Rice Fields

[Ed Wahl]

Some good results from using the obvious resources.

http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10493

[Charlie S]

Interesting, and a bountiful use of ignored past resource.

[Darian]

Interesting read. If I understand what I've read in the current version of the BDCP, using the by-pass waters is part of the planned strategy for recovery. This study probably will confirm that the strategy will work. Of course, whether the strategy will get a chance to work will be dependent on whether the public votes to approve the proposed bond issue funding Delta restoration projects and without funding, this project is probably DOA.

[Ed Wahl]

D, it seems to me that this particular project could have been implemented years ago, regardless of the BDCP. This all happens way upstream of the proposed pumps. Are we that far gone? Ed

[Darian]

Yep!!! The project will confirm what UCD scientists have been discussing/proposing for many years now. Seems to me that levee set-backs were proposed by UCD to expand the river bed, allowing it to return to natural flow patterns as far back as in the 80's. Of course, the Army Corps of Engineers plus many others objected and....

Now, comes along the BDCP. The plan includes a Delta restoration component but the title of this component is misleading. If you look at the map and read the description of the geographical/regulatory responsibility of the Delta Stewardship Council which includes the Office of the Delta Watermaster, the material includes all of the waters flowing into the Delta up to/including water from the Trinity River to the north and all of the waters to the east and south up to the point where pre-existing dams are in place.

So,.... Anything proposed for any waters involved in BDCP has to be approved by the council. Doesn't mean this project won't be approved but there're lots of new regulatory hurdles to jump before implementation. Hopefully, it will be included in the list of smaller projects proposed for completion prior to actual start of the main Tunnel project but unless it's already available, funding may still be an issue.

[Frank Alessio]

D, it seems to me that this particular project could have been implemented years ago, regardless of the BDCP. This all happens way upstream of the proposed pumps. Are we that far gone? Ed

Can anyone tell me what happens to these Fat well fed Smolts after they By Pass the Delta traveling through the Twin Tubes???

[Darian]

Ground Trout hamburgers??? Good one, Frank!!! ;) ;) ;)

[winxp_man]

Ground Trout hamburgers??? Good one, Frank!!! ;) ;) ;)



mmmmmmm getting hungry now :D

Add a few spices and good to go for a nice burger meal......

[SebastianV]

Sounds like a better option than hatcheries.... the fish will probably learn how to avoid predators and have a better survival rate than swimming around in fish tanks eating goldfish food.

[winxp_man]

Sounds like a better option than hatcheries.... the fish will probably learn how to avoid predators and have a better survival rate than swimming around in fish tanks eating goldfish food.

A fish that makes it back to the river it was let go in makes a good enough fish to come back. Regardless of how it is born to me avoiding the vast ocean predators make it smart enough to survive.

[Mike McKenzie]

Some good results from using the obvious resources.

http://news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=10493

As far as Frank's concern about the smolts making it past the twin tunnels goes... they will be fairly safe because they will flow out of the By-Pass into Cache Slough and on down the Sac. past Rio Vista. The Cross Channel Gates above Walnut Grove are the the Sac River salmon killers, in that they suck the smolts to their death in the Central Delta via the Moke and Middle River and on into Clifton Court if they last that long.

The real problem with the Yolo By-Pass raised smolts is when they come home to spawn. Both the Yolo By-Pass and the Colusa Basin are deadly salmon killers and have been for many years.. Not talked about much except in some circles...

Read Lloyd Carter's article about it here:

http://www.lloydgcarter.com/content/130729624_salmon-imperiled

Mike

[Darian]

I saw an article in the SacBee on trapped Salmon in the by-passes. I got the impression that the rescue effort was limited due to lack of DFW staff to carry it out and there weren't many volunteers either.

After reading all of that, I wondered how Salmon straying into the by-passes got out and back into the river, upstream(???). Seems like there'd have to be some effort to limit straying into areas where the fish are unable to return to the side channels along the current levees. Maybe some modification to the entries to the weirs??? Well, maybe the UCD study will address all of this....

