Fisheries
Blog
By Barry Nelson
From NRDC - Monday, Oct. 29, 2012
Coalition response...This author and others continue to point toward the flow of water
through the Delta as the deciding factor in improving fish populations but they
neglect to address issues that today's scientists are increasingly pointing
toward as the cause of dwindling fish populations. Scientists from the Pacific
Marine Management Council and the National Marine Fisheries Service have
identified poor ocean conditions---warm temperatures and reduced food
supply---as the leading cause of the salmon population decline. Results of
these studies have been published in the last two years, which are much more
current that any studies used to approve legislation 20 years ago.
The deadly impact of predatory
fish such as striped bass on juvenile salmon is also absent in this article. In
the past 20 years, which coincides with the passage of CVPIA, studies by the
California Department of Fish and Game and UC Davis have shown a strong increasing
trend in the abundance of warm water predatory fish in the Delta, including
largemouth bass. These predatory fish create a "blood bath" for
juvenile salmon as they make their way through the Delta to the ocean,
according to fishing guide J.D. Ritchey in an article he wrote for Outdoor
News --- http://farmwater.org/salmonslaughter.pdf.
Consider also the refusal of the
fishing industry, both commercial and recreational, to embrace proposals that
would lead to the catch and release of wild salmon, thus protecting their
populations. These groups have rejected suggestions that only hatchery salmon
with clipped fins be caught and kept.
Furthermore, the four-year-old
study the author refers to in citing that Reclamation "does not dedicate
and manage 800 kaf of water from headwaters storage through the Delta" is
another example of only providing part of the information. Discretionary
authority is granted to Reclamation in its treatment of the 800 kaf of B2 water
as upstream actions (increased releases for fish) and Delta actions (export
cuts for fish). What the author fails to mention is that Reclamation routinely
exceeds its B2 water budget --- http://farmwater.org/B2Budget.pdf.
Continuing to claim that flows
alone are the answer to the declining numbers of salmon fails to fully present
the facts that scientists and others are dealing with in an effort to provide
Delta ecosystem restoration and establishing a reliable water supply.
WATER SUPPLY
Blog
By Darrell Gentry
From ACWA - Monday, Oct. 29, 2012
DELTA
Story
Story
