[Water_news] 3. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: WATERSHEDS - 4/4/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

April 4, 2008

 

3. Watersheds

 

QUAGGA MUSSELS:

Statewide attention brought to Lakeport for quagga-dogs presentation - Lake County Record Bee

 

CARMEL RIVER TROUT RUNS:

Guest Column: Dam pushing trout to brink - Monterey Herald

 

 

QUAGGA MUSSELS:

Statewide attention brought to Lakeport for quagga-dogs presentation

Lake County Record Bee – 4/3/08

By Rick Kennedy, Managing Editor

 

LAKEPORT -- Attracting statewide notice Thursday afternoon, the California Department of Fish and Game brought five state-certified quagga dogs to the docks of Lakeport's Library Park for a live dog inspection simulation. Boats, both setup and random, put the canines to the test for three-hours sniffing out frozen quagga samples.

 

DFG Lt. Lynette Shimek said the test took a special significance, "The quagga presents potential threats throughout California, not just Lake County, but anyplace lakes and reservoirs exist. These five dogs from around the state were trained and quagga-certified February 15. With the high level of concern about Clear Lake, this is a good time and place for a live training exercise."

 

Shimek, a former Lake County warden, is now the DFG's K-9 Program Coordinator for all of California. The DFG's deployment of K-9 units to sniff out the mussels is cutting-edge, she said, adding that California will be the first state to use dogs to detect them.

 

"We are certainly in the spotlight now not only in California but many other states are looking at us to see how this works. This quagga threat scares the heck out of me. This is a proactive step to stop this invasive species," she said.

 

Television cameras, reporters, and curious onlookers looked on as the dogs were put through their paces. Six boats were parked at the Library Park off-ramp, half setup with planted frozen mussels, and half were random boats from nearby spectators. Frozen mussels were planted in the pipes and interiors of the setup boats, too.

 

The dogs were then tasked to find the mussels and signal detection to their handlers.

 

"They've been through the training in Willits, but it is good to get them out in field in a real world training exercise. A setting like this in Lakeport presents a great test for them," she said.

 

One dog, Copper, started off strong, but after several television shots and pictures, the canine was clearly excited by all the interest. Hanging its tongue with mouth wide open, Copper's trainer Roxanne Bowers, an Alameda County DFG officer, said, "He's really huffing out there. It is time for a rest. He's been very active with all the attention."

 

Shimek said the dogs and their respective trainers had completed four weeks of academy training in Willits for quagga detection, but she added that the canines were multiple-purpose dogs also trained for firearms, drug searches, and manhunts.

 

Speaking to the Bay Area media, Shimek noted the trained dogs scenting capabilities as being several times stronger than a human's which makes the canines very useful for numerous field applications, and they are trained to detect many odors, such as abalone, gun powder and deer.

 

"These dogs are not only trained for quaggas, but they can locate an expended rifle cartridge casing in the woods or a quagga mussel on the intake of a boat motor," she said.

 

There will eventually be 24 dogs trained and certified for quagga detection throughout the state over the next 12 months. The designated Lake County dog and its handler Warden Loren Freeman will be certified April 25, according to Shimek. #

http://www.record-bee.com/local/ci_8802171

 

 

CARMEL RIVER TROUT RUNS:

Guest Column: Dam pushing trout to brink

Monterey Herald – 4/4/08

By John G. Williams, hydrology consultant in Davis

 

Sixty years ago, when I was a boy and artichokes grew where Mission Fields and the Crossroads now stand, there were still a lot of steelhead in the Carmel River.

 

No one knows just how many, but there were enough that fishermen's parked cars would line both sides of Highway 1 north and south of the bridge during steelhead season. At the same time, steelhead migrating up the Carmel River encountered a new barrier: Los Padres Dam.

 

Now there are not so many steelhead, so few that they are listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. Many people would like to know what can be done about it. Some say taking out San Clemente Dam, eight miles downstream from Los Padres, will be a big help. I'm skeptical. I think Los Padres is the main problem.

 

About 30 years ago, when I wrote a Carmel River watershed management plan for the water management district, I asked old-timers and retired Fish & Game biologists about steelhead. I found the transcript of a 1929 trial about property boundaries near the river mouth that included much testimony about steelhead fishing.

 

People testifying about the behavior of the river mouth mostly knew about it from fishing. This confirmed that the population used to be large. For example, J. H. Steward, who grew up on the Mission Ranch, testified that "in winter time, us boys were spearing those steelheads night and day."

 

The short story is that the steelhead population generally declined as diversions from the river increased, but declined more sharply after construction of Los Padres. San Clemente Dam had a fish ladder that evidently worked, because the run held up fairly well after the dam was built in 1921, though the only late summer flow in the river below San Clemente was leakage around the dam. The best spawning and rearing habitat is in the upper watershed, mostly above Los Padres. That kept the population going.

 

Instead of a ladder, Los Padres had a fish trap, from which steelhead were trucked around the dam. The trap didn't work well. Local lore had it that not all trapped fish made it back to the river. Worse, juveniles migrating downstream had to pass down a chute that dumped them onto a rock. The result was that migrating from the upper watershed to the ocean and back again turned into a bad bet for the fish, and it appears that over time fewer and fewer of them did so. Recently, only about a quarter of the steelhead that pass San Clemente also pass Los Padres.

 

A steelhead whose hormones tell it to migrate doesn't have a lot of choice, but not all of them get the urge. Those that don't are called rainbow trout. The parsimonious interpretation of available information is that fish in the upper watershed have evolved toward a resident lifestyle. One consequence is that unless passage problems at Los Padres are solved, taking out San Clemente won't do a lot for steelhead.

 

Evidently, something has to be done with San Clemente. The question is whether taking it out is worth a lot of public money that could be spent on other things. As you can see on Google satellite, some nice alluvial habitat is developing on the "San Clemente Flats." As fine sediments start to accumulate, it will become highly productive for plants and animals, as well as steelhead.

 

There is one clear winner from the the latest dam removal proposal — California American Water. For just the cost of bracing its dam, Cal Am will get rid of a big liability. Under the proposal by the state Coastal Conservancy, the rest of the removal cost would be borne by taxpayers and others. If the plan goes through, Cal Am gets off easy, agencies that have done precious little about the utility's illegal diversions from the Carmel River will have a project to boast about, and the public will pay in more ways than one. #

http://www.montereyherald.com/opinion/ci_8807359?nclick_check=1

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