[Larry S]

Saw this in today's LA Times -
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-salmon-yolo-floodplain-20131025,0,2147763.story#axzz2j3Dy74ag

Best,
Larry S

[Darian]

The article in the Times seems to make this study out to be concerned with whether fish who'll be raised or enter the floodplain will be able to flourish and exit the place and return to the river for outmigration, only.

Hmmm,.... Thinking out loud here, this scenario depends on flooding in the by-pass every year in the appropriate time frame/duration. Given the tendency to have a lot of dry winters around here, where's all of that water going to come from in very dry years?? Well, nice to know but....

Kinda seems like everything we do to solve problems complicates things more. For example, in one of the related articles in the Times, there's mention the DFW is recommending constructing a hatchery on the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam for Salmon production. The source of the eggs for this hatchery is supposedly the Feather River hatchery at Oroville. All of this dependent on whether a permanent source for water is available for the San Joaquin. So far, that doesn't seem at all certain.

[ycflyfisher]

I find this to be disturbing and I actually agree with Mike on this one albeit for different reasons. Mike this is not an intentional jab at you, but the link you provided should be looked at for what it is: an emotionally based, incredibly biased propaganda piece whose sole intent is to bash the powers that be/keepers of the public trust for this year’s collaborative decision to push the compliance point further upriver while painting the agencies involved as mismanaging the resource when in reality, they were collectively attempting to balance risk: what is a minimal amount of perceived risk (this year) vs. what could be an unacceptable amount of risk (next year if we have another mild winter season and even an even lower HGL on Shasta). I've got a problem with the advocation with placing the former over the latter pacticularly when it goes on to misidentify the actual problem (in the case of adult salmon returning to the bypasses) and advocates solutions based on said misdiagnosis of said problem.

The reality is SWRC are not that numerous and are all known to hold over in the thermal refugia habitat in the uppermost section of river and spawn well above the compliance point. The development of Chinook spawn isn’t impaired until water temps rise above~60 degrees and, if memory serves, the compliance temp is 56. So this notion that the SWRCB, DFW, NMFS, UBR, et al were endangering fish is an opinion for which there seems to be no basis in fact.


However like most propaganda pieces there are some half-truths included so that the total BS and the villianization dig sounds somewhat believable. In this case, the truth lies in the fact that adult salmonids do return to the Yolo and Y-S bypasses and in some years, they do so in problematic numbers. The mechanism which causes this to happen is by my understanding is totally misconstrued by the author of the link Mike provided. From my understanding this isn’t really a “straying and stranding” issue as this piece paints it to be. Half the population of SWRC may have ended up in the bypasses but they did NOT "stray" into the bypasses. Straying is a phenomenon that happens in low percentages. This is much more of a “failure to properly imprint” issue that is an issue almost exclusively associated with hatchery fish as far as the evirons in the SR-SJ watershed are concerned. We’ve seen similar issues from various SR-SJ hatcheries on numerous occasions.

When we had the O. Mykiss releases on the Feather in November to get the O. Mykiss out of the raceways to make room for the newly hatched, free-swimming Chinook fry in said raceways, it wasn’t unsual for:

1- The fish to not be mature enough to undergo the smoltification process and end up harboring or residualizing somewhere in the system.

2- The fish not encountering the proper environmental conditions in the late fall to trigger outmigration which lead to the same harboring issue.

That was problematic because the two most common spots (we know of) where those hatchery fish elected to harbor was either an en mass migration right back into the Feather hatchery or the lower Yuba. The fish that harbored in the Yuba imprinted on the Yuba and if they elected to outmigrate, they returned to the Yuba as adults. On the surface, that might look like a “straying issue” to anglers who were catching clipped fish in the Yuba, but it’s really a case of the fish imprinting on the Yuba as opposed to the Feather and simply returning to the river where they actually hit smoltification.

