A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
March 24, 2008
3. Watersheds
SALMON ISSUES:
Scientists try to explain dismal salmon run - San Francisco Chronicle
Column: Salmon numbers fall, but possible explanations grow -
Pacific Fishery Management Council to Choose Final Option for 2008 Salmon Season - YubaNet.com
Nine arrested for poaching salmon, sturgeon in the Sacramento River and Delta - Sacramento Bee
Editorial: WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SAVE THE SALMON? -
Plan to restore river at risk; Water district demand threatens renewal deal for the San Joaquin - Fresno Bee
UC Davis global warming researcher paints dire picture for Lake Tahoe - Sacramento
INVASIVE SPECIES:
A beetle can save our water; But it would have to eat the thirsty tamarisk bush, home of the Southwest willow flycatcher, an endangered species - Las Vegas Sun
Letters from Washington; Boxer to the rescue - San Diego Union Tribune
SALMON ISSUES:
Scientists try to explain dismal salmon run
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/24/08
By Jane Kay, staff writer
Amid growing concern over an imminent shutdown of the commercial and sport chinook salmon season, scientists are struggling to figure out why the largest run on the West Coast hit rock bottom and what Californians can do to bring it back.
The chinook salmon - born in the rivers, growing in the bay and ocean, and returning to home rivers to spawn - need two essential conditions early in life to prosper: safe passage through the rivers to the bay and lots of seafood to eat once they reach the ocean.
Yet, the
The devastating one-two punch happened as the water projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta pumped record amounts of snowmelt and rainwater to farms and cities in
"You need good conditions in the rivers and ocean to get survival and good returns for spawning," said Stephen Ralston, supervisory research fisheries biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, and a science adviser to the Pacific Coast Fishery Management Council.
Without those favorable conditions, the salmon run crashed. Five years ago, the peak was 872,700 returning spawners. Roughly 90,000 were counted in 2007, and only 63,900 are expected to return to spawn in fall 2008.
Helped by cool-water winter
The fishery council, a regulatory body charged with setting fishing limits, has recommended a full closure or a strict curtailment of the commercial and sport season. A final decision will come in April.
NOAA researchers say a cool-water winter will help the beleaguered run in the future. An influx of cold Alaska waters, along with a shot of nutrients from vigorous upwelling of deep waters, have been fueling the food chain that feeds salmon, birds and marine mammals.
But the scientists warn that chinook, which have swum through the
They've proposed a number of solutions, including sending more water over the dams and reservoirs and down the tributaries where salmon spawn; removing barriers to migration such as old dams; screening the fish away from the pumps and diversion pipes that suck them up, misdirect or kill them; controlling pesticide and sewage pollution - and catching fewer fish while the populations try to rebuild.
Over the millennia, salmon have been born in the
From there they move to the open waters from Monterey to Vancouver Island in British Columbia until 3 or 4 years of age or older. Then they return home to their birth river to reproduce and die. The young come down the rivers, and the cycle begins again.
The problems for the troubled fall run began in 2004 and 2005, the years the chinook were born and traveled to the ocean. In those two years, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project exported record amounts of delta water to urban and agricultural customers in
2005 a bad year for Chinook
In 2005, a crucial year for the young salmon, 55 percent of natural river flows never made it out to the bay, according to records of the state Department of Water Resources. The water was either exported by the water agencies, diverted upstream of the delta or held back by dams.
"The flows were less than what the salmon needed, and the populations are collapsing," said Tina Swanson, senior scientist with the Bay Institute. Even if water agencies are meeting minimum standards, they are inadequate to protect the fish, she said.
A network of nonprofits, including the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, filed a notice Tuesday with the State Water Resources Control Board, saying it would sue if it doesn't curb pumping.
But when looking for an answer to the fall run collapse, Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources, said there are many causes for the salmon's decline.
"You can't just simply blame it on the pumps," he said. Ocean conditions, a reduction of phytoplankton in the bay, the amount of salmon fishing, natural die-off and other factors are part of the broader picture, he said.
