
skippers and recreational anglers, packed a large room at the Sonoma  
County Water Agency offices in Santa Rosa on Wednesday, March 2, to  
hear the discouraging news from state and federal scientists about the  
prospects for this year’s ocean and river salmon seasons.

Low ocean abundance forecasts for Sacramento River and Klamath Chinook  
fall-run Chinook salmon point to restrictions in the recreational,  
commercial and tribal fisheries this upcoming season, according to  
data released in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s  
annual salmon fishery information meeting.

Agency scientists estimate that there are approximately 299,600 adult  
Sacramento River fall Chinook salmon and 142,200 Klamath River fall  
Chinooks in the ocean this year, based on the returns of two-year-old  
salmon, called “jacks” and “jills,” The salmon from these two rivers  
comprise the majority of salmon taken in California’s ocean and inland  
fisheries.

“The forecasts are lower than in recent years and suggest that  
California fisheries may see salmon seasons in 2016 that have reduced  
opportunities over last year,” said Brett Kormos, a senior  
environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and  
Wildlife (CDFW) and the moderator of the meeting, in a news release  
issued right after the meeting.

“We’re in an unprecedented situation where fishermen face constraints  
both in the north (Klamath) and the south (Sacramento),” said Dr.  
Michael O’Farrell of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS).

These forecasts, in addition to disturbing information on endangered  
Sacramento River winter Chinook salmon, will be used over the next  
couple of months by federal and state fishery managers to set sport  
and commercial fishing season dates, commercial quotas and size and  
bag limits.

A total of 112,434 Sacramento River fall adult salmon and 19,554 jacks  
returned to spawn in the river in 2015, according to Vanessa Gusman,  
CDFW environmental scientist. Seventeen percent of these fish were  
from the American Basin, 32 percent from the Feather and 49 percent  
from the Upper Sacramento.

The Upper Sacramento Basin saw a total of 59,507 fish, including  
15,712 hatchery fish and 43,795 natural spawners. Of these fish,  
54,711 were adults and 4,796 were jacks.

In the Feather River Basin, a total of 47,333 fish came back,  
including 20,200 hatchery fish and 27,073 natural spawners, returned  
to spawn. 38,710 were adults and 8,623 were jacks.

In the American River Basin, 25,548 salmon, including 11,762 hatchery  
fish and 13,786 natural spawners, returned in 2015. 19,913 were adults  
and 11,167 were jacks.

The total escapement fell short of the targeted escapement of at least  
122,000 salmon, according to O’Farrell.

This lower return of fall-run Chinooks is unlikely to constrain the  
2016 fisheries, however. “If the 2015 regulations were in place this  
year, there is a preliminary escapement prediction of 153,300,” said  
O’Farrell.

The winter run’s impact on the regulations are a different story, even  
though only two coded wire-tagged winter-run Chinook – one caught by a  
recreational angler and one taken by a troller – were reported in the  
ocean fishery last year. O’Farrell said the winter run’s precarious  
status is “likely to constrain the fisheries below Point Arena.”

“The maximum allowable age 3 impact rate of winter run is 19.9  
percent,” explained O’Farrell. “If the 2015 regulations were in place,  
there is a preliminary prediction of 17.1 percent impact rate.”

Approximately 95 percent of winter run juveniles in 2014 and 97  
percent of winter Chinook juveniles in 2015 perished in the Sacramento  
River above Red Bluff, due to warm water conditions spurred by widely- 
contested water management practices by the Brown and Obama  
administrations. Anglers are prohibited from targeting winter Chinooks  
on the ocean and on the Sacramento River.

Dan Kratville of the CDFW explained his hypothesis for the massive  
mortality of winter run Chinook eggs and juveniles in 2014 and 2015.

“In 2014, we think that the loss of temperature control by the US  
Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) was the major cause of the loss from egg  
to juvenile life stages. In 2015, While the USBR never fully lost  
control of the temperature, we believe that the average temperatures  
were too high, resulting in similar losses as 2014,” said Kratville.

Leaders of fishing groups, Indian Tribes and environmental  
organizations have criticized the Bureau of Reclamation and Department  
of Water Resources for draining Trinity, Shasta, Oroville and Folsom  
reservoirs during three years of a record drought to export water  
south of the Delta to agribusiness, Southern California water  
agencies, and oil companies conducting fracking operations.