Most of those issues went away when the Feather facility went to February releases of O. Mykiss. A greater percentage of the fish are mature enough to smolt and conditions that promote outmigration are more prevalent in Feb. All SR-SJ hatcheries have had similar issues with Chinook. And despite the “solution” suggested in the link Mike provided, building more efficient weirs/ screens on the bypasses to keep big adult fish out is probably a solution that will NOT work because it utterly fails to acknowledge let alone address the real root cause of the problem in favor of bashing agencies.

The real root cause as I see it and has been explained to me, is that when executing a coordinated release of 40M+ hatchery fish, from numerous hatcheries, you’re going to have millions of released fish that simply are not mature enough to smolt and outmigrate. Those fish are going to attempt to find refugia where they can put on enough growth so they can smolt and outmigrate. If and when they return as adults, they’re not going to attempt to return to their respective rivers of hatchery origin, they’re going to attempt to return to the locations where they smolted and imprinted. So the real solution as I see it isn’t constructing barriers specifically located on the bypasses that effectively keep a few hundred big adult fish out, but trying to keep tens of millions of tiny little fish out places where we don’t want them to go. The bypasses are a small percentage of those places on a very long list. Doing some really intensive size grading prior to release to insure that a greater percentage of released fish are mature enough to smolt and are released under conditions that promote outmigration would also help. Now if we were producing sane numbers of fish, the latter might be feasible. But we’re not producing sane numbers of fish, but tens of millions of fish. And neither of those “solutions” are really solutions, but are just potential actions that minimize the imprinting problem. The reality as I see it is this “problem” is just part of the proverbial cost of doing business when we collectively accepted mitigation facilities that produce tens of millions of hatchery fish as a viable solution to the declining abundance problem. It isn’t working, and this “failure to imprint” issue is just one example of the myriad of ways in which it’s failing.

That said, I’m seeing the concept of intentionally raising fish in rice fields where they exhibit huge growth rates compared to the hatchery environs as being disturbing for two reasons. Most in this thread seem to be under the impression that the fish would be released from the rice field site to downmigrate through the bypasses. If rice fields are attempted as a strategy, the fish might be grown there, but will be released in locations where it’s assumed they will imprint and attempt to return to as adults. You don’t want that to be some farmer’s rice field.

The first potential problem I see is putting the fish in an unnatural, “simulated floodplain” where they exhibit explosive growth (~90mm in 40 days) by feeding on dense clouds of Daphnia runs the risk of a large percentage of those fish actually imprinting on rice fields even if relocated to some riverine environs located near a hatchery where they may imprint. I’d expect numbers of adult fish that attempt to return to the bypasses to go off the hook. I can’t prove that, but I’d bet big it happens to some degree.

I’m seeing this as a potential “solution” that removes the bottleneck in hatchery production (limited raceway space for fish that hit the free swimming stage) that can allow hatchery production to increase to even more insane levels, with more collective buying into the fraudulent concept that a lack of recruitment is the root cause to the declining salmonid abundance problem. I think the authors recognize the potential for that to happen, and that some will view a method that allows not only the production of even more, but “bigger and better” hatchery frankenfish will be viewed by some as a viable solution. This is the only statement repeated verbatim in the document and I think with good reason:

“Although this study suggests that agricultural landscapes can function as rearing habitat for juvenile Chinook salmon, our results should not be interpreted to suggest that suitable natural (i.e. non-agricultural) habitats are not essential to establishing self-sustaining runs of naturally produced Central Valley Chinook.”

[Darian]

After considering the info in your post, I can understand the concern with imprinting on flooded ag land. I hadn't even thought about that angle. Thinking out loud here; If it were possible to contain returning Salmon to channels in the ag flood plains and providing an exit at the upstream end of the flood-plain, some fish might re-enter the river seeking gravels to spawn in but that probability seems low if they've already imprinted on the flood plain.... :confused:

I agree that there's a very large number of fish produced in hatcheries with more to come if the rice fields idea works out. Increased production and decreased usable habitat doesn't add up to a sustainable population of naturally spawning fish. So, I don't think anyone could be blamed for concluding that this project is showing the potential for farmed production of Salmon whether sold direct to market or caught by commercial fisherman. Maybe trying to demonstrate the benefits of using set-backs of levees is part of the justification.

