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Low flows, high river temperatures and pollution force emergency plan to save spring Chinook salmon [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-10-12 SACRAMENTO, Calif. – On October 11, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries announced an emergency action plan to capture Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon juveniles in a last-minute move to prevent extinction of the threatened species. “The California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries biologists are pursuing urgent measures this fall to save some of the last remaining Central Valley spring-run Chinook salmon after the numbers returning from the ocean this year fell sharply toward extinction,” according to the joint release from the CDFW, NOAA Fisheries and UC Davis. “Biologists call this year’s sharp decline a ‘cohort collapse’ because so few threatened adult spring-run Chinook salmon returned to the small streams still accessible to them. Mill and Deer Creek — two of the three streams that hold the remaining independent spring-run populations — each saw fewer than 25 returning adults this year. Returns to Butte Creek — the third independent population — were the lowest since 1991 and adults further suffered impacts of a canal failure in the watershed,” the announcement stated. The captured juvenile spring-run will be raised to adulthood at UC Davis, in a last ditch effort to save this run’s unique genetic heritage. “We are running out of options,” said Cathy Marcinkevage, assistant regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries West Coast region. “We want this species to thrive in the wild, but right now we are worried about losing them.” In response to the announcement, Scott Artis, executive director of Golden State Salmon Association, pointed out how the federal and state governments have presided over the pro-agribusiness water policies that have put Central Valley spring-run Chinook on the edge of extinction in the first place, making this last-ditch attempt necessary. “Spring-run salmon were declared threatened in 1999 under the Endangered Species Act and experienced catastrophically low survival in 2021,” said Artis in a statement. “This news is another blow to California’s salmon stocks and a beleaguered fishing industry impacted by the complete closure of the 2023 commercial fall-run Chinook salmon season. The closure has resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in California and Oregon, erased incomes for thousands of families, and threatens the survival of coastal communities.” “We applaud and support the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries for implementing this critical action to save wild salmon,” said Artis, “But this current situation could have been avoided if Governor Newsom, state agencies and the Bureau of Reclamation had focused on the biological needs of salmon as much as they cater to industrial agriculture’s thirst for water to grow almonds and other nut crops for export.” Rejecting calls from Golden State Salmon Association, environmental organizations, environmental justice groups and tribes over the last decade to restore the health of California’s rivers, the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), even during drought, has continued to divert the water salmon need to survive from the Sacramento River, according to GSSA, reported Artis. “The BOR has the authority to reduce these diversions and provide life-saving cold water for salmon. Unfortunately, it has failed to do so even as the warning signs of devastating losses and low salmon returns continue to pile up,” he stated. During the last few years, spring-run Chinook have continued to be exposed to harmful water temperatures and dangerously low water flows in our rivers, including the Sacramento River. In Butte Creek, high water temperatures in the summer of 2021 forced salmon into limited creek habitat, resulting in outbreaks of disease that killed over 91 percent of adult spring-run fish prior to spawning. In a huge investigative story that I broke, an estimated 19,773 out of the more than 21,580 spring chinooks that returned to spawn in Butte Creek, the last stronghold of spring run Chinook salmon in the Central Valley perished before spawning, while PG&E didn't release cold water from its hydroelectric project in time to save the fish: www.recordnet.com/... The following year, only 5,132 wild spring-run salmon returned to spawn. In August 2023, a breach on PG&E’s Butte Canal, which carries water to their De Sabla Powerhouse, caused rust colored sediment to spill into and thoroughly pollute Butte Creek. The pollution event resulted in the destruction of salmon habitat and killed threatened spring-run salmon and numerous rainbow trout and other species, as I documented in the Stockton Record and here: www.dailykos.com/... Artis said the State Water Board continues to fail to adopt and implement new flow and temperature requirements to protect salmon – to replace failed standards that were adopted in 1995. And on the Feather River, the California Department of Water Resources continues to stall spring-run restoration actions that it agreed to in 2009. “The Newsom Administration and the Bureau of Reclamation are pillaging our natural resources at the expense of people and wildlife, and using climate change as a scapegoat for policies that have reduced flows in our rivers to a trickle and raised temperatures to levels that kill salmon eggs. Enough is enough,” argued Artis. “We obviously did not learn our lesson on how to prevent a California condor-like situation. Instead, agencies continued to ignore the problems facing salmon.” “They have let the population drop to a fraction of 2021 numbers on Butte Creek. Now we are at a point when a single pollution event results in a population catastrophe. And we find ourselves having to implement a capture program to prevent extirpation. If our leaders do not want to stand by as salmon runs become extinct and fishing jobs are lost, the time to act is now. Californians should send three words to Governor Newsom – temperatures and flows,” noted Artis. California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin River system supports four distinct Chinook salmon runs: fall, late-fall, winter and spring. The winter- and spring-runs have seen periods of alarmingly low numbers and are designated as endangered and threatened, respectively, under the Endangered Species Act. The fall-run, which is currently the only commercially and recreationally fishable stock, was closed in 2023 for the third year in California’s history, due to low numbers of adults that survived the hostile conditions encountered in Central Valley rivers. The late-fall run has been eliminated from most of its native spawning habitat. All four Chinook salmon runs are dependent upon cold water flows and releases from reservoirs for mitigation and spawning. Currently, the State’s fall-run Chinook salmon industry is valued at $2.1 billion in economic activity and 33,000 jobs annually for California and Oregon in a normal season. Industry workers benefiting from Central Valley salmon stretch from Santa Barbara to northern Oregon. This includes commercial fishermen and women, recreational anglers (fresh and salt water), fish processors, marinas, coastal communities, equipment manufacturers, hotel and food industry, tribes, and others. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/12/2198948/-Low-flows-high-river-temperatures-and-pollution-force-emergency-plan-to-save-spring-Chinook-salmon?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/