The abundance of Klamath River fall Chinook salmon is looking worse  
than for the Sacramento stocks. O’Farrell said the 2016 abundance  
forecast for Klamath River fall Chinook is 93,393 for age 3, 45,105  
for age 4 and 3,671 for age 3, a total of approximately 142,200 adults.

“Our potential spawner abundance forecast is 41,211 and we must target  
an escapement of at least 30,909 fish,” he said. “That’s a 25 percent  
exploitation rate.”

If the 2015 regulations were in place this year, the natural area  
spawner prediction would be only 14,540, a 65 percent exploitation  
rate, and natural spawner target would not be met, according to  
O’Farrell. The allocation of fish to the Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes  
is always 50 percent of the total harvest, so the river recreational  
allocation would be 32.4 percent of the non-tribal harvest.

“This no doubt will constrain the fisheries south of Cape Falcon,  
Oregon,” he concluded.

After the abundance forecasts and harvest model results were reviewed,  
anglers asked questions and made suggestions to the California Salmon  
Management Panel, comprised of Pacific Fishery Management Council  
(PFMC), CDFW, NOAA Fisheries, and fishing group representatives. The  
suggestions included were delaying the opening of salmon season north  
of Pigeon Point to avoid winter run impacts; using the 24-inch size  
limit throughout the recreational fishing season; and the use of  
sportfishing gear and downriggers by commercial fishermen to minimize  
fishery impacts.

After the meeting anglers commented about the prospects for the  
recreational and commercial salmon seasons.

“I’m concerned about the 2016 season,” said Dick Pool, President of  
Water for Fish. “We have looked at the environmental conditions in  
2013 when the juveniles were trying to make their way down the river  
through the Delta. We know a lot of fish didn’t make it.”

“I’m not optimistic that we’ll get much improvement in the salmon  
harvest in 2016. The biggest problem is that we need to get to work on  
salmon recovery projects as soon as possible,” noted Pool.

“I heard two great ideas proposed by fishermen today – the first being  
the 24 inch size limit to reduce impacts on winter run Chinook,”  
commented Mike Hudson, commercial salmon fisherman and President of  
the Small Boat Commercial Salmon Fisherman’s Association. “The second  
is the concept of commercial anglers using sport gear to minimize  
impacts upon the winter run.”

Dan Wolford, President of the Coastside Fishing Club, said, “Both  
sport and commercial fishermen will have an opportunity to fish, but  
it will be less than last year. There are two things we don’t know yet  
– how much – will we be restricted a lot or a little. Second, if we  
have a season, will there be fish there to catch?”

He noted that although the trucking of salmon, as evidenced by the  
high return of Feather River hatchery salmon to fishing “is good for  
catching fish, I’m not so sure it’s good for the fish themselves with  
the straying data we have. It does clearly help the ability of us to  
harvest fish.

John McManus, Executive Director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association  
(GGSA, emphasized that the projection for 2016 salmon “makes clear the  
damage done by water diversions and drought the last several years.”

“The 2016 salmon number means more protections are needed in the Delta  
and Central Valley salmon habitat, not less. Any politician proposing  
more water diversions now from the Delta needs to look at the salmon  
numbers and stop proposing more harm to salmon and our coastal  
communities,” concluded McManus.

In addition to the salmon suffering from poor river conditions over  
the past three years, the CDFW noted the fish, once in the ocean,  
experienced El Niño conditions that “are not favorable for salmon or  
its prey.”

Season dates and other regulations will be developed by the Pacific  
Fishery Management Council and California Fish and Game Commission  
over the next few months. For more information on the salmon season  
setting process or general ocean salmon fishing information, please  
visit the Ocean Salmon Project website or call the salmon fishing  
hotline at (707) 576-3429.

As recreational, commercial and tribal fishing families face  
restrictions this year, Governor Jerry Brown continues to promote his  
“California Water Fix” plan to build the Delta Tunnels. The project,  
estimated to cost up to $68 billion, would hasten the extinction of  
Sacramento winter Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and  
longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other fish species. The tunnels  
would also imperil the salmon and steelhead fisheries of the Klamath  
and Trinity rivers.



2. http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/04/delta-tunnels-opponents-say-fix-la-santa-clara-valley-first/

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/3/3/1495292/-Delta-Tunnels-Opponents-Say-Fix-LA-Santa-Clara-Valley-First



Delta Tunnels Opponents Say 'Fix LA and Santa Clara Valley First'

by Dan Bacher

As local water pipes and infrastructure in the Santa Clara Valley and  
Los Angeles continue to leak and burst, opponents of Governor Jerry  
Brown’s massive Delta Tunnels on Thursday, March 3 questioned the  
“wisdom” of state water districts investing another $1.2 billion in  
the controversial project that could cost up to $68 billion to  
taxpayers and ratepayers.

