Conservation News
By Dougald Scott
By Dougald Scott
What a time to take the reins of Conservation Chair! I think outgoing Chairman Bruce Dau aptly expressed the state of things in his report at the December club meeting when he said: "It's all too depressing to talk about."
Let's face it, no one wants to continually be the bearer of bad news. So I'm going to start my first conservation column with two positive reports, and then follow with some less heartening reports.
Good News for the Trinity River
A long legal brawl with Central Valley water interests over the Trinity River has taken a favorable turn for the Hoopa Valley Tribe and the North Coast. Westlands Water District and the Northern California Power Association won't take its attempt to block restoration of the river with increased water flows to the U.S. Supreme Court. That clears the once murky path toward reviving fisheries that for 40 years, have languished from water diversions and a dam that blocks nearly 109 miles of salmon spawning grounds. Source: Eureka Times-Standard 1/21/05
Spawning Habitat Restored
One hundred miles of potential spawning habitat has been opened for salmon in five Northern California counties since 1997. It's the result removing barriers, especially culverts, and of unprecedented cooperation among local, state and federal governments. Many of the culverts that were replaced in have seen near instantaneous results. In tributaries that haven't had salmon in decades, large numbers of coho and chinook salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout have been observed. Source: Eureka Times-Standard 1/21/05
Monterey Bay Salmon and Trout Project Is In Dire Need of Funds
Is this an important organization? You bet it is! Since 1976, MBSTP has spawned and released almost two million coho salmon and steelhead smolts into local streams. Since 1991 they have reared and released 1.7 million chinook salmon smolts into Monterey Bay; nearly a quarter of a million in 2004.
MBSTP maintains a coho salmon and steelhead hatchery on Big Creek (tributary to Scott Creek on the north coast) with the capacity to annually produce up to 100,000 salmon and steelhead smolts. This is no ordinary hatchery; its sole purpose is to maintain the numbers and genetic integrity of local stocks of wild steelhead and coho salmon; and is recognized by DGG and NOAA Fisheries as a model for wild stock restoration. Without supplementation from this facility, coho salmon would probably be extinct south of San Francisco Bay, and local steelhead populations would be in a much more tenuous situation. According to Treasurer Larry Wolf, "all streams in Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties would probably be closed to steelhead fishing" (see the May 2004 Bait for Thought column for more details on the hatchery).
In addition, the organization sponsors a noble volunteer effort, the STEP Program. Here, elementary school teachers are trained by MBSTP volunteers to implement a science curriculum based on steelhead and salmon. Participating teachers are supplied with steelhead eggs and rearing aquaria so that students may follow the development of steelhead from egg to smolt in their classrooms (they also become well versed in the entire life cycle of the fish). Many of the participating classes have a field trip to release "their" smolts in the stream of origin. Last year 107 classes participated in the STEP program. This translates into about 3,000 young conservationists, sensitive to the beauty and wonder of salmon and trout and the preservation of their habitat.
MBSTP is a non-profit organization funded by private donations and grants from organizations such as: local Fish and Game Advisory Commissions (these committees get to spend DFG fine monies collected in their county); DFG; and NOAA. They have only one paid employee, the hatchery manager. This means that almost all of their income goes directly to fisheries enhancement. This year grant funding has been cut, leaving MBSTP in the position of closing its hatchery unless it can garner sufficient donations to keep it open. Your donation of $25 or more grants you membership in the organization and helps to keep it afloat (last year the SCFF Conservation Committee budgeted $500 for MBSTP). Contact Treasurer Larry Wolf at 831-688-4257, the hatchery at 831-458-3095, or visit their website at: www.mbstp.org. Ernie's Casting Pond usually has copies of the MBSTP newsletter available. We all need to chip in to keep this outstanding program going.
Fisheries Agency Rewards a Loyal Bureaucrat
People who worry about the Pacific Coast's endangered salmon runs are likely to recognize James Lecky's name. In 2002, Lecky, an assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries' Southwest Region in Long Beach, CA, reworked his agency's flow recommendations for the Klamath River. The changes accommodated a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation plan to pump more water out of the river for farmers on the California-Oregon border. The Bureau's pumping led, later that year, to the death of 58,000 salmon and endangered steelhead in the lower reaches of the river.
In late October of 2004, the Bureau of Reclamation released its long-term strategy for managing water in the Sacramento Bay/Delta. The Delta supplies water to 22 million people and some of the world's most economically productive farmland; and it is also home to five threatened or endangered species of anadromous fish, including the winter-run chinook salmon. The Bureau needed to create the plan before it could renew about 280 water contracts with irrigation districts and municipalities (good for 25 to 40 years) that were due to expire this year. But before the Delta plan could be implemented, it needed to pass inspection from NOAA Fisheries, the agency charged with salmon recovery under the Endangered Species Act.
NOAA's official biological opinion, says the project is "not likely to jeopardize" the winter-run chinook salmon, and gives the plan a green light. But an earlier draft someone inside NOAA leaked to the Sacramento Bee in early October, had concluded the opposite: It warned that the plan was "likely to jeopardize" the continued existence of the winter-run chinook. The changes were made in Long Beach by Lecky. On Oct. 31, a week after he oversaw the approval of the Delta plan, Lecky was promoted to the Senior Executive Service, the highest echelon attainable for a federal employee. Lecky will now work part time out of NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., overseeing the protection of all the species NOAA regulates under the Endangered Species Act. Source: High Country News 12/20/2004