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Archive for February, 2008
A little more insight ….
Have a great day!
Rue
By ROB BURGESS The Daily Journal
Article Last Updated: 02/16/2008
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, about 1,460
teratonnes of water covers 71 percent of the Earth’s surface.
On Tuesday, the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors may help parched
Redwood Valley get one step closer to tasting some of that.
The board will consider whether or not it will adopt the final draft of
the Mill Creek Project environmental impact report. The meeting is
scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in the board’s chambers when the board is
scheduled to sit as the Mendocino County Water Agency.
“Approximately 95 years ago, the State of California constructed three
dams within a one-mile stretch of Mill Creek to provide a water supply for
the State Hospital in Ukiah,” stated the EIR. “The three dams are located
in the Talmage area on Mill Creek, tributary to the Russian River.”
The Redwood Valley Water District board voted unanimously last December to
declare a water emergency in Redwood Valley after storage in Lake
Mendocino dropped below 30,000 acre-feet.
Besides establishing Talmage water resources as a permanent supply for
Redwood Valley, one of the project’s other main goals is to mitigate for
the unplanned release of sediment into the creek four years ago.
“In December 2004, the Upper Dam base gate valve stuck open, and water
drained from the reservoir and released a substantial amount of sediment
into Mill Creek between the Upper Dam and the Middle Dam,” stated the EIR.
“In fall 2005, the county installed a standpipe to act as a
temporary water and sediment control system. Winter storms at the end of
2005 moved the released sediment into the reservoir area behind the Middle
Dam and an adjacent landslide in spring 2006 did further damage to habitat
in the area.”
According to the EIR, five options for action will be available: no
project, all dam structures in place and restored reservoirs (Alternative
A), all dams except the Lower Dam in place and restored reservoirs
(Alternative B), only the Upper Dam and Reservoir retained (Alternative C)
and all dams and reservoirs removed (Alternative D).
The full EIR can be viewed at the water agency’s Web site at
www.mendocountywa.com by clicking on the “Downloads” link.
By KERANA TODOROV
Register Staff Writer
February 16, 2008
Fewer chinook salmon returned to spawn in the Napa River this season, a fact that Napa County biologists think may be linked to poor ocean conditions.
Smaller salmon runs were reported in other watersheds in the region as well, noted RCD biologists who surveyed a stretch of the Napa River in December and January. Jonathan Koehler, a senior biologist at RCD, said these results point to poor ocean conditions, including shifts in the amount of plankton available to fish and shrimp for the salmon.
The waters where the counts are low have one thing in common - the ocean, he said. “All our fish go out to the ocean.”
To do the survey, RCD biologists counted salmon nests or redds - areas in the bottom of the river the fish clear with its tail to spawn - from St. Helena to north Napa.
Counting redds is more accurate than counting fish, because adult fish can easily be double counted, the RCD biologists explained during a recent presentation of their findings.
The biologists found nine redds per kilometer - or more than four fewer than in 2005 and 2006 along the 4.5-mile stretch between Oakville Crossing and St. Helena, where most redds are found.
Koehler stressed more counts will have to be done to establish long-term trends. It is only the fourth year that data has been collected on the chinook salmon spawning season in the Napa River, where an estimated 400 to 600 adults live.
In the Central Valley, the number of chinook salmon returning to the Sacramento River this fall was a record low, a particularly distressing result, according to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a group that proposes salmon fishing rules to federal officials every spring along the Pacific Coast.
Chuck Tracy, a salmon staff officer for the Pacific Fishery Management Council, on Friday said a low salmon run in the Napa River is reflective of what is going on up and down the Pacific Coast.
“It does look like there is a coastwide trend,” said Tracy, whose organization studies data from major watersheds in California, Oregon and Washington State. However, the reasons are unclear.
“We don’t know for sure” why this is happening, said Tracy, who explained the lower count may lead to a shorter commercial salmon season this year.
Chinook salmon return to the Napa River at age 2-5 years to spawn and die.
Chris Malan, a Napa environmentalist, said she is not surprised at this year’s low chinook salmon count. She saw hundreds of dead juvenile chinook salmon this summer in isolated warm pools while kayaking, she said.
The river’s health suffers from various factors, including poor water flows, increased temperature and severely eroding banks along the river, she explained.
The Napa River has been declared an impaired river under the federal Clean Water Act. State water quality regulators are scheduled to review this spring a plan to restore the Napa River watershed.
RCD biologists also collected 70 DNA samples from carcasses which they shipped to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Santa Cruz to find out if they came from other watersheds. The studies could determine if fish from hatcheries have been able to establish themselves in the Napa River, explained Koehler.
Wade Belew
Stewardship Coordinator
Cotati Creek Critters
Last week’s editorial column pointed out the newly installed signs in the area that designates watershed boundaries and questioned their purpose. By acknowledging the signs you did exactly what they were designed to do, begin a public dialog about what watersheds are and educating people about why they are important.
The simplest definition of a watershed is all the land area that drains to a common outlet. For example, the Laguna de Santa Rosa watershed is all the land area that drains out the Laguna channel into the Russian River. The Laguna is a sub-watershed of the Russian River watershed. To a smaller scale, Copeland creek watershed is contained within the Laguna watershed. A watershed can cover states, as the Colorado River does, or a small stream like Cotati Creek.
Who cares about watersheds? Anyone who cares about our drinking water supplies, flood control and the arrival of pathogens like West Nile Virus should be interested in the concept of watersheds. The science of hydrology uses watersheds as a natural unit of study, as there are very few naturally defined boundaries in the landscape. Hydrologists study watersheds to understand groundwater recharge and how to protect neighborhoods from flooding.
Why identify watersheds with signs? There is an old saying that I’ll modify for the purposes of a family paper: “Excrement” rolls down hill. With watersheds, excrement washes downhill. Some portion of any fertilizer or pesticide that is used in your yard will wash off your property and further down the watershed, either ending up in a creek or in the ground water. We’ve all heard about the problem with invasive Ludwigia choking the Laguna and sheltering mosquitoes that can carry West Nile Virus. You may know that excess nutrients are contributing to the problem. If you know you live in the Laguna watershed, you may then think twice about dumping a 25 lb. sack of nitrogen on your lawn and consider other options.
Having a basic understanding of watersheds, which one you live in and how your everyday actions can have an impact will help us address our current and future challenges regarding that precious, life-giving substance - water.
FYI,
–Larry
Regional Outreach meeting for the Statewide Watershed Program
Thursday February 28
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm Bay Area Regional Outreach
Napa Watershed Information Center -
Dennis Bowker
(707) 253-8295
To All,
Monday, March 3: Water, Power, and Politics, with Dr. Andy Roth.
Water is essential to life. Humans depend on it for circulation, digestion, metabolism, and muscle movements. In dry climates, control over water is also one basic source of political power. How has the relationship between water and power shaped human life in California? Dr. Andy Roth will address this question by considering three different modes of water control, and their social consequences for California’s history. This comparative, historical perspective helps us better respond to current dilemmas regarding water use here in Sonoma County. Dr. Roth is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University where he teaches classes in environmental sociology, sociological theory, language & society, sociology of religion, and documentary film. Free. Refreshments provided. 7 p.m., Stony Point Room, Ray Miller Community Center, 216 E. School St., (behind Cotati City Hall).
From Jenny Blaker
To All,
On my note (included below) to groups and individuals on the subject of low salmon returns I was properly reminded by my friend Brian Hines that the conditions for these low returns, as presented by me, failed to account for poor ocean conditions and potential global warming effects.
It is true. All of these elements have an effect on salmon survival - we need both productive ocean conditions that will bring the fish back, fat and happy - and - we need spawning and rearing habitat in our rivers to will sustain salmon in their various life stages.
This does not mean that hatchery practices do not have an effect - and ditto for predation by bass in the Bay Delta (see notes below)?
Alan:
How are we going to improve conditions? Three ways:
1) The Public Trust Doctrine.
2) The Clean Water Act.
3) The Endangered Species Act.
– Brian
Brian,
I agree with your take on this. We need,both, an ocean with conditions to support salman - and - reviers that support spawing and survival of youg (during those life stages).
The question is; how do we get this to happen?
Alan:
I have always resisted claims, “It’s the Ocean Conditions!” made by spoilers of watershed habitat. It sounds kind of like, “It’s those damn seals!”. But now we really have to start looking at the ocean conditions when the salmon meat turns white from lack of krill and populations from good watersheds drop like Lagunitas. When people used to say “It’s Ocean Conditions!” I would say, “That’s funny, Lagunitas had a normal run of 500 Coho last year. I wonder what ocean they were swimming in?”
– Brian
Brian,
I think ocean conditions play a big role.
On the Sacto - Why now? Why not before now?
The smaller coastal rivers all went down in one big wumpf (short time frame) - after many years of obuse. It was not all that gradual.
Alan:
Don’t forget Climate Change and its negative effect on upwelling off the Pacific Coast. A very scary prospect if it continues. When the wild Lagunitas Coho returns go down we have to look at ocean conditions and what happened in the watershed when this year class was spawning (winter 04/05) and rearing in 05 and 06.
– Brian
Brian,
Low salmon run returns have been reported up and down the coast for both coho and chinook (King).
A hole in the Marin county returns is a bad sign for coho.
On the Sacramento the low chinook returns are making DFG and the SWRCB nervous. The causal factors for this fishery collapse can be many - or - cumulative. Large amounts of water diverted from the Bay Delta is one reason often pointed at. Another reason pointed at by Ag is the maintenance of large bass populations in the Delta. The bass love to eat the millions of chinook salmon fingerlings dumped in the delta every year. The finger also can be pointed out to loss of spawning habitat.
The one issue that is rarely mentioned is the reliance on hatchery fish for the Sacto salmon run. For many years DFG has dumped millions upon millions of hatchery raised fish in the delta. Hatchery fish are genetically and physically weak. Hatchery monoculture progeny are subject to disease and lacking genetically disposed skills for feeding and survival in various conditions. The hatchery fish, if they do return, compete with wild fish and alter wild fish genetics - thus imposing limiting factors on wild fish survival where enough problems already exist.
This hatchery problem extends to coho also - but to a somewhat lesser extent - as the practices are done on such a smaller scale. Coho salmon need specific conditions for survival. If these conditions are altered - removal of riparian shade, warm water, and silted spawning gravels all will limit coho production, return, and survival.
Alan
Alan Levine
Hey Coho Concerned folks,
I thought that the note below from Paola Bouley of SPAWN is of interest relative to their historical monitoring of Coho and this years apparent dismal returns. I wonder about the Olema & Pine Gulch Creeks? I wonder about Santa Cruz’s Scott Creek? The coastal watersheds to the north? Is this year-class decline CA range wide for coho?
Lots being said about the Central Valley Chinook run, although I missed this mornings KQED forum show. See below.
I have not officially heard from the UC folks doing the redd/spawner surveys in the Russian River tribs., but from what informally I have heard no Coho were found in Dutch Bill this year either- Dutch Bill had the only single wild year class left in the whole basin that appears to have come back in very low numbers over that past decade+ or so.
Boo Hoo for Coho and salmonids overall - Sad!!!??? Brock
Paola wrote:
Lagunitas Watershed coho data is also about to be released, and right now we are looking at a 72% decline in the coho run as compared to 3 years ago (when these salmon returning this year were spawned in winter of 2004/05). On Redwood Creek (Muir Woods) not one coho salmon was observed this year, and we potentially have lost a whole year-class on that creek. This has been a dire year for salmon. More info to come soon…
Paola Bouley, M.S. Watershed Biologist Salmon Protection and Watershed Network
**NEW ADDRESS & PHONE NUMBER** PO Box 370 Forest Knolls, CA 94933 Phone- (415)663-8590 x102 Fax- (415)663-9534
Brenda:
I think you and Jane made good points at your meeting with the RB staff. I think they were really listening.
Plus - with the other stuff. It did not add up for the previous plan.
Hi everyone!
In talking to Regional Board staff person John Short, I learned that they are no longer planning to push hooking up Occidental and Camp Meeker to the Russian River CSD, but rather will encourage a local system with various components, including alternative technologies.
They recently had a meeting with OCC reps and SCWA about the pending fines. About 2-3 Reg. Bd. staff attended, about 6 SCWA staff, and 3-4 people from Occ. No one was there from CM. We were not invited.
They came up with 3 possible solutions:
1. Have SCWA certify the EIR over-ruling Camp Meeker’s rejection. No one liked that idea and it looks like it is off the table (Hurrah!)
2. Dust off one of the old EIRs. Reg. Bd. staff uncomfortable with this; they want an entirely new alternative. (The second project revamping the Occ. plant for both communities was too expensive anyway.
3. Have community and SCWA go before the Reg. Bd. and ask for relief while they pursue a new alternative. John liked this idea best and wants to have a mixture of solutions utilizing a combination of new/old ideas. His goal is to come up with something affordable.
It looks like we may have quietly won a major victory here. Our main goal has always been to resolve sewage projects locally and affordably. RRCSD projects are still on the table however, and we have to stay alert for future expansion ideas and projects that may attempt to regionalize the problematic RRCSD, which was recently fined $99,000 for 2.5 years worth of permit violations. Unfortunately a group in Monte Rio is looking to do just that. We will insist on adequate and appropriate environmental review if it looks like it will happen.
On another matter, I have attached a few items on the BOS calendar that may be of interest to you. After this coming Tuesday’s meeting, they won’t meet for two weeks (holidays).
Brenda
Some info on Coho decline in Marin and beyond as an FYI… Hey Coho Concerned folks,
I thought that the note below from Paola Bouley of SPAWN is of interest relative to their historical monitoring of Coho and this years apparent dismal returns. I wonder about the Olema & Pine Gulch Creeks? I wonder about Santa Cruz’s Scott Creek? The coastal watersheds to the north? Is this year-class decline CA range wide for coho?
Lots being said about the Central Valley Chinook run, although I missed this mornings KQED forum show. See below.
I have not officially heard from the UC folks doing the redd/spawner surveys in the Russian River tribs., but from what informally I have heard no Coho were found in Dutch Bill this year either- Dutch Bill had the only single wild year class left in the whole basin that appears to have come back in very low numbers over that past decade+ or so.
Boo Hoo for Coho and salmonids overall - Sad!!!???
Brock
Lagunitas Watershed coho data is also about to be released, and right now we are looking at a 72% decline in the coho run as compared to 3 years ago (when these salmon returning this year were spawned in winter of 2004/05). On Redwood Creek (Muir Woods) not one coho salmon was observed this year, and we potentially have lost a whole year-class on that creek. This has been a dire year for salmon. More info to come soon…
Paola Bouley, M.S. Watershed Biologist Salmon Protection and Watershed Network
**NEW ADDRESS & PHONE NUMBER** PO Box 370 Forest Knolls, CA 94933 Phone- (415)663-8590 x102 Fax- (415)663-9534