In 1806, Meriwether Lewis drew this picture of a Columbia River Smelt, brought to them by the Cowlitz Tribe. In the days of the Lewis & Clark expedition, tens of millions of the skinny shiny fish swarmed up the Columbia River during their Spring spawning run.
These smelt used to be as almost as common as Passenger Pigeons. The locals could fish with a big net and catch hundreds of pounds of them. Kelso, Washington, (an hour downstream from Portland) touted itself as the smelt capital of the world, at its location on the Cowlitz River, a few miles from its confluence with the Columbia River. The local gulls also enjoyed the smelt runs.
You will find out why the police got involved, below the orange whirlwind.
The Backyard Science group regularly publishes The Daily Bucket, which features observations of the world around us. What's in your backyard? Funny insects, unusual birds, pretty flowers, healthy vegetables, or shy snakes?
Any of these and much more are worthy additions to the Bucket and its comments. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment, and provide a picture if you can. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to as we try to understand the patterns that are unwinding around us.
But fate turned against the Columbia River Smelt.
The west coast tribes called them the salvation fish, because their early Spring runs came when other food was scarce. Its common name is Eulachon pronounced you-la-kon in the United States) which is originally derived from the Chinook Indian trade language of the lower Columbia River. (Hart and McHugh 1944, Moody 2008). They're also known as Candlefish, Hooligan, and Thaleichthys pacificus.
The Columbia River smelt runs every Spring were the largest in the world. Millions of smelt struggled from the ocean, up the Columbia almost 100 miles and into its tributaries, especially the Cowlitz and Sandy Rivers. This map shows the course of the Columbia to the Cowlitz River, where these smelt spawn. As the caption shows, steelhead also frequent these areas.
But the smelt population plummeted. Mammoth runs of other smelt species once filled most coastal rivers from northern California to Bristol Bay Alaska and around the world. Other types of smelt in San Francisco Bay and points north are already dying out, all the way to the Oregon border. The Columbia River runs could be next to disappear.
In 2007, the Cowlitz Tribe petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Services to declare the Columbia River Smelt endangered. In 2010 the NMFS determined these smelt were part of a Southern Distinct Population Segment (DPS), and formally declared these smelt were endangered. While the smelt were officially endangered, the NMFS has failed to finalize any protective regulations.
For a couple of years, the NMFS and States banned smelt fishing, but as the runs recovered, fishing (and netting) was re-authorized.
It is confusing, because other types of smelt, for instance the surf smelt (hypomesus pretiosus) still thrive in the Salish Sea and along the West Coast.
Yet the Columbia River smelt remains on the Endangered Species list, largely because climate change has heated the Pacific Ocean, which disables the smelts' life cycles and reproductive abilities.
Some scientists disagree about the details of the smelts' life cycles. Smelt are distantly related to salmon ( both are the Class Actinopterygii). Smelt are also anadromous (born in fresh water, going into the ocean, and returning to spawn in fresh water). Some scientists have found evidence that some tough smelt actually survive spawning.
Upon their birth, smelt larvae are rapidly washed downriver and mature into juveniles in estuaries. Some scientists theorize this means that when smelt return, they are not "locked in" on finding the stream of their birth, but rather are seeking the estuaries where they matured.
To get through the estuary at the confluence of the Cowlitz and Columbia Rivers, the smelt must dodge the Kapstone (formerly Longview Fibre) pulp and paper mill.
The Mill sucks 40 million gallons a day out of the Columbia River, and discharges 30 million gallons a day of polluted, acidic, overheated water at 90 or more degrees. Water temperatures over 70 degrees can cripple and kill salmon and many other aquatic species.
Kapstone, a cartel of Illinois speculators, bought the Longview Mill a couple of years ago and swiftly imposed a contract onto their unionized work force, that evicerated their health care and other benefits. The union workers are very angry.
For more details, see: http://www.nytimes.com/...
The Mill sits on the riverbanks, at the intersection of the Cowlitz and Columbia Rivers. I'd been advising the workers there for years, about their exposures to toxic chemicals. They showed me pictures of smelt that had been sucked into the Mill's water intakes and killed.
They said dozens or even hundreds of smelt were killed daily during the spawning runs. That doesn't even count the smelt larvae (or salmon smolt or other critters) that the intake may kill also.
I encouraged the workers to complain to the regulatory agencies. But these workers had already endured decades of silence about the mill's shortcomings, as they tried to protect the best jobs in Longview. These workers had a hard time overcoming this history.
So I offered to file a complaint myself, stating the Kapstone mill water intake was killing an endangered species. I went to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency Region X office in Seattle with a written complaint. Prior to filing the complaint, I stood silently outside for a few minutes, near the EPA's front door, holding a 2 x 3 foot color poster of a dead smelt. I'd hoped to alert an EPA fish person of these problems.
A total of ten rent-a-cops, plus Homeland Security, soon surrounded me. I'm in blue.
We started arguing over the First Amendment (your right to petition the government). I cited the Fashion Valley court case, which allowed demonstrations on private property within a shopping mall, in open areas that are available to the general public.
One of the Homeland Security cops, who liked to fish and was a little upset about the smelt getting killed, told me that the problem was if a single federal employee complained I had blocked their passage or intimidated them, they were obligated to cite me.
So I moved onto the sidewalk, along with the paper mill workers, who leafleted passerby about their labor dispute.
The mill workers are gathering their courage to spread the word about the Mill's shabby water intake operations.
Next we will leaflet Rogue Beer outlets, because Rogue, a local craft beer, is buying cardboard for their boxes and six-packs from Kapstone, who is killing smelt, an endangered species. We will agitate for Rogue to buy cardboard from anyone than Kapstone.
I published an earlier, too terse version of this diary a week ago. http://www.dailykos.com/... folks commented accurately that it lacked important details, so I wanted to provide this supplemental information. Now It's Your Turn What's interesting to you? Please post your own observations and your general location in the comments. I'll respond after lunchtime because I work tomorrow morning.
"Spotlight on Green News & Views" will be posted every Saturday at 1pm and Wednesday at 3:30 pm Pacific Time on the Daily Kos front page. Be sure to recommend and comment in the diary.
12:26 PM PT: Here is the website for the Kapstone workers.
http://www.kapstoneunfair.org/