[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 9/21/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

September 21, 2007

 

3. Watersheds

 

WESTERN STATES SALMON:

Left high and dry, salmon make powerful friends in Nevada - Las Vegas Sun

 

LAKE DAVIS PIKE:

State goes face to face with lean-jawed pike - Capitol Weekly

 

Ed Pert: Angling for pike - Capitol Weekly

 

 

WESTERN STATES SALMON:

Left high and dry, salmon make powerful friends in Nevada

Las Vegas Sun – 9/21/07

By Phoebe Sweet, staff writer

 

The fishermen who remember salmon running thick in Northern Nevada's rivers are gone.

 

And what salmon they were, shimmering beauties that began and ended their lives in Nevada waters, hatching in Elko and Humboldt counties and traveling thousands of miles through Idaho and Washington and Oregon and the Pacific Ocean before returning nearly a decade later to spawn.

 

But that was almost 100 years ago, when Chinook salmon and steelhead trout could fend for themselves.

 

After a century of commercial and sport fishing, environmental damage, habitat destruction and dam construction along the Columbia and Snake Rivers in Idaho, their populations have dwindled. Species of fish that once grew to more than 30 pounds before ending their lives in tributaries of the Snake in Nevada are now on the endangered species list.

 

Outdoorsmen say the fish can no longer make it on their own.

 

Enter a new advocate.

 

Sen. Harry Reid last month asked the federal government to require utility Idaho Power to install fish passages at three dams in Hells Canyon on the Snake River. Idaho Power has applied for renewal of its license to operate the dam, an opportunity for the feds to impose new requirements on the company over its 30- to 50-year term.

 

"I ask that you ... seize upon this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make it possible for these great and endangered species to return to their historical spawning grounds in Nevada," Reid wrote to the federal commission that will review the power company's license application.

 

An environmental review completed last month, which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will evaluate , did not recommend installing salmon ladders. But when FERC rules on the application and environmental review, it could force the company to install the passages, essentially sets of watery stairs alongside the dam for fish to jump up.

 

Idaho Power, which gets about one-third of its electricity from three dams in Hells Canyon, says water quality above the dams is too poor to support successful reintroduction of salmon populations.

 

But Reid's letter asks FERC to require Idaho Power to remedy those water-quality problems, another condition the commission could impose and one that could cost the power company millions of dollars a year.

 

Dennis Lopez, a spokesman for Idaho Power, said the water-quality problems are "mostly human caused " but not related to the dams.

 

He also said the cost of the fish passages was not the main reason the company does not want to install them.

 

According to the environmental review, a fish passage could cost more than $6 million.

 

Idaho has the lowest power rates in the nation, about half Nevada's rates, and gets two-thirds of its power from 17 hydroelectric dams.

 

According to the environmental review, Idaho Power runs fish hatcheries to help bolster populations downstream from Hells Canyon. The review also says the company's nine dams along the Snake River affect water quality and not only affect current fish populations but also harm efforts to reintroduce the fish to the river.

 

A program to bring the salmon back to the area has met little success, and Congress is considering a bill to bring new science and life into the program.

 

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., came out in support of the bill last month, and a spokesman said the congresswoman agrees with Reid's efforts to bring fish passages to Hells Canyon and salmon back to Nevada waters.

 

"Salmon are a symbol of the West and an important marker of the health of our rivers," said David Cherry, Berkley's communications director. "If we can't sustain a salmon population, what does that say about how well we're managing these rivers?"

 

But it's unclear whether Reid's and Berkley's support is enough to save the salmon.

 

Jon Summers, a spokesman for Reid, said the senator hopes FERC will consider his letter when renewing Idaho Power's licenses to operate its dams.

 

"Salmon have been spawning in Nevada for thousands of years and these dams have made it impossible for them to swim upstream," Summers said.

 

Eight of Idaho Power's dams - including the Brownlee, Oxbow and Hells Canyon dams in Hells Canyon - are up for license renewal by 2010.