“Silicon Valley's largest water provider will have to spend at least  
$20 million to drain, test and repair a critical water pipeline that  
failed last summer and may have more hidden problems,” the San Jose  
Mercury News reported on Wednesday, March 2. (http://www.mercurynews.com/drought/ci_29582505/california-drought-failure-key-water-pipeline-into-silicon 
)

The ruptured 8-foot-high, 31-mile-long concrete pipe brings up to 40  
percent of the drinking water to Santa Clara County’s 1.8 million  
residents from the San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, according a a  
news release from Restore the Delta (RTD). A 10-foot section of the  
pile ruptured on August 1, 2015, sending 14 millions of water into a  
cow pasture near Casa De Fruta along Highway 152, the Pacheco Pass  
Highway.

"This pipe is only 30 years old. I would not have expected it to fail  
so quickly," Barbara Keegan, chairwoman of the Santa Clara Valley  
Water District board, told Paul Rogers of the Mercury News. "It's not  
like there was a unique situation. The fact that it cracked and the  
wires corroded, how extensive is this?

But the Santa Clara Valley is not the only place where water  
infrastructure is corroding, bursting and leaking. In Los Angeles,  
leaking water mains and pipes lose eight billion gallons of water each  
year. (http://graphics.latimes.com/la-aging-water-infrastructure/

The repairs to the Los Angeles water system will cost rate payers at  
least $1.3 billion and take at least a decade to fix, RTD noted.

Meanwhile, Nancy Vogel, spokeswoman for the state Natural Resources  
Agency and former reporter for the Sacramento Bee and LA Times, has  
told both urban and agricultural water districts she will soon request  
from them, after environmental studies are completed this summer,  
another $1.2 billion to fund “engineering and design studies” for the  
proposed Delta Tunnels project. (http://www.montereyherald.com/article/NF/20160126/NEWS/160129792 
)

The project that Vogel and the Brown administration promote would not  
create one single drop of new water, but it would hasten the  
extinction of Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, Central  
Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt, green sturgeon and other  
species and woud imperil the salmon and steelhead populations of the  
Klamath and Trinity rivers.

This is the last thing we need now, considering that the low 2015  
returns of fall-run Chinook salmon to the Sacramento and Klamath  
rivers, spurred by drought and water diversions from both systems,  
point to salmon fishing restrictions on the ocean and rivers this  
year. (http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/03/sacramento-and-klamath-river-salmon-ocean-abundance-estimates-are-down-in-2016/ 
)

"It's absurd that the Santa Clara Valley Water District would even  
consider moving forward with raising millions of dollars from  
ratepayers to advance the Delta Tunnels project when they cannot  
maintain their own existing water infrastructure," said Barbara  
Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta. “The  
tunnels project, misnamed California Water Fix, and their propaganda  
arm, Californians for Water Security, sell the Delta Tunnels as needed  
to save California's water supply when, in truth, the Delta is not the  
weak link in the water delivery system. Californians lose 10 to 15  
percent of our water supply each year due to water main breaks and  
leaky pipes in urban areas.”

“It is also ironic that pipes laid just 30 years ago by the U.S.  
Bureau of Reclamation are already corroded and breaking apart. If we  
cannot build and maintain an 8-foot pipe in the Santa Clara Valley  
Water District, what can we expect with two Delta tunnels, 40 feet  
wide, built in peat soil?" she pointed out.

“Let’s instead spend precious ratepayer dollars to fix the decaying LA  
and Santa Clara Valley Water infrastructure before considering a  
massive new proposal with an Environmental Impact Report the EPA has  
already issued a failing grade of ‘inadequate’," Barrigan-Parrilla  
concluded.

3. http://fishsniffer.com/index.php/2016/03/04/1357/



Photo of Iron Gate Dam on the Klamath River by Dan Bacher.

