Sacramento, CA - Salmon populations are in deep trouble in California and a large coalition wants to stop the current march to extinction.
On the International Day of Action for Rivers on March 14, a big coalition of California’s Tribal organizations, environmental non-profits, and fishing groups released a letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom asking for flow protections and pollution controls to be added to Newsom’s controversial newly released Salmon Strategy.
The groups said that “while they appreciate the focus on dam removal and restoration, California's salmon and fishing industry are facing an unprecedented crisis.”
The letter comes just weeks after the Pacific Fishery Management Council released dire salmon numbers for 2023 and predictions for 2024, and only a couple of months after California approved CEQA review documents for the controversial Delta Tunnel and Sites Reservoir, environmentally destructive projects that would divert much more water from the Sacramento River and Bay Delta.
Recreational and commercial fishing season was closed last year on the ocean waters of California and recreational salmon fishing was banned in all of the state’s rivers, due to the low numbers of returning fall-run Chinook salmon in the Sacramento and Klamath Rivers. The Yurok and Hoopa Valley Tribes were limited to a very low harvest quota of only 2,000 salmon on the Klamath and Trinity rivers.
Fishing communities look to yet another disastrous season this year due to the low numbers of fall run Chinook salmon that returned to the Sacramento and Klamath rivers in 2023. On March 11, the Pacific Fishery Management Council released three recreational fishing alternatives for the Fort Bragg, San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions, including two extremely limited season options and one complete closure option.
“The 2024 stock abundance forecast for Sacramento River Fall Chinook, often the most abundant stock in the ocean fishery, is 213,600 adults. Meanwhile, abundance of Klamath River Fall Chinook is forecast at 180,700 adults. These abundance forecasts are well below average,” according to a CDFW announcement.
Endangered Sacramento River spring and winter-run Chinook also continue their march towards extinction. The spawning escapement of Sacramento River Spring Chinooks (SRSC) in 2023 totaled 1,479 fish (jacks and adults), with an estimated return of 106 to upper Sacramento River tributaries and the remaining 1,391 fish returning to the Feather River Hatchery.
The return to Butte Creek of just 100 fish was the lowest ever. In 2021, an estimated 19,773 out of the more than 21,580 fish total that returned to spawn in the Butte County stream perished before spawning
Nor did the winter run, listed under the state and federal Endangered Species Act, do well. Spawner escapement of endangered Sacramento River Winter Chinook (SRWC) in 2023 was estimated to be 2,447 adults and 54 jacks, according to the Review.
A group of us, including the late conservationist and Fish Sniffer magazine publisher Hal Bonslett, successfully pushed the state and federal governments to list the winter run under the state and federal Endangered Species Acts starting in 1990-91 because we were so alarmed that the fish population had crashed to 2,000 fish.
Then in 1992 the run declined to less than 200 fish. Even after Shasta Dam was built, the winter run escapement to the Sacramento River was 117,000 in 1969!
Now we are back to approximately the same low number of winter-run Chinooks that spurred us to push for the listing of the fish as endangered under state and federal law over 30 years ago.
Even more chilling, for the sixth year in a row, zero Delta Smelt were collected in the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl (FMWT) Survey in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta from September through December 2023.
Once the most abundant species in the entire estuary, the Delta Smelt has declined to the point that it has become functionally extinct in the wild. The 2 to 3 inch fish, found only in the Delta, is an “indicator species” that shows the relative health of the San Francisco Bay/Delta ecosystem.
Meanwhile, the other pelagic species collected in the survey — striped bass, Longfin Smelt, Sacramento Splittail and thread fin shad — continued their dramatic decline since 1967 when the State Water Project went into effect. Only the American shad shows a less precipitous decline. The graphs in the CDFW memo graphically illustrate how dramatic the declines in fish populations have been over the years: nrm.dfg.ca.gov/…
In response to this current disaster, as the climate gets hotter, “the need for California to do more than just reach for low hanging fruit intensifies. Specifically, California needs to regulate agriculture and protect and restore clean water in its rivers for both fish and people.,” according to the coalition.
“The fact is, salmon and salmon-dependent people face an unprecedented crisis. Operating river flows under Trump’s water plan and California’s archaic water laws during the last drought caused the loss of the majority of our remaining salmon and it impacted California’s drinking water quality,” explained Regina Chichizola from Save California Salmon.
Chichizola said that because of the situation commercial fishing is shut down nearly every year and Tribes cannot access salmon and other culturally significant species.
She said the coalition is especially concerned about the San Francisco Bay-Delta that is facing a water quality crisis and is, unfortunately, where many Californians get their drinking water.
“We really do appreciate the important restoration actions outlined in Newsom’s Plan, but we also need the Governor to ask California’s agriculture industry to do their part by not polluting and dewatering our rivers and the Delta,” she stated.
The group says “they are glad that Governor Newsom finally responded to the state’s salmon crisis with a much needed strategy, but it falls short of doing what will make it successful for California: controlling agricultural water use and pollution. If the state's strategy is to succeed, it must include adequate instream flows because fish can’t use dry and polluted rivers and estuaries. The letter also points out that the lack of agricultural regulation impacts the state’s drinking water. This is important because the current, yet centuries-old water rights system in California prioritizes large landowners over cities and the environment.”
In addition to highlighting the lack of focus on instream flows, the letter also asks the state to control agricultural use of fungicides and pesticides that kill salmon and pollute the state’s drinking water. The coalition says many of California’s almond farms and ranches get clean water while farmworkers and salmon only get the polluted water they leave behind.
In addition, the letter noted that Tribes “are not being meaningfully consulted” on projects that will impact them. The letter states:
”The Salmon Strategy details that the state will work with Tribes to conduct restoration and form partnerships, but the Delta Tribes, especially the footprint tribes where the Sites Reservoir and the Delta Tunnels are, and upstream Tribes, have not been properly consulted. The state has even passed fast tracking laws that undermine Tribes' right to consultation. The state cannot work to award more water rights from the Sacramento River and Delta, go against scientifically created flow restoration as part of the Delta plan, and save salmon.
“Newsom's Salmon Strategy needs to address California's inequitable water rights system and the long-time challenges facing the San Francisco Bay Delta estuary,” concluded Bill Martin, Sierra Club California Water Committee Co-Chair. “We cannot operate flows under the Trump era water plan and a racist water rights system that allocates over 5 times more water than exists and expect it to restore water quality. Both urban and agricultural water users need to do their part to conserve water and reduce reliance on the Delta."
The letter to the governor can be found at: https://www.californiasalmon.org/letter
A sample letter for the public is at: http://tinyurl.com/SalmonLetter