 

Construction began on the Hells Canyon dams in 1955. By 1968 all three dams were generating power.

 

Although over fishing had already affected salmon populations in the area, the dams made it nearly impossible for the salmon to travel past Hells Canyon and into Nevada.

 

If the fish could once again make their epic trek into the Owyhee and Bruno rivers and Salmon Falls Creek in Nevada, the sport fishing industry would be a boon to rural communities, said Assemblyman David Bobzien, D-Reno.

 

Even if that occurs, though, Nevada is unlikely to see salmon so populous they make their way into farmers' irrigation ditches, as written accounts say they did 100 years ago.

 

But Larry Johnson, president of Coalition for Nevada's Wildlife, said he hopes to see the fish spawn here again.

 

"We are not a radical environmental group that's advocating tearing down every dam," Johnson said. "We fully recognize the needs of people come first, but a lot of things done in the past did not recognize the consequences to the environment, to wildlife, to fish."  #

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2007/sep/21/566636016.html

 

 

LAKE DAVIS PIKE:

State goes face to face with lean-jawed pike

Capitol Weekly – 9/14/07

 

A decade after the state first tried to eradicate the voracious northern pike from pristine Lake Davis in Plumas County, Department of Fish and Game (DFG) employees are back--same fish, same chemicals but with a less hostile local populace and new satellite technology.

More than 500 DFG personnel--scientists, field workers, water experts and others--are in Portola staffing the three-week-long eradication effort that will start with treating the lake's streams and tributaries and culminate with the treatment of the lake itself.

"For this project, DFG took extensive steps identifying all possible pike-bearing waters up to 4 ½ miles from the reservoir, using satellite technology and other intensive survey methods. Because treating the tributaries and streams is critical to eradicating pike, DFG officials will be on site to describe the current treatment, as well as to discuss the entire eradication project," the department said.

Fish and Game experts say the pike, a popular Midwest fighting fish, would devastate California's trout population if allowed to get into the river system. Authorities aren't sure how the pike got into Lake Davis in the first place, but one theory is that they were deliberately introduced by anglers who prize the pike's fighting qualities. Another is that the pike were first introduced into nearby Frenchman's Lake, then made their way into Lake Davis.

In 1997, authorities poisoned Lake Davis with rotenone, which removes oxygen from the water, in an attempt to kill the pike.

 

The effort outraged local residents, partly because the lake was a drinking water source for nearby Portola, and partly because closing the lake crippled the local economy. In 1998, the state approved a nearly $10 million settlement to help the local economy, an amount that was dismissed as adequate by local business interests, who complained that it was too little, too late.

But the following year, the pike somehow came back to Lake Davis.

The state operations have been a political flash point at the lake and in nearby Portola, where many local residents complained that the state had devastated the local economy, which depends heavily on the lake. Fishing guides, bait shops, retailers and motel owners, among others, said the state's actions forced a huge drop in business and group called Committee to Save Lake Davis was formed to challenge the state. Environmentalists complained, too, contending that the long-term impacts of rotenone were uncertain. Many Portola residents were angered that the anti-pike operation targeted the city's principal drinking-water supply.

During the 1997 treatment, Lake Davis captured international attention. There were also arrests: Seven people were taken into custody as Fish and Game agents in two-dozen boats scattered across the seven-mile-long lake to distribute the rotenone, some 16,000 gallons of liquid and 60,000 pounds of powder. Four people in wet suits and on inner tubes were arrested when they chained themselves to a buouy, while the other three were arrested for moving the shore markers used by the boats for the operation.

Now a new effort began this week, for more extensive than the other two. Using satellite-generated data as a guide, state authorities this week began treating the streams and tributaries that feed Lake Davis, a scenic Sierra lake north of Portola about 140 miles northeast of Sacramento. State Fish and Game Department authorities crafted a grid map of the lake and its feeder streams, and they intend to gradually treat the streams with rotenone as they move toward Lake Davis. In the finale of the operation, the lake is scheduled to be treated over two days with rotenone--a chemical that removes oxygen from the water--beginning Sept. 25.