Kinda scary to think that there's a new hatchery proposed for the San Joaquin River. I don't want to give anyone any ideas but just imagine if the UCD type of project/operation were started in similar flood plains (by-passes) along the San Joaquin with all of the tainted ag drainage water and Salmon feeding on daphnia laden with mineral salts.... YUK!!!

[matt johnson]

The goal of this study is to provide floodplain rearing habitat for wild or natural juvenile salmon. Hatchery fish are just being used as surrogates to conduct the growth investigations....

This is cutting edge restoration work. Most of the focus of salmon restoration in the Central Valley has been on spawning habitat (gravel injections) and egg incubation temps below rim dams.

It has not really worked.

95% of the floodplain rearing habitat for juveniles salmonids in the Central Valley has been lost. Amazingly, this has been overlooked .

Here is a link to the Knaggs Ranch study on the Cal Trout website:

http://caltrout.org/initiatives/steelhead-salmon/knaggs-ranch-agricultural-floodplain-study/

The best population of natural salmon going in the Central Valley right now is Butte Creek spring-run Chinook. Wonder why? I believe it is because the labrytnh of canals, sloughs, and flooded bypassess at the bottom of Butte closely mimics what used to be available to juvenile salmon throughout the Central Valley before we leveed our rivers and stored our hgih winter and spring flows in reservoirs. Check out the bottom of Butte Creek on Google Earth sometime....

Inundating the Yolo Bypass on a regular basis requires a fairly simple feat of engineering: lowering the levee at the top. Improvements for adult fish passage to get adults out of Yolo and on to their spawning destination will also be required: again, pretty simple.

Really hope to see this concept come to full fruition. Matt

[Darian]

Interesting info. So, this project is primarily for demonstrating that flooded ag land is good habitat for rearing young Salmon before outmigration. I have no reason to doubt that. The engineering required to modify weirs, etc., you mention may be easily done but obtaining funding for that purpose may not be.

Could the potential imprinting of young Salmon in the flooded rice fields create a need to return to those fields as an adult fish???

Where will the water for periodic/timed flooding come from in dry/low water years??

It's difficult for me, as an outside observer, to see flooded rice fields as natural habitat for rearing young Salmon (successful tho they may be). They still look like a hatchery to me.

Just questions/observations. I do hope the concept/project is successful.

[matt johnson]

Could the potential imprinting of young Salmon in the flooded rice fields create a need to return to those fields as an adult fish???.

I don't think so. The water that would flood the rice fields is Sacramento River water. Also, non-natal juvenile rearing of salmon is commonly observed with Central Valley Chinook (juveniles swimming up into and occupying waterways there were not born in for a period of time). This often occurrs in "ephemeral" streams, or streams that only run during wet periods and do not provide spawning habitat. These empheral streams are pretty common in the Upper Sacramento River Basin and we don't see adults trying to get in them




Where will the water for periodic/timed flooding come from in dry/low water years?


I think the water will fall from the sky during normal to wet water years. Just have to make the by-pass flood at a lower Sac river height. Dry years could be a little tougher? Water transfer from from upstream Ag? Possibly using "B2" water [the 800,00 annual acre feet of water dedicated to the environment (CVPIA Section 3406)]. I've spoken with researchers involved in this work and they tell me that innumdation of Yolo only needs to occurr for about 5 weeks to make it work ( flood the fields to hatch the eggs of the critters that feed the salmon to fatten them up to make them stronger).

Unfortunately nothing is easy about water in California, especially when trying to balance the needs of Ag, salmon. and flood protection. But, this concept seems like win-win all around to me. Might not be possible on all years though?



It's difficult for me, as an outside observer, to see flooded rice fields as natural habitat for rearing young Salmon (successful tho they may be). They still look like a hatchery to me.

Those are not rice fields out in the Yolo, they are "reclaimed" flood plains. All a matter of perspective I guess :)

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Chinook-salmon-thrive-in-flooded-field-experiment-4924225.php

More info here......

