Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 24, 2009
3. Watersheds –
Oroville boaters making waves over state plan to change marina owners
Sacramento Bee
Houseboaters rally to resolve issues at Bidwell Marina
Chico Enterprise-Record
The river runneth out: Conservation groups raise worries about Klamath River tributaries
The Times-Standard
Can salmon undo Yosemite dam?
Fresno Bee
Feds to hold steelhead workshop
North County Times
Redding named one of North America's top 10 trout towns
Redding Searchlight
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Oroville boaters making waves over state plan to change marina owners
Sacramento Bee-8/23/09
By Ed Fletcher
Boat owners at Lake Oroville's Bidwell Canyon Marina are used to dealing with rough waters, but now an ongoing flap over the marina's operation that threatens to toss the entire 900-boat fleet from the lake has them fighting onshore.
In response to the state's decision not to grant him a 10-year extension to operate his marina, owner Frank Moothart alarmed boat owners by telling them they have to pull their boats from the lake. He said the action was necessary so he could remove the docks, slips, buoys, gas tanks and other equipment while there is still enough water in the lake to carry out the operation.
That deadline has come and gone, but the controversy remains.
Scores of boat owners – many sympathetic to Moothart – are rallying to save the marina.
They say they have launched a Web site, printed banners and become increasingly vocal.
State Department of Parks and Recreation officials were not available for comment. In the past, the state officials said they are not requiring that owners remove their boats from the marina. The officials said the state wants Moothart to update his facilities.
But without an arrangement for a new operator to buy the existing marina equipment, many boat owners say they are concerned they'll be displaced while a new operator gets ready to handle the $50 million worth of boats.
An initial round of bidding to operate the marina produced no acceptable applications, state officials wrote on the department's Web site. A second round ended Thursday.
Dan Kohort, who owns a 110-foot boat named The Office, and other boat owners are concerned that under the language of the state request for proposal, boat owners would not be able to transfer their mooring location to buyers or their children.
Also, moving a boat with 4,000 square feet of living space is no easy task. It would cost in the ballpark of $100,000 just to get it out of the water, Kohort said.
The owners of more modest houseboats said they too would have a hard time moving their vessels.
"It's a fiscal and physical impossibility," said Shannon Tonin of Truckee. She was on the lake Saturday with her children Hannah, 9; Hunter, 7; and Alexandra, 4.
She said her family bought the houseboat when Hannah was born.
"My two youngest took their first steps on this boat," Tonin said. "This is our life."
While many boat owners are sympathetic to the marina owner, Jerry Johnson isn't.
He pushed for the state not to renew the contract with Moothart.
Inside his 109-foot Mayberry H20 Johnson, the president of Lake Oroville Boat Owners Association clicks through picture after picture of boats being damaged, or being put in a position to be damaged, because of what he said is failing marina equipment.
Underwater cables hold floating docks and buoys in place. Johnson said they are failing far too often, most often during the winter months when boat owners are away.
"We'd like to see someone selected quickly and brought in quickly while the weather is still good to try to get this marina ready for the winter," Johnson said.#
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/2131673.html?mi_rss=Our%2520Region
Houseboaters rally to resolve issues at Bidwell Marina
Chico Enterprise-Record-8/23/09
By Toni Scott
What was advertised as a public meeting became more of a pep rally Saturday evening, with hundreds of boaters stating their desire to band together to resolve issues at Bidwell Marina.
Approximately 350 people attended the public meeting, hosted by Save Bidwell Marina, a campaign spearheaded by Oroville resident and houseboat owner Dan Kohrdt.
Kohrdt, along with a handful of other boaters, organized the meeting held at the Gold Country Casino, following a months-long contentious battle between California State Parks and current marina operator Frank Moothart of FunTime FullTime, Inc.
With boaters caught in the crossfire of the state's transition to a new concessionaire, Kohrdt said the gathering was a chance to step away from arguing and move toward becoming a unified front of concerned boat owners.
"We can't be bickering and fighting," Kohrdt said. "We've got to stick together. We've got to stop fighting one another."
Kohrdt's words reflected the common theme of the night, with speaker after speaker reiterating the need for boaters to collaborate in order to bring resolution to two major issues currently surrounding the marina — the transition of marina operators and the state's current desire to eliminate the legal transfer of mooring agreements on Lake Oroville.
"You need to get on the phone," said Butte County Supervisor Bill Connelly of Oroville. "You need to call your legislators and tell them we're not going to put up with this anymore."
A large majority of the night's speakers, including Kohrdt and master of ceremonies Gene Iacopi, expressed frustration with California State Parks, with Iacopi adding that the agency should have held public meetings like Saturday's to allow comments from boaters.
"This is something, frankly, that the state should have done," Iacopi said.
California State Parks officials were reportedly invited to the meeting, but were not present Saturday night.
The agency did hold a public meeting in March at the Lake Oroville Visitor Center regarding the Request For Proposal process and the process of bringing in a new marina operator.
Charlie Moothart, Frank Moothart's son, told the large crowd that even though State Parks officials were not at the meeting, boaters should still contact them, saying a resolution will only come through working with state officials.
"Quite honestly, we can't solve the problem without them," Charlie Moothart said, encouraging boaters to contact State Parks. "You have the power. They work for you. They have to listen to you."
Steve Thompson, legislative aide to Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, said State Parks officials have agreed to attend a second meeting of boat owners. The meeting is scheduled for Sept. 2 at the State Theatre in downtown Oroville. The time of the meeting has yet to be confirmed.#
http://www.chicoer.com/news/ci_13187290?source=rss
The river runneth out: Conservation groups raise worries about Klamath River tributaries
The Times-Standard-8/22/09
By John Driscoll
Three years of drought has drawn Klamath River tributaries like the Scott and Shasta rivers to precariously low levels for salmon, sparking concern from conservation groups over continued irrigation withdrawals.
Areas of the important tributaries are bone dry, which would be a concern for chinook salmon returning to spawn if conditions don't improve. It's not an infrequent phenomenon, and groups like Klamath Riverkeeper say that recovery of salmon runs on the river depends on increasing the amount and quality of water in them quickly.
”We're really at the point where we can't wait,” said Erica Terence with Klamath Riverkeeper.
Terence said state and federal agencies aren't asserting their authority to keep irrigators from pumping the rivers dry. Chinook salmon now entering the Klamath River from the ocean will in a few weeks arrive at the Scott and Shasta rivers, the two big tributaries between the Salmon River and Iron Gate Dam.
The flow in the Scott River at Fort Jones is the lowest on record at around 5 cfs. The Shasta River is especially low, also, with flows at Yreka around 10 to 20 cubic feet per second.
The recently formed Scott River Water Trust began in 2007 leasing water from farmers with the aim or releasing what was purchased into the river -- some during summer to help young salmon and some in the fall to assist in adult salmon migration.
Manager Sari Sommarstrom said the leases are meant to relieve stress on the salmon. But she said that precipitation in the Scott River basin was between 40 to 50 percent this year, and that follows dry conditions in 2007 and 2008.
”We've got the worst case on top of two dry years,” Sommarstrom said.
Sommarstrom said that many water diversions on the 30,000 acres of irrigated land in the basin are already dry, and that key crops like alfalfa and grain aren't being pushed for production by irrigating.
The water trust this year has leased 203 to 290 acre feet of water, which can be used to improve conditions in tributaries to help salmon and steelhead.
Terence said that programs like the water trust are welcome -- but so far not enough. She said that the basin, whose water is parceled out through state water rights, may need an overhaul of inefficient water systems, but in the meantime state and federal agencies need to act to protect fish.
The Klamath National Forest has existing water rights on the Scott River, and spokeswoman Pam Bierce said its hydrologist is looking into just what those rights entitle the forest to.
”We do share the concerns about the low flows,” Bierce said. “We know that is an issue.”
Dan Torquemada with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's enforcement division said that the problem has existed for some time.