Opponents note that rotenone contains the chemical TCE, a known carcinogen, but authorities say the amount of TCE that actually enters the water is diluted to less than 0.5 parts per billion--about a tenth of the amount legally allowed in a municipal water supply.

The rotenone, which turns the water an eerie green, lasts about 48 hours, and then the water returns to its natural color. It kills not only the pike, but the other fish in the lake. After the treatment, state officials must collect the dead fish, then restock the lake with trout. After the 1997 treatment, the state put 750,000 trout back into the lake.

State authorities hope the latest operation will be less controversial--and thus far, that has been the case. There are several reasons. First, the Committee to Save Lake Davis appears to be less active than earlier. Second, the lake is no longer is the source of drinking-water for about 20,000 people in Portola and its environs. Third, the state has quietly prepared for the operation, and while there has been some media attention, it is less pervasive than before.
"It's sort of under everybody's radar," one state official said. #

http://www.capitolweekly.net/news/article.html?article_id=1690

 

 

Ed Pert: Angling for pike

Capitol Weekly – 9/14/07

 

A decade ago, fisheries and wildlife expert Ed Pert was back in Virginia earning a Ph.D and following the national news coverage of the California Fish and Game Department's controversial efforts to rid Lake Davis of the rapacious pike. "I remember thinking, that's a tough project," Pert recalled.

Now Pert, 44, is in the middle of the same project--treating Lake Davis with rotenone in order to kill the pike, which state Fish and Game officials say poses a serious threat to the state's native trout population.

Pert is the project manager of the Lake Davis operation. In effect, he is the ground commander of some 500 Fish and Game personnel who will spend most of September treating the lake and its tributaries in the latest--and most comprehensive--attempt to eliminate the pike. In some areas, the Midwest for example, the ever-hungry pike is a prized fighting fish. In California, however, the pike is viewed as a threat capable of eating its way through the state's trout and bass populations, crippling fisheries and discouraging anglers who come from around the world to fish in California's rivers.

Pert seems the ideal choice to lead the effort. With a bachelor's degree from Humboldt State, Pert served in the state Fish and Game Department's Wild Trout Project. He later went to UC Berkeley for a Master's in Wildlife Resource Sciences, emphasizing fisheries, and then went east to Virginia Tech for his doctoral work. "Too much education" he joked.

But when the possibility of returning to California opened up, Pert jumped at the chance. He liked working in California, he and his wife have family in California and the fisheries challenges were profound. "I feel I was lucky to get back here," he said.

This time around, things hopefully will go better than in the 1990s, Pert said.
"Certainly, it's infinitely better now. We've done a lot of outreach work to really gauge the true feelings of the locals. There is a big middle ground of people who want something to be done," said Pert, who lives in Sacramento with his wife and two young children.

"Look, nobody likes the idea of putting a bunch of chemicals into the lake, and that includes me. But people recognize that we have a problem. We are still battling what happened in 1997, and some people don't trust the Department to do the right thing. But we want to be as open and honest as possible. We are still finding the Ghost of 1997 Past dealing with all the inadvertent slipups."

One big dfference between now and 1997 is that Lake Davis is no longer Portola's drinking supply. Another is that the community is on the verge of getting a new water treatment facility. A third is that the state is engaged in a comprehensive water testing program. "We've had the benefit of at least 1,400 samples from local wells, and none has turned up positive."

"If the pike get established, it will definitely have a debilitating effect on California," Pert added. "If they do well, they'll eat most of the fish species. They'll eat everything and then they'll eat themselves. The landscape of California would be changed." #

http://www.capitolweekly.net/news/article.html?article_id=1691

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