There may have been increases in exports to water customers in recent years, but the crucial point is whether there was also an increase in rainfall and snowmelt, he said. That would mean there was more water to divert.
State and federal water project representatives say they follow requirements put forth in their permits, which, among other things, ensure a big enough water supply to protect endangered species and provide certain minimum temperatures. They've aided the salmon by removing dams, screening off diversion pipes and improving habitat.
Biologists caution that salmon need generous flows of cold water at almost every life stage. The fish also need the fresh river water from the reservoirs at the right times, particularly in the fall and summer.
"The adults come upstream in the fall to spawn partly because they're responding to cooler water temperatures," said Peter Moyle, professor of fish biology at UC Davis. "If the females have to swim through water that's too warm, their eggs don't mature as well. Some don't hatch at all."
Some females, Moyle said, just stop migrating and wait for cool water. "They know from evolutionary perspective that if they don't wait until the water gets cold, the young won't survive," he said. In the end, they spawn or die before spawning.
'Squirrelly' ocean conditions
According to Moyle, good ocean conditions can somewhat make up for drought in the river systems and vice versa. But ocean conditions have been "squirrelly" in the last several years with a number of anomalies that produced abnormally warm conditions not good for salmon, he said.
"Usually, salmon populations are at their worst when conditions are bad in both fresh water and salt water," Moyle said. Some scientists think that is what happened to the 2007 fall run.
Once in the ocean, salmon must gorge on small sea creatures to survive.
In 2005 and 2006, the years that the 2007 fall run needed food near the shore in the Gulf of the Farallones, the upwelling of nutrients apparently came too late to produce the small fish that feed the salmon.
Most of the scientists studying the ocean link the unexpected bouts of rising temperatures to global warming.
As the atmosphere and oceans have warmed, researchers have had to discard the theory of decades of warmer, then cooler, ocean temperatures. Now they expect an unpredictability, which is projected in climate models.
"What's happening is that the rockfish, the squid, the krill, the anchovies and the community of critters that salmon feed on changed dramatically in 2004 to the prey that is not as favorable to salmon," NOAA's Ralston said.
The distribution of the sea life also changed. Young rockfish moved well to the north or to the south of
Ralston's hypothesis is that animals are adapted to finding food at certain times and in certain locations.
"When salmon arrive in the ocean, they'll go to certain areas to find their food as they have for millennia," he said. "If we have a major change, their fitness, their ocean survival is compromised."
Bill Peterson, a NOAA researcher in
"It's looking kind of good this year" with five months of cold ocean currents, he said. But the scientists are "very guarded" because in the past two years the ocean was cold in the winter, and then the winds that brought upwelling quit in May and June, reducing the zooplankton that feed the prey of the salmon.
Peterson would like to see measures that would aid the salmon.
"These fish are so resilient and tough," Peterson said. "We should be a little nicer to them." #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/23/MN1BVMR10.DTL
Column: Salmon numbers fall, but possible explanations grow
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/23/08
By Tom Stienstra, outdoors columnist
(03-22) 19:27 PDT -- A Chronicle story in 2006 warned of a deteriorating marine food chain off the
Environmental Jane Kay wrote, "By now, the offshore waters should be roiling with plankton and the shrimp-like krill, the foundation of the ocean's food chain. Instead, the researchers say, the organisms appear to be in short supply." ("Sea life counts dive for 2nd year - Decrease in essential plankton and krill disrupt food chain," June 23, 2006.)
To explain the lack of marine food production, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oceanographer Frank Schwing said, "The upwelling that we normally expect in the springtime hasn't kicked in.
We think there might be real consequences for the seabirds, fish and mammals."
This year's salmon season for the Bay Area coast was supposed to open on April 5, but the opener has been postponed and the season is in jeopardy because of a collapse of stocks. Salmon that spawn or are released from hatcheries in the
"It is pretty clear that poor ocean conditions in 2006 and 2007 are the major factor in the decline in salmon abundance this year (and projected for next year)," said John Carlos Garza of the federal Southwest Fisheries Science Center out of Pacific Grove.