Karuk Tribe, Conservationists File Suit to Protect Klamath Wild  
Salmon, Rural Communities

The Karuk Tribe and conservation groups yesterday filed a lawsuit in  
federal court challenging a post-fire logging plan in the Klamath  
National Forest. The press release was issued just a day after federal  
and state fishery managers releasef data showing a low return of fall- 
run Chinook salmon on the Klamath River system this year - and  
pointing to restrictions on the recreational, Tribal and commercial  
fisheries this year. We must do everything we can to restore our  
imperiled salmon populations, including supporting Klamath River Dam  
removal and challenging timber management plans that harm fish and  
their habitat. Below is the news release from the Tribe and  
environmental groups:

Tribe, Conservationists File Suit to Protect Wild Salmon, Rural  
Communities

Happy Camp, CA – On March 3, the Karuk Tribe, along with the  
Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), Klamath-Siskiyou  
Wildlands Center (KS Wild), Center for Biological Diversity, and  
Klamath Riverkeeper, filed suit in federal court challenging a massive  
post-fire logging plan in Klamath National Forest that will increase  
fire danger, degrade water quality, and harm at-risk salmon populations.

The Tribe leads a diverse plaintiff group united by a common interest  
in restoring healthy relationships between people, fire, forests and  
fish. The groups seek to protect rural communities from fire risks,  
restore watershed health, and provide economic opportunities for locals.

The coalition is challenging a post-fire timber sale, the Westside  
Project, which fails rural river communities by implementing the same  
management practices that have for decades resulted in a landscape  
prone to dangerous fire events, degraded water quality, and  
contributed to declining salmon populations. The suit alleges the  
Klamath National Forest Plan, as approved by National Oceanic and  
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries, illegally increases the  
risk of extinction for threatened populations of coho salmon.

The Westside project would clear-cut 5,760 acres on burned forest  
slopes above tributaries of the Klamath River. This aggressive  
approach would fail to resolve long-term fire management issues and  
exacerbate wildfire impacts to recovering watersheds. The steep and  
rugged terrain contains old-growth forests and nurtures some of the  
most important salmon habitat on the West Coast.

NOAA Fisheries is required to review Forest Service logging plans to  
determine if such projects will have harmful effects on ESA listed  
coho. In this case, NOAA Fisheries green lighted the Forest Service  
plan despite the obvious harm to coho spawning and rearing habitat.

“This project was ill-conceived from the start and failed to  
adequately take into account the input of the Karuk Tribe which has  
managed these forests since the beginning of time,” said Karuk  
Chairman Russell “Buster” Attebery. “We will not allow the Forest  
Service to further degrade our fisheries, water quality, or sacred  
sites while ignoring our call for community fire protection.”

The Tribe’s alternative proposal ensures that future fire events will  
be healthy for the environment and safe for local residents while  
providing marketable timber. The Forest Service did not analyze the  
Karuk Alternative because it rushed the environmental review process  
under the pretense of a “public emergency.”

“Unlike the massive Forest Service clear-cutting plans, the Karuk  
Alternative focuses on restoration,” explains George Sexton of the  
Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. “It recognizes the need to restore  
watersheds and the natural fire regime while protecting homes and  
communities.”

“The Klamath River and its tributaries are strongholds for struggling  
salmon populations; they are also home to many rare and endemic  
species. Logging these steep slopes would only increase the perilous  
position our fisheries and wildlife are facing,” said Kimberly Baker  
of EPIC. “The Forest Service plan to clear-cut thousands of acres  
above the Klamath River disregards the reasonable Karuk Alternative  
and hurts at-risk salmon and river communities,” said Kerul Dyer of  
Klamath Riverkeeper. “A healthy Klamath River requires sensible forest  
restoration that addresses the needs of both fish and people, like  
that laid out in the Karuk plan.”

"We have a chance right now to restore healthy relationships among  
people, fire and forests," said Jay Lininger, senior scientist with  
the Center for Biological Diversity. "It requires a fundamentally  
different approach from what the Forest Service put forward."

The groups are challenging the illegal harm to fish and watersheds  
that will result from the proposed post-fire clear cutting timber  
sales in hopes that the federal government will change course. Initial  
arguments will likely be heard by the District Court in the very near  
future. The Western Environmental Law Center represents all of the  
plaintiffs and EPIC is represented by in-house counsel.

The full complaint can be found here: http://www.karuk.us/images/docs/press/2016/Complaint.pdf

For more information:

Craig Tucker, Natural Resources Policy Advocate, Karuk Tribe,  
707-839-1982
George Sexton, Conservation Director, Klamath Siskiyou Wild,  
541-778-8120
Kimberly Baker, Public Lands Advocate, EPIC, 707-822-7711
Jay Lininger, Senior Scientist, Center for Biological Diversity,  
928-853-9929
Susan Jane Brown, Staff Attorney, Western Environmental Law Center,  
503-914-1323
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