Water contractors sue to block commercial salmon season

Water contractors sue to block commercial salmon season

by Dan Bacher

The San Joaquin River Group Authority, a group of water contractors including Central Valley agribusiness interests and the city of San Francisco, is suing the federal government to block the commercial salmon fishing season off the California coast.

They filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in Fresno May 5, just four days after the first normal commercial season in four years began.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) opened the commercial season this year, based on a predicted ocean abundance by federal fishery biologists of over 700,000 fish.

The growers claim that allowing the commercial salmon harvest could impact their irrigation water supplies –and criticized the federal government for allowing the full season, in spite of a history of “over predicting adult spawning escapement.

“Approving high levels of SRFC (Sacramento River Fall Chinook) harvest while the overfishing concern continues, and in light of significant uncertainty, admittedly high bias in the forecasting and a recent history of significantly over-predicting adult escapement, was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion or otherwise not in accordance with the law,” the lawsuit states.

Dick Pool, administrator of http://www.water4fish.org., after reading the lawsuit, countered that “it is time to get some facts on the table.”

“We agree there is substantial risk to the San Joaquin River Group Authority and everyone else who depends on Delta water if the fall run salmon populations are not recovered,” said Pool. “Between 2002 and 2009 the fall run crashed 97% to an all time low of only 39,500 fish returning to spawn. Absent emergency action, this means future trouble for everyone.”

However, Pool emphasized that the “problem is not fishing” – and that closing salmon fishing will not do anything to address the problems that the caused the salmon collapse in the first place.

“Cutting fishing will not solve anything and neither will this lawsuit,” said Pool. “Science clearly shows that the fall run crash was caused by unregulated Delta pumping between 2002 and 2008 and for the wild fish, the impact pumping had on the upriver flows and temperatures that wild salmon need to survive.”

The three most productive areas for wild fall run salmon reproduction before the crash were the upper Sacramento River, American River and Feather River, according to Pool.

“Seventy-four percent of all the wild fish spawning took place in these areas,” said Pool. “They have all been devastated by water management practices designed to provide water for the pumps with no consideration of salmon.”

Pool said water releases from Shasta Dam are run “up and down like a yo-yo,” leading to heavy mortality of incubating salmon eggs.

“Incubating salmon eggs in the upper river are frequently left high and dry to rot or are washed away by heavy releases,” he stated. “High water temperatures in the upper river spawning areas are often lethal to fall run egg survival and take a heavy toll on these fish.”

He described the American River - where the Bureau of Reclamation still hasn't adopted temperature and flow standards that it agreed tentatively to in 2006 - as probably "the biggest disaster zone of all."

"In recent years all the cold water behind Folsom Dam that salmon need to spawn in is run to the pumps in the summertime," stated Pool. "When fall run salmon return to spawn in the late summer, the river temperatures are lethal to both adults and eggs. The result has been one of the largest salmon die offs in history. The toll from all of these along with huge losses of fall run fish in the Delta has brought the run to an unsustainable level."

Pool said that absent changes to restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and the fresh water salmon habitat conditions, the populations are going to continue to collapse until the government must take "draconian actions" to avoid extinctions.

“Instead of lawsuits, we think it would be far more productive for the San Joaquin River Group Authority to join the state, the federal government, the salmon industry and the farm groups who are all working to find the best way to implement the co-equal goals of Delta and fishery recovery along with reliable water deliveries," concluded Pool.

While the fall run chinook salmon run is on the rebound, according to federal fishery scientists, the Sacramento River spring run and winter run Chinook salmon populations continue to decline. Their decline parallels the collapse of Delta smelt, longfin smelt, young striped bass, threadfin shad and other "pelagic" - open water - species on the Delta, due to increased water exports, declining water quality, invasive species and other factors.

For more information, go to: http://www.water4fish.org.