[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 5/6/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

May 6, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People -

 

 

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation names chief for Sacramento office -

Sacramento Bee

 

Opinion:

Johanna Thomas: 'Catch share' process can help fisheries

Sacramento Bee

 

Shock over seal killings-

San Jose Mercury News

 

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U.S. Bureau of Reclamation names chief for Sacramento office

Sacramento Bee – 5/6/08

Bee Metro Staff

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has appointed Donald R. Glaser as the new mid-Pacific regional director, replacing Kirk Rodgers, who retired in August.

Glaser, 61, will take charge of the Sacramento regional office, which has a huge influence on water in California. It operates Folsom and Shasta dams as well as the Central Valley Project, a massive canal and pumping system that exports water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

 

Born in Long Beach, Glaser graduated from Santa Barbara High School and earned a bachelor's degree in business administration and economics from Eastern Montana University, now Montana State University at Billings. He worked for the Bureau of Reclamation for 20 years, starting in 1974, in several positions throughout the West and in Washington, D.C., including serving as assistant commissioner for resources management and deputy commissioner.

 

He has spent the past seven years managing nonprofits in the Denver area, including the Colorado Foundation for Water Education and the Douglas Land Conservancy, and was a senior manager and CEO of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

 

He also served as Colorado state director of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, and was executive director of the Presidential Commission on Western Water Policy.

Glaser rejoins the bureau as the agency is managing the $1.5 billion upgrade to Folsom Dam and is entwined in a host of environmental challenges confronting the Delta. He started work Monday and plans to move to Sacramento with his wife, Sandi, in the near future.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/915420.html

 

Opinion:

Johanna Thomas: 'Catch share' process can help fisheries

Sacramento Bee – 5/6/08

By Johanna Thomas – Special to the Bee

Manages Environmental Defense's Oceans program's effort to implement individual fishing quotas and other market-based solutions in the Pacific region.

 

If you've bought wild salmon recently you undoubtedly got hit with some serious sticker shock. Retail prices have nearly doubled from last year because the fish have largely disappeared off the California coast. If you're a fisherman, the shock is worse: Salmon is off limits to recreational and commercial harvests, leaving fishermen in a state of crisis. Unfortunately, the problems aren't just limited to salmon. Other fisheries such as Pacific rockfish, marketed as "red snapper," are also in trouble.

 

West Coast landings of rockfish or groundfish plunged by 70 percent during the last two decades, from an average of 74,000 tons in the 1980s to 22,214 tons in 2007. Revenues from the groundfish fell by more than half from 1997 to 2007, from $47.3 million to $22.2 million. In 2000, the U.S. Department of Commerce declared the fishery a disaster, due to major declines in nine of 82 species of groundfish. Today, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which governs West Coast fishing, lists seven species of rockfish as overfished.

 

The problem is not the fishermen. Fishermen have done everything that fishery managers have asked them to do. With fisheries continuing to fail, perhaps now is the time to reconsider the direction we've been taking with fishery management.

On June 8, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, one of eight regional councils governing fishing in U.S. waters, will meet in California on the future of Pacific groundfish. The council has an opportunity to incorporate management measures for harvesting Pacific groundfish that have worked well to recover fisheries in other regions. Opportunities to make fishing more profitable and sustainable also will be considered during a hearing today of the Joint Legislative Committee on Fisheries and Aquaculture in the Legislature's annual Fisheries Forum.

 

Historically, fishery management councils have responded to crisis through measures such as shorter fishing seasons and smaller daily limits. Instead of reducing the catch as intended, such regulations set up a "race for fish." The consequence has been dangerous fishing conditions, larger investments in boats and gear, a market glut and associated environmental damage. There are substantially better management techniques.

 

In several places in the United States and globally, fishermen have been given the right conservation incentives and accountability to fish more efficiently, conserve the resource and bring in better quality fish at a higher price. Similar to the current plight of U.S. Pacific groundfish, British Columbia was experiencing steep declines in groundfish landings in the mid-1990s. As a result, fishermen were put under increased regulations, raced to bring in as many fish as possible and received a lower price for their fish when the market was flooded.

 

In 1997, British Columbia launched a catch share program for their groundfish fleet. This program gave each boat a guaranteed "share" of the allowable rockfish catch for the year based on a combination of each vessel's catch history and size. The guarantee allowed fishermen to fish at their own pace. Since they could fish when prices were best, they could make a higher profit on fewer fish. In 1996, 29,000 tons of groundfish were landed in British Columbia with revenues worth $21 million.