[ycflyfisher]

Matt,

Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. There’s definitely some upside to this and I’m definitely emphasizing the negative and looking past the potential upside to a large degree. I certainly wouldn’t disagree with anything that you stated. However, I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to state that the loss of all but~5% of the once existing floodplain habitat has been overlooked. I don’t know for certain, but I’m inclined to think that nothing has been done to address that issue in the past simply because from a geomorphological standpoint, it would be impossible to restore or rebuild the lost floodplain habitat anywhere remotely close to where it historically existed. With our rock armored levies, and the subsidence issues in the delta, areas that used to flood every year, have simply lost that ability and I’m not seeing how it could somehow be restored without some very major restructuring and lots of political hurdles.

I’m all for the restoration of existing habitat. And I’d certainly admit that I have a bias in favor of such restoration over other methods of potentially increasing abundance. I’d definitely agree that gravel replenishment to offset the natural loss of sediment transport caused by dams in the SR-SJ basin hasn’t “worked” but I think that has a lot more to do with the fact that there’s a minimal amount of suitable habitat that can be effectively restored via gravel replenishment on the severely truncated Sac river tribs.

I’d feel a lot better about this arena of study if the simulated flood plain habitat were closer to the mainstem and the more commonly used migration path and could be discovered and exploited by the out-migrants by default. The problem as I see it is that for the fish to find and exploit any simulated floodplain habitat created in the bypasses is going to require a fairly large detour from the mainstem, meaning it will only be exploited by a percentage of fish on top of the seasonality issues you mention. Thus the potential upside would be highly variable as I’m seeing it under the best case scenario. And I’m seeing the potential “what if?” questions leading to paths I don’t think we want to venture down:

What if we maximized the fish utilizing the artificial floodplain habitat, by mechanically inserting, growing, and then relocating the fish?

What if we reduced the seasonal variability aspect by not flooding the entire flowing bypass but by flooding static individual rice fields? Because to do that, you only need a few acre feet and even that would only be required on dry years.

What I’m seeing is potentially millions more, rice grown, hatchery frankenfish as the only thing that comes remotely close to being a “given” here.

I think you’re definitely correct that there’s a potential upside here, and I’ll certainly admit I was looking past that upside and I really wish I could share your level of optimism. Truth is, this really scares the hell out of me.

That said, I sincerely hope that your optimism proves to be well founded and my opinion that rice fields will become extensions of hatchery raceways proves to be wrong.

[matt johnson]

However, I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to state that the loss of all but~5% of the once existing floodplain habitat has been overlooked. I don’t know for certain, but I’m inclined to think that nothing has been done to address that issue in the past simply because from a geomorphological standpoint, it would be impossible to restore or rebuild the lost floodplain habitat anywhere remotely close to where it historically existed. With our rock armored levies, and the subsidence issues in the delta, areas that used to flood every year, have simply lost that ability and I’m not seeing how it could somehow be restored without some very major restructuring and lots of political hurdles.

Agree. However, the Yolo Basin is located in its historical place. Notching out or lowering the Fremont Weir to allow the basin to flood at a lower Sac river stage is the only major restructuring required. I don't see any polotical hurdles as the Yolo Basin has remained in its current state is to provide flood protection for Sacramento. Flood protection will continue along with the additional benefits to salmon and other ecosystem processes.




I’d feel a lot better about this arena of study if the simulated flood plain habitat were closer to the mainstem and the more commonly used migration path and could be discovered and exploited by the out-migrants by default. The problem as I see it is that for the fish to find and exploit any simulated floodplain habitat created in the bypasses is going to require a fairly large detour from the mainstem

The fremont Weir is located right along the mainstem Sac, just upstream from the Feather River confluence. I have no doubt that that the Yolo Basin was used historically by juvenile salmon. Yes, a detour from the mainstem, but potentially a very good detour.



it will only be exploited by a percentage of fish on top of the seasonality issues you mention. Thus the potential upside would be highly variable as I’m seeing it under the best case scenario.