Since coho salmon on coastal streams have also declined, that also indicates that the problem is largely focused with ocean conditions. "The only thing that they all share in common is their residence in the coastal ocean," he said.
He said that high water exports out of the Delta and direct fish losses at water pumps could explain why salmon from the
With low rain and snow last year, and yet high water exports to points south, fall-run salmon were down 80 percent in the San Joaquin River Basin, with only 1,158 fish, according to the San Joaquin Basin Newsletter.
"Concurrent declines," Garza said, in other Delta species, such as the endangered Delta smelt, makes it "seem likely" that Delta conditions are a contributing factor.
"As with most things, it appears that there are multiple causes to the salmon decline," Garza said. Based on his group's studies, he predicted dramatic fluctuations in the future.
Chronicle readers have suggested additional reasons why the salmon have disappeared:
Wiped out by netters: Foreign trawlers, the giant mother ships that drag huge scoop nets, have the capabilities to wipe out thousands of salmon with one swipe of the net, and they do so without
Humboldt squid: Voracious swarms of 50-pound Humboldt squid, which seem to devour everything in their path, are now wintering off the Bay Area coast and have located and annihilated schools of salmon (and rockfish).
Predators galore: High numbers of predators, including sea lions, elephant seals and killer whales, are eating the fish into a decline, similar to how mountain lions killing both deer and Sierra bighorns have put those species on the brink in the
Using smolts as striper feed: By releasing salmon smolts from the hatcheries on a routine schedule in the Lower Delta, they have trained striped bass into a feeding program, where the smolts get wiped out every time they're plunked in the water.
Delta fish grinders: The suction force of the Delta pumps, which reverses tide flows near
Carrying capacity: The basic "carrying capacity" of the rivers/delta/bay system, that is, the amount of food and freshwater available as habitat, has declined because of water diversion and industrial pollution, and in turn, the habitat can support far fewer fish than in the past. #
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/23/SPCAVNC8F.DTL
Pacific Fishery Management Council to Choose Final Option for 2008 Salmon Season
YubaNet.com – 3/21/08
By Pacific Fishery Management Council
On March 14, the Council adopted three public review options for the 2008 salmon season, two of which would totally close fisheries for Chinook salmon off
"The 2008 salmon season considerations have been dominated by the unprecedented collapse of the large
Options
A detailed table of options is available online.1
The options for the area south of
Option I allows a small amount of recreational and commercial ocean Chinook fishing, and a small quota for
Under Option I, sport Chinook fishing would be open on the following
dates: April 15 - June 15 from Cape Falcon to Humbug Mountain (Oregon); Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day weekends for areas between Humbug Mountain (southern Oregon) and Pigeon Point (central California); and May 18-26 south of Pigeon Point. In addition, mark ' selective coho' only fishing (for coho that were marked at the hatchery) would be allowed between Cape Falcon and the Oregon/California border from June 22-August 31, or until a quota of up to 10,000 coho are caught.
Ocean commercial Chinook fishing would be allowed April 15-May 31 between
Option II allows a catch-and-release genetic research experiment for Chinook salmon south of
Option III would allow no ocean salmon fishing, and also assumes salmon could not be kept in
North of Cape Falcon to the U.S./Canada border, the three options range from a quota of 15,000 to 25,000 coho (last year's limit was 140,000), and 45,000 to 25,000 Chinook (last year's limit was 32,500), split between commercial and recreational fishermen.
BACKGROUND:
The Sacramento River is the driver of commercial and recreational fisheries off
Economic impacts
The economic implications of the low abundance of
The potential closure is devastating news to beleaguered salmon fleets on the west coast. California and Oregon ocean salmon fisheries are still recovering from a poor fishing season in 2005 and a disastrous one in 206, when Klamath River fall Chinook returns were below their spawning escapement goal. The catch of salmon in 2007 in these areas was also well below average, as the first effects of the Sacramento River fall Chinook stock collapse was felt.
