Steelhead numbers alarmingly low at American River's Nimbus Fish Hatchery

Steelhead numbers alarmingly low at American River's Nimbus Fish Hatchery

by Dan Bacher

Only 10 adult steelhead were reported at the Nimbus Fish Hatchery on the American as of Monday, December 29, an alarmingly low number for this time of year. By contrast, the hatchery had trapped 335 adults to date last year, according to Gary Novak, hatchery manager.

Normally there are hundreds and sometimes thousands of steelhead showing at the facility at this time of year. Hopefully, the steelhead are late in their migration, just as the fall run Chinook salmon were. The main body of the fall Chinook salmon run arrived over a month late this fall on the American River.

Releases to the lower American below Nimbus Dam continue to be 900 cfs, very low for this time of year.

As one who has spent thousands of hours fishing on the river, going to meetings and rallies fighting for the restoration of the river and its fish, and writing about this unique river, the shockingly low return of steelhead to date is very disenheartening.

I was part of a dedicated group of anglers who worked to restore the steelhead on the river through a series of measures, including upgrading the hatchery facilities, protecting wild spawning steelhead from poaching, pressuring the hatchery managers to take eggs throughout the run to preserve genetic integrity and battling the Bureau of Reclamation for higher minimum flows and water temperature standards.

We were very successful in restoring and enhancing the steelhead to where numbers at the hatchery reached 3,000 to 4,000 fish in some years and where wild steelhead returned in good numbers to the river many years. In 2011 and early 2013, anglers experienced excellent fishing on this unique urban river.

All wild steelhead on the American River must be released, since naturally-spawning Central Valley steelhead are listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act. However, anglers may keep two hatchery steelhead, as indicated by clipped adipose fins.

Unfortunately, I fear that the abysmal management of the American, Sacramento, Feather and other Central Valley rivers over the past few years has spurred this apparent decline in the steelhead population. Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation officials systematically drained Trinity Reservoir on the Trinity River, Lake Shasta on the Sacramento River, Lake Oroville on the Feather River and Folsom Lake on the American River in 2013, during a record drought, to export water through the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project.

This water was shipped to fill the Kern Water Bank and Southern California reservoirs, as well as to supply water to corporate agribusiness interests in the Westlands Water District and oil companies conducting fracking and steam injection operations in Kern County. Little carryover storage in the reservoirs, particularly in Folsom, was left in 2014 as the drought continued. Folsom Reservoir reached a record low of 17 percent of capacity in January 2014, due to mismanagement by the state and federal governments.

You can read my investigative news piece on this at: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/07/1275862/-The-Emptying-of-Northern-California-Reservoirs

Meanwhile, the Brown administration is rushing the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build the peripheral tunnels, a corporate water grab disguised as a "habitat restoration" and "conservation" plan. If constructed, the tunnels would hasten the extinction of Sacramento River Chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, Delta and longfin smelt and green sturgeon, as well as imperil the salmon and steelhead populations on the Trinity and Klamath rivers.

I will update the count of steelhead at the fish hatchery and on the river as the steelhead season proceeds. But it sure doesn't look very good.