”As long as water quality remains an issue, there will always be a risk of harm to salmon, especially when flows are down or habitat is dewatered,” Torquemada said.
He said NOAA law enforcement has been understaffed in the area, but said the agency takes the matter seriously and is trying to dedicate more time to it.
About 130,000 chinook salmon are expected to run up the Klamath River this fall, a portion of those running into the Scott and the Shasta. Troy Fletcher, a Yurok Tribe policy analyst working on negotiations to remove four hydropower dams on the Klamath, said there should be enough water in the Klamath for those fish.
But he said that that the tribe has raised concerns for more than a decade about conditions on the Scott and Shasta during the summer and fall. Fletcher said he hopes the California Department of Water Resources and the Department of Fish and Game take a hard look at water issues in the basins.
”We're always concerned when river systems are on the verge of, or are, drying up,” Fletcher said.#
http://www.times-standard.com/ci_13183918?IADID=Search-www.times-standard.com-www.times-standard.com
Can salmon undo Yosemite dam?
Fresno Bee-8/22/09
By Bill McEwen
With salmon on the California coast disappearing, I wonder how many billions of dollars will be spent on hatcheries, habitat restoration, fish ladders and even trucks in an attempt to save the species.
I also wonder how long government will rely on these failing approaches until confronting the obvious: the dam in Yosemite's Hetch Hetchy Valley must come down if salmon are to thrive again in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Environmentalists fought -- and won -- a long legal fight to reintroduce salmon to the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam. Indeed, the river will flow year-round for the first time since the 1940s after restoration begins in October.
But if the goal is to create better habitat for salmon spawning, rearing, and migration to the ocean, I question why environmentalists focused on the San Joaquin and the dam at Friant, instead of the Tuolumne River and the dam at Hetch Hetchy.
The Tuolumne, a tributary of the San Joaquin, is "the keystone" to bringing back California's salmon fishery, according to Dale Mitchell, a former state Department of Fish and Game biologist and regional manager.
"If we want to make salmon in the [San Joaquin River] basin, one really big step would be to take out Hetch Hetchy -- or at least condition the amount of water it can divert in critical times," Mitchell says.
"It would produce many more salmon than the Friant tributary restoration can accomplish, and much faster and cheaper."
Mitchell, who worked 40 years for the department, says that increased flows on the Tuolumne from February to July "would be a huge benefit for salmon."
But, with O'Shaughnessy Dam in place -- its cold Sierra water covering Hetch Hetchy, the smaller twin to Yosemite Valley -- the Tuolumne's flows are inadequate and its water too warm to protect juvenile salmon.
Many people -- including me -- have said that the dam at Hetch Hetchy should come down.
But we've been tilting at a dam protected by powerful politicians such as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Bay Area residents who get their drinking water from the reservoir and 1913 federal legislation known as the Raker Act.
The Raker Act -- which allowed the the city of San Francisco to dip a straw into a national park for its water -- is generally thought to provide an invincible legal shield for the dam.
But federal courts have vigilantly stood behind endangered salmon, too.
River by river, old dams contributing to the salmon demise are going down. Two years ago, a 47-foot tall dam on Oregon's Sandy River was dynamited, and its water flowed unrestrained from Mount Hood to the Columbia River for the first time in 94 years.
Over the past 10 years, 430 dams have come down, according to American Rivers, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for dam removal. There are plans to demolish four aging dams on the upper Klamath River, and the fate of four old, salmon-killing dams on the lower Snake River now is being decided.
The problem with all dams is that they age and become expensive to maintain. The problem with some dams is that they create environmental problems unforeseen or shrugged off at the time of construction.
Hetch Hetchy Valley restoration advocates have shown that the dam has outlived its usefulness. Water could be stored at a lower reservoir such as Don Pedro or even moved via canal to the mammoth New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River.
But the facts haven't prevailed in the Hetch Hetchy debate. Not with San Franciscans fiercely protective of their federally created water source.
Now, there's a new player in the picture.
It's the salmon, fewer in numbers, but mightier than ever in the courts.