Causes
The reason for the sudden collapse of the
The Council has requested a multi-agency task force led by the National Marine Fisheries Service's West Coast Science Centers to research about 50 potential caustive areas and report back to the Council at the September meeting in
"After everyone asks how this could have happened, the question then becomes 'is there anything we can do to fix it?'," said Council Chairman Don Hansen. "The Council will take an immediate step to fix what it has authority to fix, which is appropriately managing the ocean fisheries that affect this valuable resource."
Process
The Council will accept public comment on the salmon options until April 1, and at its April 7 12 meeting in
Public hearings to receive input on the options are scheduled for March 31 in
At its meeting in
Final Council action is scheduled for Thursday, April 10. The National Marine Fisheries Service is expected to make a decision to implement the Council recommendation into federal regulations before May 1. The California Fish and Game Commission will set freshwater seasons affecting
All Council meetings are open to the public. #
Nine arrested for poaching salmon, sturgeon in the Sacramento River and Delta
By Matt Weiser, staff writer
State wildlife officials arrested nine
One of the suspects was on probation for similar crimes committed last year.
Wardens from the California Department of Fish and Game said the suspects illegally netted recently spawned chinook salmon as the fish attempted to migrate downstream to the sea. These fish were allegedly used as bait to catch oversize sturgeon, which were then processed illegally for the black-market caviar trade.
State fishing rules allow anglers to keep sturgeon that measure only between 46 and 66 inches long.
In an investigation, officials observed suspects taking two sturgeon 79 and 86 inches long. At that size, the fish are considered among the Delta's oldest and most prolific breeders. A third sturgeon was discovered during the arrests Friday but was cut into too many pieces to measure accurately.
"What poachers are doing is damaging our broodstock," said Warden Steven Stiehr, who patrols the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. "So next year we may see even tougher fishing restrictions."
It was the department's sixth major investigation into sturgeon poaching since 2003. Wardens said the arrests illustrate a problem that is outpacing their enforcement ability.
"We are at our wits' end with groups like this who continue to just poach and poach and poach for personal profit," said Warden Patrick Foy. "It's sturgeon in
Last year's fall chinook salmon run was the second-lowest on record. To protect the species, a total ban on commercial and recreational salmon fishing in
In this case, Stiehr said, the impact is especially troubling because poachers may have handicapped future populations.
The surveillance operation produced enough evidence against the suspects to justify search warrants. In raids that began at 6 a.m. Friday, wardens collected fishing gear, firearms, illegal fireworks and marijuana plants at seven south
The nine suspects were booked into the
One suspect, Su Fou Saechou, 20, served jail time last year and was on probation for poaching sturgeon, Foy said. His probation terms required him to stay away from the
The other three felony arrests included his brothers, Kao Fou Saechao, 27, and A Fou Saechao, 26. The fourth is Pahin Saephan, 25.
The other five were arrested on misdemeanors and are being held on $7,500 bail each: Pao Sio Chiew, 30; Ricky Saechao, 21; Torn Seng Saechao, 22; Cheng Chiew Saechao, 27; and Louchio Saeturn, 26. #
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/803983.html
Editorial: WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO SAVE THE SALMON?
San Francisco Chronicle – 3/23/08
It's a drastic step that could keep hundreds of commercial skippers and thousands of weekend fishermen ashore. It could also open a debate over the iconic fish's future and its mountains-to-sea life cycle that touches nearly every hot-button conservation topic from climate change to dam demolition.
The state's salmon mother lode, the
No one disputes the numbers: only 68,000 were counted against a bare-minimum expectation of 122,000. This drop has brought a federal agency, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, to the brink of canceling this summer's salmon season, with a decision due next month.
It's the nuclear option in the fishing world, but it's met with acceptance by fishing groups, biologists and environmentalists. With stocks so low - and next year possibly as bad - no one sees an alternative.
Salmon challenge
Logging, crop spraying, soil tilling, and riverside cattle-grazing are also harmful.
Fishing groups and environmentalists have long complained about these issues, venting most of their wrath on delta water pumps that suck up young fish and disrupt water flows.
