California's water wars reach 'new level of crazy' this year

Good piece by Mark Grossi in the Fresno Bee about this year's version of the "crazy" California Water Wars, which will only escalate as we exit the (not very) rainy season. A lot of these same issues are covered in the Delta Blues documentary - they just keep rolling through every few years. This year's historic drought is likely to make everything worse for fish and farmers, and the impact will be felt for years.

DVD Available

After a film festival run and educational sales window, Delta Blues is available for purchase here for $14.95.

PBS Documentary on Salmon

Salmon: Running the Gauntlet, aired on PBS's Nature series a couple of weeks ago. It's a look at salmon troubles in the Columbia River Basin and the efforts to stop their steep decline. Nicely shot, with some terrific underwater footage, it touches on some of the politics of salmon, but not in great depth.

While many of the issues are similar to the ongoing problems in the Delta, there are also many key differences. In the Columbia Basin, it's more of a fight over dams impeding the salmon's journey upriver to their spawning grounds, while in the Delta it's a fight over adequate water flows, and not just for salmon.

You can watch the whole episode here.

Delta Blues Screens Saturday at SF Green Film Festival

It shows at 2:30pm at Landmark Theatres Embarcadero Center Cinema 2 as part of the California Water program, followed by a panel discussion on salmon issues. Click the link for tix and more info.

The Accidental Activist

Fun piece on the Bay Citizen about salmon fisherman Mike Hudson, one of the characters featured in Delta Blues. A passionate advocate for salmon - and the Blues.

Stealth State Plan Would End Salmon Fishing in California

Zeke Grader, the Executive Director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, has a blog entry on sfgate.com that's causing a stir about the future of the Delta and salmon fishing in California. Worth a read.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/zgrader/detail?entry_id=73372#ixzz10wfo4MFr

A Puzzler

From the Chron: "U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger will consider restoring the water supply and ordering government biologists back to the drawing board during a hearing today that could decide the fate of the state's beleaguered salmon."

It's a puzzler because Wanger is the judge who ruled that diversions were hurting salmon and his rulings are the primary reason why strict water restrictions were placed on Central Valley farmers the past few years.

And it's sad because it means endless legal battles into the future. Farmers and fish won't benefit, only lawyers will.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/05/19/MNFT1DGOGD.DTL#ixzz0oQZqE4dX

New Strategy for Salmon Release

Article in the Bee about changing strategies to assist with the survival of salmon smolt and "imprint" their birth river.

NOAA Biological Opinion Released

Here's the NOAA press release. The full report is linked to at the bottom of the release. An excerpt:

"NOAA released its final biological opinion today that finds the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation jeopardize the continued existence of several threatened and endangered species under the jurisdiction of NOAA’s Fisheries Service.

The bureau has provisionally accepted NOAA’s recommended changes to its water pumping operations, and said it will begin to implement its near-term elements as it carefully evaluates the overall opinion.

Federal biologists and hydrologists concluded that current water pumping operations in the Federal Central Valley Project and the California State Water Project should be changed to ensure survival of winter and spring-run Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, the southern population of North American green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales, which rely on Chinook salmon runs for food."

New way to save salmon in the delta

Here's an article in the SF Chronicle about a high-tech solution to help salmon in the Delta. Interesting, but it doesn't solve the main problem: high quality water flow.

As salmon go, so go the killer whales

Fascinating article in the Sacramento Bee about how the decline of Sacramento River salmon is impacting Orcas along the Pacific coast. Fewer salmon, fewer Orcas it seems.



Also, Tom Stienstra, the San Francisco Chronicle's outdoors writer, has this tidbit in his February 22nd column:

"Now get this, from the fine print inside a report by the National Marine Fisheries Service: Of the salmon that spawn or are released from hatcheries in the Sacramento River downstream of Redding, only 20 percent make it to the Delta because of water projects. Of that 20 percent that make it to the Delta, 60 percent die because of more water projects. So for the juvenile salmon that start their journey in Northern California, only 8 percent make it to the Bay to head out to the ocean."

Delta water managers choosing salmon over smelt

It's no longer just farmers vs. fish, or Northern California vs. Southern California in the battle over water in the Delta. It is now a choice between species - a chilling thought to choose one fish for possible extinction over another - according to this piece in the Sacramento Bee.

Most state native game fish face extinction

A new report by noted fish biologist Peter Moyle (a character in the documentary) is a frightening look at the future of California's trout, steelhead and salmon populations. Twenty one of thirty species may face extinction by the end of the century. The main reasons: dams, global warming and the lack of cool, clear water that the fish require to thrive.

Here's an excellent article in the SF Chronicle by Jane Kay.

Here's the link to the California Trout page on the report. Scroll down to the bottom to see the exec summary and the full report.

New Study by NRDC and Fishing Groups on Salmon and the Delta

From the press release:

The report, “Fish Out of Water: How Water Management in the Bay-Delta Threatens the Future of California’s Salmon Fishery,” describes how the State Water Project and Central Valley Project contribute to declining salmon populations, by reducing the availability of water necessary for migration and spawning, killing tens of thousands of juvenile salmon by sucking them into giant pumps used to export water, and blocking salmon’s migration route with their dams. The report comes on the heels of a federal court ruling that water project operations in the Central Valley jeopardize the survival of several salmon runs, and a few months after state and federal agencies closed California’s commercial salmon fishery for the first time ever due to record low numbers of fish returning to spawn.

Get the full report here.

Mixed Ruling for Central Valley Salmon

From the LA Times: "A federal judge struck a largely symbolic blow for imperiled salmon and steelhead Friday, declaring that the state's vast water-export system is putting the fish at risk but rejecting environmentalists' key demands for change."

More

Trucking Salmon Around the Delta

California Fish and Game is trucking salmon smolt from Northern California fish hatcheries around the Delta - and the dams, predators, and massive pumps that impede their journey to the sea. The smolt are acclimated in net fish pens and then set free in San Francisco Bay.

Here's a short video of the process, with more in the upcoming documentary:

Scientists try to explain dismal salmon run

SF Chronicle article on the crashing salmon runs in the Delta. Is the cause river conditions or ocean conditions? Pumping the water south or toxic agricultural runoff? Climate change or a natural cyclical pattern? Or a combination of some or all?

We'll examine these questions (and many others) in the documentary.