The salmon are felling dams and restoring rivers all over the West.
Could the dam on the Tuolumne at Hetch Hetchy be among them?#
http://www.fresnobee.com/columnists/mcewen/story/1611368.html
Feds to hold steelhead workshop
North County Times-8/22/09
By Dave Downey
Federal officials are conducting a workshop in North County this week to discuss a map for putting the steelhead, one of the nation's most endangered fish, on the road to recovery, but already local officials don't like the plan.
The open house-style workshop is set to take place Tuesday afternoon in Carlsbad.
Unveiled July 23, the National Marine Fisheries Service's 430-page draft recovery plan aims to restore the colorful oceangoing rainbow trout in heavily altered and polluted Southern California streams spread from Santa Maria to the U.S.-Mexico border.
But clearing the way for the steelhead's return means changing out culverts under highways, modifying dams and releasing water from reservoirs so the fish has obstacle-free paths to swim from ocean feeding grounds to spawning grounds in the headwaters of rivers such as the San Luis Rey.
That would require spending lots of money on construction projects and squeezing the water supplies of Escondido and Vista, which depend on Lake Henshaw in the upper San Luis Rey River basin for 25 percent of their water, in a drought.
"It's the most ridiculous thing in the world," said Escondido Mayor Lori Pfeiler, who fired off a comment letter opposing the plan.
San Luis Rey woes
Oceanside officials agree. They worry that the plan could restrict their efforts to clear arundo and other overgrown vegetation from the San Luis Rey River bed.
"This whole thing about the steelhead trout is just an overreach," said Oceanside Councilman Jerry Kern, in a telephone interview Friday. "There's never been steelhead trout in that river as far as I know."
To be sure, sightings of steelhead in local coastal rivers are rare, said Mark Capelli, Southern California steelhead recovery coordinator for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Santa Barbara.
"None of these Southern California streams have regular runs of steelhead because they are so impaired," Capelli said.
But he said steelhead were in fact seen swimming in lower reaches of the San Luis Rey in 2005 and 2007.
Kern was unimpressed.
"Yeah, well, in 2002 I saw a pheasant fly across Oceanside Boulevard," Kern said. "It was just random."
Kern suggested the appearance of steelhead was a random occurrence as well and not proof the fish were ever in the river on a regular basis.
"We don't have anything against steelhead," added Don Smith, director of water resources for the Vista Irrigation District, which serves 120,000 people. "We like fish and we enjoy the outdoors. But to try to re-establish habitat that is conducive to self-sustaining steelhead runs is a tall order, and it can't help but impact local water supplies."
Smith said the Vista district gets 10 to 40 percent of its water from Lake Henshaw in a given year, depending on local rainfall, and an average of 25 percent.
The water supply hit
That's not the situation at Valley Center Water District.
"We don't take any water directly out of the San Luis Rey River," said Gary Arant, Valley Center's general manager.
But Arant said his district is concerned because, if Vista and Escondido have to curb consumption of Lake Henshaw water, they will have to make up the difference. And he said that will mean less water for everyone else, even as a drought is forcing all of Southern California to cut back.
"The timing is terrible," Arant said. "Is there going to be water for humans or water for fish?"
Clearly, said George Sutherland, Southern Steelhead Project coordinator for the Trout Unlimited in San Clemente, the plan will be difficult to implement because there doesn't appear to be enough water to go around for both humans and fish.
But the longtime advocate of restoring the steelhead said the plan is needed and its completion after many years is a welcome milestone.
"It's going to be a big challenge, but the good thing is we've got a plan," Sutherland said.
Steelhead are salmon
Although saddled with the name rainbow trout by anglers, the steelhead really is not a trout. Rather, it is one of seven species of Pacific salmon, Capelli said. They hatch in the headwaters of rivers, then migrate to the ocean where they grow to as large as 3 feet long and 15 pounds. After fattening up on a rich marine diet, they return several years later to spawn.
Capelli said they may spawn a second and third time, unlike other salmon that spawn and die.
