Salmon Crash Caused By Lack Of Food
Posted on: Friday, 16 May 2008, 15:00 CDT
Federal officials stuck with their assertion Thursday that the most immediate cause of last year's salmon crash was a lack of food in the ocean, despite arguments from fishermen that export pumps in the south Delta are largely to blame.
The National Marine Fisheries Service, charged with protecting salmon, was on the hook Thursday as legislators questioned an administrator about the sudden decline of fish in the Delta and throughout the West.
California salmon fishing is essentially canceled at sea and inland rivers in 2008. Fishermen say it's unlikely 2009 will be much better and that action is needed to make fishing viable even in 2010.
"We rank this as one of the largest man-made fishery disasters in this country," said Richard Pool, president of Pro-Troll Fishing Products in Concord. Pool compared the salmon crash to the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
"There's a number of causes," he said, "but in our mind, excess pumping from the Delta" beats them all.
Fisheries Service regional administrator Rodney McInnis said ocean conditions were blamed in a "preliminary inquiry," but he said a more detailed review of other potential causes would be finished by the end of the year.
Juvenile salmon migrating from the Sacramento River to the ocean from 2003 through 2005 found little food there, McInnis said in written testimony before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans. Fewer fish, therefore, survived to return to the Sacramento River the past few years.
But there's more to the story, said Pool, the fishing gear supplier.
Efforts to save salmon in the 1990s were widely praised, as endangered winter-run chinook were brought back from the brink. Fall-run fish also fared well: In 2002, 775,000 of these salmon returned from the ocean to spawn.
"It appeared we had a major success story," Pool said in written testimony.
After the Fisheries Service allowed export pumping to increase in the early 2000s, things went south. That's when the salmon crash began, with poor ocean conditions the final blow, Pool testified. As few as 54,000 fall-run fish are expected to return this year.
Some legislators jumped on federal regulators for allowing federally protected fish to be killed through pumping guidelines that they claim are politically motivated and not based on the best science. This became evident last month, they say, when federal Judge Oliver Wanger threw out a Fisheries Service report that said winter-run salmon, steelhead and threatened spring-run chinook salmon would not be harmed by increased water exports from the Delta.
Jason Peltier, chief deputy general manager for Westlands Water District in the southern San Joaquin Valley, said he recognizes that the pumps are one factor. His district receives water delivered from the Delta.
"But I have never seen a credible statistical analysis that shows us what is lost at the pumps and how significant of a population level effect that is," he said.
Congresswoman Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara, said she's been told by some commercial fishermen that they don't want their children following in their footsteps.
"This is very sad," she said. "It seems to me we are spending an awful lot of federal funds ... and getting little in return."
Source: The Record
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds