Sacramento River

Op-Ed: Mismanagement pushes salmon toward extinction

Tom Philp, PRESS DEMOCRAT

For California water managers, the Sierra snowpack has always been like money in the bank. With steady kisses of spring sun, snowmelt reliably flows ever downward until reaching the state’s vast network of reservoirs downstream.

But in the spring of 2021, in what turned out to be the second year of a scorching three-year drought, something happened to a meager snowpack. Much of it unexpectedly vanished into the sky or ground. Summer, as it now tends to do, had arrived early.

Faced with a cruel choice of who gets the limited water and who goes without, human decisions designated the remnants of California’s once-massive salmon population as the losers. The operators of the state’s largest reservoir, behind Shasta Dam, had already begun to honor contracts that guarantee farmers a lot of water, come drought or deluge. That meant less water in the Sacramento River to keep its inhabitants alive.

When adult salmon returned from the Pacific Ocean that winter, they swam upstream to below the dam where they would traditionally spawn. But the low flow in the river was lethally hot. Nearly all the salmon eggs failed to produce offspring.

The tragic loss of these salmon is one of too many examples of how California keeps harming an iconic fish species it is supposed to protect. A drought is a setback for salmon in the best of times. Here is how the last one could not have been worse, thanks to human mistakes.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/11/10/philp-from-droughts-to-human-errors-california-salmon-near-extinction/

Water, Wildlife, , , , , ,

Op-Ed: California is failing its signature salmon

Tom Philp, PRESS DEMOCRAT

“Basically, we sit on the edge of extinction,” said Jeffrey Mount, a longtime expert in California rivers who conducts research at the Public Policy Institute of California. There have been successes, most notably the removal of dams on the Klamath River. It is the primary wild population of the Sacramento River watershed with the dangerously dwindling numbers.

California salmon are as central to our historic identity as the symbol on our state flag, the California grizzly. It is a sad and ironic tragedy that the grizzly has been extinct for generations. What does it say about us if salmon may soon follow?

California is known around the globe for its commitment to environmentalism. But the state is struggling. Much is chronicled about how California isn’t on target to meet climate change goals, such as our pioneering plans for “net zero” emissions of global warming gases in just two decades. There is less attention on how the state is equally failing the signature inhabitants of its natural world.

Losing salmon would be an ecological disaster for our freshwater ecosystems, forests, riverbanks and other native species if their links to the salmon were severed. Healthy salmon runs mean jobs for Californians, but the industry generating $1 billion is at risk, as is a historic piece of California’s culture.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2025/10/12/philp-california-is-failing-its-signature-salmon/

Habitats, Wildlife, , , ,

Landmark lawsuit settlement between environmentalists and state water boards strengthens Delta protections

California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, MAVEN’S NOTEBOOK

Three California environmental nonprofits secured a landmark settlement agreement with the California State Water Resources Control Board to uphold the common law Public Trust Doctrine and other legal protections for imperiled fish species in the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay/Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta Estuary.

The lawsuit, filed in 2015 by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance (“CSPA”), the California Water Impact Network (“CWIN”), and AquAlliance, brought sweeping claims against the State Water Board. It alleged that the agency’s management of the Sacramento River and San Francisco Bay-Delta displayed an overarching pattern and practice of:

failure to comply with the Public Trust Doctrine;
failure to implement Sacramento River temperature management requirements;
failure to ensure that fish below dams be maintained in “good condition”; and
acceptance of water quality below minimum Clean Water Act standards.

“The Water Board’s long-standing pattern and practice of inadequately implementing foundational environmental laws has brought the Central Valley aquatic ecosystem to the brink of collapse. This settlement agreement is a major step forward, compelling the State Water Board to fulfill crucial legal requirements it had previously ignored,” said Bill Jennings, CSPA Executive Director.

Read/download the full press release here

Source: https://mavensnotebook.com/2020/07/21/lawsuit-settlement-landmark-lawsuit-settlement-between-environmentalists-and-state-water-boards-strengthens-delta-protections/

Habitats, Water, Wildlife, , , , , , ,

Forecast shows California salmon fishermen in for another year of sharp limits

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A third straight year of low king salmon runs is expected to deliver another blow to one of the North Coast’s most iconic and lucrative fisheries, wildlife managers indicated Thursday, as both regulators and fishermen faced the prospect of a federally mandated plan to reverse the trend and rebuild key stocks.

The grim news comes amid a dramatic, yearslong decline in the state’s commercial salmon landings, which are down 97 percent last year from their most recent peak, in 2013, when they hit 12.7 million pounds.

The full picture for commercial and sport seasons won’t be clear for several more weeks, but spawning projections show Sacramento River salmon — historically the largest source for the state’s ocean and freshwater harvests — have fallen so low that they’re now considered by regulators to be “overfished.”

Wildlife officials acknowledged that term minimizes the many factors that have led to this point, including shifting conditions in the ocean and years of low river flows during the drought, all of which have pummeled stocks.

Read more at http://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8055549-181/forecast-shows-california-salmon-fishermen

Agriculture/Food System, Wildlife, , , , , ,
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