But the newest factor is climate change as shown by a shift in ocean currents. Instead of bringing up nutrients from the deep, the currents have changed as ocean temperatures have risen. Since salmon spend most of their life at sea, the impact is crucial. Will the currents change for good - or is it a brief disruption? Restoring salmon stocks will be much harder if the ocean's food supply stays scarce.
The salmon's decline underlines another problem. No one is really in charge of the fish and its fortunes. The Pacific Fishery Management Council was conceived 32 years ago along with other coastal councils around the nation to put fishing experts and industry representatives in charge of their resource. It sets yearly catch limits, but its authority stops where the ocean gives way to fresh water.
If this mixed-up oversight causes confusion, there's no reason for state leaders to dodge their duties. Logging can't be allowed to destroy fish habitat. Fish populations could revive if dams on the
A changing ocean may be beyond control, but the fish need help elsewhere in their journey to the sea. That should be
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/22/MNP3VG03D.DTL
Plan to restore river at risk; Water district demand threatens renewal deal for the San Joaquin
By Michael Doyle, Bee
The unexpected move means Westlands has raised its price for supporting restoration of the river, long after negotiators thought the district was already on board. The hardball tactic also further unsettles a deal that has already endured considerable tumult.
Earlier this month, the Madera Irrigation District first voted to withdraw from the river settlement and then several days later agreed to stick with it.
"We've had enough challenges moving the [river] legislation as it is," Friant Water Users Authority general manager Ron Jacobsma said Friday. "Having opposition doesn't help."
On Wednesday, Westlands General Manager Tom Birmingham advised key
The demand for equal treatment appears designed to pressure environmental groups, which support the river restoration deal but remain skeptical about the irrigation drainage plan.
"What's good for the goose is good for the gander,"
The Westlands board president, Los Banos farmer Jean Sagouspe, warned in a letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein that Westlands "would withhold its agreement" from the river deal and "expect other" water districts to do the same unless Westlands' irrigation drainage demands were met.
"The linkage between the two is problematic, at least for us," Jacobsma said.
The Westlands maneuver, for the first time, explicitly connects two ambitious but distinct water-related projects.
The first is a proposal to restore water and salmon to the
The second project addresses irrigation drainage problems afflicting the Valley's west side. The federal Bureau of Reclamation is legally responsible, because the government never built a promised drain.
"These are two significant environmental problems in the
Westlands has proposed that it assume responsibility for fixing the drainage problem. In return, Westlands would pay off early $147 million for construction of San Luis Reservoir and other facilities. That is significantly less that the $270 million present value of what the water district owes the
Until now, the river restoration and irrigation drainage problems have moved on separate tracks.
"The Friant settlement is not the Westlands drainage issue; nor, I believe, should it be," Feinstein said Friday.
"Each will either stand on its own merit or fall on its own merit."
A $500 million river restoration bill authorizing levee repairs and other work passed the House Natural Resources Committee last fall. A companion Senate measure could move by April.
The irrigation drainage plan is still being drafted. The general outlines, though, vex environmentalists. They worry about Westlands prepaying the $147 million to the federal government, and the district seeking exemption from tight acreage limits.
Current federal law limits farmers from receiving subsidized water rates on more than 160 acres.
Friant farmers would enjoy similar provisions for acreage limits and loan prepayment under the
"If [the provisions] are appropriate elements of a settlement of the Friant litigation, they are appropriate elements of a settlement of the drainage litigation," Sagouspe wrote.
Technically, Westlands does not have a vote in the
Jacobsma said Friday that "we're sorting through" Westlands' new demand. Environmental attorney Hal Candee could not be reached to comment Friday. #
http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/478460.html
UC Davis global warming researcher paints dire picture for Lake Tahoe
By Tom Knudsen, staff writer
"That was the correct response," said Schladow, who directs the UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center.
The news about one of
That, in turn, could trigger a wave of ecological disruptions from a "dead zone" at the bottom to unprecedented algae blooms near the surface, changing the clear, predominantly cobalt blue lake to murky green.
Schladow characterized such a change as "a really scary thing."
Just as the melting permafrost in the
What they are finding troubles them.