 

In 2000, 26,000 tons of groundfish – 10 percent less than in 1996 – yielded more than a 60 percent increase in revenue, $34 million. And the program required a scientific observer to be aboard the boat, which provided better data about the health of the fishery and served as a basis for better fishery management decisions.

A similar catch share program is up for vote by the Pacific Fishery Management Council in June. It is critical that the council get this one right. With the correct safeguards in place and tools for fishermen, Pacific groundfish can experience the same comeback as was experienced in British Columbia. Much depends on what opportunities and flexibility fishermen have to make the right choices about how much, and when, to fish.#

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/915093.html

 

Shock over seal killings

San Jose Mercury News – 5/6/08

By Julia Prodis Sulek

SAN SIMEON - The waves cleansed this remote stretch of coastline Monday, where the tides have erased the blood of the three elephant seals and any footprints left when someone pointed a gun at the back of their heads and fired.

 

State game wardens severed the seals' heads Sunday to retrieve bullets for evidence, then buried the carcasses they feared were too gruesome for the tourists lining up along the bluff to see. But the surf unearthed one of them, and the turkey vultures made a meal of it.

 

It's a tough case to solve in this scenic, windswept place on a beach that has no name. Five miles north of Hearst Castle, a million motorists driving up and down Highway 1 each year pass by. Many of them make the turnoff to the parking lot at Elephant Seal Vista Point, where in almost any month of the year thousands of warbling seals are lounging on the sand.

 

Sometime Friday night or early Saturday morning - when there was but a sliver of moon and barely a flicker from the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse up the road - someone approached the elephant seals not with a camera, but with a gun.

 

The killings came a day before six sea lions were discovered dead - apparently shot - 700 miles away on the Columbia River on the border of Oregon and Washington. Authorities are investigating whether the two cases are connected. It appears doubtful, however, because the sea lions - which until two weeks earlier had been the subjects of limited, legal hunting because they eat endangered salmon - were found in traps.

 

"These animals don't feed on fish here and they were free, just laying on the beach," said state park ranger Bill Payne, who patrols the elephant seal beach. "You wonder what would drive a person to do it. There's got to be a lot of anger."

 

Volunteer docents making their rounds at 9 a.m. Saturday discovered the blood soaking into the sand. Two seals, about 3 and 4 years old, were found dead next to each other. At about 1,000 pounds each, they were too heavy to roll over to determine whether they were male or female. The third was a 5-year-old male.

Special Agent Roy Torres from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration traveled from his Monterey office to this little cove on Sunday looking for clues. He wouldn't say what he found.

 

"It could prove to be a difficult investigation," Torres said.

 

No witnesses?

There are no neighbors to interview. The nearby Piedras Blancas Motel and Cappuccino Cove just up the highway have long been shuttered. The only witnesses may be the 3,000 elephant seals - mostly juveniles and yearlings born in January and February - lounging on the beach as if nothing happened.

 

They are in molting season now, shedding their winter coats. The males jockey with each other, jawing each other like playful puppies. The females bark and yap and burrow into the sand. They scratch their peeling fur with their flippers and swat sand onto their backs.

 

Hundreds of tourists line the bluffs to watch them every day. A sign was posted along the fence-line Monday: "$5,000 reward," it said, offered for information that will lead to an arrest in the "seal poaching."

 

"There's no end to the cruelty people can display," said David Albin, who stopped at the elephant seal viewing area five miles north of Hearst Castle on his way home to Morgan Hill from Los Angeles Monday afternoon. "Shooting something defenseless in a game preserve at close range, that's without a heart."

Whether the killer lives somewhere in the area, or was just passing through, is still unknown. It's hard to know whether they jumped the fence after the docents had gone home at 4 p.m.

 

Torres said he's hoping someone saw something and will call the tip line. While he has received several messages, he wouldn't say whether they have been helpful.

 

Protected animals

Elephant seals are protected under the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act, which makes it illegal to harass, shoot or feed them. Violating the law can result in fines up to $20,000 and jail time. Because the crime occurred in the Monterey National Marine Sanctuary, an extra $130,000 fine may apply, Torres said.

"We would have hoped they would have been afforded some sanctuary," Torres said. "We would hope they would respect that."

Torres says that necropsies will be performed on the seal heads and the bullets will be extracted. "That's a critical bit of evidence," he said.

Ranger Payne, who patrols the elephant seal beach, said the killings are hard on all the rangers and volunteers.

"It's so rare it's kind of shocking," Payne said. "You've got to talk about it because you care for the animals. You become very protective."#

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_9167464

 

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