However, pollution, dams and development in a region of 23 million people has reduced the steelhead's annual run along the Southern California coast from 32,000 to 46,000 fish to a trickle of 500 returning adults.
Capelli said biologists do not know how many steelhead swim off the coast.
"Their movement in the ocean is somewhat mysterious," Capelli said. "They don't apparently move in large schools, which makes it hard to track them. It's a very big ocean and it's very hard to track a single fish."
He said, however, that steelhead are known to swim far and wide in search of food.
"Some may migrate as far as the Bering Sea," Capelli said. "Others may stay closer to home."
Besides the San Luis Rey River, federal officials hope to bring steelhead back to the Santa Margarita River and San Mateo Creek of San Diego and Riverside counties.
The workshop is scheduled to take place Tuesday from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Carlsbad office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 6010 Hidden Valley Road.#
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_01179a02-f586-50b7-80e1-5f3a62df84c5.html?print=1
Redding named one of North America's top 10 trout towns
Redding Searchlight-8/22/09
By David Benda
For the second time in as many weeks, Forbes has cast the spotlight on Redding.
Redding was named among "North America's Top 10 Trout-Fishing Towns" by the popular business publication's online edition on Wednesday.
"Redding has a diverse trout fishery. The Lower Sacramento is the largest trout river in California, and has some of the most powerful rainbows in the world. Anglers can also fish the McCloud River for its famous strain of leaping rainbows. Hat Creek and the Fall River are two expert-only spring creeks that have very big and very demanding trout," Forbes writer Monte Burke noted.
A week ago, Forbes' online edition listed Redding among the 10 most likely areas in the country to quickly recover from the nationwide housing bust.
Ironically, the glowing reviews come four months after Forbes named Redding as one of the worst areas in the country in which to find work.
Redding was the only community on the West Coast to make Forbes' top fishing list. Communities were ranked in no particular order, Burke said.
Joining Redding were Calgary, Alberta; Asheville, N.C.; Glenwood Springs, Colo.; State College, Pa.; Mountain Home, Ark.; Grayling, Mich.; Roscoe, N.Y.; Missoula, Mont.; and West Yellowstone, Mont.
"We do leisure activities as well in the name of people who have money and want to find things to do with that money," Burke said Friday by phone from his office in New York. "So the criteria was talking to a lot of folks out there, talking to folks in the industry, talking to fishermen, guides."
Burke wrote in the article, "Admittedly, identifying the best trout towns in North America is a subjective exercise. Most of the time, the best trout fishing is wherever you can do it, and people tend to favor their home streams."
An avid fly angler, Burke has fished in every town on the list except Redding and Mountain Home, Ark.
A big advocate for Redding was noted fishing photographer Val Atkinson, Burke said.
In February, Field & Stream magazine listed Redding as the 19th best town for anglers to live. The magazine polled the nation's top angling professionals to develop the list and narrowed it down to communities with total populations of 100,000 or less. Glenwood Springs, Colo., came in first.
Bob Warren, the city of Redding's tourism officer, estimated that trout fishing brings between $500,000 to $1 million annually to the community.
"I have been saying for years we're one of the best fishing towns in America and people tell me, 'Oh yeah, you are just saying that,' " Warren said. "So when some other organization says it, that gives you some additional credibility."
Many out-of-area trout anglers who come to Redding hook up with The Fly Shop, one of the top fishing retailers in the world. Some 200 days a year, The Fly Shop will have about 15 guides a day taking clients to waters like the Sacramento, McCloud and Fall rivers.
"We probably qualify as the largest fly-fishing guide service in the country," said Mike Michalak, CEO of The Fly Shop. "The reason that has developed is the temperate climate and the fact that the Sacramento River - below the dam - is a phenomenal angling resource that is much better fished with a drift boat than any other method."
Michalak figures his guide service helps fill about 3,100 hotel beds a year.
"The Forbes article, added with everything else that is done and has to be done to improve positive exposure of our area, means Redding - and The Fly Shop - are getting some pretty good press out there," Michalak said.#
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