"Lakes around the world … are showing extreme stress, particularly in their ability to mix," said Charles Goldman, an internationally recognized lake scientist at UC Davis.
Goldman and other scientists are gathering today at Tahoe for a workshop on lakes and climate change. Among those attending is Michio Kumagai, a Japanese researcher and eyewitness to the problems at
"Last year, we had a warm winter and a hot summer – so
Tahoe could one day resemble
Water treatment costs could increase, due to algae blooms. And the fabled mackinaw, a trout introduced to
"This would be a real change of state for the lake," said Robert Coats, a UC Davis research ecologist in the conference audience Tuesday. "It would be the kind of thing people call a tipping point."
The "worst-case scenario," Coats added, would be the release of large volumes of phosphorus, a nutrient that spurs algae growth, now locked in sediment on the lake bottom. "In a very short time, the lake would go from blue to green," he said.
Schladow's new research grew out of a 2006 study by him, Coats, Goldman and others that was published in the journal Climate Change. It found
While that change may seem small, Schladow said it is significant: A warmer lake is more stable and more resistant to mixing.
One reason for the change, he said, is a trend toward warmer nights at the lake over the past century. Since 1911, the average annual nighttime low has risen more than four degrees and now is close to the freezing point of 32 degrees.
A glittering sheet of mica in the morning sun, a summer getaway for generations of Californians, a blue gem encircled by snowcapped mountains – Lake Tahoe is all of that and more. But its beauty belies a maze of threats unknown to many.
Over four decades, Goldman has documented a steady decline in the lake's fabled clarity – from 102 feet in 1968 to 68 feet in 2006. Urban runoff, soil erosion and algae blooms are among the culprits. Now – if Schladow is correct – another challenge looms: global warming.
Tahoe Regional Planning Agency spokesman Dennis Oliver said staff is working on ways to reduce carbon emissions in the basin. But clearly global climate change transcends Tahoe.
Schadlow's research, which he presented for the first time this week, looks into the future by applying a widely used climate change model.
He found that an air temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit didn't have much impact, but when combined with a 10 percent rise in long-wave solar radiation trapped in the atmosphere by moisture and greenhouse gases, the lake's deep mixing would stop in 2019.
Mixing of lake water is critical because it transports oxygen-bearing water to the bottom and recirculates nitrogen and other nutrients closer to the surface, where they become food for algae, the building blocks of the food chain.
Normally, the 1,645-foot-deep
Should such deep mixing stop, Schladow said, Tahoe would lose "one more aspect of its uniqueness: the fact that it was always oxygen-rich."
No one knows exactly what will happen if the lake warms and stops deep mixing. But Schladow has given the matter more thought than most.
With no oxygen at the bottom, an inky world of opossum shrimp, worms, zooplankton and mackinaw may morph into a "dead zone," he said. Then, phosphorus trapped in the sediment could be swept to the surface, fueling algae blooms and fouling the lake's clarity.
New kinds of algae could flourish, too, including species that impart taste and odors or clog filters. That would mean costly improvements for communities that rely on the lake for drinking water, Schladow said.
Improving clarity and decreasing algae growth long have been goals of
"Let's say we're getting years of phosphorus being brought up (from the bottom) while people are spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to reduce phosphorus coming in," he said. "It cuts across efforts that people are undertaking, with the best of intentions, and with good advice. It could force a re-evaluation of how the lake is managed." #
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/804318-p2.html
INVASIVE SPECIES:
A beetle can save our water; But it would have to eat the thirsty tamarisk bush, home of the Southwest willow flycatcher, an endangered species
Las Vegas
By Phoebe Sweet, staff writer
Diorhabda elongata is a very picky eater — picky, but voracious.
Commonly called the tamarisk leaf beetle after the invasive tree it loves to eat, the tiny insect is the secret weapon against what some biologists have called the worst ecological disaster in the history of the western
For the desert population of
Across the West, there has been an ongoing battle to get rid of the invasive scrubby tree, but the tamarisk, also known as salt cedar, is formidable. It can survive floods, fires and drought and rebound after being attacked with machinery and chemicals.
