Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
November 26, 2008
3. Watersheds –
Decision to not stock lakes irks some mountain counties
Sacramento
Salmon one of nature's endangered
Marysville Appeal Democrat
Editorial:
Stop handing Delta water rules to activists
San Diego
Overwhelmed by conservation, Yolo County
Supervisors consider local regulation of mitigation efforts
Sacramento
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Decision to not stock lakes irks some mountain counties
Sacramento
By Phillip Reese and Cathy Locke
Alpine County depends heavily on fishing.
Plentiful trout in the sparsely populated area 45 miles southeast of
So when the state Department of Fish and Game this week released a list of lakes and streams that won't be stocked with fish until at least 2010, it landed in Alpine County with a thud.
"These waters are our economy," said Skip Veatch, an Alpine County supervisor and its former sheriff. "If they are not populated our economy is going to go down the drain."
Last week, state Fish and Game officials agreed to stop stocking fish reared in hatcheries – including trout, bass and catfish – in lakes and streams where the practice threatens 16 native fish and nine native frog species. The deal was struck with environmental groups pushing reforms of state hatchery and stocking programs.
After a tense weekend, several communities got the news Monday: The Sierra would be hit hard.
Eleven lakes or streams in Alpine County won't be stocked until at least 2010. Sixteen
In
"That's trophy trout fishing," said Dan Bacher, editor of the Fish Sniffer, a biweekly magazine for fish enthusiasts, referring to
Bacher said he has mixed feelings about the state's announcement. Fish are threatened in many places, and something needs to be done. But the lakes that won't be stocked seem random, Bacher said. And the wild fish now in those lakes might see their ranks drastically reduced.
"What might seem like a good thing for the environment – if they are putting pressure on the wild population, that's going to have the opposite effect," Bacher said.
Others offered an unqualified endorsement of the new measures.
"A lot of these lakes were historically barren," said David Lass,
In many cases, Lass said, stocking lakes and streams with hatchery fish has run counter to the state's mission of preserving native species.
"The Department of Fish and Game has kind of just been haphazardly planting fish for recreational value," Lass said. "This will make the Department of Fish and Game take a look at (its) stocking program and be strategic about it."
Others said many fisherman prefer catching wild fish, anyway. Casual fishermen who like easy catches will be disappointed, they say.
Philosophical debates aside, most agree the new rules will have a negative short-term impact on communities that depend on visits from anglers, especially those near the high-altitude, smaller lakes that tended to be targeted.
"Our county is in really bad shape," said Tonya Dowse, executive director of the Siskiyou County Economic Development Council. "So, obviously, this is very bad news."
About three dozen lakes in
"We want to make sure nothing goes extinct, but I suppose we're just another place where they've not shown a balance," said Jim Cook, a
That imbalance has created a situation where some counties with multiple lakes that won't be stocked sit next to counties that hardly will be impacted at all.
Many popular fishing lakes, including Folsom Lake and
"We could actually get some traffic coming our way," said Dan Lyster, director of Economic Development for
The lakes and streams were chosen according to the specific terms of a court order, said Fish and Game spokeswoman Jordan Traverso. The list is still tentative.
One option available to Cook and others is to stock the lakes themselves, Traverso confirmed. But that's unlikely given the tough budget situation many counties are in.
"Alpine County lives on a thread and they're going to destroy the economy," said Melanie Sue Bowers, whose family has owned a cabin on
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1428494.html
Salmon one of nature's endangered
Marysville Appeal Democrat – 11/26/08
By Howard Yune, staff
It was a giant among salmon, three times the size of its peers — an 85-pounder that turned up in the upper
But the reason for the fish's girth had a darker layer — a population crash that has led to severely restricting fishing on West Coast shores and rivers.
"It had its last year basically free because there was no commercial fishery," said Doug Killam, a state Department of Fish and Game researcher in
The giant salmon discovered in late October, 20 miles south of Red Bluff, was one of a much-thinned field in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, where record low counts of chinook salmon have shrunk the Mid-Valley's angling season and started to threaten the businesses and tourism linked to it.
"The preliminary results are that they're similar to last year's returns — which were dismal," said Scott Barrow, a senior Fish and Game biologist in
Fall salmon counts have plunged nearly 90 percent from their 2002 peak of about 800,000, leading to a federal cancellation this year of ocean fishing and a shortened, restricted season for
Fish and Game delayed the
State biologists are surveying the current salmon run by checking video footage around the river, doing riverbank surveys on foot and counting dead fish, said Killam. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, regulator of West Coast fisheries, will release the season's salmon count in late January.
Any improvement leans heavily on winter rainfall breaking a string of nearly two full years of below-average precipitation, which have helped drive down river levels and impede salmon's journeys from the ocean to the rivers to spawn. The need for rain is more acute with the Delta's water nourishing not only
"The tributaries, the dams at Oroville and Shasta, they're so low now that if they're not replenished, the whole state's going to be in trouble. The whole state depends on that," he said.
With dams and water pumps killing or slowing many salmon, authorities have stepped up releases of young salmon smolts downriver in hopes of easing their journey to the Pacific. Fish and Game has set out about 20 million smolts in the Sacramento Delta and the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife has released another 12 million, according to Harry Morse, a Fish and Game spokesman.
But the releases are only of limited help to anglers and the businesses dependent on them, a longtime Mid-Valley tackle shop owner, Mike Searcy said.
Birds, mammals and striped bass often find the young fish to be easy pickings "like putting a 3-year-old in front of a tiger," he said.