Agree that only a certain percentage of fish would use this habitat. Can't "tell" fish what to do. However, whatever fish would get on the Yolo by "chance" would have a great advantage in growth, and as Mike M. pointed out earlier, also have an advantage in passage to the ocean, as they would ultimately be routed down Liberty Island an into the main Sac at Rio Vista and not have to deal with potentially being entrained in the interior delta through the Delta Cross Channel or Georgiana Slough. Also, there have been many years of rotary screw trap data collected at Knights Landing. Thinking that data could be used to inform opportune times to inundate the bypass for either maximum numbers of juveniles or for particular races?

I can't find any negatives in this concept. I can see how folks might think there must be some "stink" involved because it is associated with the BDCP, but this thing makes alot of sense to me. Here is some more information on the project from American Rivers:

http://www.americanrivers.org/initiative/floods/projects/yolo-bypass-and-the-fremont-weir/

Matt

[ycflyfisher]

Matt,
Thanks for participating in this discussion. I think you’ve made a pretty compelling case for the potential upside.

My reaction to this doesn’t really have anything to do with the BDCP, and is more based on the fact that rice fields could be envisioned as viable replacements for hatchery raceways and a cheap method to vastly increase hatchery production.

[Darian]

I've been thinking about this and something Matt mentioned in an earlier post:

"This is cutting edge restoration work. Most of the focus of salmon restoration in the Central Valley has been on spawning habitat (gravel injections) and egg incubation temps below rim dams.

It has not really worked.

95% of the floodplain rearing habitat for juveniles salmonids in the Central Valley has been lost. Amazingly, this has been overlooked."

I know I'm probably missing something but doesn't the potential restoration of rearing habitat contribute to increased survival of already large numbers of hatchery fish, overall??? Or, does this project create an opportunity to reduce the need to produce large numbers of fish in hatcheries??? Doesn't this project just create fatter hatchery fish (since rearing fish doesn't address spawning and natural spawning habitat is extremely limited)??? :confused:

[ycflyfisher]

Darian,

Yes, but with some major caveats. Utilized in the manner Matt describes, it would potentially create habitat that could be exploited by both fish of hatchery origin and streamborn fish. So it wouldn’t be an exclusive benefit to hatchery fish only.

I don't think this would potentially decrease the amount of hatchery fish produced but I think that's a matter of opinion and open to interpretation. In theory under adaptive management it could. In reality IMO it won't. In a perfect world, where fisheries professionals and fisheries professionals alone get to make ALL the decisions regarding fisheries management (i.e. where politicians who have no expertise and are influenced by the notion and public perception that artificial propagation is the solution to the declining abundance issue), that answer IMO would be yes. Adaptive management would actually be adaptive, common sense and not emotion would drive decisions on hatchery production. Adaptive management is applied by the DFW, just not to hatchery production IMO.

[Darian]

I think I see the potential for some safe fish passage around the proposed (see BDCP) intakes on the Sacramento River near Courtland by using the by-pass in this project; a good thing. However, for fish returning the American and Feather Rivers, I'm not sure they would benefit or use it as they're imprinted to those rivers. Isn't the mouth of both of those rivers located downstream of the entrance to the Fremont Weir???

Re: BDCP, I do believe there is potential for negative impacts from that project in the form of pressure to divert a consistent volume of water each year, regardless of availability. All of the number of tunnel alternatives considered in the EIR/EIS, include a 40' diameter tunnel as the basic design which can divert up to 15,000 CFS. The preferred alternative is 9,000 CFS in a dual conveyance system (same size tunnel). IMO, the state won't build in capacity to divert 15,000 CFS of water and then elect not to use it. Especially when the water contractors/ratepayers are paying for that system.

Call me a cynic, but I believe that maximum diversion will be the rule after a couple of years of operations. When there are little or no water reserves, diversion will still take place. Establishing a reliable water supply for the southern half of the state in support of major ag/industrial/municipal, economic activities is one of the bases for justifying construction of the conveyance system. All else would seem to be political frosting on the cake.