In the end, it turned out that nature had the answer all along.
But in
The flycatcher, which once lived in willow trees along stream banks throughout the Southwest, has adapted to nest in tamarisks since the foreign plant devastated the bird’s natural nesting grounds.
Although the beetle could be the answer to getting rid of the tamarisk — the first step toward restoring the flycatcher’s natural willow habitat — scientists fear killing the tamarisk would also kill the bird. Protected by the Endangered Species Act since 1995, the bird has prevented the tamarisk troops from using the beetles in parts of Southern Nevada,
But the beetles are headed our way on their own.
A good idea gone bad
The tamarisk and the tamarisk leaf beetle are both native to Europe, Asia and parts of
As with many invasive species introduced by American settlers, the plant’s true character was unknown. Today its history is offered up offhand as a cautionary tale about the supremacy of nature or the folly of mankind.
Some critics argue that introducing the beetle on purpose isn’t much different from those first settlers’ planting tamarisk in the desert to shade their modest homes.
They say the concept of biological control, introducing a non-native insect not knowing the full effect, is troubling in itself. They fear the beetle could develop a devastating taste for native plants.
“There is no way to say they would never adapt to feed on any other plant. But there are a lot of barriers,” said Dan Bean, an entomologist with the Colorado Agriculture Department.
Tamarisk leaf beetles are specifically adapted to eat tamarisk, a difficult plant for most bugs to digest, and have a specially attuned sense of smell that helps them locate the plants.
Beetle proponents think the risks are worth it. Bean called the tamarisk infestation a disaster.
“The tamarisk is bad enough that we’re willing to take some risks with the solution,” he said.
After a decade of study, tamarisk leaf beetles were loosed in parts of the West to provide tamarisk with the one thing it lacks here: a “predator.” Scientists couldn’t have hoped for a happier result.
In 2001, 1,400 beetles got off to a slow start in Lovelock, about 100 miles from
Although it will take them years to devastate the tamarisks in Lovelock — previously blanketed with the nasty plants — Bean says they will prevail.
In Lovelock, “there were beetles everywhere. That’s what we had hoped for,” Bean said. “It’s a slow death, but eventually (tamarisks) suffer mortality. And that’s happening over some pretty vast stretches of
Since the success around Lovelock, the beetles have been set free in selected areas of
Tamarisk water consumption declines 65 percent over the course of a season when beetles are present, according to Tom Dudley, an ecologist with UC Santa Barbara and UNR. After three years of coexisting with the beetle, the plant has a water use decline of 90 percent.
Those are the kinds of statistics that make ecologists big fans of the beetles. But even if the willow flycatcher had not been an obstacle, the initial batch of beetles probably wouldn’t have worked at
Scientists discovered those beetles had a weakness. The ones released south of a certain line of latitude disappeared. Scientists say that’s because the bugs are sensitive to the length of the day and hibernate early when days are shorter than 14 hours and 45 minutes. They have fewer offspring, go to sleep in early July and eventually starve to death over the winter.
So researchers working on the project returned to Europe to look for a better beetle, one that could thrive in
“These beetles have the potential to be preadapted to someplace like
The problem here is “if the beetles do well, we don’t necessarily have alternative habitat, native vegetation, for (willow flycatchers) to move into,” said Debra Hill, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “No one thinks that (tamarisk) is good, but we do have an endangered species that is nesting in it.”
Jack DeLoach, an entomologist with the U.S. Agriculture Department and a longtime beetle researcher, said the bug’s supporters are cautious about its effect on the flycatcher, too.
“It’s difficult to test this kind of thing, and you can’t be testing an endangered species,” he said.
Hill said she knows the beetles are effective at taking out tamarisks — an admirable goal.
“When these beetles do take off ... they can take out a large swath of salt cedar for a hundred miles,” she said.
But until there’s a plan to revegetate with native plants in which flycatchers can nest, it’s Fish and Wildlife’s duty to protect the delicate bird, Hill said. And replacing those plants could cost millions of dollars, experts say.