Those young fish surviving the gauntlet need two or three years in the ocean to mature to catchable size, perhaps more time than already battered business owners have.
"Either you have to find another way to make money without salmon, or you're going to close," said Searcy, who runs Star Bait and Tackle in Linda, where business is down 30 percent from a year ago. "You're going to see a lot of stores close, small ones and even big ones with their huge overhead."
Some good news came out of
Congress rejected the plan.#
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/news/salmon_71579___article.html/peers_among.html
Editorial:
Stop handing Delta water rules to activists
Environmental activists continue to deny Californians more water in the name of saving fish.
Last year, responding to an activist lawsuit, a federal judge ordered a 31 percent cut in water pumped from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta – a water supply for 25 million residents. The judge acted in an effort to end the decline of the three-inch-long Delta smelt.
Last year, responding to activists, a judge demanded that the Department of Water Resources, which runs the State Water Project in the Delta, get a permit to “take” Delta smelt. The California Fish and Game Commission ordered the state to restrict pumping to protect larval and juvenile as well as mature smelt.
Last year, responding to activists, the Fish and Game Commission ordered protection of a kindred fish, the longfin smelt. This action extends the pumping restriction period to six months of the year.
In February, responding to activists, the commission declared longfin smelt a candidate for state endangered species status. This month, the commission extended for 90 days restrictions to protect the longfin smelt from State Water Project pumps. It also rejected a request by the state Department of Water Resources to mitigate the impact of pumping impacts on longfin smelt in lieu of stopping the pumps.
Federal regulators, too, have a role. On Dec. 15, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will release its revised biological opinion on the Delta smelt's federal status. The fish is likely to be declared, again, endangered.
And the impact on smelt of the restrictions so far? Zero. In the last five years, eight smelt were caught in the pumps. The regulations have saved none. Others suspect other culprits in the smelt's decline, such as pollutants, invasive species and drought.
Only the pumps, however, offer the huge, adverse impacts on the water supply for 25 million residents.
Just how adverse is that impact? Between increasingly onerous smelt rules and continuing drought, the state Department of Water Resources projects that in 2009 wholesale water agencies may get as little as 15 percent of the water they need. Even record snowmelt in the
What would help? A new official attitude that comes right out of a state Supreme Court ruling and recognizes, as Director Don Koch of the Department of Fish and Game put it, “the importance of various agencies' responsibilities to protect both humans and fish.”
Also at work is the Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a move to address all possible hazards to Delta wildlife's overall health, including a system to convey water for people around instead of through the Delta. A sizable coalition led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and water and wildlife agencies will run up against the activists and their strident opposition to the dual duty for the Delta.
At least 25 million Californians north and south have all the reason they need to encourage the success of the coalition's efforts. #
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/editorial2/20081126-9999-lz1ed26bottom.html
Overwhelmed by conservation, Yolo County
Supervisors consider local regulation of mitigation efforts
By Celia Lamb, staff writer
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Five proposed and pending projects would convert about 2,500 to 3,000 acres from farmland to riparian wetlands, vernal pools and other habitats, Phil Pogledich, senior deputy county counsel, wrote in a report to the Board of Supervisors.
And there could be more acreage on the way. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, created by water agencies, environmentalists and state officials, proposes restoring and creating 100,000 acres of wetlands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Among the proposals: remove levees at the south end of the Deep Water Ship Canal, which connects to the Port of Sacramento, to inundate 2,000 to 5,000 acres of farmland.
County officials are concerned enough to consider regulating wildlife habitat projects. Although they have not proposed specific measures, they have suggested mimicking
Restoring habitat
The companies and agencies that want to build wetlands in the county have the same objective: to create and restore habitat for endangered and threatened species to offset damage in other places.
For example, ASB Properties, which is building the Yarbrough housing subdivision in West Sacramento’s Southport, wants to create 72 acres of inland wetlands as part of the 437-acre Putah Creek Wetland Mitigation Bank southeast of
Generally, Swainson’s hawks and wetlands are not compatible. Swainson’s hawks hunt for rodents by flying over low-lying field crops, such as alfalfa. But wetlands do provide habitat for other threatened species, such as giant garter snakes, salmon and Delta smelt.
Westlands Water District, which supplies irrigation water in the
Local coordination
The county is working on a habitat conservation plan, called the Yolo Natural Heritage Plan, that would coordinate wildlife projects for many species. The plan area overlaps with the Bay Delta Conservation Plan.
“It comes down to local versus statewide or regional authority,” McGowan said. “I’m a local government guy, and I happen to believe we know what’s best.”
County agricultural commissioner Rick Landon said the creation of wildlife habitat can indirectly impact farm operations on adjacent land. Waterfowl might mow down crops, for example.
Farmers also worry they might face production restrictions if an animal crosses over from a habitat area into their fields.
“Endangered species don’t know where the property line is,” Landon said.
County oversight of habitat projects might help reduce losses of good agricultural land, Landon said.
“Right now, there is absolutely no oversight,” he said. “You can buy land in
Mostly the county just wants the big-picture thinkers to pay more attention to local concerns, McGowan.
“I don’t know that we need an ordinance yet,” he said. Some organizations, including Westlands Water District, are open to a “collaborative approach,” he said.
“I’m at least cautiously optimistic,” he added.
Non-local interest
Bob Webber, manager of Reclamation District 999, which supplies water to farmers in
http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2008/11/24/story6.html?b=1227502800%5E1737616
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