Tim Carlson, executive director of
Curt Deuser, an ecologist with the National Park Service tasked with controlling tamarisk on parklands, says the traditional boots-on-the-ground methods of using bulldozers, root rakes and chemical sprays to control tamarisk can’t match the efficiency of the beetles.
Deuser, who has been directing crews on parkland in eradication efforts since 1995, said he thinks the insects are “the best long-term management for tamarisk in
There simply isn’t enough time, money or manpower to kill the trees manually or with chemicals.
“Hand crews aren’t the way to go. It’s way too expensive. You need larger-scale methods,” he said.
Another advantage the beetles hold over traditional methods is their constancy. Vacillating interest in tamarisk doesn’t bother them. “They work through the funding cycles,” Deuser said.
They’re on their way
Whether or not flycatcher advocates like it, descendants of the beetles already released in the
Already the Lovelock beetles are slowly spreading south, adapting to the climate as they go, Bean said. And with 2 million acres of their favorite food spread out before them, they have plenty of incentive to continue their march.
“I believe they’re probably going to be coming here whether we like it or not,” Deuser said.
Three or four generations of beetles can live and die in a single summer. Beetles released in
Hill said beetle researchers revealed at a recent meeting in
“Soon we will have a chance to see what will happen when we do have flycatchers and beetles in the same place,” Hill said.
The original release of the beetle in eight Western locations went through years of study and a rigorous review process by the federal Agriculture Department’s animal and plant health inspection service, which regulates release of all “biocontrol” agents, or natural weed managers such as the beetle.
There are those who think the flycatcher will adapt to the lack of tamarisk as it did to the plant’s original appearance.
“I am supportive of the flycatcher and want it to survive,” Deuser said. “But I believe it will adapt. It’s adapted already to the widespread reduction of willow. I’m confident it will survive through beetle infestation as well and adapt (back) to native plants in the future.”
DeLoach said the beetles don’t work so quickly that the flycatcher’s habitat will disappear all at once, either. As tamarisks are defoliated, they must be replaced slowly, over years, by native plants, he said.
And
Dudley said a team of a dozen scientists will study the effects of the beetles in
Even if the tamarisk leaf beetle were released in
“You’re not going to get complete control anywhere,” DeLoach said. “Biological control won’t ever do that.
You never eradicate the plant.”
Once the beetles truly beat the tamarisk back, their own populations start to decline. Then the cycle begins again.
“Even if you had enough money and tried to eradicate (tamarisk), it’s not going to happen,” Bean said. “It’s all a matter of balance.” #
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/mar/23/beetle-can-save-our-water/#
Letters from
By Dana Wilke, staff writer
With just five months until federal regulators socked it to the owners of small recreational boats,
Barbara Boxer, the Democrat who now heads the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, introduced a bill this month designed to exempt these boat owners from having to buy potentially costly permits to cover the discharges from their vessels.
The National Marine Manufacturers Association – the group that stood to lose considerable business if folks were scared off the waters by new permit fees – couldn't be happier.
“This issue has been a cloud hanging over our industry,” said Scott Gudes, vice president of government relations for the 1,700-member association, which runs the annual San Diego Boat Show and represents about 30 boating groups.
Recreational boaters found themselves in a complicated predicament after a federal court last year required the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate “effluent discharges incidental to the normal operation of vessels.”
The ruling by the U.S. District Court for
But the court's order also covered discharges from smaller recreational boats – including the water used to cool the boat's engine, the “bilge” water that collects at the boat's lowest point, the “gray” water from a boat's sink or shower and the deck runoff.
The court gave the EPA until September to create a new permitting plan for all vessels covered under the ruling – which includes about 1 million mechanically propelled boats registered in
Boxer's bill, “The Clean Boating Act of 2008,” would exempt recreational boats from the new permitting scheme. Without the legislation, a boater wanting to travel the waters from
It's too early for boat owners to uncork the champagne. Congress must still pass the legislation, and the president must sign it. #
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/politics/20080324-9999-1m24letter.html
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